#Zero

by Neil McCormick

  ‘You’re shitting me!’ growled the driver, pushing her away from him. I dodged sideways, twisting and turning between rigs, then collided with a couple of bearded bums sharing a bottle. One of them grabbed me by the arm and started to shake me excitedly, breathing a pungent mix of malt liquor and halitosis in my face.

  ‘It’s you. I knew it was you!’ he growled. It was the tramp I had fled earlier. I shoved him in the chest and wrestled free. As he fell back into his companion, I ran. Everywhere I turned there seemed to be more bodies lurking in the dark, more eyes fixing on my flight, more shouts of recognition, shapes looming out of the shadows like zombies in a cheap horror flick. I stumbled, hit the tarmac, and instinctively rolled between the wheels of a rig, lying flat beneath its undercarriage. Feet pounded past.

  ‘Did you see him?’ a voice yelled.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Zero! Zero’s here.’

  ‘Fuck off.’ A burst of laughter. ‘You’re crunked and seeing ghosts.’

  I lay there catching my breath. It looked like I had reached the end of the road, about to be hauled in by a mob of bounty-hunting hobos. Then I noticed something directly ahead, a small box glinting in a pool of orange lamp light. I crawled forward. It was a battered Marlboro cigarette packet, the lid torn open. Inside, there was a single cigarette.

  Maybe there was a God.

  Clutching the packet, I crawled beneath the rigs, staying low and out of sight until I reached the ramp. The motorhome park lay directly across the way. I waited till a car crawled past, then launched out and scampered across the road. A cry went up. I kept running. The bulky vehicles all looked the same in the gloom. Where the fuck was the Reverend’s? Then I spotted the words ‘Sinners Welcome’. That was me. I edged over, pulled the door open and stepped inside.

  Marilyn looked up weakly. I pulled the single cigarette from the packet and held it triumphantly. But the expression in her eyes was forlorn. ‘I’ll take that,’ said the Reverend, lumbering from the back of the RV.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I muttered lamely. I wanted to fall snivelling to my knees, reach out for a big bear hug of forgiveness. Where was the love of Christ when you needed it? Suffer little children and all that. But he looked away, too quickly. And that’s when I knew the game was up.

  ‘I think we better hit the road,’ he said.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

  ‘Out of here,’ he said, glancing out front where hookers and hobos were skulking between motorhomes, peering in windows, criss-crossing the road, shouting at one another. Drivers were emerging from the diner and heading for their rigs. Lights were going on in neighbouring RVs. And then he turned back and finally held my gaze. ‘You haven’t been entirely straight with us, have you, son?’

  ‘No,’ I muttered, gripped by an intense feeling of shame.

  ‘The Lord preserveth the simple. I was brought low, and he helped me. Psalms: 116, 6. Well, I am going to get you out of here.’

  ‘Thank you, Reverend,’ I gushed.

  ‘You’re going to have to lay low. The way they’re carrying on out there, I wouldn’t be surprised if they start setting up roadblocks. So sit in the can, pull the door shut and I will let you know when it’s safe to come out.’

  I was genuinely moved by his Christian charity. ‘About the cigarette, Reverend, I want to explain—’

  ‘It’s all right, son,’ he said, waving me towards the tiny toilet cubicle. ‘I know Ma put you up to it.’

  Marilyn scowled at me furiously.

  The Rev opened the cubicle door and, with a firm shove in the back, propelled me inside. It was a tight, airless space, with no windows, and the strong smell of disinfectant overlaying other people’s shit. I sat on the small toilet seat as the Reverend closed the door, muttering some kind of benediction beneath his breath. There was a click that took a moment to penetrate. I looked at the lock. The key had been turned from the outside.

  ‘Hey, Reverend …’ I called.

  A rumble told me the RV was starting up.

  I tried the door handle. It didn’t give. ‘Reverend … what’s going on?’ I called. I felt the vehicle lurch into motion. I banged the door. ‘Reverend?’ I banged it again. ‘REVEREND!’

  The fucker had locked me in.

