Nine Foot Tall Page 15

  We set off strutting down the town in order to get a taxi back to ours. These girls were up for it, man. Yes, me and Flakes are gonna take these two little buttercups to our Madhouse and they are gonna get “The Punishment”. This is turning out to be a good night all round. The girls, we didn’t even know their names, were walking about a hundred yards in front of us, linking arms, swaying about, giggling and shit. We were behind, chatting E’d up rubbish to each other, what we were gonna do and what we weren’t gonna do to these sweethearts, when…

  SCREEEECH!

  Oh my Good Lord! What on earth is this all about? A white Ford Granada swerved up to the kerb where the sweethearts were, and three dudes of what can only be described as of Asian descent jumped out of the motor. Now, I’ve seen kidnappings on films and telly, scary stuff, but this was real, and I was off my nut! They started grabbing at the sweethearts, trying to bundle them into the car. The girls were screaming and kicking and punching and flailing, and these guys meant business, man. I shouted Flakes and ran towards the action. I almost instantly came round from my drugged-up state and went into hero mode, as did Flakey. We managed to get to them before they got pulled into the car. The guy in the driving seat was shouting his hoppos to come on and get the fuck out of Dodge. I was dragging at the girls, as was Flakes, hoping these fellas would just fuck off. They didn’t.

  BANG!

  I got a beauty right in the side of me napper, a right punch, man, sniper shot. I hit the floor like a sack of shit. He was just about to boot me in my lovely face when Flakes went all Terminator and knocked him and his mate clean out. I managed to get to my feet, reeling from the punch I’d got, stumbling around due to the great big cowboy boots, when Asian kidnapper number three flew at me like a whirling dervish. A crowd had gathered and they were pulling Flakes back as he tried to come to my rescue. One of my giant boots had come loose in the skirmish and, just as the big Asian was about to fuck me up, I pulled my giant boot clean off and SMASH! I swung it right under his chin, the wooden heel snapping his jaw and dropping him instantly. I was ecstatic. I jumped around like Rocky, man, his two mates knocked out by Flakey and him knocked out by a giant cowboy boot! I noticed that he had a brass knuckleduster on his fist. Fuck, man, that would have hurt! I bent down and took it from his limp hand and set off back over to Flakes and the sweethearts, when suddenly someone grabbed me from behind, choking me, telling me to calm down and shit. Fuck this, man, I’m gonna get fucked up, so I punched behind my head as hard as I could with the knuckleduster and got him slap bang in the middle of his kisser. He gave out a yelp and I turned to give him a finishing slap.

  Oh no!

  The sight that greeted me made me feel sick as a dog – it was a copper! I’d only gone and bust a copper’s nose open. As I stood in disbelief at his exploded nose, claret everywhere, they pounced on me, three more coppers, dragged me to the deck, punched me in the temple, trussed me up like a chicken and slung me in their van. Hard. Wearing one giant cowboy boot.

  Flakes got away, ran off into the night, as did the sweethearts who I ended up not doing unspeakable things to. The pigs in the back of the van, however, did their very best to make my ride to the station very uncomfortable to say the least. I was black and blue when they locked me up. My protestations to the desk sergeant fell on silent ears, he cared not one jot, his mate’s nose was split in two!

  I was charged with Assault on a Police Officer occasioning Actual Bodily Harm. Fuck, surely I’d get sent down for this? Two years at least, man.

  When it eventually got to court my solicitor argued that as the copper got me from behind I would have had no clue as to his identity, fearing only for my life at the hands of Asian Sex Kidnappers, and God only knows what they would have done to my poor little handsome body!

  Unbelievably the assault was dismissed and all I got was a fine for having the knuckleduster.

  Result!

  I think I’m gonna have to buy some rose-scented aftershave.

  21st August 1998 – Aged 31

  When Steve got locked up, we all thought he was gonna get five years, but when it came to it the judge gave him eight years quicker than a DJ gets the girls. Whoa, not cool. And not funny either coz today it was my turn. I was finally in court for the bottle thing in Asia.

  My brief said to expect at least two years. ‘But you never know, Gaz, could be three, could be five.’

  Fat lot of fucking good that statement does.

