Out of the Mouths of the Babes

In a new survey young people describe their experiences of crime and suggest possible causes and solutions.

Young people are just as worried as their parents by the cases reported in the media and by crime which they suffer themselves, according to a new survey by criminologists. In fact, youngsters could be said to have more reason to fear violent crime because they are its most common victims.

A team of researchers from the Institute of Criminology at Cambridge University carried out the survey on two large council estates near Birmingham. They questioned 307 youngsters who were aged between 13 and 17 about crime, its causes and possible solutions.

According to Kate Painter, who organized the research, the findings contradict the view of some public figures that juvenile crime is increasing. She says the findings show that very few teenagers are involved in stealing cars, burglary, robbery and assaults.

The 148 boys and 159 girls questioned were from families with high levels of unemployment. A high percentage had single parents and most were still at school.

Strict rules were observed to encourage those questioned to answer honestly. All were questioned with their parents’ permission but parents had to be out of the room during interviews. Answers to questions about varieties of crime committed were put in unmarked envelopes to keep the respondents anonymous and discourage them from boasting.

Two out of every five boys and girls had played truant from school, a quarter regularly smoked and about 7 out of 10 had drunk alcohol. Roughly a fifth said they had taken money from home and a smaller percentage had shoplifted.

Thirty-three per cent of the boys, and 26 per cent of the girls, said they had hit and injured somebody in a public place. Only one per cent had broken into a house or shop. Three per cent, girls as well as boys, had take vehicle and driven it away. Seven per cent had used a weapon in a fight, twice as many carried weapons for protection.

But what came through strongly was the large number of youngsters who had also been victims of crime or the threat of crime. Fifteen per cent had been stopped by male drivers they did not know asked to get into their cars. Similar numbers had been followed by a stranger in a car or on foot. A fifth said they had been assaulted in the street.

When asked why youngsters they knew committed crimes, 79 per cent cited boredom and 58 per cent said offenders had no sense of right and wrong. A lack of leisure facilities was blamed by half and 44 per cent blamed parental neglect.

More police officers on foot patrol was the most popular solution reducing juvenile crime, and was suggested by nearly 7 out of 10. Sixty-five per cent said there should be more discipline and supervision by parents.

In fact, the majority of those surveyed revealed the presence of caring parents. Seven out of 10 were taken by parents and 61 per cent said their parents wanted to know where they were and what they were doing at times. Eighty-five per cent said they could talk to their mother or father about anything that troubled them.

Three-quarters had never been hit by either parent but were shouted at or threatened for wrongdoing, whereas 16 per cent were hit sometimes or often. Sixty-nine per cent said their parents explained to them why certain things were wrong.

Ms Painter says that the findings still need proper analysis and will not be published for another year. But we can already see that there is consensus among young people and adults about strategies for preventing crime and why young people offend.

Are our kids out of control? The answer is no, but there is a substantial minority of children who are neglected. You can deduce from that that those children are more likely to get involved in crime if there is nobody checking up on them.

“In the past, 18- to 21-year-old working-class kids got jobs and married. The best antidote to crime is a steady job and a steady relationship.”

6. Say, what these figures relate to:

79%, 7 out of 10, 307, 26%, 148, 159, 44%, 58%, ¾, 2 out of 5, ¼, 61%, 69%.

7.Complete the following sentences.

1)Youngsters are worried by the criminal cases reported in the media because…

2)The findings show that…

3)The youngsters questioned were encouraged…

4)There is consensus among young people and adults about…

5)There is a substantial minority of children who…

6)Those children are most likely…

8.What are the possible causes of teenage crime experience? What are the possible solutions?

9.Insert the following words in the sentences below.

detention concurrent inmate discernible grave custody probation phase out magistrate persistent caution underestimate secure try liable assault findings

1)He is serving two _ prison sentences.

2)I kept telling him I wasn’t interested in his offer, but he was _.

3)There is still no _ improvement in the economic situation.

4)The boy came up before the _ on a charge of theft.

5)She was held in police _ for six hours.

6)Don’t _ his abilities.

7)They were released from _ without being charged.

8)Their claims should be treated with great _.

