Pop-Splat

by Ian Martin

  Now was his chance. Or so he thought. There were four cars ahead of him. He pulled out and put his foot flat. He had overtaken two cars but the white line was solid and the road was curving sharply to the left.

  There was still one more car to pass when he crashed head-on into the bread truck. The driver was standing on his brakes and so was Matt, but nevertheless the impact was devastating.

  For a moment everything had gone black, but now he had regained his senses. Thank God for airbags, and thank God his door had been thrown off its hinges as the vehicle shell collapsed and crumpled like cardboard. He managed to drag himself free, fall over a low stone wall and roll down an embankment.

  The truck driver and his mate weren’t so lucky, having smashed their faces against the windscreen. Also, the cab had buckled in such a way as to trap them inside. There was the popping and spluttering sound of an electrical fire underway, and the smell of petrol, and WHOOSH! Both vehicles were well and truly ablaze.

  Matt got to his feet, took out his gun, and began to climb the steep slope back up to the road. The trapped men had stopped screaming and he smelt the aroma of toast and roast meat. It made his mouth water and he thought of the delicious boerewors rolls at Keurbooms.

  On the other hand, Larry was envisioning a steak burger at the Cattle Baron. With pepper sauce. He was standing with a group of onlookers about thirty metres from the burning wreckage. His car was parked a little further up the road, safely out of the way.

  “I’m telling you, Claude, he’s dead. Fried; incinerated. Nobody could survive this inferno.”

  Larry was on his phone as he walked to his car. He turned and stood leaning against the bodywork looking out at the view of the valley.

  “Have you got the money ready?…” “What do you mean you don’t keep…” “Alright. And there’s a bank down the road…” “Okay. Get what you can, and I want the balance tomorrow…” “Alright, then I’ll meet you outside the bank…” “Right; make it half an hour, in the coffee shop…” “Yah, Seattle, Exclusive Books.”

  As Larry ended the call and prepared to turn, get into the car and head back down to Sleazeville, Matt rose from his crouching position. With his pistol he pointed at a spot just behind Larry’s ear, a place where Ben and Ophabia were waiting for him, and sent him off to join them.

  21

  A kid of about thirteen or fourteen had the audacity to press the pedestrian button, and when the green man lit up, got on his bike and began to pedal across the four lanes towards the cycle path on the other side. Matt saw what he was up to, noted the ridiculous uniform he was wearing, and gave him a brassy Beemer blast, telling him to forget it.

  True to form, the fucking arrogant little shit ignored the warning and kept on going. Instead of braking or swerving, Matt accelerated and was able to take him out with clinical precision, everything lined up down the middle, fair and square. The car’s bumper pulverised the boy’s left leg, snapping and crushing it as if it was made of eggshell.

  The bike shot off and landed in a bed of blue and white agapanthus, except they weren’t in bloom, and the boy landed face first on the Beemer bonnet. Matt had a brilliant front-row, big-screen view of bulging eyeballs and flying teeth – so much for the thousands wasted on orthodontic chicanery in pursuit of the Hollywood smile – before the boy’s body fell from car to tar.

  As he turned right and aimed for the Constantia Village car park, he looked back and saw the kid writhing in the road. Bloody amateur dramatics! He had a good mind to go back, run over him again and really give him something to writhe about. But that would have been a self-indulgent side-show. He must concentrate his attention on the main narrative and let it reach a conclusion as speedily as possible.

  There was some sort of drama going on in the car park. The place was choked up with vehicles, there were cop cars and ambulances and other emergency vehicles with lights flashing, and he spotted an SABC van with camera crew. There was a crowd gathered near the Standard Bank and he caught a glimpse of two bodies lying on the paving covered over with white plastic. There must have been another bank heist.

  He was on the point of abandoning the car just anywhere when he saw a conveniently situated open bay. It was reserved for the disabled but that was alright. As he pulled in there was a flash of red in his mirror. Parked across from him was a fucking Ferrari, out of the box. He engaged reverse and shot back with all the malice he could muster. CRUNCH! There we are, a minimum of a million bucks to fix that lot. He returned to his reserved parking.

