Hero

Pete Sortwell

In my area we have this little corner shop cum Post Office, you know the one, where the local centre it's in used to have separate shops for everything – a butcher’s, newsagent, grocer, Post Office and pub. Then Tesco came along and wiped out most small businesses in a thirty mile radius, like some kind of nuclear blast. These areas then shut everything except one shop. If they were really lucky then they got left with a shop and a pub. So the ‘local shop’ was born – a scaled down supermarket with higher prices, but a free funny smell. Some of them, like the one I was in, had little wooden shacks erected inside to act as Post Offices to dish out the dole money and pensions to the local workshy and coffin dodgers.

I’m just a regular working guy, skint like everyone else at the moment; I don’t earn much and they cut my hours at the factory. About a year ago I’m stood in the queue for the Post Office waiting to send off some of my unwanted tat to some idiot off the Internet, minding my own, being patient, tasting the air, that sort of thing, when in comes some trampy looking guy from the estate. Simon’s his name. He lives in the flats near the main road – everyone knows him. He's one of the local smackheads.

First of all he just goes behind the counter and starts necking the vodka off the shelf until Devina, the owner, manages to keep some of her stock by pushing him to the floor. I’m just watching the show at this point, not getting involved. Simon starts shouting up from the floor that his back and neck hurt, Devina’s claiming she never pushed him. Before we can all get our stories straight, two young scoundrels from the estate run in and go straight behind the counter and reach around the back of the tills and pop the drawer open.

Sneaky fuckers, I think to myself, where’d they learn how to do things like that? I’ve never seen it on the TV.

Simon is still on the floor and as Devina heads for the lads, he grabs her legs. It don’t matter anyway as they’ve emptied the tills of all the notes and are heading over towards the Post Office lean-to, the bigger of the two just does a running jump at the door of the structure, shaking it like jelly. There's a lot of panicking in the queue; the woman in front of me starts crying and the woman in front of her is looking to the ceiling and praying in a language which isn't one of the two I speak, English or Bullshit.

I’m a little scared, to be completely honest. I challenge any man reading this to say he wouldn't be with all the banging, shouting and panic going on around him.

The first thought that goes through my mind is run, sod everyone else and just look after number one, but something inside me stops me and my ego kicks in. I've always wanted to be someone. Not super rich or harassed in the street, famous or anything, just … someone, you know? Have people nod at you out of respect, talk about you in a nice, respectful way when you're out the room, remember you when you’re gone, that sort of thing. That’s probably why I did what I did, why I risked being on this earth, why I risked never seeing my mum again, never feeling the joy that being a father brings, never being able to shout abuse randomly and without retribution in the street as a pensioner.

I check the door; there’s no other members of this outfit blocking the exit. Then something inside me, call it bravery or stupidity, makes me dig my heels in against my original plan of leaving the pool of crying grannies to it. I look about for a weapon. ‘Ah ha,’ I say excitedly and grab a tin of mixed veg.

Before I know what I'm doing I’ve hurled the bomb of canned goods at the two likely lads, who are kicking the door and screaming at Devina’s husband, Tufan, on the other side to ‘Open the fucking door, you cunt.’

The tins miss, but pound against the thick plastic front and make the lads turn their attention disorders towards me.

'You fucking want some, mate?' the ginger one with the lame eye shouts across.

'Err,' I reply. I mean what do you say to that? In that situation! It’s gotta be only nutters that turn round and say ‘Yeah, alright mate, I’ll have some.’ It just sounds bent.

‘You’re not my type,’ I shout back, launching a few more tins, all of which miss. They cause the rest of the people standing in front of me to drop to the floor as the lads start hurling them back, knocking things off the shelves all around us.

‘Stop it,’ one older lady, scared out her wits, says from near my feet.

Just then one of their cans catches me right between the tit and shoulder blade. Arrrgh! That fucking smarts.

It isn't my throwing arm, though, so I just continue to belt tins at the two perps.

It seems all their attention is now focused on taking me down now, rather than kicking fuck out of the poor excuse for a Post Office employee.

'Yea blud, you step to us you’re gunna get messed up,’ the boss-eyed one shouts at me.

