He’s been lying in the ditch for the last hour, waiting. Despite the waterproof coat, the layers of undergarments, the knee-high boots and rubber gloves, he is soaked through to the skin. He’s wearing a balaclava and is stretched out on a groundsheet. Betsy is beside him, tucked in neatly under a blanket, dry as a gun. Betsy is a .22 Winchester Rifle, loaded and prepped. This is his father’s gun, which he has borrowed for the occasion. Why it's named Betsy is anyone’s business, but Declan has surmised for years that it's the name of an old flame. He’s never got a straight answer on this. His father used to hunt, but the rifle has been silent for many years. Declan doesn’t even know if it will fire properly, but he knows how to use it. Year after year, he watched his father on hunting trips when he was a child. He became used to hiding in the bush, hands clasped over his ears as he waited while his father loaded the gun, positioned himself, took sight of the target and fired. It was usually an unsuspecting pheasant or sometimes a rabbit, before Myxomatosis got them. For the most part, it was a kill. At other times, his father stood cursing beneath his breath as the surprised bird flew. Tonight it would be different. There would be a hit. He knew it. He could feel it in his bones. Tonight was the night.
He can see in both directions down the long tongue of tarmacadam. In the distance Southwards, the lights of the town, in the other direction, blackness. Traffic is light tonight, it's midweek, and almost everyone is home from work; there will be few out on this cold October night. He takes off his gloves to rub his hands and blows on them to warm up. He feels for Betsy and rubs his fingers along the smooth barrel as if it were the warm furry head of a pet. There’s a naggin bottle in his pocket. He swigs a mouthful of Jameson, then another, and recaps it. He has a video camera. One of those you strap around your forehead to get a full picture of what you see. This will collect the evidence.
When he was a child, Declan Molloy was quiet and even quieter as an adolescent. His mother said he was shy, the teachers said he lacked confidence and needed to make friends. He didn’t think so. Sometimes he would get into a row with another child. He would be shoved or jostled in the corridors. Often, pupils would throw snide remarks his way and make jokes about him within earshot. Most times, he was afraid to react; instead, he just crawled away in shame and hid himself like a squashable insect in the toilets or an empty classroom. When he was cornered, he did react, and a fight was inevitable. The numbers were always against him, and he usually ended up bruised, with a bleeding nose, a cut or a graze and ruffled or torn clothes. He wet himself sometimes.
The school psychological support service, to which he was referred and became their most frequent client, completed all the assessments. …..Declan is a child of normal cognitive ability but with significant deficits in social interaction and communication skills. He cannot engage and maintain healthy social relationships. …..Declan has a pleasant disposition but has a significantly lowered level of self-esteem. He is an introverted personality and is rule-bound in his behaviour. This inability to acknowledge variations in his environment is a major barrier to future personal and social maturity and may cause significant problems in adulthood.
“The poor child“, his mother would say at the parent-teacher meetings. “It's not his fault. You should be dealing with those bullies. They should be punished, expelled or whatever for attacking our poor Declan. He’s a harmless boy who wouldn’t hurt a fly”.
If they were playing games as they often did, and Declan, under duress, was playing, he always spotted the rule breakers, the ball handlers, the shovers, the bullies who pinched you when out of the referees’ sight. Declan would see them all and was often the victim. There had to be consequences, retribution, and revenge, and he would lock the offenders’ names into his memory. Why should they get away with it? They have broken the rules; they must pay. They will pay. And they did. For each offence, he devised a consequence and a punishment and meted out the sentence. Once, he was suspended for pouring a glass of milk into Jimmy Murphy’s school bag. All he could say was he deserved it. I saw him cogging in the school test. He saw lads dodging the pay kiosk and skipping into the disco and witnessed some of them getting free pints from their friends working behind the bar. He didn’t know which was the worst offence, so they were all punished. The freeloaders had their wallets lifted and the money left on the floor for finders keepers. The free drinkers had their drinks spilt “accidentally”. Let the punishment fit the crime.
He was referred for further assessment. This time the boffins said ….The test result indicates significant introversion with an underlying anger and an inability to deal with his emotions. He expresses an unusual degree of paranoia and resentment toward others. Declan needs individualised psychological support. Unfortunately, due to the limitations of resources, the school is unable to provide the appropriate level of assistance and intervention to support Declan’s needs at this time. We, therefore, refer him to the State Child Support and Guidance service in the hope that Decan receives the necessary treatment required as soon as possible….
Two weeks later, his mother received a letter from the authorities saying they were pleased to add Declan’s name to the priority waiting list. Declan or his mother never heard from the Child Support and Guidance Service again.
