THE GREAT MOROCCAN DOLE SWINDLE

(or SONNY AGAIN)

by

Ryan Lee

I would do anything for money except kill a man. That would have to be personal. Okay, so was ready to put a bullet between Frankie Goodwin's eyes that night, but I was being blackmailed by that bitch of his and I'd call that personal. Frankie's a gangster by the way. I got into a spot of bother robbing his house one time, which is why I went on the run. Well you would, wouldn’t you?

You might find this difficult to believe, but even a villain like myself has to earn an honest living now and again. Not that I relished the thought of joining the parade of grey faces trudging their way to another mundane shift at the rubber hose factory morning after morning. In fact it made me depressed. More than that, it made me ill for a few weeks. I would have phoned in sick but I didn't have a job yet. But I knew I would have to get one - a real job I mean - if I was going to survive. You see, my trade is burglary but that business with Frankie Goodwin pretty much made me redundant. Break the law and you risk going to prison. That never bothered me in the past, but things were different now. Frankie Goodwin thought I was dead, and if I got sent to prison he might find out that I wasn't. And then I was dead, if you see what I mean.

**

It was obvious that my wife Jane wasn't suited to a life on the run.

"I hate this!" she screamed at me one night."And I hate you for making me do it!"

You can't get more obvious than that can you? She took the kids back to her sister's in Wakefield. I miss the kids a bit but Jane is already beginning to feel like a great escape. It was never a big love thing in any case. I don't know how we ended up together to tell you the truth. It's like that with a lot of people. One day you look across the breakfast table and wonder who the fuck this person is, eating all your cornflakes and telling you which bits of the floor not to walk on. Over the last few years I'd caught myself wondering what would have happened if I had asked the fat one to dance that night. Maybe the same thing with a different girl, maybe something else, a whole different set of scenes leading to a happy ending.

So Jane was gone. All of this happened fairly soon after leaving home, which goes to show you that women don't have the stomach for adventure. Sorry, some of them sail boats round the world and zoom off into space and shit, but on the whole girls will be girls and boys will be boys, and robbing banks and jumping out of second floor windows when you accidentally trip the alarm will always be a man's job.

I never bothered going to London. It's full of foreigners and wankers who just assume the rest of the country knows what the fucking Elephant and Castle is, or gives a shit. It's also reputed to be full of gangsters, which is the main reason why I didn't go. I kept having this dream where I was in the North Bank at Highbury, and all the crowd begin to chant There's only one Sonny Wilson! One Sonny Wilson! There's only one...and I'm shitting myself because I suddenly realise that the entire Arsenal team is made up of Frankie Goodwin's boys. I try to hush the crowd, which is desperate and pointless, but they go on singing. Then I'm snatched up onto this fat cockney bastard's shoulders and he passes me down over the heads of the crowd. I don't even try to fight, I just let myself be carried down like a Pooh stick on a stream. Frankie Goodwin's waiting for me by the goal. He's wearing an Arsenal shirt and this big catfish smile on his face,and he's got an open razor in his hand. I always woke up before the dreaded end but even half a nightmare was enough to put me off the Smoke.

I lived in Coventry for a short time. Sounds like a confession doesn't it? Well it is. Coventry is about as interesting as a Pink Floyd album. From there I made my way to Norwich, and then to Great Yarmouth. There was nothing great about Great Yarmouth either but I decided to try and make my bed here for a while. It was summer and the place was full of tourists, so a bum like me didn't stick out like a sore thumb.

I got a job in an amusement arcade. The shifts were long and the pay was too low to afford decent accommodation. I ended up sleeping on a pissy mattress in the office. Anyway, it was a crap job and I was pleased when I got the sack after just three weeks there. It happened because this well-dressed old queer tried to pick me up. I'd seen him hanging around, you know, eyeing up the pretty kids and occasionally trying to engage them in casual conversation. Amusement arcades are like waterholes in the African bush. You get your vulnerable little animals, usually lonely kids with thick glasses and bad haircuts and no money to play the machines, and stalking them are the predators, the old queers with that uncanny sixth sense fine tuned to picking out the weak and the vulnerable. I found it pathetic and sinister but my job was to walk around the arcade giving out change and making sure no one tried to screw the machines; I wasn't here to play Mary fucking Poppins.

