Stark (15 page)

80: PROPOSITION

G
ordon came downstairs to the sitting-room where Mrs Gordon was giving Aristos a cup of tea. Gordon thought Aristos looked like a wop and a poof. Aristos thought Gordon looked completely alarming. Gordon had on a Union Jack T- shirt, from which protruded brawny tattooed arms and a neck as thick as the head it supported. He looked like a dangerous thug and of course he was.

‘Yeah?’ said Gordon.

‘Er, Mr Gordon,’ said Aristos, trying to be casual and commanding. He held his portable telephone like a shield, it proved his power and superiority. Why didn’t it ring? Why didn’t it ring?

It rang. With a monumental effort Aristos managed not to jump. ‘Excuse me,’ he said casually, and turned on the phone, holding it to his ear. ‘This is your Australian Telecom alarm call,’ the computerized voice said.

‘Listen,’ Aristos snapped back at the machine, ‘I told you to hold all calls. I am taking an important meeting…I don’t care how many million…Sit on it till I can get to the computer in the Porsche. Just do it!!!’ He finished with a flourish, adding as an inspired afterthought, ‘You’re all sacked.’ He put the phone down and apologized to Gordon. Astonishingly the ploy had worked, Gordon was impressed.

‘Get my breakfast on, Mum. I want to talk to this bloke.’

Mrs Gordon left and Gordon gave Aristos the look that he used when wishing to imply that he was listening but none the less he remained a hugely violent and unpredictable wild man so he was not to be messed with. Aristos wondered whether Gordon was ill. He seemed to be squinting and grimacing in a slightly alarming manner. ‘I’m listening,’ said Gordon.

Aristos explained that he had read Gordon’s leaflet entitled ‘Why The Norseman is The Superior Race’ with interest and had found it, on the whole, a rattling good read. Gordon was not above the natural pride that any author feels when he hears his work well spoken of and made a tiny gesture as if to say that it was just a little thing he had thrown together. Unfortunately Gordon was a large and unco-ordinated man, so much so that even tiny gestures were unwise. When they had cleared up the tea cup, Aristos continued.

‘Yes, I found your argument that the white man is naturally superior because he invented everything…uhm, very succinct.’

‘Of course it’s succinct. I wouldn’t have had it printed if it wasn’t succinct, would I?’ said Gordon. ‘I mean, your car, right? Who invented it?’

‘Uhm…‘ replied Aristos.

‘A white man of the Nordic race, that’s who,’ continued Gordon who, like all great orators, was given to asking rhetorical questions. ‘It’s the same with the airplane, and…‘ he glanced about for inspiration ‘…the electric fire. All invented by white men of the Nordic race, which proves his superiority over all other races.’

‘Well, exactly,’ agreed Aristos. ‘Now, it said in your leaflet that you have formed a party, the…‘ he referred to the unpleasant leaflet that Ocker had given him, ‘White Supremacy People’s Fair Deal Party. It also suggests that your organization is not averse to a degree of direct action, is that the case?’

Gordon agreed that it was and Aristos got down to business. He explained that he personally was in sympathy with a great deal of what Gordon stood for and was, in fact, prepared to supply a certain amount of funding in return for…

‘Who do you want thumped, Mr Tyron?’ asked Gordon, who was not as thick as he looked, which was a shame really because if he had been as thick as he looked his system probably would have broken down under the intellectual strain of having to breathe. In which case, the world would be that one bit nicer a place to live in.

Aristos explained the delicate mission that Ocker had instructed him to explain. Assuring Gordon that all expenses would be taken care of, plus a handsome donation to the White Supremacy People’s Fair Deal Party. Gordon thought the proposition sounded very tasty. However, he prided himself on being a fair-minded fellow and felt obliged to point out that the rich and powerful elite of Germany had thought that they could buy and use Hitler and that Hitler had ended up using and controlling them. Hence Gordon wished to make it quite clear from the outset that there was to be no whingeing if he, Gordon, ended up using and controlling Aristos plus all Aristos’ Jewish capitalist friends.

Aristos agreed to risk it.

