The Violent Society

by M C Rooney

  “Yes,” Maurice replied, looking at the ground.

  “So you are worried your mother will hate you even more if she finds out?”

  It was a harsh question, but one based on the truth. His mother had treated him so badly over the years. Veronica had often wished she had died that day instead of his lovely father and sister.

  “Yes … yes, I am,” he replied, and Veronica could now see the child in his eyes. A look that reminded her of the old Maurice Roberts she used to know.

  “I’m sorry, Maurice.”

  “It’s not your fault,” he replied quietly.

  She rinsed out the cloth and looked at him once more. She had to bring up the subject of ‘us’ somehow. “My child will have no father, then?” she said as she began to tenderly wash the paint from his face. Ask me, Maurice, she thought desperately. Please ask me. I love you so much.

  Maurice reached for her hand and held it as gently as he could. A part of him had died tonight, but he would always try to be the old Maurice with Veronica.

  “I am the child’s father,” he replied, “and I am also your husband, if you will have me. I love you, Veronica. I always have.”

  “I love you too, Maurice,” she replied with tears in her eyes. The young man who had been her friend for so long had slowly made her heart belong to him. It had happened over so many years that she had forgotten just when she had started falling in love with him. “I would love to be your wife,” she finished with a shy smile.

  And that was how people got married in the new world of Tasmania, and for one night, Maurice and Veronica were indeed a happily married couple. But the following day was a different matter entirely, for the violence of their union was there from the beginning, and it would always be there, for the rest of their lives.

  The Challenge

  “No, no, no, no!” his sister moaned over and over as she grieved over the death of her lover. “How did this happen?” she wailed and started to weep once more.

  Ken Martin sat at his breakfast table in disbelief. His face was pale, his breathing ragged, and his big hands clenched hard on the breakfast knife in his hand. How indeed, he wondered as an image of his dead sons flashed across his mind. His eldest with his own knife in his eye, and Scott … Scott …

  “Have you heard anything yet?” Ken snarled at Frampton, who stood by the door.

  Frampton was the one who had first found the dead bodies. He was the one who suggested that they look for Cheng straightaway.

  “Not yet, Boss,” Frampton mumbled in reply, looking ridiculous with his broken jaw held together by bandages. “Brooks, Wells, and Harris are looking for him right now.”

  “It was Maurice!” his sister shouted at him. “I saw him with my own eyes.”

  “How can that be?” Ken shouted back at his sister. “He was beaten unconscious. I saw that with my own eyes!” Idiot woman, how could a man beaten to a pulp suddenly come back within a few hours and kill four of his people?

  The big tattooed man, Brooks, then came running into the room. “The Chengs have gone,” he said. “Nobody close by knows where or when they left. But all of their belongings have gone.”

  “That bastard!” Ken roared and threw the knife across the room. “See, Sister?” he said, glaring at Rebecca. “It was that fucking Chinese prick who killed my boys.”

  “He’s not strong enough,” his sister said, sobbing. “I’m telling you, I saw Maurice running out of the poolroom.”

  “Bullshit!” Ken roared back.

  “We could go see him,” Brooks suggested. “At the very least, he could give us an idea as to where the Chengs have gone.”

  Ken considered this for a moment, then finally nodded his head in agreement. Maurice was good friends with Craig Cheng after all. “C’mon, Sister,” Ken growled out. “Let’s go see if this son you hate so much knows anything about the murderer.”

  Maurice could barely move, and his breath was short. The happiest night of his life had also been the most painful. Veronica moved slightly to his left, and only slightly nudged his shoulder, which caused him to grunt with pain. I have to work today, he thought, as he struggled to get up from the bedroll.

  “You’re in pain, Husband,” Veronica called out sleepily. She loved calling him her husband, and he loved hearing her say it.

  “Not exactly the most romantic night.” he grunted as he struggled to stand up.

  “There is always plenty of time for that,” Veronica said, blushing. “Once the baby is born, we can spend plenty of time making more.”

