Born Different Page 6

  The realisation that this so-called gift was something he might be able to get a couple of hundred quid for, eased the pain a little. And Johnny loved his mum, he would not hear a bad word said against her and he missed her really badly but she was gone. Like a death without a death, a loss without a proper reason to grieve and in some ways worse because she had chosen a man and money and a lifestyle over him. And it wasn’t something that you could label, she hadn’t chosen drugs, she hadn’t beaten him, she had not died or permanently run off. And, to the outside world, how can you possibly be neglected if you got such expensive gifts?

  Whether he admitted it to himself or not, Johnny wanted to be like the object of his mum’s desire, someone with so much money that it turned heads, believing that money was so powerful it would even turn the head of a mother away from her child. But this was a warped concept of course, as not every woman is like that, even though Johnny’s mum definitely was. Maybe deep down, Johnny thought that one day he might even have enough money to buy his mum back.

  Johnny’s real dad had been kind, talented but now he was broke, depressed, alone and people just treated him like shit, especially Johnny’s mother, so Johnny had done the sums and got his answer.

  Gradually, almost without them even noticing it, Johnny had started employing the others here and there. Johnny justified everything so well, that at first they didn’t even notice the blurring lines as they dipped into criminal activity. But now Johnny was playing with fire big time. Johnny was always so calm and confident about his wheeling and dealing, but the others weren’t, however much they tried to pretend that they were, as they were all only too well aware of the potential consequences.

  Gabe knew all three of them well and he understood why they did the things that they did and he felt compassion towards them. Gabe knew that they had protected him from the worst of the bullying and in that respect he owed them a lot. But Gabe felt like he had repaid the dues for that now, way over, he didn’t have to be indebted forever for their protection. Did he? Perhaps on face value, if he met them now for the first time, he might not even like them, or more than likely be totally petrified of them. But because Gabe knew where they were coming from, everything they did made some sense.

  Gabe thought that most people tended to keep the worst of their backgrounds a secret, they only ever exposed the best bits, the highlights. But then, do you ever really know them? Can you ever really love someone if you do not know their frailty, their fragility, their path and their own individual struggle? Gabe knew the good and bad and ugly facts about his friends. They may have thought that they had chosen their paths too, but they, like Gabe, only really had the path there in front of them. There were no other options. Not yet, perhaps never. Their lives were unpredictable, although everyone else just predicted the worse.

  Another text message came through and Gabe said a prayer to no one in particular, just a voicing out there into the atmosphere. “Just one last time and I promise never to do anything like this ever again. From now on I will paint and draw and earn what little money I can properly! If you really don’t want me to do this, then please give me a sign.”

  Gabe waited, but there was no sign for him not to go ahead in the direction he was going. There was no instant, sparkling, magical pocket full of money. No raining of one hundred dollar bills, no visible rainbow to chase leading to a pot of gold. There was no divine inspiration whatsoever.

  Gabe didn’t know why he should feel so torn. Money was money after all, wasn’t it? Why was it that he believed that if he was good, then good things might happen to him? And, conversely, that if he was bad then the shit would hit the fan? Something along the lines of karma. Gabe knew that this theory was flawed but it was just the way that he felt and he couldn’t change it. Even if this wasn’t what happened in the real world and it didn’t seem apply to anyone else, as people that did bad things seemed to have great to fabulous lives in the modern world, something still made Gabe believe that it did apply to him. In fact, as far as Gabe could tell the opposite of karma seemed to be true, in the short term at least.

  Not only was Gabe cursed with wings, he thought, but he was cursed with some kind of ‘good complex’ which pissed him off more than anything as it would have been easier to just live without that, like everybody else did.

  But mainly, goodness and badness aside, Gabe was just far too inconspicuous to be a criminal, even a petty one. Gabe knew his ‘job’ in the gang was as a decoy; no one suspected or liked to suspect, a disabled looking young man. But that wouldn’t last forever and now it felt more like a game of Russian Roulette. There was now the very real chance that, God forbid, he got the bullet next time. Got himself arrested, strip searched, handled by a stranger! Gabe, who couldn’t bear anyone touching him let alone seeing him! No, he couldn’t afford to be a criminal on lots of different levels.

  “Crime never pays,” his mum had always said. But of course that was a lie too, as Gabe noticed that crime actually seemed to pay very well. Much better than most other things did in fact.

  Chapter 7

  Gabe turned the corner to the park and sure enough there they all were, standing at the far end under a tree, instantly recognisable. Dave was there, learning against the railing like the thug that he was. Sticking his leg out at opportune moments to trip up Frank, who seemed to be doing some kind of karate moves. Johnny cool and debonair, even from a distance, was laughing and gesturing a lot with one hand whilst he dragged laboriously on a cigarette with the other.

  Gabe stopped at the gate to the park for a moment, just to watch them. From a distance, he wanted to see if he could picture them all as just strangers.

  “Gabe!” Frank shouted over, way too loudly and slightly too high pitched so that the few other people in the park turned to look. Dave punched Frank in the arm as Gabe waved, signalling he was the ‘Gabe’ in question as he walked towards sound of the shrill. Everyone else went back about their own business, drinking Special Brew, walking their dog. Only the hard core parkers were out early in the rain.

