The Oak Tree (standard:other, 2031 words)
Author: Andrew R	Added: Jun 10 2002	Views/Reads: 4874/2310	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
It's strange how an experience from childhood can be so insignificant yet so significant at the same time. It can put a stamp on the rest of your life, how you view the world and how you act. The oak tree is a symbol of this.

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The boy was different though.  His family didn't really mix with the
rest of them, but they were forced to live there, it was the only place 
the council would let caravans like theirs go.  It was like a soap 
opera at times, every one knew the families, the gangs of brothers who 
were the biggest dealers of smack in the Suffolk area.  That's why the 
boy always got it, everyone knew they were outcasts so you could do 
what you wanted to them and the other Gyppos wouldn't bat an eye-lid.  
That was why I couldn't be his friend after I stopped his beating that 
day, I was fifteen; I cared more about my own image than my conscience. 


The family moved away again soon after that and I didn't see him again
for nearly a year.  I was doing my GCSE's then and I was the only one 
in my family who looked like getting anything more than a qualification 
in woodwork.  My dad didn't really care, too boozed up in his own shit 
life to bother, but my mum saw it as some sort of personal dream, like 
me succeeding could change the way her life went.  She was up the duff 
with Dave at thirteen and she never went back to school.  Six years 
later she married dad and had me.  He'd just got a new job at Birds Eye 
as a supervisor, which means going places where I come from.  He's 
never been able to hold done a job, that bastard; always got a snifter 
of booze and fucked himself up.  He fucked mum up to and that's why she 
wanted to live through me.  I did all right as well.  Went on to 'A' 
levels and got a place at Uni.  I didn't speak to the boy again, he 
didn't do school anymore, but I would sometimes see him by the seafront 
sitting by that tree were I saw him that day. 

The summer before I moved away I got into dope.  I would spend lazy
summer evenings philosophising about coming from the stars, with my 
mate Keith.  We were both going to different Uni's and both a little 
scared about leaving the life we knew so well.  That was when Dave 
caught me stealing his stash and beat the shit out of me.  He'd never 
beat me like that before.  He'd started hanging around with some of the 
dodgy Gyppo's, the ones who were dealers.  The only thing I found funny 
was the fact I hadn't befriended the boy because I was worried that 
Dave would laugh at me being friends with one of them and now here he 
was hanging around with them.  I felt my conscience really kick in 
about then, about the same time as I felt Dave's steel toe-capped boots 
kick into my stomach.  I didn't speak to him again after that; I 
couldn't even look him in the face.  A week later I left for good. I 
got a taxi to the train station, I had already cried my tears with mum 
and downed a pint with dad in the pub.  We went past the caravan site 
on the way and I made the driver stop by the old oak tree.  The boy 
wasn't there, but I got out and walked to the tree.  I put my hand on 
the trunk and whispered, "I'm sorry," like he was really there.  I felt 
a tear roll down my cheek.         Once I left I didn't come back.  
London was too exiting, too different.  The people I met were bright 
and intelligent.  So they still wanted the same things, to shag girls 
and get drunk, but at least you could have an interesting conversation 
with them and you knew that they probably wouldn't spend the rest of 
their lives working in a factory. 

I had to go back though, two years ago for Dave's funeral.  It was only
then that I realised he'd been trying to do me a favour.  I hadn't 
smoked another joint or tried anything else since the day he gave me my 
beating.  I realised what he had been trying to tell me; don't end up 
like me little brother.  He must've known where he was heading, but 
either couldn't, or wouldn't stop it.  Mum seemed strangely happier 
after the funeral, dad went straight back to the pub. 

I drove to where the caravan site used to be.  The council had moved it
after the massive drugs bust; twenty three people arrested, the largest 
operation of it's kind ever discovered in East Anglia, it even made the 
national news at the time.  The tree was still there and the ground 
near by showed where the caravan had stood.  I sat down by that tree 
after Dave's funeral and listened to the wind.  I felt myself begin to 
cry, I wasn't sure if it was for Dave or my old guilt about the boy.  
Something kept going over in my mind I couldn't quite figure out. 

When I got back to town I went for a drink with my dad, for old times
sake.  He had told me this horror story about three local lads who had 
been found murdered, here, by the old caravan site.  They had all been 
strung up to hang on this very oak tree, no one ever found out who did 
it but the fair was in the next town down so everyone suspected the 
gyppo's.  I recognised the names he told me and that's what made me 
think of the boy again, it was the three who had beaten him, eight 
years before. 

I sat there for hours and tried to imagine them swinging from the
branches.  No one ever stopped them at the time, except me that is.  
The other gypsy's just watched impassively as the whole town took their 
frustrations out on that one family, but I guess blood is thicker than 
water after all and some debts need to be re-paid. After that I moved 
back home for a while, helped keep mum company.  I tried to talk dad 
into AA meetings but it was a losing battle.  Mum just kept looking at 
me with that strange smile, but it was fading fast.  One day she asked 
me, "When are you going to leave again?" The funny thing was they way 
she said it, it didn't sound like she wanted me to stay.  That's when I 
realised what the debt I had to pay was.  I wasn't here to save anyone; 
that was never going to happen.  I left the next day, kissed my mum 
good bye; downed a pint with my dad, just like before.  This time I 
didn't stop by the oak tree; I went straight to the station and home, 
back to my own life.  I didn't look back, just silently thanked Dave 
for the one good thing he did in his life and wondered what ever 
happened to the twelve year old gypsy boy I saved from a beating one 
summer afternoon. 


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