81: TYRON’S METHODS

E
nlisting the help of Gordon Gordon was not to be the only method Ocker Tyron was to employ to interfere with Sly’s business. A week after Sly had visited Bullens Creek, Ocker started to turn the screw.

All day long the wasp-like little plane whizzed and buzzed about over the Aboriginal community. The pilot was good. He’d learnt his trade crop spraying. Now he was on a more obviously antisocial mission. He could get in real low before throttling back, so low that no matter how many times he did it, the people on the ground always felt that this time he really would crash into them. This form of harrassment was an old Tyron trick, and he wasn’t the only one to have used it.

When the Northern Territory was discovered to be mineral rich, aerial buzzing had proved useful on more than one occasion. The reason it was required was that the territory had been developed much later and much more sparsely than the rest of the country and the Aboriginals had managed to hang on to their traditional life style in the bush. Getting them out was becoming increasingly difficult. It wasn’t like the pioneer days when they could have been shot down. Even in Queensland hunting Aboriginals for sport had been illegal since 1927. These days they had some rights, so people like Tyron had to ‘persuade’ them to get off any decent land.

As the tatty shacks shook and rattled with the vibrations from the plane, the occupants cursed Sly.

‘That bastard, Moorcock, wants us out right enough, he’s not even waiting for an answer,’ said Mr Culboon. ‘Bastard.’

‘Bastard.’ His wife agreed. Neither of them could understand the rush. What had they done to deserve this?

‘Christ, who the hell would want to come to this dump on holiday anyway. Even the flies only come because there’s plenty of shit.’

‘Maybe he’s got another reason for wanting us out,’ said his wife.

‘But there can’t be anything. I mean, what could it be? The place has been surveyed. Like he said, if there was anything here they would never have given it to us. No, I reckon this is just his way of warning us not to think about raising the price.’

As it happened, the community had already taken the decision to accept Sly’s offer. It was, after all, a great deal of money and there was nothing particularly wonderful about the hole they were living in.

Sly had made a big hit with the rednecks of Bullens Creek on his first visit. He would not be so popular the next time not once it was realized that it was him who had provided the cash for a bunch of Abs to move to town and put down mortgages on some fairly decent properties.

Mr Culboon would have phoned Sly earlier but, as often happened, the fragile telephone link that existed between their community and the outside world, was knackered. Therefore, late in the afternoon, Mr Culboon set off for Bullens Creek to make the call.

He arrived in town at about the same time as Gordon and his legion. In the gathering dusk Mr Culboon did not notice the hired mini-bus full of unpleasant young men, and had he done, he would have avoided it. Mr Culboon had encountered enough racist thugs in his time not to wish to seek their company.

Gordon sat in the front seat of the van, resplendent in a combat jacket, camouflage trousers and tightly laced-up Doc Martens, sixteen holes, red laces, just like proper British skinheads wore. He was briefing his legions on the details of the operation. ‘Storm-troopers, we are undertaking this operation in defence of race, culture and…uhm…well race and culture are good enough reasons to undertake an operation, in my opinion,’ he said decisively.

The assembled storm-troopers agreed with this, although they would not have recognized culture if it sat on their faces and wiggled.

‘Australia is a white man’s continent, it is ours by right of conquest and we intend to have it all, which is what tonight’s battle is all about.’

Gordon cut a ridiculous figure. A stupid, dull thug attempting to look like the leader of a crack fighting unit. On the other hand, he was no more ridiculous than the little gang he was addressing; stupid, dull thugs attempting to look like a crack fighting unit.

Unfortunately for the people of the little Bullens Creek community, they may have been a pretty pathetic bunch but they were a pretty pathetic bunch who had clubs, knives, petrol, darkness and cowardice on their side.

Mr Culboon got through to Sly.

‘Listen, you bastard, Moorcock. You can have the place OK? I don’t know what you want with our land and I don’t care. It’s yours, so you can call off your stupid plane, all right?’

‘What plane?’ said Sly, slightly surprised at Mr Culboon’s aggressive tone. He did not deceive himself that he and Mr Culboon would ever be soul mates or bosom buddies but he felt naked abuse was unnecessary and said so.

