#john's first night in a prison cell over something he didn't even do

[get-back-homeward]

Davidwache Police Station | Painting by Klaus Voormann Prior to being deported, Paul McCartney spends a night in the Davidwache police station.

In the meantime, the final four could start playing [at the Top Ten club] now, and move themselves into the bunk-bed accommodation at the top of the building.c Tony Sheridan was already here, possibly others too, and the Beatles were welcome to shoehorn themselves in. It was neither the Ritz nor the pits. John was the first to move. Then Paul and Pete went back to the Bambi to grab their gear.

The place was in near darkness, as usual. They had to strike a match to see their way about … and then they decided to leave Koschmider a little gift. Pete had a few “spunk bags,” and he and Paul had the idea to hang them on nails in the wall in the long concrete passageway and set light to them. “The place was dank and dark,” says Pete. “They spluttered, they stank, and OK, maybe they singed a tiny bit of tapestry on the wall. It caused nothing but a little smoke and a few scorch marks and then they went out.”41 It was the ultimate fuck you, Bruno, or so they thought.

They got to play one night in the Top Ten, and it seems to have been a good one, pulling business away from the Kaiserkeller, but it was just this one night. Having been shafted once by Eckhorn, when he’d prized away the Jets and Tony Sheridan from the Kaiserkeller, Koschmider wasn’t going to sit back and let it happen again. He might also have guessed the Beatles would make some grand gesture for his “benefit”—they could even have hinted of it—because an inspection was made of the Bambi’s rooms very quickly. When the stinkende qualmende Piedeltüten were found, he decided to form the view it was an attempt to burn down his cinema, and informed the police.

The chronology of events over the next twenty-four hours is rife with confusion and contradiction, but may have gone something like this. Paul was picked up by the police while walking along the Reeperbahn, taken by car to the Davidwache police station (two hundred meters from the Top Ten) and locked in a cell. Pete and John were also arrested. Koschmider didn’t know which of them was responsible for the “attempted arson,” so the Polizei rounded them all up. As Stuart wrote in a letter back to Liverpool a few days later:

I am living in the lap of luxury and contentment. Better than the cell I spent a night in last week. I was innocent this time though accused of arson—that is, setting fire to the Kino (cinema) where we sleep. I arrive at the club and am informed that the whole of Hamburg Police are looking for me. The rest of the band are already locked up, so smiling and very brave on the arm of Astrid, I proceed to give myself up. At this time I’m not aware of the charge. All my belongings, including spectacles, are taken away and I’m led to a cell where without food or drink I sat for six hours on a very wooden bench, the door shut very tight. I fall asleep at two in the morning. I signed a confession written in Deutsch that I knew nothing about a fire, and they let me go.42

John was also allowed to go. It was now clear who’d done the dirty deed, and for them the ordeal continued; Paul would always remember the little one-way peephole in the door of their detention room, through which he sensed they were watched. It seems he and Pete were then allowed to leave, but a few hours later—early the following morning—they were dragged out of their Top Ten bunk beds and interviewed a second time. Pete suggests they were taken to Hamburg’s main prison at Fühlsbuttel, Paul remembers it being “the Rathaus … it doesn’t mean rat house, it just felt like one.” They were interviewed by an official of the Bundeskriminalamt (Federal CID), one Herr Gerkins, and it was definitely inadvisable to snigger. Instead, they requested permission to contact the British Embassy, like people did in the films, and were refused; then they were taken for a car ride. “We tried our best to persuade him it was nothing,” Paul says, “and he said, ‘OK fine, well you go with these men.’ And that was the last we knew of it. We just headed out with these couple of coppers. And we were getting a bit ‘Oh dear, this could be the concentration camps’—you never know. It hadn’t been that long [since the war].”43

Criminal charges were not pressed, but Koschmider, inevitably, had the last laugh. It wasn’t a camp to which Paul and Pete were being taken, but the airport—and in handcuffs, according to Stuart. They were being deported, and banned from reentering Germany unless they lodged an appeal within a month. Auf Wiedersehen, Piedels! Handed their passports at the gate, they were put on the London plane, set to fly for the first time in their lives. It then got even tastier for Koschmider because Eckhorn was billed for at least part of the cost of the plane tickets. Bruno must have been rubbing his hands with joy.

—Tune In, Ch. 17 (Oct 1–Dec 31, 1960)

Sources: 41 Author interview, March 7, 1985. Pete says (Beatle!, p72) there were four rubbers and always speaks of them in plural, Paul speaks of one. 42 December 12, 1960, sent to Ken Horton. This letter provides the only suggestion that John was arrested in the roundup; he’s not mentioned in other accounts. 43 Interview by Paul Gambaccini, Rolling Stone, June 12, 1979. Rathaus means “city hall.” Instead of the main prison at Fühlsbuttel, it’s more likely Paul and Pete were taken to the remand prison near St. Pauli called Untersuchungsgefängnis (easier done than said).

