by Declan Burke
‘You’re telling me to pick a metaphor.’
‘I’m saying, no metaphors.’ A wicked grin. ‘Absolute fucking zero, man. I say we blow it for real.’
•
Frankie rings. He sounds anxious. We hook up in a half-empty pub with blackened beams and exposed brickwork, rough wooden floors and rickety tables. This pub required six months’ work to recreate a look nobody wanted when there was no choice in the matter.
Frankie is halfway down his pint when I arrive. It is not his first. In his eyes swirls a toxic cocktail of fear, rage and weary cunning. A fox, skulking in some low culvert as the hounds spill howling down the slope. I slide up onto the barstool next to him and give the barman the V-for-victory sign, which here translates as ‘Two stout, please’. Frankie’s thick forefinger tappity-taps the counter. ‘Did you hear?’ he says.
‘Hear what?’
‘Some fuckers got their hands on hospital files. Word is, they’re suing big time.’
‘Jesus.’ I give a low whistle. ‘How’d they get them?’
‘Fucked if I know. They’ve called an internal inquiry.’
‘What’s that to do with you?’
‘They were supposed to be torched. Shredded first, then torched.’
‘So?’
‘K, man, the fucking incinerator’s in the basement.’
‘I know, I’m down there all the time.’
‘Yeah, but what I’m saying is, the basement was on my watch the day the files were supposed to be torched. And I didn’t see a thing.’
‘How could you? I mean, if they weren’t torched, how were you supposed to see it happen?’
‘You’re not getting it.’ He slurps down some of his fresh pint. ‘The way it is now, I can’t say for definite if they were torched or not.’
‘That’s not your problem, Frankie. The problem there is that your crew doesn’t have anyone manning the security cameras all the time, like they’re supposed to.’
‘That’s just it, though. The company put that policy in place on the basis of my report. At the time they were delighted, it cut costs, it was kudos for Frankie. But now they’re blaming me for the cameras being unmanned.’
‘Whoa. That’s bang out of order.’
‘Yeah, but that’s how it is.’
‘Fuck. That’s heavy fucking shit, man.’
This won’t look good on Frankie’s CV. His plans for setting up his own security firm are going up in smoke for the want of a batch of torched files. He slurps down the rest of his pint, signals for two more.
‘What can I do?’ I say.
‘One of your boys, the porters, was supposed to torch the files. I need to find out who it was.’
‘One of our boys stole them?’
‘I’m not saying anyone stole them. Who the fuck’d want a load of old hospital files, for fuck’s sakes?’ He makes to spit, then realises he is indoors and swallows instead. ‘I’m saying some fucker didn’t do his job and left them lying around, instead of torching them when I could see him do it.’
‘Relax, man. This isn’t your problem. What you need to do is get your union rep on the case, turn it around.’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘The problem isn’t at the point of incineration, it’s at the point of instigation. If the assholes with the scalpels did their job properly, there’d be no need to burn any files in the first place. Am I right?’
Frankie nods gloomily.
‘Don’t take this lying down,’ I urge. ‘Don’t let them shit all over you. You’re the victim here.’
‘Y’think?’
‘Screw the rep. If I was you, I’d get myself a good brief, tell him everything. And I’d do it now, before the shit hits the fan. Get your retaliation in first.’
Frankie likes the sound of this. He orders a brace of Jameson to go with the pints. Our conversation moves in circles, developing its own gravity as it orbits disaster. It gains momentum as it plots a course around a black hole of despair.
‘Frankie, man, always assume everyone else is an idiot. Actually, no – always assume everyone else is an idiot engaged in dragging you back down to their level.’ I am slightly drunk and on a roll. ‘Always assume that everyone is such an idiot that they don’t realise the effort of dragging you backwards takes the same effort as moving forward to engage on your terms.’
Frankie considers this. ‘So if they call me in, what should I say?’
‘Not a word. That’s what you’re paying your brief for. Why should you have to worry about thinking when you’re paying a guy good money to do it for you?’
