Release Candidate

by Aziz, M.

  Tomás looked at Gary.

  ‘No lie, man.’

  ‘A butcher doesn’t screw his face when he sees blood.’ said Goyo. ‘You’ve fired bullets in a hard to score number. That can’t have all been flushed away.’

  ‘Is shit in other folders gore-free? Else I’m gonna have to bleach my fuckin’ eyeballs!’

  ‘Just some pics.’ replied Dong-yul. ‘Got a few Hollywood funnies on this list, though.’

  ‘Click one. Any, please.’

  Gary scroll-selected the third title.

  Tomás snatched the tortillas from Rob and sat down.

  ‘Keep your sweat in, brother.’

  Dong-yul’s shirt pocket rang. He pulled it out. The others looked at him.

  ‘Lucy, yes, you read the notice correct. Bye.’ he hung up.

  They returned to the screen where an elderly man walked down a street. His trousers fell.

  Gary looked at Tomás. He put a hand inside his jacket and slowly pulled out a withered, long-barrelled silver revolver.

  Tomás jumped from something landing in his lap.

  ‘No need to freak.’ said Gary. ‘My granddad shoved that me after I finished secondary school. From his hoody-wearing days.’

  ‘I’m not in a playing mood.’

  ‘Put it away, Gaz.’ said Dong-yul.

  ‘It’s just wood and metal, man.’ replied Gary.

  ‘Gary, just pick the fucking thing up!’ said Trevor. ‘Find a better time for this shit.’

  ‘Well hand me a fucking appointment!’

  Tomás looked at the gun then the others. Their eyes locked with his while two men dressed as blue aliens talked on-screen.

  His fingertips stroked the handle. Then gripped.

  Standing up, he weighted it then pointed it at Gary.

  ‘Please,’ said Gary as if a disinterested child reading aloud, ‘my spunk haven’t left home yet.’

  Tomás lowered the gun. He threw it back to Gary who caught it with a sportsman’s finesse.

  ‘Whether you lot should be given medals or life sentences, my mind’s boggled. Ain’t you guys, like, wondered about going back to learning? This shit ain’t bringing green when you get wrinkly. If you get there.’

  ‘This ain’t fucking wonderland, pal.’

  ‘But...’

  ‘But your parents swim in money and you were teacher’s pet, bla bla bla.’ Dong-yul interrupted. ‘If our stories ain’t returned to your mental bookshelf, shut the fuck. We’re not living in a film reel where everyone’s smiles by the final credits.’

  ‘Dong, your neck veins.’ said Trevor.

  ‘This is in your blood, pal. Whether or not it’s in your head.’

  ‘Didn’t mean to start trouble.’ Tomás put his hands up.

  ‘Either stay off the radar, brother, or step in line. Can’t put both feet in different shoes. There’s a soul to lay tomorrow.’

  Tomás looked at Dong-yul.

  ‘What you heard, pal. But you need to get over your morality problem first.’

  ‘The idea doesn’t make me sing and dance... I’ve seen funnier war documentaries than this, I’m gonna park my ass in there.’

  ‘Free country.’

  The others closed up the mat gap as Tomás walked to the office.

  Sitting at the desk he looked left. A radio was plugged into the mains. He extended a hand over the controls and touched a large circular button. The LCD glowed indigo. It flashed a station name. The popping of a smacked tennis ball was layered with female commentary.

  Tomás yawned. He rested his thumb on the button.

  The door handle gently turned. Dong-yul entered.

  ‘Hey pal, guess it got a bit hot out there. The real funny bits are on now.’

  ‘This room’s nice and warm.’

  Dong-yul raised a trouser leg. He sat on the desk with one hand over the other on a knee. His expression was of a concerned parent.

  ‘I can’t seem to make heads or tails of you, pal.’

  ‘Cheers for shining a light.’

  ‘It’s just been circling my head; throw me some names and we’ll make sure they never even think about repeating this brain shit on people. We’ll get them to put all your screws back in.’

  ‘You’d have better luck gettin’ Goyo to jizz over a titty mag. The white coats just didn’t want another guy turnin’ blue. Fuck, man. If I was top dog I think it’d make a heavenly holocaust too. Gettin’ the ones that pay attention in school to rebound from what might bury them is sweet. But now they ain’t gettin’ another guinea pig in a hurry. They must just be smiling over their fucked up lab rat becoming fish food.’

