A Voice You Cannot Hear

Long street. Shops, mostly charity and ex-catalogue. Window
shoppers, dirty Kappas and mobile phones. Heads down, belts tightened,
trainers designer but decaying. Call it a market town by-passed. Call
it a seaside resort rundown. Call it a pit village where the voids are
filled with heroin. Call it what you TV types like, but this is his
town and he's free to treat it as he pleases.

The Town Crier got mown down last week by an electric wheelchair
ram-raid on Help the Aged. He was maimed, not fatally, but
embarrassingly, close to the scene, where two youths were seen fleeing
the week before that. In this town the teenage kicks are normally
inside, but occasionally an alley becomes a passage to indecent
behaviour, or Joe Public get a chance at have a go heroism. They won't
get far. Vigilantes will be treated to the same force of law as their
brothers in harm. He'll be cracking down on the wrong, and the rights
of the wrong, and the causes of wrong. The big zero he calls it.
Litterlouts and ticket touts and pimps are all notches on his sliding
scales of justice. Lock them up, but keep the key, there'll be more
behind those bars, in his town.

Pedestrianization. A long word that means less passing trade. The
solution? He's going to build a car park in the town park, houses down
by the river, and a bowling alley on the bus station. He's built a
model in polystyrene tiles and washing-up bottles, little bits of
sponge painted green and guards from his Hornby double-O. When he
swings by the playground, he sits on the roundabout and snaps on his
Polaroid. Lashes the prints into a hard-hitting panorama so he can see
it all. Takes out a marker and draws his vision.

Back in the good old days, when Rome was built, he could have employed
slaves. Now, with the minimum wage, all he can muster is the Special
Brew Ranger and a woman who lives in the gas tower. He brings spades,
gloves, twine, two planks and a sheet metal cutter. They bring an
unusual aroma and a three-legged dog. The dog is put to good use
marking its territory, where the disabled spaces will be situated,
while he outlines his plan.

'I am only a man,' he says.
'Speak up Captain!' shouts Gas Tower Lilly.
'I have a small voice.' He puffs up his chest and straightens his
sou'wester. 'But I have a great vision. One I would share, if only
they'd listen.
'Ey!' shouts the Ranger and tries to clap.
'No Malc, I'm not finished yet.'
'I can't hear you, Captain,' yells Lil in his face. He decides to
quicken his pace.
'If they can't imagine, I'll build it myself. Dirty my hands, with both
your help. So I turn this first sod, a new leaf for my town.'
Squelch goes the spade and they all cheer. The first step on a road to
a u-turn for here. But the blade sinks down deep into saturated earth,
only stops on a stone from an old Roman fort. He doesn't like to swear,
but the Ranger does half the job for him, laughs so hard that he skids
and he's fallen, into the mud where the goal posts should be, down
where the angle's low and the kicks are free.
He grabs for the handle, pulls with his deadweight against the
woodworm. The spade cracks apart, peppering his arm with toothpicks, an
acupuncture wristwatch. Bleeding. Marvellous. That will show how
serious this project is.
'Do you need a hanky Captain?' ask Lilly at arm's length. 'I can tie a
tourniquet, and a reef knot.'
'No Lil, not required. I've had worse things happen on flat seas. The
spade may be broken, but not our spirits. I will dig for my town until
my fingers are knuckles and this green grass is a memory.' He pulls on
the shaft, stuck fast, and catches against something buried in history.
Heave! Degree by degree, the obtuse becomes acute. 'I will shift this
land.' The shards are cutting in his hand, and brown soil is turning to
red ochre, but still he heaves.
'I'll 'elp ya' says the Ranger and their mud-caked, bloody hands strain
until the earth rips open and a clod flies up and thumps down on Lil's
head.
'Are you alright gal?'
'Cus I am, got me crash helmet like you said Captain', she slurs at the
Ranger. She hasn't.
'I'm taking 'er for a day trip to A&;E,' he says, pulls a shopping
trolley from the river and, veering right, judders off to
casualty.

'Just you and me dog.' He unrolls his photo. 'Maybe you'll
listen.'
He touches the lines he drew, knows his dream is through, and catches
the lay of the land glinting between rain clouds. No, not the lay of
the land but a coin, lying in the trench where his spade tore the
pitch. Could it be a quid for a scratchcard? No too heavy, edges
ragged, stamped with a baldhead. Football trophy? World Cup medallion?
Dog tag?
But the dog is concentrating on cocking its leg over his waterproof
boots and instead of adding up to four, he tosses his photo onto the
floor. 'Come on dog let's go for a walk.'