The Boy Marcus… and Other Lives

By John Quarmby

Marcus was a truly handsome young man. At 24 he was tall and of medium build. He had a clean shaven, slightly oval face whose clear features were framed by fine black hair which crept down under the collar of his T shirt covering and defining the strong, slender body beneath. His grey eyes shone with an intelligent intensity beneath fine black eyebrows and to look him in the eye was to leave one feeling that he had seen into ones very sole. He was articulate and charismatic and always seemed about to smile, but never did.

I first met him on 2003. He had been in hospital and on his discharge and being unemployed the Social Services had accommodated him in a Bed and Breakfast. Now, some months later and having secured a job as a machinist he was going to have to vacate the B & B., and had, allegedly, heard that I had an empty apartment over my office. He wanted to rent it. In the event I decided not. I did not want to let it at that time, nor could he afford the rent. I had also noticed his arms.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Oct 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781984589095

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THE BOY MARCUS…

AND OTHER LIVES

JOHN QUARMBY

Copyright © 2019 by John Quarmby.

Library of Congress Control Number:    2019913915

ISBN:       Hardcover       978-1-9845-8911-8

                 Softcover         978-1-9845-8910-1

                 eBook              978-1-9845-8909-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 09/27/2019

Xlibris

800-056-3182

www.Xlibrispublishing.co.uk

792715

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Introductions

Chapter 2 Childhood And Adolescence

Chapter 3 Marvin Logan

Chapter 4 William And Patrick

Chapter 5 Philip James

Chapter 6 John Peterson

Chapter 7 John And David

Chapter 8 Alex Bate

Chapter 9 Epilogue I

Chapter 10 In Memorium

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTIONS

M arcus was a truly handsome young man. At 24 he was tall and of medium build. He had a clean shaven, slightly oval face whose clear features were framed by fine black hair which crept down under the collar of his T shirt covering and defining the strong, slender body beneath. His grey eyes shone with an intelligent intensity beneath fine black eyebrows and to look him in the eye was to leave one feeling that he had seen into ones very sole. He was articulate and charismatic and always seemed about to smile, but never did.

I first met him in 2003. He had been in hospital and on his discharge and being unemployed the Social Services had accommodated him in a Bed and Breakfast. Now, some months later and having secured a job as a machinist he was going to have to vacate the B & B., and had, allegedly, heard that I had an empty apartment over my office. He wanted to rent it. In the event I decided not. I did not want to let it at that time, nor could he afford the rent. I had also noticed his arms.

When he left he had quietly taken my watch off the table! I was not overly concerned at the loss. Although quite valuable the watch was broken, which was why I was not wearing it, and knowing where he was staying I had intended to retrieve the watch the next day. In the event I did not need to do so, Marcus returned with the watch and apologised. He told me that as we had been speaking the previous evening he had been overcome by the injustice of his life. While I seemingly had everything to which he ever aspired, he was likely to be out on the street by the end of the week with his life in a black plastic bin liner. Taking my watch had been his way of … getting my own back.

There were many subsequent occasions when Marcus demonstrated this kleptomania. On leaving the B&B he took two wire coat hangers and a small towel, which he then asked me to return. At a doctor’s surgery in Belfast, annoyed at having to wait he went into the kitchen and took a ten pound note from a purse. Subsequently unable to return it he was full of remorse at what he had done. On another occasion he took a watch (always a favourite) although that was returned before the owner noticed its loss. And so it goes on…

Impressed by his courage at returning my watch I started to talk to him and assured him I would not see him put out on the street. How our conversation evolved after that I do not really remember. His was articulate and interesting to talk to as he told me a little about his life, the ‘hit and run’ accident that put him in hospital, the jobs he had had and his estrangement from his family. I remember asking him a stupid ‘middle class’ question, …what was he looking for in life… to which he replied that he …wanted to be loved… Now it seemed to me that whatever else a 24 year old guy wanted out of life, love (or love in the platonic sense that Marcus meant it) is not usually an over riding ambition.

His reply also prompted a realisation that there may be a dimension to Marcus’s character that was not immediately discernable and led me to ask a question that had been in the back of my mind since the previous evening, …had he been abused.

