The showers came and went, taking the clouds with them.
Meanwhile, the pounding had grown loud enough that it was now shaking the washroom door. The sounds of the inn’s patrons beyond it had long since ceased, indicating that they had either been cleared out, or that their curiosity had been piqued enough that they saw it fit to abandon their respective conversations, in favor of watching what was about to unfold before them.
“Mr. Bunnu!” an authoritative voice said. “Don’t make this any more difficult than it has to be!” In response to this, Bunnu could hear a round of raucous laughter as though it had been said for the effect of eliciting an audience response.
The charade was likely meant to serve as some kind of entertainment for the other patrons, which led Bunnu to the obvious conclusion that the men at the door were, no doubt, members of the Performing Arts Division of the Morellan Intercultural Settlement Police Department. Specialists from this division were often sent in for the arrests that were expected to garner a great deal of attention from voyeurs and curiosity-seekers alike.
Depending on the immediacy of the enforcement initiative, marketing research projects were often undertaken well in advance, in an attempt to determine the target audience, ticket price, as well as, content preferences. Based on the findings yielded by initial quantitative assessments, direct mail campaigns would, then, be launched, targeting specific consumers that matched the demographic and lifestyle types that promised the greatest returns. This process could be set into action hours, days, or even weeks before the main event was likely to take place. In many cases, the promotional campaigns kicked-off far in advance of any requests that might have been made of the courts for the necessary arrest warrants, and as a result, the anticipation created by the lag time tended to drive ticket demand and, consequently, the selling price.
The expense undertaken by the Police Department was, of course, a formidable one. As the preparation required for creating a public spectacle could be both time-consuming and cost-intensive, investors were granted permission to purchase shares to provide capital for their collective venture and, subsequently, influence content and scripting decisions in such a way that they were able to effectively optimize factors of audience appeal, and accordingly, their profit margins.
Throughout the process, of course, the accused was left out of the loop by way of proactive behavioral analysis and preemptive methodical diversion from any promotional signs, radio spots, literature, or even ticket vendors that he might incidentally encounter in his day-to-day experiences. In doing so, field agents were required to monitor his activities and report back to HQ on an hourly basis on matters as important as his media consumption and as trivial as his everyday encounters. When the operation was in grave danger of being compromised, the field agents were expected to act in order to ensure under any means necessary that the accused would not obtain prior knowledge of his arrest and attempt to take flight before the main event.
All this being said, it sometimes happened that the accused was not left out of the loop. When sales were at a lull, arrests were often staged with the consent of the accused in exchange for a shorter prison term, or in the case of an innocent plea, a generous offering of company stock. In such cases, the accused was expected to say certain lines, pre-determined by the writers and, given the right circumstances, attempt to escape or take one of the arresting officers or audience members hostage, initiating a sales-boosting audience-participatory manhunt.
Bunnu now surmised that it was likely that his assailants from the Greater Kaiiba-8 Football Association were in league, in a manner of speaking, with local law enforcement, and perhaps assisted in maintaining the diversion by attacking him suddenly and without provocation (presumably, this could be chalked up to the fact that Bunnu had quit the team years ago to embark on his many travels—a fact that may have caused them, through some self-absorbed process of illusory superiority, to assume that he deemed himself inadequate of their traveling football club, its unifying spirit, and its aggressively militaristic political agenda—thus priming him for a well-timed and well-deserved decking: to them, undoubtedly, a most bittersweet reunion after these many years apart).
Regardless of the cause, the fact of the ambush in and of itself meant that this was not going to be one of those staged arrests wherein he could be extended the privilege of prior knowledge in advance of the main event, and that, in a similar way, this was not either the sort in which he should be afforded the opportunity to negotiate terms in return for cooperation. Nonetheless, he wondered if it might not be best to try to make it interesting for the audience, in an attempt to curry favor and, thereupon, cut a deal with his captors. However, given the size of this venue, he imagined that the arrest hadn’t generated enough appeal to attract a large audience and, therefore, couldn’t be expected to have a sufficient enough response to justify a bargain, should he decide to play along in these circumstances. And yet, not putting up at least a token resistance could actually affect his case negatively, to the point of even extending his sentence.
“It’s always the same with you people!” Bunnu now exclaimed in his best stage voice. “Try to kick a man when he’s already down!”
