Perhaps
by John McGroarty
Genre: Fantasy/Sci-Fi
Swearwords: None.
Description: Can a chancer ever change?
_____________________________________________________________________
Jonesy was a chancer. Not only a chancer, but a chancer who had used up two of his lives and for his next delito would be taken into custody, tortured and publicly vaporised as an ingrate live on television on the next Sunday bank holiday. His father had been vaporised when Jonesy was just a boy, and many in the caring community felt that Jonesy was a chancer by nature and thus an ingrate by destiny. There were still a few medical men who believed that cases like Jonesy’s were caused by environmental factors, but they were in the minority. One doctor had discovered that Jonesy had lived in the country as a child and had been fed on natural produce, which his father had grown secretly. This was in the time before the semi-apes were placed in the country and the human labourers were moved to a sales job in one of the cities.
Jonesy himself, when he took to self-analysis, inclined towards the latter view: “I dream of the country a lot, doctor,” he would tell a series of specialists in ingrateatrics. It was after a particularly vivid dream of this sort, in which Jonesy and his mother and father spent the day rambling through silent woods and valleys, that he awoke with that feeling of restlessness that always preceded a bout of what the Oxford Professor of Ingrate Studies Loudon Byrne called anti-communitarian idfests.
He was alone that week as his wife was on round the clock cleaning duty at the mansion of a strategic executive. And as a special privilege, for her dedication to the job and because the strategic executive’s wife was a woman of progressive opinions, she was allowed to have her son with her, as long as she kept him away from the children of the house.
Jonesy stepped into his slippers and entered the bathroom. He poured bleach down the pan, knelt, and stuck his head in. After a few seconds he started to retch and his eyes were red and running. He entered the living room. He sat down in front of the telephone screen and dialled his work’s number. He wiped his nose loudly on his sleeve.
“Doberman, Pitbull, Rottweiler, good morning,” said the receptionist cheerily, trying to hide her disgust at the sight of Jonesy.
“Good morning,” sniffed Jonesy, “I’m an employee and I think I’m coming down with something. I’d like to go to the doctor’s.”
“Name and number,” said the receptionist.
“Norman Jones, 314159.”
The receptionist looked at Jonesy with unconcealed disgust.
“Put your finger in the shock line space,” she ordered.
Jonesy obeyed and was given a short electric shock which momentarily made his eyes cross and his hair stand on end.
The secretary leered at him, “You’re a chancer, I don’t know if chancers are allowed time off to go to the doctor’s. Don’t move you little shit I’m going to check with my superior.”
Jonesy waited.
“Okay, you have two hours. And you know it will cost you. Five hours this evening and a flat rate charge of a day’s wages.”
Jonesy nodded.
“Stick your finger in the space again,” she said baring her teeth.
Jonesy was unsure if the rules allowed a secretary to physically abuse him twice in the same day but didn’t want any problems so he did as he was bid.
“The same finger!” she bawled.
The screen went blank and Jonesy let out a short scream as the shock coursed through his body.
He nursed his finger. Two hours, he thought. That would just give him time to go to an underground speakeasy, buy a bottle and return. He would feign illness later, get away from work and have a little party to himself that very night.
Jonesy closed the front door and looked up and down the street. It was quiet. The cameras were still. He set off at a trot. At the end of his street there was a park, and his plan was to cut in there and follow the perimeter, obscured by a line of birch trees that ran for over a mile in an almost straight line. About half way there was a hole in the fence, and the underground speakeasy was a short sprint across what was a quiet residential street.
All consumption of alcohol, since it was officially banned some fifty years before (except for those with a special licence), took place underground in old abandoned metro tunnels. There were whole villages of vagabonds down there dedicated to nothing but the bevvy. They very rarely came up to the surface as they were easily picked up, being almost blind and resembling dishevelled moles with huge luminous snouts. Jonesy had often thought of joining them full time, but something always stopped him. The idea that perhaps something might change. That life still had a meaning, even if he was branded a chancer, an ingrate. Perhaps he was still hoping that that time of his early childhood would come back, that he would run free again through the greens and browns of his memories. Today he was only looking for a little escape.
