Chapter Four
Mad Max and Bruce
Bruce is a popular name with students. Bruce Lee, that stalwart of teenage fantasy died a sticky death years ago, though many believe him alive and kicking, remains the most talked about. Max, Dean and Sunil, hero worship Him. In the previous year, another wild fan, Chandra, emulated this hero of the silver screen by repeating, ad nauseam, the poetic refrain, “You’re dead tomorrow”, and “it’s war”. Neither of which hole in the heart, the exhausted after three minutes gym work and epileptic, Chandra, could sustain. However, such threats sound important to the frequently bashed about by others, however, exotic photos of karate kings must be marginally better than rank pornography. Though I suspect they serve the same purpose.
Next in line of student Bruces’ is the American version: Springsteen. This famous rock and roll star secretly skulks beneath the chubby skin of Dean, waiting, genie like, to be released. How can I tell his mum and dad their son’s fantasises about “sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll”, the holy triumvirate of the dispossessed without unleashing retribution at home?
I show the promised video, “Who do you think you’re looking at?”, filmed in the Kings Road, full of punks and assorted independent dressers, to the first years. Spiky tops, studded jackets, rainbow hair, flesh piercings in inappropriate places, and distressed black leather jackets. Inflammatory language about pubs barring them, preventing them gaining their alcoholic manhood, prohibiting them purchasing the very commodity they exist to trade for. The previous week we discussed asserting our personality and the means, and symbols, by which we do so. Punkish fashions and antics immediately raised the group’s hackles, clanking them off into wild comments.
“Look at them!”
“Ridiculous!”
“Shouldn’t be allowed!”
“Disgusting”, mumbles disgusted of Burnt Oak.
Paddy’s restless and fiddles with an antique typewriter at the rear of the room. Occasional dings of the return bell add comical interlude to a blank face strangely lost. As usual he ignores discussions though others argue animatedly. I pause the tape at various sections to ask questions, focussing on themes we’ve previously talked on.
“How old are you?”
“What have you done?”
“Who can know you better than yourself?”
“Think of what your experience has given you.”
“What would happen”, I ask, “if Paul came into college with spiky green hair, and a tasselled leather jacket?”
Shocked silence.
“I'd like to”, his voice chokes.
Dean giggles.
“Would Paul be a different person if he did?”
“I’d still talk to him”, blurts Dean.
Sunil appears unsure, dismissing the whole idea as weird.
“I’d like to be able to wear what I want”, asserts Chung.
“Why don’t you?”, I reply.
Dean laughs loudly to himself, but doesn’t share the joke.
“You try and tell my uncle. He doesn’t listen to me.”
“Come on”, I urge, “how do we assert ourselves? When should we be able to make choices and decisions for ourselves?”
“Well, I can’t buy my own clothes”, says Lee, “my mum buys them for me.”
“How would you like to dress?”
“I don’t know really.”
“Leather trousers!”, shouts Dean sartorially on the ball today.
“My mum makes my clothes”, adds Chung, “it’s cheaper that way.”
Sunil offers no comments on his desires.
Paul asserts he’d like to come to college wearing something different. He has a distinctive face - a strong expression and big blue eyes magnified through heavy spectacles. He has spina bifida and the top half of his body, powerfully developed, he’s the current arm wrestling champion, is in stark contrast to his lower parts. He’d like a studded jacket, though he’s unsure about green hair. Dean warms to our chat, laughing and giggling his way through the exercise. Moving from initial shock, horror hostility, “look at them,”, Dean, after seeing an attractive young woman in punk hair style, roars “she’s gorgeous!” He’s now laughing hysterically, working himself up in a way that doesn’t happen at home. Dean’s normally house bound with mum whilst dad, taking advantage of his job as driving instructor, has numerous affairs. Dean, I suspect, has become the stable man in his mum’s life. Linking arms until quite recently, unsure whether it’s love or Mrs. C’s imprisoning him through manic possession.
“I WANT TO DRESS LIKE BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN!”, shouts Dean, ear splittingly loud and clearly, unequivocally assertive. His fellow students are shocked by such a firm outburst. So am I. “What do you mean Dean? Go on tell us”.
“I want to dress like Bruce Springsteen. Jeans and a leather jacket.”
“Like a cowboy, pah!”, says Chung.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Have you any Springsteen records?”
“No I haven’t!”
“Well, why dress like him?”
Pressure and mounting questions increase Dean simply replies, “I just want to!”
Lee rises, shakes dust, wild escaped creature from Peckinpah set. Fair hair sticking up, blond tumbleweed rolling about his skull. Wire specs frame, a gait, caused by his bad feet, giving the impression he’s bum sore from too long in the saddle. To cap it all he’s long and very skinny, is the part. “Look at me”, he demands, “what do you think I should dress like?”
