The Force of Destiny
by Zambezi
Chapter One
When you're fifteen, you know everything. You know that your parents and teachers aren't perfect, although you are. You know that United is going to win the championship again, even if you know they don't deserve to. You know that cops deserve to die for having the nerve to dictate your life to you. You know what rights you have when you get arrested. You know 'they' can't do a thing about it. You know how to travel the entire public transport system in Greater Manchester without paying. You know that taking your GCSE exams is pointless, because there aren't any jobs for people like you who aren't interested in doing an honest day's work, or who could barely read and write. You know which off-licenses will sell alcohol to under age kids, and which ones won't. You know where to score some dope, or something stronger if you prefer. You know how to break into and hot-wire every car that you find parked on a Salford street.
And, if you're like me, you know how cool sex is. I just love shagging. I can go to any party in Weaste or Langworthy where there's girls, and I can get a blow job or a shag basically by clicking my fingers. They're a bit slutty around here, but what do I care? A fuck is a fuck. And when you're fifteen, all you care about is planting yourself in a nice moist hole and getting off. Most of the time that was all I was in it for, just to get off, and because that was what you're supposed to do at that age. There was always a physical - orgasmic - connection, but never any kind of emotional one. I don't like condoms much: the girls all love it when I say they're just too small for me and besides - they numb the sensation, you know? And since the girls are all begging for it by the time they've had a few bottles of Smirnoff Ice or Archers, who cares? I know that at least two of my kids have been terminated in Hope Hospital before they saw the light of day. I suppose under the law of averages there must be more that I don't know about, but what I don't know can't hurt me, can it? Above all, by the time you reach fifteen you know your station in life, your destiny. Mine was, befittingly for white trash, in the underclass. My best friend Darren, or 'Daz' as he was known, ruled the roost. We were still too small time and insignificant to attract much attention from the cops, but everyone else knew you didn't mess with us. At fifteen, life was pretty good to me.
The funny thing is, despite knowing everything, there was still something missing from my life as I started year 11 that September. Mum had fucked off and left us earlier that year. I kinda missed her. Don't tell anyone, but she used to cuddle me now and again and it felt really great to know that she would do that. I'm pretty certain she would have stood by me through anything, but she just couldn't cope with Dad and Ricky any more. Dad does odd jobs now and again for cash in hand to supplement his Giro and whatever he can make from his usual job of nicking cars. When he's not doing that he's usually drunk. Ricky's my brother: at four years older than me he's now nineteen. Or at least I assume he is. Just about the only thing I didn't know at that age was whether or not you had birthdays in jail. It's not like we could throw him a party in the middle of Strangeways Prison or anything.
So it was just me and Dad at home. Dad wasn't into hugs and kisses much - not with his son, anyway - so once Mum had gone I lost that great feeling I got when someone was close to you and wanted to make you feel good without having sex. Yeah, I told you I knew everything: at that age I could tell the difference between love and sex. I had plenty of one, and none of the other.
Despite the name Hope High School is a bit of a hole. There's talk about demolishing it in a year or two and build a new one, but I'll be long gone by then. The dole has to be better than this. That morning in September, as I started that last year of my spectacularly pointless education, I noticed that there was a new kid sitting down with us year 11 guys. As Mr Hewitt droned on in that first assembly I found myself looking more and more at this kid in the row in front of me. He was skinny, still fairly boyish-looking, and obviously a bit nerdy. You just knew he was a virgin: there was no way he'd go to parties and meet girls. He probably spent Friday and Saturday nights watching TV with his folks in their lounge. He was also oriental, not overwhelmingly so like the waiters at the Taste of China takeaway in Swinton but more like Chinese highlights. Very dark brown hair, dark eyes, completely clear complexion. And he looked so, well, lost. No, terrified. Comprehensive schools in places like Salford aren't anybody's cup of tea, let alone his.
"Poor kid's gonna get pulverised his first day here," I thought, as my mind switched back to the assembly hall and I noticed Tracey Matthews giggling with her friend and pointing at me. We had shagged the previous Friday night in her parents' bed. I winked back at her with my cheeky chappy expression and they both turned away, covering their mouths as they giggled more. I'll never understand birds and the way they giggled.
