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Act Three  Chapter thirty two

Smash the Prison Gates

–‘Also I’m thinking Maxie wants to suicide..’-

Barney narrating

            If I live long enough I can tell my grandkids I missed the Revolution because I was at home babysitting Moonbeam.

As if a revolution happens just like that. But it was a watershed, the army being openly humiliated instead of destroying our goods depots, and the soldiers coming over that evening.

Because all the police began to follow suit, country stations were already allied with us, now more were publicly declaring for the Pools Federation.                  ref 8.Collapse of Capitalism

Now everyone from the rubbish collectors to the health workers, from the park keepers to the semi state bodies, were lining up for a credit card, and anything else that was going.

And I didn’t babysit Moonbeam anyway. Bertha, Maggie’s mother was there, crying constantly and organizing everything: the funeral, the wake, the condolences, the flowers, answering the insistent telephone, the reporters at the door.

While I just slept, drugged to the eyeballs. Woke to an excruciating pain in my missing finger. Took more pills, watched half a cartoon with Moonie, and slept again.

So what about the ‘dilemma’? I’m always asked.. -‘How do you tell an almost three year old girl that her mother is dead?’-  Happy Birthday dear Moonbeam… oh shit.

Well that day I was too busy controlling my breathing and not falling over or vomiting in the bed.

I woke again to a piercing whistle. I have a special little mobile I have to keep charged up and with me. For just one very special call. Maxie and Jerry have them as well.

I half woke up, finally found the green button and heard an unearthly de-code program. It was an urgent message, relayed from a spy. Those prize idiots were sending their last faithful commandos to attack our depots. In just forty minutes time, it seemed.

I was too ill already or I would’ve been upset by the awful responsibility.

-‘Zak don’t bother.’- it squawked at the end. I was Zak that month. But I could hardly just not bother. What if the others had problems.

What if the whole of history turned out differently.

Coz I dozed off! Oops, sorry I didn’t bother.

So I passed on the message to CLAN Coordination. Before returning rapidly to dreamland.

That’s how I missed the ‘Revolution’. Or that spectacular failed attack that has become a symbol of it.

For me what happened was more like a black comedy sketch. More than half the army vehicles ‘broke down’ or ran out of fuel on the three kilometer trip. Got lost or had accidents.

A lot of squaddies had suddenly twisted backs, or asthmatic fits, or just forgot to put their boots on..

I woke again at about 2 am. Took my medicines, felt I could function, and turned on the radio. Lucky it was my left hand lost the finger.

I heard a faraway explosion. An occasional artillery shell was still being fired, from the last diehard government positions.

Then I noticed I was crying.

I’d forgotten I had ten stitches in my leg as well and I had to hop and hobble, obsessively round the house.

But it wasn’t only the physical pain.

Every time I thought of Maggie this lump in my throat would try to choke me.

I was being chewed up alive by remorse and anguish.

And this could run and run. I’d known this lady since I was six years old!

I remember the day a cow we were herding pushed a broken down car off its jack. It fell on Josh the farmhand who was underneath changing the fuel pump. Maggie was about eight years old. I was fiddling frenetically with the jack.

But she dragged a scaffold pole from the barn. And we levered the car up, enough to save his life.

She saved my life a few times as well.

And she had our baby girl.

I was hobbling and crying. The rain was rattling at the windows. I was getting unwanted flashes of Moonbeam’s birth.

Not the expectant beginning in Maggie’s incensed room. With Smudge the midwife, Maxie and her girlfriends, among the huge cushions and sexy Hindu hangings.

And not the ecstatic ending, with a red and battered baby in her arms.

            I remembered the forgotten part.

            Maggie screaming and begging to die. Again and on and on.

When Moonie was still stuck and in danger after ten hours torture.

And Maggie’s wails were mingling with my father’s choking death throes, only last year.

            All mixed up with the rain and my own sobbing..

***

At some later point in the proceedings my phone started ringing.

-‘Hey Pardy you awake? I am figuring you is awake now?-

It was Sol. At least he didn’t call me Barney.

-‘Hello my friend, good to hear you.’-

-‘Listen by me.. We’re down here guarding soldiers, me and Maxie and Macker, and Damo and Tessa and..Why don’t you come down? It’s over Breading’s Stores in Silver Street, fifth floor. Come on down here I need you.’-

            -‘What?.. Now?. .I’m wounded.’-

            -‘You gonna be okay. Take a taxi. I need to interview you with our magic friend about the Kids Prison Breakout.’-

            -‘Sorry mate.. it’s after three in the morning. And…’-

            -‘Well okay, come if you can… Also I’m thinking Maxie wants to suicide…’-

            My eyes were shooting about, striking photos of Maggie on the wall in front of me.

