Deep Fried: A Novel

by Beckett, Bernard

  I tried to raise money to help cover a sponsorship shortfall, that was all. I have no reason to worry. Born at the right time, raised beneath a lucky star; educated in an age of porous rules and soft convictions. Or so it would be, if only my school’s cheerful double standard was applied fairly and evenly to us all. I look at the assembled faces and realise my calculations may have neglected some key factors.

  Desmond is an excellent rugby player with a high profile. He is bilingual and is considered to be a useful role model. And David’s mouth was already considered far too large, even before his teeth were broken. Shona is a triumph of the Special Needs programme; her photograph appears on page two of the prospectus. Shannon has a formidable father, who engages lawyers at the merest hint of trouble. Dylan is the offspring of the principal of a nearby college, and Maria knows things about Mr Mulligan that would take a lot of explaining.

  And the man staring up at me now, the chairman of the board no less, the man with my immediate future in his hands, just happens to be the short fat angry PBs franchise owner, whom I met so recently, in the mall. I have no immunity idol. He smiles, the way a lion might smile at a zebra with an ailing hip. Maybe my mother is right. Maybe I’m in deep shit this time. I walk forward, wait for my mother to sit, do the same.

  I’m innocent, but now this thought doesn’t make me feel safe at all. It just makes me feel Pissed Off.

  I look around. Mr Smythe is there, of course, Mr Lawson of fast food fame, Ms Payne, the deputy principal, and another woman I do not recognise, who looks at me as if I am a stain she has just noticed on her brand new couch.

  Mr Lawson is the sort of man who looks even fatter sitting down.

  ‘Ah alright, now Peter,’ Mr Smythe begins. ‘You know of course why you’re here. But I think it’s important we start by clearly outlining what we believe has occurred. Ah, Roger …’

  He nods to Mr Lawson, who actually licks his lips as he reaches for the brown manila folder on the table before him. He is a cartoonist’s dream. He consults the paper with the slow, deliberate air of one who has learned to imitate importance. The charge, as I explained last night to my parents, is plainly ludicrous. Apparently I hacked my way into the school computer network and altered all the NCEA grades. The evidence being used to support this is not complicated. I am ‘the right sort’ to do it. I am out of control and have been involved already in two protests against ‘the establishment’ and, crucially, whoever did the deed left as their calling card a link to www.pissedoff, which everybody knows is mine. Quotes from various inflammatory contributions to the site are also read out, as if to seal my guilt. Circumstance balances atop prejudice and convenience, and forms a shaky structure quite high enough for my hanging. I am innocent, but they are stupid. It’s going to be a line call, this.

  ‘So, ah, Peter,’ Mr Smythe takes up the reins. ‘What do you have to say for yourself?’

  I look around. They, Mother included, are not much interested in my answer.

  ‘I didn’t do it.’

  ‘How then do you explain the evidence?’ Mr Lawson says, as if the folder on his bulging lap contains forensic reports, eyewitness accounts and a signed confession. I don’t often use the word odious, but here is the perfect opportunity. Mr Lawson is an odious little man.

  ‘Well, if there was any evidence, I suppose I would try to explain it,’ I reply. ‘I mean, fuck it, did you see the grades I got when I did computing in the fifth form? How do I suddenly become some world-class hacker?’

  Okay, it’s a mistake to swear, I know that, but I don’t care. Why would I?

  ‘All you needed was a password.’

  ‘Which I didn’t have, you fat cunt.’

  Again, a mistake. But at least my accusation can be substantiated. He is not a slender man, and the smile slipping off his face right now shouts cunt loudly enough.

  ‘Sorry,’ says Mother, in a tone to suggest it is my conception she is apologising for.

  ‘Well yes,’ Mr Smythe intervenes, and there is a hint of relief in his voice. This will be over quickly now. He will make it home before his dinner is totally cold.

  ‘As you can see, it has got to the point where I am unable to recommend that Peter remains as part of this school, and the committee, I think, would agree with me on this.’

  Three heads nod, without pause for thought, and there is no objection from the parental corner. Whether or not I have perpetrated an act of sabotage remains unclear, but I have used the c-word in public, and I will not be forgiven.

  And so I come to be, at the age of 17 and one half, expelled from my one and only secondary school.

  ‘Don’t think you’ll be sitting around home all day either,’ is how Mother breaks the ice, on the car journey home. The steering wheel threatens to buckle beneath her white knuckles. ‘You’re out getting a job in the morning. You start paying board, as from today.’

  ‘Nah, think I might do a polytech course,’ I reply.

  ‘In what?’

  ‘I don’t know. Computing sounds fun.’

  The next morning my mother wakes me at 6.30, and tells me she hopes I’m not thinking I can spend the entire day in bed. I tell her this is exactly what I’m thinking, and she storms out.

  At 7.10 my father enters the room, sits on the edge of my bed and asks me what I’m planning to do with my day. I ask him what gives him the right to come into my room without knocking. He leaves more quietly.

