The Ballad of the Rowdy Brixton Brawlin' Boys

The mysterious man made his debut in the national limelight when he was discovered washed up along the famed white cliffs of Dover in 1974. No one knew where he came from, how old he was, or even what his name was; when they found him he was in a semi-coma. It seemed like the man was in his late teens, but no one could say for sure. He was lanky and hairy, with long knobby fingers and dark greasy hair. His skin was sort of a pale grey, and his eyes looked like those of a cat. Occasionally he awoke from his coma shriek nonsense before passing out again. Things like "I've earwigs crawlin' all about me!" or "Did you remember to pick up hairpins, love?"

He was transferred to Kingston Hospital, which had recently bought a brand new CAT scan machine that it was itching to showcase on the mysterious man, who had attracted a moderate amount of interest from the newspapers. As it turned out, the mysterious man had a rare condition. X-Rays from the EMI-Scanner showed a brain covered filled black circles. They called it "Polka-dotus of the brain". The symptoms were a penchant for mischief-making, Herculean strength, and unsettling personal appearance. Of course, those first two didn't make themselves known until he woke up from his coma and decided to leave.

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Little else was learned about the mysterious stranger with the polka dot brain when he woke up, save that he was a card-carrying hellion not to be trifled with. Somehow he had managed to leap through the 4th floor window headfirst, landed with a handstand, and made off like a thief in the night. But not before writing curse words in marker over every inch of his room. And not before overpowering a pair of nurses and a 6'4" amateur boxer and part-time bed changer, breaking the meaty arm of the latter when he made the fool mistake of putting up a chase. When interviewed, the brawny worker exclaimed; "That scrawny bugger nearly ripped my arm off! If I ever see him again, I'll be off the clock and we'll see about wipin' that shite eating grin off 'is face!"

Now more than just a medical anomaly, the mysterious man was a wanted for assaulting an orderly and damaging hospital property.

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The mysterious man had a glimmer about his eyes. It was hard to place but everyone agreed it was there - like there was some joke he knew that he wasn't telling anyone. It lent him a sort of polarizing charisma that made people love or hate him.

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After breaking out of the hospital, the mysterious man with the polka dot brain immediately took to drink and trouble-making. It was hard to guess where he would be at any given time, but whenever a brawl broke out around South London he was sure to show up. Within a few months he had built up a local reputation as a fighter, vandal, and occasional robber. But despite his unique appearance, the cops rarely managed to catch up with him. No one knew where he was staying, if he slept at all, and there still wasn't any information about his background beyond his discovery in Dover.

After a few months, the mysterious man with the polka dotted brain took to hanging around the London Borstal, a "reformatory for troubled boys". Borstals have since been abolished, and the mysterious man was a major influence on the decision.

You see, some boys were deemed to be such scoundrels they were a danger to the characters of the classmates. Such youth were sent to Borstals, which became breeding grounds for crime and anti-social behavior. They also proved a good recruiting ground for the gangs of thugs, and it was here that the mysterious man found the first recruits for the illustrious crew of scoundrels he assembled.

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The Rowdy Brixton Brawlin' Boys quickly gained a reputation for loud, public displays of drunken revelry and lewdness. Countless young ladies found themselves at the receiving end of some rather forward and often rather creative propositions and cat-calls. Many respectable men had their bowlers from their head. "Mind your hat guv'nah, the breeze is fierce 'round these parts." the Boys would laugh. Rubbish bins were tipped over, crude phalli were drawn across the walls of public buildings, produce stores were robbed and ransacked.

And, of course, there was the brawling. The boys lived to get into scraps. If you were in the market, it was guaranteed that the Rowdy Brixton Brawlin' Boys would have more than enough fight in supply. There were good natured fights with a lot of back slapping and camaraderie afterwards, and there were bitter fights that went on between other gangs over and over again. They lost some, they won some, and there were some where bruised roughs gave in to hasty truces.

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You could call the Rowdy Brixton Brawlin' Boys losers. Many did. "Whole lot of scoundrels and losers," upstanding men and women used to say of them. The Boys just weren't born in to any major role in society's great game.

There are a number of things you can do when starting from a crummy situation in life's unfair game. The majority go the conservative route and play with the hand they're dealt. Some manage to get into a better situation, be it through bluffing or hard work. But those with the utterly shitty hands some times get frustrated and throw their cards into the air, and choose to play a different game entirely. This enrages the general public who are still trying to play the original game to a baffling degree. It usually causes one to be called a menace to society. Even if, empirically speaking, the level of menace one poses is fairly negligible.

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Youth gangs were gaining in popularity in those days, and it wasn't long before the Rowdy Brixton Brawlin' Boys had become the most notorious. This was partially because they were one of the largest, and partially because the already infamous man polka dot brain was their leader. There was even a photograph on the cover of the London Times in which the mysterious man was seen with that trademark glimmer in his eyes, defecating on a British flag in front of the Parliament building. The rest of the Boys were in the background, laughing defiantly. The lighting was good; the mysterious man looked particularly bizarre and frightening. "The Mysterious Man Defaces Union Jack, Sneers Irreverently" read the caption. It was the sort of picture many people cut out and put in a frame or scrapbook.

So, the man with the polka dot brain came to be an avatar of juvenile delinquency. The older generations shook their heads and muttered when they heard mention of him. Many young people, on the other hand, turned him into a minor hero of sorts. His remarkable strength and dexterity had been exaggerated in rumors enough to earn him a status comparable to Spring Heeled Jack of the previous century amongst young and old alike.

