HANDBALL PLAYERS, CONEY ISLAND (2002, oil on canvas,  28x26cms) by permission of Max Ferguson

Who knows? A gang thing? Some crazy random guy? A loner? Just one shot. That’s all it was. Hit Dyson right in the temple. He dropped like a sack. With the ball in his hand. Still tight in his grip as he lay on the ground.
When they told his grandmother, who’s raised him since he was a baby, she wailed. She howled and beat the sides of her head with her fists. How? How? She screamed. No, no, she cried. Why … why … a good Christian boy … please Jesus, Mother of God, please no.
It should never have happened. He wasn’t into handball. Basketball was his game. In fact, basketball was pretty much his life. It was only because Tyrone said that Marlene watched the boys play handball that he decided to join in. To show some skills. For he’d a real thing for Marlene, ever since third grade. To seal the deal he’d heard she’d broken with Jackson, what with his brother and the pending meth charge and her old man warning her off. So, maybe he’d be in with a chance. Maybe even lose his virginity before school breaks up for the summer. Now there was something to dream on. Almost as exciting as his basketball scholarship to Missouri that he’d be hearing about on the twenty-fifth of next month.
Sometimes, at night, he’d weigh up what he’d want more. His first real sex before the summer school break? Or the basketball scholarship? Both please, Jesus (and if it could be Marlene for one and Missouri for the other, that’d be just perfect).
Just before the bullet, just before it all came crashing down, Dyson played a great shot, looked up at Marlene and she gave him the look he’d been waiting for, waiting for all his short life.
Kids from his school pinned messages and ribbons, flowers and keepsakes to the fencing of the handball court. The following Saturday a rally took place along Surf Avenue to protest at all the violence in the area and to demand an end to the drug dealing.
No one was ever convicted of Dyson’s murder and no one responded to the call for witnesses. Maybe it was just a random act of violence in a world where violence is so often calculated and targeted. But it’s endlessly strange how life has a habit of turning out. Like Jose Mendes Junior, from Camden, New Jersey, who if events had turned out otherwise would have joined his uncle’s garage business and given up on his dreams. Instead he took up a basketball scholarship to Missouri, officially vacated by a boy who, “due to unforeseen circumstances was unable to enrol”.
The day before he left home, Jose's grandmother, with tears of joy in her eyes, baked a milk cake to celebrate the first Mendes ever to make it to college. Back on Coney Island, Dyson’s grandmother cried herself to sleep, just as she would do every night for the rest of her life.

Pageant Books (oil on panel, 30 x 30cms), 2009, with permission of the artist, Max Ferguson.

This could just as well be a history lesson. This library, an ancient relic. A museum. A mausoleum of brittle pages.
 Such are the thoughts of David Thompson, the school’s librarian as he gathers himself to address the class. He turns on the slide projector. The one he keeps in the cupboard. Part of his private war against “new technology”. When, forty years ago, he’d raised funds to bring the machine to the school (with its fifty-slide capacity carousel and its remote control) he was deemed an innovator. Now the children (and staff, behind closed doors) mock this dinosaur in their midst. This ancient wizened man who bans Smart Phones and IPads from the library. Who allows books to pile up on shelves. Out of order. The Principal, a kindly, not unsympathetic man, has indulged Thompson’s war of the words. But soon the librarian will be gone. Retired. Canute with no more tides to push against. To be replaced by a media resources officer. Where a love of books will not be an essential qualification for the position.
 ‘Settle, children,’ he says as he turns out the light.
 The carousel rotates and clicks at his bidding. A picture appears on the screen. Amplified.
 He waits. The hum of the projector, the darkened room, the single beam and singular image quietening the class.
  ‘What do you see?’ he asks.
  ‘… … …’
  ‘… … …’
  ‘Celia … tells us what you see?’
 Celia is a sensitive twelve year-old, whose mother is a potter and bright spark in the idling engine of this small Midwest town.
  ‘A woman … in a bookshop. Looking for something … in the book she’s holding.’
  ‘… … …’
 ‘Maybe it’s the wrong book,’ says Raymond, whose father, now unemployed, was the manager of the town’s only bookshop until it closed nine months ago.
 Charlie Howson (who never speaks), who wishes he’d a different name, who wishes he didn’t have pimples, who wishes he didn’t have to hide behind his fringe, who wishes his father wasn’t a drunk, who wishes his brother wasn’t in juvenile detention, hears the sounds of the teacher, the murmurings of his classmates. But it’s the voice in his head that commands his attention.
 I’d be tall and handsome. I’d be sitting at the table sorting through the jumble of books. I’d own the bookshop. I’d ask the woman what she was looking for. In her fine coat. Her straight blond hair. She’d look at me. She’d say the name of a book. I’d know it, for this is my bookshop. She’d be impressed by me. I’d find the book she is looking for. She’d smile. She’d be happy. She’d let me hold her hand. She’d let me love her.
 David Thompson turns off the projector. Switches on the light. He looks out at the class of faces. His life’s work nearly over. And, like in every classroom, he thinks the thoughts of every teacher. Have I ever made a difference? Ever touched a heart? The buzzer sounds. The children stir, waiting to be dismissed.

Woman in Cafe (oil on panel, 30 x 30 cm) 2009

No time now to finish the cake, or to order a second cup of coffee. She must move on. And quick. There it is; on page five. All the little details. The police had arrived at her apartment next to the Silver Bullet Bar, off Washington Street, Champaign, Illinois. “It is quite clear that those in attendance appear to have left in great haste. The television set was still on and a tap was running in the sink.” Officer Brandon was reported as saying. “We are especially interested in questioning Ms Hang who had recently taken a lease on the property and appears to have been the occupant. She was last seen drinking in a nearby bar, but no one knows where she is now. But we urge any witnesses to come forward.”
   She reads on, keeping her head down. Last night, in the motel, she’d cut her hair, even thought of dying it, but decided not to. An Asian with anything but dark hair might draw attention. And attention was the last thing she wants right now. She thinks of Janet Leigh at the traffic lights. And the Bates Motel. But she no longer has a mother to run to. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. Instead of colouring her hair she bought a hat that she could pull down to shield her eyes. As she does now. Looking around to see if anyone seems to be noticing her. If anyone else is reading the paper. The news.
   There in the middle of the page is her photo, with her parents. It was taken at their lakeside house, two summers ago. “Who would have thought such a terrible thing could happen,” she reads, hearing the sound of the janitor’s voice in her head. “Such a quiet, polite girl. Always said good morning and smiled. She was studying at the university. A very studious girl. Never caused any trouble. Parties or that sort of thing.” In the following paragraph the reporter describes the scene. She finds it hard to focus on the words. Enough is enough. More than enough. She folds the paper, tugs on the front of her hat and stands up to leave. There, right in front of her, is the waiter. He looks concerned, surprised.
   ‘Everything alright, Miss? … Something wrong with the cake?’
   ‘No … no,’ she says, startled; the strange way he seems to be looking at her. ‘It’s me … I mean … it’s not the cake … I just have to go now,’ all but pushing past him, dropping the paper, reaching to pick it up, then thinking better of it. ‘… it’s alright. Leave it … on the floor … I have to go … now.’
​  The waiter watches her hurry through the open door and then, through the café window, sees her fumbling with the keys to the white saloon car parked directly outside. Carefully balancing his tray of dirty plates and cutlery he bends down and picks up the pages of the newspaper that lie splayed open before him.