Ruin Nation

by Dan Carver

  Amidst these people and countless other blights on the face of the Earth, you’ll see me. I’m scowling at something, I expect. I’ll be in a bad mood. Because I’ve never liked Knightsbridge. I’ve never liked anywhere in central London. I can’t stand the crowds and their constituent components: the Sweaty Blockers, the Random Gropers and the Terminal Fuckwits; not to mention rogue priests, perverts and psychiatric patients with blades – sometimes all three in one convenient package.

  I hate the Beautiful People; the headless chickens in their black-market designer labels. And I truly despise the wannabes in their counterfeit designer labels, topped off with ridiculous baseball caps. I don’t understand why they choose clothes over their children’s food.

  This whole circus... it’s all artifice, the illusion of status. The fact we’re here to celebrate Industry is beyond laughable, beyond contempt. There’s cash to be had machining poor quality firearms, but that’s about it. The last new product manufactured in this country was Bactrian. And I made him.

  Well, we’ve got a fantastic stage for today’s events: a massive, raised platform nestled into the bombed-out ruins of a twelve-story department store. The whole front face of the building is missing, the upper floors long since collapsed and the roof open to the heavens like some square Coliseum. The blank, glassless windows on the back and side walls glow like bloodshot eyes, streaming light from the poisonous red sky. At weekends, they use this place for hangings.

  Today’s Bactrian’s big test, and we’re making things easier for the big, dead lummox by getting the press absolutely blind drunk. Because the last thing we need are sober photographers.

  I’ve avoided the hospitality tent, trying desperately not to avail myself of the free drinks. Instead, I station security there to push people back in if they look anywhere near sober – kind of reverse bouncers.

  Now back to that big stage: I can see Dordogne, Bunnyfroth; and there’s Shelley-Tewks, wringing his hands and weeping silently into a handkerchief. I'm in position, way up in an opposite building, clutching binoculars and a radio control handset. Calamari, stationed at the sound desk on the other side of the street, turns and gives me the thumbs up. We're live in five. I flick on my switches, push the twin control sticks forward and Bactrian's distant body stiffens. I inch his wheelchair forward. He ascends via a ramp, flanked by the goons from my car journey. And then it occurs to me: the platform’s so high and the goons so big that the audience can barely see the former Prime Minister. Clever Malmot, I think to myself. And what’s this I can hear? It’s one of those mass-produced public relations women I mentioned a while back, the ones with a clipboard instead of a left nipple, briefing the hammered reporters:

  “Before we start, guys, they’re not gonna tell you this officially, but Bactrian’s had a stroke. It’s no biggy. We don’t want you to make a big fuss of it, guys. But that’s the deal. That’s why he’s in the chair, guys. He’s still all there, up top, but you might find him a little, kind of…immobile. So don’t you go too hard on him, guys, because you won’t win friends picking on cripples.”

  I hear Malmot’s lies on the tip of her tongue and it makes me laugh. Only this morning he told me:

  “The wheelchair? Why, it’s an absolute godsend. It’s a politically correct bullet-proof vest.”

  As I might have mentioned, we’re a cynical, cynical organisation. Is two ‘cynicals’ enough? No? Well, add a third. Then add a fourth when you discover Malmot’s added further distractions in the form of a number of Z-list celebrities. We’ve got Dougal ‘Pretty Boy’ Hamstrung, the hunky presenter of a house makeover programme; Patty Rankle, who once played a busty barmaid in a long forgotten soap opera, and Dave Cosmos. God knows what Dave Cosmos does.

  Bactrian starts to talk. I’m not sure what he’s going to say because Malmot edited the tape from previous speeches. And how's he going to pre-empt the questions? Where’s he been? South America? Why’s he come back? The Ceesal hoax? Then back to South America again. How were Elvis and Hitler?

  Well, we’ve been smart enough to scramble the public address system, treating the audience to a chorus of static hum and feedback. And it seems we have someone else on our side: God. For once.

  I’ve been willing the sky to crack open for some time. Now it’s happening. And what kind of downpour will we get today? Acidic, that’s for sure. But will it be Nitric, Carbolic or our old friend, Sulphuric? Well, whadaya know? It’s Sulphuric! And I figure it’s time for this young gentleman to find some cover. And I watch the heavens open from the shelter of a doorway with no room attached. And I see the rain sluice the streets of suits. Acid rain: the disinfectant man created to wipe out his own bacterial presence.

