Naked City

by Anthony Cropper

  I’m pleased with the way we’ve started. I decide to keep up the momentum by getting them all to do a crime survey. It involves a series of questions, such as Have you ever driven over 30mph in a 30mph speed limit area? Have you ever used your work phone for personal calls? Have you ever taken stationary from work? Of course most have done one thing or another, and since most of the things on the list carry a maximum six months prison sentence for theft or fraud, or a £5000 fine, cumulatively one or two of them are looking at a prison stretch of a couple of years or more or heavy fines.

  ‘I get it,’ says Andrew. ‘We’re all criminals, right.’

  I smile.

  ‘Well I knew that anyway about myself,’ he continues, ‘I spent six months in the nick as a kid, but I never went back.’

  ‘That must mean you’re either a reformed character,’ I say. ‘Or else you’re a better criminal than you used to be.’

  ‘Neither,’ Andrew retorts, ‘just a sad, old bastard. Excuse the French.’

  ‘You don’t look that old,’ says Tracy.

  ‘We can’t comment on the sad bastard bit,’ joins in Dave, laughing.

  ‘But you wouldn’t get in trouble for these things would you?’ asks Karen, the other prison officer. She’s a big woman, very imposing and she looks you right in the eye when speaking. I’ve noticed Paul eyeing her up already and we’ve only been here half-an-hour.

  ‘Well you know, you’re right. It usually only happens in extreme cases,’ I say. ‘There were a couple of blokes at a local tyre manufacturer that were ripping off tyres for months before they got caught. They should have stopped, but they got greedy and the company were on to it. But anything taken from work is theft, and it gives some employers the opportunity to get rid of employees if they want to. I can imagine some unscrupulous firm wanting to get rid of staff, but not wanting to pay out redundancies and using theft of company property as an excuse.’

  I’ve got them, they’re all nodding their heads, pondering. Donna’s impressed I can see. Her eyes are on me. I need to think of something erudite to say now.

  ‘As Aristotle once said The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet. And if you believe that,’ I say, ‘you’ll believe anything. We’ve shown that we’ve all broken the law, but we don’t regard this as deviant behaviour. Thus as I said before, you can quite easily be a criminal, but not a deviant.’

  At break time I have a chat to Barbara. She works in the Magistrates court, showing people around. But I think she’d really like to live in the Crown court, she seems to spend most of her spare time there at any rate. She’s a latter-day Madame Lafarge.

  ‘Ooh I’ve seen some trials in my time,’ she says, ‘but my greatest regret is not being able to see the Yorkshire Ripper.’

  ‘Oh yes, I can understand that.’ I say. Though I tell her not to worry, there might be another serial killer coming up in the future that she get can get tickets for.

  ‘If I’m lucky,’ she says. Paul chips in. He’s wandered over from the other side of the room, spilling half of his tea on the way.

  ‘But what about all the poor buggers that’ll have to die for you to see some Court action?’ he says.

  ‘There’s always a downside to everything,’ answers Barbara.

  ‘Any views on how they should go?’ adds Andrew.

  ‘I’d favour garrotting,’ says Paul. ‘Bring back Fu Man Chu.’

  ‘Alright gang, let’s get back to it,’ I say.

  I’m feeling quite powerful now, the warm-up in the toilet must have worked. The mantra is seeing me through. It’s time to move on to the next level – think Peter O’ Toole in Lawrence of Arabia decked out in white with the golden desert and blue skies behind him. A powerful thought. Wait a minute though, now I’m thinking of him being molested by José Ferrer.

  ‘Right everyone,’ I say banishing the thought from my head, ‘a little exercise, I want you to name three criminals that you admire and a couple that you don’t.’

  ‘I can’t think of any,’ says Andrew. The rest of the group set to it and come up with an assortment of gangsters, except Tracy who has named Muhammad Ali. Interesting choice I tell her.

  ‘Yes, he was cast as a criminal for refusing the draft and not going to fight in the Vietnam war,’ I say. ‘Villain or hero, it’s not clear cut is it?’

  Criminals that the group didn’t admire came more easily, Hitler, the Moors Murderers, Dennis Nilson, Peter Sutcliffe, Harold Shipman and other mass murderers, serial killers and assorted nutters.