  I have disappointed them both. On the upside, it is now 10.30 and they are out at work, paying off the mortgage. If this had happened last year, Jennifer, my older sister, would still be at home. She did a gap year, worked night shifts at a garden superstore to save money before she went off to university. Exactly the sort of sensible thing she would do. I miss her. If she was here, we could talk. I txt her. There is no reply.

  Twelve-thirty and the sheets are getting sweaty. There’s always that point, where a sleep-in slips from Luxury Hotel to Retirement Home. School was boring most days, but home-alone no-school is worse. I have to move. I have to do something. I get to sitting up and look around my room. There’s not much crying out to be done. I can feel it coming on. It starts at the very back of my skull, low down. The same place every time. The Sadness. Just waiting to be unleashed, if I don’t get moving, if I spend any more time thinking.

  There’s always the computer. I don’t use it all that much. I’m not a chat room person. Email’s boring, just txt for people with patience, and too much to say. And the internet. To be honest I’m a bigot, when it comes to the internet. There are people who are into computers, and there are people who are into living, and those of us lucky enough to be given the choice, we don’t often choose cyber.

  Which isn’t the same thing as saying I don’t have a computer. It’s not the same as saying I don’t know how to find free porn, or download music or check out a new film. And it’s not the same as saying right now that I’m not fucken bored, and almost as lonely. It isn’t fair, it isn’t my fault. Here comes The Sadness, wrapping the Pissed Off in its big heavy arms, and I have to move. I have to do something.

  www.pissedoff.co.nz

  It’s a nice name. I’ll give them that, whoever it was who set up this site. It’s a weird feeling, watching it load, the home page not much more than my own photo, grinning right back at me. It’s the one from the school magazine, so someone local did this.

  There’s an article from the local paper, on the first of the PBs incidents, and a Reuters release on the riot. Plus, if you click on another banner, ten seconds from the TV news, me being dragged off the premises. A lot of work has gone into this. I’m flattered I suppose, and freaked out too. I look at the links.

  POSTER TEMPLATES.

  DEEP FRIED UNIONS.

  FAST FOOD AND NUTRITION – THE FACTS.

  PETER – BEHIND THE MAN.

  PISSED OFF TOO? WHAT YOU CAN DO.

  CHAT ABOUT IT.

  I wander about slowly, reading it all. There’s no hurry. The Sadnes
s is beaten for today. Pissed Off buzzes quietly offstage, but it’s like living next to railway lines, you get used to it. And my guardian angel, it’s back on my shoulder, making suggestions.

  I enter the chat room last, on tiptoe, like a burglar who has accidentally broken his way into his own home, and now, through habit, is valuing the belongings.

  ‘Hi, who’s about?’ I tap.

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘Me who?’

  ‘What’s it matter?’

  ‘Where you from?’

  ‘Local.’

  ‘Local to where?’

  ‘You ask a lot of questions.’

  ‘So you ask one.’

  ‘Where you from?’

  ‘Local too.’

  ‘Local to where?’

  ‘New Zealand. Wellington.’

  ‘Same.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘You a computer geek?’

  ‘Dunno. What’s a computer geek?’

  ‘You’re not school age.’

  ‘Why aren’t I?’

  ‘You’d be at school.’

  ‘How do you know I’m not?’

  ‘No mates then?’

  ‘What do you think of the site?’

  ‘It’s alright.’

  ‘Why? What do you like about it?’

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘What about it is you?’

  ‘Everything. It’s me. That’s who I am. I’m Pete.’

  ‘Yeah, I know what you mean.’

  ‘No, I am. I really am. That was me, at PBs.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘So this is your site? You set it up?’

  ‘No, I didn’t set it up. It’s just about me.’

  ‘So who did set it up?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Who do you think set it up?’

  ‘Someone who likes what I did I guess. Someone who hates PBs.’

  ‘Why aren’t you at school?’

  ‘I’m expelled.’

  ‘I know you are. The board decided last night. Everyone’s talking about it.’

  ‘Everyone where?’

  ‘At school.’

  ‘You go to my school? Who are you? Do I know you?’

  ‘One question at a time.’

  ‘Do I know you?’

  ‘Can’t tell you that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t go to your school.’

  ‘So how do you know what they’re talking about?’

  ‘Txt.’

  ‘What are you doing on the site?’

  ‘I was about to update it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Pete’s been expelled. People need to know. This thing’s getting bigger. It’s only just beginning.’

  ‘Can anyone put stuff on the site?’

  ‘Only the person who set it up.’

  ‘You set this up?’

  ‘That’s what I’m saying.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘That’s okay. I don’t believe you’re Pete.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘Prove you are and I might be able to help you.’

  ‘How can you help me?’

  ‘We want the same thing, me and Pete.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘We want to get rid of the Pissed Off.’

  ‘You used capitals.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Pissed Off. I like that. I like a person to give Pissed Off its due.’

  ‘Can you type any slower?’

  ‘So I do other things with my life.’

  ‘Prove you’re Pete. Tell me something only Pete would know. What’s your mother’s maiden name?’

  ‘Ellis.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I might have just made that up.’

  ‘You didn’t. Births Deaths and Marriages are online now. I’ve already checked.’

