Absolute Zero Cool (13 page)

Furthermore, I do not skim the same merchandise every time. The range is wide enough to qualify as eclectic. Uppers and downers, anything morphine-based, the deliciously bewildering pick-‘n’-mix of anti-depressants: the Tricyclics (Elavil, Tofranil, Pamelor), the SSRIs (Prozac, Sarafem, Zoloft, Paxil), the MAOIs (Nardil, Parnate), and the atypicals (Desyrel, Zyban, Serzone, Wellbutrin).

These I offload at a competitive rate to P—, my connection in town. P— used to deal weed and E to students until he realised the potential of black market script drugs. Soon he will graduate to heroin. Eventually he will become a TV salesman.

I call P—.

‘My mother-in-law is out of town,’ I say. This is his idea of code. P— is a paranoid who watches too many gritty American cop shows. He has The Wire running on a perpetual loop. His mood-swings give him emotional whiplash.

He says, ‘Usual place, ten bells.’

He hangs up. I ring back.

‘Remind me,’ I say. ‘Where’s the usual place?’

‘The usual, for fuck’s sakes.’

‘I go to a lot of places that are usual.’

‘Strandhill,’ he says. ‘Strandfuckinghill.’

This is code for Rosses Point, the swanky resort across the bay from Strandhill. I like the idea of dealing illicit contraband at the Point. ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘See you around ten.’

‘At ten.’ He grinds his teeth. ‘Ten on the fucking dot.’

He even sounds like he’s sweating. So I turn up at twenty-past, just to be cuntish. When I get in his car he seems hypnotised by the flicker of the lighthouse beam. His complexion is pasty.

‘You alright, man?’ I say. ‘You don’t look so good.’

But he’s not listening. ‘Gimme the shit,’ he says.

I hand it over. He gives me the money. He starts babbling about an upcoming skiing holiday in Bulgaria, then confuses it with a skiing holiday he took a few years ago, in the Italian Alps. I cut in, make my excuses.

P— drives for home, seemingly unaware that two distinct arcs in time have just intersected. I smoke a cigarette before I follow him back into town. The last place I want to be is behind a driver unaware that he is trapped at a tangent point between then and when.

Today I wheel a six-year-old girl down to the ultrasound department. She is rigid with false courage and understandably fearful. The doctors suspect she has a hole in her heart. This child has learned too soon that the bogeyman is not the real threat. This child has learned too soon that the enemy is always within.

While I wait outside the ultrasound suite I consider that the Spartans threw defective babies off a great height into a rocky gorge. The act was ceremonial. The message was clear. Infirmity would not be tolerated. The gene pool would not be tainted.

There was a time when the Spartans epitomised ruthlessness. One apocryphal tale has a Spartan warrior complaining that his sword is too short. His mother retorts that he might want to think about taking a step closer to his enemy.

Today the Spartan legacy is adjectival shorthand for ‘bleakly minimalist’. The philosophy of the ultimate warrior race, which introduced the concept of utopia through cleaving to the imperatives of natural selection, has been reduced to an adjective most closely associated with Swedish interior design.

This is unfortunate. The Spartans have many things to teach us, if only we are prepared to listen. Today ruthlessness is regarded as anti-social. We cherish the weak, afford the vulnerable a protected position in society, and celebrate their difference.

The irony of my own situation has not escaped me. If I had been born Spartan, my puny frame would have disappeared over the cliff into that rocky gorge. But I am willing to consider the possibility that the world might be a better place had I not lived. Most people are not prepared to consider this possibility.

Most people assume that civilisation is, de facto, A Good Idea. People unthinkingly accept that the mark of a civilised society is a desire to protect the weak, the young, the old and the vulnerable. The right of the infirm to procreate is enshrined in law. Today the blind are encouraged to lead. Today we describe the Spartans’ defectives with the more gentle term ‘challenged’. The dictionary defines ‘challenge’ as: ‘A summons or defiance to fight a duel; an invitation to a contest of any kind; a calling into question’.

The Spartans practiced rudimentary eugenics. The Spartans bred for strength, courage, endurance and purity. Today this is regarded as a crime against humanity, although the racehorses seem to be making out okay. The adjective ‘thoroughbred’ is a positive one. The art of achieving it, however, is restricted to the animal kingdom.

This is an intriguing anomaly. We do not preach what we practice. We do not cull non-contributors. We do not let the weak fall prey. We do not castrate the mentally infirm. We do not let the aged die. In time, this is will result in a shrinking core of healthy human beings, bounded on one side by ever-weakening youth, and on the other by indefinitely extended old age. The doctors and scientists are composing a suicide note to inform an indifferent universe that a species died out through caring too much. Compassion is without doubt A Good Thing, but too much of A Good Thing is not a good thing. A surfeit of compassion becomes a disease. Hospitals become tumours.

In time, wayward meteors may come to be regarded as aggressive chemotherapy. For now we need to think outside the box. We have to target the tumours individually. We need to engage in keyhole surgery. We need to use the system against itself before the system turns on us.

Thus, this: hospitals must become abattoirs.

This is repulsive. Logic often is. Logic doesn’t have to live in the real world. Logic is too busy planning its escape route. Logic has its hands full building fallout shelters and launch-pads. Logic does not admit sentiment. Logic slices through tradition, perceived wisdom, learned responses and self-serving cant. Logic is Occam’s Razor: Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate.

Despite its best efforts, the Spartan Empire lasted only two hundred years (560 to 371 BCE). Its practical pursuit of physical integrity was insufficient to sustain its philosophy, which in turn was not fluid enough to adapt. The Spartans rejected notions of progress and change. The Spartans thought that A Good Idea is a good idea forever.

History teaches that this is untrue. History records that the Spartans were ruthless and cruel, and that the Spartans died out. Ergo, history suggests that compassion is the way to go.

