Tag: LGBTQ

A couple of grey 1960s concrete tower blocks held their position, menacingly pointing two fingers up across the surrounding skyline. Defiant in presence, aging without dignity like an old husband and wife stuck in the yesterday’s fashions, refusing to give way to modernity. Modestly lurking in the shadows below lived a street of Victorian terrace houses, built at their time to accommodate factory workers and tradesmen, but long since occupied by an invading tribe of middle-class families, trying to get their designer shoes onto the property ladder. Towards the eastwardly entrance of the street proudly stood a red brick Victorian built primary school, slap bang in the middle of 1990s Hackney.

The school steeple pierced the horizon, accompanied by two gable ends at either side. Thousands of pupils had passed through the boys and girls headed entrance engraved onto the brown mortar, through to the large timber entrance doors and into their respective classrooms. Some pupils went on to achieve greatness, probably, I presume. The majority were fortunate to achieve some form of capitalistic mediocrity, which would in turn be inherited by their future generations. Despite the many refurbishments which the building withstood throughout the decades, no changes had been made to upgrade the livelihoods of the working-class children, whom entered and exited the turnstiles gates of the comprehensive school system. White faces replaced by brown, cockney accents replaced by West Indian, Caretakers replaced by Premises Site Managing Directors, but “the rich should never be replaced by the poor”, was the lesson successfully being taught in every classroom, in every year for the past century and a half.

In classroom F10, somewhere on the first floor at the rear left corner of the room, sat an eleven-year-old boy by the name of Dean Anoforro-Smith. Who at this present moment was peering out through the crittall window at a Robin, playfully hop, skip and jumping across the grey slated roof tops of the neighbouring houses. It was one of those classroom afternoons when the suns out blazing in rare British form, and the essence of after school fun lingers in the air, awaiting to be inhaled into the young fresh lungs of the children. Every time Dean glanced back at the white on black swatch school clock fixed to the classroom wall, he disappointed himself again with the acknowledgement that the minute hand hardly moved since his last inspection, which seemed like hours ago. Dean resumed his focus back out the window in a state of daydream. The air of emancipation drew closer with each tick of the clock, and when it arrived, he wanted to be the first to grasp it. Running outside into the playground away from Classroom F10, away from his teacher’s monotonous tone, like “Fuck you Miss see you again tomorrow bitch!”

Dean was in his last year of primary school. Thinking back, this was a real enjoyable period in his young life. As a child one can never come near the proximity as to appreciate the blissful ignorance, which disintegrates year by year verging into adulthood. Until you are left with nothing but to confront harsh realities of mundaneness.

He gazed at the high classroom ceiling, fixed on the steel white painted RJS beams. Counting the pivots across from left to right to distract himself from the task set by Ms. Anderson. The classroom atmosphere was polluted with tomfoolery. Ms. Anderson more occupied with the going ons’ of her personal life; like her boyfriend leaving her last week, rather than a bunch of stupid children who didn’t want to be taught. Dean as a mischievous kid seized this opportunity to catch some jokes with his classmates.

“Yo Daniel you remember that time we were coming back from the swimming pool in infants, and you came up to me and was like….”

Dean paused to ensure he had captured the attention of his peers, before continuing to share the punchline of his intended joke.

“You were like, ‘I pooed my pants don’t tell anyone.’ And I told you don’t come walking next to me with your pooie pants, poo boy.”

Half the class erupted into hysterics. Nothing like the words ‘poo’ combined with ‘pants’ to win over a crowd of bored eleven-year-olds. Who were already seeking for an excuse to engage in something more entertaining than the sheet of times table questions, looking up for answers on their desktops.

Daniel, embarrassed and angered at Deans retelling of this tale from his dark days in infants, hit back with the globally recognised insult.

“You’re Mum!’’

“My Mum, what?” Dean dared Daniel to elaborate further.

“Your mum has a family card for Oxfam.’’ Daniel said before the classroom hit into another fit of giggles, made even funnier because Ms. Anderson had not yet clocked what was going on. Dean paused for a second, then announced as soon as the jape rose to mind.

“Well, your mum has a V.I.P card at the sexual health clinic.’’

“Ooooohh.’’ The children hissed, then burst into a fit of laughter of such a volume it temporarily took Ms. Anderson away from her woes, and refocused her attentions back to the job at hand.

“What’s going on children, did I not give you work to complete? It better be finished in ten minutes.”

Daniel whimpered to the class. “Am gonna tell my mum on you.’’

Dean laughed it off, content he had won this afternoon’s battle of classroom banter.