[the-holy-ghosted]

*putting on a moustache and sunglasses*

So like what’s the deal with ghosted what’s that about

now see the deal with Ghosted is that it's not what happens within the events of the film that captivates me so much, though don't get me wrong i love this film to bits, but rather, it's the idea of what happens after the whole thing that makes me FUCKING NUTS

because the whole thing is relatively cut and dry in the sense that we don't have to guess about what happened before and we don't have to guess about how everybody is feeling in the present. we know (MOST) important characters backgrounds and what they're doing at Falkhill and slowly revealing Paul's context was pretty interesting if not a little abrupt at the end there but its the very last scene of this film down to the very frame that flips the whole hour and a half you just watched over on its head and prevents me from getting a good night's sleep because i can't stop thinking about it

ELABORATING WITH A LOT OF SPOILERS UNDER THIS

explaining the plot of this movie is hard without sounding like im writing a pretentious review and not just talking out of my ass on tumblr but for my followers who haven't watched this movie and dont care enough to: Ghosted (2011) is set in a british prison in which Jack (John Lynch) is a long time prisoner who's wife just dumped him apparently on the anniversary of their sons death (tough break) and is being advised by his friend and cellmate Ahmed (Art Malik) (who does NOT get HALF as much screen-time or plot relevance as he DESERVES,) to find something to put his mind to and be proud of outside of his failures Paul (Martin Compston) is a prisoner who was just transferred out of a Young Offenders prison AS FAR AS WE'RE TOLD... though its noticeable from the beginning that hes not a very good liar and his story is suspicious at best Clay (Craig Parkinson) is kindof The Guy of their prison wing whos dealing drugs to other prisoners and assumes the position of authority over everybody else, though compared to other inmates with bigger cliques, his foundations are shaky. the description of this film on letterboxd calls him "the wing beast" and i have never cried laughing so hard reading something in my life

Clay and Jack both hone in on Paul immediately for different reasons. Jack, after his pep talk with Ahmed, sees Paul as a source of "a little self belief, something to be proud of", but Clay scoops him under his wing for being relatively young and impressionable. This puts Jack and Clay at odds with each other. after some plot, Paul gets into very big trouble with Clay and after An Incident is promptly plopped into Jacks hands, who had requested Paul move into his cell earlier but didn't have a good enough excuse for it. Well You've Got A Bloody Good Reason Now ect ect

Jack and Paul buddy up immediately and its noticable that Paul is sort of filling in the empty space where a son would be for Jack, however we discover that Paul has been lying about his past to everybody, including Jack. he lied about his family and he lied about having only just been transferred from Y.O. and hadn't been telling the whole truth about his sentence. what the truth ends up being, in a nutshell, is that Paul is accidentally responsible for the death of Jack's son, having been the one who started the house fire he died in (we were never even told that Jack's son died in a house fire before this, we are only told this in Paul's flashback at the end of the movie and are supposed to act, like, surprised?? whatever). consequentially, Jack flips his lid and prompts my personal favorite scene in this film in which he beats the living shit out of Paul with his bare hands and immediately regrets it the second the adrenaline wears off, hitting an alarm button within the cell that alerts the guards.

the guards whisk him away and he is put in solitary confinement, which we find out was actually the first sequence of the film where hes shown with an absurdly long beard, and considering every other fucking scene he's in is of him shaving his face, i assume this is to show just how long he's been kept in solitary confinement, which quite honestly was kindof exciting to realize at the end of the film.

and then. the end scene.

after solitary, Jack is put in cuffs and brought to see Paul who looked Extremely Dead after Jack had him, but hes not dead! just almost dead. Jack is sat next to him and tries to apologize but starts to cry, reaching out a hand to hold Paul's but retracting it regretfully. Paul, having looked unconscious not five seconds before, moves his hand to place it over Jack's...

and then the movie ends. and i am left writhing on my floor in anguish BUT NOT BEFORE I EXPLAIN TO YOU THAT THIS

THIS is what the deal is with Ghosted

the pathetic gestures of "im sorry" and "its okay" are what kill me. sorry is nowhere near enough to justify anything that EITHER of them did, NOR should they be forgiven. AND YET.

and what gets my gears going is the thought of what everything looks like AFTER this scene. after they've bonded so close and after Jack already thought that Paul stopped lying to him, thinking that he could protect Paul from Clay now... after they started to fill the spaces for people they were missing in their lives... and after they've RUINED each others lives. They Have Ruined Each Others Lives and yet Paul probably would have had to DELIBERATELY ASK for them to bring Jack to see him because he just BEAT Paul within an INCH of his life and would NOT !! have brought Jack to see him upon Jack's own request!! Paul would have wanted to see him too!! after all this what does their relationship look like now... the image of father and son has been all but shattered in each other's eyes, one can assume, but are they still close... does the guilt and responsibility drift them apart or does it pull them inseparably together? Ahmed tells Jack that "there is no such thing as coincidence, only fate" but what does their fate look like... does it end here or does it mean that they're together indefinitely? the end of this film swings the door wide open and i think about it. way too often. unacceptably often, even.

all in all theres no reason that this should be my favorite film but it is. if nothing else it's made me look into the other actors involved and branch out with a to-watch list as long as my arm that will only get longer once i branch out from there. is it the perfect movie? no this film is mediocre at best. have i made a number of my friends sit down and watch it and listen to me yell incoherently about it? of course i have.

[geeoharee]

More of my 'Sherlock Holmes through the lens of Discworld' thoughts, because why have one fixation when two will do

This week Holmes solved the case of The Blue Carbuncle, i.e. 'I stole a gem and hid it somewhere very stupid and now I cannot retrieve it from that place, oh no, this has all gone wrong, I am dumb'. The thief in question is James Ryder, a servant for the gem's owner who is framing John Horner, a plumber he called round to fix something in the house.

Anyway, not very important except to say Ryder does not get away with the crime even a LITTLE bit - he loses track of the gem immediately and it ends up in Holmes's living room and so does he. Horner meanwhile is sitting in a cell with the police not believing that he has no idea what they're on about.

