21

Unforgiven

Donald Trump wins by losing, maybe.

It is the year 2022, January 21. Twelve months after the somber swearing in of the 45th president of the United States, six months after The Censors restored then unrestored Donald Trump’s social media accounts, though Trump had not posted anything on the accounts until this day. A year after Congress voted to impeach Trump for his role in the riot that broke into the Capitol and dared to vandalize its sacred precincts. Then, politicians both left and right breathed a collective sigh of relief that at last, the blunt needle in their side had been eliminated. Even though the Senate once again, narrowly failed to find him guilty, it was enough to assure Trump’s many enemies, that as a politician, he was done for.

Or so they thought. 

Trump’s new post to his restored Twitter account stunned the world. Everyone thought he had gone away, probably playing golf at one of his resorts, and good riddance. The post said: NEW RALLY — BUY YOUR TICKETS NOW! And the link went to Trump’s new web site that immediately opened up with a pulsating image of a MAGA hat that was inscribed: TRUMP LOVES YOU. Tickets were $400 each at the Ohio Stadium, or $50 streamed to your living room. The rally would be on April 15, Good Friday. He had considered seriously scheduling the rally on President’s Day, but finally decided against it. Good Friday made much more sense, as his forthcoming YouTube video would reveal. This would be a rally like no other, details to be announced within a few weeks. 

The details that emerged over the next couple of days were vague, sketchy and tantalizing. Members of Congress and the Senate from both sides of the aisle would probably be participating, along with personalities from the dreaded main stream media. Maybe Trump was going to do what the media had harped on ever since his impeachment. Start his own political party, just like Berlusconi did in Italy back in 2007. 

The stadium tickets sold out within a week, all 102,000 of them. Streaming tickets were a little slower on the uptake, until the announcement came with further details of the show. There was much puzzlement. What was the point of a rally if he could not be elected to any office because of his impeachments? Though technically, not found guilty by the senate, nevertheless every poll showed belief in his guilt was overwhelming.

On March 31, Trump appeared on a new YouTube video. It was brief, and created an uproar. The video opens with a long shot down a red carpeted aisle of Trump kneeling facing an altar, bedecked with photographs of his family surrounded by lush flowers from Florida, looking up at an ornate gold ceiling and glistening organ pipes. He then stands, turns, and we see that he is dressed in something like a choir boy’s robe. His hair is all ruffled, looking a bit like that of his former counterpart in the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson. His face and expression is something to behold. It is long, corners of his mouth turned down, jowls of his cheeks prominent, pale, even pallid. Although the robe covers his body, there is a sense that it is much larger than it used to be, rotund perhaps. And then he speaks in that very familiar voice, the almost hidden New York accent:

“The last time I spoke to you was on that awful day when some of you, well meaning, but nevertheless foolish, broke into our sacred Capitol, the heart of our government. I said then that ‘we (not ‘I’ but of course I do) love you, go home in peace.’ I am here today to acknowledge that, buried in my accomplishments as your president, I did many wrong things and said many hurtful things to and about many people. And after my impeachment, I now know that I did not do enough to prevent the attack on the Capitol. And the impeachment has at last revealed to me that those who oppose me do so because I am a horrible person, not because of my politics.”

Trump turns to the altar again and looks up. The organ quietly plays the hymn “Forgive me my Lord.”

He then turns back to face the camera, drops to his knees and raises his hands up high, looks up at the gold embossed ceiling and then looks right in the camera and recites along with the music, “Forgive me, forgive me, O my Lord; I slipped and sinned, and in wickedness; Fooled and erred, I await Your mercies.”

He stands again and clasps his hands together, then speaks into the camera, his mouth in its characteristic expression, the corners dipping down, but his cheeks trying to raise a smile. Or so it seems. Then the words came out, words than people did not expect, though they anticipated something that would disturb and shock. They were not disappointed. Trump said, almost wistfully:

“I know many of you will not believe me when I say I am so sorry for everything that has happened. I bear full responsibility for who I am and what I’ve done. But I also know that just saying I am sorry is not enough to satisfy all of you, and I mean all of you. I have therefore decided, after much deliberation and seeking the advice of God, to undergo a time honored way of making amends for my sins, to be whipped until my blood runs, and to undergo this well-deserved punishment before a capacity crowd in the Ohio stadium and streamed online. During that whipping I will also pledge that I will never commit these sins again, never use the term fake news, and never ever say hurtful things to anyone. There will be much more that I will promise. I only hope that after my punishment, you will all be able truly to forgive me.”

The media and political reaction to this speech was predictable. Extremists of either party called it deplorable or pathetic, but others in the center saw it as a positive step. The many Christians, who would make up a sizable part of the audience, understood immediately what was happening. It was Trump’s first shaky step to rehabilitation, redemption, then love, true love—messianic love, that is. The media, as usual, was unable to figure out what was happening. They had, after all, ferociously fed on all his past sins, so their automatic reaction was to accept this latest spectacle as more of the same, as another of his sins, so called. As far as the media were concerned it mattered not a bit whether Trump was sincere or not, truly sorry or not. It was spectacular news. And that meant money. So Trump’s announcement achieved already an important win over the media, its cynical approach to everything, exposed by the very object it derided. 

However, the greatest challenge to the politicians and their handlers on either side of the aisle was to figure out, once they had posted their various one line responses to the video, how or whether to react to this incredible event. The sensible among them counseled a wait and see approach. But the vast majority of them were so used to reacting in hateful ways, that they simply went along with the ebb and flow of Twitter announcements. The careful handlers pointed out to their bosses that for now it was probably best to say nothing; after all, Trump was no longer president. But even though they were all greatly relieved that he had been replaced for over a year now, the tendency was to forget that he was no longer president and to react accordingly. This was Trump’s terrible legacy. Nobody would ever forget his presidency. Generations to come would all hear the stories; though it would be centuries until historians were able to sit back and evaluate his achievements and their positive or negative characteristics.

Of course, they did not have to wait long. Just two weeks.

Trump’s handler, Steve Canon, now restored to the level of handler and friend once again, was charged with working over selected members of congress and the senate. Since the Democrats owned both houses, he first approached Sticky Shoemaker, leader of the senate, who initially refused to meet with him and had one of his subordinates respond. “Mr. Shoemaker has made it clear that he wants no part of this and considers it yet another foul attack on his own religious affiliation and the Jewish people. Everyone knows,” said the handler, “that the Jewish people do not whip sinners. They stone them.”

Canon, not one to give up easily in the face of aggression replied, “of course, you are right, but we cannot allow stoning, because it might kill President Trump.”

Shoemaker’s subordinate quickly replied, “he is no longer president, please do not call him that.”

Canon considered arguing that everyone still referred to Clinton, Bush and Obama as presidents, but decided it was not worth it. He turned to move on to his next interview but he had no sooner left, than was called back to Shoemaker’s office. 

“Senator Shoemaker will see you now, but make it brief,” said the handler.

Canon entered the office to see Shoemaker leaning back in his chair, his feet on the desk, hands behind his head. Canon nodded and took a seat without being asked. 

“Steve, so pleased to see you out and about, and not in jail,” said Shoemaker with a big smile, the big smirky smile his opponents detested. “We have some early results on public reaction to Trump’s pathetic video.”

“No kidding?” answered Canon.

“I will participate in the following way. Although I do disapprove of the dreadful actions of the impeachable Mr. Trump, I am prepared to participate so as not to insult our good Christian Democrats. Jews and Christians are united against Trump.” Shoemaker took his legs off his desk, leaned forward in his chair and said with deliberate pomposity, “our religious differences are slight,” and quickly added, “that’s not for publication.”

“So?” asked Canon.

“I will, that is as leader of the Senate, select and supply the whip.”

“O.K. But we already have one that we borrowed from the Museum of Torture,” said Canon with a straight face.

“Frankly, Steve, we do not trust Trump, for good reasons. Having been fired once by him yourself, I’m sure you can understand. Besides, we want to make a clear statement, show bipartisan collegiality in the face of this ghastly man who will not go away. We see this as an opportunity to at last put him behind us.”

Canon shrugged. “O.K.”

Shoemaker continued. “I have already set up a Forgiveness Committee to decide on what kind of whip and how many strokes we will administer, and breaking from tradition, I have appointed a Republican to chair that committee.”

“Who?”

“It is not official yet, but it will be former leader of the Senate, Mitch Deadpan.”

“Fine. I’m sure my boss will approve of that. However, we had thought that Speaker Felosi might want to decide how many strokes of the whip would be applied.”

“I will convey that to the committee. I doubt that they would object to that,” said Shoemaker with his characteristic smirk.

Canon stood up to go. “Excellent. I’m on my way to meet with Speaker Felosi now.”

“Just one thing, Steve.”

“Yes, senator?”

“I do not think we can deliver the choice of whip before April 15. It’s a very complicated undertaking, as has been pointed out to me from some preliminary information I have received from CIA operatives, who know most about these things.”

“That’s fine. Unless of course, your chosen whipmaster wants a rehearsal.”

Shoemaker did not respond. He was already looking down at his desk and writing. 

Canon was shown the door by a subordinate, and handed over to yet another intern, who ushered him through the various passageways to Speaker Felosi’s office. There, he was introduced to one of the interns who inhabited the busy area outside the entrance of Felosi’s office. The intern knocked lightly on the door.

“Come!” came the voice familiar to all.

“Sit, Mr. Canon. Or stand if you want. I just spoke with Mr, Shoemaker. Assuming a knotted whip, four half-inch leather strands, five feet long, and two foot handle, the number of strokes will be fifteen.”

Canon remained standing and said, “OK” and turned to leave. 

“Of course,” she added, “depending on the skill and strength of the person who does the whipping, the number may have to be adjusted.”

“Agreed. We already have a nomination for the whipper.”

“Who? A Democrat, I hope?”

“We thought that it would be better to have a Republican, so the Democrats can keep, shall we say, clean hands of the whole affair.”

“Who is it, may I ask?”

“Arnold Schwarzenegger.” Canon could not hold back a slight grin.

Felosi’s face erupted into a great smile, to the extent that it was possible. 

“An excellent choice Mr. Canon! I am beginning to think that we have turned the corner on Trump.”

Canon was not quite sure what that meant. “Does that affect how many strokes?” He asked.

“What do you think, Steve? It seems about right to me.” Felosi grinned yet again.

“Fine with me. I’ll have to mention it to the Donald, but I know that he has given iron clad assurances that he will accept anything that either side of the aisle proposes.”

“And Schwarzenegger has agreed?”

“Yes. He was really upset when he delivered that video on Kristallnacht. He is waiting for the Senate Committee on Punishment and Forgiveness to deliver the chosen whip to him so that he can practice the strokes.”

“Thank you Steve. And you have my best wishes for a successful event.”

Canon held back yet another grin. Trump had done it again. “Don’t these guys know what they are agreeing to?” he thought. But then he thought again. He admitted to himself that he had no idea what the outcome of this outrageous spectacle would be. Especially as Trump had been impeached not once, but twice. Was Trump, his former and current boss, angling to get Congress to annul the impeachments? Could President Biden issue a pardon? That not likely either.

Trump’s YouTube video went viral of course. Many millions all around the world viewed and commented. Some expressed their disgust. Others asked cynically, what was he up to? Others, and these were the majority, could hardly wait for it to happen. Some posted suggestions as to what kind of whip would be desirable, and others made what they thought were jokes, that Shoemaker should wield the whip and Felosi stand there counting the number of strokes. And maybe President Sage Bush could be the one to tie Trump to the rack or whatever would be used to hold him still, and Hillary Clinton could rip the shirt off his back. And the former First Lady Michele Obama could apply salves to the wound, perhaps the first small sign of salvation, give him his ray of hope. 

The most amazing thing of all was the worldwide clamor for tickets to attend the event. Not even Canon had foreseen this outpouring of—no, not sympathy, one hesitates to give it a name—prurient concern, let’s say agogness, an appropriately ugly neologism. Both houses of Congress passed resolutions demanding that a special section of the stadium be set aside for members, and both bills had tacked on to them a demand that the Royal Family of the United Kingdom be given pride of place even though Prince Charles had recently called for the United States to pay reparations to the Royal Family for their own insurrections against them in 1776 or thereabouts. 

The day came, the stadium packed to capacity. Interviews with those in attendance revealed an amazing fact: there were equal numbers of Trump lovers and Trump haters. At last the great division that had overtaken the people of the United States of America had been healed! And it was the promise of Trump’s punishment, his public humiliation and suffering that had brought the people of the USA together. Unity at last! And who should they thank for this amazing accomplishment? After all, President Biden had campaigned on bringing the people together, unity not division. But it could not have happened without someone to punish, and Trump, willingly so it seemed, had offered himself. 

And here is where the first step back to divisiveness raised its ugly head. The New York Philharmonic, arranged on a stage in the center of the arena, played the hymn “Forgive Me Oh Lord” as a solemn procession entered the stadium. Cardinal Bell led the way, carrying the whip placed on a large satin cushion in front of him. He was accompanied by Mayor Charlatan, arm in arm with his new wife Bwana Brawley, followed by a score of altar boys singing the hymn. Then followed Trump himself, stripped down to tight fitting jeans and bare torso, the front end of the large wooden cross resting on his shoulder, the rest of the cross supported by the shoulders of significant members of the golfing fraternity, all of whom at some time or other had accused Trump of cheating at golf (perhaps the worst sin of all). 

Naturally the social and formerly secular media erupted with outrage that Trump would mock Jesus in this way, and this on God Friday of all days. A flutter of gasps and giggles of surprise rose from the audience. But after the initial reaction, the usual boos, hisses, and streams of abuse echoed around the stadium, followed by the old Trump chant of “four more years” then overcome by the detractors with a boisterous “lock him up.”

After a circuit of the arena, pausing twelve times at which Trump dropped to his knees and struggled to rise up each time, the procession halted in the center of the arena. Trump climbed the steps of the stage and sat on a huge chair, obviously designed to look very much like the electric chair that was first used in New York. Then a nervous, hurried voice blurted over the very effective PA system. “Quiet Please! Quiet Please!” 

It was the voice of NBC’s almost equally disgraced Chris Duomo. “People of diversity!” he called, and half the crowd responded with cheers of approval. “I first apologize for having accepted the doubtful honor of compering this awful event. But quite frankly, even though this disgusting personality has been impeached twice over, it is my less than humble opinion that impeaching is not enough, given the terrible damage this idiot has done to our great country and to the world order.” Duomo pranced around the stage like a rock star, lapping up the cheers of approval. He even took off his loose jacket and showed off his bare arms and tight muscles. 

The crowd responded by chanting: “Whip! Whip! Whip!” 

To which Duomo responded, “patience! We will get to that! But first, I want to call upon none other than Samantha Showers, former Ambassador to the United Nations, who will perform the first act of punishment, a time honored practice originating in France after World War two.”

The crowd reacted with deep murmurs, an immediate symptom of on-setting boredom. Samantha Showers took the mike from the reluctant Duomo. 

“I’ll be brief,” she said, to which the crowd clapped and cheered. “During the German occupation of France in World War Two, I am ashamed to say that many women gave themselves over to the Nazis. When the war ended these women were appropriately punished for sleeping with the enemy.”

More murmurs of boredom. “Lock him up,” came the cry rippling around the stadium.

Showers continued. “Their punishment was to have their hair shaved off. And that is what we will now do to the twice impeached president.”

Duomo darted across the stage to retrieve the mike, and handed Showers the electric shaver. She immediately strutted across the stage, her long blond hair waving in the breeze. Trump sat, tied into the chair, face expressionless. With big sweeps of the shears she shaved off the dyed, lifeless locks that had been such a point of derision from his detractors. 

“Traitor! Traitor!” came the chant from half the crowd.

“Stand tall! Stand tall!” chanted the other half.”

Showers stepped away and took a small bow. The job was done, and Trump sat still, looking vacantly ahead. 

Suddenly the crowd went quiet. Would he really do it? Let himself be whipped? Surely that was going through the minds of all the spectators. There sat Trump stripped down to the waist, his distended belly drooping over tight jeans, and his shoulders drooping even more than was his usual poor posture; his bald head seeming too small for such a large body. There was something pathetic about the whole scene. Tears of anticipation formed in the eyes of both his detractors and loyal supporters. But it was time. Trump had promised it and as his supporters knew, he always did what he said he would do. He kept his promises. He was loyal to them as they were loyal to him. 

Duomo beckoned to Schwarzenegger, who came forward looking slender in tight jeans and a Never Trump T-shirt that accentuated his well-known muscles. Cardinal Bell presented him with the whip, which he took and held high for the crowd to see, then examined it carefully, running the knotted strands through his very large hands. Duomo ordered Showers to untie Trump’s arms and legs and the chair was moved to the center of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra for the conductor’s stand as he conducted the next piece which was, again, “Forgive Me Oh Lord.”

They set up an A-frame and tied Trump to it as though he were an Australian convict of a couple of centuries ago. It had been Trump’s outlandish intention to have himself whipped on the cross that he had born upon entrance to the stadium, but the social media had erupted with such vitriol, damning Trump for portraying himself as the second Christ, that Canon quickly dismembered it and hid the bits under the stage. Schwarzenegger positioned himself before the A-frame and swung his whipping arm a little. He paced out how far away from Trump he should stand in order to lay on an efficient and effective stroke. 

The crowd stirred, anxious and impatient. It wanted action. There was also jostling in parts of the stadium because some wanted to get a position where they could see Trump’s face, others wanted to see the bloody lines on Trump’s back where the lash broke the skin. The crowd became even more restless when it realized that the A-Frame had been set up to face the large box of the official party of esteemed leaders of the USA, indeed, the world. In fact it resembled a crowd that had been imported from England’s Royal Ascot. Front and foremost of this elegant gathering sat Prime Ministers Trudeau and Johnson, Prince Charles, and wedged in between them President Biden and their several female attendants, including Vice President Kamala Harris, though she had initially refused to attend because, she said, it reminded her of the savagery that her ancestors suffered at the hands of Britain’s imperial rule. No representatives of Islamic countries attended, seeing nothing special in the event, all expressing satisfaction that the West had at last followed the example of the Middle East. Behind these elegantly dressed important people were various members of the British parliament, shabbily dressed, as were those from the lower house of the Congress, with the exception of Speaker Felosi who outshone them all in her pink satin and lace dress with a fancy collar reminiscent of Queen Elizabeth I. Behind them all were the US senators, a mixed bunch if ever there was one, led of course by Shoemaker in his twenty year old suit. Many of this crowd sat low in their eats, frequently sneaking out to the concession stands. It was as though they were embarrassed to be there, or thought that maybe they shouldn’t be there but couldn’t resist going, didn’t want to miss the spectacle. 

The security guards dotted all around the arena were getting a little nervous. They sensed the growing restlessness of the crowd. They worried that a far right or left supremacist might do something violent. To make things worse, there was a short delay when Duomo resisted giving up the microphone so it could be attached to the A-Frame near Trump’s mouth in order to catch his cries and howls of pain. In place of his microphone, Duomo now held a stack of very large poster-size cards. Stepping forward, he held the first card above his head and pranced around the stage as though announcing the round number of a boxing match. It was the number “one.” 

The crowd erupted in an applause that quickly died down. Schwarzenegger raised his arm and brought down the whip with an audible “swish.” Trump’s body stiffened, and he yelled out in pain, the words just discernible, “Forgive me! I am so sorry! Oh Please!” The crowd erupted into cheers and applause. Many called out: “Give it to him Arnold! Give it to him!” These were probably mostly Trump’s detractors. Others cried (actually cried): “We love you! Love you!”

Schwarzenegger did a round of the stage, showing the whip and brandishing it a little. Duomo raised the next card. Trump called out, More! Give me more! All that I deserve!” 

But then an ominous sign emerged on the arena. An ambulance quietly rolled out and did a slow lap then parked next to the stage. A medic emerged dressed in full biosecurity regalia. The crowd gasped. The figure looked like an alien from somewhere. And suddenly a thin voice wafted from one of the children present, “ET go home!” The crowd broke into laughter as the chant gradually took hold: “Trump go home! Trump go home!”

Trump strained at his bonds and waggled his head, trying to get Duomo’s attention. Samantha Showers saw it and tugged at Duomo’s arm. The mike, the mike! Give the medic the mike!” called Trump. The medic stepped up on to the stage and removed his mask and helmet. It was Doctor Ben Parson. Duomo held the microphone to Parson’s face.

“I am here to administer any necessary emergency assistance to the President, I mean former President, I mean Mr. Trump. After each stroke of the lash I will check his heart and, if the skin is broken, at his request and against my advice, pour salt on the wounds.” A buzz of excitement filled the arena and Parson replaced his helmet. Showers pulled the microphone from Duomo and placed it back on the A-frame. Parson placed his stethoscope on Trump’s chest and after a moment nodded to Schwarzenegger.

Schwarzenegger took his place and lashed out, this time with what was clearly a harsh, stinging stroke that broke the skin of Trump’s back in several places. Blood ran down his back and on to his jeans. Those able to see his front saw trickles of blood find their way over his bulging stomach. Parson stepped forward, checked his heart and sprinkled salt on the open wounds. 

“I am so, so sorry! I am so, so sorry!” cried Trump, the audience very used to his habit of repeating everything he said several times over, all throughout his presidency, especially at his rallies. But this was not a rally.

Or was it?

It seemed not, especially as people from both opposing factions made up the crowd. Yet it was surely concerning to the political pundits in attendance (they were watching on television in the bars and rooms that surrounded the stadium with no direct view of the arena, relegated there by Trump who said that it was all they deserved), that the crowd was really into it. They seemed to “get it.” And Trump was truly “getting it.” Getting what he deserved and, paradoxically, “loving it.” The talk show creatures would later call this “narcissistic masochism,” in a feeble attempt to deny the truth of his suffering. Was he not sincerely asking for forgiveness? Was he not sincerely sorry for all that he had done? If this could not convince the onlookers who had unwittingly become part of the punishment, that Trump was truly sorry for his sins and crimes and the hurt he inflicted on friends and foes alike, what would?

Must we continue through all fifteen of the strokes? In fact, once four strokes had been administered, responded to by the pleas for forgiveness and cries of pain exuding from Mr. Trump, the crowd became gradually more silent. One could put this down to sheer boredom, as happens in a cheap movie that relies only on violence to entertain. Or a growing callousness of the onlookers, unmoved by the pain inflicted, an adaptation to the evil that confronted them. Surely intentionally inflicting such pain on any individual guilty or innocent, and participating in the enjoyment (is that the right word?) or satisfaction of inflicting the punishment, is surely an evil in itself. Even if the one punished clearly deserves it? One wonders whether many in the crowd were asking themselves the same questions. The strange thing was that after the first four or five strokes, the crowd started to dwindle. And by the time the fifteenth stroke was applied, close to half the stadium was emptied. The block reserved for the esteemed persons remained a block. They would see it through to the end. 

As the number of strokes neared fifteen, and the cries from Trump became more and more feeble, the crowd came close to silent. Trump’s supporters, of course, were mesmerized by his devotion, and what they took to be his forthright honesty. Of course, quite a few of them thought he had done nothing that required forgiveness, and many thought that his positive achievements counterbalanced his faults. The detractors were, however, the most perplexed. They had indulged themselves in a kind of distasteful revelry, seduced as they were by the Trump public and open plea for forgiveness, and, they had to admit, the violent way in which he suffered and pleaded for forgiveness. Surely his plea for forgiveness, as sincere as it might be, was nevertheless something that they could not forgive? Were the Never-Trumpers also Never-Forgivers? For many, they came to realized that they were locked into a kind of circular logic that they vaguely sensed had become a compulsive ritual. And so they had become silent, or they left.

It would be more accurate to define this incredible display of openness on Trump’s part and his begging for forgiveness as something simpler. He was, after all, a simple man. Was that not the main characteristic that his supporters loved? This contrasted with his detractors taking his simplicity as idiocy. And the simple answer to the very difficult moral questions thrown up by his amazing foray into punishment, its deserts and forgiveness, is that this was simply another way for Trump to overcome his detractors. Impeached or not, he would win in the end, no matter the personal costs. Trump did not like losers, but loved winners. He could not be a loser. This was his last ditch effort to erase that loss. He would push his opponents further into the moral confusion that had become, in the 21st century, the obvious lead weight that drove both their rhetoric and legislative agendas. Surely the media had understood that Trump would never go away, impeached or not. Indeed, it was good for them if he remained actively in the limelight. This spectacle showed them that he did not need to be elected to any office to win over the public. The question is, having won them over, what next? Or is winning simply satisfying for its own sake? 

The Great Men of history, all of whom liked winning and despised losing, in different ways (mostly by risking their lives on behalf of their followers) posed these moral questions to their populace, supporters or detractors. In most cases, these moral problems were eventually solved by getting rid of the Great Man, whether by killing him (Julius Caesar) or by exile (Napoleon) so that the puzzling moralities inextricably mixed with politics as we have seen with Trump, can be glossed over, with the pretense of their solution. It is not until another “Great Man” arises that humankind will be confronted with these impossible moral logics. Take note, though, and this is advice for Mr. Trump. The exploits of all such Great Men are recounted over and over again in histories, plays and movies. Such an attractive thought for one who seeks to join the immortals! However, it is also very clear that this fact of never forgetting the Great Man lies at the heart of never forgiving. No matter to what lengths Trump goes to be forgiven for his sins, they will never be forgotten. The only sure way to forgive is to forget. And what Great Man wants to be forgotten?

Moral: At the altar of punishment, forgiveness is impossible..

Pardon my President

Why JFK was assassinated.

Everyone knows how President Kennedy’s presidency ended. But few know the real truth of why it came to be. There are plenty of theories and accounts of how the assassination happened, who did it, how many shots were fired and the rest. But none have even speculated as to why it happened. This story, based on true events, drawing on hitherto hidden documents found in the crypt of the Roman Catholic church of the Resurrection in Chicago, explains the deeply troubling events that led up to the assassination. Of course, we all know the shock of the event. Anyone who lived through it will tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing at the time of the killing. Just as all those who lived through the nine eleven attack, the Kennedy killing delivered a psychological shock of the same intensity, even though it was just one person who was killed, compared to the two thousand or more who died in the World Trade Center attack. Why is this?

In 1960, the musical Camelot, written by famed composers Lerner and Loewe appeared on Broadway and swept New York audiences off their feet. Based on the myth of King Arthur and the round table, the musical drew heavily on T. H. White’s The Once and Future King. It contained all the necessary ingredients of a love story and politics: Love, faith and faithlessness, disloyalty, trysts and love triangles (an understatement), not to mention various wars. All of this, though, done with great gallantry, virtuosity, honor and flare. Possibly the idea of the “perfect gentleman” grew from these dim beginnings of Englishness. After a Life Magazine article suggested that Jackie was JFK’s “Genevere” the media ran with the idea creating the fabulous image of the Camelot presidency. Never mind that the myth was all about Kings, royalty supposedly anathema to democracy. JFK and his handlers fully embraced the myth. It so happened that JFK was at Harvard together with Lerner who sent him advanced recordings of the major songs. JFK’s favorite lines appeared in the final number in which Arthur knights a young boy, telling him to pass on the story of Camelot to the next generation. To reproduce the lines here would cost a ton in royalties. Suffice it to say that there were three portentous words included in the four lines “brief,” “shining,” and “moment.”

David Powerhouse was proud of being JFK’s personal assistant. Without JFK, where would he be? He treasured the memory of PT 109, the dangerous but raucous days of navy service. Little did he realize then that he would one day end up in the Whitehouse. His friends always asked him what was his job of personal assistant? It sounded like some kind of servant. As far as he was concerned, it was fine for people to think that. He was proud to serve. But in fact, he had two important tasks. First, to keep all negative press coverage to a minimum. Everything that was said to the press had to go through him, except, of course, the president himself, who had a small team of expert writers to help him. And second, to make sure any threats to his well-being were dealt with accordingly. And by the summer of 1963 the FBI was reporting worrying threats almost daily. In fact, things got so bad that Powerhouse insisted on going over to the FBI every day for a briefing, rather than have the FBI visit the Whitehouse every day, an event that would trigger nosey reporters into asking embarrassing questions, or worse, inventing stories of presidential assassination threats. 

The trouble was, his boss knew something was going on. “Err, P-H,” he said, “you got some sweet thing over there with J. Edgar?”

“Mr. President, no sir!” laughed Powerhouse. “I was going to tell you though. We’re very worried.”

“Err, why is that, P-H?”

“Threats, sir. They’re coming in all over. You’re not safe, sir. We need to double or triple your security detail, especially when you go out on campaign.”

“Now, you know P-H, I don’t scare easily. Any pattern? Nothing coordinated, I hope?”

“No, sir. Don’t think so. At least that’s what the FBI says. Just a lot of chatter and daily threats coming in by phone and letter. They follow them all up of course.”

JFK sat back in his chair and surveyed the oval office. Then he stood and walked over to the south windows. Powerhouse joined him. “What is it, sir? Is there something I can do?”

The president turned and faced him, then put one hand on his shoulder. “You know, P-H, there’s a lot of steamy material out there that could harm me, not so much me, the presidency. You know what I mean?”

Powerhouse looked away, a little embarrassed. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Mr. President.”

“Of course you are. I’m sure everyone talks about my, shall we say, adventures. Thank goodness the press treats them like they are part of the Camelot musical. Fantasies that never happened.”

“Sir?”

“Not a word to anyone about this. I’m scheduled to visit Martha’s Vineyard August 30, right?”

“I’d have to check the schedule, just a moment.” Powerhouse ran out to his desk.

“It’s the Chappaquiddick Beach Club Labor Day celebration,” the President called after him.

Breathless, Powerhouse returned to his boss. “Yes, that’s right. You’ll be there a couple of days.”

“Then I want you to do something for me. This is top secret, No one, and I mean no one, must know.”

“OK.”

“There’s a very old friend, you have probably met him from time to time, the Monsignor D’Andrea, priest at the Resurrection Catholic Church of Chicago. I want you to go there and accompany him to the compound at the Cape.”

“How do you want me to travel?”

“Rent a Beechcraft Bonanza. It will be able to land at the Cape Airport. And will not attract the attention that a US air force plane would.”

“How long a stay? We’ll have to get the Monsignor back, of course.”

“A couple of days, max, I should say.”

Monsignor Anthony D’Andrea leaned back in the plush leather seat of the Lincoln Continental that purred off down West Nelson street. He turned to take one last look at Resurrection Catholic Church of Chicago a place he thought of as his home. It was an exciting time, a day that would be remembered forever by every American. John F. Kennedy Junior had been elected President of the United States on this day, Tuesday, November 8, 1960. The stout Monsignor had expected to be offered the Whitehouse chaplaincy. But he had declined. One should not move so fast, he lectured the president. JFK was the very first Roman Catholic to be elected President. That was enough. Little did he know, however, that JFK did not have such an appointment in mind. Not at all.

The limousine drove straight on to the tarmac at Midway airport and up to the waiting Beechcraft Bonanza. Powerhouse stood at the bottom of the stairway to welcome him. “Thank you for coming at such short notice,” he said as they shook hands. The Monsignor detected a slightly lilting Irish tone. 

“I am honored that the President has thought of me after so many years. It is probably ten years since I last met with him.”

“He speaks of you often. He took his first communion with you, I think, back in 1940, I believe,” said Powerhouse.

“That is probably right. You are very well informed, young man!”

“It’s my job.”

“Perhaps. But in this case it is your destiny and clearly one of devotion,” the Monsignor said with an air of authority.

“Besides, I’ve known him a long time. I served under him on PT-109 during the war,” added Powerhouse.

“Then may I ask why he has sent for me?”

“That I do not know, Monsignor. He has not offered me a reason. He has, however, insisted that this visit be kept secret and away from the public and other prying eyes,” answered Powerhouse, displaying his own air of authority. In fact, he did not especially like the Monsignor. Powerhouse was a protestant after all, a fact that the Monsignor with his especially sensitive religious antenna, had already detected.

“I see,” the Monsignor replied unnecessarily, “now you have me wondering and worrying” 

“You don’t need to worry, Monsignor. He’s fully charged, fit and well.”

They arrived at the Kennedy compound late on the evening of August 30. The Monsignor was made comfortable in the guest house, bid good night and left to sleep, for which he was grateful.