Then one night this well-dressed old queer came up to me and asked me what I was doing for supper. He had this shine in his eyes and an urgent wetness at the corners of his mouth. He must have been watching me all night, stealing courage, losing his nerve,then finally going in for the kill.Why me though? It goes without saying that Sunny boy is a pretty boy, but I'm no kid anymore. I looked around the arcade. It was completely empty, so eerie with its lights and noise but no trace of human life, like a spaceship with the crew mysteriously absent.

Desperation. Need. That was it. Predators always go for the easy kill, but if they're hungry enough they'll tackle anything. Well this twat had just bitten off more than he could chew. Now I've nothing against queers. In fact I've always felt strangely at ease with them. The decent ones I mean, the ones who mince around and don't mind who knows what they get up to. Paradoxically it's these guys who are the most discreet. You'll never get hassled in a public toiled by someone wearing lycra shorts and a boob tube, I'm telling you now. You're more likely to feel the creepy intensity of some pin-stripe with a wedding ring who's pissing out of a raging hard-on. Queer or not, it's nothing less than sexual harassment, and I won't stand for it. I've spent time in the toughest prisons in the North, don't forget, so there's fuck all in Great Yarmouth can scare me.

I nutted this old queer a good one, make him think twice next time. Then I cleared all the notes out of the till and said goodbye to Norfolk.

**

It was a pity. I was angry for defaulting on my promise to make an honest man of myself. I'd been enjoying this little daydream whereby I had earned enough honest bread to buy myself one of those painted narrow boats that ooze calmly up and down the canals. I would drift lazily through England's waterways, perhaps with a stray dog barking happily on the bow (or the bow-wow,ha-ha), making pots and shit to sell at quaint little craft markets.

Nice dream, the kind of dream that keeps a man on his feet during all those laborious hours he spends at the rubber hose factory. Not that I'm comparing myself to one of those guys. I'd worked a few weeks in a poxy amusement arcade, which didn't exactly make me Joe Public by any stretch of the imagination.

I was on a bus to Newquay the morning after that business at the amusement arcade. I don't know why I chose Newquay. The beach life had always appealed to me. When I was a kid we took our holidays at this shitty little caravan park outside Burridge Head. There was nothing to do there; it was just a field filled with rank after rank of caravans. There was nothing much to do in Burridge Head either. It was always drizzling, always grey and miserable. The beach was shit anyway. Even as a kid I knew it was shit. I wanted white sands stretching for miles and an ocean as blue and warm as the swimming baths in Ritchmire. I wanted tropical but ended up with sewage. I went to Cornwall because Cornwall was the nearest I would ever get to California. I wasn't disappointed either. Newquay is surfing country. Okay, so there's not much here for the Beach Boys to sing about but I'll tell you this much - when the prevailing memory of your childhood holidays is picking the turds out of your sandcastles, Newquay is fucking Fantasy Island.

Anyway, if you want a more sophisticated description of Newquay you'll have to see it for yourself. I'm not Judith fucking Charmers, you know.

**

I got a job as a pizza delivery man. The guys who owned the shop were all brothers but three of them claimed to be Moroccan while the other two (or was it three?) said they were from Iran. All of them were called Ali, which got a bit confusing to say the least. I knew they were pulling some kind of benefit scam but I kept my mouth shut and delivered my pizzas like a good little boy, which was exactly what they wanted from me. They called me Son-nee and treated me a bit like a lovable village idiot. That was fine by me. I was far from ready for anything as drastic as responsibility.

