“They shouldn’t have done that,” Fat Les says.
The teepee looks like an increasingly good place to be. Outside, the music is getting more demonic and intolerably loud, and something, maybe the drugs or maybe the music or maybe a dangerous combination of the two, is having a pretty weird effect on the crowd. Some of them are throwing up, some are sobbing uncontrollably, some are crawling on their hands and knees, some have adopted a foetal position.
Then the sound of engines starts; a familiar roar, flat-four, air-cooled Volkswagen engines. The sound comes from all directions, rising and falling, fierce and threatening, and then the skinheads’ Volkswagens are in action, driving at terrifying speed into the mass of people. The crowd panics, tries to scatter and part, but there’s nowhere to go. The low black Nazi Beetles drive them back and forth like sheep being herded by mad dogs. People are terrified; the fires, the noise, the bad drugs, the strobes, the lasers, the killer Beetles coming at them from all directions. They scream and stampede. They rush back and forth in ragged waves, but they’re constantly driven back; there’s no escape, nowhere to run to. The cars demolish tents and stalls. People get hit by the speeding cars, knocked over, run down. Exhaust smoke and terror hang in the air. The skinhead drivers think it’s the best fun they’ve ever had. They’ve produced total chaos, total fear and hysteria; a suitable atmosphere and backdrop, an appropriate warm up act.
The cars suddenly cease their attacks. The drivers head for the edge of the field, where they park their vehicles and get out, leaving their Volkswagens to stand like mechanical sentries, silhouetted against the ring of flame. The music stops dead, leaving an awesome silence, and the light show finishes. The stage is in darkness for a long time until a spotlight hits the back cloth and picks out a lone, dark, powerful figure. It is Phelan. His hands are raised in a victory salute. His whole posture says Obey me, Worship me. All the crowd’s attention focuses on him, all their eyes, all their minds full of weird visions, full of strange, hard-edged colours. They are compelled to watch. Now he has something in his hands, what looks like a toy Volkswagen, and he holds it out as though giving it to the crowd. He picks up a microphone and speaks to them, his voice full of metallic reverb. He says, “This is my talisman. This is the source of all my power,” and he begins to speak about Adolf Hitler and white supremacy and ethnic cleansing. This is all going to take some time.
In the teepee Barry is starting to get his senses back. He feels pretty terrible but oddly enough, Fat Les looks to be in even worse shape. They can hear Phelan’s voice. They can tell something terrible is happening.
“What the Hell’s going on out there?” Barry asks.
But Fat Les doesn’t give him an answer, he simply repeats, “They shouldn’t have done this.”
“You’re telling me.”
“No, I mean they really shouldn’t have done it.”
“What do you mean?” Barry asks.
“I’ve done some terrible things,” says Les.
“Haven’t we all?”
“Not like me,” says Les. “I have a profound need to confess.”
“Is this really the time?”
“Yes it is. You see it was me who blew up all those Volkswagens.”
“You?”
“Yeah. I did it. I did it all.”
“Why would you do a thing like that?”
“I don’t know exactly, but I think maybe Cheryl Bronte was half right. I guess I just got sick of Volkswagens. You know, there was a time when I lived and breathed Volkswagen Beetles. They were my work and my play, my hobby and my profession. They were good years and I wouldn’t have had it any other way, but as time went by I started to change. I suppose basically I started to get a bit bored. I started to think there might be more to life than Volkswagens. But I didn’t give them up. How could I? I was Fat Les the Vee Dub King. How else was I going to make a living? So I carried on, but the magic wasn’t there any more. I didn’t resent it exactly but you know, whereas it had once been an obsession, maybe even a love affair, it turned into just a job. Then as time went by I did resent it. I started to get fed up. I started to get cynical. I got to the stage where the mere sight or sound or the mere mention of a Volkswagen Beetle made me feel sick. But still what could I do? By then I’d got the place in Southend. I had a business to run. I’d got debts and responsibilities and people working for me. I couldn’t just jack it in. But something had to give, otherwise I’d have gone completely bonkers. I had to do something to express this pent up anger and frustration. So I started blowing up Volkswagens.”
“But you kept telling me it was Charles Lederer who did it.”
“Of course I did. That’s what I wanted everyone to believe. It suited me just fine. And when his daughter started believing it too, that was even better. And if they caught him and put him inside for being a raving old nutter that would have been better still. I’d have got away with jt completely.”
“Oh God,” says Barry. “This is going to play terrible havoc with your karma.”
“I realise that. It was all so simple. I’d get Volkswagens coming in to Fat Volkz Inc from all over the country; needing a new petrol tank here, a new dashboard there, a new wiring loom somewhere else. I did the work as asked, but while I was at it, it wasn’t so difficult to hide a little explosive device somewhere in the car, with a timer to make sure it was a long way from me when it finally blew up.”
“Les, that’s just terrible.”
“I know. I know. But the thing is, I did it with those neo-Nazi Volkswagens too.”
“You did?”
“Yeah,” and he pulls a little black box out of his pocket, a thing that looks not unlike a remote control for a television set, though this one has more switches and LEDS, a few loose wires and one very big red button.
“I press that,” says Les, “and it’s bye-bye to eight wicked-looking black Volkswagens.”
Outside they can hear Phelan ranting on about the Aryan race, world domination and the triumph of the will. It’s very eloquent, very compelling and grand, and even if it might be construed as a little overdramatic and dictatorial, he undoubtedly has the crowd where he wants them. They are hanging on his every word, applauding and cheering, and here and there his name is being chanted.
Barry says, “You mean you press that button and the cars all blow up.”
“Yep. Just like that,” says Fat Les.
“I think we have to do it, don’t we?”
“I think we do.”
They leave the teepee. This is something they want to see with their own eyes. Phelan is no longer speaking, just basking in the adulation of his new followers, holding Hitler’s Volkswagen aloft. Then someone appears on the stage beside him. It is a bedraggled old man with a skinhead haircut, Charles Lederer, looking his wildest to date.
Phelan does not want to share the stage with anyone and yet he hesitates for a moment, perhaps thinking it’s a fervent supporter who’s got a little carried away with enthusiasm. Certainly he thinks the old man looks harmless and unthreatening. Charles Lederer approaches, gets very close, and his hands are extended as though he wants to congratulate Phelan. But what he actually wants to do, what he succeeds in doing, is lay his hands on Hitler’s Beetle. Phelan is caught off guard. Charles Lederer’s fingers make contact with the model, but the laying on of hands is not enough for him. He grabs the Volkswagen and dashes away across the stage, and even as Phelan lunges after him, even as he summons a few skinheads to deal with the situation, Charles Lederer winds back his throwing arm and flings the Volkswagen hard and high away from the stage, up over the heads of the crowd.