Cowboys and Dinosaurs - Chapter 8

8. The Hell Of Being Chav

"For your first client visit", said Mr. Botham, "I thought we'd choose something close to home. Mr. Devasekhara is our closest customer. For this reason we use him to pavement-test all our new products. We will be visiting him this afternoon to obtain his opinion of the very first Cowboys and Dinosaurs prototype, and -"

"Excuse me", said Gary, looking up from a Google screen into which he had just typed doging in north london. "If you two gents are quite finished, you, Dave, have work to do. One hundred calls, to be exact."

"I'm afraid not - Gary, is it?" said Mr. Botham. "Mr. Simpson has been temporarily assigned to New Product Marketing with a view to offering him a permanent position. Julie really should have informed you."

Gary - whose shirt looked like yesterday's, and whose face had a heavy stubble infestation - went ashen, then rapidly scarlet, like a chameleon in a discotheque.

"Erm - Mr. Botham?" said Steve. "What did you say the customer's name was?"

"They can't do that!" said Gary.

"They just did. I'm sorry, but Mr. Simpson and I have urgent business."

The internal workings of Gary's mind could almost be seen clanking from strategy to strategy behind the thin façade of his eyes.

"Did you say the customer's name was Devasekhara?"

"Well, he can't have this desk, then. You'll have to give him a desk in your section."

"I'm afraid there are no desks. Facilities have assigned him this one on a temporary basis. He will have a place in our area in a week's time if possible."

"And where am I supposed to sit my guys?"

Mr. Botham shrugged. "Lead times being what they are, you probably won't get one for another week. It works out quite neatly, I think. Until later."

Gary's eyes drilled into Mr. Botham's departing back.

"poofter", he said under his breath. Mr. Botham stopped.

Without turning around, he said:

"Gary, as I have had to explain to you a suspiciously large number of times, I am not gay. I simply have no interest in sex with anybody or anything. I suspect my part of the species may reproduce by pollination, like plants. However, if I were gay, I believe that would constitute a homophobic remark. Would you prefer me to report you to Human Resources, or the police?"

"I don't know what you're talking about", said Gary in huge satisfaction. "I didn't say anything. It's your word against mine. And Dean's", he added with a flash of inspiration. "Dean?"

"I heard nothing", said Dean.

"I did", said Steve. "Motherfucker", he added.

Gary's face darkened. "What did you call me?"

"I don't believe he called you anything", said Mr. Botham. "It would seem we have a Mexican stand-off."

"He called me a motherfucker", said Gary, outraged.

"I didn't hear him say that", said Mr. Botham.

"Neither did I", said Steve. "Though it has to be said he does spend all day fucking his mother. She's so inbred she has no arms or legs, he keeps her in a drawer under his desk and pulls her out when he wants to go fuck fuck fucketty-fuck. Lord knows why, she's an ugly pig of a hound. You know", he said, turning to Mr. Botham, "I'm sure you said Devasekhara."

Gary's nostrils flared. "Don't you DARE disrespect my mother -"

"I didn't hear him disrespect your mother", said Mr. Botham placidly.

"You spend all day sucking your dog's cock", accused Dean creatively.

All three men turned and looked at Dean. Dean cringed.

Gary put a finger up. "One mistake", he said. "One mistake, Botham."

"Luckily", said Mr. Botham, "I never make mistakes." He leaned over Gary's keyboard. "You've spelt dogging wrong." Gary scrambled to his ALT-TAB frantically. Steve and Mr. Botham left.

***

"Excuse me", said Steve, as they walked out into rain that had probably recently been an Arctic glacier. "Did you say Mr. Devasekhara?"

"The very same", said Mr. Botham. "A newcomer in the gaming scene, but big for a private owner, twenty machines and growing. Mainly he grows by getting discounts for testing new machines, but that just shows keen business sense."

"I, uh, think I may have some books of his", said Steve.

"He's written books?" said Mr. Botham. He picked up a copy of the Financial Times from a newsstand. "Hmm. Malagasy vanilla picking up."

"I'm sure it's a coincidence", said Steve. "There must be lots of Indian people called Devasekhara."

"Oh, he's not Indian", said Mr. Botham. "He's as white as you or I."

"I think he might have known Mr. Samtoshi. He was some sort of Hare Krishna who used to live in my room."

