Raggedyass Kids

Alien Visitation

“Ere, Mrs Davy?”
“Yes, my dear.”
We were sitting outside Lewis’s house for a change, Lewis, Bobby and me . Lewis’s mother stood in her doorway, in her floral pinny, leaning against the frame with her arms folded. Lewis’s mother always seemed older than my Mother, although I don’t think she was.
It was a beautiful summer day, but Lewis’s side of the street always seemed to be in shadow.
“You know that black banana what Bobby’s eating?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t like they.”
“Ow come, David. They’re good for ‘ee, they are.”
“I like ‘em alright.” Said Bobby, biting into the hard black grainy stick. I could hear it crack as he bit into it.
“They taste ‘orrible, and they look like a bit of dog turd.” I said.
“Oh David, you maze bugger.” Laughed Mrs Davy.
Bobby turned his nose up at the black banana and put it into his pocket.
“Well, what I do reckon, is this ‘ere. I do reckon that the Germans ab sent they things over ‘ere, an they ‘ave put poison in them so that all we English are going to eat them and then we’re all going to die in agony and they are going to come over and then take over the country an that, and kill us an all, and then they’ll ave won the war.”
Bobby took the black dried banana out of his pocket and threw it in the gutter.
“Do you think that the Germans ‘ave poisoned them Missis Davy?”
“Mebbe so, my dear,” said Lewis’s mother. “Mebbe so.”
The three of us moved across the street to sit in the sun.
“Lewis, don’t sit on that pavement.” Said his mother. “You’ll get piles!”

“Anyhow, what we goin to do?” said Bobby.
“Le’s go up and see the Yanks.” Said Lewy.
“Wha’s that?” I asked.
“You know,” said Lewy. “The Yanks. They’re soldiers and they come from America.”
“Gessoutofit! There aren’t no yan …… what you just said.
“There bleddy are” said Lewy “Arent there, Bob?”
“Yeah.” Said Bobby “They’re up Albert Tce. An they’re soldiers an they got guns an they give you sweets and chewing gum an that. My brother told me.”
“Chewing gum?”
“Yeah stacks of it. Come on Whito le’s go!”
Lewis and Bobby were already running up the street. I ran to catch them up.
Just as they were turning the corner by the chipshop, Bobby bent down to the pavement.
“Ay look, ‘eres some chewing gum ‘ere.”
He bent down to pick up a piece of sticky stuff that had been trodden into the stone. As he pulled it up it stretched up in his hand like a bowstring. He rolled it between his dirty fingers and then put it in his mouth.
“Is it sposed to be black like that ?” I asked.
“Was it like?” asked Lewy.
“Great. Want some?”
He pulled a long string of it from his mouth, and then gave me and Lewy a piece each, and we continued around the corner, three gum chewers, and walked into Albert Tce.
We were met by the sight of Goblin, one of the gang, who was three years older than us, sitting in the driving seat of a strange looking vehicle, like a car with the roof cut off. It was khaki coloured with numbers painted on the side in white.
“Yew. Lewy, Whito. ‘Ere look at what I’n doing of.”
“Wha’s that?” asked Bobby.
“It’s a JEEEP! “ said Goblin. “These ‘ere Yanks are going to take it to Germany and kill ‘undreds of Germans with it. They’re going to put a tommy gun on the front and then they can mow ‘em dead. This bloke ‘ere said I can fire the gun when they get it. P’raps we can take it over Newlyn and kill the Newlyn gang.”
We saw, standing beside the funny looking car, the strangest looking man I had ever seen. He seemed as tall as a giant. His face was big and brown, and he had freckles all over his face. His eyes were the brightest blue I had ever seen, and his blonde hair was cropped short on his head . It was like no other haircut I had seen before. He was so clean that he seemed to sparkle. And his uniform was made of a shiny material that didn’t look anything like the rough uniforms that we had seen on English soldiers.
He smiled at us.
“Well howdy, you all.”
We looked at him, mouths open.
“Ay?”
“How you good old boys doin?”
He could have been speaking Serbo —Croat for all we understood of him.
“You American are ‘ee mister?”
