Hailstone (16 page)

Magda sniggered. Kat gave them both scathing looks. “We’re here to record this, alright? If anything goes wrong I want it on camera. Mags do you know how to use this?” She took the video camera bag off her shoulder and handed it over.

“I’ll figure it out.” Magda slung the strap over one shoulder and got the camera out
. It was small enough to hold in one hand. She flipped open the screen and played with buttons until she knew what she was doing. She liked the idea of recording history.

“Adam! Adam!” A group of youths bolted across the street toward Adam. One young man slung an arm around his shoulder.

“We were hoping you’d be here,” a girl exclaimed. “We need someone to speak. Come on!”

“Mags get me on camera!” Adam yielded to the hands tugging at him.

“Go with him,” Kat said. “I’ll catch up.”

“You’re the boss.” Magda ran after Adam and his friends. They pushed their way through an increasingly dense crowd; she kept a wary eye on the police officers milling around the edges, but they made no moves to break anything up. She brushed past youths wearing all black,
a tall woman with tattooed arms and two men wearing torn jeans and no shirts. Everybody she saw was happy and excited. It was like they were out for a carnival, not for a protest against a cult.

She slowed and looked around again. Maybe they didn’t realise how serious this was. The girl over there swinging long green and blue ribbons around her body had no concept of being drugged with holy water. The kids playing with the basketball in the street hardly cared others their age had been subjected to violence and brainwashing.

Magda pressed record on the camera and slowly panned across the crowd. A faint throb behind her left eye played a counter beat to the noise. She felt cold, even though it was sunny. Preacher loomed in her mind like one of the horsemen of the apocalypse. How could these happy people hope to stop him? He was too determined. The Congregation were everywhere, waiting in the shopping centres in their collars and ties and driving around the streets of Hailstone in their conservative cars, just waiting to drag errant members off the street.

She zoomed in on a man she recognised. She didn’t know his name; she just knew he was one of Preacher’s people. He wore a suit and tie in a crowd of jeans and bright dresses
. He stood still and observed in a crowd of people having fun. She panned around further and filmed the line of police standing along the footpaths, doing nothing, just watching. There seemed to be more there than last time she looked.

“Mags!” Adam burst into the frame, realised what he’d done and blew the camera a kiss. “Come on! I’m going to make a speech!”

“Okay.” Magda stopped recording. She followed him down the road until they were right outside Pantheon, where a makeshift stage had been set up using milk crates and a big wooden board. There were even speakers that towered over her head and a microphone.

A group of people helped Adam onto the stage. Magda pressed record again and zoomed in on him.

Adam patted his hair down and tapped the microphone with his index finger. The sound echoed through the speakers, followed by a long, painful feedback whine. Adam grinned. “Can you hear me Hailstone??”

Several people behind Magda cheered.

“Hey Hailstone!” Adam yelled. “How the hell are we?”

This time the cheer was deafening. Magda shuffled forward and adjusted the zoom to keep Adam in the frame when the crowd pressed in behind her. She wondered how far away Kat was.

“You know it’s really amazing to see you all out here today,” Adam said. “I didn’t organise this rally. I didn’t even know about it until like an hour ago. But for the people who did organise it, let’s have a big shout out. Because this is God damn important.”

He paused. More cheers competed with feedback from the speakers.

When the noise died down, Adam spoke into the microphone. Magda watched through the camera; she saw the grin drop from his face, the way the shadows settled around his eyes. She wondered how much damage Amanda had really done to him.

“We’re here because a group of people has taken it on themselves to try and remove our freedom of choice.” Adam’s voice rang out firm and loud. “Now I’m not going to argue with anybody who chooses to be religious. There’s nothing wrong with that. Everybody, every single person here, is entitled to their beliefs. I only start to have a problem when you try to force those beliefs on other people. Or on me.” He paused for breath. The crowd stayed silent.