Meanwhile, at home, while his mother is out playing Bingo or watching daytime television, and his father is at the factory or home shining up his hunting kit for another wild bird safari into the mountains, Declan sits in his room dreaming of revenge. Listing in his mind the possible offences and creating a matching list of punishments. A catalogue of crime and punishment. Of course, schoolwork falls by the wayside. Why should he bother when all the fuckers around him are cheating their way through? He wasn’t going to satisfy any of the bitch teachers by studying, so no homework is done, no projects were handed in, and certainly no exams were sat. It’s only the reports of the school's Psychological service that save him from being expelled permanently, “What is the point in expulsion since it will reinforce his sense of failure and alienation”, said the headmaster, waving the assessment reports at the teacher's meetings and desperately trying to show off his neo-liberal approach to modern education. And so it goes on and on. Offences followed by retribution, mostly in secret so it is impossible to pin everything on him. Some of the teachers have a sneaking admiration for Declan's behaviour. At least, the brats are getting their comeuppance. It was a pity that poor Declan was losing out, though.
His class graduated, and all of the students floated away to apprenticeship jobs or college. All except Declan, of course, who remained at home lying on his bed listening to the sound of daytime television from downstairs, his resentment and anger bubbling up within him like a prodromic volcano without even the act of revenge available to him as a relief. He has become angrier and sullen. Gone is that placid, even sometimes humorous child, to be replaced by the cold, isolated blackness of unhappiness. He has taken to sipping his father's Jameson. His mind is full of shit. Every action in others is a deed against him, every person's approach to him is a threat. He must be on his guard at all times. “The fuckers will get me if I let them, but I won’t. If they try to harm me they will pay”. He’s eighteen now, and when he does go out, he cycles around the town on meaningless journeys, never going anywhere in particular and coming back when he gets bored or tired. When he’s out, he is in constant competition with the traffic. Lorries that bully him off the road with their noisy, dirty diesel exhausts, car drivers that beep at him, other faster cyclists mockingly pass him, overtaking on a busy road, surprising him, sometimes making him falter and on a few occasions knocking him off his bike. Even pedestrians who swear are out to get him, step onto Zebra crossings at the last minute, making him brake suddenly, looking and laughing at him as they cross. And he spots the rule breakers who don’t know how to use indicators or have no brake lights, speeders who can’t read speed signs, the fuckers who pull out in front of him just as he is approaching. “Goddam it, you, bitch, bastard, fucker. Get off the road. Leave me alone, road hogs, when did you do your driving test?”. Every journey is a death run, a cycle across a minefield, a battlefield. It gets worse. He begins to dream of these journeys. He was chased to a cliff by a Juggernaut, waking just before he reached the edge, a cyclist with a machine gun following him, laughing at him, firing volleys into the air and a pedestrian throwing hand grenades onto the road in front of him. He wakes in a sweat of fear and anger, vowing to get revenge, vowing to make them pay. By now, of course, he has devised the penalties for the rule breakers. Speeders will find a tyre puncture, those who fail to indicate, a broken light, bullies who beep too much, and a long, perfectly straight scratch on the door panel. Over the following months, a lot of cars in his neighbourhood are vandalised, as the cops say, by a person or persons unknown. But it is not enough to stop him from being harassed. They still beep at him, run him to the curb and mess with his head at crossings. Something has to be done to stop this terrorising. He can't take any more of this shit; something has to be done. “Poor Declan” as his mother would say, “Why can’t they leave him alone?”
He stands up in the pitch dark to stretch his legs. The rain has stopped, but he’s still soaked, though he doesn’t care. This is the moment, this is payback time. He scans the horizon, and in the distance, he sees it. A car is approaching from the town side. The main beams are on. He can see it, travelling at speed and right down the middle of the road, well over the continuous white line which he knows is there; he’s cycled this road many times and knows every inch of it. He grabs Betsy and steps out into the middle of the road. The car comes closer, but the driver sees someone on the road and slows down to a stop twenty feet in front. Even though the headlights are blinding, he can still see the head of the driver behind the steering wheel, his surprised face peering out at him, standing in the middle of the road. He lifts and aims the rifle towards the car, catching it dead centre in his night vision sight, his finger gently resting on the trigger. The car’s engine shuts down, the lights go off, and the driver sits still, stuck to his seat like a hapless wild bird, waiting. Declan stands still, waiting. The night is still, waiting for the silence to be broken by the sound of a single gunshot.
DoubleSpeak 