The Rioter’s Tale.
By Angharad.

I walked past the bridal shop every day. The woman who owned it changed the display every second week–possibly to prevent exposure to sunlight of the dresses inside. I stopped and looked in the window and drooled each time I went past. I just love wedding dresses and these were some to die for, not that I’d ever wear one. First, they were worth hundreds if not thousands of pounds; second, I’m not even in a relationship let alone engaged to be married; third, my birth certificate says boy.

Birth certificates don’t determine what we each feel ourselves to be, and I feel more girl than boy, but in my situation I can’t do much about it. I’m out of work and pretty well unemployable. I have a criminal record. It’s a long story and happened some time ago. Let’s see, I’m nineteen so it’s eight years ago, I was eleven when it happened.

My elder brother Tim was the only one who knew about how I felt about things, you know being a girl really. Tim was nearly six years older than me, so he was sixteen going on seventeen. He was a lovely boy except he did drugs, not heroin or anything like that, but weed and E. He got some bad E one weekend and it blew his kidneys–he died a few days later.

I remember crying and crying when he died, even though I’d seen him in the coma in intensive care, I couldn’t believe he was dead. I wouldn’t believe he was dead. The police did an investigation but let’s face it, they couldn’t find shit up someone’s bum. They couldn’t find the man who’d supplied him with the drugs. Two of his friends were also ill, one nearly died and they couldn’t remember who sold them the stuff–at least that’s what they told the cops.

I used to go and sit with Frankie while he was recovering. He’d lie in bed because his legs didn’t work too well for a while, and I’d keep him company until his girlfriend used to come after school. I was let off school because I had depression caused by bereavement. Frankie’s girlfriend, Tanya, used to tease me and call me his nursemaid–but secretly, I liked it.

Eventually, Frankie told me who supplied the drugs which made him ill and poisoned Tim–a boy called Gerald Greensit. I asked him if he was sure and he told me he was. I went and spoke to the police but they weren’t really interested, some big drug bust was going down and they had bigger fish to fry–so they said, and besides, Tim’s case was closed.

I was eleven and disgusted. A week later I was still eleven and disgusting. I killed Gerald Greensit, I poisoned him. I put anti-freeze in his Coke. What gave me away was laughing when the school announced he was dead. They said I was probably psychotic although I confessed and told them why.

My mother went very strange and killed herself and my dad just got drunk all the time. They put me into a Young Offenders Unit, I was the youngest one there and they all wanted me to be their girlfriend. I was young and naive and thought they could see what I really was–instead, all they wanted was a soft bum to poke and I spent five years being buggered in all senses. Maybe I was psychotic–I used to just sit in my room in the corner and pretend I was somewhere else. I tried to kill myself twice but they found me in time and resuscitated me–how I hated them for that.

I used to take all sort of pills–I was like a zombie–but no one understood how I felt. I tried to tell the psychiatrist that I was really a girl. He pretended to humour me and even gave me hormones for a while–it gave me girly hips and small tits but he was transferred and the next bloke stopped it all.

I got to eighteen and they threw me out on parole–and I’ve been out here ever since. An effeminate looking, androgynous man, who has a girlish body, long hair and a history of mental illness and murder. Would you employ me? I wouldn’t.

My dad came to see me once–then the drink really took off and he died in debt. They had to sell our house to pay for his funeral the bloody solicitor got most of the proceeds. I was allowed out for the day–handcuffed to a screw. I was too out of it to take on board what was happening–thanks to the pills–we just sat at the back–him bored to hell and me in a daze.

I get benefits, they pay for my rent–a bedsit in a house full of nutters or drunks–yeah, compared to them, I’m sane. I’ve tried for several jobs, but no one wants me and I think they’ve got me down as too crazy to employ.

I have very little spare money, so I have to be very careful. I buy stuff in charity shops–usually girl’s stuff–but sort of unisex–all my jeans are girl’s ones, most of my tees are too, I wear baggy tops over my bra and tee shirts and get away with being of indeterminate sex.

