The Full Ridiculous (12 page)

The sun has shifted and you’re almost in shadow. Feeling the winter chill, you’re about to go to the Volvo for your blue coat when you hear sirens in the distance and wonder whether they belong to police, ambulance or firemen. You don’t take much notice as the sirens wail closer. You don’t take much notice until they are right outside the school, and then you look up from your book, expecting to see the flashing lights whizz past the main gates.

Only they don’t.

The blue flashing lights of two police cars swing into the Mount Karver gates and scream down the driveway towards you. You’re barely forming a
what-the-heck
when they stop outside the canteen. And suddenly, in an explosion of cerebral activity, a million pennies drop at once. Your worst nightmare has come true:
some idiot has heard the yelling and called the cops.

You get to your feet, ready to launch into an explanation when cop-car doors burst open and a cop charges at you. ‘Stop where you are! Put your hands in the air!’

You are astonished to see the cop going for his gun so you drop your book and thrust your hands into the air. You lift you eyes from his gun holster to his face. Your worst nightmare just got worse.

You cannot believe it.

You can’t fucking believe it.

Striding towards you with his hand on his holster is Constable Lance Johnstone.
Cuntstable. Lance. Fucking. Johnstone.

You’re a character trapped in a Kafka novel. Or from some B-grade movie. If you were reviewing this movie, you would be pouring vitriol over this improbable plot point. ‘Ludicrous,’ you would write, ‘a ludicrous deus ex machina pressing beyond the bounds of all believability.’

But this isn’t a movie. This is life. Your life. Where, you are learning, lightning does indeed strike twice.

Still with your hands in the air you start to babble: a short film. Not a robbery. Son attends school. Son doing drama assignment.

A gaggle of faces appears behind you—Declan, actors, crew members—drawn by the sirens.

Even Lance Johnstone can see that you are telling the truth. He still hasn’t recognised you, and you’re hoping that he may see the funny side of things and just go back to the station.

Stupid you.

Lance demands to know who’s in charge and you say you are. He asks if there’s a gun involved. You say not a real gun—just a toy. He asks to see it.

Toby, the young actor playing the robber, produces the gun and goes to hand it to the constable, inadvertently pointing it at him. The constable practically slaps the gun out of Toby’s hand and it drops to the ground.

Lance Johnstone reels back, regarding the shiny pistol with horror. ‘I would have shot the boy I saw holding that gun!’ he proclaims.

Lying on the ground, the gun does indeed look real but Declan assures him that it’s a BB gun, capable of shooting only potato pellets. Constable Johnstone will not be placated. ‘I would have shot the boy I saw holding that gun!’ he repeats.

He raves at you about more squad cars coming, a helicopter on the way. He tells you how stupid and foolhardy you are not to inform the local police when undertaking an activity involving dangerous firearms.

Lance Johnstone seems to be on some kind of loop, repeating the same accusations and warnings, in the same order, over and over again. You can see the cast and crew exchanging glances; clearly this guy is insane. Fortunately they sense the clear and present danger in his special brand of nuttiness and not one of them comes out with a quip or retort that might send him spinning out of control.

The second squad car executes a U-turn and exits the school gates.

You’re starting to wonder if Constable Johnstone is ever going to stop raving at you when the young policewoman who has been hovering in the background gently suggests they take some names and details.

While Constable Pamela Bird scribbles everyone’s names into a small spiral-bound notepad, Constable Johnstone takes the potato-firing weapon to his car. He tells Pam he has to make urgent radio calls to halt the legions of law enforcers speeding and choppering towards the national disaster unfolding at the Mount Karver canteen.

Pam Bird is clearly embarrassed by her cohort’s behaviour; you can sense her empathy as she takes down everyone’s details. Finally she gets to you.

Just as you are saying
Michael O’Dell
, Constable Johnstone reappears. He glances over Pam’s shoulder. ‘How’s Rosie?’ he asks.

A lurch of dread, then a rush of hatred.

You’d like to grab Lance by the throat and choke the life out of him. There are a million things you’d like to say about bullying and thuggery and his appalling treatment of your daughter.

