A Town Called Discovery

by R. R. Haywood

  ‘I said I didn’t mean…’

  ‘Not now, Thomas. Think of a way we can stop a mother a child from going into a zoo…’

  ‘We need to identify them first,’ Bear says.

  ‘Spare change?’

  All three turn at the same time to see a homeless man on an old bedroll at the side of the pavement. A thick beard and filthy skin with rheumy watery eyes and his blackened hands hold a worn chunk of cardboard asking for money.

  ‘Sorry dude,’ Thomas says, patting his legs. ‘Got nothing.’

  They walk on in silence, glimpsing open air ahead with a hint of green that marks the edge of Central Park.

  ‘What I want to know is why stop a kid from seeing animals being fed?’ Zara asks as they cross an open space. ‘How can that change time?’

  ‘Anything can change time,’ Bear replies, still holding the fighting stick that not one person looks twice at.

  ‘Seems stupid to me,’ she says.

  ‘GET YA DAWGS HERE…DAWGS HERE…’ the booming voice of a street vendor permeates the air, adding to the cacophony of sounds within the plaza bordering the park. Thick New York accents mingle with foreign tones and nuances that speak of zones they’ve all heard in movies they cannot recall or remember without context.

  They stride into the park and down the wide lanes, following the signs for the zoo and weaving past the thick crowds of tourists. Families everywhere. Mothers and children. Fathers and children.

  ‘There,’ Bear says, pointing ahead to three arches set in a brick wall giving entrance to the zoo. It’s instantly obvious they can’t go further without money to buy tickets and they come to a stop with each looking around for ideas and watching the thick crowds streaming past.

  Zara places her hands on her hips thinking of the problem and also thinking to tell Thomas what racist means when she spots a woman walking past holding a brightly coloured map of the park that makes her think of the homeless man’s cardboard sign then the menus and signs they’ve seen everywhere else.

  ‘Got it!’ she says quickly. ‘We need a sign…like at airports…you know when….’

  ‘Nameboards?’ Thomas suggests.

  ‘Yes! We need those,’ she says.

  ‘Got it, hang fire here,’ he rushes off back the way they came. Working against the flow of people to reach the plaza area and the vendors calling out with their goods and wares. A strip of cardboard from an old box. A borrowed pen and he runs back with a grin, showing them his artwork.

  MRS MCCONVILLE AND JIMMY

  ‘She might not be married,’ Zara points out.

  ‘What?’ Thomas asks, somewhat crestfallen.

  ‘You’ve put Mrs…she might be miss…’

  ‘Aw heck, do you think it matters?’

  ‘It’ll be fine…right, stand in the middle and hold it up.’

  ‘Me? Why can’t Bear do it? He’s taller.’

  ‘Good point. Bear, hold this,’ she says, plucking the fighting stick from his hands to replace with the sign. ‘Up a bit more…yep, that’s fine…’

  ‘What do I say if they see me?’ Bear asks.

  ‘Worry about that when…’

  ‘Say there, I’m Mrs McConville. Is there a problem?’ a woman asks, holding hands with a stout and serious child at her side.

  ‘No way,’ Bear says, looking at the card then at them. ‘That was quick.’

  ‘Hi!’ Zara blurts. ‘You can’t go in.’

  ‘What? Why?’ the woman demands with instant New York aggression.

  ‘Er...because…’ Zara flounders for a second then remembers what Thomas said earlier. ‘There’s poisonous rats…’

  ‘What?’ Mrs McConville snaps, pulling stout and serious Jimmy closer to her side.

  ‘Hey, did you say poisonous rats?’ a man asks, stopping as he walks by to stare in alarm at Zara then at Bear and Thomas also in blue coveralls. ‘Honey, you hear that? The zoo’s overrun with dangerous rats,’ he tells his wife in a strong New York voice.

  ‘No, I meant…’ Zara says.

  ‘Poisonous rats?’ a woman asks. ‘Did she say poisonous rats?’

  ‘No, I just meant in the food…’ Zara says.

  ‘THE FOOD?’ someone yells. ‘The rats are in the food?’

  ‘No! Just the diseased ones…’

  ‘Diseased?’ someone asks.

  ‘I meant poisoned,’ Zara says.

  ‘What’s going on?’ another man asks.

  ‘Goddam diseased rats in the zoo,’ the first man replies.

  ‘Diseased rats.’

