Deep Fried: A Novel Read online

  Deep Fried is a fascinating mixture of intrigue, psychological thriller and rebel-of-the-moment youth culture. Peter and Charlotte are itchy bored by life. They decide through a chance happening to take on a corporate giant (a very large corporate giant cleverly disguised as the Prince of Burgers). Using the media and the internet, they quickly gather quite a following. However, the corporate giant fights back using some very slick enticements and snares to really test the ethical and moral fortitude of our hero and his catwoman. The pitfalls and seductions of the internet are nicely drawn, there’s some rather obsessive stalker behaviour, not to mention chat rooms and hackers, lots of suspense and a great thriller ending. Politically savvy, fast-paced and compelling Deep Fried tests the temperature of the disenchanted. A standout novel featuring the debut of Clare Knighton along with veteran writer for teens, Bernard Beckett.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  16 March

  Chapter 2

  19 March

  20 March

  Chapter 3

  2 April

  3 April

  4 April

  Chapter 4

  8 April

  Chapter 5

  10 April

  Chapter 6

  14 April

  Chapter 7

  16 April

  Chapter 8

  17 April

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  About the Authors

  Also by Bernard Beckett

  Copyright

  1

  My name is Pete. I am not fond of introductions. You can judge for yourself, if you stay. These days I seem to be pissed off most of the time. A clever, angry little wanker, to summarise my favourite hobbies. End of introduction. Welcome to my world.

  Term one, week seven, Year Thirteen. The year of having made it, so the story goes. Made it past uniform and study spells and detentions for being late. Made it into the common room. Made it to the edge of the cliff, with a view all the way down to adulthood, where the people look like ants, nose to the arse one ahead in the traffic jam. I don’t feel much made.

  I am a balloon and something I don’t much understand is breathing its air into me. Some time soon I will explode, or I will float away. Whatever I try to set my thoughts to, my thoughts find a way of looking in the other direction. You can lead a mind to oughta, but you can’t make it think.

  People who used to be my friends piss me off. Classes I used to enjoy piss me off. Girls I used to think were pretty, they piss me off too. Talking about sport, playing cards, listening to music up way too loud, getting drunk, stoned; my whole damned year level soaking it up, summer tans turning crispy in the autumn sun. The best years of our life, if the people who sell us sunglasses and soft drinks, condoms and fee-free bank accounts are to be believed – and all of it pisses me off.

  I am sitting in the common room ten minutes into lunch, and on the outside I am one of them, moving and listening and talking and handing out smiles. Inside I am defective. My soul has twisted itself around its hitching post again, and it won’t stay quiet. Is this it? it whispers to the shadows of my brain. Is this all there is? This can’t possibly be it. This is crap. A girl called Shelley leans forward and laughs, so a boy called Adam can see she thinks he is funny, and can see her breasts. I want to slap her, but I don’t, because there are rules, and some of them are good.

  So I walk out to my car, Mum’s car, and I drive down to the mall. If there’s one place in the world guaranteed to piss me off even more than school, it’s the mall, but I go anyway. Don’t expect reasons, never call me reasonable. I pay homage to the money machine, then cross the carpark to The Prince of Burgers – PBs to its friends – that cathedral of convenience where every day, in every dimple of the globe, the millions come to worship.

  There are four queues operating and I pick the slowest one, or maybe the slowest one picks me. How can you tell? I am itching for something, scratchy all over and impossible to satisfy. I don’t even much feel like PBs. Do you ever? But I have to do something and it is lunch time and there is money in my pocket and as they say down at the Sexual Health Centre, one thing leads to another.

  It is hot, the heat from the sun magnifies through the grease-smeared, franchise-sanctioned windows, rippling across the heat waves of hot plates and deep-friers. UV-powered convection currents are running slap bang into the industrial blast of the food buggering factory, and the factory heat, with its added sound and smell, somehow overpowering it. Defeating even this, the nuclear fusion of the sun, so really what the hell chance do we have?

