Ken Foxe, a dedicated investigative reporter and co-director of the transparency organization Right to Know, is known for his relentless pursuit of truth. With a knack for uncovering hidden information, Foxe has authored two compelling non-fiction books inspired by his journalistic endeavors. Beyond his investigative work, he finds solace in crafting captivating short stories and speculative fiction. When he’s not delving into the depths of research or attending to his two children, Foxe can be found lost in the world of imaginative storytelling, where his creativity knows no bounds. With a passion for shedding light on the obscured and a talent for weaving narratives, Foxe continues to leave an indelible mark on the world of journalism and literature alike.

Replacements in Basements 

By Ken Foxe

---

I managed to drag myself from bed but only after hitting the snooze button twice. I made the kids cereal, argued over why they were taking so long, and dropped them off at school. At a coffee van along Dublin’s quays, I stopped for my ritual morning cappuccino to knock the last of the cobwebs away.

            Once I’d made my order, I began a mindless scroll of my phone. I first checked my work email but for some reason, I found myself logged out. Wasn’t expecting anything too urgent so it didn’t really matter.

I switched to Twitter, to see if anything was happening in the news. Again, logged out. Thinking it a little strange, I opened up Instagram – the same problem. Facebook? Logged out there too. I wondered if my phone had updated overnight and I wasn’t overly concerned. I could figure it out once I got to my desk and so, I decided to play a quick game of Candy Crush instead.

            “Cappuccino, extra hot, skinny,” said the barista. I collected the coffee and took my Revolut card from my pocket. When I tapped it, it was declined. Maybe I’d forgotten to top it up. I tried to pay with my phone instead, but it didn’t work either. That was really strange because my phone was directly connected to my current account.

I scraped around in the pockets of my trousers and in my jacket to see if there might have been a small note or some loose change hiding. I hardly ever carried cash anymore. Who does? It was embarrassing.

“Don’t worry,” said the barista, “just pay me double tomorrow morning.”

“I’m so sorry,” I stammered. “I don’t know what’s happening.”

I had another three miles or so to drive to the office but traffic was quiet and I was contented, listening to music, sipping the cappuccino. As I approached the turn for the office car park, I had a strong impulse to just keep driving straight on instead.

But I thought of my two kids in school, my wife working in an emergency department, and told myself to be a grown-up. Instead, I steeled myself for another day of drudgery as the data protection officer in a government department that despised sharing information.

            I nodded to the security man as I walked up to swipe my access card but bumped my leg off the bar as it refused to budge. The entry machine was displaying a red X, so I swiped again, only for the same thing to happen. I walked over to the reception desk. I didn’t know the security man beyond a polite nod, but it was a courteous greeting that had happened nearly every day for many years.

            “Sorry to trouble you,” I said. “My swipe card seems to be out of action.”

            “What’s your name, Sir?” There was an impersonal, borderline unfriendly tone in the way he spoke.

            “Garry Fitzgerald.” He began to tap away at the keyboard in front of him.

            “Mr Fitzgerald has already swiped in,” he said.

            “That can’t be right.”

            “What are you insinuating, Sir?” His voice now had taken on a sharp, challenging edge.

            “I’m not trying to suggest anything,” I said, “I’ve been working here years. We’ve seen each other a thousand times.”

            “I’m sorry Sir,” he replied coldly, “but I don’t recognise you.”

            A colleague from my floor happened to walk by.

            “Maeve,” I said, “can you swipe me in? My card is acting up.”

            The security man rose from his desk, all six foot two inches of him.

            “Sir,” he said, “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

            Maeve walked on quickly through the turnstile, seemingly as if she had not seen or heard me although I had spoken plenty loud enough.

            “What are you talking about?” I said and I was furious now. “I’ve a mountain of work to do up there.”

            I could see his hand move towards the counter, pressing something underneath. Two more men came from the control room behind the reception desk. They were as big as him and appeared even less friendly.

            “Now, Sir,” he said, “time to leave.”