The next morning he was awakened by a light knock. Monsignor called “enter,” and in came JFK carrying a tray of coffee, toast and jam, followed closely by a servant carrying a newspaper, looking a little embarrassed.

“Your breakfast,” smiled the President. “I think I remember that you like a large breakfast to start the day?”

The Monsignor struggled to get out of bed, but JFK put down the tray, took him by his shoulders and said, “stay there my good friend. Relax and enjoy your breakfast. Can we meet in the garden at say 10.00 am?”

“The garden?”

“Yes. We can talk there without any interruption. And there is a gentle breeze. Perfect for a morning walk.”

The President turned and left, not waiting for an answer. The Monsignor set to on his very large breakfast. And in no time he had showered and walked out in the direction of what looked like the garden.

JFK met him half way. “Thank you for coming. I hope you had a nice trip?”

“I am honored to be here with the thirty fifth president of the United States,” said Monsignor with a little hint of a bow. Now what is your pleasure?”

“Well that’s partly what I want to talk about, Father.”

“I am all ears, though pleasure is not usually my business, if you see what I mean,” Monsignor answered with a big Irish smile.

“Exactly. I’ve had some dalliances…”

“Oh now I see. You want to make a confession?” The Monsignor stopped and turned to face the President.

“I think so.”

“Well it’s about time, isn’t it? When did you last make one?”

“Not for many years. In fact I can’t really remember,” said the President looking the Monsignor squarely in the eye.

“Now I know why you did not take on a Catholic for the Whitehouse chaplain.”

“Come on Tony,” said JFK, “let’s not be disingenuous.”

“Apologies, dear boy, I have sinned too,” quipped Monsignor.

“You don’t mind Tony? It’s what we called you back in my Chicago days.”

“Of course not. And your confession?”

“As I’ve said, I’ve had some dalliances…”

“Why now?”

“Tony. You know what it’s like in the rough world of Chicago and gangsterdom. I know you could get dispatched any time. The same applies to me.”

“You’ve been threatened? I’m appalled to hear that,” cried Monsignor.

“It’s not unusual. But I have good intelligence that the threat level is unusually high.”

“And so you want to make things right with Saint Peter,” asked Monsignor half joking.

“Something like that,” JFK answered a little sheepishly.

“Then let’s get started,” said the Monsignor with a little too much enthusiasm. He pointed to a seat by a small fountain. “Shall we sit?”

“Not sure where to start,” mumbled the President as they sat down together.

“Well, you might start by crossing yourself and saying what everyone else says, ‘bless me father for I have sinned.’ You need not kneel. We can just sit here and talk.”

“Thank you Tony. “Bless me Father for I have sinned…”

The Monsignor interrupted. “Here is where, after extensive self-examination you recount all your sins. In your case, since you have not confessed for a long time, you need to take the time to remember and recount them all. If you like we could stop and when you’ve done that—it’s called contrition by the way—we can get started.”

JFK felt around in his hip pocket. “I’ve made a kind of rough list. I’ve probably missed some. You want the list?”

“No my son. You must recount them to me. It’s part of your contrition. You must own up to having done all these things, and that they were sinful.”

“OK Tony, here goes. I’ll try to do them in order. The one I regret most was bedding my father’s call girl, Marlene Dietrich, probably in 1962. I felt kind of like a double-crosser doing it…”

“That was not the real sin, was it?” pressed the Monsignor.

“What do you mean?”

“The tenth commandment. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.” 

“Oh, right. I guess that applies to nearly all my dalliances.”

“Not to mention the sixth commandment that forbids adultery,” added the Monsignor with a touch of sarcasm.

“Tony, for Christ’s sake! Take it easy. I’m doing this because I want to.”

“You’re doing it for your own sake, not Christ’s. But we will discuss that issue after you’ve recounted your many sins. Please continue.”

JFK turned to look the Monsignor in the eye. “Then there was Judith Exner, you probably know here, he said with a grin. “She was a mob moll.”

The Monsignor stared back, expressionless. “You’re not taking this seriously,” he said sternly. Unless you do, this confession will be a waste of time.” He looked up. “It’s not me. It’s the big man upstairs.”

“Sorry, Tony. It’s just me. I can’t help seeing the funny side of things. It’s my Irish upbringing.”

“The Irish only see the funny side of things when they’re drunk, and even then they’re maudlin. You have not taken anything this morning?”

JFK was about to respond, when Powerhouse came running up. “Mr. President, Bobby’s on the phone. Says he can’t make it this weekend.”

“Tell him fine. I’ll call him back later today.”

“You don’t want to talk to him? He’s excited about his investigation of the mafia,” queried Powerhouse.

“Not now, David. I’m busy with the Monsignor here.”

Powerhouse ran off and JFK turned back to his confessor. “Then there was Inga Binga the supposed Russian spy, and another spy, I think, Ellen Rometsch I think her name was. The State Department expelled her earlier this year, I believe. And then there was Mimi Alford the Whitehouse intern. She was easily the best, I’d say, but none of the glamor of the other high flyers, if you get what I mean. I encouraged her to do a job on Powerhouse. Well, she didn’t need much encouragement. And there were quite a few others. Two Whitehouse secretaries that we called Fiddle and Faddle. Jackie knew all about them, so they say. She never said anything to me. And a few more. Can’t remember their names. “

“What about Marilyn Monroe?”

“Oh of course. How could I forget her? She wasn’t much in bed, to tell the truth. Great to take to a party though.”

The Monsignor stirred uncomfortably, clearly annoyed. “Mr. President, I must tell you again. Making a confession is a serious undertaking. You must not make light of it.”

“I think I better get back to the house. I’m a little worried about Bobby. He’s like a bull in a china shop sometimes. He needs to be careful with the Mafia. I guess you would know all about that, wouldn’t you Monsignor?”

“The rate we are going, this will take all day and much of night,” complained the Monsignor.

“So be it. I am prepared to do what it takes. But I have a country to run, Tony. You’ll have to fit in with my schedule. Unless of course, Chicago cannot do without you?” 

“I am here at your pleasure, I mean, as is needed,” Mr. President. “I too want to serve my country in the best way I can.”

JFK got up to leave, took a few steps then looked back. “Oh, I forgot one more. Mary Meyer. An FBI agent’s wife, I think.” As he turned towards the house, the Monsignor called after him.

“When we resume, I am going to ask you to kneel before me and say you are sorry for your sins. It must be sincere and convincing, you understand?”

JFK walked hurriedly away.

The Monsignor, brooding and trying not to be annoyed with the most powerful man in the world, went walking around the Kennedy estate, admiring the beautiful gardens, finely clipped lawns, and of course the wonderful views of the ocean. He plodded over the sand dunes and stood looking up at the almost blue sky, a haze of salt air creating a mist between him and the Heaven to which he had prayed so often. He stayed there, lost in time, perhaps praying, his mind a little foggy. He was lost in the Holy Spirit. Then he heard a faint voice calling him.

“Monsignor! Tony!”

He turned to see that the President had returned. Shadowy figures inhabited the dunes around him.

“You are not alone?” asked the Monsignor.

“Sorry Tony. The Secret Service guys. They insist on keeping watch over me when I’m in such a dangerous place as the seaside.”

“Come to me, my son, and kneel before me!” commanded his confessor. The Monsignor stood facing the ocean. JFK walked first down the beach to the edge of the water, then back to his confessor and kneeled before him. The Monsignor placed his hands on JFK’s head. “My son. Please tell me, Jesus’s messenger on earth, that you are sorry for all the sins you have recounted.”

JFK wanted to looked up but the heavy hands of the Monsignor made that difficult. “Not sure how to say this and how I can convince you that I’m really sorry,” he said in that well known thick Bostonian accent.

“Just repeat after me, then, my son, and do so with a heavy heart:

“My God, I am sorry for my sins with all my heart. In choosing to do wrong, and failing to do good, I have sinned against you, whom I should love above all things.”

JFK complied, but added, “I am trying to do good. I am trying to make everyone equal, and ensure that the blacks and former slaves among us are treated equally and with humanity.” And as he said this, the Monsignor lifted his hands from JFK’s head who now looked up. The Monsignor saw tears in his eyes. Christ had heard his plea. The President truly cared. He was sorry. He put out his hand and JFK took it in both hands. “Rise my son, you have confessed your many sins and now must take full responsibility for their correction.

JFK looked up. “What does that mean?” he asked. “I’m doing good every minute I am President. Doesn’t that make up for the sins I have committed?”

“Maybe. But we are not quite there yet,” answered the Monsignor.

And at that moment, as if on cue, Powerhouse appeared from the dunes.

Powerhouse stopped dead in his tracks. This had to be a first. The world’s most powerful man, on his knees in front of a priest, who, in his own opinion, was of dubious character. Although the media had not got a hold of it, he knew from his daily briefings with his FBI contacts that the Chicago Mafia was involved in all kinds of plots, especially in Cuba, and although he had no direct evidence, he assumed that the Monsignor must be involved, given the reach that the Chicago mob had all over Chicago, and even other major cities, especially Las Vegas. 

The Monsignor stared his most penetrating stare at Powerhouse. “Mr. Powerhouse,” he said, “this is not a good time.”

“Asshole,” Powerhouse muttered to himself, “who does he think he is?”

The President grabbed the Monsignor’s hands and pulled himself up. “It’s all right, D-P. We’re done here for the moment. What is it?”

“The First Lady will be arriving tonight with the kids. She wants to know if you will be here. She wants you to call her before she leaves.”

The President looked at the Monsignor. “Well, Tony, looks like we will have to break it off again.”

“We need just another half hour, I think. We made excellent progress this morning,” persisted the Monsignor.

A gust of wind blew a little sand past JFK’s lined face. He called out, “tell Jackie that I’ll call her in a half hour.” 

Powerhouse backed up over the dunes, yelling over his shoulder, “in half an hour, then, Mr. President.”

The Monsignor persisted yet again. “Now, Mr. President, we have reached the third and probably most important phase of the confession.”

“Yes, Tony. And what’s that?”

“Repeat after me:

I firmly intend, with your help,

to do penance,

to sin no more,

and to avoid whatever leads me to sin.”

Reluctantly, JFK complied.

“You have to really mean it, my son. I sense an element of reluctance,” frowned the Monsignor.

“Well, it’s impossible, isn’t it? You know me. You know my family. How can I make up for all the sins of my past and even harder, to promise to sin no more. In this complicated world and especially in politics, it’s impossible not to sin. It’s an occupational hazard, don’t you think?”

“My son, you are of course right. That is why you, along with all other good Catholics, must make confession often, preferably on a daily basis, but surely at least once a month, for a man of your standing.”

“And while we’re at it. What about the sins of my father?” countered the President. “They were legion. Am I responsible for them as well?”

“You should take on all the guilt you can, and in that way lead a good life that tries very hard to assuage the guilt of the past.”

“I’m responsible for the sins of my father and everyone else?” asked JFK incredulously.

“You’re President of the United States. It’s only to be expected,” answered the Monsignor with an air of false dignity.

“I am President, Tony, not Christ Himself.”

“Mr. President. This is just banter and delaying tactics. Face up to your sins. Convince me—seriously, for Christ’s sake—that you are sorry for your sins. And once we are there, I can then take you to the next step.”

“Which is?”

“Absolution.”

“You mean, Tony, you can absolve me of all my sins?” asked JFK, full of hope and doubt.

“That’s right, so long as you do penance and make up for the sins you have committed and the evil you have done to others,” came the sacred reply.

“What penance do I have to do, then? It must be an awful lot, given the heavy baggage of my past sins, let alone those I might have to commit in the future.”

“In a nutshell, you must give your life up to Christ,” announced the Monsignor.

JFK replied quickly. “I have already. I am doing the ultimate in public service. And the enlightened legislation I have put forward—the great leap forward— I will save the lives of millions, enrich families everywhere, let alone help spread the message of democracy all over the world. I am in a place where I can make the lives of the poor better, even bearable. Who could do more?”

“All of that is commendable. But I caution you that life cannot be evaluated according to riches or poverty. Of course, we must help the poor. But we must not become rich on their backs. Do you follow me?” The Monsignor’s authority competed with that of the President.

“You sound like Castro, Tony. I don’t know if we must go that far,” JFK grinned.

The Monsignor looked at him sternly. “You have steered us away from our immediate concern. You must dedicate yourself to correcting your sins. You might start with your own family.” The Monsignor almost bit his tongue as he said that. He even blushed a little.

“How would you know, Tony? You have no family,” said JFK, pushing back.

“Must I remind you again, my son, this confession is not about me, but you. Face up to it please! You must if you want redemption!” lectured the Monsignor.

JFK laughed. “Now you’re sounding like Billy Graham.”

“I will ignore that remark, obviously designed to deflect once again away from your responsibility for your own sins,” said the Monsignor haughtily. 

A silence overtook them. The soft crashing of the ocean took hold. A sudden gust of wind whirled though the dunes.

“Well, I’ve done that, haven’t I? I’ve told you of my dalliances,” said JFK quietly.

The Monsignor ignored this further, very annoying, expression of this man’s superficiality. “Maybe you could begin by coming clean with Jackie and apologizing to her,” he said with an unfortunate touch of sarcasm. 

JFK returned a look of incredulity. “You’ve got to be joking!”

“No, I’m not. If you are serious about making up for your sins, you might start with those whom you have hurt most,” he said with a deep frown, trying to hold back a smile.

“Anyway, she knows already. She even hinted to a group of tourists she was showing over the Whitehouse, that I screwed one if the secretaries.”

“She is the closest to you. She and your children. If you did that, it would demonstrate to me—but more importantly to yourself—that you are truly sorry for your sins and have acknowledged them.”

JFK sighed. “All right Tony, I will do it. Not today though. It will have to be after the Texas trip coming up in November. You are a hard man of the church.”

“I take that as a compliment, Mr. President.”

“So are we done?” asked JFK putting his hand on the Monsignor’s shoulder.

“Not quite, my son. It remains now for me to formally acknowledge that you have fulfilled the requirements of contrition and penance, and now we reach the stage of forgiveness. Please kneel again, so I can dutifully carry out this task.”

JFK looked around to see if there were any Secret Service looking on. He could see none. They always kept themselves well hidden. But he sensed their presence none the less. He knelt down, feeling the coolness of the sand on his knees. The Monsignor placed his hand on the President’s bowed head and recited: 

“God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

The Monsignor removed his hand and said, “you may rise, now, Mr. President. The process of absolution has been completed. So long as you carry out your serious promise of avoiding sin and making reparations when you can, you will be right until your next confession.”

“Thanks Tony. You’re the one! Now I must hurry back and call Jackie. Don’t worry. I promise I will carry out the tasks I have committed to this morning.”

“See that you do.”

“Are you staying over tonight? It would be wonderful if you could spend time with Jackie and the kids.”

“Thank you, but I have pressing duties back at the parish. There is one last thing I’d like to know, though. How come you chose me as your confessor. You must have many options to draw on, your family priest which I assume you have?”

“You came highly recommended.”

“Oh? Who by?”

“Al Capone.”

Moral: An insincere confession invites dire consequences.

19

Parallel Lives

The monstrosities of mass punishment

Rose Humphries was just one of many Londoners who bore the brunt of the German Blitz during 1940. Her parents had refused to send her north into the countryside where she would be mostly safe from the bombs. If they were going to die, they should do it together, was her mother’s way of thumbing her nose at Hitler. And so, in that year on September, 19 1940, Rose found herself ogling at Winston Churchill who had come down from his perch of government to inspect the ruinous remains of houses on Portman street, just near Marble Arch. The bombing had fortunately not destroyed the apartment building in which she lived with her mother and father (when he was there), and it was obvious that, if it had, and she were inside, it would have been the end of time for her. 

Churchill picked his way through mounds of rubble and puffed at his cigar as if to blow away the smoke and dust that rose from the piles of bricks, broken concrete, splintered timber and small fires that still burned in many crevices. Only nine years old at the time, Rose strained to get close to Sir Winston. She had heard so many stories about him. He was fearless, and he had told Hitler to go to hell lots of times. It all seemed like a Fairytale to her. She wanted to touch him as her way to make sure he was real. She imagined him as a kind of giant who would one day crush Hitler. Churchill came near, poking at the rubble with his cane, harumphing and puffing. Her mother held her back. She was, after all, one of many crowding around, hoping to get close to this giant who would eventually save them. That he would, they had no doubt. 

Though the numbers would mean little to Rose. Approximately 32,000 civilians were killed during the blitz and 87,000 seriously injured. Some two million houses were destroyed. Churchill was well aware of the dreadful destruction and of what his people were going through. He knew it, and his people knew it. It made it a simple calculation as to what should be done to such people who committed these crimes on innocent people. Unlike World War I, and other wars before it, this was not a war confined to a series of battles between military sides. Rather it was a huge battle in which civilians were the targets and the pawns. It even had a military term: “strategic bombing.”

Churchill was the only politician in the United Kingdom who saw it all coming. He had pleaded with Chamberlin and many others to prepare the country for war. He was convinced that Hitler would not stop at Poland. That his Third Reich would gobble up all Europe, and as soon as that was accomplished, turn his eyes to the United Kingdom. 

It was not so much the battles. Churchill had grown up with them throughout his childhood playing out all the great battles of history with his toy soldier collection. It would be reasonable to say that he was obsessed with war. He did not go to university, which no doubt he could have done, Oxford surely, given his father’s high positions in politics. Rather, he wanted to be a soldier, and that is what he became, fighting in British India, the Anglo-Sudan war, the second Boer War and other skirmishes. He became a famous war correspondent, and eventually joined politics, following in his (disapproving) father’s footsteps. As First Lord of the Admiralty, he oversaw the disastrous campaign in Gallipoli, noting that “the price to be paid in taking Gallipoli would no doubt be heavy.” A drastic understatement: 250,000 casualties, 46,000 allied forces dead, and the enemy (the Turks) the same number of casualties with 65,000 dead. And then there was World War II. In evaluating Churchill’s handling of both wars, it is hard to get out of one’s mind his toy soldiers all lined up, kept as they were as a child well into adulthood. All of the great battles of western history he played over and over again.

But the enemy, whoever it was, had to be fought, and when overcome, punished severely for their crimes. When it came to World War II, it was a simple matter to Churchill, though not to many of his peace-loving opponents. Hitler was an insane evil figure, bent on the destruction of the western world as it was, his aim to establish a master race that would bring in a new world of prosperity and great accomplishments. Like Churchill, he had a dream, and it would cost many lives. Only Churchill’s dream was the defense and preservation of the established social structure of western society and politics. He saw Hitler clearly as the great destroyer of civilization. Not only had he to be defeated for what he would do and had already done, but also for who and what he was. A tyrant and the arch enemy of civilization, as were all his followers.

Thus arose the Allied version of strategic bombing.

Gert Mueller lived with his mom and dad just around the corner from the Waldorf Astoria on Joachimsthaller Street. His dad was a mechanic who took care of all the plumbing and electrical and other essentials that kept the famous hotel running smoothly. On any ordinary day there were always important problems to fix, but on August 26, 1940, the first major bombing of Berlin occurred, signaling to Gert’s dad that he was destined to have his hands full keeping the hotel running. As it turned out, though, the first bombing caused young Gert, all of twelve years old, to cry, when he learned that the enormous explosion he heard on that day was a bomb falling on the Berlin Zoo, very close to the hotel and his home. Worse, his favorite elephant was killed in the attack. And much worse, after this very poor start of the bombing by the allies, their attacks were to become more and more lethal, resulting in around half of all buildings in Berlin destroyed, some 50,000 people killed, and hundreds of thousands made homeless. Gert’s father would lose his life while attending to his job, a massive wall of brick and stone collapsing on him as he walked to the hotel early one morning to inspect the damage of the night’s air raid. By the end of the war, and much of the year following it, Gert and his mom survived by some means unfathomable. Gert had little memory of that time. It remained a mystery to him how his mom kept him alive.

From 1940 through the end of the war in 1945 Churchill saw to it that bombing raids were relentlessly directed at a number of German cities (Dresden perhaps the most infamous) to destroy infrastructure, but most important of all, to kill as many Germans as possible and destroy as many homes as possible, especially when assisted towards the end of the war by the U.S. Air force. As Churchill’s head of Bomber Command Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris said: “We can wreck Berlin from end to end if the U.S. Air Force comes with us. It will only cost us between 400 and 500 aircraft but it will cost Germany the war.” This was great sounding talk, much of it bravado, though, since about half way through the war, Hitler’s Luftwaffe was holding its own, not to mention that the Germans had invented the self-driven V2 rockets that gradually could be aimed with more and more precision as the technology improved. 

One could argue, though, that it was not the Americans who would turn the war around in the Allies’ favor, but in fact the Russians, thanks to Hitler’s fatal error of double-crossing the Russians and attacking them on June 22, 1941. It was to become a battle that would repeat the fatal error made by Napoleon a century before. Russia turned both battles into a war of attrition, sacrificing its own military, but especially its civilians, who were starved and sacrificed by a frozen earth policy to draw the German troops well into Russia, until the unrelenting winter destroyed the German military, along with a great many Russians, military and civilian. 

By the time the Americans joined the war after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the stubborn British led by their stubborn Prime Minister, were gritting their teeth, the airforce suffering what seemed like unsustainable casualties. And eventually, these numbers would become appalling on all sides, even when compared to those lost as a result of the USA dropping two atomic bombs on the Japanese. The USSR lost 12 million military and 15 million civilians in World War II, by far the most of any of the allied countries. And Japan lost 1.5 million military and half a million civilians. The U.K. Lost 403,000 military and 92,700 civilians; the USA lost 6,000 civilians and 407,000 military.

The winning of wars is commonly attributed by historians to the great leadership of famous leaders or generals: Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, the Duke of Marlborough, Napoleon, Wellington, Bolivar, Churchill, and yes, Hitler (at first a spectacular winner). Yet all these great leaders also lost particular battles, and an analysis of the battles over which they presided shows that there was much luck or good fortune attached to the events (commonly attributed to the “fog of war”) and that includes the weather and various other unforeseen events. What a great irony it is, then, that the moral certitude that follows victory is displayed with such flourish. The morally upright are the victors, and the losers vanquished and humiliated, their leaders seen as the most evil of doers. The winners build monuments and worship their heroes of past wars -- the losers forever disappearing into the moral depravities of history.

Well, not quite so. For later generations, unscathed by the personal sufferings and losses of distant forebears, assiduously ferret out details of the shocking depravities of war, and reveal to the innocence of modernity, that the heroes of past wars, the proclaimed winners, also committed atrocities in battles and aftermaths of battles. From which the distasteful conclusion follows: the winners are reduced to the same level or morality as the losers.

It is much easier to weigh up the degrees of evil of particular persons and their actions, than it is to weigh up the degrees of good overall. For evil flaunts itself, and invokes in its finders, an outrage easily justified. The outrage clearly showing itself to be pure and good: the opposite of evil. 

For this reason, the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials were held in order to demonstrate to the world (but really to the allies themselves) the justice and moral superiority of the victors over the vanquished. These trials were, in their own way, world shattering events of moral turpitude. The losers of the Great War and their respective countries (mainly Germany) were humiliated by having to sign away large portions of their territories, including those not taken by them in the war. They were stripped of their economies, (forced into impossible debt) largely sentenced to poverty and humiliating subservience to the victors. Churchill, to become the hero of World War II, strongly opposed the Treaty of Versailles, because it had deeply humiliated the enemy, thereby, he argued, guaranteeing that they will remain the enemy and guaranteeing another war. None believed him. Churchill had a kind of gentlemen’s morality: we have a fair fight, then we shake hands and respect each other and continue on our way, all the time respecting our enemy that was.

But the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials changed all that. The confused and ambivalent morality that lay buried beneath the trials was well demonstrated by the case of Alfred Jodi, who signed orders for the summary execution of Allied commandos and Soviet commissars as well as the instruments of surrender on 7 May 1945 in Reims. He was hanged 16 October 1946 and posthumously rehabilitated in 1953, which was later reversed. Nevertheless, these trials of the justice of war did not stop the victors from using prisoners of war as forced labor for a few years after the armistice was signed. But in the grand scheme of morality, forced labor and other reparations (Germany had to give up some territory to Russia and Poland), took the back seat to the grand show of the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials. 

But what of the insignificant individuals whose lives were disrupted by these moralities of war and justice?

Rose Humphries lived to tell the story of the blitz to her children and grandchildren. Her mother, laid ill from malnutrition and other maladies of poverty caused by war, died at a young age of 42, leaving Rose alone with her father who returned from the war early in 1946, repatriated from an Italian prisoner of war camp. Great Britain, though the victors, was great no more, and it took several years for her dad to find permanent work, which he did, naturally, in the building industry. For her part, Rose took it all in her stride, and when the U.K. Joined the European Union in 1973, she was an eager young woman who quickly ran to Europe to see what all the fuss had been about, and especially to discover Italy and the Italians who, strangely, her father spoke of as great friends and who knew how to enjoy the small things (eating) in life, even though in the aftermath of the war, eating had become a necessity for survival, not a means of daily pleasure. In fact, it was in post war Rome that Rose met a fine young Italian man from Trieste. They married and lived in Rome ever after. One can only marvel at the resilience of humanity!

Gert Mueller was a teenager by the time Berlin was under reconstruction, and the schools were back in operation. His mother wanted him to become a mechanic like his dad, and perhaps had history been kind to him, and his dad survived, he would have. But in the absence of his father, it was necessary for him to find work — and there was lots of it rebuilding Berlin — to help restore their own house and lives, especially that of his mother who had given all to keep them alive, during the ghastly few years of reconstruction in Berlin. But Berlin was their home, and his mother would not budge from their old apartment. And once the schools got under way, he was able to go to night school to make sure he could get an education and make a life for himself. That was what his mother (and his father if alive also) harped on every day and night. It would be understandable if he resented it. But he did not, for he saw that it was the only sure way forward, and that it would take great effort and perseverance. He was not to know, of course, that he would meet a glamorous American young woman a nurse who worked for the Red Cross. They became friends, he began to help her on her many forays into homes that suffered far more than his own. She told him of the marvels of the United States. He was enthralled. They married and he went with her to New York, a city far greater than Berlin ever was, where he would go to school and eventually become a law professor specializing in European and International law. His mother remained in their Berlin apartment where she died in 1980. Just as the question of German reparations to Poland was raised again. Gert hurried home to his mother’s funeral, sold their apartment, and would never return again to Berlin. Living in New York with his own family, he had managed easily enough to forget those dark days after the war. Why go back?

These parallel lives were simply two of many, many more life courses, after the war, repeated over and over to an infinite degree, a remonstrance to every one of them, of their refusal to give in to the tyranny of moral turpitude. That is, of immoral morality; of good and evil intertwined and unwound by trials of justice and punishment. Could those trials truly identify who were specifically responsible for all those millions of deaths? Hitler and Churchill perhaps? And add to that maybe Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Truman, not to mention Hirohito and his great generals?

Or, the easiest, blame it all on Hitler, and the actions of his opponents pardoned because they were forced to do what they did in order to win — and therefore assume ownership of morality and its definition. 

In sum, a just punishment for genocide and its correlatives (unnecessary wars for example) is an impossibility because there is no punishment that is sufficiently severe—unless, of course, genocide were the punishment. But this would erase the distinction between crime and punishment, would it not?

Moral: The morality of heroes feeds off the suffering of others, whether winners or losers .

Story 18

Finding Fault

The mini-monstrosities of a classroom

Gentle reader, before I tell you this story, I must paint for you a little of the physical environment that made it all possible, though I hasten to add that it by no means caused the series of incidents (a considerable understatement) that resulted. After all, it was humans who made this physical environment in the first place, and humans who, once trapped inside of this environment of their own making, made possible the disasters that inevitably occurred. 

Before ball point pens were invented, there were ink wells and pens. Moving to pens from pencils for kids in about grade three was a huge coming- of-age graduation. However, fountain pens, those amazing gadgets that had a little rubber tube inside them, into which you sucked up the ink, were not permitted. All kids had to have a simple pen that had a wooden shaft and a metal pointed nib, the design of which was surely one that made sure that a kid’s use of pen and ink would not go smoothly. The nibs were a piece of thin pointed metal with a split down the center, and at the back end a small indentation on each side of the nib. Why that indentation was there is probably the great unanswered question of all time. For it was the source of many embarrassments and of very serious spilled ink disasters. For those who find this difficult to believe, here is a simple drawing of a nib of the 1940s and before.

One might see no special problem with such a pen, but the problem arose when the pen was coupled with its source of ink: the ink well. The cunning design of this well, a thin ceramic or Bakelite container, had a small hole at its top, and a wide lip, so that it dropped nicely into the hole that was bored into the top of the school desk. To give you a better idea, here is a photo of an old pen and inkwell in a school desktop. You can see signs of use, though the inkwell has been considerably cleaned up. 

Every Monday, the boys in grade five vied to be appointed ink monitor (girls not allowed because of its messiness, it was a boy’s job). This required the mixing of dark blue ink powder in a large container with a set amount of water. Each inkwell had then to be filled as it sat cradled in its hole on top of the desk, or if the desk was a double, there were two holes, though sometimes only one in the middle which the students shared (also a scene of likely disaster). It was particularly difficult to pour the ink into the wells when they were seated, so sometimes they had to be lifted out and stood on the desk beside the hole in order to be filled. Or even held up to the pouring device. The temptation, of course, to the boys was to accidentally on purpose spill the ink. This is why the ink monitors had to arrive in the classroom well before the bell rang for start of classes, to fill the wells before the kids came in.

Young Mr. Potts, always dressed in a nice suit, covered by an old grey dust coat to protect it from chalk dust and other smudges of a busy classroom, supervised the two boys this Monday morning. Tich was in his element, and had practiced at home pouring water from a jug into egg cups so he would be sure not to spill any ink on this day that he had looked forward to for a long time. The trouble was that his collaborator, Dog (so called because he spent a lot of his time crawling around under his desk and making barking noises) was not so careful. The rest of the class could not understand why Mr. Potts ever allowed Dog to be monitor, because it seemed that he was forever being growled at and never did his work. But Mr. Potts, fresh out of Teachers’ College, was careful not to discriminate against a child simply because he was dumb or otherwise handicapped. All children were able to learn. It was a matter of fairness, as he had been taught in Teachers’ College over and over again, that each child was different and each child should be allowed to progress at his or her own pace. Never mind that Dog was not progressing at all, could barely write his name, and was still doing work at a grade one level. This was an embarrassment to young Mr. Potts, especially as the school inspector had visited his classroom the week before and left a caustic note on his report expressing his displeasure at the lack of progress of Dog. Mr. Potts was still suffering from this rebuke, and more importantly, worried that he would now not get his promotion. So he stood at his very carefully arranged desk, so tidy, as he often reminded his pupils, “a place for everything and everything in its place,” and looked with some satisfaction at the two boys, carrying out their task, Tich highly skilled, and Dog even doing well under Tich’s tutelage. He was hoping that Tich would be a good influence on Dog, maybe even teach him something.

Mr. Potts stood perfectly upright behind his carefully arranged desk as the children marched in, and stood at their desks. 

“Good morning children,” said Mr. Potts.

“Good morning Mr. Potts,” chanted the children.

“Now sit quietly. I have something special to show you all this morning. “

A familiar, even comforting, rustle of the kids’ shoes scraping on the wooden floor. An excited murmur. Mr. Potts reached for a large rectangular envelope that sat, perfectly aligned with the edge of the desk on top of the perfectly aligned blotter pad, which was, so far today, spotless, no sign of ink stains. He opened the envelope and peered inside. The children started to chatter.

“Now, children! No chattering. Heads down on your desk, please. That’s the way.”

The children all, even Dog, put their heads on their desks and covered them with their arms. 

“OK. children, You may look now!” 

The children looked and gasped, and chattered, and ooed and aared. The girls in the back giggled.

Mr. Potts held the picture high and walked around the room showing it. It was a charcoal portrait of someone who looked like Mr. Potts, but wasn’t him. The figure had a big brushy moustache, and Mr. Potts had nothing of the sort. But the eyes were not quite the same, though all the rest was definitely Mr. Potts. Tich raised his hand.

“Yes, Tich?”

“Is it you, Mr. Potts? It sort of looks like you but you’re not that old, are you?”

“Very good, Tich. It is not a picture of me, but of my grandfather, drawn when there was no such thing as a camera, there were no photos at all.”

