How the battle ended after I made my escape… to this day I do not know. I guess I never found it important to know. We made it to the staffroom and the Headmaster was told the story by Mr Stevenson. I had made it out unscathed; Mr Stevenson had not been so lucky and had a few bruises and shirt buttons missing. I watched almost in admiration as he defended me while telling the story. I remember some words he used ‘It was an all out assault on Kwame… Kwame defended himself as anyone would, but had I not been there it would have been a massacre’.
I was told to leave the Staffroom and wait outside. I was to be accompanied home by one of the teachers in case anyone was waiting for me outside. Mr Utkins, a geek of a teacher (reminded me of that Weasley character from Harry Potter – not that I have seen any of the movies) was given the task of my body guard. As we walked he asked me what happened and I gave him the full story. When we were nearly halfway to my home I sent Mr Utkins back. I had considered the situation. There was no evidence that I had been in a fight and a school teacher visiting my home would no doubt have resulted in me getting a beating worse than what Stanley and his crowd would have offered. When I got home, I told my parents I was late because I had gone football practice, they said nothing and that was that. I went to bed fearing what tomorrow would bring. I had to find a way to protect myself.
I woke up in the morning with a plan of defence. I found a bottle and construed a formulae that would cause pain to anyone that dared attempt to ambush me again. As I had not told my parents about the events of last night I was sent to school as normal.
I made it through the school gates undisturbed and unscathed. I walked through the corridor and there was Stanley, he had been waiting for me. I got into stance ready for battle. Stanley came up to me and said ‘calm down.. I’m sorry about yesterday and I just wanna talk’. Not quite sure what to think I retorted ‘If you want to go one on one we can do it now’. He looked back angrily; ‘Look I am trying to apologise here… I spoke to my brother and he told me all what happened and if I were in your shoes in the scenario I would have done the same thing. It’s just that he is my brother, I’m sure you would have done the same in my shoes?’ I replied ‘nah, I would have been a man and faced my adversary one on one!’. I had nothing more to say; I walked to my class leaving Stanley where he stood.
I entered my classroom and there were looks of surprise, ‘you are alive!’ someone exclaimed.
In the end Stanley and his brother were expelled. My popularity decreased among the school kids and I had realised that not everyone who I thought was my friend was really A friend. I had gone from Hero to Zero
Mr Stevenson was hated among the year 10s and he left the school when we, the current year 11s) had all finished our exams. As cool as a teacher he was, he wasn’t a good one, as we all got D’s in geography apart from Luis who got an A because he had studied a curriculum book his parent had purchased!
Zero
‘OI!! What is going on going on here!’ I heard as I felt myself wrenched to my feet. It was Mr Stevenson, my geography tutor. He was a cool teacher, kept our classes fun by hosting quizzes. I remember a question he asked once in our geography class; something about who had won the most gold medals for long distance running in a certain Olympic games for Great Britain. I shouted out the only runner I knew ‘Sebastian Co’ and by strange coincidence it was the correct answer.. I got a round of applause from the class.. hehe.
Mr Stevenson had shown up and he put himself up as a human shield between me and the crowd in a bid to stop the carnage. With the little stream of light that my geography teacher had offered I was able to look around at my adversaries. I saw Vanessa and shouted out her name. ‘You hit me on the head??’ she apologised and said she was just aiming in the crowd. I could see Carl and a few of his friends in the corner not getting involved. I understood. Stanley’s anger was there for all to see and he cared not for the brave teacher protecting me. He still tried to punch me through the teacher and landed a few blows on the teacher. Words were exchanged and I held my own. I remember shouting out ‘whats with this wimp game, if you want me I’ll take you one on one’ his reply was ‘okay lets go one on one’. If I left Mr Stevenson’s protection there was no way it was going to be a one on one fight; I didn’t budge.
There was a sudden heavy push and I saw what at the time seemed like 3 huge figures in front of me and Mr Stevenson. ‘What the hell is going on!’ one of them exclaimed. I recognised the voice. It was Ben.. aka Big Ben. I recognised the shapes of the other two. They were my other two influential classmates, Garfield and Tyrone… I was saved! With their prowess they were able to halt proceedings and offer me and Mr Stevenson a path out to the staff office. My 3 heroes blocked the door and no one got past them. As I was making my swift exit I looked around to see who some of my enemies had been. I was shocked at some of the faces I saw; people who I had called friends were there. Leroy, A footballer in year 10 who I had raised as my own had come up against me. Lamin, a person I always picked on my team was also up against me. I looked at them and they could see my disappointment however their faces remained defiant. Their friendship to Stanley was more important than their friendship to me…. I understood.
He approached my table ready to fight, his anger seemed to give him an aura,(I was sure that at this moment if I had thrown a yellow pages book at him it would have bounced back off him harmlessly with the yellow pages hurt.) but was held back by my tutor who forced him to leave. He reitterated before leaving ‘you are dead you hear me.. You are dead’. I responded ‘we’ll see’.
Registration was over and it was time for the next class. The next class was Portuguese, I remember this because I was without my class entourage towards the end of the day, they all did French. I’ve jumped ahead a bit. After registration I left my classroom and was confronted by two year 10s in Stanley’s class. My classmates were quick to jump to my defence, however the two just wanted to talk. I motioned to my class mates to stand down. I took the two to the side and we talked. One was a guy called Carl who I played football with all the time, the other was a Chinese guy who I knew by face but not by name. They asked me what happened and I explained the scenario. They asked me if I had punched the kid. I said no. They nodded, shook my hand and said they had no beef with me.
