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Category:
Biography
ISBN-10: 1535569980
Type: Non-Fiction
Pages: 329
Copyright: October 6, 2016
ISBN-13: 9781535569989
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
Back to Turmoil: The darkness within me (The sequel to Stanley's Coat Book 1) This follows on from Stanley's Coat, and starts where the first one ends, when I was 21 years old.
Peedie William takes the reader with him on his journey as he finally leaves his abusive home aged twenty one. He is still living the terrible nightmares of his violent abusive childhood which are still etched like tattoos in his mind. Unable to cope with real life, he turns to drugs and alcohol to try to cope. He drifts from place to place trying to find sanctuary from his past, but ends up making things worse by turning to violence like his father did. He ends up back in the same psychiatric asylum he was in when he was a boy. His story follows him as he grows into a man with a purpose in life, and shows how your past does not have to destroy your future.
Excerpt
Back to turmoil
Chapter 1
Twenty one years old, and most of those years have been wasted. My mind is still in turmoil, still searching for answers. My father has finally admitted that I am his son, but he still won’t speak to me like a human being. I honestly cannot understand why he beat me all those years, and why he cannot get over his anger towards me, I did not ask to be born, and often wish I hadn’t. I am back living at home, and back to the tormented state of mind which eventually seeped into me like a cancer.
I don’t know why I still have any respect for him after what he has done to my mind and body over the years. Many times I had wished that I was dead. When my parents denied me a voice, blamed me for all the traumatic events I experienced growing up, while still openly denying that there even were ever any wrong doings. I never had a proper relationship with my parents, we only lived under the same roof.
“What’s the fucking face for? It’s bad enough you living in my house, without having to look at your fucking miserable cunt face.”
Dad was just back from the pub, and in a bad mood.
“What’s this shite you lot are watching on the telly? Get it turned over to something decent, or turn it fucking off”
He disappeared into the kitchen for about five minutes, and stumbled back into the living room with a bottle of Grouse whisky.
Nobody had answered his question, and he never got an answer. Margaret and James had disappeared to the sanctuary outside while dad was in the kitchen, so there was only mum and I left in the house.
“I go out for a fucking pint, and come home to this shite. Switch the telly off and put the records on, Johnny Cash or Jim Reeves or something decent like that.”
He turned to look at me with a scowl on his face which was filled with hatred. His lips were starting to furl up at the side of his snarling mouth, his eyes half closed as he eyed me up and down with disgust
“How long are you planning to stay in my house this time? You’re no fucking man enough to keep a house of your own, you have to come running back home to torment us with your imaginary illnesses. Pansy suits you as a name, I definitely chose the right name for you gay boy.”
That was it for me, I got up, packed a bag and headed out the front door without speaking a word, and headed for the pub. My mind was racing; memories of my past were flooding back in torrents, and tears came trickling down my face. I was angry but could do nothing about it. He was starting to control my mind, and control my thoughts. Should I go back and stab him when he eventually falls asleep drunk like he always does, what could I do to his car so that it would almost certainly burst into flames when he turned the ignition key. The steep hill I walked down was narrow, and I could hear my footsteps echoing off the walls of the two storey houses on both sides of the road all the way down, amplified by my agitated state of mind.
I reached the Ogilvy Arms Hotel and half opened the door to see who was inside. The place was quiet so I went to the bar and ordered a pint of lager and sat down. I sat at a table on my own, wondering if mum was getting beaten up, but did not really care if she was. She had stood by and let me be a punch bag for most of my life so far. It is something that has always bothered me, why a mother could allow that to happen, and turn a blind eye to save herself from a beating.
I sat watching the antics of the few people at the bar. Old Jimmy was pulling scraps of thinly sliced spam from his jacket pocket. It was the cheapest sliced meat you could get from the butcher, and he never got it put it in a bag, just straight into his pocket. He slid his hand in and broke a fragment of spam off and ate it. Davie the barman topped Jimmies pint up with the dregs of the slop tray under the beer taps, any tap, it did not matter to Jimmy as long as it was alcohol. Jimmy drank a mouthful of his pint, and another scrap of spam was shoved into his mouth with his grubby fingers.
Grace was parading back and forth the floor showing off her new red shiny patent leather court shoes she had just bought in Dundee. The short leather skirt she was wearing was more like a belt than a skirt. I sat in silence, watching how happy they both seemed compared to me. I could not remember the last time I had laughed like Grace was laughing, or Jimmy who was happy for anything he got in life.
“What are you doing out Peedie, you are not usually out on a Sunday.”
My mind was jolted back to reality. Shug had appeared from the toilets after being sick. He must have been in there for ages.
“Do you fancy coming to Forfar? There is a party at Mamie’s house. Come on it will cheer you up, you look like you need it.”
“Let’s go then Shug, we will get a taxi down and I will pay for it. I was not planning to go back home tonight anyway, and this party will take my mind off my father for a while at least”. Shug knew how I had been brought up, and he knew my father.
The taxi driver shouted in the pub door.