When Holmes tells Ryder that he knows he stole it, Ryder collapses completely. He was already sitting down in a chair and somehow manages to fall on the floor, they have to give him brandy, then he begs pathetically:

Ryder threw himself down suddenly upon the rug and clutched at my companion's knees. "For God's sake, have mercy!" he shrieked. "Think of my father! Of my mother! It would break their hearts. I never went wrong before! I never will again. I swear it. I'll swear it on a Bible. Oh, don't bring it into court! For Christ's sake, don't!"

He does the obligatory First Person Narration Of The Whole Story that Watson always puts in here, and concludes:

"My sister thinks that I am going mad. Sometimes I think that I am myself. And now—and now I am myself a branded thief, without ever having touched the wealth for which I sold my character. God help me! God help me!" He burst into convulsive sobbing, with his face buried in his hands.

He is a horrible little man and he would have sent Horner to prison with no remorse whatsoever if he hadn't lost the gem, but honestly you can't help but feel a bit sorry for him anyway. Holmes certainly does, chucking him out of the house on the basis that he probably won't do it again, Horner will go free anyway if Ryder doesn't testify and "it is the season of forgiveness" - as well as the famous line "I am not retained by the police to supply their deficiencies." He's not a cop. He can do things like this, if he feels like it.

The Discworld connection is to the Hedge Argument Murder. (Incidentally, if you google that, the FIRST result is that there have been several of these in real life, before and after the book came out. Hedges are serious business.) Sam contemplates copper-ness in Night Watch...

Keep the peace. That was the thing. People often failed to understand what that meant. You'd go to some life-threatening disturbance like a couple of neighbours scrapping in the street over who owned the hedge between their properties, and they'd both be bursting with aggrieved self-righteousness, both yelling, their wives would either be having a private scrap on the side or would have adjourned to the kitchen for a shared pot of tea and a chat, and they expected you to sort it out.

And they could never understand that it wasn't your job. Sorting it out was a job for a good surveyor and a couple of lawyers, maybe. Your job was to quell the impulse to bang their stupid fat heads together, to ignore the affronted speeches of dodgy self-justification, to get them to stop shouting and to get them off the street. Once that had been achieved, your job was over. You weren't some walking god, dispensing finely-tuned natural justice. Your job was to simply bring back the peace.

Of course, if your few strict words didn't work and Mr Smith subsequently clambered over the disputed hedge and stabbed Mr Jones to death with a pair of gardening shears, then you had a different job, sorting out the notorious Hedge Argument Murder. But at least it was one you were trained to do.

People expected all kinds of things from coppers, but there was one thing that sooner or later they all wanted: make this not be happening.

In this lovely Christmas story, Holmes sees a man who wants more than anything in the world for this not to be happening - to just be able to take it all back - to be forgiven. Even though he's not particularly deserving. And because he's not a cop, he can give it to him.

[hellsitesonlybookclub]

It Can't Happen Here, Sinclair Lewis

Chapter 33-34

CHAPTER XXXIII

WHEN the Falcks and John Pollikop had been arrested and had joined her father in prison, when such more timid rebels as Mungo Kitterick and Harry Kindermann had been scared away from New Underground activities, Mary Greenhill had to take over the control of the Fort Beulah cell, with only Sissy, Father Perefixe, Dr. Olmsted and his driver, and half-a-dozen other agents left, and control it she did, with angry devotion and not too much sense. All she could do was to help in the escape of refugees and to forward such minor anti-Corpo news items as she could discover, with Julian gone.

The demon that had grown within her ever since her husband had been executed now became a great tumor, and Mary was furious at inaction. Quite gravely she talked about assassinations—and long before the day of Mary Greenhill, daughter of Doremus, gold-armored tyrants in towers had trembled at the menace of young widows in villages among the dark hills.

She wanted, first, to kill Shad Ledue who (she did not know, but guessed) had probably done the actual shooting of her husband. But in this small place it might hurt her family even more than they had been hurt. She humorlessly suggested, before Shad was arrested and murdered, that it would be a pretty piece of espionage for Sissy to go and live with him. The once flippant Sissy, so thin and quiet ever since her Julian had been taken away, was certain that Mary had gone mad, and at night was terrified.... She remembered how Mary, in the days when she had been a crystal-hard, crystal-bright sportswoman, had with her riding-crop beaten a farmer who had tortured a dog.

Mary was fed-up with the cautiousness of Dr. Olmsted and Father Perefixe, men who rather liked a vague state called Freedom but did not overmuch care for being lynched. She stormed at them. Call themselves men? Why didn't they go out and do something?

At home, she was irritated by her mother, who lamented hardly more about Doremus's jailing than she did about the beloved little tables that had been smashed during his arrest.

It was equally the blasts about the greatness of the new Provincial Commissioner, Effingham Swan, in the Corpo press and memoranda in the secret N.U. reports about his quick death verdicts against prisoners that made her decide to kill this dignitary. Even more than Shad (who had not yet been sent to Trianon), she blamed him for Fowler's fate. She thought it out quite calmly. That was the sort of thinking that the Corpos were encouraging among decent home-body women by their program for revitalizing national American pride.

Except with babies accompanying mothers, two visitors together were forbidden in the concentration camps. So, when Mary saw Doremus and, in another camp, Buck Titus, in early October, she could only murmur, in almost the same words to each of them, "Listen! When I leave you I'll hold up David—but, heavens, what a husky lump he's become!—at the gate, so you can see him. If anything should ever happen to me, if I should get sick or something, when you get out you'll take care of David—won't you, WON'T you?"

She was trying to be matter-of-fact, that they might not worry. She was not succeeding very well.