"I'm sure I would have noticed that", said Mr. Botham. "Your room used to be let to a pale, thin, shaven-headed little fellow in an orange dress."

"A Hare Krishna", said Steve.

"Really?" said Mr. Botham. "I'd simply assumed he was getting in touch with his bald feminine side. I have to say, he was very interested in Indian literature. Kept trying to give me books. There was a photograph of another bald man on the dust jacket -"

Soundlessly, his lips formed an o of realization.

"In any case," said Steve, "why would a Hare Krishna want to open a gaming arcade?"

Mr. Botham did not answer. They were in the company car park now, approaching a line of vehicles.

"I thought you didn't have a car", said Steve.

"I don't. But because we're on our way to see a client, we get to use the Pool Car." Mr. Botham extended a hand and clicked a button; a Volvo in a long line of Volvos flashed its lights at them.

"S40", said Steve. "Not a bad car."

"Exceptional car. Though it gets keyed by motorcyclists, the natural enemies of the Volvo. Wait here, I'll drive it out."

Steve waited patiently, becoming steadily wetter, as the car pulled out slowly. As it emerged, he noticed it had ANNE SOMMERS printed down the side of it in gigantic orange letters.

The window wound down. "Get in", said Mr. Botham.

The inside of the car was grey and efficient as a Swedish destroyer. However, the company logo caused great amusement in passers-by, who began pointing and yelling soundlessly through the closed windows.

"Tsk. Wish people wouldn't use a communal vehicle without cleaning it afterwards." Mr. Botham rolled his window down to eject an apple core, a beer bottle, and, distastefully suspended from the end of a biro, a used condom.

"- HEY, MIDNIGHT COWBOY! WHERE'S YER BUTT PLUG?"

"WHO'S YER BUM BUDDY?"

Steve sank uncomfortably into the seat. The window rolled up again.

***

"Mr. Devasekhara", said Mr. Botham, "may I introduce my colleague, Mr. Simpson."

Mr. Devasekhara extended a hand. "It's just Devasekhara", he said. "It's Sanskrit."

The arcade - BALLS AND BANDITS - had a prime High Street location, and was full of acne-ridden teenagers. Steve was happy to note that it was also full of Anne Sommers machinery - ALIEN ZAP pinball, a DICING WITH DEATH slot machine, and the highly experimental ASK DR. COMPUTER quiz game. Devasekhara himself was dressed, not in an orange Hare Krishna robe, but in top-to-toe white Nike, finished off with a baseball cap and ultrabright trainers.

"Mr. Botham!" said Devasekhara. "Respect."

Mr. Botham stared critically at Devasekhara. Then, with immense care, he reached out, removed Devasekhara's hat, and stepped back, looking the other man up and down as if mentally subtracting the Nike and adding a saffron orange robe. Devasekhara's head was as shaven as a skinhead's beneath his cap.

Nodding to himself in satisfaction, Mr. Botham replaced the cap, turned to Steve and said:

"You were correct."

Devasekhara continued to grin as if nothing had happened. "You here to ask after the new gear?" he said. "It's the first thing they clock when they come in. They always check out the new shit, but this one's got them hooked as soon as they're in the gaff. Ooda thought it, eh? Cowboys and Dinosaurs!"

Mr. Botham's attention, however, had been caught by the detail on the front of the machine. "Good grief", he muttered. "Is that what they delivered?"

"Yeah, I had reservations myself at first, on account of how the machine clearly shows a Stegosaurus in the same frame as a Tyrannosaurus Rex, the first being a Jurassic animal and the second a Cretaceous, but -"

"Not that, not that", said Mr. Botham. "The saddles these men are using are clearly Mexican. There's a complete absence of double rigging."

"Maybe they're Mexican cowboys", said Steve. "Like in The Magnificent Seven."

"No", said Mr. Botham, his face white with shock. "The hats are plainly Texan, made by John B. Stetson under licence by from Christy's in Frampton Cotterell in Gloucestershire. And they're wearing Buscadero holsters. They weren't introduced until the 1920's." He examined the picture more closely. "Oh no."

"What is it?" said Steve.

