A Crown of Thorns

A Crown of Thorns

At the back of the playing fields, down there at the foot of the embankment – that’s where it happened. The hum of the pylon and the roar of the M5 bring it back to me and I shudder. I remember the speckles of my blood in the snow. Where I watched the Starlings in the cold of the year, as they spangled the sky and my sorrows turned into something else.

Something intangible and haunting, like a spectral dance of grey, the pain cutting into me like sharp crystals before hollowing me, to leave me broken and bereft. I still feel that numbness, the place that tears could no longer satisfy. Part of me died there; words cannot ever describe that feeling. All futile, all in vain…………like chasing the wind.

January – 1988

i) The Spirit of Adolescence

At the end of the third year (or “year nine” as they call it these days) Delware’s mischief turned even more malevolent. Still boys, not men, but stuck in the kind of netherworld between the two. No longer did our play encompass woods, dens and canals, but also alcohol, the strange exciting world of porno mags that we’d find stashed in alleys - and increasingly inventive and ruthless psychological attacks on each other. Delware was the epitome of an enfant terrible.

We were the apex predators of the Oakdale school year and were feared not for our size or physical prowess but for being both clever and nasty. Already the sign of Delware’s relentless bullying was showing its toll on me.

Sometimes, I’d disappear during the lunch hour – on lonely walks down the embankment to the chippie, or if things were that bad, hiding in the toilets. Sometimes I’d self-harm, smashing my head on the taps – it seemed to work. I’d see blood on my hands and feel a kind of euphoria mixed with pain. This whole new level kind of escapism was to become my modus operandi.

In later years to escape my angst I’d spend ages finding a juicy vein, watch with a fascination as the dropper filled with claret before banging the life giving, life taking elixir home.

I was the stooge of the crew most of the time, the weakest and most vulnerable. Out of fear I’d comply with Delware’s schemes. My powerful imagination and good memory were good for finding out what made people grimace – most useful for Delware’s campaigns.

The Summer Campaign of ‘88

ii) Case White

Collingham was going through his own mini-crisis that summer. He was 14, six foot two and like a broomstick. Lanky, spotty and greasy, he was definitely in the prime of his ugly duckling phase.

The school summer holidays arrived and Delware and the rest of us set our agenda. Several of us were in a rock band. It was my one strong card at the time, the fact I had become reasonably accomplished on guitar. Collingham followed suit but he had problems: bad tone and lame technique – but after all it takes time to learn these things. (Twelve years later he was busting out Django Reinheart at Millennium New Year at Madison Gardens, NYC.)

On the last day of the school year; we sat around and most of us were ecstatic – the long summer days ahead of us dawned and with them freedom from crap like lessons, homework and all routine.

For all his evil Delware was a good organiser and trips to Alton Tower’s , tickets to see Metallica at the NEC and our regular visits into Birmingham (we told our parents we were going to Halesowen or West Bromwich, not the big city……) were all planned. During our discussions, Collingham disappeared for twenty minutes and it was then that Delware unveiled the coup against our gangly friend.

“Yeah, that beanpole freak………..he’s got it coming. His face is as pitted as the moons of Jupiter. But thing is we keep it a secret. Do not let him know, especially you – pussy,” he pointed, poking me hard in the ribs.

His scheme was outlined. He called it ‘Case White’. None of us was to make contact with Collingham. If he phoned us we’d all say the same thing, “Sorry, got to go (blah blah blah),” then finish tersely with something about having to put on ‘Spot the Differnce’ the latest in a bespoke brand of acne cream. Delware detailed other measures aimed at disconcerting him: - anonymous phone calls were to be made to his parents’ house in the dark of the night, pizzas and taxis to be called to his home at all hours.

Last of all and inventively cruelly a package, delivered discretely, but partly opened and spilling out , would be dropped into his porch.

The package was signed “Love from your ‘friend’ – thank you for that beautiful time – at the Gents in Warley Woods. Same place - cubicle 3A - same time, if you please– look forward to it. The note finished , “Love and caresses - Uncle Pete.”’ The packet conatined chopped-up pictures from ‘Vulcan’ magazine, some particularly hideous gay porn mag Delware had cherrypicked from his massive collection.

We all signed up to this campaign of hate. Immediately I felt uneasy about it all - I liked Collingham and actually he was more of a friend to me than the others were. But he had composed that song about me – ‘The Sailor Song’ – and I wanted revenge. Most of all I was glad Delware was taking the focus off me and putting it on someone else.

Collingham came back and Delware became matey again. Talking to him about all the fun we were all going to have over the summer.

‘Case White’ went exactly to plan. Yeah, it hurt Collingham. He was lonely and outcast, confused, scared. And yet something else happened: that summer he grew up a bit, he made other friends and got fuckin’ good on that gee-tar.

