Moral Hazard

Gavin Bridges lifted up his red and white England's supporter scarf and cried out: “God loves England! He loves us and that's why he gave us Wayne Rooney! With Roo adding that touch of magic tonight, England will deffo hammer old Portugal and win the Euro 2004. Come on Rooney!”
Dozens of fans in red and white hats, headbands and shirt started pumping the air.
“Come on Rooney!” they throated in unison.
“To England’s finest sons!” Gavin proclaimed, picking up his glass of beer.
“To England’s finest sons!” came a single roar like thunder.
Gavin drank half the pint, then put his heavy glass back down on the counter, covered with puddles of beer, and stared into the facets of the beer glass, trying to foresee the result of the evening match.
With Rooney playing up front, picking up the ball deep and unlocking the defence England would hammer Portugal, alright. But then again Portugal had that grand old fox, that Napoleon of football, Figo.
”Why are you always going on about Wayne Rooney?” he suddenly heard someone ask.
Gobsmacked, he turned and saw a young Pakistani guy with a black beard and a blue turban. He was in his early twenties, and sitting tucked in at the end of the bar so Gavin hadn’t noticed before. His brown eyes sparkled with amusement behind steel-rimmed glasses. His snappy shirt and suit made him look more like a college student or a computer geek than a footie fan.
He took a sip of mineral water, then went.
“I mean who is this Wayne Rooney?”
“So, you’ve been doing time, have you?” Gavin asked. “Otherwise you’d know all about the new wunderkind. Rooney! He is fantastic, brilliant! Sometimes the course of a match depends on one man, one great talent that rises above all the others on the pitch, one heroic spirit that can size the bull by the horns – like Churchill leading England to Victory against the Nazi war machine.”
He looked, amused.
“To be honest, I’m not that interested in football. Just came in here till they get the computers sorted out at that internet café across the road,” he said, nodding in the direction of the door.
“What are you interested in then?” Gavin asked.
“Me? Religion.”
“Well, football is his religion!”
“I know. I’ve been listening to you talking about football and slinging down beer for the past twenty minutes.”
“What other way is there of drinking beer?” Gavin asked, offended.
“With a bit of self control!”
“Eh?”
“I bet you fifty euros you can’t drink a glass of beer with self control.”
“I’ll take you up on that!” Gavin cried.
What an absurd bet! Of course, he could drink a beer with self control for fifty euros!
He watched the waitress pour the golden liquid into a glass and he felt feverish desire that made him burn and shiver all over. He shut his eyes. He pictured the "The Dog and Gun" back home. In his imagination, he resurrected the red brick building with the charred door and the boards hammered to the windows. He dwelled on the cans of beer and cigarette stubs and other trash lying all around the yard. He could swear to God with the vision of the Dog and Gun in front of him there was not a spark of desire for life, let alone beer, left in his soul. Football was his religion because it was the only ff**kin escape from the grey, grey streets of Liverpool.
The grim spectacle of his home town before him, Gavin picked up the glass of golden beer, raised it slowly to his lips and took a tiny, tiny sip. Not even when the cool liquid eased its way down his throat in the heat of the Portuguese evening, did he feel any desire. He straightened his shoulders, satisfied, he’d won the bet.
“Pay up!” he said.
“No way!” cried the geezer. “I saw a flicker of desire in your eyes.”
”Rubbish!” Gavin said. “Pay up!”
Maybe it was the tattooes on his arms that made the geezer think twice. Or maybe it was the fact that he stood six foot two tall, was a builder, pump weights and jogged to keep himself fit for the Saturday afternoon matches that made him weigh up his chances of leaving the bar in one piece. At any rate, he took out his wallet.
Next fifty euros was lying on the counter in front of Gavin.
“You deserved it!” he said. “If I’d had as much to drink as you, I couldn’t have seen the glass, let alone lifted it.”
“Thanks,” Gavin said with grin. “O, his name’s Gavin, by the way. Gavin Bridge.”
“Take care, mate!” he said.
He gave Gavin a slap on the back, then walked off.
Trousering the fifty smackers, he decided a triple vodka would do just the trick. he tipped back the liquid, smoother than anti freeze, and he felt his brain grow numb and sweetly hazy. The bar was leaning on him when he heard someone say.
