by Dan Carver
“You weren’t so subtle last night.”
“That was nothing to do with me.”
“But I heard you outside.”
“Maybe you did,” he says with an edge to his voice. “In which case, you’ll have heard me describe his methods as pointless bluster; you’ll also have heard me explain that you’re already on side and need no further coercion; you’ll have heard me voice my disapproval. You may not have heard me telling the lads to go easy on you but I assure you – if I hadn’t, you’d be in a much sorrier state now.”
“My hand?”
“Yes. I was told to break it.”
“But you didn’t. Well, er, thanks for that.”
“Don’t thank me, it’s just common sense. They wanted you put firmly in your place – but you don’t hire an artist and then break his fingers before he’s finished the job. That’s just backwards. It’s plain dumb. But that’s the kind of mentality we’re dealing with here. They don’t think things through.”
He seems frustrated, and I get the feeling I’m being told a little more than I should here. So I do what anyone else in my situation would: I nod my head sympathetically and hope he spills some more.
“So this Malmot: he’s the head vampire?” I prompt.
“And we’re all expected to bite a few necks,” he laughs mirthlessly. “But I choose my necks carefully, you see. This is the thing, though: I can’t guarantee your safety unless you return to work. Because whilst I’m aware that you know comparatively little, it’s still too much. And if you’re not in, you’re out, so to speak.”
“And what’s in it for me?” I ask. “I mean, in being ‘in’?” And I’m starting to sound like he is.
“Well, you’re still eligible for the company funeral plan. Now that can be a wooden coffin in fifteen years time or a shallow ditch tomorrow. Your choice.”
“And, by being ‘in’ I stay ‘out’ of the ditch?”
“I swear, you get smarter every day, Jupiter! Glad to have you back on board!” And he claps me on the back like a drunken uncle.
Meanwhile, I’m wondering why he had to fry my house to tell me this? So I ask in some roundabout way and he tells me that the key to efficiency is commonsense and a flexible command structure. But certain parties have their ways of doing things and perhaps those ways could be handled with a little more finesse.
“Malmot wants you to report to him directly. This puts you in an ideal position to observe him and the way he goes about things. He’s a secretive man, you see, and some of us feel we’d benefit from a greater degree of transparency, a little more information to help us go about our business.”
He phrases it so eloquently.
“That’s all?” I ask.
“That’s all.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“It is.”
“But he kills people. And I don’t doubt you do, too!”
“We do what’s necessary to ensure the smooth running of our country. It’s no different from any other business. We just retire a little more violently.”
“I don’t like this.”
“Mr Jupiter, of the few emotions you seem to possess, which is stronger? Your fear or your greed? Or, perhaps, it’s your lust? You know, I can get you ten women at the drop of a hat. Clean women who’ll pretend to like you.”
“I have a wife who does that.”
“Unconvincingly. I can get you a new one.”
“Can you get rid of the old one?”
“If you say so. But we’ll go back to your greed for the moment though.”
“Let’s.”
And it doesn’t take long to settle on large quantities of cash and clean water.
“I can finally sober up,” I tell him.
“I’m counting on it,” he says. “I’m sick of working with lunatics and drunks.” And he makes some hand gesture at a man up a telegraph pole. And the lights spark back to life. And the man, slips, falls and breaks his leg.
“See what I mean,” Calamine sighs. I can see why they call him Calamine. He's strangely soothing.
So I’ve just taken delivery of a consignment of fresh H2O. What’s the first thing I do with it? I’ll give you a clue: I don’t drink it.
England has the lowest birth rate in Europe. There are many reasons for this. Reduced fertility, miscarriages triggered by poor nutrition, gas clouds full of oestrogen turning men fruity, they all play their part. But our main problem is the water. It’s dirty and diseased and it isn’t safe to wash in. So we don’t. And we honk like rotting lepers. That’s one of the main reasons our society’s falling apart, why our divorce rate’s virtually one hundred percent. Because the English are too repulsive to have sex with each other.
