I Think I'm OK Read online

  “Chris Krzykawski,” I answered, I then began to spell it out. As I got half way through my surname one of them said, “K. A. W. S. K. I? Good try Chris, how about K.E.N.N.Y?”

  “Oh bollocks,” I muttered, and they marched me over to their car.

  The name Krzykawski came from a friend I had in WHS. The first time I heard it I thought, ‘What a brilliant alias,’ and quickly learned how to spell and pronounce it. By the time I was fourteen I guess I must have used it too often and Bradford police were now wise to it.

  It did on one occasion leave my Polish friend Baz and I roaring with laughter. We had had a few drinks and were getting a little loud whilst walking around the City Centre. Baz for some reason had shouted a profanity at the top of his voice and as we rounded a corner we were confronted by a policeman. He was stood, legs apart and arms folded across his chest looking like a disgruntled housewife as her drunk husband rolls home at silly o’clock in the morning.

  “You two, come here.”

  That’s what he would have said if he had needed to. What he actually did was point to the two of us and then point to a spot on the pavement about a yard from his feet. We got the message.

  Taking his notebook from his pocket he looked at me and said, “Name?”

  “Chris Krzykawski,” I replied.

  “Spell it,” he ordered. So I did.

  After writing it down he looked at Baz.

  “Name?”

  “Bazyli Wojciechowski.”

  The copper flipped his notebook shut without writing down Baz’s name.

  “The pair of you . . . fuck off . . . now. I don’t want to see you in town again today.”

  So we did, laughing all the way to the pub.

  After my arrest at the bus stop the two plain clothed officers took me to the Police Station where I had to go through the usual routine of questions about where I had been and what I had done. As per I told them a crock of shit, they knew it was a crock but I knew they had nothing on me so we both played the game. The only thing I was worried about was how to explain the large amount of cash I had on me, so I came up with the usual one there as well, scrap metal. They knew I was lying but even with the good cop bad cop routine I just stuck with my story. Besides I was just a kid and as far as they were concerned, if I had done anything it would just be petty stuff. The Ace up my sleeve was the crying routine. Look scared, shake with fear and cry whilst promising through tears and snot that I hadn’t done anything.

  Luckily for me, the amount of money I had on me, though substantial, was not all of my ill-gotten gains. I had shared a fair bit with Paul and the majority of it was stashed away in the bed sit. Not that it did me any good; I never saw any of it again.

  Before long I was handcuffed and driven back to Ashbank in York. I had plenty of time on the journey there to prepare myself for what was awaiting me. I had a feeling that this time they were going to be seriously pissed off. I clearly remember those times as a child when I had done something wrong and knew when I arrived home I was going to be in big trouble, I’m sure most kids have done it. Walking as slowly as possible, even taking the long way home, anything to try and put off the inevitable for as long as you could. That’s pretty much the way I was feeling as I was being driven back to Ashbank, silently willing the driver to slow down. I’m sure the bugger was telepathic and drove faster.

  Chapter 10

  Two police officers escorted me through the front door of Ashbank. They removed my handcuffs, made a few seconds of small talk with the posse of staff that were kind enough to turn out to greet me and then the officers took their leave. Once they had gone and the door was locked the shit hit the fan. The member of staff who had been on duty the night I buggered off walked towards me with his hand held out palm up.

  “Keys,” he said.

  “They are in my property that the police have just handed you,” I replied.

  I have no idea why I had not thrown his keys away but I was glad I hadn’t and by the look on his face so was the staff member, his expression was one of surprise and I’m sure I glimpsed a flicker of grudging gratitude. Then a hand grabbed hold of the hair at the nape of my neck and I found myself being lifted up and forward. My feet barely touched the highly polished wooden floor before I was unceremoniously dumped into the dining room. I must have looked like the villain or hero in one of those farfetched Martial Arts films where they can tip toe across water.

  As usual all the furniture had been moved to one corner of the room and a box with the regulation clothing was on the floor. A pair of shorts were thrown at me, they didn’t have to tell me what to do, I knew the routine. Strip off, put the shorts on, go and stand facing the fire place and then bend over. I could hear all the other lads being lined up on the stairs in preparation for the evening’s entertainment. I also fully expected the other lads who had absconded with me to be waiting outside the room for their turn; that turned out not to be the case.

  The Fat Controller had this rule about punishing all the absconders together, waiting until the last one was caught. I have no idea why, but that is how he did it. Luckily for the other lads who had done a runner with me, I had managed to stay out long enough for them to be transferred to other institutions, which meant they were never punished. Good news for them, bad news for yours truly. I found out later that I had also inadvertently returned a favour by staying out as long as I had. On the night we had buggered off, when I was cycling past the police, Tony Collier had been in a police car and had seen me riding by.

  Once all but I had been rounded up, the police had taken a name check, and Tony Collier had given them my name . . . genius. This meant when they phoned through to Ashbank and gave them a head count and all the names, Ashbank told them the only one missing was Tony Collier and they gave them a description, small, skinny and blonde. They didn’t figure it out until they were back at Ashbank and I was well on my way out of York. Like I said, I found that out later, if I had known about it as I was bending over to have my arse caned I would have had a bloody big grin on my face.