Now, I'm not one to boast about these things but I'm in the bottom class for everything. Since I don't pay attention in class, or do my homework or anything it doesn't really matter. I get to piss about more since there's no expectation to do well. The school gets money from the council for me being there, so as long as I don't stab any teachers or set anything on fire then I'm pretty much left alone. The only class where I have to sit with the brainy kids is Double Award Science, that masterpiece of educational thinking which somehow managed to ensure that kids who couldn't pass any one of Biology, Chemistry, or Physics still passed an exam that was ostensibly worth two of the three. And they say there's no dumbing down in our exalted education system.
So anyway, I'm sitting at the back of the lab for our science lesson on about the second day into term and two minutes into the lesson that oriental kid comes in looking a bit lost. I'd heard that he had his food tray shoved onto the floor in the canteen yesterday and everyone had howled with laughter, but since I only lived a hundred yards or so from school I always go home for lunch and had missed it. He looked weary, suspicious, and just a teensy bit snooty, like he was too good for us. Well, he'd get it in the yard afterwards. He had to get a beating. I looked over at Daz, who was sitting next to me on the back row and he smiled back. He was thinking the same thing. The new kid went up to Miss Bowden's desk at the front of the class to apologise for being late, and was pointed over to the geek row at the front of the class. As he walked to take his seat, the whole class just stared at him. It must have been awful for him, and just as he pulled his chair out our eyes made contact.
I wanted mine to say something like "I'm gonna kill you." His just held a look of fear, vulnerability, helplessness, but as I stared at him an amazing thing happened. I felt slightly sorry for him.
Then disaster struck. Miss Bowden wanted us to pair up with another pupil to sit together and be lab partners with for the whole year but she forbid Daz and me working together, presumably out of fear we'd make dynamite or something. But then none of the kids could make their minds up either so eventually she just started to pair us up at random. When she got to the Chinese guy she looked around the room for a few seconds before her gaze fell on me.
Suddenly, inside my mind, half of me was screaming "no fucking way" while the other half was thinking "who cares? He'll do all the work."
I snapped out of it just as I realised that the teacher was talking about me. "Nick Finch is one our more laid back pupils," she said with a wry grin and not a small hint of sarcasm as she brought the kid to me and he sat down in Daz's seat.
He held out a thin arm with a wiry hand on the end of it. "Nick is it?"
"Uh huh." I don't really speak much unless I have to.
"I'm Adrian Jenkins. I'm new to the city and to Hope High, so please excuse me if I appear a bit clueless now and again."
Oh my God. Somebody actually used the words "excuse me" as an apology! And "please" - in the same sentence! Suddenly, what he had just said didn't make much sense. He didn't look much like a Jenkins. Chan or Wong maybe, but definitely not Jenkins. And he sounded kinda American too, but not, if you know what I mean.
"Well, if clueless is what you want, you're in the right class." The moment I said it, I knew that I had been rude, and I saw my chances of him carrying me through the year disappearing down the bog. So naturally, my defences went up. I gave him the death stare again, folded my arms on the desk, and went to sleep.
I slept for about half an hour - I always make myself known to the teacher for the last ten or fifteen minutes of every lesson so that I leave an impression of sorts on their mind. There's nothing worse than going through life unnoticed. When I came around I sneaked a few looks at Adrian. He was so, er, neat and tidy. Not a hair out of place anywhere. Shirt tucked in. He was writing studiously with a fountain pen - man, I couldn't believe people actually used those things. I suppose you might say he was a real pretty boy. And funnily enough, he was also quite good looking too. I mean, I'm not an arse-bandit or anything but I can tell when a guy is good looking or not. I had this funny thought that if I ever had to look like another guy then I wanted to look like him: distinctive enough from the crowd to stand out, with a slight vulnerable look that drives the girls crazy in those giggling fits, and keeps their Mums happy to boot. And, on top of all that, he had something I had consciously tried to avoid for myself. He looked respectable.
