yustyoking

“I love the smell of Victory Gin in the morning,” Todd Harrison said, sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling on his socks. Outside the window, bright yellow sunlight promised the start of another glorious Spring day. The roar of omnicopters rattled the windows.

“You are such a piece of work,” Erin swore angrily. “I come here, give you what you want— what you claim you need— and never do I hear a word of thanks!”

Red hair and green eyes, she was out and out fuming.

“I wonder if they’ve chosen a parade route free of disruption this year,” Todd pondered. “Last year was such a disappointment.” He was a flag carrier in Big Kahuna’s annual birthday festival and military parade.

“You swine—”

A mile deep into Proletown, they were in a rented room on the second floor of a shop on a grubby side street littered with rubbish. The name on the shop window said Ye Olde Watch Repair, but the letters themselves had faded into ghostly outlines. On the walls upstairs, bucolic scenes of a pre-war nature sat in wooden frames, alternating with cracks in the plaster. Over everything hung the pungent odor of mice.

If they climbed upon the roof and looked south, they could see the cranes being used to build the 250-foot-high Victory Arch on the Isle of Dogs.

“I love the Orange Thunderbolt as much as any man,” Todd insisted, balancing on one foot and pulling on his trousers. “Fourth term notwithstanding, he’s the guy. Listen, they can have a 95-year-old PM if they want, but sometimes the Party makes life all but unbearable.” Searching the rickety nightstand for a smoke, he asked “Why is there a giant banner of Big Kahuna hanging on the Ministry of Injustice building? What’s up with that? Has he become a law & order freak in his old age?”

Working in the Lit Department of Miniprop, the Ministry of Propaganda, Todd had a way with words.

Erin just glared.

Th hollow clatter of a transport drone passed by overhead. “We’ve got to get out of this place, if it’s the last time we ever move,” Todd proposed.

“Again??? Blimey! ’Nough said. I’m not hearing nought!” Erin muttered, pulling the dingy bedsheet up around her chin, round as a tennis ball. Todd loved to kiss her chin, cupping it in his hands and slobbering on it.

On the flip side, sometimes it took all of her wiles just to get Todd to look up from his cellphone.

A half-read novel lay on the nightstand. “Elephant Hunting in Deepest India” screamed the title in lurid red letters. On the cover, a scantily clad damsel rode atop a wayward elephant. Todd had the disquieting sensation that he might have unknowingly contributed bits to the large language model used in the story’s creation. Some of the flowery descriptions matched his prose.

“We need to find a more secure location for our trysts,” he insisted.

“No shit, Sherlock!” sang Erin, jumping from the bed buck naked and marching to the washstand to sponge herself.

Todd heard voices from the street below. “Hoo, hoo, Big Kahuna is watching you!” they chanted, but Todd knew it was just rowdies letting off steam. 

“Can you loan me any money?” he asked, not for the first time. Checking the fly strip, he plucked away the dead bodies of flies with his fingers and threw them in the rubbish bin.

“God damn drunk!” Erin griped, her Irish accent as clear as a morning breeze in May. “I never should have taken up with you!”

“It’s all O’Bannon’s fault,” countered Todd defensively. “If he hadn’t introduced us—”

“Yes, yes, blame it on an Inner Party member, why don’t you?” hissed Erin. Wiping the sponge vigorously between her legs, she worked up a lather.  

“Ye Irish are as thick as thieves,” Todd commented. “I still wonder what he’s up to, y’ know.”

“I’ll tell you what he’s up to, that wanker. Free love is what he’s up to. Disseminating it among the ranks, so that his own sex crimes will look minor in comparison,” she exclaimed. Throwing the sponge into the washbowl, she marched to the dresser and pulled on her summer frock. Dressed in peach, she looked bleeding gorgeous, barefoot, her hair wild, eyes shining. Todd, hands extended like an eagle’s claws, chased her around the room, drooling. “Just you wait!” predicted Erin. “O’Bannon will throw us under the wheels of the bus, sure as beeswax.”

“I think not,” Todd claimed, only too aware that in politics, Erin was much more perceptive than he.

That’s when there came a click at the washstand and the mirror sank to the floor with a thud.

“Hey, what’s all this!” Todd howled.

The more practical of the two, Erin marched to the washstand and pulled it, screeching, along the floor. The glassy eye of a peeping tom video camera stared at them, the lens covered in dust. “Bastards,” she cursed.

“Yes, bastards!” came a cranky voice over a speaker embedded in the wall.

“Kiss me arse!” she added.

“Yes,” squawked the voice. “Kiss ye arse!”