  ‘And just before we see if the cold front persists...’ said the radio.

  ‘Well, if there’s ever any skittles you want falling you just tell us where the bowling alley is.’

  ‘There is one thing.’ he looked at his hands. ‘And meeting that was nearly the end of me for a second time, totally.’

  ‘Help me out, I lost my crystal ball.’

  ‘While I was locked up there was this fuckin’ black dick who should’ve stayed outta my face. Bumped into him away from the bars recently and he hangs with this shit, who don’t ring a bell, but sussed out my face. That other cunt was upfront near the girls we checked out. Horry mean anything to you? Pale as piss.’

  ‘Not a pretty picture, right?’

  ‘I fuck his bitch or what?’

  ‘The guy’s way overdue to be put in a box. You haven’t rubbed shoulders much but there was a wasps’ nest you stuck your head into.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you think I’d be last in line to get a spaghetti head? Below some bastard who strokes up over photos of newborns, at least!’

  Dong-yul laughed. ‘These, pretty much, don’t sound like the words of a Tomás to me. Maybe there’s not so much mush in there. Anyway, if here’s fun for you that’s cool. You know where to go when the walls get boring.’ he slid off the table and exited.

  Tomás was about to touch the power button when he heard ‘police’ twice. He turned up the volume.

  13

  ‘The body of a murder suspect who crashed a stolen car into the Thames yesterday has yet to be recovered.’ said a classic broadcast-standard, aged male voice. ‘The Met Police’s Marine Unit are continuing their search. Johanneke Manser is there for us.’

  A distant boat propeller backdropped low-pitched female narration retracing events leading up to the crash. ‘...Standing next to me is Officer Janet Harrison. So, what more can you tell us?’

  ‘Our database and speed cams are being sifted through as we speak, so we’ll be issuing an appeal in due course.’

  ‘And what if the marine unit have wasted their time this second time around?’

  ‘We haven’t ruled out other scenarios but the state of the suspect vehicle suggests we are utilising the correct resources presently.’

  ‘Thank you for your time, Off...’

  Tomás struck the power button as if it were a dangerous insect. He put his elbows on the desk, clasped his hands and lightly beat his thumbs against his lips. His shoulders shivered. After a deep breath he stormed out.

  The others laughed and clapped loudly at the screen when the door slammed. They saw Tomás approaching the exit.

  ‘Hey, where’s your ass off to, brother?’ Rob tried shaking his laughter.

  Tomás turned and walked into the classroom. ‘To find a nice, high, tower block!’

  The laughter decayed.

  ‘I had my ear to the news. They’ll sniff me out any moment and I’ll be rotting with the fags again! I’m just gonna kiss this world goodbye and be done with!’ he reversed.

  ‘One second!’ said Dong-yul.

  Tomás paused.

  ‘Pal, I think you’ve got the balls to learn about your missing pieces. Pigs always had your feet smokin’, man. Stop acting like a puss and you won’t need to run out like a headless chicken.’

  ‘So you’re gonna show me the ropes?’

  ‘A
little practical exercise won’t break a nail. But that lesson bell rings later. If you think we’re getting a delivery of bacon soon we better split to somewhere your ass won’t end up a pincushion.’

  ‘You’ve got a sweet way with words.’

  Gary flicked off the screen.

  ‘Alright, let’s not move like snails!’ shouted Goyo.

  They returned the room to its original state.

  Outside grey clouds spat their first drops. The men hurried into the car.

  Barely a few minutes into the drive Trevor activated the wipers. The side windows resembled reused cling wrap as the rain beat down.

  ‘Care to fill me in about this magical place?’ asked Tomás.

  Trevor briefly looked at Dong-yul, who nodded. Tomás eyed Gary, Goyo and Rob in turn. Their heads fell like a domino rally.

  The drive took an hour and a half. They stopped before a large black metal gate. Beyond it was a small white hut. To its left further in the distance a heavily dented cricket bat rested against a metal stump.

  Outside the car Tomás squinted through the remaining specks of rainfall.