Casper, Webber and I began to have serious misapprehensions about Delware’s behaviour, but we were still under his diabolic spell, for now.

iii) Case Blue

‘Case Blue’ was like ‘Case White’ (Delware took the names from Hitler’s campaigns, as described in Shirer’s “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”, a version of which, with its harrowing “New Order” chapter bowdlerised, had been used in our history lessons.) Delware was obsessed with the Nazis as well as the occult and devil worship.

If his ‘Case Blue’ was written down, its manifesto would have read something like this: “bully systematically both physically and mentally for maximum effect; instil fear, terror and ultimate breakdown in victim.”

The main victim in question was I. The campaign was to begin in September and not cease until that day down the embankment. Delware had been disconcerted that his crusade against Collingham had yielded so few results. So this time he needed a captive victim whose tears and pain he could witness for himself.

iv) Animalarianism

In the first few days, Delware’s campaign was to find another, if temporary victim - Casper, whose parents had taken to the ‘Good Life’ (remember the 70s sitcom?) way of life. Anyway, they had chickens, a multitude of root vegetables, from King Edwards to marrows – but most crankily, a semi-deformed pet goat.

The goat was called Cherryanne and had become the butt of many of our schoolboy jokes. One afternoon, Casper was sent home from lessons. We found out later that this was because he was expected to go and help his mum with the delivery of Cherryanne’s kid.

This caused uproar among the rest of us. Was Casper there at the birth, like any expectant father because he was in fact the siring ram? It was obvious to us that he had conjugal relations with the poor beast – ramming and rodgering it as a vent for his pent-up sexual frustrations.
Delware coined a new noun for this kind of behaviour – Casper he said was a rampant ‘Animalarian’, a schoolboy term for bestiality with all its most depraved ramifications.

Casper was very upset and the jokes went on for weeks – up until he hit Delware so hard that from then on it all became unmentionable. The result of this was that over the next few months the action was to be entirely directed at me.

The ‘Discovery’ of The Rachel Basterfield Diaries

In the back of our cheap, English state-issue blue jotter pads (or ‘rough’ books as we then called them) all kinds of hate and piss-taking occurred. There were graphic pictures of Casper fornicating with his goat, and insightful and hurtful remarks about each others’ parents.

One day Casper got wind of the “Cherryanne love-nest” scenario I’d been jotting and seized the offending book from me. This was a mistake. Included at the back of the jotter was a sad poem describing my eternal and unrequited love for a girl called Rachel Basterfield.

When this was exposed there was general hilarity and threats to expose me there and then to the unfortunate girl. In truth I could have imagined nothing worse – this was so humiliating, and left me undefended – a quick route for a checkmate on my psyche from Delware..

v) The Crown of Thorns

When the Rachel Basterfield disclosures became ‘public’ the torment I was to undergo started quickly. The more distress I was in, the more Delware would try to increase it, throwing in other things, my physical appearance and my insecurities about my parent’s perceived eccentricity.

I was spending more afternoons away from the school. I’d borrowed a descant recorder from my sister and down near the embankment would pipe out melancholic tunes, just for escapism and to keep the demons from my mind. I felt like a worthless wretch.

But I couldn’t hide forever and with my G.C.S.E’s dawning I couldn’t afford to disengage from school completely. My absence actually enraged Delware and if I was around, his spite and cruelty had become fiercer than ever.

There had always been a group of friendless ‘freaks’ as Delware would describe them. Many were from the remedial classes, still chugging around the playground like trains playing six- year-olds’ games by themselves. Sometimes they were outcast for being exceptionally clever. Clever and studiousness in our school was seen as weakness and ultimate oddity.

Now I was becoming one of those untouchables, a crazy - a freak – a piece of human shit. I battered my head against the taps almost daily now and began to pray to someone, or something that things would change.
Winter ‘89

The January of 1989 was one of the harshest on record. The school had to be shut on many days because of pipes freezing and the central heating system collapsing. As fourth-years getting ready for exams, we were exempt from this. The empty school buildings had an eerie feel, almost post-apocalyptic; its huge monolithic structures stood idle, unlit and lying on a sheet of snow and ice that stretched out of sight.

I didn’t fancy freezing and doing my lonesome pied-piper trick over the vast sprawls of fields towards the M5. During break time (still called playtime in those days) I could sense something was wrong. The whispering and sneering side glances should have been enough of a caution for me to realise Delware had something planned for me that afternoon.

Lunchtime came but the snow had closed the school’s kitchens. It was home dinners or, for Delware’s little gang, a trip down the ‘Chippy’ at Hurst Green. I tried to sneak off, but Casper and Delware grabbed me.

“Where do you think you’re going? Deserting your friends like that? We’ve been a bit worried about you, disappearing all the time – what are you up to? Got a gay lover Sailor Boy?”

I ignored them as we all made our way down the embankment. The roar and rumble of the M5 was all you could hear down there. Then Delware sprung his coup de grace – but not one of mercy.