9)Make the windows _ before leaving the house.

10)The _ of the committee on child care are due to be published soon.

11)The bus service to country areas is being _.

12)The situation poses a _ threat to peace.

13)The army launched a major _ against the rebel town.

14)They’re going to _ him for murder.

15)The young offender was put on _ for two years.

16)One of the _ has escaped.

17)He declared that he was not _ for his wife’s debts.

III 1.You are a politician (policeman, judge, psychologist, sociologist). Suggest measures to deal with young offenders, relying on your own experience.

2.Write a short essay on the topic “Are our kids out of control?”.

3.Additional tasks.

a)Spot the lies.

Crime Wave

More and more crimes are being reported in the city’s daily papers. People are getting more and more frightened. They are demanding immediate action. So much newspaper space is taken up with crimes that the Police Commissioner is seriously embarrassed. He has promised to act quickly to reduce the number of crimes.

b)Read and say what you think.

Twelve years ago, Bonnie Garland, a pretty, upper-class Yale student, was murdered. Her estranged boyfriend went up to her bedroom one night and with a hammer cracked her head open “like a watermelon”, as he put it. Murders are a dime dozen in America. But the real story here, the real horror, chronicled in painful detail by Williard Gaylin (in The Killing of Bonnie Garland), was the aftermath: sympathy turned immediately from victim to murderer, a Mexican American recruited to Yale from the Los Angeles barrio. Within five weeks he was free on bail, living with the Christian Brothers and attending a local college under an assumed name. Friends raised $30,000 for his defense. “From my investigation,” wrote Gaylin, “it is clear that more tears have since been shed for the killer than for the victim”.

Now in New York City another awful crime. A 28-year-old jogger was attacked in Central Park by a gang of teens from nearby Harlem. Police say the boys hunted her down, beat and raped her savagely and left her for dead. At week’s end she remained in a comma.

In New York the instinct to “garland” the monstrous – to extenuate brutality and make a victim of the victimizer – is more attenuated than in the Ivy League. The New York tabloids, the moral voice of the community, are full-throated in their vilification of the monstrous “wolf pack”. It is their social betters, those from the helping professions, who have lost their moral compass. It is they who would Garland this attack if they could.

These children are “damaged”, explains forensic psychologist Shawn Johnston. “They are in pain inside … acting out their pain on innocent victims. In the case of the Central Park beating, they picked a victim that was mostly likely to shock and outrage. That speaks to how deep their anger and despair is.”

“We have to be honest,” explains psychologist Richard Majors. “Society has not been nice to these kids.”

“They’re letting out anger,” explains Alvin Poussaint, the Harvard educator and psychiatrist. “There’s a lot of free-floating anger and rage among a lot of our youth.”

Rage? Upon arrest, police said, the boys joked and rapped and sang. Asked why he beat her head with a lead pipe, Yusef Salaam was quoted by investigators as saying “It was fun”. The boys have not yet been taught to say they did it because of rage, pain and despair, because of the sins whites have visited upon them and their ancestors. But they will be taught. By trial time, they will be well versed of the language of liberal guilt and exoneration.

How could boys have done something so savage? We have two schools. The “rage” school, which would like to treat and heal these boys. And the “monster” school, which would like to string them up.

I’m for stringing first and treating later. After all, the monster theory, unlike the rage theory, has the benefit of evidence. What distinguishes these boys is not their anger – Who is without it? – but their lack of any moral faculty. Acts of rage are usually followed by reflection and shame. In this case, these characteristics appear to be entirely missing.

The boys were not angry. They were “wilding”. Wilding is not rage, it is anarchy. Anarchy is an excess of freedom. Anarchy is the absence of rules, of ethical limits, of any moral sense. These boys are psychic amputees. They have lost, perhaps never developed, that psychic appendage we call conscience.

Conscience may be inbred, but to grow it needs cultivation. The societal messages that make it through the din of inner-city rap ’n’ roll conspire to stunt that growth. They all but drown out those voices trying to nurture a sense of responsibility, the foundation of moral character.

