THE LIFE OF RILEY
BY FRANK RILEY ©

BOOK ONE - SPIKE ISLAND

Chapter Twenty Four: Hang It All!

Frankie Miller, as a name, ranks among such notable ghoulish characters as Frankenstein's Monster, or Jack the Ripper, or any other horrible manifestation of fiendishness the mind can imagine. He was the living embodiment of all things evil. He terrorised the whole of West Bank, which, at the time was populated only by children and old ladies. Mischief and mayhem when applied to him were but polite terms of description.

It was rumoured that he had murdered his mother and father, although, how he was still at large was a question our little minds had not yet come to comprehend. One rumour had it that he had attached a rope to his leg and jumped off a three-story building just to see what would happen - some said he broke his leg in the attempt. There were stories about him that curdled my blood.

He was a young man, somewhere between seventeen and forty-five, but age did not matter so much; to us he was big and brutal and totally unpredictable. He would steal, he would maim, he cared nothing for anyone or, it seemed, anything.

Mike and I, if we were lucky, would sometimes go to the Saturday afternoon matinee at the local picture-house along with about ten thousand other scruffy kids from the neighbourhood. There we would see Roy Rogers do battle each time against incredible odds and in the end, sing his way out of any and all situations. We all loved it. We would ride our imaginary horses all the way home afterwards, and talk about it all week at school amongst ourselves.

One Saturday, Mike and I were sitting together watching our hero and the story was coming to a dramatic climax. There was Roy Rogers, surrounded by a horde of savage cut-throats, in the rocky hills of Dakota or somewhere, and about to be slaughtered. All the kids in the picture-house were on the edges of their seats. Roy was peering cautiously to his right around a huge boulder when from behind, one of the `baddies' began to sneak up closer to him. Thousands of frightened little voices whispered as one: "Watch out behind you, Roy!"

The picture-theatre now fell deathly silent as the drama unfolded. Would the outlaws get him this time? Some of the little kids held their hands over their eyes as the tension mounted, afraid to see what might happen next. The outlaw behind Roy raised his revolver and aimed at our hero's back. Oh no! Oh God, don't let him be killed! Then BANG!

The picture-house resounded with the deafening explosion. Smoke-filled the air. Everyone began a mad scramble for safety. Someone shouted: "Frankie Miller's in the place!" and that was enough to cause a stampede.

He had set off a banger at the precise moment when the outlaw fired his gun and the effect was devastating. We all ran like mad out of the theatre and scattered like the winds. Mike and I ran down the main street with a bunch of other kids, looking back all the while for any sign of Frankie Miller. "He's right behind yer!" someone shouted, and my feet sprouted wings.

Mike took off to the left and I hid myself in a doorway, pressing myself closer than the paint to the door. I saw him running past me shouting and screaming in a crazy manner and it struck me as odd that I had never seen him before. But as soon as I set my terrified eyes on him I knew instantly who he was. About three weeks later I got up the courage to move out of the doorway and when I had located Mike we ran home by the back way. There was no chance we were going to go the same way as Frankie had gone.

He was a terror all right. There seemed no end to his antics. Everyone, including some grown-ups lived in fear of him. I know I certainly did. But there was one episode which overshadowed anything that had happened up to this time; it was one, I'm sure, Mike will long remember.

One day Mike was coming home from school and was about half way down the covered walkway when who should he be confronted with but Frankie Miller! Of all the damned rotten luck. There was nowhere he could run to for escape. Frankie had with him a rope and it was obvious he intended to use it in some malevolent way.

Some of the overhead boards of the walkway were missing, or had been stolen for firewood, and a few of the cast-iron beams were exposed. Frankie threw the rope over one of these beams as he held Mike in his free hand by the scruff of his neck. Now, I'm not sure if any sentence had been formally been handed down, or even if any words had been spoken, I don't think Mike remembers either, but now the time had come for justice to be done.

He placed the noose around Mike's neck and proceeded to haul him up to the beam. With his feet dangling well above the ground and his neck held tightly in the noose Mike suddenly discovered that breathing had become a thing of the past. This went on for some time with Frankie whooping and laughing with obvious delight. I don't think Mike was enjoying it in quite the same way.

Out of the blue one of our lodgers, Pat, I think it was, came walking down the walkway just as Mike was kicking his last and saw what was happening. He grabbed Frankie Miller and proceeded to beat him up as Mike fell to the ground unconscious. Having subdued the executioner, Pat removed the noose from around Mike's neck and carried him all the way home.

Contrary to all rumours which abounded at the time, Mike did indeed survive. I was too young to appreciate the implications or the seriousness of what had happened to him and I'm not sure what became of Frankie Miller after that. Except that shortly before his departure from the scene, and as a consequence from our lives, he came to our house with someone on a mission of peace. And by way of apology he had with him an arm-full of comics for Mike to read. I can remember as clear as day sitting not one foot away from this madman as he spoke in sorrowful tones about his aborted crime. I was frozen with terror just by being there. I cannot even begin to imagine what Mike must have felt.

Another of the R&CHS photographs of the 1955 trip up the Sankey shows a railway or canal employee on duty as the bridge to Spike Island is swung for their boat to pass. Over the page are Harry Arnold’s later views of the home and haunts of Frank Reilly.

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