Now Maxie wanted to commit suicide. Of course she wanted to bloody suicide.. Sol knew.

-‘Oh God.. shit er yes, you’re right..’– I said. –‘I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’-

            -‘Take a taxi. Everyone’s awake.’-

-‘Okay thanks a lot, just keep an eye on her, okay?’-

The air-cab arrived before I could drink my tea, and I couldn’t manage to put on my waterproofs, but to hell with it.

The streets were busy all right. Maybe a lot of speedy people high on what happened. Many people who had marched into the city were too late for the actual fighting, but in good time for the celebrations.

I saw a few streets cordoned off, and a still smoldering building, and that’s all.

Then there were queues of Pools lorries moving stuff, who knows where or why at three in the morning.

The whole of the center had just fallen into our area. Lots of groups were staking claims I suppose. And there was plenty of personal looting.    Ref 24 Integral Coops Glossary. Pools

We were there in ten minutes, despite the traffic. The driver recognized me from TV photos, gave me a good shot of plum brandy, and insisted on waiting outside in case I needed him.

My problem though was just to get up to the fifth floor. The lifts were out and my leg hurt. I went up a bit and had a dizzy spell for a while. Thought about it and went a bit more.

Just tasting how it is to be crippled, and not appreciating it…

It was a big open space with just a few remaining desks and computers. And a lot of soldiers, crashed out on mattresses and cushions. Maxie, Damo and Tessa were there all right. But asleep, propped at a partition or sprawled on the floor. It was another hot sweaty night.

Sol wasn’t visible but Macker was tending a projector, flashing TV images on the wall.

-‘Barney Barney Barney. You’re all right!’-

             His face was black with smoke or oil. His clothes ragged, for once.

Our little gap toothed traveller. Guarding over twenty big soldiers, with just an air rifle lying on the floor. Of course they weren’t really dangerous now, but still.

I knelt painfully to embrace him with one arm, and he found me a chair to sit on.

-‘How’s Maxie? How are you?’-

-‘She won’t talk. Just cries. And she cut her face up, banging her head…And you?’-

            -‘The worst day of my life. We’d better get Maxie home. I got a taxi downstairs.’-

            -‘You should still be in hospital yourself I reckon.’-

            -‘I still don’t know what happened. Were there many killed?’-

            -‘No no, but it was shocking and bloody. The most killed was here in the next street.’-

-‘You stopped them here?’-

            -‘Everyone was charging down into the center. The last barricade was near here, we arrived first because Maxie knew which way they were coming.  She, um.. ‘-

            -‘I know, she got a message.’-

            -‘She jumped up on the stage at the Docks Assembly and read out the message. People thought she was crazy. Then some Clanners arrived and confirmed it and sent us all off to stop them.’-

            -‘With your bare hands, what madness!’-

            -‘That’s what I thought, but they didn’t want to fight at all. The bulldozer went through the first two barricades. But the tanks all broke down, would you believe it.’-

-‘So were there many of our lot killed?’-

            -‘They were so slow we had time to get up on the roofs. We were given molotovs and showered them with fire. Half of them were trying to surrender and the rest were running away. Some fella got burned alive, it was horrible to see it.’-

            -‘I can imagine it was.’-

            -‘We filmed a lot, Sol’s just gone to deliver a good copy. We were able to edit a bit when the lekky came back on. We..’-

I was glancing about as he went on. A lot of the soldiers were awake and watching Pools-TV on Macker’s projector screen. Macker followed my gaze.

–‘It’s over Barney, we’ve won. Just a few units of Special Police holding out..’-

-‘And the fascists? And the mercenaries?’-

            -‘Never appeared, far as I know! I know you saw this coming years ago, but for me it’s ..it’s like, um. A new dimension!’-

            -‘And for me finally it’s hardly worth it.’-

            -‘But Maggie would order you to forget her, I mean. We already knew that life’s a piece of shit!’-

            I chuckled and coughed, agonizingly.

            -‘Moonbeam is Maggie, in a way, like Damo is my dead father.’-

I held back my laugh. The idea of surly little Damien being Macker’s dad.

-‘See I understood it now. We’re organizing all these soldiers and cops to be escorted back. To be taken in by the Pools in their villages or wherever. They’re enrolling them in the Free-Uni already, and copying what we did with the escaped kids.’-

            -‘I know that, problem is there’s a lot of them. And they got awful hangups. And all the adult prisoners are going to be coming out as well. And..’-

            -‘But we can do it.’- He was on his feet and animating. -‘We can do it because their hangups don’t make any sense anymore. Without a money system they’re just obsolete. It’s fantastic, it’s really happening! All their shit prejudice ideas you could never change in a million years.. They’re obsolete Barney. They do not apply!’-                                              Ref 9 Dissolving Institutions

            And he flung six juggle pins up in the air.