His reaction was immediate and frighteningly hostile, I thought he was going to attack me, he stood over me shouting …how did I know… who had I been talking to… With some difficulty I stood up to face him and pointed to the scars on his arms. They were more than needle marks, they were evidence of self mutilation and I began to tell him about my elder daughters’ abuse by her step father. Gradually he quietened down and began to tell me his own story. A story of 20 years of unremitting pain. Of emotional, psychological, physical and sexual mutilation that was continuing still. He told me of the paedophiles, his early alcoholism, his refuge in drug addiction, of the violence in his life and of his work as a ‘high end’ prostitute.

I may have lived some thing of a privileged existence, but I have also considerable experience of life, yet nothing prepared me for Marcus. What he told me that night knocked my whole world sideways. It left me revulsed, angry and badly traumatised. I was mesmerised by the sheer awfulness of what he was saying and at first I did not notice the change that came over him as he talked. His emotional regression was so seamless, so insidious, so complete. I went from talking to an articulate young man to holding a frightened, sobbing seven year old child in my arms. He begged me to help him, ….would you be my daddy, could I be your son… I acceded to his pleadings. I had no other response.

Never again did I ask Marcus to recite his story, his regression so appalled me. Only have I asked him to elaborate particular circumstances as they arose in our conversations which he had initiated. Nor do I interrogate those other survivors to whom I talk, I just let them do the talking. Interrogation merely destabilises them, precipitating anger, violence and arrest.

Later that evening I took him back to the B & B., where he was still resident, subsequently phoning him to say goodnight before I fell asleep.

It must have been about three in the morning that his phone call woke me. He had woken, as he had done every night for 20 years, screaming for his Mammy as he re lived the abuse of all those years before. How could they do that to me (he sobbed), I didn’t have hair on my balls and the bastards were fucking me…

I talked him back to sleep, though did not sleep myself and phoned him at 7am to make sure he got to work on time.

The nightmares continued for night after night over many months. Distraught at his suffering I bought him a teddy bear from a toy shop near where I held a clinical teaching appointment, in an effort to focus his mind away from the abuse when he woke and phoned me. The strategy was a great success, asking if teddy was ok., and telling him not to wake the bear tended to settled him.

He remained in regression for eight days, easy to handle, biddable and anxious to please he was always looking for approval and reassurance. He was also absolutely open and honest. Normally discrete to the point of secrecy, in regression Marcus was totally uninhibited, had he not been I wonder if I would ever have been able to comprehend the nature and extent of his abuse.

He could however be violent, throwing things and hitting out blindly, as small children do when upset. While such pain and anguish can be assuaged in a small child, such violence in a 24 year old, 12 stone man is of a different dimension and as the violence continued over the years I gradually developed an instinct for its onset and protected myself as best I could. Usually by legging it!

Then Teddy was gone. Marcus was out of the regression, of which he had no recall and was subsequently appalled at things he had told me, so I gave him an undertaking that I would never reveal what he had told me to anyone without his consent. I subsequently extended this undertaking to all the survivors to whom I talk, although I do not meet the majority of them, preferring to talk over the phone. This means I cannot identify them and anything they tell me is hearsay evidence and not admissible in a court of law, keeping both parties safe. The downside to this is that some of what I hear are lies, a lot is out of context and can be so outrageous that I tend to be unbelieving and my scepticism is infectious.

Once out of regression I also sat Marcus down and repeated my offer of help. I made it clear however that his acceptance of my offer would be an irrevocable decision, that my condition in making the offer would be that I would never give up on him or allow him to change his mind and that while I would respect his privacy he was never to lie to me or take drugs. He agreed to my offer. Many months later after one of our frequent fights, he admitted that he had not meant to accept, he just thought that he could exploit me for a few weeks and then go back to …the old Marcus… when you gave up on me…but you kept coming back…I could not get rid of you… you are still here… I asked him if he had any regrets, would he really want to go back (as he frequently threatened) and he looked at me with affectionate disbelief and just said No.

In reality he did not change, or changed very slowly. He did exploit me and he lied to me constantly and it was months before he trusted me enough to begin to walk away from his former life style and the twisted security it offered him. Years later he was still taking drugs on a spasmodic basis and there was always the violence.

There appears to be a hierarchy of violence on the streets. The difference between a ‘thumping’ (punches to the body which may be sufficient to fracture the ribs) a kicking (when the victim is kicked to the ground with the risk of internal injuries) and a beating (when the victim is kicked unconscious) are used