Yes, Prime Minister: Keithos and National Security Council hold Krysis meeting, Live Wire listens in

Scene: Boardroom at an undisclosed location.

(Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley tells his colleagues on the National Security Council and a few specially invited guests to expect an important visitor. There is a knock at the door).

Keithos: Come in, boy.

(Crown Trace resident and Unruly gang member Abdul “Krysis” Wakeel walks in).

Krysis: Good night, the bosses. And good night to the imps.

(Deputy Commissioner (Crime) Wayne Dick flies off his chair).

Dick: Boy, I didn’t tell you my name is not “The Boss?!”

Krysis: Yes. But I didn’t call you ‘the boss’ this time.

Dick: Or hor. Good!

Krysis: Yuh imps.

(Dick lunges at Krysis while his colleagues try to physically restrain him. Acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams rolls himself into a foetal position and starts whimpering. The Prime Minister eventually restores order).

Keithos: Boy, I asked you to come in here to share some important information with us. And us with you. You are looking at the head of the law enforcement operations in Trinidad and Tobago. And this is how you walk in here?! You feel everywhere is Crown Trace?! You have no respect?! You have no cover for your tongue?!

Krysis: The boss, where I come from, we don’t have time to dress up nothing. When we see a good-looking red woman, we does say: ‘Hello, redz.’ When yuh pardner over six foot tall, yuh does call him ‘Tallest.’ If I call a pitbull a pussycat, who I really confusing? The dog or myself? Because he ent going to bite me like a pussycat just because I call him one.

Keithos (pauses to ponder): Okay. Fair enough. And Dick really is an imps in truth. Well, for starters, tell me how you think you can be of service to us and the country in our war against crime.

Krysis: Well, the boss. Everyone is sitting down except me…

Minister Edmund Dillon: You saying that you standing up?

Krisis: What?

Dillon: So you saying that you standing up?

Krysis: Me? I was saying that..

Dillon: Yes, you. Are you saying that you’re standing up.

Krysis: Yes. But what I mean is…

Dillon: No, no, no. Answer my question. So let me get this straight. You saying that you standing up?

Keithos: Eddie, you don’t fed up hear yourself talk sometimes. Steups. Shut up and give him your chair.

Dillon: Ahmm. Dick, we don’t need you anymore. Let him take your seat.

(Krysis takes Dick’s seat).

Krysis: Prime Minister, can I say something, the boss?

Keithos: What’s that?

Krysis: How are you ever going to deal with crime when your National Security Minister won’t get off his arse for the greater good and can’t do anything you ask him except make his Dick stand up?

(Pandemonium erupts. Dillon falls off his chair. Everyone tries to restrain Dick. Williams hits his head on the underside of the table).

Keithos: Shut up! Shut up, everyone!

(The room goes quiets).

Keithos: Listen, boy, instead of being on the block in Crown Trace waiting for your bullet to reach, I bring you here in this nice air-conditioned room. Right now, your arse is sitting on the finest leather. The juice we drinking have pulp in it. My secretary is so beautiful, she makes Beyonce look like Braveboy. Yuh mother never tell you ungratefulness worse than witchcraft?!

Krysis: Yes, the boss. But my mudda also tell me to never pay for the same thing twice. Ent iz taxpayers’ money pay for this chair? Iz not like you bring it from home.

Keithos: What the hell you know about paying tax?

Krysis: Just as much as you, the boss.

(Room goes dead silent again).

Keithos: Listen to me. My name is The Honourable Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley. I wasn’t born with that, you know. I earned it. What you think about that?

Krysis: Well, if allyuh honourable people so smart, what allyuh want me here for? Why allyuh does bother to take on people like me for at all?

Keithos (straightens up with a smirk): Now we are getting somewhere. Boy, it is easy to criticise from the outside. It is only when you have served at this level that you can understand the intricacies of running a country. The brainstorming, the long hours, the decisions that affect the quality of life for over a million citizens, you included. Just the other day, I sent Fitzgerald a text at 2.15am. 2.15am?! You were probably in bed dreaming about getting on Ian Alleyne show.

Minister Fitzgerald Hinds (raises his hand): Sir, I was meaning to ask you about that text you sent me. I wasn’t asleep. I just didn’t know how to answer. What did you mean when you wrote: ‘My name is Hans and I don’t want to fly Solo tonight…’

Keithos (looks momentarily at a loss): Ahmm, well, that was obviously not meant for you. It was… Ahmmm… Code for our new anti-crime initiative that I was discussing with a female security consultant.

Fitzie: A female security consultant?

Keithos: Yes. She promised to keep my arse safe and secure if we ever had to consult. Stop interrupting me, Fitzgerald. The point is that crime doesn’t sleep, so we don’t either.

Krysis: Actually crime does sleep, the boss. That way it can be well rested and make smarter decisions than chupid Babylon.