The buzz of excitement and the clear display of the children learning made Mr. Potts very happy with the class and with himself. “When you go home tonight, ask your parents if they have drawings of their grandparents. And if you can, bring one in tomorrow.”

Dog raised his hand.

“Yes, Dog?”

“I have to go to the toilet.”

Mr. Potts looked at him sternly. “First, Dog, you know that our rule is that you cannot go to the toilet before morning recess, and we have only just now started our morning class.”

“But sir…”

“No buts. Second, you know that the way you said it was discourteous.”

“Dis-what?” responded Dog cheekily.

“You didn’t say please,” called one of the girls from the back.

Dog stood up and jiggled his legs. “Please, Mr. Potts, I have to go.”

“Sit! And mind your manners!” growled Mr. Potts. Dog had ruined the whole lesson. 

Mr. Potts addressed the class. “Get out your workbooks and do the arithmetic I have put on the board.” 

The children responded with mutters, chatter and the banging of desk lids as they were opened and shut. Dog slid down under his desk and started to bark, somewhere in that bark the word toilet could be heard.

Mr. Potts placed the drawing on top of the blotter pad, taking a moment to admire it. He felt very close to his grandfather, even though he was a baby when his grandfather passed away. He then looked up and scanned the class. There was a bit of chatter, mainly from the girls at the back, but all the kids were doing their work, with the exception of Dog, of course. 

“Those of you who finish before recess bell may come up and get one of the special comic books I have on my desk, and read until recess. In the meantime, I am going to pass the picture of my grandfather around the class to let you see close up how the charcoal drawing was done. Yes, that’s right. The artist used a piece of charcoal to do the drawing.”

“Didn’t they even have pencils in those days?” asked one of the girls.

“Of course they did. But you know, artists still today like to use charcoal because it has a nice clear black and white effect.” He handed the drawing to Tich who sat at the front of the row in his desk that he shared with Dog. “You want to look at it?” he asked Dog.

But Dog barked and scratched around at something on the floor under the desk.

Mr. Potts moved around the class checking the arithmetic, giving help, and praise where deserved. He was half way through, when there was a what might be called a quiet shriek from one of the girls.

Mr. Potts looked up. “Now girls, that’s enough chatter. What’s going on there?”

One of the girls held up the drawing, waving it around. “Now! Please be careful with that drawing, it is a valuable work of art!” ordered Mr. Potts, “and a family heirloom.”

“What’s that? asked the girl.

“Something very special that is handed down from one generation to another.”

“What’s a generation?” The girl started to giggle and gave the drawing to one of her friends, who declined to take it. “Oooh! I’m not taking it. You’re not going to blame me for it!” she cried.

“What?” asked Mr. Potts, “blame for what?”

The girl held the drawing up to Mr. Potts so he could see it. There was a huge splash of ink that covered a good part of the drawing.

Mr. Potts almost leaped over the desks between him and the drawing. He almost cried, ‘O my God,” but managed to hold it back. “Give that to me! Who did this?” he demanded.

A deathly silence descended on the class. Even the barking of Dog ceased, though his scraping feet did not.

“Come forward who did this!” he demanded once again.

But not one child came forward. All looked down and sideways at each other, dying to see who had done this terrible thing.

“I will ask one more time. Come forward who did this. Come forward this minute!”

Silence. Now all looked down, none wanting to be seen as either having done it, or knowing who did.

The morning recess bell sounded. The children squirmed in anticipation.

Mr. Potts looked at his watch. “All right, then,” he said, “you will all stay in until the person who did this terrible thing owns up.”

Morning recess came and went, but still the class sat, with no one owning up. Dog put up his hand and asked, “please sir, can I go to the toilet? Please? I couldn’t before because we didn’t have recess.”

Mr. Potts relented. After all, Dog had seemingly learned his lesson and his request was reasonable. Besides, it would give the class a chance to point the finger at Dog who, of course, was the prime suspect. 

Dog left for the toilet and soon returned. He had met the principal in the hallway who had asked him where he was going and why didn’t his class go out for recess. Dog said he was going to the toilet and didn’t know why. The principal shrugged and walked off.

Dog returned to his classroom which was deadly silent. Mr. Potts had ordered the class to sit still and read. And if anyone was tired of doing that he made them do the sums from the board all over again. But still, no one owned up to the terrible deed. Mr. Potts began to walked backwards and forwards in front of the class, his hands clasped behind his back. Finally, he stopped and faced the class.

“One last time!” he said, clearly on the edge of a breakdown. “If no one owns up, I will have to keep the whole class in as punishment. No lunch time, and at the end of the day, you will be kept in for an extra half hour.”

The class stirred, and the noise of shoes scraping the floor rose to a crescendo. There were loud whispers of “that’s not fair” and “but I’ll miss my bus,” but Mr. Potts was adamant.

“I have told you. This picture of my grandfather was extra special. It is a terrible thing for someone to have done. Horrible! Horrible!” There was even a slight trace of water in his eyes. He turned away from the class so that they would not see it. And when he turned back, the class became suddenly silent.

 One of the girls from the back had raised her hand. “Sir?” she called out, a very serious look on her face.

“Yes?” answered Mr. Potts, hoping for a resolution. Even he had to admit to himself that the punishment he was dishing out to everyone because of the misbehavior of one individual was certainly unfair.

“We all know who done it, Mr. Potts. It was Dog!”

Other kids eagerly chimed in. “That’s right! It’s always Dog.”

Tich looked down and saw Dog rummaging around under the desk. He had been there most of the time all morning. He doubted if it were him. But he said nothing.

“Dog? Get up from there. Come on! Stand out in the aisle. Let me see you! Come on!”

But Dog remained where he was, emitting his usual barking noises. Tich leaned down to him and whispered, “you better come out! Mr. Potts is mad as hell!”

Dog stayed where he was.

“Dog! Come out!” called Mr. Potts. He was now more certain than ever that it had to be Dog. On the edge of losing it, he darted forward, pushed Tich aside, and grabbed Dog by the arm. “Come on, you little devil! Out you come!” He dragged him out of the desk and to the front of the class. Dog went limp and then when Mr. Potts let him go, he just plopped to the floor and would not get up. Just stayed there rubbing his nose and eyes, red in the face. He had been there many times.

“Did anyone see him do it?” asked Mr. Potts, immediately regretting it.

The class remained silent, each looking at the other. Then a shy girl who sat at the front of the class away from the other girls slowly raised her hand.

“What is it Gladys?” asked Mr. Potts. 

“I saw him do it, Mr. Potts.”

“Are you certain?” asked Mr. Potts, now the fair and impartial judge.

“I saw him. He was trying to write something in his workbook and he dipped his pen in the inkwell and the nib caught on the lip of the inkwell and it pulled the inkwell out of the hole and the ink went all over the desk.”

“Where was the picture?” asked Mr. Potts.

“I was just handing it to Dog,” answered the shy girl, glancing around furtively, the rest of the class looking on as though some awful secret was about to be revealed.

Tich stood up, excited. “Sir! I don’t think that could be right. There’s no ink on our desk.”

The shy girl spoke up, certainly with some difficulty. “I cleaned it up while Tich was over in the corner sharpening his pencil.” 

The waste paper bin was in the corner of the classroom at the back of the class. It was a special pleasure of every kid to go there and sharpen their pencils on the sharpener attached to the wall above.

Mr. Potts, wanted very much to get this over with. The simplest solution to this nasty situation was to believe what the girl said and get the punishment over with. He walked across to the shy girl and leaned over to look in her eyes. “You’re sure of this?”

“Yes Mr. Potts,” she whispered, looking down.

He returned to stand beside Dog who was sitting on the floor, morose, his cheeks puffed up and red, his eyes though, steadfastly fixed on the shy girl.

“Dog, stand up this minute!” demanded Mr. Potts.

Of course, Dog did not comply.

“Come on! Stand up! I’ve had enough of you!” He walked across to his desk and withdrew his leather strap, which he was proud to say he rarely used. But his time it was absolutely necessary.

A great hush descended on the class. The girls at the back strained their necks as high as they could so that they would see everything.

Mr. Potts stood facing Dog, dangling the strap in front of him. Dog cringed, raising his arm as though he were about to be slapped all over. He did not and would not stand up. He liked being on the floor. There was something comforting about it, though he wished it were under the desk as well. In fact, he started to crawl for his desk.

“Stop right there!” commanded Mr. Potts.

Dog crawled forward, but then Mr. Potts put his foot down, literally, on Dog’s fingers as he crawled. Dog stopped. He could no longer move forward.

Now, Mr. Potts was faced with a very difficult and dangerous decision. Dog was stuck in a typical crawling position, his bottom sticking up just crying out to be smacked. Mr. Potts, an upstanding gentleman of the community, and accomplished teacher, knew very well that the regulations of the Victorian Education Department allowed the strap to be applied only to the hands and lower legs. And it was limited to six strokes at any one time. He jiggled the strap a little, as though to loosen his wrist. Then with a flick of his wrist, the strap whizzed upwards as he lifted his arm in a swift motion so that the strap, like a writhing snake, leaped up then down, slapping Dog’s bottom with a sharp crack. 

Dog screamed so loud that it frightened all the kids in the class who looked on dumbfounded. 

“Let that be a lesson to you,” said grim Mr. Potts, looking around to the class, so it was not at all clear whether he was talking just to Dog or to the rest of the class as well.

Tich looked on in horror. He looked across to the shy girl who looked away. He knew that it was she whose pen had caught in the inkwell.

Moral: Punishment is the negation of fairness.

A Matter of Honor

A son reaps a reward at the expense of his father.

Honor among thieves is a popular characterization of criminals. But honor is that commodity of men and boys who trade in it, collect it, and treat it as something to put on a shelf to be adored. More importantly, it cannot exist without others who are charged with the power and authority to confer it on the honoree, so that they can then admire it. Honor can easily be lost by one small misstep by the honoree, an ill-advised word spoken in the heat of the moment, or inadvertently, a “Freudian slip” as people of the twentieth century might have said. Then again, one may break the rules of honor if one does not know what the rules are. These are the dangers of the spoken word that becomes an insult to one whose honor has been questioned.

Or, honor may serve to urge those who have mutual interests in their honor as a group: a special ops force, various military units, a football or cricket team, variously called “esprit de corps” thought of as the moral fiber of a team or group that has adopted a particular endeavor or challenge against which they must use all their combined energy. Great military leaders such as Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, won their battles largely because of the honor they bestowed on their troops, the badges, medals, ceremonies and awards for bravery and courage bestowed on individuals who excelled. Theirs is an honor won in battle or competition. Woe to those who do not take this competition seriously: in games, those who cheat (break the rules) are humiliated and punished (tampering with a football or cricket ball to gain advantage for example). Or dosing one’s body with performance enhancing drugs may be enough to drum such person out of the group that has bestowed the honorifics.

The importance of honor may also depend on where one actually lives and into what geographic or social setting one is born. The upper echelons of society into which one is born usually carry with them particular locations in a city or country in which one lives, as well as the history of honor that is bestowed upon the families who give birth to their children. These are born into honor that must be unquestionably fostered and held high. Such were the gentlemen of the 18th and 19th centuries in much of the Western world, particularly those who for various reasons were on the fringe of such societies and thus had to work harder to demonstrate their devotion to honor and its defense against attacks (insults, slights etc.).

In contrast, poverty stricken areas of large cities, usually contained within specific boundaries in inner city locations or ethnic diaspora in outer fringes of a city, are devoted almost entirely to the pursuit of honor, a commodity not as scarce as material needs of life. In these places, actual food and material means of living are scarce. In contrast honor does not cost any money and does not require physical or complex infrastructures to exploit or develop, and thus produce sustenance. Rather, honor is something that can be created out of nothing but social relations, and in most cases, this honor is traded, exchanged and maintained by gangs of young men and boys, whose women, such as they are, watch from the sidelines and bear the children who will become future gang members. Many of the occupants of these gangs may lie, cheat, steal and perpetrate violence. But they do it in the name of honor.

But wait. Members of sporting teams and military groups are expected to fight against others who are their designated opponents or enemies. They must abide the rules of engagement, but let there be no doubt, the rules must not be broken and one must give no quarter to one’s enemy. In the military, provided the rules are obeyed, killing one’s enemies is honorable. So when we say that there is honor among thieves, we acknowledge that this is an admirable trait, confined to thieves who steal from us, yet stealing is surely not an honorable occupation. Aha! But they do not steal from each other — so goes the popular belief.

Most importantly, though, the means of ensuring that the rules of honorable men are enforced, those who break those rules must be punished. Thus we come to our story of an innocent (no such thing) boy who runs afoul of this complicated set-up.

On his twelfth birthday, Napoleon was just walking out the front gate, such as it was, one hinge broken, the wood rotting away, only a couple of palings left, when he was accosted by a huge man, or so it seemed to him. At first he thought it was Mike Tyson, but then saw that the man was too skinny, and his arms and fingers too slender. His fist reflexively tightened around the ten dollar bill in his pants pocket. It was a birthday present from his mom. She had given him the choice of the money or the weed, and he chose the money because he knew that if he wanted, he could buy the best weed in town or even something else down by the Crips hangout. Actually, she didn’t give it to him, he had taken it from under the sugar tin in the kitchen. She was too high to notice. He was too young to join the gang just yet, but it would not be too long before they let him in. Even so, he did errands for them and generally was tolerated by the others as a kind of mascot.

“Whatever you got, it’s mine.” growled the man putting on an evil, snarling face.

Napoleon turned to run back inside the house, but the long arm of his father reached out and grabbed a handful of his blue t-shirt, the shirt that one of his Crips friends gave him. It was well worn, a hole here and there, cigarette burns in random places. The shirt tore at the neck, and Napoleon grabbed the man with both hands.

“Let go of me!” he cried, “you’re a dead man!”

“You’re my kid and what’s yours is mine you little fucker!” laughed the man. He stooped to grab the ten dollar bill that fell to the ground. Napoleon seized the chance to run back inside, through the front door and out the back, over the old fence, through the weeds of next door and away to Magic Johnson Park to inform Nod Boddy, the Crips leader, of the shockingly horrible act. Not only had the man, claiming to be his father, robbed him, but he had torn his sacred shirt. It was a crime against the whole Crips gang and could not go unpunished.

“Tell you what,” said Nod Boddy with a stern face. “You did good, my man! You did good. But now’s the time you step up and be a man if you wanna be a Crips boy. That shirt, it’s all torn up. You gonna let your ol’ man get away with that insult?”

“It’s why I ran straight ‘ere,” panted Napoleon, breathless.

A few other gang members gathered round.

“So what’s he look like?” asked one of them.

“Mike Tyson,” answered Napoleon.

“Shit, man. You lucky you aint dead!”

Another spoke up. “Nods,” he said, “I know the guy. He drinks down at the Tavern on 121st street and deals a bit on and off. He aint no Mike Tyson. He’s harmless.”

“Not any more, he aint,” lectured Nod Boddy. “We’ll go down there and find him. And Napoleon, here, can step up and show us if he’s ready.”

Napoleon’s face lit up. “What you want me to do?” he asked. “He ripped my Crips shirt and took my ten dollars!”

“Fuck the ten dollars! He dissed the Crips. If the Bloods hear about that, they’ll come after us. We gotta defend our honor! Aint that right boys?”

“We want blood! We want blood!” they cried as one.

Nod Boddy put his arm around Napoleon. “You’re about to become a Crip. My man!” He put his hand out and they did the Crips handshake. Napoleon had been practicing it for many months. A complicated series of hand and finger actions. “Look boys! He’s gonna be a Crip!”

“Yo! But he’s gotta show us what he made of, first!” called one of the gang.

“You got a gun? Who’s carry’n?” Nod Boddy looked around his gang. They all looked sideways at each other. Guns were a priceless commodity. Contrary to popular belief that gangs were awash in guns, they were actually scarce because of all the gun laws. So there was some hesitation among the gang members.

“I can get him one. It’s stashed down by the old kids playground by Jemison school.”

“But that’s Bloods territory,” murmured one of the gang.

“All the better, then!” announced Nods.

“You ever shot a gun, Napoleon, my boy?”

“There’s always a first time,” grinned Napoleon.

Nod Boddy stood up on an old tin can. “I hereby proclaim that Napoleon will save the honor of the Crips by dispatching one Mike Tyson look-alike. Go forward, and may the honor of the Great Crips be with you!”

Napoleon had seen the Crips guys handle a gun often enough. But he was surprised when he was handed the gun at how heavy it was. He turned it over in both hands, ran his finger along the barrel. There were specks of rust here and there, He brandished it around, much to the amusement of the gang.

“It’s fuckn loaded!” said one with a grin, but none shied away from it scared that they might be shot.

“Are you sure it’s loaded?” asked Napoleon. “I don’t want to get up close to the big fucker, and the gun doesn’t go off.”

“We always keep our guns loaded, in case of emergency,” observed Nod Boddy. “And this is an emergency!”

Napoleon looked around. He passed the gun from one hand to the other, trying to get used to the weight. “You care where I do it?” he asked.

“It’s up to you, big guy! But you gotta get it done before sunset tomorrow. That’s the Crips rule. Twenty four hours rule. Offenses against honor have to be corrected within twenty four hours. If you’re gonna be a Crip, you gotta learn the rules.”

“That fucker won’t know what hit him!” said Napoleon, aiming the gun at a crow perched on a wire above.

“So one piece of advice, Naps my man. There’s four bullets in the gun. You gotta empty the lot. That’s the rule of engagement.”

“Got it!”

“And when you’re done, stash it somewhere only you will know where it will be, and especially were the cops won’t find it.”

“I got a great place. I’ll put it…”

“Shut up you silly fucker. Keep it to yourself. So you can tell the next one to be blooded.”

Napoleon tucked the gun inside the back of his old jeans. He had put on his old Crips shirt backwards, so the rip would show even more. “That fucker Tyson needed to be taught a lesson! No one fucks with the Crips!” he recited to himself as he walked in the direction of Tom’s Tavern, a bounce in his steps.

He waited outside, across the street. He dare not look inside the Tavern in case some drunk grabbed him. So he did not know whether Tyson was in there or not. “My fucking father! Who says so? And anyway, after I’m done he won’t be anyone’s father!” he smiled to himself.

Drunks talking loudly came in and out the tavern. None looked like Mike Tyson. He lingered in the shadows as dusk approached. It was a typical cool late summer evening in Los Angeles, the air still, the sky clear, though Napoleon did not look up. He started to walk back and forth, getting impatient. His father had ten dollars, surely he’d be in the tavern. That’s what they said. Then he heard chatter, men arguing. He stepped out of the shadows and looked about. Two large black men came towards him, silhouetted against the fading blue sky. He ran towards them, his hand on the gun behind his back. They ignored him, kept walking and gesticulating, deep in their argument. Now he could make out their features. It was his fucking so-called father all right.

And all of a sudden, there he stood, no more than ten yards from them. He grabbed his gun, its weight causing the barrel to catch on the top of his jeans. He tugged hard and it let go. The two men stopped arguing and stood grinning at this twelve year old kid waving a gun around. His father leaned forward, squinting in the dim light.

“You who I think you are, you little fucker?”

Napoleon pulled the trigger. He was surprised how hard it was to pull. But suddenly the gun went off and the recoil almost caused him to drop it. But he was a determined little bugger, that’s what he was. He raised the gun slowly and carefully and this time aimed at his father’s chest. He’d heard the Crips boys talk about where you should aim. The chest was the best, the biggest target. He squeezed the trigger not once, but twice. The first seemed to hit the target, as his dad staggered back a little and put his hand to hist chest. His Dad’s mate though, leaped forward and grabbed his wrist. “Gimme the fucking gun, you little shit!” he cried.

Napoleon, trying to break loose, pulled the trigger again and the last of the four bullets zoomed straight into the man’s face. Blood poured from his jaw and he let go. Napoleon ran, making sure to keep the gun. He’d spent his four bullets and he had to stash the gun. He could hardly wait. He’d be inducted into the gang, for sure.

The next day, the Crips gathered and conferred full membership on Napoleon. The L.A. Times reported in a small note at the bottom of page two that a man was shot near Jemison school and a ten year old girl had been shot while sitting in the living room watching TV. A stray bullet had entered through the window and killed her instantly.

Moral: The side effects of punishment are incalculable.

16

Held Fast

A bully gets his due, maybe.

When Midge (for Midget) was in grade 4, he was easily the smallest kid in the class. The biggest kid was Bomber, a kid who had been kept back a couple of years, so he should have been in grade 6, and even then he would have been the biggest kid in grade 6, he was so big. They called him Bomber because he farted all the time and he smelled and made lots of weird noises. 

Mr. Gowt, the teacher, made Bomber sit in the front seat, on his own. He was always calling out, screaming even, and would spend most of his time crawling around under the desk. He couldn’t do his work and could hardly read. His workbook was full of drawings he had made then scribbled in heavy pencil all over them. And there were ink blots all over. Every page was disgusting, Mr. Gowt told him almost every day. 

Above the usual chatter, Mr. Gowt said in his high-pitched loud voice, “settle down now, children. Sit quietly and pay attention.” All responded and the room became silent, except for Bomber who made his usual noises. “Take out your workbooks. You have twenty minutes to finish the sums on the board. First finished and gets them all right will be milk monitor for today.” 

Milk monitor was a coveted chore, handing out the free milk to all the kids just before morning recess. A wave of excited chatter rippled across the room, and for a moment even Bomber was excited. 

Mr. Gowt took out his watch. “Ready! Go!” he called.

Bomber slid beneath his desk, trying to find his workbook that he had dropped on the floor. Mr. Gpwt, a tall thin man who had a thick English accent (an English immigrant Australia just after the war) wedged himself into the seat beside Bomber. “Now Bomber,” he said, “let’s see if we can get some of your sums done.”

Bomber, greatly surprised, came up from under the desk and handed Mr. Gowt his workbook. 

“We won’t need that,” said Mr. Gowt. He produced a small box of oblong colored blocks of four different lengths and colors. He sat the longest one on the desk then asked Bomber to pick four short ones of equal size that would make the same length. Bomber was thoroughly bamboozled. He dropped his workbook on the floor and grabbed a handful of blocks, then began to sort them. Mr. Gowt slid out of the desk, looking on with great satisfaction. But Bomber continued to handle the blocks, unable to match four blocks with the long one. Instead, in frustration, he simply built towers, just like he did when he was a toddler, then smashed them down and they all fell to the floor.

Mr. Gowt was incensed. “Bomber! How could you do such a thing? All the trouble I have gone to get these special blocks for you. You are a very naughty boy!”

Bomber slid down under his desk and grunted, a bit like a snorting pig. The rest of the class giggled and rustled. Mr. Gowt looked at his watch. “Time’s up!” he announced in his most stern voice, trying to make it as deep as he could. “Pencils down!” He quickly went through each sum and called on different kids for the answers. Midge called out as loudly as he could, and got them all right. “Midge got ten out of ten, anybody else?”

A girl answered in a sweet voice. “I did Mr. Gowt.”

The bell went for morning recess. “Midge and Mary are the milk monitors, the rest of you sit quietly. They came forward and collected the little bottles of milk to pass out to the class. And as Midge passed Bomber’s desk, Bomber put out his hand from below and grabbed his ankle, causing him to fall forward and drop two bottles of milk. One bottle broke and splashed milk everywhere. The children gasped. 

Midge, shaking the milk off his hands, trying to get up, snarled, “Dummy! You can’t even count! You’re a baby! You should be in kindergarten. Dummy! Look what you’ve done. Dummy!” and the rest of the class chimed in, “Dumm-ee! Dumm-ee!”

“That’s enough, class!” cried Mr. Gowt. “What Bomber does is none of your business. Now stand quietly and go out for recess. Walk! Don’t run!” He turned to Midge. “I know you are upset with Bomber, but one should not speak to another like that. It’s not his fault he’s like that.”

Midge was thinking, “Like what?” but held his breath. 

“I’ll clean up the mess, Mr. Gowt,” said Mary.

“Thank you, Mary, that’s very kind of you.”

Midge looked at Mary with a smirk of disapproval. She was such a goody-goody. “Can I go wash my hands?” he asked.

“Yes, you may. And take Bomber with you.” He grabbed Bomber and pulled him up from under the desk. Mr. Gowt was clearly very angry. “Go with Midge and clean yourself up,” he ordered. 

The thought of Bomber being clean was such a joke, smiled Midge to himself. But Bomber already had a hold of him and was dragging him out of the classroom and to the tap outside the school where they would wash their hands. Or not quite. Bomber had something else in mind, that is, if he had a mind.

Bomber pulled Midge to the tap and turned it on. He pushed Midge under the tap, head first. Midge screamed, “help! Stop it! You’re soaking me! Me mum will yell at me!”

“Too bad!” growled Bomber with a big grin. That’s what you get for being a shit. That’s what you are. I hate you and all the rest of you smarty-pants shits.”

“I’m gunna tell on you. You swore!”

“No kidding? And here’s more!”

And just as Bomber pushed Midge’s head under the tap, a strong hand gripped him by the scruff of the neck and pushed him away. Midge looked up, shaking the water from his hair. The biggest kid in grade six stood there, holding Bomber by his neck, and his other hand clenched into a fist. “You want a punch in the guts?” he asked with a challenging grin.

“Let me go, you’re hurting me!” cried Bomber.

By this time, a gang of kids, all boys, had circled around, watching and cheering. “Grab Bomber’s arms and hold him out,” ordered the grade 6 kid. Two kids grabbed each of Bomber’s arms and pulled them so that Bomber was spread out, trying to kick, but unable to reach anyone. 

“I’ll get you bastards for this!” shouted Bomber.

The grade sixer walked over to Midge and put his hand on his shoulder. “OK. Now you can hit him back. Make it a good one to teach him a lesson.”

“You bastards!” cried Bomber again. “I’ll get you all for this. I’ll bash every bloody one of you. You wait! You’ll see!”

Midge stepped forward and raised his fist. Would he do it? “Bomber deserved it, didn’t he?” He asked himself. And he looked around at the gang of kids, egging him on. He had to do it. But who knows what Bomber would do to him afterwards. 

“Go on then,” taunted Bomber. “Do it, and see what will happen to you.”

The grade sixer nudged Midge forward a little. “Don’t be scared,” he said, “ I won’t let him beat you up. Go ahead. It’s only right. It’s not fair that he keeps picking on you. He doesn’t pick on his own size.”

All of that was true, thought Midge, almost shivering in fear at the thought of Bomber getting at him later on, when there was no one there to save him. He raised his arm again.

“Hit him in the guts!” cried one of the kids.

“Yair, go on. Get on with it. Give it to him. It’s time he learned his lesson!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Midge saw Mr. Gowt step out of the school and come towards them. Perhaps he would be saved.

“I’m warning you!” snarled Bomber.

And Midge knew he had to do something. After all the Sixer had done for him, he had to do what he said. He couldn’t just walk away. They would all call him a coward, and the Sixer would never save him again. So he got ready to give Bomber a punch in the guts, and swung his arm, fist clenched. But he saw Mr. Gowt now hurrying towards him, and found, to his consternation, that his fist just as it reached Bomber’s middle, opened into an open hand and became the slightest of slaps. 

“What’s going on here?” called Mr. Gowt.

Suddenly, the circle of kids dissolved and there was no one there, except Bomber spitting and snarling, and Midge, standing, arms hanging by his side.

“He’s been bullying me, sir,” whimpered Midge. “He pushed me under the tap.”

“So I see,” observed Mr. Gowt. “Bomber, put out your hand!”

Bomber meekly put out his hand. Mr. Gowt put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the leather strap with which all, but especially Bomber, were familiar. 

Bomber looked at Midge as if to say, “don’t think you won’t get yours too,” and down came the strap making a loud crack as leather hit the well-worn skin of Bomber’s right hand. 

“Now the other,” said Mr. Gowt as Bomber put out his left hand and received the same, this time hurting a lot more.

The bell rang sounding the end of recess. Midge ran back to class. Bomber followed, plodding slowly . 

Mr. Gowt was looking forward to lunch time.

Moral: Fair punishment depends on the hands that use or abuse it.

15

The Sentence

A judge’s punishment.

Albany District Court judge Jonathan Tears took his job as seriously as any of those who elected him to that office could hope for. He insisted at dinner parties when asked about his job, that it was not a job at all, but a calling not unlike that of a clergyman or a doctor, one in which he every day displayed his devotion to public service, to serving his fellow man. Justice was what he cared about most of all, justice and in the long run fairness. He was daily faced with choices he had to make, deliberating on the punishment of miscreants who were brought before him. Of course, only the guilty could be punished, and that was what the court that he administered as the sole arbitrator of its functioning, certainly ensured. His juries were carefully selected; the prosecutors and defense attorneys abided by the established procedures of his court and that of the county and State of New York; his clerk of courts observed the proper procedures. 

Judge Tears made all his administrative decisions concerning pleas of guilty, plea bargaining and so on, as transparent as possible. As the final arbiter of justice he must be well informed of any attempts to short circuit the system, especially the making of bargains, which was always happening, always a little questionable, but without which the work of the court, overburdened by cases, could not be achieved.

Furthermore, he took every case heard before him seriously, whether it was a minor offense or a serious one. And once a verdict of guilt was delivered by the court, it was his prime responsibility to deliver a sentence that served justice, especially with regard to the suffering caused any victims of the crime. He made it a point of having victims contribute to the sentencing, and if at all possible, rendered a sentence that took into account the suffering of the victim.

So it was on the first day of November, just a few weeks before Thanksgiving, he heard a case that appalled him, almost brought tears to his eyes at particular points, when the victim and the victim’s mother displayed their anguish. They had suffered, though the father was noticeably absent from the sentencing hearing. And upon inquiring why the father was not in court for the sentencing hearing, his clerk of courts reported that the father was out of the country but had sent an email to him demanding the severest punishment that matched the horrible details of the crime be administered without mitigation. The offender had to get what was coming to him, that was what the father had said. 

Justice Tears noted this input and took it seriously. The trouble was that, if he took it really seriously, it was not at all clear whether he could in fact deliver a just sentence, or to put it more precisely, whether in pronouncing a sentence it would guarantee that the punishment would match the crime. 

The evidence of guilt in this case was clear and insurmountable. One Mike Malone fifteen years old had been molested by the local priest on a number of occasions after choir practice. The actions would not have come to light except that Mike’s mother caught him masturbating one morning in his bedroom when she went in to clean his room. She scorned him and in his defense he pleaded that he couldn’t help it because Father O’Brien had shown him how to do it and so he was practicing. Of course, his mother was appalled, and immediately, perhaps mistakenly she wondered in retrospect, she called the police. She took it upon herself to make that call since her husband, who would have been even more upset, was out of the country on business, and could not be contacted. She had no doubt at all that her husband would have given the boy a good thrashing, then dragged him around to confront Father O’Brien and given him a good thrashing too. 

“Albany emergency dispatch,” came a monotone voice. “Please state your location and address.”

Mrs. Malone almost hung up the phone. She was overcome by embarrassment.

“It’s Mrs. Malone at 53 Smith Street. My son Mikey has been molested by Father O’Brien and I don’t know what to do.” 

The well trained emergency dispatch officer responded in her practiced monotone voice. “Is anyone there injured? Who else is in the house?”

“It’s just me and my son. I don’t think he has been injured,” answered Mrs. Malone, on the verge of hysteria.

“Is he able to breathe?”

“Yes, he’s fine. I only just found out that it happened.”

“Stay calm Mrs. Malone. An emergency unit is on its way.”

The juvenile police unit showed up, a specially trained female officer taking charge and interviewing the boy with his mother’s permission. Mike, for his part, was a little puzzled, though of course upset that there were police in his house and they even came into his bedroom. His puzzlement was caused by the fact that he actually enjoyed the sexual encounters with Father O’Brien, and had not thought it all that awful. In fact, it made choir practice much more enjoyable. So, when asked for details of his encounters he was very reticent, and essentially clammed up, as is pretty common with teenagers anyway. But in the end, after considerable cajoling by the officer and his mother, he provided a few details, but asked that his mother leave the room while he described them, as it was very embarrassing talking about the details of sex in front of his mom. The worst thing they tried to make him do was reveal the names of any other boys he thought may have been victimized. 

