by Owen Sheers
He paused, as if expecting the word to trigger us again; here, in the same place where just two days earlier a young woman had been shot as she shouted out that same word. But no one shouted now. No one started a chant. He’d caught us all off guard, and he knew it.
Allowing himself the slightest of smiles he moved on again, pacing around the stage.
‘One of these men,’ he said as he walked. ‘Says that over the five years we’ve been working here, we have given the town no choice. The other man says personal choice is all that matters. He wants us to live in a different way. Without families, without work. Without homes. Everything should be shared, nothing owned. Well, today I am going to give you a choice. Because at the end of this trial, one of these men shall walk free. And the choice as to which man walks will be yours.’
Spinning on his heel he turned to face Barry. ‘Name?’
Barry’s head had been hung low but he lifted it now, showing us all the black swelling of a bruise shutting one of his eyes.
‘Barry,’ he said. ‘Barry Absolem.’
The Company Man pointed at him. ‘Were you,’ he asked, ‘the bomber behind the assassination attempt on Friday?’
Barry turned to look at him. ‘It wasn’t a…’
‘Answer the question!’
‘Yes,’ Barry said, turning away. ‘Yes I was.’
‘And what is your argument, Barry?’ The Company Man turned to us now, to the crowd, opening his arms. ‘You may speak to the people.’
We all looked at Barry. Was he really giving him a chance? Was there really a possibility ICU would let a bomber go free over a Teacher? A man who’d done nothing but forget, listen and help us remember? Barry obviously didn’t think so. If he had, perhaps he’d have tried to defend his actions. As it was, he just explained them.
‘Well, it’s not right, is it?’ he said looking straight back at the Company Man. ‘You say you’re here to help us, but you don’t. You use us. You deal in mineral prices, share prices, markets. Everything about us, here, is decided elsewhere. It’s all about the Company men now, not the working men. We’re just a product to you, a product with a sell-by date. And when that date comes, you’ll just get rid of us all together.’
He turned to us now, to the crowd. ‘But we’re not a product, we’re people. And people don’t have a sell-by date.’
The Company Man laughed. Perhaps he didn’t mean to, but he did. ‘I think you’ll find they do, Barry,’ he said. ‘It’s called death.’
But Barry wasn’t going to let a cheap joke take away his point. ‘Not if they’re a town,’ he said, his voice choking in his throat. ‘A town never has to die.’
The Company Man shot him a look. As if he realised he couldn’t play this one by halves. Pointing at him again, he strode back towards him.
‘You strapped an innocent woman with explosives. Then made her walk into a crowd of men, women and children!’
‘But I didn’t detonate them, did I? You will. When the time comes you’ll press the button on this town. You already have! Look at all the people thrown out of their homes!’
The Company Man jumped on that one. ‘They will be given new homes.’
‘But it should be their choice!’
A murmur of approval ran through the crowd. The Company Man sensed it. Knew if he was going to go for the kill, then the time was now.
‘You want to know about choice, Barry?’ he said, narrowing his eyes and getting in close to his face. ‘There are easy choices and hard choices. The fact is that we make the hard choices for this town. The difficult choices people would rather not make for themselves. As for the easy choices, well they seem to like the choices we give them. The subsidised food. The free Xboxes in Company homes. The Company fuel tokens and cars. If they really cared about what you’re saying wouldn’t they speak through the choices they make, Barry? You don’t want to defend their choices, Barry. You just want to defend the past, that’s all.’
Holding the silence after his last word for a second he quickly spun away from him and paced to the other side of the stage. If Barry had an answer to that, he wasn’t going to hear it. He’d had his chance, slim though it was. And now it was gone.
‘Name?’ the Company Man asked walking up to the Teacher.
‘I don’t know.’ His voice was calm, as if someone had asked him the time.
‘They call you the Teacher.’
‘If you say so.’
The Company Man nodded, as if taking the temperature of his answer, weighting how to play this. ‘You have been charged with leading a revolt against the Council and the Company,’ he said, strolling away from him. ‘And of planning insurrectionist activities. Is this true?’
‘If you say it is.’
Another intake of breath from the crowd. Why did he say that? We all knew it wasn’t true. The Company Man was filling the Teacher with his own fears. He turned to look at the Teacher again, obviously as surprised as us.
‘What is your argument Teacher?’
‘I have no argument.’
Again the Company Man looked wrong-footed. He’d prepared his debate, his points. But how was he meant to execute them if this man wouldn’t defend himself?
‘Alright,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll tell the people your argument.’
Walking to the front of the stage he addressed us, his eyes flicking for just a second to those two women and the little girl in their nightdresses.
‘You believe,’ he said, pointing at the Teacher. ‘In the breakdown of society. In tearing up the social contract. You say that everyone is of the same value, regardless of their contribution. You don’t recognise the family unit, the importance of work, of money, or economic wealth. You say little to your followers, but expect them to give up everything. Is that right?’
The Company Man was good. He didn’t sound as if he was accusing the Teacher, more trying to understand him. But he was clever too. He was framing what the Teacher was and while his words made sense there, up on stage, we knew they bore no relation to what had happened over the last two days on the streets, in people’s houses, on the mountain.