Then it happened. I got hard. What was that all about? I mean at fifteen you get hard all the time. But I knew this was from looking at Adrian, a boy, and that was never supposed to happen. As I gazed at him from the corner of my eye, I saw him turn and steal a quick glance at me, smile, and then turn back to Miss Bowden droning on at the front of the room.
I legged it the moment the bell rang for end of class. As it was the last class of the day, I went straight home afterwards. Daz knocked on the door about ten minutes later.
"Coming out to work tonight?" he asked as he invited himself into the kitchen and helped himself to a Pepsi from the fridge. "My old man spotted a target in Monton; owners away for a couple of weeks."
"Sounds like a plan. Pick me up about three?" I responded.
"Will do. I'll try and get a Bee Em tonight: I know how you like to travel posh," he shot back, a wry grin on his face. He knew too much. We goofed around for a bit before he left to check in with his Mum and go through the motions of homework and getting ready for bed. His Mum was quite strict on him with things like that, although I'm sure she'd have a heart attack if she knew what he got up to "after lights out" as she called it.
I opened a can of Stella and watched the box for a while, then went and kicked a football around with some mates for a bit as the last of the autumn daylight disappeared and it started to turn cold. When I went back in and Dad and I ate I must have dropped off afterwards.
For some strange reason, I had Adrian on my mind. We'd been sitting next to each other in a PSE class about sex, and when he put his hand on my shoulder it was electric. I was zoned out as shivers ran up and down my body and I desperately wanted him to put his hands all over me, but I was frozen still, unable to move or speak.
"Nick? Nick, are you OK?" he kept asking, shaking my shoulder with his hand. The next thing I knew it was the middle of the night and Daz was shaking me awake.
I was also hard, and it must have shown through my tracksuit bottoms - not that it was easy to hide something that big in clothing - because Daz was grinning. "You never told me you felt that way."
"Fuck off," I responded, linguistic giant that I am. I adjusted myself with a flourish, willed it to go away - which of course it didn't - and then headed for the front door. "Come on, are we going?"
Daz had picked a five year old Cavalier for us this time. He got in the driver's side while I walked around to the passenger side and brushed the glass off the seat. "For fuck's sake Daz, if you have to smash windows can't you do it on your side?"
"If you don't like it, you nick the fucking wheels next time."
That was how we started every night's work. The house in Monton was a straightforward job. Looked like a young couple, probably off on holiday the moment the prices dropped when schools started up again. It was quite a nice home although they were obviously fairly new to home ownership, because there wasn't a load of gear like you get in family homes, or where old people have lived somewhere all their lives. Still, there was no security to speak of and we could park the car in the lane right outside the back door where no-one could see us. Once I had taken a crowbar to the back door and forced our way in the lap top, video player, game console, couple of TVs, and a hi fi all went straight into the car. There was a bit of jewellery in a dresser upstairs so that went in too, and then after a quick look down the street we went through everything with a fine tooth comb. That scored us a cheque book, a few utility bills suitable for identity theft, a Mont Blanc pen, pair of real expensive footy boots, and a twenty quid note in a sock drawer. A crate of lager in the kitchen was last to go, and we helped ourselves to a few cans from the fridge as we left.
We drove with the booty over to Mick's lock up. Mick was our fence and he usually gave us a good deal on whatever gear we brought him, unlike some of the specialists who might pay better but would only deal in stereos or jewellery or whatever. A hundred quid better off each, Daz and I torched the Cavalier on a bit of waste ground in Newton Heath and took the first train of the day into Manchester, and then a bus back out to Salford before we split up and I went home for a good breakfast and then got ready for school.
We had Science again that day, only this time was a double period which usually meant a practical session. I remember it was something about distillation, but no more than that. As we messed about with the equipment I looked at Adrian a bit more and focussed on him for the first time. He was definitely a skinny guy, and completely smooth. He had rolled his sleeves up and his arms were totally hairless. Suddenly, I started wondering what the rest of his body was like before I mentally told myself that I had no reason to know and that it was a bit pervy to be thinking about that. I mean, he was a guy. "What's gotten into you Nick?" I asked myself. "You're supposed to imagine girls naked."