I spent most of my free time lazing on the beach. I loved to watch the surfers, but most of all I loved to watch the women. I got a screw the day after I arrived. This gorgeous little Geordie lass just plonked herself down on my beach towel and started chatting me up. Holiday places are like that. People go a little crazy, I think, like all men at sea, as somebody once said. This Geordie girl was brown and oily and playful, and I don't think she would have lit my fag on a rainy day in Sunderland, but I wasn't complaining. I went a little crazy myself, I think. I even considered giving Jane a call and asking her to come down with the kids. Luckily I came to my senses.

Within a few short weeks the advantages of a warm climate and an easy lifestyle were beginning to show. I shed a few pounds - mostly those pounds I had gained when the novelty of being able to eat a whole pizza every night of the week had worn thin. I ran, I swam in the ocean every day, and I hardly ever touched the booze; a few beers maybe, but I hadn't seen a bottle of Jack Daniels since leaving home. I was lean, tanned, and fitter than when I was last in prison. The good life had sneaked up on me like a romantic surprise. And best of all I was keeping my nose clean.

Find that hard to believe? Well swallow this as well - one night this geezer came into the shop and left his wallet behind. Nobody saw it except me,s o I picked it up and had a look inside. There was over two hundred quid and credit cards I could have sold for twice that. There was also a card with the address of the guesthouse this guy was staying at, so I drove there and handed him his wallet. As it happened the guy just took it and muttered some resentful words of gratitude, but it wasn't about him. It was about me, and how I had made myself feel. Shit, I was proud of myself, I really was. I felt about as proud of myself as you would do your kid if he did something like that.

I had been clean for two months when one of the Alis followed me out of the shop as I was setting off to deliver a pizza one night.

"Son-nee, wait," he said,then he gave this shifty side-to-side glance that put me on my guard.

"What?" I asked carefully."I haven't done anything." I was thinking that maybe he was checking for witnesses before sticking a curly Arab knife in my chest, but I was wrong about that.

The Ali burst into hearty laughter and slapped me on the shoulder."No, no, not trouble Son-nee. I want you do a favour for me. Son-nee the type, yes?"

"Son-nee was the type," I told him flatly."Not anymore."

He smiled knowingly, all stained teeth and gleaming fundamentalist's eyes."Yes, I think," he said archly."I know the type. Son-nee been around."

I nodded grimly."Been around most of the prisons up North, yes.What do you want, Ali?"

He beamed and plonked a video cassette on top of the pizza box I was holding. I put the box on the roof of the car and opened the video cassette. There was a film inside, un-labled, and a white card with an address scribbled on it.I looked up at Ali,who was watching me keenly.

"You do it,yes?" He widened his eyes indulgently."Ten pounds."

"What is it?" I asked.

"Film."

"What kind of film?" I pressed."I'm not touching kiddie porn or snuff movies."

"No!" Ali cried."Not chil'ren!" He licked his lips and grinned lasciviously."This Chinese girl and four black men. Film called Slitty Clitty Gang Bang."

I sniggered.

"Alright," I relented."Who do I give it to?"

"Big man, gold teeth."

"What's his name?"

"Ali."

Ali laughed like a moron. Then I laughed. I didn't see what harm it would do. So Ali had a little sideline in bad pun porn, so what? Ten quid was almost a night's wages, and if you find that hard to believe you should come down to the real world now and again. I was on twelve-fifty a night and a free pizza, plus any tips I might get.

I agreed to deliver the film.I should have listened to my old self. He would have told me that anyone who pays ten quid to have a porn film delivered isn't telling me everything.

First of all I had to drop the pizza off. Routine drop, no tip. Then I drove somewhere quiet and opened the box with the video cassette inside. I checked it for drugs but as far as I could tell there wasn't any, not unless Ali had stuck acid tabs onto the actual tape and then rolled the whole thing neatly back up again.

I sighed and started the car. I couldn't even deliver fucking pizzas without getting myself mixed up in something crooked. I thought, this one, Sonny, and that's your lot. I was heading out of Newquay even if the tape turned out to be The Sound of Music, from one mad-Arab fan to another.

