Deep Fried: A Novel Read online

  Jeremy looks to the floor, proud and embarrassed at the same time.

  ‘It’s hard sometimes, when people mock him. They don’t get how much it means to him. It’s like a religion or something. I say it to him sometimes. Lighten up Dad, it’s only school. But it isn’t. Not to him.’

  ‘So you’re scared he’ll do it again, blow all his money?’ I ask, wondering how it is I have landed in the middle of this thing.

  ‘Nah nah. That’s sweet. Him and Mum sorted it out. The house is in her name now. She does good deals. I just thought you should know. I didn’t want you to think he’s a total wanker or anything, that’s all.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘I know, but …’

  ‘It’s your shot.’

  The next day. Lunch time. Back at the mall. I have a plan, and a poster, and a begging bowl. Why should my school have to suffer? Why should Jeremy’s dad be reduced to tears? People will understand, when they hear. And then it’ll be alright.

  Crowds hurry by, in a rush to nowhere, travelling light, a conscience would only weigh them down. They see the Prince’s trademarked smile, smell the grease, the no-fuss no-surprises lure of the modern franchise. They ignore me and head towards the door. I stand my ground.

  ‘Excuse me, Sir, before you go in there, can I just have a moment of your time? It may interest you to know, Sir, that up until two days ago, this very restaurant had a sponsorship deal with the local college, and that college was relying upon this to help with the funding of the education of the next generation. And it may also interest you to know that this deal was pulled, and now the college is in deep trouble, and I was wondering if you might like to help, perhaps by giving half of the money you were about to spend in there on your lunch to our school, and to make your decision easier, Sir, I would point out that back over my left shoulder, three stores in, is a delightful bakery where you can purchase a satisfying and filling pizza loaf for only two ninety-five. It’s healthier, tastier, cheaper and every bit as fast, so this way, Sir, the way I see it, everyone’s a winner, wouldn’t you say?’

  He stares at me, puzzled. He hasn’t been listening. He doesn’t want to know. What he wants is a burger. He moves off. Bastard.

  ‘Ah, Madam, I see were you listening in to what I have to say. Are you about to purchase lunch for your little boy there, Madam? Well, I know how he will crave the extra salt and additives, but perhaps I could propose a deal. If you were to buy only for the child, then you yourself pop to the bakery, well, we could all be happy couldn’t we?’

  At least she tries to listen, and smiles. And ignores me. This might take a while.

  To my left, just past the money machine, they loiter. I recognise a couple of them from school. Younger than me, all boys. Bigger than me too. Harder. Bored. Looking for trouble. There has been whispering. I have tried not to notice. I’m not stupid enough to provoke them. They move forward as one. Five of them, now that I look. Andy is the biggest, an ambling lump of hoody-dressed muscle. He walks at the front and the others form a wedge behind him. I am sweating. Scared. Still I pretend I have barely noticed. Just like life, this.

  A man stops to read my poster. He is 20 maybe, with an ironed shirt and carefully set hair. A banker, or a trainee travel agent. I focus just on him. Begin my spiel, which I am shortening now.

  ‘They were going to sponsor us, but they’ve changed their minds. We need the money. Our school needs the money.’

  I try to watch him, not Andy, who pushes forward, interested, growing bigger.

  The banker shrugs, gives me the ‘I would like to help, but, I’m already sponsoring a starving child’ look. He makes to move away. A large hand settles on his shoulder.

  ‘Just give the man some money, you tight prick,’ Andy whispers. ‘Our school needs it.’

  Behind Andy, four faces break into threatening smiles. Still the man doesn’t speak. He opens a wallet. All he has is a 20 dollar note. He looks at it, thinks.

  ‘Thank you,’ says Andy, helping himself and placing the note in my bowl. ‘Now piss off, we don’t give change.’

  The man turns back the way he came. To tell the police, or warn his colleagues, or just make do with the sandwiches his mother made him.

  Success fornicates with rare enthusiasm and Andy’s friends need no encouraging.

  ‘Hey, you, yes, you man, I’m talking to you. Haven’t you seen the sign?’

  ‘You can’t go in there man, they’re bastards.’