  16

  I spent a long night in a toilet less than a metre square. It smelled bad when I got in and worse after I had taken a dump. Periodically I kicked the door but I couldn’t get enough purchase to do damage and there was no response even when I accused my kidnappers of being in league with Satan. So I sat with the toilet seat down and my head leaning uncomfortably on the tiny sink, staring at Formica walls till my eyes lost focus. Night voices chattered in my head, pointing out my flaws as if I wasn’t already aware of them, thank you very much. As an escapologist, I was an abject failure. Had there ever been a flight to freedom that involved so little actual freedom? I had swapped one cage for another, each less gilded than the last. Gild was good. Gild meant five-star service, coffee and croissants, a comfortable bed with clean linen. A hot shower.

  My eyes snapped open to an ominous stillness. I was kneeling on the floor, body contorted over the toilet seat, head throbbing, every muscle aching. The vehicle had come to a halt. Silence swelled till my ears were tingling. Then there was a sudden burst of voices. The lock clicked. The door swung open. The Reverend stood in the half-light, all six foot six of him. Behind him stood another man, almost as tall but softer, face round behind a primped moustache, midriff bulging against the fabric of a short-sleeved shirt. ‘Jesus, Pa, I thought you was shitting me,’ he gasped.

  ‘Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain,’ said the Rev.

  I propelled myself forward and tried to wriggle past my captor but the Rev clamped those big hands around me, gripping my skinny shoulders like a vice. ‘Don’t let him go, Pa,’ yelled his son, swiping my legs from behind.

  The Reverend held me down, praying with the fervour of an exorcist combating the devil himself: ‘The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.’

  I spat at my assailants but only succeeded in getting my chin wet. ‘You’re supposed to be a man of God, you fucking hypocrite,’ I whined. ‘What does it say in the Bible about kidnapping? Judas!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, face taut with shame. ‘There’s a reward. I’ve got to think about Ma. Her medication …’

  ‘A million fucking dollars,’ said Rev Junior, regarding me with belligerent amazement. ‘Jesus fucking Christ, Pa! You can buy a lot of fucking medication with a million dollars.’

  ‘Don’t test me, John!’ growled the Reverend.

  ‘You watch your tongue in front of Pa, Johnny,’ croaked Marilyn, straining to observe the action from her sick bed.

  ‘He never watched it in front of me, Ma,’ muttered John, glancing warily at his father as if ready to dodge a blow.

  The Reverend snorted loudly, which was enough to make John retreat, sitting on Marilyn’s bed to let her stroke his thinning hair. This was evidently the estranged son, the Texan sheriff. Despite a beige and black uniform covered in stars and epaulettes, John had little of his father’s imposing gravity. Everything about him was somehow toned down by fat. ‘Jesus, Ma, have you pissed yourself?’ he suddenly exclaimed, jumping back to his feet.

  ‘Pa said I shouldn’t use the little girl’s room cause You Know Who was locked up in there,’ Marilyn bleated.

  ‘For God’s sake, Pa, you ain’t never gonna change,’ John sniped. ‘Here, let me take care of that.’

  While the Reverend kept me pinned down, Sheriff John pulled my arms behind me and clamped cold metal around my wrists. It took me a moment to realise I was being handcuffed.

  ‘Do you think those are necessary?’ asked the Reverend.

  ‘Best not take chances, Pa,’ said Sheriff John, sticking a black patent leather shoe under my shoulder and flipping me over with all the dignity of a newly landed fish flopping o
n the bottom of a boat. ‘I suggest you let me handle this. I am a sworn officer of the law, in case you forgot.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten, John,’ said the Reverend. ‘I’m proud of you.’

  ‘Yeah, well, fuck you. I didn’t do it to make you proud,’ muttered John. ‘I did it so I could arrest you if you ever raised your hands against Ma again.’

  ‘That’s enough, Johnny!’ wailed Marilyn.

  ‘A million fucking dollars!’ whistled Johnny, prodding me incredulously with his nightstick. ‘How you wanna do this? Fifty–fifty?’

  ‘We’re gonna share with the whole family,’ said the Reverend.

  ‘It’s my jail cell, my bust,’ complained the sheriff.

  ‘Well, we found him,’ wheezed Marilyn.

  ‘Do I get any say in this?’ I demanded. Well, it’s probably fairer to say I snivelled. I just wanted to remind them who this was really about.

  ‘Shut the fuck up,’ snapped the sheriff, which settled that.

  ‘Your sister deserves her share and she’s gonna get it,’ said the Reverend. ‘And so is the Church.’