He started off at a quick pace as the park was in the opposite direction to the doctor’s, and a chancer going in the wrong direction did so at great risk to his person. As he sped along, trying to sink into his big coat with the collar up, a woman pushing a pram with a toddler in tow hailed him, “Hey you, mister chancer, my daughter wants to give you a slap.”
Jonesy pretended not to hear. However, two men in suits who had just emerged from a coffee shop that stood in his path turned and, seeing the big “C” on his coat, stood grinning as Jonesy approached.
He came to a stop and braced himself in front of the gents.
“You are upsetting that little girl,” said one of them and then proceeded to administer a clout that opened Jonesy’s right eye. The woman and the little girl arrived. The girl was screaming, with tears streaming down her face. It was true: Jonesy had upset her.
“When I call you, you stop. Understood?” said the woman out of breath.
Jonesy nodded.
“Take off your shoes,” she ordered. “It’s alright darling,” she said reassuringly to her daughter, “you’ll get to give the nasty chancer a slap and then mummy will buy you an ice-cream.”
Jonesy did as he was told, hoping to get it over as quickly as possible and not attract the attention of the surveillance cameras.
He stood barefoot, and the woman ran the pram, loaded down with shopping, over his toes four or five times.
The gents took off their hats in admiration. “You are a genius, madam,” said the one who had clouted Jonesy.
The little girl continued to scream inconsolably. Jonesy was becoming distraught.
“Give me a slap, two, three if you like, cutie,” he said showing her his cheek.
This seemed to make the girl worse. Her mother picked her up and, rocking her from side to side, managed to get her calmed down a little, “But sweetie, whatever is the matter?” she said.
“I don’t want to give him a slap,” she managed through sobs, “I want to kick him in the shins!”
Jonesy immediately rolled his trouser leg up. “Let fly cutie pie,” he said smiling.
The little girl’s face brightened and, wiping a tear, she took a step back and sank her white brogue into Jonesy’s shin with a screech of glee.
Jonesy winced but managed not to scream. To no avail: a surveillance camera had swivelled round and was focused on the scene.
The gentleman who had not yet indulged himself leant forward and gave Jonesy a quick blow to the head with his keys. Blood was now running into his eyes, and through the gore Jonesy was horrified to see the woman making for him with a knitting needle. The gentlemen, however, proved themselves worthy of the title.
“I’m afraid that’s it for today, madam,” said the one with the keys, placing himself between Jonesy and the needle.
“Yes,” agreed the other, “we can’t kill them. They do jobs that nobody else would do, we must stick to the rules, to maintain the social equilibrium, you understand?”
“Yes, of course,” said the woman, the pupils in her eyes returning to normal. “Okay sweetie, ice-cream,” she cried and wheeled off down the street, the little girl skipping along happily at her side.
Without regarding him further, the gents summoned a hover taxi by thought mail and shot off to a statistical meeting, or an early lunch.
Jonesy hobbled on his way. He was being followed by the cameras. Now at that very moment, and by one of life’s pure flukes, another chancer was heading in the opposite direction, and having refused to stop for a short torture session at a bus stop, was in full retreat on the other side of the road. There was a group of Torquemadas in pursuit and, luckily for Jonesy, the noise they were making attracted the attention of the cameras and allowed him to make it into the park.
He lay down on the damp grass to catch his breath. His wounds were seeping; at least he had a real reason to go to the doctor, he thought. He looked at his watch, and seeing that he only had a little over half an hour, he began to half hobble, half jog along the birch line.
