That ain’t scissors! I scream, stressing badly. I mean they’re like totally old? And rusty? And not even hair scissors but paper scissors, which is a totally different thing? Obviously? I take them off him anyway – to try and explain – and as soon as I touch the blades I’m just like totally no way!
Blunt isn’t even the word for how blunt they are. I mean, I been training to do this properly for months with proper equipment, and I can’t just do a haircut with scissors that ain’t even proper scissors, specially when it’s on someone famous! I mean everyone’s going to see it! I only ever done models so far, and they do it for the free cut, cause the stylist comes after and finishes off and gets rid of the mistakes? I mean they get a proper cut in the end. So no one’s even seen a finished cut that I done all by myself, not once, not even one time. Then this is like someone famous? And there’s TV cameras outside waiting for him? Waiting for him to come out? With my haircut? On telly?
It is scissors says Troy. So smug? Like he’s the expert? Like he’s the one that knows about scissors when so obviously he ain’t. Such a dick! Cause if he thinks he’s being the clever one right now . . .
NOT HAIR SCISSORS! I say, trying to sound calm but it comes out as a sort of shriek, which ain’t my fault cause Troy just drives me crazy when he’s all cocky. Everyone knows if it weren’t for Blaze he’d just have to hide in the corner and disappear. IT’S A TOTALLY DIFFERENT THING!
I’ll do it if you won’t says Blaze, totally casual, as if it ain’t even nothing, as if this isn’t, like, THE MOST IMPORTANT HAIRCUT EVER!
No way? I can do it!
I don’t know how he changed my mind but he did? One minute you want . . . I don’t know . . . something . . . then Blaze speaks up and suddenly you want the opposite? He does that to people all the time.
Go on then says Troy. That boy so needs a slap.
I open and close the blades a couple of times. They’re well stiff. Like, your worst nightmare?
We got any oil? I say.
Yeah, I always carry some with me says Troy, but I just ignore him cause actually that’s the only way.
You can get some out of Lee’s hair says Femi.
Fuck off says Lee punching Femi proper hard, so he does it back, but after that they stop, probably because the mayor’s right there.
I look down at him in his chair, dressed in his dorky shirt, looking well flustered. He’s so not happy. Big time. Face like he’s swallowed a dump.
It’s the first time I ever actually touched someone from off the telly. I mean, someone I’ve seen, like, on the news and shit, but now he’s right in front of me, and I’m reaching out, and I’m lifting up a tuft of his batty hair, and it’s in my hands, proper real. It’s freaky.
That first snip? And a little blond flake drifts down? Lands on my shoe? That’s . . . like . . . unreal? I mean actually cutting the mayor’s hair! Actually famous hair? Then I’m cutting deeper in and the tufts falling down are chunkier and he’s just looking more and more pissed off? And it turns out he’s got a little bald patch at the back so maybe that’s why he has to keep it long? To cover it up?
And once I’m up and running, even though they’re the worst scissors ever – I mean, my aunt would flip if she saw what I was using, cause you’ve got to be professional, that’s what she’s always telling me – even though it’s the weirdest situation, after a bit I actually kind of enjoy it? Like, a power thing? I mean, this is the guy that runs the city? And everyone’s heard of him? But it’s me cutting his hair and he’s just sitting there and taking it, even though he don’t even want it cut. Like, the actual mayor? And the more I cut off the more retarded he looks, which is well funny, but I got to stay on it, cause, like I say, you have to be professional.
Even with proper scissors you can’t take it all off. Not without clippers? So nobody’s going to judge me. It ain’t even supposed to look good – that ain’t the point of it – so I can’t mess it up whatever I do cause it’s supposed to be messed up. The point is it’s my cut.
He’s going to be on the news and before the end of the day it’ll be the most famous haircut in the world and it’ll be me that done it. I ain’t getting ideas or nothing, I know I’m still a trainee, but how many stylists in the world can say that. Like, none?
METHODS: Using Swedish national registers, we gathered information on 25,656 patients with a diagnosis of ADHD, their pharmacologic treatment, and subsequent criminal convictions in Sweden from 2006 through 2009 . . .