  ‘We need your money. Our school needs your money.’

  This boy I have personally witnessed spray painting obscenities on the wall of the school library. It cost over 500 dollars to have it painted over.

  Not everyone is as soft as the banker. Some refuse, swear, argue. There is even some pushing. But the bowl is filling fast. That’s the thing. You must never forget the thing. And I am still being polite. Doing my best to explain. I’m not forcing anyone to do anything they don’t want to do. This isn’t my fault.

  There is the squealing of tyres as a brand new Series-5 BMW, black and gleaming, screams into the carpark and double parks. I can the read the whole story in his face before he reaches the double doors. Short, round, balding. Full moustache, angry eyes, a gold chain. Franchise owner, and regular watcher of the television news I would say. It’s me he is staring at. I’m holding the bowl, I accept that much, but I’m the wrong guy to blame. He doesn’t let me explain.

  ‘You, out of here. The police are on the way. Give me that. Give it here.’

  ‘It’s not yours.’

  ‘It’s evidence.’

  He takes me by the scruff of the neck, and, being short, pushes upwards, choking me. His other hand snatches at the bowl. I hold it too high for him. Short-man Pissed Off bubbles from his nose. He takes the poster, rips it off the wall.

  Chaos, contrary to popular opinion, is not a random thing. It needs the right conditions. And the right catalyst. And then there’s the timing. Andy attacks from behind, grabbing what is left of the man’s hair. Another man, who has been watching from the side, moves in and tackles Andy. All three fall and Andy’s mates pile on top. The police arrive at precisely this moment. Four of them. They have their batons out before they reach me.

  To avoid the violence, I step backwards, which is interpreted as an attempt to escape with the money. The tallest and quickest of the officers executes a flying tackle, resulting in the following events:

  The money in the bowl is scattered across the floor, never to be seen again (I have my theories). The window behind me, the PBs window no less, smashes, and the arresting officer receives a gash to his forearm. I, despite being the immediate cause of the window’s collapse, am unharmed. A friend of Andy’s punches another of the officers full in the face and knocks him to the floor. He and I are handcuffed.

  None of this is my fault.

  I recognise the officer who drags me away to the car. It has only been a day. The PBs man stares at me, his dark eyes headache-small with hatred. If he ever gets the chance he will crush me. You can’t afford too many enemies like that in life. I’d try to be more careful, but as you can see, sometimes shit just happens. Today, for reasons which are not clear, my guardian angel chooses to look away.

  I wish to record at this point that the police force in this country are able to dine at any ‘restaurant’ in the PBs chain for half the normal price.

  19 MARCH

  There was an assembly called this morning. The sort that nobody really knows is happening. Half the classes in form rooms, the rest waiting outside the locked hall doors, unsure if they’re meant to be there but unwilling to admit defeat. The sort that everyone knows is not about rubbish, or remaining sensible until the end of term, or a congratulations to the First Fifteen for coming second, no less, in the fourth division. An Assembly.

  Mr Smythe stood to the side of the doors like an undertaker. Solemn. Dark suit. Podgy little black-haired hands squeezing out of his shirt cuffs. Clasped in front of him. Hard wooden benches
. Shuffle, eat, talk, text. Teachers watching the rows, looking for feet on the backs of chairs.

  Mr Smythe walked out in front of us. Stopped, paused. Tried to imbue the moment with something more threatening than a short man on scuffed school boards. Said something about Pete. About an apology being in order. I didn’t watch the news last night. I should have. I should have known that Pete is no one hit wonder. He was there too, in the doorway. Juniors late for class turned curiously on the way past. Mr Smythe gestured for the doors to be closed. Called Pete forward.

  Pete shrugged, slung a bag over his shoulder. Glass doors closed behind him. He didn’t move. Well? said Mr Smythe.

  It wasn’t just Pete. The others formed a line behind him; excess denim pooling at their ankles, hoods pulled protectively round the backs of their necks. Shaved hair glinting; all of them watching, remembering the mocking front row faces. They moved slowly forward.

