Nobody's Fault by Derek Haines (rm book recommendations txt) 📕

so they were certainly not built for comfort. They resembled half of a corrugated iron water tank, cut in half from top to bottom and then laid on their side. Being made of corrugated iron they were very strong structurally, and very cheap to make. They were also very cold in winter, screaming hot in summer, and would deafen the dead when it rained. Heaven forbid if it hailed.
Into one of these huts one young Steven Sharp was housed with his mother, father and two older sisters. Steven was four years old. His sisters six and nine. It was a trying time for them all, and if it had not been for a stroke of luck in Steven’s father getting a job after only a month, they might have given in to Steven’s mother’s tears of wanting to go home. The conditions were uncomfortable, crowded, wet, cold and noisy. Nothing like the beaches, sun and suntanned bodies they had seen in the brochures at Australia House in London. Winter anywhere can be miserable. Perth was no exception.
Many families from England went back. And who could really blame them. They really got sold a pup in many ways. They were sold on Australia by slick advertising and colourful brochures. A promise of a land of plenty and sunny days and sandy beaches. Nobody told them about clouds and rain, and cold winds of winter. Nor about the scorching heat they would suffer during a Perth summer. They were sold a holiday. This was not a holiday for any of them.
With all the normal adjustment and settling process over, Steven’s family settled into their new life. His mother had reduced her complaining about wanting to go home to as little as twice a week now, so things must have been improving. By 1977 all thoughts of going home had gone. The family had just moved into their new state house for which they had been on the waiting list since shortly after their arrival. A state house was a house bought from the government under the Public Housing Scheme. They were cheaper than buying privately, and as long as your income was below a certain level, and you qualified under various criteria including children, age and married, you applied to join the waiting list. The interest rate was also subsidised. One drawback was that these state houses were built in large estates. This created a whole suburb or sometimes, suburbs of low income residents. Not that this was going to equal slums, but undoubtedly it was going to lead to some social problems. The ingredients of low incomes, young children, struggling parents, unemployment, alcohol, domestic violence and lack of education were to be the environment for Steven Sharp’s childhood.
School didn’t hold much interest for Steven. He wasn’t unintelligent, but neither was he academically inclined. It bored him. He would rather play football or cricket, or go looking for tadpoles in the nearby swamp. He skipped school a few times to go to the swamp. He thought he would get into serious trouble, but to his surprise, when he took a letter home to his mother from his teacher regarding his absence, his mum scribbled on the bottom that he had been home sick, and signed it. She didn’t really care. Her interest had now been taken by alcohol and valium. Steven wasn’t sure, but he thought she took the tablets for her headaches. The ones she got after dad slapped her around a bit. Steven also discovered his mother’s signature wasn’t hard to copy. This little trick kept him out of school with immunity.
Arguments, alcohol, abuse and violence were just a part of Steven’s home life. He found the best way to handle it was to climb out of his bedroom window and walk down to the shops. He always found a couple of his mates there. He never thought to ask if they were there for the same reason. If he had asked, he might not have felt so unusual. To Steven, his was the only family that behaved like this. He was too young to understand that it was only his family he saw from the inside. Everyone else’s he only saw from the outside. And they all look normal and well adjusted from there.
Just after his thirteenth birthday Steven stopped bothering to go to school. After a bit of coming and going of a truant officer, and a few letters from the school’s headmaster, and his parents disinterest in the whole episode, officialdom just forgot about Steven. And he forgot about it. Now he had time on his hands, and for all intents and purposes was on his own.
With little guidance from his parents, and the only role models for him to look up to being older lads in the neighbourhood who had dropped out like him, Steven was always heading for trouble. Although he had an understanding of right from wrong, the amount of time he had on his hands, and the discovery that everything cost money, of which he had none, soon led to his first act of theft. He had seen his mates pocketing a few small things from the corner store. The old Greek owner behind the counter kept his eyes peeled whenever these lads entered. He knew what they were up to, and had asked the local police to help, but as they hadn’t been caught doing anything illegal, there was nothing that could be done. And anyway, it was just a few sweets and gum balls.