  Dark stains spread about the armpits of the android uniforms behind the counter. Sweat drips off brows and the deep-friers spit it back, free fertiliser for the pimples of the underpaid slave.

  I am empty, itchy, hot; powered by Pissed Off and fuelled by made-to-last but not-to-keep ten dollar notes. A combo perhaps, and something sweet to follow. Dairy maybe, only not real dairy.

  The woman at the counter ahead of me, not much older than 20, dragged forward and back, and down and out by four different pairs of chubby arms, who have seen The Prince’s manic grin from the playground of flavoursome colours, and are hoping for brightly decorated boxes and novelty toys and enough additives to short-circuit their little brains into the first of a lifetime of concessions. She’s staring into her purse, doing the maths, wondering if little Anna, who’ll never eat a whole one, could share with Caley, who only wants the toys, and could they please, if the corporation doesn’t mind too much, have an extra toy then, and of course she’d pay full price, if there was such a thing in a world of special offers, once-in-a-lifetime discounts and never-to-be-repeated, only-to-you, our Special, Valued, Customer sale items.

  And it hits me, right between the eyes, just the way they say. Real understanding; a sweeping emotion, a sickness in the stomach, a passing thought, all colliding at the front of my brain, just beneath the hairline, you know the place. I leave my queue, I have no choice. Move forward, all the way to the counter. People turn to watch me. I feel frightened, and powerful. My walk becomes a run. I leap forward.

  It is a solid landing, turning in mid air, both feet planted solid on the spray-and-wiped surface of the counter. The customers-to-be look up, every last overheated one of them, docile and confused, mistaking the emptiness within for hunger.

  ‘This is nuts,’ I shout out, and my voice bounces back at me. Encourages me on. ‘What are we doing here? Look at us. This is crazy.’

  ‘We’re here because we’re hungry, you little shit. Get down off the counter.’

  A big man, a road worker, with hairy arms and a huge modern stomach straining against his orange, tar-flecked shirt. His stubble is dark but the neat circuit of hair on his head is turning to grey. If I come between him and his feeding time, he will hurt me.

  ‘Hungry you say?’ I shout back. ‘So what are you waiting for then? Let’s eat.’

  I step down behind the counter. Nervous employees, not paid enough to improvise, back away. I move quickly, stride across the floor like I own the place, or at least the franchise agreement, to the chute where the burgers quietly wait, arranged by colour in their bright, countryside-fouling boxes.

  ‘What’ll it be then?’ I call out to the road worker, who by rights is three customers away from being served. This is the moment. It could go either way. Something snags, between his eyes and mine, a single finger raised by instinct, two big grins of fuck them, colliding in the perspiring air.

  ‘Three Big Princes, and make it quick,’ his deep voice bellows, and any thought of resistance amongst the assembled melts and puddles to the floor.

  My first two throws are sure, and are swallowed by the man’s huge paws. The th
ird, the last on the rack, sails high, and is caught by a teenager I do not recognise, who turns with his prize and hurries out the door.

  ‘Sorry, that was the last one.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter, chicken burger’ll do me.’

  ‘Would you like fries with that, Sir?’

  Someone laughs, the queues break up and the customers push forward. A lawless, delighted mob, its face lit bright with the possibility of broken rules and diminished consequences.

  ‘I’ll have a six pack of fish bites,’ says a voice from the crowd. I respond with a well-aimed delivery of 12 instead.

  ‘Thank you, Sir, and whatever the lady with the children would like.’

  I look across to where the mother stands, still waiting to be served. She shrugs, with a smile that speaks more of exhaustion than hunger, and I reply with a tray piled high with whatever comes to hand.

  A girl about my age, the name Kirsty pinned to the breast of her PBs’ uniform, steps across my path. I wonder if she is going to try to to stop me, but her face slips into a pretty smile. She scoops up a handful of plastic toys and places them on top of the pile.

  ‘It’s a birthday after all.’

  Applause. The sea parts to let the mother and children back through. Someone begins to sing Happy Birthday. I have created a community. Pissed Off has its uses.