Adam looked around. “There is a group in Hailstone who are attempting to push their beliefs on all of us,” he said. “A group who has set up clinics to brainwash people who don’t agree with them. A group who would target people who lead a different lifestyle and attempt to force them to change it. A group of people who would use and manipulate their members to carry out these crimes.”

Adam’s face crumpled, but the look passed. “Crimes,” he repeated. “Coercion,
bullying and rape. It’s not right. Oh, and by the way, there’s something I’d just like to reaffirm to all you good people. You know it, I know it, and if a certain religious group can’t handle it, that ain’t my problem. I am gay, and proud to be!”

Cheering erupted throughout the street. Adam punched a fist into the air and blew a kiss into the crowd.

Magda swung around and filmed the crowd. She panned up the road; the camera picked up the sight of several cars cruising down the crowded thoroughfare. People scattered out of their way. The police watched and did nothing.

The cars stopped in the thick of the crowd. The doors opened. Barely anyone around Magda appeared to even notice the amount of young men who got out, but she recognised Joseph among them. They all wore dark trousers and white shirtsleeves, no jackets, no ties. They carried baseball bats.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Magda almost dropped the camera, but she tightened her grip and filmed them for as long as she dared. “Adam!” she yelled over her shoulder.

“What’s that honey?” Adam slid off the stage and landed next to her.

“We need to get out of here.” She jerked her head at the Congregation boys. “The thugs are here.”

“Thugs?” Adam curled a hand around her arm. “Seriously Mags, what are they going to do? Don’t sweat it. We outnumber them and there are cops everywhere.”

Magda zoomed in on Joseph. He held his baseball bat loosely cradled in one arm. A lock of hair fell over the faded bruise on his right eye. He brushed it away; there was no smile on him. The Joseph she remembered was easygoing and ready for mischief, at least when he wasn’t depressed and angry. This Joseph just looked angry and empty.

He looked through the crowd and met her eyes through the lens.

“Shit.” Magda took a step back. “Come on Adam, let’s go.”

“No.” Adam’s voice took on an obstinate note. “Mags, these people have been controlling your life since you were born. You have to make a stand. Draw the line, right here. They can’t do shit.”

Magda watched Joseph touch the arms of two of the other boys. The three pushed their way through the crowd.

“Honestly, I agree about making a stand, but this isn’t the time.”

“Mags put the damn camera down.”

Magda pointed the camera at the ground and looked at Adam. She looked back to Joseph and his friends
. They were still some way off. The other boys had fanned out around the crowd.

“
They’ve come here for a fight,” she said. “Surely you get by now that Preacher is completely insane and will do anything to get his dream Hailstone?”

“Yeah I do, and that’s why we can’t just keep running away and letting him walk over us!” Adam laid his hands on her shoulders. “Mags he sent some mentally deranged bint into my house to sleep with me against my will! And I know he’s done worse to you. This is it. This is now. This is when we stop the bastard in his tracks!”

Magda closed her eyes and for just one moment, felt like she was standing in the train yards again pointing her gun at Preacher, feeling the power in her hands to make it all stop for good. No more violence. No more forced marriages. No more church.

She hadn’t been able to do it then, either. When she opened her eyes, Joseph had a phone pressed to his ear. His lips moved. He flipped it shut and thrust it in a pocket. She lifted the camera and filmed him again. He was almost close enough to touch. He and his friends surrounded her and Adam.

“Joseph Georgiou, eighteen years old,” Magda said. “Last week we were smoking cigarettes together and comparing the bruises our fathers inflicted on us in the name of religion. What’s happened to you?”

“You go girl,” Adam whispered.

Joseph rested the baseball bat on his shoulder. “What are you doing, Magdalene?”

Magda could feel one of his friends right behind her. The hot breath
on her shoulder made her skin crawl. “Don’t you Magdalene me, Joseph. You used to call me Mags, remember? What changed? Did somebody do something to you?”