“You’re going to be late for the match, mate.”
Gavin raised his bleary eyes and saw a shining light in a corner of the bar. A heavenly vision? The figure radiated an aura of golden light.
Gobsmacked, he saw it was a medieval knight. He was dressed in the full gear -- a white tunic with a red cross on it. He had a belt with a sword, as well as a hood and chainlink armour.
“Stop gawping at me like that!” he snapped.
“Who are you?” Gavin asked.
“Don’t you recognise me?”
“No.”
“I am St George!”
“St George?”
“Kneel down, Sir Gavyne,” he said, sternly.
“Kneel down?”
The knight slid his sword out of its scabbard. Gavin knelt down. St George lowered it onto his right shoulder.
“I hereby knight you, Sir Gavyne. From now on, you are one of his trusty knights and servants. Have you got a pen?”
Gavin ruffled around and found a stub.
“Now, Sir Gavyne, I charge you with the task of chronicling this campaign of England’s finest sons in Portugal, I I’ll dictate. Write down: “Sempra victum omnia.”
“What?”
“It’s Latin. It means: “Onwards Sir Wayne Rooney”. The English crown expects you to fight with courage tonight. Our honour is at stake against those cheats, those divers, and prima donnas, the Portuguese, and their leader, that wily old fox, Scolari. But the match is about to begin.”
“It is?”
“Follow me,” he cried.
Gavin got to his feet, clasping the stub and staggered after St George. He liked his noble look. Honest and straightforward, he strode through the crowds. Everyone parted when they saw him, awe on their faces. A half dozen fans, who were exchanging t-shirts and other paraphernalia stopped on the street outside, gobsmacked as he strode past. Others sang, cheered and clapped as loud as anyone else when they saw St George in person walking by.
He pushed back his helmet and turned to him in disgust.
“Loutish, and unsocial behaviour seems so engrained in some English footballing circles that it is deplorable,” he said. “Look at all those Portuguese fans decked out in their colours. They look confident, a bit too confident! And they have Ronaldo!"
Gavin saw he was worried, very worried.
“Are we going to win tonight?” he asked, bending his head closer, so close Gavin could see his face drained of all colour, though his eyes were luminous and blue.
“Of course, of course!” Gavin cried.
“How come you’re so sure?”
“We’ve got Wayne Rooney!”
“That young chap’s only eighteen, isn’t he?”
“Only eighteen but what a player! A genius. Like Pele! Like Maradona!”
“So it’s all down to him, is it?”
“With Rooney adding that touch of magic, England will definitely rag this one against Portugal tonight.”
“I hate it when our campaigns depend on one man,” muttered St George. “Rooney, Rooney. I could have sworn that was the name of a knight I fought with in Agincourt."
“Get going. The match I’ve been waiting for since Christmas, the quarter finals of the Euro 2004 is upon us!”
Then he vanished. Vanished! Into thin air!
Gavin looked and found himself in a dark and empty stretch of road at the side of the stadium, the Stadium of Light. From the inside, he could hear the roaring of the fans, cheering for their team.
The top section of the North end, he kept thinking to himself. Where is it? Where?
He stumbled on. After a few minutes, he came to an entrance. A dozen uniformed officials were standing around some turnstiles arguing with a geezer in a suit. He looked and saw it was the Southeast Entrance! Hell!
Gavin staggered on, desperate. He stopped to get his bearings. He was leaning against the wall, his head throbbing with excitement but also fear – yes fear of missing the beginning of the match – when he saw two yellow headlights flash in the half darkness. Next, a black car drove up, stopped, and four figures got out. They came walking straight towards him. They were all young, strong looking blokes in smart suits, and for a moment, he thought they must be the bodyguards of some filmmaker or celebrity attending the match.
“There he is,” he heard one of them say, pointing at him.
“Me?” Gavin muttered, bemused. Had they mistaken him for the Queen?
They walked up.
One of them grabbed him by the arm, and hooked it up behind his back at an angle that he was sure it was going to become detached.
“For fucks sake! You wanna put me in hospital?” Gavin cried.
