Goliath

If you want to know my name, you might as well call me Lennie. Because in about two minutes my English teacher Mrs. Turns is going to make sure that’s what everyone will call me from now on. I know it’s coming, and if anyone else gave two minutes thought to it they would see it coming too. It’s like when Mercutio jumps in for Romeo in Act 3 Scene 1. You know he’s going to die. It was a bit weird I thought that they only asked us to read one scene for coursework. I read the whole play but found it a bit difficult to be honest, I skim read a lot of the stuff with the priest, I mean when I know someone’s intent why do you need to read all around that? Anyway, sorry, I am what’s the word?… digressing that’s it. So here we go Miss Turns has just asked Jeffrey Dean to read George because he’s smart and although George isn’t clever in a school way, he’s certainly smarter than Lennie, who as Mickey puts it, is a spastic.

This isn’t true, I talked to a lady in the charity shop the other day after Mickey and the others had run out laughing after Mickey had bought a pencil just so he could ask for a ‘spastic bag.’ He thought that was dead funny. I had stayed behind after they left and apologized to the old lady behind the counter because she reminded me of my Nan. She always had a bag of biscuits in her handbag. My nan that is, I didn’t look in the lady in the charity shops bag. I paid for a book, it was called, ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’ by some guy I’d never heard of. I told the guys outside I had stolen it as my excuse for staying in the shop. Mickey had told everyone, ‘thats how cold giant is, he don’t care bout nuttin.’ I used to be called giant, because, well, I am much bigger than everyone else in my year. I look like lurch from the Adams Family, which Mickey made us all watch as his house, mainly I think so he could tell everyone, ‘Hey, guess who looks like Lurch!’ He had clearly planned this, as just before the first time Lurch came onto the screen, Mickey got all anxious and looked around to check everyone was watching. No one questioned why we were watching such an old film, people tended to follow Mickey’s lead. I was in the group to be made fun of, that was my role. That, and punching people. I am really strong. My Dad’s a big guy and I guess I get it from him. He’s got a temper as well, when my mum used to read to me as a kid, she used to stroke my hair and tell me that I was gentle. I used to say no I wanted to be a knight like in the stories and slay the dragons and kill anyone who hurt anyone else. My mum would stroke my hair across my forehead and tell me, no, Vic, you’re a gentle soul. You’re kind. Then she would hug me extra tight. I remember feeling like whatever she said was true and maybe I was kind and gentle and I leaned into her hug and didn’t worry about anything. Until she got killed by a drunk driver.

She had nipped out to the shops, my Dad always got annoyed because whenever she went shopping she would always forget one thing, even thought she had a list. He didn’t like her going out more than she had to he was always worried about her. I guess he had a reason. She was crossing over at a Zebra crossing, when a guy called Adam Peterson drove straight through the crossing and killed her instantly. He had been in the pub celebrating the birth of his first child. He was texting a picture of his son to his friend when he hit my mum. That’s what the lawyer said in court. He was sentenced to three years in Prison, and I was sentenced to live alone with my Dad.

My Dad always had a temper, but my Mum had been the off switch, whenever he got annoyed she would take his big hand lift it over her head and twirl underneath his arms, hung like the protective branches of a tree. She would giggle and he would pull her close and they would dance in the kitchen. There’s no music in our house anymore. Now she’s gone, he stands over the sink, I can’t dance with my father, that’s not what boys do. I’ve never danced. When the school has dances or parties I sit at the back and drink, or go outside when instructed and punch boys from other schools. I don’t want other people to have a bad time because of me. One time at a party, some boys from our rival school came down. I told Mickey I wasn’t going to fight, and he told me that Shay Pierce was telling jokes about my Mum. Afterwards, when everyone had gone back inside, I picked Shay off the wet grass as he spat blood onto the floor.

‘I never cussed your mum.’ I looked at him, he was telling the truth.

‘Okay.’

‘Mickey told me that you said I was scared of you.’ I looked away at the ground. When I went back into the party I saw Mickey kissing Shay’s girlfriend.

Anyway, back in English it’s just about to happen. You can see the idea light up Miss Turns plain face. She’s very young for a teacher, and has struggled with discipline. Her finger is moving down the character list and she’s just made eye contact with me.

‘Victor, would you mind reading Lenny’s part.’ I made no expression. Mickey was turning round in his seat and silently laughing, so were most people. I took a long, slow breathe and shrugged my eyebrows in silent acceptance. Blissfully unaware and beaming with her brilliant idea to engage one of her academically weaker students Miss Turns had no idea that she was now responsible for the name that would follow me for the rest of year 11.