“What’s that you say boy?”
“Ay?”
“I couldn’t make out your limey lingo.”
“Wha’s he saying, Whito?”
Eventually, after much mis-communication, and gifts of sweets and chewing gum, that was actually white in colour and not the dirty black that we had picked off the street, we tuned into each others’ speech sufficiently to make a fair stab at what we each were saying.
He turned to Lewy.
“You want another stick of gum, boy?”
“Yeah” said Lewy.
As he handed over the gum the giant said,
“You gotta sister, boy.”
“Yeah, she’s called Hilda.”
“Hilda ay? Well you tell Hilda to come up and see Jerry, the Texan. And I’ll make sur e she’ll get some nylons. How old is she?”
“Six.” Said Lewy.
The blond giant coughed and said ,
“Yeah, well , you know….”
“Where you come from, mister?”
“Well, boy, I come from Texas. We call it God’s own country. It’s the greenest most beautiful place on this earth. The corn grows as high as a tree and the skyscrapers reach up to the sky.”
“Is it bigger than Truro?” said Bobby.
“Why, hell boy. Its bigger than this whole country put together. my Daddy’s ranch stretches out as far as the horizon out there.” He pointed out to Mounts Bay. “And when you think you got to the end, it goes on as far again.”
We knew he was just bragging now, cos nothing could be bigger than Mounts Bay.
By now some other soldiers had come out of the house to join him. They were all shiny clean crew cutted giants as well.
“Do you know any film stars, mister?” asked Bobby.
“Why sure, Clark Gable’s my uncle. “
“Who’s ‘ee?” asked Bobby
“Why hell boy. Don’t you know Clark Gable. He’s the King of Hollywood. Aint that so, Gus?” the Texan said to one of the newcomers.
“Yup.”
“Well, he aint as good as our king.” Said Bobby.
“Do you know Hopalong Cassidy?” I asked him.
“I sure do. In fact I taught him how do ride a horse and tote a gun. Aint that so Gus?”
“Yup.”
We looked at each other in disbelief.
“Yah. I bet. Well wha’s his horse called then?”
“Why, Hoppies horse is called Trigger. Aint that so Gus?”
“Yup.”
“Wahhh! Ya lyin, bugger. Trigger is Roy Rogers horse.”
Suddenly, one of the Americans yelled out.
“Hey there, boy. What the hell you think you’re doing?”
Followed by the others he started running towards the jeep, where Goblin was sitting behind the driving wheel, and the jeep was careering down the hill.
“That kid has only let the handbrake off!!”
The jeep was now travelling at quite a speed, and Goblin steered into the top of Adelaide St and disappeared around the corner.
Me and Lewy and Bobby ran after the Americans ,who were running after the jeep driven by Goblin, with his unruly hair flying back in the wind. We watched him come to the junction between Adelaide St and Penwith St, where he threw his hands up in the air and the jeep crashed into the corner house. A couple of seconds later Mr Tonkin came running out of his house and started cursing the Americans. Goblin jumped out of the jeep and made to run down to Camberwell St, but one of the giant Americans caught him by the scruff of the neck saying
“Not so fast, young ‘un.”
Another American got into the jeep and reversed it up the street back to Albert Tce.
“You aint going to tell the police are you mister?” I pleaded with the Texan.
“Or his Ma.” Said Bobby. “She’ll kill him
“I don’t rightly know what we’re gonna do.” Said the giant. “We cant just let him go. He’s gotta realise that he cant just drive off other peoples property.”
“Why don’t you just beat the shit out of him?” said Bobby, who always had a practical solution.
“Ive got myself an idea of what to do. “ said the Texan. “You boys had better get on home now. Before any more damage is done.”
And so we went home.
The next time we saw Goblin we could hardly recognise him. His unruly shock of dirty hair was gone. Instead his head looked practically bald. The Americans had shaved his hair to about an eighth of an inch of his head. His mother never said anything, probably she never noticed, but from then on his name in the gang would forever be “Baldnut”.
The next day we were up at Albert Tce again, but I’ll tell you about that later.