  Pete held a piece of paper. Blue lines, binder holes, torn from an exercise book. Looked up occasionally, looking for a way to escape. Hand scrubbed through his hair. Helpless. Pinned in the sunlit squares. It wasn’t as if anyone cared. There was no point. It was simply an exercise in humiliation. Not even Mr Smythe was listening. Not to the deeply regret my actions, the brought the school into disrepute, the unlawful, unintentional, misguided or the means of reparation. He didn’t hear speaking on behalf of because you could tell, looking at Mr Smythe, that it wasn’t on behalf of anyone. This was personal.

  Mr Smythe just watched him. Watched the redness start at his neck and crawl up, hitting his ears. Watched the way Pete’s voice caught and he had to clear his throat. Watched him lose his place, pause. And Mr Smythe smiled.

  I waited for a fuck you, a defiant ending. Something that would make people listen, stand, walk to their next class saying Yeah, you know, he’s right. Something to get rid of the smug twitch at the corner of Mr Smythe’s mouth. But he couldn’t. So I guess I’m going to have to.

  20 MARCH

  I’d never been into the school network before, nothing to interest me. No challenge. They don’t even try to hide the IP address. Asking for it. Give you all you need. The beauty of it. Being able to reach out across this network of glowing lines and connections and secrets and say, that one. Ports are found, flung wide, you’re invited in.

  You are invisible. Inexorable. Uninstall firewall. Open admin files. Methodical, just a hint of pride. Pick a code and a password. Mr Smythe’s seemed appropriate. My plan was nothing obvious. It’s always better to be cautious, and anyway, it’s more fun if it’s a surprise.

  Classroom Manager was what I was looking for. Where I found revenge in the NCEA results ready to be sent off to NZQA. Retaliation in the neat columns of names and grades. If you looked at them now you wouldn’t know the difference. Unless you knew the people. No deletions, no angry messages. Just a subtle little reversal. Achieveds to Merits. Merits slipping back to Achieveds. Not Achieveds becoming Excellence, far too many Excellences for our school to get away with. And all the precious geeks, with their maths assignments and their geography essays and their complete lack of perspective, they fail.

  Someone will notice eventually. Then Mr Smythe will realise what I can do. And what he cannot. He cannot say that Pete is wrong. He cannot try to stare down those who see through him. He cannot make me almost cry watching Pete trace the stitching on his jeans, alone in the echoing hall. He cannot. Without having to pay.

  3

  What makes you angry? What gets right under your skin, itches from the inside out? What sets off a buzzing beneath your skull when the lights go out? How about being right, when everybody around you thinks you’re wrong? And no one listening long enough to let you explain?

  That’s how it’s been with Mum and Dad, since the latest trouble. Mum mostly. With Dad there’s nothing you can’t bypass with a joke, or in the very worst cases, a small, awkward silence. Dad’s soft. I’m sure he kept that from my mother when they first met, during the early negotiations. He was an electronic technician, a man on the up in an industry that could only grow, and Mum’s the ambitious type. Dad isn’t, but she found that out too. The family stopped at two and Mum got back to doing alone the things they were never going to do together. Only Mum’s never been lucky in matters of business. So Dad didn’t make the money Mum hoped for, and Mum didn’t either, and although we’ve never had to deal with being poor, we have an excellent view of the suburb my mother always wanted to live in.

  The phone rings. It’s school. Again. I can tell from my mother’s complexion, the way made-up rosy drains to vengeful white. And the way she looks at me as she listens, nails me to the spot with her stare. This isn’t the worst bit. The worst bit comes later, when she hangs up.

  ‘So what were you thinking?’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking anything.’

  ‘Well perhaps you should have been.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘It’s not what you mean that matters is it? It’s what you do.’

  ‘All I did was organise a collection, for education. How can that be bad?’

  ‘What you organised was a riot.’

  ‘I didn’t. That just happened.’

  ‘If you hadn’t been there, would it have happened?’

  ‘No, but that’s not the …’

  ‘Yes it is. It’s exactly the point. It’s called responsibility. That pane will cost three hundred dollars to replace you know, and you’ll pay for it.’

  ‘There would have been that much in the collection bowl. They can use that.’

  ‘If there ever was that sort of money, your friends stole it.’

  ‘According to the police.’

  ‘So now the police are liars?’

