Watching the Wheels Come Off

by Mike Hodges

  Mark sleeps.

  Even the screws being eased out don’t wake him. It is only when the lid is lifted and light pours in that he knows he isn’t dead. Or, if he is dead, it doesn’t matter. He is in Heaven. Then he hears Temple’s quiet voice close to his ear, and knows he is in Hell. ‘Mark?’

  He lies still, eyes closed, breathless, composed like a cadaver ready for disposal. Herman, Biff, Randy and Rip peer down at him. His face is a white mask. The blood of the dead fly on his hand could be a stigmata.

  ‘Mark Miles, how you doing?’

  Still no reply. A glimmer of uncertainty plays over Temple’s face as he gently shakes him. ‘You’ve been away from us for many hours, Mark. What have you learnt on your journey?’

  Mark lets them wait some more, enough for the grim possibility of his demise to take hold. Just when they start to panic, he suddenly speaks.

  ‘My journey has taken me into the black hole that was once the late Mark Miles, listening only to the tom-tom of his lonely heart. It told me that you were right, Herman. I had been dead all these years. Stillborn. Now I want to be reborn. Now I want to be alive. Now I want to get my nose back in the trough. Now I want to take my rightful place in the pursuit of happiness. Meet the brand new Mark Miles, Herman.’

  His new, steely eyes snap open.

  Conman to conman.

  Temple recoils as if he’s seen a zombie. Mark follows up with a smile as thin as a razor blade. Quickly reassured, Temple smiles back. The alchemist has turned base material into gold. So touched is he by this miracle of conversion that he lets the tears roll. It’s curious how ruthlessness and sentimentality so often go hand in hand.

  ‘You are now one of us, Mark. Pass to the Other Side.’

  Mark sits up like Lazarus.

  Loose him, and let him go. John 11:44.

  thirty-five

  The women’s course is winding down.

  Every student has passed to the Other Side. They now sit, relaxed and happy, in a circle with Alice, Loreen and Marjorie. Bruises, blood, sweat and tears are their campaign medals and ribbons.

  Amy Straw, unaware of husband Wally’s fate in the men’s class, describes the effect the course has had on her.

  ‘I feel resurrected.’

  ‘That’s a great quote. Have you got that, Loreen?’

  Loreen is armed with a notepad and biro.

  ‘Sure have.’

  ‘Great, Amy. Now, how many of you would recommend this course to your friends?’

  The approval rating could not be higher. Every student holds up her hand.

  ‘And you, Sylvia, how would you describe what happened here over the last two days?’

  Sylvia, no longer voicing her concern for society as a whole, has a new fervour in her eyes.

  ‘Fantastic. Life-enhancing. I feel self-confident. Confident of self. An individual at last.’

  Loreen yawns as she enters this original thought into the annals of the Institute.

  ‘It makes you more aware,’ confirms Amy.

  ‘Right on, Amy. It does, doesn’t it? It makes you more aware of what freedom and democracy – which we so easily take for granted – actually mean for Mr and Mrs Everyman. And what about husband, Wally? Do you think he’ll be as positive about the course?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ says Amy. ‘Always looking for new experiences is Wally.’

  Crucifixion surely isn’t one of them.

  The whole class applauds and cheers.

  thirty-six

  An end-of-term atmosphere pervades the men’s class as the students congratulate Mark. He holds up the monstrance, kissing it like it was an Oscar. Television has taught the whole world one important lesson at least. Young or old, black, white or yellow, rich and pampered or poor and deprived, we all know exactly how to behave should we ever make it on to a talk show or an award ceremony.

  ‘Thank you.’ says Mark. ‘I want to thank all the students here for their support, and Jack in particular for showing me what love and human warmth means. Thank you Biff, Randy, Rip and, most of all, Herman. Without them I wouldn’t be what I am today: a leader of men. It’s just great to be on the Other Side.’

  While the students holler their approval, the instructors embrace Mark in turn. ‘Hey, man, most students freak out in that coffin,’ joshes Biff.

  ‘Unless they’re Count Dracula,’ joshes Randy.

  ‘Are you a vampire, Mark?’ joshes Rip.