            I went back to my car, tried to call my line manager only for the phone to ring out. I checked my email – it was still inaccessible. I keyed in the password twice more, trying to ensure my trembling fingers entered it correctly. A warning popped up: one more mistake and access would be shut down. I flicked frantically between Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, but none would let me in. “What the hell is going on?” I whispered to myself.

I could feel the anxiety rising as I drove, my destination still uncertain. There was that familiar lightheadedness, a feeling as if I was going to fall even though I was sitting down. The tips of my fingers began to tingle and my heart was palpitating. I tried to calm myself, just like my psychologist had taught me.

I took a deep breath trying to hear the words of the psychologist. ‘Acknowledge the uncertainty. Pause and breathe. Pull back and tell yourself it’s the anxiety talking. Let go of the feeling as if it was a leaf passing by on a river. Explore the sensations.’ I had to pull the car into a loading bay because the angst wouldn’t release its fierce grip.

            I took five milligrams of Valium from the emergency supply I always carried with me, swallowed it without water, and waited for some ease to come. My mind and body moved back into equilibrium, the crushing corset of anxiety giving way. Composing myself, I tried to think of what to do next. I restarted the car. What could I do except go home?

            Only two hours had passed by the time my car and I were back in the driveway. Something seemed a little askew. I couldn’t put my finger on it but for a moment I wondered if somebody might be inside. ‘It’s just my anxiety talking,’ I told myself as I approached the door. Key in hand, I inserted it in the lock, turned it. The door wouldn’t open.

Maybe I had used the wrong key. But when I looked down, I knew there was no mistake. I tried it again, so many times that my fingers began to hurt. I told myself to take deep breaths, to just take a pause and think. I had to steady myself against the archway of the porch as my head began to spin. That’s when I heard the siren.

            “On your knees,” said a voice from behind me.

            I turned to see two gardaí approaching, one holding his service weapon, the other a Taser.

            “Don’t worry officer,” I said. “This is my house.”

            “Get on your knees.”

            From the corner of my eye, I saw my next-door neighbour looking through her sitting room window. She averted her gaze when she realised I’d seen her.

            “I’m sorry garda, it’s my home,” I said, my voice quavering, my eyes beginning to fill.

            The next moment I was seized by an excruciating pain as the muscles of my body contracted. I fell to my knees, then sideways, each and every sinew and bone pulsing in agony. They put a hood on me and cracked me on the back of the head with the pistol. I was only semi-conscious as I felt my feet dragging along the gravel driveway. They tossed me in the back of a van, and I think at that stage I must’ve passed out.

The hood came off in a damp concrete interview room. My hands were zip-tied behind me, the cables tearing into my skin. I could feel the enormous bump on the back of my head without having to even touch it. My eyes were dazzled by the fluorescent light and the adrenalin of panic seemed to course through every capillary.

“Tell me your name,” said the detective, the same one who had subdued me in front of my home.

“Garry Fitzgerald,” I whimpered.

“Wrong,” he screamed, almost like a madman, his size twelve feet shuffling like a boxer’s. “What is your name?”

“It’s, it’s Garry Fitzgerald.” The way I said it was nearly like a question.

“You tell me the wrong name one more time,” he said, “and I’ll reacquaint you with this,” the Taser in his hand.

I could hear a ragged cough echoing from another room as I shivered. I wasn’t sure whether it was from the coldness of the room or from fear.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” my voice stuttering badly. “My name is Garry Fitzgerald. I work in the Department for International Protection. I live at 23 Norse Road.”

He took a Polaroid photograph from his shirt pocket, held it in front of him, his eyes darting between the picture and my face. He leant over the table, moved so close I could smell a freshly-smoked cigarette off his breath.

“Do you know this man?” he said, flecks of nicotine-laced spit landing on my cheeks and lips.

“No I don’t.”

“’This’ is Garry Fitzgerald. ‘He’ works at the Department for International Protection. ‘He’ lives at 23 Norse Road with his wife Therese, a nurse, and his two children, Amelia and Sam.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Wrong,” he screamed, and he held the Taser up again. “You better get to understanding. Because we catch you impersonating Garry Fitzgerald again. That little pain you felt earlier, it’s gonna feel like you just had a Thai massage.”