I drove to the guy's house and knocked on the door. A young kid answered. He was tall and skinny and wore a baggy white shirt with dark trousers from a. He was giving me the old gangster eye, except that he looked a bit nervous of me.

"I want Ali," I said.

"I'm Ali," he said.

I got the giggles. He didn't like that. Tough guys don't as a rule, even those who aren't really tough.

"Ali with the gold teeth," I told him, and he nodded and slammed the door in my face. A few moments later the door was opened by second man, this one a big man - big as in too many free pizzas big.

"Are you Ali?"

"Yep."

"Ali sent me," I said, feeling distinctly ridiculous."I've got a delivery for you."

He leaned out of the doorway and looked up and down the street.

"Okay, give me!"

I passed him the tape unhurriedly. Once he had it in his hands he relaxed visibly.

"Have you seen it?"

I shook my head.

Ali smiled invitingly. He had a lot of gold teeth in that mouth.Good job he was really fat otherwise he would never quite know whether he was overweight or just carrying too much fucking gold around.

"Come in, have a gander," he said.

I was curious. Like I told Ali - the other Ali - I didn't want anything to do with kiddie porn. I'm not getting hysterical about it - as you well know old Sonny just looks after himself - but that doesn't mean I'd get involved if I could help it.

I followed Ali into the house. There were about twelve men in the living room, all sitting on cushions on the floor and eating mush from a big pan in the centre. I could smell dope and eastern music was playing on the stereo. It was all pretty groovy, actually. All it needed was a couple of veiled belly-dancers and they were home from home.

"Who's he?" one of them asked in a not very welcoming way.

"I'm Ali," I said."Ali sent me to see Ali. Ask young Ali there if you don't believe me."

A few of them laughed but a few of them didn't. A few of them stared at me as if I had just insulted Mohammed and his mother.

Ali took me to this room where dozens of video cassette recorders were banked up against the wall. There was a television set in the corner. Ali slotted the tape into one of the machines and we watched the film together. Ali kept pointing and laughing and making critical comments about the camera work.Me, I thought the film was the most offensive piece of shit I've ever seen.

It had no title, but I would have called it Candid something or other. What it consisted of was some guy - probably Ali or one of the other Alis from the pizza shop - darting around Newquay with a video camera and zooming in on the tits and arses of unsuspecting young girls. There was a scene from the local radio roadshow they had a few weeks ago. Ali was standing directly behind a group of teenage girls who were cheering and laughing and jumping up and down so much that their little skirts were flipping up at the back. Ali must have become so excited that he could hardly keep his fucking camera still. Another scene showed a couple of holiday girls getting changed behind a huge beach-towel. The angle on this one was looking up,as if Ali was hiding in the sand like a sniper.

"Magic," fat Ali said in breathy voice."I'll forward it through to this shagging bit. Ali said he nailed this couple doing it doggy-style on the beach."

Images zipped past my eyes - fleeting glimpses of bikini bottoms and long, lingering shots of young girls in tight shorts queuing for ice-creams, even a grainy image of a woman on the toilet.

"This is it!" Ali cried."Watch these bastards go at it."

I watched. It was the first time I'd ever seen myself shagging on camera. I bet that if I had known there was a perverted Arab filming from behind a sand dune I wouldn't have been half as good. I wondered what the little Geordie girl would have made of it all.

I didn't say anything to Ali. I watched until my scene was done and then told him I had to get going. I was feeling strange. Not as angry as I would have imagined.I didn't know what to feel, tell you the truth.

As I was leaving fat Ali handed me an envelope to give to mad Ali. I put it in my pocket. It felt like money. Only money sits in your pocket that way.I drove around the corner, stopped the car and opened the envelope. There was five hundred quid inside. I figured that I would count it as an appearance fee.

I stole the car as well.

