A Handicap of the Devil?

by Allen Lyne

  An elderly lady pensioner on her way to poker machine heaven at the casino, who, widowed three years, lived a boring life in a one-room bed sitter, and whose children had abandoned her, and who rarely had anything out of the ordinary in her life, and who lived vicariously through television soap opera, called out. “Speak up. We can't hear you down the back."

  Jonathan thanked her and attempted to increase his volume, which simply sent his voice into a much higher pitch and did not increase the volume at all.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, I am here this morning to bring you a message from God."

  "From who?” Called the woman at the back, who had a much louder and better carrying voice than Jonathan.

  "From God, thank you, madam,"

  "Did he say he's got a dog? What do we care if he's got a dog?” The woman was indignant at the lack of drama. This would have been much more exciting if it happened on ‘Neighbours'.

  "I said God, madam, not dog. I don't have a dog, thank you."

  "What did he say?” The woman nudged the man next to her.

  "He said he doesn't have a dog."

  "Then what's he talking about a dog for? Whose dog is it if it isn't his?"

  "No, no, he said he's got God,” shouted the man next to her.

  "Has he? He doesn't look like he's got God to me. Nor a dog for that matter."

  Mercifully the train pulled into a station, and Jonathan dwelt a pause as several people got on and joined the rest of the straphangers. The carriage was now quite full, and it was impossible to see everyone from where Jonathan stood in the centre of the carriage.

  Jonathan was casting about for ways to begin again, when a pimply-faced young straphanger solved the problem for him. “You say you've got a message from God,” he called, causing a number of people to groan and one avid reader of the sports section to call out ‘shut up'.

  "Yes, thank you,” Jonathan shouted back. “I'm on a mission from God, actually. He has told me to tell people that we all have to live better lives, or he's going to end everything."

  "What does he want us to do?” called out a lawyer in a suit two sizes too tight for him. He had collar length greasy unwashed hair and had not shaved that morning.

  "Yeah.” The man sitting next to him, who was similarly attired and groomed, except that he had shaved, ‘though badly. “What does he want us to do? Stop listening to nutters on trains?"

  There was a ripple of laughter through the carriage. It was not going well.

  "Please listen to me. Let me tell you the gist of the message. You can choose to believe or not, but at least hear me out.” The train was rapidly approaching the next station. Jonathan knew he had to get his message across quickly or he would lose his audience completely, especially if more people joined the already crowded carriage.

  "God wants me to tell you that unless things change, he won't wind the world up again.” Not many people heard him because of the noise, but those that did hear laughed. All except the two men in the badly fitting suits with the greasy hair.

  "He demands that we all live better lives, stop the killing, the raping, the carnage."

  "I don't kill no one,” called out a man in a brown sports jacket.

  Several people agreed that it wasn't them.

  "How can we stop killing and raping and whatnot if it ain't us what's doing it, eh?” The man in the brown sports jacket had never had an audience before and now he was warming to the attention. “What's he talking about, eh? Accusing us of murder and things. I never murdered no one, though I must admit I've thought of topping the boss once or twice."

  There was another ripple of laughter as Jonathan tried to reassert himself. “No, he doesn't mean you personally. He means we have to stop the wars and all the violence."

  "I ain't started no wars, neither,” shouted brown jacket.

  "But don't you see? It all starts with us. If this carriage full of people goes away from this train and convinces everyone we know to lead better and more peaceful lives, we could eventually change the world if the message kept spreading."

  "We lead peaceful lives already,” shouted a woman.

  The man who was still trying to read the sports section lowered his paper. “We lead peaceful lives when there are no nutters on our trains."

  "Give him a go and let him talk,” shouted the pimply youth. The woman next to him gave the pimply youth a shove causing him to tread on the foot of the man who liked the sport's section who let fly with an oath.