  ‘Dangerous rats…’

  ‘Biting people…’

  ‘Attacking people eating food…’

  ‘I never said that,’ Zara shouts and suddenly the crowd isn’t streaming into the zoo anymore but clinging in alarm to the growing nucleus surrounding the three in blue coveralls.

  ‘Mommy…I don’t want to get bit by a rat,’ a stout, serious and now very worried Jimmy McConville says.

  ‘He got bit by a rat?’ someone asks.

  ‘Who got bit?’ A woman calls out.

  ‘That kid…he’s been bit by diseased rats.’

  ‘Get him outta here…hey, lady…get your kid away.’

  ‘EVERYONE LISTEN,’ Zara yells to be heard but that increase in volume only makes everyone else get louder.

  On a park bench some several metres away two men peer over the top of their newspapers. ‘Ready?’ Jacob asks.

  ‘Oui.’

  ‘OH, MY GOD, A RAT!’ a woman screams as a pigeon trots by her feet, running back into another woman who shoves her away into a child that cries out at being knocked down. The domino effect starts with the mother of the child lashing out into the woman that knocked her daughter over. That woman fights back, screaming that it wasn’t her fault. Their husbands wade in hard and so the ripples spill out with an escalation of aggression rising by the second.

  ‘HEY…HEY!’ Zara shouts out, wading deeper into the crowd on seeing the two women still trying to fight despite being held by the men. She gets between them, using her body as a shield to try and keep them apart.

  Thomas spins round, blinking at not seeing Zara where she was. He turns this way and that, snatching glimpses between the dense ranks of jostling people but the speed increases with shouts and calls in loud angry voices becoming ragged and hoarse. More people come piling in, drawn to the chaos as the numbers increase to the extent the two men reading newspapers on a nearby bench draw their feet under their seats to keep clear of the path.

  ‘ZARA!’ Thomas shouts, feeling a rush of panic. ‘I CAN’T SEE ZARA…ZARA…SHE WAS RIGHT HERE…’

  ‘Police…move back…’ the first cop arrives, swinging his baton up to start swiping at legs and arms, forcing a path into the crowd as more of his uniformed colleagues run in behind him.

  Zara wedges herself between the two women still trying to fight each other. A hand on each chest. Feet braced. Her face grimacing at the press but for a second she gains order and sees a fleeting look of calmness flicker through both women and their husbands and that split-second quietness rolls out, seemingly poised in the air with everyone and everything balanced on a knife edge. ‘Thank fuck,’ she says with a breath of relief.

  ‘Now?’ Jacob asks quietly from behind his newspaper.

  ‘Oui,’ Pete whispers. ‘Now.’

  The two women being held apart by Zara scream with fresh rage as their husbands simply release their holds to go at each other with Zara trapped in the middle.

  At that same second so everyone else goes at everyone else with fists flying, heads butting, hands grabbing and cops whacking anyone in reach with hard metal batons.

  ‘Holy fuck,’ Thomas reels back from the explosion of violence as the whole crowd collapses in on itself. He tries to run, to flee but gets knocked this way and that, unable to find a path out when he trips and sprawls across the ground, thinking all he can do is curl up and pray until a strong hand grabs the back of his collar, yanking him up and bac
k.

  ‘Stay behind me.’

  Bear glimpses blue coveralls in a seething mass of people. A glimpse of tight black afro curls. He moves on with smooth hand motions gliding people away with Thomas close behind. A flash of metal. A black uniform and a screaming angry face. The baton comes in hard. Bear steps left, catching the wrist and forcing the cop over his hip, snatching the baton free. A fist swings at him, he dances back then darts forward, hooking the baton behind the attacker’s knee to rip him off his feet and on he goes, snaking through the fight. ‘There,’ he reaches back, grabs Thomas and heaves him forward into the mass of people rolling on the ground. ‘Get her out.’

  Thomas spots Zara’s arm and dives in, using his shoulders to barge men and women aside.

  ‘GET ME OUT,’ Zara screams, frenzied with panic at being squashed under bodies. ‘GET ME OUT, GET ME OUT…’

  ‘Gotcha,’ Thomas grabs her shoulders, pulling back hard to lift her through the press. ‘Bear…BEAR…WE’RE OUT…’

  Bear takes the lead again, forcing a path to reach the edge of the crowd and spill free to stagger and lurch away, gasping for air and turning to look round in utter shock at the way the riot is contained within such a small area of space.