There was a crash at the window and suddenly the room was filled with guv agents in macks and masks, storming in from window and doorway. “Hup tight! Stand thee with hands behind head!” roared a drill sergeant, teasingly drawing his truncheon down Erin’s spine and along her hip, tapping it meaningfully between her legs. “Tick tock, tick tock,” he joked. “Cat’s got paws, where’s the pussy?”

Todd and she stood helplessly still, trembling, while the guvs milled ‘round. One knocked Erin to the floor.

“Up ye go, lass,” suggested another, helping her to her feet, after which they smashed poor Todd on an elbow and knocked him on his bum.

“All right, that’s enough larking about!” O’Bannon said, coming into the room hurriedly. “Let’s wrap this up.”

“Aye, I thought t’was yer voice I heard,” Erin observed.

While Todd was lifted to a standing position, O’Bannon put on a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles and read from a printed green card, “Under Article Eight, Paragraph Two of the Charter for the Isles of Britain and Ireland, you are hereby accused of sex crimes, domestic terrorism, insurrection, thievery, bribery, unauthorized handling of explosives, conspiracy to attain handguns and attack drones, printing of unlawful leaflets and doxxing. Each charge specifically or all of the above. Now, strip!”

“Strip, is it?” complained Erin. “Aye, and we what just now got clothed,” she declared, making everyone except Todd burst out laughing.

“Take them to the Ministry of Hygienic Love,” commanded O’Bannon. Black cloth bags were placed over their heads and they were led, stumbling, downstairs and outside to a waiting van.

2

In a chilly room with steel walls, where every noise had an echo, Todd was tied up and strapped to a contraption that resembled a cross between a dental chair and a barber stool.

A busy bureaucrat, O’Bannon left him there, viewing a series of video tutorials filled with trumpeting fanfare and titled “Oceania in the Age of English Socialism.” Not surprisingly, Eastasia and Eurasia were the bad guys, while life in the British Isles resembled a kind of Garden of Eden. The fourth in a series of five was titled “Big Kahuna Is Watching You.”

Afterward, O’Bannon came back in view and in an almost kindly fashion explained the situation.

“Attention, Todd! Consider yourself privileged,” O’Bannon exclaimed, looking surprisingly morose. “I could leave your interrogation to A.I. and it wouldn’t be pretty. You will be amazed at how effective our robots have become. It’s the perfect match, soulful militants against soulless machines. Guess who wins, each and every time?

“I am taking a personal interest in your case, mostly because I know Erin’s parents, two stalwart revolutionaries of the Old School. I don’t do rehabilitations anymore unless they affect policy. So, whatever else, take these formalities seriously and consider yourself honored to be here and getting my personal treatment.”

“My bad,” agreed Todd.

“As long as we are here, let’s see if we can make some progress,” stated O’Bannon, folding shut the hand-tooled brown leather case to his cellphone, a status symbol limited to members of the Inner Party. “The alternative is seven grams of lead in the head,” he added.

“I would like to forego that eventuality,” Todd replied, croaking like a crow.  

“I have been following your vlog. Who gave you permission to stream the Special Olympics?” asked O’Bannon.

“I wasn’t aware that I needed permission. I just repost with ironic emojis,” Todd explained. Eyeing various punitive torture devices hanging from the ceiling, he asked, “Is this a wax museum or what?” Only half-joking.

“You seem to have a penchant for the dog poo emoji,” O’Bannon pointed out.

“I told you, I am being ironic.”

“Why do you only have 38 followers?” O’Bannon wondered, waving away a technician in a white lab coat who seemed intent on speaking to him.

“The Net is a closed system, as you know,” Todd explained. “British Isles Only. You try scraping together followers in the UK, where everybody religiously follows Cheltenham F.C. but nought filthy else. Me followers online are a crew of dodgers. Bloody shy, thanks to your lot breathing hot and heavy and such.”

“Why post on a vlog if you don’t have an audience?” O’Bannon queried, genuinely curious. “What is this about Big Kahuna’s hair-loss remedy? Do you actually know something or is it just click bait? Is your podcast sending secret messages in code to an erstwhile opposition? Vox clamantis in deserto. You are a voice crying out in the wilderness.”

“It’s a hobby. I can’t be working for a foreign power because you can’t find a foreign power in London to save ye arse. I wasn’t aware that being a futile bloody failure online is illegal.”

That’s when O’Bannon hit him in the mouth. Once. Hard. When Todd had recovered enough to speak, he said, “I take that as a typical example of trolling.”