By the time all of this made its way into court, the details had been reported in the local newspapers, and this was the worst thing as far as Mike was concerned. He was embarrassed and teased at school by other boys, especially bigger boys. Of course, the papers did not print the names of victims, but that did not stop everyone finding out who they might be. 

In any case, we need not go into the details of these shenanigans, except to say that Father O’Brien appeared in court, was found guilty of several charges of indecent assault on under age children. He foolishly in his defense, against the advice of his counsel, the public defender, claimed that the boys liked it and that it was all done with their consent.

Judge Tears was a judge to be reckoned with, so when the public defender Jack Flynn, found that Judge Tears would be presiding over the case, he was none too happy and dutifully conveyed this to his client, Father O’Brien. The public defender, a good catholic himself, had visited Father O’Brien on a number of occasions in preparation for this trial, had even asked the disgraced priest to hear his confession, though Father O’Brien had resisted his request for some time, given the circumstances. Besides, Father O’Brien’s superiors had warned him not to do so, and in fact had announced that, should he be found guilty, he would be drummed out of the priesthood. Not that they had the right to do so. Only God and Jesus could do that. And as far as he was concerned, he had done nothing wrong except give his young charges a little pleasure. Brightened up their lives, even.

Public defender Flynn looked over the small crowd in the courtroom. There were a few parents of other boys who had eventually come forward and owned up to being the Father’s victims. But it was pretty clear who was the ultimate victim, Mike, who sat his head bowed, too distraught to look up, too embarrassed to look at Father O’Brien, frightened that their eyes might meet, and then he would remember the occasions of his encounters with the terrible Father O’Brien. Having had to describe in detail in front of the jury and the courtroom what they did together was something he would never forget. It was now a nightmare. 

Judge Tears entered the courtroom. “All rise!” cried the clerk. All rose then seated once Judge Tears had himself seated and rustled a few papers back and forth, then looked out at his courtroom. 

“The defendant will rise,” said the judge, looking over his spectacles.

Defender Flynn nudged his client. Father O’Brien rose, his face expressionless, no doubt his entire body was numb, his mind thoroughly overcome with remorse. Or at least, that was what his defender had drummed into him. Remorse! Feel remorse! Say that you are sorry and say it showing that you really mean it! He stood, head bowed, stroking his greying beard. Judge Tears spoke.

“You have been found guilty of despicable deeds, you have heartlessly taken advantage of your innocent charges, broken every rule of decency, and disgraced the great church that you represent. It is a shame that there is no punishment in the law of this state that is equal to the crimes you have committed. You deserve to have done to you what you have done to your young innocent charges. The court can only hope that the punishment that it imposes upon you will come some way to making up for the damage you have done to these young lives.”

Father O’Brien stood still, looking down, his balding head seemingly pointed at the judge, a manner not approved of by his defender, who nudged him, trying to get him to look up.

“Mr. O’Brien!” demanded Judge Tears, clearly upset. “Look up when I address you! Acknowledge what you have done!”

Father O’Brien, humiliated, managed to raise his head just a little, and mumbled, “I’m sorry, your honor.”

Judge Tears ignored the inaudible remarks. “I hereby sentence you to five years of incarceration in the care of the Correctional Services of the state of New York, and may you receive at the hands of your fellow inmates what you did to your young charges. You raped them, so shall be done to you.”

Judge Tears departed, without the slightest look at the criminal O’Brien, nor at the rest of the court. He had delivered his sentence, may God have mercy on his soul.

The officer of the court applied the necessary handcuffs and other procedures of security and marched the criminal from the court, whereupon he would be transported to the place of incarceration where Judge Tears’ punishment would be faithfully administered, no doubt. Sex offenders, as everybody knows, are the prime targets of assault in prisons everywhere.

It may be safely assumed that Father O’Brien was dealt with according to the insinuations made in Judge Tears’ sentence. Mere incarceration was not enough for this crime. The punishment did not match the crime, as one would say, reflecting Judge Tears’ frustration that the law did not allow him to sentence Father O’Brien to be raped, just as he had raped his innocent charges. If he were raped in prison, was this not a proper matching of the punishment to the severity of his crime? This was undoubtedly on Judge Tears’ mind when he made his remarks, later to be regretted. Of course, in a civilized society, we do not punish criminals who might even deserve such punishment, in this way at all. They receive a civilized punishment that is prison. 

One might leave it there except that the media who were present at the sentencing hearing took careful note of Judge Tears’ remarks and dutifully reported on the sentence in full. They immediately saw the great gift of a news headline that Judge Tears had given them: JUDGE SENTENCES RAPIST TO BE RAPED.

The New York Commission on Judicial Conduct reprimanded Judge Tears for this outrageous sentence and ordered him to step down from the bench. Of course, the punishment that Judge Tears had imagined was eventually and frequently carried out, without any judicial intervention. Such punishments were under the purview of the New York State Department of Corrections, which remained “unaware” of such punishments.

Let’s not forget the victim. Mike continued to masturbate without any outside assistance, as did all his co-victims. He carried the guilt for the rest of his life, and was reminded of this every time he looked at his mother. He blamed her for going to the police, which further added to his guilt. As for his father. He continued to be preoccupied with his work and never mentioned the incident. It was as though it had never happened.

Moral: The punitive effects of a sentence are immeasurable.

Road Rage

A child is saved by punishment.

The wistful, somber, unmitigated devotion, adoration, and of course all-embracing love of a mother for her child is universally depicted by the great artists of pre and post renaissance of Italy. In the Duccio Maestà of Siena, for example, there is a hint of the child’s resistance to its mother, often interpreted as a foreboding of what is to come: the tragedy of crucifixion, the child will die before its mother. Hidden deep in every mother is such a fear. And every new day brings with it such a threat.

Iris was preoccupied with the challenges of her working day as she walked proudly along Philadelphia’s Pine Street with her toddler, sometimes in his stroller, but often, toddling along on his own two feet. How proud she was when he took his first steps! And now, he wanted to run, out of his stroller then back again.

“Sammy! Not so fast! Keep my hand! Don’t go onto the road! Watch for the big cars!”

It was just after eight in the morning and they were on their way to Day Care, the street busy with morning traffic of people going to work, and trucks stopping for deliveries. Sammy was being a little devil this morning. He wanted to run ahead. He had so much energy! Iris called out yet again. “Sammy! Sammy! Don’t go on the road! You hear?”

But Sammy did not hear, or if he did, he took no notice. And on to the road he ran, right at the intersection of 11th and Pine.

Iris let go of the stroller and ran on to the road after him. Cars screeched to a halt. Sammy turned to her, laughing, then all of a sudden crying as Iris scooped him up roughly in her arms and ran back to the curb. 

“You naughty little boy!” she screamed, tears in her eyes. “You must never do that again! Do you hear?” 

Sammy looked at her, still not comprehending. He was part laughing and part crying, and probably thinking that he should scream like his mom too. 

Iris had read somewhere in a child rearing book, maybe her mother’s old worn Dr. Spock. Never chastise a child in anger! Calm down and do it rationally, always with a quiet and sensible explanation. 

So she set him down on the sidewalk. He went to climb into his stroller, but she grabbed him and pulled him to her and held him by his shoulders. But Sammy squirmed and wriggled. He managed to grab the stroller with one hand and pulled it and it fell sideways. Passersby were a little annoyed at having to walk around this rapidly evolving spectacle. 

“Sammy!” cried Iris, “stop it!” She wrenched him away from the stroller and pulled both him and the stroller to her as she flopped down on the old marble steps that protruded on to the sidewalk. “Don’t you understand?” she pleaded, knowing of course that he did not understand. She began to cry a little herself, and that was enough to have Sammy follow suit. 

They sat for a while sniffing back their tears as Iris hugged Sammy to her. “I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you, darling, don’t you know?” 

Maybe he did know. He hugged her and nestled his nose into her breast, perhaps a slight throwback to the days when he was still on the breast. It certainly was enough to calm Iris down as she looked out at the busy traffic and passersby.

“Now Sammy, I want you to listen to me very carefully,” she said. She held him by both shoulders, held him out in front of her so she could look straight into his eyes. “You know I’ve told you many, many times not to run onto the road. Haven’t I?”

Sammy did not answer. He just looked back at her and wriggled a bit. Her hands were hurting his shoulders because she held him so tightly. He wriggled some more and she let go. But then, she stood up, holding Sammy by the hand, pulling him up with her. 

“I’m going to tell you again, and this will be the last time. And just to make sure you remember it, I’m going to give you a hard smack, to help you remember.”

Iris twisted his arm a little and his tiny body turned around. With her free hand she gave his bare legs a hard slap. Sammy was a little surprised, but one would not call it shocked. Rather, he simply took it as another thing of the many surprises of life that happened to him every day and every minute of his young life. Because there was no immediate response, Iris took it that she had not hit him hard enough. So she gave him another hard slap, and this evoked a loud wail, close to a scream, from Sammy, who now cried buckets of tears.

“Let that be a lesson to you!” said Iris, also crying. “You must never-- you hear me? Never run onto the road again. Is that clear?”

Sammy wailed some more and did not answer.

“Answer me, Sammy. Is that clear? You must never run on to the road again!” And she gave him another slap, this time rather half-heartedly.

Sammy whimpered and sniffed. He wanted to get into his stroller and she let him do so. He put his fingers in his mouth and sucked them as he sobbed. 

Iris leaned down to tie him into his stroller. She kissed him on his red wet cheeks. “Mommy’s sorry, darling! But she just couldn’t bear it if you were killed by a car. You know?”

Did he know?

 Moral: A smack is worth a thousand words.

Disposal

A dysfunctional family meets its logical end.

Here’s a question. If a person lives with another all their life — a son with his mother, a wife with her husband, for example, how well do they know each other, really? It is true that people living together in the same house or space will develop various kinds of routines, and by that standard one supposes that they can predict what each of them will do every day. 

But suppose that the relationship is abusive, by some count, what then? Perhaps the abuse also becomes routine, so may even not be noticed for what it is?

On his forty-fifth birthday, Frederick Baskin broke with routine, but this was not at all easy. He was born of a mother whose marriage lasted just short of two years, and by that time she had been beaten so much about the face and chest that she had aged some twenty years, or more. She had descended into a state of despair, her clothes turned to rags, the pain of her beatings assuaged by brandy, when she could get it. Her only solace was her son whom she tried hopelessly to care for, and to love, who, from the moment he was born cried and screamed pretty much nonstop. Her husband blamed her for this unholy noise, accusing her of not feeding him, and to add to her distress chose to beat her breasts mercilessly, which made it impossible for her to feed little Frederick. 

Phyllis was her name, and she was well known locally by the police who answered her frantic calls almost on a weekly basis. They came, they arrested her husband, referred her and her screaming child to the social welfare department, kept her husband in lockup until he faced the family court judge who upbraided him and sentenced him sometimes to a few weeks in lockup. The social worker who came to the house had come to know Phyllis well, and had on many occasions advised her to leave her husband and go to a refuge. But she refused this solution, because, she said, her son needed a father. Yet on some occasions, through the fog of alcohol, she had thought of killing her beast of a husband, but was too frightened to try, as she did not know really, how she could do it. And besides, she did not want her son to grow up with a murderer for a mother.

Then came the one stroke of luck that changed the course of Frederick’s life, or to put it in her words, her husband got what was coming to him. Late one night, it was when Frederick was all of three years old, her drunken husband met his end, staggered on to a busy road and was run over. Phyllis celebrated the event by telling Frederick it was his third birthday, and made him a chocolate cake with candles and sang happy birthday to him. It was virtually the only time that Frederick had stopped crying.

 Imagine living in a small house, on welfare, scrounging for a living, depending on the good will of others to make ends meet, and with a screaming three year old who seemed never to be happy. In truth she was tempted every day to beat the child until he stopped crying. But she knew that this would be self-defeating. She learned, instead, to ignore the screaming, and managed to last it out until the child was exhausted, his screams dying down to a whimper.

The social worker had proclaimed that little Frederick screamed because he wanted attention. So Phyllis had tried giving him lots of attention, playing with him, even taking him out shopping with her, but this turned out to be a disaster when people in the stores gave her disapproving looks, of course, blaming the mother for the child’s behavior.

One might say that Phyllis was caught in a situation of her own making, caused by her abusive husband, thank God, now gone. Maybe time would heal. And so she wore ear plugs to dampen the screams and grew to ignore the wails and whimpers. So it was after a year or two, hard to measure time under such uncomfortable circumstances, that Phyllis managed to slowly make headway with her child, and send him even to school, where, needless to say, Frederick did not do well. He was constantly in the principal’s office on account of his rowdy screaming and violent tantrums. It was not long until the school informed Phyllis that her child needed special placement because of his behavior problems. The school psychologist recommended him for a special school for disruptive children, but it was located way across town, and Phyllis could not afford to send him there. So instead, she did what any caring mother under those circumstances would do. She decided to home school him.

And so began the long, endless process of Frederick’s education and growing up. Unfortunately, though completely understandable, Phyllis had turned to alcohol to help her manage the day, a deep irony that she only occasionally recognized. Much of the time she was in a kind of alcoholic stupor. This took the form of her nagging Frederick to do his lessons, brush his teeth, wash himself, etc., etc. The list of things to nag a growing child is endless.

The morning routine had never changed for some forty years. Phyllis got up and cooked bacon and eggs for Frederick, who sat morosely at the table and pushed them away when served. Instead he looked in the cupboard for his favorite Cheerios breakfast cereal. One would have thought that Phyllis would simply give up on the bacon and eggs, but not at all. Every morning she nagged Frederick to eat a proper breakfast, that it was the most important meal of the day. For his part, Frederick had developed a routine in which he went to the cupboard, complained that they were nearly out of Cheerios, sat down and slurped spoonfuls into his mouth. At which, Phyllis nagged him to eat quietly, didn’t he have any manners at all?

And over the years, Phyllis had developed prickly ways of getting at Frederick. He never, after all, went out of the house, or if he did, not for long. So she harped at him to go out and get a job; a lazy slob, that’s what he was.

Then there was the TV. He complained that it was old and they needed a new one. She pointed out to him that, if he went out and got a job, maybe they could afford a new TV. Frederick, now a mature adult, never flew into a rage, which would be understandable given the circumstances. After all, it was she who had home-schooled him, so it was her fault if he couldn’t get a job. Never mind that he had simply no inkling to go out of the house. He was happy enough in his bedroom, playing video games, reading comic books, and, well, what else can a lonely male do on his own? 

But Phyllis would not let him alone. She nagged him day and night. Removed the lock from his bedroom door so it could not be locked shut. She went into his bedroom constantly without knocking, always asking him when he was going to fix the toilet that wouldn’t stop running. Surely he could make himself useful? He ought to think himself lucky that she provided him with a roof over his head. And besides, she had told him a thousand times, that she had saved him from his violent drunkard of a father.

One cold morning, Phyllis sat at the kitchen table, eating her toast. Frederick slouched in and went immediately to the cupboard to retrieve his Cheerios. He opened the refrigerator and looked for the milk. There was none.

“Eat your breakfast,” said Phyllis, her raspy voice now riddled with the smoke of an intake of one or two packets of Craven A’s a day.

“Eat your own fucking toast,” answered Frederick. He leaned over the table and pushed the eggs and bacon away from his place. He then proceeded to pour out his Cheerios into his bowl, and sat down staring at them. His eyes were narrowed. He was really annoyed. His mom of course noticed, and with some satisfaction. He drummed his fingers on the table, then dipped them into the bowl and started to eat the Cheerios by hand. Phyllis took a bite of her toast and munched it loudly.

“Want milk?” she said with what could only be interpreted as a sneer.

Frederick had had enough. He grabbed her hand across the table and growled, the noise coming from deep inside him, “I’ve fucking had enough of you.”

Phyllis tried to pull her hand away, but his grip was too tight. She was suddenly frightened. It reminded her of her husband — Frederick’s rotten abusive father— in the early days, when Frederick screamed incessantly.

“You’re just like your pig of a father, you are. You’re no good, trash. You can’t do anything. You’re a useless bag of shit!”

Frederick’s grip tightened.

“Go on then,” she taunted, “hit me, just like your stinking father did. Hit me! Go on! I’m used to it. I’ve put up with you for long enough. Get out of the house and don’t come back!”

Frederick pulled her across the table, his meaty hands tightening around both her wrists. Now she lay on top of the table, belly down. She kicked her legs but they were well off the floor and went nowhere. He stood back from the table and pulled her up to face him. She found her footing and tried to knee him in the crotch. And she did, but not hard enough. It only served to enrage him even further. Now he let go of her arms and went for her throat, thumbs pressing hard against her voice box. 

“You’ll never nag me again, you fucking chain-smoking piece of crap.” His meaty hands tightened, her eyes bulged, there was no stopping him now. No turning back. No wish to turn back, in fact. 

The rest followed logically. She flopped to the floor and lay dead. But just to make sure she could never nag him again, Frederick went to the cutlery draw and drew out a steak knife. And with it he thrust it into her throat and cut out her voice box. “You’ll never nag me again,” he said with great satisfaction. And with that, he went to the sink and put the voice-box down the garbage disposer. The loud hum of the disposer was music to his ears.

He went to the refrigerator and searched some more for the milk, and sure enough, there it was in a different place, in the back. The bitch had hidden it from him. Well, she had learned her lesson now not to mess with him!

He went to the sink and washed his hands. Then he poured the milk over his Cheerios and sat quietly eating his breakfast. 

After he was done, he called the police.

 Moral: A matching punishment is driven by revenge.

Crowd Pleaser

Little kid wins big.

Two kids, one 10, the other 8. The big kid, they called him Moons (he had a big round face like a moon) was top heavy, his body like an upside down pear. Being big, you would think he would be a bully. But it wasn’t that simple. Kids smaller than him, or even about the same size, kept away from him, because he did look large, and he acted like he wasn’t scared of anything. Always boasting how good a fighter he was, and telling stories of the last kid he had beaten up. No matter that nobody had ever seen him beat up anyone.

One day, down in the school yard, behind the shelter shed, a friend of mine (no longer a friend) dared me to go up to Moons and call him names, tease him and get him mad and see what he would do.

“Go on, betcha can’t. Too scared,” taunted my friend.

“If you’re so smart, why don’t you do it?” I say, feeling smart.

Other kids gathered around. “Scaredy-cat! Scaredy-cat,” they chanted.

I looked over at Moons who was hacking away at the shelter shed trying to carve his name in the wood frame. “Hey Moons, you’ll get into trouble doing that!” I cry.

“So you gunna stop me?” He mutters with a big grin, his face more like a moon than you could imagine.

My friend nudged me, and the other kids pushed him into me. “Go on, I bet you can’t,” chided my friend. “Anyway, if he goes for you, we’ll all join hands and keep him off you.”

I took one step towards Moons. “You better stop doing that, or I’ll report you, Pieface.”

Moons stopped his carving. “Whatdja call me?”

“You heard. Pieface,” I said cheekily.

“You wanna get bashed up?” Moons now took a couple of steps towards me, his pocket knife clenched in his hand. This scared the shit out of me. But it was too late to step back, the bunch of kids behind me pushed me forward and I almost fell against Moons who now stood like a rock, his big tummy poking me in the chest.

I’m not quite sure what happened next. The bunch of kids behind me, and my friend, so called, pushed me a little off balance and I fell forward, my right leg stretched out, one big step behind Moons’s thin legs, and my right arm thrust forward, thinking that I would save myself from falling down. Instead, it had the effect of banging Moons on the chest just as my leg hit against the back of his legs. You guessed it! It was the classic trip they teach you in self-defense school. Anyway, his top heavy body simply fell backwards over my leg and down he went with a plop!

All the other kids gasped as one. Here I was, the littlest kid in the grade, just dropped the biggest. Now they all gathered around in a circle and chanted, “go on! Do it Again! Doo - it! Doo - it!”

Moons got up, with some difficulty, because his body was so heavy and his legs long and thin. Yet, to my amazement, he showed no signs of anger, just grinned and patted himself down, brushing away the red dust of the playground. And I then understood that he wasn’t a bully at all, not like we all reckoned just because he was so big. He just looked at me silly-like. And I stepped up and this time I put my leg out behind his, and with my left arm this time gave him a sharp push backwards over my leg, and tripped him again. Down he went, amidst the cheers of the other kids. I looked around at them and they were all looking at Moons, not me.

Then they taunted Moons. “Get up ya fat shit!” And every¬one laughed, calling yet again for him to subject himself to humiliation.

And he did. And now we became an act. He stood up, and I tripped him, and we did it over and over until the bell rang and we all ran into class.

The next day, during morning recess, all the kids ran down behind the shelter shed and egged us on, and Moons just stood there, a big grin on his face. The circle of kids formed around us and I walked up to Moons, enjoying the chanting of the kids, “trip him! Trip him!”

But it didn’t feel right. And besides he was much bigger than me, so why didn’t he just push me away or even fall on top of me? If he did that it would squash me to death! So I looked up at him and he looked down at me, already preparing himself for the fall. I wanted to walk away, but the kids around us were jeering and swearing. How long could this go on until Moons flattened me? And if I walked away, what then? Would the kids start calling me names? Like Coward! Yella-belly!

I looked up into Moons’s eyes, they were each about as big as my face, I reckoned. He did seem to be enjoying all this attention, even though the crowd’s fun was at his expense. What if I pushed him down really hard and he hurt himself? Would they change things? Maybe he would get mad and flatten me? And what would the other kids say? “Do it again?” Surely they wouldn’t want to see him get hurt?

We got ready, my leg behind his, my arm forward of his chest. I tried to whisper to him from where my face was level with his tuberous chest. “This is the last one. I’m not doing this anymore. Sorry!” I whispered.

Down he went, and as he went down, I just walked away, pushing gently past my friend. I did not wait for them to call me back. I just kept walking fast towards the classroom, and was fortunately saved by the bell for classes to begin.

I ran home from school that day, avoiding any of the other kids. And I did not sleep that night, imagining how I would be made fun of the next day for walking away and not standing up to fat Moons.

But I had lost sleep over nothing. The next day it was as though the whole thing had not happened, and my friend did not even mention any of it. Moons did come up to me and ask if I wanted to play, and I said, no thanks, though I then wondered whether he wasn’t really meaning that I should knock him over again to the crowd’s enjoyment, but simply to play with him and be his friend.

Moral: The pleasure of a crowd is always at the expense of others

© Copyright 2021, Harrow and Heston Publishers, for Colin Heston.

Size Matters

The vengeful machinations of a small boy.

The school bus stopped a few houses away from Tich’s house. It was the third week back at school, and there were new kids on the bus, one of them who already had a nickname. Steamer, it was. A name that expressed his looks, a round, roly-poly figure, big and heavy like a steamroller. He was easily twice the size of Tich, and pretty much his opposite. Tich was small for his age (hence his nickname), thin and runt-like, the nostrils of his nose showing from beneath a flattened nose, not unlike a pig’s. Thank¬fully, though, the kids did not call him “piggy,” a name that would be far worse than Tich. For his part, Steamer lumbered along as though he were pushing against a mountain of sand, his wide stumpy legs forcing his body to turn with each step. He ran with difficulty, gravity holding him upright, his arms pulling at the air as though he were swimming.

They stepped down from the bus and immediately Tich ran forward, but Steamer held him back, his big round face, eyes almost closed shut from his enormously fat cheeks, grinning with glee. “No you don’t!” he warned.

“Let go of me!” cried Tich, trying to twist his arm out of Steamer’s vice-like grip.

Three weeks earlier.

Now in grade 8, the new school year had got off to a rocky start for Tich, all because of the school bus, actually, not the bus, but the presence of the new kid, Steamer. At first he had almost liked him, because he seemed to be a jovial kid, his being fat and all, and laughing all the time, even when there was nothing to laugh at. So on that first day, when Steamer grabbed him as soon as they got off the bus and started pulling him along, laughing and calling out, “you’re with me! You’re with me! Let’s have fun! Let’s have fun!” Tich took it all in good humor, going along with it, not trying to twist his way free, allowing himself to be dragged along the street. But then, when they came to his house, Steamer did not let go, and pulled him along, his grip tightening until it hurt.

“Let go of me!”’ cried Tich, “this is my house!”

“Come on! We’re going to my house! Friends are friends!” laughed Steamer.

And so it went. Every day, they got off the bus, Steamer grabbed Tich, and dragged him past his house all the way to his own house, almost a block away. Tich even tried pretending he was happy to go along and then hope that Steamer would let go of him, but he never did. Steamer thought this was great fun. Tich had become his compliant slave.

Tich’s dad was away at work every day until quite late. He had a well-equipped work bench in a shed at the back of his garage, and it was there that Tich hoped to find a solution. His mum was pleased that he was working away there and never asked what he was doing. It was enough for her that he was occupied and not whining or complaining that he had nothing to do. His first idea was to make a ring with a spike sticking out that he could plunge into Steamer when he grabbed him. He had found an old ring, a key ring maybe, to which he tried to affix an old gramophone needle. But it proved impossible, with no way to make the spike stay firm, and besides the electrical tape he found, stretched and did not do the job.

He then sneaked a knife from the kitchen, but this would not do either. It was a regular bread and butter knife, with a curved end, so it would not be easy to jab it into Steamer’s fat hand, or anywhere on his body for that matter. And he could not take the carving knife, because that would be noticed immediately, and besides, how could he hide it in his school bag, and what if he were caught with it. No, that would not do either.

There were containers of nails, but Tich could not think of any way to use them to advantage. He did bang some nails through a thin piece of wood, but then the problem still remained, how could he explain the weapon, if a teacher found it in his bag, and probably worse, Steamer would quickly spy it in his bag anyway, and then he could imagine Steamer taking it off him and using it against him. Frustrated, he threw down the hammer and nails and retreated to the front of the house, and stood out front, bouncing a tennis ball on the newly laid concrete footpath. This he always enjoyed when he got fed up, especially as there were millions of ants scurrying about and he could aim his bouncing ball to kill as many of them as he could, though there seemed to be an endless supply of them. And there, slowly, each evening in the twilight, a solution to his problem came to him.

Today.

The bus slowly passed the line of modest houses of the new suburb of Norlane, most of them “commission” houses, public housing that is, and drew to a stop at the corner of Melbourne and Sparks roads. Steamer with his big grin and fat cheeks, positioned himself on the step at the bus’s door. Tich positioned himself behind a couple of other kids, one of them a girl, and managed to slip out without Steamer grabbing him. He ran a little forward, looking back to see whether Steamer would chase him. And chase him Steamer did.

Now, Steamer, for all his weight, was not that strong a runner, but nevertheless, because he was twice Tich’s size, could probably catch him in a short run, so long as Tich did not run out of breath, and so long as Tich could quickly put on a spurt at the start. So on this day he got a little ahead of him, seeing that Steamer was set to catch him up. He looked back and cried, taunted really, “Ha! Ha! You can’t catch me!” and ran as fast as he could, making sure he was just out of reach.

Now came the coup de grâce.

It was difficult for Tich to keep up a fast pace, at the same time looking back to see exactly where Steamer was. It was essential that they both were at their peak speeds. Timing was the essence. A miscalculation and Tich would be beaten to a pulp, or at least that was what he imagined. And now, Steamer was prac¬tically on top of him, Tich running as fast as he could. He took a quick glimpse back over his shoulder, then suddenly bobbed down, crouching into a ball, ducking his head into his arms, squatting head down on to the concrete footpath, feeling its hardness on his knuckles that shielded his face and head.

He felt a slight bump at his back, but nothing else. Then a scream and thump as Steamer sailed over Tich’s crouching body, and fell straight ahead of him, arms sprawled out, unable to protect his landing, his fat face banging into the concrete, his legs kicking well past Tich, his knees deeply grazed by the rough concrete surface.

Tich rose up, and looked down at the prostrate body of his nemesis. “It serves you right! Leave me alone!” he cried, with some satisfaction, but mixed with fear, fear that Steamer might lose his temper and really come after him. He stood briefly looking down at Steamer, a moment that would remain with him forever. There sat Steamer examining his cuts and bruises, feeling the blood run down his face from a horrible graze on his forehead.

“You’ll pay for this!!” growled Steamer. “You just wait!”

Tich rushed home, not looking back.

The next day, Tich tried to fake an illness so he wouldn’t have to go to school and face up to Steamer. But his mum would have nothing of it. So he was prepared for the worst. Well, not really prepared. He had not thought much of what might happen after he pulled off his stunt. He had hardly slept last night, so pleased he was and excited that his solution had really done the trick. But now, what if Steamer came after him like he was sure he would. And although he only had time to glimpse the result of his handy work, it looked as though Steamer was pretty banged up.

On that day, he looked out for Steamer at school and on the bus coming home. But Steamer was not on the school bus, not for a whole week. And the day he showed up, Tich pursed his lips, looked with some fear at the scars on his face and elbows and knees, trying to hide his satisfaction. He was about to say he was sorry. But Steamer didn’t look at him. They got off the bus together, and Tich expected he worst. But it did not come. Steamer never mentioned it, and they rarely spoke to each other. Each walked at their own pace, several steps apart, to their own house, Tich hanging back, preferring to follow rather than lead.

Moral: Courage, though foolish, is the counter of tyranny.

© Copyright 2021, Harrow and Heston Publishers, for Colin Heston.

Cleanliness

A child is punished for swearing.

In his classic, Mirage of Health, Renes Dubois convincingly demonstrated how the greatest gift of western civilization to humanity was cleanliness. It was not so much the great scientific discoveries of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the discovery of penicillin, of anesthetics, vaccinations and so on, but rather the improvements of public health facilities: the engineering feats of sewerage systems, piping and storage of fresh water, the routine use of soaps, detergents and habits of cleanliness to keep bodies and living spaces clean. From all these great accomplishments of civilization, so came the modern epithet, “cleanliness if next to Godliness.” To this day, parts of the world that do not have modern public health systems—crowded towns and cities where people live amongst open sewers and so on—are at much greater risk from “natural disasters,” whether of plagues, floods, or earthquakes. If the basic infrastructure ordained by western civilizations—standards of public health, safe building regu­lations, urban planning, roads and bridges and so on—is not available or has not been built, then the health and safety of everyday life is constantly at risk. 

It is against these circumstances of everyday life that most those who live in societies that have been touched by western civilization (probably nine-tenths of the world where even the remotest places have been reached by imperialism of one kind of another) that this story takes hold. Though before we can begin, we must also acknowledge that a basic tool of cleanliness of western civilization, the knife and fork, adds a serious dimension to health and safety, as do other eating implements such as chop sticks, and certainly discriminates against those societies whose eating habits do not conform to the western rule of cleanliness; that is the skill of eating stews and mushy meals with one’s fingers and various breads that take over the function of a fork or spoon. Washing one’s hands before and after eating thus becomes an essential rule of health. And in an era of pandemics as has overtaken us in the 21st century, the washing of hands has become a prime focus of cleanliness and defense against health disasters.

There are, however, other kinds of cleanliness that have become a constant companion to hand washing in many civilized societies. Such is the focus of this story.

 Thomas Randolph was the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Randolph who inhabited a prim little house at 36 Pakington Street, Geelong West. Mr. Randolph worked at Donaghy’s rope factory as a foreman and rode his bike there and back each day, his lunch carefully made by Mrs. Randolph, and packed in a small tin container that was strapped on to the back of the bike. Thomas attended Geelong West primary school, a red brick schoolhouse, the schoolyard completely covered over with bitumen, a city school typical of those in cities and towns of Victoria in 1950s Australia. 

On this Sunday morning, a morning that would remain fixed in Thomas’s memory for the rest of his life, Thomas sat at the kitchen table eating his Rice Bubbles. A robust ten years old, just finishing sixth grade, he was more than ready to go off to Geelong High School next year. His mum hovered above him, watching his every move. Thomas for his part was doing what he did every Sunday morning, slurping every spoonful, trying to delay as much as possible, hoping that just maybe one Sunday he would not have to go to Sunday school. He reached across the table for the bottle of milk, but his mum grabbed his arm and said, “now that’s enough milk, young man. Hurry on now or you’ll be late for Sunday school.” Annoyed, he pulled his arm away and to his and his Mum’s horror, he knocked over the milk bottle and milk poured out all over the well-scrubbed table and started to drip off the edge on to his pants. Thomas pushed back his chair and cried out, “shit Mum! Look what you made me do!” He gulped and his cheeks went all red.