The park was empty. This was no surprise to Jonesy, as slowly it had come about that anyone using the parks for recreation instead of the commercial villages was considered a potential subversive and so all “right-minded” people stopped entering them. This was the phrase that one of his psychiatrists had used, the group that Jonesy would belong to if he acceded to the full repentance course. As he ran he wondered what a wrong-minded or a left-minded person might think and came to the conclusion that he was one of them, which he wasn’t sure. Perhaps he was both.
He reached the gap in the fence and, ducking down, passed through and out onto a deserted street. The thought occurred to him that a localised curfew might have been called if, say, an important strategic executive was due to pass through the neighbourhood. For the moment, it was to his advantage. He sprinted across the road and reaching the old metro door began to tap out a password on the metal which echoed in the depths of the tunnels below.
He was dreaming of the bottle. If there was a curfew, he wouldn’t have to go anywhere this evening. He would spend the night at home with his bottle and a book. He had a book. A real book, not one of those stories made to fit round what the publishers wanted to advertise. No, a real book: “David Copperfield”. He had read it a thousand times since his father gave him it as a boy.
The sound of an engine broke into his thoughts; a black police wagon turned the corner. Jonesy had somehow been expecting it. It stopped in front of the station and two uniformed policegents got out and made their way slowly to where Jonesy stood tapping out his message to the bevvy merchants below.
One of the policegents fitted a rope round Jonesy’s neck and they dragged him to the wagon. Once inside he was slapped around for a couple of minutes.
“Right,” said the sergeant, “get your hand in the machine.”
In an instant his life story was on the screen. The news that Jonesy was a chancer on his last warning animated the gents. There were short arguments about who had got the last one and a cutting of cards. The sergeant drew an ace and winked at Jonesy.
“I’ll take the full repentance course,” he said.
“Shut your chancing mouth,” said the sergeant.
“I have a son, I’ll do it for him.”
“We’re going to do your son a favour Chancer, no trial, no repentance, no humiliation, you simply disappear.”
The gentleofficers caught hold of Jonesy, and in one effortless move the sergeant put a bolt through his head, just like a little lamb to the slaughter.
Swearwords: None.
Description: Can a chancer ever change?
_____________________________________________________________________
Jonesy was a chancer. Not only a chancer, but a chancer who had used up two of his lives and for his next delito would be taken into custody, tortured and publicly vaporised as an ingrate live on television on the next Sunday bank holiday. His father had been vaporised when Jonesy was just a boy, and many in the caring community felt that Jonesy was a chancer by nature and thus an ingrate by destiny. There were still a few medical men who believed that cases like Jonesy’s were caused by environmental factors, but they were in the minority. One doctor had discovered that Jonesy had lived in the country as a child and had been fed on natural produce, which his father had grown secretly. This was in the time before the semi-apes were placed in the country and the human labourers were moved to a sales job in one of the cities.
Jonesy himself, when he took to self-analysis, inclined towards the latter view: “I dream of the country a lot, doctor,” he would tell a series of specialists in ingrateatrics. It was after a particularly vivid dream of this sort, in which Jonesy and his mother and father spent the day rambling through silent woods and valleys, that he awoke with that feeling of restlessness that always preceded a bout of what the Oxford Professor of Ingrate Studies Loudon Byrne called anti-communitarian idfests.
He was alone that week as his wife was on round the clock cleaning duty at the mansion of a strategic executive. And as a special privilege, for her dedication to the job and because the strategic executive’s wife was a woman of progressive opinions, she was allowed to have her son with her, as long as she kept him away from the children of the house.
Jonesy stepped into his slippers and entered the bathroom. He poured bleach down the pan, knelt, and stuck his head in. After a few seconds he started to retch and his eyes were red and running. He entered the living room. He sat down in front of the telephone screen and dialled his work’s number. He wiped his nose loudly on his sleeve.
“Doberman, Pitbull, Rottweiler, good morning,” said the receptionist cheerily, trying to hide her disgust at the sight of Jonesy.
“Good morning,” sniffed Jonesy, “I’m an employee and I think I’m coming down with something. I’d like to go to the doctor’s.”
