I.

“Committee can start in five if you need the loo. I’ll wait for you before I start.” Except, Stewart thinks, I don’t want to wait for you but I know bladders are shrinking with age and I don’t need the loo now even if I will in a moment. Janine sloths to the toilet with an exaggerated swagger that doesn’t get her as far as it looks like it should. You’ll become a crow, I know it.

He hugs the wall as he works his way toward the stage steps. A piece of metal, that connects one chair to another, snags and interrupts the comfort of his linen trousers. Bugger.

No longer does he feel the eyes of the people watching him climb the stairs like he used to; he doesn’t even consider them anymore. They are all in conversation that is surprisingly inspired pre 10AM but he thinks: the 60-plusses burn bright in the morning and won’t be awake for long.

A final group enters through the swinging, grey laminate doors to sit on the new metal legged assembly chairs that have superseded the Monoblocs. Great elderly bottoms and sharp elderly bottoms had worn those away.

“Cliff-Martins is in order and let’s not waste a Sunday.” The talking doesn’t cease but enough eyes stare at the continued chatters and they begin to close off their conversations.

“Here. I’m not a time waster. Handing over to you, Chestle. Do what you do, young man.” He speaks outward to the crowd and a chair scuttles in response. “Will our young man take the stage?”

Chestle is newly forty-six and has a crescent baldness wrapping his crown that he’s had coming since he was seventeen. Everyone is painfully aware of the sound of moving amid the silence. Each unadulterated step is heard as Chestle moves up the stairs that hug the right side of the hollow assembly hall stage. St. Junes Primary School is always happy to host assuming that wrappers and whatnot are dealt with and no one goes outside the bounds dictated. This leaves the car park, foyer, toilet and assembly hall. No one is disillusioned about how the £700 they raised for new chairs helped out.

Eyes begin to significantly lighten and focus toward the speaker. There is a sense of attraction to the rising, straight edge man irrespective of him and the coordinator being largely unremarkable.

“Sit, all” Nobody is standing, but they continue to be engaged. He speaks into the laminated paper that he bonded the evening before.

“We’ve spread the word for three weeks since introducing the first bill with the new system.” It was no longer “Cliff-Martins” and now the “Committee of the Kind” by communal vote. Change in people’s mind moved slowly but it was concerted decision. New system, new name.

“My laptop is in the car so I’ll keep working out the rest of the bills people have put in. As it stands… three people have submitted official notes about it and we have had a couple of verbal suggestions”. The first of the three notes was from a denizen of the public footpaths, eternally anti-car, who wished to dig the eyes out of every close passing driver that side eyed him on his Brompton but settled for sending in a notes that supported pedestrianisation six kilometres around Barclay city centre. His childhood fantasies of Ted Kaczynski still made him feel alive but you would never know.

The second was from a reticent bastard who wished people would “sit and shut it when Chestle started speaking” while the third and final “wished Chestle would sit down and shut it”. The same apologetic wrote and signed the former, after accidentally sending the latter, through the nearsight correcting upper portion of his tigerfold glasses. Chestle continues.

“Make sure not to sign off your comments. I encourage you to write them but let’s maintain anonymity where possible-”. The crowd stirs but Chestle remains dutifully unbothered at centre stage. He has tried believing that they will all become crows like Stew says. Crows chirp, Stew says. If he unfocused his eyes, they could be crows. Crows will chirp when they’re not busy chirping, Stewart says. Besides thinking that, really: crows caw, they don’t chirp, he doesn’t find Stew’s belief naturally convincing. For one, Janine has only now felt strong willed enough to come back to the committee after finding a fibre source that works with her IBD, which keeps her from the GP and hopefully also the toilet. This doesn’t feel like chirping. I think she needed to tell someone but I didn’t expect it while locking my car. He flips to the next, somehow dogeared, laminate card.

Before he speaks he looks out at squat of characters who give a picture of a fair majority of the town. They were at least the people who cared to make things happen. Almost certainly the ones represented there cared about caring that things happened. If the committee was going to have any effect in Barclay then this bunch were going to put it up for a vote. But: school assembly hall bureaucracy was a bitch and needed just the young man like you, Chestle, to take the reins from me and cut through the noise. This plays in Chestle’s mind in between sentences. That was the first and only time he has heard Stewart swear.

