Balls

by Tommy Dakar

  He leant over Paul and laid it on thick.

  ‘These people are trafficking with spiritualism, they are commercialising with things that are sacred, and we cannot allow that to happen. This is exactly what we are fighting against, what we are up against, and we can’t let it go on any more. It is making a mockery of your brave and, and divine act. We need to turn over the tables and throw them out! That money could be put to better use, could be used to expand, to grow. To help, Paul, to help.’

  Ah, those pure, deep blue eyes!

  Paul could not say why, but his instinct told him to lie. Naturally he had not done anything with his discarded testicles. He had prepared everything under a large horse chestnut tree. The sheepshears he had tied to his belt and there they hung both before and after the castration. He had fainted, and when at last he had come round, the last thing on his mind was where to bury his nuts. He was not a squirrel. Instead he had left them where they were, and they had no doubt been avidly devoured by any animal or insect that happened to be passing by. The sacred ground he referred to was a spiritual ground; it was the tree, the small stream that had been nearby, the vast sky above him. It was his own personal paradise. It was not the exact spot where he had hidden his bloodstained gonads.

  Nonetheless the idea had captured popular imagination. It kept people talking, guessing, wondering. It was useful because it was a mystery, and a mystery is only such if it is kept as such. He was learning fast.

  ‘Let the hunt continue. Let the speculation fire their imaginations. It is a personal matter between myself and the cosmos. It is sacred ground, Mr. Swan, and will always remain so.’

  Paul had definitely changed. Mr. Swan was perplexed. For Christ’s sake, he even spoke like a bloody messiah! Crafty little sod. Still, maybe it’s for the best. Let Paul do the spiritual bit, he’s certainly up to the part, and I’ll get on with the essentials behind the scenes. He decided to give it one more go though, just in case, implore a little.

  ‘Your sacred ground will always remain, Paul, with or without a cash prize. So better with. Then we can put it to good use, eh?’

  Paul Kavanagh suddenly realised that he was in control, that Mr. Swan, Rani, Diamond, and the whole mass media now depended on him alone. His family, too. The sensation of power, of responsibility, of paternalism, was almost a religious experience. Like having an orgasm, winning the lottery and thrashing an opponent at the same time.

  ‘It is worth far more to us as a mystery.’

  There would be no more debate – Paul had spoken.

  Because it is about to hit the fan, historians and experts are now busy gathering all available evidence so that we can use it to draw our own particular conclusions. This information will enable us to outline our grievances, to justify our course of action and to vilify our enemies. Some of the facts will be taken as gospel, others hotly denied, others conveniently forgotten. We will be accused of cherry picking when in reality we are editing, putting together the pieces until the whole picture is crystal clear. As new light is shed upon the subject, so our evaluation of the situation will change. We adjust accordingly. Because the wonderful thing about the interpretation of data is that we inevitably discover that Truth is on our side, and that History will prove us right.

  The TV interview had gone out as planned. Jill’s voice had been distorted, and her face had been replaced by a digital prism to protect her identity. Eerie music and a dramatic script had been employed to help boost the ratings. With the aid of Dr. Flynch’s celebrity status and the great public’s unhealthy morbid curiosity the show had been a resounding success. It had made its way into front rooms, living rooms and lounges across the nation, and although no conclusion had been drawn, a fateful connection had been established. Paul Kavanagh was the youngest son of Sam Kavanagh, the very same Sam Kavanagh who had disappeared in strange circumstances eighteen years ago, the very night that a certain unnamed woman had been coincidentally raped and half murdered. The point had been raised: was there a link?

  The programme had also asked viewers for any information they may have regarding the whereabouts of the missing father, along with any ideas as to the whereabouts of Paul’s missing parts. To drive the point home, the squeamish had been forewarned and advised to change channels as photographs of mutilated young men and rape victims had been shown, drawn from the eminent doctor’s extensive collection. The final shot had been a close up of Dr. Flynch’s grave face cast into shadow as he mouthed the question – is there such a thing as an isolated act?

  There are a number of theories vying with each other to answer this– The Butterfly’s Wings Effect, Shakespeare’s Providence in the Fall of a Sparrow, the lines on the palms of our hands. Tea leaves and tarot cards. Many believe our Destiny is written in stone, and though we may flee in the night to Samara, we cannot escape what Life has in store for us. Others have no truck with this and cling fervently to their faith in Equal Opportunity, Government grants and the odd stroke of luck. Be that as it may, one thing is clear – a prime time national public TV programme is certainly not an isolated act.

  Kenneth and Jill saw it, with their two kids Robbie and Susan staying up specially to revel in their mother’s new found fame. The ‘delicate’ scenes were avoided by swiftly changing channels, as Jill knew the sequences by heart. Ron saw it, and Daphne too out of the corner of her reluctant eye. Paul and Mr. Swan, surrounded by groupies. Trudy Morton née Prior and the whole outraged family. And as the cat leapt out of the bag, butterflies batted their wings furiously, sparrows dropped out of the sky in their hundreds, while the innkeepers at Samara rubbed their hands in anticipation.