It’s not funny. Relationships thrive on intimacy. How intimate can you get with someone you can smell from the other side of the door?
The Department of Propagation run coach trips. For a small fee, they’ll run you to the coast. If you don’t mind a bit of pollution, you can hose each other down in seawater and conceive in the ocean. Of course, the French know exactly what we’re up to. They steer their boats up to edge of the minefield and shout at us through megaphones:
“Hey, Cow Burner! ‘Allo, Cow Burner! Hey, farkin Little Mermaid! Are you ‘aving sex with your wife? You must smell pretty bad to make your ugly babies underwater! Come to France! We sell you some soap!”
Our prostitutes wash in beer. Rachel wouldn’t because she was too tight with money. So the first thing I do with my water is pour a bucket of it over my head. Then I go straight to Lucas’s house and give Laura a sponge bath.
The rest of the water goes into storage in the garage. I cover the containers with a tarpaulin, rig a shotgun cartridge to a trip wire and run it across the doorway. There are men pretending to be from the electric company putting new surveillance equipment into my house and I watch one working with a suspicious look on my face.
“Why are you putting a camera in my bedroom ceiling?” I ask. The guy installing the stuff, he starts lying to me, telling me the camera is a ‘power regulator’ or some such crap. I let the matter slide, and our man walks out thinking he’s got one over on me. But I know exactly what it is.
So the afternoon finds me strolling through the market stalls in the Westminster ruins. I thread my way between the punters and the spivs and the tables laden with fripperies that no doubt somebody died for somewhere along the way. I see people selling the clothes they stand in. I see people selling the clothes other people stand in and employing various nefarious tactics to obtain them. I’m wearing a stab-proof vest, a cricket box and, just for devilment, I’ve got Velcro bands holding rings of inverted fishing hooks in my pockets. I snag two ‘dippers’ and send them off squealing with their hands bleeding and my bootprint on their backsides.
Eventually I find what I’m looking for. And what’s in my bag? Why, it’s the camera. And who wants to buy it? Why, the self same guy who installed it in the first place.
Because my life cannot follow any logical path, my workshop’s transformed itself into a dental practice. I walk in. I walk straight out again. I don’t remember a waiting room. I don’t remember a receptionist. I don’t remember the people queuing up to register. I’ve packed in drinking and it occurs to me that I may be having a seizure. Then Calamine steps out wearing a surgical smock.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Sometimes,” he says, “it’s just not worth explaining.” And he doesn’t – just leads me into a room. I walk into what I think was my fibreglassing area to find an increasingly manic Calamari masked and holding pliers, with his boot on a fat man’s chest. He appears to be extracting teeth. Or, at least, attempting to.
“But it looks so easy on television,” he cries, his voice like a suppurating wound. He clanks something into a kidney dish. “You, boy! You were a surgeon!”
“Not a dental surgeon,” I say hesitantly.
“Don't be a sissy.. Come over here and rip this man's teeth
out!”
“Mmmfff, mmmnnnffff!” insists the chair-bound man through a mouthful of cotton wool.
“Or I could just punch them out, Sir,” Calamari offers, “but where would the fun in that be?” And he croaks like a blood-spattered gargoyle, rolling his dilating eyeballs. “No. Let the boy do it! He skinned the body, didn’t he?”
“With respect, Calamari,” says Calamine, less-than respectfully, “let's leave it and get the real dentist back in.”
“But that's just defeatist talk.”
“Jupiter's got the shakes today,” Calamine continues. “First day on the wagon. Probably seeing pink elephants. Bad time to let him near anything with major arteries.”
“Why? He looks like he’s used a mop before.”
“With respect, this was meant to be a purely recreational activity. It would be best if we kept it non-lethal.”
“Oh, to Hell with you, spoilsport!” And he throws down his instruments and stamps what’s probably a cloven hoof. “I thought this would be fun! Well, damn it!”