“Ohhhh!” the audience bellowed. Bunnu had clearly impressed them with the way he’d voiced his lack of compliance.
“Whew! Nice one!” the officer said in seeming admiration of Bunnu’s mock defiance. “If that’s the case, it seems like you’ve got but two choices. You can walk out…or get carried out!” The audience erupted into applause, cheering on and hooting at the arresting officers. “Thank you…thank you…” Bunnu could hear the officer saying in response to the mindless chorus of cheers.
Bunnu concentrated for a moment. It was necessary for him to say something, but it was even more imperative that the officers had the last word in this battle of wits. Thus, it was necessary to maintain a defense strong enough to heighten the suspense for the audience, yet not so profound as to deem any attempt at a counter-argument invalid. He decided to take a calculated risk by saying something both seditious and inflammatory. “Easy for you to say when you have the backing of the government and corporate interests. Who is it that you’re really protecting? Your shareholders? You’re methodically using your audience’s morbid curiosity to serve interests contradictory to their well-being!”
There was a silence. Bunnu wondered for a moment if he’d been heard, or if in fact, he’d neglected to speak out loud. But after a few moments, he could hear the voice of the arresting officer, this time much quieter, as though addressing Bunnu directly, “Are you crazy? What the hell are you trying to do?"
“What?” Bunnu whispered back through the door.
“Are you trying to upstage me? There’s no response to that one.” The man’s whisper seemed to carry a hint of panic.
Bunnu sighed and whispered back with a tone of annoyance, “Just tell them that acts of sedition are an even greater trespass on the public’s sense of well-being because they undermine the authority of the officials and organizations in which Society places their trust. Thus, any such declarations can only be those of an anarchist who puts his own agenda before the will of the people.”
“Right…” the officer said hesitantly. “What was that…uh…part after ‘undermine the authority…’ again?” Bunnu said it for him again, tapping his fingernails impatiently against the wooden surface of the lavatory door, as he did so. The officer repeated it back slowly, as though he were writing it down somewhere. “Right…thanks!” the officer said finally before reciting the words he’d been instructed to use in his best stage voice.
There was a roar of applause accompanied by shouts of support. One of the patrons screamed out, “That’s right! Don’t take that from the traitor!”
Bunnu could hear glasses breaking and tables being overturned in the next room as the crowd unleashed their primal passions on the nearest breakable items. Their quarry had been cornered in his defenses and the
ir bloodlust was such that they were likely to pay top Julep to watch him escape, so that he might be brutalized and killed before their very eyes, as this was much more gratifying to them than simply watching justice be enacted. They, too, understood that societal constructs for justice were moderate gratification, at best, as they were empty and subject to contradictions and compromises steeped in moral relativism and an unconditional dependence upon overblown semantics that made the law a mockery of itself. As for the ideologies that these hollow systems of jurisprudence sought to define and uphold: these could easily be subjugated through a meticulous analysis of the trivial components of one statute or another. The rule of law had failed them. What the people wanted, in its stead, was rather simple: moral absolutes. Good versus evil. And evil was not to be simply prevailed over. Evil was to be dominated and effectively eliminated, because as long as it was able to while away the time somewhere—in some sweaty prison cell, far away, staring out the barred window with a wry smile, as it plotted its next offensive on the Common Good, a sense of wholeness could not be achieved.
The crowd wanted a bloodbath and Bunnu knew it. It was time to surrender. “OK…” he announced amidst the cheers and breaking of chairs in the next room, “I’m coming out…”
As he opened the door, he noticed, to his lack of surprise, that the officers standing before him were, in fact, the three men in the broad-collared overcoats that he’d seen when he’d first walked into the inn. The crowd let out a collective sigh of disappointment, but still applauded in a show of respect for a great performance.
“Well-played,” said one of the officers, patting Bunnu on the shoulder. He was apparently the leader. Or to be precise, he’d likely been assigned the role of leader, solely due to the thickness of his mustache as it clearly had greater dramatic presence than those of his associates.
Members of the audience now threw roses at the two of them. “Now, don’t just stand there!” the officer commanded Bunnu, “Bow!”
As the two of them bowed together, Bunnu asked the officer under his breath, “What are you taking me in for?”
“Before I get to that,” the officer whispered back through his mustache—its ends upturned and smiling at the audience, “the Coach wants to have a word with you…”
On Acquaintanceship