  ‘Not just now, no.’

  ‘And what have they ever done to you, Pete? Why Prince of Burgers?’

  There’s the opening, right there. The chance to explain. But I can’t. I have the feeling, but not the words. Which is total shit, but beyond my control.

  ‘Well. It’s just crap isn’t it?’

  ‘What’s “crap”?’

  Mum is tall and thin. Her elastic face is made for mocking.

  ‘Well, the food.’

  ‘You smashed the window because you don’t like their food? Have you ever thought of just not eating there?’

  ‘I didn’t smash their window.’

  ‘That’s what’s wrong with you people.’ Mum has a collection of ‘you peoples’.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You don’t want to do anything constructive. All you want to do is destroy.’

  ‘How would you know what I want?’

  ‘Well perhaps you’d like to tell me.’

  And I do. Of course I do. But that doesn’t mean I can. She’s too busy winning the argument to listen, and I’m too busy losing it to tell her. So I call her a stupid cow instead, and slam three doors on the way to my bedroom, and she yells out something about not yelling, and I spend the smallest hours awake, reshaping the argument a hundred times in my head, every time making more and more sense. In the end it’s all I can do to stop myself waking them both up and trying it out.

  In all my frustration it’s easy to believe the worst part is behind me. The police have told me they won’t press charges, so long as I pay for the windows and stay away from PBs in the future, and Mr Smythe has had his public apology. But the thing with guardian angels is they work in the strangest ways; new catastrophes are already twisting themselves about the fast-growing sapling of this most confusing year.

  Mr Smythe meets my stare as I walk into the conference room, half a step behind my mother, who has no intention of standing by her boy. I don’t much care, to be honest. Something’s changed. A switch has been thrown inside me.

  Other people have learned the trick of distraction; they know just when to duck, when to look away. Most of the time Pissed Off misses them, or manages only a glancing blow. But I can’t look away. I stare down the headlights of my approaching life,
and through the glare I notice every ridiculous fucken detail.

  Ten-year-old boys down at the shops, trying to look hard, waiting for somebody to come by, who might buy them cigarettes. Friday night; girls from school I can hardly recognise, 16 and drunk, smiling their way past the bouncers, who are under orders to let them in, because it’s good for business. The creek that runs along the side of the road, that you can only see from the train: where disposable nappies and beer bottles and the cardboard carcasses of late night combos battle to reclaim the waterways. Careers Day, where everybody wants to be in advertising, or finance, or computers. This is what we call ambition; 40, fat and disappointed. Teachers giving out detentions for not being like them, when they should be giving out awards. When they should be standing outside the gates with signs around their necks. ‘Go back. Go back.’ Conversations that hang around like bad smells; talking and talking, swatting at the thoughts we daren’t let settle.

  So I face them with no great feeling either way, the specially convened hearing of the Board of Trustees Disciplinary Committee. It helps that I am innocent. The next rung in the ladder of my year-to-remember is surely a mistake, a wooden bar of presumption nailed securely to the posts of my growing reputation. I told her that, Mum, in the car on the way over, and she didn’t believe me. And I told her the board wouldn’t do anything. I can see she doesn’t believe that either.

  At my school a guy call Desmond, when he was in the sixth form and already the size of two fully-formed adults, broke the nose and two front teeth of a small fourth former named David with a single punch. He did it while others watched, in broad daylight with 50 witnesses to confirm the story. They stood him down for three days, that was it. Shona Birchall stole money on 13 different occasions and received a term’s worth of intensive counselling for her efforts, no punishment at all. Shannon Taylor sold drugs at lunch time, in an effort to save the money he needed to buy his way into a part share of a tinnie house operation, and the board treated him with lenience and understanding. Teresa Storn and Davin Park wagged health to have sex in the girls’ toilets and sold the video tape, through Shannon. That didn’t even go before the board. It was dealt with at the deans’ level. Dylan White hot-wired the deputy principal’s car and it was all passed off as a silly misunderstanding. I personally witnessed Maria Ford call Mr Mulligan that part of the female anatomy which for some reason remains the deepest insult. She was sent to see the principal, but flirted her way out of it without so much as a reprimand.