  ‘You come to pick up your kids first or what?’ asked Tomás.

  Dong-yul fingered his quiff then unlocked the gate. The gang followed single file towards the hut.

  Dong-yul knocked. ‘Chan-sook!’

  After a small delay it opened. A young East Asian girl, barely five foot, stood before them. Tomás scanned her from her smile to red button-up cardigan.

  ‘My mother didn’t give birth to just a thug.’ Dong-yul hugged her on bent knees.

  Trevor, Rob, Goyo and Gary nodded at her face resting on Dong-yul’s shoulder. They smiled as if shy suitors.

  Chan-sook withdrew from the embrace. Her smile dipped on studying Tomás.

  She squeaked something in her mother tongue including the name Pascual.

  Dong-yul replied in English. ‘Some things do match, don’t they?’

  Chan-sook adjusted her collar. ‘Mind the step.’

  The hut was filled with thin wooden chairs in a circle. Each held exotically-coloured, half-watermelon-shaped African thumb pianos of various sizes. Metal tines shone in their centres.

  Dong-yul ejected two fast sentences that could have been in any language.

  She nodded.

  ‘This is it?’ asked Tomás. ‘What’s so special?’

  ‘Pal, use your head. Those dopes would just drive on past here if they decide to stop bothering the waters. My ass is often far from here these days and that’s a routine I’m keeping.’

  ‘A place where you come learn your ABCs?’

  ‘People with disadvantages call this where they live.’ replied Chan-sook.

  Tomás’s eyes widened.

  ‘Well, where we just came from is a place you get taught too.’ said Dong-yul. ‘No huge difference here. You won’t lose any sleep up here.’

  ‘You’re gonna dump me with fuckin’ cases? You must have a screw loose yourself.’

  ‘Pal, you keep running your mouth like that and I’ll have your jaw in my pocket!’

  ‘...Should these walls be familiar to me?’

  Dong-yul eyed Chan-sook. ‘Maybe not the paintwork.’

  She stepped back.

  ‘The floor you’re standing on,’ continued Dong-yul, ‘this is no bargain-basement gift from that bitch in Downing Street. Won’t find any nasty zoo keeper-type folk here. The Tae stuff puts food on our tables, extra activities keep blood in the veins of this place. Almost literally. My younger brother lives here.’

  Tomás put a hand over his mouth. ‘Shit, you should’ve told...’

  ‘Spare the sympathies.’ Dong-yul interrupted. ‘You’re not going to find rats or cockroaches here, other than maybe yourself. When we come to haul your behind out, her mobile will ring beforehand, make sure no uniforms have come sightseeing. I’m not doing our butts no favours by still standing here.’

  ‘Don’t you think making this place was a bit overboard? There’s other schools like this already.’

  Chan-sook laughed and shook her head. ‘You must not watch the news, what happens away from our eyes in those places.’

  ‘That’s just a bad bunch of them.’

  ‘That’s what they say.’ she continued. ‘But Gi isn’t a lab animal to try.’

  ‘As a kid he obviously had to go to one of those torture camps.’ said Dong-yul. ‘The king opened that place with his big horsey grin, silly money went into it.

  ‘Mom would put good home-made food in a lunch box, stuff she knew wouldn’t mess with Gi’s stomach. The fuckin’ thing never looked like it’d even been taken out of the bag for him. They say they got him queued up for their slop, but the way he chowed stuff down when he came home... Man. And this is a kid you usually have to tell to eat up! I think all they tossed him was something early in the day, he’d have salty hands.’

  ‘Not sounding like a spell in paradise, for sure.’

  ‘I could go on ‘til my my tongue falls out. Give you chapters about purple marks on his back, brown in his pants, a bus escort being idiot of the century. You rant to them about the marks and you get social jerkers breathing down your throat! The teachers hand each other bulletproof vests, none of them wanna start a domino rally that leads to the dole queue.’

  ‘Gi turning sixteen put an end to all that,’ said Chan-sook, ‘but it wasn’t good that all he could then do was stare at the ceiling until me or Dong-yul walked through the door in the evening.

  ‘Our parents are finding it hard to walk. It’s problems for them just to see to him, never mind stopping his mind from going blank.’