But your son is standing behind you. And other people’s sons and daughters too.
And you know how cruel and disproportionate this guy can be. He has spent the last fifteen minutes refreshing you on the subject of his stupidity. This makes you afraid.

‘Fine thanks,’ you say.

‘Settling down a bit, is she?’

Bastard.
‘She’s doing well thanks.’

Pam Bird is obviously wondering who the hell Rosie is but neither of you offers an explanation. You’re desperately trying to think of a way to shut this conversation down when the squad car radio burbles at them.

While Constable Johnstone answers the call, one of the kids asks Constable Bird if it’s okay to continue filming and she says she supposes it is. Pam suggests you put up signs saying you are filming. You direct her attention to the two large signs that Declan has already taped either side of the canteen entrance saying: QUIET PLEASE, FILMING INSIDE.

Declan asks if there’s any chance you could have the gun back so they can finish shooting the rest of the scene. Constable Bird looks at you, imploring you with her eyes to be mindful of the madman in the squad car behind her. She says, quietly, that they are confiscating the gun for the time being. Declan is about to appeal, but you turn to him and say, ‘Declan,’ with enough authority to silence him.

Constable Johnstone returns and tells you he and Constable Bird have to go now, like that’s something you’d be sad about. He tells you he’ll be taking up the matter with school security.
He says that he may need to ask more questions in a couple of days.

And then finally, blessedly, he leaves.

You fashion a new gun from black tape, a block of wood and a cigarette lighter. It looks fine in the wide shots. Filming continues without incident.

17

Three days after the Mount Karver debacle, Constable Johnstone calls to inform you that the toy gun is officially classified as an illegal firearm. You express polite consternation and tell him that it is your understanding that the gun fires only potato pellets. Constable Johnstone says, yes, this is true but because the gun is an exact replica of a Glock pistol, it’s illegal. He asks you where you got it. You tell him that you have no idea; you assume someone borrowed it for use during filming. He asks you to be more specific. You tell him that you are unable to be more specific and that you will need to make further inquiries. He instructs you not to make further inquiries; that’s his job.

Then he asks you to come down to the station to discuss the matter at your earliest convenience. Your stomach flips and you tell him you’ll get back to him.

As soon as Wendy walks through the door, you debrief. Wendy says no one from this family is going anywhere near that nutter and you realise with amazement that you were actually considering complying with his request.

What is wrong with you?

Wendy calls Shelley Mainwaring who laughs and can’t believe your luck in coming up against the same crazy cop twice. She tells Wendy that she’ll give him a call and have a chat. There’s a lawyer–cop dialect that ordinary mortals don’t speak and she feels confident she can sort out this minor incident in no time. She signs off, promising to phone Constable Johnstone immediately. She’ll call back in five minutes.

You wait by the phone with Wendy. Five minutes pass. Ten minutes, fifteen. Half an hour.
Maybe Shelley has forgotten to call back.
Wendy calls Shelley; Shelley is engaged. The phone finally rings an hour later. Wendy races to answer it and by the time you reach the study she’s talking to Shelley.

Shelley is in a state of shock. She’s met some strange and bent cops in her time but the only expression she can find for Lance Johnstone is ‘whack-job’.

‘He’s a whack-job. A total whack-job,’ she declares.

Not only is he a whack-job, he’s furious that you have not come down to the station as he requested, so he is on his way to your house to
arrest you for supply and possession of an illegal firearm!

You babble an astonished protest via Wendy until she surrenders the phone and you talk directly to Shelley. Shelley tells you to calm down, which has the opposite effect. She tells you to leave the house immediately. Take the kids with you or farm them out to friends.

‘For how long?’ you ask.

If you had any doubts that you were not in a Kafka novel, Shelley’s answer confirms it. ‘Three hours,’ she says.

Constable Lance Johnstone’s shift ends at 10pm. After that he’s on ten days’ leave. So all you have to do is stay out until Lance’s shift ends. No one else will come to arrest you because this is Constable Johnstone’s case. Shelley feels confident that during the constable’s holiday she will be able to make representations to stop you being arrested. She makes an appointment to see you at 10am in her office and reminds you to hurry: the crazy cop is on his way.