The following day outside of the conventional hours of schooling our young hero stood in detention, cleaning up the classroom as punishment for an offence committed earlier that week. He was just in the middle of polishing Ms. Anderson desk, making sure she would be able to see her famed requested reflection. Leant over the worktop head down thinking solemnly about going home late yet again, as he applied pressure on scrubbing out the rounded stained remnants left from Ms. Anderson’s cups of coffee, dotted over her desk. Daniel’s mother interrupted the normality of events by busting in through the classroom doors and charging towards Dean like an angry terrier yapping at the postman.

“What did you say about me? What did you call me? Say it to my face, say it to my face.” Daniel’s mother spouted in a North London working class accent, high in pitch and even higher in aggression.

At this moment she was making Dean want to laugh, standing there snapping her jaws at the other side of the desk. Dean tried to recollect what he said the day before. It came back to him. ‘Your mum has a V.I.P card at the sexual health clinic.’ A reluctant smile broke across his eyes as he tried to suppress the imaged of her countenance, if he was to tell her, right to her ugly puffy, rounded pink face.

She pushed him backwards from across the desk, face redden with frustration that she wasn’t achieving the reaction of fear which she desired to provoke from him. Dean caught his balance on his heel. He wasn’t afraid of Daniel’s mum, he received worst beats at home from his own mother than this fat little white woman would be capable of dishing out. Dean stood almost jowl to jowl with his aggressor, looking at her bloated red cheeks and squinted little eyes with an awkward suppressed smirk expanding across his mouth as he said.

“If you touch me again Mrs. Sydney, am gonna hit you right back in your fat face, and you’re not gonna like it. So if I were you, I would stop bullying little kids and roll your fat ass down to the chip shop and go get a chip butty.” Dean said with all the attitude he could muster.

The two other children in the classroom who were also serving detention, stood there still and in shock as if they had been glanced upon by the frozen stare of Medusa. Mrs. Sydney just realised their presence from the faint sound of their gasps. She also just recognised that Dean was a good half a foot taller than her son and growing in front of her with each word which vacated his mouth. He was also much broader than she remembered from their last encounter a few years ago, and less cute too. After assessing Dean size compared to her own and coming to the swift conclusion that this eleven-year-old black thug might just knock her out, she back peddled out of the classroom screaming behind her.

“The Head-teachers’ going to know about this first thing in the morning!”

And as promised, the next day Dean was subpoenaed to the Head-teacher’s office. He made his way to her headquarters which recently was becoming a well-travelled route: straight through the lobby, left at the year six classrooms, up the stairwell to the mezzanine level and first door on the right, all the while stomping his feet, fed up with this rigmarole of being told off for something that wasn’t even his fault.

“Why me? Why are they always picking on me for?’’ He questioned as he knocked on the door. Seconds later Miss Farnsworth, the school secretary, disappointedly greeted Dean.

“Good Morning Dean, not you again.” She said.

Dean ignored her fake look of mortification and walked in, sitting himself on the chair outside of the Head-teacher’s office, waiting to be summoned. This was a mind game which Dean well understood they tried to play with naughty children, leaving them waiting, stewing in guilty, then railing them in for a quick confession.

“Come in Dean.’’ Mrs. Cole the Head-teacher beckoned.

“Good morning, Dean.”

“Good morning, Mrs. Cole.”

Mrs. Cole was in her mid-forties, a very tall woman armed with broad shoulders, a potbelly and a big strong masculine face. A combination of features which rendered her looking like a retired NBA player turned transvestite.

“Dean, Dean, Dean, what have you got yourself into now? Before I jump to conclusions, I would like to hear your account of yesterday events, although Mrs. Sydney provided me with quite an astonishing and believable statement as to what occurred.”

Dean knew whatever he said from this point onwards would fall upon deaf ears, as per usual he was guilty until proven guilty. He gave his account of yesterday’s events, interrupted by a few disbelieving “Hmmms and Awwws.”

Mrs. Cole as ever had her victim secured in her trap of hearing but not listening. Dean could rap ‘Fuck the Police’ for all the difference it would make to her already preconceived version of events. Through the course of his recount she was already deep in thought, not focused on the validity of his statement, rather her mind wondered down an all too familiar path of late, “why are black boys so much trouble?” She questioned herself. “It might not even be his fault.” “Maybe he is just a victim of his own nature?” For she often saw herself also falling casualty to her own philanthropist spirit, having to intervene and recuse children like Dean from a life of crime. He was hardly an Albert Einstein, nevertheless he was a fairly smart boy and might grow to obtain an honourable profession, such as an: electrician or a plumper, if only she could manage to get him off this path of self-destruction and in a sense civilize the boy before he ended up dead or behind bars.

“Okay, okay.” She stopped him mid-flow, fast and forceful like a seat belt fasten to crash dumpy on impact.

“Dean yet again you fail to take any responsibility for your actions, and obviously the detentions are not having any beneficial effect on you.”

She handed Dean an envelope.