Steven joined in the game. The first time he pocketed a few gum balls, he nearly shat himself in fear. His heart was still racing when he was out of sight of the shop. But the fear did not last long. He became adept at shoplifting. He was a smart kid, and using his mates as decoys and lookouts, he started find ways of getting most things he wanted or needed. Food, drink, sweets, sunglasses, LPs. Anything that would fit in his pocket or under his pullover, or under his arm inside a jacket were easy pickings for Steven. Even his mates thought he was crazy. He earned the nickname of Snake, because his mates kept saying to him, ‘Shit Steve, you are as mad as a cut snake!’
The name stuck. Steve was now Snake. He was proud to have earned a nickname. It didn’t matter what it was really. But to have a nickname meant he really belonged to his gang. They had accepted him fully. Even if they thought he was mad. Maybe just to prove the worth of his new name, Steven decided he wanted to steal something big. He was making a few dollars stealing fashionable Polaroid sunglasses for less adventurous kids and selling them for two dollars a pair. This was a good deal, as they cost over ten dollars. And it gave Steve a few dollars for smokes, which were always difficult to steal, being normally directly behind the cash register in most shops.
He announced to his fellow gang members one afternoon, while they were hanging around the shops, that he wanted a record player. ‘I like that AWA one in the Retravision shop.’ he started. ‘Its a portable one, with a speaker in the lid, it has a radio, and it can run on batteries too.’
His mates looked at him blandly, all thinking he was just wishful thinking out loud. This was a normal type of conversation amongst these lads. If it wasn’t wanting something they didn’t have, it was talking about doing something they couldn’t do. Steve listened just as uninterestedly to his mates' ravings many times. Except when one of the older boys, who was sixteen, would talk about fucking the woman who lived next door. At that time, Steve wasn’t too sure what fucking really was, and didn’t want to admit he didn’t know, so he never asked for a detailed explanation. He just listened intently for more clues to what it was, but knew from his mate’s enthusiasm for the subject, that it had to be good.
Steve stood up, looked at his mates and said, ‘C’mon, lets go. I want that record player!’
Well, there was nothing better to do, so they all followed the Snake. They didn’t believe he was going to do it. But it was a fun place to look around. The Retravision store had all sorts of great things to look at and hope to have one day. Electrical appliances, records, stereograms. Just before they got to the front door of the shop, Steve said to them all, ‘Go down the back of the shop and flick through the LPs. And look over your shoulders at the two blokes behind the counter. They’ll be between you an’ me. The AWA is on display at the front of the shop, so when you see me leave with it, pull a few faces at ‘em, and give me a few minutes to get ‘round the corner. I’ll meet you all at the park.’
His mates couldn’t believe it. He really was mad! As the shop assistants at the store watched them intently, they watched as Steve just picked up his new record player, and as if to thumb his nose completely, he held it on top of his head, and slowly walked out the door. Once out of sight of his mates he tucked it under his wing, and ran like buggery to the park.
About fifteen minutes later his fellow gang members arrived. They found Steve listening to the radio on his new AWA. Steve was one of the youngest members of his gang, but this deed had earned him respect. They all thought he was still as mad as a cut snake, but he out of all of them had the most guts.
By fifteen, Steven had been caught twice for shoplifting and was well known to the local police. The Children’s Court handed down its normal slap on the wrist to Steven, and he learned that while he was under eighteen, there was little consequence to his behaviour and lifestyle. His parents gave him little attention. Mum was still at home, drunk most of the time, and his dad made irregular appearances at the house. Normally just to argue with his mum, give her a smack across the gob, then leave in a temper. His older sisters had each left home shortly after turning sixteen, and were now sharing a flat in the city somewhere. He didn’t see them much at all. They came to see their mum occasionally. Their visits became less and less frequent.
One of the older boys told Steve there was a party on Friday night at his next door neighbour's house. He knew this was the woman that his mate had been fucking for a couple of years. Steve had also figured out what fucking was by now, and although he bragged with the boys about his conquests, he was still a virgin. He had a slight hope that this party might fix that. It did! What Steve didn’t know was that this woman, who he thought was way over thirty and ancient in his eyes, just adored young boys. None of the details mattered to Steve, she had tits and Steve was, beneath all his bravado, just an inquisitive and hormone filled young man.
The party turned out to be a party for his gang alone. She supplied the beer. They supplied her favourite entertainment. Not only did Steve discover what a fuck was, (he watched intently, two boys before him, and lasted a whole twenty seconds when it was his turn, before he exploded inside the slut), his education was enriched through the evening with gang bangs, head jobs and hand jobs. Although the effects of the beer caught up with Steven, before he passed out, he had discovered a