Dirty Dick

When I was a kid, there was this bloke who used to go to the local baths a lot. By a lot I mean every fuckin day. We, my friends and I, would see him standing at the bus stop with his towel rolled up under his arm, he would get on the bus and the bus would leave. A couple of hours later he would get off a returning bus, towel still rolled under his arm and he would presumably go home. As innocent young tearaways, we didn't think much of this except that he must really like swimming.

During the summer holidays, we would often go to the baths ourselves. There was fuck all else to do and it was fun, pissing in the pool or the foot wash, chasing lasses and showing off. Occasionally we would see this fella while we were there. He always appeared not to notice us, or if he did he just kept himself to himself. A wise move given that single men approaching groups of kids in the swimming baths is frowned upon by much of society.

Now and again, the older sisters of one of my mates would come with us. We were all about 9 or 10, so they would be maybe 12 and 14 at the most. They were ugly girls, buck teeth, bad hair, just skin and bone. There was more meat on a butchers pencil. Even the oldest one was a late bloomer and was still flat as a panel of plasterboard. The sight of them in their swimming cozzies could not be described as easy on the eyes. Anyway, one day, the older one, Janine said that this bloke had touched her arse while he swam past her. I remember thinking that it was unlikely, cause if I was a pedo, there were a hundred better looking girls in the pool that I would be trying to cop a crafty feel of. I thought she was lying for the attention. And besides, this lad never came anywhere near us. She swore that it was true and her sister started to back her up saying that he had touched her arse too. As a group, we believed them and instead of telling one of the lifeguards we all swam over to the lad and started to call him names. Nonce, Molester, Bum Fondler and possibly worst of all, Dirty Dick because that one stuck. Visibly shaken, he fucked off and left the pool before anyone of authority showed up or some mental case of an unbalanced disposition got wind of it and decided to give him a leathering.

So, as I said, the name stuck. From then on he was Dirty Dick. Whenever we saw him at the bus stop we chanted his name, whenever we saw him walking down the street we followed him singing "Dirty Dick, Dirty Dick, touches kids and makes them sick". Pretty soon, people began to notice and rumours started to spread about Dick and what he did at the baths. All kinds of untruths made the rounds as people got the story wrong and misinformed someone else. There were rumours that he had been seen wanking on the back seat of a bus. People said they had seen him fucking stuffed animals in the church yard. Word was that he had been chucked out of ASDA for poking holes in the fruit. Things were looking bad for the lad.

It didn't take long before we stopped seeing him waiting for the bus with his towel. No doubt afraid to go anywhere near semi naked children, he had been forced to abandon his pastime. People saw less and less of him on the streets, in the end he just vanished. Hopefully he just moved away and didn't top himself or anything like that because then I would feel bad about it.

On a recent visit back home, I was standing in line at the pie shop and who walks in? Dirty Dick! It was him, older, greyer and fatter but it was definately him. Obviously, as time had passed and he had changed, people had either forgotten or just didn't recognize him. He had returned. Although I didn't think he would recognize me, I dropped out of the line and went over to the bread rack and started to examine a Warburton's Toaster, letting him get in front of me. When a couple more people joined the line, I got back in the queue.

By the time I got to the front of the line, he had left the shop with his meat & potato and a vanilla slice. The woman serving recognized me, she used to be one of our neighbours until her husband came home from the pit and caught her fucking the lad who worked in the bookies and quickly divorced her. "How yer doin' love? You still livin' in't States?" "Aye, doin' grand", I said, "I see Dicks back". "Eh? Who you on abaht?". "Yon mon who wuz just innere", I motioned over my shoulder. It took a moment before she realized who I meant but the memories came back quickly. "That wuz Dirty Dick!" she blurted out loudly. The shop was silent except for a little kid who asked his mum "Who's Dirty Dick?". "Never you mind", snapped his mum. A few people whispered quietly to each other and slowly they all remembered who Dirty Dick was. Word would travel fast and it wouldn't be long before tales of how he was seen sucking off a sausage roll in the public bogs got around. He would be ostracized once more. I felt a twinge of sympathy for him but it quicly passed. You have to get your kicks somehow.....