Mrs. Randolph stood back in horror, her hand to her mouth. “Thomas! How dare you speak to me like that! How dare you!” She ran out of the kitchen and called for her husband who was working in his old shed. There was no answer, so she ran out to the shed to convey the terrible news. 

Mr. Randolph emerged from his shed. “What’s the matter?” he sighed. 

“It’s Thomas! He swore at me!”

“Well, it’s only to be expected.”

“What do you mean by that?” cried Mrs. Randolph.

Mr. Randolph coughed nervously. “You know what I mean. He’s growing up. Going to high school next year, you know. It’s only to be expected.”

“Not in my house! Speak to him! I won’t have a child in my kitchen who talks like that!”

Mr. Randolph sighed again. “All right. I’ll speak to him.” He turned to go back in his shed.

“Now! Talk to him now! He can’t go off the Sunday school talking like that!”

“All right! All right!” Mr. Randolph emerged from the shed again, this time wiping his hands on an old oily rag. He had been working on the car.

 Thomas stood at the table, wiping it down with a washcloth. There were a few streaks of milk on his good school pants that his mother insisted he wear to Sunday school. He edged back to the corner of the kitchen, getting ready for, he knew not what. The word had just slipped out. He didn’t mean it, of course. Who knows what his father would do to him. He expected a belting, though he had never been smacked before, as far as he could remember. Maybe he would get to stay home from Sunday school. That wouldn’t be too bad.

Mr. Randolph walked straight through the kitchen to the bathroom to wash his hands, without looking at his wayward son. Thomas looked down. He was on the verge of crying, but tried very hard not to. He was too old to cry. His mother stood at the table scrubbing it with a scrubbing brush. There were tears in her eyes. She wasn’t too old to cry. He heard the tap run, then silence. And finally, his father emerged from the bathroom, a dripping bar of Palmolive soap in his hand. 

“Take this!!” ordered Mr. Randolph.

“It’s all wet and slimy!” complained Thomas.

“Take it or else!” threatened his dad.

“What’s it for anyway? I didn’t do nothing!” 

“You swore at your mother!”

“I didn’t! I mean. I didn’t mean to. It just slipped out.”

“You used a dirty word, Thomas,” said his mother, trying to calm things down.

Mr. Randolph stepped towards his son, grabbed his hand and forced the slimy bar of Palmolive into it. “You have a filthy mouth,” he said, “so now you must wash it out with soap and water.”

“But dad!”

“No buts!”

Mr. Randolph grabbed Thomas’s hand and the Palmolive soap and pushed it into his mouth. Thomas clenched his mouth shut. The soap hit his lips and hurt them.

“Don’t! You’re hurting me!” he cried.

Mr. Randolph had gone as far as he could. He pushed Thomas ahead of him and guided him into the bathroom. “Wash your mouth out with soap and water and don’t come out until it’s done.” He gave him a little shove, then quickly retreated out the bathroom and pulled the door shut.

“He won’t do it, will he?” asked Mrs. Randolph.

“Probably not. But he’s learnt his lesson.”

Mr. Randolph went back to his shed. Mrs. Randolph finished cleaning up the spilled milk from the table and the floor. She looked at the kitchen clock. Time to put in the roast to cook while they were all at church. Thomas would miss Sunday school this morning. The first time in many years.

Moral: A perfect punishment reflects the crime it punishes. 

© Copyright 2021, Harrow and Heston Publishers, for Colin Heston

Imperial Blunder

A famous cricketer breaks the rules, with dire consequences.

There was once a famous cricketer, Peter Vigna was his name, a batsman better even than Donald Bradman or Virat Kholi. At a very young age he was selected to open batting for the Australian Test side, and routinely made a century or two in each innings. It was not long before he was chosen as captain of the Australian cricket team in the great test matches that were the pinnacle of this imperial sport. But on February 21, 2019 there occurred an event at the Melbourne Cricket Ground that will go down in history as a huge turning point in the story of Western Civiliz¬ation, and brought into stark relief just how important had been the imperial reach of Great British Culture in Australia and all former and current British colonies in every corner of the globe.

For those readers who do not have a background or did not grow up in a country where this imperial sport reigned, here is a very brief sketch of the classic qualities of cricket, that is to say, its sacred rules. Without this knowledge, it would be very difficult, if not impossible to appreciate the significance of that event in 2019, and the shattering aftershocks that followed it.

In general terms, one must understand that the game of cricket represents all that is good in an ordered society, especially one that has received it from its founding country, England, now part of the United Kingdom. In the heady days of imperialism, English and European countries expanded their reach to many countries around the world, driven initially by the search for riches. And in return for the riches they reaped, they gave those countries the essential elements of a civilized society, none better than the game of cricket.

Cricket is a game in which detailed rules are sacrosanct, demanding unquestioning respect for the order of the game, which, in the great test matches that last for up to five days, is supreme. The pitch is 20.12 meters long and 3.05 meters wide. At each end is a set of three stumps (three thin poles hammered into the ground spanning 22.86 cm wide). Or, to put it in simpler language before Napoleon imposed the metric system on Europe, the pitch is 22 yards long by 10 feet wide. The bowling crease (where the bowler’s leading foot must not step over when he releases the ball) is five feet from the stumps at either end. The pitch is composed of carefully crafted tough turf, rolled down very hard.

The bowler is strictly limited to bowling the ball “over-arm” but he must not bend his elbow when tossing the ball. Throwing the ball like in baseball would be a foul and definitely cause for one of the two umpires at each end to discipline the bowler. The batter at the other end of the pitch has to hit the ball with his specially crafted wooden bat (usually a particular type of willow) that has a round narrow handle and a broad flat area for hitting the ball. The basic idea is for the bowler to bowl the ball and the batter to hit the ball away so that it does not hit the stumps, in which case he is called “out.” There are eleven players on each team. Like in baseball, there are innings, in a test match two for each side. There are two batters batting at a time, one at each end. The bowler gets to bowl an “over” of six balls, then another bowler in his team bowls the next over. When all batsmen are called “out,” the innings is over and the opposing side takes up the bat. The batsman strikes the ball and the batters then decide whether to run or not. If the ball goes far, they run to each end (1 run) and back (2 runs) and must make it to their respective creases before the fielders (all 11 of them) throw the ball to hit the stumps before the batter at either end makes it back. In this case he would be “out” and another batter come in. A batter may also be called “out” if the ball he hits is caught by a fielder before the ball has hit the ground. There are a myriad of other situations in which a batsman may be called out or make runs, but these are the basics and hopefully they give a reasonable picture of this game of rules.

In this story, however, we are concerned with one rule that applies to the ball, the composition and surface of which are crucial to the game. The ball is traditionally made of a cork core, bound tightly by string and covered by a red leather case with a slightly raised seam where the two halves of the cover are sewn together. The spin and swing of the ball can be managed by the bowler, but the surface of the ball, especially the seam, can affect its behavior considerably. There are therefore very strict rules as to what players may do to the surface of the ball. They may polish it on their clothes after each ball, but they may not pick at it in any way. Those who know baseball may wonder about this. In general, the idea of cricket is for the bowler to bowl a ball that bounces first before the batsman hits it. Thus, the extent to which the ball may both swing and bounce at an angle not expected by the batter is the crux of the game. If the ball is tampered with, its bounce can become less predictable by the batter.

Peter Vigna was a boy who grew up very quickly, mainly because of his natural talent with a bat. From the very first day he played cricket on the sand at Torquay (the one in Australia, not England), at the age of 3 or 4 or 5 (the pundits never got it quite right; it was as if he were born with a cricket ball in his mouth), his future as a world star of cricket was cast. Otherwise he had a normal upbringing. His mum and dad doted on him, gave him every opportunity to play cricket with bat and ball, but from the very start, it was the bat that he took to. The ball was simply a means to the bat. His father, a quiet man devoted to his family, taught mathematics at the local high school, and his mother was a recent immigrant from England. So it was an easy choice that, once his talent became obvious, he eventually went to England to play club cricket at the tender age of seventeen. And it was inevitable that one day he would be selected for the Australian Test team, and that happened in 2012, selected as a bowler, of all things (very important to our story, though). But his batting soon caught the eye of selectors as he made century after century. They loved him, and he soon took over as captain of team Australia. What more could a young and talented man want?

The answer is simple. He wanted to win, for that is what drives all those who play team sports, or any competitive sport for that matter. Ask them why they do it, what drives them. And they all answer without any hesitation: “I love to win, and I really hate to lose.” This is commonly said with a deep emotional thrust. Would they do anything to win? By this one means, would they break the rules to gain an advantage over their opponent? Or maybe not exactly break the rules, but bend them a little? To do that, though would not be playing fair. The drug scandals in the Olympic games, and many if not all international sports (bicycle racing for example), are legion. But it is not just drugs. Consider what young gymnasts will do to their growing bodies in order to win. For such talented people, winning drives them with the same power as does any human instinct.

So now, we already understand why Peter Vigna was all set up to win at any cost. All it needs is the temptation and oppor¬tunity. One might say that cheating is an occupational hazard for highly talented athletes.

There is a difference between cricket and other sports. Cricket has a grand and sacred history. And to repeat, English history. And to repeat again, imperial history. It is a game that was transported to all of the colonies of then Great Britain. All those countries (or nearly all, at least the most progressive of all) that were colonized by once Great Britain continued to play the game even after they were decolonized or gained a measure of independence. (There are some inexplicable exceptions, Canada being one of them, but we can put that down to its degradation by its neighbor, the United States.) If you doubt this assessment, just consider that, when Australia’s Test Cricket team captain Steve Smith and his collaborators were accused of ball tampering, none other than the Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbul publicly denounced the cheating and demanded that something be done.

It was ball tampering in which Peter Vigna was involved. As captain of the Australian Test side against India in 2019, he was caught on camera along with a couple of his colleagues, rubbing the surface of the ball or picking at the seam with his fingernails that had been strengthened by a secret substance, or possibly attachment, that made them as sharp as a knife’s edge. The investigation never did determine how the scratches to the surface of the ball and slight roughing of the seam were achieved. In fact, similar to the case of the notorious Bancroft scandal of 2018, the umpires did not detect any unusual scratches or damage to the ball, and did not prescribe the penalty of five runs against the offending team, as was their prerogative. Nevertheless, vigilant commentators examined and re-examined video of Vigna rubbing and scratching the ball in ways that looked like he was trying to scratch the surface, against the rules of cricket, accord¬ing to these ever vigilant commentators, some of whom, of course, were themselves former cricket heroes.

The public outcry, more accurately the media frenzy, over the sin of Vigna’s alleged violation of the rules, led to an inquiry by Cricket Australia and threats from various politicians that the Australian Government had a duty to step in and regulate the sport. But the search for Vigna’s collaborators under way for almost two years, found none. And it is now claimed that the collaborators will never be found because of a code of silence that has arisen within cricket teams around the world, a lesson learned from the Steve Smith scandal. In any event, Vigna was fined one year’s salary (a few million dollars), demoted from the captaincy forever, and barred from playing top class cricket for two years. Further, he had to admit his wrongdoing in public on Australia’s national radio and television the ABC, and to apologize to the nation for his wrongdoing. They wanted to call it “sin” but the government communications specialists thought that such language would violate the separation of church and state, a fiction in Australia, copied from the USA.

And so it happened. At the opening of the first Test match between Australia and England on December 26, 2021, both sides assembled as though they were to remember a famous colleague who had died. The teams lined up in two columns starting at the entrance. Vigna entered the oval and walked as though through a gauntlet. The crowd erupted in boos and hisses and many yelled awful derogatory remarks, some of them racist. Facing the stand that contained all the media people and the officials of the Cricket Australia Board, Vigna dropped to his knees, clenching his hands together in front of his breast. Cricket Australia had given strong instructions to the camera operator and his director to do as many close-ups of Vigna’s face as possible, especially when he cried, which Vigna, after some arm-twisting, had promised to do.

This is what he said, in a clear, shaky voice, a special micro¬phone set up to catch even the tiniest of whimpers:

“To the proud people of the Commonwealth of Nations, I express my deepest apologies for bringing our wonderful game of cricket into disrepute. I accept full responsibility for my actions of tampering with the cricket ball at the MCG on February 21, 2019 in the test against India, I made foolish choices and I am ashamed, so ashamed…”

Vigna bowed his head and tears trickled down his face. The media were not pleased with this, as his bowed head hid the tears from the cameras. The director tried to signal to Vigna to hold up his head, but as it happened, this was not necessary. Suddenly, Vigna raised both hands and lifted his head, his eyes wide, staring at the dark clouds above. Still on his knees he cried:

“I ask forgiveness! I have given my life to cricket, and will not be able to live with myself ever again! I am so sorry, so sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry for breaking the sacred rules of cricket in such a careless manner! Please, I beg you, accept my deepest heart-felt apologies for this cricket crime of the century!”

The crowd once more erupted into boos and hisses. The camera quickly drew back from his face and scanned the crowd. It had turned into a huge angry mob, fists shaking, mouths twisted in hatred and disgust. This was a media sensation. Many millions, perhaps billions around the world witnessed this drama. And after the noise of the crowd died away, Vigna stood up slowly, and bowed to the crowd all around the stadium. His team mates, even the English took small steps toward him and then a few patted him on the back, trying to console him. He withdrew to the stand along with his team. He would not be opening as he used to. But he would be batting. Australia was to bat first. And Australia won that test match, Vigna making a total of 265 runs, over both innings. In fact, without his performance, Australia would have lost. The Cricket Board was jubilant. Vigna received many accolades. But it was not to last.

The media was not finished with Vigna yet. In the match reviews, various cricket greats from the past, some of them media personalities themselves, were brought before the public and asked what they thought of Vigna’s return and especially his apology. There were mixed reactions. Of course, his fantastic batting could not be criticized. He was no doubt a genius of a batter. But a number of former captains and others expressed some concern that what Vigna had done was irreparable. He had besmirched the entire game. “Was there nothing he could do to repair that?” asked the media pundits. The answer seemed to be “no” and some insisted that the punishment was not severe enough. Though others, usually those not as old as the former greats, mused that maybe the punishment was too severe, especially as the umpires had not penalized Vigna’s team when the offense was reported to them, and no damage could be discerned to the ball that might have affected the outcome of the game in any way.

The Australian Cricket Board was well aware of these views. Indeed, some members of the board thought that there should have been no punishment except a reprimand. But the chair of the board, Sir Douglas Pinster was adamant. The very basis of the game had been insulted and broken. Besides even the Prime Minister had expressed his concern on behalf of Australia. And the Queen woke from her afternoon nap and gave a brief public address to express her concern to all her subjects.

The saga might have ended there, the media growing tired of it, always looking for something new, except that Australia almost lost the second Test Match, even though Vigna once again performed in a way that showed just what a talented and gifted player he was. He even made two fabulous catches that, combined with another two centuries, clearly demonstrated to the Board that he was an essential player to the team. Without him, the team would lose. And to lose to England was always the height of humiliation.

We have said very little about the coach. Let us just say that he was a kind of amateur psychologist, like most coaches of team sports in the 21st century. Of course he was a former test cricketer, an outstanding wicket keeper (the “catcher” who stands behind the wicket and fields the fast balls as they whiz by the batter). His name was Clive Brown and he was an incessant talker, again like most coaches. Almost all his conversations with the players were in the form of speeches derived from his notes taken in coach’s class to which the Cricket Board demanded all coaching staff attend. But on what was about to occur he had no quick speech. He was dumbfounded at the insolence and sheer disregard for others, lack of respect for him, the coach. Yet that was not at all what Vigna intended. He simply wanted to be made whole again. He wanted true forgiveness for which he had groveled and pleaded in his public apology.

“Coach, can I have a quiet word?” asked Vigna after he stepped away from the practice net, bat still in hand.

Coach Brown, a short thin fellow, raised his head and looked him in the eye. “Of course. I am always available for any concerns or suggestions you may have,” he answered with a big, patron¬izing smile.

“Coach that’s always good to hear. I have been thinking about this since the day of my apology.”

“Thinking? About what? I hope you have not been worrying or brooding. That’s not good for one’s mental health, you know. It can affect your game too.”

“Yes and no. It hasn’t affected me so far, has it?”

“That’s for sure. But it’s still important to be mindful of the dangers of too much thinking,” advised coach Brown.

Vigna, not quite sure what the coach meant by the word “thinking” shifted on his feet and swallowed a little saliva. There was a brief silence, while the coach looked him up and down, a frown appearing, but then a big smile as well. This was enough encouragement for Vigna to continue. “I want to be captain again,” he said.

Coach Brown’s jaw dropped and the frown appeared again. His tongue made a nervous little dart out of his mouth and back again. “That’s not going to happen,” he said quietly, always like that when he said no to something his players wanted.

“Wait, I haven’t finished what I wanted to say,” Vigna quickly replied.

“The answer’s still no. You heard the crowd. You copped the Cricket Board demand for punishment. Leave it alone, or it will get worse.”

“But I did a full apology and I really meant it. And I asked for forgiveness. Isn’t that enough? Shouldn’t the punishment be ended?”

“Don’t! Don’t do this. You will only harm yourself. It’s the whole game that needs to be rehabilitated, not just you.” Coach was getting upon his high horse.

“And you’re doing it through me,” muttered Vigna.

“I suppose so, in a way. But you brought it all on yourself. You shouldn’t have broken the rules. I thought you understood that,” lectured the coach.

“I do. I do. Believe me I do. That’s why I have another request to make, actually it’s another way of asking for the captaincy back.”

The coach looked around to see if anyone else was listening. Probably not. He leaned in closer to Vigna. He wasn’t a bad fellow really. He felt sorry for him, but the Board had spoken. And there was the fact that no actual damage had been done to the ball and the umpires never announced a penalty during the match. “What is it then? If reasonable I will go back to the Board. But I can tell you. They’re going to say no.”

“My public apology I now know was not enough. But I truly want to be forgiven so I can start my life over. The only way I can see that I will be forgiven is to be punished really and truly in public, before the crowd in the stadium.”

“But we already did that. You did a great job. The media loved it.”

“Please coach. I don’t want to suffer for the rest of my life with this burden of my apology not being accepted.” Vigna wanted to grab his coach and give him a good shake. Of course he held back.

But the coach said, resisting the urge to put his arm around him, “there’s nothing else you can do. You have to accept your guilt. I can arrange counseling, if you wish, to help you overcome it all,”.

Immediately Vigna blurted it out. “I want to be whipped in public in the Melbourne Cricket Ground.”

“What? This is no joking matter!” exclaimed the coach.

“It’s no joke. I really mean it. Twenty lashes, more if they like. It’s that, or I quit right now and the team will have to do without me.”

Rarely lost for words, Coach Brown stepped back speechless. Vigna continued:

“And I want to be whipped by one of the media personalities of past cricket fame. Preferably a fast bowler who will have a big swinging arm and will be able to lay on the strokes.”

“You’re mad!” cried Coach Brown.

“Maybe. But I am convinced it’s my only way to get back my life. Surely if the fans see me actually get punished, they will accept my apology. It’s the only convincing way I can think of that shows absolutely that I have been punished, paid for my sins, and with every scream in pain as each stroke is laid on, that will be enough surely to show that I am so sorry for what I did.”

“I can’t go to the Board with this crazy request. I’ll be a laughing stock, and they will probably fire me.”

“Are you not prepared to take that risk? It will save the team from a big loss. I will quit, I tell you. I will quit if they will not do this. I want my life back at any cost.”

Coach Brown called for an emergency session of the board. Sir Douglas was outraged to be called away from his annual coastal retreat and golf week. But coach did not want to go down in cricket history as having lost a test match to the pommies (English) by such a big margin, which is what would happen. And just in case, he brought Peter Vigna with him. They met in the MCG legends room, a huge room that looked like any modern hotel dining room, big round tables covered with blindingly white table cloths, a massive bar running all the way down one side, and on the other side facing the oval, huge windows giving a view of the entre pitch. But today, Sir Douglas had the curtains drawn across the windows. The lights were turned down, he wanted a somber atmosphere, no hint of celebrity. And no beer or anything else alcoholic. Just jugs of water spaced out around the table and glasses in each place. There were ten of them, representing the executive board. There was no need for a full board to meet on such a trivial matter as a disciplinary action. The board took their seats, leaving two vacant directly opposite Sir Douglas. Coach Brown took his, but Vigna held back. Coach tugged at his sleeve. They were both dressed in their Melbourne Cricket Club blazers of course.

Sir Douglas coughed loudly to bring the members to order. “I hereby announce the opening of a special session of the executive board of the Melbourne Cricket Club,” he said.

There was a muffled noise of chairs being pulled into place. The large table seated twelve. However, immediately, there was a problem because Vigna refused to sit and insisted on standing behind the chair next to Coach Brown.

“Take your seat, young man,” harrumphed Sir Douglas.

“I don’t deserve to sit at the table with you illustrious gentle¬men,” mumbled Vigna, head bowed.

Coach pulled at his blazer sleeve. “Sit down you silly bugger,” he whispered.

Vigna stepped back, head still bowed.

Sir Douglas coughed yet again and looked around the table. “All right then. Let’s get down to business. Coach Brown, please explain the problem. We thought we had already dealt quickly and fairly with this embarrassing matter.”

“Sir Douglas and honorable members, I am honored to speak to you today. Peter Vigna, who is our only hope of winning this test series against England, has requested that he be allowed to be made whole again.”

“Made what?” asked Sir Douglas in consternation. The rest of the board wriggled in their seats, signaling their agreement.

“Made whole. He feels that his life has been ruined and that even though he has been punished for his offenses, and has publicly apologized for them, he has not been forgiven, people still boo and hiss at him when he comes onto the field.”

Sir Douglas sat back in his chair and twiddled the pointy end of his mustache. “Coach Brown, what more can we do? Besides, if the fans will not forgive him, that’s up to them, don’t you think? We have done our part. We punished him fairly and reasonably.”

Vigna looked up and took a step to stand against his chair. “That’s just it, sir,” said Vigna raising his voice, I need to be punished more, so they, and you too,” he looked around the table, “will be convinced that I really am sorry for what I did.”

“More? What else can we do? Stop you from playing forever? We could do that…”

Coach Brown interrupted, “but it would have dire conse¬quences for our team, not to mention destroy Peter’s life.”

Leaning on the back of his chair, Vigna blurted out, “I want to be publicly whipped! Whipped till I cry, only that will convince the fans that I’m sorry. Only that will convince all of you that I have paid for my sins and can become captain again. Made whole.”

The board members stirred in their chairs and muttered to each other.

“You are joking or course,” said Sir Douglas with a frown, trying to keep a straight face.

“He’s not joking, Sir Douglas, he’s dead serious,” put in the Coach.

At that moment the door opened behind them and a tall man entered the room, perfectly groomed, carefully shaven face and clipped hair. He looked like he had makeup on. It was none other than Ian Church, the all-time cricket great, Australian legendary spin bowler who bowled out the entire English side in the final Test match against England in the 1974 series for just 36 runs. He was now a media favourite and commentator. He was also followed by another individual, rather over weight, a full head of hair, a short, heavy set young man of around forty. His presence made everyone stir, especially Peter Vigna. For he was Fred Cousins, Vigna’s agent.

The two men, looking a bit like Laurel and Hardy, stood behind Vigna. Coach Brown didn’t like anyone standing behind him, so he stood and offered his seat to Church, who gratefully took it. Fred the agent, started to walk around the table, one hand in his pocket jiggling his phone.

“This is most irregular,” complained Sir Douglas.

Cousins, always the agent, took over. “I demand that you restore Peter’s full privileges and status as a member of the cricket team of this important series, and appoint him back to his rightful place of Captain. Furthermore, since he committed no specific offense that actually affected the game as it played out—the ball was not damaged—you must declare him innocent.”

The board erupted with angry complaints and epithets. Exactly what Cousins wanted of course.

“If I may?” asked Vigna. “I want to be publicly whipped, enough to make me feel the pain of the accusations against me. I accept the guilt. I want to be rid of it. I want all the fans to see me suffer.”

“But you have already suffered,” insisted Sir Douglas.

“Obviously, it’s not enough,” interjected Church. “What is needed is a public spectacle. I suggest that he be stripped naked and receive twenty lashes in front of a full crowd in the middle of the pitch at the Melbourne Cricket Ground!”

“That’s OK with me,” said Vigna, his head bowed once again.

Cousins the agent spoke up. “Ten lashes and nothing more, plus he gets his captaincy back immediately.”

“And TV Channel 7 gets full exclusive rights,” added Church.

Sir Douglas banged the table with his open hand. It stung. “That’s enough. This is beyond the pale of decency. I will not allow such degradation!”

“But it’s exactly what I need,” said Vigna in a soft voice, “don’t you see? It’s the only way I can convincingly pay for what I have done, or am supposed to have done.”

“Now you’re saying that you might be innocent? That you didn’t necessarily do anything wrong?” complained a board member.

“This is disgusting,” cried another.

“We found you guilty,” said yet another.

Church looked around the table. “Not quite,” he said in his golden voice, “the people, the fans, the media found him guilty. They judged him, found him guilty, and now they want his punishment carried out to the fullest extent. Peter Vigna’s life must be restored to him. Only the public can do it.”

“But to whip him naked is barbaric,” said Sir Douglas, pushing back on his chair, then standing up tall, twirling his mustache.

“Eight strokes with a cat-o-nine tails,” countered Church.

“Shocking!” cried another board member.

“A belting on the bare bottom with a one meter ruler,” offered Cousins.

“That would be childish. I want to be whipped!” cried Vigna, now dropping to his knees. “If naked, so be it.”

“But that would be pornographic,” objected yet another board member, blushing as he said it.

Church smiled. “It certainly would,” he said quietly to himself.

Sir Douglas looked around the table. “Order please!” he cried, then sat back in his seat. He beckoned to a bar tender who stood transfixed. “Bring us a few jugs of beer and a whisky for those who want it. This meeting has become too stressful. We need to settle down and talk this over like civilized adults.”

The beer and whisky arrived. Most went for the whisky. Coach Brown allowed himself a beer, but forbade Vigna from having any alcohol at all. Cousins objected, but the coach held firm. Finally, Cousins bargained for a Red Bull. Sir Douglas, accustomed to being in charge, but now no longer was, downed a few more quick whiskies. In fact, media personality Church had taken over. “All those who agree on half a dozen strokes with a leather strap or belt, say aye.” There were a few ayes and a few grunts. “Then the ayes have it,” he proclaimed.

“Naked or not?” asked a board member, blushing.

“Those in favor of naked, say aye,” said Church. More grunts and ayes in response. “Then the ayes have it.

“Full frontal or not?” asked Cousins.

“He will be whipped on the back, so no full frontal. Besides, that would be almost pornographic. Would it not?” said Church, feigning serious concern.

“That depends,” put in Vigna, “doesn’t it?”

“To hell with it, do what you like!” spluttered Sir Douglas who, like Pilate, had washed his hands of the whole business.

“Then let’s say we will leave it up to the discretion of the video director and Peter Vigna himself,” said Church with authority. He then went on to the next question.

“Should Vigna be restrained or not? He is a willing subject, so maybe restraint is not needed?”

The one member of the board who was a doctor raised his hand. “He should be restrained. When the body feels sudden pain the normal reflex is to withdraw and thrash about. If that happened, the strokes of the belt could hit vulnerable parts of the body.”

“How should he be restrained, then?” asked Church.

“On a cross, of course,” said Cousins, half joking.

This was too much for Sir Douglas, a good Christian man. “That is a blasphemy of the worst order!” He licked his mustache and downed another whisky.

“On our Chanel 7 weekly broadcast of the early history of the penal colony in New South Wales, the whipping triangle was used. The subject is lashed to the triangle, hands tied together at the top of the triangle, legs spread apart and tied to the respective bottom corners. All those in agreement?”

More ayes came this time.

“Then the ayes have it,” proclaimed Church.

Now came the most difficult question. Who would wield the belt?

“This is our most difficult decision,” announced Church, sounding more and more like a clergyman.” I suggest that we break up into small groups of three to discuss this issue then come together in, say, fifteen minutes. All agreed?”

Mutters of agreement.

Church continued. “Then look to the right and left of you, those will be your two group partners. Choose one of the other tables to sit at. Please be mindful not to disturb the settings of those tables. We will reconvene in fifteen minutes.”

Of course, Vigna was not included in these discussions. He retired to a corner of this very large spacious room and sat, curled up, hugging his knees to his chest.

Sir Douglas had found himself a stool and sat up at the bar sipping another whisky. He had withdrawn from this disgusting barbarous endeavor. But he was also now rather drunk. And everyone knew that when he got drunk his moods changed suddenly and dramatically, without any warning. He banged his empty whisky glass on the counter and turned to face the barbarians, as he now called them.

“Your attention, bastards!” he call in his feigned Oxford accent. If you must do this, here is what will happen. Listen up!”

The groups dispersed and everyone turned to face this icon of the cricket establishment. Church attempted to reclaim the attention he deserved from the groups he had created. “We’re still deliberating!” he called out in his best commentator voice.

“Excuse the expression, but shut the fuck up!” came Sir Douglas’s reply. He would have his way. His upper lip even stiffened just as it was supposed to. “Here is what will happen. First, the leather belt is not a convincing implement. Looks like a schoolboy thing. It will be a leather whip, cut down into nine thin strips at one end, knots tied in the strips at 10 centimeter intervals. A woven handle. There is one in the museum of Australian slavery. There is also a whipping triangle in that museum.”

Gasps from the board members followed, all taking big sips of their drinks. Sir Douglas continued:

“Second, eleven strokes of the lash will be administered because there are eleven team members. The team will line up in single file at the end of the cricket pitch. At the other end the triangle will be erected over the stumps. bails removed of course. Vigna will be tied to the triangle accordingly. He will be naked except for his cricketer’s helmet to protect him from an errant stroke, and a jock strap for additional protection. The team will form the line in order of their standard batting order. Each member will run up to the triangle, where an umpire will hand him the whip. He will step away and have one practice swing. He will then step forward and lay on the lash as hard as he can, aiming for the back. He will then return the whip to the umpire, run back and the next team member will run forward.”

“I take it I can video all this with any angle I want?” asked Church.

“As you wish,” answered Sir Douglas.

“And I will be there with the umpire, with a hot mike, allowed to speak to any of the participants, including Vigna?” persisted Church.

Cousins interrupted. “Wait a minute! What if my client cries out in pain, or uses an expletive?”

“That will all be caught on live TV,” answered Church with much satisfaction.

“You OK with that?” Cousins runs over to Vigna, still crouched in the corner. “Is this all what you want?”

“The more painful, the more dreadful, the better. I must suffer and be seen to suffer,” said Vigna, now standing and straightening up.

It looked as though all were agreed. But then a board member raised his hand. “Just one last question,” he said, “what if a team member refuses to take part? You know, someone, don’t know who, might find whipping against his religion or something.”

“There is no religion on earth that is against whipping the guilty. In fact, many require it to be administered to the innocent,” came a soft voice,

Who on earth had made such an outrageous statement? They all turned to its source.

It was the bartender.

You may be expecting a deliciously salacious account of the spectacle in the Melbourne Cricket Ground on day one of the Third Test match of Australia against England. Or maybe you are thinking or hoping that it would not occur? But I assure you that the Great Event, as it came to be known, did take place before a record crowd of over 90,000, more than any Australian Football Grand Final crowd. And I would add that you should be ashamed of yourself for eagerly anticipating such a spectacle of one naked former cricket captain whipped by his team mates. guilty or not, before a half-drunken mob that fully appreciated its carnal florescence, and when they woke up from a deep sleep the next morning, they would feel wholly satisfied, just as Peter Vigna hoped.

Peter Vigna survived the ordeal and was appointed captain of the team immediately after the whipping. He accepted the captaincy, still bleeding, and suffering quite a lot from the added pain of the salt poured copiously into the wounds (though, because of the widely varied accuracy or perhaps will of the team members, not many strokes of the lash actually broke the skin; indeed some hardly touched his naked body).

