Legends and myths

The thing about urban legends and myths was that they didn't necessarily have to be true, they just needed the right people in the underbelly of society to believe that they were true. After that everyone automatically just found themselves falling into line. The O'Garrety brothers carried before them such legends and myths that even if just 10% were grounded in reality then you'd not wish to find yourself within a mile of them. It was a self imposed court style restraining order you'd only break if you had exhausted every other conceivable option or because you had a death wish. If anyone had witnessed those events first hand, if in fact they were true, then no one in their right mind would ever say as much. I doubt they'd even say it to themselves in their heads for fear or being accused of being on the Queens payroll. These two were by name and reputation what the kids on the street would now call proper OG’s. 

If you'd been academically minded you might have been smart enough to start to sift out the truth from the bullshit. Had you then worked out if any of it was true, at least by the law of averages you'd also be smart enough to not publish your findings in a quarterly journal. Thankfully for the brothers their legends and myths were mostly known to thieving little toe rags who'd swapped traditional education for a more nuanced one instead which basically centred around learning about the redistribution of personal belongings that didn't belong to them. There's garden fencing, posh twats fencing and then propa fencing as we know it. We didn't partake in the middle sort but have been known to have hurdle a few of the first kind. Only the brothers really knew the truth from fiction and they'd both go to their graves like a pair of Blackpool sticks of rock with their secrets imprinted inside them all the way down. 

Now I'd like to call bullshit on some of the legends and myths I've heard I really would, but I'm genuinely not that fucking stupid despite what some people who know me might tell you. I'd heard that Seamus the older of the two brothers has a penchant for torture and a love of history. You need to be clever enough to work out how that venn diagram overlaps the two passions because I don't think his love of history relates to something like antiques for example and that he's sat down of a Sunday evening with his feet up dunking custard creams into a bone China cup of Earl Grey whilst watching the Antiques Roadshow on the BBC. Maybe if I ever take leave of my senses I'll ask him. It might also answer the question of whether his supposed love of torture is correct and kill two birds with one stone. Well not two birds actually - just me. 

Legend has it that someone had given Seamus a book on torture through the ages. I want to call bullshit at this first step because if another story is true that they never went to school a day in their lives then I very much doubt that Mumma O'Garrety was sat around an open campfire every night teaching her boys how to read. But maybe I'm wrong and maybe she did. Maybe reading and writing was really important to Mrs O'Garrety. Fuck it let's say it's true and throw in arthimetic as well. That way they at least know how much money people will owe them later in life and how to work out the compound interest on the debts and the level of torture to be applied to ensure that there'd be no silly bastards stupid enough not to pay their dues. As I was saying I'd heard and don't quote me on the accuracy of this, that Seamus had taken a leaf from the page of the Japanese in WWII. Now this particular story came to my ears through a Chinese whisper. I don't know if that's a conflict of interest with the story of a Japanese method of torture being retold through Chinese whispers. I'm sure they get on much better as neighbours now though best not to speculate. Probably. So anyways the story goes that unable to pay his debts to the brothers this bloke, don't know his name sorry, well he'd been grabbed off the street and bundled into the back of a van and taken to a derelict warehouse just north of the M25. They'd stripped him down to his Y fronts, apparently boxer shorts weren't a thing way back when, and had bound his hands and feet with rope you'd normally find keeping a fuck off great boat from floating down river. Not bound touch tight but loose enough that everytime you moved it was like feeling a dozen paper cuts. To compound his misery they slung the rest of the rope over the top of a steel beam and tied it off. Not fully tight so that his arms might come out of his sockets, I mean what do you take the brothers for? Barbarians? Bleeding liberties, have a word or two with yourselves. No apparently they left the poor fucker there on his sweeney, his scrotum gripling his bollocks hard, half through the cold and half through fear. The more he pleaded and no one was there present to hear, the more he worried he'd been left to die like this miles from anywhere. Every movement of his body inevitably meant the skin around his wrists and ankles was grazing more until they finally became open wounds and blood trickled down his arms and feet. Every unexpected noise made him jump so after a while it wasn't just his blood he was losing but his mind to. Of course jumping out of his skin which now largely resembled a raw plucked chicken all lumpy like from the cold air just made it worse on the parts bound up. So first came the loss of blood, then the mind and finally then he lost his bladder and the piss and some more of his dignity rolled down the insides of his legs and into the cuts. 

He didn't know how long he'd been there but eventually day had turned to night and he was in darkness and desperately trying to retain his last bit of dignity but eventually that went as well as he shit himself. He wouldn't have admitted it to anyone but at least the warmth gave him some temporary comfort, the type he'd never known he could have found solace in before that day. He'd prayed to a God he didn't believe in to rescue him and now he prayed for it to all be over sooner rather than later. 