‘Fair point.’ He stands up.
‘Staying for another?’
‘Yeah. Nice one.’
He goes to the bathroom, squeezing my shoulder as he passes. This is my cue to feel guilty. I deliberately fluff my line. I am cotton-mouthed under the spotlight, thinking about Tommo and dear departed Austin. I am blinded by the footlights, thinking about the hospital authorities fire-fighting on two fronts, external and internal.
A hospital in dispute with its security staff is akin to the human body battling the AIDS virus. I look into the future and picture airborne seeds of fear, confusion, dissent and revolt wafting down corridors and up elevator shafts. I see unmanned security desks, careless spot-checks and laissez faire attitudes to the implementation of basic security requirements.
I believe I might swoon, although that may well be the effects of the whiskey.
The latest is that Frankie gets suspended on full pay pending an inquiry. The union calls a meeting. This is akin to cocking the hammer of a gun. The click is an audible threat.
The hospital board does not put its hands up and pee its collective pants.
The union squeezes the trigger. One out, all out. This is democracy in action.
The theory of democracy holds that the most wretched is rightfully equal in status to the most powerful.
This is history.
This is bunk.
Democracy is political theory reaching back 5,000 years to the pyramids for inspiration, an apex dependent on a broad foundation for its very existence. It is the few bearing down on the millions, and the millions feeling proud that they have provided an unparalleled view of the universe for the few. Democracy is a blizzard of options so thick it obscures the fact that there is no choice.
The cradles of democracy, London and Philadelphia, deployed genocide as a means of social engineering, in Australia and North America respectively, a full two hundred years before Hitler and Stalin began their pissing contest in Poland.
It is no coincidence that democracy evolved in tandem with the Industrial Revolution. Democracy and capitalism are symbiotic parasites. Democracy’s truth is not one man, one vote; it is one man, one dollar. Democracy’s truth is the abrogation of the individual’s rights in favour of collective procrastination, while those running the show exercise censorious control on behalf of the nervous disposition of the collective will.
Democracy’s truth is Frankie suspended on half pay pending an inquiry.
Democracy has replaced religion as the opiate du jour. Democracy is the ostrich with its head in the sand and its ass in the air, begging to be taken in traditional pirate fashion. It is the subjugation of the people, by the people, for the people. It is the inalienable right to purchase your personalised interpretation of liberalised slavery. It is the right to sell your soul to the highest bidder. It is the right to pay for the privilege of being alive.
In Ireland, for historical reasons, democracy’s truth is one man, one mortgage. It is also one woman, one mortgage. Most often, given the size of the mortgage, it is one woman and man, one mortgage.
For some reason most dictators fail to realise that the trick to democracy is to have the slaves buy and sell themselves. The trick is to incentivise slaves to invest in their slavery, to pay for their own prisons, shackle themselves to brick and mortar.
The trick to democracy is in ensuring the slaves’ capacity for s
elf-regulation is not taken for granted. The trick is to maintain the healthy tension between democracy and capitalism, so that one does not undermine or overshadow the other. The trick is to ensure that the slaves’ investment retains the illusion of value. Failure to do so will result in the slaves questioning the worth of their dollar and/or vote. The answer to this question is delivered in blood.
Masters of the Universe, do not say you weren’t warned.
Frankie, the half-pay sop notwithstanding, is a man paralysed by the conflicting impulses of rage and terror as he contemplates a future boiled down to an uncertain tomorrow. Charged with adrenaline, at the very limit of his chain, he is braced for fight or flight. But this unnatural condition cannot hold. Rage and terror will cancel one another out, leaving a vacuum that nature abhors and an empty vessel full of noise.
What sound will emerge? What fury?
Frankie, my friend, my pawn, my hero: now is the time to signify. Now is the time to reset the dial. Now is the time for absolute zero, to raze the pyramids to the sand and start all over again.