  The woman who shoved the pimply youth was getting wound up now. She was a pensioner and no one had offered a seat. Her arthritic legs were giving her hell. “Tell him to shut up more like it. I've got my own beliefs, and I dare say we all have. Who's this idiot to tell us what we should and shouldn't do?"

  "Yeah,” shouted her best friend from a seat nearby. “Who's he to tell us to be more peaceful. We're peaceful already. I don't go around murdering people, or raping them."

  Jonathan was becoming desperate. “Please, it's a very simple message. No one thinks anyone here is responsible for all the evil things that go on in the world. But we must put pressure on our governments to live in harmony with people of other religions and other races. It's really simple. The message is that we must learn to love one another."

  "I'd like to love you, sweetheart.” The man who hadn't shaved leered at a stunning looking green-eyed red head in a business suit sitting opposite to him.

  "You shut your big mouth.” A biggish man strap-hanging near the red head knew her well. They worked in the same office, and he fancied her, although she never gave him the time of day. This was his big chance to impress her.

  "Pull your head in,” said no shave, at which juncture the biggish man lifted no shave out of his seat and hit him, causing his nose to bleed. The lawyer sitting next to no shave stood up and kneed the biggish man in the genitals, causing him to double up in agony and fall into the pimply-faced youth who fell into the woman who had her own beliefs, causing a domino effect.

  Jonathan, who had never thrown a punch in his life and did not know how to, managed to squeeze through the wrestling crowd and hid right at the back of the carriage with the old lady who thought he had a dog. Jonathan was frightened but not of being hurt himself. He was frightened because of the feeling, the passion, in the very air around him.

  The red head, who had been in a bar-room brawl or two in her time, took off one of her stiletto heels and hit the shaved badly suited man in the eye with the sharp end of the heel. He cried out in anguish as he reeled back and fell onto the wrestling pile of bodies that was already down and trying to regain their feet. He managed to get up. Someone threw a punch and knocked him down again as the train flew around a tight bend and knocked even more people off their feet. Noshave punched the person who had punched his friend. That man's friend punched noshave. And so it went until the entire carriage was a wresting, punching and kicking mass of bodies that exploded from the carriage doors as the train pulled into the next station.

  The fight spilled onto the station concourse. People waiting to catch the train from that station became involved by default as fists, elbows and knees collected them.

  The train driver called the police on his emergency hand radio. He refused to move the train until they had cleared the station of the fighting and wrestling throng—who continued to hurl insults as they were taken away in the police cage wagons.

  Jonathan and the old lady, who was still wondering about his dog, managed to make their way off the station and caught a cab to the city before the police arrived to break up the brawl.

  And so it was that the 7.27—second carriage from the end of the train on the Blofield West and beyond to the city line in the morning—was never the same again. For more than seventy years the 7.27 had plied its way from Blofield West and beyond to the city with rarely a harsh word uttered and never a punch thrown. Now all that history of peace, goodwill and bonhomie went for nothing. Many people began catching an earlier or later train if they we
re able to work it in with their commitments. The pensioners to a man and woman caught a different train every second Tuesday. Some passengers got into different carriages on the same train. A number of people continued in the same carriage but apprehensively. Nobody in that carriage passed the time of day with anyone else after the events that took place on the morning Jonathan tried out his preaching skills.

  To Jonathan it didn't matter much. He got into a different carriage on the few mornings that he ever caught the 7.27 from Blofield West again.

  Chapter 10

  Lawyers Go The Knuckle

  People arriving at the railway station in the city were surprised to find a tall, balding man handing out pamphlets near the southern exit. They were even more surprised to find that the pamphlets proclaimed the tall balding man to be the Messiah. Most people screwed the pamphlets up and threw them in the nearest rubbish bin, but a few put them in pockets to be read later.

