The Bycatch Principle

Had I wanted to kill him, or had he left me with no choice? That’s what Miss Beryl wants to know as she settles herself onto the garden wall next to me. It matters to them, this stuff, cos it’s all about ‘intention’ and ‘motivation’ and ticking all those boxes on all those forms. Truth is, I don’t know what they want from me anymore. After six years in this place, I don’t know much about anything.

On the far side of the garden zone, two magpies kick up tufts of vegetation and thrust out their chests; they duck and weave and stab the air with sharp beaks. I let my gaze travel past rows of newly planted cabbages and winter skeletal bamboo sticks, until it comes to rest on a four-metre high brick wall. Beyond that wall lies mile after mile of open moorland, wild and free. At night, I dream about my legs pounding across it, making a break for freedom. But the problem is, when you run you get chased, and even in my dreams they always catch me.

‘Adam’s a dick,’ I mutter.

Miss Beryl fiddles with the curls at the back of her neck. ‘How can I help you, David, if you won’t let me know what’s going on with you? I’m not a mind reader.’ She pauses. ‘I thought we could talk to each other, you and me?’

She got a point. Of all the counsellors in here, Miss Beryl’s the only one who ever really talks to me rather than at me. She sometimes tells me personal stuff, stuff that makes me feel like a human being rather than a project. Two years ago, or it might’ve been three, I found her in the vegetable garden, crying, eyes puffy as cheese balls. When I asked her what the matter was, she told me she’d just got diagnosed with some really grim cancer. I must’ve looked at her like she was about to drop dead right that minute or something, cos she blew her nose and started on about how there were all sorts of things they could do these days, miracles they could perform. And here she is, years later, thinner but still intact, so she must’ve been right. Afterwards, she’d begged me not to repeat a word to anybody and hurried away. I’ve never told a soul. Not that I can trust her. I’d be a fool to trust any of them.

‘Tell me what happened this morning,’ she pushes. ‘I’m … it’s important.’

I stare up at the sky and sigh. The usual shit with Wilson happened, that’s what. We had circle time, like we do every Friday morning. Wilson was being a prat, like he is every day of the week. Freaky Adam was being an even bigger prat, if that’s possible.

‘Nothing special,’ I say. ‘Just another fun-filled day in the unit.’

As I squint my eyes against the sun, it occurs to me I’m not being totally honest. There was something not quite right about this morning’s session. Mr Wilson had been out of order even by his own usual low standard. His behaviour had been … off, if you know what I mean. I squeeze my eyes shut, focus on the soft warmth of the sun on my eyelids, and think back.

I’d been sat in my usual seat in the circle, and I’d been thinking about how, despite all his other failings, I had to admire Wilson’s honesty. While some of the other counsellors in here tried to pretty things up by introducing a stab of colour here and there, or tossing in a few soft cushions, Wilson’s room is as sparse as his soul. Nothing to see but sanitised white; no furniture except the functional circle of chairs we were all sat on; not a single solitary ornament, cos he wouldn’t want one of us using them as a weapon, would he? In Wilson’s room, what you see is what you get, I got to give him that.

We’d got about ten minutes into the session when Wilson strode across the circle and pressed the soft leather speakeasy into my hand. Speakeasy: that’s Wilson’s little joke, that is. Feet shuffled and wooden chair legs scraped against cracked lino as sixteen pairs of eyes locked onto my face. My fingers pinched the worn leather ball and plucked at the stitching as I turned the speakeasy over and over in my hands until sweat greased my palm.

‘Speak up, David,’ Wilson said from where he’d resettled into his black leather throne. ‘Young Michael here is upset about what happened with his mother. Difficult mothers, hmm?’

I stole a glance at Fat Michael, who isn’t fat and who arrived just a few weeks ago. He wears this deerstalker type hat, like some Yank, though you can tell from his accent he’s from Manchester or someplace like that. We all know why he wears it. We all know why he likes the thick, furry ear flaps that bury half his face. But the hat don’t hide his hands or the red puckered flesh trailing up his arms. It don’t hide the flakes of skin that drop off whenever he reaches under the hat to scratch, which he’s forever doing.

I focused on the blue and red, leather clad ball in my lap and concentrated until the faint buzzing started up in the back of my head, bzzz, bzzz, bzzz, like a bee in my brain. It’s a trick I learnt back on the estate. Whenever the local louts would follow me, shouting stuff, I’d build up this buzzing in my brain so loud it’d drown out whatever they were saying; stuff about my mum mostly.

‘You know the rules, David,’ Wilson purred. ‘We're waiting.’

