JAMES CHANDLERS INTRODUCES HIMSELF

Hello, readers. That’s my name in the title there. Only my mom calls me James. Everyone else calls me Jim, Wog or Wogs, short for Polliwog. I got the name from my Uncle Niles when I was a wee lad the one time the whole fam went to the beach. I didnt’ want to leave the water and go back to the city so I swam and swam and swam away until I got tired and a rescue boat had to get me. Mom and pop were pissed. Uncle Niles just laughed and called me his wee little polliwog.
It stuck for a bit, until I moved. Then me mates just called me Jim, not knowing the story, Uncle Niles, mom or pop. You see, pop liked the drink much more than me mum so, instead of coming home from the mill, he stayed at the pub most nights. Can’t say I blame the old chap. When he was home, my mum, she curse and berate pop down to nothing. Or she would throw dishes or chairs. When it got really bad, I’d creep out and visit my friends in the streets.
There was Stovepipe Sam, the wino that looked like Abe Lincoln fresh out of a coal pit. I think he did but just never got clean. I didn’t care. He was a nice chap who always listened to me and gave me stogies sometimes. On winter, he froze before I could even say me goodbyes.
If I was hungry, I’d take the long walk to Linda Darling’s little inn and public house. I don’t rightly know her real surname. Think the men called her that for sport. People gave her a hard time and it showed in the deep, dark wrinkles under her eyes. She told me that she never slept with all the fuss everywhere all the time. Folks complain about her cooking but I loved it when she made roast beef with worchestershire, or eggs on muffins. Mom never made those things. Then, if she was feeling lonely and the inn wasn’t too busy, she’d heat brandy and let me sleep in her armchair. That only happened a few times because mom always found out if I had left; she’d cry, hug me then scream and flog me. I didn’t say goodbye to Linda Darling either. I heard somewhere that she had cancer.
Lot’s more, of course. And some that didn’t like me. Mostly they were other youngs lads who really didn’t have anybody. Maybe they thought I would take their handouts and pocketbooks. They didn’t know that I just wanted to get away from the fighting, that I had places to go for a bite or a drink or a smoke. Guess if your don’t prove you’re a tough cunt, they other lads will roll you. Myself, I had nothing to prove, ‘cept for how fast I could run.
Anyway, mom and pop would fight. I’d sneak off, get flogged and go to school dirty. Mom had to wake up early most days. This went on until pops had to go away to do a bid for involuntary manslaughter. The prosecutor, the daft cunt, told the judge, the jury and the papers that pops was a violent drinker, prone to outbursts of rage. The bastards brought in character witnesses from the whole neighborhood who said that pop hit mom (untrue), that he was a degenerate gin sot, card sharper who ignored his wild son what roamed the streets at night. That burned me up the worst, them using me to get me pops and I couldn’t say anything. Not allowed! Said the prosecutors would break me down. Already did, cunt.
First pop went away, then moms, well, she didn’t really get over it. I think she felt guilty for not testifying for pops. She kept saying things like, “I was too pissed,” and “I would have just cried me bleedin’ eyes out,” and “Awful, cunt.” When pops was around, she was a closet nipper, you know, sneak into the chemical closet for a nip. Poor mom she did her best to hide it from me. Never got tottering drunk. Hs ejust knew that pops would come home and there would be a row. Pops left and she kept the bottle on the kitchen table. Lost her job cleaning the swells’s homes, the needle factory too. But what’s most sad, mom was sweetest to me just before she went away. Like the time she asked me, “You don’t have to go slinkin’ ’round anymore, hun?” and “You’ll never leave your poor mum, will you?” Then she’d kiss and squeeze me until I thought my eyes would pop out of my head.
That couldn’t last long either. The whole time, I guess, Grandma Chandlers was watching out, waiting for her chance. “She’s lucky there’s no workhouse anymore,” Grandma said of my mom. Without a job, mom couldn’t pay the bills or the the debts. Police would have come and threw us out anyway, said Grandma, so before I even woke up, mom was gone and there, as clear as the blue sky, stood Grandma with her hands pinned on her sides. “Look at what they let you become! A lazy sod just like your father!” I think I must have spoke up for my pops because Grandma pulled me out of bed by the ear and screamed “How dare you call your elder a liar! Now get dressed!”