He stormed out of the room. Another officer walked in, an older man, a snow-white moustache and a military bearing. He came towards me and I braced myself for the blow to come. He crouched down, coming close to murmur. “Walk now boy. You don’t want to end up back down here in the Basement. Be smart. Your wife and kids don’t have to suffer as well.”

Up at the front desk of the station, I was told I was being released without charge. I asked the station sergeant for my personal belongings, my phone, my wallet, my car and house keys.

            “We have no record of any belongings,” he said, his head never rising, and as if quoting from a well-rehearsed script.

            “I’m sorry officer, could you check again?”

            “There’s nothing to check. You don’t have personal items anymore.”

            He looked around to see if anyone else was watching. Then, he rooted in a drawer, took out a brown envelope and put three twenty euro notes in it.

            He began to whisper. “There’s a hostel down on Gardiner Street by the name of Hanratty’s. The proprietor Tommy would give a bed to an undocumented like you, could fix you up with a bit of work.”

            “I have a job.” From somewhere within me, I found stridency, like the injustice of what had happened had finally dawned on me.

            “Is that right?” he replied, and you could tell he was bone-tired of this type of conversation.

            “I work in the Department for International Protection.”

            “Don’t be silly man. Now away to f**k with you before those lads down in the Basement decide they want to talk again.”

I came out onto Halston Street, the light of the day already receding in the bracing cold of the November evening. There was the sound of a siren approaching, and a police van descending the ramp into the station. I tried to take stock, did the only thing I could think of. I needed to see what was happening back at my home.

            It was a thirty-minute walk or thereabouts to the semi-detached red-brick house on Norse Road where I’d been living for almost a dozen years. I felt unbalanced as I headed up the road, like at any moment I could tumble, that my head was a balloon unmooring itself from the rest of my body. I tried to focus on my breathing, in through the nose, out through the mouth, just like my psychologist had taught me. I pictured my children and how it would feel to wrap my arms around them.

            My road is a cul-de-sac and at the entrance, there was a police checkpoint, a patrol car parked on either side, lights flashing, four armed officers on their feet checking every vehicle and pedestrian that passed. I stood a while, in the shadow of a tree, trying to think what was next. I thought of my family. Were they expecting me through the door any minute? Or had they already been told I wasn’t coming home?

            I remembered the money in my pocket and I stopped in a quiet bar in Stoneybatter. There were only a handful of customers, each drinking alone and looking like they’d been there half the day. The TV was showing all-weather horse racing in the corner. I drank the beer, quickly, as I tried to think what to do next. At the very least, I needed somewhere to sleep but the sixty euros – already minus the price of a drink and a packet of crisps – was not going to get me far.

            I tried to think of what options I had. My parents, god rest them, were dead. I had no siblings, and I had grown distant from most of my friends, content to give all my free time to my wife and children. Besides, who was I to bring this trouble to their door? I jumped on the Luas tram at Smithfield, didn’t bother to pay, got off at Abbey Street. The dosshouses and cheap B&Bs of the city were all nearby.

            I found Hanratty’s, the hostel the officer had mentioned. On the steps of the ramshackle Georgian townhouse, two heroin addicts sat, their heads drooping to one side, oblivious to all but their own bliss. There was a double door system with buzzers to stop anybody who might be thinking of robbing the place. It was the type of place I normally wouldn’t be caught dead in.

            I pressed the bell, immediately wished there was a sanitiser so I could clean my finger. A middle-aged man, a close shaven head, tattooed knuckles, was inside. He was carefully rolling up a cigarette at the reception desk behind a Perspex screen. I stood there a while watching him, anticipating the type of service you might get in a normal hotel. Every cell of my brain was urging me to leave but where else could I go? He looked up at last. “Yup,” he said.

            “I’m looking for Tommy.”

            “Why?”

            “I was looking for a room.”

            “Been replaced, have you?”

            “I don’t really understand.”

            “Much better that way,” he said.

            “Is Tommy around?”

            “Yeh, I’m around,” he said, stretching his arms above his head. “Twenty yoyos a night for a room, shared shower. You want to work; I’ll get you work. You good at anything?”