‘If you say so,’ the Teacher replied again.
‘Why did you come here?’ the Company Man asked. His tone was different. The question was real, instinctive. He really wanted to know. ‘Why did you come back?’
At last, the Teacher turned to face him. ‘To listen to the truth,’ he said.
And there it was. A word he could grasp at, a word he could use to engage his argument. ‘But whose truth?’ he asked. ‘What truth? It’s like what I said to Barry. You’re ignoring the fact that we, the Company, deal with the hard truths. The unpalatable truth. If these people want a certain way of life, then certain compromises have to be reached. You know that. We deal with the truths ordinary people don’t want to even look at!’
He addressed us again. ‘Where is your power going to come from tonight? How will you call your cousin, hundreds of miles away? How will you afford your weekly shop? How will you keep warm in the winter? It’s the truths of these questions that we deal with, Teacher.’
Extending his arm he pointed directly at his face. ‘Are those the truths you came to hear?’
‘No.’
‘At least he’s fighting to protect something,’ the Company Man continued, gesturing to Barry now. ‘To protect the town he knows. You, you’re more dangerous than that. You’re not protecting anything. You just want to break everything up.’
The revelation in his voice seemed genuine. As if it was only now, standing opposite him, that the Company Man really understood the threat the Teacher posed.
‘But you need him, don’t you?’ the Teacher said. ‘And he needs you.’
The Company Man stared at him, incredulous. ‘Why would I need him?’
‘Because he challenges you, and that justifies what you do.’
‘And you don’t challenge me?’
‘No. I make you unnecessary.’
It was like a
punch to his stomach. I swear, I saw the blood drain from his face there and then. He went to answer, but for once he was lost for words.
‘I see you,’ the Teacher said. ‘I know your story.’ Silence. The whole civic centre tensed with anticipation.
‘And what,’ the Company Man said, half swallowing his words. ‘Might that be?’
The Teacher returned his gaze, calm and steady. ‘You are afraid.’
The Company Man looked down at his feet and took a deep breath. Everyone will say different but for me that’s when the dice were rolled. That’s when the choice was made. I saw it in his eyes when he raised his head and looked at the Teacher again.
‘Am I?’ he said. ‘Well, let’s see. Let’s play this by your rules, shall we? I want to give the people of this town a choice today. But not by a vote. Everyone knows a vote can be rigged. And that’s what you’d say, isn’t it? That I loaded the crowd. So how would you do this? Maybe by giving the choice to just one person? One innocent person. Because everyone’s choice is as valid as anyone else’s, isn’t it?’
Turning to the crowd he scanned the front rows, a twitching smile at the corner of his lips. He had a plan; I could tell, and I didn’t like the look of it.
‘You,’ he said, pointing to someone in the crowd. ‘You, the girl in the blue jumper. Can we get her up here please?’
I turned to the big screen, saw the camera run along faces until it landed on a little girl. She couldn’t have been more than seven or eight. Then some hands came in and picked her up. I looked back to the stage just in time to see Old Growler carry her up the steps and put her down in front of the Company Man.
‘Hello,’ he said, kneeling down to her height. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Katy,’ she said, her voice carrying on his lapel mike. She was wearing an oversized blue hoodie, the sleeves rolled up to show her small hands. I’d seen it somewhere before, but I couldn’t think where.
‘Well, Katy,’ the Company Man continued, one hand on her shoulder to reassure her. ‘I don’t want you to be nervous. I’m just going to ask you three questions, is that alright?’
She nodded.
‘Just answer as truthfully as you can. Can you do that for me?’
She nodded again.
‘Ok. Well, let’s start,’ he said as if about to read her a bedtime story. ‘Katy, do you want to carry on living with your family?’
‘Yes,’ she said, her voice small and clear.
‘Of course you do. And do you want to live with them in your house? In your home?’
‘Yes,’ she said again, nodding. I looked at the hoodie, racking my brain where I’d seen it before. And then I remembered. On the beach, that morning, when the Stranger had dressed him. It was the hoodie the young lad had given him. And then again, right here, when the woman was shot. The Teacher had taken it off and lain it over her. It was his hoodie, on this girl. Suddenly, knowing that, I felt better. Perhaps, just maybe, the Company Man wasn’t pulling the strings on this one after all?
‘Last question Katy,’ he said, giving her a warm smile. ‘And in that house, would you like to keep all your toys, your TV, your games?’
She paused, thinking for a moment. But we all knew what was coming. The poor girl was just that, a little girl, and these question were ridiculous. Ridiculous and yet terrifying. ‘Yes,’ she said eventually, returning his smile.
‘Thank you Katy,’ the Company Man said. ‘Thank you very much.’ He stood up, giving her a pat on the head. ‘A big hand for Katy everyone!’
As she was taken back down the steps the Company Man took a deep breath as if to say, ‘that was a close one, but now we’re back on track.’ He looked out over the crowd.
‘The verdict has been delivered,’ he announced. ‘And it is a good verdict. The freed man might be reckless, dangerous even. He is certainly outdated, but at least he is fighting to protect what you have here. At least he is trying, in his way, to keep things together.’
