"Mental Peril (and how to avoid it)" by Suzannah Carrick

Mental Peril

“Hello, this is Sergeant Humphrey Walters.  I’m calling about your son, Mrs McKenzie, he’s in mental peril.”

The routine day, with its routine job at the dry-cleaners and its routine breaks and breakfasts and conversations and calls, had suddenly gone wrong.  Like a flip-book with something obscene scrawled on the last page.  All going smoothly then, SNAP.  MENTAL PERIL.  James…

            Exactly nine seconds ago, Mrs Margaret McKenzie had been the proud (often boastful) mother of fifteen-year-old James.  Reliable, earnest eyes beneath springy brown hair, a determined mouth and a skateboard that he never rode just dragged it behind him everywhere, scraping on the pavement.  The perfect son in so many ways, from his love of action films to his sadistic enjoyment in crushing spiders.  James.  Not exactly cool, but verging on it, on the brink.  Not a sad wannabe, but not taking it too far.  A balance, a perfect balance.  

            Sergeant Walters paused, psyching himself up to deliver bad news.  He lounged in his office, feet up on the counter, unconsciously filling in a crossword with his left hand and watching the video link to a padded cell, its contents: one hunched figure and a copy of War and Peace.

            At the other end of the line, Mrs McKenzie sat picking the hairs out of her pink cushions.  Slowly working herself up into a state of complete panic.  She stirred vodka into her Earl Grey.

“Young James, we caught him in possession of…” the policeman trailed off, like somebody trying to avoid a dirty word.

            Mrs McKenzie picked up the cushion and hurled it at a smug portrait of her mother that hung on the wall.  She’d no doubt why James was in trouble.  He’d been hanging around with a new crowd lately.  A dangerous crowd full of radical ideas, the type who lurked in bus shelters and spray-painted illegal things, stupid things.  Things that rhymed.  Things with metre.

            “We caught him in possession of…” Sergeant Walters tried again, “of-of Byron.” He paused for effect and to pop a tic-tac into his mouth.  Such language made him feel unclean. “That’s class A poetry.” He said, reverting to his professional approach automatically, “And the penalty is life imprisonment for the dealers and writers.  We suspect your son is merely a reader, therefore by the intellect protection act of 1994 we have the right to confine him for thirteen years, and monitor his reading levels.  Stuffy prose and newspaper articles from the Daily Telegraph are amongst the short list of acceptables.”

            Mrs McKenzie threw the mug of tea and alcohol at her mother’s portrait as well.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” She said calmly as china smashed in the background, “I know my son, and he would never – NEVER – do a thing like that.  It must be somebody pretending to be him.  A silly mistake.  My James is an algebra boy.  Well behaved.” She laughed and began to hang up the phone.

Sergeant Walters tapped his pen against the table: it was bad enough having to break the news, but now this Mrs McKenzie wanted him to confirm it.  Like he’d make this kind of accusation without proof.  Idiot woman.  Yet another example of bad parenting.

            “Does your son have a lip ring?”

“Don’t all fifteen-year-olds?” She shot back

“Is he wearing a black T-shirt with a white rose on it?  A pair of yellow converses?  A black hat and a locket with the ∏ symbol on it?  Green jeans, a belt with gold stars?  Does he use Fructis gel in his hair?”

Mrs McKenzie sounded unsure of herself, “There must be millions of boys like that…” she trailed off.

Sergeant Walters listened to her sobs for a few moments, then said gently, “You’d better come down to the station, Mrs McKenzie.”

*

James McKenzie had pushed War and Peace to the very edge of the table and was busy lunging at the padded walls.  He’d looked around for a camera and, seeing none, had decided to take advantage of the situation and vent his rage.  The walls were harder than they looked and eventually he sank to the floor feeling battered and crosser than ever.

            A straight-backed policewoman entered wearing frameless glasses and a necklace with orange rock pendant.  She glanced at him, trying to mask her disgust.

“Your mother will be here shortly.  She’s going through clearance.”

James mumbled a reply.  He was terrified – not of the policewoman, not even of jail, but of his mother.

The policewoman sat down on the table and pulled a pen from her breast pocket.  She took off the lid with her teeth and said in cool tones, “I’m Jennifer, the resident police psychologist.  It’s my job to get into the mind of young offenders and discover the motivations behind their…actions.  I’m also investigating the link between mental disorders and poetry.” She said the word matter-of-factly like a teacher in a sex education lesson, “We’ll discuss this with your mother, see if there’s anything in your background responsible for this tendency, and then we’ll ask you to fill out a short questionnaire.  And, let me tell you now, if you confess – tell us who gave you the poetry, then the judge will be lenient.” She smiled plastically, fished out a scruffy notebook and sat motionless, pen hovering, smile bland, waiting.

            Several minutes passed, then Mrs McKenzie’s pink jacket blurred through the frosted window in the cell door.  She kicked the door, there was the sound of a key in the lock and the irritable voice of the Cell Warden chiming up,

“No need to get violent or you’ll end up on the wrong side of the door too.  I have the keys remember.  I could just shove you in and…click click.” She laughed.

“Pft!” Mrs McKenzie dismissed, striding inside and straightening her leopard-print dress.  Her stilettos clacked upon the glittery linoleum.  She acknowledged Jennifer with a wink, went over to her son a pinched his cheek affectionately.