RESULTS: As compared with nonmedication periods, among patients receiving ADHD medication, there was a significant reduction of 32% in the criminality rate for men . . . and 41% for women . . .
CONCLUSIONS: Among patients with ADHD, rates of criminality were lower during periods when they were receiving ADHD medication. These findings raise the possibility that the use of medication reduces the risk of criminality among patients with ADHD.
Lichtenstein P., Halldner L., Zetterqvist J., Sjölander A., Serlachius E., Fazel S., Långström N., Larsson H., ‘Medication for attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder and criminality’, New England Journal of Medicine
FEMI
So weird, the sight of it. Head skin. It ought not to be cause lots of people’s bald, but when it’s someone that ain’t bald then you cut it off, it’s like you stripped them naked. He looks such a freak. And his face is so pissed off it’s almost the funniest thing you ever seen, except that as soon as it’s finished there’s no time to stop and look at it or laugh or anything like that, cause he just goes straight off to the hostage.
There’s a moment when we’re all looking at each other – or all looking at Blaze anyway – but nobody moves till the mayor comes out with the guy, who’s all limping and hunched and still painted, just the maddest-looking person I ever seen.
They go right past without looking at us, cause maybe they think we’re going to stop them or change our mind or something. It’s almost like they’re trying to pretend we ain’t there, which is a bit thick if you think about it.
Blaze don’t speak or stop them or nothing, but after they gone past he walks right behind them. He ain’t hiding or skulking – his body’s almost saying he’s the boss bringing these two weird-looking guys to the outside world.
Then we’re alone again, but minus Blaze.
I can hear this sound, almost a roar or something from outside when all the people that’s waiting see who’s come out.
Run for it man says Troy, and he takes off out the front door. Matchstick’s right behind, then me, and I can hear Lee and Karen following after.
Don’t even make sense at first what I see out there – crowds of people behind a line of yellow tape staring at the three who’s come out ahead of us, half of them taking photos. Troy ain’t followed them, he’s trying to run round the side, away from the feds, so I go after him, but it’s seconds before they’re all over us like ants, pushing us to the ground and cuffing us. Three guys lift me up and I can see Karen on the ground fighting the feds who’s cuffing her, and she’s screaming I AIN’T DONE NOTHING! I DONE THE HAIRCUT BUT I AIN’T DONE NOTHING ELSE! I DONE NOTHING!
They shove me towards some fed vans and I can see the mayor talking into hundreds of microphones spouting some bullshit, I don’t know what, and Blaze is being dragged away in front of me. He’s pointing at me and the others and shouting WE HAD A DEAL! WE HAD A FUCKING DEAL YOU SCUMBAG! A DEAL!
So intense, man, I can’t take it all in, and I’m almost thinking this must be a film or TV or just not real, then near the van I see something that flips the whole situation and changes everything. It’s Mum and Dad. They’re behind the tape, at the front of the crowd, and they’re staring right at me, and the look on their faces is like cold steel across my throat.
Never knew they’d be here. Never thought they’d watch me being cuffed and banged up. Never thought I would ever see them look at me with such horror and anger and sorrow lasering out of their eyes – so much it almost burns through me, sh
rivels my insides to just a pile of burnt-up crumbs.
MUUUUUUUUM! I shout. MUUUUUUUUM! She hears me and our eyes lock for a second, but it’s like she don’t even recognise me. It’s like she’s saying who are you? You ain’t my boy!
I want to shout to her that it is me, that I don’t know what happened, that I didn’t choose none of it. I just been weak, that’s all. Weak and stupid, but I’m still me and I ain’t bad or violent or sick in the head. I’m still her boy, and I don’t want to be nothing else, but the police are pulling on me, dragging me off, and it takes more of them now cause my whole body’s gone limp. Then I’m in the van.