I tried to get referred to Charing Cross but my GP was of the opinion that I was too crazy to be accepted–my criminal record plus my suicide attempts would get me turned down. He did agree to give me birth control pills to help keep me stable and stop becoming masculinised, so I was grateful for that. I was so thin that although my body was feminine I looked like a skeleton with fried eggs on her chest.

I would pass the bridal shop each day on my way to the library–I’d be there all day most days. I read and read and also learned to use the internet. I couldn’t afford even a phone, so my hour or so a day on the library system meant I could at least research what and who I was–and stupid, I wasn’t.

Then I’d pass the bridal shop on the way back and look at the dresses and dream. I did have two outfits of my own at home–all of it second hand, a dress and a skirt and top, a couple of pairs of tights and one pair of courts. I do wear bras and panties all the time but they’re only cheap ones unless I can see some better ones in the charity shops–which is where I bought my nightdresses. The ladies in my local Oxfam think I’m a girl anyway, so I don’t disabuse them.

Socially, I’m a pariah–I don’t really have any friends–but solitary–for my own protection–means I got used to being on my own. I wish I had friends, but as soon as they know my history–they tend to disappear.

One night as I came home from the library–I stayed there until they kicked me out–there was something going down. Lots of people were milling about the streets and my main concern was to get home and avoid them–especially as if I got involved in anything, they could re-arrest me. I’d rather die than go back to the prison system.

I was a maybe fifty yards down from the row of shops which included the bridal one when things started to happen. I heard glass smashing and raised voices and the little corner shop run by a couple of Pakistanis was raided for booze and cigs. I felt the urge to run for my room–instead I stood and watched–almost mesmerised as the crowd swelled and another shop was attacked.

I began to feel anger, what right did these yobs–because that’s what they were–have to destroy other people’s property, and instead of running away I walked back to do what I could to stop them–from attacking my beloved bridal shop.

Two girls started banging on the windows and tried to force the door. The burglar alarms went off and the woman who owned it and who lived upstairs began screaming at them to leave her place alone.

Some boy, presumably the boyfriend of one of the girls began banging on the window with a baseball bat. I saw red and flew at him. I don’t know what people thought when I ran up to him and pushed him away from the shop. He pushed me back harder and I fell over.

He hit the window again and it began to crack. I jumped up and with the only weapon I had, some books in a plastic carrier bag, whacked him across the face. He fell backwards dropping the bat, which I picked up and screeched at the rest of them to go away. For what seemed like hours–my crazy figure–kept them at bay and just as they were about to attack me, sirens sounded and they all ran off, dragging their injured colleague with them–the girls swearing all sorts of revenge–at the bitch who’d frustrated them.

The police arrived and as I was picking up my now torn books, they grabbed me as one of the rioters–wonderful. However, the woman ran out of the shop and told them what had happened. Reluctantly, they let me go–after removing the baseball bat as they went.

She saw that I was about to fall over with exhaustion and took me into the shop. “I don’t know how I can ever thank you for saving my shop from that mob.”

I was too tired to say anything but nodded. She sat me down in a little kitchen behind the shop and made some tea, which I gratefully accepted. All I’d had all day was a bottle of water and a couple of biscuits–my usual rations in the library.

“I see you looking in here every day, don’t I?”

I nodded and felt tears begin to run down my face.

“You like my dresses?”

I nodded.

“What’s your name, I’m sorry, I’m Pam, Pam Stokes.”

I had to say something, and I thought the truth was best. “Andrew.”

“Andrew? But you’re a girl–aren’t you?”

“Inside I am, but my ID says I’m a boy.”

“But those are girl’s jeans, and you’re wearing a bra–are you sure you’re a boy?”

I nodded and cried some more. She proffered more tea and we talked and talked. She told me she was a widow, her husband had been killed in Afghanistan five years ago. I told her about my family and how I’d killed to avenge them and how everyone thought I was crazy and dangerous and unemployable and so I spent every day in the library.

She looked me up and down. “Have you got any proper girl’s clothes?”

“What dresses and things?”

“Yeah, not jeans and hoodies.”

“I have one skirt and top and a pair of shoes–why?”

“I want you to wear them tomorrow and come and see me.”

“Why–so you can laugh at me too?”

“No you silly girl, so I can interview you for a job–that is if you’re looking for one?”