Fate's Asylum for Young Offenders - A short story about lost love

Fate’s Asylum for young offenders.

Ok we all think we’re in love when we’re 17 years old don’t we? The world is round the grass is green and love is yes or no. So simple! Seventeen is a strange age; you want to consider yourself all grown up but the innocence of your school days doesn’t want to leave. You still live at home and your worries are scratches compared to what proper grown ups have to contend with. There are no serious bills to pay no mortgage round your neck no real responsibilities and life is just one big playground.

Of course life likes to misbehave and throw some cruelty your way just to break up the prolonged happiness of youth. Some evil bastard is always out there sticking a knife into your fate and sending it off course. One minute you’re in love in a way you’ve never felt before (being only 17 there were many repeat performances later on) and the next you’re wandering around lost in the smoke and fog of misfortune and bad timing.

Allow me to explain my experience of (what I thought was) love being ripped from my hands by the cruel hand of fate.

Growing up in a working class area of what many perceive to be the middle class City of Oxford, (yeah I know a fountain of knowledge etc etc we working class never get tired of that one) is not the same as turning up to study at Oxford University, staying for three years and gliding into the world of finance, corporatism or government and earning more money per year (for doing not much) than most workers could earn in their lifetime. I have long since flipped the chip off my shoulder by the way. Oxford is a divided city between students (gown) and the others (town) this will never change. It’s probably the politest civil war on record. The resentment is always there and has been since the 12th century, you see we worker bees know how to bear a grudge.

Anyway, when you’re young there is little logic to any argument and absolutely no research undertaken. Every judgement is made on what has been passed down and what you see in front of you. If you’re unemployed and four perfectly chiselled dinner jacket wearing Aryan athletes with perfect English accents wander past hanging on to several bottles of champagne it is going to piss you off. I know, no logic, just envy based on years of social division.

There is a more serious element to this. The divisive nature of a society containing lots of very privileged privately educated (some of them openly narcissistic) students and a high number of unskilled workers is permanent. Sometimes the resentment goes beyond a few drunken insults and results in more physical altercations.

This is where I come in…….

I shall call the beautiful girl Melissa which is a fair distance from her real name. I met Melissa in a disco at a local village some 10 miles from Oxford. This particular village disco was very popular with a few of us testosterone driven Oxfordians because the rumour (an eventual truth) was that there were far more girls than boys in attendance. So armed with those statistics me and a friend I worked with made a beeline for the harem. The disco was mobbed, or more importantly it was mobbed with large swathes of girls (aka heaven to hormonal boys screaming their way out of puberty). We could hardly breathe at the thought of such an advantage. Of course every silver lining has a cloud and in this case it was how well you played the game of ‘get the girl before the boys from the surrounding villages got you for getting the girl that they wanted’. It was like playing chess in a trench during a bombing raid.

I first noticed Melissa because she had really long hair which flapped through the silhouetted strobe lights like a horse’s tail. She was dancing with a small group of other girls and found myself intermittently staring at her. My friend noticed my fixation and dared me to ‘chat’ her up (seduce was a big word designed for proper grown up men who were sophisticated and smoked). I took the bait and moved a bit closer to where Melissa was slowly winding down in time to the end of the record. I waited for the music to stop before ‘accidentally’ manoeuvring closer to her.

I drank another beer to give me courage and then made an excuse to start up a conversation. It would have been something inane like ‘where are you from’ but isn’t that part of the teenage manifesto anyway? After about 10 minutes of idle chat I asked Melissa out on a date. She smiled, kissed me on the cheek, wrote her number on a bit of paper and handed it to me and said ‘call me when you’re sober’ as she rejoined her friends. The rest of the night was a dizzy mix of celebration with a touch of sympathy for my friend who hadn’t managed to get a similar reaction from the girl he fancied. We also had to run the gauntlet of the envious locals not happy with strangers coming into town and stealing their wimmin.

It took me most of Sunday to get over my hangover and when I finally got out of bed and got dressed I found the scrunched up bit of paper with Melissa’s number on it. I plucked up the now sober courage and gave her a call. The conversation was stilted but pleasant enough and we agreed to meet the following Saturday in Town. I waited at the bus station for her arrival and she stepped off the bus and my first thoughts were ‘shit, she’s way too good for me’. I based this assumption on society and how it shapes us for a shallow first deep after experience with other people. I just made that up to sound intelligent but there is a sentiment in there crawling out.