“Give this letter to your mother. I would like to have a meeting with her, to discuss measures to improve your attitude and guide you on the path of being the successful young man you possess the potential of becoming.”

“Okay, Mrs.” He replied. Dean hated giving letters to his mother, if it were up to him he would have delivered that letter first-class recorded delivery straight to the dustbin on route home. Unfortunately, the school maneuverer around this old loop-hole by insisting letters were signed and dated by the addressee and returned the following day.

“Bloody hell.” Dean’s Mum said as he handed her the letter. “Not another meeting with your school. What is it this time? You know am gonna have to take time off work again.’’

“Nothing Mum.’’ He replied, this was his standard retort formulated specifically for questions such as this.

The following morning Dean and his mother made their way once more to Gainsborough Primary School.

“Good afternoon Ms. Smith, I regret having to call you in again, fully appreciating you have other commitments and since parting ways with the children’s father and all the many other many pressures which you so admirably contend, in addition to our now recent ever frequent meetings but you can guarantee I have only requested your attendance today as a matter of urgency, in order to bring forth swift resolution to Dean’s persistence poor behavioural problems.” Mrs. Cole spoke in a maze of words, each sentence leading to an eventual dead end. Pauline, thrown off by Mrs. Cole’s verbosity, looked at her son, trying to cover up her embarrassment for not understanding half of what she had just been told.

“Thank you, Miss. Cole, for taking into account our circumstances.” Pauline politely replied.

“No problem Pauline, no problem whatsoever and it is ‘Mrs.’ now, as I am recently wed however opted in keeping my own surname.” Mrs. Cole said smugly looking onwards at Dean and his mother as if to imply by retaining her maiden name, she had performed some courageous suffragette like act, worthy of praise.

“Well, since our last meeting Dean’s behaviour has failed to improve, in fact it has worsen.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Cole.’’ Dean’s mum replied in a fervent tone as if she herself was a child pupil, rather than a fully grown woman.

“So I have been considering what options we have within the system to aid improvements in Dean’s behaviour, thinking both in and outside of our conventional boxes. I believe there are four main choices at hand.”

Pauline grimaces in anticipation of the Head-teacher’s choices, only just clocking Mrs. Cole glancing down at her notes on her executive desk.

“One is that we do nothing, leave him be, let him carry on down his current path, disrupting lessons and disturbing the other children and just hope for the best. Option two we exclude him from the school and refer him to a behavioural unit, now the improvement success rates in these institutions are poor to say the least and in my experience often produced an adverse effect on the pupil, or you could always remove him from the school, find a new school or in fact home school the boy and see if you could produce better results, but with one year left until secondary school this again could prove to be a rather counterproductive exercise. Now lastly.”

Mrs. Cole finally looked up from her notebook, to see if she could gauge anything from her audience, before returning to her downward gaze.

“My preferred option is one of recent innovation, so I would not blame you for being perhaps slightly sceptical at first as the process is still fairly new to our shores, however success rates from all medical bodies are showing tremendous results from our American and European cousins and now the ground breaking treatment has recently become available on our beloved NHS. You see, Miss. Smith there’s a new drug called Ritalin, I suggest you look into it, but in most basic terms it is a central nervous system stimulant, used to treat attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).” She speeded up her spill as to brush past any information she viewed may be above Pauline’s level of intellect and secured the punchline. “Perhaps, perhaps discuss it with your GP, you will definitely have the schools backing, another child with a similar condition to that of Deans was subscribed it last year in my previous school, and I noticed a complete and utter change in him, one would not even recognise the boy how his behaviour improved to such a tremendous degree.’’

Pauline’s countenance transformed elaborately as a pantomime actor, who finally realised that there was actually a looming danger behind them. Rage instantaneously replaced her air of polite subdue. “Dean is not and will not be no guinea pig, for you or for this school. I take him to the GP and I’ll have you know there’s nothing wrong with my boy. You can take that Ritamin or whatever it’s called and stick it up your arse sooner than you will be giving it to him.” Pauline yelled at this giant of a woman as she rose to her feet.

Mrs. Cole heaved herself back against her chair as if Pauline would strike her. Face frozen in terror, fearing for her safety in the hands of this most uncouth woman, and also disappointed her concocted little experiment had fallen upon unreceptive ears, shocked with the realisation that perhaps the boy’s troublesome nature was attributed to both mother and father, rather than just the black father as she originally presumed. Before she had a chance to summon her riddle of words, Dean’s mother had already stormed out of her office, slamming the door behind her with a force that resonated in a banging echoing throughout the corridors of the school. Pauline hand in hand with a more than amused Dean marched out of the school.

“We will find you another school Dean, a better one.” She said, trying to reassure herself as much as him.

“One where they won’t treat you like some kind of lab rat.”