  As it was I took a sly glance behind me to see who was first up, it was t’old fat lad. With my legs stiff and my hands gripping my knees, I quickly tried to put my mind somewhere else, I have a feeling it might have been behind a certain sofa, then ‘whack,’ it stung, the first one always did. The second one was the last one I ever received. I heard the two footsteps then the swish of the cane through the air but the fat Bastard missed my arse. Instead, the cane caught me above my right hip and continued on across my naked back staying in contact with my skin until it flew past my left shoulder. I yelped like a friggin puppy then jumped up and round at the same time.

  “You Bastard,” I screamed, looking fatty straight in the eye.

  “Bend over,” he shouted.

  I just stood and defiantly spat, “No.”

  He raised the cane as though to hit me across the face with it and shouted at me again to bend over. My back felt like it was on fire and though I was extremely angry and tears were in my eyes I kept my voice calm as I said, “No, you can fuck off, that’s it. You’re not going to hit me again.”

  If he had been a cartoon character there would have been steam coming out of his ears. There were veins popping up where veins shouldn’t be, I was going to say his face was red but it was more purple than red. Then one of the other members of staff took the cane from him.

  “Get him into the shower room,” fat boy screamed.

  The fella who had taken the cane then handed me the clothes box and pointed to the door. As we walked to the shower room I heard fatty shouting at the lads on the stairs to go up to their dorms. If he had a cat at home I would not have wanted to swap places with it that night. He was not a happy bunny.

  In the shower room I spotted the full sinks and the buckets and told the staff member there was no way I was having the cold water treatment, well I thought I might as well push it as far as I could. To my surprise he didn’t argue.

  “Just get
dressed Kenny,” he said.

  I put my trousers on and stood in front of a mirror turning left and right trying to get a good look at my back. The only way I can think of describing it is, when you switch on the windscreen wipers of your car on a frosty morning, that semi-circle of scrape marks that you get? That’s what my back looked like, but in red. To be honest, it looked a lot worse than it was and though it stung initially it wasn’t too painful, but hey, wouldn’t you have played on it?

  Back then, such treatment and worse was the norm in a lot of institutions, not all, but quite a lot. There will be a lot of people saying I’m bullshitting, well they can say what they like. I’m talking about, ‘In my experience.’ For every one member of staff from the seventies who might stand up and call me a liar, I reckon I could find five kids (now adults) who would back me up. All of whom, like myself, would have nothing to gain by telling the truth. Up until the age of fifteen I was in half a dozen care homes. The kids who were in there with me had been in other homes. When I was out on the street I mixed with other kids from care homes. We talked to each other, we talked to each other about which ‘Aunty’ or ‘Uncle’ to avoid and why, about who you really wanted to stay on the good side of and about which home you really didn’t want to be sent to.

  Now I’m older I can clearly see how some of the nasty bastards worked, back then I was too innocent, well in some aspects.

  There was always a hook, by that I mean a bribe or promise that the pervs would use to get what they wanted. For the older kids it could be certain privileges or cigarettes or alcohol, in some cases drugs. For the younger ones it tended to be what I consider to be abuse in itself, promises, empty promises that could build up a young child’s hopes and then break that child’s heart. For example, in return for doing what the pervs wanted a child could be promised a transfer to another home, perhaps a home where that child’s brother or sister was, perhaps back to their family home, which was never going to happen but the kid wouldn’t know it.

  Then there were the perks of the job. In what other profession would it be acceptable for a grown man to be in a shower room in the early hours of the morning with a naked ten or eleven year old boy? It must have been a paedophiles dream. Yes I’m talking about bastards like Finney, bastards that would target kids who wet the bed. That would prowl the dorms until they spotted the tell-tale signs before quietly waking the boy and telling him to strip his bed off before taking a shower. If that child had taken medication before going to bed he wouldn’t even be fully aware of what was going on.

  “That’s it son make sure you soap up everywhere. Turn around, bend over, no you need to soap there a bit more.”

  If another member of staff should walk in they would not bat an eyelid, the child had wet the bed and the caring perv was just doing his job.

  Luckily for me I didn’t have any brothers or sisters in care, I didn’t do drugs, apart from the ones they prescribed, and I didn’t want to go home. Besides, if I didn’t want to be in a particular institution I would just bugger off.

  In most of the homes I attended I was the recipient of either physical abuse, mental abuse or sexual abuse. Though I will concede there was usually only one bad apple in each. The sexual abuse I will get to later, I will be writing about it because I want to set the record straight.

  Oh for fucks’ sake I’ve gone all serious again, where was I? Hang on, scroll back, scroll back. Oh aye, Ashbank.

  After the caning debacle it was back to the same old routine, though I did get the distinct impression that the Fat Twat was avoiding me. It was no more than ten days after my return to Ashbank that I was driven on a Monday morning to Aycliffe in County Durham. I really would love to think that the reason I was shipped out so quickly was because I had got under their skin and they wanted shot of me pronto. In truth it had all been arranged before I did a runner and I guess they just held my place open.