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Now, just about any girl could have a roll in the proverbial hay with one of the Rowdy Brixton Brawlin' Boys. But getting one of them to at least care about hiding his infidelity was considered a feat - like taming a wild horse only with more likelihood of contracting an STD. So for a certain type of girl, bagging any one of the Boys was a sign of status.

The mysterious man was odd to behold, with his creepy eyes and pale ash skin, but his notoriety had earned him a place in the hearts of quite a few girls. A no-good-thug he may have been, but the mysterious man with the polka dot brain was by no means immune to womanly wiles. Although tried and failed, a crafty gal by the name of Karen Thomas managed to use the right combination of pouts and sighs to get the mysterious man to agree to only see her.

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The United Kingdom of the 1970s wasn't going through her best days, and the authorities' inability to stop the mysterious man became one of many sources of national shame. As an icon of young thugs, subconsciously many people thought that by bringing the polka dot brain to justice so too would they bring the upsurge in juvenile delinquency to its knees. It was common for British Politicians from opposition parties, including Margaret Thatcher herself, to make solemn vows to catch the man with the polka dot brain man and bring him to swift justice.

Meanwhile, hospital authorities tried to appeal to his self-interest. "Young man, you have a brain filled with polka dots!" Said one of the head surgeons, "Do you have any idea how rare an anomaly such as that is? At any moment you could drop dead. You need to be somewhere we can administer care to you as soon as possible if your condition should prove malignant!"

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The police had been unable to catch the mysterious man. Whenever it seemed like they had him cornered, he got away at the last minute. Sure, they some times caught one or two of the Boys. But as it turned out, not even the Rowdy Brixton Brawlin' Boys who had been around since the beginning could really say that much about the mysterious man.

The problem was, the mysterious man and the Boys were certainly wanted, but only for relatively petty crimes. There were sodas stolen from stores and scuffles with other gangs of thugs - but nothing that really justified the mantle of "menace to society" the media had lain upon their shoulders. The police were mostly busy tracking down junk dealers and investigating murders and large-scale robberies. They kept an eye out for the man with the polka dot brain, sure, but only because he was always being talked about on the news, which was making them look sort of bad.

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The Rowdy Brixton Brawlin' Boys were not heavy drug users. Being inclined to seek out fights meant they spent more time around drinkers than junkies. So it was much to the mysterious man's surprise when he found the newspaper had accused his gang of being central to the London heroin trade.

But it didn’t take long for fiction to become fact in a manner of speaking. The media's accusations had served as an advertising campaign of sorts. See, the Boys all now had nervous teenagers approaching them and soliciting them for illicit drugs. And some of those of them that were holding were happy enough to gouge said teenagers for a tidy profit. So many of the individuals in the Rowdy Brixton Brawlin' Boys really were involved in the drug trade. Not as kingpins but low level dealers (no one on the news cared to make the distinction.)

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It didn't take long for it to become clear that the mysterious man had a choice; Karen or the boys. Being particularly wily, Karen had managed to spin things so that she seemed to be the only halfway rational choice. "Give me a few months to think about it!" He pleaded. But Karen pouted in that way that brought him to his knees and he agreed to break the news to the boys.

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At this point there was a frenzy of sorts - All manner of people were out for the mysterious man's blood. The police now had enough reason to devote their energies against the Boys, and arrests were becoming a weekly occurrence. But rather than break their spirit, it brought them together more than ever before. So when the mysterious man with the polka dot brain attempted to leave, he was met with loud protest. "Quittin' when the going gets tough, you facking cunt?" they cried out. He tried to reason with them, but they were having none of it. The mysterious man had a soft spot for the Boys, there was no denying it, so he eventually caved in and promised to stick things through until at least the newspapers got bored of them.

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Karen was furious. "You lied to me," she cried. She bit, he swore, she threw heavy objects. There were curses that would make a sailor blush, screamed between sobs and tears. To say they parted on a sour note would be the understatement of the century.

It was much to his surprise when the mysterious man called her from a pay phone a week later that she begged him to come back. She promised that she wouldn't make him ditch the Boys, and whispered sweet sexy sighs that made him forget all about the venom of their last meeting. He rushed over to her flat with vivid visions of a passionate reunion.

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The mysterious man came up to Karen's apartment and let himself in. "You there, Darling?" he called out to no reply. He went into her room, to find her missing.

The door shut behind him. He found himself flung forward, an explosion on the back of his head, ears ringing. "Stay where you are!" Some one shouted.

The police, it looked like they had him. But he got up, and he was quicker than they expected. With the speed of a snake and the force of an elephant he flung himself out Karen's window.

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The two-hour police chase broke international news. There were several failed attempts at blockades along the mysterious man's south-eastward spree, and even an intense pursuit on foot with dogs when his car broke down after driving through a fence. The pursuit culminated in a blaze of surreal glory when the mysterious man commandeered a police motorcycle and proceeded to drive off the cliffs of Dover into the sea from which he came.

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The mysterious man had thus ended his illustrious career as a living avatar of young trouble makers by turning himself into an immortal legend of the sneering downtrodden. The Boys disbanded, but Britain's problem with delinquency only got worse. New scapegoats like punk rock and violent movies were blamed.

A decade later, pictures and stories surfaced about another mysterious man getting into fights, coming in from Nova Scotia in Canada. He looked about the same age the mysterious man had been, with a similar appearance; pale grey skin, greasy black hair and everything. But everyone agreed it couldn't be the same guy - No one could have survived that decent into the channel. And his eyes had the same screwed up cat pupils, sure, but they were missing that trademark glimmer.