Straight Jacket. Adrian Deans

— once again holding his breath.

      I shifted in my chair, crossing and uncrossing my legs — willing him to speak.

      ‘You were saying, doctor, that you could recommend …’

      He exhaled noisily, lips pursed like a Jungian duality, and his eyes returned to the clipboard.

      ‘You seem nervous, Morgen.’

      I could easily have lost my temper at that point, but I managed to grit my teeth and maintain the bearing befitting a man of my station.

      ‘Not nervous, Bryan … I just can’t see the point. I’d have to be the most normal … ordinary person in the world. And I’ve never had occasion to speak with a psychiatrist before.’

      ‘Yes, forgive me,’ he said, pleased to hear my acknowledgement of his power yet surely aware that once my appointment was confirmed I could make a dangerous enemy. ‘But most normal person in the world, Morgen? That’s an extraordinary claim.’

      I shut my mouth, positive that every word was doing me damage. Bryan began to scribble once more on his clipboard and he sighed: as Napoleon might have sighed, gazing at the pyramids; as Hitler might have sighed, adding titian brown to the walls of a church.

      Then at last he said, ‘The position to which you were provisionally appointed requires exactly that … the most normal person in the world. I think, Mr Tanjenz, that I want to know some more about you. Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?’

       1 A Friend of the Black Prince

      In the beginning was the word, and the word was ‘injustice’.

      In a universe ruled by a random god actions are rarely followed by reward or punishment in proper measure. We like to think it is the essence of our humanity and civilisation that allows us to weigh the deeds of individuals and make judgments accordingly.

      Animals don’t do that. If you accidentally step on a cat’s tail, the cat doesn’t pause to consider your intent and culpability — it perceives pain and strikes back.

      Most people are no better than animals when it comes to justice. They don’t trouble themselves with inconvenient facts or extenuating circumstances — they judge. Take my own case for example. I tend to speak in extremes, after all, so it’s not hard for the simple-minded to misjudge or misinterpret — usually through the prism of their envy — the emotion most felt by those who resent my genius and success.

      Well, fuck the simple-minded. And fuck anyone else who gets in the way of my mission — to reward the virtuous, punish the ignorant and avenge those who won’t avenge themselves.

      If God is too indifferent, or too non-existent to take care of His creation, then clearly it’s up to Me.

      •

      My masterpiece began when I overheard this fat prick on the train laughing about having his back yard paved.

      Of itself, paving a yard is no terrible crime, but this fuckwit kept carrying on about the cicadas. ‘Every summer those two big gums are totally covered with cicada shells,’ he giggled. ‘Can you imagine how pissed off those little faggots are gonna be when they scratch their way to the surface over the next seven years and all they find is pavers?’

      He even acted out the frantic terror of the struggling chrysalises and his face turned purple with laughter.

      What astounded me was the cheerful nature of his malice. How on earth could anyone be amused by innocent cicadas being thwarted in their dash for the light after seven years underground? And why refer to them as faggots, for fuck’s sake? These questions inspired my sense of justice in a way that nineteen years practise of law had never done.

      Instead of going straight to the office that morning (quite some time ago now), I studied my subject through a forest of faces on the train, then from close behind him on the city platform where he alighted, his shiny black hair like a Brylcreem beacon.

      I observed him alone in a coffee shop, grinning and sniggering at what he thought was his private joke.

      I followed him into his building, boldly marching through his offices — just one more anonymous suit.

      I learned his name (Gavin Millet) and established his address via the White Pages and my prior knowledge as to (approximately) where he had joined the train.

      From that moment, his life became hell. I started by telephoning his home from a public phone.

      ‘Hello?’ (A female voice.)

      ‘Hello … is that Gavin’s house?’ (I made my voice sound anxious, and a little effeminate for good measure.)

      ‘Yes. Who is speaking?’ (A strong voice, suddenly very correct and proper, but also apprehensive.)

      ‘Tell Gav that Cherry knows … and he wants to come out.’

      ‘Come out? What are you talking about? Who are you?’

      ‘Cherry wants to come out,’ I repeated, breaking into faux tears, then hung up. I composed myself, rang Gavin Millet’s office and was put through immediately.

      ‘Gavin Millet speaking.’ (One of those fat/pompous voices you associate with half-smart politicians.)

      ‘Is that the Gavin Millet?’

      (Confused silence.)

      ‘It’s Gavin Millet,’ he said, at last, ‘but I’m not sure I deserve the definite article. Who’s speaking?’

      I let him wonder for a few seconds, then I said: ‘A friend.’

      ‘A friend!’ he exclaimed, half-smart sarcastic. ‘How intriguing!’

      ‘A friend of the Black Prince.’

      ‘What?’

      Now he was worried, as well he might be.

      ‘I said, I’m a friend of the Black Prince … and if you fuck with my friends, you’re a dead man.’

      •

      Now I move forward in time to the main action. As senior in-house counsel for Gulliman Cross (an international investment bank), I was not expected to keep regular hours as long as I got the job done. This I mainly achieved through careful delegation, and by being in the right place at the right time.

      But when I walked in that day, a little after ten, I could tell immediately that something was in the air — that I had just missed something. Mandy Gore, the office manager, was shout/whispering into the phone and glanced up at me as I entered, her blue mascaraed eyes wide with occasion. She clamped a plumpish paw over the mouthpiece and said, ‘Good morning Morgen … Mr Lukic wants to see you.’

      She gave me one of those meaningful looks, with tight lips and raised eyebrows, that are designed to convey a sense of drama, although in Mandy’s case, just about everything did. She went about like a fat Lady Macbeth lamenting the lack of letterhead or soliloquising upon the social occasions she never tired of organising, despite the fact that no one ever showed.

      Notwithstanding Mandy’s advice, I continued down the corridor to my own office to collect my thoughts. Why would Lukic want to see me? There were numerous possibilities, I supposed — the Newman file for a start, not to mention that fuck-up with the Xerxes insurance, but I doubted whether Lukic could know about any of those. I normally managed to cover my tracks before I made them.

      Anyway, if I was in trouble it was hardly likely that Mandy would know about it before I did. It had to be something else.

      ‘Morgen! Spoken to Feargol yet?’

      An apparition like a red rhombus appeared before me. In other words, Don Affridge had stuck his head in the door.

      ‘Morning, Don. No, he hasn’t … what’s up?’

      After