‘Alright Lenny kill any puppies lately?’

‘Oi Maya careful around Lennie, he murdered his last girlfriend.

‘Lennie, no one took you out back and shot you at the weekend then?’

I let it all slide off my back. It was big enough. I didn’t mind people thinking I was stupid. I didn’t say a lot, It was easier. Since my Mum died, my house was pretty silent. Me and my Dad sat together and watched TV, the closest we got to conversation was him asking me to pass him the remote. We ate a lot of takeaways, I think Dad didn’t want to be in the kitchen because it reminded him of Mum so much. One day I had come home and he had smashed her radio on the kitchen floor. He just looked at me and I looked down as the inside of the box spread over the tiled floor. Then he walked away, I wanted to repair the damage, to tell him it was alright, but I didn’t know how. I scooped up the radio and put it into a plastic bag, I kept it in the bottom of my wardrobe. Don’t ask me why. But as my Dad wanted to get rid of anything that reminded him of my Mum I was desperate to hold onto anything that was her’s.

So now I was Lennie and it didn’t help that Mickey was small and clever but mean, he was more like Curly than George, but the weird thing was no one called him George, they were all scared of him. Mainly because if he thought you had crossed him he would make it his mission to make your life hell and also because there was a risk he would ask me to punch you. A teacher had asked me why I hung around with Mickey and the guys as it only seemed to get me in trouble. I didn’t have an answer and eventually he shrugged and told me to get out of his sight. He thought the question meant he was going above and beyond.

For such a short book, we seemed to spend a long time on our Of Mice and Men coursework. I didn’t like any of my other subjects. Except for Art, Mickey had said we should take Art as it would be a doss. It was Art or Drama and there was no way I was going to be standing up and acting in front of anyone, plus Rashida took Drama and whenever she was close by my face turned red and my palms went cold and became sweaty. I had managed to hide this from Mickey and the boys, but it was probably only a matter of time before Mickey picked up on it, he was very oberservant.

Our Art teacher was an elderly lady called Ms. Patterson. Pruney Patterson they called her. She had a smile on her face most of the time, like she knew something we didn’t but she was clever enough not to waste her time trying to explain why. I guess she was a bit of a hippy, she liked flowers and always had some in her classroom. They smelled nice when you came into the room. On the first day of class she had asked us what we thought Art was. A few people had shouted out stupid things. She smiled and nodded sadly when they did. Then she stopped and looked at me and said, ‘Art is something which makes you feel something.’ Simple as that. And I got it. She told us that painting, writing, sculpture, plays anything was someone trying to get a feeling across. I had always thought of Art as something a bit wanky that posh people did and you just had to look at it for a required amount of time on school trips before you could move onto the next picture. I never made a connection between a feeling and a picture.

Mickey was getting bored and he decided people were paying a little too much attention to Pruney Patterson. He knocked a jar over containing red paint and it smashed all over the floor. Everyone turned and looked and made a big deal of it. Ms. Patterson sighed and moved over asking what had happened. Mickey told her I dropped it deliberately. She looked at me, and there was a mixture of hurt and disbelief . You might wonder why I let Mickey do things like this. Well, the expression keep your friend close and your enemies closer sums it up. I simply did a basic calculation, my life at school would be easier if I did what Mickey said. If I went against him he would spend every last breathe he had focussing on making my life hell. I just wanted an easy life, and if that meant taking a hit while dishing out some of my own, that was okay with me. It’s not like my Dad cared, his only function at home was watching TV and passing me the money to go and pay the take away delivery man. If he got a phone call from the school he would listen and then put the phone down. I wanted him to do something, to say something, anything. But he simply stared at the TV.

Ms. Patterson asked me why I had smashed the paint jar. I told her that I was bored. Mickey and the others laughed. Ms. Patterson didn’t react. She only said, ‘Okay, Mr. Augur, detention tomorrow lunchtime. I nodded, Mickey had arranged for me to fight John Brand tomorrow lunchtime. He was in upper sixth and although I was pretty sure I would win, I knew he would do some damage first. Mickey looked annoyed for a minute, then brightened up. When Patterson moved away to get a mop, he said not to worry he’d move the fight to after school. You couldn’t say he wasn’t considerate.