  Jonathan stood on the pavement outside the railway station whistling tunelessly as he went about his task. He had run the pamphlets off on the office photocopier the previous afternoon before leaving work. An attractive woman with a ponytail wearing rather severe black business attire took a pamphlet. She put on a pair of black horn-rimmed glasses, read the pamphlet, and then watched him for some time from the other side of the street. She looked vaguely familiar, but Jonathan couldn't place where he had seen her before. After a few minutes she went away.

  A scruffily dressed pot-bellied man of Middle Eastern appearance took a pamphlet and handed Jonathan a card at the same time. He spoke impeccable upper-class English. “I say, if you're handing these out without a permit, you'll get locked up don'tchaknow? Let me know if I can be of service, old boy.” He walked quickly away throwing the pamphlet into the bin as he went.

  Jonathan looked at the card. The legend on it read: I. Faarkham, solicitor. Jonathon put the card in his pocket. “Ambulance chaser."

  A woman took a pamphlet and threw it into the same bin as she walked away. Several people refused to take them and others manoeuvred as far away from him as possible as they passed.

  Oh well, nothing good ever comes easily.

  The arrivals had slowed to a trickle and Jonathan looked nervously at his watch. It was 8.40, and he realised that he would have to quit in a few more minutes and then run to be on time at work.

  Just a few more minutes. A man and a woman walked past and ignored the offered pamphlets.

  And then it happened. He suddenly found himself surrounded by a group of people who pushed and pulled him as they shouted insults. Where they came from he didn't know, as he had been unaware of their approach. There were both men and women, and the men were dressed for the most part in suits that did not quite fit properly. The women were power dressed, and one of them lost a shoulder pad in the fray. They were chanting ‘fake, fake, fake, fake', and Jonathan was sprayed with evil smelling spittle from their unclean mouths as the shouting increased in volume. Someone wrenched the pamphlets from his grasp and flung them onto the footpath, to be whipped this way and that by the chill winter's wind.

  "Here, that'll be enough of that.” Salvation in the form of two police constables was at hand. They literally threw bodies off Jonathan until finally they stood, truncheons drawn, in the centre of the circle of angry faces. They kept Jonathan between them as they faced in either direction and threatened the crowd with their truncheons.

  "Back off, back off,” they both shouted. The mob, not wanting to tangle with the law and more particularly with their truncheons, gave ground, until there was a reasonable distance between them and the police. The chanting subsided and all was suddenly quiet. Most of the people involved in the fracas moved quickly away, but the braver among them stayed. The policemen relaxed a little as they realised that they had controlled the situation and quickly. This would look good on their reports—quelling a mini-riot outside the North Terrace Railway Station in no time flat. They knew that the police security cameras were recording all.

  "What's going on here? What's this all about?"

  "This joker here is a fraud,” piped up a scruffily dressed lawyer with a three-day growth of beard and greasy collar length hair. For indeed that is who had attacked Jonathan, a mob of lawyers put up to it by Jones P. senior and alerted by I. Faarkham. They had descended on the station to attack him the moment they heard he was handing out pamphlets. They were one of a number of flying squads from lawyer's offices around the city organised to move at a moment's notice to subvert any moves that Jonathan made.

  "A fraud, eh?” The first policeman gave Jonathan a hard look. “And how's that, sir? Has he taken you and the rest of these people here down for money then?"

  "Has he, now?” The other policeman growled, looking at Jonathan and tapping his baton on his palm.

  "I have done no such thing. I was simply handing out pamphlets when this bunch of louts and ruffians set upon me."

  "Louts and ruffians?” The shorter of the two policemen looked the mob over. “I recognise several lawyers amongst this group of people. Upstanding citizens all. Let's hear it from you lot, then. What's a bunch of lawyers doing attacking a pamphlet person on North Terrace, eh?"

  "Have a look at the pamphlets he's handing out and you'll know the reason why."

  "Yeah, he's telling everyone he's on a mission from God."

  "We're all good Christians here, constable. He's a blasphemer."

  The taller of the two policemen, the one with the hairy mole on his chin, who was himself devout, agreed. “Second coming now is it? Won't do. Won't do. In my view blasphemy of that sort ought to be against the law."