"This man here is carrying a Texas Lone Star flag, but they're holding Colt Peacemaker revolvers, which didn't enter service till 1873, twenty-eight years after the accession of Texas to the Union." He shook his head in bitter, bitter shame. "This entire pinball machine is rancid with historical inaccuracy."

Steve laid a hand on Mr. Botham's shoulder. "Mr. Botham, we must be professional about this. What, after all, is the ISO definition of quality?"

Mr. Botham looked up sadly at Steve and recited: "The totality of characteristics of a product which bear on its ability to supply specified or implied needs."

"Precisely. Which implies neither good nor bad quality, only enough quality to make the item suitable and saleable for the job it has to do. We've just heard Mr. Devasekhara here say that this machine has attracted more customers than the average new AS product."

Mr. Botham nodded gravely.

"Then let's accept that", said Steve. "Let's move on."

"I expect so", sighed Mr. Botham. He looked up at Devasekhara, tears brimming in his eyes. "Can I take a look at your weekly usage figures?"

"Step into my office", grinned Devasekhara.

***

Devasekhara's office was a shock. After the bright lights and constant WOW-WOW-WOW of sound effects in the arcade outside, the office was a sanctum of otherworldly calm. Tranquil purple tea-lights burned on either side of massive monochrome prints of Michael Carroll, Stan Collymore, and David Beckham. At intervals round the walls, designer sportswear logos had been spray-painted onto the plaster. Pedestals held reverential objects of devotion - a plaster mannequin's hand wearing a full set of sovereign rings, a burberry-patterned trainer, a stack of CD's going from NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL MUSIC through to NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL MUSIC 69. A Black-Eyed Peas remix was playing in the background at a volume just high enough to grate on the senses like sandpaper down a blackboard.

"This is weird", said Steve under his breath.

"Is it?" said Mr. Botham, looking around himself in surprise.

"I've got them here somewhere", said Devasekhara, opening a period refrigerator which seemed to constitute his filing system. "Please sit down."

There were no chairs, though there were small Burberry hassocks. Gingerly, and hoping this was acceptable behaviour, Steve lowered himself onto one. Mr. Botham had already done likewise.

"- no no no no don' funk wid ma heart -
no no no no don' funk wid ma heart -"

"This is weird", blurted Steve out loud.

Mr. Devasekhara turned, grinning in gold. "Come again, squire?"

"This is", Steve thought carefully on the subject and then continued blurting, "this is too chav to be real." He looked round the walls. "Where's the hidden cameras?"

Devasekhara's gilded smile condensed into a mask of pallid gravity.

"Perhaps", he said, "I should explain."

***

"This is meditation?" said Steve.

Devasekhara, folded into a lotus position on the other side of the office, his trainers hooked into the legs of his tracksuit, nodded. "I have a degree in English Literature and a doctorate in Philosophy. For preference, I listen to classical music, specifically music of the Neo-Classical school - composers such as Stravinsky, Hindemith, and Prokofiev. I am partial to a bit of Virginia Woolf and Henry James. I admire the luminous pretechnological innocence captured by Constable and the Pre-Raphaelites. Yet I also needed to achieve enlightenment."

"You worship Buddha, then", said Steve. "Enlightenment's Buddha, isn't it?"

Devasekhara's lips made a sine-wave of disapproval. "In a sense, I may be said to worship. In Mahayana, it is the act of worship that is important, not the object venerated. I could worship a human turd, and my act of veneration would be valid; hence my attachment to Michael Carroll."

Steve looked up at the row of prints. "You worship these?"

"In Japan, there is a monastery where monks attempt to achieve enlightenment, not through life-long meditation and fasting - which is all well and good but is very much considered the long way round - but through the sufferance of pain. They attempt to run up to fifty miles a day for one thousand days, in straw sandals, regardless of pain or injury. If they succeed in this task, they achieve sainthood. It is known as the Running Hell."

"Is this relevant?" said Mr.Botham.

Devasekhara smiled. "I am attempting to achieve Buddhahood via The Hell Of Being Chav. By turning myself into a mean and monkeylike caricature of a human being over a one thousand day period, becoming all I despise, I hope to achieve Buddhahood. Interestingly enough, on the other side of town, another devotee whose birth name was Chardonnay Lexus Kappa Wilson Junior is attempting the exact opposite by becoming a homosexual art critic."

"When did you start?" said Steve.