“Name and number,” said the receptionist.
“Norman Jones, 314159.”
The receptionist looked at Jonesy with unconcealed disgust.
“Put your finger in the shock line space,” she ordered.
Jonesy obeyed and was given a short electric shock which momentarily made his eyes cross and his hair stand on end.
The secretary leered at him, “You’re a chancer, I don’t know if chancers are allowed time off to go to the doctor’s. Don’t move you little shit I’m going to check with my superior.”
Jonesy waited.
“Okay, you have two hours. And you know it will cost you. Five hours this evening and a flat rate charge of a day’s wages.”
Jonesy nodded.
“Stick your finger in the space again,” she said baring her teeth.
Jonesy was unsure if the rules allowed a secretary to physically abuse him twice in the same day but didn’t want any problems so he did as he was bid.
“The same finger!” she bawled.
The screen went blank and Jonesy let out a short scream as the shock coursed through his body.
He nursed his finger. Two hours, he thought. That would just give him time to go to an underground speakeasy, buy a bottle and return. He would feign illness later, get away from work and have a little party to himself that very night.
Jonesy closed the front door and looked up and down the street. It was quiet. The cameras were still. He set off at a trot. At the end of his street there was a park, and his plan was to cut in there and follow the perimeter, obscured by a line of birch trees that ran for over a mile in an almost straight line. About half way there was a hole in the fence, and the underground speakeasy was a short sprint across what was a quiet residential street.
All consumption of alcohol, since it was officially banned some fifty years before (except for those with a special licence), took place underground in old abandoned metro tunnels. There were whole villages of vagabonds down there dedicated to nothing but the bevvy. They very rarely came up to the surface as they were easily picked up, being almost blind and resembling dishevelled moles with huge luminous snouts. Jonesy had often thought of joining them full time, but something always stopped him. The idea that perhaps something might change. That life still had a meaning, even if he was branded a chancer, an ingrate. Perhaps he was still hoping that that time of his early childhood would come back, that he would run free again through the greens and browns of his memories. Today he was only looking for a little escape.
He started off at a quick pace as the park was in the opposite direction to the doctor’s, and a chancer going in the wrong direction did so at great risk to his person. As he sped along, trying to sink into his big coat with the collar up, a woman pushing a pram with a toddler in tow hailed him, “Hey you, mister chancer, my daughter wants to give you a slap.”
Jonesy pretended not to hear. However, two men in suits who had just emerged from a coffee shop that stood in his path turned and, seeing the big “C” on his coat, stood grinning as Jonesy approached.
He came to a stop and braced himself in front of the gents.
“You are upsetting that little girl,” said one of them and then proceeded to administer a clout that opened Jonesy’s right eye. The woman and the little girl arrived. The girl was screaming, with tears streaming down her face. It was true: Jonesy had upset her.
“When I call you, you stop. Understood?” said the woman out of breath.
Jonesy nodded.
“Take off your shoes,” she ordered. “It’s alright darling,” she said reassuringly to her daughter, “you’ll get to give the nasty chancer a slap and then mummy will buy you an ice-cream.”
Jonesy did as he was told, hoping to get it over as quickly as possible and not attract the attention of the surveillance cameras.
He stood barefoot, and the woman ran the pram, loaded down with shopping, over his toes four or five times.
The gents took off their hats in admiration. “You are a genius, madam,” said the one who had clouted Jonesy.
The little girl continued to scream inconsolably. Jonesy was becoming distraught.
“Give me a slap, two, three if you like, cutie,” he said showing her his cheek.
This seemed to make the girl worse. Her mother picked her up and, rocking her from side to side, managed to get her calmed down a little, “But sweetie, whatever is the matter?” she said.
“I don’t want to give him a slap,” she managed through sobs, “I want to kick him in the shins!”
Jonesy immediately rolled his trouser leg up. “Let fly cutie pie,” he said smiling.
