RICHIE MCMULLEN Enchanted Youth is the follow-up to Richie McMullen's highly popular Enchanted Boy. While his first volume of memoirs was, in his words, a journey through abuse to prostitution, the second leads him through a still more perilous time, from prostitution to love. It's 1958, and just turned fifteen, Richie leaves his Liverpool home bound for London, believing that boys can earn a fortune on the game. He discovers a world of rent boys preyed on by criminal gangs yet giving each other comfort and support; the excitement of Soho in the rock'n'roll years; and love for a public school boy his own age. When the boy's parents banish their son to Singapore to keep them apart, Richie joins the merchant navy and sets off in quest of his friend... Praise for Enchanted Boy... "Well written, entertaining and thought provoking, this excellent short early autobiography aims to help demystify and provide a personal perspective on the subjects of child abuse and prostitution... the search for warmth and affection is never sentimentalized and succeeds in being genuinely moving." — Time Out \ Cover Art by Roderick Broomfield This book is dedicated to every boy who has been or is currently involved in any form of prostitution. First published May 1990 by GMP Publishers Ltd, P O Box 247, London N17 9QR World Copyright © 1990 Richie J.McMullen Distributed in North America by Alyson Publications Inc., 40 Plympton St, Boston, MA 02118, USA Distributed in Australia by Stilone Pty Ltd., P O Box 155, Broadway, NSW 2007, Australia British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data McMullen, Richie Enchanted Youth. 1. Male homosexuals. Prostitution — Biographies I. Title 306.743092 ISBN 0-85449-134-1 Printed and bound in the E C on environmentally-friendly paper by Norhaven A/S, Viborg, Denmark. Table of Contents Running Away Joker’s Wild Angelic Circles Flyer's Party Tennis John Waiting for Friends Soldier Blue Softly Awakes My Heart Brixton Billy The Best of Plans Missing Presumed... Taking stock Parting Gifts Prison Strokes The Vindi Maiden Voyage Running Away had three assets when I stepped on to the train at Liverpool’s Lime Street IStation that cold November morning in 1958; my body, my mind and the clothes I stood up in. My body was fifteen years old, excited, eager for the unknown and ready for all the sex and money it could come by. My body pulsed energy which my mind had difficulty dealing with in harmony. I was a boy out of balance. My mind belonged to a child and an old man, all at the same time. More than anything else in the world my body wanted love and my mind demanded answers to the questions which tormented me and which always began with ‘why?’. I carried my fragile assets to an empty compartment, with the same precise care that the other passengers carried their luggage, and arranged them proudly facing the engine. I had no bags, no money and a head full of dreams of what might be. I couldn’t have been happier. My pockets, other than for my one-way ticket, were empty. I’d carried nothing from the house I was all too glad to leave. I’d have gone naked, like Saint Francis, if it were possible. Of all the saints I’d learnt about at school, Saint Francis was my all time favourite. I mean, here was a guy any inner city boy could identify with. A guy who stole cloth from his rich father to pay for the materials to rebuild a church. A right scally who did what he felt he had to. Then, when his father twigged and got the law in, Frannie stepped out of his clothes and gave them back to his father and went off bollock naked into the unknown to do his own thing. That’s what I call a gutsy kind of fella, know what I mean? I had more than Saint Frannie, didn’t I? I mean, I had a train ticket to London and a decent set of clothes. But I wasn’t going to build any church! Liverpool, and for all I knew, every other city, was stuffed full of churches. All of them packed out and all demanding money from the poor bastards who were hooked on the addictive messages preached at them every Sunday. ‘Give now and get your reward in heaven.’ If God, whose very existence I was becoming to seriously doubt, wanted to rebuild his church, then he sure was getting the message across in a cock-eyed kind of way. The best fed, best housed and best dressed people in post-war Liverpool were the priests. My young mind saw no justice in any of it. The church had been built and rebuilt so often that the years ahead would see many turned into bingo halls and workshops. There were enough churches! I had a life to build and the only means available were my mind and body. I put my feet up on the seat opposite and cursed my mind for once again allowing a prayer to Saint Francis to invade my consciousness. Why did I say those stupid prayers? Perhaps, because I was a first generation English boy who thought himself to be totally Irish. Or, perhaps because there were times when aged twelve or so, when I wanted to please my Wexford born mother by becoming the priest she prayed for. Perhaps, too, because I was riddled with guilt about the sex I’d had with Pip at school, with men in public toilets, in cinemas, the backs of cars, behind bushes and every other damn place. I’d have to watch for the signals, you know, when the prayers start to come and change things in my head; think of something different. This was a technique I’d already developed to get rid of those erections which always came up when most unwanted. I used to think about being examined by the school doctor, who was a fat, old woman. It always worked, well, nearly always. Why is it that boys always get an erection just as they have to get off the bus, or when the teacher tells them to stand up straight, or when they’re trying to have a piss? And why is it that the erection always seems to know precisely where the opening in their underpants is? Popping through, forcing itself against the front of their trousers? My thoughts were rudely interrupted when the guard opened the carriage door, slid into the compartment, like a snake, and told me, in one long drawn out hissing breath — of the adult man whose seen it all before — to take my feet off the seat, produce my ticket and have some respect for other people’s property. Why is it that a boy in this situation happens to have an erection and can’t find his ticket? With one hand trying like hell to cover the bulge I knew he’d seen and the other searching the otherwise empty pockets for the lost ticket; I couldn’t find it! The train was still standing in the station, the guard beginning to move, in his snake-like rhythm, from one foot to the other with increasing impatience. He was ready to show me his fangs, poison me with his venom, and I couldn’t find the ticket which took me all the money I had to purchase. ‘Have you actually got a ticket or not? You either have or you haven’t, which is it?’ He hissed. Why is it that adults who wear uniforms all seem to sound the same? ‘Of course I’ve got a ticket, what do you take me for?’ ‘Then would you mind letting me see it, please?’ Why did his please sound like, ‘I know you haven’t got a ticket and I’m just about to throw you off my train you smart arsed scally’? I had no choice, the erection wouldn’t go down and I had to stand up to search my back pockets. Stuff it, be proud, if you’ve got it then show it off. I stood up and faced the guard, my erection sticking out for all to see. He looked at me, at the erection, back at me in shocked disbelief, and then looked away in embarrassment. I had him! He was embarrassed! The boot was on the other foot now. I enjoyed watching the snake mutate into a worm, looking for an escape route. No proud fangs showing now. The ticket was wedged under the flap of my back pocket, I pulled it loose, as slowly and as casually as I could, hesitated, and then showed it to the transformed worm. He clipped it quickly, eager to crawl beneath the nearest stone, whilst I beamed triumphantly. He left the compartment muttering something about ‘the kids of today’. I fell back into the luxurious seat, as the door closed, put my feet back on the seat opposite, admired my bulge and laughed my triumph loud and long. Not long now and I’d be out of this poverty ridden city for good. No more beatings from my father’s thick leather belt. No more violence. How I hate violence. No more having to break school canes so that little kids can be protected from sadistic teachers. No more having to have sex with perverted teachers in the stock room whilst my mates played football. No more making women angry at me on the streets, in order to distract them from beating the hell out of the kids they’d thoughtlessly brought into the world.