For example, the fatuous Cardinal O’Connor could not resist blaming the park assault on, well, society. We must all “assume our responsibility”, he intoned, “for being indifferent to the circumstances that breed crimes of this sort.” What circumstances? “Communities which know nothing but frustration”.

When the Rev. Calvin Butts III of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church was asked by CBS about the attack, he spoke of “the examples that our children are faced with”. Such as? “We’ve had President resign, foreign Prime Ministers resign in disgrace. We’ve had Oliver North lie publicly on television… And many of our youngsters, across racial lines, see that and then act it out.”

Richard Nixon, Noboru Takeshita and Ollie North may have much to answer for in the next world, but the savaging of a young woman in Central Park is not on the list. The effect of such preposterous links is to dilute the notion of individual responsibility. Entire communities are taught to find blame everywhere but in themselves. The message takes. New York Newsday interviewed some of the neighbors of the accused and found among these kids “little sympathy for the victim.” Said a twelve-year-old: “She had nothing to guard herself; she didn’t have no man with her; she didn’t have no Mace.” Added another sixth-grader: “It is like she committed suicide.”

There is a rather large difference between suicide and homicide. For some, the distinction is not obvious. They must be taught. If not taught, they grow up in a moral vacuum. Moral vacuums produce moral monsters.

Young monsters. The attackers are all 14 to 17. Their youth is yet another source of mitigation. In addition to class and racial disadvantage, we must now brace ourselves for disquisitions on peer pressure, adolescent anomie and rage.

Spare us the Garlanding. The rage in this case properly belongs to the victim, to her family and to us.

Charles Krauthammer

Crime and Responsibility

Unit 12. Terrified (by C. B. Gilford)

I 1.Look at the sentences from the story. What is the story about?

“Right now the road seemed deserted.”

“There’d been people in that other car.”

“It’ll be called an accident.”

2.Study the words.

thriving – процветающий doze – дремать courtesy – вежливость dim – затемнять vindictive – мстительный hog – захватить concede – уступать fender – крыло (автомобиля) skid – тормозить, скользить avalanche – лавина numb – онемелый flit – пронестись scuffling – шаркающий

lurid – неестественно яркий, шокирующий rove – блуждать (о взгляде) fathom – вникать, понимать well – бить ключом babble – лепетать disdain – презирать cajole – упросить defy – пренебрегать onslaught – нападение slack off – ослабить spout out – болтать blot out – закрывать, затемнять

3.Complete the sentences using the words from Ex. I 1 in the correct form.

1)The government _ defeat as soon as the election results were known.

2)The anaesthetic made my arm go ­_.

3)I’ve been trying to ­_ out how to do it.

4)The papers gave all the _ details of the murder.

5)How are your children? _, I hope!

6)Our army tried to withstand the enemy _.

7)His eyes _ about the crowded room looking for the mysterious stranger.

8)He’s been _ the bathroom and no one else can get in.

9)If the road is icy it’s easy to _.

10)We received an _ of inquiries.

II 1.Read the text.

Paul Santin had had a good day. Small town doctors and drug stores were doing a thriving (процветающий) business, and, therefore, so was Paul Santin, pharmaceutical salesman. But it had been a long day, and now it was past eleven. Santin was driving fast on the country back road, trying to make it home before midnight.

He was tired, sleepy, fighting to stay awake for another half hour. But he was not dozing (забываться). He was in complete control of his car. He knew what he was doing.

He’d passed few other cars. Right now the road seemed deserted. He’d chosen this route just for that reason. Light traffic. And that’s the way it was - an almost empty road – when he saw the other car.

He saw it first as a pair of headlights rounding the curve (излучина, закругление) a quarter mile ahead. The lights were fantastically bright, and the driver failed to dim (затемнять) them. Santin cursed (проклинал, ругал) him, whoever he was. He dimmed his own lights, but received no answering courtesy. He cursed again, vindictively (мстительно) switched his own lights back to highway brightness. But he sensed no real danger in it.

He was vaguely (неотчетливо, смутно) aware that the other car was rocketing toward him at high speed. Too much speed for the kind of road they were on. Mechanically, he slacked off (ослабил)on the accelerator, concentrated on staying on his side of the road, and on not looking directly at those oncoming lights.