"It's been around two and a half years now", said Devasekhara.

"What happens once you finish?"

"Serenity. I will become a Daigyoman Ajari, a Sainted Master of the Highest Practice. When I die, the devotees of my sect will search the environs of Macclesfield high and low for a child born at the exact moment of my death. I am not quite sure what they'll do next. I'd like to hope they won't steal him. Or her. Possibly they will offer the parents large amounts of money and as many theological texts as they can stomach in return for being allowed to visit the baby and squirt it with incense occasionally." Devasekhara rose from his lotus and crossed the room to a bank of video screens. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I believe my protection racketeers are here."

Mr. Botham nodded. "This will be interesting. The B300 has been specially built to provide a resilient yet easily replaceable outer cover protecting the fragile machinery inside."

Steve squinted at the screens. A trio of shaven-headed goons with baseball bats had entered the arcade and were laying in to the machines left and right, causing showers of sparks to fly from the shattered plastic.

"And there goes a McSweeney Randominator", said Mr. Botham in satisfaction. "See how the weak case is easily punctured. He already has access to the motherboard in only, what - one, two, three blows? And there it goes. Several hundred dollars of silicon gone in one belt."

"Our machines are blowing up", said Steve.

"Sparks are not fire, colleague", said Mr. Botham. "Spark-making devices are specially built into the B300, to make the orang-utans think they're getting somewhere. But see how the casing stays on! Notice how it's merely lightly dented. This is a most satisfying road test, Mr. Devasekhara."

"It's just Devasekhara", said Devasekhara.

"He's going to have to replace his McSweeneys, though", said Steve. "I hope they're insured."

Mr. Botham shook his head. "They're leased from McSweeneys using money we provide. This is our prime road test site. The levels of gangland violence here are unparalleled in Europe. Only in America, where racketeers actually shoot machines, is there a better testing ground. McSweeneys have a practice range in their basement where they fire at their own machinery using small and large calibre handguns, twelve gauge shotguns, AK47's, and the occasional rocket propelled grenade."

Steve watched the screen in fasincation. "Rocket propelled grenade?"

"Baghdad has gambling dens too", said Mr. Botham. "The McSweeney Sea Air Land Bandit will stand up to an RPG at twenty metres, and can be parachute dropped."

The office door burst open; a gigantic skinhead entered, clutching an aluminium bat like a gorilla might a toothpick. He nodded at Mr. Botham. "Mr. Botham."

"Lucian."

The goon turned his attention back to Devasekhara. "You've been a bad boy, David. Mr. Dowd wants to know where his compound interest is."

Devasekhara rolled his eyes, dropped his aitches and flailed his arms in despair. "But I give it to im fair an square, Lucian! I'm paid up, on my mother's life!"

"You have only repaid the principal", explained Lucian tiredly, gesturing with the bat for emphasis, "and neglected the interest. Hence, had I taken you up on your earlier generous offer, your mother's life would have been forfeit." He continued to gesture with the bat for emphasis all over Devasekhara's knuckles. The other man yelped and dropped on to the floor. "Now, a gambling man - a gambling business man - is a mathematical man. How much, David, is two times two?"

"...four."

Lucian nodded. "Two being the multiplier used in calculating the one hundred per cent monthly interest Mr. Dowd is charging for his services, inclusive of the principal. Over two months. Which means you owe Mr. Dowd how much, David?"

"...forty thousand, Lucian."

"Which means you have missed out the trifling matter of thirty thousand nicker - or to put things in the vernacular, twelve hundred ponies or sixty monkeys. Which is a substantial number of primates in anyone's language."

Steve, who had come top in Home Economics at Adam Smith Grant Maintained Comprehensive, found his hand creeping horribly towards the ceiling.

"Er...sir?"

The neckless head turned toward him like a turret. "Did you speak?"

"Er, yes, sir, I did. I couldn't help wondering when Mr. Devasekhara's actual payment was made. It could affect the interest calculation."

"What?"

Steve turned his attention to Devasekhara where he lay lying nursing his bleeding fingers on the floor. "When did you make your payment, uh, David?"

"...a month back?"

Steve smiled. "Well, then, it's good news. That ten thousand comes off the amount owed, meaning that the second month's interest only accrues on ten thousand, leaving a remaining amount owed of twenty thousand or", he grinned more widely, "eight hundred ponies."