  ‘Fuck the Church,’ muttered his son, then dodged back from the Reverend’s raised arm with the lightning instincts of someone who has spent a lifetime anticipating violence.

  The Reverend wagged his finger with a sad air of impotence. ‘That is enough blasphemy. You can say what you want about me, son, but I will always love you, and so will the Lord Jesus Christ.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake, you lot should be on Jerry Springer,’ I muttered from the floor.

  ‘Another fucking word out of you and you’re gonna be picking your teeth outta the end of my stick,’ snapped the sheriff. ‘Excuse me, Ma. But this little shit has been wasting police time and that’s something we take seriously round here. Every law enforcement officer in the country looking for him and he’s riding round in your fucking motorhome. I can’t hardly believe it.’

  ‘The Lord moves in mysterious ways,’ intoned the Reverend.

  ‘He sure as shit does,’ said his son.

  ‘That’s enough, John!’ growled the Rev.

  ‘I’ll tell you what’s enough, Pa! Fifty-fifty’s enough. Now that’s fair, that’s reasonable. You get your share and you can give whatever you want to Paula and she can just fucking drink herself to death even quicker and leave those poor kids without a mother. You can give it all to the fucking Church, for all I care. But I got plans of my own. I ain’t wasting my time waiting for the end of the world. With half a million, I can run for mayor, and that’d just be the start. How d’you like to see a Salt in the State senate? Now you owe me, and maybe this is the Lord’s way for you to make reparation, call it what you want. Fifty–fifty, right down the middle. I got people to take care of on my end, so what’s it gonna be?’

  The Reverend looked at Marilyn for support, which was not forthcoming. ‘Whatever you say, son,’ he sighed.

  ‘Well, all right,’ said the sheriff.

  The two men regarded one another thoughtfully, then the Reverend opened his arms and enveloped his son in an awkward hug.

  ‘We love you, Johnny,’ sniffled Marilyn.

  ‘You wanna help me get the prisoner inside?’ requested the sheriff, wiping what looked suspiciously like a tear from his eye.

  Early morning sunlight hit me in the face as I was frogmarched across a wide street towards a block of squat, low-lying redbrick and concrete buildings. I glanced up the road, which ran in a straight, flat line to a distant horizon, but the sheriff grabbed hold of the back of my neck and forced my head down. I was bundled through doors into an open-plan office that reeked of utilitarian tedium, dust and neglect. The only two occupants stood as we entered.

  ‘Oh my,’ gasped a flat-faced woman in a floral dress and a tower of hair. ‘It’s true.’

  ‘Need some assistance there, boss?’ asked a lanky young uniform with narrow eyes and pimply face.

  ‘Open up the cell door for me, will you, Seymour?’ grunted the sheriff.

  ‘Old Freeman Tally is sleeping it off down there,’ said the young deputy.

  ‘How many times I gotta tell you, Seymour, this is not a fucking motel,’ snapped the sheriff.

  ‘He’s less trouble in than out,’ sniffed Seymour.

  The woman stepped forward and curtsied. ‘Welcome to our station, Zero,’ she said, proffering what appeared to be a flyer with my picture and information about the reward. ‘Can I get your autograph?’

  ‘My hands are cuffed,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, well, maybe later,’ she trilled, brightly.

  ‘That’s enough of that, Rita,’ said the sheriff. ‘We’re gonna treat him like any other prisoner. Everyone is equal in the eye of the law. And I want this kept quiet till I decide exactly how to handle it, so don’t be calling your sisters.’

  ‘She already called them,’ said Deputy Seymour, winking at his co-worker.

  ‘Jesus fucking Christ!’ snarled the sheriff.

  ‘That’s enough of that, John,’ growled the Reverend.

  ‘Sorry, Pa,’ said the sheriff. ‘You just call them back now, Rita, and say it was a case of mistaken identity.’

  ‘If Rita’s sisters are on the case, the whole town has probably heard by now,’ sniggered Seymour, unlocking an imposing door.

  ‘I hope you enjoy your stay,’ called Rita, as the sheriff propelled me down into a gloomy basement.

  There were three barred cells, one of which was occupied by the prostrate figure of a wiry, grey-bearded black man, sleeping noisily atop a wall-fixed bed. He appeared to be wearing nothing but dirty underpants and bright red moonboots with no laces. Seymour unlocked an adjoining cell, while the sheriff removed my handcuffs and shoved me inside. ‘Get his personal effects, Seymour,’ he ordered.