  Before leaving the car to complete the only mission he’d ever had in his life, he put a fresh clip in his Glock and checked Larry’s gun. It was a .22 calibre Walther – Mickey Mouse compared to his 9 mil, but effective enough at close range. Only two cartridges missing.

  Outside Exclusive Books a small demonstration was taking place. A middle-aged couple were standing behind a collapsible table and some hand-written placards proclaimed their opposition to the sale of books written by two servants of Satan. The books in question were The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, and God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens.

  Their protest action consisted of tearing a page from one of the offending books, twisting it longways into a taper and lighting it from a small gas burner on the table. When half the page had been consumed by flames the unburnt remainder was dropped into a steel bucket. Then the same thing with another page, all the while denouncing the evil atheists in loudly judgemental tones.

  Matt stopped in front of these lunatics. He recognised them: this was the selfsame pair who had harassed him and his friend on a previous occasion.

  He reached out and took the woman’s hand. She looked faintly puzzled, but being a happy-clapper she was accustomed to shaking hands with all sorts of Christian brethren. However, instead of shaking the woman’s hand Matt grasped it firmly and held her wrist over the open gas flame. Of course she protested and struggled, but he was able to give her flesh a good scorching before letting her fall to the ground screaming.

  Her partner, sensing the presence of the devil, rolled his eyes, raised his hands clasped in prayer, and called for assistance.

  “Save us, Lord, save us!” he shouted. “Deliver us from evil, in the name of Jesus Christ our saviour!”

  Matt took out the Walther and put a bullet through the hands pressed together in supplication. Astonished, the man opened his hands and contemplated the two neat holes beginning to ooze blood. Then he fell to his knees in a religious frenzy, believing he had been crucified and was about to be whisked off to heaven.

  The woman was now shouting, screaming, spitting and snarling all at once, her eyes mad with hatred. It was a horrible sound and sight so Matt shot her twice, at random, without really taking aim, and that shut her up. Then he strode into the Seattle coffee shop, a gun in either hand.

  BANG! He felt a sharp pain in his left shoulder. Shouts and screams. He grabbed a waitress and, using her as a shield, looked about. Ah, there they were; at a table in the far corner. That bastard Claude was sitting there, holding his pistol in both hands, trying to get a line on his nephew’s head. And Trudy, mouth open, fork poised, staring at her son in furious disbelief. What the fuck was she eating? Could it be Black Forest cake? Black Forest cake! The fucking cow was half way through a huge chunk of Black Forest cake, not half an hour after being informed that her son, her only child, had been burnt to death in a car crash.

  BANG! The waitress’s body went limp. The callous bastard! Matt let Claude have it with his trusty Glock. The bullet struck him in the middle of his chest and he threw up his arms and crashed over backwards.

  “Matt!” Trudy screamed. “You detestable little brute! Look what you’ve gone and done. I always knew you’d be a no-good. From the day you were born I hated the look of you. I loathed your disgusting little mouth trying to suck at me. I always hated the sight…”

  “Bitch!” Matt shouted. BANG! “Bitch!” BANG! “Bitch!” BANG!

  Trudy lay on her back in a most
unladylike fashion. Her stupid little skirt was up around her hips, exposing the crotch of her pantyhose, inviting the boot.

  “Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!” Matt shouted, kicking his mother’s body in the most disrespectful way a son might imaginably kick his mother.

  There was a groan from his fat uncle. He could also hear sirens and a voice shouting into a megaphone: “Come on out with your hands up! Come on out with your hands up!” Christ, these cops learn it all from watching crap American TV.

  He placed his foot on his fat uncle’s neck, below his chin, and applied some pressure.

