<>@6 ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø° *4@5 BARBED WIRE *3]5@4 by Andrew Campbell *1]1@6 °ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø°ø @1 Mick would stand outside the door whilst I did it, one knock meant danger, two knocks meant a teacher, three knocks meant leap into the storeroom, shut the door and pray. I didn't enjoy what I had to do. In fact I didn't even think I was qualified but some of them had nobody else in the world to turn to, it was either me or the razorblade, me or the overdose, me or throw up in the middle of a classroom. I regarded myself as a tough nut to crack, an ex-bully, used to pick on first years. Usual stuff: nick their lunchboxes, shove their heads down toilets and flush 'em. They'd scream and thrash and cry for their mummies and I´d laugh and spit and disappear into the shadows. Nobody ever got me for anything. Except no matter how much my soul believed and no matter how much the world believed, I was sensitive and full of pain, I was twisting and turning unable to breath and sometimes, you know, believe it or not, I´d run down the fields and lie there in the middle and look up at the clouds and cry. Bawl my eyes out a hell of a lot harder than any first year kid's ever done. Couldn't blame my parents, they were okay, couldn't blame the school, school was okay, I could only blame myself, I was far from okay, churning, angry, wishing I was far away from this fuckin' place that never makes no sense, these feelings, this blackness, this barbed wire fence, I helped out for too long and got none in return. Whether I deserved it or not I got nothing, you know. The turning point came when I realised I was terrorising the younger brother of a girl I would have given my life for. Fay, she was called, she had years on me, she was at college doing painting and sculpture. I met her by accident when I came in late to a special morning school assembly. Allocated a position on the front row she made mistakes when it was time to speak because of the way I looked at her, because of the way my smile wouldn't go away. Sanity at last after fourteen years of nonsense: our eyes clashed first, then fingers, then lips and I could do nothing to stop myself falling into her arms, nothing to resist that mutual silence that carried a million more messages than any whispers on this earth. Fay was in school on the day that broke my heart and I was unaware, unprepared when she came around the corner and saw me near the bushes kicking a boy into the ground, her boy, her brother. She didn't scream or cry she just pushed me away and helped the injured kid to his feet. That didn't hurt so much, I could handle that, but later it became obvious she hadn't said a word to anybody. I rang and I begged and I swore to change, I sent letters and poems and cut myself in rage but the mark had been made, there was no turning round. Days trickled by, new nightmares arrived: a girl I'd punched for answering back was taken away after yelling in class that her uncle had made her touch his thing in the bath. Newbies collapsing, victims vomiting, boys failing to show up for months on end. Fat kids eating shit, a blind-boy's glasses melting under the heat of a bunsen burner, what does it take to twig? What does it take to change gear? How many minutes of fear must tick by before the horror comes into perspective? There's a pond down the park near here, you know, where sometimes ducks swim and schoolboys get thrown in and you can hear shouting and yelling from the football fields beyond the trees. I stood there one evening when the land was a golden-yellow and threw up into the water, making islands out of my own mistakes. And then out of weakness and destruction grew anger and protection and I became the bullier of the bullies throughout the school. You fuck with the newbies and you fuck with me, you steal a possession, I steal your teeth - because this is called physical correction. Instead of running from me the kids ran to me, they crowded me like a popstar in the playground. I needed the attention, this was my way of self-correction, and before long my education was forgotten. They tried to get me of course, the ex-like-me's, the ones who said I was queer and sissy. And despite an inner-flame of revenge and hate, I closed my eyes and ears and remembered Fay. There was a girl like me at this time, you know, who solved riddles for those in confusion. Caroline Barker, she was my age but taller with long black hair and dark eyes. They said it was me and her, together forever, the school, even the teachers, despite the fact we'd never really spoken. We smiled and said hello in the corridors sometimes and shared hymn books in assembly and laughed sometimes but she was me and I was her and that wasn't going to work, she'd never come to me and I'd never go to her, not for attention, not with problems, not to help one another we were too similar inside to appreciate each other I think, maybe I´m wrong. I don't know. Mick, a friend from way back in time, helped me scrape away the corruption around our school. When I turned good he did too, he was with me all the way, he said. The violence didn't last long, we wiped it out: everybody kept us in mind when they thought about throwing a punch. It was laying down the law, it was playing the police, but it worked and I was happy. I rang Fay's number a few times and tried to apologise and knocked on her door when I was passing. She never let me in and she never said a thing, she just told me to leave so I did. I held sessions at lunchtimes sometimes, to talk to the kids who were too scared to go nagging at the teachers. I coped for a while and managed to raise the odd smile and give advice to those in the shit. Only about once a week I nearly fell asleep - sometimes the kids ran out crying. It's amazing what happens to the children of today, you know. I´ve seen cigarette burns on breasts, words carved into arms, heads so fucked up they can't do nothing but scream and they're all in there, you know, in the classroom, sat quiet, or flicking paper balls or trying to cause a riot but it's no surprise after a while when you sit there and listen - pupil to pupil, you know, two heads together. I reckon they all need it, you know, more than any lesson. I cried only once, when I heard a story from a kid how her father had raped her sister in bed with this girl sat up watching and soaking it into her head and this middle-class nightmare's just beginning she said, it's worse than in the uppers and the lowers she said. And she even admitted she was fucked in the head cos of what she'd seen, you know, what can you say? I just said I was sorry and turned her away. You know you hear that shit when you lay there in bed and you can feel needles of horror spinning webs over your neck down your chest, down your belly, across your arms... weaving you into a matrix where nothing makes sense, where shocks are cheap and there's a barbed wire fence that does hide happiness, but only in your dreams cos nothing out there is ever what it seems - that's how it feels, you know, it feels tight and black. Maybe you know what I mean, I don't know for sure but who cares anyway. Who cares. I cracked like an egg and spilt out my guts when I heard that Fay and Mick had started something going. I thought perhaps Fay and I had been unique, that she'd go for guys her age rather than somebody like me, still trapped in the cage of school but I was wrong, they clashed eyes and it happened again, love and romance and dreams again and I cut my wrists in the shower and punched my knuckles against the tiles until the thoughts my mind went calm and black. Like a void. A dark hole. Stitched to its arms, I swam, I screamed. No more dreams. I bandaged up. And the next day I gave in. I walked into the classroom where Caroline was on her own doing an essay or something, I think, I couldn't focus properly cos my vision had gone pink at the edges and bits of colour were there, you know, kind of dancing and spinning and jumping in mid-air like crystals of dust and I fell down in front of her table and I asked her if she'd talk to me, if she'd please, please talk to me, I hate this, I said, I don't know who I am, I need a voice, I need your voice, yours, I think, please. (eyes clashed eyes) Please.