Vincent

When I was seventeen years old, I almost became the perpetrator of a severe high school shooting. The first one of its kind in the UK, with the potential to be one of the most notorious attacks on record, if all went to plan. At the time I was angst-ridden, as all teenagers are, but my morbid fascination with death and murder sparked my idiotic and all-too-fertile imagination.

Being proactive isn’t always such a positive trait. I had no idea how to acquire a gun, but, starting with some guys I knew who sold pot from time to time I made phone call after phone call from petty crook up to more hardened criminals until finally, a few months and a chunk of my university fund later, a machine pistol and ammunition to spare was bundled quickly into my rucksack in a dirty car park between two scummy nightclubs.

As I walked between classes the next week I surveyed the my peers with an omnipotent eye, deciding on those who would become my victims. I mostly chose people my own age, ones whose attitudes or faces I found offensive. Some teachers too. Anyone who’d ever patronised me, they could go. The thought of this new project made me happy, and more than a little excited. During lunch and frees I would ask my friends ‘hypothetical’ questions- “If you could kill anyone in this school, who would it be?”- and take mental notes of their answers for future reference. I felt at the time like I would be doing them some kind of favour.

I’d timed it perfectly- sixth form assembly, Friday the eighteenth of June- everyone in one room together, with exits I could watch easily and a stage I could use to heighten the dramatic tension if I felt so inclined, to add a little panache to the proceedings. When the day came I sat down as expected, feeling the hard, cold metal of the gun’s handle jutting into my thigh where I’d shoved it into the waistband of my trousers. I had decided to wait until about halfway through the headmaster’s speech to begin brandishing the thing, but then something went wrong. His words were boring as usual and, like I did every assembly, I slipped into daydream. A few minutes later, I realised people had started filing out of the hall. My initial thought was that someone had noticed my weapon and everyone was being evacuated. But no; assembly had finished. My moment had passed, and all because of my own limited attention span. I considered starting to shoot then, but I couldn’t. It would have been clumsy and ineffective. I’d lost my cool. I felt like I should be panicking, but I ended up just feeling pissed off.

On the way home I tossed the gun into the canal. Yet another grand scheme that never reached fruition. I never told anyone.

If I had gone ahead with it, I guess a few months ago there would have been some kind of local remembrance day for all the people I’d killed, and I’d get scowled at by all my fellow prison inmates, who’d throw me a towel party that night once the lights went out. Assuming of course I hadn’t turned the pistol on myself, an option I’d placed in the ‘maybe’ pile. ELEVEN YEARS SINCE MALVERN SCHOOL SHOOTING: MALVERN REMEMBERS, the Malvern Gazette would scream, probably. But no, it wasn’t to be, and instead the Malvern Gazette says Council Refuses To Resurface Dangerous Road in a tone of mild annoyance, accompanied by a picture of some hefty old matriarch looking so grim I can’t help but frown a little myself.

Thinking about that incident (or non-incident as it turned out to be) absolutely terrifies me these days. When you’re young you’re supposed to be reckless, but the things I was thinking back then- the things I came so close to doing- were more than that, something much more. Something that makes me feel ill whenever it crosses my mind now I’m older and not so full of s**t. I don’t regret not following through with it, not in the slightest. My life would have been ruined, and for what? To fulfil the brief fantasy of an atypical angry teen. My homicidal feelings towards the rest of humankind had alleviated within a couple of years, and although the creeping malice towards most people remains even now, every day I am desperately thankful that I didn’t make such a grievously stupid mistake.

I sit on the steps outside Waitrose and pull a pack of Camel Blues from one of my Bags For Life, shoving my Malvern Gazette back inside as an afterthought. Sparking up, I attempt to blow a smoke ring and fail, resulting in a facial contortion that I’m sure leaves me looking like some kind of pale, bearded fish. My beard. It needs trimming. And I want to wash my hair. I washed it yesterday morning, but not yet today. I proofread an article for a men’s monthly last week that you should only wash your hair every other day, but after following their advice I feel greasy already. I add another item to my ever-increasing mental ‘To-Do’ list; never listen to any advice from a men’s magazine ever, ever again, they are written for men with six packs and designer stubble, and Vincent, you are not one of those men, no sir. I pick up my shopping bags and begin to walk home. Grey clouds have been gathering while I’ve had my back turned, and I can tell that any minute now the heavens are going to open. I start walking, quickening my pace a little in the hope that I’ll miss the rain, but before long I feel it seeping down the collar of my jacket. People on the pavement around me duck into shops and under awnings for cover, and as I observe each one in turn I realise that I recognise the majority of their faces. I’m completely soaked now, as is my shopping. As I walk past Boots some kids in tracksuits sheltering in the doorway laugh harshly, undoubtedly at me. Music blares from their phones, and I step in a puddle.

I add another item to my mental ‘To-Do’ list; move out of this f*****g town before you’re tempted to buy another gun.