Troy and Lee’s already in there and the doors slam and the siren goes on. There’s bangs on the side and we edge away slow at first then suddenly proper fast. Troy’s silent, but Lee’s going on and on, saying I ain’t done nothing, it weren’t my fault, it was Blaze. It’s stupid, pointless shit he’s saying, but I got to block out what I’m thinking so I start doing it, too, telling the feds that I never even touched the hostage and none of us hurt him and Blaze did it all, we was just watching, we was stuck there same as the hostage was.
Waste of breath, though, cause there’s two feds in the back with us and they ain’t even listening. One of them tries to calm Lee down, saying he can make a statement at the station, but Lee just gets more and more agitated until he punches the side of the van. After that he swears a bit cause he hurt himself, then he shuts up so I do too.
Soon as I stop yelling those two faces come back. Mum and Dad. Faces I known all my life – loved all my life – pulled into an expression I never saw before and never want to see again.
No use pretending otherwise, after everything they done for me, after what they went through to get to this country, I crushed the life out of them by doing what I done. They suffered like I can’t hardly even imagine, put their hopes in me, now I just chucked it all away without even meaning to.
I had my chance up on the roof. I could’ve ended it all then and that might have been less bad than what I done to them now.
Can’t even imagine where they’re taking me, what’s going to happen next. All I can think of is Mum and Dad – picturing them at home all the time I’m going to be banged up – waiting and waiting – going more and more dead every day, every week, every month, every year.
And after I come out, they ain’t going to want me or trust me or even like me. There ain’t going to be no connection between me and them or me and anyone else. I’m just going to be alone. Rest of my life.
What’s the point of even locking me up? Might as well just bury me, cause I ain’t even alive no more. I really ain’t.
The van’s going left right left through the traffic just like normal but there’s no windows and I get the weirdest feeling. Ain’t like the van’s going forward at all. Not backward neither. I can feel in my chest and my heart and my legs what’s really happening cause that van it’s more like a lift, and we’re going down and down and down. Straight down. Stop for a bit at traffic lights. Then off we go again. Down and down.
A Brazilian team of researchers calculated . . . that hyperactivity occurred in 5.29 per cent of the world’s childhood population . . . as explained . . . in the American Journal of Psychiatry. According to the commentary which accompanied the article, such findings gave weight to the status of the disorder’s ‘identity as a bona fide mental disorder’ . . . and weakened assertions that hyperactivity was a ‘fraud propagated by the profit-dependent pharmaceutical industry’ . . . This was despite the fact that the study itself was funded in part by pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, for whom one of the authors, Silva de Lima, works as medical director. Two of the other authors were on the board of Eli Lilly and had ties to many other pharmaceutical companies, receiving funding from them and serving on their speakers’ bureaus.
Matthew Smith, Hyperactive: The Controversial History of ADHD
THE JOURNALIST
I was hardly surprised that the mayor cut me out of the meeting with Blaze. It was the walk in and the walk out that was the story. There wasn’t anything to be gained for him by having his conversation with the kids reported. If he went in alone, he could spin the meeting however he wanted. Plus, it was a visual thing. The walk into the warehouse, facing down danger, the brave maverick peacemaker, that’s what he was selling. I would have spoiled the pictures.
The politics editor was the only one who guessed he might go in. The mayor wouldn’t even have to achieve anything by it. If he could just cross the no man’s land in front of the police lines, get through those doors, then walk out again after longer than a couple of minutes, his image would be transformed for ever. He’d have something the PM wouldn’t be able to buy with a million-quid advertising campaign. If he could pull it off, he might begin to look like . . . well, a man. Once and for all, he’d draw a line between himself and the pampered, lily-livered toffs that constitute the rest of his party. For Hugo Nelson, that was an irresistible prize.
So when he comes out, even though it’s my story that set the whole thing up, I’m just part of the crush along with every other journalist in the Western hemisphere. Cameras clack frantically the moment the warehouse door slides open, but it takes us a second or two to realise what we are seeing. When we do, a surge of hysterical amazement sweeps through the crowd.
