When he was about 11 years old and I was around 14, my brother opened a sweet shop in the front hall of our house. We lived in a recently developed local authority housing scheme with little infrastructure or facilities, the only retail establishment being the van parked at the end of the estate which sold a few essentials like cigarettes and sweets, until 6 pm that is, and then there was nothing.
Seeing a gap in the market, my wee brother somehow found a sweet wholesaler and, using some cash he’d made selling my father’s books and my mother's jewellery around the doors, he bought some stock. What started as a few boxes of sweets quickly grew until our house was the go-to place for after-dark provisions. We'd have a queue around the block at busy times such as Saturday night.
This was the 70s when credit cards and the like were unknown and all payments were in cash, so on Monday mornings my mother would bring the weekend's takings to the bank.
On one of those Mondays at around 9.30 am, there came a knock on the door. My father shouted to my mother not to open it, but she, replying "It'll only be someone for the shop,’ opened the door and in burst two men with shotguns.
I was upstairs in my bedroom and hearing the commotion I crept to the top of the stairs to see my parents in the living room with guns pointed at their heads.
'Where's the money' one of the men shouted repeatedly.
"Is there anyone upstairs?" enquired the other.
Hearing this I tiptoed away leaving my miscreant parents to their fate...No, only kiddin'!
I hurried into my mother's bedroom, climbed out of the window, jumped onto the roof of the porch below and then to the ground. Racing to our neighbour, who I knew hunted and had a gun, I quickly explained what was happening and appealed for his help…which he refused.
"Please Mr McMann, they have guns, please."
"Sorry, I can't help you" he replied and shut the door.
Sprinting as fast as I could back to our house I began knocking loudly on the door shouting " I’ve called the police and they’re on their way." Of course, there wasn't a phonebox for miles but it had the desired effect as the door was wrenched open and the two men dashed out, fleeing through the alleyway opposite. My parents were unharmed but the takings had been taken.
Only recently I found out from his son that the neighbour I'd run to for help had set up the robbery, knowing my mother's Monday morning routine.
I'll mark that one down as some flight with a little fight. But there's more.
Some years later my brother opened a grocery shop in town where I was serving one day when two gentlemen wearing balaclavas and carrying guns jumped over the counter. Mistaking the state-of-the-art weighing scales for the cash register, one of them stood over me insisting I open it. I couldn't help but sneer at him that it was a weighing scale, which promptly earned me a thump in the face. Enraged, I picked up the heavy sellotape dispenser from the counter and attempted to hit him with it. Luckily for me, by this time his mate had emptied the cash register and the two of them scarpered.
In a third incident, I was standing at my front door having rolled out of some club or other in the early hours of the morning and was about to insert the key in the lock, when I was set upon by a man who grabbed and tried to wrestle me to the ground. Naturally, I began screaming and kicking and when suddenly a light went on in the house next door, he fled down the steps only to return when it just as quickly went off again and he realised nobody was coming to my aid. As I desperately searched for my key which had fallen in the tussle he tried to restrain me but by some miracle, I succeeded in kneeing him in the groin and as his hands left me for a moment I pushed him so that he stumbled on the steps and I escaped into the house.
Never a dull moment!
I'm not a particularly courageous person, but when faced with physical assault it seems I react with rage. Perhaps it'll be the death of me one day, or maybe it will save my life. More likely the geriatric me will roll over and play dead.
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Posted in response to the Inkwell Creative Nonfiction Prompt #80
The prompt is Fight or Flight
I wish I had some photos from that time to share but sadly I don't, so some agricultural scenes taken near my current abode will have to do to break the monotony.
