Rhinoceros: Ryon's story 20
Saturday
I was thinking about this knight in armour stuff and Scope. I mean the papers have really built him up to be some man of the people, which only goes to show they’ve not a clue who he is. If they met him they’d soon forget all that bollocks. The last heroic thing he did was let his wife leave him.
Now Scopey is alright in his way, like he doesn’t get in your face like a lot of teachers, he just is what he is. There’s no show, just this sad teacher all the time. What he isn’t is a knight or some sort of hero. Imagine Call of Duty or GTA starring Mr Scope. Every time they brought on the action he’d be giving it the, “Well, can you think of a more exciting verb to use in this situation”. And he’d be in the same jacket in every scene looking like some tramp who’d wandered in by mistake.
The thing about putting stuff on the internet is that it’s piss-easy, unless you’re from the Victorian generation like most teachers. When I was hanging around the streets a lot, before I got into the nicking, we used to take photos and films of each other in masks and bandanas holding weapons and we’d put them on My Space and Bebo and all that with threats towards other gangs, stir up a bit of trouble. It was just territory stuff, like cats and dogs. But it was a laugh. Someone even got hold of a gun, and it looked real enough, and we mucked around with it for a bit and put it online, saying we were gonna do the S2 crew or whatever, but then there were a load of shootings down Pitsmoor and that kid got a bullet in the head so we had to gave it up for a bit. Especially when the pigs learned how to use the internet and went around looking for us. But even if you Google our area now we’re still there, bandanas, crossed weapons and all. So putting Scope’s films on the net was not going to be any kind of job at all. Even if the Mitchelsons could’ve done it they wouldn’t be bothered to get off their arses and press a few buttons. That’d be too much like work for them. They probably get some joey to wipe their arses, like sumo wrestlers or something.
To be honest, it’s the sort of thing you do without thinking about it. Like going for a crap. So the big fuss was a bit of a surprise. In fact I was fucking amazed. I don’t know why everyone jumped on this one. Even Frank continued to be all excited about it. “It’s a good media studies story, Ryon, you’ve got to use it. May never happen again in your life,” he said, in his usual enthusiastic Mr Teacher type voice. “We can really turn this into a project. Perhaps I should help with some notes.” Yeah, I thought, you’d just love all that.
Alternatively we could just collect the cuttings and piss ourselves laughing at how thick they all are. Frank also said that it was this story that tipped the scales of interest – like how there’d been a lot of stories recently about the internet, with people taking secret films and posting them for the benefit of the world. As if the world is usually that bothered. But sometimes something takes off, and the papers and the telly loved this one, even if they twisted it into a story they wanted to write rather than what actually happened.
Frank said that he wasn’t sure about the legality of putting the films on the internet. What? I told him straight, there’s some right sick stuff on there, like Al Qaida sawing heads off blokes, the weirdest porn you could ever imagine, there’s bombs and dead people and sick fuckers, the lot, and they're all over it. So these pathetic little films are hardly hardcore in comparison.
Still, good to see the Head being dobbed in at last, especially after what he did to our Alix that time. Alix never made much of it afterwards – probably too used to being battered by his dad every weekend when he was pissed up. Still, you don’t expect it from teachers. If it’d been me I’d’ve fucking lamped him into next week. He knew that, too. Otherwise he’d’ve taken me on. Picked on the little ones, instead. Gave him a feeling of power. I should know. I watched bullies for years, I suppose I’ve done a bit of bullying myself. But I always stick up for the little ones. Someone has to.
So it all worked out for the best, at least for Mr Scope. He should be grateful, really.