  ‘After a fuckin’ age,’ said Dong-yul, ‘adult learning disabilities people spot his name on their computer and we get some waste of space hounding at our door step. The bitch used her charm to get us signing some form to see how it goes at some place where they make you clap your hands and sing all day or whatever, saying Gi wouldn’t get the shit he got in school.

  Now, you wanna hear the twist? Few days later a letter tells us these layabouts can only handle people of lower maintenance. Their words. No need to check your ears for wax, pal. They dangled a carrot then shoved it in their own gob. All this did was tick a box on the bitch’s computer.’

  ‘So that got you thinking about becoming the gangster headmaster, then?’ he laughed.

  ‘From one kid? What got my brain burning was when working a showroom selling unroadworthy junk. Rob’s Mrs sold these death traps with me and obviously Rob’s ass wasn’t unknown to me for much longer. They had a small boy who stopped breathing for good in a shithole like Gi’s. Staff thought the kid was just goofin’ around. Case was a whitewash.’

  Tomás glanced back at Rob whose too-sudden tough face was apt for American wrestling.

  ‘Sure, two, albeit also non-white stories doesn’t mean some rampant holocaust is going on,’ he continued, ‘but that was enough to put a fire in my ass. My nine to five wasn’t exactly putting a smile on my face either. I couldn’t just twiddle my thumbs hoping someone else stood up for these kids.

  ‘Inspectors don’t shake their heads at what they see here, so their noses rarely sniff our bookkeeping. Those that do, never turn down a little something to add to their own books so that we can continue being this beacon amongst the turds.

  ‘We don’t just get a good amount of people coming here because of some fancy advertising campaign. No, it’s because staff here don’t walk around like guards or dummies. No relatives get an invoice either, which helps. All the same, our numbers should be stalling if the other places are allegedly getting their act together.’

  ‘Guess loading your bank account quick was the only way to dust any cobwebs out of this place?’

  ‘Seems your head ain’t doing too bad now, pal. I wasn’t gonna waste time jumping through tape to maybe get the same green paper somewhere down the line. In the first few hairy months I had just enough to shove a bit in my sister’s pocket and get shit rolling. I sprung the Tae pla
ce up when my ass toughened up, and its membership fees soon helped slash doing bad stuff.

  ‘These other guys here pushed crap not easy to get at a chemist, or generally ruffled collars. Fun stuff like that. I played more than paper-scissors-stone with some of them. This lot saw a light and became poster boys for those pig programmes that only looked good in the media. When they realised you gotta be more like X and not Luther King our hands locked.’

  ‘I’m guessing I wasn’t singing the praises of Jesus Christ either when you met me?’

  Chan-sook uttered something in Korean.

  ‘Sis, you’re spot on, okay? But now’s not the time to squeeze this orange.’ he looked at Tomás. ‘You’d been putting your butt on the line for some sort of Don. I’d only just stopped playing the good citizen when I fell in your shadow. The lesson you dished out nearly retired me early.’ he laughed. ‘Once I locked hands with Goyo, the next time I saw yours it wasn’t as a balled fist.’

  Tomás rubbed his chin. He looked back at the others then at Chan-sook.

  ‘Your brother, he’s not wishing he stayed at home, yeah?’

  She smiled widely. ‘Nobody here would call this home if it was painful. You wouldn’t believe how much activities here have helped clear the fog in his brain. Doctors would’ve laughed at the suggestion. Though, okay, some new technology in his skull played a part too. But I’m just repeating myself to you, I guess?’

  Tomás coughed. ‘Is he fussed about visitors?’

  ‘He enjoys meeting the right people.’

  ‘Sis, it’s not a bright idea for the rest of us to stand here a minute longer. You show him where he can crash.’ he kissed her cheek. ‘Don’t pressure that brain of yours.’

  ‘That’s it?’ asked Tomás.

  ‘Pal, I’d love to play tour guide.’ he mocked. ‘If you wanna get us all in shit, keeping Trev’s car out there is the best way to go about it! If pigs suss out who you are, you want them hassling just us alone.’

  Dong-yul touched Chan-sook’s shoulder. ‘Bell me if things get hairy, but avoid the landline.’ he turned and followed the others out.