was peculiar that these theatrical effects often became real. I forgot I was acting.
But there was no real defence against the fires of the unemployed. They were nothing more than threatening phantoms licking at the darkness. My mind drifted in and out of fantasies about them and indeed, inevitably, with the trap corridors of a maze, at the place where they killed or tortured me.
Below me Bart was sitting on the steps. I could hear him fiddling with his weapon. All week he has been working on a new, better, hand-tooled leather holster. Now it is finished he wears it everywhere. He looks good enough for the cover of
The unemployed are singing “Blowin’ in the Wind”. Bart starts to hum the tune along with them, then decides not to. I can hear him shifting around uncomfortably, but there is nothing I can say to him that would make his mind any more at ease.
The unemployed will have the benefit of their own holy rage.
It is difficult to see across the plant. The spotlights we rigged up seem to create more darkness than light. I stare into the darkness, imagining movements, and thinking about my day’s work. Today I went through the last three months’ cost reports and discovered that our raw material costs are up over 10 per cent on eight of our lines. This is making me edgy. Something nags at me about it. I feel irritable that no one has told me. But there is nothing that can be done until tomorrow.
The movement across the face of the No. 1 store is vague and uncertain. I rub my eyes and squint. Below me I can hear Bart shift. He has taken off his boots and now he moves out towards the No. 1, sleek as a night cat, his gun hand out from his side like a man in a movie. I hold my breath. He fades into almost-dark. The figure near the No. 1 stops and becomes invisible to me. At that moment there is a shot. The figure flows out of the dark, dropping quietly like a shadow to the ground.
I am running down the stairs, and am halfway across the apron before Bart has reached the No. 1. I pray to god he hasn’t shot a guard.
“Not bad, eh? That’s about fifty yards.”
I don’t say anything. He is fussing over his gun, replacing the dead shell with a live bullet. I let him walk ahead. I’m not going to get any fun out of this. He walks forward, as nonchalant as if he were going to change a record or go and get another drink.
I see his flashlight turn on and then a pause as he kneels to look at the body. And then the light goes out and he is running around and around in circles. He is yelping and running like a dog whose foot has been run over. As he circles he says, “Shit, Shit, Shit, oh fucking Christ.” He looks comical and terrible dancing in his bare feet. He can’t stay still. He runs around saying shit.
Then I am looking at the body. In the yellow light of my flashlight I see the face of a sixteen-year-old boy. I notice strange things, small details: golden down on the cheeks, bad pimples, and something else. At first, in dumb shock, I think it’s his guts coming up. And a pea rolls out. In his mouth is a chunk of TV dinner, slowly thawing.
11.
When I was six years old I threw a cat into an incinerator. It wasn’t until the cat came running out the grate at the bottom, burning, screaming, that I had any comprehension of what I had done.
The burning cat still runs through my dreams searing me with its dreadful knowledge.
When I saw the dead boy I knew it was Bart’s burning cat.
He is like the girls in
That is the difference between us.
It should be said to him: “If you wear guns on your hip you will need to see young boys lying dead at your feet and confront what ‘dead’ is. That is what it takes to live that fantasy. If you cannot do this, you should take off your uniform. Others will perform the unpleasant acts for you. It is the nature of business that as a result of your decisions some people will starve and others be killed. It is simply a matter of confronting the effects of your actions. If you can grasp this nettle you will be strong. If you cannot, you are a fool and are deluding yourself.”
12.
Our burning cats are loose.
Bart’s is sedated, slowed down, held tightly on a fearful leash by Mandies or some other downer. Perhaps he has been shooting up with morphine. His eyes are dull and his movements clumsy but his cat stirs threateningly within him, intimidating him with its most obvious horror.
My cat is loose and raging and my eyes are wide. Black smoke curls like friendly poison through my veins and bubbles of rage course through my brain. My cat is clawing and killing, victim and killer. I am in an ecstasy. I can’t say. My eyes stretch wide and nostrils, also, are flaring.
Oh, the electricity. The batteries of torches firing little hits of electricity behind the eyes. To stretch my fingers and feel the tautness behind the knuckles like full sails under heavy wind.
For I have found out.
I have discovered a most simple thing. The little bastard Sergei has been cheating me in such a foolish and simple way that I cannot contain my rage at the insult to my intelligence. He has been siphoning funds like a punk. A dull stupid punk without inventiveness. He is someone trying to club a knife-fighter to death. He is so stupid I cannot believe it.
Ah, the rage. The rage, the fucking rage. He has no sense. He hasn’t even the sense to be afraid. He stands before me, Bart by his side. Bart does not live here. He is away on soft beds of morphine which cannot ease his pain. Sergei is threatening. He is being smart. He thinks I’m a fool. He casts collusive glances towards Bart who is like a man lobotomized. Smiling vaguely, insulated by blankets of morphine from my rage, like a man in an asbestos suit in the middle of a terrible fire.
Oh, and fire it is.
For the cost of raw materials has not risen by 10 per cent. The cost of raw materials has not risen at all. Sergei, the fool, has been paying a fictitious company on his cheque butts and using the actual cheques to pay both the real suppliers and himself.
I only do this for the profit, for the safety, for the armour and strength that money gives. That I may be insulated from disaster and danger and threats and little bastards who are trying to subvert my friends and take my money.
And now there will be an example.
For he is trying to place me in a factory. He is trying to take my power. He shall be fucking well cut, and slashed, and shall not breathe to spread his hurt.
He is smart and self-contained. He speaks with the voice of the well-educated and powerful. His eyebrows meet across his forehead.
It took me three hours to trace his schoolboy fiddle. And it only took that long because the bastards who were doing the company’s search took so long to confirm that the company he’s been writing on his cheque butts doesn’t exist. It took me five minutes to check that his prices were inflated. Five minutes to guess what he was up to.
The body of Bart’s victim has been tied to the top of the perimeter fence. Let that warn the bastards. Even the wind will not keep down the flies. The unemployed shall buzz with powerless rage.
And now Sergei. An example will be made. I have called for his suit and his white business shirt and black shoes. The suit is being pressed. The shoes are being polished. It will be a most inventive execution, far more interesting than his dull childish cheating.
Under my surveillance his hair is being cut. Very neat. He is shaved cleanly. He is shaved twice. The poor idiot does not know what is happening. Bart watches with dumb incomprehension, helping the girl who is cutting the hair. He holds the bowl of hot water. He brings a towel. He points out a little bit of sideburn that needs trimming