Keithos: Krisis, Live Wire and dem giving us a hard time about not listening to what you had to say about crime in Enterprise. Just tell us what you know please. So we can truthfully tell people ‘we are leaving no stone unturned,’ ‘exploring all avenues’ and ‘investigations into new leads are ongoing.’

Krysis: Okay, let me see if I understanding you, the boss… You want something to make the public think that the crime situation is not out of control and that there is some chance that the government can get on top of it. And you want me—as a man of the streets—to say that I was in some way involved. You want to implement me to make it feel authentic. Correct?

Keithos: Correct is right.

Krysis: But, the boss, dais not the same thing as doing nothing? Ent people bong to catch on to that eventually?

Keithos (snickers): Krysis, let me introduce you to our oracle, The Honourable Minister of Finance, Colm Imbert.

Colm (from the far end of the long conference table): Greetings, young fellow.

Krysis (to Rowley): I can barely see him, the boss. Can you ask him to stand up?

Keithos: He is standing up…

Colm (continues oblivious to the crosstalk): Krysis, let me tell you why you are here. You are what we call a Trojan horse.

Krysis: You mean like the thing the Greeks used as a trick in the old days?

Colm: No, I mean if we don’t use you while we are screwing the people over crime, somebody bound to catch something life-threatening…

(Krysis looks confused).

Colm: Listen, boy, I collect degrees like how Sacha Singh stockpiles women’s husbands. I’m so smart I could make Einstein’s hair stand on end. Next to me, Socrates would look like Dunga. If you calculated brain matter in inches, they would call me “John Holmes”… Bendwood Dick would blush… (pauses) Where was I?

Krysis: Ahmmm… The crime plan, the boss?

Colm: Right. What do you think will happen when somebody leaks to the media that you were here?

Krysis: Who will tell them?

Colm: We will, of course. That way we will distract them. If we just told them you were here, they will be going on and on about whether it is a smart or stupid move to consult with terrorists and if we are flip-flopping on crime and all that nonsense. But if we leak it through one media house, we can get that reporter to angle the story just how we like it. Instead of wondering if we did the right or wrong thing, the public will be asking if it is true or not. And raising questions like: what are the implications? And, where might it lead in theory? We can sit back and gauge whether or not we want it to be true and confirm or deny accordingly. Confusion will reign and we will be in charge of it. Just like any self-respecting government would be.

Krysis: But what does all of that do?

Colm: Son, you need to learn just two things about government: When you can’t think of anything to do for people, just let them see you doing something. And when you can’t convince, confuse.

Krysis (thinks for a while): Well, why do you need me for that?

Colm: You are the most important piece in this game. That’s why you’re our pawn.

Krysis: Iz not the king is the most important piece, the boss?

Colm: You ever played chess?

Krysis: No.

Colm: Then shut up and let me explain how this game works. Now, when the criminals hear you’re involved, they will automatically wonder whether their operations are now vulnerable. And that’s what we want them to think. Of course, we can’t rule out that they might be smart enough to think of what we want them to think and do a double-think. They might think that if we think that they think they cannot carry on their criminal business without police raids, then they can out-think us by proceeding apace with their dastardly deeds with the thought that we don’t think they have the balls to do exactly that because they think we’re afraid of a risky street war that might expose what everyone already thinks they know. You with me?

Krysis (ponders for a moment): What the public think, the boss?

Colm: That our Police Service and the warring gangs are joined at the hip.

Krysis: Ah ha! The boss, that is what I was trying to tell everybody. I does see it… But if allyuh see it too, the boss, why don’t you all just root out the crooked police so we can all live in peace then?

(The room erupts in laughter).

Colm (smirks): Silly boy. You are trying to see what is happening in a dark room. Let me ask you this: Which do you think came first, Rasta City, Muslim City or the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service?

Krysis: What…? I don’t understand…

Colm: Boy, the TTPS has been sending officers to infiltrate no-good gangs since Buzz Butler. You didn’t think the police would eventually go a step further and start running their own gangs? You save time and energy that way. And it’s much more predictable. You don’t know that Abu Bakr was a policeman? You never ask yourself how he end up where he did?

(Krysis holds his head in his hands and starts rocking back and forth, muttering to himself).

Colm: Who do you think the police answer to? And who do you think the people who the police answer to answer to? Isn’t it the same people the gangs answer to?

Krysis (whimpers): Stop, stop! Please.

Colm (in a low voice): I can do this all night, baby…

(The people in the room get up and walk over to Imbert in single file. They pat him on his back and return to their seats in an orderly line while Krysis sobs. Even Williams climbs into his chair and looks pleased with himself for no obvious reason.)

Keithos: Son, you’ve just been Colm-ed. Walk it off. And stop playing the fool on Facebook.

Krysis: Yes, Prime Minister.

(Krysis gets up and walks out of the door, only pausing to gently close it behind him).

Colm: Gentlemen, Krysis averted.

National Security Council members (in unison with joyless faces): Muahahahahaha. Muahahahaha. Muahahaha…