Steve was horribly aware that he was not only signing his own death warrant but doing it inside the box provided, in triplicate, and drawing large diagrams to illustrate his answer.

"You are aware", said Lucian, "that I am much larger and infinitely more scary than you are? I'd just like to get that straight before we start."

"Very much so", said Steve. "But, erm, you're also a businessman, and a businessman wouldn't be anything if he weren't exact and honest with his clients. Which", he added hastily, "I'm sure you are."

"Oh, I certainly am", I certainly am", nodded Lucian reasonably. "But unfortunately, Mr. Dowd, who is by way of being my employer, is of the opinion that David here owes him thirty thousand pounds, and I am duty bound to follow the instruction my employer gives me, however shaky his grasp of interest calculation. For this reason, following our accepted Collections procedure, I am afraid I am going to have to get Noel here - say hello, Noel -" a compact, bullet-headed man carrying an aluminium scaffolding pole, who had just entered behind Lucian, waved cheerily -"to break one bone, and one bone only, of your choice. We will then provide you a free chauffeur-driven ride to A and E, all part of the service, what is happening because NO-ONE - DISPUTES - the FACKING - FIGURES. IF Mr. Dowd says you OWE HIM, you OWE HIM and you PAY." He clicked his fingers. "Take 'em outside, toes and fingers only."

Mr. Botham cleared his throat.

"Ah - Lucian, must I apologize for the behaviour of my colleague here, but he's with me."

Lucian looked round.

"I apologize in turn, Mr. Botham, and it distresses me as much as it does you, but you realize, this is business. You can't make an omelette without breaking heads."

Suddenly realizing he was genuinely about to have parts of himself broken, Steve leapt to his feet.

"Muller im", nodded Lucian to Noel. Noel lowered his scaffolding pole like a spear. Almost automatically, Steve reached behind himself to a wooden standard lamp - a bayonet bulb on a six foot pedestal - and scooped it into his hands, the bulb, still glowing, protruding towards Noel. Steve was at this point still unsure quite what he was trying to accomplish.

Noel grinned and jabbed forward with the pole as if with the floor mops to which he was accustomed. Steve dashed it aside without thinking and flicked the hot bulb end into that part of Noel's face that ought by rights to have been protected by a kendo helmet. There was a yelp of pain, a smell of singed flesh, a spurt of blood, a crunch of shattered glass, and a crackle of electricity, and Noel was all of a sudden halfway across the room clutching his face in shock.

Lucian's eyes willed Steve to die horribly where he stood. Steve began, for perhaps the first time in ten minutes, to appreciate the potential horrible consequences of his actions.

"Sorry", said Steve. "Erm. Force of habit. Um. Too much bayonet practice."

"My FACE...my FACE."

A police siren began to sound lazily in the distance. Lucian looked over his shoulder, as if able to see police cars through walls. Maybe he could. Maybe his family had evolved the characteristic via natural selection.

"The truncheon monkeys are coming, Noel", he said. "Better get moving. We might end up with one who's not on our payroll." He nodded at Steve. "We'll be seeing you later."

"YEAH! You see them things in that cemetery out back? Them dead things? You're deader than them things, you hear me? DEADER! OW...my FACE..."

The Mob left discreetly via the back door.

"You didn't ought to have done that", said Devasekhara. "There'll be consequences."

"Erm", said Steve. "What sort of consequences?"

"Remember all them teeth you used to have?"

"It's all right", said Steve. "You don't have to be chav with us."

Devasekhara clapped his fingers to his temples, as if trying to steady his brain in his head. "Look, I'm gonna have to distance myself from you, compadres. There is going to be a definite stench of death about you very soon. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm a very busy man. I've an extremely vengeful gangster to apologize to." He spread his fingers out on his desktop. "I suppose I could lose one of the little ones...maybe if I cut it off myself, with anaesthetic..."

Mr. Botham looked at Steve in concern. Then he cleared his throat.

"Perhaps if we sent one of our colleagues from Sales next time", he said. "Gary Rumbelow, for example."

The hands flailed dismissively, bracelets clanking. "Yeah, yeah, whoever, whatever."

The Anne Sommers marketing team left discreetly via the back door.