The little girl’s face brightened and, wiping a tear, she took a step back and sank her white brogue into Jonesy’s shin with a screech of glee.
Jonesy winced but managed not to scream. To no avail: a surveillance camera had swivelled round and was focused on the scene.
The gentleman who had not yet indulged himself leant forward and gave Jonesy a quick blow to the head with his keys. Blood was now running into his eyes, and through the gore Jonesy was horrified to see the woman making for him with a knitting needle. The gentlemen, however, proved themselves worthy of the title.
“I’m afraid that’s it for today, madam,” said the one with the keys, placing himself between Jonesy and the needle.
“Yes,” agreed the other, “we can’t kill them. They do jobs that nobody else would do, we must stick to the rules, to maintain the social equilibrium, you understand?”
“Yes, of course,” said the woman, the pupils in her eyes returning to normal. “Okay sweetie, ice-cream,” she cried and wheeled off down the street, the little girl skipping along happily at her side.
Without regarding him further, the gents summoned a hover taxi by thought mail and shot off to a statistical meeting, or an early lunch.
Jonesy hobbled on his way. He was being followed by the cameras. Now at that very moment, and by one of life’s pure flukes, another chancer was heading in the opposite direction, and having refused to stop for a short torture session at a bus stop, was in full retreat on the other side of the road. There was a group of Torquemadas in pursuit and, luckily for Jonesy, the noise they were making attracted the attention of the cameras and allowed him to make it into the park.
He lay down on the damp grass to catch his breath. His wounds were seeping; at least he had a real reason to go to the doctor, he thought. He looked at his watch, and seeing that he only had a little over half an hour, he began to half hobble, half jog along the birch line.
The park was empty. This was no surprise to Jonesy, as slowly it had come about that anyone using the parks for recreation instead of the commercial villages was considered a potential subversive and so all “right-minded” people stopped entering them. This was the phrase that one of his psychiatrists had used, the group that Jonesy would belong to if he acceded to the full repentance course. As he ran he wondered what a wrong-minded or a left-minded person might think and came to the conclusion that he was one of them, which he wasn’t sure. Perhaps he was both.
He reached the gap in the fence and, ducking down, passed through and out onto a deserted street. The thought occurred to him that a localised curfew might have been called if, say, an important strategic executive was due to pass through the neighbourhood. For the moment, it was to his advantage. He sprinted across the road and reaching the old metro door began to tap out a password on the metal which echoed in the depths of the tunnels below.
He was dreaming of the bottle. If there was a curfew, he wouldn’t have to go anywhere this evening. He would spend the night at home with his bottle and a book. He had a book. A real book, not one of those stories made to fit round what the publishers wanted to advertise. No, a real book: “David Copperfield”. He had read it a thousand times since his father gave him it as a boy.
The sound of an engine broke into his thoughts; a black police wagon turned the corner. Jonesy had somehow been expecting it. It stopped in front of the station and two uniformed policegents got out and made their way slowly to where Jonesy stood tapping out his message to the bevvy merchants below.
One of the policegents fitted a rope round Jonesy’s neck and they dragged him to the wagon. Once inside he was slapped around for a couple of minutes.
“Right,” said the sergeant, “get your hand in the machine.”
In an instant his life story was on the screen. The news that Jonesy was a chancer on his last warning animated the gents. There were short arguments about who had got the last one and a cutting of cards. The sergeant drew an ace and winked at Jonesy.
“I’ll take the full repentance course,” he said.
“Shut your chancing mouth,” said the sergeant.
“I have a son, I’ll do it for him.”
“We’re going to do your son a favour Chancer, no trial, no repentance, no humiliation, you simply disappear.”
The gentleofficers caught hold of Jonesy, and in one effortless move the sergeant put a bolt through his head, just like a little lamb to the slaughter.
About the Author
John McGroarty was born in Glasgow and now lives in Barcelona, where he works as an English teacher. He has been writing short stories for many years, although few of his stories have been seen publicly.