“It’s a mistake, isn’t it darling?” she leaned so close her lipstick nearly smudged onto his cheek, “It was somebody else’s, it was planted, wasn’t it?”

            James squirmed away, snapping defiantly, “It was mine.”

There was an odd sort of pride in his voice.  Jennifer scribbled furiously and sketched out a few diagrams.

“I bought it.” He continued.

Jennifer looked up and spoke commandingly before Mrs McKenzie had the chance to interfere, “Where did you buy it?”

“The black market, in the middle of the night.”

Jennifer hissed, “Where’s it held?” while Mrs McKenzie glowered with angry disappointment.

James hedged with the professionalism of a politician, “It depends, it changes… all over really.”

“James,” Mrs McKenzie pleaded, “How can this be true?”

James ignored her, but his hands shook with fear.  He didn’t dare look at her.

Jennifer paused, letting an uncomfortable silence develop.

            “I’m prepared to strike a deal.” She said at last, “Catching the black marketers is incredibly important in bringing the situation under our control.  So we’ll lop three years from your sentence if you do a spot of…” she smiled, “undercover.”

Mrs McKenzie glared, “I’m not standing for that!”

Jennifer flounced up from the table, “It’s not up to you.  It’s up to the boy.”

“I’m not having him putting himself in danger!”

Jennifer jabbed her in the chest with her pen and hissed, “Shut up!”

She turned and strode pensively towards James.

“We’d implant a tracking device into your forearm, we’d give you a magnet.  You’d pretend you’d never been arrested and we’d not publicize that you had.  The black marketers’d contact you, you’d go, and when you got there you’d swipe the magnet over your arm, the device would send us a signal, and we’d know where you were.  Where the black market was.” She smiled as though it were simple.

James nodded, confused, while his mother made noises like an angry snake.

*

They put him under anaesthetic while they implanted the device and they barricaded Mrs McKenzie into the waiting room as a precaution.  Albert the technical assistant donned latex gloves, licked his lips, withdrew the ipod-like device from a canister and twiddled his scalpel between his fingers like a baton.  Jennifer turned on some jazz music and she and Sergeant Walters sat on plastic chairs, watching with professional interest and comparing notes on James.  The process was a short one, Albert’s stitches were fast and he quickly sponged down the skin.  Then he used a flesh-coloured putty to camouflage the wound, and a tiny, hair-dryer type device to set it.

“All done.” He grinned, whipping the gloves off so fast they crackled.  Walters got up to perform his favourite part.  Removing a magnet from his pocket he swiped it over James’ skin.  The arm jumped up to meet it, hand lolling pointlessly, and a dull alarm sounded in the police station.  Walters wrenched the arm from the magnet and nodded to Jennifer, “In perfect working order,” he smiled.

*

A flushed and frantic Mrs McKenzie was released from the waiting room.  She charged down the corridor like a bull, her eyes gleaming with anger and determination.

            James was presented to her.  He looked sheepish and rubbed his arm.

“You may take your son home now.” Smiled Jennifer, appearing suddenly at his shoulder with a cold look in her eyes.  Mrs McKenzie gabbled something angrily and wrenched her son away.  Elbowing past police officers she marched James out of the station and into her waiting citron.

*

On the way back they pulled in at a motorway service station to munch salty-bitter hash browns and breathe in the scent of molten fat.  Their chairs squeaked and the laminated menu sagged like a wilting flower.  Mrs McKenzie leaned back and rolled her eyes,

“James you idiot.  How the hell did they catch you?”

He scowled, “Went through my schoolbag, they went through everyone’s.  It was only one page inside the secret compartment of my lunch box.”

Mrs McKenzie shook her head despairingly, “It was close, too close.  And you…you completely lost your head.  Why, pray, did you mention the black market?”

James shrugged and Mrs McKenzie shot him a look of disappointment.

“Well we might as well get this over with, pass me your arm.”

He obeyed nervously, gritting his teeth in anticipation of the pain she was about to inflict.

            She plucked a fork from the table, sucked it a few moments, then jabbed it into his arm.  Using the pepper pot as a pivot, she levered the device from his arm with the fork’s prongs.  He heard the stitches snapping and the skin ripping.  The device clattered onto the table, and an aching pain twinged up his arm.  She passed him a napkin and he held it to the wound.  Mrs McKenzie summoned a waiter, ordered some ice and slickly popped the device into the waiter’s pocket.

*

Back in the car, holding ice to his arm and clenching his teeth against the pain, James felt it was time for the apology.

“I’m sorry.” He mumbled

Mrs McKenzie tutted, “They’ll have searched the house by now.”

“Will they find…?”

“The black market stock, fliers, leftovers from last time?  Of course.  They know their stuff, the low-lives.” She registered his guilt and strung an arm around his shoulders.

“Don’t worry darling.  We’ll just set up a black market somewhere else, that’s all.  I fancy York, what do you think?”

He nodded and smiled, realising he’d been forgiven.

“I think we should change our name,” he suggested, “Jennifer Walters suit you?  And I can be young Humph.”

“Perfect…” she smiled in the dark and looked out at the road ahead.  Trails of cats’ eyes streamed past.  Cars’ taillights glowed preciously like jewels in dull rock.  Sign lights illuminated the branches of trees and smells of night blasted in through the open window.  Above them stretched a vast dome of navy sky studded with stars and full of possibility.