  ‘What just happened?’ Zara asks, wiping her sleeve over her face, a bare few feet from two men reading newspapers. She blinks fast, breathing hard and seeing blood on her sleeve. ‘I’m bleeding…oh, shit…oh, shit…’

  ‘Where?’ Thomas asks, grabbing her hands to hold her still as he inspects her face and head.

  ‘I’m bleeding…’ she cries out, dancing on the spot with a fresh burst of panic.

  ‘Hang on,’ Thomas says, wiping his sleeve over her cheeks. ‘It’s not yours…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Not yours…the blood ain’t yours.’

  ‘Ew, that’s so gross…get it off get it off…’

  ‘I am dude, hold still…there, it’s gone.’

  ‘Has it gone?’

  ‘I just said it is, it’s gone…’ Thomas says.

  ‘We need to go,’ Bear says, looking round at the bedlam.

  ‘Insane…this place is insane…’ Thomas says as the three run back for Fifth Avenue.

  15

  Breathless. Grimy and coated in sweat they reach the door in the alley and blunder into the dingy room, slamming the door closed and dropping to rest against the wall.

  ‘What happened?’ Thomas asks. ‘How did it go so bad…’

  ‘I think it’s just part of it,’ Bear says. ‘Like seeing how we’ll react.’

  The others stare at him, focussing on his words and the way he breathes so much easier.

  ‘I didn’t like it,’ Zara says. ‘Being trapped like that…everyone so angry and…’ she trails off, looking drained and shaken.

  ‘Another one,’ Bear says, moving to the table to pick the folder up. ‘Want me to read it?’ he asks, offering it to Zara first with an unspoken and unrealised team dynamic already forming.

  ‘I can do it.’ She inhales deeply, steadying the nerves while opening the cover to read the single printed dog-eared sheet. ‘It’s like at school or…or college or something…you know when you get old textbooks that have been handled loads…I mean look at this room and this folder. It’s all so old and worn.’

  Bear looks round, seeing what she means. The scuffed walls. The worn floorboards. The thick layer of dust on the window and the folders they keep getting are stained from being handled and the sheets within have torn edges and creases from being folded.

  ‘What’s it say?’ Thomas asks.

  ‘The annual waste disposal business association conference is taking place today in city hall. You must stop the afternoon presentations session taking place…’

  A big room filled with the noise of men in suits talking loudly while stuffing their jowly faces from the two hour long re-supplied meat and carb heavy buffet provided in one of City Hall’s conference rooms.

  ‘How you doing?’ one of the men asks, walking past the three standing in a row at the end of the buffet table tucking into food from plates piled high. ‘Didn’t get the memo huh? Meant to be smart clothes,’ he slurs, plopping creamed potatoes onto his plate. ‘Who’s outfit you with?’

  ‘Big John,’ Thomas replies.

  ‘Big John?’ the man asks, giving them a hard look that sets Zara’s heart booming. ‘I heard he was in Vegas.’

  ‘He is,’ Thomas says, covering his mouth as he chews. ‘Asked us to come down but a job came in…you know how it is.’

  ‘Damn right, I do buddy,’ the man booms. ‘Give my regards.’

  ‘Will do, sir, you have a good day now,’ Thomas says, lifting his plate in greeting as the man rushes back to his table.

  ‘You’re good at talking,’ Bear says, motioning to Thomas with his plate.

  ‘Thanks,’ Thomas says, shovelling more food in.

  ‘Aw, look at you three,’ a woman says, pushing a trolley along the buffet bar to replenish the stocks of food. ‘You got busy, I guess?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am, we were all suited up and ready when the PD called in for a scene clean-up…homicide,’ he adds in a whisper with a wink.

  ‘Too bad,’ she says, ‘you got a drink? You wanna drink? Lemme get you a drink. You wanna beer?’

  ‘No, thank you, ma’am, back on it…say, you got some water or cola?’

  ‘Sure thing, I’ll get you some colas, you eat up.’

  ‘You’re good at talking,’ Bear says again, earning a chuckle from Zara. ‘Wonder what you did before…maybe a salesman or something.’

  Thomas shrugs, chewing fast while looking round the room. ‘What about you?’ he asks, covering his mouth again. ‘Any idea?’

  ‘Nope,’ Bear says.

  ‘Cop? Soldier? They learn fighting.’

