<> *4@3 OPERATION SUICIDE *3]5@7 by Andrew Campbell *1]1 @1 Some people reckon Pink Floyd got it right: kids don't need no education. But I don't agree. Pink Floyd are shit. Gimme Metallica or Megadeth anyday. But I'm not gonna preach any morals, I'm gonna paint you three weird pictures. Or three operations as I call em round the back of the yard when I'm planning. I do a lot of planning: that's my job. For a few notes or a decent porno, I'll put an end to your problems. I'm fifteen now, but I was fourteen back then. I took Kyle Dean's case because he offered me ten quid and some snaps of his sister in the bath. Sometimes I help out cos I feel sorry for the client, or his desperate begging tugs my heart strings, but with Kyle Dean there was none of that bollocks. At least, not straight away. I got the boys to come round to Dean's house the day after I got the first payment, just so's everybody was in on the situation. Sometimes I do jobs alone - it all depends on the nature of the problem. All I knew about Dean's case was that he'd fallen in love with a penfriend and couldn't post his steamy letters off to her because some nobheads from school kept following him and dropping lit matches in the postbox. Something like that anyway. It sounded pretty deep, so I hooked in Freddy and Crane. This was Operation Penpal. @6 -_-_-_-_@1 Jim Crane, the guy I hired to do any kind of severe beat-em-up work, found the idea of falling in love via the post ridiculously funny. "Whatcha gonna do Dean?" he laughed. "Cut your dick off and put it in an envelope?" Carl Fredrick - or Freddy as we called him - expanded on the joke by saying, "Yeah man, you could like... write down an orgasm, you know?" his eyes were huge and his face was serious, and he began to scribble with an invisible pen on his hand. "Yes! Yes!" he shouted, still dashing his make-believe biro. "Harder! Harder! Yes! Yes!" "Cut it out, Freddy," I told him, trying not to laugh. "I bet he seals his envelopes with jizzum," said Crane, making a tossing motion between his legs. We all groaned at that, even Dean, who was sat watching us with a maroon face and his big, tombstone teeth showing. Knock out the teeth and you had a fairly decent looking lad for a thirdyear. Can't say as I liked his bedroom though: pale blue with yellow curtains - seriously sick. "What's this girl's name then, Dean?" I asked him. "Melissa." he said quietly, fidgeting with his hands. "Oh Melissa, Melissa," Freddy fell off his chair, laughing. "Why don't you ring her up?" I suggested. Dean looked at his legs. "She hasn't got a phone." "How far away's she live?" "Birmingham." "Hey now Dean," Freddy was on his chair again. "I've heard you've got a big penis, but Birmingham's a fair way, man. If ya try strechin it ]5that]1 far, you'll get your foreskins stuck in a pylon." Now that ]5was]1 funny - we held our stomachs and simply squealed laughter. Dean didn't seem too amused though. "She's got leukemia," he said and we all stopped laughing and looked at each other, not quite sure whether to slap our legs and continue to laugh, or to stop and shut the fuck up. "Ooops shit." said Freddy, breathing out. "Soz man." said Crane. "Which postbox is it?" I asked plainly, trying to hide my sudden feelings of concern. "The one on Manning Road by the flats?" "Yeah," Dean nodded. "I've tried everythin, man. Goin into the post office, usin a different box, they always stop me somehow. If I try for the office they beat the shit outa me and steal my letter. They read one out in the changin rooms in PE last week. Right in front of Mr Horn, and he laughed, as well, he actually ]5laughed]1." That name - Mr Horn - sent shivers down my spine. There were rumours floating around school that he was queer, and that he'd done something awful to George Fletcher in the showers. I already hated PE... a bent teacher dragged the lesson into even darker, deadlier dimensions. "Shee-it," said Freddy. "That's pretty bad, dude. Half the fuckin school lives on Mannin Road." "Time'dyou post your letters?" Crane asked. Dean looked at him. "Usually on my way to school. It takes me all evenin to write em." Crane turned to me and grinned. "No probs Fowler, I'm only up the road, I'll bodyguard him for the next coupla days." "Hang on," I raised a finger. "I've got a better idea." @6 -_-_-_-_@1 And so Operation Penpal got itself underway. We did an experiment that same evening by getting Dean to slip a blank envelope into the Manning Road postbox. Me and the lads kept close watch