Day 192 - Upside Down- Chapter 29 - (1777 words)

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UPSIDE DOWN, BACK TO FRONT

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 29

After

Sam pulled the handbrake on and looked across the car to James. James loked tired and unhappy, and it was about to get worse.
“It’ll just be an hour or so, and remember to look surprised.”
James nodded and they exited the car together, steeled them selves and then walked inside James house, the lights were off, it was not quite night and the shadows were long near the front of the house.
Angela and her friends, some reporters and twenty people from his trial support group were all hiding inside to surprise him when he got out of remand.
Sam had given him the heads up, but he need not have worried about James acting surpised, the eruption of noise and bodies as he turned his living room light on was so invasive he could feel it like an axe his chest.
All these people? Get out of my house, I just want to be alone.
“Oh my god, I can’t believe you’re all here?” Please leave.
“I mean this is overwhelming, just so…” Seriously, get the fuck away from me.
“I’m speechless.” All for him? It is a little flattering.
Ange drover through the crowd surrounding and latchd on to an arm and dragged him in for a overlong and demostrative kiss.
He had not missed her, not really until this very moment and then a lot more than he thought he felt welled up from the hidden depths of him. It rushed up like a geyser and threatened to overflow as it took control.
“Wow.” Was all he could manage to say.
The crowd applauded and a few people shouted questions he could not really hear that well. Her arm had somehow snaked in behind his and hooked around his waist, pulling him into property and protection.
It felt good.
“So what are you going to do first?”
“Um, I don’t … I haven’t thought too much…” He looked at Ange whose personal gravity was consuming him. He looked as he felt, owned and uncomfortable but willing to go along with it.
“None of your business.” She said archly, implying exactly that it was their business but that it was gauche to state it openly.
The bubble burst and the will of the group splintered into conversations and chatter and a line of priroty and importance formed, with his girlfriend as gatekeeper. The person who was a satellite to her was Glenn Chambers, the man who had the agenda to reform sentencing and criminal procedure in the country. He and Angela had forged a clear plan for what would happen after the trial ended, and what to do next.
She was not blinded by the promise of fame and fortune, and she kept Chambers at bay from pushing too fast and too much at James. She too wanted justice, but the more she had come to defend her ex-boyfriend, the more she saw the things in him that attacted her in the first place.
“James, James, it’s so good to see you free. I know that you didn’t want any fuss at the prison but the country needs to see you free and happy. Justice needs to be seen to be done, not just be done to be satisfied.” He was asking a reasonable request, a few minutes for the press a public statement. “We’ve drafted a speech for you, it’s not long. A few minutes to thank the thousands of people who came out in support for you.”
“No, not today.” James did not need to say anything, she said it for him.
“Ok, I get that I do, but..”
“Not today, but not never either. Let us have some time and then we’ll come back to you when ok? Maybe tomorrow or,” a sideways glance “ the day after that, but later or sooner this week yes?” The yes was directed at her man, who nodded.
“Ok, just let me know.”
The crowd thinned when a half hour or more had passed and it was clear that what he needed was freedom not capacity to fulfill everyone else’s needs.
Sam and James found a few minutes to get away and talk in private.
“So, what do we do now?” James felt a little lost.
“Well nothing for a while, we need to let this go away and die down. If you want it to that is.” Sam was smiling at his friend dangling the bait but there was no bite to be had.
“I want it all to go away, I just want it to end.”
Sam nods, “I understand. I don’t think you do though.”
“Pretty sure I know more about this than you do.”
“Not really. A lot has happened in the last nine months.”
“How much, you know have we got left?”
“All of it, I haven’t touched it.”
James looked at his friend, looked at the nice clothes, the cut and quality of which he had not noticed until now.
“You like this? South African Leather, nice yeah?” Sam ran a thumb up and down the lapel of the jacket.
“Where are you getting the money for that?”
“You know I’m your business manager right? You gave me full proxy yeah?”
“So?”
“So you are rich. Rich right now. That’s before we talk book deals or movies or interviews or anything.”
James was confused.
“Did you buy a lotto ticket or something?”
“This is the genorsity of a social media driven campaign to help a victim of an unfeeling government and an unfair system. That Chambers guy really came through with the attention, the drive and the publicity, the rest came from companies, people and a few fundraisers.”
“How much?”
“Oh you don’t need to worry your pretty little head about it.” Sam had a huge grin on his face, James had the hard part but it was done now. He needed to see that.
“How much?”
“Well, we got quite a bit from companies to cover the legal fees and the agencies and the consultants gave their time freely to get on the telly under your name, they’re all making out pretty well out of you. You’re the golden goose.”
“How much?”
“And then there was a few fund raisers, people giving so that you’ll have an income and a place to live and be taken care of. They gave so much more than they realise. I’m managing it all, some of it is from just people donating what they can to help you out.”
“Why me?”
“Who knows, but for some reason you are a hero and a victim and a legend.”
“Really?” Disbelief.
“I know right? Obviously it’s a myth, none of these people know what a fucking giant pussy you are.”
“Thanks.”
Sam had still not answered his question so James asked one more time, without words and without gesture, but the question still hung in the air and they knew it.
“You have a little over 1.8 million dollars in your account, cash. You also have a bunch of donated things like this place, the rent has been paid out for five years and your landlord has offered to let you use that as a deposit to buy it if you want. There’s a car and some clothes for you TV appearances, I have taken the liberty of testing some of this out for you of course.”
“You’re a prince.”
“Thanks, I am.”
James looked back at the house and the people still milling about, and up the driveway and to the waiting people there with cameras and micriphones seeing if he’d come out.
“Jesus. I don’t know what to say. What do I do Sam?”
Sam sat next to his friend, and patted his shoulder.
“Anything you want mate, anything at all.”
They saw Glenn waving as he left and trotting up the driveway to drop morsels for the waiting media presence.
“Anything?”
“Well anything except confessing of course. Let’s take that off the table. For clarity’s sake.”
James was still processing the amount of money he had.
They had, it was still a they.
“So unbelievable that people would give me what, almost two million dollars in donations, how the hell can people afford that? What about the recession?” It seemed unreal, too good to be true.
In reality it was something entirely different.
“They can’t and they didn’t.” Sam continued with a cryptic smile, waiting for the penny to drop.
“People, and by the way a fair amount was gathered overseas by a celebrity campaign on your behalf – you may well get to meet some very famous people when you go public to speak. Anyway they were very generous and well over half came from overseas not from here. All in all they raised and donated about five to six hundred thousand dollars. That’s still pretty good of course.”
“I thought you said we had, I had, one point eight… oh.”
Realisation.
“How?”
“Carefully and slowly, matching the patterns donated every week/month. The media occasionally were surprised at the momentum of the campaign some weeks that oddly enough made even more people donate. I swear it was the most surreal thing I have ever dealt with.”
“Most surreal?”
They thought back to the last year or so and agreed silently that was not a true statement really.
“Anyway it took about 8 months, I just finished just before the final phase of the trial. And then that meant that it looked like the donations were drying up and then Chambers and Ange went on TV and that dropped another one hundred and fifty thousand in two weeks.”
“Fuck me.”
“Yeah I’d rather not. Dude don’t go all gay on me, you were barely in prison for fucks sake. Remand even. Not the same, shower rape way down in the percentages in there I hear.”
“Hey I went to prison for you man.” His sense of humour was returning and covered in false outrage.
“Of course you could never be raped in prison. Could you?”
“Why it’s not rape if you want it is it?” The punchline was obvious and it was still funny.
Things would never be the same of course.
Now they had a career built on lies.

What the hell could they do now? What couldn’t they do?