Show of Hands: A Novel - Softcover

The Contenders

On the morning before the contest, Tom Shrift watched from his upstairs window as his neighbor mowed a little lawn, the man lapping back and forth until he had achieved six parallel stripes, which alternated in intensity -- green and dark green -- a tweedy warp that produced in Tom alternating feelings of envy and rage, envy and rage.

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon En gland's mountains green...

Where were Tom's green mountains? Where were his feet to walk free? Quarantined in his fi rst-fl oor apartment, denied an outdoor space of his own (he'd wanted a small Juliet-style balcony, but his neighbor had successfully objected to the council), Tom observed this lawn painfully not his own, then opened his front window slightly, so that the canted glass lifted into his face a breeze strong with an exhalation of cut grass.

Loss, this was what he felt. Loss and deprivation. One man owns, another man craves -- the craving far more passionate than the dull plea sures of ownership. How galling not to have when you were the type who deserved to have -- yes, deserved.

He turned from the window. Three clocks told him he was late, was behind schedule already.

He must not let the petty feud raging between himself and his neighbor detain him today. He had a job interview downtown. He dressed quickly and with close attention, choosing a bold silk tie to augment a white shirt. Ready to do battle, he drove sharply, with the aggression that London's hustling, asphyxiating traffic required.

He parked hastily, found the building he needed, then rose, rose, rose up in a glass elevator traveling up the outer shell of the skyscraper. Immaculate in his suit, he soon sat before a corporate human resources drone -- Tom's mortal enemy -- the kind of specimen who, every where, stood between him and the life he deserved.

A transcript of this exchange would later read:

Interviewer: You've worked mainly for yourself.

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Interviewer: You prefer that? Okay. So, then, what's changed?

Tom: I had some bad luck.

Interviewer: You sold...I see, birthday cards. Cute.

Tom: I owned and ran a highly successful greeting card company, with contracts in four countries, whose hallmark was quality reproductions of art masterpieces. You have to know a lot about art and I do.

Interviewer: You've ceased trading?

Tom: I spent a lot of money trying to license images from the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. I was cheated.

Interviewer: Any other reasons for the collapse? Do you bear any responsibility yourself?

Tom: I was lied to. Swindled, basically.

Interviewer: And but for that, you'd still be trading? Fine. Okay.

Tom: Look, where are you going with this? I lost a lot of money. Maybe I...

Interviewer: You...?

Tom: I may have been too ambitious, but that's all.

Interviewer: You want to take the world by storm.

Tom: I want the universe to know I've been here, yes.

Interviewer: A quote?

Tom: Forget it.

Interviewer: So, maybe you're not so good on the details. Are you still carrying debts from that time?

Tom: Let's just say it's made me available for this line of work.

Interviewer: You're probably more used to being on this side of the table, then?

Tom: Well...you said it, not me. I shouldn't...I shouldn't really be in this sort of situation.

Interviewer: Okay, so let's see. Single. Unemployed. Mm'kay. Kids?

Tom: No.

Interviewer: No kids...mm'kay.

Tom felt his hackles rise. Later, he would fume about why the guy had dwelled only on the negative. Praise me, you wanker! How come you don't read out "Member of Mensa" from my résumé? Praise me! How many job applicants have you seen lately who think of turning the dead Rus sian collections into beautiful daily things? How many, fuckface?

Interviewer: Forty-two years old. You don't look forty-two. What's the secret? Being single?

Tom: It's a secret.

Interviewer: A lot of our team are considerably younger than you. This is a high-pressure job.

Tom: I don't view youth as an advantage. I'm forty-two years old. I bring a lot to the table. My CV speaks for itself. Can we move on?

Interviewer: Would you...would you say you're a team player, Tom?

Tom: A team player? No. I wouldn't say I'm a team player. Can I ask -- have you ever interviewed anyone before? Seriously. Just a question. Because having looked into your "team's" per for mance in the last two years, I think the last thing you should be looking for is "a team player."

He'd blown it. At this point the man told Tom he had "an aggressive character," before declaring the interview over. Tom was soon back on the street, inhaling the carbon air, and battling the crowds once more.

Reaching his car -- he'd parked wantonly in a private parking lot behind the Odeon Cinema -- he was horrifi ed to see a female parking warden standing beside it.

