Imbroglio

by Andrew McEwan

It was one of those things. They just decided, against sanity, to do it. Redbear insisted he had army contacts and could get his hands on some genuine explosives, but Michael was convinced of the necessity of a do-it-yourself firebombing. More intimate somehow. Instead of relying on black-market incendiaries, he wished petroleum and matches.

  ‘It’s no good if it looks like a terrorist attack. That comes with a certain inherent glamour. I want this to appear sloppy. Half-arsed, even. Not political but personal.’

  Red shrugged his shoulders, jostling punters queuing for lager.

  ‘Disgruntled,’ the love apple stated, eyes misted over like the true believer. ‘Like someone – me, you or whoever – just couldn’t take it any more, and thought, “No! I can’t stand it! I’ve had enough!” The revenge of the little guy, yeah? Fighting against the establishment. Besides, I like the smell; sulphur and four-star…’ Inhaling deeply. ‘Yummy.’

  They agreed on Wednesday, during the late night phone-in.

  They blacked their faces and dressed in tuxedos, red cummerbunds as utility belts and karate slippers as stealth shoes.

  They took the bus and walked to where they’d stashed their equipment.

  They stayed hidden until the eleven o’clock news, at which time Redbear approached the security gate and tapped a ten pence piece on the window.

  Michael, watching from nearby bushes, admired the big man’s cool.

  The plan was to subdue the guard; only the guard was missing, so Redbear took things into his own hands and raised the barrier they could as easily have ducked under. Each carried two five gallon jerry cans as well as a mishmash of flexible plastic lighter-fuel refills and a bottle of spirits, Napoleon brandy for Redbear and Smirnoff Blue Label vodka for Michael.

  They found the guard in reception doing a crossword puzzle and there followed a tense moment’s non-verbal tussle during which the guard, in his sixties, appeared at first perplexed, then amused, thinking this some stunt of the station’s – only he couldn’t remember any. He pushed his hat back and scratched his head. The big man hugged him semi-ferociously and requested he leave the building, not call the police, and retire from uniformed duty.

  Michael doused the plastic ferns.

  They laughed at the portraits and drew moustaches.

  Redbear trashed a door with a fire extinguisher and they made there way deeper into the building.

  ‘Enemy headquarters.’

  ‘The fortress of drivel.’

  Everywhere there were speakers…

  Not much music was played. Instead, droning out across an area of several hundred miles, the inane ramblings and conversational masturbation of a DJ who laughed at his own jokes and talked down to the squeaky teenage girls and bitter insomniacs who composed his active, willing audience. But it was not for them Michael Tomatoes leaked flammables. They were lost already. It was for all the passive listeners, the cringing masses whose employers and convenience store owners saw fit to brutalize their aural sensibilities with a mixture of banal intercourse and predictable airwave gimmickry. The boys were here to champion their cause, every man and woman made to suffer the faecal charms of late night local radio, whether entombed on the swing-shift or simply hunting after-hours comestibles. It was for them, the nameless, faceless victims of dire patter and irritating jingles. It was for a higher justice. To purge the ether and cleanse the atmosphere. That was why they were here, confronted by a red light and an ON AIR signal.

  Freedom was only a combustion away.

  They shook hands and shoulder-barged the studio.

  Torched it, the entire building, people running and screaming, things exploding, a vast conflagration that had Michael and Redbear grinning like Cheshire kittens, their clothes on fire and their soles melted as they ran and screamed with engineers and producers, charging up and down corridors waving flaming swivel chairs and brandishing charred coffee percolators, the fire they brought engorged on non-flame retardant drapes, blinds and furnishings, spreading outward from its studio source and swallowing timber, cracking glass, melting plastic, until all that was heard was a roar, what Michael would later think of as a cheer, a celebration of a freedom bought with heat and violent gas reaction, the broadcasting paraphernalia it consumed bringing a quiet and a calm to the lobes of those afflicted by the station’s previous vacuous outpourings, misrepresented as entertainment and delivered with an unappetizing sluggishness, a complacent lack of adventure, a lip-service to choice and a sneer, just barely disguised, at the innocent folk who had to stomach it all…

  Yes!

  Altogether a good evening’s work.

  In the morning, washed and scrubbed, burns dabbed and soothed, he phoned the request show, but couldn’t get through.

  The next time he saw Van she was suspicious. There were absurd artist’s impressions on the news.

  It took only a week for the radio station to get back on air.

  Naturally, ratings, particularly for the late night phone-in, with a string of bad fire alarm jokes and references to “red hot” topics of discussion, went through the roof.

  INTERMEZZO…