from a deserted yard beside one of the flats, and at first we just sniggered amongst ourselves, thinking it was impossible for any letter-stealing gang to keep twenty four hour lookout. But somebody did turn up: two ginger-haired boys, both out of my class. It struck me that this cruel letter-burning ritual had grown out of all proportions - the whole fucking school must've been in on it. Things like that happen in Stone Bridge. Once you've got one pleb on your back, you've got the rest of them too. Conspiracy, I guess. Dean was chased away. A lit match was dropped in the postbox. Grey-black smoke slithered out of its mouth like vertical puke, and for a few wide-eyed seconds we saw orangy flames in the back of its throat. "Alright, tomorrow morning you post another blank," I told Dean when we were all back in his bedroom. "As soon as the letter's inside, you run like hell, okay?" "Why?" said Crane and Freddy, almost in chorus. "Cos I'm gonna pour petrol inside it." I said. @6 -_-_-_-_@1 The petrol came from my dad's garage. I filled an empty, five-litre pop bottle at about three o'clock in the morning, buried it under my coat and wandered off to set the trap. Mr Mailbox drank every last drop, and nobody saw me. @6 -_-_-_-_@1 In the morning Dean posted an envelope. "BURN IN HELL" it said on the front, and sealed inside were about fifty pink matchheads. Within a few minutes the same two lads were legging towards the box with a cigarette lighter and a strip of card. "Hey Dean!" "Oi lover boy!" they cried, before doing their evil deed. A huge spray of fire whooshed out of the mouth of the box, engulfing them both. I've never sprinted and laughed so hard in my entire life. Crane and Freddy split up and vanished beyond the flats; Dean and I headed for the school playing fields, near-blinded by tears. Even though we didn't hang around long enough to see those two guys burn to death or get plastered with fire-foam, those few moments of frantic running and the image we'd been given - a huge orange tongue lashing out of the postbox - seemed to make Dean's every charcoal letter worth it. Such a perfect, priceless memory. @6 -_-_-_-_@1 The miracle is, we didn't get caught. Freddy was hooked in by the police along with a few other lads for questioning, and Dean got a knock on his door about a day later, but they didn't pin it on us. Dean posted his letters okay but never got to see Melissa, or post her his dick, or seal his envelopes with jizzum, because by the time he got back in touch, she'd died of leukemia. He got a letter back from her surprisingly calm parents, explaining everything, and took a week off school to recover. There's a place in Stone Bridge called Black Hill, where you can see the hazy landscape for miles around. I went and sat there on my own after I heard, and tried to imagine having strong feelings for somebody and not being able to see, to hear, to reach out and touch them. So many hundreds of miles of fields and towns and cities. No car to jump into and drive. No money to get onboard a train. No sense to even know which way to go. And yet having the knowledge that there was a real person out there... a shining light, somewhere, could be anywhere, any direction... unreachable. I cried for Dean. But I don't expect you to understand that. After all, you're adult and I'm just a kid, and kids cry over all sorts of stupid things. @6 -_-_-_-_@1 A lot of our kind hang out on small green islands. Islands in a sea of filthy, smoke-choked industry. Islands where you can sit down and play games under the trees with nothing but you and your friends' imagination. Parks. Wasteland. Moorland. The kinda places people like you think are filthy, dirty, boring and expendable. Tracey Hewson was an islander. A real Miss Robinson Crueso with a Friday cat called Tinkle. I knew about her and I knew about her cat. What I didn't realise was how ridiculously close the two of them were. I was pretty stunned and at the same time touched when she approached me in the playground with a handful of (mostly copper) coins. I mean Tracey Hewson just didn't talk to ]5anybody]1. "Could you..." she panted. "Please... could you... help me?" I thought she was gonna collapse, so I held my arms out to catch her, and she burst into tears and cried into my jumper. It was dinner time and there was an ice cream van parked in the corner of the yard, so I used some of Dean's money (not without feeling guilty about it) to buy Tracey a Screwball. "Tinkle's gone." she told me eventually. She