Barry Walsh - The Pimlico Kid

Michael O’Rourke is perched on the end of Mrs Johnson’s garden wall. Behind him, smoke rises from a concealed cigarette. Between hunched, furtive drags, he looks up and down the street like a spy in a doorway. He blows the smoke down between his legs and his fat cheeks flap out to ‘thtup’ real and imagined bits of tobacco from the tip of his tongue, followed by a squirt of saliva through the gap in his top front teeth. Michael admits to being a ‘heavy ould lad’ and his bulk makes describing sport easier than taking part. He’s reporting our game as if it’s the Cup Final.

‘A great attempt by Billy Driscoll, roising star of English football … and what a clearance from his kid brother, surely de foinest young fullback in de country.’

Today he’s broadcasting from his commentary box but he often strolls around in the middle of our football or cricket matches, speaking into an imaginary microphone. It’s like having Kenneth Wolstenholme or John Arlott down on the pitch. However, Michael’s knowledge of cricketing terms remains extremely Irish. ‘Driscoll is after firin’ de ball past de bowler’s kisser.’

Michael loves all things American, especially Westerns and gangster films. So do we, but he wants to be an American. In the weeks after he arrived from Ireland, we knew him as ‘Gene’, after the cowboy, Gene Autry, until we heard his mother call him Michael. When explaining, he said, ‘Tell me now, what kinda cowboy, goody or baddy, was ever called Michael?’ He had a point.

I was delighted when he christened me ‘the Kid’ to go with my name and, with most of the street cowboys, I was won over by his colourful language in our Wild West games. Outdrawing the fastest gunslingers and saving settlers from marauding Indians had never been more fun. And he’d never say, ‘stick ’em up’ when he had enemies cornered; instead he’d slowly waggle his revolver under their noses and say, ‘Now I’d be obloiged if ye’d be after hand’n me your weapons, and den reachin’ for de skoy.’ Sometimes, in the heat of battle, he’d confuse cowboys and gangsters, ‘vamanos muchachos, dey’re packin’ heat’ or ‘dirty hoodlums are speaking wid forked tongues’.

We no longer play cowboys but Michael continues to ‘mosey on home’, eat ‘chow’ and greet you with ‘howdy’.

Further along, Madge Smith’s son, little Jojo, is astride the same wall, spurring it to a gallop while swivelling left and right to fire his cap guns at chasing Indians. He’s wearing a fawn Roy Rogers hat that was once John’s pride and joy. He gave it – grudgingly – to Jojo last year when I told him he was too old to be playing cowboys. John wanted so badly to be a real cowboy. Even now, it irks him that the Wild West is no longer a place he can go to fight outlaws and Indians.

Cowboys are the kind of men we all want to be. Other TV heroes like Robin Hood, William Tell or Ivanhoe can’t hold a candle to Flint McCulloch in Wagon Train , Bronco Layne or scary Richard Boone in Have Gun Will Travel – it’s something to do with guns or ‘equaloizers’, as Michael calls them. In the cinema, our favourite is Audie Murphy whose films we sit through at least twice when they’re showing at the Biograph.

Jojo is blasting away when, worse than Indians, he sees David Griggs loping up behind him. ‘Griggsy’ is the son of ‘Scrapman’ Griggs, who rides around calling out for ‘old iron’ or ‘any lumber’ from a cart pulled by a muscular skewbald pony who is as gentle as a lamb, until he gets near enough to bite.

Like his dad, Griggsy is a street scavenger, only he takes stuff from other kids: sometimes sweets, sometimes money and – always – any fun they might be having.

He’s a year older than I am but we were in the same class for the last year of primary school as he was too thick to go on to secondary school. He hates anyone cleverer than him, which is most people – especially me, ever since an encounter at the bus stop on Vauxhall Bridge Road. As a bus approached, he jabbed me in the back because I hadn’t put my hand out to hail it.

‘You want this bus?’

I couldn’t help myself. ‘Why, are you selling it?’

He jumped ahead of me on to the rear platform and as he grabbed the white pole, swung a fist into the side of my head. ‘That’s all I’m selling today, shitbag, very cheap.’

Pretty good for a moron.

Today he’s wearing a baggy plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up his beefy arms and, even in high summer, he’s in heavy brown corduroy trousers held up with braces. He bounces towards us on spring heels that launch him on to the balls of his feet the moment they touch the ground. He comes to a halt in front of us, rising and falling on the spot like a nasty copper.

Jojo sits petrified on his brick horse as if the whole Sioux nation has appeared on the skyline. Michael stares at the ground and I smile an appeasing welcome. John, who smiles only when he finds something funny, waits.

‘Gis a kick then, brains.’

This is no friendly request to join in. I pass him the ball. He steadies it and thumps it against the wall. The kick is hard and uncontrolled, like Griggsy himself. The loud thud on the bricks is intimidating and he knows it, but he’s missed the goal. This angers him and he smashes the returning ball back at the wall; another miss! He makes a mess of retrieving the rebound and lurches after the ball. Once he has it under control, he folds his arms and scans us for any sign of piss-take for his complete absence of skill.

Why doesn’t Mrs Johnson or, better still, her big milkman husband come out to complain about the thumping noise now? Why do bullies always have so much time?

He beckons me forward by flicking up the fingers on his upturned palms. ‘Come on then Brains, try and geddit.’

The thing to do is fail but make the effort look genuine. Even so, I risk a clump once I’m in range. My attempted tackle is to one side, making it obvious, even to Griggsy, that he should go the other way. He does but the ball bounces off my shin, and he has to chase it again. He gets one foot on the ball and calls to John. ‘Now you, come on then.’

John refuses. With widened eyes, I silently urge him to do what Griggsy wants. He shakes his head. I’m about to shout at him, when Griggsy relents and dribbles towards him.

The one person John takes notice of is Dad, whose advice on tackling is ‘follow through and you won’t get hurt’. But it can hurt, especially against someone bigger, and if the follow-through contains too much flinch, as it usually does in my case. John shrugs and leans in hard to block the ball. The tackle takes Griggsy’s leg away and sends him sprawling. Silence. Griggsy springs to his feet in a ludicrous attempt to make it look like he’s gone down deliberately. Jojo starts laughing. Griggsy, checks for a smile on my face – not a chance – before dashing over to cuff Jojo across the mouth. Jojo burst into tears.

‘Ah now, Griggsy, de little fellah meant no harm …’ says Michael.

‘You what, fatso?’

Michael has many one-liners for facing down Comanches and other baddies. But this isn’t Jesse James, it’s mental Griggsy. Instead of replying, he holds his chin in the air like Randolph Scott in Colt .45 .

Griggsy paces up and down, nodding his head, working out his next move. As he passes Jojo, he yanks the cowboy hat from his head, but the chinstrap holds and pulls him off the wall. He hits the ground hard and stays silent until he realizes he’s not badly hurt and starts screaming.

‘Shuddup you little bastard. Cowboy eh? Well, cop this, Roy Rogers.’

He snatches up the hat in both hands. The tendons in his neck stand out as he snorts up phlegm with such force you’d think he had a muscle inside his forehead. He spits into the hat, throws it on the ground and stamps on it. Forgetting he’s no longer the owner, John dives to rescue it. Griggsy grabs him around the neck.