**

The next memorable stop on my tour was Blackpool. I seemed to be clinging to the coastline, only with me it was a case of not wanting to be sucked inland. I needed the ocean. I felt secure with its vastness behind me, knowing that nobody could sneak up on me and stick a knife in my back. I'm being metaphorical of course, but literal too, I guess. I just love to stand on the beach and put my back to the sea. It makes me feel scared and powerful, as if I'm taking a final stand against some awesome shit that's driven me to a point where the ground runs out and the only thing left to do is fight for your life. It feels like I'm on the edge, know what I mean? Of course you don't know. Go back to stuffing your faces with ice-cream and beefburgers made of head-meat and your fat landlady and all your bawling kids and worrying about whether your shitty job will still be there for you when you get home. Do that, but take a few moments away from it all and try to imagine what it would be like if you just kept on walking and never went home, never saw the kids again, never new what the next day had in store for you.

I'll save you the trouble - it's like being a little kid lost in some menacing wonderland. You feel isolated, desperate, threatened and wretched. But hey, it's better than being in school.

**

Can you guess what I did in Blackpool, that cheap and tacky magic Vegas of the North West? I got a job as a postman.

I saw the advert in the local paper a few days after I arrived. Casual delivery officers, it said. They don't come more casually than yours truly, so I wrote off, giving the address of the digs I was staying at as my permanent address. I put a lot of bullshit on the application form, stuff about being a mature student and that kind of bollocks. I didn't seriously expect to get the job, mostly because I gave them a list of former employers longer than my dick, but evidently they never bothered to check, or were so snowed under with work that they didn't have time to check, because after a two-minute interview I was offered the job.

I was expecting the rest of my life to be plain sailing. Unfortunately being a postman is about the crappest job there is. The only worse job in the world is being a casual postman, although you can at least take comfort from the fact that the season will soon be over and you can get return to a decent night's sleep once again.

The amount of shit that gets sent through the post is staggering - and I use that word in the sense that the weight of it on your back causes you to stagger all over the fucking place. Great big catalogues thick as paving slabs, mountains of Readers Digest bollocks with silly little give-aways in the envelope that make it impossible to hold more than about three in your hand at the same time. The flow is just inexorable. It never ends. You think you've cleared one mountain and a new one mysteriously grows in its place. It's so demoralising. Do you know why postmen whistle? Because they are all fucking insane, that's why.

I was given the worst round in Blackpool, a council estate the others nicknamed Death Valley. I never set out with the intention of hating the job, I really didn't. I wanted to make a go of it. I put on a cheery smile and tried not to think of home magnified five hundred times, which is what the estate made me think of. But, oh, something just happens to you. Day after day you get the same old shite from everyone you meet. There comes a point when some old sock grinning through his plastic dentures utters what he thinks is an original chirpy quip the postman has never heard before, that all time classic - if it's a bill you can take it back! and you just can't force yourself to smile anymore.

Morning postie - got my pools check! That's another one I quickly grew to detest. Every time I heard it I just wanted to drop my bag and scream. That's how it gets you. You start to hate everyone for their tedious drivel. You start to plot against them. You start to imagine that the weight on your back is not made up of Reader's Digest bollocks but heavy explosives. And then you start whistling.

One day I did give some poor loser the bullet. This skinny,nervous-looking junkie stopped me in the street and asked if I had any giro cheques I wanted to sell. I just blew up in his face.

"What the fuck do you think I am?" I screamed."I'm not Mr Fucking Whippy, you know! You can't just fucking stop me and buy one!"

He backed away with his hands out in front of him, mumbling apologies.

To ease the stress I began drinking in this grotty pub near a sex shop down by the tower. I was drawn to it by some kind of strange magnetism. I knew what kind of a boozer it was the moment I entered, and I knew I should have turned around and walked out, but I didn't. My suspicions were confirmed when the landlord gave me my change and offered to sell me a camcorder in the same breath.

