eyes and saw a man in his midthirties staring intently at me.
“Okay, I am going to wrap your ribs. This is gonna hurt.”
I nodded—he was right; it hurt. The woman, a Latina I had seen around, was swabbing various scrapes. She was being pretty gentle about it. Once I would have made a big deal about how bad it hurt; now I laughed because it felt so good. Then I was back down and out.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WHEN THE PUPIL IS READY . . .
I had a lot of time on my hands while my body healed. I found that sitting around in my motel room with my laptop, a television, and a bathroom, was very nice. Just thinking about what it would have been like trying to recover while living under a pine tree made me shudder. As it was, the first few weeks were tough. Night or someone else from the clan would come by with food each day. One unlucky ninja got to help me to the bathroom and back for a few days. I revised my opinion of him upward as a warrior when he entered the bathroom after a really toxic dump, and he lifted me up off the seat without flinching or gagging.
Carol came by and was really apologetic about me getting my ass kicked. I just waved it off. “It was no big deal.” What else was I going to say? Inside, I berated myself for screwing up. I had gotten cocky. Just because you can stick a trowel in a fat man’s belly doesn’t mean you are a warrior. I wallowed in self-pity for a few days.
Two things pulled me out of it. The first was the news. It had not been good for a while, and it was getting worse. I had long ago given up on the mainstream media outlets as a source of real news. I did not care about what some overpaid, entertainment drug-slut had been caught doing or had just died trying to do. The local news—the few times I watched it—might as well have been taking place in a parallel universe.
Over at the shelter they had a couple of flat screens bolted to the walls in the public area for the inhabitants. They used to love it when the local news would come by and do a story on “their struggle.” They would laugh at whoever got interviewed, and they’d be delighted to see themselves shown for a second in a crowd. But the news crews no longer came around.
They would still do the occasional story, but they just recycled the old clips. Eventually, people would turn away when they came on; it was no longer funny when they showed the clip of Janie talking about how she wanted to work, how she wanted to provide a future for her kids. The same Janie who two months later hung herself in the shelter shower room late one night after Child Protective Services came and took her two beautiful blonde girls.
I lay there in my bed and surfed the econ blogs and Web sites on my laptop. I had been a business major in college. Ironically, I had wanted to major in sociology but I decided not to. I didn’t think there would be any money in it. I was reading Calculated Risk when I realized that things were not going to get better. Despite what the media said, it was becoming obvious that we had started a slow descent into third-world squalor. The news, no matter how they tried to spin it, only confirmed it. Europe
was not any better off: The UK was going crazy. Some “chav” had discovered that he looked good on video and had a message people wanted to hear. YouTube had banned him a few days ago, but it was too late; he was already launched.
His main pitch was “Britain for Britains!” He was smart. When asked about Jews, he said, “I have no problem with the Jews. They have been members of the community for centuries.” They weren’t going to tar him with the “Nazi” label—he just hated foreigners. He didn’t even say “Muslims” or “Indians” specifically, well, at least very often. Nevertheless he had found that his words were attracting an audience that was willing to listen. Britain had an “official” unemployment rate of 15 percent last month, and it was still climbing.
The terrorist attack in
“Okay, I am going to wrap your ribs. This is gonna hurt.”
I nodded—he was right; it hurt. The woman, a Latina I had seen around, was swabbing various scrapes. She was being pretty gentle about it. Once I would have made a big deal about how bad it hurt; now I laughed because it felt so good. Then I was back down and out.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WHEN THE PUPIL IS READY . . .
I had a lot of time on my hands while my body healed. I found that sitting around in my motel room with my laptop, a television, and a bathroom, was very nice. Just thinking about what it would have been like trying to recover while living under a pine tree made me shudder. As it was, the first few weeks were tough. Night or someone else from the clan would come by with food each day. One unlucky ninja got to help me to the bathroom and back for a few days. I revised my opinion of him upward as a warrior when he entered the bathroom after a really toxic dump, and he lifted me up off the seat without flinching or gagging.
Carol came by and was really apologetic about me getting my ass kicked. I just waved it off. “It was no big deal.” What else was I going to say? Inside, I berated myself for screwing up. I had gotten cocky. Just because you can stick a trowel in a fat man’s belly doesn’t mean you are a warrior. I wallowed in self-pity for a few days.
Two things pulled me out of it. The first was the news. It had not been good for a while, and it was getting worse. I had long ago given up on the mainstream media outlets as a source of real news. I did not care about what some overpaid, entertainment drug-slut had been caught doing or had just died trying to do. The local news—the few times I watched it—might as well have been taking place in a parallel universe.
Over at the shelter they had a couple of flat screens bolted to the walls in the public area for the inhabitants. They used to love it when the local news would come by and do a story on “their struggle.” They would laugh at whoever got interviewed, and they’d be delighted to see themselves shown for a second in a crowd. But the news crews no longer came around.
They would still do the occasional story, but they just recycled the old clips. Eventually, people would turn away when they came on; it was no longer funny when they showed the clip of Janie talking about how she wanted to work, how she wanted to provide a future for her kids. The same Janie who two months later hung herself in the shelter shower room late one night after Child Protective Services came and took her two beautiful blonde girls.
I lay there in my bed and surfed the econ blogs and Web sites on my laptop. I had been a business major in college. Ironically, I had wanted to major in sociology but I decided not to. I didn’t think there would be any money in it. I was reading Calculated Risk when I realized that things were not going to get better. Despite what the media said, it was becoming obvious that we had started a slow descent into third-world squalor. The news, no matter how they tried to spin it, only confirmed it. Europe
was not any better off: The UK was going crazy. Some “chav” had discovered that he looked good on video and had a message people wanted to hear. YouTube had banned him a few days ago, but it was too late; he was already launched.
His main pitch was “Britain for Britains!” He was smart. When asked about Jews, he said, “I have no problem with the Jews. They have been members of the community for centuries.” They weren’t going to tar him with the “Nazi” label—he just hated foreigners. He didn’t even say “Muslims” or “Indians” specifically, well, at least very often. Nevertheless he had found that his words were attracting an audience that was willing to listen. Britain had an “official” unemployment rate of 15 percent last month, and it was still climbing.
The terrorist attack in
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