            “Like what?” I asked.

            “Electrical, plumbing, pulling and dragging shite, cleaning?”

            “I can type.”

            “Well, that’s sod all use to me,” he said.

            “I’m not going to be here long,” I said.

            “I tell you,” he said, “I don’t really give a f**k either way but I’m guessing you met a friend of mine up in the barracks. And he was trying to do you a favour. You keep your head down, you get to stay out of the Basement. You go doing anything silly, well, you’ll be permanently gone, like all them others. You don’t talk about getting replaced, you don’t whinge about how things were before. This is ‘you’ now. That’s all there is. Now, here’s your key.”

If I say I slept an hour or two that night, that would be an exaggeration. I didn’t know a bed could be so uncomfortable. The windows were single-glazed and the seamy sounds of the city reverberated throughout the night. There was a disconnected dishwasher in one corner, why I couldn’t fathom. The screen of the ancient TV in the corner had evidently been kicked in. The walls were paper-thin so that on one side, I could hear a drunken couple singing rebel songs. On the other side, a man sobbed almost ceaselessly.

            I finally gave up around 7.30am as the first light of day began to creep over the blighted bay. I took a shower, let the powerful hot water wash over me; it was probably the only thing that worked well in Hanratty’s. There were towels, coarse and raw, like they’d been washed ten thousand times over. I had to wear the same clothes again, could feel the clamminess. Even amidst the exhaustion, I felt a determination bubbling. My anger had simmered throughout the night so that I strode down the stairs fully intent on rectifying this terrible wrong.

            In the lobby, the proprietor Tommy was hoovering, a rolled-up cigarette dangling out the side of his mouth, tipping ash on the carpet that had just been ‘cleaned’.

            “The morning lark,” he said, “I like to see that. I got something lined up for you.”

            “I have something else to do,” I replied.

            “’Member what I told you. Don’t be f**king thick,” he said, his finger wagging as he spoke.

I stood at the end of St Catherine’s Road waiting for my children to arrive at school. It was 8.30am and the first parents were dropping off their kids, hurried hugs and kisses, cars accelerating away chaotically.

            I saw Amelia and Sam coming round the corner, down by the convenience shop. My neighbour was with them. I wanted to run, to sweep them up into my arms, carry them away to I don’t know where.

Sam saw me: “There’s daddy.”

My neighbour looked frightened, Amelia too.

Beside me, the doors of an unmarked police transit van opened. I felt the sting of the Taser again, my legs giving way, every sinew shuddering. There were children screaming, including my own. The look on my son’s face as I fell to my knees, then juddering to the ground. The police put a hood on me, my shoulder slamming against the interior wall of the van as I was tossed inside. They took turns kicking and beating me as we drove back towards the station.

I was back in the same interrogation room in the Basement. The same seat, my hands going numb because they were tied so tightly. My body still pulsed with pain from the electric current. The detective was there, picking his nose, another more senior officer with him.

            “Yesterday, it was breaking and entering. Not to mention impersonation of a soldier not long back from the front,” barked the detective. “Today, it’s attempted child abduction.”

            “Those are my children.”

            “Wrong,” he screamed. “They are Garry Fitzgerald’s kids.”

            “F**k you.” I said, my anger recoiling like a broken elastic band.

            “Allow me to introduce the boss,” he said. “He’s not a gentleman like me. Not a man for second and third chances.”

            “I want a call to my solicitor,” I said.

            The superintendent scratched at the stubble on his neck, the flickering fluorescent light reflecting on the bald spot of his head. He took a seat, put his hand-stitched leather shoes up on the table, nonchalantly pulled a cigar from the patch pocket of his silk shirt. He lit up, blowing smoke up towards the yellowing suspended ceiling.

            “At least tell me what crime I’m supposed to have committed,” I said.

            “What’s crime got to do with it?”

            “The law then,” I howled, “what law did I break?”          

“Law?” the superintendent replied, snickering, as he stood up and extinguished the half-smoked cigar on my forehead. “I make law.”

 

– Ends –