But it was much too late when he realized the other car was hogging (захватить) the centre of the road. And he had to make his decision too quickly. Whether he bore right in, perhaps leaning on his horn (нажать на гудок), hoping the other driver would pull aside (оттаскиваться, отдернуться). Or to hit the shoulder and take his chances with gravel and dirt (гравий).

He took the second choice, but not soon enough. He saw the other car wasn’t going to concede (уступать) an inch; so he swerved (свернул) to the right. The blow was delivered against his left rear fender (крыло) and wheel. The rear (задняя часть) of his car skidded (затормозить, заскользить) ditch ward ahead of the front. Then the whole car seemed to defy (игнорировать, бросить вызов) gravity. It rolled sideways, leaped (прыжок, скачок) into the air, throwing Santin clear of itself at the top of the leap.

He didn’t see or hear the final crash of the machine. All his consciousness was in the impact of his body against the hillside that met him like a solid wall; then he slid downwards in the midst (среди) of a miniature avalanche of small stones and dirt. Afterward he lay still, and so was all the world around him.

In that first moment, he felt no pain. The shock had numbed him. But he knew he was alive. He knew he was somehow conscious. He was also distantly, vaguely aware that his body was broken and beginning to bleed.

The blinding lights were gone. He was lying on his back in a patch of weeds (обрывках одежды/кусочки земли). Above him were the stars and a bright full moon. They seemed closer to him than they had ever seemed before. Perhaps it was that optical illusion that first gave him the idea he was going to die.

At that moment, he felt no anger about it. He could remember his anger before the crash, but it was a distant, unreal thing to him. Again the thought of dying flitted across his mind. The dying feel nothing toward other creatures. They are completely concerned with themselves.

Then he heard the voices. A renewal of contact with the world. There’d been people in that other car. He wondered about them, calmly, without fury, without sympathy. But he gave all his attention to the listening.

“He isn’t here.” A masculine voice a bit young.

The other car had been hit too. It had been stopped. Or perhaps the driver had stopped the car without being forced to. Anyway, the people from the car, whoever they were, had walked back to his car and were looking for him.

To help him? His first instinct was to call out, guide them to where he lay. They’d been selfish in hogging the road, but now they were charitable, wanting to aid. But then another instinct rose to fight against the first. Would they really be friendly? Suddenly he felt terrified of them. Without knowing why. Surely everybody wants to help accident victims. Don’t they?

“He must have been thrown out.” A girl’s voice answering. Frightened.

“I guess so. What’ll we do?” The same masculine voice. So there must be only two of them.

“Look for him,” the girl said.

A hesitation. “Why?”

Another hesitation. “Don’t you want to know what happened to him ... or her?”

“I don’t know.” The masculine voice trembled. “I don’t know ...”

“I think we ought to look around and find him.”

“Okay ... It’s dark though.”

“You’ve got a flashlight, haven’t you?”

“Sure. I’ll get it.”

Footsteps up on the road. The boy returning to his own car for the flashlight. And then silence again.

Santin waited, trembling in a sweat (пот) of new fear. He hadn’t liked the sound of those voices. That boy and girl weren’t people who would care. If he was dying, they weren’t people who would be of much help.

If he was dying? He was certain of it. The pain was beginning now. He could identify it in several places. His face, his chest, both his legs. And somewhere deep inside him, where nobody could reach but a doctor. That was the area of pain that made him certain of death.

So it didn’t matter, did it? Whether or not they found him with their flashlight?

“Okay, I’ve got it.” The boy’s voice. “Where do we look?”

“In the ditch (ров), I guess.”

Scuffling (разрыхлять землю) footsteps, disturbing gravel, crunching (скрипеть) through grass and brush. Then a winking (моргать) light, sweeping back and forth. Both the light and the footsteps getting nearer. Inevitably, they would find him. He could speed their search by calling to them. But he didn’t. He waited.

“Hey!”

The light was in his face. Paralyzed, he couldn’t seem to turn away from it. The footsteps hurried. And then they were there. Two forms standing over him, outlined against the sky. And the light shining in his eyes. He blinked, but they didn’t seem to understand that the light bothered him.