So I was hanging out with the boys again, playing pool and passing on burglary tips. I was still keeping out of trouble but only by the skin of my teeth. Mind, I've been hanging on by the skin of my teeth for most of my life.

**

A friend of Kenny Rogers asked me to do a robbery with him. It was Friday night and outside a gale was howling. All the big rides on the Pleasure Beach had been closed for the last three days, pissing people off big time. Come October time most seaside resorts are pulling down the shutters; Madam Zorba goes back to her job at the dog food factory and all the fairground workers sign on the dole or go back to prison. Blackpool's not like that. Blackpool operates like a factory where production never stops except on Christmas day.You know the old gag I'm sure - what does a Blackpool donkey get for Christmas? Answer: a day off, same as everyone else.

I laughed out loud when he told me his name. I don't know why. It's not a particularly amusing name as far as names go. I once knew a kid called Neil Sage, whose mother married a bloke called Fred Neal, so this poor kid had to change his name to Neil Neal. Now that's funny, but somehow it doesn't make me laugh as much as meeting a guy who introduces himself as Kenny Rogers. I asked him to sing Lucile, and he gave me this sneering little smile, and I thought of all that boring shit about pools cheques and stuff I hear everyday when I'm out delivering mail. Must be the same for Kenny, I figured, so I never made another bad joke about his name. I didn't think I'd see him again anyway. He came in with Gary Crawshaw, a zombified dope-head with a placid smile who occasionally gave me grass for free.

Kenny Rogers wasn't much like Crawshaw. Kenny Rogers was small but he had strong shoulders and a bald head that looked as though it could demolish walls. He gave the impression of being a big man who had somehow reduced himself to a more compact size in order to be more efficient. Like a sawn off shotgun. Once I had that straight in my mind I was certain that Kenny Rogers was an armed robber, and the more I observed him the more certain I became. I've spent time banged up with armed robbers. They get respect from their fellow cons, even the stupid ones, and most of them deserve it.

There was a third man who occasionally came in to drink and play pool with Kenny Rogers. He gave his name as Clayton, and someone else filled in the rest for me. He was Clayton Pepper, a former paratrooper who had been quietly kicked out of the army for having very dubious links with one of the Loyalist paramilitary organisations. He was a tall, lean, wordless threat of a man with a stony expression and the most amazing emerald green eyes you've ever seen. Clayton never said much but you could tell that he wasn't spaced out or bored. He was always attentive but in a curiously absent and inattentive way.

Anyway, me and Clayton just drifted together (and how many stories both epic and tragic have begun that way ? I ask myself), but I couldn't really tell you how or why. I think he enjoyed my idle chatter and the funny stories I like to tell about my life of crime. Around me he seemed more relaxed and far less guarded than he did in a crowd. I always got the impression that Clayton was constantly on the watch for some silent, deadly enemy. He never said as much though, in fact he said precious little about his past. Nevertheless I found his company oddly restful, as if we went back a long way. There was no bullshit between us, which is a state that takes a long time to develop between blokes.

We talked about crime and stuff, mostly about the scrapes I've got myself into over the years, and every now and then he would allow me to glimpse a few of his own secret snapshots. From these clues I worked out that Clayton Pepper was most probably ex-SAS, and that he was kicked out of the army for pulling bank jobs on behalf of the UVF. Apparently he was questioned by the RUC but the army sneaked him back to Hereford while they were changing the tape in the interview room. It was a political thing, Clayton said. I asked him if he ever killed anyone, and he looked at me with those dangerous green eyes of his and said that he had never shot anyone who wasn't up for it. Big boys' games, he told me, big boys' rules.

So we reminisced about crime and stuff but nothing was ever suggested, not at first. Then one night, in the week of the gales, we were sitting in the pub together and over the course of a few pints our casual conversation became a conspiracy to commit robbery.

**

He left the table and came back with refreshments. Then he sat down and gave me such a penetrating stare that I began to feel uneasy.

"Sonny," he said, rubbing a hand across his stubble."I'll ask you this just once, and if you say no I'll not say another word."

