Mean Spirit

From Bang to Wrongs: A Bad Boy’s Book,

by GARY SEWARD

The night my mum died I went out and trashed a church.

Some schoolmates and I, we done a newsagent’s that day and had to hurt the geezer when he was stupid enough to ‘have a go’.

But my mum, she was a Christian her whole life and never really hurt nobody, and He let this happen. It even happened almost in front of a church, St Mark’s. The driver was pissed and so it was his fault, obviously, and I heard he himself had an unfortunate accident some years later, but that was nothing to do with me as I was fifty miles away at the time, which I was able to prove to the police. But it was the Big Geezer I was after that night because He had let it happen and that was inexcusable, so I took a Stanley knife to His altar cloth and then I carved some choice words on the side of His pulpit and smashed some other stuff; I was in a real bitter frenzy.

I realize now that what happened to my mum was a profound lesson for me, in relation to the meek inheriting the earth and all that old toffee, but I was too young for philosophy then. I just did not want to believe my old mum was truly gone, and that was when I started to see spiritualists and mediums and such. I did not see why God should be able to get away with taking people out so that you lose contact for good. It was a liberty I could not tolerate.