My line for today comes courtesy of Miguel de Unamuno: A man does not die of love or his liver or even of old age; he dies of being a man.
•
‘So just to clarify,’ I say. ‘You’re making a martyr of Frankie. Sending him in to do your dirty work.’
‘Let’s just say I’m keeping my options open.’
‘Bullshit. Frankie’s this guy you were talking about, the one we’re all on board with. Except now he’s going to start doing stuff we don’t like.’
‘Frankie dug his own grave,’ Billy says, ‘when he accepted the promotion after Tommo and Austin got fired.’
‘Strictly speaking, you’re the one who screwed Tommo and Austin. That was one of your sections, if memory serves.’
‘You’d love it if that were true, wouldn’t you? That people do exactly what you expect, just because you put them in a certain scenario.’ He shakes his head. ‘All I did was put temptation in Frankie’s way. It was up to him to decide which way to jump.’
‘Horseshit. You wrote it, and now you’re putting it all on Frankie because you’re hoping to slide out when he blows up the hospital. What’s the plan, send him in wearing a dynamite waistcoat?’
‘Too crude,’ he says. ‘Anyway, you think Frankie’s got a death wish? That he’s some kind of mental defective we can just wrap in explosive and point him at the A&E? No chance. The whole point to Frankie is he likes what he has, and all he wants is to keep it that way. That’s why Frankie’s dangerous.’
He takes a bite from his blueberry muffin, talking while he chews, stray crumbs mortaring the pages on the table. ‘Look,’ he says, ‘you obviously don’t have a clue as to who Frankie is. If I was to suggest to Frankie that he strap on a bomb, he’d take my head clean off.’
‘So you’re not doing it directly. You’re just building a maze, and Frankie’s your rat.’
‘You’re the one claiming you built the hospital,’ he says. ‘You’re the one put Frankie in it. All I’m doing is giving him some options.’
‘Just so long as all of those options further your agenda.’
‘Our agenda,’ he says, and his chiding tone rankles.
‘Just one thing,’ I say.
‘What’s that?’
‘This absolute zero you keep talking about. I don’t think you know what it means.’
He shrugs. ‘I’ve a pretty fair idea.’
‘No, you don’t. You’re confusing it with Ground Zero, except you think it’s some kind of less than zero, some ultimate zero where everything’s burned down so it can start all over again. Except absolute zero is a measurement of temperature, Billy. It’s the coldest of the cold, where everything gets frozen, I mean energy itself freezes, so nothing works and nothing changes.’
He nods. ‘Feel better now?’ he says. ‘Feel all warm and fuzzy and superior?’
I do, as it happens. ‘The kicker,’ I say, leaning back in my chair, ‘is absolute zero is a theory. No one’s ever achieved it. So maybe, if you’re planning on blowing the hospital for real like you say, you might want to find another snappy catch-phrase.’
He pops home the last of the blueberry muffin, savouring it as he chews. Then he leans forward, brushes the crumbs from his pages. ‘My house,’ he says, ‘my rules.’
•
My instinct is to tell Frankie to relax. Some vestigial trace of compassion prompts me to reassure Frankie he’ll be okay. Some perverse urging encourages me to tell him that any and all internal inquiries will be consigned to the back burner when the hospital keels over in crippled conflagration.
But I don’t want to make any promises I cannot keep. I am not certain that my plan will work. Bringing down a large hospital is no mean feat. My theory is not flawless. The margin of error is wide, and the process will be attempted while it is still at the experimental stage.
It may well be that the effort will suffice. It may well be, as the modern Olympians suggest, that it is not the winning but the taking part that matters. But I cannot depend on this. A bungled attempt to incinerate a hospital could be easily covered up. If a roomful of monkeys at typewriters will eventually emerge with a facsimile of ‘Hamlet’, a health board executive will eventually devise a plausible excuse for the presence of copious quantities of silane gas in the basement of a hospital.
