Stark

by Ben Elton

  It would be impossible to exaggerate the feeling of impotent contempt that this kind of grim effort provoked in Ocker. It made him want to kill. That Aristos should be so witless as to believe that he could hoodwink Ocker with this poorly performed second-hand mix of pathos and flattery, somehow it was almost an insult. It was like when children try and manipulate you and their efforts are so transparent it makes you hate them.

  To be fair to Aristos, it wasn’t that he hadn’t tried to take a place in the business, he had, a bit, but he was just a very untalented person.

  But now Ocker had a little job which seemed tailor- made for Aristos. He needed someone who had a known connection with the Tyron organization and therefore could invoke its power and mystique, but who was also totally disown- able.

  His mother aside, Ocker could easily drop Aristos if he had to. Everyone knew that Aristos was a frustrated dead loss, so if the shit did hit the fan it would be simple for Ocker to disclaim all knowledge of Aristos’ actions. What’s more, Aristos would be dealing with and seeking to manipulate people of perhaps even less talent and originality than he had. The set-up seemed perfect. Who could guess? Perhaps he would emerge from the experience a better and less irritating person.

  76: ARISTOS GETS A JOB

  Aristos entered, trying to assume an air of brisk efficiency. He had on a beautiful Italian suit. Unfortunately he shared with his sister-in-law an inability to wear clothes so it looked like a bloody awful Australian suit. He wore shades. Aristos wore shades most of the time. He did this for anonymity. After all, as a major figure in society he needed to maintain some privacy. Actually, of course, the only time wearing shades is anonymous is in bright sunlight. Wearing sunglasses indoors is pretty much guaranteed to draw attention to you. Aristos knew this really, that was why he wore them.

  ‘Yeah, I got the message to get my ass over here, on the car phone,’ Aristos said pointlessly. But he liked people to know things like he had a car phone. Ocker knew already, all the company cars had car phones.

  ‘I was actually en route, but you know, when you buzzed I just did a U-eee and burned straight back. So what goes down?’

  Aristos was trying to be casual, but really he was very excited, touchingly thrilled to have been summoned to Ocker’s office. Even if it was just for a bollocking it had still given him the chance to swish purposefully through the outer office with all the pretty girls saying, ‘Hullo, Mr Tyron.’

  ‘Can’t stop, girls. Ocker buzzed me on the car phone, got to get my ass in there pronto.’ For a moment Aristos was the young dynamic troubleshooter of the Tyron empire. He pictured himself as a daringly unconventional Mr Fixit. Gotta problem? Call Aristos. Sure he breaks rules but he gets results. It was a delicious fantasy and whatever Ocker actually wanted him for would not spoil it. What’s more, he would be able to swish out again through all the outer offices with a look of gutsy concentration on his tanned, boyish features, giving the clear impression that he had been charged with some tough make or break assignment. Aristos just bet that any one of those pretty secretaries would give anything to be the first Mrs Aristos Tyron. No, it didn’t really matter what Ocker wanted, he had been summoned, that was enough.

  To Aristos’ delight and astonishment Ocker did have a job for him. He was actually going to be given an important assignment. Aristos was so grateful he could have cried. Instead, as he always did when excited, he got carried away.

  ‘Look this is terrific Ocko, really terrific. I mean, OK, I’m not saying I haven’t got plenty on my plate at the moment, because for sure right? I have. But hey, pressure is something I’m used to handling right? I mean, you know that. Listen, Ocko, I’ve been thinking, we don’t see enough of each other, what say we do some clubs, right? Just us guys, we could drink beer, talk…’

  ‘Shut up, Aristos.’

  ‘Sure. No problem.’

  ‘There’s a difficult and slightly unpleasant job I want, doing,’ Ocker said. ‘So you need a difficult and slightly unpleasant guy,’ Aristos replied, purposefully, not realizing what he was saying.

  ‘The firm can’t touch it directly, it’s not entirely legitimate, so I want to sub-contract. You’re going to be the liaison, OK?’

  Liaison! Aristos could not believe it, he was going to be Ocker’s liaison! And people said he was a dickhead! Yes, well, they were going to have to change their tunes a bit now, weren’t they? now that he was a liaison. Maybe he could even have some cards and letterheads done.