He was short too. I'm about five nine, so I'm no giant, but he was still seven or eight inches shorter. In fact, he could have easily passed off for someone a year or two younger, except when he opened his mouth and this smooth, sophisticated voice came out. It wasn't posh or anything, just sort of wise and experienced, with that mid-Atlantic twang I had noticed yesterday. I looked at his features a little more too, when I got the chance. He was obviously mixed race, half oriental and half white, without looking convincingly like either.
What really got me intrigued was that he was so full of energy. He danced around the bench as he swirled things in flasks and lit the Bunsen burner, making notes as he went. In Hope High, most of the guys are there because we have to be. It's a bit like a zoo really: we all behaved like animals. We knew that we'd never get anywhere in life, that our destiny was to live off benefits and nick stuff for all eternity, and that school was just biding our time until we're old enough to be failures in our own right. But Adrian was different. He wanted to learn, and was so obviously a bright kid. I wondered why the hell he had come to Hope in the first place.
Eventually, I opened my mouth. "You're really into this science shit, aren't you?"
He looked up at me like I had just stabbed him. "You do speak!" he responded in mock amazement. It should have sounded cocky, but somehow didn't.
"Only when I want to," I replied, smiling. "And you didn't answer my question." That'll show him who's boss.
"Yeah, I kinda like it," he said, also breaking into a smile. "You're not into much, are you?"
"That obvious, huh? What brings you to Hope High for year 11 anyway? You don't look like a Salford lad, if you know what I mean." I hoped I didn't sound racist.
"My Dad only got posted to England by his company during the summer so I had to finish my GCSEs here. It's not really what I was expecting. I knew it would be difficult to settle into a new school at this stage, but..." His voice trailed off, obviously lost.
"What do you mean?"
"You probably saw what happened in the canteen my first day. And believe it or not you, today, are the first person who has started a conversation with me since I arrived, apart from teachers."
He actually looked ready to cry, a combination of pain and relief on his face. I knew we all wanted to portray ourselves as hard and tough, and certainly not associate ourselves with the little drip, but in that instant I realised that we had been real bastards to him. It wasn't like any of us couldn't remember our first day in a new school - and we all knew people around us as well. I vowed there and then to talk to him in Science class, so at least if any of my mates got suspicious I could just say it was to do with class. Somehow, deep in my mind, I knew that I was developing a bit of a soft spot for him, and I had no idea why.
I put my hand on his upper arm and looked him in the eye as I spoke with as much sincerity as I could muster, which historically had never been a lot. "I'm sure things'll settle down soon, you'll find some friends, and it'll be just like your old school."
He looked at where my hand was on his arm as I slowly withdrew it, then his eyes travelled to meet mine. He must have realised that I had just made a point of not saying I wanted to be his friend, but he still fixed me in the eye and whispered through a weak smile: "Thanks."
* * *
Over the next few weeks I got into the swing of things at school again, or at least as much as I ever did in previous years. Daz and I went out burgling once or twice a week, just enough to give us a bit of pocket money, and not enough that I couldn't disguise my lack of sleep. I liked to have the money to flash around a bit and buy my way into the girls' knickers, but Daz was getting into some real heavy drug stuff. We both liked a bit of weed now and again, but he was doing speed and stuff to keep going through the day as well as at night. I knew he was working a lot more than when he went out with me, but it was kind of an unwritten rule that we didn't ask each other about that.
I went to parties on the weekends and got a bit of pussy. In truth, I wasn't getting anything like as much as I let my mates believe, but Tracey and I did the deed fast and often, including twice in one night when she got really pissed. I supposed you might say we started going steady, but if everyone else believed it, I didn't. I was in it for sex. At other times it was just me and my trusty right hand.
Adrian and I continued to sit next to each other in Science. During single periods when we were at the desks we never spoke, although we always smiled at each other when we arrived. During double periods, if we were doing a practical class, we would chat a little bit as we (OK, he) did the experiment and there was enough background noise and distraction that I was sure no one would realise I was talking to him. He still had virtually no friends, although there were a couple of geeky Jehovah's Witnesses in year 10 who I saw him hang around with. Nobody ever spoke to the Witnesses; I guess if you have nothing then even a common enemy is a common bond.