So she drew out, from the small fund which her father had established for her after Fowler's death, enough money for a couple of months, executed a power of attorney by which either her mother or her sister could draw the rest, casually kissed David and Emma and Sissy good-bye, and—chatty and gay as she took the train—went off to Albany, capital of the Northeastern Province. The story was that she needed a change and was going to stay near Albany with Fowler's married sister.

She did actually stay with her sister-in-law—long enough to get her bearings. Two days after her arrival, she went to the new Albany training-field of the Corpo Women's Flying Corps and enlisted for lessons in aviation and bombing.

When the inevitable war should come, when the government should decide whether it was Canada, Mexico, Russia, Cuba, Japan, or perhaps Staten Island that was "menacing her borders," and proceed to defend itself outwards, then the best women flyers of the Corps were to have Commissions in an official army auxiliary. The old-fashioned "rights" granted to women by the Liberals might (for their own sakes) be taken from them, but never had they had more right to die in battle.

While she was learning, she wrote to her family reassuringly— mostly postcards to David, bidding him mind whatever his grandmother said.

She lived in a lively boarding-house, filled with M.M. officers who knew all about and talked a little about the frequent inspection trips of Commissioner Swan, by aeroplane. She was complimented by quite a number of insulting proposals there.

She had driven a car ever since she had been fifteen: in Boston traffic, across the Quebec plains, on rocky hill roads in a blizzard; she had made repairs at midnight; and she had an accurate eye, nerves trained outdoors, and the resolute steadiness of a madman evading notice while he plots death. After ten hours of instruction, by an M.M. aviator who thought the air was as good a place as any to make love in and who could never understand why Mary laughed at him, she made her first solo flight, with an admirable landing. The instructor said (among other things less apropos) that she had no fear; that the one thing she needed for mastery was a little fear.

Meantime she was an obedient student in classes in bombing, a branch of culture daily more propagated by the Corpos.

She was particularly interested in the Mills hand grenade. You pulled out the safety pin, holding the lever against the grenade with your fingers, and tossed. Five seconds after the lever was thus loosened, the grenade exploded and killed a lot of people. It had never been used from planes, but it might be worth trying, thought Mary. M.M. officers told her that Swan, when a mob of steel-workers had been kicked out of a plant and started rioting, had taken command of the peace officers, and himself (they chuckled with admiration of his readiness) hurled such a grenade. It had killed two women and a baby.

Mary took her sixth solo flight on a November morning gray and quiet under snow clouds. She had never been very talkative with the ground crew but this morning she said it excited her to think she could leave the ground "like a reg'lar angel" and shoot up and hang around that unknown wilderness of clouds. She patted a strut of her machine, a high-wing Leonard monoplane with open cockpit, a new and very fast military machine, meant for both pursuit and quick jobs of bombing... quick jobs of slaughtering a few hundred troops in close formation.

At the field, as she had been informed he would, District Commissioner Effingham Swan was boarding his big official cabin plane for a flight presumably into New England. He was tall; a distinguished, military-looking, polo-suggesting dignitary in masterfully simple blue serge with just a light flying-helmet. A dozen yes-men buzzed about him—secretaries, bodyguards, a chauffeur, a couple of county commissioners, educational directors, labor directors—their hats in their hands, their smiles on their faces, their souls wriggling with gratitude to him for permitting them to exist. He snapped at them a good deal and bustled. As he mounted the steps to the cabin (Mary thought of "Casey Jones" and smiled), a messenger on a tremendous motorcycle blared up with the last telegrams. There seemed to be half a hundred of the yellow envelopes, Mary marveled. He tossed them to the secretary who was humbly creeping after him. The door of the viceregal coach closed on the Commissioner, the secretary, and two bodyguards lumpy with guns.

It was said that in his plane Swan had a desk that had belonged to Hitler, and before him to Marat.

To Mary, who had just lifted herself up into the cockpit, a mechanic cried, admiringly pointing after Swan's plane as it lurched forward, "Gee, what a grand guy that is—Boss Swan. I hear where he's flying down to Washington to chin with the Chief this morning—gee, think of it, with the Chief!"

"Wouldn't it be awful if somebody took a shot at Mr. Swan and the Chief? Might change all history," Mary shouted down.

"No chance of that! See those guards of his? Say, they could stand off a whole regiment—they could lick Walt Trowbridge and all the other Communists put together!"

"I guess that's so. Nothing but God shooting down from heaven could reach Mr. Swan."

"Ha, ha! That's good! But couple days ago I heard where a fellow was saying he figured out God had gone to sleep."

"Maybe it's time for Him to wake up!" said Mary, and raised her hand.

Her plane had a top of two hundred and eighty-five miles an hour— Swan's golden chariot had but two hundred and thirty. She was presently flying above and a little behind him. His cabin plane, which had seemed huge as the Queen Mary when she had looked up at its wing-spread on the ground, now seemed small as a white dove, wavering above the patchy linoleum that was the ground.

She drew from the pockets of her flying-jacket the three Mills hand grenades she had managed to steal from the school yesterday afternoon. She had not been able to get away with any heavier bomb. As she looked at them, for the first time she shuddered; she became a thing of warmer blood than a mere attachment to the plane, mechanical as the engine.

"Better get it over before I go ladylike," she sighed, and dived at the cabin plane.