You and Wendy bundle the kids into the car and drop them at friends’ houses. Then you drive across town to the newly renovated terrace house of your architect chum, Felipe, and his wife, Jools. They stare at you both, eyes widening, as you double-act the story thus far.

Jools says it would be funny if it weren’t so serious. Both of them assure you that this will not, cannot, end badly. Felipe reminds you that we do not live in the kind of country where well-intentioned parents are bundled off to prison because their child uses a BB gun during the filming of a school drama project.

You know what they are saying makes perfect sense and, if it weren’t happening to you, you’d be more inclined to be comforted by their certainty. But frankly you have no idea what kind of country you live in anymore. You seem to have slipped into an alternative universe, an Alice-less Wonderland of mad hunters and random outcomes.

A surge of panic dries your mouth. You get up and pour yourself a glass of water at the gleaming new stainless-steel double-bowled kitchen sink. You look into the frosty blackness of the freshly glazed kitchen window, fully expecting a monster to lunge at you. Instead the terrible secret flashes its ugly truth once again:
The good part of your life is over. The bad part has begun.

At midnight you drive home and park outside the neighbours’. Wrapped up against an icy wind, Wendy checks the house while you stay in the car, feeling frightened and foolish, ready to make a getaway. Your brave wife establishes that no one is lurking in the bushes waiting to pounce and arrest you.

You go inside, shivering.

Egg leaps and wags a joyous greeting. You inquire whether he has anything to report. ‘Woof,’ he says, but does not elaborate.

Shelley Mainwaring surprises you by looking exactly as you pictured her. She’s a short, slim woman with close-cropped brown hair and buoyant breasts that make you wonder whether they’ve been surgically enhanced. She’s wearing a mushroom-coloured outfit with a pencil skirt that ends just below her knees. You have no idea whether this is fashionable or not but it suits her, in an I’m-smart-and-bossy-but-haven’t-given-up-on-sexy kind of way.

You can see that Wendy likes and trusts this woman so you decide to trust your wife’s impeccable taste and trust her too. Shelley explains that Constable Johnstone is no doubt trying to justify his overreaction on the day of the gun incident by making things appear more serious than they are. She says that your biggest mistake was nominating yourself as the responsible adult. Constable Johnstone has decided you are responsible for everything that happened, whether it happened with your knowledge or not.

Shelley says the best thing to do is supply the police with a signed statement so they can see you were just a concerned dad helping your son with a school project. She asks you to tell her what happened on the day of filming prior to the arrival of the police. She starts to guide you with a few simple questions. You try to answer but you’re so rattled that you leap through the story to what you believe is the salient bit: you neither own nor supplied the firearm! Declan borrowed the gun from his old primary school mate, Dan. Dan’s dad purchased the gun as a gift in Hong Kong. Dan’s dad didn’t declare it to Customs because he thought it was a toy. When Declan came home with the gun the night before the shoot, you gave it little more than a cursory glance because it was a toy.

As you offer this information, you find yourself stammering for the first time in your life. Your tongue catches on words like t-t-toy. You talk so fast that phrases crash into one another in little collisions: ‘Dansdad purshasedthegun asag-g-gift.’

Wendy gives you a what’s-going-on look. You take a deep breath and try to slow down. Your hands are shaking. You try to stop them but you can’t. You tell yourself it’s only the slightest tremor; no one will notice. But you see that Shelley has noticed.

And then she does the worst thing she could possibly do: she’s kind to you. She asks gently if you’d like to take a short break. You feel tears spring to your eyes and once again you curse your emotional incontinence. You ask for the toilets and make your escape.

In the toilets, you fight those unmanly tears with great gasps of angry air. Eventually you can breathe normally and are able to return.

During your absence, Wendy has told Shelley about your accident. Shelley says she can see that you are stressed and that this is perfectly understandable but wonders whether your reaction has been exacerbated by the recent trauma of your car accident. She asks if you’ve heard of post-traumatic stress disorder.