If only the story could end here. It is true that Peter Vigna went on to score huge victories for his team and his fans. He was seemingly fully restored. But, like his historical forebear, Pietro della Vigna, there would be more. Pietro della Vigna fell out of favor with the court of Frederick II and was forced to commit suicide after being falsely accused of what amounted to be treason. In Dante’s Hell, he was turned into a tree that could not bear fruit, its leaves blackened. Peter Vigna the cricket hero was destined to live with the original rejection by the cricket estab¬lishment played out through the spectators and his followers who would never forget what he did, the spectacle of his punishment only reinforcing their belief in his guilt, even though they saw that his suffering may even have outweighed the severity of his breaking the cardinal rules of cricket.

Every now and again, when Peter Vigna led his team on to the field, he would hear, or maybe he imagined it, an occasional hiss, boo, or the chant of “cheat!” On the other hand, each time he walked off the field when his team won — and they never lost under his captaincy — the cheers were almost enough to affirm his innocence. Except that, he knew, as does everyone who has lived, affirming innocence does not erase guilt.

Moral: Without punishment, being sorry carries little weight.

© Copyright 2021 Harrow and Heston Publishers, for Colin Heston

Story 8

Fault Lines

A boy is punished for his misadventure.

There were two boys, one big, one small. The big boy was big, a lot of meat on his bones as they would say, a solid eight year old. Everyone called him Butch. The small boy was a little six year old, skinny frame, a slightly protruding tummy. Everyone called him Tich. They were both in Grade 4. Butch had been kept back two years in a row.

On December 14, not long before school would break up for the holidays, an incident occurred in the playground that Tich would remember for the rest of his long life. It was the day after his sixth birthday and his Mom had made a birthday cake of sponge filled with jam and cream, followed by strawberries and homemade ice-cream, his favorite.

The school playground was a large one, with tall eucalypts dotted throughout the grounds, and peppercorn trees lining the perimeter. Tich and his friends played marbles among the exposed roots of the gum trees, playing games that they made up as they went along. There was a large shelter shed with the boys and girls lavatories next to it, about one hundred meters from the red brick, two story school building.

On this day, at lunch time, Tich and his friends were playing “follows” (their made up game that required each to fire his marble to a series of spots hidden within the exposed roots of the trees, the first to get to the end the winner). Butch, as he usually did, stood apart, calling them babies for playing such a silly game. Tich was close to winning, he thought, when the bell rang and at the same time he realized that he had to run to the toilet, having held it back for quite some time, absorbed in the game as he was. He wasn’t the only one. Many of his mates also ran to the toilet at the last minute. The trouble was that Tich had to do number two. All that cream the day before at his birthday party had caught up with him. And when he got inside the toilet, to his dismay, the one cubicle was taken up. He banged on the door, crying, “hurry up! Hurry up!” And to his horror, Butch’s voice rang out full of glee, “you gotta wait, I got here first anyway!” The bell rang and rang, and Tich danced around, trying to hold it back. He cried out again, clutching his stomach, bent almost double, crossing his legs, anything that would stop the inevitable evacuation. “Please! Please! I gotta go!” he cried.

Then the bell stopped and Butch emerged from the cubicle, a big grin on his face, enjoying every minute of it. Tich darted forward, but Butch’s thick body stood in the way.. “Don’t you piss on me ya little shit!” he growled.

Tich, one hand on his tummy, the other pushing at the door pleaded again, “please! Please!” But Butch held the door closed, just enough to make him wait a little longer. Then Butch suddenly let go, and Tich lurched forward as the door gave way.

Then everything was quiet. Butch was gone. And Tich to his horror felt a warm ooze push into his school pants, and a little trickle run down his legs. He stood there, unable to do anything, tears running down his face.

Miss Penny looked over her class, and glanced at her watch. The Nature Study broadcast from the ABC was about to start.

“Where’s little Freddy?” she asked, looking at the vacant seat two rows from the front.

Butch raised his hand, a serious look on his face. “I saw him go into the toilet, Miss,” he said innocently.

“What did you do to him?” demanded Miss Penny, always ready to jump on this nasty piece of work, as she always described him to her fellow teachers.

“I didn’t do nothing, Miss,” whined Butch.

“I bet you did,” muttered Miss Penny. She turned to Freddy’s desk mate. “Stewart, go down to the toilets and see if you can find him. And come straight back, do you hear?”

“Yes Miss.”

“And the rest of you. Sit up straight, all hands on the tops of your desks. Now go on! Do it now! The broadcast is about to begin.”

Gentle music of a Mozart sonata wafted into the classroom, announcing the beginning of the broadcast.

“Now sit straight and listen!” Commanded Miss Penny as she walked to the door of the classroom and peered down the passage looking for Freddy and Stewart. But only Stewart appeared, puffing a little having run as fast as he could down to the toilet and back again.

“He won’t come out!” cried Stewart. He’s howling something awful,” he panted.

“What do you mean he won’t come out? What’s wrong with him.?”

Stewart looked away. “Miss, I think he’s pooped his pants!” It was awful, Stewart couldn’t believe it. But he had to try very hard not to grin.

Miss penny looked down at him, horrified. “Are you sure of this?” she asked in a measured tone.

“Yes, Miss. I’m pretty sure. He was crying that much I couldn’t tell what he was saying, but I went in there and it smelled like….” Stewart put his hand to his mouth, trying to hold back his grin.

But Butch could not hold it back. “…shit!” He cried.

The entire class gasped and the noise of their feet scraping against the old wooden floor filled the room.

“My goodness!” exclaimed Miss Penny. “Butch you horrible dirty boy! Class, settle down, or you’ll all be kept in and there’ll be no playtime for two days!”

She turned to Stewart. “Go down and fetch the Principal this minute,” ordered Miss Penny, “and be quick about it!” She grabbed Butch by the ear and pulled him to the front of the class. “Now children,” she said, speaking sternly, her eyes narrowed under a deep frown, her lips pushed forward that, if it were not for the current circumstances, might have looked like the beginning of a kiss. She let go of Butch’s ear, went to her table and opened the drawer. The children looked with wide eyes; they knew what was coming. Or at least they thought they did. But Miss Penny did not retrieve the familiar leather strap, but instead a small block of Palmolive soap and held it out to Butch who stood motionless, a silly look on his face, clearly enjoying the attention he was getting.

“Butch Smith, you have a filthy mouth,” snarled Miss Penny “which is why you must now wash it out with soap and water. “

The class gasped as one.

“But Miss…! cried Butch.

“No buts! Go on, take a bite then go down and wash out your mouth at the tap.”

Butch stood fast, still a smirk, but nevertheless he took the soap. There was no bathroom in the building, except the one for the staff that was forbidden to children. He would have to go down the stairs and outside to the gully trap.

“Bite it! Now!” demanded Miss Penny, who then opened the table drawer and withdrew the coiled strap. “Do what you’re told or else!”

Butch was no stranger to the strap. He stood there, holding the soap near his mouth. The class was goggle-eyed.

Miss Penny unfurled the strap. “You’ll get it around the legs if you don’t hurry up and do what you’re told.”

“Oh no! Not the legs!” Butch cried, knowing from grim experience that it hurt much more when the leather curled around the legs.

Miss Penny stamped her foot loudly, causing the whole class to murmur and shift nervously in their seats, their leather shoes banging on the floorboards. The sudden bang did the trick. Butch took a small bite at the soap, dropped it on the floor and ran for the door, which suddenly opened before he got to it, and there stood the principal, Mr. Foster, Stewart standing sheepishly behind him. Miss Penny gave Butch a little shove that caused him to lunge past the principal and knock into Stewart as he entered the room.

“What is it, Miss Penny? Stewart would not tell me what had happened. Only that you had to see me at once,” said the Headmaster, a little annoyed.

“It seems that young Freddy Brambles has, er, you know, is holed up in the toilet and has had an accident,” said Miss Penny.

“You mean he hurt himself?” The principal frowned.

“No, not that kind of accident. You know…” stuttered Miss Penny.

“Good Heavens, Miss Penny, how awful. Here, I will take care of your class while you go down and see what’s the matter.”

Miss Penny grimaced. “Oh! But he’s in the boys toilet, I would think.”

“He’s just a boy, now Miss Penny. That doesn’t matter. Now off you go and look into it. If it’s what you say, I will have to contact his parents.”

It was a good hundred yards out to the boys toilet. Miss Penny was not at all pleased. And it was not until she reached the bottom of the stairs that she thought of a solution. Of course, there was a student teacher in the building, assisting with grade 4, she thought, and the classroom was right at the bottom of the stairs. She walked straight into the classroom. The children were also listening to the Nature Study broadcast. She approached the teacher who sat at her desk, looking very busy.

“May I borrow your student teacher?” she asked. “There’s been a small accident for which we need a little extra help.”

The teacher looked up, smiled a little, and pointed to the student assistant who sat studiously taking notes, at the back of the class. “Of course, take her, but bring her back before the end of the broadcast. She has to teach the lesson.”

“Thank you so much,” smiled Miss Penny. “This is one I owe you, with all my heart.”

“Miss Prendergast,” the teacher beckoned,” could you go with Miss Penny, please? She needs your assistance with a small emergency, is that right Miss Penny?”

“Yes, indeed. Miss Prendergast, please follow me.”

Miss Penny left the classroom, followed by the reluctant student teacher.

“You may leave your notebook there. You will not need it,” said Miss Penny.

Miss Prendergast followed Miss Penny out the door, down the corridor and out past the gully trap (Butch was nowhere in sight) where Miss Penny stood facing the playground and pointed. “Down there, in the boys toilet. One of my pupils, his name is Freddy, but all the kids call him Tich. I’m told he has had an accident of some sort. Could you go down there and see what’s up?”

“An accident? I haven’t done my St. John’s first aid exam yet. If it’s a serious accident…”

“It is serious, but not that kind of serious. Now off you go and get him. In the meantime I will try to find a place where we can take care of him.”

“There’s no sick room?” asked Miss Prendergast innocently.

“We’ve never needed one. There’s the staffroom, but we couldn’t use that for obvious reasons.”

“Why not?”

“You’ll see. Now off you go.”

“But it’s the boys. Shouldn’t it be a male teacher who goes there?” complained Miss Prendergast.

“It doesn’t matter. He’s just a little boy. Now get going, if you want to get this over before the Nature broadcast is finished.”

By this time, Tich was beside himself. He thought of taking off his pants, but then thought in horror what would come out and what it would reveal. He went to sit on the toilet seat, but was dismayed when he felt the squelch inside his pants when he sat, so he quickly jumped up again. He just jigged from one foot to the other. Waiting. No longer crying, but whimpering. Anticipating what was to come. And at last it did. It came in a high pitched voice.

“Is there someone in there? I’m Miss Prendergast. If there’s someone in there, could you come out please? We are all worried about you.” Miss Prendergast had already forgotten the name Miss Penny told her. . “What’s your name, young man?” called Miss Prendergast. All she could hear was whimpering and sniveling. “Now sniveling won’t help any. Just come out and we’ll see what we can do to help you. Are you hurt or something?”

“No Miss,” came a pitiful voice, cut off by another whimper.

“Now it’s no good crying. That won’t help. Where are you hurt?”

Tich’s crying all of a sudden turned into a wail. The words, if there were any, were garbled. It was no use. Miss Prendergast could not understand what was wrong. She would have to get up the courage to enter the boys toilet. Something that she, of course, had never ever done before. She entered, tried not to look at the open urinal, wanted to hold her nose, and almost turned around and ran back out. Tich’s wails were so ear splitting, she had to force herself to keep going, pushed at the door to the cubicle, but it would not open. Titch was pushing against it.

“Don’t come in! Don’t come in! I’ve pooped myself!” he cried in between his wails.

Miss Prendergast stepped back in horror. “Oh My God!” she whispered to herself. She pushed harder at the door.

Finally, Tich gave in, and retreated to the back of the toilet, now shivering, knees clasped together, arms held across his small chest. A pitiful sight curled up in the corner.

“Come on now,” said Miss Prendergast, “take my hand and we will go back up to the school and get you cleaned up.” She offered her hand and waited. Admittedly, her hand was stretched out as far as she could in a silly effort to keep as much distance from him as she could. The pitiful little creature looked up, his dark brown eyes blurred by tears, and gingerly offered his hand. Miss Prendergast forced a smile. “That’s right, come on then.” She looked around the gloom of the rather filthy cubicle and took his hand, having no idea what she would do next, except take him to the principal’s office. And who would want this smelly little crying bundle in his office? She led her reluctant little smelly boy up to the school and was met at the door by the principal who immediately put on a bright and brisk smile.

“Come now, young man, let’s get you cleaned up,” he said with a cheerful grin. But he made no attempt to hold Tich’s hand. Simply walked, assuming he would be followed, down to the end of the hallway where there was an old table that the caretaker had retrieved from the storeroom, and a big dish of water set upon it.

Tich waddled along, holding Miss Prendergast’s hand now quite strongly. And out of the principal’s office emerged a buxom woman, a parent of one of Tich’s classmates who lived nearby. She had come with a clean set of clothes, soap and washcloth.

“Let’s get him on to the table,” said the principal, meaning of course, that Miss Prendergast must lift him up. “And then let’s get those clothes off him and put in this bag here that Mrs. Foster has brought.

Miss Prendergast hesitated.

“Don’t worry Miss Prendergast,” said the principal with soft reassurance, “you can teach your lesson tomorrow or whenever it suits your classroom teacher. This is more important for now.”

Miss Prendergast tried to lift the shivering Tich by grabbing under his arms and lifting him at arm’s length. This made him heavy and she struggled to lift him up, but finally managed, when she saw that no one was going to help her.

“Now Miss Prendergast,” said the principal, “I have an old dust coat you can put on to protect your lovely dress. Then you better undo his clothes. There’s going to be such a mess, there’s nothing for it but to get him naked and wash him down thoroughly. Now I’ll leave you two to it.” He smiled and quickly retreated into his office.

Mrs. Foster laid out the fresh set of clothes at the end of the table. “He’ll be all right once we get him cleaned and dry and into these fresh clothes, poor little thing.” She handed the wash cloth to Miss Prendergast who took it, reluctantly.

“Freddy, can you undo your shirt and pull it off please? There’s a boy,” she asked.

Tich fiddled with his top button, but his shivering and whimpering got in the way.

Mrs. Foster took over. “Come on, I’ll do it. We don’t have all day! These young teachers,” she muttered to herself.

She briskly unbuttoned Tich’s shirt, tossed it into the bag, then proceeded to do the same for his shorts, trying not to look at the brown smudges that were now making their way down his legs.

“Better take off his shoes and socks first,” suggested Miss Prendergast.

“Then please do it,” said Mrs. Foster curtly.

Miss Prendergast carefully undid his shoes and managed to pull off each one without getting anything on her fingers. The socks were another matter. They were by now well soiled at their tops where Miss Prendergast would have to grab them.

“Freddy, lift your foot, now, come on. You can’t expect us to do everything for you. You’re not a baby, now, are you?” said Mrs. Foster.

The shoes and socks were off, the socks thrown into the bag, and now the shorts dropped to his ankles, followed by his underpants that Mrs. Foster, with the fingernail of her index finger and thumb, managed to pull down.

And there he stood, up high on the table, naked, his knees pressing together, his arms crossed tightly over his shivering little body.

Naturally, his underpants contained most of the nasty mess, and these were tossed into the rubbish bin. Now Mrs. Foster started to wipe him down, all the time rinsing the washcloth in the big tub of water, adding soap as she went. The water was cold, and Tich cried and cringed some more as Mrs. Foster splashed it over him then rubbed the cloth all over with her rough hands.

By the time they got him clean, and were putting the finishing touches to their good works, the bell signaling recess sounded, and the noise and rustle of kids’ voices flowed into the corridor. The table was right by the stairway where all the bigger kids from the upper grades came down.

The principal came out of his office to make his presence felt when the kids walked by, two by two, and to inspect the good works done with Freddy. The kids, including those from Tich’s own class, walked by, pointing and giggling. Tich, of course, cried even more, especially when Butch pointed and laughed loudly. At which the principal called out, pointing at Butch with a stern finger, “this is nothing to laugh at, young man! Let it be a lesson to you all. And if you don’t stop laughing this minute, I’ll bring you into my office and strap the lot of you!”

The laughter reduced itself to chatter. And then the principal, his hands on his hips beamed, “cleanliness is next to godliness, you know. Now move along, children. That’s the spirit.” And he returned to his office.

Mrs. Foster produced the clean clothes from her basket and handed Miss Prendergast a towel. Together they wiped Tich down and dressed him in dry clothes.

Miss Prendergast brought Tich back to his classroom just as the bell rang signaling the end of recess. He sat in his place, his head on the desk buried in his arms, as the class came in from recess. Sniggers and snickers passed over the classroom like leaves of autumn blown in the wind. Miss Penny stood in front of the class, her face very serious. She raised a finger, her lips pushed out a bit. The kids knew that they were going to be yelled at.

“Stand up, Freddy!” she ordered.

Tich sat, face buried, and did not move.

“Freddy! I said stand up!”

Butch started to laugh, and leaned over to prod Tich in the back.

“Butch!” cried Miss Penny. “This is no laughing matter! Come to the front this minute and stand over there in the corner.” She then advanced to Tich and pulled him out of his desk, shook him so that his had to release his arms from his head, and stood limply in the aisle. She dragged him to the front and faced him to the class. “You have all seen what happened to Freddy. Let it be a lesson to you all. When the bell rings for you to come in from the yard, you come in immediately. You go to the toilet before the bell rings. Going to the toilet is never an excuse for getting in late for class. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Miss Penny,” muttered the class in unison.”

“But Miss Penny,” came a little voice, Tich’s thin voice. “I would have had time but he wouldn’t let me into the toilet.” He pointed at Butch standing in the corner, a big grin on his face.

“How dare you speak up to me. I don’t want to hear any more of this. There’s no excuse. None at all.” She shoved Tich forward, and pushed him into his desk.

“And as for you,” she said looking at Butch, “you’re getting what you deserve. She returned to her desk and opened the bottom right drawer. A faint sigh of anticipation rippled across the classroom. They all knew what was in that drawer. “Put out your hand,” she demanded.

Butch, his well-known silly grin on his face, put out his hand and received one of the best.

Moral: Humiliation is the handmaiden of tyrants

© Copyright 2021 Harrow and Heston Publishers, for Colin Heston

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For France
A psychiatrist grapples with torture.

     Family is the most important thing in my life. Is it not so in every life? In the end, we are left with family. No one else really cares. Is this not why, regardless of every effort,  neglect and even abuse are routinely uncovered in aged care homes and institutions?
     Every morning before I leave for the office, I pause at the kitchen table, watch my two children, Pierre just twelve years old, and Mateo ten, munching on their cereal. I lean over and kiss each of them good-bye and call Marie who responds from the bathroom, a muffled “bye.” She used to come out and we would hug, but for some time now, we have both felt somehow uncomfortable, distant. Strangely, our bedtime trysts have been incredibly physical, I suppose I mean, aggressive. You might even say violent. On my part that is. There is something there, I am sure. The boys don’t sense it though, or at least I hope not. And Marie, I know she wants to talk, but I have avoided it. I suspect that she knows, and soon I will have to come clean.
     When I say that I leave for the office, I don’t really mean that. It’s not an office, at least not any more. Not since I gave up my private practice and offered my services to the Commandement de la Gendarmerie Nationale in Algiers. I used to be a psychiatrist, a very good one, but patients were hard to come by in private practice. In the 1960s psychiatry was a specialty in its infancy and for people to admit that they went to a psychiatrist was to admit that they were stark raving mad.  
     Nor did I actually offer my services. They came knocking at my door.  “I am here at the direction of General Massu,” began the impeccably dressed man in civilian clothes, obviously a career bureaucrat of all bureaucrats. “The General respectfully requests that you attend an audience with him, with a view to taking charge of the D.O.P.”
     “Which is?” I asked. I had never heard of the D.O.P.
     “The Détachement Opérationnel de Protection.”
     “Which is?” I repeated, receiving no reply.
     General Massu would later describe this operation as a division of “specialists in the interrogation of suspects who want to say nothing.”
     Mindful that the main mission of any psychiatrist is to get one’s patient to talk,  “the talking cure” as they say, I agreed to meet with the general, himself a famous military man, well known for solving the problems of terrorism facing French colonies around the world.  And my wife and I were very much concerned about the political turmoil in Algiers, the bombings and riots. Right now, Algiers was not a safe place to live or to raise a family. So it was easy for me to agree. Although I diagnosed the general as a hard man, obviously an egotist of the first order, he was a patriot, and seemed honest and direct.  General Massu was also a well-read man, who had survived torture by the Nazis during World War II. He asked me to take on the job of director of intelligence. He thought that a professional, such as myself, would be able to conduct interrogations that did not require the use of torture, which he had experienced himself and of course abhorred, as would anybody. And, as he said to me, he wanted to make sure that torture was not used unless absolutely necessary, to which I of course agreed.
It was an easy choice to take on the job. In fact, I felt flattered. The money was good too, a great opportunity to earn some money for my young family. We had been struggling for some time. The hospital had no psychiatrist and did not see the need for one. Besides,.people did not have the money to pay for doctors. They were grim economic times then, and still are, made worse by the economic turmoil. It’s why, of course, so many Algerians are packing up their bags and migrating to France. We should do the same.  But my wife does not want to leave her many relatives and friends.
     My staff included a number of assistant interrogators who had police training, a couple of male nurses, a psychologist, and several male secretaries, perhaps the most important of all staff, to record the respondents’ answers, describe their demeanor and so on. It took me many weeks to find secretaries of such caliber. It demanded much more than simply taking shorthand or typing. It required a level of sensitivity and perceptiveness on the part of the observer/recorder to set down in good prose everything that happened, being careful to avoid any slightly inflammatory wording, finding words that, one might say, neutralized such actions as hit, whip, drown, etc. “Pressure was applied,” was a popular expression, as were “subject was persistently asked…” or “subject’s answers were double checked by other interviewers” (we never used the word interrogate or its derivatives).  
     I should have taken one thing that the General said more seriously.  That my work was part of military intelligence. Therefore secrecy was absolutely necessary. Nothing we did or learned from our suspects was to be conveyed to the outside world. No talking to friends or relatives no matter how distant. Of course, never ever talk to the press, those cunning sneaks who wormed their ways into bureaucracies and organizations. “Information is power,” pronounced General Massu. “If even the slightest inkling of our activities is leaked to the press, we lose. It’s as simple as that.”
     I thought later that I should have asked, “and how will we know that we have won?” It was only later still, after I had become accustomed to  my secret life as chief interrogator, that I answered my own question: “when all the terrorists are dead.” I know now that this answer is also just as silly. For once the terrorists are dead, the journalists and politicians will mine the records of history to find out what really happened behind the secret walls of the imperial buildings of the Commandement de la Gendarmerie Nationale and its connected neighbor Barberousse prison. Though in some ways, there were no secrets. Or at least there was plenty of submerged knowledge of the happenings behind the walls of Barberousse prison. Convicted terrorists were guillotined behind its walls. Everyone knew that. What they didn’t quite know, and I and my staff pretended not to know, was that many were probably convicted on the basis of the testimony offered up by our subjects.
     My driver showed up as usual and we drove off, a ten minute ride. The car can be any color or make, seems to be a different car each day. Security says they do that so terrorists can’t learn what cars contain Gendarmerie personnel, so make it less likely to be bombed. I’m appreciative of that. But the car does show up the same time every morning, so I wonder if a terrorist out there — and believe me I know who many of them are, having interviewed them — knows where I live and could easily lie in wait. But praise Allah, it has so far not happened. Of course I say nothing to Marie about all this. She would go nuts if she knew what I do.
     Well, what I do is psychiatry at the highest — and lowest — level. I know the theory of mind control. After all, isn’t that what psychiatrists are supposed to aim at? To exercise enough control over the patient’s mind to put him back in control of himself, to be able to live with himself. How many normal people have trouble living with themselves from day to day? Most, if you ask me.  I spend just as much time helping my staff as I do helping our mostly unwilling subjects answer our questions, tell us what they know, get it off their chest. It’s a burden to them, to keep information in and to be unable to share it. This is a basic principle of psychiatry, in my view. It is the aim of any good psychiatrist to help his patient to talk about his worries and cares, insufferable thoughts and impulses. Not only that. We clinicians also know that there are many thoughts and past traumatic events that lie beneath the patient’s consciousness. We can help by getting them to vomit (excuse the unseemly word) up what lies deep inside their consciousness (or unconsciousness, if you are Freudian or one of his followers). 
     I have been doing this for almost a year. My staff have come and gone. There are only a couple upon whom I can rely and be sure are trustworthy. Those who have suddenly left, saying that the job was too stressful, I let go of course, but am required to notify my bureaucratic superiors of their whereabouts. I try not to worry about them. I trust that General Massu does not have them watched, that they will not talk to the press or anyone else about our work. After all, they have been willing participants. To speak out is also to admit that they too are complicit in our secret mission.
     Since you are reading this, it is reasonable for me to assume that you know why you are reading this “story” — let’s call it that.  You are curious. You want to be let in on the Big Secret of interrogation. Especially by one who is trained in psychiatry, the science of mind control. Interrogation of unwilling suspects has a very long history, from the slaves of Roman times, to the Spanish Inquisitors who catalogued and mastered the art, merging on science, though they did not know it.  I should add that we do everything to avoid the use of any violent means to extract confessions. We French are a civilized people after all, with an impressive history of caring for those in countries who need and will prosper on our enlightenment. Government by the people, for the people. An idea that we French invented.
     The first step, then, with those who will say nothing, is to scare our subject by demonstrating our omniscience of his past actions and collaborators. Embedded in this trick is something that may be obvious to you: if we know everything, why is it necessary to extract a confession out of this unwilling subject? I could answer that, but will not right now. There are many apparent illogicalities in the torture trade. We confront him with a boukkaraor cagoulard, a Muslim terrorist with his head covered in a bag with eye slits, who is one of our successes, and is now an informer.  Some of these informers are very good at what they do or are made to do. Many will drop to their knees, their hands tied behind their backs, sobbing, wobbling back and forth, singing the names of accomplices, and whatever else we ask. Depending on our psychological assessment of our unwilling subject, we may use a female informer, instead of male. If we have concluded that our subject has a special relationship with a woman, this may be a very effective technique, especially if we strip her down a little, just enough to give him a taste of what we are capable of. I say “we” here, but I assure you, as a psychiatrist, I would never touch any subject or intentionally hurt them in any way. I leave that to my assistants provided from the military arm of D.O.P. Some appear to enjoy what they do a little too much. If I see that, I quietly take them by the arm and usher them out of the interrogation room for a cooling off period.
     The majority of our suspects break down easily when confronted with these informers. I sit at the back of the room, often with a secretary and record the names of collaborators, their addresses, and so on. And if pending attacks are indicated, I quickly convey this information to the D.O.P emergency personnel. May I remind you, we are doing this for France and her dominion Algeria. We have brought Algeria out of the dark ages. They will become civilized whether they like it or not. Their supposed independence for which they say they fight is nothing but a cry to go back to the barbarous ways of little tyrants in their little fiefdoms, dishing out a primitive justice to their enslaved people. 
     In the rare (though admittedly increasing) occasions when our subject does not “break” (he is hardly broken, this is violent language that we try to avoid), we move on to the necessary next step. No, wait. There is an intermediate step. After showing him our sobbing informer, we send our subject back to his cell, where we leave him for a day or so. We may even send a guard into his cell as though he is to be taken out and tortured, but then make up some excuse for not doing so. The guard may feign good will on his part, pretend that he is taking pity on him. We make the best of psychological manipulation. It is our aim to make our suspect completely dependent on us. We can do this by manipulating his environment: we provide drinks of nice or horrible taste, a little food, though this is not recommended because should the subject vomit in response to our interrogations, it makes a terrible mess, not to mention the smell. And of course, there is the danger of choking. A few more sessions like this will usually get our suspect talking.
     In the unlikely event that our subject does not open up, we move on to the next technique. I must repeat. We only do this as a last resort, our methods up to this point work with ninety percent of our patients. We depend on psychological methods. We abhor violence, the essence of torture. I owe a debt of gratitude to my military associates who provided us with the necessary equipment. This was an army signals magneto that, when wound up, would produce enough alternating current to cause quite a jolt of electric shock. We called it the gégène, which proved to be very effective. It is very important to note that we did not adopt this without any research on its effectiveness. In fact General Massu told us that he had tried it out on himself and found it most effective and safe. This was applied to various parts of the body, from ears, fingers, mouth and teeth, and later, inevitably I suppose, the penis and testicles. We pioneered this technique which was later to be adopted by interrogation departments throughout the civilized world.
     But the most valuable feature of this form of interrogation was that it left no marks on the body (if applied properly). And once this was fully realized, we then experimented with other types of torture that did not leave visible marks on the body. The most obvious was the one that has been used for centuries: water torture of various kinds, but mostly forcing water in the mouth, bringing the subject close to drowning, then saving him. From a psychological point of view, I preferred this method because it made it look like we were successively saving the subject’s life. We were doing him a great service. 
     I could go on, but it is not my aim to scare or outrage you, the reader. I do want to remind you that our intentions were always noble and controlled. Anyone under my supervision who took too much pleasure in these proceedings was immediately moved to a different task. On the other hand, though, if anyone refused to carry out these tasks, for whatever reason, we insisted that he show clearly why this was so, to explain what other course of action was open to us? We did these things not because we wanted to, but for, quite frankly, the good of France, for the bright future of Algeria. We were saving a country that was under attack. We doubtless had the blessing of Allah!
     This seemed all very well and good. But you have to understand that doing this day in and day out, takes its toll. They say that if you do not enjoy your work, you should quit. But how does this apply when one’s job is torture? This is what it came down to. And besides, it is in the very nature of torture that one must not enjoy doing it, otherwise if you do, you are some kind of sadistic creep, is that not so? I routinely managed to fire most of my interrogators who appeared to enjoy inflicting pain. I first tried moving them out of the interrogation room, but they resisted, even reported me to my superiors for not being fair, complaining that I was punishing them for doing their job with enthusiasm. This was an unsustainable logic. 
     I am a psychiatrist, I told myself. And psychiatry is a new science. I should keep my emotions out of it. But how does one do this without falling into other traps of logic? Is not the psychiatrist supposed to have empathy for his subject? But this was asking too much. I can’t have empathy with my subject if at the same time I am inflicting horrible pain and suffering, can I? Or is this the same as saying to a patient, “this will hurt” when giving him an injection?  My solution in the end was the good old psychological tricks of self-deception and denial. I justified my actions by arguing that this was the same as working in a slaughterhouse, killing and preparing animals so that eventually people would be able to enjoy eating them. It was all to the good. 
     And so on this day, a day like every other day, my driver dropped me off at the office, I did my duty, then at the end of the day my driver picked me up. And on the journey home, I pondered, even worried, that this was a car that had probably picked up suspects late at night and brought them to my interrogation center.  I also knew, but tried to dismiss it from my mind, that some such suspects never made it to my office.
     “Hello my darlings,” I called, “I’m home!” The children ran to me. I kissed them both. We ate a delicious supper of Moroccan lamb that Marie had cooked. She said nothing. Just a faint smile, I think. But the lamb reminded me of the slaughterhouse. I excused myself and went to the bathroom and had a long shower. I scrubbed every inch of my body. It was like I had fallen in a cesspool. My body smelled like armpits all over. I went straight to bed. Marie came to me. Or did she? I was in some kind of delirium. 
     Then she was shaking me. “Wake up! Wake up!”
     It was morning. My driver was waiting downstairs. Would he take me to my office? What did he know? He never spoke. Just looked at me in the rear vision mirror. Or was it my turn to disappear?.

Moral: To punish another is to punish one’s self.

  ©  Copyright 2021  Harrow and Heston Publishers, for Colin Heston

A Fine Balance

A duel compounds the vicissitudes of honor.