  For 20 minutes the loaves and fishes feed the crowd. I stay at the front, taking orders and compliments, and not a single person tries to tell me I’m doing something wrong. They are too busy laughing, and munching, and making way for the next wave that stretches out onto the street now, lining up for their small piece of burger-wrapped history.

  Not exactly what Ms Lewis, my Year Four primary teacher, meant when she told me I would ‘do important things one day’, but then importance is in the eye of the demographic, and from where I stand, and from where the workers and AWOL school students and harassed parents stand, there is definitely something going on.

  Word spreads quickly, the way the right words do, and the police and TV crew arrive through opposite doors. I am dragged off the premises with a camera in my face, and the cheers of the crowd ringing loud in my ears. A woman I vaguely recognise pushes a microphone under my nose and asks stupid questions. And I feel, what is the word? Right. In a world where so much feels so wrong, I suddenly feel quite right. Plainly the trouble has started.

  16 MARCH

  He was on TV last night. Between the war and a cat stuck behind a heater for three days. As if it was all perfectly normal. As if what he’s done hasn’t switched something on inside me. Given me hope.

  Before I saw the news I didn’t know about him. Didn’t know him. Unless you can know someone by passing in a corridor, sitting three seats ahead on the train. Their smell, their laugh. I didn’t ask for it. I was just watching the ads. Almost making me want to move, peel my skin off the leather, walk away. Almost. That’s how I was. What I was. Not unique or special, whatever anyone tells you. Not noticeable, likeable or even slightly unusual. Detached. Helpless. Until The Prince of Burgers. Until him.

  The newsman was impeccably groomed. Torso only, cut by the line of the desk. He turned, shared a smile with his female double. Two pairs of glossed lips stretched over perfect teeth. At lunch time today a Wellington school student, Peter Ball, caused a riot when he jumped the counter at his local Prince of Burgers outlet – the smile returned – and began handing out free food. Mr Ball was subsequently arrested but no details of any charge have been released.

  They cut to a crazily wavering picture. A pushing, shoving, pulsating mess. Snatches of the interior: white and mint floor tiles, blurred white ceiling lights. Faces. Passion. Because of free burgers. And him.

  Pete. Caught for just a second. His eyes stared across the crowd and out of the TV. Straight into mine. Smiling. As if he knew what he was doing, knew it was right. The red and gold employees didn’t move. He stood apart. Grey-haired policeman on one side, dripping soft-serve machine on the other.

  The reporter was close now, pushing a microphone up to him. Why? Pete looked back again. Towards me. His hair was dark, had that just-got-out-of-bed look that takes hours to get right. His mouth opened slightly. Out of breath. Grinned. Shrugged. I was pissed off. Four words and I was hooked. A chemical reaction. Exothermic I think. Fizzing. Bubbles under my skin, under the surface of my world. Like a magnifying glass. All the little random moments pulled back into a single stream. Sun through the glass, hot enough to burn.

  Later, in front of my computer. Everything else melts away. All my attention demanded by the small glowing screen. The poster growing on it, piece by piece. Select, drag, click, place. Holding my breath to stop laughing out loud. Doing it for him. A link between us.

  You don’t know it yet Pete, but I can help you. Say I know. Say Yes.

  Because it’s not enough that I should know. I have to make a point, make a stand, take a step. Away from whitened smiles and pin-tucked faces and ads that promise you the world. And what else can I do? Go up, introduce myself? Hi, Pete, I’m Sophie. I saw you on TV last night, I think you’re … what? Then I’d be no better than the girls who’ll gather round him in the common room tomorrow. Congratulating him for something they have no intention of understanding because it would make life too uncomfortable.

  Pissed off that being pissed off with the world is too much. Pissed off that you have to settle on something smaller. On the crown that couldn’t make the leap from neon to gold, on the ‘free smiles’ sign. The place on the door where handles are ignored and the grease of a hundred hands blurs the view into the temple of the Prince.

