The Island

By Eilliab Trauts

SYNOPSIS 

  

Following a childhood from a broken home and always moving from one school to another where he was constantly bullied until he was fourteen. 

This is the story of John Rybecht from his early years into adulthood, from leaving the home of his mother and stepfather with nowhere to go and getting involved with all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, before being shipped off to live with his father only to get deeper into trouble.  

Being initiated into yet another drug gang, surviving in a world of violence and deceit that most people would be shocked to know existed outside of a film set. That would take all his cunning not to mention a little luck to survive.  

Escaping in the end with the help of an old friend that he never expected to see again to start a new life which has enabled him to tell his story in the hope that it will prevent someone else from falling into the same traps and having to spend any time living in a hell that has little or no future for anyone who is caught up in it. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eilliab Trauts
• Release date: Oct 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201234904

Book preview

SYNOPSIS

Following a childhood from a broken home and always moving from one school to another where he was constantly bullied until he was fourteen.

This is the story of John Rybecht from his early years into adulthood, from leaving the home of his mother and stepfather with nowhere to go and getting involved with all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, before being shipped off to live with his father only to get deeper into trouble.

Being initiated into yet another drug gang, surviving in a world of violence and deceit that most people would be shocked to know existed outside of a film set. That would take all his cunning not to mention a little luck to survive.

Escaping in the end with the help of an old friend that he never expected to see again to start a new life which has enabled him to tell his story in the hope that it will prevent someone else from falling into the same traps and having to spend any time living in a hell that has little or no future for anyone who is caught up in it.

The Island

After what can only be described as not the best childhood in the world, although my mum bless her heart, did the best she could with the cards that she was dealt.

I was born in 1965 at Bedford general hospital, but I don’t remember living in Bedford as we moved away when I was very young. My parents were both ex-militaries having been in the RAF where they met, but other than that neither of them really said very much about the time they spent in the forces.

What I can remember is that we lived with my grandad as he had a big house in Yorkshire.

The first really vivid memory I have is that of my mother holding open the back door of my grandads' house with my dad’s suitcases already packed as she was kicking him out.

I went to the local primary school where I mostly learned that the only person, I could actually depend on was my older brother, even though we always seemed to be at each other’s throats over one thing or another.

It always seemed to be that no matter how much our mother tried to keep us out of trouble we would always manage to find a way of getting into it. Even though we were both encouraged to go to Sunday school and church, for that matter anything that meant we weren't fighting or getting into trouble with the police. Did it work? Only in the daytime, and even then, only on Sundays.

Our dad would do the visits on the weekends and all that but eventually they came to a stop, giving me the feeling that I would have to fend for myself at some point. You might say that we all end up realising that sooner or later and I would agree, but not normally before you get to ten.

It took some years before it finally happened.

Without the guidance from my father that it was ok to defend yourself I was bullied most of my school life. For no other reason than my size, being taller than everyone else was not a good thing in my eyes.

One day at school when I was fourteen the school bully started in on me. It was as far as he was concerned time for my usual beating. As I had never been told it was OK to hit back, I never did. I wouldn’t have known how to even if I had tried, up until then.

Up until then I had never really wanted to hit someone, I knew how much it hurt and how humiliating I felt when it happened to me. And without anyone to explain to me that it was OK to hit back, I had just taken any bullying which came my way for the better part of the past decade.

I was around six feet tall at the time and built like an athletic runner as I’d long since learnt that if I wasn’t going to hit back, I could at least run away. And so, at around thirteen stone I was extremely fast when it came to a run. Especially over distances of between one and two hundred meters, so much so that I was one of the fastest sprinters in the school and was on the track team for inter school sports.

The bully that was picking on me that day was... shall we say not as fit as me. This would be the day when I would also learn that fights were usually won by the fittest and not necessarily the strongest.

I was standing at the bottom of the science block. This was basically a massive central stairwell that was glass fronted on one side and class rooms coming out of opposite sides. At the bottom there was an out building which was attached to the science block by a covered area. The roof had its own support posts on two of its corners because the roof was wider than the out building.

