Chapter 4

I virtually throw myself through the door and into the hallway, my arms stretched out so that they can take most of the impact heading into the opposite wall. “You’re still here!” I exclaim, relieved. They look as if they’ve had some kind of argument, perhaps about that ‘thing’.

“Well, you’ve got the collar on. We don’t intend to be that shitty to you. Just means that you’re going to stink for the next two weeks.”

I look confused. Mitsuko jumps in with her helpful remarks. “Can’t take a shower, see? If the explosion doesn’t kill you, the electric shock will. Come on then, Chocolate boy.”

Frustration rises inside me. For a moment, I feel like the air has solidified around me, only a violent action can set me free. But as soon as it arrives, it goes. Just despair is left. Why does she have to be like this? It’s not my fault I’m here. Well, only partly my fault I am here – I applied but they didn’t need to take me on. Would she hate whoever is in my place, no matter how charming or suited to the job? This is what I want to believe, but I feel that if it isn’t already, it is fast going to become extremely personal. I need to be firmer, stand up for myself. Maybe she’s only trying to gain respect for me. “Crunchy. My name is Crunchy. It may be a poor name, but it’s my fathers, not that anyone ever knew who he was. So it will suffice.”

A hardly bothered “Oh,” is the only response that I get.

We walk together in silence for a while, out the building and back into the streets of Soho. Hemmingway decides to break the silence. “Tell us about yourself, then.”

I don’t really know what to tell him. It seems too much of a general question. My parents I barely knew. I went to a school that was a training ground for chavs. All my more successful friends were in different classes, whereas I was put in with all the kids who were known to have psychotic rages, who could stab people, who would mock me and tease me constantly. That I would go to organisations like Scouts, or join a roller hockey team, but leave when the intense hatred got too much. That my constant relations with such people meant that I never realised I was necessarily being bullied until a shock realisation in later years made me see just how large the psychological scars were, simply because I actively indulged in my own downfall. Joining in ink fights, where each of us would flick ink from the tip of our fountain pens at each other. It never crossed my mind, even though I was aware of how much more covered in ink I was, that it was always me who was the first victim, and that I was the only victim. By believing it to be a game, I never realised how much more serious others were. That I had an ambition, no matter how vague, was what marked me out, and I never knew whether to be proud of my dreams or ashamed, because this wasn’t that kind of town. Gone were the days where I had a modicum of respect for standing up for myself in a fight. Lowering myself to the same level, but dirtier, a fury unleashed, that would happily take pain and could never walk away until the other opponent was on the ground. I became soft because I needed something else out of life, but I didn’t know how to get it. To this day I don’t know how to get it, because everyone I know has never tried. There are no role models. No real concept of what is involved. I became an outcast, the sad little kid who stands all by himself at lunchtime. My confidence suffered, as did my grades. I got into a shitty little university where I began to fight back, but still managed to get in with the slacker crowd despite the fact I worked hard, because I could not relate to anyone else. Despite my good degree, it was useless, nothing more than Film Studies. Not even any practical education.

That when I apply for job interviews, my weak point is my lack of experience, questions asked only about the workplace, not so much about myself. I overcompensate, rambling on, trying to pad out the little experience I may have. So I end up in crappy little jobs dreaming of more, but so cut down by my obsession of having no experience for anything slightly grander that I cannot apply for better jobs, giving up on the CV stage. I am twenty five now. I dream of a better life. But I can’t believe I’ll get one, because I have no experience.

“My past deserves to stay there. What about yourselves?” I don’t care if that sounds arrogant. I don’t care if it may appear that I’m trying to cast too much of an air of mystery around myself that doesn’t actually exist. I don’t care if its just plain, downright rude. I’ll tell people about myself when I’m ready. I’m not ready. Until then, they can judge me on the actions that I take. 

“I penetrated her once.”

“He did. He left a drawer open once, which I foolishly decided to walk into. It was in the groinal area and pierced me. It caused me to bleed. Once having completed the dirty deed, the drawer retracted.”

I smile. For the first time today, I feel like I’ve been allowed to smile, that I actually have earned it. And the relief, whilst not great, is enough. 

“Listen… Go home will you?” says Mitsuko, breaking my reverie. “This was my chance to make it big in the F.I.B., until you came along.”

“I have been told to do what you say and to stay out of your way. This action will achieve both those aims, but I fail to see how I can be of any help if I was to do this.” What is wrong with me? Every time I open my mouth I just seem to sound like an arrogant little shit. A robotic arrogant shit, that time? What is wrong with me? Why am I letting myself get off to such a bad start with these people?