  ‘Aristos Tyron: Liaison.’

  Ocker looked at his half-brother, wondering whether he could trust him and decided that even Aristos couldn’t fuck up such a simple little assignment. It is strange that Ocker, who understood most things, especially regarding human weakness, actually did not fully understand just how stupid his little half-brother was. Sometimes he suspected it, but it just didn’t seem possible.

  As it happened, Ocker did not have much choice, he could not use any of his regular employees. In the unlikely event of trouble they would understandably not want to carry the can alone. Aristos had just the right combination of stupidity and family loyalty that meant he would probably even take a custodial sentence if he thought it looked cool and gained him his brother’s respect.

  ‘Officially, I and the Board know nothing whatsoever about it, right?’

  ‘Right,’ said Aristos, as if he knew everything about it.

  Ocker handed Aristos an unpleasant leaflet with a flaming torch and a cross on the front and explained what he wanted his brother to do.

  77: ARISTOS’ MISSION

  It was an extremely hot morning. It was extremely hot every morning that summer, abnormally hot in fact. But Aristos had no time to consider the weather, he was busy liaising.

  The shiny black Porsche purred through the slightly shabby suburb. Whenever it had to stop at the lights the occupant seemed to be rather impressively on the car phone. Clearly a high-flyer.

  ‘At the third stroke the time will be…’

  Aristos nodded thoughtfully as if receiving important news. After a few red lights he reckoned he had had enough of the speaking clock and decided to phone his mother. ‘Mum, it’s Arry. Guess what, I’m Ocker’s liaison! Yeah, it’s very hush hush, I’m on an important job. What do you think of that, eh?’

  Mrs Tyron was delighted and immediately rang Ocker to express her approval.

  ‘You’re a good boy, Ocker, making your mother happy, giving Aristos such an important job. A liaison and all, it must be a very big responsibility.’

  ‘Mum, I’m just using the little prick as a messenger, he has a company car he might as well make himself useful,’ Ocker explained, beginning to wonder if enlisting Aristos’ services had been such a good idea.

  ‘Oh, Ocker,’ chuckled Mother, ‘you hate us to see your soft side, don’t you? But underneath you’re just a big sloppy teddy bear, aren’t you?’

  It took ten minutes of this infuriating gunk before Ocker could get his mother off the phone. Finally, with ill-concealed fury, the big sloppy teddy bear managed to get the receiver down.

  78: IN SEARCH OF THE NORSEMAN

  Mrs Gordon?’ enquired Aristos with a winning smile — he could be quite personable when he wanted to.

  ‘Uhm, well, yes,’ she replied nervously, because the man was carrying a personal telephone and had sunglasses on. Obviously he was a policeman. Gordon was in trouble again. She hated it when Gordon was in trouble. There would be policemen, the local reporter, tearful Aboriginal women screaming abuse at her at the bus stop.

  ‘Might I enquire, is your son Gordon Gordon in?’

  Aristos could see the woman found him fairly awesome. He casually allowed his jacket to fall open revealing the bleeper and the computerized personal memo on his belt. Mrs Gordon thought one of these must be a new sort of weapon, which, had he known, would have made Aristos very happy, because that’s what he always pretended they were. When he clipped his bleeper on in the morning he normally spent a moment or two zapping
Klingons with it.

  ‘Gordon Gordon, is he in?’

  Mrs Gordon was no good at lying, especially when she was nervous.

  ‘Uhm…I don’t know…perhaps…no he’s not. Is he in trouble? Those Aboriginals make up a lot of that stuff, you know, there’s two sides to every story.’

  ‘He’s not in trouble. I just want to see him, I have an appointment, I phoned him yesterday.’ He paused for a moment and then added, ‘from my car phone.’

  ‘Oh, I see, an appointment. Well, he’s still in bed actually, it was Friday yesterday. Friday’s his night. You’d better come in.’

  Aristos entered making a tiny gesture to an imaginary minder that he should stay by the Porsche and watch the street. The hall was neat and tidy although there were jarring notes. A collection of baseball bats and night sticks for instance, two air pistols and a shot gun, an immaculate pair of red-brown sixteen hole Doc Martens, with red laces. Aristos had clearly come to the right place.