Over a month or so I found out that his Dad was British but his Mum was Chinese and that they all normally lived in Hong Kong until his Dad got posted to Manchester on some sort of exchange programme, something to do with government. Adrian had wanted to stay there with all his friends, but his folks wanted him to have the full English living experience and insisted he come too. He spent a long time gushing unconvincingly about how cool it was to be living in Salford and going to Hope High until I told him that even I thought it was a hole and hated it, at which point he admitted to hating every minute of it too. He just hadn't wanted to upset me by dissing my home. I felt slightly honoured by that, but of course I didn't tell him. He was an only child, and had always been a bit of a loner, partly because of his mixed race - he felt that neither group outside those he had grown up around and gone to school with readily welcomed him in. I also found out that he was indeed the same age as us, but he sheepishly told me he had been a bit of a late bloomer. Man he must have had some guts to admit that.
I was never really conscious of it, but I opened myself up to him as well. I told him stuff about Mum and Ricky and Dad that I wouldn't dream of telling even Daz if he hadn't known it already. I just felt really comfortable talking to Adrian, like it was sort of safe with him. He oozed sophistication and maturity in a way that no pupil at Hope ever did, and before long I found myself thinking that this must be what they called trust. I had never trusted someone like that in my life.
With hindsight, I was also increasingly aware of a growing physical attraction to him. I remembered having the odd fantasy about some of the boys around me before, and occasionally jerked off thinking about one or another of them when I was a bit younger, but I had then - like now - just assumed that it was a phase that I would grow out of and I put it to the back of my mind. When I really thought about it, the thought of gay sex actually twisted my stomach to its core. I fancied him, of that there was no doubt, and I delighted in that trust which we had started to build up between us. I wanted him to wrap his arms around me when I watched TV at night. I wanted to run over and hug him and kiss him when he got bullied and he looked as if he was about to burst into tears, which was a lot. So I was in the curious position of having this bloody adolescent crush on a guy - a guy who the entire school didn't want to know - and wanting to be intimate without wanting to actually have sex with him. And I couldn't talk to anyone about it because you just didn't do that in high school.
Immediately after half term, the PE timetabling all changed and instead of gym class once a week we had swimming down at the baths in Eccles. Adrian and I had never been in any class together apart from Science until we were suddenly lumped in together for swimming as well, and it wasn't until I was down to my boxers that I realised I was about to see him in a state of considerable undress, and that the prospect was exciting me. Thankfully, my baggy swim shorts hid the semi I sprung until I could leap into the cold water, and the extra bulging probably didn't harm my reputation too much either.
Adrian was not so lucky. First, and I just could not believe that a fifteen year old guy would do this - on a PE day, of all days - he was wearing white Y-front pants. Not even a decent brand like Calvin Klein or anything, but something called Hings. I know this because someone (OK, Daz) had the clever idea of snatching them from his hands to parade around the changing room for everyone to laugh at before throwing them up onto the cage around the fluorescent light fitting as we all trooped out to the water leaving him standing there naked, jumping to try and retrieve them. Two minutes later, and I would not believe this either if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, the poor guy, virtually in tears by this stage, emerged from the changing room after the rest of us clad in what could only really be described as a rather skimpy pair of black speedos which left little to the imagination. Worse still, there was quite obviously not a lot to not imagine, if you know what I mean.
It was about then that I began to feel uncomfortable, for two reasons. For a start, some wag (OK, Daz again) yelled out that at least because they were black no one could see the piss stains or skid marks. The instant he said that Adrian's eyes met with mine - largely because I was staring - and I could see a teardrop forming. As the roar of laughter erupted from the boys in the water I looked directly at him so that he had my full attention, closed my eyes and stayed silent so that he could see I had made a point of not laughing. Then, as I turned around and found myself facing some of the other boys who most definitely were splitting their sides I laughed too, for their benefit. And for the first time in my entire life I felt ashamed of myself.