     There is honor, and there is honor, if you will forgive the repetition. A couple of hundred years ago, the western world was overtaken by what could only be called a neurosis of honor that beset only males, and males of a particular class, so-called. When a man’s honor was attacked or questioned, usually by some kind of verbal abuse or a physical slight, it was incumbent upon him to challenge the aggressor to a duel; in the 1800s, usually a duel in which each party brandished a pistol. The reason for this unwritten law of behavior was that if any man’s honor, that is, his standing as a gentleman, was questioned, he had no recourse but to demand a duel to “clear his name.” 
     So it was in Sydney, Australia, in 1827 that a certain Henry Fodsworth challenged a Dr. Pisston to a duel in an isolated field in Homebush. (It should be added that these names have been changed in order to protect their forbears, who may be innocent.) These two gentlemen were, in the eyes of Sydney society and of course in their own eyes, men of good standing, deserving of the respect of their stations. Henry Fodsworth was, after all, the brother-in-law of Governor Darling, which was as close to high society as one could get. And Dr. Pisston was editor and part owner of The Australian, a paper whose name remains today Australia’s shining light of national media, and certainly owned by a gentleman of that class. 
     The severe breech of honor was instigated by Dr. Pisston. It should be added that he was also a pal of Charles Wantsworth a serial litigator and dueller, who met his end when one of his enslaved convicts murdered him on his Petersham estate in 1834. Dr. Pisston accused Fodsworth of taking information from The Australian and leaking it to the Sydney Gazette. This was a falsehood, claimed Fodsworth, and promptly challenged Pisston to a duel. 
     According to the rules of dueling predominant at the time, each party of the duel could appoint a second, or assistant. In some cases, they could even pay a representative who could fight the duel for him. But on this occasion, Fodsworth accepted the challenge and they both showed up at Homebush field to face off. Pisston appointed Wantsworth as his second who, upon presiding over the duel, urged Pisston to accept a verbal apology from Fodsworth. Fodsworth offered the apology, but Pisston declined it. Wantsworth retired, no stranger to duels himself, and prepared the dueling pistol for his friend. 
     Now it is important to understand that, although the outcome of such a duel was by no means certain, there was plenty of room for error, and indeed luck. Not to mention that neither of the parties was handy with a pistol and from twenty paces (or whatever it was they agreed upon), it was pretty hard to hit the target, and besides, if you aimed at the head, and missed, you were an open target yourself. Or, if you aimed at the chest or widest part of the body giving yourself a higher chance of hitting the target, chances were that you would not be lucky enough, unless a really good shooter, to hit somewhere that would incapacitate your quarry so that he would not have time to get in a shot. 
     Wantsworth stood by the two men who faced each other, then about faced and stood back to back. 
     “Gentlemen!” called Wantsworth. “You will take twenty steps to my count, but before I begin, I ask that either of you turn to your opponent and offer a verbal apology, should you be so inclined to do.”
     The duelists remained silent, or if they didn’t they muttered something so that they could not be heard. Later, Wantsworth claimed that Pisston said he would rather die than to accept an apology from that excuse for a gentleman. And Fodsworth opened his mouth as though to speak, but coughed instead, putting his hand up to his mouth, the one holding the gun. Then he jiggled his arm as though it needed to be loosened up. He then took the gun out of his firing hand and exercised his fingers, opening and closing his fist, then again taking hold of the pistol and waving his arm around. 
     “Pistols pointing to the ground, please!” ordered Wantsworth. 
     Fodsworth coughed nervously, and his finger tightened on the trigger.
     Wantsworth stepped back and announced in a ceremonious voice as the duelers walked: “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty!”
     The two men turned, eager to get in the first shot. Fodsworth, a comparative novice, pulled the trigger before he was fully facing his quarry. The bullet zoomed off somewhere into the eucalyptus bushes. Dr. Pisston, a practiced cool hand, now faced Fodsworth squarely on. He raised his arm slowly, his handlebar mustache twitching as he squinted to get Fodsworth in his sights. He pulled the trigger. There was a very loud bang, the gun recoiling so much that he dropped it. Fodsworth fell to his knees in fright as the bullet whizzed by where his left ear might have been. Pisston scrambled to retrieve his gun that had landed in what looked like a rabbit burrow. 
     Fodsworth now had him in his sights. He was not sure whether it was allowed to hit a moving target, but he wasn’t going to wait for Wantsworth to make any kind of judgement. He had four shots left (these were antique duelling pistols that were custom five shooters rather than the usual six; no one in Sydney wanted to copy the Americans after all). Pisston, caught without his gun, scrambled up from his knees, and, doubled over, ran for the bushes. Fodsworth aimed in the general direction and squeezed the trigger five times, his wrist hurting from the recoil, and the bullets flying who-knows-where. 
     Wantsworth ran forward, making sure he was out of the crazy Fodsworth  lines of fire. He waved his arms, holding his rare copy of the Kanun dueling rules. “Halt! I say! No firing when the other is down! No firing!”
     Fodsworth threw down his pistol and announced himself the winner. Wantsworth ran forward to retrieve the gun, one of a pair of a very expensive collector’s item. “Hey, Dr. Pisston!” he called, concerned about the pistol.
     Dr. Pisston rose up from behind the bushes. He limped forward, his face twisted in pain. “I’m hit!” he cried, “I’m hit!” 
     “Where’s your gun?” asked Wantsworth, most concerned to retrieve the pistol.
     “I don’t know. I lost it. It disappeared!”
     Fodsworth reached out to Dr. Pisston to shake hands as gentlemen. The insult had been corrected. 
     Dr. Pisston looked at Wantsworth. “I’ll not shake hands with that filth who claims to be a gentleman,” he snarled.
     Both Wantsworth and Fodsworth were aghast. This was an ungentlemanly flagrant breaking of the rules!
     “You can’t do that!” cried Wantsworth.
     “At least I am a gentleman,” announced, Fodsworth. his mouth full of false pride.
     This was a most unhappy ending. A duel was designed to overcome such nasty outcomes. The winner of the duel, no matter what had happened before it, was clearly the right and proper gentleman. The prior differences that the two gentlemen had were erased by the outcome of the duel. That was why there were duels. Otherwise the resentments between two gentlemen, whose honor was very much at stake, could never be resolved, and the fight, as it would become, could go on forever, each one inflicting damage on the other only to be hurt himself when the other responded. Dr. Pisston’s refusal to accept the duel outcome would now unquestionably become the cause of vengeance. And such vengeance would eventually lead to feuds that could last over generations. Every sensible gentleman understood that. The very course of history had been sullied by Dr. Pisston’s refusal.
     Wantsworth was most embarrassed. He was, after all Dr. Pisston’s second. It was partly his responsibility to make sure the rules were followed right through to the end. He flipped through his copy of the Kanun Code. There was no mention of this unhappy outcome. No one had envisaged that one gentleman would behave in an ungentlemanly way. 
     “Dr. Pisston!” he cried as he reached inside the rabbit burrow and with considerable satisfaction retrieved the pistol. “You have broken the dueling code of honor. I don’t know what I or anyone can do to fix it!”
     Dr. Pisston ignored him. He was of course, in pain. Blood streamed from half way down his leg. He limped over to his horse and with great difficulty, managed to get himself up, then rode away.
     Wantsworth offered his hand to Fodsworth, who took it gladly. “I pronounce you winner of this duel on this day!” he said in a thin and faltering voice.
     “Thank you Wantsworth. I am amazed I managed to pull this off. Thank you for your understanding and professionalism. We are both fine upstanding gentlemen, are we not?”
     “We are indeed,” nodded Wantsworth, “we are indeed.”
     They went to their horses and rode off. As far as they were concerned the matter was settled. 
     As for Dr. Pisston, although he was a doctor, he did not act like it, or at least maybe the state of medical knowledge was still developing.  He was so upset over the outcome of the duel that he kept riding on into the bush then out and about until he finally, after some hours arrived at his residence. He had lost quite some blood, and the leg developed gangrene. Having removed the legs of many men in battles of yore, he did not wish to have some surgeon do the same to him. And so he died of gangrene within the week.

     Moral: Deserved punishment is always a balancing act

  ©  Copyright 2021  Harrow and Heston Publishers, for Colin Heston

Spilled Milk
A kitchen story

by Colin Heston

     This story is based on true events, as is all fiction. In 1950s Australia, in a small and rapidly growing suburb of Geelong, a place called Norlane, there was a little old pub, built of bluestone, now painted a dirty cream, red corrugated iron roof, a couple of red brick chimneys, and a very old public bar, complete with a pock marked linoleum bar counter and vintage old taps. The bar room was about the size of a two car garage, which appeared big early in the morning at opening, but by 6 o’clock at closing time, patrons were packed in like sardines, elbow to elbow. As you might guess, there was no shortage of brawls when the men jostled each other to make it to the bar to order drinks for themselves and their mates. And the din of men talking and chortling was huge.
     Hidden away at the far corner of the bar was the only man sitting in this bar made for standing. This was the special stool that the pub’s owner had put aside for good old Joe Smith, the painter. The noise of the bar made no difference to him. He sat on his stool, stared straight ahead across the bar counter, eyes dreamy, maybe focused on the only picture in the bar, of the young Queen Elizabeth, hanging above the refrigerator that kept the beer cold.
     
     Joe was a special kind of painter, crucial to the Ford Motor company that stood across the road from the pub. Every day, now going on fifteen years, Joe showed up there for work, dressed in paint spattered overalls, nothing except underwear underneath (so one supposed), because it was so hot when he donned the plastic coated outer garment that covered him head to toe. It was his job, as was one other who worked with him, to spray-paint the bodies of the cars as they passed along the production line. The paint in full spray was, of course, toxic so he breathed through a contraption that was most likely an adaptation of the old gas masks they used in World War I. 
     Joe and his mate (to whom he spoke rarely) painted from eight in the morning, ten minutes smoke-o and a cup of tea at ten, then paint again until lunch at twelve, a sandwich his wife made him every morning, and a quick run across the Melbourne road to the pub for a couple of beers then back to work at twelve-thirty. Then they painted until four, knocked off and sprinted across to the pub to drink the rest of the day until closing at six. This had been Joe’s routine for the last fifteen years. He was very proud of his work, drove his painter mate almost crazy because of his insistence on attending to every small detail. He would not allow any blemish to go down the line. Every car, he said— that is when he spoke which was rare—must be perfect. Would you want a new car that had a paint blemish on it? He would ask. Not that he himself ever had a car. He couldn’t afford it. And anyway he was happy enough sitting at home, doing his garden and coming in and having a beer by the telly.
     Because the paint fumes were so toxic, even when you wore all the protective clothing and masks, Ford had a rule that a painter could only work at that particular job for fifteen years, and that was it. They were then reassigned to some other part of the production line. Of that, though, Joe would have none of it. He was a painter and that was all he was. No standing at a production line doing the same thing over and over again, having to listen to all the gossip of the other men. 
     So Joe retired when his fifteen years were up. He always said he would. This meant that he had lots of time to spend in his garden, and that was what he did every day. After breakfast at eight he went out, rain or shine and worked on his garden. The front full of rose bushes and geraniums and the back full of seasonal veggies. Usually, he worked at the front in the mornings, broke off for morning tea at ten, returned to the front, hoping there would be no people walking past that he would have to talk to. At midday, off he went to the pub, just ten minutes’ walk down North Shore road, sat in the corner on his stool and socked down a few beers, in the winter often a few glasses of Abbotsford stout to keep him warm in the garden when he returned home, always at about one. He allowed this small change in his routine, and indeed, sometimes even made it one-thirty.
     Missus Joe as she was known to all up and down the street, did not drink. They could not afford for both of them to spend money on drink, she announced ceremoniously every day, or at least to Joe is seemed like every day. She especially upbraided him when he came home after lunch and she could smell (so she said) the stout on him. 
     “You’re not a bloody invalid, are you? So what are you doing drinking that muck?” 
     Joe simply ignored her, or seemingly so, though he did grunt, a small grunt, one that she would not detect, since she was too busy rummaging around in the kitchen cupboards, complaining that she could not find what she wanted. 
     “Why don’t you build me some new shelves for the kitchen instead of buggering around in the garden and drinking your beer?”
     “And why don’t you go fuck yourself” Joe muttered to himself.
     “Did you say something dear?” said Missus Joe, a sarcastic smile and tilt of her head.
     Joe turned away. He could not bear to look at her. Compared to the cars he painted, she was truly ugly. And away he went to the garden. Afternoon was veggie time, where he spent a lot of time laying out the garden in very straight rows, nice little paths between each bed, each bed bordered by rows of empty beer bottles pushed into the soft dirt, bottoms up. 
     Missus Joe, for her part, labored over the kitchen sink that looked out over the back yard. She sang to herself, happy that Joe was out of her kitchen. “If only…” she mused to herself, but forced herself to stop. She washed the dishes over a second time. She had wanted children badly. But it was not to be. They tried, and finally gave up. Joe wasn’t up to it anyway, with all his drinking. It was his drinking that she blamed. Makes men sterile, that’s what her friends at church said. She had thought of leaving him, but truth be said, where would she go? What would she do for money? Get a job, maybe? Not that anyone would employ her so old, and a woman and all. She had pleaded with Joe not to retire. But he would not listen. Once he got an idea into his head, there was no shifting it. “Stubborn old bugger” she grumbled to herself. 
     And so their gritty life ground on, a grit that seemed to hold them together, yet made a life as two individuals never truly to meet.
     
     One day, it could have been any day, or any year of their marriage. But on this day, Joe came in from the garden, a little earlier than usual because he had pricked his finger while pruning his roses.
     “Time for a cuppa,” he mumbled to Missus Joe as he trudged past her into the bathroom.
     “It’s not ready yet. You don’t come in this early do you?” She did not expect an answer of course. But she hurried and put the kettle on and got out the cups and saucers and placed a small plate of yo-yo’s, as she always did, at the center of the table. And he always complained, though did not say anything, just made an obvious wince, when he had to stretch across the table to get the yo-yo.
     “What are you doing in there?” yelled Missus Joe, her voice a rough crackling voice, one that penetrated silence like a bulldozer.
     Joe finished sucking his thumb when the bleeding had stopped. He wiped his hands on the towel, noticing that it was smudged and had not been washed properly. He walked steadily to the kitchen and sat down on his usual chair. Missus Joe stood at the stove waiting for the kettle to boil.
     Joe sat motionless, elbows on the table, propping up his chin. “Come on! Where’s the bloody tea?” he complained.
     On cue, the kettle whistled and Missus Joe made the tea. Her routine was also messed up. She went to the cutlery drawer to retrieve knives and forks and placed them on the table at their respective places. She had to reach around Joe in order to place the knife and fork exactly in the right place. If they were not straight, he would notice. Wouldn’t say anything, mind, but she knew he would be annoyed. Immediately, he sat back in his chair, a heavy wicker chair, and stared ahead. “What’s this for?” he asked, then licked his lips and pushed his tongue against his teeth as though the words were stuck in there. “Don’t need a bloody knife and fork to eat a yo-yo, you silly bitch.”
     Missus Joe tried to ignore him and reached over to take the knife and fork back.
     “Steak knives too, they are, you silly bugger!” He grabbed his knife, banged the handle on the table, and reached for the fork, pushing Missus Joe’s hands away. She turned to pour the tea in the cups and pushed his towards him. Joe leaned back in his chair, his eyes seemingly out of focus. He now held one of the steak knives in his clenched fist. Missus Joe, struggling to remain calm, went to the refrigerator and retrieved a bottle of milk. She leaned over him and went to pour a small amount into his cup, just a tiny amount. She had to hold the bottle steady and be very careful, because if she poured too much, he would be furious and would demand another cup of tea. Holding a bottle of milk, mostly full, poised above a small teacup was a challenge, even though she had done it a thousand times. “In my defense,” she thought, “the bottle is slippery from the condensation on the bottle.” Perhaps it was that thought that tilted the bottle forward, the hand of her aching arm letting go. The milk splashed out into the cup with such force that the teacup overflowed, and tipped over. Missus Joe dropped the bottle of milk on the table where its contents gurgled out and flowed slowly to the edge and on to the lap of Joe’s old gardening overalls.
     Joe was a man of few words, everyone knew that, especially Missus Joe. He gulped and his eyes grew wide, pushing at his cheeks swollen from years of alcohol, his lips pursed tightly shut. His nostrils expanded like those of a Spanish bull about to charge. His fist tightened even more on the steak knife and his eyes, no longer dreamy, quickly focused on its serrated blade reflecting the florescent light of the kitchen. His thumb moved down to the blade and tightened. It was an awkward grip. But no matter. He rose from his chair as though thrust by a canon, and he lunged wildly with a wide slashing movement, as though pulling open the curtain of a large window. And just as quickly, he dropped down on his chair, exhausted. Missus Joe was standing, pale and rigid with fright and shock, one hand to her bleeding throat, the other leaning on the table to keep her balance. For the first time in a long time, Joe looked at her right in her face, stared into her eyes. From where he sat, she looked like something from Madam Tussaud’s wax museum. But only for a moment.
     Her body sagged, then fell to the floor, Joe’s eyes still staring where her eyes had been. She fell with a plop, blood spraying all over the place, a couple of spasms, and she was plainly dead. Joe looked at the floor and was upset for a moment that she had got blood all over the floor. Then he realized of course, that it was none of her doing. No, correction, her end was all her doing, it was just him who finished the job. 

Moral: Punishment delayed, is punishment unleashed.

  ©  Copyright 2021  Harrow and Heston Publishers, for Colin Heston

Pardon My Tutu
     President Biden’s attendants seek to rehabilitate him.

     “Come on, man!” 
     Georgie yelled back, “come on man your fucking self!” and threw his biodegradable coffee cup, half full of a four shot flat white, right at the TV. It had no effect of course. President Biden continued to speak, informing his fellow Americans of the coming roll-out of the Corona virus vaccine. Georgie’s long suffering partner Fiona lay on the couch, groaning. 
     “Georgie, you better get the car ready,” said Fiona with a faint smile.
     “Already?” asked Georgie, “so soon?”
     “I know. But there may be something wrong. Better sure than sorry.”
     Georgie drove Fiona to Bethesda Hospital where she would give birth to their twelfth child. He did not wait for the arrival, though, because he had other matters of State to attend to. President Biden’s speech infractions had to stop. It was a terrible example for all Americans, and undermined his committee’s work. He punched “Clinton Cleaners, Pennsylvania Avenue, Baltimore” into the GPS. He would raise this issue at the weekly meeting. They met in secret because of the many threats they had received from extremist republicans. Of course, there were no republicans on his committee. 
     Georgie looked around quickly at the interior of his old Toyota Prius to make sure all the doors were locked. He had chosen this place in Baltimore because he wanted the committee to meet far away from the Capitol building, but also on the assumption that the press would never look for them in one of the worst places of Baltimore. Besides, members of the “unofficial” undercover squad of “genderamerie,” basically hate-speech spies, always attended his meetings and they were paranoid of having their covers blown.
     If you are as prejudiced as most people who are not good democrats, you are no doubt wondering how come a life-time democrat has a partner, wife, that is, in old terminology, and eleven going on twelve kids. The answer is a bit complicated, but the simple one is that he was born a catholic and remains a good catholic, and in spite of the modern catholic doctrine of turning a blind eye to birth control, he does not believe in it, obviously, though he is of course in favor of abortion and all the rest. That’s the short answer, the official one that he tells when asked by prying individuals and other friends so-called. 
     The real answer is quite different. It goes way back to the time at high school when he was changing in the locker room for gym. He was a teenager as were all the others, some a little more advanced, one might say. There were bullies and the usual fools mucking about, flicking towels at each other. Then one of the kids spied him trying to cover himself up, so he pulled Georgie’s towel away from him and pointed, laughing, “look, he’s hardly got one! It’s so small!” The kids danced around and made fun of him. All Georgie could think to say was, “you wait, it might be little but it’s a good squirter!”
     Now on Pennsylvania Avenue, Georgie stopped at the lights, checked again that all the car doors were locked, then perused with some detachment the continuous rows of boarded up houses or shops that lined each side of the street, and the frequent vacant blocks where there was once a house. As the lights turned green, he saw the sign “Clinton Cleaners” painted in black letters on a dull yellow board that covered where there was once a window. Who would have anything cleaned in this neighborhood? It would be all they could do to buy food at the local store, let alone dry cleaning. The answer was that locals did not use it. Rather,  people from the suburbs or from downtown places of work, the university being one of them, found it a convenient drop-off place, and easy parking. Mind you, they all looked over their shoulders when they got out of their cars. 
     Georgie pulled into the vacant block next door. The meeting house was the boarded up place right next to the dry cleaners. He had made sure it was comfortable, though. Fitted out with standard issue office chairs, two multi gender toilets, basic kitchen for making coffee and reheating take-out meals that many brought with them, and of course the essential refrigerator. He had, after special request, installed a refrigerator with a very large freezer compartment, because one of the genderamerie hate unit had a fetish for stracciatella gelato.
     There were about a dozen members of the committee, including the few from the gender and hate police who sat in on discussions. To be honest, it was not his first choice of committee assignments. Georgie was a bit embarrassed when he had to admit it to himself. A loyal democrat all his adult life, working his way up the ladder, first a council man, then chair of the school board, then assistant to the state congressman that represented his county in Bethesda. There he had remained locked in and unable to move up, until after some twelve years and the birth of his eighth kid, an opening came up to assist the congressman representing his district in the congress of the United States. This, he thought, would at last provide him with a way up, though he was not quite sure where “up” would take him.
     The trouble was that, after four years of Trump, his unexpected rise to power, and the incredible rallies he conducted, a memorable one in Virginia, Georgie and most of his committee members had come to the conclusion that Biden had no hope of winning the presidential election. So for the year leading up to the election, they fooled around a lot of the time. They did draft the incredible document that Speaker Pelosi would sanctify, the one that erased all mention of gender in official documents of the United States Congress. When they drafted it, many of them did so after quite a few drinks, combined with quite a few whiffs of weed. So they were all amazed when Biden won, and of course invigorated by the upset. Now, Georgie had banned liquor or weed for the entire session of their meetings, and allowed them to imbibe only after they had finished their business. 
     These meetings were now ones of great excitement. The real possibility to make a difference. A President who thought what they thought. Or so Georgie thought until that morning when President Biden had begun his TV speech with the well-known favorite opening words, “Come on man!” He would, on this very morning, raise this issue that had bugged him from the very first day he was appointed chair of this now very powerful committee. Indeed, its power was unfettered. It could publicly accuse anyone of hateful, gender-biased speech, on Twitter or anywhere else, and it would automatically result in the character destruction of that individual. He had the power to destroy people’s lives, without actually killing them. What more power could one want? But should he do it to the president? Surely he did not want to destroy him, the president of his own party? 
     The answer to his quandary came from an unexpected source,  the genderamerie, gender police. At the risk of revealing classified information, the genderamerie was the brainchild of none other than Hillary Clinton. It was she who gave it the French sounding name, telling Georgie, her hand covering her mouth, that it would be enough to confuse the far right Russian spies. At first, Hillary resisted Georgie’s appointment as chair of the committee, because he had more than one child. But his unmasking of many of her enemies as gender offenders, especially, well, we should not list their names for fear that the information is classified and stamped as “FOR HER EYES ONLY,” that she reserved the right as the only one who had permission to reveal the names, which she did so at the most opportune moments. It was she who ordered the committee to go on a rampage of unmasking many greats of old. She had commanded Georgie to begin the committee’s work by ferreting out all the salacious details of J. Edgar Hoover’s cross dressing, which Georgie found when Hillary told him the file was in the hands of Edward Kennedy’s grandson, Owen Kennedy. Actually, this proved to be not quite true, but did lead to an amazing revelation. The file, actually the manuscript of an unpublished book written by Woodward the Watergate hero, according to Owen Kennedy, lay hidden in the President’s oval office, sat on by every president since JFK’s reign. Each had promised that they would release it for publication, but once in office, none did. Would Biden do the same?
     That was the question that Hillary had put to Georgie, one that he promised he would investigate. He had been trying to get an interview with President Biden for several weeks, in fact since the very day of his inauguration, in order to follow up this lead. And now, with that insulting and unempathetic opening line of “Come on man,” it was time to call him out on it. He had asked Hillary if she could get him a meeting with the president, but she had cut him off in her well known crabby manner. He was annoyed with himself for asking her. Should have realized that Biden had the job that she coveted. Fair enough.
     Georgie called the meeting to order. We need not go into all the boring procedures and silly addresses and questions to “Mister Chairperson.” Georgie insisted on as much congressional double-talk as possible to maintain the decorum of the meeting, also demanding that all the gender permutations of Mister Chairperson be used throughout the entire meeting. This required a recorder, usually appointed by him at the beginning of the meeting, to keep track of each permutation, to inform the person who spoke, which permutation to use, and at the end of the meeting if not all permutations were used, the recorder for reasons of equity, was to address them all to the chair before Georgie would declare the meeting closed. 
     At this meeting, an important piece of information was unmasked by the genderamerie. One of the gender police operatives had a close relationship with the FBI liaison to the White House. He had observed Biden reading the secret manuscript during one of the weekly briefings with the FBI. Why not ask Woodward what’s in the manuscript that every president finds so interesting and that the public must never know about? After all, everyone knows about Hoover’s cross dressing.
     Woodward was famous and revered because he always made sure that he had three independent sources for any salubrious piece of dirt he dug up on his quarry, usually a president. Thus, anything he wrote and published was absolutely true. The operatives of the genderamerie had pressed Woodward on this secret manuscript, even threatened him with leaking false information, and claim that it was in his manuscript. This thoroughly annoyed Woodward, but he would not give in. Speculation had it that whatever was in the manuscript was the reason why every president since JFK, allowed Woodward access to the Whitehouse and was able to write a revelatory book about each president. Why did he have such access? It had to be what was in that secret manuscript. 
     Georgie had an idea. He turned to a genderamerie spy. “Can you get me into  the weekly meeting of the FBI with the President?”
     The operative shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I could try,” he said looking sideways.
     “Good. Then you can pick me up and we will go there together,” said Georgie with a big smile that reminded the operative of Georgie’s close relationship to Hillary.
      *
      President Biden was enamored with the Oval Office. He treasured the few times he had sat opposite President Obama chatting and waiting for Hilary to show up (she always did). And on the day of his inauguration, President Obama had sidled up to him and slipped something into his pocket. 
     “I don’t smoke,” joked President Biden, “if that’s what you’re sneaking to me.”
     “Neither do I,” grinned President Obama.  “I’ve just given you the key to the long kept secret of every president going back to the time the Whitehouse was built.”
     The President felt in his pocket and discovered a small, round disk, smooth to the touch. “Feels like a poker chip,” smiled Biden muttering through his PPE mask that was decorated with a likeness of Hillary. 
     President Obama looked around to make sure there was no hidden camera or person eavesdropping. “Every president hands it down to the next occupant of the oval office. But given, well you know, Trump, I decided to hang on to it until someone respectable was back in the Whitehouse.”
     “That’s very kind and wise of you, Mr. President, if I may say so,” said the President.
     President Obama continued. “And I replaced what was a big key and tag with a remote ID chip. All you need do is wave it near the inset bookcase with the semicircular top to the left of your presidential desk, and it will open up.”
     President Biden looked at President Obama, incredulous. “You mean, it’s a secret door? To where?”
     “A small basement, kind of like a man’s cave, you know? When things get to you, and they will, I can tell you that, you can sneak away down there and do your own thing, have a nap, or whatever.”
     “Could come in handy,” mused President Biden, “I’m surprised that Clinton didn’t use it.”
     President Obama grinned. “Yeh, you’d think so. But he loved the limelight, and besides you know what he was like. He just couldn’t wait.”
     “But even to get away from…”
     “Yeh. Hillary. Maybe he did. Anyway, Bush passed it on to me and I’m grateful for it. It’s why we’re such good friends.”
     “Well, thanks, and stay safe,” said President Biden, in a most presidential way.
      *
     It was no small basement. When President Biden sneaked into it after he had dismissed all his entourage of secretaries, interns, assistants and advisers, he waved the disk just like Obama said, and the bookcase responded accordingly. It opened into a large room, not really a basement, though the stairs did go down somewhat. It was crammed with all kinds of mementoes and souvenirs, much of which he had no idea of its significance. But of great interest was a dart board set up in one corner of the room, on which was pinned a black and white photograph of J. Edgar Hoover standing in a hallway, his legs crossed, naked except for a tutu. It reminded him of a painting he had been forced to admire at an art gallery in Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, that featured a special exhibition of Lucian Freud’s paintings. He was there for a charitable opening of some kind, and part of his duties were to visit the gallery’s special showings. There, he was confronted by Freud’s giant painting of an overweight man, legs crossed in a kind of pirouette posture, and every part of his body showing. It was gross, but he grinned to himself, thinking that it would have been a very funny painting if the man were wearing a tutu. 
     He picked up a couple of darts and threw them at Hoover. They both missed the board. Then he spied something else lying on the rather dirty floor to the right of the dartboard. It was an actual tutu, tinged with blue. For reasons he still could not explain, he leaned down and picked it up, shook the dust off it, then pinned it to the dart board, and went back to have another throw. He missed again. Then he did a three sixty of the entire room spying something else that he should have noticed before. There were mirrors all round. That caused him, without even thinking, to start a careful search for hidden cameras. He found none. And why would there be if past presidents had kept this secret for so long? He turned, listened for any noise in the office, and, hearing none, squeezed his key and the door opened for him to return and automatically closed upon his exit.
     He was back just in time. There was a knock at the door and Tom Pain, White House chief of staff entered. “Your weekly FBI briefing, Mr. President.” 
     Deputy director of the FBI, Saul Butt, entered followed by an entourage of notetakers and assistants, including Georgie. They were all introduced carefully in order of their seniority, and finally Georgie, to whom the President turned.
     “You’re new, I think?” asked the President.
     “Georgie, sir, chair of the Congressional Committee on Gender Eradication.”
     “Yes of course. Excellent work you guys are doing. Keep it up. And why are you here at today’s briefing?”
     “Our committee is working closely with the FBI, sir, to ferret out and unmask miscreant abusers of gender identity and hate speech, sir.”
     “And why are you here?” persisted the President pressing Georgie.
     “Sir, it has come to our notice that there is, in the Whitehouse library, or possibly on a shelf in this office, a manuscript authored by the famed Woodward of Woodward and Bernstein, and that it includes a number of hate speech and gender infractions,” said Georgie in his most formal manner.
     “That’s serious. In this office you say?”
     “Yes sir. Would you mind looking around for it?”
     “I don’t have to. It’s in the bottom right drawer where I keep my, err, never mind.”
     The President leaned down and withdrew a large manuscript, the edges of its pages torn and grubby. “This what you’re looking for?” he grinned. “The former, er,  president told me about it. Said he couldn’t see anything wrong with it and it might as well be released for publication. Said he felt sorry for Woodward, the pathetic little guy. Of course, if that president said there was nothing wrong with it, that was a red flag to me. So I decided to keep it close to me for safe keeping. I have not looked at it myself, though by the look of it, many presidents before me have.”
     “Sir, I respectfully request that my committee be permitted to examine it for gender unmasking and hate speech analysis,” requested Georgie, most officiously.
     “All for a good cause!” quipped the President. “Here you are, you can have it for one week and one week only, and it must not be taken out of the Whitehouse. An intern will hold it for you.”
     “Thank you Mr. President.” Georgie leaned forward and took the manuscript. 
     “Now what does the FBI have to tell me this morning?” asked The President.
      *
     It was, indeed, a remarkable manuscript. The title was “Secrets of the Oval Office: From Taft to Trump.” A large portion of the book was devoted to the so-called secret basement. Georgie easily smuggled it out of the Whitehouse by promising an intern a significant place on his gender eradication committee if she brought it with her to their next meeting.  He even picked her up outside the Whitehouse and drove her to their Baltimore meeting place. She was a little nervous when they came to the rundown parts of Baltimore, asking where were they going, did the committee really meet in such a terrible place, fearing that he had designs on her. To which he answered, as he always did, that it was necessary to remind ourselves of how the poorer half lived. He then, out of the blue, made an offhand comment, “by the way, my wife Fiona is giving birth to our twelfth child probably as we speak.”
     The intern tried to hide a gasp and her cheeks turned red. But completely out of nowhere she  blurted, “oh, my goodness! Poor thing!” Shocked at her own words, she covered her mouth with both hands. “Oh, I’m sorry. I mean, I meant, that’s wonderful! Congratulations!” 
     Georgie grinned. “Don’t worry. I’m used to it. I’m proud of it too. Fiona’s fine too. She’ll be a bit sad for a few days, because she loves being pregnant. We both love children.”
     He pulled into the vacant lot next to Clinton Dry Cleaners. His Toyota Prius looked a little pathetic beside all the smartly polished black SUVs and Hummers. The comparison made him feel extra good. But he knew that he would face, this morning, a challenge of immense proportions. He would make a proposal to censure President Biden for using gender insensitive language, specifically “Come on man.” Simply arguing that it was a common manner of speech was no excuse. Many of those old words and expressions had been eradicated from all speech and dictionaries. “Come on Man” had to be eradicated or at least reworded so that it was no longer offensive.
     Without thinking, Georgie held open the door for his intern who looked at him with a mixture of fear and disdain. How dare he do that? Opening the door for her was an infraction of the gender eradication code, was it not? The intern gave him a disapproving look. He extended his hand and said, “hand me the manuscript if you will.” And she did, making sure that their hands did not in any way touch when she gave it up. She wanted no skin contact with this guy. She did not trust him. He took the manuscript and walked quickly to the entrance. She scrambled out of the car (from the back seat mind you where he had insisted that she sit) and ran to catch him up. “If there’s anything I can do, take notes of something?” She pleaded.
     “Thanks, but no. Notes of this meeting are the last thing we want.” Georgie pulled the door open and walked in, leaving her to catch the door as it closed. 
     Georgie immediately swung into action. “Good morning members, and visitors if there are any. Please place your phones on the table in front of you. I request that you switch them off for the duration of the meeting. No notes or recording permitted. The members sat at a large oval table, at one end of which was a very large office chair that would be his as chairperson. The rest of the chairs were standard prison-made chairs, square metal frame, hard wooden seat.
     Now, one must understand, that, when a group of more than three or four people comes together to deliberate on a plan of action when faced with a difficult problem, the odds are that it will reach an illogical, strange or unpredictable conclusion. What was about to happen would prove that to be true. 
     Georgie called the meeting to order, then produced his own phone, fiddled with it until YouTube came up, and then started a video, turning the phone so that all present could see it. He had made a composite video of the opening remarks of the last several speeches Biden had made over a few weeks. This resulted in a video that repeated many times over “Come on man!” All members of the committee stirred uncomfortably in their uncomfortable seats. Georgie began his well-rehearsed speech.
     “I regret that I must broach this very difficult problem of President Biden’s favorite opening remarks to almost all his speeches that implore the viewers to do or agree with a particular policy or action he is promoting. Is he not speaking also to women, I mean those other than men, my apologies? The expression is incredibly gender insensitive, and violates the common sense of inclusiveness and diversity.”
     One of the genderamerie interrupted. “Then tell him to stop! Problem solved!”
     “It’s not that simple,” put in an unmasking gender eradication expert. “Our work requires us to uncover all past infractions and make perpetrators pay for their past mistakes. None can be allowed to get away with their lack of empathy. And that includes the president. I applaud Georgie for having uncovered this blatant infraction that has occurred hidden in plain sight on a daily basis.”
     “Then what would you suggest be done? Impeach the president?” put in another.
     “That’s a bit of overkill. Perhaps censure would be more appropriate,” put in yet another.
     And so it went.
     Until finally, Georgie  produced the secret manuscript. “We have heard many good suggestions. Let us break off to talk informally, then come together to make a resolution. During the break  I am passing around a bit of a bombshell. It is the secret manuscript by Woodward that many of you have no doubt heard about. Look through it and see if you find anything that might be applied to solve our problem with our miscreant president.”
     With money and equipment donated from Farbucks Coffee, Georgie had set up an espresso bar, complete with a barrista (the gender of that term he was not sure of) to serve the best coffee in town, as everyone had heard. The secret of the coffee was simply that the barrista routinely served double the shots customers asked for, and they predictably responded with “wow what great tasing coffee.” The caffeine therefore did its job, and had everyone talking animatedly, though there was some jostling around the single copy of the secret manuscript. However, always thinking one step ahead, Georgie had installed a small office copy machine so they were able to make copies of the more interesting and relevant pages. Those pages turned out to be those that described the dart board and J. Edgar Hoover in a tutu.
     As a favor, Georgie  had his intern call the meeting to order. “Before we get down to the business of the day I would like to make one personal announcement,” said Georgie. He put his phone down carefully on the table. “My dear wife Fiona has just given birth to our twelfth child. They are both doing well.” 
     The intern smiled excitedly and blurted out, “boy or girl?” She immediately put her hand to her mouth when she realized her mistake.  A hushed silence descended on everyone around the table. A gender spy took notes. 
     Georgie forced a grim smile. “I’m sure we can overlook that offensive remark,” he said, “they are both doing well regardless.”
     The intern abruptly got up and left, crying on the way out.
     Georgie continued. “Now, what ideas do we have for the Come-on-man fiasco?”
     “Before we get to that,” interceded a gender spy, “what does this manuscript have to do with it? Besides, I wouldn’t be surprised if Woodward made it all up.”
     “Very perceptive,” countered Georgie. “It has nothing to do with Come-on-Man directly. But therein lies the idea for how we may get compliance from President Biden.”
     The group stirred, feet shuffled. 
     “Do tell us,” said the head of the genderamerie, with a heavy dose of sarcasm.
     “I thought that, in order for the President to demonstrate how sorry he is for using vile gender epithets, he should go on national television, dressed in a tutu like J. Edgar, and apologize, promise he will never use that manner of speech again.”
     “You’re mad!” exclaimed a small spy who sat in the corner.
     The room erupted with everyone talking at once. Exactly what Georgie wanted. 
     Another gender spy stood up to make his point. “I will repeat what I said right at the beginning. Just tell the President to stop saying it. That’s all that is needed.”
     Another interjected. “No, it’s not enough. He must make up for this egregious error. He must apologize. He’s the great example to all citizens and especially children. He must show everyone that he understands his error and convince the viewers that he is really sorry for what he has done. After all, it must amount to several hundred, even thousands of infractions of the gender code.”
     Yet another spoke up. “Yes, it’s not enough to simply say you are sorry. He’s on TV. He must truly show that he is sorry. The question is, how does he do that convincingly?”
     Everyone looked each way and that, waiting for a bright idea. 
     The intern returned and quietly took its seat.  
     “I still say, just tell him to stop it. That’s enough,” insisted the gender spy.
     The intern spoke up in a querulous little voice, “I did tell him to stop it. Well, not exactly, I just mentioned once that maybe the Man part wasn’t appropriate.”
     “And what did he say?” asked the gender spy.
     “Nothing. I don’t know if he heard me. I’m only an intern, you know. I probably shouldn’t have said anything.”
     The group murmured as one. Shoes scraped the floor. 
     “Then it’s clear that we must educate him,” responded Georgie. He held the manuscript up, turned to the page on J. Edgar and the tutu. “Here is a way out suggestion, but I think it would do the trick. We have him dressed in a tutu just like J. Edgar, while he gives his sorry speech.”
     Shuffles and silence. Georgie looked around the table, challenging each one to look him in the eye. None did. They all looked down to the table. 
     Except the intern who blurted, “great idea! He’ll look just like that Lucian Freud painting, except he’s not quite fat enough.”
     It’s doubtful whether any of the group, except the gays whose numbers were unknown, knew what painting the intern was talking about. But Georgie did, and responded with a loud laugh and all followed. It was done. Now it remained who would convey this demand for the punishment of a sitting President?
     The director of the genderamerie decided that it was about time he asserted her authority. “I hate to say it, but isn’t this unconstitutional? The only way a punishment can be delivered to a sitting president is to impeach or censure him-her-it.”
     “We are not punishing, just asking for an apology and correction of past wrongs. It’s a bit like a confession,” answered Georgie quickly.
     “Is there a second for Georgie’s proposal?” asked the intern.
     “I’ll second,” answered the genderamerie director, “though I want it noted that I still think it’s unconstitutional.”
     “Any more discussion?” asked the intern very businesslike and not waiting for any response. “Then all those in favor, say, aye.”
     Of course, the ayes had it, unanimously.
     “Who should convey this demand, I mean request or suggestion, to the President?” asked Georgie.
     Silence. All eyes turned to the intern.
     Georgie checked his phone. “I have to run. My wife is giving birth to our twelfth child, as some of you know. I have to run. I’ll leave it to you all to decide who conveys the message.” He shoved the manuscript in the direction of the intern and left.
     Predictably, the gender eradication and hate speech committee failed to appoint the messenger, though it was pretty clear that they wanted the intern to do it. It was the logical solution. It had nothing to lose, whereas the futures of all others were at stake. They were not prepared to stick their necks out.
     The intern, however, would have been overjoyed to do it, anything to get close to the President, the most powerful gender-thing in the world. But he-she-it did not speak up. Instead, gathered up the manuscript and hitched a ride back to the Whitehouse with some gender spy who spoke not a word to it-her-him. 
     When Georgie finally arrived at the Whitehouse VIP gate, he was fearful of how the President may respond. While he sat at the gate awaiting the security guard to clear him, he thought of poor Fiona, who had let out her last gasp, truly the last, the baby born with all, and we mean all, the necessary equipment to become a thoroughly successful gender addition to diverse America. A truly fitting replacement for Fiona. 
     The security guard informed him that he was not on the list for today, but made the mistake of addressing him as “sir” to which Georgie quickly pointed out his hate speech error, so the guard let him through. He quickly made his way to the outer office adjoining the west wing lobby, where all the interns were kept in voluntary captivity. His gender eradication intern sat immediately outside the door to the oval office. 
     “Do you have the manuscript?” he asked. 
     “It’s in my desk. The President has been in here twice asking for it. I didn’t want to give it up without you saying so. He, sorry, I mean the President was quite angry.”
     “Give it to me,” ordered Georgie crossly. He marched straight into the oval office only to find that the office was empty. He stopped, embarrassed and returned to the intern room. “He’s not there. I have to go. My wife Fiona…” He held out the manuscript and just as the intern was about to take it, it was snatched away. And there stood the President, an angry smile on his face, all those teeth, his eyes reduced to little horizontal cracks in his forehead. 
     “Give me that,” growled the president.
     “Your Presidential Self,” addressed Georgie, “my apologies for keeping the manuscript for so long. But my committee on gender eradication and hate speech met this morning and it took quite some time to come up with a solution to the Presidential problem that I must now urgently inform you of.”
     The President looked at him, trying to process the jumble of words that Georgie had just tossed his way. “Step into my office. I have just five minutes. It better be good.”
     Georgie beckoned to the intern to follow. The President sat at his desk, looking all business-like. “Come on man!” he said. “Out with it.” 
     The intern put hand to mouth to cover the shock of hearing this abomination yet again. “Your Highness, I mean President, that’s hate speech! You can’t say that!” Sobbing loudly, she-her-it turned and ran out of the office, slamming the door behind her-she-it.
     All those white, gleaming teeth burst into yet another grin, this time not angry but empathetic. “You better go and console her,” said the President to Georgie.
     Georgie ignored the advice. “I have to inform you that the gender eradication and hate speech committee resolved unanimously this morning that you must make a public apology for using your most used offensive expression, ‘Come On Man,’ further, that you must make amends for having spoken such hate so many times. One of our interns has counted several hundred occurrences in the last six months.”
     The teeth remained in their smiling position, this time surrounded by disbelief. “You mean I have to go on TV and make an apology?” asked the President.
     “Yes, First Citizen, if I may call you that.”
     “You may. Indeed I quite like it,” answered the President still smiling.
     “And there’s one more requirement,” said Georgie, a little nervously, “it comes from the secret manuscript.” He pointed to the dog-eared pile of papers sitting on the president’s desk.
     The First Citizen looked down, and flipped through the manuscript pages with his thumb. “Let me guess, you sons of bitches…”
     “Please! First Citizen! No more hate speech. That’s shocking. I don’t want to have to go through this all over again with yet another infraction of the gender code.”
     “My apologies, what’s your name again?”
     “Georgie, sir, I mean First Citizen.”
     “Well, Georgie, out with it. What’s the committee’s recommendation?”
     “It’s not a recommendation. It’s an order.”
     “I don’t think you understand, No one can order me to do anything. I’m the President, First Citizen.”
     “Yes, First Citizen. But in this case, we are dealing with thousands of infractions against the gender code. If you don’t get out in front of this, your next opponent will slaughter you in the next election. You will be a one term president.”
     “That’s not too bad a thought,” quipped the President, First Citizen.
     “First citizen!” cried Georgie, demanding attention.
     “All right then. What do they want me to do?”
     “That picture of J. Edgar Hoover, dressed in a tutu…” murmured Georgie.
     “You mean the one pinned to the dart board?” Said with a very large presidential smile.
     “Yes, First Citizen. We know about the secret basement.”
     “You know more than I do. I assure you there is no such basement. That manuscript is all crap.”
     “Whatever, First Citizen. It is the committee’s unanimous verdict that you must dress in a tutu, a tutu only, and apologize for your past gender infractions and hate speech, on live TV, or we are prepared to allow it to be done on You Tube.”
     “But they’ll think I’m…” The President managed not to say what would normally have come naturally.
     “Indeed they might. But then, is this not very much in your favor? You will be the President of all the people, all diversities, all genders. It will be a magnificent triumph of unity!” Georgie couldn’t believe he had come up with such a fantastic proposition.
     “What’s your name again? Georgie, of course. Georgie my boy, I mean my premium citizen, I thank you for this great opportunity to empathize with my people.” As if it could not get larger, his smile truly reached from ear to ear, and those teeth gleamed as the sun’s rays penetrated the oval office window that looked out on to the lawn.  “Let’s get to it!” he shouted. He picked up the phone and shouted, “send in the media people. I am going to speak one-on-one with all my citizens!”
     Georgie remained rooted to the spot. He thought briefly of how proud Fiona would be of him at this moment. 
     The President turned to Georgie, now with an affectionate smile. “You know, maybe you should come and work for me. Your talent is wasted out there with the gender spies and hate speech researchers. 
     “First Citizen! I would be honored! When do I start?”
     “What about right now?”
     “First Citizen?”
     “Yes, Georgie?”
     “Have you ever seen the painting by Lucian Freud? The one with a naked individual showing all its equipment?

