Revolution : 3486 words

[Dougy]

I awoke to screams. I looked out from my bedroom window to the scene below in the car park. Five men were beating the **** out of Tommy Green. The kid with the braces. The kid we picked on at school. He stopped screaming, but they didn’t. They kept kicking for another five minutes. Blue lights splashed off the garages. The police watched.

It was only then, as I stood by the window, looking out over to the murder scene I saw it. The insidious change on society.
I watched the sunrise. I hadn’t done that before. Stilettos of light gilded the edge of storm clouds, brewing on the horizon. I felt the notion of fear rising in me. I think I always had the fear.

The frost beneath my feet crunched with each fresh step. The blood by the garages began to darken into a brown stain. I could see dark footprints where the thugs had run off. The chill this morning felt bitter, the wind numbing my face. I put my head down and hurried my pace when I saw the police looking in my direction. They were laughing, stood by their police car. I usually took this route every morning to work. I knew this boy; he had been in my Chemistry class. You'd hear about these things on television, but when you saw it: my stomach heaved.

At work I couldn't hide the look on my face.
'Mark? Bloody hell! Mark. You alright?' Roger asked. 'You want a coffee?'
'I saw it.' I could hardly breath. I held onto his desk, bile rising in my throat.
'What?'
'They killed Tommy Green.'
'I heard, but what can you do about it?’ Roger asked.
‘I’m pissed off.’
‘I bet you are.’ He handed me an envelope.
‘The police were watching.’
‘What?’
‘They were watching the whole thing. I saw them murder him and the police didn't do a ****ing thing.’
‘You better have a look at that.' He pointed to the envelope I held limply. 'The powers that be,' he glanced up to the ceiling, 'are laying people off. Governmental cut backs.'
'Yer ****ing joking me.'
'Nah I'm not, mate. Looks like they're gonna axe the entire department.' He got up and put the kettle on.
I couldn't answer him because I'd already read the redundancy note the head branch had sent me. Feeling light and giddy, I walked out.

In those early days I felt dislocated from anything to do with organisation – the post services, the bus services, the ****ing police, the army, the ambulance, the NHS – anything to do with the government. They were part of the failing network. I joined a group called the New Horizon. The leader was an ex-banker called Demetrius. He'd lost his job due to the cuts and decided enough was enough – time for action. We'd regularly meet every Friday. I remember my first meeting.
There were only seven of us at the start. What were we thinking? I guess we were angry. Usually you’d see or read something in the paper and it would touch you for a second or two, but when I searched the faces in the room I realised that everyone had been touched on a personal level. They’d seen their own neighbourhoods deteriorate.
‘It’s an insidious process, people. You were in it, but you didn’t see it happening until you remembered how it was like.’ Demetrius' eyes gleamed. There was an uncanny charm to this man. He held you in that gaze, fixed you, then attacked. ‘You!’
He moved to a thin man, who was ready to crumble into his chair, under Demetrius’ intense gaze. ‘How were you affected?’
‘I...I saw my wife raped by my brother. I called the police, but they put me on hold.' Demetrius placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and looked around at the six other group members.
‘This, my friends is what it’s come to.' Demetrius lifted his shirt. 'I was stabbed.' A ladder of stitches worked their way up his rib cage. ‘I too, called the police. I was put through to an answering machine.’ He spoke quietly and I could sense there was no anger in his voice: it was calm and methodical.

The streets were becoming increasingly dangerous to walk, even during the daytime. I'd tell my girlfriend to stay indoors while I negotiated my way to the shops with what dole money we could muster. I saw queues outside the job centre and the post office lengthen.

Lee was a friend I had in the army. I tried to convince him to join the movement. He came home on leave a week after the murder and we met in the local pub. I think at the time he had other ideas on how to start a revolution.
'You see, Mark. That's where you an' me differ. I'm a military man, yeah?' I nodded. 'You've got to look at it from our point of view. We've got fat ****ers in the Army who do nowt but stay in camp and get paid as much as us. What do we do? Go to hot places and get blown up. It's all ****in' wrong man.
'Those sponging bastards in parliament are no better, sending us off and claiming second housing benefits. Look at that useless twat.' Lee pointed to a old man in a grey overcoat.
'Lee. Keep it down, mate.'
'I mean just look at him.' The old man turned his head slightly. He'd heard. 'I bet that ****er's on benefits as well. My old fellah was working till he was ****ing crippled.'
Lee's mate sighed and blew out air, ‘I’ve got a friend right. Leg blown off in a land mine in Afghanistan. He’s a ****in’ alchie now. No ****er's gonna employ him. A one legged alchie?” He laughed. ‘We ain’t alone. Did you see in the newspapers? Those soft ****ing students writing ‘Revolution’ on the wall. Haven’t got the balls, have you?’
‘What?’
‘To shoot someone?’