  Upstairs, still sleeping, was the man that Aristos had come to see, Gordon Gordon, living proof that there is no God.

  79: BLOOD RELATIONS

  There are actually quite a few skinheads in Perth and Gordon Gordon was one of the more prominent ones. Anyone unfortunate enough to have seen him lying there asleep, under his swastika bedspread, would have been surprised to learn that one of his principal creeds was a thing he called racial superiority. It is strange that Gordon, who had ready access to several mirrors, should be so enamoured of this idea. Because, if somewhere in the universe there does exist a race of tattooed, crop-headed Neanderthals, looking anything like Gordon, whoever they are superior to must be a pretty sad bunch indeed. Gordon Gordon was definitely no great advert for anything, least of all a master race. Looking at his thick neck and brutish forehead the term that sprung to mind was not so much ‘racial purity’ as ‘in-breeding.’

  So, where did Gordon come from? What was his ‘race’? The one that he dreamt of fighting and dying for?

  Well he’d be horrified to learn that recently scientists seem to have reached a consensus on where Gordon came from. They believe his earliest relatives lived in North Africa.

  ‘That’s rubbish, I am a fucking Norseman,’ Gordon would no doubt claim, pointing to the crossed axes that hung on the wall above his bed.

  But, sadly for Gordon, it’s beginning to look as if we all came out of Africa. The new science of genetics has revealed that the differences between the various supposed human ‘races’ are truly only skin deep. Our lips may be slightly different, but our DNA is virtually identical. This points towards a common root for us all. Gordon Gordon, white supremacist and all round idiot, is a nigger.

  What was it that turned Gordon Gordon into a Nazi? Surely not the fact that his first name is the same as his second? This could make a person a bit bitter, but surely is not justification for wanting to kill all the Jews and blacks and gays and commies in the world.

  When people feel put upon or inadequate they search for someone to blame.

  ‘It isn’t my fault.’

  It is a cliche, but none the less true, that Nazis are the most inadequate people of all. The proof of this is that they don’t just blame other people for single worries in a moment of pique or angst, they blame other people for their entire lives. Everything bar nothing that is wrong in the life of a Nazi is someone else’s fault.

  Pissed off at work? Fucking Jews have got the best jobs, haven’t they? Crowded pub? They let too many queers and scruffs in. Bus is late? Bastard blacks too lazy to drive properly aren’t they?

  In literally every area of a Nazi’s life there is a seething, jealous, resentment. An obsessive, corrosive belief that they are not getting what is rightfully theirs, and not getting it because of all the other bastards in the world.

  80: PROPOSITION

  Gordon came downstairs to the sitting-room where Mrs Gordon was giving Aristos a cup of tea. Gordon thought Aristos looked like a wop and a poof. Aristos thought Gordon looked completely alarming. Gordon had on a Union Jack T- shirt, from which protruded brawny tattooed arms and a neck as thick as the head it supported. He looked like a dangerous thug and of course he was.

  ‘Yeah?’ said Gordon.

  ‘Er, Mr Gordon,’ said Aristos, trying to be casual and commanding. He held his portable telephone like a shield, it proved his power and superiority. Why didn’t it ring? Why didn’t it ring?

  It rang. With a monumental effort Aristos managed not to jump. ‘Excuse me,’ he said casually, and turned on the phone, holding it to his ear. ‘This is your Australian Telecom alarm call,’ the computerized voice said.

  ‘Listen,’ Aristos snapped back at the machine, ‘I told you to hold all calls. I am taking an important meeting…I don’t care how many million…Sit on it till I can get to the computer in the Porsche. Just do it!!!’ He finished with a flourish, adding as an inspired afterthought, ‘You’re all sacked.’ He put the phone down and apologized to Gordon. Astonishingly the ploy had worked, Gordon was impressed.

  ‘Get my breakfast on, Mum. I want to talk to this bloke.’

  Mrs Gordon left and Gordon gave Aristos the look that he used when wishing to imply that he was listening but none the less he remained a hugely violent and unpredictable wild man so he was not to be messed with. Aristos wondered whether Gordon was ill. He seemed to be squinting and grimacing in a slightly alarming manner. ‘I’m listening,’ said Gordon.