Portuguese class finished and it was time for home. I descended the staircase toward the playground. The scene that appeared before me was impossible; there were thousands in playground and when they saw me they swarmed towards the doors at the end of the staircase. I sensed the danger – that crowd was after me and I was alone going home. I took the doors to the left of the staircase that led towards the staff exit of the school, but I was stopped. Stanley had anticipated my move and was the sole person blocking my route.
Stanley ran up to me with more that a wisp of anger in his eyes. He lunged for my shirt collar and I lunged for his ‘you think you can be a bad man in front of your class yeah, lets see how bad you are now’ he said. We tussled for what must have been 10 seconds before the crowd I had tried to avoid descended onto me. At this point it was free for all. There were kicks and punches being thrown from all angles mostly in my direction. I was returning what I could, sending in the odd jab and swing here and there when and where I could. I felt an umbrella hit my head; I looked up and recognised it. Vanessa!! She was in 11T and was supposed to be my friend! As the pummeling continued I resigned myself to defeat and eventually shrunk down into a small ball wondering how this evening will end.
ZERO
This story also took place in year 11 but this was towards the end of my time at Stockwell Park, a month before final exams I think.
By this time most people in my class were more interested in girls and smoking than football. I was hanging around with 11K more often.. the dweebs… at least they played football.
We had started a football game between what remained of year 11s VS year 7. The game was well underway when this little year 7 came picked up the ball and said he wanted to play football against his class. He had presumed because the dweebs were playing for the year 11s that this would be easy to disrupt. I was outraged and approached this little kid standing tall. I knocked the ball out of his hand and told everyone to continue playing. The rest of the footballers look amazed that I had done that and were in awe. I thought to myself, was I supposed to know who this kid was?
We continued playing and then the kid came up to me and asked me what I was doing and barged into me. I was not having any of it and I pushed the kid firmly on his face to the ground. He realised he was no match for me and stood there for a while contemplating what to do next.
I continued playing football… no year 7 little kid was gonna bully me.. pfft! The kid went off and joined a couple of girls, who were in my brother’s class that, I could not stand. I remember one of them was called Christine. She was a really stunning Jamaican girl, just a little over weight. I heard her from a distance encourage the kid to go and tell his brother. I thought nothing of it.
Lunch break finished and we retired to our forms. Me back to 11L. Our tutor Mr Barrett began taking the register when all of a sudden the door burst open and an angry year 10 burst into the room. He pointed at me and said.. ‘You are dead.. No one slaps my little brother and gets away with it’. I gulped internally.. The little boy was the brother of Stanley.. one of the year 10 gangsters known for being in a gang with his 5 older brothers. ‘what had I done’ I thought.
Hero
This took place in Stockwell park in year 11. I was aged 15 or 16 at the time. Classes were split into different groups and named after consonants from the word Stockwell. So we had:
11 S – This was the quiet class that didn’t actually become visible to me until year 10. They hardly played football, this was the class that chased girls and smoked in the corners.
11K, was the Portuguese/Hispanic Class. The wimps of the school and the owners of the Portuguese lessons. Hard to get them to play football, but being hispanic and Portuguese.. when they did.. it was a good game.
11W, this was my sister class, this class consisted of a mixture of Portuguese and footballers and well as a few rudeboys and a few class footballers. My best friend also existed in this class.
11L, my class, feels like I am bragging here.. but my class contained champions. We had the strongest 2 people in the school, the best footballer, the best goal keeper of a decent height, the best badminton player and defender me… and the list could go on.
The story here happened at lunch time. It was 11L vs 11W/K – we were playing on the small football pitch which faced the school staff room. I was in goal or standing in defence at the time, as I recall the game was being played by our strikers at the other end of the pitch. For some strange reason I was distracted by events taking place in the big playground. I saw little Marco, a boy in 11K who was tiny in stature and build, talking to someone in year 8. Looked like they were arguing; I remember smiling at this scene, as although he was older it looked like Marco had bitten off more than he could chew in this argument. The argument escalated and it seemed to end with the year 8 student pushing Marco to the floor and Marco running off saying something in Portuguese.
I watched as Marco’s run took him to where we were playing football. He settled by the bins which we were using as goal posts and said nothing, he just stared in the direction from where he had come from.
Looking back to where Marco’s enemy had been standing, an interesting development was taking place.. crowds were gathering around him.. 5 – 10 – 80 kids possibly more had amassed in the large playground and they began marching towards Marco. Seeing this Marco ran on the football pitch and started to pretend to play football. The crowd that had started off marching were now running and chanting in our direction ‘fight – fight - fight’. Marco’s enemy must have been popular as I noticed in his crowd that he even had my brother from year 9 running towards us.
I called Marco over and this seemed to distract the footballers. Marco stood by me and as the crowd descended upon us. I simply raised my arms and said ‘what’. 5 others from the footballers picked up what was happening and joined me. At this the crowd that had formed so fast quickly dispersed. My brother who had joined the crowd continued his run and ran around me and back to the main football pitch. It was over almost as quickly as it had started. I’m sure you have seen the Persian film 300. They should create another one after us and call is 6.
I looked up towards the staff room and noticed that the teachers were on their feet. We had prevented a disaster and they knew it.
Marco seemed to follow me around after that day.. Almost with a sense of duty.. offering me his presence as an entourage. On the last day of school Marco came up to me with his signature book. He had labelled a page ‘hero’ and wanted me to sign it. I didn’t sign anybodies book Marco was no exception.
To this day I see Marco every so often, the skinny tiny Marco is now a fully and well-built Marco. I see him and recognise him, he doesn’t recognise me anymore. His hero.
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