  “God pisses on all of us,” says a kindly faced squatter, white bearded and trying to relieve me of my wallet.

  “Especially you,” I say, as his fingers find the fishhooks in my pocket.

  Rain pours down and down, forcing herds of human cattle into the indoor market and the reassuring arms of consumerism. But I’m happy just watching.

  The individuals who brave the storm, threading their way through the caustic raindrops – where are they going? And why challenge the rain to do it? I frame them with my fingers. With the purring water to silence their words, they lose their place in time and the mundane scheme of things. They become iconic. Knightsbridge in the rain is beautiful, a sea of rippling reflections; wet, kinetic and dangerous, like the sex you always dreamed of. It’s a place of little mysteries; commonplace intrigues lent myth by the rain’s filter. I could learn to love it.

  Well, the questions did come up but Calamari had the fantastic idea of shoving a walkie-talkie under the dead man’s shirt and answering them himself. So, no doubt, there was a degree of political ranting with a violent sexual subtext. But, do you know what? Nobody cared. They all were too busy thrusting out their jaws and presenting their best sides to where they thought the photographers were. I guess it must’ve been hard to tell from way up on stage, but the entire press contingent were busy vomiting in a ditch, stricken with alcohol poisoning. You see, you give me a job and I do it well.

  So the mission’s been a complete success. We’ve passed off a carcass as a living dignitary. Now for Stage Two: the destruction of democracy.

  We’re charging down the motorway in a tour bus that looks like a huge, black whale. An armour-plated whale, if there is such a thing. The few vehicles on the badly-maintained road, they get out of our way. Fast. We’re not slowing down for anything, even potholes. We hit bomb craters and structural fissures, and we scud out of them like a shark breaching some shitty, tarmac ocean. We’ve got the goons in the back. They love it. They say it feels like flying.

  “Enjoy it while you can!” Calamari snaps. And then he turns to me with a look that could boil water. “Irregulars. Fucking ‘Brownshirts’. They call themselves police, but they’re little more than thugs. I wouldn’t bother getting to know them. They won’t be around for very long.”

  I’m not used to conversing with Calamari. He makes me nervous.

  “Why are they here?” is all I can think to say.

  “Just a little extra business,” he says warily. “Why the sudden interest?”

  “I’m nosey,” I answer.

  “Then you should consider becoming a spy,” he hisses, and then snarls when I him ask what the pay’s like. It’s a double bluff on my part. I’m wondering if he knows about my deal with Calamine.

  Night falls and I’m lying in a tiny bunk, wondering what kind of organisation I’m a part of. We’re a curious mix of military, secret police and thugs. This isn’t usual. Why would a man with an army at his command send out a team of civilian yobs?

  Well, all will become clear – or, at least, clearer – later. Now, respect the frailties of an old man, will you, and stop the recorder. This ageing carcass requires the bathroom.

  * * *

  “A day off?” I can’t believe it.

  “Time off for good behaviour,” says Elt
on. He's been drafted in as message boy.

  “Where’s Calamari?” I ask.

  “We’re to pick ‘im up from Chiquita’s on Dirtygirl Street. It’s easy to find, ‘e says. It’s situated directly opposite a massive mobile telephone mast, an’ the hookers in the window wear radiation suits. ‘E says ‘e’ll be inside, ‘briefin’ female agents. Till then, you’ve got the day ter ourselves.”

  So I end up nursing a beer I have no intention of drinking, in some roadside hellhole somewhere, with Elton trying to impress the goons. The atmosphere’s surprisingly convivial and he takes the opportunity to get all gynaecological about a Bulgarian exchange student he once had the pleasure of – ‘Strong jaw muscles,’ being one of the cleaner comments.

  “She was a big star on the Squelchin’ scene,” he says.

  “Squelching?” roars a thug. “Is that like Sploshing?”