had a white moustache, and I told her, but she wouldn't wipe it off, so I did, and she smiled at me. She had a cute smile. "Where to?" I said. "I don't knooow." she wailed, looking around desperately as if the cat might turn up in the yard. "Where'dyou last see him?" I said. "In the woods." "You mean the park?" She nodded. Now despite being a cool place to hang out when you needed some time alone with your thoughts or your dirty magazines, Beechwood Park was the bushy abode of some real scivers and drop-outs. It was a fairly big estate with an old house, a small pond and a couple of swings and slides in the middle - though kids rarely bothered with that bit. More interesting were the hundreds of snaking pathways that led to fields and swamps and caves and treehouses... just when you thought you'd explored it all, some sweating, panting mate who'd left the gang to take a piss would burst in on you screaming "I found a new bit! Honest I have!", though admittedly these days, incidents like that were usually false alarms. Tracey Hewson had her own little patch in the woods, Freddy and I knew where it was (we knew just about everywhere except for the Boundary - where the moors began) but we insisted she take us there anyway, just to make her feel secure. After all, she did some private things in her patch, including undress and roll around in the leaves (not that I'd know much about ]5that]1 of course). "I was sittin here, and Tinkle was over there," she told us. "He's never run off before, he's always followed me around, cos I've always looked after him, see." Freddy tried to act clever by checking the ground for catpawprints or "signs of human entry". Crane wasn't with us on this one because he had bad memories of being chased through Beechwood, and was allergic to cats. I wondered if Tracey knew about Craig Hooper or "Hanger" as he was more commonly known - a ghostly schoolboy who, legend would have us believe, kidnapped, tortured and killed small animals. Considering Tracey's current state, I decided it'd be best if I kept my gob shut. @6 -_-_-_-_@1 And so Operation Pussyhunt was born. Freddy and I combed the woods until about seven o'clock, at which time we returned to Tracey's den, apologetically catless. She wept into my jumper again, then ran home. Tired and pissed off, Freddy and I walked and talked for a while. "How we gonna find her cat?" "I dunno man." "Well... how much is she payin us?" I showed him the coppers Tracey had given me. "S'all she's got." "Is that fuckin it? Jeez." he kicked a stone. "Wharrabout showin us her bug or somethin?" "Don't be sad, Freddy." "Her tits then." "Shurrup man, she's not like that," I nudged him. "Besides, she hasn't got no tits anyway." "Shee-it," Freddy sighed. "I'm gettin tired of this lark, Fowler. We're not makin enough dosh, and that porno of Deans is really crap." He snatched the accused magazine out of his back pocket and showed me the centrefold. I tutted. "See?" he said and put it away. "Maybe we should start doing somethin else." he said. "Liiiike... ahh, I don't fuckin know." "Oi, check that out." I said. Freddy looked at me. "You what?" "Him," I pointed down the path. "There's somebody messin about in the bracken over there, can you see the twat?" "No... oh yeah! I see him!" Freddy cupped his hands round his mouth. "Oi!" he bellowed. "Who're you!" The boy stood up alertly. We laughed like mad... until I noticed he was carrying something over his shoulder. Something furry. Something dead. "Oh shit." I said. "Is that Tinkle he's got?" "Is that who?" "Tracey's cat." Freddy held a hand above his head and squinted. "Ahhh, could be." "Shit come on let's gerrim!" I said and we both launched into a sprint. The boy stared until we were almost upon him, then screamed and shot off into the woods. Not long later we caught him - Freddy sat on his chest, whilst I wrenched the dead animal out of his hand. I sighed with relief when I realised it was a rabbit. "Ah, forget it Freddy, lerrim go." I said. "Gerroff yer wankers!" the boy demanded, sweat dripping down his face. "Gerroff or else I'll get my dad onto yer!" "Shurrup," Freddy slapped him. "Whacha doin killin rabbits?" "None of your business! Gerroff me!" he began to struggle. "Are you the Hanger?" I wondered aloud. "Don't call me that!" he bellowed. "Anybody who calls me that ]5dies]1 d'you hear? GerrOFF!" "It's him!" I laughed. "It's the Hanger, I don't fuckin believe it!" Actually I did believe it: I'd seen the guy before, roaming around Beechwood. He