Rule number one: give them nothing you don’t got to.

I ignored him. Concentrated harder. Bzzz. I stared down at the ball in my hand, picked at the frayed stitching, tried and tried to build up the buzzing in my head.

It didn't work.

All round the circle, the other boys flicked their gazes back and forth between me and Wilson, waiting to see who’d crack first. The buzzing inside my head stuttered – then died. Everything came at me, crystal clear. The white walls sweated with the heavy breath of sixteen boys, who sat, feet flat to the floor, hands in laps, eyes watching.

‘Screw you,’ I said, and I let the ball drop from my lap onto the floor, where it trundled to the dead centre of the circle and lay there.

The room fell silent.

Across the circle, Oliver gave me a look that was a mix of sympathy and admiration. He smiled, a brief twitch of his lips. I didn’t smile back. I wasn’t keen on the sneer forming on Wilson’s face, and when his long fingers reached out and grasped the speakeasy, my ears filled with the sound of my own lungs inhaling, expelling.

His soft voice pushed through. ‘Does anybody else care to comment?’

The speakeasy was on the move. It travelled from hand to hand around the circle, passed untouched across my lap, came to rest in the soft white hands of Freaky Adam. I fixed my gaze on the red circles on the inside of Freaky Adam’s wrists. They look like love bites but every boy in here knows that’s not what they are.

‘I think—’ Freaky Adam began.

Wilson put up a hand. ‘Adam, remember our rule about our legs during circle time, hmm? Bodies open, please. Feet on floor.’

If looks could kill, the one Freaky Adam gave Wilson would have earned him his place in here, and for a millisecond – no more – I almost felt fond of the freak. I was willing him to kick off, but then he went and did as he was told, uncrossed his legs and planted the soles of his feet with an exaggerated slap on the lino. He stared at the floor and stroked the indent on his left wrist. It's like that when they wire you up; bits of your body itch for hours afterwards.

‘Thank you, Adam.’ Wilson smiled like he meant it. ‘Now, what did you want to say to David?’

The circle waited.

Freaky Adam held the speakeasy in the air between finger and thumb and twisted it this way and that like he was checking out some rare diamond, relishing his moment in the spotlight, loving watching me squirm.

‘Well now,’ he drawled, ‘David's own mother's idea of a tenth birthday present was parcelling him off to this dump, so I’m not convinced he’s fit to be giving anybody advice on how to handle mothers.’

He tossed the speakeasy into the air and snatched it, and before I could stop it, an image of my mum flashed into my head – face twisted and red, the lines around her mouth stretched white. Nearly six years ago, last time I saw her. I shook the image away and tried to focus.

‘Aw, what's the matter, David?’ Freaky Adam grinned. ‘Does thinking about mummy make you wanna cry?’ He played his finger up and down on his lips, making a blubbing sound.

‘That’s out of order,’ Oliver cried. ‘Mr Wilson, tell him, he shouldn’t—’

Freaky Adam shook the ball high in his fist. ‘I've got the speakeasy so you better shut up.’

Wilson held up his palms and gestured for everyone to calm down. ‘Oliver,’ he said, ‘remember the rules, hmm? Adam has the speakeasy.’

‘But—’

‘Rules are rules, Oliver,’ Wilson had said, ‘and breaking them has consequences.’

Oliver had folded his arms across his chest and stared at his knees.

When I open my eyes, Miss Beryl is still watching me, this pained look on her face. I blink up at the sunlight. Wilson might be a total asshole, but he is a stickler for the rules, and the rules of circle time dictate that you should always be constructive, should only speak if you got something useful to say. On what planet could Freaky Adam blubbing his lips at me be considered constructive? Yet Wilson had let it pass. Encouraged it even, now that I think about it.

Miss Beryl leans in close. ‘Mr Wilson says—’

‘If you’re going to listen to Mr Wilson, Miss, then you might as well shoot me now. You know he hates me, right?’

‘Of course he doesn’t hate you, David. He just … He’s just doing his job, that’s all. We all are.’

She doesn’t even sound like she believes that herself. I stare at my hands in my lap, focus on remembering.

‘The problem with David,’ Freaky Adam had gone on, ‘is he thinks he smells better than the rest of us.’ The fat, white flesh of Adam's neck had wobbled as he’d pointed a flabby finger at me, cocky as you like. ‘Mr In-te-llec-tual, with his head always stuck in a book.’

And what had Wilson done? He’d nodded, encouraging Freaky Adam to go further. The other boys watched, waiting to see how far I could be pushed. I gave up trying to tune them out. Sweat pricked at the back of my neck. I’d warned Freaky Adam to lay off or else. And the thing was, everybody there knew that I’d warned him.

