Hope Dealers

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by Michael Botur Hope Dealers An unreal true story

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Hope Dealers

Transcript of Hope Dealers

Page 1: Hope Dealers

by Michael Botur

Hope DealersAn unreal true story

Page 2: Hope Dealers

I’d quit a well-paying job in a fit of bravado, and since then I’d limped between research contracts and temp jobs. It was when I ate our last can of dusty beans from the back of the larder that I felt the twitch and started craving Hope again. My quals were like Monopoly money and my CV was toilet paper: I needed to score, man.

The local Hope Dealers was between the Cash Converters and E-Z-Finance. Hope Dealers, in exchange for the right to surveil you, will give you a smidgen of Hope, just enough to keep the fish on the hook. On account of the recession, the Hope Dealers had been making a killing, ratcheting up the value of their product and while us Hope Fiends drooled.

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Poverty is the precursor.They even peddle it on TV.Your misery is their business.

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They made me wait under white lights, as if this was heaven. Sure, you’d have to be emotionally dead to need an appointment with the Hope Dealers…. dead or desperate. The coffee table was stocked with tissues; the water cooler was filled with tears. There were posters of invalids smiling too hard, and racks of pamphlets telling us Hope Users how easy it was not to have to be here.

A waddling, toe-dragging Hope Dealer collected me from reception, mangling my name in its gob, cackling fiendishly. I made a mental note to ask this cumbersome bureaucrat how much commission it made from luring each client in here.

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It didn’t invite me to sit. It didn’t introduce itself. The computer screen was turned away from me. I considered whether this Hope Dealer might not need my business – but, no that was unthinkable. There was a whole Ministry, you see, a whole bloated department, a whole clanking factory which depended on people like me submitting their despair for the Hope Dealers to turn into a rich economy. Almost a million of my compatriots were on their books, creating thousands of bureaucratic nooks for Hope Dealers to perch on. Hope Dealers are self-sustaining, like SkyNet, like any virus.

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The Hope Dealer, addressing me by my client number, demanded an account of how I’d spent every cent in my life to date. It wanted an authorised, signed, notified statement about what I’d been doing until two seconds ago.

‘Working, obviously,’ I said.

It sneered, pulled a magnifying glass from its top drawer and scrutinised my bank details, sure that this official statement from a bank of repute was a forgery. Apparently, having three bank accounts doesn’t indicate that I’m good at budgeting: it indicates deceit.

‘There is room on your credit card,’ the Hope Dealer decided, pointing to bulging digits, fat zeroes, ugly nines, ‘Eleven dollars forty.’

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‘You want me to spend on my credit card… which has twenty percent interest? That’s your advice?’

The Hope Dealer nodded. ‘I also am needing your last 52 weeks income– ’

‘I gave that to you last time. These are my latest pay slips. Nothing else has changed.’

‘ –your life story I am needing, your history, your birth certificate, a record of your every step, your every thought .’

‘Fuck this,’ I said, removing my butt from the seat, ‘I’m outta here.’

‘But you need us,’ the Hope Dealer said. ‘You need Hope.’

I stood paralysed. I had a habit, I admit: I was addicted to hope. My mouth became sticky; I could feel my wallet’s lips getting wet.

‘Where else will you go? The money lenders? Overdraft? Bank loan? Your parents? A dope needs the dole needs a hole needs hope.’ Dope dole hole hope. ‘You want your fix, do you not?’

Bile geysered up into my mouth.

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‘I’ve got a question for you people.’ I half-sat down again, curious now that the Hope Dealers were confessing their repulsive policy. ‘Why do you Hope Dealers presume that all your clients are liars? Why do you look at my signed, stamped, authorised, OFFICIAL documents like they’re forgeries?’

The Hope Dealer tucked its head into its blubber. ‘You should have applied weeks ago, we cannot help–

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‘Help-hell-hole-hope-dole-dope, yeah yeah yeah, I know. Tell me this: why would I have applied when I had money, when I didn’t need you? You would’ve turned me away. Admit it.’