First out is the mayor, alongside an ill-shaven thirtyish white guy who blinks in the light and staggers as if his legs are barely strong enough to carry him. It’s the hostage. He’s wearing what at first looks like a lurid suit, but as they get closer, it becomes apparent that he seems to have been spray-painted. Graffitied. The mayor, perhaps remembering how scenes like this are supposed to look in movies, takes the hostage’s arm and pulls it across his shoulders. Together, they stumble forward.
But it’s not the sight of the hostage that gets people staring in disbelief. It’s the mayor’s hair. Or, rather, lack of it. The whole lot has been cut off. Apart from a few straggly tufts above his ears, every strand of that famous blond hair has been hacked off, which perhaps explains the look of dazed uncertainty on his face, poised somewhere been, ‘This is the greatest triumph of my political life,’ and, ‘Never before have I looked more of a prick.’
Directly behind the mayor and the hostage is Blaze, head held high in a posture of swaggering defiance. A second or two after Blaze comes into view, five other kids, four boys and a girl, emerge at a sprint. Unlike Blaze, they don’t follow the mayor but attempt to run round the side of the building. This kicks the police into action. A swarm of them sprint towards the kids, catching them within seconds and shoving them to the ground.
Blaze doesn’t attempt to run away, but he is also pushed to the concrete, patted down and cuffed. He seems calm, oddly detached from what is happening to him, but when he sees what the police do to the other five, he starts shouting and thrashing.
The other kids yell and struggle as they’re shoved into police vans and driven away. The mayor ignores the kerfuffle behind him and walks towards the TV cameras, still supporting the weight of the hostage. To the side I notice a paramedic edge towards them, but the mayor grips the rescued man’s arm. He isn’t letting go just yet.
He clears his throat. ‘Ladies and gentlemen of the press,’ he says. ‘It is with immense relief that I stand here, knowing I have managed to negotiate an end to this appalling kidnap. Mr Paxton has shown immense courage throughout his ordeal, and I’m pleased to report that he is in good health and looking forward to reuniting with his family. For myself, you . . . you may have noticed a slight change in my appearance. Well, these children, these exemplars of the feral youth who have been allowed to terrorise the honest people of this country for far too long, insisted on extracting their pound of flesh. Or hair. Perhaps they thought this would constitute some kind of revenge, or humiliation. Well, I may get it neatened up a little, but I plan to keep my hair in this style, not as a badge of humiliation, but as a badge of pride. Pride that I will not be intimidated by the
lurid aggression of today’s youth. Pride that I intend, for the rest of my political career, to stand up to these people and face down this problem once and for all. It is time for a little less understanding, and a little more punishment. If you’ll excuse me, this has been a challenging day. I shall be taking questions tomorrow.’
As his car drives away, a sense pervades the crowd that we have witnessed the defining moment in the career of a future prime minister.
The editor orders me back to the office, not to file, but to celebrate. This is sure to be the story of the year. Everyone involved is expected for drinks after work. A glass of wine in his office for a select few, then, no doubt, a general exodus to the pub.
In the course of the evening, I discover that yearning for recognition and praise does not, to my surprise, produce the ability to enjoy them when they arrive. If my ego had been commissioned to script a shamelessly self-glorifying scenario, this gathering would have been it. The editor is so effusive with his compliments, I’m almost embarrassed. Colleagues who’ve been ignoring me for years buy me drinks I haven’t even asked for. I seem to have acquired an aura of temporary celebrity, with everyone wanting to greet or congratulate me.
They may well all be slagging me off behind my back – they are journalists, after all – but being on the receiving end of admiration (and even just civility) feels like a transformation of my fortunes. Yet I don’t truly enjoy one moment of it. I feel fraudulent, insincere and guilty – not because my career fillip is undeserved, but because the whole enterprise, and the glory associated with it, feels corrupt.
I can’t forget Blaze. While I’m being toasted and feted, he is in a cell. I can’t forget what he was shouting to the mayor: ‘We had a deal. We had a deal.’
Nobody else seems to have noticed this, or wondered what that deal might have been. There was no mention of it in any news reports. Blaze and his gang have been portrayed as ruthless thugs deserving of the most severe punishment.
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