“Don’t know. What’s your opinion?”
“I think I’ll come into college with gel in my hair to make it stick up.”
Hurricane tumbleweed.
“Hope you do. We should try and be distinctive, make people take note of us. Shouldn’t we?”
“Mmmmm. I think so”, says Paul.
“Listen”, I say, “next week bring fashion magazines. Let’s think about how we can express ourselves through the way we dress.”
“Where do you get your clothes?”, Paddy asks me, breaking his lesson long silence.
“From the Oxfam shop in Highgate.”
They fall about laughing.
2
Time to resolve the Lee beating episode.
Max and his parents arrived sharp at the arranged time to meet the vice principal and myself. Opposite, in the cramped senior lecturer’s office, are Mr. and Mrs. Godlett. To my immediate left Max, head bowed and to be totally uncommunicative throughout the whole forty minutes. Vice principal to my right, and me with pen and notepad.
If looks killed I’d be stone cold, pierced to the quick by his tense father keeping his elsewhere anger inside his body. Mrs. Godlett, more relaxed, more resigned, ever so lost sitting fully in the chair, deferring to her husband. Max’s told students his father’s low opinion of me and my colleagues. This isn’t conducive to mature relations, nor in the reality of an institution, designed to encourage his son’s commitment to serious work. The parents’ nature is stacked against their child who’s expected to function in an institution they have no respect for. Nor to the people who work for it and represent its ethos. I don’t know why it was never the right place for Max, because his Bruce wants to kill and beat, not entertain.
I don’t like the feelings I’m having about possible outcomes. The Godlett’s don’t seem aware of the rules, don’t know how to play the game. They want to defend their son but aren’t listening, aren’t hearing what’s being said. They’ve taken no notice of what’s happened since their son enrolled last year. They’ve not objectively looked at Max nor recognised his problems. They’re cutting down his chances, lumber jacking his opportunities. Maybe he’s still a child to them, a big overgrown softy calling for his mum when the going gets rough. Where was his dad? Suspect he’s the tanning man, hide thrashing to correct offspring misdemeanours his own ghost memories couldn’t find the proper target for.
The vice principal is very good, calm, articulate and tough. It’s understood by staff college isn’t the right place for Max. He’s caused disruption, anger and fear to both students and staff. “We have six thousand students at this college”, the vice principal continues, “and I’ve not been to a meeting like this before. It’s not something we do lightly.”
Max, speak for yourself. A fate’s happening in your presence and you’re excluded from it.
“Where’s the proof of these allegations against my son?”
“I appoint staff for their professional integrity and experience.”
“What about other students abusing Max?”
Armed with every instance of his fighting meticulously written up together with records of his previous schooling it’s now my turn. “The student Max attacked last year has been on growth hormones for several years. This year Max attacked a student born with club feet, who’s had numerous operations and suffers from muscle wastage in his legs. Max’s far bigger and stronger, than both of them.”
“But this is the first time Max’s been involved in fighting”, said mum coming to his assistance.
“In his previous school they mentioned his fighting.”
“That’s right, there was one incident.”
“The report mentioned he was improving and not hitting people as much. It also mentioned Max’s size and voiced concern because of possible dangers.”
“Do you have medical facilities at college?”, mum asks.
And that was that. The vice principal offered college’s help to find a suitable course, even a work experience placement - but elsewhere. Such an anti-climax. I didn’t even feel pleased he’d left. Just a feeling of impotence. Max needs help, but who’s going to give it? I don’t follow the laid back notion of he’ll be all right, he’ll grow out of it. Smacks of complacency.
However, the week moves easier. The students don’t even ask about his whereabouts, apart from Chandra who issues dark threats of college being forced to take him back. Third World in north London. Staff kidnapped. Headlines in freebies deposited in leafy Finchley, one time prime ministerial hideaway, “Big ransom requested, reinstate student or staff will be executed.” Guess it makes the job interesting. Wonder if I’ll be as high on adrenalin this week without the grist of fighting Max’s antics.
3
Relative quietness descends on the group. We work on the money assignment in computers. We look through a local newspaper researching jobs suitable to their interests and qualifications. Paddy sees a cleaners job at £4.40p an hour. Lee sees a packing job in Cricklewood offering £6 an hour, whereas Sunil refuses to engage insisting he’ll become a property developer like his father. Paddy and Lee have great difficulty working out how much a week they’d earn, confused attempting to understand taxation and insurance contributions. Dean’s working merrily away until suddenly screaming, “Bloody Government. Bloody politicians”, then drops into silence, honour and blood satisfied.