            -‘That’s as may be, but we’re not prepared for this… Oh shit I just remembered. Maybe it’s not too late.’- I had my phone out already, one handed.

            -‘What, what happened?’-

            -‘About a thousand useful things I should be doing.’-

            -‘No, no Barney come on, you’re well out of it. Let your support group be Pardy for tonight.’-

            Maybe he was right. I was vague and queasy. And just standing up again would be quite a challenge.

            -‘Oh all right then. I’ll just check in and tell them I’m back.’– says I. And clicked quickly on the first number.

That’s when Sol appeared.

-‘Hey Barney you made it. You look very bad.’-

I was trying to leave a message for Anna.

-‘We took good quality historic footage. Already edited. You know what is footage?’-

            -‘Lengths of film, yours is digital.’-

            -‘You knew it! I love this loco language. How’s Moonbeam?’-

            -‘Sleeping. With Maggie’s mum. I didn’t tell her yet.’-

            -‘No no. Don’t tell her at all.’-

            -‘But she’ll have to know.’-

            -‘No no, Our adult ideas don’t figure, she doesn’t have to know on our level.’-

            -‘Just lie then?’-

-‘We could tell her Mummy’s gone away, till she’s used to the change. If not you’ll damage her worse, like for her life!’-

            -‘At least she’s more or less finished breast feeding. What about Maxie?  Macker reckons she’s really out of it.’-

            -‘She thinks it was her fault. She thinks she let her die because she’s a bad person.’-

            -‘Oh God. The sin syndrome.’-

            -‘She’s sure Maggie was killed by God to punish her. Maxie’s crazy right now. And you?’-

–‘I really am to blame. I knew Maxie’s premonitions come true.. Still I’m better out of the house. Thank you for calling.’-

            -‘Then we gonna do this interview. Oh… !’-

Macker was making Maxie more comfortable. I saw her lashes flutter and lift.

I blew her a kiss but she looked right through me.

Her eyes started darting about madly.

-‘No no no Maxie.’-

Forgetting I was crippled I fell forward on my face.

            As Max was rolling smoothly to her feet.

            Up and running for the open fifth story window!

Sol knew. Sol flew. Even slightly before her it seemed.

Bounding into her path. Catching her easily in his arms, and laughing.

-‘Oh no you don’t, sorry I can’t lose my film crew!’- he said.

Then Macker was hugging them both and Damo closing the windows. We would sweat even more.

I came off worse in fact, as I landed on my newly deformed hand. And I lay there gasping on the false tiled floor, with nobody hugging me.

-‘You gonna help me Maxie we’re gonna interview Macker and Barney with the Smash Prisons video. This one is for the ‘How To Destroy the State’ series. We need this version, they gonna make a commentary and this is our opportunity. Come on Maxie snap out of it I’m now going to.. ‘-

I realized they had the computer and projector cabled up. So he just had to click away from Pools TV, and we were watching the start of the video, about the rescue of Damo and Tessa. Plus the other 189 inmates of the ex youth detention center..

The integrated transformation, –‘Smash the Prisons!’

I was still on the floor, openly crying. As the -‘Freedom. Freedom.’- music came crashing in loud. The sleepy soldiers were sitting up and taking notice. And me too. I’d been in on this from the start but it still inspired me.

Dissolving that noxious institution must be the best thing I’ve ever been involved in.

       ref 26 destroying prisons

-‘Come on Maxie here’s the question list, you know, just ask the best ones.. So how DO you abolish a prison?’-

We could see hundreds of people, milling in what looked like a colourful Pools center.

-‘What’s happening here?’- asked Sol. Handing me a mike.

            -‘Well this isn’t really chaos.’– I was sniffing back my tears –‘In fact it took a year to organize. We knew the prison well and had infiltrated the warders. We gave them alternative work or study or whatever.

            Then each one of the yunkers in there, boys and girls wings, had a reception group. And a family to take them in.

            We worked with the De-Schools and the Free-Uni projects, um, it’s a long story.. Social Science had a lot of volunteers.. Let’s see.

            ..Teen Rescue, the Foster Swaps they’re ex Catholics. Mostly the CoOp Pools, CLAN Defence and above all their own families. Quite a bleeding jigsaw and we waited too long!’- 

            This commentary was much worse than the original.

