Chapter 1: DreamAds Community Service

DreamAds.

I’d heard about the company but didn’t expect it to be advertised on the steps of the courts by students wearing rainbow bibs.

With outstretched arms, six young employees were handing out colourful flyers to those entering the building and for a moment I felt like I was in a game where I had to find the route past them without being touched and losing a life.

‘Are you a defendant?’ A rainbow girl offered a brochure to Daniel, my primary, and her eyes were entirely on him. It was a reasonable mistake, Daniel looked like a guy who has been pulled over while cycling up O’Connell Street under the influence of speed, shouting ‘yeehaw!’ and waving an eco-anarchist banner. He had a red tie hanging loose over a Clash (London Calling) t-shirt; a metallic blue waistcoat; an obviously second-hand woollen jacket that was too large for him; tuxedo trousers with satin stripes; and a pair of slip-on black shoes.

I, on the other hand, probably looked like a lawyer in the girl’s eyes. Sharp grey pencil skirt; carefully-ironed blouse; matching jacket that genuinely was expensive. When I need to, I can look as respectable as a politician with a secret. It’s the details that count though and if she had been sufficiently attentive she’d have picked up on the silver eyebrow stud and my eight silver zoomorphic rings.

‘I am,’ Daniel lied to her, for the fun of it presumably. A glance towards me and a grin in his beard told me that he was trying to give me some entertainment with this encounter, to distract me from my fears.

‘Oh, here,’ the girl put a leaflet into his hand. ‘The judges won’t tell you this because they don’t approve. But the Minister for Justice has come to an agreement with DreamAds. You can enter our research study instead of community service and as an alternative to paying fines of up to fifty-thousand Euro.’

‘Woa.’ Daniel stopped and opened the brochure, looking closely at the small writing and nodding as the girl rapidly ran through the reasons he ought to have his brain fucked up by DreamAds rather than obey the Man. Those were not her exact words but how I imagined the Daniel-filtered version was receiving them. One of the many endearing but problematic weaknesses of Daniel’s mind was that if you start a sentence with … won’t tell you this but… he was primed to jump right into whatever conspiracy story was about to follow. Years of hanging with left-wing groups will do that to you.

‘I’m not getting my brain chipped,’ I put my hand on his forearm, pushing the leaflet away before the spark in his eye became a fire.

‘Oh there’s no chip,’ said the girl, ‘it’s just a rubber hood you wear at night.’

That earned her a smirk from Daniel. ‘Gimp mask. Say no more. Where do I sign?’

‘You just download the DreamAd app and go from there.’

‘I’m not having my dreams invaded by adverts.’ I had, in fact, heard about the DreamAds alternative sentencing scheme and reckoned that I’d rather pay a heavy fine (somehow) than have the privacy of my own thoughts tampered with.

I carried on up the stairs and Daniel, in solidarity with me, albeit reluctantly, handed back the leaflet. Good man.

Inside the large foyer were benches occupied by the dregs of Dublin society, in whose fine company I include myself. No one was speaking but the eye contact between us and slight nods of solidarity spoke more eloquently than the opening lines of the Communist Manifesto.

Equidistant around the walls of the room were doors to four courtrooms, each with a screen above it showing the names of the coming cases. The State Versus Susie Heggarty was due to start in fourteen minutes. To see my name in red dots made me cringe. Not because it flagged my criminal activity, but because I never used that name. My artist name was Cyn Sweetwater and I no more wanted to be reminded of my family name than a butterfly would want to be reminded of its days as a venal, self-entitled, avaricious caterpillar.

‘Court Three. Susie Heggarty.’ Having shown my papers to the clerk, or the usher, or whatever the person with the white cravat called herself, I was escorted to a seat at the front, from where I looked up to a large plaque of a harp behind the judge’s desk.

Daniel took the chair to the left of me and reached over to hold my little fist in his strong one. I appreciated the warmth of his touch and the sentiment, although he spoiled it by muttering, ‘we got this.’

Then he looked around and gave me a nudge to do the same. What? All I could see was an unremarkable room: plain polished wooden benches, even plainer cream walls. Considering judgements were pronounced here with catastrophic consequences, it really should have been more dramatic. A big mural of the apocalypse would have been spot on.

‘Journalist,’ Daniel whispered.

‘That kid?’ I was looking at a young man at the back of the room, the ends of whose hair were dyed purple.

‘Himself.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Notepad and biro. See, the biro is a professional tool. Hardly ever lets you down. Gets the job done. Writes fast. Strong contrast on the page. None of your fancy ink roller pens.’