went to Janet Hill, a grammar school just out of Stone Bridge, but I had no idea ]5he]1 was the Hanger. He certainly didn't look like a legend... more like a scruffy, curly-haired schoolkid with a face full of freckles. "Hanger," said Freddy, testing the name on his tongue. "I think this rural myth oughta take us to his hideout, don't you Fowl?" "Yeah." I said in the meanest voice I could manage. @6 -_-_-_-_@1 We threatened to nail Hanger to a cross and carry him to the top of Black Hill (like the Romans did to Jesus) unless he showed us where- abouts in the woods he hid out, so as you can imagine, he decided yes, he'd show us with great pleasure - though we hadn't got to tell anybody the way, of course. "We won't say nothin to nobody." "That's right man." Freddy and I promised with our fingers crossed. But nothing could've prepared us for that sicko's den. He'd made himself a wigwam structure out of two dead trees, and decorated the outer branches with dangling corpses: hedgehogs, rabbits, cats, birds, even a few small dogs. He had his own little prison with a torture chamber inside - complete with wooden cages fulla live animals, jars crammed with dead or dying insects, and blood-curdling instruments like knives and saws and drills and ropes - even some cordless power tools he must've nicked from school. Worst of all though, the place stunk like Hell: there was dried blood, fur and feathers all over the walls and floor. "You are one sick fucker." Freddy almost laughed as we entered the shade of the den. Innocent eyes peeped at us through teeth-gnawed bars, tiny squeals, chirps and barks echoed... this was one of nature's darkest nightmares. "You got any cats?" I said, covering my mouth and nose with both hands. "Yeah maybe," Hanger said slowly, looking from me to Freddy to me again. "Whyjoo ask?" "Show us your latest cat, will you?" I insisted. "If you haven't eaten it or whatever." "I don't ]5eat]1 non've um." Hanger muttered, shifting through his prisoners. The animals began to shriek and shout. "You don't wanna duck do you?" he offered, showing us a scruffy looking mallard in a rusty old birdcage. Crane and I shook our heads. He tutted. "I only got one cat at the mo," he went on. "I think it's somebodies pet cos it's gotta collar on it." He dragged another worn out birdcage across the floor - this time it had a grey tabby cat inside it. "That's it, that's Tinkle." I whispered to Freddy. He looked at me, surprised. "How'djoo know?" "I've seen em before." "Alright Coathanger," Freddy said, shifting forwards. "We're takin this cat with us." "Hey, you can't just take it." Hanger protested, putting his hands over the cage. "Took me ages to catch it, you gotta make a swap. S'only fair." "Dean's porno?" I suggested. "Good idea," Freddy revealed the magazine and unfolded it. "Looka that." he said, holding up the centrefold. Hanger's jaw slowly drooped and his eyes kinda sparkled. "Woooaaah," he swallowed, cocking his head on one side. "Is she doin what I think she's doin?" Freddy and I nodded simultaneously. And so we swapped merchandise - Tinkle the cat for an ancient top-shelf magazine - and then we left the stinking pit. @6 -_-_-_-_@1 Now don't you go thinking we were wrong not to rescue all those helpless animals he'd caught: I did some research on Craig Hooper and found out he was beaten up and tortured by some seriously warped guys who're now in a mental hospital. He was also, according to playground gossip, victim of a punishment-mad English teacher. So me and Freddy figured he kinda had the right to take his anger out on the Beechwood wildlife. After all, it's better than torturing other kids, right? Tracey was over the moon when she answered the door to find Freddy and I stood there, stroking a completely laid back Tinkle. She offered us some more money, but we didn't take it: We do discount for girls. @6 -_-_-_-_@1 My next operation went wrong. Sometimes they do - I can't always get em right - but this one changed everything. The client was Grant Willis, a rich-kid who got picked up every day by his parents after school, and the pay was my highest yet - thirty five pounds and a handful of top-notch pornos. All Grant wanted was defence in the changing rooms - for some reason everybody had taken to whipping him with wet socks and soiled underpants. Edward Royce - the class demon - had begun pissing on him in the showers, too. I offered Crane fifty percent if he'd tackle Royce, but he refused. Freddy wasn't in my PE group so he couldn't