O’Bannon’s face went red, but at least he didn’t hit Todd again. Instead, he stood massaging his knuckles. His hand was sore. “Room 35B,” he said.

“What the fuck?!” Todd protested. “I’m British. Some rights and permissions we have. Read the Magna Carta. Bloody Irish!”

“Room 35B is the worst thing you can imagine,” heckled O’Bannon. “It varies from one individual to another. We use an algorithm to determine what you find most reprehensible, based on your online viewing history. In your case, Todd, it is listening to political speeches. As incredible as this might sound, you never participate in political rallies nor Hate Week, although you hoist the colors in Big K’s yearly procession. Why is that? Do tell.”

“No. Aye. Yes. As you say, I really hate listening to harangues. Too many family troubles growing up and like that. ‘The revolution eats its own,’ as they say. Now that we have that nailed down, how about we go to a Wimpy’s and grab some burgers?” he suggested.

“You jest,” said O’Bannon, “but this is not a jesting matter.”

“I don’t jest!” Todd protested. “On me dear old mother’s grave, I hate speeches and I love a Wimpy Triple Quarterpounder Bacon & Cheese. Now that’s a burger!”

“Untie him!” O’Bannon indicated and the technician came scurrying over in his white lab coat. He struggled with the knots.

Traversing the city in a green Ministry of Works van, avoiding the pro-Kahuna flash mobs in City Centre, they stopped off at the Ministry of War where a surly tattoo artist inked a barcode across Todd’s forehead. “Welcome to the Tribe of Ingrates,” O’Bannon announced, smirking. “The State gives you everything and you are still not satisfied.”

Once the novocaine wore off, Todd’s forehead itched terribly.  

At the fast food joint, O’Bannon sat over a cup of java, brooding, while Todd fed his face. “Would you mind paying?” he asked O’Bannon. “We left our loft in such a hurry, I forgot me wallet.”

O’Bannon, sure-footed but immensely bored, plucked an evidence bag from his briefcase and handed Todd his wallet.

“Uh, now this is embarrassing,” Todd admitted, “but I don’t have any coin, you see. I’m skint. Penniless. Stony-broke be the bloke.” Holding up his wallet, he showed it to be empty.

Sighing, O’Bannon waved to the waitress. When she came over, he paid for the burger and the coffee.

“I wonder what Erin is doing right now,” Todd mused.

“Don’t worry yourself on her account,” answered O’Bannon. “A wench like that always lands on her feet. She’ll go home to Eire and get a job tending golf links.”

“Now about these charges against us,” Todd proposed, wiping his mouth daintily with a crinkly napkin. “I can understand that you are angry. Then, too, there’s all the things we said when we were at your flat in Russell Square, all that cal about throwing acid in the faces of babies, the joy of anarchistic drone attacks on municipal housing estates and such drivel, but you need to understand that Erin and I were putting on an act. We didn’t ska mean all that blarney.”

“Then why should I believe you now?” O’Bannon asked stonily, his face dour and furious. He propped an oily grey guv-issued M1911 automatic pistol on the Formica tabletop next to his cellphone. It looked enormous, sitting there among the cardboard tray, plastic utensils and paper wrapper left over from the burger.

Staring at the gun, alarmed, Todd stammered, “All I am saying is give me a chance. Seriously, mate,” he pleaded, “I really do love Big Kahuna. Carrying the banner at his birthday parade is a sure sign of my devotion, I can assure you. Only…”

“Only???” spat O’Bannon, leaning menacingly across the table. “Only what?”

“You are Inner Party, you see, old chum, while I am Outer Party. You gents get the more part of the booze and the capers and all the good stuff while the rest of us poor sods have to put up with Victory Gin, crumbly chocolate and your leavings. It says—”

“WHAT SAYS?” roared O’Bannon, bringing the waitress at a run. He waved her away.

“In the archives. At work. There’s a wine in France called a Bordeaux.”

“Yes? So?” hissed O’Bannon.

As if on cue, three rowdies, unshaven and quite drunk, stumbled through the street door, their black bomber jackets plastered with football badges. One look at O’Bannon and his pistol sent them on their way.

“Life is short,” Todd declared. “If I could procure a supply of something as meaningfully fulfilling as Bordeaux wine, Big Kahuna has in me a trusted servant for as long as we two shall live! It would affix me a place on the black market and such, you see. Ta! I have said my piece.”

Stymied, impressed and immensely irritated, O’Bannon told him, “Come to my flat next Tuesday and we’ll sort you out once and be done with it.”

Tears of gratitude pouring down his face, Todd found he really did love Big Kahuna.

THE END