  The crowd noisily concurred.

  The non-devout constable without the hairy mole interrupted, “However, it is against the law for people to go round punching other people up because they believe different things. So I'll be asking you all to be on your way, or else I'll be forced to take you to the lockup and charge you with affray and creating a mischief in a public place. Wouldn't look too good on the old resume, and what would the boss say, eh? Now piss off, the lot of you, and don't let's see this sort of thing in the streets again."

  All except three of the mob took the moleless constable's admonition seriously and left. The man with the three-day growth said, “Ask the bugger if he's got a permit to be handing out pamphlets. Go on, ask him."

  Police mole turned to Jonathan once more, “It is a city ordinance that people handing things out or busking in the city have to apply for a permit. Costs forty dollars if I remember correctly. You do have a permit then, I suppose, don't you now?"

  "No, I don't."

  "Well then, sir, I'm afraid you happen to be in breach of the law, and I shall have to ask you for your name and address."

  "Just tell him to piss off and not come back,” said moleless. “Think of the paper work."

  "I'm afraid that won't do. There's been a serious infraction of good order here this morning, and it's all caused by a person handing out offensive pamphlets illegally here on North Terrace. This calls for a report and a summons to follow for an appearance in the Magistrates’ Court. You know how hot the council is on people doing things without permits."

  "What about people who attack other people for whatever reason? They just go scot-free I suppose?” Jonathan was angry. He'd been poked in the eye and kicked in the leg, his jacket was torn and his tie had been pulled so tight it had almost strangled him. There was dirt on his trousers.

  "Just keep your lip buttoned if you know what's good for you. Name and address?"

  "How can I tell you if my lip is buttoned?"

  "One more bit of cheek from you and I'll run you in straight away. I can think of three or four charges I could lay that would put you in the cells until your court hearing tomorrow morning. Got it?"

  Jonathan meekly gave his name and address, as the three remaining lawyers left the scene.

  * * * *

  He arrived at the office a few minutes before starting time to find Eastman
reading the paper. Eastman glanced at him quickly and then looked away. Jonathan could see on the front page of the paper that the exploits in the house where he had temporarily died were still making news. The police suspected a major drug ring had operated from the house, and the reporters had got hold of the story of the corpse who walks. Indeed this theme was the leading item in news of all media for the past two days.

  The policeman and woman swore that the body under the blanket had been lifeless when they ceased trying to resuscitate it, and then somehow it got up and walked out.

  HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD, screamed the headline in the Daily Bugle. Jonathan wondered what God made of the headline, if he read the papers.

  Eastman looked across at him and pointed to the headline, “This sort of sounds like what you were telling me about yesterday. You got hit on the head, didn't you?"

  "Yes I did."

  "What were you of all people doing in a druggies’ house?"

  "Who said I was at that place?"

  "Don't treat me like a fool, Goodfellow. It all ties in. And look at the computer generated identity photo on page three.” He turned to the page. Jonathan moved to Eastman's desk and found an almost perfect likeness of himself staring back at him from the page. It was the page usually reserved in the Bugle for almost naked young ladies with large protuberances. There were many disappointed Bugle reading men that morning.

  "Alright, it was me. Everything I told you yesterday happened. I did go to heaven and was sent back on a mission from God to save the world."

  "You got hit on the head and had a funny dream while you were unconscious more like it. You ought to have a check up. You've probably got concussion or something worse."

  "There's nothing wrong with me."

  "We'll leave that one aside. At least go to the cops and clear yourself."

  "I'd rather not involve the police at this juncture."

  "At what juncture then?"

  "Not at all.” Jonathan appealed to Eastman, a man he had worked with for over twenty years, although the two of them knew almost as little about one another as they had on day one of their acquaintance. “Please don't tell the police or anyone else. I have to do what I have to do, and they would only complicate things."