  After a month Sam Kavanagh had been spotted on seventeen different occasions in places as far apart as La Paz, Durban, Leamington Spa or Corfu. A woman in County Cork had even sent a photo of him in hiking boots and rucksack, smiling baldly on a windswept hill. Each serious claim was followed up as well as time and resources allowed, but to date they had all been false leads. Dead ends.

  Paul’s balls fared no better. There had been a number of hoax calls, most of them in a good-natured, humorous tone, and someone from East Anglia had tried to claim the cash prize by offering some badly preserved testicles, wrapped in tin foil, which later proved to have once belonged to a goat. The outcome of the competition was left dangling. Loose ends.

  Rumours spread like venereal disease in the Middle Ages as people swore they had it on good authority that all the Kavanagh children had been abused by their father for years, that Sam had not only raped and half murdered Miss P., but at least twenty more nationwide, that his long suffering wife had known all along, no, had encouraged him, no, had plotted it all right from the beginning. Poor Catherine Prior, had she bothered to read the ‘press’, would have discovered that she was a part time whore, selling her body to cover her university costs, had been pregnant either at the time of the rape, or immediately after. She had aborted, or given the child over to foster parents, or sold it to unscrupulous foreigners, or passed it off as her sister’s. Where is this child now? Another hunt was begun. It is incredible what the collective imagination is capable of, and casts a shadow of doubt over one of the oldest and best known clichés: fact is stranger than fiction. If this is so, why this insistence on adorning the facts with fantasy?

  Not that Johnny ‘Eagle’ Swan had any issue with that, all this country wide coverage was precisely what he had hoped for. The sect was on the move from loony fringe to acceptable alternative, wealthy benefactors offered accommodation and transport, new members were more than happy to fund the startling enterprise with a percentage of their earnings, and healthy young girls were again to be seen swanning around. Paul, as visible head of the movement, concentrated, meditated, reflected and illuminated while faithful, if faithless, Mr. Swan was left with the thankless, mundane task of making ends meet. It was a cross he was more than willing to bear. For although gurus, prophets, visionaries and martyrs are all essential elements of any serious religion, without goo
d administration no new sect is destined to last.

  But one man’s meat….. Ron certainly was none too happy with the turn of events, neither was his co-pilot. They had watched the cursed programme in horror, perched on the edge of the sofa, Ron looking as if he would have liked to grab that Flynch type by the throat, Daphne shaking her head and snorting disgustedly. Treason! My own brother! Ken’s wife Jill as Brutus! They were astounded, shattered, flabbergasted even, which is a word that is seldom heard in these cynical times. Our own family! (Your family, thought Daphne). Ron could get no further than that, going over and over the interview time and time again only to reach the same exasperating conclusion – treachery! And how could they drag Dad into all this? How could they think for a minute that he would have done that? Madness, sheer madness! Something would have to be done. But what? Revenge? Yes, there was a great deal of attraction in the idea of Vengeance. But how to achieve it? What course of action to take when we are talking about blood ties? How could they have done this to him? Don’t they see that his ruin is their own? Betrayal, betrayal, betrayal! He held his head in his hands in genuine despair, having no need now for his amateur dramatics, whilst Daphne looked on, her face set in stone.

  In the other Kavanagh household the strain had been too much, and something had snapped. Yes, they had watched the show as a family, the kids delighted at having their mum on TV even if she was an unrecognisable hazy blob with a voice like an alien. They had all nibbled snacks as if watching the latest children’s box office hit, the adults had joked and explained away as best they could the scarier parts of the tale, but both Jill and Ken knew that their relationship would never be the same again. She had snatched her moment of glory, had been lured by the lights and the cameras and the relative fame of the anonymous interviewee, had gladly accepted the opportunity to break out of her dull, housewife’s routine and try something different, something exciting, something new. But sadly each step in that direction was another step away from Ken, well she knew. K.K. for his part did not react. He just observed. Give them enough rope, he thought, though really he did nothing because he hadn’t the slightest idea what to do. How do you stop your wife from shouting it from the rooftops? How do you tell her she’s making a complete arse of herself? What can you do if your kid brother goes and chops them off, then wants the whole world to know? How do you stop them dragging up the past and smearing it all with shit? How do you make people respect the dead? Leave mum and dad out of this? Leave me and the kids out of it? How do you stop them when there are hordes of them, droves of them? He held his head in his hands in genuine despair – it ran in the family.

  The threatening letters and phone calls arrived punctually as foreseen by Dr. Flynch and the local police. For despite all their efforts at blurring Jill and not mentioning names, the public in general is not as stupid as some would have us believe and is more than capable of putting two and two together. Most of them came from amateurs who, for want of anything better to do, had decided to turn their hand at frightening strangers. They promised everything from financial ruin to mutilation and death, often accompanied by obscure messages whose significance could only be known to the sender, or curious attachments such as plastic scissors or children’s toys. The phone calls were thankfully brief affairs, and more often than not a poor copy of similar calls heard at the cinema. Unnerving, but according to the professionals nothing to lose too much sleep over.

