Waiting For You

“We`ve been waiting for you,” Chops, the smallest of the three boys said, he was smiling, but there was no humour in it; it was a smile that declared, `we`re going to kick seven kinds of shit out of you.`


Gavin`s breakdown came as a surprise to everybody, not least himself; although in his case the only surprising thing about it was that it took so long. Ten years of incessant bullying, a full two thirds of his life, had finally worn him down.

He had lunch every day in the office of his father`s workshop, which was less than five hundred yards from the school, in fact it was the reason he attended Rutland St tech, the convenience of it. He got a lift to school everyday and afterwards did his homework whilst he waited for his dad to knock off for the day.

So it was, at 1:28 on that Wednesday in May, when his mother, who just happened to be there that day, said quite pointedly, “Shouldn’t you be going back to school,” an innocent enough question, that precipitated both his mental and emotional collapse.
It took a good fifteen minutes, first of cajoling, then threatening, to get the hysterical boy to calm down and explain why he was refusing to, “Go back to that place,” as he put it.

In fits and starts, and through occasional sobs, he told them about the daily violence that ranged from the minor, being stabbed with the point of a compass, to the occasional knee to the groin, all the way up to a three on one beating in one of the schools playgrounds.
“But what about the teachers, where are they, why didn’t you tell one of them?” his mother demanded. Her accusatory tone not lost on him, that and the fact she didn’t ask him why he hadn’t come to them.

“They`re never around,” he told them; and besides, he thought what`d be the point.
He`d tried that route back in primary school, in second class, he`d gone to see his teacher to complain. Brother Michael had listened very carefully to what he had to say and when he`d finished cuffed him hard enough to make his ears ring.
“I can`t stand squealers,” he`d snarled, and to emphasise his point made him hold out both hands, giving each six lashes with the leather that nested deep in the right pocket of his hassock. Gavin left the classroom, both hands tucked into his armpits to ease the stinging, a pain so bad it felt like his palms had been sliced open, having learnt a lesson that would haunt him for the next nine years.

After he`d finished his father said, “Right; we`re going to deal with this right now.” And despite his protestations, bracketing him, they literally marched him back to the school. This was the reason he`d never told them; his parents had been born eight years apart on the 1930`s and were the sort of people who believed in meeting a problem head on, and held to the philosophy, “If someone hits you, you hit them back twice as hard.”
They`d always thought their third son was, “A little peculiar,” his head forever stuck in a book, though not in their opinion, a useful one. “He`s a daydreamer,” was his father`s common complaint, to much agreeing nodding by his wife; so perhaps Gavin`s refusal, or inability, to fight back came, as no surprise to either of them.

It was however a surprised headmaster who looked up from some paperwork to see two angry parents in his doorway, a boy between them, head bowed, attempting to look invisible.

“Can I help you?” Mr Green asked.
And so Gavin was forced to recount his story for the second time, on this occasion forced to name the three culprits. He had to go through it one more time when his three classmates were brought up to the principal’s office, unable to look at their glowering faces as he did.

When he was finished, Mr Green`s demanded, “Well?” was answered with muttered excuses and less than half-hearted apologies, the whole farce ending with the headmaster uttering a veiled and unfinished, “You`d better not do anything like that again……” and they were all sent back to class, the adults satisfied that it had all been sorted out.
Gavin was unsurprised by this, it was about what he`d expected, after all what were they going to do, expel them; and so began the longest week of his young life.

Each day he`d go to school expecting this to be the day when it all began again, only this time it`d be worse, and to add to his problems, he`d now bore the tag of squealer, the lowest of the low, and there was no point trying to tell anyone that it hadn’t been his fault, that his parents had made him tell.

It was the following Wednesday that Chops, Spacer and Tag got their revenge.
Though the distance between the school and Douglas St was short, Gavin`s route took him through a carpark, a space, while full of cars, was devoid of people at 4:30 in the afternoon, and that’s where they were waiting for him; the three of them, lounging against the side of a blue Granada, pushing themselves erect when they saw him.

“We`ve been waiting for you,” Chops said, who, though he was the smallest of the trio, was the most vicious, “We`re going to show you what we do to squealers.”

In a perverse way Gavin felt relieved, over the last seven days he`d truly come to understand the horror of the old adage, `waiting for the other shoe to drop` and now that it finally had, he was glad, the daily uncertainty worse than any beating.

When they`d finished working him over, careful not to hit him anywhere it could be seen, Chops crouched down beside the cowering Gavin, arms still clutched protectively around his head, and said, “If you squeal on us again you`re fucking dead,” kicking him in the stomach when he straightened up, to punctuate his point.

Gavin waited fifteen minutes to give his eyes a chance to look normal, he didn’t want to have to face an inquisition from his dad as to why he looked like he`d been crying; resigning himself, as he picked up his books, which they`d scattered when they`d upended his schoolbag, to the fact that this was his life, that there was nothing anyone could do to help him, that just as he`d expected, things had gotten worse not better.

The following morning, midway through third period Physics there was a knock on the classroom door. Miss Spenser, who had been mid-sentence, frowned at this interruption. Her frown turning to a look of outright annoyance when the headmaster, all apologies, walked in without waiting to be invited, a middle-aged woman in tow.

There was a whispered conversation between teacher and principal, both with their backs to the class, which ended with Miss Spenser nodding, then wordlessly going back to her desk, perching on the edge, scanning the suddenly attentive faces of her students.
Every eye was on the headmaster who was leaning towards the stranger, murmuring something into her ear; she nodded in agreement, scanning the faces of the confused classroom as he leaned away from her. The woman`s eyes stopped on Gavin, studied him a moment, then she whispered something to the headmaster, pointing him out as she did.

“Mr Walsh, stand up,” Mr Green commanded, the first words he`d said aloud since he`d entered, deafening in the peculiar silence. Gavin did as he was told, legs like jelly, looking from the stranger to the headmaster and back again, panic seeping through him; he was sure he didn’t know this woman and couldn’t imagine what she`d accused him of.

For some reason he looked to his left, his three tormentors were smirking at him, and he wondered if they`d had something to do with this, did she know them, was he being set up?

He was so engrossed that he didn’t see the woman point out his persecutors, so was as surprised as they were when Mr Green said; snapped really, “Mr Twomey, Mr Allen, Mr Kearney, you as well,” and Gavin saw their grins vanish, replaced by confused frowns he was sure matched his own.

And that was the day his life changed forever. Mr Green shook the woman`s hand, said something to her in a voice too low for any of them to hear; and none of them ever saw her again. The four of them were marched up to the principal`s office, Gavin told to wait outside, “While I deal with these three,” and after ten minutes Chops, Spacer and Tag came out white faced and shaking.

“Mr Walsh,” the headmaster called softly after they`d gone, beckoning the still confused, and very wary boy inside, “Sit down,” he gestured to the trio of seats on the opposite side of the desk, Gavin chose the centre one, noticing how warm the seat was.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you?” Gavin asked, not knowing what it was he was supposed to have said.

“About yesterday. That lady, in the classroom, she lives in a flat overlooking the carpark, saw the whole thing. Didn’t you think I`d believe you, is that why you didn’t say anything?” he was leaning forward, elbows on his desk, chin resting on the knuckles of his right fist.

Gavin shrugged, “I.. I didn’t think there was anything you could do, it didn’t happen in the school, there isn’t anything anyone can do………” he sounded deflated, even to himself, already thinking ahead, wondering how bad the next beating would be.

“There`s plenty I can do,” the headmaster said, leaning back in his chair, smiling now, “For starters I`ve just expelled the three of them.”