THE LIFE OF RILEY
BY FRANK RILEY ©

BOOK ONE - SPIKE ISLAND

Chapter Twenty Three: A Twist of Fate

There were a few weird characters who visited Spike Island from time to time. It was that sort of place. Just when you thought everything was relatively normal some oddball or other would come along to dissipate the boredom. From villains to village idiots, wild men to witches, gangsters to gypsies, we got the lot. It was as though some strange subterranean magnetic force drew them there. Perhaps it was the high tides that attracted them, or the full moon. Whatever it was we were certainly never short of diversions. But there were two who stand out in my memory more than all the others. One was a very scary character by the name of Les Collins and the other will come and call on us in the next chapter.

Les Collins was the bane of my early life. He terrorised me all through my primary-school days. He was the leading player in most of my nightmares. He was also a very unfortunate man, at least, as I think of him now; at the time of which I write he was the incarnation of all things horrible and terrifying.

He must have been only in his early twenties, but it was extremely difficult to tell. He was fairly tall and quite thin; lanky is a word that comes to mind when I think of him. His brain, sadly, had never developed beyond that of a 4-year old child and in a "grown-up" this was a terrible combination. He had a long, lean face with bulging, staring eyes. His jaw seemed to be permanently twisted and his tongue flopped out of the side of his mouth like a puppy-dog's.

He had a habit of looking at you sideways and rubbing his chin against his shoulder which, to a little boy like me was most assuredly intimidating. When he walked his knees would jerk up in the air and he would plant his feet down wherever they happened to land, and not always where they were supposed to go. But oh, how he could run! Whenever he was scared, or angry, or someone had set him off in some way, he would run so fast it was frightening. It was a totally uncoordinated exercise; his legs and arms would flap about all over the place, very much like a good take-off of Jerry Lewis in one of his pictures. But the speed with which he covered the ground was truly amazing.

There was, however, one other feature which marked him as being in the realms of something out of a Boris Karloff horror story. It was his hands. They were twisted the wrong way! If he held his arms down by his side his thumbs would point backwards and his palms would be turned out. Whenever he tried to pick up an object he would do it back-to-front; his shoulders seemed to dislocate as he reached for whatever he wanted to grasp; it was as though some invisible force had him in the grip of a torturer.

This was the man, or child-man, who, through no fault of his own, made parts of my life a living nightmare. He lived in, or near, Short Street at the top of the covered walkway which led down to the island and would often wander down to wreak havoc among the natives.

The trouble was, you see, you never knew when he would be there and that was the most terrifying thing of all. The tremulous anticipation of his lurking around any one of the dark corners of the walkway was a constant factor in my early existence. I had to go to and from school via this covered pathway, the shops too, and anyone of my school chums I wanted to visit would involve travelling by this route.

The fear I had of him was not just some imaginary childish thing either; many's the time he attacked me as I was walking up or down the walkway. Sometimes he would be waiting around one of the blind corners and if I came upon him unexpectedly and frightened him he would lash out with his big black boots and kick me. Other times he would snake his grotesque, twisted hand towards my face and pinch my cheeks between his thumb and forefinger and literally lift me off the ground. Imagine the strength he must have possessed to enable him to do that with his hand twisted the wrong way and his shoulder bent forward. Try to lift up a coffee-cup or something similar in this manner and you will get some idea of what I am talking about.

There were times when he confronted me that I was able to speak to him. In my fear, I would babble on about anything just to keep him talking and chatter away hoping he wouldn't turn on me. When he spoke you could hardly understand him and his tongue seemed to be very much out of control and sliding all over his chin. The words would pour out, accompanied by a great deal of slobbering and sucking in of saliva. I would watch him intently as these conversations took place for any sign of attack, but nine times out of ten he would still catch me when I least expected it. Half way through a seemingly innocuous sentence he would suddenly lash out with his feet and kick the living daylights out of me.

My brother, Mike, was much better at handling him than I was. Perhaps because he was bigger, or smarter, he was able to handle the situation more easily, but even he copped a few hidings from time to time. Mike's method was far more brave than mine. Whenever he came across Les he would shout at him and more often than not Les would begin to cry and run away in his inimical entangled legs and arms way. But you could never tell how he would react. Sometimes Mike would shout at him and Les would begin to cry and make as though to run off and suddenly he would turn around and commence lashing out.

It was a holy terror for me coming home from school. It came to such a point that I would wait at the top of the walkway sometimes for hours to see if a grown-up would come walking by so that I could walk down with him. Even the fear of a beating from Dad for being late could not make me move from that spot until I could find someone to accompany me. Sometimes it became quite ridiculous. There I would stand at the entrance to the walkway hoping for some sort of escort, hopelessly late and a good hiding from Dad awaiting me, and still I couldn't get up the nerve to walk down that pathway.

Les Collins was probably the strangest character I've ever met in my whole life. To see a grown man who acts in one way like a baby and in another like a tyrannical bully, whose limbs are twisted beyond normal recognition, whose eyes and mouth and tongue react in grotesquely odd ways, is indeed a frightening thing for a wee lad to behold. But his strength, considering all the deformities he had, was something beyond belief. I saw him one day on the opposite side of the canal from our house with a pile of house-bricks at his feet. Whatever does he want those for, I thought, with not a little fear and a goodish dose of curiosity. As I watched him he picked up one of the bricks in his twisted right hand and lobbed it clean across the canal at our house. It hit the side wall with a thud. This feat, if it had been an Olympic event would have earned him a Gold Medal. The canal was at least forty feet wide and the house a further fifteen feet or thereabouts and considering his handicaps it was the most incredible display of strength I've ever witnessed.

I shouted at him in amazement to desist. "Desist! Desist," I said, huffily. Desist he did not, and continued to bombard our house until his ammunition ran out. Then he picked up his legs and ran away at a hundred miles an hour along the canal bank and presumably to his own home.

He died, some say a merciful death, some years later in strange circumstances. The rumours said his body just blew up like a balloon and burst. When I heard this I imagined seeing bits of him splattered all over the walls with the bang of the explosion still ringing in my ears. However he died, it was probably a blessing for him and his family in the long run. Imagine what sort of life he must have led. And how must his parents have felt.

I can still picture him most vividly to this day. He was my nightmare. He was the scourge of my childhood. Yet, as I think now of how he was trapped inside his hideous body and confused mind, my heart goes out to him and his family.

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