Reboot

Bombs + 8 months

I liked to be alone in the jungle, away from the camp, either planning some new addition to our home or hunting or just walking around. I felt quite at home in the forest.

On this particular humid day, I was hunting with a bow and arrow. There were plenty of birds or even cats in the forest and it was a nice change from fish. I stayed put somewhere and just waited. The prey would have to get pretty close so I’d have to stay very quiet and still for long periods of time. It was a time to reflect.

I would lay traps and wait for an animal to come nearby before shooting it. I hit a bird once out of every five times. So the odds were firmly in the birds’ corner, but patience usually won out. Cats were easier. But they tasted bad. Tough.

On my way back to camp on one such occasion, carrying two large parrots, I heard some noise off to the edge of the camp, behind the hall. It didn’t sound like fun and I’d guessed that Kevin had dipped into the turpentine again. So I went to investigate.

Not only was Kevin drunk, but he was holding a gun and threatening Mary.

No one else was around. He wasn’t pointing the gun at her. My first thought was, how did he get his hands on a gun… He was holding onto it loosely, waving it around while he was ranting about her not paying attention to him.

“You have no idea… You’ll ne..never know.. Me, but you.. Me that’s who.”

Like that.

When I cracked a branch behind him though, that gun suddenly became real. Zoom. Pointed right at my head. Steady and serious. And behind the gun were Kevin’s eyes, red and mean. I had had zero interaction with Kevin. I didn’t know him. But we all knew he was a bit off and I’d expected something to happen, but not this bad; not with a gun. I put my hands up, open, in front of my chest. Gave a quick nervous look around. I was on my own.

“Sneaking up behind me are yeh?..Not a good ideaer Ro-obert.” He slurred. Then he

looked at Mary.

“So that’s what it is, you’re doin’ Robert but YOU WON’T EVEN LOOK ’T MEEE?”

The second he took his eyes off me to look at Mary, his gun wavered a bit, came down and to my left a fraction. I jumped. There might not be a better chance. No time to think about it anyways, so…

I didn’t want to hit him and risk the gun firing anywhere near Mary who was further to the left and in front of Kevin. Kevin was between us and I didn’t want to lose a bullet into the camp or even in the jungle for fear of hitting someone by accident. So there was only one place to point the gun and that was down and on either side of me.

I jumped forward, low, and a bit to the right. Then I took hold of his wrist with my left hand as quick as a snap of the fingers and immediately smashed his elbow from below with my right hand. He never saw it coming.

Three things happened.

He shot the ground, he broke his elbow, and he screamed like an eight-year-old girl.

William was the first to join us after the shot rang out. Others soon followed. And everyone just stared as I sat on Kevin.

“Are you ok?” William asked me.

“I’ll be alright in a bit,” I said. I was a bit shocked. He slapped me in the back, grabbed my shoulder hard and I felt a bit better.

Mary was shaking uncontrollably and William comforted her for a few seconds until Knots arrived and took her away. Then, after checking up on me, William took Kevin away to get his arm looked at by Doc. And just like that, we had our first police action.

Now what.

What do we do with him? Do we punish him? How? He was clearly a danger to others and we couldn’t trust him to suddenly be “nice”. We had no jail and no police.

After getting his arm fixed up, William had tied Kevin up to one of the posts inside the hall. He sat down on the ground and began a steady stream of groveling and apologies interspersed with obscenities. This was not going to be fun.

I met with William, Francois, the lawyer, Bob, Mack and Mabel to figure out what to do next.

“Suggestions?” I asked. “If we followed our old laws, they’d be pretty harsh on ol’ Kevin. Five to ten years I suppose. Right Shank?” I asked.

“Approximately.”

“If he was considered mentally stable, which we aren’t able to determine,” said Mabel.

Shank nodded. “In the middle ages, he’d be whipped and stuck in a tower; in the wild west, he’d be pounding rocks for five years.”

“In Texas, he’d be shot,” added someone..

“We could build a prison and stick him in it,” said Mack. “We’ll need one eventually.”

“We already have plenty of prisons. We just put him in a boat anchored far enough away and leave him in there,” said Bob.

“How would we know when to take him out?” said Mabel. “And who’d take care of him, feed him…? Hell, he needs a psychiatric ward.”

I looked at William. He nodded back. So I started in.

“I went to look in Kevin’s hut. I found what I was looking for there. All the things we had lost. My hammer, other tools, clothing from some of the women. I knew I’d find those things there because I recognized the gun as one of ours too. He stole it. I think there is a deeper more dangerous problem with Kevin and we are simply unable to handle it. In my opinion, there’s only one option; exile. We simply cannot deal with this efficiently right now. If we keep him nearby, he will almost certainly end up hurting someone. It’s a chance we can’t take. We put him on a boat and tell him to leave. If he comes back, we’ll have to get drastic. He is an unwarranted threat to others here. We cannot wait until we have our own judiciary branch. At some point we’ll have police and a justice system, but not now.”

Everyone looked a bit shocked for a second. No one expected this from me. William stared steadily at everyone in turn, backing me up. Their eyes went down, then back up and they all nodded one after the other. So it was decided. And it was done immediately. We figured if we waited too long, it would only become more difficult. So we chose a reasonably sized boat, we filled it with enough rations for a month and directions to various possible other places, we put him in it and told him he was not welcome back and sent him on his way.

“Oh come on now, you can’t do thaaaaat… I won’t do it again. Come oooon, I was drunk.”

It was a sad occasion, everyone was on the beach holding hands or hugging; no one was happy to see him go. We felt more defeated than victorious. When he finally left, he didn’t look back. And when he disappeared, people quietly went back to their homes.

William stayed with me.

“You did the right thing. I know it’s painful and it’s going to hurt, but there was no other choice. These people are thankful that you took the decision for them. It makes it easier. You did good.”

I nodded, but I had a pained look on my face. I couldn’t sleep that night so I walked to the Hall where I saw twenty others all sleeping on the floor. I chose myself a little spot and the steady droning sounds of slumber rocked me to sleep.

When pain is shared, it gets split up into smaller pieces.