Hemmingway approaches me, putting a hand on my shoulder, caring. “This is our first real case, first time a proper death has been involved, at any rate. We don’t want some muppet ruining it for us, so go away, will you?”

Something starts inside me. I need to stand up for myself. Maybe this is arrogance, but for the first time I believe something about myself. “No. I am here to do a job.”

“Fine. I’m sure that you’re a great kid, from what I know of you. Not that I care too. But we’re just going to go now, okay?”

“Look, think about it this way,” Mitsuko attempts to explain. “If they’ve put a kid on a case, then the case is hardly worth anything, right? So what are you going to learn? Nothing. Because they won’t trust you to really find anything out. If anything, this is a waste of time for everybody. It’s a waste of time for the organisation because it’s a worthless investigation. It’s a waste of time for you, because you ain’t gonna learn any thing and your time would be more constructive in play school. And it’s a waste of time for me because if they’re putting me on shit like this, with shit like you, then I’m never going to get ANYWHERE!”

Trying not to cry, Mitsuko walks away. Hemmingway runs after her, attempting to console her but it doesn’t seem to be working as she keeps shrugging him off. And me. I just stand here, dejected. A loser. This is why it’s never worth fighting for anything. Because you lose and get dragged down hard. I want to turn away and just leave. But I’m lost. I have no idea where I am. Presumably still Soho, but how would I know? I certainly have no idea where Piccadilly tube station is. Something comes back to me, some random piece of advice, no doubt as a result of me being afraid of getting lost in London and never wanting to go there as a result. ‘Just find the nearest tube station and from there you can get back to somewhere you know.’ So, I’ll just move forward then.

Heading off, I hear a beep coming from somewhere very near me. Shit the collar! I spin around, they must be twenty metres away. But I can’t see them as there is a junction ten metres away or so. I sprint in the direction they went, not knowing if they turned left or right. Catching them in the crowds stood by a car, I know I’m safe. But I do not want to lose face. I do not want them to know they defeated me. I’m stuck here, but I want them to believe I want to be here. I storm up to them. “What gives you the right to deny me my dreams, eh? I fought for this opportunity.”

Having calmed down a little, Mitsuko just shrugs her shoulders. “I didn’t, I just applied.” The smug smile she gives me seems to vindicate her and bring her out of her misery.

“Well, they wanted me and you’re stuck with me. And you see this collar here? If you really don’t want me, just walk away, go on. It’ll just blow up.”

Hemmingway has to grab her by the jacket collar to stop her from getting away. 

“Alright. Just get in the car.”

I’ve got to stop with this arrogance. 

I sit in the car convincing myself that Mitsuko only said what she said because she’s taunting me, bullying me. I never believed anything I was going to do here on work experience to be really dangerous or hard, or that it needs people who are extremely experienced. I did work experience at school. I wasn’t doing all the proper work; I was making cups of tea, ripping up old files, basic data entry. Crap stuff. I asked questions, people showed me stuff, that was all. Okay, I admit, in my dreamiest of fantasies, I might have concocted something vague where I, single handed, saved the world against major odds. Gangs of people with guns, grenades, helicopters and motorcycles. Movie stuff. But that’s just an indulgence. Everyone’s allowed that. I’ve got to confess though, whilst my self-esteem allows me to save the world, it doesn’t stop me from fatal wounds. The ability to not enjoy my glory due to emergency paramedics fighting for my life. The love of my life dead because I failed to save her. Trauma through major glory. Yeah, my self-esteem is fucked. If I live it’s because I failed and everyone hates me. If I die, then I succeeded but lost anyway.

But Mitsuko is exaggerating, right? It can’t be that worthless. I can ask questions, surely. Watch whatever it is that they do. I can still stick it down on my CV, for fuck’s sake. I don’t have to tell employers what I actually did. Reality hits me. It may be more beneficial should I not put down work experience at the F.I.B., claiming I was at McDonalds or something instead. 

But there’s dead people! That’s got to mean something. I don’t know why we’re examining a load of people who’ve committed suicide, especially when the police have already done that. It does seem worthless. But there must surely be a point, otherwise why do these people get paid? 

I come out of my thoughts to pay more attention to my surroundings. This is London, for crying out loud! I’ve never been here before! I’m too lost in searching for the big sights to get myself involved, or even pay the slightest bit of attention to Mitsuko and Hemmingway’s conversation in the front of the car. I know we haven’t past any, because I would have spotted them, no matter how lost in my thoughts I was. The closest I’ve got are the black cabs and the red buses which, sadly, are really not that impressive at all. But all I can see around me are endless roads, packed with traffic. The shops are petering out to be replaced by houses. Then the shops come back. I’ve never understood how London works, but it just seems to be constant. I’ve always used places like Swansea or Cardiff as my role models in trying to imagine London, with all the big shops condensed in the middle, the suburbs surrounding. But this is nothing like that. Where is Big Ben? Tower Bridge? Where are we?