Chapter 2

The door to the Art room was always open. It was funny how Ms. Patterson didn’t seem to mind the noise from her room spilling out into the hallway for anyone to hear. Some teachers kept their doors closed and physically jumped when anyone knocked. Others’ struck bargains with their students that if a senior member of staff appeared they would be silent in exchange for talking as much as they liked the rest of the time. Ms. Patterson didn’t seem to worry about what people thought of her. She also clearly didn’t look in the mirror before she left home in the morning. I walked into her classroom, she was washing some brushes in the sink, she had the radio on and it looked to me like she was at home, rather than at work. I coughed lightly and she turned around then had to look up to see my face.

‘Ah Victor, take a seat please.’ I pulled a stool out from one of the tables and winced as it scraped on the floor. I waited for her to tell me what my punishment was. I assumed I would be cleaning brushes, or emptying pots, or worst case scenario scraping out the kiln.

‘Why did you take Art GCSE Victor?’ I frowned; I wasn’t expecting the question.

‘I — like Art.’

‘Possibly true, But that’s not why you took it.’ She stated it matter of factly, she wasn’t trying to pry information from me, like so many teachers did. She simply stated it.

‘No.’

‘You took it because Mickey told you to didn’t you.’ I nodded unable to meet her gaze. ‘Now, the question you should be asking is, if Ms. Patterson knew that, why did she accept me on the course?

‘You had to.’ She shook her head.

‘No, I had to take Mickey, because no one else would. I could have used that to have you put somewhere else. Why didn’t I do that?’ I shrugged and stuck out my bottom lip. I felt on uneven ground and decided to stay silent for a while.

‘I’ll show you.’ She turned and went over to a set of drawers next to the sink. I felt nervous as she moved, uncomfortable with the unknown. After a minute of shuffling through papers, she said, ‘here it is.’ Then pulled out a piece of paper, it had been cello taped together, the corners were frayed. She turned it over, It was a silloute picture I had done of my mum and Dad dancing in the kitchen when I was in Year 8. That was the year my Mum died. Mickey had ripped it in half before I had a chance to turn it in. I had dropped it in the bin and walked out of class.

‘You didn’t say anything.’ She nodded.

She looked at me and her eyes were more searching than they were before, there was a sense of urgency there now, rather than the usual happy glaze. ‘Victor, this is art. I am sorry I didn’t spend more time trying to work with you then. But you were going through a difficult time, your mother…’ She paused and swallowed, ‘When you signed up for Art GCSE I was very happy. Even though I knew it was for the wrong reasons.’ I wanted to leave. I didn’t like the idea of this woman thinking about me, knowing my secrets. It felt wrong, like she was spying on my inner thoughts. I stood up and the stool jarred backwards along the floor.

‘Victor, sit down — please.’ I did, if she had shouted I would have walked out the door and accepted the consequences. I stayed where I was and looked at the picture, my father’s arms seemed too large and my mother looked like a doll rather than a normal person. But I guess I had captured something, if you looked at the picture even though it was in black and white you got a sense of the emotion, I pictured my Mum laughing as my Dad tilted her back towards the floor. This was always the grand finale and then he would pull her close and kiss her. I remember thinking that I never saw any of my friends parents acting like that when I was at their houses. I turned and looked back at Ms. Patterson.

‘Why did you keep this?’

‘I had a feeling you might want it some day.’

‘Thank you.’ I knew I couldn’t take the picture, if Mickey or anyone found it, it would be destroyed for sure this time. As if reading my mind, Ms. Patterson gingerly reached over and pulled the picture towards her. ‘It’s okay Victor, you can leave it here for now. If you like.’ I nodded and tried to focus on not letting the tears come.

‘So what do I have to do for detention’

Ms. Patterson smiled. I watched the creases in the corners of her mouth and found my jaw tightening

Chapter 3

Ms. Patterson was a sneaky old git. I use lots of swear words when I am at school or with the boys, in fact I use them more than any normal words. The thing is, I don’t really like them. My Mum always scolded my Dad if he swore and although it’s easy to blurt them out, it takes deliberate thought to write a swear word down. I didn’t have to explain to Ms. Patterson that I couldn’t work hard in Art while Mickey was in the class. She didn’t try and explain why that was stupid or that I was being an idiot, or wasting my time. She didn’t suggest moving classes, or anything that she knew was never going to happen. She simply told me what we were going to do next. I smiled when she told me her idea.