 Moral: The masking of truth is its revelation.

  ©  Copyright 2021  Harrow and Heston Publishers, for Colin Heston
     

Deliverance
Teacher, student, and strap
by Colin Heston

    The tiniest teacher in the school was also its most senior. Every day without exception she came to school dressed in grays and browns, sometimes a black beret sitting precariously on a head of grayish brown hair, cut short, though still covering her ears. And for a dash of color she wore a beige scarf tied loosely around her neck. The boys most likely paid little attention to Miss Brown’s dressing habits though they had good reason to, since she stood out to the boys in the school—hard to believe—as its giant disciplinarian, (and girls too, probably, though they were spared the specific punishment designed to make a man out of its recipients). 
    No matter what the problem was, if there was any altercation or kids’ complaints of any kind, they went to the door of the staff room that opened out into the quadrangle, where Monday morning’s assemblies occurred (lorded over by the alcoholic school principal), knocked timidly and waited. Inevitably, Miss Brown would come to the door.
    “Yes? What is it?” Miss Brown would bark, usually munching, or seemingly so, on a biscuit, the crumbs falling on her beige scarf. 
    “There’s a boy spying on us through the fence, Miss,” complains the sixth form girl, her school jumper pulled tightly over her slightly bulging breast, her navy blue school dress reaching just below her knees. Miss Brown looked up at her face, then down at her knees.
    “I’m not surprised. Look at your dress! School rules require that it be no more than four inches from the ground. Yours is at least six inches!” barked Miss Brown in her grating almost man’s voice, so gruff for such a tiny person, or any woman for that matter.
    “They was looking through the fence, Miss Brown,” persisted the girl, looking down.
    “They WERE, young lady, do you not pay any attention to your English classes?” 
    “Sorry Miss.”
    “Who is this boy? Where was he?”
    “I’m not sure who it was, Miss. I think it was Geoff Peterson.”
    “And where are your manners? It’s Miss Brown, I’ll thank you very much!”
    The girl stepped back from the step upon which the tiny Miss Brown stood, now on her tippy toes trying to make herself feared all the more. 
    Miss Brown waved her hand as if the girl were a fly. “Get away, now, and mind your own business, you hear me?”
    The girl backed away as Miss Brown came down from the doorstep and called out to a boy who was crossing the quadrangle.“You there!” she barked, “Come here, boy!” She stepped back up to the doorstep and the boy, probably a fourth former, approached her. “Do you know a boy called Geoff Peterson?”
    “Yes Miss.”
    “Yes what?”
    “Yes Miss Brown.”
    “Go find him and tell him he is wanted at the staffroom right away. Tell him to hurry as the bell for classes will be going in five minutes.”
    “Yes Miss.”
    “Yes what? You want the strap too?”
    “Yes Miss Brown, I mean, no Miss Brown.” 
    The boy ran off. Miss brown retreated behind the door of the staffroom and set up her step stool. She knew Geoff Peterson. He was the tallest kid in the school. Long and lanky, and took great pleasure in looking down at her.
    Within minutes he arrived, knocking at the staffroom door. The diminutive Miss Brown opened it and straightened her scarf as she did so. Peterson noticed this and knew immediately he was in for it. She straightened her scarf every time she was about to use the strap, and looked straight ahead, which meant more or less looking at his belly button. She unfurled the strap, a yard of thick brown leather with a wooden handle bound to one end. She made the handle herself because the width of the strap was too big for her little hand to grasp the strap firmly. There was nothing more embarrassing than the strap flying out of one’s hand at the top of a swing. Peterson looked down at it. She had a way of jiggling it so that it looked a little like a snake hanging by her side.  
    Peterson pleaded, knowingly full well, that it was useless, “I haven’t done nothin’ Miss!”
    “You were spying on the girls through the fence. I know it was you!”
    “No Miss Brown,” he complained carefully, “it couldn’t be me. If I wanted to look at them I could just get up on my tippy-toes and look over the fence.” Peterson was putting on his usual tough defense.
    “Put out your hand,” demanded Miss Brown, ignoring his plea.
    “But Miss Brown, Oh Miss Brown!” he cried, now with a big grin, “you wouldn’t strap a poor little boy like me, would you? Especially when there’s no evidence.”
    “You are such an insolent boy!” snarled Miss Brown. She stepped up on her stool, at which Peterson put his hand to his mouth to cover his grin. He (and she) remembered the last time she strapped him (only yesterday). He had moved his arm this way and that and she ended up almost chasing him around the staffroom unable to land the strap on his open hand. And when he did stop and put out his hand, she was so short she could not manage to raise the strap high enough above his hand in order to bring it down with any kind of hard blow. So this time, she had brought in a stepping stool to give her more height. 
    Up she stepped, one hand on her hip, the other brandishing the strap. “Come on, then, out with it young man!” she demanded.
    Peterson burst out laughing. He almost said, “out with what?” but managed to hold it back, instead laughed uncontrollably, which of course incensed Miss Brown even more. He moved his hand this way and that, Miss Brown lunging forward and sideways, hampered by her having to remain on her stool. He laughed and jiggled around.
    “Stand still!” she yelled. 
    But Peterson was by this time out of control. He waved his lanky arms around so that Miss Brown managed to lay a few strokes here and there, though not with the satisfying smack of leather on a bare hand that she liked.
    “The left, now. Come on! You’re getting six of the best for your insolence. Out with it!” she snarled, her face wrinkled with anger.
    But then, the bell rang for classes, and almost relieved, Miss Brown stopped and stepped down from her stool. But she was very frustrated and, completely losing control of herself, she swiped with her little, though quite strong arm when she was able to do a full swing, at Peterson’s legs. The strap wrapped around his legs, and though they were protected by his gray school pants, it was nevertheless a shock of the unexpected, and Peterson let out a wail you would never believe. 
    Miss Brown immediately stood back, her hands on her hips, the strap dangling beside her body, no longer taut, relaxed, one could almost say as though after a bristling climax. 
    Peterson, for his part, backed off and fled to class. He had a story to tell that would amuse and delight all his mates.

    Moral: Effective punishment requires the full cooperation of its recipient.

  ©  Copyright 2021  Harrow and Heston Publishers, for Colin Heston

Nothing to Declare
    Happiness unappreciated.

by Colin Heston

    Little Rita eagerly looked forward to the day, promised by her mamma for as long as she could remember, that she would make her confession. Actually, it was even before she could remember, because mamma had said, as her proud pappa (now departed for other temptations) held her in his arms, “our little darling, wait until you can go and make your confessions!”
    So on Rita’s eighth birthday mamma met her after school, and they walked together to the little church of San Clemente, just a few streets away from where they lived on Via del Colosseo. Rita skipped along excitedly, down the steep steps to the Colosseo, then to Via Labicana. Mamma squeezed her hand and took her into the church. It was small, as Roman churches and basilicas go, nevertheless to a ten year old it was massive and overwhelming. The confession box was tucked away in the far corner on the first level of the church, behind the altar.  Not that Rita had never been there before. It was the church in which she was christened, according to mamma, and Rita accompanied her almost every day and watched while she knelt at the altar and thumbed her rosaries and mumbled things under her breath. In fact after her dad departed, they went there even more than once a day.
    “Now be sure to tell everything to the Father when he asks you. Just like I told you. OK?” said her mom as she leaned down and gave Rita a little kiss on her forehead. 
    “I will mamma.”
    Her mother knocked lightly on the confessional door and there was a faint rustle of clothing. She opened the door and saw movement through the finely carved confessional window. “In you go. Make sure you kneel nice and straight.”
    Rita stepped in, the door closed behind her, and she knelt down, curious to see who was behind the window.
    “And what can you tell me this afternoon, my child?” purred the priest.
    “My mamma said I have to confess my sins today.”
    “Then tell me dear child of Mary mother of God.”
    “My mother’s name isn’t Mary. It’s Christina.”
    “Yes, of course. What sins do you have to tell me today, my child?”
    “I don’t have any, Father. I haven’t done anything bad or anything. I don’t think so.”
    “You know that you must always tell the truth to you parents and to your priest, do you not?”
    “Yes, Father. My mamma always tells me that. But I can’t think of anything I have done that was bad. I always have a happy time and my mamma has never spanked me. So I can’t have done anything bad, can I?”
    “My dear child. Everyone, children included, commits sin. You must have done something bad.”
    “You mean my mamma has done something bad?”
    “In confession, my child, we can’t talk about your mother. Only your sins.”
    “I really don’t have anything to confess, Father. I’m sorry for that.”
    “No bad thoughts, even?” asked the priest, slightly annoyed.
    “I’m always happy, and I don’t have anything to think about that’s bad.”
    “No one is always happy, my child. Are you sure that you are telling the truth?”
    “Oh! Father! I would never lie. And now I think I have just committed a sin. I have got upset with you.”
    “Do you get upset with your mother?” asked the priest, feeling he was making progress.
    “Oh No! Mamma is the sweetest kindest person I know. I love her so much. She couldn’t do anything that would make me have bad thoughts.”
    The priest responded, trying to hide his disbelief. “She hasn’t once had to discipline you?”
    “I don’t know what that means, Father.”
    “I mean, did she say you’ve done something wrong, and punish you for it?”
    “No, Father. I told you. I haven’t done anything wrong, ever.”
    “No bad thoughts? Jealous of someone perhaps?”
    “I don’t think so, Father. What does jealous mean?”
    Frustrated, the priest responded. “My child, this confession is over. Please say one Hail Mary twice a day, just to be on the safe side, in case you have not been telling me the truth.”
    “But I haven’t confessed to any sins, Father. Why do I have to say a Hail Mary?”
    “It is not for a child to question a priest, my dear.” The priest closed the window. There was a scuffle of clothing and shoes scraping the wooden floor, and he was gone. Rita stood up and left. Her mother was waiting by the altar.
    “How did it go?” she asked.
    “I said I didn’t have any sins to confess and he got angry with me, I think. But I couldn’t see him.”
    “What did he say?”
    “You said I’m not allowed to tell what we talk about in the confession, didn’t you?”
    “Yes, you are right.”
     *
    On her eleventh birthday, Rita asked her mother if she would be going to confession like last year. 
    “I think we will wait until you are twelve,” she said. “The Father told me he didn’t think you were old enough.”
    Rita didn’t question that. Just gave a happy shrug and said, “OK mamma.”
    And so, a year went by and at last, her twelfth birthday arrived, celebrated with her friends and cousins. And after they had left, Rita asked, “am I going to confession today?”
    “I have made an appointment for you tomorrow. I’m not sure if it will be the same priest. But it shouldn’t matter. They all work for Jesus and Mary.”
    “Do they get paid?” asked Rita innocently.
    “Of course, but not by Jesus and Mary, silly! The Pope pays them, I guess.”
    “That’s very good of the Pope. He must be a very kind man.”
    “He is.”
    “And very rich too. There are so many Fathers to pay.”
    “I have booked you in for tomorrow after school, at San Clemente. Do you think you can go there on your own?”
    “I’ve been there so often, mamma. I’m sure I can go there. I just knock on the confessional door when I get there, è vero?”
    “Yes. And it’s the same confessional as before, down behind the altar, in the corner. Don’t be late.”
     *
    Right on time, Rita knocked gently on the confessional door. She heard the rustle of clothing and stepped in. She had tried to prepare herself this time. Read some stories about people going to confession. How they were supposed to think hard about what bad things they had done, read the ten commandments and go through each one to see if they had broken any of them. This she did very carefully. She read every commandment and decided that she had not broken any of them. Even the one about honoring your parents. She wasn’t quite sure what the word “honoring” meant, but if it meant did she do what her mother told her, she had, every time and always. Of course, she couldn’t say anything about her father because he had departed a long time ago, when she was a baby. She wished that one day she might get to meet him. But wishing for that wasn’t a sin was it? Maybe it was honoring him in his absence?”
    “Good afternoon my child,” said the priest. It was the same voice that she remembered from two years ago.
    “Bless me Father, for I have not sinned or anything as far as I can remember,” said Rita, shifting a little on her knees.
    “But my child, that is not possible. When did you confess last?”
    “Two years ago, Father. It was my first confession.”
    “And you have not made one since then?”
    “No. Mamma said I wasn’t old enough, but now I am. I think the Father told her that.”
    “Then I will ask Jesus and Mary to overlook that, only this one time. But my child, remember you must confess every week, more if necessary.”
    “I will Father. But it’s the same this time.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I read all the ten commandments. And I haven’t broken any of them.”
    “Have you not disobeyed your parents?”
    “Never would I do that to my mamma. My dad left and I never knew him.”
    “Bad thoughts?”
    “I don’t think so. But I really don’t know what bad thoughts are. I’ve always been a happy kid. Never a dull moment, my cousins say.”
    “My child, it is a grave sin to lie to your priest in confession. Of course, lying is a sin at any time and for any reason.”
    “I don’t lie, Father, I would never do that. I am always happy. I have nothing to lie about.”
    “Are you not lying to me now?” asked the priest with a touch of belligerence.
    “Oh no! Father! I would never do that! I love Jesus and Mary so much, how could I do that to you?”
    The priest took a deep breath. He had never experienced anything like this. He should have spoken more to the girl’s mother after the girl’s first confession, but did not because of the sacred bond between confessor and priest that their exchanges should never be revealed. 
    He had another go at it.
    “Have you never wished for something that another girl had, maybe one of your playmates?” he asked, this time he would surely trap her.
    “Oh no Father, I would never covet my playmate’s toys.”
    The Father was taken aback. “You know what covet means?” he asked incredulously.
    “Oh yes, Father I read it in the ten commandments. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.”
    “Not even one of your playmate’s dolls?”
    “Oh, Father, I think I made a mistake. I had this really pretty Barbie doll.” 
    “Go on.”
    “And I was playing with Tina, my cousin, and she started to cry.”
    “And?”
    “She said my doll was prettier than hers, and she wished she had it.”
    “Are you sure it was not the other way around?”
    “Oh no, Father. But then I was feeling so sorry for her, I gave her my doll. And that made her very happy, and made me very happy too. Was it selfish of me to feel sorry for her?”
    “I don’t think so,” answered the Father, again crushed by this child’s unmitigated happiness. He was on the verge of giving up, but then, against his better judgement, decided to have one more try. He coughed a nervous cough. The child was twelve. There was one way in which he could catch her, no, that was not a good way to think about it, help her discover the sins that hovered deep inside the body. 
    “Touching?” he asked in a thin voice.
    “Touching, Father? I don’t know what. It’s not a sin to touch something, is it?”
    “Sometimes it is.”
    “I mean, once I touched  mamma’s hot iron and burned my finger. Was that a sin?”
    “Well, if your mother told you not to touch the iron, then yes, it was a sin because you disobeyed her. You violated the fifth commandment.”
    “I don’t remember her telling me not to. But I suppose she might have when I was really little.”
    “There, you see. You did have a sin to report.”
    “I have always tried very hard to obey my mamma. I never  disobeyed her on purpose. So I don’t think that’s a sin.”
    The priest, in spite of himself, coughed a nervous cough again, and said, “have you ever touched yourself?”
    “Don’t be silly, Father, of course I have. I do it every day when I wash my hands and face.  That’s not a sin is it?”
    “Mostly, not. But there are places on your body that you should not touch.”
    “You mean my…” Rita put her hands to her face covering her eyes, “I can’t even imagine it.”
    “Perhaps I should speak with your mother.”
    “About touching myself? But everyone has to go to the toilet, don’t they? How can you not?”
    “It isn’t what I was thinking,” said the Father, immediately regretting having said it. Fortunately, Rita did not follow the thread.
    “Father, when you think, do you think bad thoughts?” asked Rita innocently.
    “We all do, my dear, even priests,” he answered, relieved. “That’s why I also go to confession every few days.”
    “I’m glad you do. Hey! One day I could hear your confession after you’ve heard mine,” said Rita with a giggle.
    “You have to be a priest to hear a confession. It’s the work of Jesus and Mary.”
    “Mom said you get paid for your work by the Pope.”
    “On earth that is so,” boasted the priest.  
    “So who pays the Pope then? Jesus and Mary?”
    “Of course not. They are in Heaven. But my child, let’s get back to your confession.”
    “Sorry Father. Thank you for listening to me. I’m a bit of a chatterbox when I get started, my mamma is always saying. Do I have to say any Hail Marys?”
    “It’s always a good idea to say some, even if you haven’t committed any sins. So I will leave it to you to decide how many you want to say.”
    “Thank you, Father.”
    “May the peace of God be with you, my child.” The priest gave a sigh of relief and left the confessional.
    Rita’s mother waited for her in front of the basilica. As you may have guessed, she was a devout catholic, very careful to follow all the requirements of ritual and practice of the catholic church. “She is such a perfect child,” she muttered to herself.  But as soon as she said it, she crossed herself and looked up saying, “forgive me Jesus for I have sinned the sin of pride.” There had never been a time when she had to scold her little girl, even raise her voice. The child was so happy. Yet it seemed that her happiness caused much trouble for others, especially the priest who had heard her first confession. The priest had in fact broken the sacramental seal and hinted to her what had happened in the first confession. She was very grateful for the priest’s concern and his sharing it with her, but at the same time, the Father had been forced by Rita’s happiness to break one of the most sacred rules of the church.
    Rita, her innocence radiating like a halo, knew nothing of this. She simply enjoyed life and found not the slightest speck of badness even in situations that were awful, her absent father for example, or the day she tripped on a cobblestone near the Colosseo and broke her arm. She did not cry at all. Just said she was sorry for slipping over and causing such fuss. Why was she so happy? Was there something wrong with her? She looked up and saw Rita skipping happily towards her. Everything must have gone well. Too well, perhaps?
    “How was confession?” she asked.
    “The Father was very nice.”
    “How many Hail Marys do you have to say?”
    “Mamma. You told me I’m not allowed to tell what happened in confession.”
    “Children are allowed to tell their mothers. Didn’t the Father tell you that?”
    “No. He just said I can say as many Hail Marys as I want.”
    “Nothing more?”
    “Lots more. We talked a lot, or, maybe I talked a lot.”
    “You had a lot to tell him?”
    “Well, he said some silly things.”
    “Like what?”
    “I don’t think I should say, should I?”
    “It’s different between mothers and daughters.”
    “So would you tell me what you say in your confession?”
    “Well no. It’s not like that. I’m not allowed.”
    “That doesn’t seem fair.” Rita gave a little giggle, then looked up, “but I don’t mind. I can tell you the silly things that the Father said. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind that.”
    “Go on.”
    “Well, he asked me whether I touch myself…”

    Moral: The innocence of youth feeds the guilt of adulthood.

  ©  Copyright 2021  Harrow and Heston Publishers, for Colin Heston