So I pack my things and we leave. On the way there, Grandma told me her plans for reforming me. Said the devil had his hands on me soul, that I was an idle boy, that if I didn’t work and repent, I’d surely burn.
To keep me from burning, she sent me to St. Anthony’s, a Catholic school. She and grandfather had come from Ireland. The kids were even worse than the other side of town, cussing, drinking on the playground and even smoking herb after school. A few of the bad boys were nice enough to let me hang around even though, in those days, I didn’t say much. Teddy Bear Sullivan, de facto leader of our little cliche, saw me punching my locker one day, couldn’t get the damn thing tol pop open. “That’s a real gash you got there, mate. You wanted a red locker, eh?” said Teddy, then he looks at me like Yeah, you better laugh, only he didn’t say that. So I chuckles and he jiggles my locker open.
After school that day he, Henry, Davey and Pat, the real big blighter of the gang, were just standing at the corner of my block, like they were waiting for someone. They let me pass, then Teddy says, “Hey, mate! Remember me?” I stops and turn around slow like, not knowing what they were going to do. Boys like this, especially Pat, they still scared me. These same types of chaps used to chase me through the streets at night, screaming bloody murder.
Anyways, I say “Yeah. Thank you,” just looking at me shoe. Then Pat steps forward, puffs up and says real low, “You think we’re gonna thrash ya?” like he was deciding on the spot whether he would box me ears or hit me with his right.
“Well, we’re not. Step off, Pat,” says Teddy who came and put his arm around me. “Which way you walking?”
They invited me to play football with them, but I told that my Grams would want me to do chores and homework before dinner. “You let me work on her, mate. All the mothers love me, don’t they Henry, eh?” Then Teddy, Davey and Pat slap each others backs and laugh. “Shut up, Ted,” said Henry.
We get to my Grandma’s house and Teddy says, “Alright, mates, lets charm this lass. Stay there, Pat.” But Pat grumbles and curses until Teddy says, “Oh, you big ox, you,” and gives him a pack of cigarettes.
I doubt my Grandma ever met boys this polite, even myself. Teddy did most of the talking while Grams served tea and toast. “Yes, ma’am, I do say me prayers every night. You never do know when the good Lord will call you home,” said Teddy. This line seemed to charm her most, completed the picture of a good little boy who wanted to be my playmate, my study partner.
Outside, I guess Pat got bored because, just as Grams was pouring Davey a second cup, we heard a loud smash on the sidewalk in front of the kitchen window, causing Grandma to spill hot tea on Davey’s lap. “Poor child…What the devil was that!?” yells Grandma.
Teddy sighs, real sympathetic and says “Probably some local churl. Don’t worry madam.” Then he goes into the lobby and through the front door like he was the neighborhood watchman. “What are you doing here tormenting a poor old woman like that you bloody cad?!” he yells at Pat. Pat just stands in the street with his arms held akimbo like Bring it on, you know, so Teddy picks up the broken neck of the bottle and really throws it at him! He barely misses and Pat runs away.
“Sorry about me language, ma’am, but these riff raff really make me…”
“Oh, deary!” is all Grandma could say. So she let me go with Teddy whenever, as long as I did my chores, tiddying up the kitchen, the den, my bedroom, watering the plants, which really didn’t take long. She even left off the afternoon Bible reading since Teddy was “Such a good Catholic boy” and I really needed some friends.
Her trust was complete which meant we had to keep our lies straight from day to day. Studying, praying, football…none of that. Well, a little football and studying how to steal a bottle and praying Pretty polly would lift up her skirt for us.
So, yeah, we were bad but we never hit anyone unless they came after us first, unlike some other blokes. Like Ugly Tony and his mates who mugged old men at night and stole bottles right out of their hands. Bastards!
One night we’re out and we see Ugly Tony working over some old man who turned out to be Stoviepipe Sam. I didn’t even need to ask me mates to follow me, we just chased them until they dive over the tracks just before the garbage train. “Don’t worry, Jim. We know where they sleep,” said Teddy.