“Stop it.” He reached out for the camera.

Magda swerved out of his way and dodged the boy behind her at the same time. “Joseph did you go to an outreach centre? What did they do to you?”

Joseph’s hand flexed around the baseball bat. A vein throbbed near his temple. “Tell the faggot to go away. Preacher’s on his way to collect you. You’re not to be on the streets today, Magdalene. He said.”

“Faggot? Darling, I’m conceivably as queer as a squirrel in a cat cage, but really, faggot? Can’t you do any better than that?” Adam folded his arms and moved closer to Magda.

“Shut up,” Joseph said. “And get away from her.”

Magda felt Joseph’s friends close in around them. “Joseph if you’re any kind of Christian you’ll treat my friend with respect. We’re going to walk away now and go do our own thing. I suggest you do the same.”

Joseph closed his hand around the stout end of the baseball bat and used that hand to push Adam aside. Adam stumbled into the stage. Joseph wrapped his other hand in Magda’s shirtfront. “You’re not going anywhere until Preacher gets here,” he said.

Magda looked down at the hand and then back at Joseph’s face. She saw Adam pick himself up. Her head throbbed, but not out of control. She wasn’t afraid of Joseph, even though she knew she should be. “Take your hands off me.”

Joseph looked at the boys behind her and jerked his head at Adam. If he’d been about to say something, he was interrupted by Kat striding in between Adam and the two boys.

“Oh good, there you are! I’ve been looking for you guys everywhere!” She shouldered her camera bag, shook her head at the two boys and physically pushed Adam out of their path. Then she turned her attention to Joseph. “Take your hands off my girlfriend, buddy.”

“Girlfriend?” Joseph looked like he’d swallowed a lemon.

Magda grinned at him. “She said girlfriend. I’m going to go now.” She attempted to prise Joseph’s fingers off her shirt.

Joseph clenched his hand tighter. “Preacher said you had to wait for him,” he said through
clenched teeth. “If you don’t want your faggot friends hurt, you’ll wait.”

“Fuck Preacher.” Magda kicked him in the shin.

Joseph let go of her shirt and with his free hand, slapped her. It wasn’t hard like Preacher’s blows, but Magda was so shocked at Joseph raising a hand to her she could barely move, except to cover her stinging face with her palm.

Kat was a different story. “Hey!” she yelled. She swung around, closed a fist and punched Joseph in the nose.

He yelled and fell to the ground.

Kat grabbed Magda’s hand. “Let’s go,” she said. “You too, Adam, come on!”

“Maybe you’re right, ducks.” Adam followed them; the three bolted away from the stage.

Magda kept hold of Kat’s hand. They pushed their way back through the crowd. The mood had changed. People weren’t playing anymore. Boys with baseball bats lined the sidewalks and the police behind them did nothing. People clustered in groups, nervous, angry. Some of the men talked big, but Magda thought they were just making themselves braver.

Everybody waited.

Kat pulled her and Adam into the entrance of a long, narrow alley, where they flattened themselves against the wall.

“What the fuck,” Kat hissed. “Mags are you okay?”

“Fine.” Magda rubbed her cheek. “I was just shocked he would do that.”

“He frikkin kidnapped you last time I saw him, if you recall!”

“He wasn’t like that before,” Magda protested. “His name was on the list at that outreach centre, Kat. They did something to him.”

“I like the part where you broke his nose,” Adam interjected. “Girls, I don’t think this is the best time to argue. They followed us.”

Magda peeked over Adam’s shoulder and swore under her breath. Joseph and his two friends were pushing their way through the crowd, looking every which way. Joseph had a hand pressed to his nose; blood stained his
fingers. She flattened herself against the wall and looked at Kat. “You said I was your girlfriend,” she hissed.

“Maybe we could discuss that later, Mags,” Kat said. “What are we going to do right now, is the question?”

Magda risked another look out into the street. “I want to talk to Joseph,” she said.