We wandered around the shops, went for coffee and we talked for hours. I was hooked. I’d never felt like this before and the more we spoke the more I was hypnotised. Melissa had beautiful blue eyes gorgeous flowing black hair a fantastic smile and warmth that could melt the arctic. Everything she did was art, the way she lifted her spoon to stir her coffee how she would tuck her hair behind her ears I could see or hear nothing except Melissa. I was so hypnotised by her absolute beauty I could’ve stamped on my principles and bought a Cliff Richard record.

As the early evening came in far too early Melissa had to go as she had a friend’s birthday party to attend. I walked her to her bus stop (holding her hand and wishing I had a t shirt that had in big print ‘look, look, and she’s with me’!), she lived about five miles from the City. I stood there thinking of ways I could make her miss the bus but that’s quite difficult when the bus is about three feet from where I was clinging on to Melissa. We did that look in each others eyes thing where you just know that it had been a great day. We finally kissed and BANG! Sparks flew, fireworks set off, balloons went up, people were cheering and all of this was in my head. She got on the bus to head home I think I flew to mine.

Phone calls were in abundance and like most teenagers in love the parents pick up the phone bill. We met up at every opportunity and giggled our way to everywhere. Every weekend we would hook up and head for the parks, shops or a bar if we could afford it. We didn’t have much money and neither of us had a car but we didn’t care we were in love. One weekend we arranged to meet some mutual friends at a disco out in the sticks. The plan was for me to get to her house, meet her folks and then he father would give us a lift. I remember walking towards Melissa’s house full of nerves and hoping to make a good impression.

We were only there for about 15 minutes when her father said it was time to go as he needed to get back. The father hadn’t really spoken to me much and I sensed he wasn’t a fan. He did briefly ask what my line of work was and I told him I was a builder (sounds better than saying ‘I’m a labourer’) which clearly didn’t impress. Now when you’re 17 and not that high on confidence it’s so easy to misread the signs and add more weight on to your self esteem. I tried to forget Melissa’s father’s attitude that day but it did eat away at me and probably spoiled the evening.

Despite her father’s snobbery (well I had made my mind up being an ill informed teenager) things were still moving along smoothly I was still hopelessly in love with Melissa and she felt the same about me. Several weeks into our lovefest Melissa told me she was going away on holiday with her parents. I pined and she promised to send at least three postcards. I went to work and mourned my loss and made sure that the first weekend without Melissa would be spent dong something social to try and take my mind off her absence. I arranged to hang out with some friends and head into town on a Friday night for a few drinks. A couple of these friends were a bit wild but with big hearts. Not earning much money meant that you had to drink wisely (in economic not quantative terms!) and look for the cheapest bar. Enter the college Friday night bash!

Oxford University is not one college it’s about 28 colleges all with separate names and buildings. If you can con your way into a college disco you got subsidised beer, odd looks from the undergraduates but a good night out. So that’s what we did, about eight of us arrived and proceeded to enjoy the evening. As I said earlier, a mix of wealthy intellectuals (allegedly) and working class boys usually spells trouble, especially when alcohol has been consumed. I was standing on the stairs leading down into the cellar bar of this particular college.

I was musing on the odd contradictory feel of the structure of the cellar it given the age of the building and the catacomb structure that probably nursed tales of heresy within its thick stone walls and the bizarre sight of strobe lights and disco music blasting its way around the nooks where priests once hid. My moment of intellect was snapped awake when I heard the sound of beer glasses being thrown followed by the sight of punches being exchanged. I was witnessing general mayhem (in my head I actually imagined general mayhem was a military leader). The noise was suddenly more concentrated. The DJ had turned the music off and now it was screaming girls and shouting swearing men/boys that filled the room. Despite the chaos I managed to fill my head with the thought of a medieval battle scene (to compliment the dungeon where the brawl was occurring) where people were throwing whole hogs at each other in between quaffing goblets of wine.

I didn’t want to get involved in the fracas but I could see a couple of my friends not doing very well so I thought I’d try and pull them out of the fire. I managed to avoid the random fists as I weaved my way through the Wild West saloon and grabbed the arms of my two friends and pulled them towards the exit. As I was doing this I received two punches on the side of my head by someone who was probably aiming for someone else. I instinctively threw a couple of punches back in his direction (noticing his scruffy velvet jacket and his unkempt beard and he looked much older than a student should look) before carrying on with my ‘rescue’. By the time all three of us got outside the college the police had arrived in numbers and they rounded up all of us and threw us into the back of a police van. Did I mention that not a single undergraduate was collared? Just before a policeman grabbed me a student with a fat lip (this apparently was the most serious injury of the wounded) pointed me out and said to another policeman ‘that’s the guy who hit me’. This student had no beard or velvet jacket and was clean shaven and dressed like an American preppy.