  “What did you say to me, you fat cunt?” he snarled, shoving down hard. “What the fuck did you say to me, you fucking fat cunt?” Without pity he repeatedly stamped on the fat neck, remembering the pitiless way his uncle had enjoyed bullying him when he was a kid.

  “You’re mad,” Claude managed to croak. “You worthless freak, you’re mad.”

  BANG! BANG!

  The first shot entered his eye and exited the side of his head, punching through the skull bone like it was a paper bag. The second bullet pierced his neck, but not before passing through Matt’s foot.

  Christ, the pain! Ow, ow, ow! Oh my fuck, this was just too stupid. What a fuckup, even though he’d successfully accomplished his mission. Enough’s enough.

  He poked the muzzle of his gun into what was left of the Black Forest cake and worked it about. Then he licked off some of the decadent confectionary, savoured it, put the barrel in his mouth, sucked, and pulled the trigger.

  The idiot outside was still shouting at the corpses to surrender and come on out with their hands up. Inside the coffee shop and the bookshop there was a profound hush. Then from the bookshop side came the sound of stealthy movements and a head cautiously appeared above the top of a bookshelf. This head was framed by a halo of frizzy orange hair. Other heads appeared and soon they were all on their feet and peering into the coffee shop.

  On the outside more and more faces were being pressed up against the windows. Several cops in bulletproof vests, arms at the ready, also drew near and peered in. One of them broke open the door, which was unnecessary because it wasn’t locked. They entered the shop and immediately began messing up the crime scene by doing things they’d been specifically trained not to do. Like moving the bodies and handling the murder weapons and leaving their sweaty fingerprints on everything. One of the female officers even removed Trudy’s expensive platinum watch and slipped it into her pocket for safekeeping.

  Horry Horowitz, still clutching the book on eugenics he’d been reading when the firing broke out, was unimpressed. However, he felt a duty to tell the police who was who. It was hard to say who was in charge so he spoke to the cop with the biggest belly.

  “This is a family murder,” he said. “The Dreyer family of Constantia.”

  “And this one?” asked the cop, prodding the waitress with the toe of his combat boot. “Is this one the family bediende?”

  Fuck! He should have kept his mouth shut.

  Then the media arrived. First ETV and then SABC hard on their heels. They had just finished with the hold-up, and now this lucky scoop. The cops got all sullen and aggressive and tried holding up tablecloths to obscure the scene of carnage, and the crowd began to hiss and boo.

  Realising this was an opportunity of priceless promotional value, Horry stepped outside and addressed the crowd and the cameras.

  Horry: I am David Horowitz, spokesperson for the Fifty Fifty Foundation. I am also a friend of the Dreyer family of Constantia and I can tell you that what happened in there [points to the coffee shop] was a family murder. The son shot his mother and his uncle before turning the gun on himself.

  SABC: Mr Horowitz, do you know what motivated the young man to go on this killing spree?

  Horry: Yes. On the surface of it this was a revenge attack. Matt, the son, believed that his mother and uncle, who were married a few months ago, engineered the murder of his father and made it look like a hijacking. But on a deeper level this was the action of a psychologically and emotionally traumatised victim of family, social and broader systemic pressures.

  ETV: Would you say, in your opinion, that the alleged perpetrator was mentally unstable?

  Horry: In my opinion we’re all mentally unstable – what’s known as kopbefokt. [Crowd titters]. But yes, Matt Dreyer was a bit more unstable than most of us. He was being treated by a psychiatrist for bipolar disorder, and by a traditional healer for hallucinatory dreams and lack of motivation. He was receiving all sorts of medication, both pharmaceutical and herbal, which might have contributed to his psychotic behaviour. He also drank like an alcoholic, smoked dagga, and partook of all the club drugs.

  SABC: What was his family background? Was he ever abused as a child?

