Ozzie Rozzie #3

[CAUTION: THIS STORY CONTAINS ADULTS]

Read part one here.
Read part two here.

Andrew "Clint" Eastwood was a nice enough kid, blessed with an observant eye and a vocabulary beyond his years. He had his mother's capacity for a pithy well-rounded phrase and his father's dedication to getting the most from every situation that presented itself for self-glory. Unfortunately, at the age of 13, he was among the last of the boys in the school to hit puberty, and this, combined with his rather self-obsessed, glamourous parents, who were far more into themselves, and, it would eventually be revealed, a local swingers club, than they were their two bright offspring, had caused Andrew to vie for the status of class clown in order to get the attention he craved, and his grades had started to slide.

Andrew's older sister Julia was already eighteen and about to take the "A" level examinations that would propel her into the fastidious life of a dental assistant, and eventually take her to Australia where she would discover, after years of dutifully sucking dentist's cocks whilst hiding her displeasure, her love for women. There was something of the same sexual compulsion/revulsion in Andrew, the same unspoken family forces were at work in his dumb body, even before it had learned to speak the language. His belated physical development didn't stop him knowing everything about sex, or vocalising daily fantasies for the benefit of anyone who would listen. Actually he was sweet on ice-cool Angela Spender, the studious netball star who had the cleanest, whitest shirt in the class, and a classic fifties jawline, brow, and clear complexion, and who frequently recorded word for word his spoutings from the back of class in her tidy mind. She found them arousing as she quietly masturbated herself to sleep at the end of each day.

Andrew was called "Clint" for the same reason that Oswald Rosbotham was called "Ozzie Rozzie" - the classroom nick-name lottery, which dispensed winning and losing name tickets for everyone. Nobody was exempt, but you had to be quieter about speaking some of them in front of burgeoning teenage dignity - unless you were Edwin Witter, whose capacity for whimsical cruelty was legendary.

This time, however, Edwin had been dramatically trumped by the spectacular explosion of Oswald's anger, excited out of his normal dull tolerance of lessons into high expectation of action, left standing on his chair making animal sounds with his arms aloft like a victor, and this was how the large, bullish figure of Mr Thompson found him, with the rest of the class in uproar, when he entered the scene vacated five minutes previously by Ozzie and Clint.

"EDWIN! GET DOWN NOW! and stand in the corner. The rest of you: return to your seats IN SILENCE!" he bellowed, standing in the doorway. Casting his eyes down at the debris and the upturned desks, his eyebrows moved up to the top of his forehead and stayed there. As the class started to settle, he ignored them, and turning to Angela Spender, he said, calmly, "Angela, would you like to tell me what has happened here?"

"Oswald has kidnapped Andrew Eastwood, Sir," she offered simply.

"What do you mean, kidnapped, girl?" he hissed, "explain!" She attempted to fill in the details of the action, with occasional helpful additions from other students, until a look of weariness came over Thompson's face.

"Where did they go?" he asked. "To see Ozzie's mum, Sir," the class chorused.

"We'll see about that," he said, then, "Carry on with your revision until the bell IN COMPLETE SILENCE. Witter: back to your desk, and STOP SNIGGERING. I don't want to hear a single noise: IS THAT CLEAR?"

To a collective murmur of "Yes, Sir," he swept out of the classroom and began heading to the school entrance double-quick.

Thompson was thoroughly alarmed, although he was doing a good job of hiding it. He was plagued by headlines as yet unwritten: CHILD KIDNAPPED - SCHOOL RIOTS - and haunted by the knowledge that, had he not been chatting up Ms Butcher the fabulously attractive young geography teacher, he would have been on hand to prevent this disaster. He vaguely remembered that there was something up with Rosbotham. He found the boy hard work, and spent as little time on his education as he could, preferring the brighter children, like Eastwood. Why the fuck had that rural retard kidnapped Eastwood? Now he regretted not having more fully appraised himself of the boy's circumstances.

No sign of anyone outside the gates. He sighed, swallowed, and went to the office to retrieve the boys' details and home address. If it was not too far away, he might be able to cut them off in his MG at the high street, and return them to school before things got even worse.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Clint had gone into a resigned, passive state of shock. He felt no physical pain, although he was aware that he should, but he had the condemned man's awareness of his surroundings. Suburban tableaux passed before him like flickering, unconnected dioramas. He was able to recall details of this forced march for the rest of his life: the man reading the Morning Star at the bus stop: the two children running around their mother's legs as she chatted to her friend: the collision of blue and orange plastic outside the bakers: Oswald's heavy breathing and the sound of his over-large boots on the pavement: the crow cawing incongruously on the zebra crossing.

The size differential between them was immense - they looked more like father and son than school colleagues, despite their uniforms. Oswald still held Clint in a violent embrace, and as they marched down sunny streets, under the railbridge, towards the large open space of the public playing field, occasional adults in gardens and cars and shops would look up, see these two boys locked together, see the blood and the bruising on one face, the grim anger on the other, the torn shirt, the bleeding knuckles, and do nothing.

Alarm passed over the faces of two women who stood chatting on the corner of the field, as the two boys marched through the hole in the fence which most people used instead of the gate, being more conveniently situated on the junction; but still, like all the adults who saw them pass by that day, they did nothing, just a pause, a look, a tut-tut and a well-I-never comment, before returning unconcerned to their endless gossip, as Oswald and Clint travelled on towards their destination, across dry grassy fields littered with dogshit, coke cans, cigarette butts and crisp packets.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Thompson stood in the school office, explaining the situation to the Deputy Head, Mr Morrison. Morrison was two years from retirement, clipped, grey, old fashioned, and religiously optimistic, whereas Thompson was five years into the job, well-groomed, just turned thirty and fashionably cynical, so there was no natural affection between them whatsoever. However, right now, they shared the same disturbed regard, which brought them together as one.

"Did you not know about Rosbotham's circumstances?" asked Morrison, shaking his head, as he reached into the filing cabinet. "His particulars were not widely circulated, but it was clear we have a duty of care to him over and above the norm. The boy has been in the worst of situations." He threw a file onto his desk for Thompson to peruse. "And why Eastwood?" continued Morrison, "the boy has verbal diarrhea that is certain, but otherwise, he is pleasant enough."

"Wrong time, wrong place, I think," replied Thompson, frowning deeply as he scanned the reports that had accompanied Oswald Henry Arthur Rosbotham's entry into the school. "I mean, he takes a bit of teasing, like everyone, but he's not been known to fly off the handle like that.. "

"No telephone listed for the boy," remarked Morrison calmly, "Surely not?"

There was none. The address was a couple of miles distant. Thompson mentally calculated his route against the walking speed.

"Shall I call the police, or do you want to see if you can catch them up?" asked Morrison levelly. Thompson looked up and shot a look of gratitude towards his fellow teacher.

"I'll go. I think I can get there first." He turned to the door, exited as Morrison gently admonished after him, "Be careful, especially in the boy's home, won't you. And call the office as soon as you have them."

"Will do. Thanks."

Blessing this lease of life, Thompson began jogging towards the car park, uttering fervent prayers to a God he didn't believe in under his tobacco-flavoured breath.



End Part Three