At some point he must have blacked out because he woke with a violent force from behind where someone had unloosened the rope and his body weight forced him down backwards and the impact between his arse and the floor in particular had apparently resulted in his own faeces shooting up his back. Not quite bullshit but it definitely left him in the shit if it's true. 

He thought his ordeal was over when they let his hands and feet free. It was anything but. First they marched him outside with a broom poking in his back. He'd wished it was a shotgun and that the sound of a click of the trigger might be the last thing he ever heard. Somehow with the last of his energy and much falling over he'd managed to get outside before he collapsed and they'd turned a cold hose on him. Again I'd have called bullshit. I mean where would you have found a tap outside an abandoned warehouse in the arse end of nowhere? I didn't though, I let the Chinese whisper play out.

They gave him his clothes back to change into only this time going commando and then forced him back in the van and drove him to another warehouse, only this one apparently wasn't derelict. He's led into a room upon which is a veritable banquet and he's told to help himself which you would do after being strung up for hours with nothing to eat, your insides emptied and needing replenishing. We all would - admit it. None of us stopping for a second to think why? Now your insides are full again. Was that his first mistake? Of course not that had been not paying what was owed in the first place. 

If this was a movie on ITV then this was the commercial break before the action got started underway again. 

The next time he found himself strung up in the same manner it was in a boiling hot room and he was still clothed. Same type of ropes instead they'd been soaked with vinegar. Now the Japanese, they'd clearly been properly barbarous. Whereas they had the summer sun to aid them with the next torture technique the brothers had to make do with a series of industrial heaters turned up full. The heat was so intense that stepping into a sauna would be like stepping into a cold bath by comparison. If you thought your own piss might sting in an open wound try to imagine what vinegar would be like. If you've ever picked up a salt and vinegar crisp with an open cut you'd definitely have an entry level inkling of what it might be like and let's be fair that shit stings like fuck. They'll warn you that a bag of nuts might contain nuts which is fucking ironic on more than one level because you'd think peanuts are nuts you silly cunts so of course the bag will contain nuts but apparently they ain't fucking nuts they're legumes, whatever the fuck they are so it turns out you're the silly cunt. Anyways, point is, Walkers should put a warning about sticking your finger in a bag of the old S&V when you've got an open wound. 

Whoever this poor fucker was his only saving grace at that point will be that he wasn't living in Portsmouth because the rope might have been lifted straight from the docks and already been presoaked in sea salt. Now I don't claim to be an expert on maritime ropes, must have bunked off that particular lesson at school but I'm told that when rope dries it It tightens. Therefore if it's now been tied touch tight when it dries it not only cuts into the skin, the closer it gets to fully drying it starts to crush and the Japanese had long since discovered that it was strong enough to crush bones. I'm told and you'll have to accept this or look it up because clearly I'm not a doctor, that there's two bones in your wrist one of which is very much smaller than the other and therefore more susceptible to snapping under extreme pressure. So not only do you have the sharp pain from the vinegar on open skin at some point your bones are going to go snap to boot. The sweat is dripping off every inch of your body and your clothes are already three times the weight of when you put them on which means you're heavier and you're already exhausted and it's near on impossible to stand and you're putting more weight through your wrists which opens up the cuts more. Let's not forget you'd been lulled into a false sense of security and your insides are now full again and there's no one there to hear your cries and you begging for forgiveness and at some point it's all going south only this time maybe it won't be so bad because the sweat will just wash it away anyway. So at the end of this Chinese whisper I'd of course asked what happened to the bloke. The answer? No one knows. I mean come on if you're not claiming bullshit by that point you never will. Could be true though? Maybe?

If you thought that sounded horrific enough there's more though. Another Chinese whisper, this time the origin of the torture technique is much closer to home with the garlic munching Frenchies from over that there channel. Now being gypsies getting your hands on a few horses was never an issue for the brothers. Apparently, well according to the infamous book anyway, someone had tried to kill a French King a couple of hundred years back and they decided to make an example out of him. If you want the full story I'm sure you can buy a book, well the book. I'd ask for the title on your behalf if I ever lose my marbles. They stick a few holes in the bloke, poured melted wax and some other things into the holes, you know the usual entry level to you're about to be proper fucked Henry. That's Henry like with Thierry Henry, not Henry like six wives Henry, off with her head Henry, although the off with her head bit might have been Alice in Wonderland or could have been both. MIght have skipped that lesson in school n all to be fair. Apparently they did this all in public just to get the message across by the way. The Froggies that is. The brothers if it did in fact ever happen definitely wouldn't have done the same by the way. Attitudes had slightly shifted to public torture especially by those who weren't royalty though the brothers would probably consider themselves Kings but I'm not going to ask them whether they'd agree with that sentiment. No these things are better done without witnesses. The old bill get a bit tetchy in modern day England. Now what followed after that was the bit the older brother Seamus was intrigued by and keen to find out about whether it could be done. Les French bastardes tied the bloke's four limbs to four horses who were whipped and pulled his body in different directions but no limbs came free so they cut the bloke's tendons and give the horses another whip and bosh job done. Just for a final touch they first burn his limbs in front of him and then finally put the rest of them to the torch and end his misery. Fucking French hey. They called the guillotine barbaric. Seems like a walk in the park having your head chopped off. 