The second reason I felt uncomfortable was that seeing Adrian in his speedos was quite simply breathtaking. OK, so he was skinny and wiry, but his body was perfect from head to toe to my eyes. Flawless. I know that I gawped in that moment before I'd turned around. Ashamed and now rock hard into the bargain, I was one grateful teenager that I did not have to get out of the water for the next five minutes as I watched him power through the water with all the ease and grace of a dolphin, his strokes working like clockwork.
Of course, Daz and I both dicked around during the class like the clowns we were, only I got dumped on and had to stay behind afterwards to help the attendant clear up the lane dividers and the floats and stuff. And because I was five minutes behind all the others by the time I emerged from the shower and was half way through getting dried and dressed they had all pissed off to mess around outside and left me behind, alone with Adrian. He was wrapped in his wringing wet towel - someone had obviously thrown it into the shower or something - and was still trying to jump, unsuccessfully, to retrieve his underpants from where they were dangling at ceiling height.
When the last of the other boys had vanished I wondered over to him silently, gave him my considerably dryer towel, yanked the nearest changing bench off its floor mountings and then dragged it to where I could stand up and reach for his pants. His eyes were full of untold emotion as I handed them over to him, and he was openly weeping.
"Thanks," he croaked.
I kicked the bench back into position. "No worries," I replied. "That wasn't a nice thing to do to you at all."
"And thanks for not laughing earlier, out there," he continued. "It meant more than you could imagine."
But I had laughed, and I felt tiny and more ashamed than ever, although that wasn't saying a lot. "It'll get better, I'm sure it will," I responded with both a desperate need to comfort him and an inability to openly commit to doing so. I wanted to be hosed down the drain, not least because if it had been a year ago, or anybody else, I knew I would have found the whole episode hilarious. But then, with him, I was ashamed of the old me, and of what those like me had done to him. There was no other way to describe it: shame had never happened to me until that day but when it did I was in no doubt what it was. I grabbed my black uniform sweatshirt and my coat and ran like the wind to seek comfort in numbers outside. We took the bus back to school straight afterwards and I didn't see him again that day.
If that day must have been bad for Adrian, the following day was just beyond comprehension. He got wolf-whistled when he came into Science and sat down next to me, giving me a look that said, "Won't they ever grow tired of it?" I sympathised instantly, but still smiled when I turned to face the others to join in their laughter and that only made me feel shittier by the second. Later on in class he mentioned that the teasing had been going on all day yesterday since swimming, and hadn't abated that morning. He looked broken, tired, defeated. My heart melted with the growing realisation that he had done nothing wrong but be himself, and we were making his life miserable for it. I was desperate to stand by his side - whether through pity, morbid intrigue, or something deeper, but I just didn't dare.
And then, that afternoon after school finished, it happened: the mental torture inflicted on Adrian turned to physical abuse. I'd had detention (surprise surprise!) for pissing about in English so had to stay late. The area around the school was kind of deserted when I came out some time after 4pm. We were well into November by this stage, so of course it was virtually dark by then as well. I had just crossed over the street when I heard some kids shouting and saw movement just inside the entrance to Buile Hill Park, which was almost directly opposite the school gate. I had a bad feeling about this so I quietly sneaked up and had a look over the wall to greeted by the sight of a gang of my mates beating and kicking Adrian around.
How I held on to my lunch I will never know. My lab partner was crying out in pain, for mercy, and the guys who had been my best friends for ten years were causing it. With an air of inevitability Daz was right in the middle. Half of me wanted to leap over the wall and intervene, but the other half wanted me to join in, a sort of twisted honour amongst thieves code which we all followed. Torn, I slumped against the wall out of sight and tried to cover my ears to drown out the sounds of my lab partner - no, my friend - being beaten up, at the same time as I realised I would have to come to terms with the fact that I considered him - the biggest loser in school - my friend. And to go with the shame I felt at siding with the baying crowd and not intervening over the previous two days there was a second new emotion for me: vulnerability. For the first time ever there was a way someone could hurt me, and I was scared.
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