“We’ll find out, anyways,” said Pat. They all laugh and I too, just so they wouldn’t worry, but I was really pissed. Old Stovepipe never hurt a soul and these cunts went and bashed him and stole his wine. We had to get them.
One by one, we staked out their pads and caught them when they were alone. Unfair you say? Bollocks. It’s karma. These blokes can’t fairly receive their just retributtion, so they got it from all of us, one at a time.
We saved Ugly Tony for last and it wasn’t easy. He lived with his dirty uncle in a dilapidated house, a heap of junk - engine blocks, bumpers, tires, broken glass, a couple fire barrels - and two or three flea-bitten dogs penned in by a rusty cyclone fence in the back. In front, a few feet of sickly grass and a sidewalk before the canal. On the left side (facing the canal) a crackedpice fo pavement offered a possible escape route should the operation fall to shit before execution. Teddy surmised two of us could carry out a nasty piece of payback.
Ugly Tony had a chair perched in the corner of his yard where he could watch his barrle fires, the adjacent alley and road plus the canal. The cunt had a soft spot after all - albeit for ugly shit. Literally, I know Stovepipe Sam used the canal as a toilet and Tony or his uncle kept up on the dog shit. That what he was to us: an ugly skin bag of bollocks, so that’s what he’d get. Davey saved his dog’s shit for a week. The rest of took turns using a five gallon bucket for a toilet.
Pat and I waited for a night of one of Ugly Tony’s stinking fires when he’d perch his fat ass in his lawn chair and drink beers. We descretely stashed the shit and piss behind a dumpster across the street from his perch, then waited for Tony to get good and pissed. Everything went well at first. Pat punched him in the face, I dumped the bucket and he emptied the bag.
Only we didn’t count on his uncle crouched over a lawnmower engine, working by the light of their neighbor’s exterior light. “You little bastards! Butch! Cassidy!” said the uncle, then the fiendish grumbling and snarling of the beasts, like the Devil was proding them to tunnel through a wall of rotten meat. The wretched stench and the sight of these monsters destroyed any headstart we may have had. Even Pat froze for a moment.
Never one to back down from a fight, Pat grabbed a branch and decided to take his chances in hand to mouth combat. With a yelp, I leapt down the embankment and ran faster than I knew I could run. I heard Pat scream, the beasts growling with rabid rage. I scream too as I noticed that the sidewalk ends (runs into the supports of a bridge) next to a three-meter wall.
I jumped in with me mouth open and nearly choke on the shitty water. Behind me I heard the beast still grunting and snarling for me arse. I gained a little momentum on it with a few cautious strokes. Don’t wanta miss the chances to be saved if it comes and it has to, right? Can’t let the traps drop my shite covered arse in me grandmum’s kitchen in the middle of the night so I screamed for help. Pat must have killed the other dog and knocked out the uncle because I didn’t hear them as I passed the house.
Teddy ripped out a steel pole and 10 meters of cloths line from a neighbor’s yard. As gently as he could, he tossed the pole at my head, giving me a right pretty gash that I’ll remember forever. It works. The pole found its way under my arms, so I clutch, turning over and choking on pissy water before slamming into the canal bank, giving me another nasty scrape on my shoulder.
I climbed onto the bank, shook off like a dog and vomit into the canal, relieved and disgusted at the same time. Pat and Teddy laughed till they almost pissed themselves. Hey, I’m glad to be useful to someone. Though he cut my head badly, I thanked Teddy who said “I’d give you a hug, mate, but you smell like a ripe diaper!” They laughed again and instinctively broke into a jog to Teddy’s house.
At the end of his block we stop. I collapsed again, exhausted and retch into someone’s flower pot. Pat, who really didn’t talk to me much before that, says “You’re a hard cunt, Jim.”
Teddy chuckled and says, “Naw, he’s a Polliwog! Either Pat or me or anyone of us probably would have drowned back there.”
“Yeah, Wogs. How’d you do it?” says Pat.
I was about to tell them not to call me that for all those bad memories- me dead dad and all that - but I just smiled and remembered that good friends know you better than your folks, better than yourself. So, ever since then, that’s what they call me: Polliwog, Wogs or Polly when they want to razz me. I don’t care. That’s my name.

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