I knew it was coming. I paused, my pint at my lips, and at the back of my mind I heard all these cell doors slamming shut. But I stayed put, more fool me. Ah, nature of the beast and all that.

"This life is driving me nuts. I can't take it anymore. I'm going back into business. Are you with me?"

The wind rattled against the window, rain peppering the glass like a handful of gravel. I thought of having to get up at four thirty in the morning to deliver Readers Digest bollocks to people who made the same corny jokes day after day. It struck me suddenly - and almost with the liberating force of a religious visitation...almost - that I didn't have to do anything I didn't want to. I was Sonny Wilson, king of the road, shoot from the hip and see you sometime never Sonny Wilson. I could sleep late tomorrow, then after breakfast pack my little rucksack and amble down to the bus station and catch a ride to anywhere. I could do that...once. The trouble was I had lost my nerve. My casual contract with Royal mail had been extended until Christmas time, I was renting a small but perfectly adequate bedsit, and I'd even started seeing this blond bird who worked in a pet shop on my round. I'm ashamed to say that the thought of walking out on such simple security frightened me.

But not half as much as the thought of staying behind and growing old here did.

I needed cash. Fast cash. Okay, so I had given it some previous thought. I investigated the possibility of snatching from the mail but there were two main drawbacks: first off, it would take so long to amass anything like the kind of cash I had in mind that I would surely come to the attention of the Post Office plod. Which brings me to the second drawback: stealing the Queen's mail was, until not so long ago, an offence for which you could be boiled alive and your gizzards scattered across the lawns of Buckingham Palace. These days they didn't go so heavy on you, just three years inside and your name on the front page of every newspaper in England.

There are just three ways to get what you want in life. The first is to be incredibly, impossibly lucky. The second is to work hard for it. The third is to pull out a gun and demand it. Burglary's my trade, as you well know, but anyone who wants to make a good living robbing houses had better move down to fucking Aylsbury or somewhere and get himself an agent. You can't make anything other than beer money stealing people's video recorders and crappy Dixon's brand hi-fi's. One other reason why I didn't want to go back to robbing houses - and you laugh and I'll pull your fucking ears off: the more real people I met the more I came to see that robbing the working class is a pretty shitty thing to do. And by real people I don't mean blokes like Frankie Goodwin and Kenny fucking Rogers, I mean the lads at the sorting office and even the mindless cretins who tell me the same old joke day after day. Honest people. Salt-of-the-earth kind. I'd not met too many of those in the past. I felt ashamed of all those times I had sneaked in through the bathroom window and had it away with their kids' Christmas presents and the three hundred quid funeral money granny kept in the top drawer.

But I needed to get away from them, fucking sweet as they are I needed to be about three thousand miles away from them.

"I'm in," I said.

**

And that, as they say, is that. Clayton and me went on the road together. We started by robbing houses - not two up terraced houses in Lythem St Annes, but big houses where the pickings were rich and the people could afford to lose what we stole. We also did storage depots and container bases, sneaking inside in the dead of night under some dozing security guard's nose. Clayton taught me to abseil, which came in useful, and he also showed me all those clever driving techniques they teach the top bodyguards. It was only a matter of time before we were sticking up banks and money movers.

Armed robbery is an archaic crime. The money is good but the risks involved mean it's nigh on impossible to make a good living. Banks are just too clued up these days. But you can't beat armed robbery for fun. It's a sport with more adrenalin thrills than rally driving and skydiving put together.

So I guess I'm a bandit now. Things have got way out of hand but I don't mind. I'm just riding it, man, and loving every heart stopping minute of it. I've enjoyed telling you all about my fascinating life to date. Maybe I'll come back another time and tell you some more, providing you can keep your mouth shut that is.

One last thing. If you see my wife and kids tell them Sonny loves them and that he's having the time of his life. And if you ever get to see a really crap porn film called Candid Summer be sure and give me a wave.

END (…for now)