Sara snuggled close to me on the sofa, before the television went off the air.
‘Can you see that?’ She gazed down to the plump ripe belly.
‘What? Our baby?’
‘Precisely Marky.’ She always called me that when she made a point.
‘What about him?’
‘Can you see him move? Look. He’s kicking.’ She took my hand and gently placed it on her tummy. I felt a slight rise of movement there. For a moment I wanted to pull my hand away.
‘Just look at that crap on TV.’ Sara indicated to the television with a turn of her head. Students had overturned a minister’s car in London and were rioting in the streets. The police formed a cordon and the shaky camera whirled around to a worried looking reporter.
‘Is this live?’ I got up and moved closer.
‘Yeah. The news doesn’t start until another hour.’
I could see the word ‘flash’ at the bottom of the screen. Cracks could be heard on the TV and screams. ‘The police have opened fire on the crowd.’
Later I rang Lee. ‘Have you seen the news?’
‘Yeah. It's ****ing wonderful, man.’
‘They can’t do that.’
‘Well they have. The faggot police are going gun crazy on our arses. It’s time to get armed, Mark.’
‘Armed? You ****ing nuts? Demetrius would never sanction violence.’
‘It’s time your hippy activist started living in the real world Mark.’
Sara looked at me, ‘What is it?’

Lee’s friends joined me in the pub over a pint. It was the day after the outbreak of shooting in London. The effects of the cutbacks had been felt throughout the armed forces from the lowest Private to the senior of Officers. Two men had been rejected from the forces due to injury. Simon had been a Captain in the Armoured corps, he’d been injured in Afghanistan and suffered wounds to his legs, he had difficulty in walking.
‘This Doctor at our Med Centre had took it upon himself to write me off. I was a ****ing Troop Commander of four Warrior Fighting vehicles! Four years left on my commission. Four ****ing years. Looking at Staff College and,’ Simon quaffed at his pint-
Lee cut in. ‘When the royal family are paying 58 million pounds for a ****ing wedding and they’re cutting benefits and squaddies’ pensions. They’re starting at the wrong end. We need all your boys ready – a ****ing mutiny is what we need here. The NHS needs to go on strike and bring the bricks tumbling down.’
‘There’s still hope,’ I said, but that didn’t help matters from the looks they gave me.

A week later Demetrius organised a rally and it took hold. I mean it was originally a Facebook event, but we didn’t realise how many people would take interest. He seemed to take on this persona of a leader, like he had some personal responsibility, an obligation to the masses to deliver them what they needed. In his own words this was salvation.
‘We need to put our bodies upon the levers and the gears upon the wheels. It’s an odious system, a machine that doesn’t work for our benefit. We need to stop it right now!’ Demetrius’ shouts echoed down the hall. We no longer had seven in the group; within a week we numbered in our hundreds.
Demetrius stated that our will and presence should be the weapons and tools of our change. It swept me along, this tide of resentment. At its edges in the corners of the hall there were, I’m sure menacing, Anarchists lurking ready to tip the rally into the frenzy it could potentially become. Lee mentioned that the use of violence for the end wasn’t far from Demetrius’ thoughts.

We gathered at Paddington Train Station. Buses from all over the country rallied to dropped their passengers off. There were people in wheelchairs, with family members; I remember a patient being pushed in his bed down the road. The tide of resentment flowed its way through the cosmopolitan streets of London to the Thames like a flood of poverty. We halted by London Bridge and Demetrius stood on a pedestal and addressed the crowds. I looked back only to feel overwhelmed by the surge, banners hung from many of the buildings and I saw an overturned car set on fire. Sara warned me about the possible use of violence.
The police barred the route across the Thames. Agitation on the faces of many of the uniformed men. Demetrius vented an anger I hadn’t seen in any politician. He pointed to the House of Commons, flecks of white froth flew from his mouth as he extorted in rabid rants. Demetrius ducked and I could see what must have been an egg fly by him.
Scuffles erupted in the crowd and I moved back to the entrance of a store. Today most of the shops had been closed; this day was well publicised. Chanting for the violence to end raised to a crescendo, arms raised and people caught in headlocks by other protestors. Planks and bottles flew over heads to cut and bruise who they landed on. I stood and watched the procession turn into bloody mayhem. Hospital beds and wheelchairs were overturned, the infirm and old alike were treat like any ordinary protester. Yet these hadn’t begun any form of unrest. The Police grabbed some of the protesters. Once their ranks broke, shots were fired, people scattered, many fell to be trampled upon. Some died crushed by wave upon wave of men, women and children. I turned back.
I eventually got home that evening eventually. Our two bedroom house looked empty in the evening darkness. The door was open, a gaping wound in my home. ‘When was the last time you went over the road for a cup of sugar?’ Demetrius had said, ‘When did you dig your neighbour's garden? Do you remember leaving your door open?’ Do you remember leaving your door open? Our door was open and no I didn’t remember that.