  Maurice felt the usual pain in his loins as he thought of Veronica and the way he would like to spend his time with her. Bloody hell, twenty-four, married, and still a virgin. I must be the biggest nerd ever born.

  “I better get some water from the stream to wake myself up,” he said as he shuffled over to the tent flap.

  “You should be resting,” Veronica replied. “You may have some cracked ribs. They take a long time to heal.”

  “Maybe.” He grunted as he felt at his ribs and then almost crushed some fruit and meat lying on the ground underfoot when he stepped outside. “What the fuck is this?”

  Veronica rolled onto her side and had just as much trouble as Maurice in standing up, but when she moved outside, she saw that food had been left outside their tent. She looked around and could see a number of people smiling at her. No, they weren’t smiling at her exactly, she realised; they were smiling at Maurice. What the hell was going on? Some young teenage boys she could tell were looking at Maurice in pure admiration, and one of them was even walking around with no shirt just like Maurice liked to do.

  “Fan club,” John Carter called out with his usual affable smile.

  “Bunch of suck holes.” Freda scowled as she walked alongside her husband “you will turn into one of those fame-whores before you know it, Maurice.”

  Veronica wondered whether Freda knew what John had done the night before. She probably beat the truth out of him.

  “I’m not sure what’s going on,” Maurice grunted out.

  “People saw you stand up against that arsehole Martin, that’s what,” Freda rasped.

  “Word is spreading,” John said. “They see you as some sort of hope.”

  Maurice turned to his wife. “Well, what do you know, Vonnie,” he said with a laugh. “They see me as their knight in shining armour.”

  “This is no laughing matter, Maurice,” she said frantically. “We have to keep a low profile, remember?”

  “It’s too late,” John said as he pointed towards a group of people walking towards them.

  “Shit,” Freda said under her breath.

  “Remember, you are a beaten man,” Veronica whispered to her husband. “Act like you are defeated.” But she knew he wouldn’t. Something had changed inside of him. He had been pushed around for so many years, and now, people suddenly looked up to him; she thought he may not act humble ever again.

  Ken Martin walked towards his nephew with his sister and four of his closest allies by his side. His only allies now. He felt naked without his two sons and Dobson, but those bodies along with Barry had now been buried at the back of the mansion, and Ken had to make do with those people he had left. He saw that a number of people were standing around Maurice’s tent, and they seemed to be looking at him like he was some sort of leader. Maurice, he noticed, was standing taller under their gaze, but as soon as he looked in Ken’s direction his body seemed to slump a little. Is he defeated or is he acting?

  “Let me speak first,” he whispered to his sister, and breathed a sigh of relief when she nodded her head in agreement. He had to tread carefully here, and he did want to ask Maurice where the Chengs were in a reasonable tone, but he couldn’t. The ruined faces of his sons flashed in his mind just when he reached Maurice, so instead, he roared, “Where the fuck are they?” His breathing was erratic. My sons are dead; my boys, my boys are gone.

  “Who?” Maurice grunted in reply with such arrogance that it took Ken
by surprise.

  This is not a broken man, he thought; he was far from it in fact. Ken then surveyed his friends. Standing at his side, Veronica looked absolutely terrified with her huge belly protruding from her clothes. To his left was his best friend, John Carter, and hanging on his arm was that nightmare of a woman called Freda. Both of them were looking back at him calmly.

  “You know who,” Ken spat out. “The bloody Chengs, or do we have to give you another beating to help you remember?”

  Maurice glanced at all those people standing around him, then looked at Veronica. He sighed and said in a meek tone that he didn’t know where Craig Cheng and his brother and sister had gone.

  “He’s not as beaten as I thought,” Brooks murmured in his ear, “and I don’t mean mentally.”

  “I noticed,” Ken quietly replied.

  “But his breathing is short,” Brooks added. “I think his ribs are damaged.”