The cock behind starts heading my way. ‘You want some? You fucking want some?’ he says, moving forward with his arms outstretched, leaving himself wide open and much closer.

WHACK! A tin smacks him right on the forehead and he goes down.

'Aha! Got him!' I yell, forgetting I am in the middle of a robbery and not at a funfair.

I feel like doing a little dance and picking the granny up off the floor in front of me and kissing her in celebration. My elation is short-lived, though, as I feel an almighty pain in my right ankle. I look down and Simon is fucking biting me. Arrrrgh!

'Get off, you stinking junkie,' I shout down at him. He doesn't listen, so is rewarded with not one, but two, tins to the side of the face, leaving him out cold, bleeding on the floor next to the granny.

I look up and the other assailant is just standing like a rabbit in the headlights. I'm weighing up what to do now, sit down and cry from the pain in my leg or just keep pelting these tin grenades. I choose the latter and just keep hurling them; BANG BANG BANG they go, as they all miss and hit the Perspex safety glass. They are having the right effect, though, as he looks like he is going to cry. 'You’re out your league, son, just give it up and get on the floor,' I order him.

‘No, you'll knock me out with a can if I do that,’ he shouts back, guessing my plan.

'Well, you'll save yourself the fall, then, won't you!' I say in mocking tones as I lob one more, aiming for the Perspex this time just to create a bit more panic in him. DUFF!

'Fucking hell, mate, leave it out, I surrender, OK?'

This is where it all goes pear shaped; I show weakness, I'm not one for watching someone suffer and as I look at the fear in his eyes, I crumble inside and come down off whatever adrenaline high I’ve been on, chucking the tins.

I put the tin I’m gripping tightly in my hands down and start to approach him.

'Call the police, will you?' I shout over to Devina.

'Already pressed the button,' she replies smugly.

I approach the robber, who looks no more than sixteen. God knows what I think I’m going to do when I get there, hold him down or something, but it doesn't get that far.

I’m so pleased with myself for stopping the robbery single-handed that I don't see the knife he’s pulled out until it’s well on its way towards my gut.

I don't know why, but I put my hands over my stomach to block it. I think it was just a knee jerk reaction. The first blow hits my wrist, which makes my hands, which by now have a mind of their own, move away; I don't have time to try and shake the pain away before the next thrust gets me in the stomach. I feel an awful pain instantly.

I've seen on Crimewatch that some people think a stabbing feels just like a punch, but not in my case; it fucking hurts like a punch on the outside and a hot sharp thing cutting open my stomach lining on the inside. I start falling as soon as the knife comes out, I don't have much time to think before the next few digs go in and out my left arm.

I’m on the deck by the time the stabbing stops. I have eight wounds in total.

After the only surviving member of the gang has had it away, Devina comes over and asks me if I’m OK.

‘Not really, girl, I’m in a bad way,’ I reply. That is the last thing I remember before I black out.

The police dragged Simon and the ginger from the scene, as they hadn't stirred from their snooze by the time they'd arrived. I think Devina or Tufan had given their bollocks a good stamping while they were out cold, the court papers stated they had injuries there, too, and I know my aim with the tins wasn’t that good. Sadly.

Devina had tried her best to stop the bleeding with towels before the ambulance crew arrived, but wasn't able to stop the stomach wound and I had to take a fast trip in the back of an ambulance, which I can tell you now is not as comfortable as it looks on the TV. I lost five pints of blood that day.

I stayed in hospital for a week in total. I'm told on the first day Simon and the ginger were in the same ward, both cuffed to their beds.

It's funny, I never thought at the time I might die. I have since, though, the nightmares still scare the living shit out of me. The hospital told me it would happen, post-traumatic stress they call it.

It took six months for the case to go to court. With my statement and witness testimony and, of course the CCTV, Simon got three months, Mikey – the one who made it away – got seven for attempted robbery and attempted murder, and the ginger got four for attempted robbery.

Me? I got six months off work, post-traumatic stress, negative feedback off the buyer of the item I was posting that day, and my name remembered by Devina and her husband every time I go in their shop now.

The best thing that came out of it, though, was the newspaper article. It read:

HERO STOPS ARMED ROBBERS

Yeah, I was publicly named as a hero.

Just what I always wanted.

© Pete Sortwell 2024