I was standing near one of these posts when he started on me. I had been through this many times before. First came the name calling, then there was the pushing which I knew would be followed by the inevitable stealing of my school bag and of course my lunch money.

Well on this day it was going to be a little different and looking back I’m not quite sure who was more surprised. Me, the school bully or my classmates and the other students, or the teachers that had to pull me off the unfortunate bully who had decided that it was his turn to beat me up that day.

After the name calling and the pushing, I threw my bag to one side and went straight at him. I knew how he fought as he had done this to me many times before. When he made a fist, he always kept his thumbs sticking out as if he was trying to thumb a lift at the side of the road. These turned out to be my first target. I grabbed hold of both of them and forced them back as hard and as fast as I could. At the same time, I brought my right knee up into his groin. The result was exactly what I wanted. I heard both of his thumbs snap and felt his bollocks crush under the force of my knee.

His screams were almost primal, which only made things worse for him because they spurred me on into a frenzy like a red rag to a bull. I must have completely lost control of myself due to sheer rage at this point because most of what happened next has always remained a blur. I just started hitting him as hard and as fast as I could. I hit him in the face in his chest and stomach. I know he put his hands up to try to stop me, but they were pretty much useless.

My memory of the event starts to clear with me hearing one of the P.E. teachers shouting at me to stop and calm down. As I heard this, I realised that I was now being held by the arms and had two people in front of me pushing me back. I was covered in blood from my head to just below my knees. None of it was mine.

As I calmed down, I could hear people screaming and as I looked round, I could see some of the girls openly throwing up whatever they’d had for breakfast, having looked at what I had left on the floor that had once been one of the most feared people in the school, not anymore. He just lay there making a sort of gurgling noise as he tried to breath. He had become a bodily fluid bubble making machine, as each outward breath made air bubbles in the blood, bile and vomit that was coming from his mouth. A couple of the other teachers were trying to help him, but they just looked as if they were afraid to touch him.

The whole area of the school seemed to have been overrun by chaos. Some of the kids started to cheer as if some sort of major victory had been won. Suddenly there were more teachers in one place than I thought there were in the whole school.

I was no longer struggling having come to my senses enough to know that I was not being hit anymore. Then I started to feel week as if someone were slowly turning a switch somewhere inside me from on to off. Then the world started to go fuzzy and started to spin. As I collapsed all I could hear was the sound of sirens that seemed to be coming from everywhere and getting louder and louder.

When I woke up, I was in the back of an ambulance wearing an oxygen mask with some very worried people looking down at me. One of which turned out to be a doctor. I was a little confused as to why I was in the ambulance. After all no one had hit me and as far as I knew I wasn’t bleeding. Except from my hands which had very little skin left on the knuckles, they had started to throb with pain now. Apart from that I felt just fine. I tried to sit up and the world spun out of control again.

The doctor put his hand on my chest and said. It’s probably best if you don’t try that for a while. Then he looked down at me sort of shook his head and made a tut-tut sound as if I’d done something wrong.

He started it. I said

I don’t care who did what to who. He replied, Fighting has never solved anything, and one day you’ll realise that.

There didn’t seem to be any point in carrying on with this conversation, so I just lay down. I’d have to wait there until they’d finished with me, but I just wanted to get out of the ambulance and go back to school. As for the bully I didn’t care about him at all, he’d started it and I’d finished it, and as far as I was concerned that was that. He’d got what was coming to him and for that I was glad.

As it turned out I couldn’t have been more wrong. When the doctor had finished with me, and I had recovered enough strength to stand up and walk around. The police wanted to talk to me.

I was taken to the headmaster’s office where my form teacher and two uniformed police officers were waiting for me.

I’d been in the office on several occasions for one thing or another usually because the teachers were trying to find out who had beaten me up and stolen my lunch money, but they never found out from me no matter how bad it was I knew it would only get worse if I tried to do anything about it by involving the teachers. As we walked into the office the headmaster who was a large man with a loud booming voice which he could use very quietly when the need arose, which was surprising for anyone who heard him use it that way. He had very little hair and was always well dressed. He was sat in a big black leather chair behind a large wood desk which had a green mottled leather writing insert. On one side there was a phone with a card index next to it. On the other side were three trays for In, Out and Pending. There was a bookcase along the wall on the right with two straight back chairs in front of it. On the other side was a two-seater couch. The only window in the room was behind the headmaster which had a white louvre blind in front of it which was set to half closed.