They give themselves account numbers on the computer programme and tap in their first week’s wages - £200, though Sunil decides £484 sounds a nice sum to have. So do I! I decide that taxation, at this stage, will only confuse and befuddle them, though I explain about gross and net pay. Could be cash in hand I suppose. They go through the programme, practise depositing, withdrawing, cash cards and statements. They enjoy this, especially when it prints the information - including toy town money. I suggest they bring in catalogues next week to begin costing furnishing a bed sit. I ask Sunil and Lee to get their parents assistance to cost a week’s food for one person. They haven’t a clue about food, clothes, transport, the other day to day essentials. Because everything’s done for them they’re not allowed to acknowledge the cost of their own lives.
The second years are doing o.k., though Sammy’s taking more time off than usual. Jools is attending more regularly, though still stretches out across pushed together tables in death pose. I begin to feel anger at one specific student. Strange I never did towards Max, not at all, in general I found him likeable. The group are in the process of designing publicity and Paul, secretary of the Intro Trust, was given the responsibility word processing the letter we’d earlier drafted to the RSPCA seeking permission to raise cash for them. He’s great difficulty in reading Mark’s writing, even when it’s word processed and brings the first draft to me. I don’t like it, and tell him. It doesn’t make a good impression. It’s lost in a few lines on the A4, all typed from edge to edge without margin or paragraph breaks. I ask him how it might be improved.
“It’s o.k. I’ve typed before. I know what I’m doing.”
But it’s not right. Full stop. “Why not break it up a little. Give more space between the lines, move it in a bit. And where’s the paragraphs?” He doesn’t agree. I feel he thinks I’m talking twaddle.
“I know what to do”, he answers.
And indeed, I think he does, however, on this occasion he’s hopelessly lost. I feel he’s challenged me and I shouldn’t rise to it. But I want the finished product on college letter headed to be taken seriously and not filed in bin because of crass errors and spelling mistakes.
“I can type”, I tell him.
“So can I.”
“Yes, I can see. I’ve been doing it for twenty years,” the scoundrel murmours Dr. Johnson in the distance.
“Well, I’m seventeen.”
I feel flattered, he thinks I’m only twenty years of age and because he’s only three years younger than me experience shouldn’t make much difference! God be merciful.
I remember reading Paul’s file. His previous teachers mentioning he over-extended himself and liked to think he could cope no matter the demands place upon him. He returns after the break with an (almost) perfect top copy and I’m impressed.
Three second years are word processing addresses for the mail shot agreed last week, whilst Paul’s plugging away at the back of the room. The rest are working with me designing a publicity leaflet. We used the library’s art copy books and frantically search a suitable image to use as the Trust’s logo. Even Strange Harry joins in. Soon we have three potential images to use. The one I like, which I don’t pass comment on, they reject in favour of a cartoon image of a loveable mutt with a bone at its paw. We photocopy a few samples in different sizes and draw the group around to give their opinions.
Paul takes a break, as do the others, from word processing. We discuss a slogan and decide our name, Intro Trust, should go at the top of the paper with a logo beneath, underneath that a slogan we’re struggling to find.
“Helping all Dogs.”
“Help us to Help Dogs.”
“Help us to Raise Money.”
All is chatter as they discuss what slogan to use. Paul suggests an outstretched hand in the corner might look good, then searches to find a suitable image, demanding we produce 10,000 leaflets. I tell him get lost. Chandra wants me to photocopy a picture of lightening and the Devil. I tell him to buy a photocopy card. Chandra insists we talk about the Devil, I reply him some other time. On the positive side we decide to visit a local school to inform them of our noble cause.
4
Sunil loses control towards the end of the week and hits students. “I suppose Tricia will say I abused her, but I didn’t hit her hard. I was only playing.”
“Is that her opinion?”, I ask.
We meet my acting senior to discuss the incident in the base room. Another merry go around, deciding, this time, not to inform his parents, liberalism winning out - once more.
I was late Friday morning because I’d seen the head of my daughter’s school. She’d been upset by a teacher who’d pinched, poked and slapped her. This wasn’t the first time she’d been hit and I needed to talk to the new head. When I arrived I told the students’ the reason, asking them if they’d been hit at school. With one voice they said, “No!”
Sunil asked the age of my daughter.
“Six”, I replied.
“That’s terrible”, he said, “the teacher shouldn’t hit a child.”
Chung, ever protective, threatened to come to the school and beat up the teacher for me.
“What’s her name?”
“You don’t need to know”, I said, aware that Chung lives in the same street as her school.
Dean thought I should write a letter of complaint. I had with me information from the Children’s Legal Centre on legislation outlawing corporal punishment, and asked the group if they’d write to the Centre asking for more details of their work. I despatched Chung to the library to get their address - which I already had anyway. And write they duly did.