  Horry: He was born into an extremely wealthy but emotionally dysfunctional family. Although surrounded by affluence he was brought up in an atmosphere of shallow self-indulgence and callous disregard for the feelings of others. His mother and his father were incapable of loving him and he grew up starved of affection. He had a particularly hostile relationship with his uncle, who usurped his father’s role in a flagrant and depraved fashion. And when he was thirteen he was packed off to boarding school where he was subjected to humiliating ordeals, outlandish rituals and a viciously authoritarian programme of indoctrination and mind-control. Yes, to answer your question, he was badly abused as a child.

  ETV: Do you know what caused him to snap?

  Horry: No. It was probably an accumulation of factors. His father was killed; he was disappointed in love; he came to believe that his mother and uncle had murdered his father; he was the victim of a violent break-in, in which he killed two of his attackers with a garden spade; he was also accidentally responsible for the death of his ex-girlfriend’s father. And then there was his psychiatric condition, which had been misdiagnosed and incorrectly medicated.

  SABC: So, in your opinion, was the alleged killer mentally unstable?

  Horry: Jesus! This oke’s already asked me that question. Weren’t you listening? Of course he was mentally unstable. You don’t go ’round killing people left, right and centre if you’re psychologically sound. Or do you?

  SABC: Well, was he very sensitive, then? Like an artist or something?

  Horry: Hell no. But he was fucking depressed and pissed off with things in general. He wasn’t all that bright, but he was intelligent enough to know that life had dealt him and his generation – my generation – a really kak hand. He was well aware that not only was his personal life a mess, but that the world around him was exploding in fireballs of blood and shit. He must’ve asked himself what kind of future was in store for him and the rest of his verminous species. Let’s face it, the picture’s pretty bleak. Global warming is an irreversible catastrophe that’s just beginning to gain momentum. Political and economic models used to structure human activity are creating greater inequality, more and more misery, and mounting frustration and anger. Not everybody’s stupid, you know. Some of us can put two and two together. There are nearly 7 billion humans on the planet. They’re all greedy and ruthlessly selfish and they breed like rats. If they all consumed and wasted like Americans, we’d need five planets. What’s the solution? Is the developed world prepared to give up its opulent lifestyle? Ha, ha. Is the developing world prepared to remain in poverty? No ways; the violent revolution is already under way. This is the worldview that filled Matt Dreyer with dread. And he was unable to distract himself from his despair by embracing some ideology or by immersing himself in an artistic pursuit, because there was nothing of any value to choose from. He found himself living in a cultural wasteland where everything had been trivialised and turned into a commodity of no intrinsic value. No wonder he lost it. No wonder he succumbed to the pressures of this dehumanising system and went berserk, trashing everything, including himself. The story of this guy’s life and death should be a lesson to us. We have to find an intelligent way to regulate human behaviour. And it�
��s for this purpose that the Fifty Fifty Foundation has been set up. The Foundation’s aims are based on concepts of… Hey, fuck you man, I’m still talking. Fucking bunch of morons!

  The reporters, the cameras and the crowd had all turned away. The first corpse, wrapped in white plastic, was being stretchered out and loaded into an ambulance. In ghoulish fascination they all stared, mesmerised by the iconic scene, knowing that they were all privileged to be in the presence of death. Not the death of pulp fiction and bad movies. Real death.

  Disconsolately, Horry turned and began to walk away, knowing that his friend had died for nothing, but that there was something heroic in his going. Yah, he’d gone out with a bang – literally – and one day somebody would write a semi-fictional account of his stupid life and turn the random details into a coherent story with a beginning, middle and end, and with a corny message underlying the narrative, too. Then they’d make a movie of the book and Matt Dreyer would join the legendary ranks of Robin Hood, Ned Kelly and Bonnie and Clyde. Matt the useless fuckup would be transformed into Matt the heroic rebel. But it took a crazy kind of desperate courage to qualify for that status, and he, Horry Horowitz, just didn’t have it. He’d probably end his days in the obscurity of geriatric squalor. Or die a lingering and messy death in the disagreeable company of anonymous billions, wiped out by some pandemic systematically obliterating the entire verminous species. Ah, but what the fuck.

  ***