  It’s a work of art in the end, my poster. The perpetual worshipper. Images dragged from the net, scanned in from magazines. Cut, layered, magnified to fit my purpose. An oddly dough-like pale peach face. Hair limp across the forehead. Desperate, piggy little eyes squeezed between rolls of fat. Vast stomach beneath skin-tight cotton taken from a man in TIME. A Mickey Mouse erased from the shirt and now, instead, PBs’ Prince. A burger clutched covetously to the mocking day-glo smile stretched across every upsize meal; every half dollar turned to fat.

  Final touches — blown up to pixel size, blending in a sheen of sweat across the cheeks. Dribble of sauce down a flabby forearm, staining the Prince’s crown. Beautiful.

  It took 26 posters to cover the whole of PBs’ windows. Tuesday night. There was no one in town. No one to see me up on the drive-thru wall, scrabbling at the guttering, two cardboard rolls shoved inside a backpack. The windows look out over the main road, the roundabout, the footpath. Tomorrow those bloated faces will be staring down into the street. At the suits scuttling to their trains, at the lunch time crowds, suddenly not so hungry. At Pete. And then he’ll know he’s not the only one.

  It was on the net before I even began. Rumour and fact spreading out their tendrils. The beginnings of questions, of discussions in chat rooms. All I did was move it along a bit. I was up all night finishing the page: www.pissedoff.co.nz. Black words in a white box turn to colours, backgrounds, links, changing the world. His picture off the news site. The poster. My plan. He has started something and now I am part of it. Tied to him.

  I think if I could find just one person I could talk to, really talk to, I could survive. Someone who would understand. Because that’s what it comes down to in the end. It can’t be too much to ask. I’d be able to bear this world where we mouth yes, no, nice day isn’t it? and never go deeper. In case we find out we’re not so special after all. Grey, like everybody else. One other human being who would look me in the face. I think it’s him. Us against the world. Sophie and Pete.

  2

  I don’t much believe in God, although as my Auntie Susan would point out, that doesn’t necessarily stop God from believing in me. Susan is the only person in our extended family who has what you might call faith; at least of a religious kind. Susan’s brother, my Dad, puts his faith in law and order and doing your duty, just rewards for those who work hard, and the unshakeable con
viction that laughter is preferable to honesty. The woman he married believes in getting ahead and looking after yourself, and they both, should you press them on the matter, believe in financial security and a lifetime’s work of compromises. Derek, the man Susan married, is an aggressive atheist, who believes in the curative powers of the market and the unlimited potential of his dull son George, so making him the most superstitious person I know.

  And up until PBs, that made me and Derek complete opposites. But it doesn’t take much for the world to change on you; the split second of a blink, a momentary flicker between life’s reels. Susan says we have guardian angels, who sit at our shoulder and fill in the gaps, so long as our intentions are good. Maybe she is right. How else can you explain the posters that have begun to appear on PBs’ windows, not just locally but all around the globe? Or the American news channel that picked up the story, and the website www.pissedoff, with my photo on its opening page, and more than half a million hits in its first 24 hours? Call it fate, or destiny, or a shoulder full of guardian angels; something’s going on and it’s out of my hands.

  I’m in English when the note comes. ‘Report to the principal’s office.’ They have a system with these messages; a frowning face if the news is bad, a happy one if you’ve pleased them, a neutral face to keep you guessing. It’s a frowning face, of course. I don’t mind. The frowning face and I have become friends, over the years.

  I take the walk slowly, enjoying the freedom of being alone in the corridors. My footsteps make confident, defiant echoes. Through the small wire-meshed windows of classroom doors I catch glimpses of learning. Young minds creaking and straining like saplings in a storm, wanting only to be left to grow upwards.

  I am not worried. I like Mr Smythe. He is, as far as I can tell, a good principal. A reasonable man. Kind. Exhausted most of the time. He has a son my age, Jeremy, and Jeremy and I are friends. Mr Smythe has seen me throw up behind his woodshed. It helps, a little thing like that. So does the fact that my crime, such as it was, happened out of school. I knock on his open door. He looks up from his computer, frowns. I can see he doesn’t mean it.