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Trivial Tales of Everyday Madness: Different Worlds – 5Robert K HoggBut at Mitchell Street, my enthusiasms for whatever grabbed my interest, andthere were many, transmogrified into helping myself to them. I must’ve been givensome money, because when I wasn’t blowing it on cards or a comic, I would buy acouple of fake cream cakes I was very keen on. They were covered in a thin layer of chocolate and nothing else. I had never liked the marshmallows of the Tunnock’svariety; the kind my mother would buy – tasting like spearment jelly(fish), along withJaffa Cakes and the dreaded 'orangey bit in the middle' the TV adverts were so keento point out; the highlight of their campaign. And to me, so much tasteless crap thatonly someone who smoked at least a packet of cigarettes a day could appreciate. Thecakes at Joe’s seemed as if they were manufactured especially for me, in theanticipation of which, any recent unpleasantness could be forgotten if not whollyforgiven in the space of sinking my teeth into their smooth and creamyunwholesomeness. I may well have contemplated nicking one of these in allimpracticality if it weren’t for the fact they were placed in a spot where I would havemy back to the main counter; a glass one, showiong off boxes of chocolates andseperate pastries etc. For the same reason I think, it was difficult to help myself to packets of cards. That, and it was too close to the school. I wouldn’t be hard to track down.Shops and stores even slightly further afield were a different story, or came to be. But again, it’s worth describing some of the preliminaries, the events, thatcontributed as to how or at least when this came about. The question as to whatdegree my mother colluded in bringing about the very situations she claimed to haveno input in, and so no understanding of its significance for me; a matter of interpretation. That there was a clear discrepancy between the extent of my 'typical' boyish enthusiasms and any means of satisfying that curiosity and urge to plainacquisitiveness is a given. That she had little appreciation or interest in any of themor noticed even, was also a given, until it was brought to her attention when shenoticed, inevitably, some change would be missing from her purse. It was odd I took the risk. Perhaps a reflection of the depths of my greed for the things that excited andinterested me. There was very little that got to her in the way money did, and onsome level I must have known this. And she did too. Neither was she mean as such, but paranoid and this played into her sense of being persecuted. Where money wasconcerned, it seemed to bring out her most pathological attributes.Once, she had sent to me to the local grocers, and after I had got back, taking thegroceries in to the kitchen and giving her the change, or leaving it on the table as her friend Marion was there – we called her“aunt,” Marion, she came storming into the“living” room (as we called it), ranting about change being missing. Now whether this was before or after I started stealing from her I can’t recall, but if it was after,then my future was sealed; if before, then she as good as set the situation up herself.I would retaliate, however indirectly. There was 2d missing from her change, she
 
screamed, a few inches from my face. I was nine or ten. She was livid, furious. Icould see it in her eyes, and I was at a loss, non-nonplussed. And baffled; it hadn’teven crossed my mind to me to take anything from her change. She walloped meacross the face, glaring insanely, furiously. That I didn’t react, and no doubt the fear in my eyes only made it worse; she grabbed me and aggresively shoved me on to thecarpet and stamped on my face with her plastic sandals, the heel hitting my mouth, asI felt my lip and teeth go numb, Another stamp knocked my head to one side andfacing the lobby, where I saw her buddy Marion watching,looking concerned, butneither did she say or do anything. Or maybe that was as far as she’d got, and mymother had noticed my look or hers, as she stopped kicking me. I had felt anincreasing sense of panic and been ready to cry out to her to stop, but it was as muchsubdued anger. But what was more upsetting, shocking in its way, was the realisationthat someone could harbour such blatent hatred towards me. And no doubt all themore alarming and unnerving for it being my mother. As if this wasn’t disorientatingor demoralising in itself - and the only difference was in the intensity of the attack this time; otherwise it was a common occurrence – I disliked going to the corner shop. There were two shops; one on each corner, but as often as not she wantedsomething only the one I would rather have avoided sold, or some brand she preferred. As was often the case with certain individuals, the owner, a middle-aged bloke along with his complacent and nonchalant wife, would laser beam on to any illat easiness I showed in any transaction. A particular bugbear for me was when I hadto get something off one of the rows of shelves behind me. I would be overcome byself-consciousness which seemed to jam my normal thinking process, and becometerribly embarrassed, his amusement – though I could never be quite sure if it wereovert – making it only more excruciating for