No doubt her coming was unwelcome. Neither Death nor Mary Greenhill had made a formal engagement with Effingham Swan that morning; neither had telephoned, nor bargained with irritable secretaries, nor been neatly typed down on the great lord's schedule for his last day of life. In his dozen offices, in his marble home, in council hall and royal reviewing-stand, his most precious excellence was guarded with steel. He could not be approached by vulgarians like Mary Greenhill—save in the air, where emperor and vulgarian alike are upheld only by toy wings and by the grace of God.

Three times Mary maneuvered above his plane and dropped a grenade. Each time it missed. The cabin plane was descending, to land, and the guards were shooting up at her.

"Oh well!" she said, and dived bluntly at a bright metal wing.

In her last ten seconds she thought how much the wing looked like the zinc washboard which, as a girl, she had seen used by Mrs. Candy's predecessor—now what was her name?—Mamie or something. And she wished she had spent more time with David the last few months. And she noticed that the cabin plane seemed rather rushing up at her than she down at it.

The crash was appalling. It came just as she was patting her parachute and rising to leap out—too late. All she saw was an insane whirligig of smashed wings and huge engines that seemed to have been hurled up into her face.

CHAPTER XXXIV

SPEAKING of Julian before he was arrested, probably the New Underground headquarters in Montreal found no unusual value in his reports on M.M. grafting and cruelty and plans for apprehending N.U. agitators. Still, he had been able to warn four or five suspects to escape to Canada. He had had to assist in several floggings. He trembled so that the others laughed at him; and he made his blows suspiciously light.

He was set on being promoted to M.M. district headquarters in Hanover, and for it he studied typing and shorthand in his free time. He had a beautiful plan of going to that old family friend, Commissioner Francis Tasbrough, declaring that he wanted by his own noble qualities to make up to the divine government for his father's disloyalty, and of getting himself made Tasbrough's secretary. If he could just peep at Tasbrough's private files! Then there would be something juicy for Montreal!

Sissy and he discussed it exultantly in their leafy rendezvous. For a whole half hour she was able to forget her father and Buck in prison, and what seemed to her something like madness in Mary's increasing restlessness.

Just at the end of September she saw Julian suddenly arrested.

She was watching a review of M.M.'s on the Green. She might theoretically detest the blue M.M. uniform as being all that Walt Trowbridge (frequently) called it, "The old-time emblem of heroism and the battle for freedom, sacrilegiously turned by Windrip and his gang into a symbol of everything that is cruel, tyrannical, and false," but it did not dampen her pride in Julian to see him trim and shiny, and officially set apart as a squad-leader commanding his minor army of ten.

While the company stood at rest, County Commissioner Shad Ledue dashed up in a large car, sprang up, strode to Julian, bellowed, "This guy—this man is a traitor!" tore the M.M. steering-wheel from Julian's collar, struck him in the face, and turned him over to his private gunmen, while Julian's mates groaned, guffawed, hissed, and yelped.

She was not allowed to see Julian at Trianon. She could learn nothing save that he had not yet been executed.

When Mary was killed, and buried as a military heroine, Philip came bumbling up from his Massachusetts judicial circuit. He shook his head a great deal and pursed his lips.

"I swear," he said to Emma and Sissy—though actually he did nothing so wholesome and natural as to swear—"I swear I'm almost tempted to think, sometimes, that both Father and Mary have, or shall I say had, a touch of madness in them. There must be, terrible though it is to say it, but we must face facts in these troublous days, but I honestly think, sometimes, there must be a strain of madness somewhere in our family. Thank God I have escaped it!—if I have no other virtues, at least I am certainly sane! even if that may have caused the Pater to think I was nothing but mediocre! And of course you are entirely free from it, Mater. It's you that must watch yourself, Cecilia." (Sissy jumped slightly; not at anything so grateful as being called crazy by Philip, but at being called "Cecilia." After all, she admitted, that probably was her name.) "I hate to say it, Cecilia, but I've often thought you had a dangerous tendency to be thoughtless and selfish. Now Mater: as you know, I'm a very busy man, and I simply can't take a lot of time arguing and discussing, but it seems best to me, and I think I can almost say that it seems wise to Merilla, also, that, now that Mary has passed on, you should just close up this big house, or much better, try to rent it, as long as the poor Pater is—uh—as long as he's away. I don't pretend to have as big a place as this, but it's ever so much more modern, with gas furnace and up-to-date plumbing and all, and I have one of the first television sets in Rose Lane. I hope it won't hurt your feelings, and as you know, whatever people may say about me, certainly I'm one of the first to believe in keeping up the old traditions, just as poor dear old Eff Swan was, but at the same time, it seems to me that the old home here is a little on the dreary and old-fashioned side—of course I never COULD persuade the Pater to bring it up to date, but—Anyway, I want Davy and you to come live with us in Worcester, immediately. As for you, Sissy, you will of course understand that you are entirely welcome, but perhaps you would prefer to do something livelier, such as joining the Women's Corpo Auxiliary—"

He was, Sissy raged, so damned KIND to everybody! She couldn't even stir herself to insult him much. She earnestly desired to, when she found that he had brought David an M.M. uniform, and when David put it on and paraded about shouting, like most of the boys he played with, "Hail Windrip!"

She telephoned to Lorinda Pike at Beecher Falls and was able to tell Philip that she was going to help Lorinda in the tea room. Emma and David went off to Worcester—at the last moment, at the station, Emma decided to be pretty teary about it, though David begged her to remember that they had Uncle Philip's word for it that Worcester was just the same as Boston, London, Hollywood, and a Wild West Ranch put together. Sissy stayed to get the house rented. Mrs. Candy, who was going to open her bakery now and who never did inform the impractical Sissy whether or no she was being paid for these last weeks, made for Sissy all the foreign dishes that only Sissy and Doremus cared for, and they not uncheerfully dined together, in the kitchen.