The next Art class Ms. Patterson had pulled some artwork on display boards and had them at the back of the class. What the class didn’t know was these were going to be ripped down and the board reused. They had been practice A-level coursework where some students had hashed out some ideas. Although some of them looked quite cool. Ms. Patterson put a can or red spray paint on Mickey’s desk, before class, and made it look like she’s forgotten to put it away. After she showed us the work she invited us to have a closer look and then told us she was going to the Art store cupboard to get something, leaving us alone in the room. Mickey, as if reading from a script grabbed the can of paint and was shaking it as he walked with purpose towards the boards. He marked off a large X across the first picture and then drew a crude picture on the second. He then turned to me and stuffed the can into my hands just as Ms. Patterson came back in. She stood and looked firstly at the pictures and then at me.

‘Well Victor, I think its safe to say you won’t be enjoying any of your lunchtimes for the rest of the term. I looked at the floor, trying not to smile. Ms. Patterson in her own unique style asked the class to retake their seats and pull out their scrap-books. As we walked back towards our desk, Mickey piped up.

‘Aw mate, I didn’t know she’s freak out that much. Can you believe how calm she was, she must be on drugs, antidepressants or something, right?’ I nodded and pulled out my scrapbook. Knowing that I was finally going to get something on the page, just not in this class and not next to Mickey.

Chapter 4

School continued just the same as ever, I did little work in class, teachers talked about target grades. Mine were so low I could do the bare minimum and still get D’s which considering my target grade was an E, was enough of an achievement to be celebrated by my teachers, this manifested itself by them leaving me alone. That was fine with me. Mickey let me know how he felt about my target grade on several occasions, ‘oh mate, If I was predicted a D, I’d just kill myself. Can’t get into college or nothing.’ I nodded. I needed a C in English and Math’s to get into college. I felt like that was a reasonable goal, but time was running out. The only part of the day that I looked forward to now was lunchtimes. I had to make the usual noises of annoyance around the boys, Ms Patterson this and Ms. Patterson that. I justified the things I said as keeping the act going. She would know I only said them to keep playing my part.

It started with a sketch. Ms. Patterson, said that because I had done so little work in Art for the last few years, I would need to practice, everyday to hone my craft. I liked hearing that. That I had a craft, and that it was mine. I had never felt like I had a craft before, and it sounded almost professional, like a Doctor or a solicitor. My Dad was a plasterer. And he did really good work. He was always fully booked, I watched him when I helped him out on jobs during the holidays. I remember one day we were in this dead posh house, and my Dad had just finished a spare bedroom The owner this rich woman brought us both a cup of tea and gave us a really expensive cake. Her and my Dad had stood staring at the walls and she said, ‘Dave, this is like Art, its beautiful work.’ My Dad, didn’t know what to say, seriously for the first time I ever remembered he was embarrassed. This was before Mum died. When we got home, I told Mum at Dinner and Dad got mad. Mum laughed and called Dad her very own artist, Dad got annoyed and that night I remember even dancing didn’t work. He left the table and Mum had smiled at me and asked me if I was enjoying my pasta.

Ms. Patterson set me special homework, but it didn’t feel like homework. I had a reason to be at home now, I didn’t mind being in my room when I was creating things. I had started working on collages. I found it easy to take colours and images from other places and put them together, it seemed like cheating. Ms. Patterson was so honest. If I did something she didn’t like she said so. All the other teachers felt like they were reading from a manual when they talked to me. Like a ‘shit’ sandwich. Hey Victor, I really like the idea, I think you could do this better, but overall… Ms. Patterson didn’t do that, she talked about what she liked and what worked but would also freely tell me about things she felt didn’t work. Even better, it was a discussion, she would ask me what I liked, and what I thought about things. I had never been asked my opinion about something I cared about before.

There were other kids who came to Ms. Patterson’s for their lunch breaks. Kids who I never noticed before, I had seen one or two of them and one, Sachin, I had punched when he had tackled Mickey in a football game and Mickey had told everyone that Sachin tried to touch him when he tackled him. Sachin had called Mickey a liar, and I had had to punch him. He sat in a corner on a high stool as far away from me as possible. Each lunchtime I hoped I could say hello, but he would walk away if I approached. Ms. Patterson while seemingly being unaware of any of it, smiled and just said, ‘ Give it time.’

This is as far as I have got with this story, but it’s been sitting on my laptop for five years, and it’s not doing any good there. I feel more fond of this piece of writing than anything else I have written and want to finish it. However, for now I am simply going to publish it and ‘put it out there’ to quote my other article. I think Victor would approve — Tom