‘Sara?’ I could feel rather than hear the mush of white noise. The warmth of the kitchen wafted through. Sara had prepared dinner for my return. The lock had been broken. I entered the living room and felt like I’d been punched in the head. This no longer looked like our room. Most of the living room had been smashed up and a huddled form in the corner whimpered. It was only after a quick evaluation that I could see it was Sara.
‘Sara?’ She recoiled when I put my hand on her shoulder. ‘Sara!’ I held onto her, held onto her screams in an attempt to contain the pain.
I took her in my arms and felt the blood on the inside of her thighs. I knew what had happened. Between clenched teeth I whispered to her, ‘Wait here’. It was the only thing I could do. It flared up within me. My life, our child, our child; bubbling out of her in a flood of pain and swelling my anger. My fists clenched into fists and I could do nothing, but leave the house. There they were outside the garages where Tommy Green’s blood marked the floor in darkening stains. Four youths, darkened by the backdrop of the garage stood huddled around a lit ember. I could hear their excited chatter; of rape.
I struck the first man, caught him off guard and felt the connection. Satisfied, I continued, their blows on me were numbed. I don’t remember returning home. The anaesthesia was still there. Morbidly running through me like jagged darts into my brain, infecting my thoughts. The rage ran red through my eyes and into my fists.
Sara was sat, knees drawn up on the staircase. I felt the throb in my hands. Pulses of pain shot up my forearms in rhythmic jolts.
The stains on my jeans were dark to a shade of brown, I could taste the metallic steel of blood on my teeth. I licked a smudge from the veneer of my upper lip. A wave of revulsion flooded me as I let go of a tuft of hair, evidently not mine.
I took her to the bathroom and bathed her. She screamed. ‘Where the **** were you? I tried calling you. You never answered your phone. You never answer your phone. Look what you’ve done to me.’ I left her in the bath. I opened the phone book and located Lee’s number.
‘I’m with you,’ I said before hanging up.

It’s a question of time isn’t it? A bit like pushing the coins into the vending machine. Bit by bit they mount up forcing the pile of coins to tip and eventually – it can take a while – they tip and your entire world is collapsing around you.

We met on the bridge a week later. The rain came over us in veils of grey and white sleet. He seemed to shrink into the wall and motioned me toward him.
‘Gotta keep out of sight. ****in’ pigs have got snipers on the roof of that place,’ indicated the House of Commons. The walls of the ominous, corrupt regime were against a backdrop of dirty sky. I imagined there’d be marksmen on the rooftops looking for trouble or a crowd build up.
‘What do we do now?’
‘We wait for the next rally, then we start taking the police down.’
‘What about the Army?’
‘You ****ing kidding me? Half of them want that piece of **** out of London.’
‘It’s not that twat in power we need to sort out,’ I said, ‘It’s the ****e that’s not being policed that needs squaring away.’
‘Nah. That’s bollocks man. We need to replace the big man before we can sort that out. That’s what Demetrius wants. Back to basics, back to the old regime.’ Lee ushered me closer as if we’d be overheard. I could smell the stale odour of beer, ‘the streets need cleaning – that’s true. Need to clear the ****ing junk off the street. Demetrius is doing that already. Clearing the ****e out of the movement. Come on, I’ve someone to show you.’

I remember looking into the eyes of that soldier and the feeling that something wasn’t right came over me. He stared at me, he couldn’t take his eyes off me. He leant right over the table, looked behind himself and whispered to me, ‘You know who we should be getting rid of? As well as the government? Hm?’
‘No?’
‘The ****ing pakis and the ****ing wogs.’ He lit up a cigarette and blew smoke into the air. I watched the silvery coil make its way up to the landlords nose and he twigged straight away.
‘Hey. Put that out. You can’t smoke in here.’ The landlord lifted up the bar and made his way to our table.
‘Who says? Who says I can’t ****ing smoke here?’
‘It’s the law, young man.’
‘Oh,’ the soldier stood, ‘and who makes the rules up?’
‘Why the government brought it in over ten years ago.’
‘The government is ****ing ****. Now why don’t you go over there an sit down like a nice puppy, eh?’
I could see the man shrink and walk off to the bar.
‘He won’t call the cops. Cos them ****s won’t budge.’ The soldier sat down and grinned at me.

The sky is boiling, broiling in its own coil. I can see parallels now, between the sleeping people and the edge of awakening. Beneath that intangible existence of self belief and contentment was the core of resentment and the urge to change. It’s on the tips of every young child and aged persons’ tongue, every word, every conversation spoken. Can you hear it?