So it was Shad's time to swoop.

He came blusteringly calling on her, in November. Never had she hated him quite so much, yet never so much feared him, because of what he might do to her father and Julian and Buck and the others in concentration camps.

He grunted, "Well, your boy-friend Jule, that thought he was so cute, the poor heel, we got all the dope on his double-crossing us, all right! HE'LL never bother you again!"

"He's not so bad. Let's forget him.... Shall I play you something on the piano?"

"Sure. Shoot. I always did like high-class music," said the refined Commissioner, lolling on a couch, putting his heels up on a damask chair, in the room where once he had cleaned the fireplace. If it was his serious purpose to discourage Sissy in regard to that anti-Corpo institution, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, he was succeeding even better than Judge Philip Jessup. Sir William Gilbert would have said of Shad that he was so very, very prolet-ari-an.

She had played for but five minutes when he forgot that he was now refined, and bawled, "Oh, cut out the highbrow stuff and come on and sit down!"

She stayed on the piano stool. Just what would she do if Shad became violent? There was no Julian to appear melodramatically at the nickoftime and rescue her. Then she remembered Mrs. Candy, in the kitchen, and was content.

"What the heck you snickerin' at?" said Shad.

"Oh—oh I was just thinking about that story you told me about how Mr. Falck bleated when you arrested him!"

"Yeh, that was comical. Old Reverend certainly blatted like a goat!"

(Could she kill him? Would it be wise to kill him? Had Mary meant to kill Swan? Would They be harder on Julian and her father if she killed Shad? Incidentally, did it hurt much to get hanged?)

He was yawning, "Well, Sis, ole kid, how about you and me taking a little trip to New York in a couple weeks? See some high life. I'll get you the best soot in the best hotel in town, and we'll take in some shows—I hear this Callin' Stalin is a hot number— real Corpo art—and I'll buy you some honest-to-God champagne wine! And then if we find we like each other enough, I'm willing for us, if you are, to get hitched!"

"But, Shad! We could never live on your salary. I mean—I mean of course the Corpos ought to pay you better—mean, even better than they do."

"Listen, baby! I ain't going to have to get along on any miserable county commissioner's salary the rest of my life! Believe me, I'm going to be a millionaire before very long!"

Then he told her: told her precisely the sort of discreditable secret for which she had so long fished in vain. Perhaps it was because he was sober. Shad, when drunk, reversed all the rules and became more peasant-like and cautious with each drink.

He had a plan. That plan was as brutal and as infeasible as any plan of Shad Ledue for making large money would be. Its essence was that he should avoid manual labor and should make as many persons miserable as possible. It was like his plan, when he was still a hired man, to become wealthy by breeding dogs—first stealing the dogs and, preferably, the kennels.

As County Commissioner he had not merely, as was the Corpo custom, been bribed by the shopkeepers and professional men for protection against the M.M.'s. He had actually gone into partnership with them, promising them larger M.M. orders, and, he boasted, he had secret contracts with these merchants all written down and signed and tucked away in his office safe.

Sissy got rid of him that evening by being difficult, while letting him assume that the conquest of her would not take more than three or four more days. She cried furiously after he had gone—in the comforting presence of Mrs. Candy, who first put away a butcher knife with which, Sissy suspected, she had been standing ready all evening.

Next morning Sissy drove to Hanover and shamelessly tattled to Francis Tasbrough about the interesting documents Shad had in his safe. She did not ever see Shad Ledue again.

She was very sick about his being killed. She was very sick about all killing. She found no heroism but only barbaric bestiality in having to kill so that one might so far live as to be halfway honest and kind and secure. But she knew that she would be willing to do it again.

The Jessup house was magniloquently rented by that noble Roman, that political belch, Ex-Governor Isham Hubbard, who, being tired of again trying to make a living by peddling real estate and criminal law, was pleased to accept the appointment as successor to Shad Ledue.

Sissy hastened to Beecher Falls and to Lorinda Pike.

Father Perefixe took charge of the N.U. cell, merely saying, as he had said daily since Buzz Windrip had been inaugurated, that he was fed-up with the whole business and was immediately going back to Canada. In fact, on his desk he had a Canadian time-table.

It was now two years old.

Sissy was in too snappish a state to stand being mothered, being fattened and sobbed over and brightly sent to bed. Mrs. Candy had done only too much of that. And Philip had given her all the parental advice she could endure for a while. It was a relief when Lorinda received her as an adult, as one too sensible to insult by pity—received her, in fact, with as much respect as if she were an enemy and not a friend.

After dinner, in Lorinda's new tea room, in an aged house which was now empty of guests for the winter except for the constant infestation of whimpering refugees, Lorinda, knitting, made her first mention of the dead Mary.

"I suppose your sister did intend to kill Swan, eh?"

"I don't know. The Corpos didn't seem to think so. They gave her a big military funeral."

"Well, of course, they don't much care to have assassinations talked about and maybe sort of become a general habit. I agree with your father. I think that, in many cases, assassinations are really rather unfortunate—a mistake in tactics. No. Not good. Oh, by the way, Sissy, I think I'm going to get your father out of concentration camp."

"What?"

Lorinda had none of the matrimonial moans of Emma; she was as business-like as ordering eggs.

"Yes. I tried everything. I went to see Tasbrough, and that educational fellow, Peaseley. Nothing doing. They want to keep Doremus in. But that rat, Aras Dilley, is at Trianon as guard now. I'm bribing him to help your father escape. We'll have the man here for Christmas, only kind of late, and sneak him into Canada."