He looked up and saw the whites of eyes swimming the darkness and then a fist.
Next, it went dark for a moment before his eyes.
“What is this?” he cried befuddled. “Four against one? Big heroes!”
He fought back. he wanted to go to the right, to the stadium, but he was being dragged to the left to the car. Every step his desperation grew. He dug in his heels but the drink made him weak. How mean! How cruel! Not the pain no, not the pain that shot through me! Not that was cruel! But knowing that the match was about to kick off and he was going to miss it.
Next, he felt something stinging on his head and he passed out.


-------



Sweat began to pour down his forehead and into his eyes. He tried to move his hands to wipe the film away. He realised his hands were cuffed behind his back.
“Onto the freakin bus,” someone shouted into his right ear so loudly that it felt like he’d been punched.
There was a big olive green bus standing in front of him. Written in black letters on the sides, Gavin read: “United States Marine Corps”
Two blokes in Khaki uniforms were standing in the shade that the bus threw on the black asphalt. Their soft caps were pulled down low over their eyes against the sun that had reached its zenith.

“Get moving, you Al Qaeda scum!”
A soldier shouted.
Gavin looked at his name tag. Scraper, it said.
“Stop friggin eyeballing me, and get on the fucking bus before I make you crawl onto it!” he shouted.
His tone was getting on Gavin’s nerves.
“Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” he said.
The soldier's eyes bulged.
“I know your type, buddie. As what's-her-name sang, we'll meet again, Brother, in an empty corridor, so don’t mess with me! Get on the freakin bus or I’ll drag you on!”
“You can fucking try. I’m not fucking going anywhere,” he said. “Let him go!”
“Brother, for you the war is over. Stalag Luft II is waiting, and no sneaky escapes while we’re having a nice cup of tea.”
“You’re a fucking lunatic, right,” Gavin said.
“Keep your opinions about his mental state to yourself and get on that fuckin bus!” he cried.
Seeing that he was speaking to a lunatic, who would not listen to reason, Gavin decided to get on the bus in the hope it would take him to someone sane.
Inside, it was as hot as a furnace. The gun metal interior gleamed like it was going to start melting.
“Sit down at the back on the middle seat, and don’t bleedin move!” shouted Scraper.
Gavin sat down. The windows were closed and there was not a breath of air. The two soldiers climbed inside. One of them sat behind the wheel. There was a bang and the bus started off. Looking out, Gavin saw planes with US army markings parked on the asphalt.
If this is a dream, he thought to myself, he should be waking up by now. He wasn’t. He shut his eyes. He willed myself to wake up. He opened his eyes, hoping to see the bar in Lisbon again, his bedroom at home, decorated with Liverpool flags and posters. No! he saw fucking green US airplanes parked on a black asphalt top.
Then it hit him! The match! he’d missed the fucking match.
“Hey,” Gavin shouted, leaning forward. “Who won the fucking match. England or Portugal?”
He might as well have been talking to the dead. Scraper, who was standing up front beside the driver, threw him a backwards glance of total contempt.
Fucking hell, je thought to myself. What right did they have to keep him in cuffs? To treat him like this? He hadn’t broken any law?
He had to get away from these lunatics. Who the hell were they? Some sect with a secret base in a Spaghetti Western desert? Was he going to be sacrificed in some ritual?
Using his fingers, he began to feel his way over the steel surface of the cuffs behind his back, hoping to find some way of opening them. But his finger tips felt only smooth steel all the way round his wrists and tight interlinking chains in between. These loons had him firmly in their control.
Where the hell were they taking me? Looking through the wire mesh covered windows, he saw bare countryside outside.
There was tall yellow grass, low, dry bushes, cacti, all looking as parched as he was feeling. A huge black birds, like fucking vultures, circled the sky. Then he saw a sign: North East Gate of U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.





The bus slowed down. I looked through the front window and saw his first glimpse of the base. A huge complex, it rose up in the emptiness, surrounded by a perimeter fence, topped by concertina wire. There were tall watchtowers at intervals. I saw the silhouettes of soldiers standing on guard. As we approached the entrance, marked by two concrete pillars,
Holy Smoke! He was in Cuba! Cuba! In Guanatanamo Bay. Fuck! Wasn’t that the place where the US took suspected terrorists? So what the hell was he doing here?