  I’d been getting grief from Katie all morning before I set off, that I was a no-good cunt and she wasn’t gonna wait for me if I got locked up and she had her own life and she wasn’t gonna visit me and all that blah, blah fucking blah.

  Fuck all that, I’ll survive.

  I’d been getting even more grief from my ex, Vicky Mancini. We’d been together five years before I met Katie, and we had three children together – Dominic nine, Jacob eight and Daisy six. Vicky was one of the girls from my little Bradford incident. Anyway, we met up again at Fat Sally’s one night and then, Hey Presto three kids!

  She was giving me much of the same shit as Katie had this morning. ‘You’re a no-good cunt, a shit father, a cunt. I’ll never let you see the kids, you’re a cunt.’ And all that bollocks that crazy exes say and do.

  Fuck all that too. I’ll survive.

  No option.

  I turned up at court looking smooth as fuck, man, suited and booted, freshly chopped hair, boots with the pointy toes, the business. In the hope of course that the judge would look at me and say, ‘Hey, Gaz man, you are way too cool to go to jail, now go home and don’t do it again. You’re looking good by the way. Love the suit.’

  He didn’t.

  ‘He’s a right cunt this judge, Gaz, no two ways about it, my friend.’

  I’ll give Mr Singh this, he’s a straight talker, that’s for sure. Mr Singh was my lawyer, and to all intents and purposes a good one. He’d got me, and Steve, out of many a scrape over the years. Only problem is, he talks shit! You never know what he’s getting at.

  ‘What do you mean, Mr Singh? Why’s he a cunt? Who have we got?’ I was flapping a bit now, man.

  Mr Singh looked me directly in the eye and came straight out with it.

  ‘You’re a Catholic, right Gaz?’

  ‘Yeah man, what’s that gotta do wit’ price o’ prawns?’

  ‘Say a Hail Mary or something.’

  I was confused, and my arse was twitching. ‘I don’t get it, Mr Singh. I’m not wi’ ya. What you on about, man?’

  ‘We’ve got The Wombat, Gaz…’ Then, somewhat disconcertingly, he placed his face in his hands. He peered up at me through his fingers and said, ‘But don’t worry, Gaz, the greatest defence lawyer in the land is on the case.’

  ‘Yeah? What time does he get here?’ I couldn’t resist it.

  He was of course referring to Judge Batty when he said we had “The Wombat”, Judge Womack Batty. Although he was short-legged, hairy and muscular, much akin to the Australian marsupial of the same name, his nickname was not attributed to that, just a composite of his first and last names. He did, however, have other nicknames: Batshit, Batty Man, Batman or just plain old Batty! But The Wombat was the most used. He was crazy, man, a kind of anti-judge who always did things arse ways round – you couldn’t really get a handle on which way he was gonna turn. He once sentenced a child rapist to probation, yet the following week gave a girl a month in jail for contempt of court because she wouldn’t testify against her abusive boyfriend. The man was nuts. Ridiculous. He was the judge that Steve got and had given him eight years, when we all, including Mr Singh, were expecting him to get five. Fuck knows how it would go with me. Mad bastard could smile and give me community service picking up shit in the park, or he could give me a ten stretch, man, banged up with Mister Big on B-Wing!

  Oh well, nowt I can do about it now, I’m going in soon.

  As we waited
for my turn to go into court, Mr Singh decided to boost my confidence.

  ‘I’ve just come out of Court Six, Gaz, and Judge Batty was presiding. He’s fucking pissed off today, I can tell you. Some cunt in there started calling him a nonce and everything when he got sentenced. He is not happy. At all. He’s fucking fuming.’

  ‘Aw cheers, Mr Singh. Thanks for that. I feel a lot better now.’

  ‘I’m just saying, Gaz, prepare for the worst.’ At that he just looked down and started shuffling his papers.

  When it was eventually my turn to go in I tried to second guess the Wombat’s demeanour, but he was difficult to read, just staring ahead, not at me, not at the lawyers, just ahead.

  To be fair to Mr Singh, he put up a really cracking defence for me. Although I’d pleaded guilty to ABH, Actual Bodily Harm, he conveyed the truth, that I was in fact afraid for my own well-being in Asia that night. That I’d anticipated getting a good beating, so I reacted instinctively and lashed out. Pre self-defence. Retaliate first. Fight or flight. It was a them or me sort of thing.