“Come on Shug I have other fares lined up, so I can’t wait any longer, gulp down your pints or you are getting left.”
“Come on Shug, I told you that you did not have time for another one.”
Shug started gulping down his pint of lager, and he downed it in one go, not stopping for breath.
“Right let’s go then, a party awaits.”
Shug was staggering a bit, and had to stop momentarily steady himself on the door frame.
“I must have had more drink than I thought Peedie, and I vomited most of it down the toilet, what a waste, but it has made room for some more.”
Shug sat in the front of the taxi, and I sat behind the driver. The five miles to Forfar seemed to take ages, but we finally arrived. Shug did not look well, he started to change colour.
“Stop the taxi, I am going to be sick.”
Shug had just got the last word out, and a stream of putrid projectile vomit sprayed out of his mouth and all over the dashboard of the taxi, and splattered on the windscreen and over the driver’s trousers.
The smell was vile, but I laughed and laughed at the look of horror on the drivers face. Shug started to laugh as well.
“Get out of my taxi you pair of bastards, who is paying to clean this up.”
I got out of the taxi and started to run, and Shug followed. We headed down Castle Street and went into the walkway under the Royal Hotel, and emerged into the car park, then up the steps past the Post office. We got away without paying the fare, never mind paying to clean up the vomit. Shug was a mess, covered in vomit, even his shoes and socks were splattered.
“Come on Peedie I will go to my brother’s house at Graham Crescent to get a clean pair of jeans, then we will head to the party.”
Trousers and socks change we headed towards the address where the party was. I could hear the music coming from the house, long before we arrived at the door. Shug knocked on the window and stood waiting, but nobody answered.
“Why don’t you just knock on the door like a normal person Shug?”
“No cunt would answer it that’s why, you always knock on the window.”
The curtain flicked back a bit, and somebody looked out.
“Oh it’s you Shug, who is that big cunt with the beard with you?”
“It all right, it’s my friend Peedie, he is sound, come on let us in.”
The door eventually opened and we were led into the living room. There was sitting people everywhere, and a strange smell filled the air, one that I had never encountered before. The room was filled with a hazy smoke, engulfing everyone in the room. The living room was small and some people sat on the floor around the walls. One of them had a Pink Floyd record album cover on his knee, licking cigarette papers and sticking them together. I sat down in the space on the floor beside him. I watched him with interest as he opened a cigarette and emptied the tobacco into the long paper he had created, then he crumbled a green noxious smelling substance all along the tobacco. He twisted the end of his creation, then continued to make another four. He put one to his mouth and lit it, inhaled, but did not exhale for ages, then he passed it to me.
“I don’t smoke.” I could not believe I just said that, but I did.
“Go on give it a try mate, it’s better than drink any day.”
I put it to my mouth and inhaled, and nearly choked. Everybody started to laugh, and that broke the ice. I took another draw, and another. Suddenly my mind seemed to settle, I was not thinking of him anymore, I was in another place now, one I had never been before.
“Come on Peedie, stop hogging the joint, pass it round you cunt.”
I must have been smoking it for ages, because the feeling that was engulfing me was fabulous. I felt alive at last. Every single note of Pink Floyd I heard was singled out, amplified, reaching parts of my brain I never knew existed, and swirling uncontrollably round the inside of my skull and down my spine, finally draining into the floor. I was sitting on the floor, but felt that I was levitating. The patterned carpet was moving backwards and forwards like waves, crashing up one wall, then the other. My feet felt like they had pins and needles, and they were hard to keep on the floor as they were floating up by themselves. I was not here anymore, and I did not know where I was, but it was good.
I started to talk, but my voice was coming out through my ears, my mouth was not working, it felt rubbery, strange, I could not move my lips.
“Anybody want a cake, freshly baked this morning?”
Mamie had baked a big batch of hash cakes, that’s what she called them because they were filled with cannabis. The plate was getting handed round the room and finally got handed to me. I took one and passed the plate to Shug. I peeled the paper case off and took a bite. It had a strange taste which I had never had before, but I ate it and never gave it another thought. Thirty minutes later that changed. My whole body started to get numb from the inside outwards. My skin felt like foam to the touch. There was a photograph of a small girl on top of the television. Every time I looked at it, the girl stuck her tongue out at me, jumped out of the frame on to the top of the television and waved, and as I looked away she turned back to the way she was before.
“Shug look at that girl in the photo, do you see what she is doing, sticking her tongue out at us. Look at her, she has just stepped out of the frame and on to the television.”
“Yes I have been watching her as well, she runs right out of the frame and back in again. She isn’t there now, she must have slid down the back of the television. Amazing eh.”
We both started to laugh, and we could not stop. I felt like I was laughing through my nose. Tears were running down my face. Other people joined in, and soon everybody was laughing uncontrollably, but they did not know what they were laughing at.
“What are we laughing at Shug?”
“Fuck knows.”
That was it, we were laughing again. Nobody dared look at anyone else or they burst out laughing, squeaky sounding through the nose laughs.
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