‘Listen’, I said to Joe. ‘Do you ever wonder if you’re soft?’
‘No’, said Joe. ‘Never.’
‘Well, tell me this. Why is it that Plugger Ryan, Dickie Forbes and Freckles Jack are all soft? They are all nice blokes. You couldn’t get better blokes. Why do people keep saying they’re soft?’
‘Yes, it’s funny isn’t it’, said Joe. ‘There’s no way of stopping people saying it.’
‘Once they give you the name of being “soft”, that’s the end of it’, then I added, ‘You know Mr Smith?’
‘The crippled Mr Smith?’
‘Yes, him. Well, when he was telling me a story once, I said to him—I was talking about the bloke in the story—I said to him, “If I’d been that bloke I’d never have done that. I would have been different”, and then he said to me, “Ah! my boy! You must remember that in country towns once you are different you are soft.” That’s what he said. I’ve never forgotten it.’
‘How long ago did he say that?’
‘About a fortnight ago.’
‘I wonder what he meant. Take Plugger. He’s a nice bloke. What’s wrong with him?’
‘He’s always picking flowers’, I said.
‘Well, what’s wrong with that?’
‘There’s nothing wrong with it, but I’m just saying a bloke that goes looking in the bush for flowers and lets blokes see him doing it, he’s soft—or that’s what they reckon.’
‘What about Dickie Forbes?’
‘I don’t know about him. He won’t join in games much, but he watches. I’m damned if I know why they call him soft. He likes horses. Then there’s Freckles Jack . . .’
‘Well, he’s soft because he undoes his pants and pulls out his thing.’
‘Look, everybody has to do that, haven’t they? Black fellows have it out all the while and no one says they are soft.’
‘Yes, but Freckles lets girls see it.’
‘Well, so does a black fellow’, I argued.
‘It’s like this’, explained Joe. ‘It’s all right if anyone sees it by mistake, but once you show it to someone you’re in bad trouble. It’s something grown-ups keep telling you. The only grown-up I’ve ever known who had brains was old Mrs Bilson and she’s dead, poor bugger! But she was never interested in whether anyone looked for flowers or pricks or anything.’
On our way home from school one night, Freckles Jack was standing behind a stump pissing away with a mob of kids round him looking at his prick. Joe and I had seen it lots of times, but we pulled up to show we weren’t stuck-up or anything.
There were some girls there and the way they were going on you’d think someone was handing out Christmas presents.
‘He’s filthy’, June Brick kept saying. ‘He’s a filthy brute.’
June Brick had lice in her hair. When you were sitting behind her in school you could see them crawling in and out of the hair close to her head.
All the girls kept saying that Freckles was a dirty bugger, but none of them went away. There was a little kid called Sally Hogan who pushed her way to the front, had a look, then came out and said, ‘I’m going to tell Mum.’
I tell you, we broke up pretty smart after that. That certainly put the kibosh on it. If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s a telltale-tit and you can bet your life it’s always a girl. She hangs round snooping, then darts in to tell the teacher. She’s usually a teacher’s pet. No one’s safe when they are around. No matter what excuse they make for putting your weights up, they can never be trusted.
Joe and I made for home. I was a bit frightened; I don’t know why. Joe said he felt the same. ‘I don’t know’, Joe said. ‘What in the hell are we walking quick for? Like as if we want to get away from Freckles Jack. If you wanted someone to talk to, someone who knew a bit about everything, you wouldn’t go past Freckles Jack, would you?’
‘No’, I said. ‘He’s a laughing, happy sort of bloke. He can act the clown real good and he can sing funny songs and play the mouth organ. No, I wouldn’t go past Freckles Jack. I’ll never know why they reckon he’s soft.’
The next day there was hell to play. Every kid that saw Freckles Jack was lined up at school. Mothers and fathers were all over the place. Freckles Jack was kept at home. First the teacher questioned us, then Mrs Hogan, then Mr Thomas, then Mrs Brick, then the parsons and priests came into it. It frightened hell out of Joe and me. We just couldn’t understand why grown-up people suddenly looked at Freckles Jack as if he was a savage dog.
Joe was moving about like a nervous horse and I could hear my heart beating. I was frightened. Mr Thomas, an Elder of the church, came to the school to question a lot of Protestant kids. The teacher called out my name and pushed me into a room with him.
‘Sit down’, he said and he made me sit on a chair. I tell you I felt like as if that room was full of danger.
‘I want to question you about the conduct of Freckles Jack’, he said, then went on, ‘Did he try and persuade you to touch it?’ His mouth seemed to keep opening and shutting like a trap when he said this. I could see his teeth. Everything seemed strange to me. I wanted to get outside and crawl under bushes or something. I wanted to get away. But I answered him.
‘No, he didn’t’, I said. My voice was trembling. ‘He was just showing us; he’s a nice bloke.’
‘He’s filthy’, snarled Mr Thomas. ‘Did he make any girl hold it?’
I thought he must be mad. ‘Freckles Jack was just skiting about himself. It was more interesting to the girls than to Joe and me, but then again if one of the girls did it Joe and me would be more interested.’
‘Don’t talk like that. Do you hear me. Never talk like that. You avoid that boy. Do you hear me. Never play with that boy. Keep away from him.’
It showed me how really bad you become when you grow up, grown up like Mr Thomas. We’d have to talk to Freckles Jack when we met him. He had a mongrel dog called Stunner. He loved that dog. We couldn’t just walk past him if he was with the dog. You’d have to talk to them.
Mr Thomas asked me a lot more things, but I was getting more and more frightened. I was shaking, and he told me to go.
Father Finnigan was a bit better with Joe.
‘Now tell me, boy. Was he putting his hand on the girls now? Did he pull up their clothes with his eyes full of desire?’
Joe told me he didn’t know what he meant. But he said no, because he was sure he had committed no sin. But, by hell, Joe reckoned Freckles Jack had sinned in some way. All Father Finnigan said was, ‘Avoid him, me boy.’
For Joe and me life changed from that day. We looked with suspicion at people and we couldn’t do a piss in front of each other because we knew that if anyone saw us looking at the other’s prick that was the end of him.
Joe said, ‘No more swimming in the river now with no clothes on. I wish this had never happened.’
‘So do I’, I said.
But it was Freckles Jack who suffered the most. Every kid would like to have spoken to him when he came back to school, but everyone was afraid. Joe and I used to sneak chances to talk to him when we got a chance. We patted his dog and asked him how it was going. He seemed to hold himself back a bit, but one day he said, ‘You see, I thought I was being smart. No one ever looked at me or took any notice of me. I think they thought I was soft or something. Then one day I was having a leak in front of Miss Armitage’s and a kid came up—it was lousy Fred from Garvoc—and he said, “You’re game pissing here, aren’t you?” and I thought, by hell, I am game; and then I started pissing in front of girls and that was the end of me. You can’t do that.’
‘No’, I said. ‘You can’t do that.’