  ‘I couldn’t fight. Roshi made me learn…it was either that or just keep dying.’

  ‘Three colas,’ the woman says, rushing back towards them with three glass bottles. ‘Just holla if you want more.’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am. Say, you don’t have any matches, do you?’

  ‘Sure thing, honey. Bowl on the bar over there. You help yourself now.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘What I want to know,’ Zara says after swallowing her mouthful. ‘Is why we’re doing all these things after that big speech by Jacob.’

  ‘LADIES AND GENTLEMEN…THIS IS A FIFTEEN MINUTE WARNING FOR THE AFTERNOON SESSION. FIFTEEN MINUTES.’

  A chorus of groans roll through the room as the jowly faced men in suits suffer mild panic at the prospect of ceasing their gorging.

  ‘We’d better go,’ Zara says, pushing another sandwich into her mouth. ‘Sho mice.’

  ‘Huh?’ Thomas asks.

  ‘Sho mice…’ she says, pointing at her mouth. ‘Food.’

  ‘Ah…we taking the colas with us?’

  ‘Mmmm,’ she nods quickly, ‘take the colas with us.’

  ‘I think we’re taking the colas with us,’ Bear says.

  ‘Don’t take the piss,’ she mumbles.

  ‘Okay, Grumps.’

  ‘Don’t call me that,’ she snaps, giving him a one second glare.

  ‘I’ll go do it. Meet you outside?’ Bear asks.

  ‘Meet you outside,’ Zara says, ‘you go do it.’

  ‘I just said that.’ Bear walks over to the bar, nodding at the man serving drinks before plucking a box of matches from the bowl on the end. ‘Toilet here?’

  ‘Over there,’ the man says, pointing across the room.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Thomas grabs the colas, Zara another egg sandwich and Bear crosses the room to the toilets. Zara and Thomas walk slowly from the main room to the outer hall, skirting the wall while she eats, and Thomas pops a lid to guzzle the sugary liquid.

  Into a cubicle and Bear closes the door, drops the seat down and starts unwinding the toilet roll that he piles on the seat-cover as Zara and Thomas come to a stop with Zara taking a swig of cola. ‘C
hrist, that’s sweet.’

  Match lit and pressed to the toilet paper that ignites with a small flame that grows fat and big with fuel and air boosting its appetite. Smoke starts to waft up, thin tendrils at first but Bear finds another roll from an overhead cubby and adds that too while in the outer hall Zara takes another swig and Thomas looks about.

  Bear pauses, holding two more rolls in his hands and trying to decide if the fire is big enough without them. ‘Stuff it,’ he adds them too, then another three for good measure and exits fast, rushing from the stall past the urinals each filled with a fat jowly man in a suit trying to locate his penis by touch alone.

  Into the main room and across to the doors and out to nod at Zara who nudges Thomas who whacks the back of his elbow into thin glass covering the fire alarm that comes to life, filling City Hall with a wailing siren. The three walk off, down the stairs to the main entrance, reaching the doors as the sprinkler system activates, spraying gallons of water down over the jowly faced men in suits, all waddling soaked and grumbling from the conference room while thick smoke pours from the cubicle fire.

  The next one is in London and they all feel the change the second they go back into the room. Malcolm Hanright will have a heart attack at 15:23 hours after exiting MacDonald’s restaurant on Baker Street. He will die unless treated by paramedics within two minutes. He must not die.

  They exit the room to a new alley off Marylebone Road. A short walk and they find Baker Street. Another short walk and they find the MacDonald’s. A quick call from a telephone box at 15:18 with Zara dialling three nines and reporting a serious road traffic accident with multiple casualties. Several ambulances are dispatched, racing to the scene to find no accident just as Malcolm Hanright walks out from MacDonald’s, coughs once, coughs twice, clutches his chest and keels over right in front of the ambulance pulled over reporting back to control room that it was a fake call.

  New York and they step out into a harsh biting wind of a city in mid-winter and spend the next hour shivering in thin blue coveralls, working their way back to Central Park and the ice-rink where Zara concocts a plan for Thomas to distract the staff while Bear breaks into the electric room to shut the power off, thereby preventing Mario and Helen from ever meeting and falling in love, and so the day rolls on, with Zara emerging as a clear team leader while Thomas deals with communication, distraction and verbal coercion, leaving Bear to happily do anything that involves pain, risk, violence or danger.