  It was always an odd crowd out during the weekday in this park. It wasn’t one of the nicer ones in the city, even if the playground was new. All the people who were usually unwelcome in the nice parks or anywhere by everyone else, made this park theirs for the most part of the day.

  This was the park for the occasional young couple looking for somewhere secluded to get it on because they had nowhere else to go. This was the park for the local familiar looking group of drunks that traipsed around, claiming the same bench, before the daily fight broke out. The park bench fight that must always be resolved as they always returned the next day, like nothing had happened. They weren’t much welcome anywhere either. And this park was for those that had to walk their dogs for a bit of exercise and a piss and a shit. No one welcomed them, not even the unwelcome.

  The Damned always met at this park. It was central to all their needs, it was free. They were rarely asked to leave and from this park Gabe could also, on occasion, if he was lucky, spy on Grace who not only walked to and from school on the road that ran along the side of park but out of school hours, Grace also invariably hung out at the street cafe on the corner of the park with her gang of friends. All sitting on the outdoor benches, under umbrellas with fancy electric over-head heating to keep warm on all the cold days. Grace and her friends had the money to drink white wine and cappuccinos and eat fairy cakes all afternoon. Grace and her friends were living the high life, in the fast track, with plenty of cash in their pockets. Gabe assumed that their main concerns were how they were going to spend all the money they had, which high street shops, spas or wine bars deserved their patronage. Their lives looked like a lot of fun, they were always laughing.

  Gabe walked the path down towards his friends, keeping his head down as much to avoid standing in dog shit as to avoid eye contact with the other outcasts.

  Gabe hoped he would catch sight of Grace again today. He was always looking out for Grace. It was like
his brain was always trying to catch her in his peripheral vision. It was odd but he sort of knew when she was about, it was like he had a sixth sense for her presence. Sometimes, Gabe thought that he really did will her into being, that the intensity of his mental vision of her, combined with the intense feelings he had for her, actually caused her to be there.

  It wasn’t true of course. Gabe didn’t even think it was one of those coincidences his mum liked to talk about. It was just one of those things that happened when you put your attention on something, or the fact that Gabe hung out in places where he thought that she might possibly be.

  Gabe thought that Grace never really saw him though. Once in a while she would catch his eye and smile and her friends; her cool, clever and beautiful friends, would laugh. Grace’s friends were always laughing and at him he often thought. Laughing at the weirdo, the deformed one. Grace’s friends were always so happy, basking in the sun that shone out of their collective arses. But those times that Grace had smiled at him, those times could make him happy for a whole week. Even the thought of it made him smile.

  Gabe’s friends were hyper today which brought his mood straight back down.

  “Yo! What’s up Gabe? You looking like you got the world on your shoulders,” laughed Dave, “No offence mate.”

  “None taken Dave.” It was an old joke.

  “We all up for having a little party tomorrow? Celebrate your last exam and another little event we are attending to today children?” Johnny swaggered up to Gabe and slipped something in his pocket that Gabe saw was cash.

  “What’s that for Johnny?”

  “Well, do you want to be let into a little secret?” Johnny threw out a line.

  “No, no really,” Gabe answered truthfully.

  “Well we’re in this together now mate and if we pull it off it’s gonna be happy times ahead for a little while. A little something to get you all through the summer partying rather than McJobbing it.”

  “Tell him Johnny, Gabe don’t know what’s good for him half the time. Tell him.” Dave was impossible to ignore or defy.

  Frank was hopping around with a grin that kept appearing then disappearing. “It’s win-win Gabe. Please say yes.” Frank said fearfully earnest as ever.

  And so Johnny explained the plans. Gabe knew to take anything Johnny said with a huge pinch of salt but this is what he told them.

  Johnny was involved in some money laundering. There were three businesses in the city that ran the money from drug dealing and contraband, and fuck knows what else, through their books. Johnny had got in on it all. He was now playing with the big boys. It was the easiest money Johnny had ever come by but he was pissing off a few people. The wrong people. Johnny shot off a list of names, the men that he was having crap off of. Some of the names were familiar, too familiar. Big business names in the city, some even on the council. Fathers of kids that Gabe knew of, even a few names that Gabe recognised to be people in his year at school. Sons and heirs to all this bullshit. Gabe knew some of them as the crowd that Grace hung out with. The Beautiful ones. And, most obviously and importantly, Gabe heard the name, ‘Alistair’.

  Johnny had set his sights on upsetting Alistair, only the man that Gabe had seen with his arm around Grace that morning. Now if Gabe was into coincidences, he might have just seen this as a sign, an opening for him to act out his revenge. Was this how life worked? Was this part of the game? It felt right. The thought of upsetting Alistair felt very good and tempting indeed. But, Gabe sensed, due to the build-up and the cash involved, this wasn’t going to be a case of simply spray painting ‘wanker’ on the side of his car.