  Well done, Mr Singh.

  The Wombat, however, was having none of it, man.

  He stopped staring into nowhere and turned his beady eyes right at me.

  ‘Will the defendant please stand…’ I did and looked at him straight on.

  ‘Let me be clear…’ he bellowed, ‘I am in no mood today for the likes of you, young man, and what’s more I am in no mood for being taken for a ride, neither by yourself or by Mr So-Called Singh.’

  I was twitching again, but had a little silent chuckle to myself over the Mr So-Called Singh comment. I had no clue what he meant by it.

  Mr Singh looked sheepish and bowed his head like a naughty schoolboy. Aw shit, this isn’t gonna be good, this batty cunt’s gonna give me five years, man.

  He continued, as they do, just to prolong the suspense.

  ‘In fact, young man, in all my years as a circuit judge, I have never heard so many lies in one of my courtrooms.’

  He was scaring me now, he had white shit coming out the corner of his mouth. He’s a fruitcake, man, he’s gonna give me a ten stretch. I can sense it.

  ‘Quite frankly, I find your story quite preposterous.’ He raised his voice, ‘PREPOSTEROUS, I say. You deliberately smashed a heavy beer bottle across another human being’s head, inflicting terrible, life-changing injuries. THIS, I cannot let go unpunished. In fact, you have afforded me no option here today, and let me tell you, before I heard your lies I had considered leniency, but no not now. There is no alternative to a custodial sentence for liars such as you. Liars go to jail. I hereby sentence you to…’ He paused, on purpose, as they do, for what seemed like eighteen long minutes, and then, ‘Twelve…’ Fuck, another long pause. This cunt’s got liar issues and he’s gonna give me twelve years. ‘…months in prison. Take him down.’

  Fuck me! Twelve months? I thought he was gonna throw away the bastarding key, the way he was ranting and raving. Twelve months? That means I’ll only do six. Result, man.

  Mr So-Called Singh had been giving me all sorts of shitty scenarios, but not the one where I only serve six months. I love Mr Singh. Just five minutes ago this batshit crazy Judge Wombat was creating as though I was the Son of Satan. Made me think I was gonna get lifed off!

  Result! Result! Result!

  Not exactly the smell of roses that I’d become accustomed to over the years.

  But it was pretty fuckin’ close.

  Chapter Eleven

  -

  Joe Cocaine

  No One Is Innocent–

  The Sex Pistols and Ronnie Biggs

  (Paul Cook, Steve Jones, R Biggs)

  22nd August 1998 – The Next Day

  Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the famed Russian author of Crime and Punishment, reckoned that you could tell the state of the society you lived in by entering into its prisons. He also said that people tended to get carried away with their little selves and make mistakes, but that men must have indulgences, so therefore those mistakes were merely evidence of over enthusiasm.

  Bless him.

  I’d just spent my first night behind bars. They took me straight to Leeds jail. The Big House. A nasty looking, imposing, stone Victorian monstrosity, if ever you saw one. Just like you see on the films and telly, rows and rows of cells, and landings with suicide nets between them.

  To be fair, my first night had gone without incident – booked in, had some tea, went to bed. No biggy. The main problem with this gaff was that I was locked up twenty-three hours a day. I was only due to be there a couple of weeks till I got shipped out. Boredom soon sets in, man, and I never get bored. I have a saying that only boring people get bored, but fuck that, man, I was bored in there.

  You could use the gym for an hour on a morning if you wanted, so I thought I’d give that a go to relieve some snail-pace time.

  I soon changed my mind when I got there and saw that Hercules was the gym orderly. I knew Hercules from outside, he was well known. He was big and Greek and muscly, with a neck bigger than my chest. He’d remind you of Arnold Schwarzenegger to look at, but meaner. He was also a persistent violent rapist. Of women and men! He was well known on the inside for having some sort of deal with the screws, whereby they brought the more vulnerable young men to his pad and then he did whatever the Hell it was he did to the poor cunts once he got them in his cell. His favourite phrase to the screws, whilst chucking the poor, destroyed young ’un from his cell, was, ‘Pass me another, this one’s ripped!’ Not a nice fella. To say the least.