  ‘Will we be doing about serial killers?’ asks Donna. I don’t want to disappoint her. Between two buttons of her blouse I can just see her bra and a bit of flesh. Christ I’m a right perv.

  ‘Yes, we’ll certainly touch on it,’ I say. ‘Actually before we move on, let me ask you all some questions. See if this describes you.’ I nod and wink in Donna’s direction.

  ‘Are you a compulsive masturbator?’ I don’t stop for the sniggers. ‘Are you a chronic liar? Do you wet the bed? Are you rebellious? Do you suffer from nightmares? Do you like setting fire to things? Do you have a poor body image? Do you have temper tantrums? Do you have sleep problems? Do you have phobias? Are you cruel to animals? Have you got an eating disorder? Do you daydream?’

  ‘That sounds like me,’ says Andrew.

  ‘Quick everybody, I say, ‘get out of the room now, come on, we have a serial killer in our midst.’ This time I do stop for laughter, but there isn’t any. ‘No, this information has been taken from a study involving a number of imprisoned serial killers in America. It actually charts the childhood behaviour traits amongst serial killers. Anyway it leads us on to the next question Are criminals born or made? Have a think about it for a couple of minutes and discuss it in pairs.’

  They’re chatting away, that’s good, gives me a bit of time to think what to say next. It’s a painful process for me. I really need some help to plan more effectively. When I was in training, another student and I were asked to cover a class at the last minute. The proper teacher had just phoned in sick. We were both panicking, but his was outward and mine inward. I just got on with it. Afterwards he said, I wish I had your ability to be spontaneous. I said, the problem is I’m only spontaneous because I’m so shit at planning, I have to do things on the spot because I only ever have a basic grasp of what I’m going to do beforehand, and it’s frightening at times.

  ‘Some people are just born bad,’ says Barbara. ‘They’re evil.’

  ‘Others might become criminal out of circumstance,’ adds Tracy. ‘It could be through poverty or whatever.’

  ‘Right’ I say, ‘what we have looked at today is the act of crime and that of deviance. Crime is not set in stone. One person can kill multiple victims and be locked up for the rest of their life, another can kill many more and be lauded as a great soldier or flying ace. Some things in the past which were criminal are no longer so, such as homosexuality or having abortions. There are other things that have become illegal but were not in the past, such as the use of drugs particularly of the class A variety. Remember Sherlock Holmes and his seven per cent solution. Having sexual relations with girls as young as twelve would be seen as abuse today, but would have been quite normal in the past. Regular acts of discrimination towards different ethnic groups and women were perfectly acceptable before the late sixties and early seventies. Racial Discrimination and Equal Opportunities/Equal Pay Acts made those practices illegal. How we identify criminals changes over time and from place to place. Can we therefore say that criminals are born or have some genetic quality that marks them out as law-breakers?’

  ‘It does become a little less straightforward,’ says Anne. ‘But surely the likes of Hitler, dictators are evil and born that way?’

  ‘Hitler perpetrated a holocaust against a nation of people,’ I say, ‘but he is not alone in this. In both the ancient and modern world, many civilizations have been wiped out by conquering or ruling forces; the Carthaginians by Rome, the Aztecs by
the Spanish, the Native Americans by the United States. Tens of millions of Africans were enslaved by the British and Americans, many of these were killed or died in transit across the Atlantic or on American plantations. Aborigines and Maoris in Australia and New Zealand have suffered at the hands of new occupiers. Stalin killed millions of Russians in purges, human decimation has occurred in Kampuchea, Rwanda and countless other places. Mass murder has been a constant in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Are those responsible for all these things evil, or is it the nature of the world they live in, one of violent domination and subjugation?’

  When the world is an insane place, show me the benefits of sanity, I think.

  ‘So,’ says Andrew, ‘you’re saying criminals are made?’

  ‘Well I would say that criminals are made by their own society’s definition of what constitutes law-breaking. And there we have to leave it.’

  Time’s up. I finish by telling them that we will be starting to look at some explanations next week, and the origins of criminology.