So the legend goes that Seamus decides to see how far four horses can actually get to pulling limbs off. I mean I'd call bullshit at this point cause if the first story is true you'd not fucking borrow money from them in the first place and you fucking wouldn't be stupid enough to not have paid it back. I mean come on how desperate would you have to be to borrow money from the O'Garrety brothers? But if legends are to be believed then there are some stupid enough to still do it and to not have paid what was owed. Turns out four whipped horses can apparently do some cracking damage to ligaments, muscles and whatever else is keeping your arms and legs in. As I said, I'm not a doctor. Again I did ask what happened to the bloke though. Apparently no one knows. Again if I'd been brave enough I'd have called bullshit but the ears have walls. So I just pulled a funny face and promised meself I'd not listen to any more stories about the O'Garrety brothers. 

Maybe it's just me but it all seems a little bit over the top and preposterous. A bit like too much hard work if you were. Couldn't you just, I don't what, take a finger off with a cigar cutter to make the point or maybe smash a hand with a hammer? Maybe they're both in later chapters of the book and Seamus is diligently working his way through one by one? Plausibly they could equally have started with the small stuff but that would have only been enough of a warning to the likes of me and that's not how real legends and myths are born, they're too lightweight and get washed away with the tide of the Thames and out to sea. 

How I'd come to be sat in front of them both in a South London greasy spoon is another story entirely and if I live through this maybe I'll tell you all about my stupidity that led me here or maybe one day you'll hear about it through Chinese Whispers and you'll ask the question of what happened to me after being tortured and some idiot will tell you that nobody knows.  

“Do you know who we are boy?”

My first thought was who the fuck are you calling boy? Thankfully something inside kept my tongue still and started my head nodding, the part that clearly believes in legends and myths retold by the underbelly of society through Chinese Whispers adding embellishments with each telling so that no one really knew what the true story was anymore. It could be that they're both really nice blokes and prepared to help others less fortunate than themselves. Mind you no one I knew had ever whispered that story to me though. They didn't look that bad, in fact they just looked like a pair of old men which I suppose is just what they really are, namely - old men. Maybe both in their early 60s and a couple of years apart in age with Seamus the older of the two as has been whispered to me. I doubt either touched above 11 stones in weight and I've got to admit I think I could have taken them both in a one on one fight. That's probably why you have legends and myths about your debt collecting methods so that no one can verify the truth about it and you paid up and paid up on time.  

Both have longish hair and unkempt beards all of which were of a grey colour I've never seen before. I know people say you go grey but you don't do you, you go white. No one says you go white though because you go white when you're scared so that's already taken and I suspect the colour has drained from my face and that I might appear white at the moment. Maybe nobody knows what happened to the blokes in the Chinese Whispers who didn't pay their debts because they burnt their bodies and rubbed the ashes into their hair and beards. Fuck me you can see how easily legends and myths start when you let you mind race away with you. I mean it's probably, erm, I don't know… concrete dust and a lack of personal hygiene. Maybe they're steam train enthusiasts and spend their time volunteering at a local museum and that's the colour your face turns after spending hours of building wonderful happy memories whilst shovelling coal into the fire to keep the wheels turning. No that can't be right, coal is black and these beards are definitely a weird shade of grey. 

“We hear you want to borrow some money boy?”

There's the stupid nodding head thing again. 

“You don't fecking say much do you boy?”

Oh something new, a shake of the head. No I'm too busy trying to work out what exactly that shade of grey is caused by. Can't be natural. Surely I'd have seen someone with similar if it was natural? I've seen every other colour and iteration or at least I thought I had. Your gingers obviously, the whites which we've already established are technically grey but not grey, the blondes, mousy blondes, dirty blondes, brunettes, strawberry blondes or were they the polite term for good old fashioned gingers that we came in on? You don't need me to list them all for you do you? Don't worry I believe that's what smart people call a rhetorical question which means you don't have to answer it.

Maybe they were a yellow grey? Maybe they're jaundiced and on their last legs? I'd like to move much closer and have a better look but what I should really be doing is concentrating on what the questions are. I should have stayed within my one mile self exclusion zone and double, even triple checked I'd exhausted all my options before ending up here like everyone else does unless they're really desperate or got a death wish. I don't think I've got a death wish, but clearly I'm desperate. I make a mental note to myself that whatever happens in the next ten to fifteen minutes, do not open your mouth and go ‘I call bullshit!’