“He’s alive.” The girl. “His eyes are open.”

“Yeah. I see ...”

“But he’s hurt.” The figure who was the girl knelt (становиться на колени) down beside him, mercifully shielding him from the flashlight. Because of the brightness of the moon, he could see her face.

She was young, terribly young, sixteen maybe. She was pretty too, her hair dark, her skin pale, perhaps abnormally so, her made-up mouth lurid (яркий) in contrast. But there was no emotion in her face. She was in shock possibly. But as her eyes roved (блуждать) over his injuries, no sympathy lighted in her eyes.

“You’re pretty badly hurt, aren’t you?” The question was right at him.

“Yes ...” He discovered he could speak without great difficulty.

“Where? Do you know?”

“All over, I guess. Inside especially.”

The girl was thoughtful over his reply. Her next question seemed cold, calculated. “Do you think you could pull through (справиться, спастись) if we got help?”

He thought too, gave himself time to answer. But even so, he made a mistake. “I think I’m going to die,” he said, and knew he had made a mistake as soon as he’d said it.

The girl’s face changed somehow, imperceptibly (неуловимо). Santin couldn’t fathom (понять, вникнуть) the change. He only knew it had happened. She pulled away from him, rose to her feet, rejoining (вернуться) the boy.

“He’s going to die,” she said. As if she knew it as certainly as San-tin himself.

“There’s no use trying to find a doctor then, is there?” The boy sounded relieved, as if his responsibility for this whole thing had ended now.

“I guess not.”

“What’ll we do then?”

“Nothing, I guess. Just wait here. A car’s bound to come along sometime.”

“We can ride back to town then, huh?” The boy seemed to depend completely on the girl for leadership.

“Sure. We can send a doctor or somebody back. But this guy will probably be dead by then. And we’ll have to report to the police.”

“The police?”

“We’ll have to. You killed a man.”

There was silence then. Santin lay at their feet, looking up at the two silhouetted (силуэь) figures. They were talking about him as already dead. But somehow it didn’t anger him yet. Maybe because he considered himself dead too.

“Arlene ... what’ll they do to me?”

“Who, the police?”

“Yes ... You said I killed a man.”

“Well, you did, didn’t you?”

The boy hesitated. “But it was an accident,” he managed finally. “You know it was an accident, don’t you, Arlene? I mean, it just happened ...”

“Sure.”

They were talking softly, but Santin could hear every word they said. And he felt compelled (заставлять) somehow to speak. “Every accident is somebody’s fault,” he told them.

They were startled. He could see them look at each other, then down at him again. “What do you mean by that, mister?” the boy asked after a moment.

“This accident was”

“First of all, you didn’t dim your lights ...”

“Well, neither did you.”

“I did at first.”

“But you switched back to highway lights again.”

“Only after you refused to dim.”

The boy was silent again for a moment. Then he said, “But when we hit, you had your lights on bright.”

Santin had to admit it. "I got mad," he said. “But that’s not the most important thing. You were driving over on my side of the road.”

The boy’s face went around to the girl. “Arlene, was I on his side of the road?”

It seemed she giggled. Or something like it. “How do I know? We were-”

She didn’t finish the sentence, but Santin guessed the rest of it. They’d been necking (обниматься, целоваться), or petting, or whatever young people called it these days. That was why the boy hadn’t dimmed his lights. And that was why he’d had poor control of his car. And now he, Santin had to pay the price of their good time.

It angered him, finally. With a curious sort of anger. Detached somehow, separate from himself. Because now in the long run it didn’t really matter to him. Since he was going to die.

But also Santin felt a certain satisfaction. He could speak vindictively (мстительно), and with assurance. “You see, you were on the wrong side of the road. So it was your fault.”

The boy heard him, but he kept looking at the girl. “What will they do to me?” he asked her. “The police, I mean. What will they do to me?”

“How do I know?” she snapped (рявкать) at him. She’d been so calm. Now maybe the initial shock was wearing off. Now maybe she was becoming frightened, nervous.