Without looking at him he pointed to Barry. ‘Free him.’ Immediately Old Growler’s men went to him, removing his cuffs. Barry looked down at his wrists trying to comprehend what was happening.
‘This one,’ the Company Man continued, pointing with his other hand, arm outstretched, to the Teacher. ‘He’s yours.’
Then he turned to look at him. The Teacher returned his gaze as the Company Man spoke again. ‘Make an example of him,’ he said. ‘In the old way.’
As soon as he spoke word became deed. Before the Company Man had even turned away Old Growler’s pack dogs were on the Teacher, sweeping him off the stage in a black swarm of body armour, helmets and gloves. Maybe the Company Man hadn’t known which of the two men would be charged that day, but Old Growler, he’d always known who he wanted. And now he had him.
They dragged him through the crowd and into the shopping centre. The camera followed but it was no use; he was gone. Someone else though suddenly found it. A pair of hands grabbing the lens and swinging the image towards their face.
‘I know him! I can vouch for him! I’m his follower!’
It was Peter, shouting into the lens, crying, screaming what he hadn’t said just twelve hours earlier. But no one wanted to listen. Not even Growler’s men.
‘I am!’ Peter cried, as the screen went blank and he was swallowed by the crowd. ‘I am!’
When the screen flickered into life again it took a few seconds before we realised what it was showing. The images were coming from inside the shopping centre now, taken on a camera phone. But this was no accident, no leak. They wanted us to see this. They wanted us to watch as Growler’s men went to play on the Teacher’s head, body and face. As they tore his skin with the soles of their boots. As they broke his bones with their fists and their knees. As they showed him who he was to them. Which was nothing, nothing.
And then we heard it too. The Teacher’s screams, echoing down those empty corridors, between those silent shop-window dummies, their blank faces looking on as he got free of their hold, staggered away, slipping on his own blood, only to be caught again and beaten again under the cheerful smiles of holiday posters.
It was all too much, too much. Where had this come from? Behind me I could hear the screams of his mam as her other sons dragged her away. The cries of the Legion Twins, rocking and rocking behind me as they discovered the beautiful world he’d given them could be darker, more cruel than anything they’d ever known before.
And it was too much for Sergeant Phillips too. After a minute of that footage up on the screen he broke ranks and ran towards the cordon of ICU security guarding the entrance.
‘Let me in!’ he bellowed at them. ‘Let me in! This is my town, my jurisdiction!’
But it was too late. Everything was too late.
Shortly afterwards one of Growler’s men came out, clipped off a run of barbed wire, then went back in. None of us wanted to know what they were going to do with it, but it was the barbed wire that really told us, when they finally emerged again bringing the ravaged Teacher with them, what this had all been about. Power and fear.
They’d crowned him with it. Someone in there, no doubt Old Growler himself, had taken the time to weave that wire into a crown, then push it onto the Teacher’s head, so hard the barbs scraped against his bone.
‘Your king!’ Growler shouted to us as he held up the Teacher by the scruff of the neck. ‘The king of your town!’
Shoving him before him he began to walking back to the police van. ‘You!’ he shouted to Sergeant Phillips. ‘Bring your men. Follow me!’
He turned away again and walked three or four metres before he realised Sergeant Phillips hadn’t moved. ‘I said,’ he shouted back to him. ‘Follow me!’
Sergeant Phillips stood taller. Old Growler passed the Teacher to one of his pack dogs, then strode back to face up to Phillips. ‘That,’ he said, ‘was an order.’
Sergeant Phillips stared down at him. Then, slowly, he lifted his hand to his head, removed his beret and threw it
to the floor. Old Growler looked at it, then looked at the rest of Phillips’ men. One by one they all did the same, until there was a litter of berets at their feet, like dark petals shed across the civic centre’s floor.
Growler didn’t wait to see anything else. Turning on his heel he strode back to the van, hit it twice on the side, and then they were gone. They had taken him.
You’ll hear all sorts of stories about what happened next. But so few people were there it’s hard to know which are true. So I’ll just tell you what I heard, what people were saying in the days and weeks after, about what they did to him.
About how they’d taken him to the stonemason’s yard up by the road to watch his own gravestone being carved.
How the mason had asked him his name and when he hadn’t answered how Old Growler had said ‘he’s forgotten,’ and how that’s what the mason carved – FORGOTTEN.
How they made him a new crown, from brambles this time, and how they pushed its thorns into the wounds made by the first.
About how they’d made him carry his own cross from there to the front. About how Old Growler had said, ‘History, wasn’t it? What you taught? You should enjoy this.’
About how when he fell strangers came to help him.
How the Company Man had watched him stagger back into the civic centre, bent double under the weight, splinters in his back.
How he’d seen enough, so left with Growler and the rest to take up their front-view seats for the show.
How when he entered the shopping centre, everything changed.
The women of the town had made it theirs.
When Growler had taken him, they’d come. No one had called them, they’d just arrived, from streets and houses all over town. And after they did, they’d begun cleaning; washing his blood from the walls and the floors. And then they’d waited.