Billy Rags Read Free Page B

for one way or another. Two and a half years later, a couple of days after I’d been recaptured, I had to talk to a PO about a visit.
    In the course of the conversation he casually remarked: “Oh, by the way, I was talking to an old friend of yours on the phone yesterday. Captain Reece. He asked to be remembered to you.”
    They always win in the end.
    The new kids are beginning to settle down. Cocksure set of little bleeders. Playground hardly room to move, they’re pushing and shoving and running all over the place. Soon be time to show them who’s top. Who’s king. Who’s Bozo.
    Grey cloud streaks across the water puddle sky and shatters broken with footstep running.
    A new kid stops in front of me.
    â€œHey, is it you?” he says.
    I stop. Johnny Stretch and Arthur Easton stop too, two steps behind me, like they should.
    â€œIs it you though? Is it you that’s called Billy Rags?”
    The excuse. The chance. Now I’ll show them.
    â€œWho telled you to say that?”
    The yukker makes to dart but only his legs move flailing nowhere because his shirt collar’s in my fist.
    â€œWho?”
    â€œDon’t.”
    Tears.
    â€œWho?”
    â€œHim.”
    A nod to Bas Acker. Bas. The rival. The only one worth fighting. I’d found that out my first week. Two years above me. But that didn’t matter. I’d cracked him easily, publicly, quickly. I was top. That was what counted. I’d weighed it up: you were popular if you had no peers. You did everything best. Best at fighting, best at footballing, best at cig-carding, everything. The better you were, the better you were liked. And if you were liked, you could do as you liked. And everybody did things for you. You were a king. It was easy. And now Bas had given me the excuse to prove it all over again, to the new lot.
    I dragged the yukker over to where Bas Acker was standing with his mates. Johnny and Arthur followed behind.
    â€œNow boy,” I say to Bas. “This yukker says you told him I’m called Billy Rags.”
    Bas glances at his mates who in turn wait to see what he’s going to do.
    He hasn’t any choice.
    â€œWhat if I did?”
    â€œTake it back, that’s what.”
    â€œWhat if I don’t?”
    â€œYou’ll see.”
    Bas doesn’t say anything. I say to the yukker: “My name’s William Cracken. What is it?”
    â€œWilliam Cracken.”
    I slap him round the head.
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œWilliam Cracken,” he says, through tears.
    I slap him again.
    â€œLeave him,” says Bas Acker.
    â€œOh yes?” I say. “And what if I don’t?”
    Now he’s no choice. Bas steps forward. I let the yukker go.
    â€œFair fight, boy?” I say to Bas.
    â€œFair fight.”
    â€œLeather him, Billy,” Johnny says.
    I step forward.
    â€œI will,” I say. “Just like last time. And next.”
    After the fresh air it’s the smell that gets you. Even though I’d been inside the police car breathing in the BO of my four travelling companions, it had been like sniffing Paradise compared to the smell of E wing. It hadn’t been up more than three years, but the smell was there. They must mix it in with the concrete.
    E wing was an L-shaped block of cells. The two gates leading into it were on the bottom landing on either end of the L. When I arrived there were about twenty-nine normal prisoners scattered around on the top three tiers. Apart from three sex cases: Strachey, Hopper and Rose. Of course, these were kept separate, but they were there.
    There was no work. You either stayed in your cell during the day or were split into one of two rooms where you sat around chatting. There was a piddling little exercise yard that people often didn’t bother to use for the statutory hour a day. And from six to nine there was tele-vision. The only other facility was weight lifting or weight training every