  ‘If I am, you’ll be the first to know, Rip,’ joshes Mark.

  Class laughs, albeit nervously.

  ‘Seriously, Mark, how’d you stay so cool in there?’ says Randy.

  ‘One of my clients was an escapologist. Great guy, taught me all he knew. Never really took him seriously until I found myself in that there box.’

  Class cheers with false enthusiasm.

  ‘He used to say, “Chains are for slaves; wise men know how to escape from them.”’

  Randy is impressed. ‘Was he Chinese?’

  He never gets an answer.

  Wally Straw interrupts them with a muffled gasp that could be his last. If it’s not his last, then it’s certainly the last but one or maybe two. Temple, students and instructors all reluctantly look up at him. They’d forgotten about Wally. Limp and immobile on the crucifix, he looks about ready to really cross to the Other Side. Never to return.

  Biff whispers anxiously to Randy. ‘He’s okay, isn’t he?’

  Temple, Biff, Randy and Rip exchange fast, furtive glances. They’ve clearly been here before. Temple doesn’t have to tell them what to do. They quickly unshackle Straw, letting Temple take care of the verbals.

  ‘Gentlemen, I don’t have to remind you that it was you who put Wally up there. It was you who tightened the straps. It was you who raised the crucifix. And, you know what, you did it out of love. Isn’t that right?’ The class is uncertain about this tack, until Temple screams. ‘Isn’t that right, motherfuckers? It was you that crucified Wally? And what’s worse is you enjoyed doing it. The poor sap is up there to atone for your sins, right?’

  This is the first time Temple has raised his voice or used an expletive during the course. And it works. The terrified class obediently conforms, sheepishly nodding their heads, murmuring in the affirmative.

  Temple smiles and drops his voice to a purr. ‘I know you’ll want to tell all your friends about the course. You’ll want to share the experience with them. Isn’t that right?’

  Some students nod, but not very enthusiastically.

  ‘Okay, so here’s the game plan. Recommend it by all means, but under no circumstances must you reveal our secret methods. Outsiders simply won’t understand them. Right, Mark?’

  The brand new Mark manages a frightened nod. What was brand new has become quickly tarnished. The fire in his belly has drained away. He and the other students find it difficult to drag their eyes away from Wally Straw being lowered to the ground.

  Temple lifts his voice in a vain attempt to hold their attention. ‘Outsiders would hear only what they want to hear. I mean the bad parts: the conflict, the rough-and-tumble of extracting the truth… and, yes, the pain!’

  The students nod a bit more enthusiastically.

  ‘But not the love and compassion I now see in your eyes. The trust, the bonding, the deep inner experience and growth we’ve shared together. Only we know about that. It’s something precious we can share with nobody outside this room.’ He pauses to sear each student with a look of such intensity that some shiver with fear.

  ‘So let us obey our pledge of secrecy at all times.’ Like all successful demagogues, Temple’s tone is perfect, as is his timing. He waits before making the final pitch.

  ‘Agreed?’

  The class, intent only on getting out of there alive, agree with a resounding ‘Yes’. The incentive to agree is mainly Straw’s inert body now being carried from the room by the instructors.

  Biff stays inside and relocks the door.

  Temple smiles reassuringly. ‘Be not
afraid. Wally is in good hands. He has but fainted.’ He shrugs like a stale stand-up comedian: ‘All he had to do was just hang in there.’ The joke falls flat and Temple doesn’t attempt to help it up. He quickly turns to schmaltz, which never falls flat. ‘I remember my mama saying to me, when my papa was lying in his open coffin, “Your daddy’s not dead, little Herman. He is but sleeping.” I was but six years old. That was a lesson I never forgot.’

  ‘Good one, Herman,’ calls Biff from the door. ‘I’ll go make sure Wally wakes up.’

  As the door closes Temple steps across the room, relocks it and faces the class alone. He suddenly shrinks to nothing. Without those imported muscles rippling around him, Mark beholds a little man strutting before him: podgy, balding, shabby, ridiculous, devoid of any charisma. How could he, Mark Miles, ever have seen him differently? Had he, like little Herman’s daddy, been but sleeping? He scans the other students. Had they, too, all been sleeping? If so, how in hell’s name had they fallen under his spell?