This excuse will not, presumably, include a footnote on the manipulation of requisition invoices by a person or persons unknown bent on ordering canisters of silane gas for a hospital, for fear that pertinent questions will be asked about the chain of command, accountability, and the cavalier waste of valuable resources.
Silane, a man-made gas, does not occur naturally in hospital basements. It was first produced in 1857 by F. Wohler and H. Buff by reacting HCl(aq) with Al-Si alloy, or Mn2Si. Silane, SiH4, is also called silicon tetrahydride, silicane and monosilicane. It is a colourless flammable gas with a repulsive odour. Its physical properties are: molecular mass 32.1179 g/mol; melting point -185ºC; boiling point -111.8ºC. It is insoluble in water and most organic solvents. Its density is 1.3128 g/L at 25ºC and 1 atm, which is 11 percent denser than air.
Silane is used to produce ultra-pure silicon for use in semiconductor applications. More importantly, for our purpose at least, is the fact that silane is a pyrophoric gas. This means that silane ignites upon contact with air.
In theory, if enough silane gas is packed into a large enough space – a vacuum-sealed underground chamber, say – it will represent a time-bomb just waiting for a breath of fresh air to set it off. If said underground chamber backs onto a support column of the building in which it is housed, then the combusting gas may or may not expend sufficient energy to impact negatively on said support column, thus causing the building to keel over at an unsustainable angle. Meanwhile, said silane gas will be ripping through the tilting edifice, igniting wherever it finds oxygen, which will be everywhere, including the internal organs of human beings.
The means of introducing the silane into the underground chamber involves drilling a hole into the chamber, plugging the hole with a large rubber cork and evacuating the air inside, then filtering the silane from its canister through the cork via airtight tubing welded around the large syringe piercing the cork.
This process is time intensive, although it is no less consuming than jogging, collecting stamps or building ships in bottles.
My line for today is, Verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down. (Matthew 24:2)
Sermo Vulgus: A Novel (Excerpt)
Cassie, hope is but a piker’s bet until such time as hopelessness has first been admitted. Do not believe everything you read: there were atheists in the trenches.
Cassie, I am rent for the want of an intimate touch. Bring on the barnyard animals: let roosters crow and donkeys bray, let us couple beyond endurance in the shit-spattered straw where swine have rooted in their own filth. Let us wallow n
aked in honesty’s squalor, shroud ourselves in failure’s stench, cake our assholes with the waste that comes of giving without need.
Only the future can judge us now. Close your eyes and imagine what you will: censor nothing. Pucker your full, perfect lips and breathe life again into the tortured lungs of Prometheus. Let us steal fire all over again, for fire stutters and never becomes whole.
This is my greed and this is my shame, that I long to be always incomplete. I wouldn’t change it now, he said, not with the fire in me now.
Let us be ash and blind butterflies on the wing, Cassie. Let us be black snow settling soundless on the cusp of always.
Cassie, you said irony is a sharp tool but a paper-thin shield.
•
‘I thought we were dumping the Cassie novel,’ I say.
Billy shrugs. ‘Now that she’s gone, it’s starting to make sense.’
‘Really?’
‘Well, not sense, exactly. I mean, the excerpts are still rubbish. I’m saying it makes sense to maintain Cassie’s presence, even if it’s just, y’know, by lamenting her absence or some shit.’
‘Fair enough.’ I light a cigarette, toss the Zippo down. ‘So what d’you think, will she dob you in to the cops this time?’
‘Hard to say,’ he says. ‘We were getting on a lot better this time around, until the miscarriage anyway. And she’s got Tony, so it’s not like she’s a woman scorned or anything.’
‘How’re you making out?’
‘Good days, bad days. You know how it goes.’
‘Put a tune to it and I’ll sing along. Listen,’ I say, ‘I’ve been thinking.’
‘What’s that?’
‘About Cassie, and the, y’know.’
‘Miscarriage,’ he says. ‘It’s okay to say it out loud.’
‘Yeah. Anyway, and don’t take this the wrong way . . .’