He ran. Oh please, no. He rushed forward, clasping his hands together, begging the small, white, uniformed woman with a small, pale, child's face to give him a break.

"Hey, hey...whoa, whoa. I'm here." Shouting, holding up his arms in surrender: "It's okay. And this is free parking, right? It's free parking. I use this all the time. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop that. I'm going right now."

Refusing to look at him, the parking attendant replied, "It's not free parking, sir."

"Where? Where is the 'no parking' sign? Where is it? Tell me. Go on. Tell me."

"This is not free parking, sir. This is..."

"Oh come on!"

"...this is private."

"Private?...Where? Where does it say 'private'? Exactly?"

"It's the property of Odeon Cinemas, sir, and is reserved for use by their staff."

"Since when?"

"It's a gated area, and I can only assume you accessed it by mounting the pavement on High Street and entering it that way, which is another offense."

"And this is your jurisdiction? Are you allowed to enter private property and adopt overzealous commission-seeking tactics? Oh, man. You people. I can't afford this. Okay? You want the truth? This makes a difference to me. I can't pay this. Please." He held wide his arms, cruciform: the Kensington Christ. "I'm serious. Give me a break here. I'm...I'm going through..." His arguments petered out. "I don't believe this...what a bitch."

Silence from the parking warden at this, a professional reserve.

"You're kidding me, right?"

The attendant continued entering her data.

"You're writing me a ticket? You're writing me...? I don't be -- Fucking unbe -- What are...you people? Blood-sucking leeches. Vampires....Know what you are? Satan's concubines!" At last he elicited a glance from her -- he'd got through at last. He quickly exploited the weakness. "Should be ashamed of yourselves. How you live with yourself is a mystery. So...so how much is that for? The ticket? What's the fine?"

A level voice. "Hundred pounds. Unless you pay within fourteen days."

"And what's your cut? Your cut of that? Fifty percent? Exactly! No wonder you won't let anyone off. What a bitch. You people are the scum of the earth."

Barely audibly, the woman replied, "You're entitled to your opinion, sir."

Her handheld ticket machine then made a succession of brrrrrrrs and clicks before producing Tom's fine, which, when he refused to take it, she bagged and stuck to his windscreen. And with that, she was gone.

In a radical change to his plans -- one had to react quickly in a big city -- Tom drove straight for a garden-supply outlet near his home. With his blood still boiling he walked the aisles of the superstore, locating several plastic bottles of the brand of weed killer he wanted. On the label, a skull-and-crossbones symbol, plus the words extra strength. Yes. He was happy to pay the steep forty pounds they wanted for this toxic product -- it was a very small price to pay to end a feud, once and for all.

With an extreme action in mind, and when he really ought to have been fast asleep in prep ara tion for the contest, he stayed up after midnight, waiting for his neighbor's noises to subside and cease.

At quarter past the hour he received an incoming call on his mobile phone. The LCD screen revealed it to be his aged mother. Grateful for the way modern phones alerted you to the identity of the caller, he turned the device off, screening the old lady out. Tonight was no time to go over all their grievances once more -- her failures as a mother, Tom's as a son, et cetera. Only at 1:30 did he dare creep down the stairs and quietly open his door's triple locks -- clack, cluck, click -- before passing through the shared lobby and out of the communal front door into the night.

The city. Electrically aglow; the glow unable to rise beyond the monoxide lid of gases so that it bounced back. Down upon a lawn. Green grass. His enemy's field. And Tom was going to kill it.

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green...

His feet tingled upon the cold wet blades, increasing his sense of trespass. Should he rethink this action? What future madnesses would this lead to? He looked toward his neighbor's darkened windows, hoping to summon the old enmities that had led him here -- those tit-for-tat reprisals dating back two years now -- hoping once more to envisage the leery face of his tormentor peering between the sun-browned curtains, those stupid, clotted facial features, that aggressive glare, but the window only gave him back himself -- just Tom Shrift, a cat burglar with a watering can, forty-two, unshaven, a moonlit ghost.

Only the weight of the watering can drew him back to his mission, and with half a heart he poured the poison as planned. Killing grass. A terrible crime. Really a madman's response. The potion fl owed unbroken as he moved about the l...