"Oh!" said Sissy.

A few days afterward, reading a coded New Underground telegram which apparently dealt with the delivery of furniture, Lorinda shrieked, "Sissy! All you-know-what has busted loose! In Washington! Lee Sarason has deposed Buzz Windrip and grabbed the dictatorship!"

"Oh!" said Sissy.

[peaky-malachai]

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UPON RETURN | T. SHELBY | ii

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part. ii

•requested: yes by a few

•tw: slight mention of blood/fight, alcohol? at the very end theres a bit of seggsual tension

•wc: 2k ish

•season set: 1 /2 (i vision just before 1 tbh)

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You almost went silent as you doubled over, laughing with John, trying to catch your breath. The Garrison was loud, a Saturday night was always the busiest, being that it was half of the towns last day at work. Unfortunately not everyone had a two day weekend.

"So this whole room is yours then, ay?", you asked after your laughter died down and you both took a swig of your beverages.

"Oh yeah", John sat up, his arm resting on top of the bench, a few foot between you both, "Meetings, parties, everything 'appens in 'ere", he cleared his throat as he watched you look around in awe.

"When I left", you snorted, "When I left, you boys were barely even feared by Misses Briggs down at the bakery, 'n' she's a scaredy cat", you laughed, "Fuckin' 'ell, now look at ya, practically run the town".

John shrugged, "I don't even know how it got to this, to be fair".

The door burst open to reveal a drunken Arthur, "Y/L/N!", he called, walking over to sit adjacent from you in a singular arm chair,

"Y/N/N, how are ya?".

You held back a laugh, slightly tipsy yourself from Harry's generous pouring, "Better than I was this afternoon, Arthur", you leant back into the bench, "Me 'ands are comin' along now n'all".

Arthur squinted his eyes as you held your hands out above the table. Suddenly he stood up and moved over to sit next to you on the end of the bench. You quickly scooted across it to make some space and practically fell against John. Which of course ended up with now all three of you wheezing with laughter.

As if on queue, Tommy then walked through the door. His eyebrows slightly knitted as he looked over at the scene before him. Y/N's practically in John's lap, Arthur practically hugging the side of Y/N. The three of them hadn't even noticed Tom standing there as they tried catching their breath, trying to remember why they were laughing in the first place.

"Tommy!", John saw his elder brother first, "Finally! Come to join us for a pint 'ave yah?".

Tommy barely nodded his head as he kept his eyes trained on Y/N, who appeared to be now busy talking to Arthur about something. Clearly ignoring Tommy. Which angered him. Not that he would exhibit any sign of that.

"Did you know that Y/Ns been taking notes from our books whilst she's been away", John asked Tommy, "She's practically made her own betting shop down in London, t' make a few bob on the side". John nudged you, bringing you into his conversation, "'Aven't yah?".

You shrugged, "It wasn't really a betting shop", you turned to face John as Arthur stood up, stumbling to the small double door in the wall to get a fresh pint from Harry. "It was more like a 'You bet money on this and I'll double your winnings if you win, except, you won't win because I've rigged it' kind of thing and it was in the middle of the street".

John laughed, "Yeah, exactly, that's what I said".

Tommy walked over to the arm chair where Arthur had first sat, "That's dangerous", he commented as he pulled a pre-rolled cigarette out of his own metal tin.

You scoffed, sitting up straight, realising Tommy was actually in the same room as you right now and you looked a mess, "That's a bit rich coming from you, Thomas", you lifted your leg across the other under the table as you held your chin high. Who was he to tell you something was dangerous; As if he wasn't a notoriously dangerous criminal himself.

Tommy narrowed his eyes as he quickly took a glance at you before lighting his cigarette and chucking his pack of matches onto the table, his spare hand landing next to them. "You know", he began, which made you roll your eyes already, "I'm only trying to look out for you, it's not as if you have us down there with you".

You arched your eyebrow as let out a dry laugh, turning to John to see if he found his just as amusing. He didn't, of course, he was a man, he thought nothing of it as took a swig of his drink. Unfazed by the conversation.

"What, so are you sayin' that 'coz I'm a woman, I can't run my own dodgy business 'coz I won't 'ave The Three Main Peaky Boys to protect me when shit goes bobbins?".

John turned to you, his drink a centimetre away from his lips, "Goes what?".

"Rubbish! Goes Rubbish!", you shook your head at your best friend with a light slap to the side of his head, he tutted and pushed you back slightly.

"This, Tommy", you turned back, "This is exactly why I run my own dodgy business, by myself".

"What do you mean by exactly why?", he said simply.

"I mean, I don't have to fuckin' explain myself every five seconds", you sighed as you leant forward, resting your elbows on the table, a clear sign that you weren't having any of it. Tommy had almost forgotten you were like this. So brash. He liked it. He liked you. It irritated him. "Because everyone down there understands what I'm fuckin' on about".

John turned to you, speaking lowly, "Yeah, but you grew up here?".

You turned to him with a scowl, "Yeah, doesn't mean I fuckin' talk like yous, does it ya muppet".

"Shut up".

"You're the one that fuckin' said it".

"Oi", Arthur shouted as he walked back over, "Why are you arguing like little kids again".

"'Cause Tommy thinks I shouldn't run my own business", you turned to Arthur as he sat down across from John.

"I never said you shouldn't be running it", Tommy said with a flat tone, "I said, it's dangerous".

"Yeah, but it's the way in which you said it".