On the video we could see the groups with colored flags waving. Getting into buses. And a whole gang of Clanners in overalls, all off to rescue the youth prisoners. Failing to look inconspicuous.

            -‘But that doesn’t solve the problem for the future.’- Maxie was staring at the wall like a zombie, but Sol insisted on interviewing me. I didn’t see much point.

            -‘Yes yes it does because our Pools justice can refer to the placings network. And, and don’t forget that by getting rid of the worst part of the money system, we hope to cut criminality by ninety per cent at least and..’-

            -‘But if there are no police anymore?’-

            -‘The cops never had a clue, even when they were well funded.’-  I explained -‘They were set up to protect the criminal scams of the ruling class, er, like the money system itself.’-

            The film was showing buses unloading and the rescuers filing quickly through a smaller door in an enormous castle style gate, itself set in a tunnel through the walls. Then they were in an ancient grotty prison dining hall.

Another controlled chaos. And there was Maggie speaking. But we couldn’t hear the sound.

            -‘Maggie was a key organizer in all this. The one who really saw what is necessary to permanently dissolve a poisonous self defeating institution.’-  I declared -‘And, um,  dis-intoxicate and de-brainwash its victims, like. There was a lot of follow up, er.. We were creating a model or template for abolishing other.. but let’s ask Tessa and Damien, you spent six months in this place, were you expecting this to happen?’-

 

Damien shook his head, still furiously shy, but Tessa took the microphone and spoke. I got a rest.

            -‘You can see us all coming in now. We knew it was happening, still it was a shock to see a Clanner with a gun and the keys. It was the middle of the night and we were locked down, um. You can see us now, the girls, only sixty five of us. And in fact we’d never even seen the boys close up, before that minute. So imagine!.’-

-‘And were the prisoners happy with the, organization?’-

            -‘Yes of course we were delighted. For us more than our family we needed our friends. Or a gang of new friends. Maybe in a De-School project or in a CLAN or some in the Free-Uni.. That was the best thing for me. That you had got that together.. See all those coloured scarves, they’re just for the colour of the buses.. It takes about ten minutes for everyone to find their, uh, reception groups.’-

            -‘Macker Mucdunna, you organized shows with the prisoners. Was it necessary to smash down the gates?’-

            -‘You can see down the back now our CLAN friends do have a couple of lads in handcuffs. All the rest went free immediately

            What did you.. oh yes the gate. We only destroyed it for the photo. It was like a visual blast. Just so you remember. Everyone remembers that image. That gate wasn’t needed anymore so, well, if not you just see people being taken out and, and so what!’-

            -‘Will you tell us how you did it then?’. Tessa asked, grinning up at her big brother  

            -‘Two big converted NH3 tow trucks and plenty of chains. Plus we loosened up the hinges in the walls with pneumatic air hammers.. It wasn’t magic at all really, but it looked good..

            ..Hey you army fellas watching back there. The way we recycled these prisoners is the model for how they want to recycle you. Maybe tomorrow, with reception groups okay.. Only there’s a lot of you and it all happened too fast. So just be patient okay? You’ll all get home and get sorted out okay?’-

            -‘This is it. This is the good part.’- .

            -‘Now ladies and gents it seems the sound is turned off. We can see a million kids and their rescuers all packed in the prison yard with a mad magician.. HA HA.. I’ll turn on the original sound now… Here it comes….’-

Abracadabra, I love you my dear

Make these big gates

Disappear!…

Come on everybody together ready..

Give us a One Two Three Four

Annihilate the Prison Door

Five Six Seven Eight

Tear apart the Prison Gates

All Together    Five.. Four.. Three.. Two.. One…

GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO….’-

 

            The gates disappeared of course, and the crowd were hopping with glee. Then we saw the great slow motion sequence from outside…

            The prison doors dissolving into smithereens flying in every direction…

            The crowd charging out through the dust.

            Flags flying, all making for the coaches.

            Flanked by Clanners in formation.

            Just a few city police ducking behind their car down the road.

 

The soundtrack continued with laughing, singing and joking. As the coaches disappeared one by one and the interviews began.

            Sol nudged my good arm. The guy is a genius.

Maxie and Tessa were hugging and talking, crying and animated. And now Macker was embracing them both. Only Damo sat silent.

Maxie was laughing. Her eyes had come alive.

Sol was winking at me and rolling his own.

            -‘It really worked.’- he said.

His arm around me where I kneeled.

            -‘And you too are uh, snapping out of it, no?’

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previous episode: Serial of The Free Ch 31 ‘Dinner at The Grand’