A fellow Hope Fiend overhead my gripe, turned and grinned. The lack of hope was making her lips cracked and her eyes sockets hollow, though her smile was like a week’s salary.

But I became afraid: To lose confidence in this department would be unthinkable. I’m a client, I thought, I’m their bread and butter.

‘I cannot access your file anyway, Mr 394-035-321,’ the Hope Dealer decided with a sniff, ‘The last time you stopped using our product, your file became… inaccessible.’

‘You can answer me some goddamn questions for my magazine then,’ I said. ‘I’m a fucking writer, you do realise?’

Foolishly, the Hope Dealer became relaxed upon hearing this.

‘You feed off the hope and trust of people with nowhere else to turn,’ one of us said.

‘Yes, and?’

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‘You expect to be lied to, because you an Institution of Lies. You don’t notify your clients about their full entitlements, you contradict yourself, and because there is no advocacy service for Hope Fiends, no union, we have no one else to turn to.’

‘And?’

‘You do realise that if I you didn’t have us clients, you wouldn’t have a job?’ I lifted the camera which dangled around my neck and began snapping photographic evidence of their drug den.

The Hope Dealer tried to cloud me with ink.

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‘You’re making the other junkies nervous,’ it said, trying to stand in front of the security cameras. It seemed to hate exposure, like a sickly Morlock hauled into daylight.

‘Nervous? Yup, that’s how it feels to need Hope. Nervousness for breakfast, every day.’ I scribbled quotes from the Hope Dealer and snapped some more shots.

‘I mean, they don’t like having the camera on them.’

‘Funny,’ I said, ‘You’ve got one…two… four cameras on the ceiling, and big signs informing the clients that they’re under surveillance. Plus a huge security guard.’

‘Yes… ?’

‘What are they gonna steal, application forms?!’

The Hope Dealer tried to retreat to its desk. I stood there and stabbed it with questions.

‘Quoting from your website,’ I continued, ‘”The Ministry has a duty to investigate and decide all applications made where it has the relevant information to do so.” A DUTY!’

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‘Y-yes…?’

‘And I’ve given you all the relevant info. Why are you sending me home without even a food voucher?’

‘I think you should take this up with my mana– ’

‘Why is your website mostly composed of dead-end links? Why aren’t us Hope Fiends being given what we’re legally entitled to? Why do you make us think you’re here to help then let us down? Why do you break the law every time I deal with you?’

‘It’s in our c-c-Code of –

‘The entire nation distrusts you. You are a liar. Your

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institution is a grinning gallery of false images.This is Victorian Death Photography. These happy, smiling Hope Junkies in the photographs, are they real clients?’

‘No, but– ’

‘Are you comfortable, presenting a false image of yourself to clients?’

‘Nowhere does it say that you have a right to be comfortable,’ replied the Hope Dealer, folding its arms protectively.

‘All you offer is Hope, not Help. Hope doesn’t keep the phone line going. Hope doesn’t keep the hot water on.’

‘We… encourage all clients… to work… ‘

‘SO WHY HAS NO ONE CALLED ME BACK ABOUT THE JOBS I APPLIED FOR?! I rang four fucking times!’

The Hope Dealer pulled a vial of Hope from its pocket, choked by a throatful of guilty phlegm. ‘Take this and go!’

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‘Lady, if I accept Hope from you, how much does that increase this office’s budget? How much do you earn by keeping us clients on your books? How many bonuses do you get from saving money by giving us nothing?’

‘Take the drug, please sir! You need it!’

‘Ah, fuck off,’ I said, ‘Who needs Hope anyway: I’m a fucking artist.’

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An unreal true story

!!Contact your friendly local Hope Peddler!!

!!They deal to invalids, children and single mothers!!

http://www.workandincome.govt.nz/