"You knew I wasn't being condescending".

"Fuckin' seemed like it", you crossed your arms across your chest as you turned your head away from Tommy.

"Oh for fuck sake!", John shouted, "Can't you two go five minutes with out bickering? It's like 1912 all over again", he stood up, "I'm going to find a woman".

"Fine! Fuck off then", you smiled playfully as you watched John flip you off whilst leaving the room. Arthur watched in wonder, he didn't understand your friendship at all, though he admired it.

"Right", Arthur slapped the table, "I've gotta piss but I'll see you two when you've stopped arguing". With that Arthur left the room. You and Tommy now alone.

Wonderful.

Great.

Neither of you said a word. You watched as Tommy eyes moved from every item on the table until he had no choice but to look up around the room. You wasn't stupid. You knew he wanted you to speak first. He wasn't good with expressing his emotions.

But fuck that.

And neither were you.

You brushed your skirt down before standing up and walking behind Tommy's chair. You didn't get far before he sharply turned to grab your wrist, letting go when he realised that was a little boisterous.

"Where you off to then?".

You shrugged, "Dunno, anywhere that's going to hold more conversation then you".

Tommy sighed, "Fuck sake", he mumbled, "Sit down", he looked you in the eye as he motioned for you to sit in the singular seat across from him.

You pursed you're lips, thinking — although honestly, you didn't need to think twice before agreeing to whatever Tommy told you.

Getting comfortable on the seat you looked over at the broken criminal, the shell of who used to be a bubbly trouble maker. "Well".

"Well what?", Tommy asked as he spoke with the end of his cigarette in his mouth.

You shook your head slightly, amazed by the stubbornness, "Why did you want me to sit down, I was excepting at least a smile, or would you rather I leave and find Jack from down the lane", you smirked as you picked at your nails innocently.

Tommy looked over with a harsh glare, "We both know you'd rather spend eternity in a prison cell with me and a rat then have to get into bed with him".

You smiled, it was true, you both knew it.

Yet even the idea of you with Jack still managed to irritate Tommy, it was amusing. You chose not to speak, wanting Tommy to give you his full attention. He looked over, stubbing out the end of his cigarette as he turned to face you, body mirroring yours. He cleared his throat before speaking, "Remember the day you left?".

You shrugged, "Suppose – everyone hugged me a thousand times over and you gave me that pocket knife".

Tommy shook his head, "Wasn't asking a question".

Your voice faded as you knitted your eyebrows together with an irritated smirk, "Oh, sorry, so go on then", leaning forward and resting your elbow on the side of your chair with your chin in your hand you looked Tommy up and down, debating how much time you would have left alone with him before another brother made an entrance, "Enlighten me on my memories".

Tommy's body relaxed back into his seat as his tongue touched his cheek, he had always loved your argumentative side, it seemed as if you reserved it especially for him.

"When you left Jacks house", he spoke as he reached into his blazer to grab something from a hand sewn (by polly) inner pocket, "with this", he handed you a smashed pocket watch.

You took the old small gold plated clock and looked at it with a small glint in your eyes. That clock had once belonged to Jack. Poor lad. You'd been in his house helping out his mother with some letters she wanted to send out for Christmas. Everything was fine until Jack came home, drunk. He was a few years older then yourself. Almost the same as Thomas.

Skipping the details he was talking about a certain girl he had been trying to chat up. Of course she didn't want anything to do with Jack, which she seemed to have cleared up respectfully. However, Jack, being the piece of shit he was, didn't care for that and thought she owed him something.

After hearing enough of it you turned to his mum and said, 'sorry but I can't take this any longer'.

You then stood up and grabbed the pocket watch hanging loosely from his gin stained blazer and smashed it into the side of his head, hitting his left temple. Blood trickled down from his eyebrow as he stumbled back, tripping up and falling onto his settee.

You grabbed him by the collar of his shirt with your free hand, leaning down to face him, 'don't ever talk another girl who's uninterested in you ever again', you pushed him back and stood up straight, 'and if you so I'll let some not very nice men know about it, call in some favours if you know what I mean'.

He nodded profusely and started mumbling some apology as you turned back to face his mother, 'sorry, I'll see myself out', you said as you grabbed your coat and bag before quickly leaving to go find Tommy and tell him about how you probably just made a big mistake.

"He was an ass", you simply said as you placed the watch onto the table, "Whats your point, Thomas". The mans face twitched, almost invisibly, but you saw.

"My point", he leant forward, "Y/N". You gulped, sitting up straight. "That's when I realised you were the one". You visibly shivered when you felt his finger tip on your knee, slowly tapping it he moved it half an inch up as he spoke, "That's when I realised you were going to be the death of me, Y/N".

Biting your lip you looked down, watching Tommy's finger tease it's way across your thigh, unsure of his plans. Barely above a whisper you managed to get out a breathless, "Tommy".

You saw him smirk as he licked his lower lip, his eyes travelling over your body before finally meeting yours, "Yes?".

Cheeks rosey red as you felt yourself blushing you uncrossed your legs and sat up straight with your chin in the air. Only to recross your legs the opposite way.

"Is this an issue, sweetheart?", Tommy said gently, this time he placed his entire hand on your thigh, the thin fabric of the old dress you borrowed from Ada being the only thing separating your warm skin from Tommy's stone cold hand. The only thing stopping you from losing all self control you had.

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✒︎author note: part three then?

& comment any spelling mistakes x

✒︎feedback: plz :))

✒︎requests: open⎝09/2021⎞

☞published: 16.03.2021

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