“Even if I was on the wrong side of the road,” the boy said, “it was still an accident. I didn’t try to run into this guy’s car. I didn’t try to kill him.”

“That’s right ...”

“You read about these things in the paper. Nothing much happens to the driver. Maybe he gets fined. But my dad can pay that. And even if I had to go to gaol (тюрьма), it wouldn’t be for long, would it, Arlene? What do you think it would be? Thirty days?”

“Or maybe sixty. That wouldn’t be so bad.”

Santin listened to them. And slowly the anger welled (вскипел) higher in him. Or maybe even ninety days, he could have added. Some insurance company would pay. But the killer himself wouldn’t pay nearly enough. Ninety days for murder.

“There’s just one thing,” the boy said suddenly.

“What?”

“It’ll be called an accident. And maybe it’ll be called my fault. A little bit anyway. That is, if this guy here doesn’t spout off (выкладывать) to anybody.”

“About what?”

“About who dimmed lights and who didn’t. And who was on whose side of the road. But of course he can’t spout off if he’s dead.”

“That’s right." There was suddenly something strange in the girl’s voice, an awareness.

“So he’s got to be dead. Do you see what I mean, Arlene?”

“He said he was going to die ...”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t know. And neither do we. But he’s got to die. We’ve got to make sure he dies.” The boy’s voice went up suddenly, toward the pitch of hysteria.

Santin saw the girl clutch (схватить) the boy’s arm and look up into his face. The whole posture of her body denoted fear.

“There’s another thing too.” The boy spoke swiftly (быстро; поспешно), almost babbling (лепетать; бормотать). “My dad has told me about insurance. They have to pay more for a guy who’s just crippled (калека; инвалид) than for a guy who’s dead. They pay big money to cripples. I don’t know whether our insurance is that big. If this guy doesn’t die, and is just hurt real bad, it might cost us a lot more than the insurance we got. And, man, what my dad would do to me then.

The girl was terrified now. “But he’s going to die,” she whispered hoarsely (хрипло, сипло).

“How do we know that, Arlene? How do we know?”

Santin felt no pain now. Only fury. They hadn’t offered to help him. They wanted him dead. They were selfish, unbelievably selfish. And they were cruel enough to discuss all this right in front of him.

Suddenly, the boy was kneeling, and the flashlight was probing ( исследовать; прощупывать;) Santin’s face again. Santin blinked in the glare, but despite it, he got his first look at the boy. Young. Young like the girl. But not calm like she’d been. Panic was in his eyes. And he was hurt too. An ugly scalp wound marred (искажать, повредить) the left side of his head, and blood was matted (спутаться) in his hair.

“How do you feel, mister?” the boy asked.

Santin disdained to answer. He wouldn’t give them the same satisfaction again. He wouldn’t tell them of the hot flood of pain that washed over him in ever-growing waves. He wouldn’t tell them he’d already heard death whispering in his ear, cajoling (умасливать; упрашивать; уговаривать с помощью лести) him to let go of life.

But he saw the desperation in the boy’s face. The boy searched farther with the flashlight, playing it up and down Santin’s body. Then he stood up.

“He doesn’t look like he’s hurt bad enough to die,” he told the girl.

No, it doesn’t look like that, Santin thought. The damage is inside. But it’s just as fatal. Don’t tell them though. Let them sweat. And you might stay alive till somebody comes.

A sudden eruption of pain blotted out ( закрывать; заслонять; стереть; вычёркивать;) his thoughts, leaving him barely conscious.

The girl screamed, and it was as though she was screaming for him. The boy had apparently struck him in some way. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

The boy’s answer was almost a scream too. “He’s got to die. I’ve got to make him die.”

There was a strain of decency (элемент порядочности) in the girl somewhere. Or a woman’s compassion (сочувствие; жалость; сострадание). “But you can’t kill him,” she told the boy fiercely (свирепо; люто; жестоко;).

“What difference does it make?” he argued back, with hysteria in his voice again. “I’ve already killed him, haven’t I? He’s just got to die quick, that’s all. Don’t you understand, Arlene?”

Obviously she didn’t. She clung (цеплялась) to him, holding him back.