  “So what we’re going to do is take their takings, what they got last night. I know where it is, I just need you guys to help me. One to drive. One to look out. And one to help me, give me a leg up and help me carry the gear out. We got to do this one kids, alright? Dave’s got a van, Gabe can drive it, Frank can wait up the road on look out and Dave can come with me. That way, worse way out, me and Dave take the fall ok? All for one and all that.”

  Gabe shook his head, “I don’t know Johnny.”

  “Come on Gabe! All those fellas that sniff round Grace, probably sniffing her panties and catching a feel of those pretty little titties. You don’t want a bit of that mate? It’s time eh, time we did something to address the balance don’t you think?”

  And Gabe wanted to say, “But you don’t even like Grace!” because they hated Grace and her friends and all they stood for, or rather, for all that they had. It always wound him up, the way they went on about how horrible Grace was, when they didn’t even know her. They knew that he liked her, liked her a lot, however much they tried to put him off her. But he also knew that they were only doing it for his sake, they knew the score...that Grace was impossibly out of Gabe’s league. They were just trying to soften the blow. Being cruel to be kind.

  Gabe could really do with the money though. He was broke and his mum was broke. He needed money for everything. Especially now that everything was changing and this was going to be his last time after all wasn’t it? Was it better to just do one big risky haul now, rather than dozens of little ones that would end up dominating his summer, if not his life?

  Gabe looked at the faces of his friends and wondered if they thought at all and if they did, what were they thinking about? He felt no connection to them. If he did one big haul now he wouldn’t have to see them again.

  This was something different though, breaking and entering, stealing. Even if he was only going to be driving, this was far bigger than the usual, ‘hold onto this for a couple of days for me will you mate’ or ‘just stand here and shout for me if you see a copper Gabe.’

  But, Gabe would love to see the look on Alistair’s face when he realised he’d been shafted. Leave him broke for a while so that he couldn’t flash his cash at Grace. Yeah, it was mean, even wrong perhaps, but what Alistair was doing was wrong too. And yeah, two wrongs don’t make a right, neither do two rights. Nothing made everything alright.

  And something in Gabe twisted perversely and it made him smile and feel a bit better, like a brief light wave of pleasure that magically dissolved the worry. This might actually help his cause with Grace.

  Gabe had no other grand plans. This was the one that had fallen into his lap. Like a golden opportunity. And even though Gabe knew deep down in his own heart that he should walk away, he had nowhere to walk away to. And time was ticking.

  “’Bout time we got their ladies and fancy cars eh boys. About time we had a taste of the high life. We gotta do this or we’ll be licking their shoes forever. Licking their butts for our dinner!” Dave said placing his hands up in front of his face, scrunching his fingers like he was holding a bum and licking the air between the back of his hands vigorously with his dark brown furred tongue.

  And Gabe thought that however disgusting and funny Dave was, he was right

  “The Beautiful are going to find it impossible to fail in life however clever or not they are. Whatever wrong choices they make or opportunities they miss, there will be plenty more that follow. They have been born into other paths, better paths, lucky paths, paths lined with gold. ‘Bout time we got a bit of the gold girls.” Johnny was convincing.

  The Beautiful did always look so perfect. All of their clothes were high end designer. Their clothes bore the names of the fashion designer men and women that the world put on pedestals. Clothes that you had to pay hundreds of pounds for. Gabe knew that labels were just branding and people seemed to love all that. Brands were lifestyle choices or preferences. It was probably some elaborate coded messaging system but Gabe just didn’t get it. Brands helped identify you, your place, your people. Brands labelled who you were or who you wanted to be. There just wasn’t a brand yet invented that fit Gabe’s ideas of his self-image. And there probably never would be, as the brands tended to aim for the masses.

  But Gabe had to admit that the expensive clothes that The Beautiful wore did wash better or they got dry clea
ned like they were supposed to. Their clothes were never dirty, creased, bobbled or shrunk and well worn. They could afford to follow fashions so that they always looked faultless.

  Gabe knew why he and his friend hated them so much, their perfection just highlighted their imperfections. And it wasn’t fair. Why shouldn’t they have a bit of that too?

  And then there was everyone else in between. The Middles. Not as obviously offensive to Gabe and his friends, just a lot more insidiously so. The masses, the ones in the middle. They were middle of the road but they took up the whole damn street. The mass of all the others that when viewed as a ‘lump sum’, as Gabe and his friends did indeed view them, were just so placid, insipid and mundane. They may all sound different to each other, interesting and exciting even, but Gabe thought that they were all kidding on too, whether they knew it or not.

  All branded in every aspect of their lives too. Maybe not with the luxury brands like The Beautiful had, but brands all the same.

  Even looking at his friends now as they were pulling on their black gloves and putting up the hoods of their black hoodies, he could see that they were branded. It was everywhere.

  Everywhere Gabe looked he saw advertising for brands, on the bus that passed, on the windows of the bus stops, the over flowing bin was even full of branded consumer products. It was everywhere, on every magazine, TV programme and on every webpage worth looking at.

  There was plenty to keep The Middles busy, following all the self and socially imposed routines and behaviours and purchases, from the shoes that they wore to the thoughts that they thought. Following false beliefs blindly. Looking at them Gabe imagined that they were all whistling in the dark. Scared as hell but keeping up appearances.