  I walked into the gym and he was lifting weights and sweating and grunting and then he copped me. ‘Hey, Gazzy boy. C’mere, man. What you doing here?’

  ‘I just got here, Herc man, thought I’d give gym a try, y’know build me sen up a bit.’

  He licked his lips. ‘I’ll look after you, Gaz. I’ll build you up. Mmmm yes.’

  Fucking hell, man, I don’t want this cunt “looking after me”. It’d just end in ruptures and torn flesh. In places you don’t want ruptures and torn flesh!

  ‘I’m just having a look today, pal…’ I twitchingly answered, ‘but I’ll be back down tomorrow, Hercules man.’

  At that, I did an about turn and hotfooted it out of there. I never went back either. In fact, I never set foot in any gym ever again, anywhere, inside the nick or outside. Ever. Just in case.

  I like being slim anyway. And unraped.

  My time in Leeds jail was uneventful. I was only there three weeks and all I’d done was eat, read, walked round an exercise yard full of cunts who thought they were arch criminals, and listened to shit from the five different smack head pad mates I got during that time.

  Sea View Camp, however, was a different kettle of bollocks altogether. That was the name of the prison I got shipped out to. It was miles from Leeds, down on the Norfolk coast, man, but I didn’t want any visitors so I didn’t care. Visitors just upset you, man. They’ll still be there when you get out, so why cause yourself heartache?

  The Camp, as it was known, was a Category D prison, an open prison, minimum security for low-risk offenders, short-term prisoners and guys coming to the end of really long sentences, lifers and shit.

  You can’t fault this place, man, it’s not even like a nick. It’s a series of cabins for the inmates to stay in, a former army base. Just two guys to each room, no overcrowding, no locks on the pad doors, windows without bars, curtains, no toilet in the room, no fences, no walls, just a little two-foot hedgerow, and you could see the sea at the bottom of the sports pitch. The no fences thing was all done on trust – they trust you not to try to abscond and you trust them for trusting you. This, of course, didn’t stop guys from fucking off on a weekend coz they thought their wife or bird was gonna go to a pub or summat. Or look at another man. Or worse. Pointless really. They’d always get caught and then get put back in a top security place. No C
at D ever again. I couldn’t weigh it up. The shit they get into over women.

  After your job, you had to either work or be in education, no skiving like in Leeds, but you had the run of the place, you could go from pad to pad chatting to your pals, play pool, watch telly, play darts, even though the darts were Velcro, for obvious reasons, play cards, phone your mam, walk round the grounds and take in the sea air, whatever. It was cush, man. I could see why some people love prison.

  Three Months Later – November 1998

  When I first got here, I thought I was gonna be like a fish out of water, but not so, I settled in really well. Too well for my liking, I quite enjoyed it, man! Not to the point where I wanted to stay for good, or ever come back for that matter, nah, fuck that shit, but I did stay positive, and certainly made the most of it.

  I’d spent my first week in The Camp working on “The Cleaners”. This is just as it sounds, cleaning. Cleaning corridors, cleaning communal areas, cleaning bogs, cleaning walls, just fucking cleaning, man. It was horrible. Not because it was cleaning, no man, that didn’t bother me; after all, shit needs to be clean, doesn’t it? No, man, it was the boredom of it. You only worked for two hours on The Cleaners, two hours on a morning, and then the rest of the day to do whatever you wanted.

  A lot of the guys loved it, saw it as a cushy number, lazy cunts. Not me, man, all it did was drag out your time. You’d start at 9am after your breakfast and work till 11am. Then what? Lie on your bed looking at the clock and the calendar? Read? Only so much reading you can do. Wank yourself stupid? Well, that’s not bad until some cunt comes wandering into your pad to borrow some bog roll or summat and you’re on the vinegar stroke, chatting porno shit to yourself! Got embarrassing after a while. I even tried a “stranglewank” once, you know, the auto-erotic asphyxiation shit that rock stars and politicians always die of. With a tangerine in their mouth. Didn’t like that shit, man, it was scary. Thought I was gonna die myself. Imagine my mother hearing that bollocks! That I’d died hanging from a cell door with my dick in my hand and a fucking little orange in my mouth!