  They look pleased enough as they leave. Of course the big test is whether they come back again next week.

  Afternoon…

  I decide to go for a quick drink. There’s a new pub recently opened down the road and it’s selling cheap beer at the moment. When I get inside, I see Paul at the bar, he’s just getting one in.

  ‘How do?’ he says.

  ‘Not bad,’ I say. ‘What you supping?’

  ‘John Smith’s,’ he says.

  ‘Is it alright?’ I say.

  ‘Aye, not bad.’ he ask.

  ‘Good, I’ll have one,’ I say. Jesus Christ the art of conversation is far from dead.

  ‘Have you been in here before?’ I ask.

  ‘Aye,’ he says. ‘There’s a stripper on on Thursdays, I came in to watch her shake her tits.’

  Thursdays, I thought. I’ll have to make a mental note of that. I could be passing and call in on Thursday. If anyone sees me I can say, I don’t believe this, I’ve just come out for a quiet pint and I’m faced with this. It’s disgusting, it’s degrading to womanhood. Yes very…

  I get Paul one in. He gets me one back, then I get off. I’m on the bus home, but I’m bursting for the bog. I know I’ll never make it home, so I nip in the local to use the facilities. Whilst I’m there, I get a drink in. I say it’s my local, in the sense that it’s the closest pub to my home, but it’s not a place you’d find me very often. Anyway I’m in there a few hours and I’ve seen it go from empty to full, from the old brigade having a drink before they go home for their tea and telly to youngsters having one on their way out for the night. Here I am, neither young nor old, slowly getting pissed before going home to face a pot noodle – great. I wonder what Donna’s up to? I wonder if I should get a few cans from the shop and a dirty mag to have a wank over? I check my pockets and upon finding only £2, decide to have one more drink here then bugger off.

  A Dog in a Bag

  Michael Stewart

  – Hi, how was work? Liz was looking at the TV as she spoke.

  – OK. There was a man with a dog in a bag on the bus this morning.

  – Really. Her eyes still aligned with the set. Andrew threw his coat into the corner of the room and closed the door behind him.

  – Sshh! She pointed to the baby-chair where their daughter was sleeping.

  – Sorry. Has she been asleep long?

  – She’s been skriking for over an hour, she’s just gone off.

  He loosened his tie and continued with the day’s itinerary unprompted. – Then, when I got off and walked up Church Street, a van stopped at the crossing. An old green van. A man was driving it, an old grey man. And sat next to him, you’ll never guess what.… She didn’t respond, her eyes were directed towards the TV as before.

  – …A woman. In a pink dress and jet black hair. Only it wasn’t. It was a mannequin. It was a mannequin sat next to the man not a woman, and he’d dressed it up in a fifties outfit.

  – Really. She did not look away from the screen.

  He came and sat down next to her. – What are you watching?

  – Jerry. She moved some magazines and papers to make room for him, placing them on the coffee table automatically.

  – What’s it about?

  She looked over at him for the first time. Their eyes didn’t meet as he was now watching the TV.

  – It’s about couples who have no time for sex. They’re wanting to spice up their sex lives, so they’ve made these home videos.

  There were two couples sat in a television studio on a podium in front of a studio audience. Dennis and Jackie, the couple on the right, were talking about a film they had made with Jackie dressed as a French maid. A short extract is played with Dennis on a hotel bed being attended to by Jackie in a skimpy maid outfit. As she bends over her red silk knickers are visible. He slaps her behind. She squeals. Jerry then introduces us to Richard and Charlene, who are sat to the left and have been enacting a film script of Tarzan. We are once again shown an extract. Charlene is bikinied and rubbing oil on the exposed part of her chest. Richard is gyrating in a leopard skin loin cloth to the sound of ‘Wim Away’ by Tight Fit. Jerry now asks for volunteers from the audience to go to a hotel and film themselves having sex.

  What Jerry wants to know, is whether this couple from the audience will do things on film that they wouldn’t do ordinarily. We’ll find out after the commercial break.

  He picked up a paper from the coffee table and turned to the classified column. He mulled over the adverts, before reading out loud, – box files, twelve, 50p each…Why would anyone advertise that?