  Easily, came the undisputed answer.

  It’s a lesson Mark will never forget.

  thirty-seven

  Herman Temple unlocks the doors and stands aside as the class rush for the toilets.

  The humiliations of the past two days are forgotten while the students jostle for the urinals and washbasins. Maggots must have an enormous capacity for hard work. They need it. They make sure our memories are short. Soon the blood, sweat and tears are wiped away, revealing excited faces beaming in the mirrors. Not so with Mark: he stares at his image and sees only failure and resentment.

  It no longer needs Temple and his assistants to regiment the students; they now do it themselves. They file out of the Conference Centre two-by-two, chanting like a slave gang.

  ‘We are the new leaders.

  We are the new leaders.

  We are the new leaders.’

  They move mechanically along the corridor towards the hotel foyer and the outside world.

  Mark finds himself beside Roger Buckle who confides in him. ‘That was the greatest experience of my entire life. Mark, I want to thank you for pouring that kitchen slop over me.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ says Mark, without daring to look at him.

  Buckle brings out his pocketbook. Tears well up as he extracts a business card, handing it to Mark; ‘If you should ever need life assurance or a pension, Mark, my old friend, just call me up.’ Mark takes the card, reads it and, while Buckle dries his tears, lets it drop to the ground. Marching feet trample over it as they reach the double-doors where Biff awaits them. He leads them across the hotel foyer towards the Dining Room.

  ‘We are the new leaders.

  We are the new leaders.

  We are the new leaders.’

  Residents come to the lounge doorway to watch the phalanx pass. Harvey, having clocked in early for the night shift, sticks his gargoyle face out of the kitchen. Ace Springer, brandy in hand, watches, horrified, through the office window: ‘My God, it’s like the Nazis entering Paris.’ Avril joins him at the window and sees Mark marching past.

  ‘No wonder the little shit didn’t turn up for Oral French,’ she mutters to herself.

  ‘Who didn’t turn up?’ burps Ace.

  ‘Jean-Paul Sartre.’

  ‘Oh, him. Didn’t know he taught at the Poly.’

  Avril, now ever ready with the brandy bottle, charges his glass, thereby hastening his demise from cirrhosis of the liver. This is her latest strategy for attaining freedom, via a sizeable life insurance policy taken out in Ace’s name.

  William Snazell appears at the top of the stairs just in time to see the class enter the Dining Room. As the doors swing open a great cheer rends the air. Alice and her students are waiting inside. From the foyer, they are briefly glimpsed embracing the men like heroes returned from a war.

  The doors swing shut.

  thirty-eight

  The sideboard is littered with the remnants of a buffet lunch. Leftover cuts of chicken, turkey, ham and salami lie on silver salvers, like carnage on a battlefield. Traces of demolished salads hide at the bottom of bowls. Severed cheeses, decimated breads, demolished cakes and broken biscuits, crushed fruits, melting ice creams and spilt juices stain the starched white tablecloth.

  A single long table runs the entire length of the room. Here the ravenous students sit, stuffing themselves, their eyes locked limpet-like on to plates piled with food, their mouths opening, closing, grinding like sink disposal units. ‘Mouth, gut and anus’ aptly defined the earliest form of life, and are still the chassis for all later forms.

  Roger Buckle, having lost a few pounds during the course, is already fully restored to his former glory. Evidence for this lies with the buttons on his suit, as they take the strain again. Sitting next to him, Mark is as unaware of this pneumatic shift as he is of everything else going on around him. He’s too withdrawn to eat, or even to take in the speech coming from the head of the table. Temple wears a beatific mask on his face as he looks away from the bingeing students, lining both sides of the table, to the sublime Alice sitting at his right hand.

  ‘Attaining perfection, like climbing a mountain, is a dangerous endeavour. Sometimes someone slips off. So it was with Wally Straw.’

  Mention of Straw’s name brings Mark crashing back to earth. He’s no longer the ghost at the feast. The image of Wally Straw, hanging on the cross, still haunts him. When they’d first entered the Dining Room, he’d witnessed Amy anxiously looking for her husband. Temple had taken her aside, counselled her, reassured her, before having Biff lead her away to the foyer. Now it wasn’t just Amy that Temple attempted to reassure.

