Yet he doesn’t see.
Go back to our first question. Rewind.
Did you do it Martin John? He’ll give you nothing. He’s got nothing. I got nothing. I got nothing. We’ve got nothing on him. Except the women. The women don’t feel this way.
Ask them.
If you can find them.
They are among you.
Every time there’s a case like this, the one fireman asks the other fireman: Why do they do it? How does it happen? Doesn’t anybody know about them? Imagine your mother finding you living like this?
It’s a problem. The other fireman tells the first fireman he thinks too much. The other fireman primarily thinks about one thing. It keeps things simple. We aren’t fucking social workers, are we?
He feels a bulge in his pants on the are.
Martin John would find that suspicious. A man having an erection on the verb to be, and at a question too. He would find that suspicious. He wouldn’t appreciate it in a crossword clue. So you should know that. You should know the things he does and doesn’t appreciate, if we are going to carry on with this. If not — well, hang up now, as the operator would say.
That’s aggressive, but you see this hasn’t been an easy book for any of us.
Withdraw the case, mam said. Don’t go ahead with it. He’s a sick man now. He’s completely out of his mind and no danger to anyone.
I guarantee you he’s no danger. I have him secured, she said. He won’t bother you again. Withdraw the case, she said.
There’s no need to go after him.
This was mam rehearsing. She rehearsed what to say when they came for him. They’d come yet, surely they would. There have been hints sufficient.
Years ago his mother had come. His mother came and asked that she — The Girl — not press charges. She, his mother, said The Boy, her son, would be going away and promised he would never bother her again.
— Did he bother you again?
— That’s not the point.
— You are about to take a man, who’s half-fried in the head, and put him on the stands. Is that what you want?
— Come in, The Girl who is now a woman with girls of her own, said. Come in, she said to the Jack Russell dog who’d slipped out between their legs when she’d answered the door.
— There were others, she said as she shut the door.
It’s money they are after. It’s money they want.
— If it’s money you’re after, he hasn’t any. Like I said he’s half-fried in the head and can barely hold a job.
It would be years again before she’d offer her this explanation.
~ ~ ~
Martin John now has conversations about what took place and the how and the where of it almost daily. He battles it out in the air in front of him and between his two hands — slapping facts between his two hands like another might slam pizza dough.
I wasn’t a case then — slap.
I became a case later — slap.
I am a case now — slap.
I hate the way these firemen rush everything — slap.
They want to put/pull everything out — slap.
They don’t want anything to go in for the slow burn — slap.
I never trust the likes of them — slap.
But do they ever mop up the water? — slap.
Where does the water go? — slap.
He beats the facts aloud and about for the truth, while in his imagination people, God’s people, the other pedestrians, give way on the pavement or cross the road or move aside at Euston Station to avoid him.
Sometimes mam calls out to him in the Chair to stop making that racket would ya.
Ted the Fireman has said too much, he has exceeded the newsbyte. We’re back to the official spokesperson and moving on to tomorrow’s weather forecast, which includes the word disappointing; people may be disappointed by this week’s weather. The prediction is for disappointment.
This was the first time Martin John was (officially) introduced to the public. They met him foot-first. But it was in Beirut he made his mark.
Yet there was stuff, that stuff, all that stuff, that weird kind of stuff, that happened before Beirut.
The Foot,
The Kettle,
The Chair.
The Foot,
The Kettle,
The Chair.
The Chair,
The Kettle,
The Foot.
The Kettle,
The Groin,
The Pain.
Mam. Mam. Mam.
The ward,
The ward.
The ward.
The burn,
The pain,
The burn.
The query, the query, the query.
The Chair,
The bed,
The query.
The tongue,
The lips,
The mouth.
Shut up, shut up, shut up.
~ ~ ~
Noanie has her home and it is to this home that mam has instructed Martin John to go every Wednesday, whether it suits him or not. Now Noanie has sent word to say he failed to arrive at her home the last several Wednesdays. A letter has been writ to mam to tell her this. A letter written that paused itself over a few days to say if he doesn’t come tomorrow again I will post this and thus several Wednesdays have passed since its writing.
How many ways were there to say: Get Out and Visit Noanie on a Wednesday? Mam was unequivocal. He had to visit each Wednesday. She didn’t care what time he visited. He could visit at 6 am or 6 pm or somewhere in between, but he could not fail to visit Noanie. This was the agreement.
How many ways are there to say? We don’t care what suits you Martin John. Get out and visit Noanie.
Martin John is no longer respecting The Agreement. The only possible explanation is Martin John must be being held against his will. Had she not spelled out how strongly he was to respect The Agreement?
Noanie understood. Noanie said these types of men. Men like Martin John needed locking up or perhaps she lessened it to tying up once mam gave her a look. Like you would a goat, Noanie stated. You tie them up so they can’t eat beyond the boundaries of what they should be eating. You have to contain them. There’s a point they pass where there’s no stopping them, there’s no helping them, nothing. Like drinkers, she assures mam.
— Is he past it, do you think?
— Oh he’s long past, says Noanie.
— That’s why, Noanie says, we had The Arrangement. The Arrangement, like you know, that he was to come here every Wednesday.
Noanie was telling her it was time to tie him up. It was time to lock him up. Noanie was telling her she’d had enough. If Noanie had had enough it was time to pack him up. For Noanie was the most reliable among them. Every Wednesday she was to be found behind that front door, which is more than can be said for some people.
~ ~ ~
In the matter of hoarding in, Martin John had to make sombre preparations. He did not just click his fingers and mounds of crap appeared. He had to move the crap into place. It had to lend itself to strategic battle. There were three levels of preparation that would usually have taken place over several months or years even.