A night in a police cell isn’t so bad and as it was about 2 in the morning you didn’t have long to wait for your release. I was dumbstruck when the desk sergeant issued me with a charge of assault as he showed me the front door. My long walk home on a cold morning seemed to take forever. I was crushed I thought of the consequences of several minutes of madness and how this was going to ruin everything. I consoled myself with the long shot of knowing that the guy who claimed that I was the assailant was lying and maybe he’ll realise this before the court case and the charge would be dropped.

Eventually the big day arrived and the case went to court. I accepted that I hit someone and I remember what that person looked like. This person didn’t appear in court but two people (clean shaven preppy and another guy I’d never seen before) did and both picked me out as their attacker. As ridiculously unbelievable as it was I knew that it didn’t matter who I hit that night or that it was a retaliatory act, the judge in session (who was renowned amongst the working classes for incarcerating anyone but the students) had made his mind up. Remarkably from seven guys held in the cells that fateful night I was the only one charged with an offence and this was based on the testimonies of two people I never knew and certainly didn’t attack. I was convinced that I was going to make legal history or at least get an entry under the ‘Gross Injustice’ (just made that up) section of the Guiness book of Records, by actually going to jail for not attacking two people I’d never seen before. I tried to make myself laugh by imagining what the judge would say when summing up this comedic act.

(Judge - looking out over the bridge of thick black framed glasses whilst his forehead slowly disappears under the his wig);

‘I have listened carefully to the evidence placed before me and I have taken accounts of both fact and fiction. The events of that evening were instigated by a group of peasants from filthy homes who were hell bent on destroying the Evelyn Waugh existence of the finest young minds in this country. The consequence of such actions can only mean one thing and that is incarceration for your crime. Therefore it is clear that you are guilty of attacking two completely lovely and innocent men without reason and whilst it is also clear that these are two people you have never physically touched and whom you have never met you are still guilty’

I was still smiling to myself when I noticed the judge was looking at me, maybe the bastard saw me smirking? Shit! I just keep digging holes! The case was adjourned for a couple of weeks for reports and other bullshit so I had a bit longer to stew. And the one thing that was chewing my life into gristle was that I had not told Melissa about the fight or my impending court case.

I had spent three months deliberately avoiding friends who might let slip my misfortune and making excuses why we shouldn’t go into Town at weekends. Melissa was probably curious but seemed to believe my reasons, which of course compiled my fear and guilt. I didn’t want to lose her and I didn’t want her to carry my shame. I last saw here on a Sunday afternoon the day before my verdict. We strolled along the river holding hands and swapping kisses. Melissa had that look of suspicion as if she knew something wasn’t quite right but she didn’t say anything. As she got on her bus I put my arms around her and muttered something about missing her before walking away feeling completely empty.

I was wracked with guilt and appalled at the idea of hurting this beautiful gentle warm girl that I knew I had to tell her the truth. Being the big brave boy I was I did this in writing. My letter was brief and probably badly composed but the detail and the apology was honest. I told her that there was a` chance that I might be locked up for a crime I didn’t commit but that’s just the way it goes sometimes (makes me sound far more mature than I was, I was secretly shitting myself). I told her that I loved her but said it was best that we parted company. I felt I was doing the right thing freeing her from the bad publicity I would get. I took the letter into her office which was a few minutes walk from the Courthouse. I timed it so that I could drop the letter off at reception and get to court in time to be persecuted.

Amazingly on the final day, and after several fabricated testimonies and much hand squeezing, chest tightening exercises from me, the judge, for once, came to his senses. He clearly realised that there had to be more to the story considering the number of people involved in the fracas that night so instead of locking me up once a guilty verdict was expectedly announced (based on the bullshit testimonies) he imposed what was apparently a record fine that I would have to pay in small instalments over 50 years (well ok 12 months), assuming I had a job of course. To say I was pissed off at the injustice was putting it mildly.

What made it worse was that this court case made the front page of the local newspaper which meant that my Mother and Melissa’s parents probably read it. I clutched on to a small crumb of comfort in that I was glad that I freed Melissa’s from sharing my shame before the verdict and the publicity. After the case I decided to leave town for awhile. I took a job on the coast and kept a pretty low profile. I couldn’t stop thinking about Melissa but I knew the damage had been done. I rarely phoned my mother and I kept Melissa out of the conversation and would interrupt my mother if