‘Oh yeah, mate. I suppose your fellah’s just spending his day trying to piss us off for the fun of it,’ Mr Culboon replied. Sly was mystified but clearly Mr Culboon did not want to discuss it. ‘Just get us the money, mate, all right? Then we’ll be gone and I won’t need to talk to you again.’ Mr Culboon slammed down the phone and went to get himself a beer. The community may have been dry but he was in town now and it wasn’t every day that a fellow and his wife got ten grand each for a useless bit of dirt.

As he entered the pub, Gordon and his gang were leaving, having consumed a certain degree of courage. They pushed past him contemptuously, forcing him to flatten himself against the wall or get trampled underfoot.

‘Sorry about them, Mr Culboon,’ said the bar person, who was a mate. ‘Never seen such a bunch of wankers in my life.’

The bunch of wankers had spent their time in the pub being just loud enough to make everyone else in the pub feel uncomfortable. Mr Culboon was not surprised. If there was one thing he could not stand it was groups of young men. They didn’t have to be as horrible as the lot that had just left. Any gang of young men made Mr Culboon want to spit. In his opinion, there should be a law stating that no more than three men between the ages of fifteen and thirty should be allowed to assemble together in a public place.

There is something strange and horrid which happens to even the most reasonable blokes when they go out with the ‘the lads’. They rejoice in their collective strength. No longer are they scared, farty little sad acts who don’t know who they are or what they are doing on earth. Suddenly they are cocks of the roost, they are unassailable, they have power and influence. On a train, in a pub, there they are, loud and arrogant. Lads. Confident in their numbers. Noisily flexing their muscles, making everyone around them feel small and impotent, causing normally liberal-minded people to bitterly wish a policeman would come along and put them all in the army for a hundred years.

Gordon, and his fellow members of the White Supremacy People’s Fair Deal Party, got back into their van. They studied the map. There was only one road between Bullens Creek and the Aboriginal community, so even they were able to plan the route.

‘Now all of you, watch it! All right?’ said Gordon. ‘We’re going in to scare them, don’t get carried away and do the business properly, OK? There’ll be a right time for that when…uhm when the time is right…Yes…‘ he continued, well pleased with this powerful and stirring phrase, ‘when the time is right. When will there be a right time for that!!’ He shouted into the darkened mini-bus and his fellow crusaders dutifully and slightly drunkenly shouted back:

‘When the time is right!’

‘Exactly, mates, exactly.’ Gordon did not really like referring to party members as ‘mates’. It lent nothing to a speech and was scarcely calculated to inspire martial ardour but he had long been stuck for a suitable effective collective noun. The usual ones were ‘comrades’ or ‘brothers’ but they were both out. ‘Comrades’ sounded too fucking commie, and if there was one thing Gordon hated more than blacks it was commies. It will be remembered that Gordon considered himself a fair-minded soul and he realized that a black could not help being black. But a commie, well, a commie was a traitor to his race. The other option, ‘brothers’, Gordon had been forced to disregard as well. It sounded too fucking queer and if there was one thing Gordon hated more than commies, it was queers. The upshot of this linguistic puzzler was that he was obliged to try to stir his troops by addressing them as ‘mates.’

In fact there was no need to stir the assembled gang, they were quite stirred enough already. The prospect of a quick, safe, vicious bit of brutality was really making their pulses race. This, plus a gutful of lager would have stirred a concrete cuppa.

82: SCREAMS IN THE NIGHT

T
he bus pulled into the centre of the little cluster of buildings and the heralds of a new dawn all piled out and attacked a group of total strangers for no reason whatsoever.

They threw two petrol bombs at the general store and when the first people ran out to check out the commotion, they hit them with baseball bats. They shouted some things about killing niggers and they threw some anonymous leaflets about that said ‘slavery or death, it’s your choice.’

There were about three minutes of horrible shouting and screaming, running feet, calls for arms and torches, scurrying silhouettes in the flickering light of the burning store — then it was all over. Having managed to give one man a serious kicking, and before the people they were attacking could get organized, the Nordic knights all rushed back to their van and drove away.

‘We did it! We did it!’ shouted a jubilant Gordon Gordon. ‘We really did the business.’ He did not know it, but they had been doing the business of Stark.

83: A STEP TOWARDS EXTINCTION