  Report:

  Chris is upset and deeply bothered over the realisation that his father is bisexual. This is especially worrying for him in view of the fact that he loves his father very much and identifies with him a great deal. He was only told this a few weeks ago and has reacted to this by absconding again – another flight from hurtful reality.

  In conclusion, after assessment at Springfield, we feel that this boy’s needs are likely to be best met within the community school system and to this end a place has been secured at Aycliffe Assessment Centre. However Chris has absconded from York Remand Home twice and this has delayed his entry to Aycliffe.

  On the Saturday, two days before my departure, my mother turned up at Ashbank. I had only been told she was coming whilst I was having my breakfast that morning. The reason for the visit was, with Aycliffe being so far away from Bradford, it was unlikely that I would see anyone from my family for quite a while.

  Now I am not privy to all the conversations between my family and the social services. However, if someone was saying that even though I was in care we still made every effort to keep in touch, then someone was telling porkies.

  Whilst I was behaving the way I was my family, apart from our Paul, wanted as little to do with me as possible and I fully understood that. On the flip side, whilst I was thinking the way I was, the feeling was mutual. Which is why, at the time, I wondered why she had bothered to visit me. I would now like to say I am so glad that she did.

  Oh, and before I continue I would like to apologise in advance. Should my mum ever read this I can hear her now saying, “She? Who’s she, the cat’s mother?”

  My Mummy, (there you go) turned up around ten thirty. I was dressed in my own clothes and had received a lecture about not running away and how my mother had come all this way and how I should behave myself and blah blah blah, you get the picture. Then we climbed into a taxi and went in to York.

  Looking back over the first fifteen years of my life I can count on one hand the number of days that have been so pleasurable, so perfect that even now I cannot help but smile when I think of them, that day ranks amongst the top of them. We didn’t do anything particularly special, we just walked and talked. My mum didn’t bombard me with the usual ‘Why?’ questions. It was merely mother and son chatting away and enjoying each other’s company.

  We walked around York Minster and I think my façade may have fallen away. Had I been walking around York Minster with a party from whatever institution I happened to be in, I would have shown no interest in my surroundings whatsoever. Neither would the majority of the other kids. We didn’t want to look like some big Jesse; we didn’t want the shit ripped out of us when we got back. Yet on this day, I didn’t have to put on a front. When my mum pointed out something, perhaps some stone work or a stained glass window and said, “Isn’t that beautiful?” I could look at it, appreciate it and I could say “Yes, it is beautiful.”

  Just for that day I could stop all the pretence, I could drop the attitude and the bullshit and for the first time in a long time I could just be who I really was, Steven Kenny, a fourteen year old boy. A scared fourteen year old boy who was being shipped off in two days to a place he didn’t know with people he didn’t know and let’s face it, Aycliffe was full of Geordies so a language he didn’t know, but for a few hours I could forget that part. I was just a lad having a day out with his mum.

  We went to an Italian restaurant for lunch, my first proper restaurant by the way and then spent the rest of the afternoon continuing with the walking, talking and the sightseeing. We were not in any rush as I recall, we were sauntering along as though trying to make the day last a little longer. I’m not sure if it was warm but I always get the feeling of the sun on my back when I recall that day. To be honest, I treasure the memory of that Saturday so much, had it been hammering down with hail stones I would more than likely still remember it as a warm summer’s day, in March.

  My mum had a train to catch and by about four O’clock we had to make our way back to Ashbank. Instead of getting a taxi we walked, not only so we could drag the day out a l
ittle more, but also because my mum had bought me twenty cigs earlier in the day and as I wasn’t allowed to take them back with me it gave me the chance to finish them off. (She’s going to love me for that) Once inside Ashbank we did the hugs and kisses thing as we said goodbye, my mum was crying but I had put the mask back on and successfully fought back any tears.

  Come the Monday morning I was sitting in car being driven to Aycliffe. The driver tried his best to engage me in conversation but he gave up after a while. With my cheek pressed against the window and a self-pitying look on my face it was obvious to him that I didn’t want to talk, I was clearly worried about where I was going and was probably regretting ever getting myself into this situation. At least I hope that’s what he was thinking. I was actually doing my level best to remember all the names of the towns and villages we went through in order to have some idea of where I was going when I inevitably did a runner from Aycliffe.

  Social Workers report:

  I left the conversation open for him for a long time and he eventually asked me about the approved school he would be going to. He asked how long he would have to stay. I said it depended upon him and how he behaved but it was probable that he would stay until he was sixteen. He said he wouldn’t stay till then, he wanted to leave when he was 15. I said it depended on his behaviour. He said he would ‘Do a bunk’ if he wasn’t let out when he was 15.

  Chapter 11

  Aycliffe, what can I tell you about Aycliffe? It was, compared to the previous institutions I had been in, huge. The main parts were the Assessment Centre and what was once called the Approved School. By the time I was sent there, though it was still run in the same way, the description of the school had been changed. It was now called a Young Offender’s Centre or something similar.