help, so I decided to go for broke and tackle the whole case myself. I named this one Operation Suicide. @6 -_-_-_-_@1 Big stones from the playground were my first idea: I put a handful in a spare pair of socks and practiced swinging them about at home. For the underwear-war I sprinkled a few of my dad's Y-fronts with substances such as itchpowder, petrol and glue. And for Royce, I drank six bottles of cherry coke - enough to turn my piss into fake blood. @6 -_-_-_-_@1 "You gonna help me or what?" said Grant as we walked inside after a muddy game of football. "Yeah, everythin's cool," I assured him. The changing rooms were small and cramped and full of shouting boys flicking towels and mud at each other. Mr Horn left us alone to shower and dress like he usually did, though whether he was spying on us from some secret hole in his office I wouldn't like to say. Once the water was steaming and everybody was hobbling about and shouting and kicking and trying to scrub themselves with soap, Royce shuffled up beside Grant and pissed all over the boy's stomach. That was my cue to shoot a long-time-held-back red stream up his leg, and from then on it was laughter and sword-fighting all the way. Eventually Royce got tired of me and punched me in the head - I was no match for him - but he wandered back to his pile of clothes red-faced and upset, so I figured Round One was a stalemate. As soon as everybody had ploughed out of the showers, the underwear battle commenced. Anybody who came near Grant got a twat on the head with one of my brick-filled socks, or a pair of sticky Y-fronts smothered in their face. I put up a good fight... until Mr Horn came back and roared like a Tyrannosaurus. "It was him sir," "It were Fowler." "Him." All fingers pointed at me. "Gerrup off the floor, lad." Mr Horn demanded. I did; naked apart from my tee-shirt. "Get dressed, then go stand in't showers." Everyone was silent. I got dressed with trembling hands, then walked into the showers, nearly tripping on the drenched tiles. Grant gave me a sympathetic smile, then left with the rest of the class. And so it was just me: alone and petrified. The bell rang for lunchtime. I heard the kids streaming out into the yard. The ice cream van arrived with its familiar jingle. I thought of Tracey with her white moustache. I thought of Tinkle. I thought of me and Freddy laughing in the woods. And then the showers came on, and I stifled a huge wail in my sleeve. Through the mist and water came a shape: massive, pink, terrifying. Unsymmetrical eyes. A face that could've been chipped out of rock. Arms reached out, grabbed me, turned me round, and I was being repeatedly pressed against the blurry wall for what seemed like forever. @6 -_-_-_-_@1 The playground was bright, but silent when I came out. People ran past me, laughing and pointing but I didn't hear them. I just walked. Dropped my school bag. Walked. Eyes focused on nothing. Walked. Crane and Freddy sprang out of nowhere, arms around me, speaking things into my face, determined to break through. Walked. Fading away now, teachers looking, watching, kids crowded round, begging for me to stop. But I just walked and walked... until I found an island, where I stopped and did nothing until it got dark. Crane and Freddy found me when the stars were out, but after clicking their fingers in my face a few times, they just wandered away. Tracey found me too, and took me by the hand to see Tinkle. I stroked the cat... but wanted to break its neck. I looked at Tracey and wanted to rip off her smile and do to her what Horn had done to me. I wanted to perform something evil, I wanted to hurt and destroy and steal and kill, and for that one day, I agreed with Pink Floyd: we don't need no education, for when the teachers corrupt the pupils, the pupils corrupt the teachers. We were locked in a war... always had been, always would be. We were the wrongly accused results of their brutal or non-effective discipline. I didn't cry. I didn't take a week off school. I didn't get better. I changed: Torched the Hanger's animal cruelty centre to the ground, livestock included; sent fire bombs through every flat window on Manning Road; whipped people, including Royce, to within an inch of their lives in the changing rooms; increased my prices; lowered my profit share. Somebody like you might even call me a thug, but I do have many advantages: I'm young, fit, energetic, and I know what really happens at school these days. You're not. And you don't. Think about it.