Getting beaten up

It was a dark, cold January evening, Warren and Mike were walking home along with my good self after another completely uneventful night in the town. This was something that either the two or on occasions all three of us would do about four times a week.

Well I say that, but in truth, only if I was around. If I wasn’t there I don’t think the other two would have managed to make the two/ three mile trip without a map, not that either of them would actually be able to read a map either come to think of it.

Now as you may also have come to notice, Warren and mike were not the brightest of people….when whatever kind of god you happen to believe in was dishing out the relevant brains, those two must have been trying to find their way to him.

Anyroad, we were on our way home and came to a crossroads. Which constituted on making a decision on what way to go home that night.

We could either take the hilly way, and cut through a local park, or alternatively go the usual boring way, past the fish and chip shop.

"If we pool our resources together, perhaps we could ascertain some nourishment for the way home?",  I ventured.

Wot?". They both replied, dumbly,

I gave a long, suffering sigh,

"If we’ve got enough dosh, we could get some grub to scoff from the chippie", I suggested.

"Oh....…no....…sorry", they both said.

"Fair enough, we’ll go the hilly way then for a change of scenery".

As usual, it was me who made the decision and they followed blindly along.

So off we went, up the steep hill, pat the church and the offy, the laundry, turned left at the phone box and headed down towards the park.

The park was dark, dull and dreary as usual, no lighting to light your way, you just had to let your feet feel their way along the narrow path that cut through the empty park.

Nearly home, Mike and Warren arguing as normal, same old thing, nothing different ever happened….

My eyes open,

"Bloody ‘ell, my heads thumping", I think to myself.

I realise that I’m lying flat on my back on a hard bed, looking up at a ceiling,

"Who’s painted my ceiling?", I ask myself....…I hear the sound of a football match on a TV in the near distance, Everton V Arsenal....I remembered to myself in my head, were playing that Sunday on the box.

"Who’s winning?" I wondered.

Then I think,

Where the hell am I?

As soon as I think that my mum, dad and two sisters come through the door, all looking rather miserable.

"What’s wrong with them? What’s happened?" I thought.

I looked at my dad and asked the vital question.

"Who’s winning?", meaning the football match on TV that I was so looking forward to watching a few days before.

But it didn’t come out like that, it came out as,

Mmpph mmph mmph mmmmph

So why couldn’t I talk? The question in my confused eyes was answered by my dad.

I had been jumped on and beaten up by about nine blokes.

Because Mike and Warren were doing their usual pushing each other about I let them go in front and I dallied along behind them.

That was why I got the brunt of the attack, I was hit and put down to the floor and while ion the floor they started to kick me. Apparently it wasn’t until a man walking his dog came by chased them off, all except a girl with the gang who had my battered and bleeding head in her lap (Bloody hell, why couldn’t I have been awake?!!) who was crying.

An ambulance was called for, I was taken to hospital unconscious and awoke the next day, literally dazed and confused!

So….where were the other two?

"Are they in another room?", I asked, feeling concerned that I caused the trouble because it was me that chose to go that way home

"Oh they’re alright", my dad said angrily, "They ran off and left you to it, though one of them had the decency to knock on our door to let us know what had happened before he ran off home."

My mum gave me a mirror to look at the damage they had done, I looked a right state, split lips, two black eyes that made me look like a panda or a bad Dusty Springfield drag artist, a flattened nose, not broken surprisingly, and my tongue was swollen, I’d bitten into it during the attack, which is probably what made me lose consciousness.

One doctor had said that I would need plastic surgery on the tongue to put it together, another said it would heal on its own. It didn’t, I still have a scar on my tongue which can make me lisp at times.

I also had a hairline fracture to my right eye socket, but I guess looking back, things could have been a lot worse, a few years later another friend of mine was stabbed and died near where my attack took place.

The park now is well lit up and has security cameras around the whole area, as usual though, always done after somebody gets hurt.

Despite what happened to me that I must say that I was very lucky.....a couple of years later a friend of mine was stabbed outside a pub and died.