  ‘You’re bluffing.’

  ‘They married in 1984, it was a Saturday afternoon.’

  ‘You’re a freak.’

  ‘We want the same thing.’

  ‘I’m going now.’

  ‘You’ll be back.’

  ‘Don’t count on it.’

  ‘I’m going to give you a new address to go to, next time you want to chat.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Next time you’re on the site, right click on the top banner, under options. I’ll leave a link called sitemaster. It’ll ask for a password. Use Ellis. Talk to you soon Pete. You’re a hero. A total hero. But this is just the beginning. Don’t go soft now. Don’t let the machine grind you down. It doesn’t have to be that way. Pissed Off is your weapon Pete. And I’m your passport. Anywhere you want to go, I can take you there. I’m glad you called. I knew you would.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Rob.’

  ‘I think you’re fucked in the head Rob.’

  ‘I’m not, Pete. Neither are you. That’s what makes us different.’

  ‘It’s not your real name is it?

  Well?

  You still there?

  Rob?’

  Nothing, just the remnants of a conversation dying on my screen. My fingers are tingling and my mouth is dry. There’s something happening here. Something weird. I need food. Breakfast, and a shower. I need to think about this.

  You’re a hero. A fucken hero Pete. Okay, I know it. I don’t even know who he is, so it’s lame to care what he thinks. I don’t care. I won’t go back. It’s creepy. It’s not hard to imagine what he’s like. My age. A year older maybe. Left school early, to do a computing course. Thought he’d make it big, get a job in the movies, 3D animation. Now he works part-time at a video store, his student loan is out of control and he’s living in the flat his parents built at the back of their house for his grandfather, before he died. He’s fat, and wears black T-shirts with the names of crap bands on the front. And he’s sitting there waiting at the centre of his virtual web; waiting for the vibrations of a real life to reach him.

  Which doesn’t mean I’m not going back. What else am I going to do this afternoon? And I might be wrong about him. Maybe his Pissed Off and my Pissed Off aren’t so different. Maybe he can help me. He called me a hero.

  I go to the site, tap in the password.

  ‘You’re back. Knew you would be.’

  ‘You just been sitting there waiting?’

  ‘There’s been things to do. I’ve updated your site. Anyway, it hasn’t been that long.’

  ‘I’m going out later, and I wanted to ask you some stuff.’

  ‘What stuff?’

  ‘I don’t know. Like why you set up the site.’

  ‘So you believe me?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘To show them they can’t get away with it.’

  ‘Who? Show them what?’

  ‘Like you have to ask.’

  ‘Maybe I’m not what you think.’

  ‘So why did you visit the site?’

  ‘Bored. Curious.’

  ‘Pissed Off.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Who do you hate?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘Yeah you do. We’re the same.’

  ‘I’m not a freak.’

  ‘So what’s next? You do your protest, organise your riot, hack into the grades, get yourself expelled. We’re all waiting to see where it’s going. We’re waiting to see what’s next.’

  ‘I didn’t do the hacking.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I did it.’

  ‘You got me kicked out, you prick!’

  ‘So what are you missing?’

  ‘My friends, to start with.’

  ‘You can still see them.’

  ‘Maybe I wanted the qualifications.’

  ‘Where I live, I can see the motorway out my w
indow. Every weekday morning I watch them, all those empty cars squeezing their way into the city, to a carpark they can’t afford, a job they don’t like and an income that won’t quite stretch to all the things they never really wanted in the first place. And they’ve all got qualifications haven’t they?’

  ‘You gotta do something.’

  ‘You do. You will.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘You lead, I’ll follow. And I’ll bring the site with me. We’ll make a million hits, by the end of the week. You know that? This is big. Very big.’

  ‘You don’t get it. I don’t have anywhere to lead. I was just Pissed Off, that’s all. Pissed Off isn’t an idea is it? You can’t follow Pissed Off anywhere.’

  The screen sits like that for another minute, without a twitch. Like he’s thinking. Then the words come fast. He sure can type.

  ‘Let me tell you some things Pete, before you give in. Species are going extinct at a rate greater than at any time in the last 65 million years. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is at its highest in 260 000 years. The globe is heating up. The weather system’s going spastic. China will be the next superpower. It doesn’t have enough water. 75 per cent of its waterways has no fish. Some of the rivers are so polluted even the rats are dying. Antibiotics are losing the battle against the bacteria, but we pump farm animals full of them, force feed them to eating size in record time. Nitrogen run-off is clogging the oceans with new algal blooms. Two thirds of the planet goes hungry and the other third is so fat we don’t fit into our airline seats. Heart disease and depression are on the rise. If the body doesn’t give in, the mind will. We’ve lost control. We hate our lives. The more we hate, the harder we work to buy the things they tell us to buy, so the pain might go away. We turn to drugs or we turn to religion. Don’t ask me which is worse. I don’t think it’s very fair to arrest the junkie and let the preacher man go free. The most powerful country on the planet is run by people who think God has chosen them to lead the way. I feel like fighting back. Are you with me?’