I was seated in one of the straight back chairs while the two police officers got the couch, my form tutor stood next to them.

I was expecting the police to start asking me all sorts of questions that I was sure I would not be able to answer, but again I couldn’t have been more wrong. The headmaster was the one who spoke.

Now John, I want you to think very carefully before you give me your answer to my next question, O.K.? He spoke very softly almost as if he was trying to whisper.

I nodded, still feeling a little unsure of myself.

Good. He said. I want you to tell me exactly what happened. Take your time there’s no rush.

I didn’t need to take any time thinking about it, I knew exactly what had happened. I knew exactly what had happened.

He was picking on me, so I hit him.

Did he hit you first?

He pushed me and called me a ‘twat’. He’s always doing it, and not just to me. I just wanted him to leave me alone, but he never does. So, I hit him! I was starting to shout, and I could feel myself starting to shake with rage.

O.K. that’s all I wanted to know. Now will you please wait outside?

Just the sound of his voice seemed to have a calming effect. I sat outside his office just waiting to see what would happen next. They couldn’t call my mother as she was at work, my step farther was working away, and my brother was on a school trip to France. So, there was no one to call.

I could hear raised voices from inside the office. It sounded like the headmaster was talking to the police, but he wasn’t using his soft voice anymore. From what I could make out he didn’t want to have the police involved any more than they already were. After a short while the voices stopped and there was a brief pause before the door opened and the two officers came out escorted by my form teacher, who told me to go back into the office.

The headmaster told me to sit back down, which I did.

I have told the police that I will be dealing with this incident in school. What you have done is very serious. You should have come to me with this problem long ago so that I could have done something about it. He wasn’t happy I could tell but he did seem to be genuinely concerned about something. I have been aware of what has been happening for some time but without someone coming forward there is nothing I can do. Do you understand?

I nodded. I understood all right if I grassed someone up to him, he wouldn’t do anything to stop another beating because he couldn’t.

"I should at least suspend you but in light of the fact that you haven’t been involved in starting any fights since you have been in this school I’m not going to. That said I can’t have you back in school today, it would be far too disruptive for the other students. So I’m sending you home where I hope you will at least do some homework and have good hard think about what could have happened had I let the police deal with this. Do you understand?"

Yes sir. I said nodding.

Now if you can wait outside until your form teacher returns, she will escort you from the school. I expect to see you back in school tomorrow and we will try to put this whole thing behind us.

With that I got up and left his office and waited outside for my form teacher to return.

What happened to bully, I’ll never know he didn’t come back to school so everyone just assumed that he moved away.

As for the rest of that day there wasn’t much of left so I just went home. Of course, when my mother got home, she wanted to know what had happened to my knuckles, but I just told her that I had fallen over.

After that school life was a lot easier. I also gained a lot of friends because anyone who became friends with me were considered off limits to all bullies. Did I bully other people with my newfound abilities? Of course not, after suffering at the hands of others for so many years there was no way that I was going to put anyone else through the same torture. That said I was no longer worried about giving a beating to those who were deserving of it. A skill that I was unaware at the time would serve me well later in life.

When I left school, I discovered that there were no jobs to be found anywhere. Eventually it was decided that we would move south to where there were apparently more jobs than you could poke a stick at. As it turned out there was indeed plenty of work for those who wanted it. My brother and I both scored jobs at the local concrete factory. The work was physically demanding and well paid.

CHAPTER

No matter how I tried I could not get along with my step farther, something which I could never see happening. Then one thing led to another, and I knew that I had to leave. I even quit my job which of course left me with no income and nowhere to live. It didn’t take long for me to fall in with what most people would consider the wrong crowd.

I ended up living in digs with a mate called Bob I had made on the street and signing on the dole as it was kind of hard-to-find work without a full driving licence, and I hadn’t passed mine yet. Not that this would stop me from