John Paul Docherty and the Mucky Mag Part One

Welcome to Season Two of Telling Tales. We begin with another story featuring John Paul Docherty, the school bully from Newcastle. After his run-in with a first-year boy in Season One, John Paul has to look for a new way to make money. A chance find presents him with an opportunity. This is a three-part story released over the next three weeks.

Transcript

Paul Docherty and the Mucky Mag

Part One

“John Paul, get your skinny arse down here now.” Sheelagh Docherty shouted up the narrow staircase. “I have told you two times there won't be a third.”

John Paul knew exactly what that would mean, his Mother would be upstairs with the wooden spoon beating the crap out of him until he got out of bed. He quickly picked up his clothes from the floor, dressed, and went downstairs.

“I’m out of milk, your Pa will want some for his tea when he gets in from the night shift. He’ll be tired and in a bad mood and none of us want that. Do we?” She gave John Paul one of her terrifying stares.

No Ma.” John Paul replied.

“Now go and don’t dawdle!” She swept her flat hand out towards his head and he quickly ducked as he slipped out the door.

He hated getting the milk. It was seven in the morning and the normally crowded terraced streets of Newcastle were just starting to come to life. In the distance, he could hear the familiar rattle of the milk cart as it did its daily round. He was a few streets away from his own house. “Always keep the park between yourself and the milk” his eldest brother Shaun had told him. “This is the catholic area, go on the other side of the park and it’s protestant milk you're nicking.”

John Paul glanced about him and made sure no one could see him and in the time it takes to say “two sugars please” he scooped up a bottle of milk from a doorstep and pushed it inside his coat. 

His family life was a chaotic one, he and his five brothers, his Mother and Father and his Grandfather shared a three-bedroom terrace house in the west end of the city. Mrs Docherty came from a hard-working family and tried her best to keep the house tidy and her unruly brood in line. She provided them with good basic foods, she kept their clothes as clean as she could but it was an uphill task and she rarely made it even halfway up. Her husband Michael with his shock of red hair and his quick wit was the love of her life. He never complained, he worked hard in the chemical factory and always handed his pay packet over on a Friday night unopened.

John Paul’s family roots were in Ireland and his great, great grandfather had brought the family to Newcastle when the potato famine gripped the country. Despite the fact his father had never set foot in Ireland he considered himself as Irish as Guinness. The backdoor swung open and Michael Docherty pushed his way through the detritus that littered the backyard and opened the kitchen door.

“Sheelagh pet, I don’t know how you manage to look so gorgeous at seven o'clock in the morning. I’m for me bed after me breakfast, would you like to join me for an hour or so?”

“Away with you Michael Docherty.” As she tried to suppress a smile. ” Stop your messing, I have six breakfasts to make and you go and get those idol sons of yours out of bed and ready for school. ” 

The big bedroom at the front of the house was more like an army barracks with two rows of bunk beds and a small cot on which John Paul slept. It was far too small for him but there was no way his older brothers were going to give up their beds for him.

Michael banged his fist on the bedroom door and shouted. “Up now, ya lazy buggers. If you're not down in five minutes I’ll send you Ma up with the spoon.” He had no desire to go in the room. The smell of teenage boys and sweaty socks was worse than the acrid smell of the chemicals cooking in the factory where he worked. 

The terraced streets were built in 1890 then they were for the middle class but now the area had become a ghetto of low-paid labourers and the unemployed. A rundown park sulked at the end of the terrace. John Paul liked the park. It was overgrown, and most of the play equipment was broken but at night it belonged to him and his pals. The parkkeeper and police would constantly try to move them on but it was like keeping ants out of a sugar factory.  

John Paul had kissed Mary McIntyre there and even felt her breasts through her school cardigan. He got a slap across the face for that and she never spoke to him again. He didn’t care, by the time he had finished telling the story to his friends you would have thought the two of them were naked in the park shelter but that’s teenage boys for you. He decided to take the shortcut through the park. The morning air was sharp but the April sunshine had lit up the path through the hedge. That’s where he saw the magazine.  John Paul was a natural scavenger. His father never threw anything away and if someone had dumped something in the back lane he was the first to drag it into the backyard. As a consequence, the back of the house was overgrown with abandoned washing machines, broken bicycles and bald car tyres. If John Paul brought some discarded piece of metal or a cracked flower pot to his Dad. He always got “Ah, that’s grand lad, thanks.” praise from his father was as rare as a sunny day in Newcastle. 

“You never know when something will come in handy” was the family motto. In reality, none of the junk piled up in the yard ever came in handy but his father would never part with any of it, much to his wife’s annoyance. So, John Paul had learnt from an early age to keep his eyes peeled for treasure in the back lanes and anything dumped in the park. 