Mitsuko has obviously got bored of the conversation and has instead resorted to shooting drivers with an imaginary gun. I watch the drivers to see if they notice they have been targeted for imaginary assassination, but if they do, they seem not to care. That is, until she shoots one driver before his car spins violently out of control due to a red spray that has suddenly appeared. My heart pounding, I spin around in my seat to look, as we continue driving. I can’t see anything, however, due to the continued moving of the traffic. I don’t know what to do. Did I see that or did I just imagine it? Mitsuko, also, has turned around in her seat, but she is only staring at me. I settle myself back down. There’s little we can do. If it did happen, someone else must be there to ring an ambulance or something.

Having got bored of me, Mitsuko goes back to her assassinations, making me nervous enough to close my eyes. I just do not want to see anything like that again, wondering if I was responsible with my particular mind. 

“Look, just stop that, will you?” demands Hemmingway, annoyed.

It is a sulky Mitsuko that responds “Alright.” 

“Look, you’ve caused blooming traffic, now.”

Feeling safer, I open my eyes to survey the damage. We are indeed surrounded by other vehicles. Some burned out wrecks, drivers slumped dead across the steering wheel. One or two passengers actually thrown the windscreen, splayed across the bonnet, the legs still hanging inside the car. The carnage that Mitsuko has caused. Or was it me? This is no traffic jam. Hemmingway was wrong. Why can’t he see that?

“It’s only an illusion. It’s not really there.” It’s a thought that obviously I’ve said out loud. But I’ve said it with such relief as the cogs in my brain finally start turning in the right direction.

“Look, just shut up,” he demands.

But the carnage isn’t real. I can’t figure out why, if there’s no carnage, Hemmingway can’t continue. “Drive through it,” I urge. “There will be nothing there for you to worry about.”

He turns around in his seat to scrutinise me properly. “Who are you, anyway? You look familiar.”

No. I look bland. Kind of good looking, but in a bland way. If my hair is cut in a particular way, I look a bit like Jarvis Cocker. Alternativley, if it’s shorter, and I’m looking at somebody angrily, I look a bit like Kelly Jones from the Stereophonics. Not that anybody’s ever bothered to mention this to me, no doubt because they haven’t bothered to look at me properly. Or at all. Get me into a police line-up, and I’d probably be the one who is picked out, regardless of my innocence, because I’ve got that kind of face that has a variety of distinguishing marks, that always reminds people of someone else, but not enough to carve out my own identity on. In response, all I can do is just shrug. After all, I’ve certainly never seen the guy before today. “Maybe.”

“Crunchy. The name rings a bell. Did we go to school together?”

“I assure you that we did not!” How stupid a question can you get? He looks at least ten years older than me, although I’m prepared to concede that he also looks as if he hasn’t slept for a week. Besides, I’m from fucking Wales! Okay, my accent is not that strong any more, but it’s certainly not the light West-country one that he has!

“Fine. Whatever.” He begins drumming his hands on the steering wheel, slightly pissed off. Oh God! I’ve done it again. I’ve made myself sound pretentious. I was just surprised by the question. But I’ve made it sound as if I could never go to a school that he went to. They hate me, they hate me, they hate me. 

Mitsuko breaks the silence. “Ah, look the traffic is moving again.”

“Shut up.”

“Just trying to be helpful.”

“Just shut up.”

Traffic. The carnage that has surrounded us fades into cars, just normal cars with drivers upright in their seats and fully in control of their cars. It really was just a hallucination. I’m glad I kept my mouth shut about it. Except I didn’t, did I? If I was feeling bad enough for making myself sound like an idiot, shame drops through me at the thought I believed all the cars around us may just have been an illusion. I didn’t believe in the carnage, but I didn’t register that there might actually have been real cars instead. The traffic that Hemmingway mentioned. And this is the crusher. That I thoughtfully suggested that he just drive through them. I am just mortified by myself. That wasn’t arrogant, that was just downright patronising. And in the stupidest, most embarrassing  way. Just drive through them. How can anybody react to a statement like that without being convinced the person who made it is a freak?