  Aristos explained that he had read Gordon’s leaflet entitled ‘Why The Norseman is The Superior Race’ with interest and had found it, on the whole, a rattling good read. Gordon was not above the natural pride that any author feels when he hears his work well spoken of and made a tiny gesture as if to say that it was just a little thing he had thrown together. Unfortunately Gordon was a large and unco-ordinated man, so much so that even tiny gestures were unwise. When they had cleared up the tea cup, Aristos continued.

  ‘Yes, I found your argument that the white man is naturally superior because he invented everything…uhm, very succinct.’

  ‘Of course it’s succinct. I wouldn’t have had it printed if it wasn’t succinct, would I?’ said Gordon. ‘I mean, your car, right? Who invented it?’

  ‘Uhm…‘ replied Aristos.

  ‘A white man of the Nordic race, that’s who,’ continued Gordon who, like all great orators, was given to asking rhetorical questions. ‘It’s the same with the airplane, and…‘ he glanced about for inspiration ‘…the electric fire. All invented by white men of the Nordic race, which proves his superiority over all other races.’

  ‘Well, exactly,’ agreed Aristos. ‘Now, it said in your leaflet that you have formed a party, the…‘ he referred to the unpleasant leaflet that Ocker had given him, ‘White Supremacy People’s Fair Deal Party. It also suggests that your organization is not averse to a degree of direct action, is that the case?’

  Gordon agreed that it was and Aristos got down to business. He explained that he personally was in sympathy with a great deal of what Gordon stood for and was, in fact, prepared to supply a certain amount of funding in return for…

  ‘Who do you want thumped, Mr Tyron?’ asked Gordon, who was not as thick as he looked, which was a shame really because if he had been as thick as he looked his system probably would have broken down under the intellectual strain of having to breathe. In which case, the world would be that one bit nicer a place to live in.

  Aristos explained the delicate mission that Ocker had instructed him to explain. Assuring Gordon that all expenses would be taken care of, plus a handsome donation to the White Supremacy People’s Fair Deal Party. Gordon thought the proposition sounded very tasty. However, he prided himself on being a fair-minded fellow and felt obliged to point out that the rich and powerful elite of Germany had thought that they could buy and use Hitler and that Hitler had ended up using and controlling them. Hence Gordon wished to make it quite clear from the outset that there was to be no whingeing if he, Gordon, ended up using and controlling
Aristos plus all Aristos’ Jewish capitalist friends.

  Aristos agreed to risk it.

  81: TYRON’S METHODS

  Enlisting the help of Gordon Gordon was not to be the only method Ocker Tyron was to employ to interfere with Sly’s business. A week after Sly had visited Bullens Creek, Ocker started to turn the screw.

  All day long the wasp-like little plane whizzed and buzzed about over the Aboriginal community. The pilot was good. He’d learnt his trade crop spraying. Now he was on a more obviously antisocial mission. He could get in real low before throttling back, so low that no matter how many times he did it, the people on the ground always felt that this time he really would crash into them. This form of harrassment was an old Tyron trick, and he wasn’t the only one to have used it.

  When the Northern Territory was discovered to be mineral rich, aerial buzzing had proved useful on more than one occasion. The reason it was required was that the territory had been developed much later and much more sparsely than the rest of the country and the Aboriginals had managed to hang on to their traditional life style in the bush. Getting them out was becoming increasingly difficult. It wasn’t like the pioneer days when they could have been shot down. Even in Queensland hunting Aboriginals for sport had been illegal since 1927. These days they had some rights, so people like Tyron had to ‘persuade’ them to get off any decent land.

  As the tatty shacks shook and rattled with the vibrations from the plane, the occupants cursed Sly.

  ‘That bastard, Moorcock, wants us out right enough, he’s not even waiting for an answer,’ said Mr Culboon. ‘Bastard.’

  ‘Bastard.’ His wife agreed. Neither of them could understand the rush. What had they done to deserve this?

  ‘Christ, who the hell would want to come to this dump on holiday anyway. Even the flies only come because there’s plenty of shit.’