  The deputy unclasped my watch and inspected it with awe. ‘How much a thing like this cost?’ he asked.

  ‘More’n you earn in a year, I’ll bet,’ said the sheriff. ‘Take his belt, in case he tries to self-harm.’

  He tugged my leather belt out and my jeans slid down my hips. ‘Empty your pockets,’ ordered Seymour.

  ‘They’re empty,’ I said. But he pulled them inside out anyway. Marilyn’s four dollars in small change fell out.

  ‘I thought you was supposed to be rich,’ said Seymour.

  ‘Rich folks don’t carry money,’ said the sheriff. ‘They got other people to carry it for them. Better get his shoelaces.’

  Seymour bent down and fiddled with my laces, until my sneakers were left flopping from my feet. When he was done, he stepped back from the cold, bare cell and the metal bars clanged shut. ‘He don’t look much like he looks on TV, does he?’ said Seymour.

  ‘Come on, now, Seymour,’ retorted the sheriff. ‘They have all kind of special effects to make people look good on the box. Everybody knows that. It’s just an illusion.’ And with that my gaolers left.

  I sat on the edge of the thin, hard bed and stared at graffiti-covered walls. There was a dirty sink and a toilet with no seat wafting the smell of sewage up my nostrils. I started to cry and didn’t even bother holding back. I was as alone as I was ever going to be, so I let the snivelling turn to sobbing until convulsions of despair sent me sliding to the concrete floor. I didn’t know where all these tears were coming from – I just wanted my mummy to wrap me up and hold me, I wanted to smell the warmth of her neck and not the shit from the bottom of the toilet, not the antiseptic of hospital bleach in that room where she lay cold and still and God evaporated before my child eyes, sucked away in a howl so blistering and bereft even the memory of it made me recoil.

  I never really thought about my daddy in pain. He was such a fucking rock, so hard and unyielding you could have scaled him with pitons, hooks and ropes. But I heard him cry, just that once, and I never wanted to hear that sound again. So what was this sound I was making now?

  ‘It’s all in your mind,’ a deep, scratchy voice sounded, resonating in the concrete box. For a moment I wasn’t sure if someone was r
eally speaking or I was listening to a half-remembered sound bite in my own head. ‘No use bawling, boy. Dry your tears, wipe your fears, don’t wanna give folks the idea you never been in jail before,’ the disembodied voice continued.

  ‘I never have been in jail before,’ I said.

  ‘A virgin, hey?’ said the voice. And there was a cackling laugh that I didn’t like at all.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ I retorted, clambering quickly to my feet, alert to danger.

  ‘All the world’s a jail, and all the men and women really prisoners. That is the word of the Bard, William Shakespeare, he shakes his spear, he knows no fear, and that right there is the goddamn truth!’ said the voice.

  ‘All the world’s a stage,’ I corrected him.

  ‘Damn right, boy. Now you’re getting it. A stage on the way to fruition, evolution, revolution, the chrysalis and the butterfly, which are you? You gots to choose. There are many stages but most never make it out of the cocoon. Too many people afraid of change when they should be afraid of staying the same. Fear is the key: it can lock you up, it can set you free. Fear traps us in the prison of the mind. Jail is the only reality. Don’t matter if you’re in or out, either way you’re in, see?’

  ‘Well, I’m pretty sure we’re in,’ I said. I figured I was talking to my neighbour in the adjoining cell.

  ‘The sleeper awakes!’ declared Freeman, excitedly. ‘See, that’s why I like it in. At least you know where you are. It’s a start. What they get you for?’

  That was a good question. Had I broken any laws? I wasn’t even sure if I had actually been arrested. ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘I didn’t do anything.’

  ‘An innocent man, hey?’ sighed Freeman.

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Wake up, fool!’ he yelled in disgust. ‘There is no such thing as an innocent man. Haven’t you been listening to a single word I said? It is all in your mind! Be the victor not the victim. Everything is a projection of consciousness. Understand that and you will set yourself free. All confused people can desert planet evil. The whole world is a mirror to your mind. Consciousness is the ground of being. Consciousness is the only reality. You made this prison. You are here for a reason. You just got to figure it out.’