A question from the back of the class: were the Spartans too ruthless or were the Spartans not ruthless enough?

On the way back to the ward, the six-year-old asks me if they found a hole in her heart.

‘No,’ I say. This may or may not be a lie. The results of the ultrasound will not be available for some hours. ‘They didn’t find anything that shouldn’t be there. Your heart is perfect.’

‘Really?’

‘Absolutely. The only thing they discovered was that there’s more love in there than you actually think you have. They think most of it is for your parents.’

‘But why did they think I had a hole?’

‘The machine must have been faulty,’ I say. ‘The first machine that took the ultrasound must have had a hole in its heart.’

‘Oh.’

‘Anyway, it wouldn’t be a disaster if you did have a hole in your heart. Look at me.’

She cannot do this, as I am behind her, pushing her wheelchair. ‘Why?’ she says. ‘Do you have a hole in your heart?’

‘Sure. My heart is practically all hole.’

This is a truth no machine could prove, but the six-year-old seems happy.

My line for today comes courtesy of William of Ockham: Plurality should not be posited without necessity.

•

‘We’re back to the Nazis again,’ Billy says. ‘Eugenics and killing off simpletons – it’s just not kosher, man.’

‘What can I tell you? Karlsson was a big fan of the Spartans.’

‘Yeah, well, maybe that was A Good Idea for the first draft,’ he says. He uses his forefingers to make invisible inverted commas in the air when he says A Good Idea. ‘But it’s outlived its usefulness.’

‘Y’know, I think that was Karlsson’s whole point.’

‘So why bother making it?’

‘You’re the boss,’ I say.

•

Always assume everyone is an idiot. This saves time.

My supervisor calls me to his office. He sits on the windowsill, one foot touching the floor, the other resting on the low radiator beneath the window. This is the window that looks out on the car park surrounded by manicured shrubs.

He waves me to the chair in front of his desk. I sit, straight-backed. He is wearing orthopaedic shoes, black with thick rubber soles, and socks with an Argyll pattern, pale blue bisected with yellow diagonals. His posture is one of exaggerated relaxation. His sitting on the windowsill is designed to create an informal atmosphere. We are no longer supervisor-supervisee. We are mano-a-mano.

‘Karlsson, I’ve been thinking about that last written warning. Maybe I was a bit hasty.’

I close my eyes. I riffle through the file stamped ‘Appropriate Responses’. I select ‘Humbled but Grateful’.

‘Not at all,’ I say. ‘You were only doing your job. I needed to pull my socks up.’

He is pleasantly surprised. He straightens, places both feet on the floor and leans forward with his hands on his thighs. He rubs his palms on his trousers. Dark patches appear on the coarse grey material.

‘Maybe so,’ he says, ‘but I think I can meet you halfway on this one. Your performance since then suggests you’ve learned your lesson.’

He is in tolerant mode. Magnanimous. He has suggested compromise as an adult response to a childish situation. ‘I think I can have that written warning rescinded,’ he says. ‘If your work continues to demonstrate diligence, I may even be in a position to propose a commendation.’

He smiles. He stands up and extends his hand across the desk. ‘Karlsson, I hope we can come to some kind of an understanding.’

I shrug. ‘Everyone deserves a second chance,’ I say.

We shake. His grip is limp and damp.

‘Y’know, Mike,’ I say, ‘about that commendation. If you could swing it, I’d much rather a recommendation for a raise. It’s been nearly a year now since the last time, and Cassie and me are thinking of, y’know . . .’

I tail off and allow the words to fall to the floor, there to prostrate themselves in my stead. He waves his hand, palm up, like a fat pink windscreen wiper. ‘Leave it with me,’ he says. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘I’d appreciate that, Mike. Really, I would.’

‘Say no more.’

‘No more.’

He blinks, then gets it and grins. I make for the door. When I look back he seems to have lost about fifty pounds in weight, most of it around the shoulders. He is still smiling. He waves again.

In his relief he has forgotten I know that all HSE salaries are capped, determined in negotiation between government and unions. In his joy he has forgotten that his position is that of a circus ringmaster: all top hat, tails, glitter and sawdust. I imagine chimps unlocking cages. I see tigers prowling the bleachers. I hear the trumpeting of maddened elephants. I hear the twang of guy-ropes snapping and see the great canvas cathedral totter and begin to topple.

I wave back, sheepishly, and close his door behind me.

My line for today is, He was reminded of flies wrenching their legs off in the struggle to free themselves from fly-paper. (Franz Kafka, The Trial)

The perfect murder requires one essential element: a victim no one cares about. A homeless wino, say.

You buy a cup of take-out coffee. You walk the streets until you encounter a social reject huddled in an alleyway swaddled in old newspapers. You approach this non-contributor and offer him the coffee. When he bends his head to take a drink, you strike the base of his skull with a lump hammer.

On the way home, you drop the hammer in a wheelie bin awaiting pick-up. Et voila, etc.

•

‘Woah,’ Billy says. ‘A lump hammer?’

‘Apparently so.’

‘So no Angel of Mercy,’ he says. ‘That makes it Hyde and Hyde.’

‘I don’t think we’re saying you actually lump-hammered the wino,’ I say. ‘I think it’s just that you’re positing a theory.’

‘I don’t like it,’ he says. ‘Again, you go down that route, you’re into Highsmith territory. And no offence, but . . .’

‘None taken. I vote we scrap it.’

‘You’re the boss,’ he says, toasting me with his coffee mug.

•

Sermo Vulgus
: A Novel (Excerpt)

Cassie, vague stories percolate down through the millennia. The names of Cheops, Minos, Hammurabi. In 4,000 years’ time, history may or may not vaguely remember Jesus, Darwin and Hitler.