“Nobody will ever know the difference,” he told her. There was logic in his argument. “He’s hurt already. They’ll think it’s from the accident.”

They were silent for a little while. “All right, Vince,” he heard her say finally.

And still all Santin could do was to lie there. Probably he was going to be beaten and kicked to death (забрыкать). Murdered deliberately, logically, to protect a weak, vicious (развратный; злой; злобный) kid. Somehow he hadn’t been so afraid of that other death. But he was afraid of this one. This death had a quality of horror about it.

“No!” he yelled at them with all his strength. “No!”

The flashlight in the boy’s hand probed his face again. Santin had been proud before, but he wasn’t now. He didn’t turn away from the light. He let them see his terror.

“Do you think you can do it, Vince?” the girl asked. Her voice was steady. Now that she’d been convinced, she’d be the stronger of the two.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I’ve got to."

Santin saw him coming and closed his eyes.

“Wait a minute,” he heard the girl say, as from the far end of a long tunnel. He existed in a red haze of agony now, and her voice seemed far away.

“What’s the matter?”

“You’re getting blood on yourself, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Look and see.”

“Yes, I am. but what difference does it make?”

“Vince, Vince, are you crazy? They’ll see the blood. And maybe somebody will get suspicious. They can analyze blood, and tell who it belonged to.”

A spark of hope, and Santin dared to open his eyes again. The boy was poised over him for another onslaught, but now he hesitated.

“I know what to do,” he said finally.

He left suddenly, exited from Santin’s view. But Santin could hear him thrashing (хлестать, молотить) around in the weeds (сорняк). And then finally his shout.

“Arlene, come over and help me lift this.”

More thrashing among the weeds. The girl joining the boy.

And the boy’s excited voice. “The guy was thrown out of the car, wasn’t he? Okay then, he just hit his head on this, that’s all. We’ll rearrange the body a little. Come on now, let’s lift it together.”

A slow returning of footsteps. Wildly, Santin searched for them. Saw them. They were coming toward him together, their backs bent (наклонены), straining. Between them they carried a wide flat object that seemed to be very heavy.

He didn’t scream this time. He couldn’t. Even his vocal cords were paralyzed. But he could watch them. They walked slowly, with great effort. They stopped, one on each side of him, and the huge, heavy, flat object they held blotted out the sky above his face.

Then, at the very last moment of his life, he became aware of some-thing. A soothing (утешительный; успокоительный; успокаивающий) calm flooded over him. I was going to die anyway, he thought. This is quicker, of course, maybe even merciful. But it’s also murder.

He prayed. A strange prayer. He prayed for a smart cop.

Sergeant Vanneck of the State Highway Patrol was a smart cop. In the grey light of dawn, he studied tyre marks on the road. They were hard to see on the dark asphalt, and he couldn’t be entirely sure.

He was a little surer how he felt about the pair who stood by his car and watched him as he went about his work. The boy called Vince and the girl called Arlene. They were like most other youngsters who got involved in fatal accidents, and they were also different. So, as the dawn grew brighter, he continued his search.

He found more than he’d expected to find. The body had been re-moved and the area was pretty well trampled (растоптанный). But he found the evidence nevertheless. It was clear, unquestionable.

He climbed back out of the ditch and walked over to the girl and the boy. There must have been something terrifying in his face, because it made the boy ask nervously, “What’s the matter Sergeant?”

“There are two sides to a rock,” Sergeant Vanneck said. “The top side stays clean, washed by the rain. The bottom side is dirty from contact with the ground. Now you tell me, sonny, how Mr Santin was thrown from his car so that he hit his head on the bottom side of that rock?”

2.Arrange the events of the story in the correct order:

1) Santin was driving his car fast trying to get home before midnight.

2) Santin was thrown out of the car.

3) Because of the shock Santin didn’t feel pain.

4) Santin didn’t like the sound of the voices he heard.

5) He could identify pain in several places.

6) Santin saw two people standing over him.

7) There was no use of finding a doctor.

8) The boy and the girl were getting nervous.

9) They wanted to make sure Santin died.

10) Now Santin wasn’t trying to conceal his terror.

