So recently I was robbed. I had just moved into a lovely new house in the Sandyford region of Newcastle. The new house (actually a lower floor maisonette) is strikingly more middle class than my previous abode in that it has decking and cream carpets and my neighbours aren’t crack heads. It’s nice. But niceness has its bad sides and often according to the police, people like to rob nice houses. So I was robbed. The bastards smashed through double glazing windows, no mean feat the police and window fitters reassured me. They then went through the entire house, messed it up a bit and stole my laptop, two of my guitars and my housemates D&G watch. They also did a shit in my toilet without flushing it. I had ran out of toilet paper that morning though so, I like to think I had the last laugh. Bastards.

Anyhoo, being robbed is a terrible thing. Atrocious in fact. Unless you yourself have been burgled in the past there is no way of conveying the feeling of arriving home late to a cold draft as you cross the threshold of your raped home. Scanning across the mess before you, silently cursing your scruffy housemates then catching a glimpse of glass and pulled out furniture, the sudden realisation that you have been robbed. The surge of adrenaline as you rush forward to survey the damage then the panic as you think, “Shit, they might be still in the house. Double shit, they might have seen my weird porn….” it’s a horrible situation I can tell you.

Now, because one of our windows was destroyed I had to get a real working man round to fix it. Something I was dreading. The reason being that I am not a real man. I am boney bearded skinny jean wearing guitar playing former magician with a face to old for his girly voice. I know nothing about cars and my football knowledge is pretty dire. I am a dissapointment to real men everywhere, so the prospect of having to make conversation with a man that I could only ever aspire to be whilst he quietly judged me was not something I was looking forward to. At all.

But then, the time came and you know what, it went well. We talked about football, sports injuries, cars, at one point motorbikes(?!?) and we were genuinely having a good time. I began to like John the workman and I think he liked me, Jordan the pretend man. Then. Then the conversation took an interesting twist. We began to discuss other people we had known that had been burgled I mentioned friends, stories I’d overheard etc and John said this:

“I’v got a friend that was burgled recently actually, big lad..body builder in fact. But you know what happened?”

“No, what happened,” I said in my deepest voice.

“He caught one of the bastards in the garage didnt he! Do you know what he did?”

“No, what did he do?” I said knowing full well something monumental was about to happen. Did this bodybuilding hero of a real man give the burlger what he deserved, did he fight him? did he ring his mum? did ring the police? what what did he do!?

“He shagged the bastard.” Said John with glee.

“Pardon?” At least thats what I tried to say. It probably sounded more like, “pffgurrflgelk,” as I spat my coffee everywhere.

“He shagged him.” He repeated.

“Is he gay?” I asked.

“No he’s married with kids.”

“But he did shag him?”

“Yeah, never came back did he, hah taught him a lesson!”

“Yes. I guess he did.”

Now in my mind I’m thinking. What. The. Fuck. Burglary is a horrible crime, but on scale of crime horrendousness, rape is…a lot worse. I think it would have probably been better if the, ‘bodybuilder’ friend had just killed him. Rape I think is probably worse than straight up murder. At least if he had killed him he could have just claimed he was so angry he just…killed him. You can’t really sit there and claim, “I was so pissed off I just well, I just undid my trousers and fucked him.” Doesnt really have the same ring does it. Neither would he afterwards I guess. (I’m going to burn for that one I know) But in my pathetic mess of a situation of trying to be a real man, I didnt want John to know I was shocked.

“Do you know what I would have done John?”

“What?”

“I’d have shagged him twice.”

And then I stopped making him cups of tea and locked myself in the bathroom. The new window looks great by the way.