  Elton rubs his hands together, warming to the topic. “Totally, totally different, my friend. Sploshin’ involves mess: mud, paint, custard pies an’ the like. With Squelchin’, well, it’s a purely sonic form of pornography, wiv the emphasis on the sounds produced.”

  I’ve mentioned Elton’s creepy voice before. Now we’re hearing his creepy thoughts.

  “What’s the point in that?” sneers the thug and makes some joke about “Not seeing no ‘points’ at all”.

  “The thrill comes from yer interpretation of the sounds,” Elton explains. “Yer own filthy imagination!”

  “But, surely you could fake it?” I ask.

  “Real aficionados can tell. Different parts of the body ‘ave distinctive acoustics, which the trained ear can distinguish between.”

  “Uh huh?” says I. Maybe my tone conveys more than intended.

  “You're judgin' me!” he protests. “But it ain’t my idea. The Equal Opportunities Commission dreamt it up. They thought the porn industry discriminated against the blind and put the first tapes out as talkin’ books.”

  “Interesting.” I say. “So how do you get into the industry?”

  Elton thinks for a second.

  “‘Ard work an’ a big resonant chamber!”

  Time and drinks pass. The drinks get shorter and more potent whilst the group get shorter and more impotent. And the talk gets plain stupid.

  “It’s funny,” says somebody, “but all over England scores in Languages and Maths exams fall but Chemistry grades go through the roof. It’s so they can [belch!] …It’s so they can manufacture their own drugs.”

  “It’s good to see children planning ahead,” says another.

  “Damn right,” agrees a third. “But I wouldn’t want my kids doing it. No way. No kid of mine’s gonna earn more than his father.”

  We decide to hit the town or, more accurately, nose around the crack dens on our isolated stretch of road. We fail to find any amenable women so we move on. We check out the local landmark, the great, grey, steel-girdered remnants of a bridge and note that it’s been hit by an aircraft: an airship, we reckon from the billowing fabric. A mangled propeller creaks above our heads, spinning like a pinwheel in a nest of wreckage, and it’s decided that I should climb up into the dark shards to check for survivors. Now, I’m no fool. This isn’t about survivors. It’s a test of nerve. So I figure I’ll climb up just high enough to get a better look, shout down some juicy details (severed limbs, that sort of thing) and then shimmy down, home and dry, with a little credibility in my pocket.

  So I’m shinning my way up some bit of structure; I can’t recall what exactly, but I remember it being cold to the touch and scaled with jagged rust flakes. The shitty, brown river’s squirming I don’t know how far beneath me, and I’m thinking, what the Hell am I’m doing? And then I know what I’m doing. I’m falling. And I don’t see my life before my eyes. I just see black.

  I figure the World mustn’t want me in it anymore. It’s trying to suffocate me beneath an avalanche of pain. I feel like my eyes have been soaked in lemon juice and tapped back in with a mallet. There’s agony in other places, too, but the concussion’s got me, scrambling the signals to my brain, so I don’t know what does and doesn’t hurt from one minute to the next. I could cheerfully die. And, when I finally open my lead-weighted eyelids, it seems I have. I’m face to face with Jesus.

  Now, if you’re familiar with me and my beliefs, you’ll know I have no problem with the Big J. I think he had some quite intelligent things to say for himself and wouldn’t recognise the corrupt, misogynist cult that was created in his name. He certainly wouldn’t appreciate his posthumous rebranding from religious firebrand to soppy proponent of castrated love. It would make him sick. That’s why I burned all his churches down.

  However, that bullying piece of shit he calls his father is another kettle of fish entirely. So I figure I’ll extend the hand of friendship to Mr Christ but, if talk turns to his wanker Dad, well, I won’t be pulling any punches.

  I ask what’s going on. He says nothing. I ask again, but the Risen Lord remains unobliging. He has an oversized fingerprint on his forehead. That’s unusual, I think to myself.

  “Moving in your mysterious ways, are you?” I ask. But Jesus isn’t moving at all. He’s six inches high and made of plastic. And he’s attached to the wall in front of my face. So it’s a disappointing conversion back to atheism for yours truly.

  I’ve woken up in bed in a white room with clean linen and clean underwear. I don’t appear to have been interfered with in any way.