The entrance gates opened and the bus drove inside and stopped on a dusty square. He saw the Stars and Stripes flying from the top of a pole in the center of the square surrounded by camouflage-painted barracks.
“Out!” cried Scraper, storming down the bus to get him.
Gavin walked down the steps, through a burst of sunlight, and into a building. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.
“Stop eyeballing the friggin corridor, brother,” Scarper shouted. Two soldiers came up from behind me. One grabbed his arms and took off his cuffs.
“There’s been a mistake,” he said, lifting up his arms and rubbing his wrists. “ his name’s Gavin Bridges. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here. You guys have cocked up.”
“Sure,” drawled Scraper, and marched off.
“I want to speak to someone. Some from the embassy. I’m a British citizen.”
“I want to speak to someone. Someone from the Biritish Embassy. I’m a British citizen. You’ve got no bleedin right to keep him here.”
“Later, Brother, later,” drawled a black guard, with Lamarr on his name tag.
“First you got get some things done. Just follow the instructions.”
“Do I have a choice?” Gavin asked
“No, brother.”
In the first room, a soldier was standing behind a metal desk.
“Give me your shirt and shorts and sandals,” he shouted.
“Why?”
He leaned over the desk and shoved his fist into Gavin's face.
“Fucking hell!” Gavin cried.
Blood started pouring down from under his eye and dripping onto his white England supporters shirt, covering the three lions emblem.
“That’s a grievous bodily harm, mate!” Gavin said. “You should be sent to court for that.”
“Take your bleedin clothes off or I’ll make you!”
All this pointless harassment and mindless stress was getting to him.
Gavin took off his supporters shirt and shorts and tossed them into a basket. Naked, shivering, I walked into the second room. There was a cubicle.
“Get under that shower!” ordered Lamarr.
He stepped into the cubicle.
There was a hiss. Hot water sprayed all over me, running down his face.
“Get out.”
he got out dripping wet, wiping the water from his eyes.
“Walk on.”
He walked into the next room, dripping. A barber held up a pair of scissors and sixty seconds later, when he left the room, he had no hair.
In the next room, a doctor poked and probed him everything from teeth to toes. Then he was issued with an orange nylon overhaul and a pair of black plastic flip flops. He was also given some soap, toothpaste, toothbrush and a towel.
Lamarr sat him down at a metal desk and gave him a mound of papers.
He was given two hours to fill out a psychological test, a biographical data sheet and an aptitude test.
At the end of all that, Lamarr handed him a processed meat sandwich and an apple.
“You have three minutes to eat,” he said, looking at his watch. I started to munch the apple, thirstily licking up every drop of juice.
He had just unwrapped the sandwich when the soldier snatched it from him and tossed it to the side.
“Your three minutes are up.”
He put a bottle of water in front of Gavin.
“You have three minutes to hydrate. Hydrate!” He shouted.
Gavin gulped the water down.
“Stop!” the soldier said.
He took the bottle from out of his hands.
“Get up.”
When Gavin left the barracks dressed in orange overhauls and carrying his toothbrush and soap, he felt like a prisoner in some science fiction movie.
“This way, Tommy, “ shouted Scarper, marching up.
“Look, “ Gavin said, trying to catch his eye. “There’s been a mistake. I’m a British Citizen. I haven’t broken any law. I want you to let him out.”
“Stop whinging and dragging your feet, You’ll like your little cell in Stalag Luft 11.”
“I fucking won’t?”
“Sure, you will buddie. Real cosy.”
There was nothing cosy about the ten by ten foot concrete cell, bare of everything except a metal bed and a sink.
“Make yourself at home. You’ll be staying here for the next seven days,” Scarper said.
“Seven days?” Gavin cried. “I keep telling you, you’ve got the wrong man. I don’t know who you think I am but I’m just a football fan. I’m not putting up with this shit any more…”
Next, his baton was out and rammed into Gavin#s stomach and he was on his knees, in agony.
“What for?” Gavin cried, gasping.