There’s a muttered exchange. I don’t know what’s said, but the fat man’s unceremoniously ejected into the waiting room – his mouth still stuffed with cotton wool and whatever else seemed necessary at the time – to mutter gas-addled nonsense at people so desperate for dental treatment they ignore him. Calamine may be playing the voice of reason in this charming little vignette, but he’s in no mood to be nice to yours truly. Calamari smiles mirthlessly, miles away in some dream world of violence and rough sex. Where’s his morals I wonder? But, given I’m experiencing the delirium tremens and not one hundred percent sure I’m even awake, well, you could accuse me of splitting hairs. Calamari seats himself in the dentist chair and swivels his body and pickled onion eyes toward me.
“I’ve been promoted,” he tells me, to Calamine’s obvious chagrin. “And this is my little celebration. We’re experimenting with the notion of Fear,” he explains – failing to explain anything. “Or, at least, we were. It seems someone here present doubts the validity of our endeavours. Someone who wasn’t promoted because he couldn’t be trusted to follow procedure.” He glares at Calamine who shuffles grumpily. “But I’m not a bitter man,” he spits unconvincingly, “so I’ll let it slide this once. …Just this once.”
“Thank you, Sir,” says Calamine through barely-suppressed contempt.
Calamari clutches a sheath of papers in his claws. He flicks to an index card and holds it up to the vari-tint lenses of some uncharacteristically geeky half-moon reading glasses. I imagine what a fat, muscular owl would look like if it was plucked and you crayoned bulging veins all over it.
“So I guess you’ll be wondering what this is all... about. Well, I don’t think I’ve truly got the measure of you just yet, so let’s see what you’re all about first, shall we? Now, I’ve got your file here. Let’s see... Hugo James Jupiter. Pompous name for a peasant, isn’t it? Born June the blahdy blah, year two thousand and blah, blah, blah. Mother, deceased – death by… Death by… Well, that’s a Hell of a way to go isn’t it? Saw the whole thing did you? Bet that screwed you up?”
“Yes,” I answer. “It’s fair to say it did.”
“Father, deceased. Also insane. That figures. Grandfather, pyromaniac. Three convictions for fire-raising, including the burning down of a butcher’s shop. Now why would someone want to burn down a butcher’s shop, I wonder?”
“I was told he was some kind of militant vegetarian.”
“You mean, ‘militant vegetarian, Sir!’” he spits. I look to Calamine. He shrugs. I figure it’s better to play along.
“Militant vegetarian... Sir!” I say, the words rankling.
“You see, I doubt that,” he continues, “because, according to this piece of paper, he was apprehended carrying a toasting fork and a large bottle of tomato ketchup.”
“I have nothing to say to that... Sir.”
“Wearing a ‘Kiss The Cook!’ apron.”
“I didn't know that.”
“Age ten to sixteen – children's home. And then you were adopted by your Aunt, a Madame Salome. Now, I’ve heard of her.”
“Lots of people have, Sir.”
“Popular lady.”
“Again, I…”
“Have nothing to say, yes.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, I have nothing to say.”
“But this school report does: ‘Young Mr Jupiter excels at Art, Biology and Arson.’ Seems the apple never falls far from the tree. Well, I hope you take after your mother’s side, Jupiter, or you’ll be tucked snug in a Laughing Jacket before you’re thirty. But, by the looks of this… it seems you’re halfway there already. Hey, Calamine! Are you sure this guy’s up to it?”
“Psychological assessments suggest he’s not mad. Just deluded and amoral. He’s also contradictory and prone to acts of dumb insolence.”
“Not too dumb, I see. You went to university.”
“I did, Sir.”
“And you studied... Hang on... I thought you were an army surgeon?”
“I was, Sir.”
“But you studied Veterinary science? Specialising in – what’s this? – ‘Pachyderms?’ What’s a pachyderm when it’s at home?”
“Elephants, Sir.”
“Why in Hell’s name would you want to specialise in elephants?”
“You have to specialise in something, Sir.”
“And does it help you in your everyday life?”
“Not yet, Sir, but there’s always hope, Sir.”