  Now a good practice, when waking in a strange environment, is to examine the ribcage for stolen organs. It’s wise to check that all your parts are present and correct before accepting breakfast. Lucas taught me that. It’s whilst executing these basic checks that I look down and discover a terrifying anomaly: Jesus again, staring blankly from the region of my crotch.

  What kind of mentality puts the face of the Messiah on the front of a pair of y-front underpants? One slip of the contents and it looks like Jesus is sticking his tongue out.

  “Christ!” I accurately observe.

  I can’t find my clothes, so I wrap myself in a sheet, noting that, although I may not’ve lost a kidney, I’ve still got a pretty nasty gash on my side. I make for the door. The sticky handle slips in my fingers. I figure it’s blood from the graze on my palm. But the gashes’ve scabbed over. And there’s blood on the handle, clear as day. I feel a chill creep up my back, a chill that grows and grows as I twist the knob and nothing seems to happen.

  But the door’s not locked. That was my worry and I’m glad to be proved wrong. I step out onto a dark landing. I reach out for the ivory white banister and I scream silently. What my bleary eyes took for the handrail turns out to be a scrawny arm. And that arm retracts, lightening fast, into the hunched figure of possibly the most peculiar person I’ve ever seen.

  Christ, it’s repulsive – almost rodent-like. But what sex is it? I can’t tell from the black, basin-cut hair. It watches me from dark sockets, twitching its head like a housefly.

  “Fuuuuuuuuck, you’re ugly,” is a thought that shouldn’t get said out loud, but does.

  The creature’s response is surprising. “Yes, the good Lord has gifted me rather idiosyncratic features. Not for me the sin of vanity.”

  I don’t know what to say. I’m still feeling woozy. I’m unsteady on my feet. I reach out to steady myself on the actual banister, but it’s further away than it appears and I fall flat on my face.

  “Sorry,” I say, picking myself off the floor, “but since I left Jesus, I’m having problems with perspective.”

  The little creature’s face takes on a thermo-nuclear glow. “Yes! Yes! I know! Jesus puts everything into perspective!” And it raises its hands to the sky, flinging blood from bandaged palms up the wall and all over me. I dry retch, thinking of HIV and hepatitis.

  Now I’m nervous. I decline the offer of a dirty handkerchief and wipe my face with the sheet. I laugh awkwardly. The creature turns and beckons me down the creaking stairs. What can I do? I’m not armed. I fo
llow at what I think is a safe distance, through a bead curtain and into a pine-floored room. The walls are bright white and bloodied, red handprints everywhere. What isn’t spattered or smeared is Jesussed. I mean, it’s got a picture of Jesus on it. If The Lamb of God isn’t starring beatifically from over here, then he’s starring beatifically from over there, usually above some ditty declaring his greatness whilst ignoring his dislike for anything resembling a graven image. Handmade pro-God tapestries adorn the few surfaces the Big J. hasn’t got to and Mary, Mother of God, gets a look-in on a cushion cover.

  Getting haemorrhoids on that hard floor – God forbid they sit on the Holy Virgin’s face – sit two more creatures, imploring the gigantic Jesus above the mantelpiece for assumption. They’re small, spindly and I could probably snap them with one hand. But they’re still truly terrifying.

  They say God heals the sick. He also recruits them. Four more creatures sit in four wheelchairs, systematically gouging themselves with kitchen equipment. The most senior of these figures looks up from the steak knife embedded between the radius and ulna of his left arm and saws – in, out, in, out – to the sickening sound of tearing sinew.

  “Good morning,” he purrs. “You’ll forgive us for not greeting you… en masse, but we find the stairs so much trouble, these days. Our piety has left us somewhat debilitated. But I trust Novice Peter has been taking care of you?”

  “Yes, Elder Adam,” Novice Peter replies, tugging the forelock of his appalling haircut. “But soon I hope to be a cripple, too, Lord willing.”

  It’s not a recognisable word that comes out of my mouth.

  Elder Adam wheels forward, leaving burgundy daubs on his tyres. He’s so close I can feel the heat from his decomposing mouth. “Well then,” and he reaches into his cardigan to produce my papers. “Well then, young Hugo…” and he taps my photograph with the talon that sprouts from his bandaged mitt, “welcome home, brother.”