11) Santin prayed a strange prayer.

12) The evidence was clear.

3.Answer these questions.

1)Paul Santin was in complete control of his car when going home, wasn’t he? Prove it, giving facts from the text.

2)Describe the collision of the two cars. Was it possible to avoid it?

3)Why did Santin hesitate when he heard people from the other car speak?

4)The boy and the girl were sympathetic at first, weren’t they?

5)What grave mistake did Santin make?

6)What shocked Santin in the way the boy and the girl were speaking about him?

7)What possible solutions to the problem did the young people see?

8)Why was Santin more afraid of the “second” death than of the “first”?

9)What “brilliant” idea came to Vince’s mind?

10)Why did Santin feel some sort of relief at the very last moment of his life?

4.Trace how the behaviour of the characters changes throughout the story. What causes these changes? How are these changes reflected in the speech of the characters?

5.In the text the words ‘terror’, ‘terrified’, ‘terrifying’ are used several times. Can you recall the situations and the characters these words refer to? Suggest your explanation of the title of the text.

III1.At the end of the story the murderer is found out. What punishment will he get? Suggest your continuation of the story.

2.Imagine that you are Sergeant Vanneck. Describe Vince’s behaviour while you were searching for evidence. What seemed strange to you? In what way did the boy’s behaviour change when you found the unquestionable evidence?

3.Sometimes there is very little evidence but nevertheless detectives manage to find the criminal. Even in the most elaborate crime there must be something that has been overlooked by the criminal. What can give a criminal away? Recall some examples.

4.Additional tasks.

a)Sort out the two stories and retell them.

The Loan / The Burglar

1) Among my best friends are Joe and his wife Alice, who live in a nice little house near Manchester.

2) When, as a newly married couple, they had just returned from their honeymoon, they got a pleasant surprise in the post one morning - two tickets for the best show in town.

3) They enjoyed the show; when they reached home they found that their house had been broken into and that all their wedding presents had been taken.

4) There was a note from the burglar propped up on the pillow in the bedroom saying, “Now you know.”

5)The donor neglected to send his name, and all day the couple’s question was, “Wonder who it is?”

6) George Smith had lent a friend $500 but he had nothing in writing confirming the loan.

7) The friend proved to be untrustworthy, and as George thought he would lose the $500, he asked his father for advice.

8) “That’s not so hard, George,” said his father. “Write to him and say you need the $1000 at once.”

9) “You mean the $500,” George interrupted.

10) “No, I don’t! Say a thousand pounds and he will write back he only owes you $500.”

11) “Then you’ll have it in writing.”

b)Read the story sentence by sentence and find logical mistakes.

John Adams is an amateur detective who spends all his time trying to solve crimes. Yesterday at about nine o’clock in the afternoon he saw his brother Joe walk up to a red car, get into it and ride off at a steady trot. Three days later at exactly the same time he thought he saw the same thing. He couldn’t be absolutely sure as it was already getting dark and the woman was holding an umbrella over her face to protect her from the fog. Later that day when Adams had observed several other suspicious people he walked to the next village and handed his report to the head waiter at New Scotland Yard.

Unit 13. “Take the Witness!” (by Robert Charles Benchley)

I 1.Below are some extracts from court cases. In all but one of them a silly question is asked. Which one?

a) “And the youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he?”

b) “Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?”

“No.”

“Did you check for blood pressure?”

“No.”

“Did you check for breathing?”

“No.”

“How can you be so sure, doctor?”

“Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.”

“But could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?”

“It is possible that he could have been alive and practising law somewhere.”

c) “Was it you or your younger brother who was killed in the war?”

d) “You say the stairs went down to the basement?”

“Yes.”

“Did they also go up?”

e) “What were you doing at the time of the murder?’

“I was watching the football on TV.”

“Were you alone?”

“Yes, I was.”

“Who won the match?”

“Manchester United.”

f) “Now, doctor, isn’t it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn’t know about it until the next morning?”

g) “Were you present when your picture was taken?”

2.Which one did you find the most amusing?

3.The words and phrases in the box are all connected to the theme of law. Put the words under one of the headings below.