“And then you enlisted?”
“Not exactly.”
“Conscripted?”
“I was press-ganged, Sir. I got whacked on the back of the head with a bottle and woke up in a Tesco battalion during the Battle Of Newcastle. When they found out what I was, they sent me out patching up the war horses, the attack dogs and the carrier pigeons.”
“So how in Hell did you find yourself operating on soldiers?”
“We ran out of food, Sir. We ate all the animals. Well, I still had surgical experience so they gave me a couple of textbooks on human anatomy and set me to work on the squaddies.”
“So you're not a qualified doctor?”
“I am, Sir. Just not a people doctor. Which is why I can't get medical work in peacetime.”
“Ah!” Calamari exclaims. “I did wonder. I was thinking you'd been struck off. You know... wandering hands... that kind of thing.”
“No, Sir.”
“Speaking of which, you’re married aren’t you?”
“Yes, Sir. Just about.”
“But no children. Pansy are you?”
“No, Sir.”
“Sterile?”
“It’s a possibility, Sir. Most people are these days.”
“We can get that checked out,” says Calamine, sliding sarcasm beneath Calamari’s radar.
“Good. We need all the breeders we can get. Even peasants. Now it says here that you’re a Nazi sympathiser.”
“No, Sir!”
“Oh, I forgot. It’s not terribly politically correct these days, is it? You like to be called ‘fascists’.”
“No, Sir. I’m not a fascist.”
“But I was told specifically and I mean specifically that you were. You own several books on the Third Reich.”
“I own books on crocodiles but I’ve never chewed off an antelope’s face.”
“Jupiter!” Calamine barks. “‘Never chewed off an antelope’s face, Sir!’ is what I think you meant to say.”
Is he joking, I wonder, because I’m losing track here.
“Yes. Okay. Fine. Never chewed off an antelope’s face, Sir! Never laid an egg either. Not to my knowledge.”
“Well, that’s a shame because we were thinking about going in a Far Right direction and we wondered if you might be able to tell us how to go about it. …Hah! Only joking. That was a joke. But, seriously, what’s your problem with fascism?”
“I’m not big on genocide, Si
r.”
“Oh, I see. Not got a foreskin, have we?”
“I…”
“Sir!” Calamine interrupts, “If his genitals are an issue, I’m sure we can get them checked, too.”
“Fine,” says Calamari.
“And, if his foreskin is a problem, we may be able to provide a replacement.”
“Yes, that's fine!” Calamari snaps. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not taking my seniority seriously?”
Suitably admonished, Calamine laughs into his hand. Calamari turns to me again.
“What are your political beliefs, Jupiter? Do you even vote?”
“Yes, Sir. Always.”
“Really? I mean, you surprise me. Tell me… who do you vote for?”
“Sorry to say, Sir, everybody except your lot, Sir!”
“Well, at least you’re honest. …Because we do keep records and I hate liars.”
“But I will be voting for the government in future, Sir.”
“That’s appreciated, Jupiter. But I’ll let you into a little secret, shall I? In all those years you were voting for everyone except the government, did anyone except the government ever win?”
“No, Sir. They… No, they didn’t.”
“Well, actually, Jupiter, they probably did. It’s just we took all their ballot forms, shredded them and fed them to pigs. Perhaps, not every year. Sometimes the turnout was so low we’d win with just a pair of mad old lesbians. But most years, I’d say, our elections were as crooked as a crackwhore’s labia.”
I’m cautious when I ask: “But surely that’s corruption, Sir? The same as lying? And you said you hate liars? And you made a kind of hand gesture like a gun, to imply you shoot them.”
“And I do. I strap them across the barrels of field artillery and blow them into the sky. But electoral fraud is different. By physically destroying opposition votes, we ensure a physically greater percentage of our own. Now argue semantics all you want, but a greater number of votes is a win in anyone’s book. And that’s not dishonest. More a kind of delayed action truth. And it doesn’t matter if we bend a few facts to get there.”