  Ken looked Maurice up and down. He did look in pain, but he was definitely not beaten as badly as he had expected him to be. Was his sister speaking the truth? Could Maurice have killed his sons? He had to get him angry somehow. Angry people make mistakes, as Ken well knew. “Where are they, you fat fuck?” Ken said. “They killed my boys inside the house and two more outside with a bloody …” Arrow, he thought as he looked again at John Carter standing there with a bow and arrow over his shoulder, looking for all the world as if it were a part of him. Could these two have worked together? He knew Maurice was not good with the bow, but John Carter was the best archer in their small community. He glared at him suspiciously, but John and Freda Carter still looked back at him with the same innocent faces.

  Ken hated this. For six years, he had ruled by fear, and now he was being treated with no respect whatsoever. He was their leader. They had to fear him, as that was how good leaders ruled. It was time to let his sister come into play. He had to find the Chengs and make an example, and it was looking like Maurice had to be killed as well. Warren and Scott usually did the killing; they enjoyed it, Ken had to admit to himself, but he would have to step up now and do what was necessary for the order of his community. And if that meant killing the traitor and his nephew, then so be it.

  “My sister has a question to ask,” he said.

  Rebecca Roberts stepped forward and glared at her son. She looked like she was going to either break into tears again or stab him. “You killed my Barry!” she screamed at him. “I saw you running from the house.”

  Ken watched as Maurice’s face changed from arrogance to fear. But was it fear of being caught out in a murder, or fear of his mother, who had berated him for years?

  “I know you killed him, you fat embarrassment,” she continued. “You are just as useless as your father.”

  Maurice’s face quickly changed again. He was a different man now, an angry man.

  “Don’t you say that about my father, you fucking bitch!” Maurice roared back. “He was a good man, not like that slime bucket you shacked up with.”

  Ken watched his sister shrink back in fear. She had been lording it over the boy ever since he was a child, and never once had Maurice fought back. Never until this moment.

  “And what about Hannah, Mother?” he continued. “You never once asked how she died, did you, you fucking slut?”

  Ken looked at his nephew in stunned silence. Who was this man? Had he always been there, waiting to emerge?

  Maurice looked back at his uncle and his men and sneered. He wasn’t scared of them; he was tired of them. He turned to the large number of people who had now gathered. “You know what?” Maurice called out to them. “I am sick of working for these lazy pricks,” he said and was rewarded with a few smiles and nods of agreement. “They sit there in their rich mansion and do fuck all for a living,” he continued, “and when it comes to food, they just take from us what we worked our arses off to grow.”

  “Yes, they bloody do,” one old man called out. He was the one Scott had beaten up the day before.

  “Well, no more!” Maurice called out.

  “Maurice,” Veronica begged at his side, “please don’t do this.”

  “It’s too late Vonnie,” he murmured back to her. “I’m sorry, but it is too late.” Turning to the crowd, who now numbered over a hundred, he again called out to them. “I want to lead you, but I need your support,” he said. “Do I have your support?”

  The crowd roared their approval. Nearly all of the community surrounded them now, and all of them were behind Maurice. Weapons were now being raised in the air by the young men who would soon swear fealty to Maurice. Ken and his men, though, looked around them in horror. Yesterday, they ruled this community with an iron fist; today, they were being usurped. Still, Ken Martin was not going out without a fight.

  “Well, you bloody well can’t lead,” he yelled out. “The mansion is my house, and nobody is kicking me out.”

  “I am,” Maurice replied with gritted teeth. “In fact, if you are not out of the house by nightfall, I am coming in there to throw you out.”

  Ken met Maurice’s anger with his own. “I am not being kicked out of my own home,” he growled, and uncle and nephew stood face-to-face for a long moment. Both were fit and strong, but the nephew stood over the uncle by quite a lot in height.

  “Yes, you are,” Maurice replied with a sneer, “otherwise, I will come in there and kill you, just like I killed those cunt sons of yours.”