‘Well observed.’ I allowed Daniel his claim to knowledge that he didn’t really have, because he was a street poet and, beneath his amphetamine-fuelled revolutionary bravado, a man who was never far from a crisis of self-belief. Matters literary were his field and inside the set of such matters one could reasonably place journalism.

Enter stage right, one judge. A woman of about fifty, I reckoned. Quick eyes; expensive autumnal hair colouring, with no trace of roots; pearl earrings; black gown and a longer-than-everyone-else’s white bib. We rose. We sat. Daniel uttered the magic words, ‘McKenzie’s Friend’ and was allowed to stay with me.

The judge must have loved it when my file crossed her desk, because once we were done with the preliminaries, she had a long monologue prepared about the harm to society caused by graffiti, not to mention the millions of taxpayer Euros required for the King-Cnutesque-impossible-task of trying to hold back the tide of spray-painted vandalism that was rising up from the shadows of the city. I know when to suck it up and say nothing. It is a knowledge that my primary lacks. In fact, it is a trait that he is determined never to learn and with each pejorative statement about graffiti, Daniel’s whispered response of ‘street art’ grew louder until the judge interrupted her speech to issue a warning to him.

Art was my only defence. I could hardly deny having painted a sizeable mural on the side of Phibsboro Shopping Centre, since it was all over my Instagram. It was more than reasonable, however, to point out that my replacement of the grim, Soviet-style, grey brick by a vibrant scene in which a woman in a yellow dress stretched languorously towards the entrance of Tescos, was a gain for the community and one that would have cost around ten thousand Euro had it been commissioned.

Not that I got to make a defence. My every attempted departure from the vocabulary of defacement, vandalism and damage was interrupted by a voice that – amplified by a microphone – leaned over me like a choke hold.

‘The court finds Susie Heggarty guilty of criminal damage and issues a fine of forty-five thousand Euro, to be paid within thirty days.’

Until those words, I thought I had prepared myself for the worst. But I really hadn’t, not by a long way. Tears threatened to ruin my eye-shadow. There she was, a malicious smile on her face. Seeing herself as the paladin, the angel, the last bastion against the uncouth mob who would ruin the world. And the judge knew she had the power, that I was helpless.

‘Christ,’ said Daniel. ‘Cyn. DreamAds. Take the DreamAds.’

‘DreamAds,’ I said loudly. Mostly to watch the judge’s face turn cold.

 A long silence; the stenographer looking up at the judge, fingers poised.

‘You wish to enter the DreamAds programme?’

‘I…,’ Fuck. No. ‘I do.’

‘Sentence commuted to six months DreamAds community service programme. Subject to satisfactory participation vouched for by DreamAds, the fine will be set aside. You may leave. The court will provide you with the necessary documentation.’

Already at my side, the usher gestured towards the exit.

What had I done?

At least the judge was thoroughly discontented. As I left the court, I met the eyes of the next woman due in. She was wearing a Tommy Jeans top, had heavy make-up, and was hastily looking for a place to put her chewing gum.

‘Sorry,’ I said, handing her a tissue.

‘What?’

‘I pissed off the judge. And she’s a dragon.’

Oblivious to the two other women in the toilets, Daniel followed me into the cubicle. ‘Oh yeah! Walking free as a bird.’

‘That’s easy for you to say. You won’t have adverts in your dreams.’

His attention was on a sign on the back of the door that said, Please Leave This Cubicle As You’d Like to Find It. Producing a biro, Daniel grinned at me and wrote something underneath. With a Line of Coke on the Cistern.

‘Muahh!’ he laughed. ‘Come on Cyn, let’s have a celebratory fuck.’ He raised his voice to make sure the other women heard and to demonstrate that he didn’t care.

‘I don’t feel like celebrating.’

‘Well, think about it this way. If we have a ride now, then whenever we come past these courts in future, instead of seeing the building as a symbol of ruling class oppression, we’ll have the memory of a wild ride. That’s years of good vibes replacing years of alienation.’

‘Fair. But I’m freaking out about my dreams. What if this technology interferes with my painting?’

‘It won’t.’

‘What if it interferes with my libido?’ Which was a different way of phrasing the same question, one more likely to get through to Daniel.

‘Fuck. Then we find a way to raise forty-five thousand.’

Then despite my fears, I found myself laughing.

When we left the cubicle, a solicitor who was at the sinks looked at us in the mirror and then turned to confirm the view with an expression of astonishment. There was a swagger in Daniel’s stride.

‘I love you Cyn,’ he said, taking my hand as we walked through the foyer. ‘We’re pirates and we’re going to rock this world until it falls apart.’

‘I love you too,’ I replied. But the moment was spoiled by the sight of the DreamAds table.

Chapter 2.