The traffic has stopped again. We didn’t get particularly far. Just being in this car has become impossibly hard. I may not be able to go further than twenty metres away from these two, but at least that means I can be in a different room. I want so badly to redeem myself. Prove to them I have an ounce of intelligence and credibility. But I think I’m just going to have to wait for my chance. And then these thoughts start streaming into my head. Thoughts that come so rapidly I have to vocalise them to give them substance, to give them reality before each one is crowded out by the next and disappears forever. 

“Wheels, that’s the important thing to remember here, they keep turning. A cycle creates a cycle, creates movement. Just think about your journey’s end and someday you may get there. But if the universe’s journey involves circles and time itself is a repetition, then light, the one true straight and narrow must surely be a lie. That the light in front of me that tells me there is blockage ahead comes from a curve, then surely that must have passed by now, that we can move on. Our circles start revolving again and though I do not sense our movement I know we must be travelling for we are forever travelling. We rotate ourselves and everything moves past. Soon we are past.”

As I say all this, I am just blankly aware that sitting here in the backseat, I am able to see Mitsuko’s reflection in all three of the cars mirrors. My mind is on a completely different plane to the events going on around me. From the words that stream out of my mouth. My mind is here, here in normality. And all it can focus in on is the most mundane thing it can register. Within all three of these mirrors, Mitsuko’s reflection stares at me. But her reflections are out of odds with her actions. Like Hemmingway, she holds her hands over her eyes, braced for the inevitable collision. But these reflections stare. Cars are passing by us, windows of shops fly past, regardless of whoever is in control of this car now. All carry Mitsuko’s reflection. Staring right at me as if looking straight into me. There is a menace there. The reflections bring their hands up, held in the shape of a gun, Mitsuko herself does not, though by now she actually is staring into the mirror at me. The hands of the reflections jerk, as if I am being shot at from every angle. I duck, bringing my arms up to protect myself, but despite a heavy physical jolt pushing and pulling from all directions, I am left unharmed.

The car slows down to a stop outside a house. Mitsuko is still staring at me in the mirror. There is still loathing there, for having put her through such a bad experience. I don’t even know if she knows I am responsible, but no doubt I am a convenient scapegoat. But for once she is speechless, a mix of shock, awe and fear are in her face and eyes. Sensing stability, Hemmingway pulls his hands away from his eyes, and registers where we are. As Mitsuko gears herself up to say something, which she is finding immensely difficult, Hemmingway checks the nearest road sign. He shouldn’t need to. The GPS is telling him that we have arrived at our destination. Hemmingway’s reaction is similar to Mitsuko’s moments ago, he too is staring at me with awe and fear. Meanwhile, I sit here in the back. As small as I can possibly make myself, hunched up and with my arms tucked into my sides. I genuinely believe that I am not going to be able to get out of this one, that I have some explaining to do. But my mind is blank, because I cannot explain it to myself. This is just what happens.

But Hemmingway is able to compose his thoughts much quicker than Mitsuko is able to, but unlike her fury that is on the verge of exploding, a smile forms on his face, which disconcerts me more than anything else. It’s smug at the same time as warm and friendly, suggesting both ‘it’s okay, don’t worry about it, this kind of thing happens all the time’, mixed in with ‘I told you so!’

Mitsuko finally bursts, “What the hell was that!!”

Time to start squirming. “Listen, I can explain…” But I can’t, the words just aren’t there. 

“Mitsuko, calm down!” demands Hemmingway. “It’s just a random occurrence. Isn’t that right, eh, Agent Crunchy?”

Agent Crunchy? Agent Crunchy? I am completely scoobied now. Why is he defending me? The Mitsuko reaction I can deal with. It’s uncomfortable, sure, but it’s normal. Well, I at least have come to accept it as normal. 

“Hemmingway, some…” her vocabulary is unable to cope with the overload at the moment, “shit, some kind of shit just went down.” Her voice drops down into heavy sarcasm, chuckling at her own disbelief. “I don’t know if you noticed, but it wasn’t you driving that car, and this freak, this constipated thing at the back here was mumbling all sorts of voodoo… shit.”

Well, she definitely noticed, then. I am having to cope with all sorts of fear and anxiety here. So many chemicals are being pumped through my body that I am severely trembling. I worry that if it wasn’t for this seatbelt, I would shake out of the car. Yes, despite all that’s going on, I actually think that. I don’t know how to react. Mitsuko does it for me, ejecting herself out of the car. Hemmingway follows and, hesitantly I do too.

“Keep it away from me!” She yells, jumping away. 

“Mitsuko, Mitsuko. Calm down! Nobody knows what happened.” Hemmingway takes a glance towards me. He knows something. I’m sure of it. I’m just content to stand out of the way as much as possible. “I guess our naive friend here, is finding out what it really means to be in the F.I.B.”