  No response.

  – How about this: four thousand boot and shoe laces, assorted colours, £300… He turned the page. – Hey, this sounds good: two first-class return tickets with Delta airlines, to any destination in the world, from any UK airport where Delta fly…£120.

  She nodded blankly.

  He skimmed the rest of the column. – Aggressive roller blades? Leslie speaker? Ransom potato spinner? Balk tank? Still no response. – I haven’t got a clue what any of this stuff is, have you?

  The show was starting again. He lowered the paper, half-watching, half scanning the classified columns.

  – Hi, welcome back.

  Jerry recapitulates. He asks the question he left the viewers with at the end of the first half, this time to the couple from the audience who are now seated in the centre of the podium, with Dennis and Jackie to their left and Richard and Charlene to their right. They are called Marvin and Sandy.

  Marvin: – It makes it more better.

  Sandy: – You know why? He directed the whole time, he told me what to do, where to go, everything.

  This gets a laugh from the audience. Of course there’s a point to all this: ‘Video Sex – How to Transform Your Sex Lives’ by Dr Andy Peterson. Marvin sums up the profound benefits of this to the audience: – Ahr think you folks should awl go buy this video… Shee worz dooin’ thangs ahr never seen done before… The audience clap and cheer in approval.

  It’s back to Jerry for the final thought: – Lights, camera, action! You may not win an Oscar but you might win a spouse. It’s two thumbs up for Dr Peterson, and heaven knows what else!

  Andrew went back to reading the classifieds. – Terran trade authority handbooks, full set required, will pay up to £30 if in good condition…What the hell are Terran trade authority handbooks?

  She turned to him, suddenly remembering. – Hey, guess what I discovered today?

  He looked up from his paper. – Eh?

  – This thing…She took hold of the baby intercom. – It picks up next door.

  He put the paper down. – How do you mean?

  – Well, they’ve had a baby girl too, haven’t they, a few weeks after us. They must have one of these as well. They’re really sensitive, you can hear every word over it. There’s two channels see. She showed him the switch underneath which determined the channel.

&nbs
p; – How do you know?

  – She had a sleep this afternoon, so I had it turned on, and I must have had it on the wrong channel. At first I could just hear her breathing. But then she woke up and started crying, and I thought, that’s not our baby. It was a different sound, more high-pitched. I was just about to go into her room when I heard this voice, her voice next door, through the speaker, talking to her baby girl.

  He smiled to himself. For some reason he found this amusing. But then, – Hang on, if we can hear them, then they must be able to hear us, right?

  – Yeah, I know, I’ll have to go round later and explain, make sure we use different channels.

  She seemed disappointed at this. He stood up and went to the door. – Fancy a drink?

  She shrugged. – What you making?

  – Whatever.

  – I’ll have whatever you’re having.

  He began to open the door. She called him back as he was leaving the room. – What’re you having?

  – Probably a beer.

  – I don’t want a beer.

  – Well what then?

  – Something cold and long.

  – I’ve got something hot and long… He winked at her.

  – Don’t be disgusting.

  He left the room.

  They ordered a couple of pizzas for tea, neither Andrew or Liz were in the mood for cooking. While they were waiting for them to be delivered, she went next door to have a word with Emily and Derek about the intercom. When she got back the pizzas had arrived and he handed her the hot box. She sat down beside him and they ate slices of soggy pizza as they stared at the Big Brother contestants on the telly.

  – Well?

  – Well what?

  – Did you tell them?

  She had told them and they had explained that, although they had an intercom, they didn’t use it to listen to the baby, but instead as a night light, as it was a superior model to theirs and had this additional function. The baby was still in their room, see, so they didn’t need it yet as an intercom. The receiver in Liz’s intercom must be extremely sensitive to be able to pick up stuff, when they weren’t even using it as an intercom, they all agreed. Liz told them that she wasn’t able to hear anything properly, just that it lessened the reception. She agreed to use it only on a different channel, they seemed happy about this. She hadn’t stayed long, but long enough to notice how nice they had got the place. She was telling Andrew this. He was listening as he chewed the mozzarella substitute cheese caught between his teeth.