FX
Alien Visitation Part Two
American Balloons

The Americans had been in Penzance for about two months now, and their presence was really being felt in the town. Wherever you went you would see groups of laughing giants acting as if they owned the town. And the most common sight was to see a local girl or woman, married or otherwise, clinging on tightly to her American beau, the seams on her newly acquired nylon stockings perfectly straight , and somehow shouting out what she had done to get them.
I had overheard my Mum admonishing my Auntie.
“Did I see you out with a Yank, last night, Winnie?”
“Oh Bena. Don’t be so. Everyone’s got an American!”
The gang was up at Albert Tce practically every day now and we had eaten more sweets and chewing gum, and sometimes even chocolate, than we were likely to eat for the rest of our childhood.
One particular hot summer’s day at the end of May, I remember vividly.
We were hanging around outside their billet hoping to cadge some more chewing gum, when a jeep drove up, and inside was one of the blonde giants and sitting beside him was the freshly shorn Baldnut, who had been adopted by the Yanks as a sort of mascot. We could see his scalp shining in the sunlight. We all envied him because he had access to all sorts of information about the Yanks, and his brother Whippet told us that very often he slept up Albert Tce all night.
“Yew!” shouted Baldnut as he and the American clambered out of the jeep loaded up with boxes and brown carrier bags.
“Me an Jake bin to the PX for supplies.” He boasted proudly.
Bobby snorted.
“Phhw! Jake!!”
The boxes contained exotic things like tins of coffee and packets of butter and scores of packets of something called Lucky Strikes.
By now several American giants had come out of the house, to help unload the Jeep.
Gus, the Texan, shouted to us.
“Howdy, boys, how you all going?”
“You wha,” said Bobby.
Gus ignored him and started distributing the long boxes of Lucky Strikes to the rest of the Americans who promptly tore open the packs and started to light up their cigarettes.
“Ay mister,” shouted Whippet “Gis a fag!”
“You’re too young to smoke, nipper.” Said one of them.
“I aint!” said Whippet. “I smoke my Ma’s all the time. And if she aint got any, we all smoke mugger from the hedges. Don’t us gang?”
We all concurred, although I never liked the roll-ups we made from mugger and San Izal lavatory paper.
The Americans started laughing amongst themselves and one of them threw Whippet a whole packet of Lucky Strikes!
We all crowded around him and lit upthese strange American cigarettes. They were awful! Lewy, Bobby and I started coughing and tears came to our eyes, much to the amusement of the Americans. Although Whippet was very good at it and he swaggered around the road waving the hand with the cigarette very elaborately. He smoked two one after the other, but he did begin to look a pale shade of green, and he wandered off down the street.
I saw one of the Americans open one of the big cardboard boxes from the jeep and say,
“Great. Frenchies. Now that’s what I call supplies, Jake!”
He picked out a handful of gold coloured circular objects about the size of a milktop.
“Wha’s they, mister?” asked Bobby.
All the Americans started to laugh.
“Well, boy. These are for our R&R.”
“Wha’s that?”
The American pushed his thumb into the gold milk top and extracted a long , powdery ,whitish, rubbery thing with a teat at one end.
“Hey, look.” Said Lewy “They’re balloons!!”
The Americans found this very funny, and they all started laughing.
“Yup.” Said Gus “That’s what they are, boy. They’re American balloons. And they sure give us some pleasure , what do you say, Jake.”
“Yup.” Said Jake.
“Can we have some, mister?” I pleaded.
“Why sure boy, here help yourself.” And he handed us about half a dozen each.
“Hey, Whito. Le’s go down Camberwell St and blow them up. C’mon Bob.”
Bobby had sneaked his way to the jeep, and when we left for Camberwell St I noticed he had taken a cardboard box from out of the jeep. As soon as he saw Lewy and me leaving he ran off down Adelaide St in front of us.
We arrived at Camberwell St, which was situated between Adelaide St and Mount St. Penzance Council had started pulling the houses down a few years before but had stopped when war broke out, probably hoping that the Germans would finish the job off for them, but of all the 800 or so bombs that fell on Penzance, not one of them fell on Camberwell St.
They had neglected to turn off the gas from some of the houses, and this was our destination now to blow up the American balloons.
“Hey, Lewy, Whito. Look what I pinched.!”
Bobby opened the cardboard box and revealed layer upon layer of the golden milktops.
“Crikey, there’s millions of ‘em!”
“Yeah c’mon gang le’s blow them up.
We ran to the gas tap that was sticking out of the ground, rolled the white balloon neck over the tap and turned on the gas.
The white powdery balloon expanded to about twelve inches in length, and we knotted them at the ends. When we released them the sky was filled with hundreds of white condoms floating upwards over the chimney tops with the teats uppermost. They looked like vertical barrage balloons. I had never seen so many balloons in the sky at one time.
“Ay, le’s get our bows and see if we can shoot them down.” I cried.
Still holding on to one of the American balloons I ran into my house, trailing my prize possession in the air behind me.
My father, who must have been on leave, and my mother were sitting down to tea with my brother who was eight years older than me. When he saw me running in trailing the blown up condom behind me, he almost choked on his baked beans, and they spluttered over the tablecloth.
“What the hell is that you’ve got there, Dai?” my father asked, desperately trying not to laugh.
“It’s an American balloon, and there are hundreds flying in the sky and In going to get my bow and we’re going to shoot em down from the sky!”
By now I had got my bow and several arrows and I was running out the door still with my balloon clutched in my hand.
“EEEarghh!!”
By the time I got back to Camberwell St, the hundreds of balloons in the sky had almost disappeared from view.
I released the one in my hand and immediately strung an arrow into my bow and shot it into the air. It fell miserably short of its target and about twenty yards to the left of it.
I looked at Lewy and Bobby, and said,
“Well, you all, I reckon I missed that darned balloon by a mile.”
They both looked at me and in unison said
“Yup!”

.Mysteriously, the Americans disappeared from Penzance as suddenly as they had arrived. One day they just weren’t there anymore. I realise now that those blond giants who gave us such exotic gifts , and who spoke such a strange language, were probably aged about 18 or 19. Hundreds of them were killed in a surprise raid by the Germans at Slapton Sands near Dartmouth, and others were killed at Omaha Beach on D_Day. I don’t know whether Gus or Jake survived ,or if they did whether they remembered the pleasure and education they gave to a group of raggedy-arsed kids from Adelaide St., in a little Cornish town called Penzance.

FX

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