‘As for his father,’ Freaky Adam droned on, ‘no, don’t even get me guessing at what kind of lowlife might have spawned him.’

I dug my nails into my palms and tried to let the words slide over me without finding their mark, but Freaky Adam knew which buttons to push. I’d never really thought about who my father might be before I came into the unit, but a zillion counselling sessions later and it was impossible to pretend that not having a father didn’t bother me, cos everybody’s got one somewhere, don’t they?

‘We’re all agreed that his mother’s nowt but an old alky, yeah?’ Freaky Adam belly laughed and looked right at me. ‘So imagine what kind of bloke would knock her up in the first place?’

A loud roar erupted from somewhere deep within me and I flew across the circle, blood pumping in my head. Wilson's hand groped under his chair for the alarm button fixed there, and I knew I only had seconds, so I grabbed Freaky Adam's throat before he got chance to scream. His nails flailed and a hot scratch burnt my cheek, but I got my knee between his knees and shoved it high. His screams came then all right. His big, fat, red, wet, sticky, spitty mouth opened wide and let rip.

I released one hand from his throat, grabbed the speakeasy from his lap, and shoved it into his gaping gob. His eyes bulged as I forced the round leather ball deeper and deeper into his throat. The heel of my free hand pinned his head in place. My knee jerked again and again into his groin, and he was still screaming, only now, no sound came out.

A chant erupted into the room as the other boys clambered onto their chairs yelling, ‘Kill him, kill him, kill him.’

If I pressed much harder for much longer then I just might, but if I backed off, I’d be dead meat. The orderlies should’ve arrived already. Freaky Adam’s face had turned all purple. The speakeasy split. Thousands of polystyrene beads poured out of Freaky Adam’s mouth, over his chin and into his neck, ribbons of animated dribble. Where were the orderlies?

And then I felt them: hands on my arms, my head, my neck, my T-shirt. A needle scratched my arm. Knowing better than to give them an excuse to turn it into a fight, I released my grip and let Freaky Adam slide to the floor. My own limbs grew limp.

As the orderlies dragged me backwards, I caught a glimpse of Oliver’s face, skin all tight across his cheeks, mouth open wide in a vague ‘Nooo’. It was then that I’d clocked Wilson’s triumphant smirk and had wondered what I’d done.

Thick hands had lifted me by my elbows and propelled me from the room, just as the drugs kicked in. I’d felt like I was drowning.

And now Miss Beryl wants to know what I was thinking, what I was feeling, what I was intending.

‘What difference does it make?’ I say.

She hesitates, stares up at the sky for a moment and closes her eyes. ‘Last week, when I asked you why you punched Adam in the toilet block, you said you did it because you felt like it, that you just wanted to.’ She turns and looks directly at me. ‘Was that true, or were you being glib? Please don’t lie to me, David.’

It’s my turn to hesitate. Truth is, I don’t know if I did it cos he left me no choice, or if I did it cos I wanted to hurt him, cos I wanted to grind his face into the floor. Saying that out loud isn’t likely to do me any favours, so I mock yawn and say instead, ‘I told you, he asked for it.’

‘Asked for it how?’

I sigh. The reason I lamped Adam one last week was cos he’d shoved Oliver’s head down the bog, but I can hardly tell Miss Beryl that, can I? Snitches don’t fare too well in here.

I shrug. ‘Just did, that’s all.’

‘You’re going to have to trust me on this, David. I’m trying to help you.’

Trust her? Oh, believe me, I want to, I really do. But, like I say, I’d be a fool to trust any of them.

I focus hard on the dirt under my nails, the thin lines criss-crossing my palm … bzzz … and before long, I got Miss Beryl’s words zoned out. Her mouth is moving but I’m only catching snatches of words between the buzzing. Sorry … bzzz … intention … bzzz … mother …

Eventually her mouth stops moving, her head starts shaking. She’s lost and she knows it.

Managing not to grin, I stand up. ‘Can I go back to CSU now, Miss?’

‘David—’

‘Lunch’ll stop serving in five and I got nothing more to say, Miss.’

She stops fiddling with her hair and stands too, red in the face. ‘Fine. Have it your way. But you need to take this as a warning, David. A last chance. Whatever’s going on with you, you need to get that temper of yours under control and start talking to me properly, or I’m not going to be able to help you anymore. Do you hear me?’

‘So can I go now?’

She thumps back down onto the wall, and with a look I can’t quite read, signals to the orderly that I can leave.

I feel her eyes watching me as a I walk away.