He couldn’t believe his luck when he examined the magazine it was an almost mint copy of Penthouse. The girlie magazine had only recently come out and the paper boys from Parker’s Newsagents talked of nothing else. “Tits and everything” they eagerly told anyone who would listen. He quickly stuffed it inside his coat next to the milk bottle. 

Back at the house he passed the milk boittle to his Mother. “Did you have to milk the cow to get this? You’ve been twenty minutes. Ya Da’s not a happy man” before John Paul could dodge out of the way she landed a sharp slap across the back of his head. “Get that tea to your Da, he’s out in the yard in the outside netty.” John Paul made his way gingerly through the debris of the small yard and knocked on the door of the outside toilet. “What de ya want? I’m in here.” he dad said

“Dad, I have your tea.” The door slowly cracked open. His father was astride the toilet a cigarette in his mouth and a copy of the Racing Post in his lap. “About bloody time. Me throat is as rough as the bottom me workboots.” As John  Paul stood there gazing at his father with his trousers around his ankles and his cap pushed back on his head his Father swallowed a large slurp of tea then spat it out all over John Paul’s trousers. “Jesus, no bloody sugar. Are trying to poison me? Take it back and put two sugar in it and tell ya Ma I want a bacon sandwich from me breakfast,” 

John Paul scurried back to the kitchen and as he came through the back door the magazine dropped out of his coat and onto the floor. As he went to pick it up he spilt some tea on it. “Nooo.” he screamed. His mother spun around. She looked at the floor and then looked back at John Paul. “Where did you find that filth?” she said. Before John Paul could say anything his Mother had grabbed the precious copy of Penthouse and dumped it into the kitchen bin. “Me Da, wants a cup of tea with two sugars and a bacon sandwich Ma” His Mother stared at him with such intensity he felt as if she was burying into his head. “Get cleaned up and get off to school, I’ll talk to you tonight.” He hated it when that happened all day long he would wonder if she told his Dad and what she would do next. “It’s the spoon for sure” he thought.

His walk home from school that afternoon was slower than normal. He had no desire to see his Mother or Father and no appetite for the beating that would follow. He crept into the house and as he started going upstairs his Mother came out of the kitchen. “John Paul, I need you to go to the Coop and get some plain flour, just tuppence worth.” She thrust two penny coins into his hand. “I’m making a cake for your Grandad, I forgot it’s birthday tomorrow. Now go.”

John Paul ducked expecting the usual slap across the head but his Mother spun around and disappeared back into the kitchen. He returned from the coop shop ten minutes later and went into the kitchen. 

“Here, Ma.” he said handing over the flour. “Anything else?”

“Yes, take the kitchen bin out and empty it into the big bin, then put that into the back lane. The bin lorry will be along first thing in the morning.”

“Yes, Ma.”

As John Paul emptied the kitchen bin the precious magazine spilled out. After a quick glance back towards the house to check his mother wasn’t watching he scooped up the Penthouse and pushed it inside his school blazer. 

There was  a small broken fridge in the backyard that had been rescued by his Dad from the back lane before the scrap man could get it. John Paul opened the fridge door shoved the magazine inside and returned to the kitchen. For a moment he felt lightheaded, he had rescued the magazine and despite its ordeal in the kitchen bin it seemed to be in reasonable condition and it looked like his mother had forgotten about it as well. 

“I’m going to get changed and then go and play football in the park. Is that OK Ma?” 

“Sit down John Paul.” his mother said. His heart sank.

“Yes Ma.” he pulled out the chair by the kitchen table and sat down.

“John Paul, don’t think I have forgotten about the magazine. Where did you get it?”

“In a hedge in the Park.” His voice was almost a whisper.

“You’re thirteen now and you’re probably going to become a randy old man like your father.” John Paul noticed an odd smile on his Mother’s face when she said that. “I can’t stop the things you young boys think about but never bring that sort of filth into my house again. Understand?”

“Yes, Ma.”

“Get changed and be back before six for your tea.”

“Yes, Ma.”

John Paul rushed upstairs and quickly changed out of his school uniform. A small germ of an idea had begun to grow in his brain. He knew it would make him a hero amongst his friends but more importantly, it would also make him a bit of money. John Paul may not have been the sharpest knife in the kitchen drawer but he had a lot of street savvy and he knew a money spinner when he saw one. He just needed to work on the details. He picked up his football and headed back towards the kitchen. 

Opening the back door, he shouted. “Bye Ma”. 

Down the hall towards the front door, he heard his Mother’s voice. He quickly took a pair of scissors from the drawer of the kitchen table and darted out into the yard, opening the rusty fridge door he grabbed the Penthouse Magazine and shoved it up his football Jersey, he opened the yard door and ran down the back lane towards the park. 

What’s John Paul’s master plan.

What will his friends think?

Tune in next Friday for the next instalment of John Paul Docherty and the Mucky Mag