“You speak when you are spoken to. Understood?” He shouted.
He turned. I heard his steps recede on the corridor.
“Fuckin hell,” he cried, looking at a big, black soldier. “Do I have no rights? I mean, did you see that guy just hit me.”
“Hey, come on,” said the black guy, helping him to his feet. “You shouldn’t take it personally,”
“What do you mean?” Gavin cried. “I haven’t done anything. I’m innocent. And you’re beating him up, locking him in here for seven days and telling him I shouldn’t take it personally.”
He rested his weary eyes on Gavin.
“You got understand, there are rules here you have to follow. It’s like a game. You play games, don’t you?”
“I play football.”
“Right! There’re rules in football, things you can and can’t do. And they’re rules here, too. Just follow those rules and you’ll be okay. One of the rules is, don’t shout at the guards. If you just talk to them quietly, you’ll be fine.”
“I don’t know if I like these rules that say I have to stay in this cell for seven friggin days.”
“Like ‘em or not, that’s the rules, Brother. You complain, and you’ll be sitting there for a year. Got it?”
“Who made up these rules?”
“Don’t ask me, Brother. I just obey his set. You’ll get rations twice a day. Just relax, take it easy!“
He pushed him deeper into the cell and turned to close the door.
“Just one thing, one thing, please,!” Gavin cried.
“What?”
“Who won? Did England beat Portugal?”
He looked at Gavin, astonished.
“I don’t follow soccer,” he said, shaking his head. “You guys must all be gay or something. I mean if it were 11 topless women wrestling on the field, I’d be glued to the game. What do you see in it?”
“Football is passion, life!”
“Well, Brother, just you think about the positives like that and the seven days will fly by in no time.”
He clanged the steel door shut behind him. Gavin heard a key turn in the lock. He stood there, stunned, not able to take in the dimensions of what was happening to me. He was in a penal colony, a prisoner! No freedom, no rights!
His heart began to race. He knew he had to calm myself down. That adrenaline rush was going to burst his arteries.
“Fucking hell!” He thought to himself as he put his towel beside the sink and then laid out his soap, toothpaste and toothbrush. He turned on the tap. A trickle of warm water flowed down. he bent over, stuck out his tongue and lapped up the water like a dog. After about five minutes, he’d got enough to take the edge of his thirst.
He took a closer look at the bed. The metal legs were screwed down to the floor. He noticed a tiny slit in the wall just big enough for him to get his hands through it.
His orange overhauls itched in the heat. He tried to take them off but realised they were zipped up with a lock
He lay down on the bed, tormented by the question: how long would he have to stay here?
What would his missus think? his parents think? his friends think? Who was going to play wing attack next season? Bleedin hell! Lying on the bed, he realised that shitty as Liverpool was, he loved the city, the football ground and the team, he love them to the point of fucking madness.
But most tormenting of all was the burning question: Who had won? England or Portugal? Had Rooney scored or not? Had he missed a “beautiful game”, one that had entertained, thrilled and delighted the fans. Or had it been a dead boring, defensive match with each team just trying to hang onto an early lead?

He had come all the way to Portugal, putting in extra hours at the building site to pay for the trip. In his twenty-five years on earth, twenty-three of them a footie fan, he had experienced the range of emotions dealt by the cruel hand of fate. Never, though in a triillion years could he ever have imagined he would miss the match altogether – and because he’d been taking to Cuba and chucked in a prison. Blimey!
“Right,” he thought to himself, “I’m going to play the match myself. I’ve learned the formations and memorised the scorelines….
He closed his eyes, and pictured the Stadium of Light, and the sea of England supporters at the North end.
He played the match in his mind when they came to interrogate him, to ask him questions about his chat with a man he never knew in a bar in Lisbon, when they waterboarded him, when they played deafening music in his cell and when they beat him up.
When they finally released him because they had no evidence and the British government complained, he was told to shut up or he’d get it.
What was the point? He thought to himself. After all, it was their own men who attacked their own fucking country on September 9/11 as everyone knew. Maybe that was the point? To terrorise the Americans and Brits into submission.

What for? What was the point of all the savagery? Mindless stupidity allied with clout is dangerous, dangerous.