Stewart is sat picking at a hangnail after delivering his introduction and finding his seat. Three weeks prior he had decided to sit on the second row. His first row titled seat was snapped up by some faceless nape meaning that now his new spot was left of two bald, sun-scalp spotted regulars that bickered and- chirped. The two men, always in talks, were only trustworthy as a pair. Each man’s individual claims came off suspicious and unfounded but something in how they disagreed with each other gave them a slightly trustworthy air. They couldn’t say anything right but could point out where the other was wrong.

“I hear him” Stew said aloud. He knew the two men would listen.

“…Hear what?” Len asked.

“Shush, Len- He’s probably heard something” Douglas added.

“Yes. I have. The speaker. Barely.” He has been speaking in between getting at the nail with his teeth. As he finishes speaking, he moves the hangnail back toward his mouth without looking at either man.

Stew’s light blue crosshatched, buttoned-up, short sleeve dress top was undone to the third button and loosely tucked around his stomach into his linen trousers. A breeze not cold enough to chill, from the high windows, sweeps over his chest hair from in the hall that Derry has kindly screwed open with the “bastarding pole”. It is window opener that twists awkwardly. You might say Derry is also a window opener that twists awkwardly. Regardless, an overall feeling of annoyance works its way through Stewart’s hind jaw and up into his brow because his finger is bleeding and the hangnail is now hidden in blood.

“Whoever, last week, wished for 50p and pound coins should go through official means with Stewart. We can’t have any fundraising gigs through here that aren’t for committee actions. We aren’t licensed for it but **your hearts are in the right place. Go through the system. See Stew. He’ll do what he can. All sorted.” He clears his throat with a small rolling cough.

Stewart leans toward Len who has been gesturing for him in his periphery. Len, having Stewart’s grand attention, pauses for a moment to enjoy it.

“You know-” Len plays with a soft whisper and leans closer. “Dougie reckons he knows something about this place”.

Stewart is intrigued and looks properly toward Len. He has, with the committee, as he would say: objectively speaking, too many of his fingers in too many pies to consider where and when he has offended someone along the way, in making good of the committee, to stave of pricks like Len and Douglas from catching him at his ankles on the way up. Finishing this thought, as he would, with a more or less.

Stewart bridges the distances between their faces and pauses for a moment too.

“Douglas knows something?”

“Douglas does. We both do.”

“We know its dangerous when Douglas reckons he knows things.”

“…” Len is offended for Douglas.

“…” Stewart retains eye contact.

“…” Len would like an apology on behalf of Douglas.

“…” No apology is admitted to Len on behalf of Douglas.

“Well, I think I know it too-”

Stewart makes a vaguely chirrupy sound toward Len.

“Doug. He’s just fucking squeaked-”

“What like a chirrup?”

“Yeah. A chirrup.”

“What, like a cat does?”

“No. A bird.”

Len has oriented toward Douglas but is interrupted by Stewart scraping his chair on purpose. The splitting noise causes a break in Chestle’s introduction. Chestle glances over top of his glasses for a moment and the crowd can see he is dialled into his hearing; not his sight.

“And with that, we begin. I have heard you all and, Stew’s blessing, magnanimously allowing the interruption, we are going to bring one item to the forefront. To make a large issue small, we just need sighting of Terry and people can stop making tickets for it. Everyone, thank you for making note and know that it’s with us. Let’s keep the effort going because we get things done. It’s been a lot on the majority of us recently but hopefully soon his presence can assuage our fears. We are going to host extra committee’s on weekdays also. A week is too long to keep updated about Terry. Twice extra during the week. We will let people know the exact dates but Tuesday and Thursday feels right. The votes for window tinting the hall and litter relief routes are happening at 2pm today.”

He has just used the word assuage because he knows that Stewart would. But it’s not his word and he is one step behind how Stewart would say it because he has to figure out how it would come out of Stewart’s mouth. Somewhere within speaking that way is where authority lies and, plus, it rings in his head: “The docket doesn’t call for fluff but what do I know – I’ve only served here since Peter Severine started the bloody place.” Thank you Stewart. “Chestle is our golden man” The crowd basically says with their silence and attention but Chestle only thinks about what serving properly looks like so he can get to it and whether those clothes would fit him.

About the vote for window tinting and litter relief, he understand that he will only retain 35% of the current participants by 2PM because siestas run deep in this community but, to honour tradition, tradition outlined by Stewart, he runs the current schedule. Wrestling “Cliff-Martins” as a name from Stewart was a whole thing. It was an evening of democracy versus the philosopher-king and all the baggage that’s included in that. It’s hearing him out that works because he will tire himself out. It seems to Chestle that using the flowery language that Stewart prefers take more energy than it seems to.