Casper and Collingham grabbed me and then hustled me to the railing separating the school grounds from the motorway. Delware then pulled out a rope.

“Yep. Loser…….we’re going to tie you up. Thing is you never go to French lessons anymore so no one will notice……..”

Swiftly, deftly the three boys tied me up. A crack to the ribs here and there, a fist, a stick. Something must have caught me good and proper –

“Stop now,” intervened Weber, “look, can’t you see – blood’s pissing from his mouth…….”

It was true. Down below me in the snow, my blood drops were making neat concentric circles, and I was too shocked to cry. They tied me good and proper; I was railed to the M5 partition.
Delware started moving about – grooving like at a disco.

“And now……..Ben. Remember your heresies and your parent’s religion. No, I don’t think you’ve renounced it yet.”

Collingham looked worried – he’d seen something in Delware’s hand.

In it was a twisted mass of brambles and thorns that could have been from a young rosebush. He wrought it round and round in his hands, forming it into a circle – a circle big enough to fit on my head.

“No,” screamed Weber. “You can’t”

“Watch me, like his saviour…….ahem, the fool Christ…….he shall wear a crown. A crown fit for a King. King of the freaks………a crown of thorns!!!” He then shouted to Casper, “Have you filled that can with piss yet? Good. We’ll do that last…….”

I struggled at first but was met with heavy blows. It was Delware and he alone who put the crown on my head. He pressed it in quite gently, but with enough force for more specks of blood to bespatter my white school shirt. I can’t really remember it – mind refuses………..

The final act for now was for the can of Casper’s piss to be balanced on my head, betwixt my ‘crown of thorns. ’Delware threw stones at it. The last bit was ill thought-out and the can simply fell, spilling most of its lukewarm contents on the ground. Still, there was enough stale urine left to tip over me – the degradation was complete.

Delware summoned the others. “No pity……..at least till 4pm. Should give him a good few hours to stew. Oh – and then we’ve got another surprise for him….”

With that they went, leaving me with my head bleeding and my lip bust. I watched the starlings circle in the winter sky; heard the pulse of the pylon rise above the din of the M5. I was destroyed………I clenched myself coldly in the worst of the year.

I was as numb and delicate as the icicles on the young trees – only my own blood warming me as it dripped down into the snow. I just waited; sobbing seems no good when no one can hear you, but I sobbed all the same.

Hours passed, but I lost the moment of time.
When they came back most of them were shamefaced. Delware was grinning – “I’ve brought someone along to see you – you pathetic excuse for a wretch.”

Somehow he’d persuaded Rachel to come along. To come and mock, Delware pissed on me and she laughed. Webber eventually, said – enough is enough. He and Collingham untied me – we’ll walk you home. Fuck Delware – he’s gone to far. I couldn’t speak – I picked up my bag and walked further into the woods alone.

I though about climbing over the fence and dashing myself into the rushing traffic of the M5. But something stopped me.

I sat down, cleaned myself up and then took the recorder out of my bag. I had forgotten most of what to play. Pathetically, I blew out a tune, the only one I could remember – it was ‘Jesus’ Hands are Kind Hands.” - before wiping the sticky blood off the battered instrument.

Maybe I prayed, but at some point I realised that during my ordeal, finally and completely that God – well he’d never been there after all, had he?
- “Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani?” – Jesus’s last worldly words………….and how apt. So human……….But then He never claimed to be the Son of God, did He? – He was always the Son of Man.

Post Script

As 1989 turned into 1990 and a new decade, things began to change for all of us. Casper, Collingham, and Webber – we all got the GCSE bug and although 4.8 of our 5 years at Secondary school had been wasted, in the last hours we were fast becoming young men.

We had no more time for Delware with his war games, animal-torturing pranks and general evil. Suddenly I realised I’d grown three inches taller than him, and it was he that was the inferior and freak.

Suddenly he began to exhibit a different sort of bizarre behaviour – isolation and lack of social skills. He was dropped from the top English and Maths sets and was fast becoming a nobody.

The reasons for this eventually became clear – he was called out of lessons one grey Tuesday afternoon and was left literally mute. It transpired his mother had contracted a fast, unrelentingly vicious cancer. She was gone in weeks.

Here now was real pathos, real sadness, real disenfranchisement. We never got to be on speaking terms (since the crown of thorns incident) – but to be honest I forgive him – some wouldn’t.

Maybe I can understand what he went through with his Mum’s savage cancer and her dying so suddenly. He may have been the autocrat of the schoolyard for a brief while but in life you can never tell how things are going to work out for you, can you?

If I can never forget, I can at least offer absolution. I still here that sad, soprano tune being eked out by a boy on a broken recorder , who had seemed to have lost it all.

"Jesus’ hands were kind hands,
Doing good for all.
Healing pain and sickness,
Blessing children small."