  The Circle

  Ken Martin could not remember how he had gone from standing outside his nephew’s tent to sitting on a couch in his mansion. He had only vague memories of pulling out a knife and trying to kill his nephew before being dragged backwards, kicking and screaming, by Brooks.

  “You should have let me kill him,” Ken spat at those remaining in the room.

  “You weren’t thinking straight,” Brooks replied. “As soon as you pulled that knife, the whole mob pulled out their weapons. We would have all been killed on the spot.”

  “It would have been bloodshed,” Frampton mumbled.

  “Our blood,” Harris added.

  Ken looked around at his men. They were right, but Maurice had killed his sons, and he was going to make sure he had to pay for that, one way or another.

  “Where is Wells?” Ken called out.

  “He is gone,” his sister replied as she held his grandson, Brett, in her arms. “Somebody stabbed him when you were being dragged away. There are only five of us now.”

  “We have to do something, Boss,” Brooks said. “If we don’t stop your nephew, we are all as good as dead.”

  “I don’t want to be thrown out of here,” said Harris.

  “There are white nightmares in the bush,” mumbled Frampton.

  “What can we do?” Ken snapped. “I want to kill him more than anybody, but how can we kill him when he has so many people supporting him?”

  “He is coming for you at nightfall,” Brooks replied with a thoughtful frown.

  “Yes, so what?” Ken spat back at him.

  “Set a trap,” Brooks replied.

  “A trap?” Ken said in bewilderment. “What sort of trap?”

  “One that appeals to his newfound ego,” Brooks replied with a malicious grin.

  “How?” Ken asked.

  “Leave that to me, Boss,” Brooks replied, “but you get ready for a fight at dusk. Me and the boys will set the trap, but you still have to fight him.”

  “Be careful, Ken,” his sister said.

  “I’m fucking ready,” Ken growled and clenched his huge hands. His nephew may be able to beat him on a good day, but Ken had noticed his breathing and the way he grabbed at his ribs. This was not the best day for Maurice to fight. And Ken was a professional barroom brawler after all.

  Maurice was trying to stretch his muscles. His body was feeling better as the day went by, but there was no doubt he had some fractured ribs.

  “You idiot!” Veronica shouted at her husband. “You could have waited until you were better before cha
llenging him like that.”

  Veronica was standing with her hands on her hips, glaring at him, and people were walking around her at a safe distance. A part of Maurice even found her anger attractive. Love had clearly addled his brain.

  “I’m sorry, Vonnie,” Maurice replied. “I just couldn’t help it.” He wasn’t sure what had come over him. He knew he should wait before making his move, but when his uncle stood up to him like that, he just wanted to fight back and punch his face in. No, more than that, Maurice wanted to kill him.

  “And what happened to Wells?” Veronica asked.

  “Someone stabbed his eye,” John said, looking at Freda.

  “Don’t look at me like that, you bastard,” Freda snapped. “He was standing right next to me. When the scuffle broke out, the opportunity was too good to pass.”

  “She’s right,” Maurice said, and was amazed that he was agreeing with John’s wife for a change. “They were ten, and now they are five.”

  “You’re including your mother in this?” Veronica said softly.

  “Yes, I guess I am,” Maurice replied. He was done with her. A part of his heart had died knowing she never loved him, but he was done with her, and that was that.

  “So what is our next move?” asked John.

  “I said I was going to kick him out of the house,” replied Maurice. “I cannot back down, as everybody heard me. So we have no choice but to attack him tonight.”

  “This is strange.” Freda scowled. “He knows the community doesn’t want him, so why hasn’t he left?”

  “He’s up to something,” Veronica said frantically. “Be careful, Maurice. He wants revenge for his sons.”

  Just then, a teenager named Arnie Hamill, who was one of the young men who looked up to Maurice, came running towards them with two of his friends, Wilko, who was of medium-sized height with a bowl haircut, and Brilleaux, who was tall with a gravelly voice.

  “Maurice,” Arnie called out breathlessly as he reached them.

  “Yes, mate?”

  “Ken Martin has called you out,” he replied.