  ‘Wally suffered a minor stroke this morning. A local doctor, who also happens to be a former student of ours, is attending to him at the private nursing home he runs. Only moments ago he phoned to say that Wally is doing just fine.’ The students stop gorging momentarily, contemplate applauding, then decide against it. It’s heads down again as Temple continues.

  ‘Amy will soon be at his bedside. She has sent you all her best wishes, and insisted that Wally would want this celebration of our achievements to go ahead.’

  Alice applauds politely.

  ‘Now, in Biff’s absence, Randy would you like to say a few words? Randy!’

  Randy stands up.

  A student farts, loud and rasping. Heads swivel accusingly in all directions, but the culprit, preferring anonymity, remains undetected. The fart, together with the sniggers that follow, completely undermines Randy. The swaggering bully, for the first time without his buddies, shrinks to a blushing, tongue-tied cretin. So startling is this metamorphosis that the students pause in their feeding to savour the moment.

  ‘Er…er…er…er…er… thanks, you all.’

  Randy sits down abruptly then inexplicably jumps back to his feet. Something’s obviously bugging him. ‘You know what? You guys can really take it. I just remembered it was something I read in a Reader’s Digest on the plane over. You guys took it in two fucking World Wars, man. As if that wasn’t enough, you took it in Israel, Malaya, Kenya, Egypt, you even fucking sailed around the world to take it in the Falklands. Jesus, you’re a bunch of war-mongering motherfuckers! But, you know what, you’re my kind of guys!’

  The bloated students, struggling to keep lethargy at bay, are stirred to cheer. Randy grins, well pleased with his eloquence. ‘And you’ll take it again when the Apocalypse finally happens. According to this preacher I saw on TV, that ain’t far off. If it’s anything like the film, I can hardly wait.’

  More cheers, sprinkled with laughter.

  Randy loves it. ‘You guys can take punishment and come up smiling. You are born survivors!’ He has wound up the students like mechanical toys.

  Temple waits for the tumultuous applause to die down before he stands to deliver the closing speech. ‘Thank you, Randy.’

  They trade looks. That means Randy will be on the next course. And Biff certainly won’t.

  ‘Leaders, this is just
the beginning,’ spouts Herman. ‘Let your own fellow countryman, the late Dr Charles Darwin, be your inspiration. He was wrong about evolution, but he sure was right when he came up with that immortal slogan “the survival of the fittest”. This is no glib soundbite. This is the truth. This is the bottom line at the Institute. ‘Personal Improvement’ is our name, personal improvement is our game. Have you any idea where the verb “to improve” comes from?’

  Nobody does.

  ‘I don’t have much time for the French – but I do have time for that petit verb of theirs. It means “to turn to profit”. Isn’t that neat? The very source of capitalism lies at the very source of that French verb “to improve”.’ Everybody cheers and some even start to sing the Marseillaise. Temple holds his hands up for silence. ‘Okay, leaders, get up and go. Capitalism is the answer mankind has been seeking ever since he first stood on two hind legs. Go out there and show those other goddamn isms the door! Get thee behind us, all those other isms –- except capital-ism!’

  ‘Right on, Herman,’ shout Alice and Randy.

  ‘Right on, Herman,’ comes back like an echo.

  They turn to find Biff and Rip returned from their mission, with the doors still swinging behind them. Why the students are pleased to see these two thugs is beyond Mark but they are. They erupt in ecstasy. Temple shows pique at having, yet again, to wait for hysteria not of his own making to evaporate.

  ‘Some of you may have wondered why, apart from my temporary gastric indisposition, I didn’t spend as much of last night with you as I would wish.’ Biff and Rip, now busy picking at the pickings, chuckle and shoot lewd glances at Alice. ‘Well, fellow leaders, I must level with you. I was preparing myself for a momentous decision, and one that doesn’t come easily. After due consideration, I’ve decided to run for the Presidency of the United States of America.’

  Fear for his sanity is the initial reaction.

  A pause; then collective memory kicks in regarding recent incumbents of that office and quickly comes to the conclusion that this idea really isn’t that crazy.