  The language used was rarely pretty, and you could almost imagine them frothing at the mouth as they spewed out their filthy comments with relish. In a way they resembled those erotic letters published in adult magazines that nobody believes were really ever sent to the editor, improbable situations, starting off slowly then growing in intensity as the orgasm approaches, a rush of foul language, a gush or swear words, insults, hatred…… Then a hurried signing off as they reach for the box of tissues.

  All the brothers received them, as did other members of the family, even Mr. Swan. The police intervened, eventually, and they were given private ex directory numbers. After a superficial perusal by the local police the hate mail was redirected to Dr. Flynch’s office where it was eagerly awaited. Miss Reinhart diligently filed them all under K for Kavanagh, Sam father/Paul son.

  On a brighter note they did receive some heart-warming letters too. Kind words of encouragement and sympathy from well-wishers across the country were to be discovered among the general abuse, and every so often even a donation. Ron and Ken always sent these back. Mr. Swan always accepted them as gifts from above.

  Perhaps they would all have managed to come to terms with the new situation in time, just as people eventually get used to winning the lottery, if it weren’t for the odd missive that the police considered ‘worrying’. For amidst all the trash and self-inflicted indignation there were a couple of letters whose tone lead the authorities to believe that the author or authors meant what they said. And what they said was not nice. And it was best to be on your toes and watch your back, which is easier said than done. Just in case.

  A tall gawky lad in baseball cap and anorak stood with his with a petrol pump in his hand and gaped. From behind the glass of her attack proof cabin a plump cashier with dyed blonde hair observed the scene in disbelief. They both thought somebody was going to get badly beaten up, or shot, or both. A robbery or a mafia killing. They froze, unwilling to draw attention to themselves, wishing they had stayed in bed on this cold, undesirable morning.

  The van roared into the service station and screeched to a halt just in front of a rather battered old mini bus, blocking its path. The driver of the mini bus slammed her hand onto the klaxon, filling the air with its heart stopping blare, which was very bold, and perhaps even a little foolhardy given the circumstances. The faces of her fellow passengers described panic. What’s going on? Who is it? Gangland thugs? Football fans? Skinheads? The police? All of these possibilities meant a beating. Why was it always the pacifists that got the shitty end of the stick? Why can’t we live in peace, or at least live and let live? What is it they take offence to, our haircuts, our clothes, our dogs? Our alternative toilette?

  The few seconds that elapsed before the van door opened and its occupants descended upon them seem interminable. Time enough for more professional types to have reversed out of there in a neat, handbrake turn operation, or to have locked the doors and armed themselves with whatever they had at hand. But like most friendly folk this particular busload was totally inadequate under the threat of violence. Instead they either sat stock still and waited for events to unfurl, or hugged each other for comfort.

  A burly man in blue overalls climbed out of the van and approached the mini bus. At her wheel Diamond recognised him at once.

  ‘Quick! Throw a blanket over him! Over Rani!’

  They looked at her in bewilderment.

  Too late. Ken was at the sliding side door. He wrenched it open.

  ‘Where is he? Come on, where the fuck is he?’

  Rani now understood the bit about the blanket. Diamond screamed ‘leave him alone!’, but Ken was not interested in Rani or Diamond or anybody else other than his kid brother, Mad Paul Kavanagh, the family destroyer. He scrutinised the bus load of disciples. Shit, he was not on board!

  A bald man lifted up his two palms in a Ghandi like gesture of universal peace and well-being obtained through spiritual exercises. He believed he could pacify the beast and perhaps even covert him into a fully paid up member of the sect. Though he too had recognised the intruder, and trod warily.

  ‘I assume you are looking for your brother. He is not amongst us.’

  Spoken calmly and coolly. Which was irritating.

  ‘I can see that. That’s why I asked ‘where the fuck is he?’ So, where the fuck is he?’

  ‘Paul can be approached at any time, you as his brother know that. There is no need for all this…aggression.’

  “Can be approached at any time”. What a bastard! He’s been playing cat and fucking mouse for the last g
od knows how long and now he comes out with this!

  ‘Just tell him that I want to see him. Now! Not next week or next month. Now!’

  The bald one bowed like a Buddhist monk and Ken saw red. Was he taking the piss? He leapt into the mini bus and grabbed Mr. Swan by the neck.

  ‘Don’t fuck with me, mate, just don’t fucking do it, ok? Or I’ll kill the fucking lot of you!’

  No reply.

  ‘Got it? GOT IT?’

  Mr. Swan nodded agreement. Ken let him go and backed out of the bus. Diamond and Rani remained as silent as the rest. He kicked the front wheel as a parting shot, waved his finger at them all in general, and drove off.

  A little further down the road he pulled into a lay-by and cried.

  Life has its ups and downs, but ex-Councillor Kavanagh liked to think he was able to take the rough with the smooth. He had been dropped from the list. Dropped from the list! He who was being groomed for Mayor! Or Mayordom, or Mayordomship or whatever the term was. He had been cast aside, simply and crudely cast aside. He could recite the letter by heart: ‘The party feels that, given the circumstances……’ The word ‘iniquity’ crossed his mind, but he wasn’t too sure if it was the correct word, so he fell back into the comforting arms of betrayal.