We had a large Muslim community in our community. I could hear the cries and shouts of gangs who’d throw petrol bombs at the local shops. I saw Chinese people pack their cars and drive off, the kebab shop was closed down soon and a Mosque burnt to the ground. Skinhead youths roamed the streets and announced the rise of the New Horizon.

She looked up from her cup of tea. She did that a lot nowadays and seemed lost in herself. Faded and aloof. ‘Mark,’ she said softly, ‘Don’t go. They’re shooting people in the streets. Don’t go.’
I tried to warm her hands in mine. ‘We need to sort this out, Sara. I’ve got to go.’
She held onto my arm and I could see where this would go. ‘Sara. We’ve got to do this.’
‘I can’t stay here any more,’ she dropped her cup onto the floor. ‘I can’t go in there.’ She pointed to the living room.
I took her by the hand we drove to my mother’s house. My I-phone illuminated as I walked out of the house. It was an e-mail from Lee. He and his unit had joined the New Horizon’s group. Lee would join me on the march.

We marched on London Bridge numbering in our thousands. I stayed with Lee’s group of men who had joined the march. There were more than I could count. Some had brought with them vehicles and larger guns. The patter of my heart stuttered and jolted up in my throat as the helicopters flew overhead. There were soldiers pulling out rifles and I could see one smile. He grinned to a colleague. I looked to the bridge and saw the police cordons. The barriers sealed us from taking the parliament buildings. Police and Army alike manned vehicles, weapons pointed in our direction.
Angry faces, banners flying, billboards flaunting their taunts. People were pushing prams, zimmer frames, shopping trolleys and I remember seeing a hospital bed wheeled along with us. What were we thinking. What had we started?
‘There’s no going back,’ Lee had to shout over the chanting of the crowd.
‘This should be peaceful. There’s too many innocents here,’ I remember saying, but he ignored me and handed out the rifles from the back of the truck.
‘Hail the revolution! Armed struggle.’ His eyes held mine for a moment, before sprinting off to his squad. He’d invited his soldiers to join the student and civilian rally. He thought he was Che Guevera.
I tried. God I tried. I waved them back, turned people around, screamed at them. Their faces joined mine in determination, but mine was to return them. This only increased the pitch and they surged forward. This wave of power pushed forward and began to cross London Bridge. What became known as Liberty Point was where I stood and I shouted for them to stop. They couldn’t hear me.
I stood as the cracks opened up the perfect blue sky. The screams of bleeding people split the air.
Who fired the first shots? I don’t know. I think it came from the line of black shields – they had an armed response team. I saw Lee bleeding from the neck – he held onto his neck and mouthed silent words to me. His men opened fire and I remember the bounce of casings around him.
I saw fear in their eyes, but behind that fear I could see their desperation and that gave me the strength to stand up and march with them. We moved en-masse toward the police picket line with our banners and flags. The chatter of machine guns dropped many of our ranks but the revelry and fervour of our group swayed the police. I could see many of their number lower their guns. This was perhaps the turning point of the change.
They were on the bridge, beneath the lovely sky. It's not what I wanted but I saw them lying like irregular shapes. Friends and workers alike, a light frost sparkles on them. Their crystalline eyes accused the sky like statuettes paralyzed in that last agonizing, blaze of death.

The government toppled within a day, the leader called it a day and ventured out from the House of Commons to meet the people and Demetrius. The people were there in their thousands and I can see the exultant cries as the Prime Minister was grabbed on the balcony. A rope was thrown over a hook on a wall and I remember the look on the leader’s face. It was a look I will never forget. I was close enough for him to look at me and smile before the armed thugs threw him off. He jerked the rope tight and twitched. The tap of his shoes against the glass pane of the lower floor’s window brought a churn to my gut. It wasn’t the grin on the deadening face, but the look of triumph from the soldiers on the balcony.

We waited for a month before the new leader greeted us. There must have been thousands of people here, waiting. Their messiah would appear any minute. He appeared like some deity or the son of. He wore a robe and a crown of leaves on his head, so that he looked more like Ceasar. He still had that look about him, the people gasped and some cried in the crowd. I laughed. He raised his arms and the crowd hushed to hear his voice. I kept a hand over my mouth. They’d lynch me, crucify me probably.
‘It’s time. To put our plan into place and begin the new order. A time to start again and eliminate the undesirables that plague our society. ‘They’ are the root cause of the problem. Who am I talking about? Look amongst yourselves.’ Demetrius pointed to the crowd and could feel the air vibrate. A tension arose, a curdling tension. I looked around and could see a flutter in the crowd a kilometer away. People were being led away and I couldn’t hide the horror I felt when I saw they were asian. A few people I saw had already turned away and I watched with a deepening shame at the way Demetrius delivered his speech. His fists turned upwards into columns of might, yelling like an infamous 20th century dictator.