me, my ineptness seeming to be aconfirmation of my inherent stupidity or at best, lack of “common sense, “ as mymother would so often drum into me. His apparent recognition of it was further confirmation of her opinion of me and so, of my worst fear. That if others could alsosee it, then her overall assessment, all her negative opinions of me were accurate....that she had been right all along, and this solidified my deep down suspicion I was asworthless; as useless as she had always said I was. I had little if any consciousawareness of this. All I knew was that I felt very uncomfortable in certain situations.My strategy, such as it was, was to go into denial of any confusion, going through themotions as if I knew what I was doing in these instances, and wishing the floor mightswallow me up. An avoidance reaction that masked a tremendous anger that myobvious discomfort aroused such amusement in these people. And as muchsuppressed anger at myself for not being able to see what was right in front of me and perform the apparently simplest tasks. But on the periphery of awareness, theconviction this was all a confidence trick on some level. The unspoken collusion thatsome adults practised. That, after all, they only had to slow down when I gotflustered; clear enough to anyone with eyes in their head, and as transparent now, thatthis was the intention. Instead, it exasperated and excited them more. In that theyknew, in some sense, they were tormenting me in the guise of being helpful, and theyknew I knew, but because of that, of how obliquely it was done, there was nothing Icould do about it, even if I had suddenly demonstrated enough character to recognise
 
it as the daily crock of shit, of masked aggression that it was.They had, in all likelihood picked up on my mother'sattitude towards me the fewtimes I was in the shop with her. But as they would keep the pretense up in eachother's company, it gave me a false sense of security, ill at ease as I was in any case,so it was all the more unexpected to find they weren't who I'd assumed they were.And it wasn't a level I operated on. There were better things to think about. Theyand my psyche were all a part of the daily mystery and madness one had to learn toaccepts and bury as soon as possible if life was to continue, and I had no choice in thematter. Some kid's might have acted out directly, which, if anything would have atleast had the benefit of not displacing my anger elsewhere. On the other hand, itwould always be a no-win situation. I would always be in the wrong at least whereother adults were concerned. Later, I would have my moments of fighting madclarity and temper, if all too intermittently.She was acting out herself of course, but I had no understanding of that. All Iknew for the most part was that there was someone in charge of me who was moreemotionally volatile and unpredictable than any kid I knew, friendly or hostile, and allwrapped up in the body of an adult, if a somewhat frail one, but which wascompensated for by an absolute certainty, an unshakable conviction that as well asmy being one of the main sources of her troubles, if not the main cause of her unhappiness, she was ever alert also, as sharp as a razor, and hypersensitive to anyhint of questioning her judgement, whether real or imagined, as well as conveying anunyielding, hawklike watchfulness, amounting almost to a sixth sense, utilised for themost petty and inconsequential infringements to her authority as she saw it.Ever fault-finding. Alert to any petty grievance, interactions with her could be akind of daily hell. At other times, as later, she demonstrated she could accept eventswith an unexpected good humour, almost stoically, as when she took us both fruit picking – raspberries. I enjoyed walking band and forth through the tunnel-likecanopy that shaded the sun. Out in the more open areas there young men stripped tothe waist, flirting with young women picking from waste-high bushes. When we got back, she counted out what we had made overall, remarking, that what withsandwiches and drinks, we had made a profit of 20p. She counted it exaclty. Thenshe gave my younger bro and me our cut.But on the whole, any moment of the day could be punctuated by an emotionaloutburst of verbal abuse over some perceived slight, some petty grievance; perhaps Ihad forgotten to put one of her magazines back under the coffee table neatly enough;evidence of a congenital or irredeemable selfishness and thoughtlessness on my part,as she violently pushed open the door of the bedroom where I had piled up my bookson the chest of drawers. I had accumulated twenty-four; a motley collection of mostly annuals and nature books. She cottoned on immediately to the sense of comfort I derived from them, and mid-tirade, “How would you like it if I treated your things like that”?, threatened to sweep them to the floor. It wasn’t a question but astatement. It required little input input on my part, except to be the recipient of her self-righteous justifications. And anything could be utilised as a means for those justifications and self-righteous anger, Comic annuals I had been so delighted with,given in all apparent generosity over Xmas could now become a means for another 
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