Stewart holds the opinion that those who remain for the later vote are the most committed and effective and never just the most unbusied and elsewhere unintegrated. Oh, and that the most earliest, most dedicated worm should decide the window tinting. Word for word from Stewart. Chestle continues his speech.

“Keep an eye up and out for what you can call, what was it-” Chestle heart skips once and then he feels it. He blanks on his attempt to use another new word.

“Miscreants.” Stewart fills in from his seat; making Chestle smile only to him. The crowd is unmoved except for seeing who spoke.

“People keep wheelieing through Barclay Centre by the fountain so don’t be a victim. Make a ticket and forget”. He takes a moment to move to the next card on the docket.

“Over now?” A hoarse voice sounds from the back right section of seats and the crowd uses their old person scent to pheromonally coordinate the shunning to come.

Stewart thinks with his eyes toward the frontman. Keep it tight, Chestle. The sound is rising. Don’t let it go. I won’t hear you over the chirps.

“2PM. Everyone. The vote is at 2PM. We actually have very little left to say so come back at 2PM.” Some people clap and others don’t. It lasts for, give or take, 3 seconds. The crowd begins to filter down the sides of the hall and the majority go through the centre aisle that parts the chairs. Cardboard cups, tea-ringed at the bottom, are thrown into the bins by the door at a success rate of 40 to 1. People are happy to let go of what they have been fiddling with since the start. Now for the fun of seeing each other in the lobby.

Stewart huffs about Chestle rounding off his speech too quickly. He hangs around after everyone has exited and picks up loose cups. They converse over things they have already addressed before.

“Chestle. Let Kelly know that it’s a no. She’s the one that tried it before and she’ll waste her chances of it ever working if she tries it again. I don’t go back to places that are bad.”

“Trisha asked about it last time but that’s neither here nor there”

“…”

“Hear it out anyway?”

“…Chestle … why do you do it?”

“…”

“Why does the rabble have your ear all the bleeding time? The thing is, it starts with heckling and before you know it you aren’t distanced from the rabble up on your pulpit but instead you’re serving them. You know what I think but it never sinks in, does it? Chestle, young man, heed my warnings. I’ve got your guard rails up but its for you to make sure we are going in the right direction.” He thought this all sounded nice. “And your speech. Let the people hear your thoughts. You cut it too short. Sometimes what brings people closer as a unit is just hearing the same thing for long enough.”

“I know. You know I know. Leave it with me”

Chestle steals a breath and departs. Stewart continues looking in the same direction. That boy nearly has it. Now, there is one more issue to strike on his personal docket. This was a long fought battle. He moved to the foyer.

“Serena.”

Stewart hustles forward to engage the lady. A sandal slaps the vinyl flooring as he moves.

“Why do you have to do that? Why do you come at all just to wait no time and call for the meeting end?”

“Do you mean something with those words?”

Stewart advances one step.

“This is not the time. Tell me when it has ever been the time. It never has been – not in the least now. He doesn’t need an adversarial relationship gawking **from the stands. He is just getting good.”

Chestle is watching this interaction from the foyer door. He sees the two people at odds from a distance. He is so far that he cannot hear what is being said.

“Right. Chestle you mean. I assume he is not good already? He is good.”

At this point Chestle thinks Serena breaks from looking at Stewart to glare at him instead.

“You…” Stewart poses a stalwart pointed finger based from his chin at Serena; keeping outside her personal space. “Do not do this.”

“Keep your finger.” She walks away and he definitely hears the words “chest hair” as she fades into the crowd. He does all but one button up.

Another questioner replaces Serena into and speaks at him about the same thing, funnily, that Chestle had just mentioned. Chestle never mentioned that he was mentioning it on behalf of someone else. In the moment before she speaks, Stewart sighs at the thought of having to produce some placating aphorism to keep this lady’s hopes at bay.

“Let’s speak about this later shall we? Here, I don’t think we’ve grown roots deep enough for any of that yet but don’t feel bad if we leave it on the backburner. Kelly will pass on what she reckons and Paula is going to follow her along. That’s a given.” He says to Paula’s face.

“Stew.” A voice lands against his back and he turns to see a low character. “Do you have the radar key?”

He doesn’t respond yet and doesn’t feel instantiated in that moment.

“Have I got the wrong name? Sorry, I don’t know where I got Stewart from”

It is obvious by the stunted response and tightening consternation on his brow that this person is unfamiliar. He hands over the disabled access key and the individual grapples around the door because its too heavy for them.

I have exactly no idea who that is.