The Oberon Anthology of Contemporary Irish Plays

by Thomas Conway

  We’re not being encouraged by getting free needles

  We’re not interfering in God’s Holy Plan with contraception

  We’re spreading diseases we know nothing about

  We’re stealing to pay for our habits

  We’re shooting to recover our debts

  We’re suffocating in our boxes

  We’re drinking whiskey for our regrets

  It’s okay though

  None of this is really happening

  They tell us it’s not happening

  SECTION FOUR, YEAH? THE NINETIES. THINGS HAVE BEEN GETTING WORSE FOR A VERY LONG TIME.

  – The footpaths are painted green, white and orange.

  The streetlamps are beginning to flicker.

  You can feel the sun on your back.

  There’s one less family at mass.

  Corrugated iron windows. The grass has been burnt. Destruction. Don’t say too much. You don’t have to.

  The space is as big as eleven acres, or as small as one. Looming over you. You’re standing across the road. It feels like the city has just stopped moving. It hasn’t. But that’s how it feels. You can hear humming. A red car passes you. You don’t see many of those nowadays.

  Looking at all the windows makes your eyes squint. There’s all these holes in the walls and you wonder about them.

  If you look past the railings that cage the whole thing in, you can see the dirty syringes in the muck where the grass used to grow. Or maybe you just saw that on television.

  You walk inside and you can feel the weight of people inside. If you look up, it feels like everything might fall down.

  There’s a Guard [policeman] standing here 24 hours a day.

  He has to stand here all day.

  And there’s a van at every block.

  There are no other parts of the city now and this is a war zone.

  – A war zone is better than a famine though.

  – Yeah.

  This is where everyone feels like they’re serving time, and the whole country comes to buy drugs.

  And you can even buy a gun here, now that the troubles are over.

  But you’re afraid to actually own anything, in case it gets robbed.

  Where were you when Ireland lost in Italia ’90?

  – That was the first time I saw me da cry.

  – This is the part where everything gets terrifying.

  Where all the colours are dark and nothing makes sense. Everybody is acting on impulse, or autopilot. This is the bit where we all stood up and ran. We left empty flats behind us and people moved in and started banging up.

  This is the bit where the hero dies of AIDS, and the heroine gets raped.

  Where the baby was born with an addiction, where the mattress was set on fire.

  This is when her ribs were broken. Ireland lost in Italia ’90.

  This was the moment when we got rich. And you might say, if you weren’t there, that this was when we split. Before we were all together, and some of us were poorer or less well off than others. But now this is the part where we’ve all succeeded, and everybody else has fucked it up for themselves.

  This is the moment before the end of the war. The bit where the most people die. The bit where the most irrational choices are made. The camera pans out and all the casualties are lying in the street.

  This is when we’ll feel like we can’t take it anymore. Where we’ll declare that we want to die. Where we’ll decide that the situation is inevitable, and that change is impossible.

  Things have just been getting worse for a very long time.

  We might come together for the very first time. We might organize effectively for change. We might use our fists. But when it comes to tell the story, we won’t be able to remember.

  This is when we’ll knock it all down. Because we’re at our rock bottom. And now we need to fight.

  This is what it feels like when pressure builds. When the emersion is left on for too long. When the pot boils over and something has to happen. This is the bit where the guy who was saying ‘What are you looking at?,’ actually beat up the guy who was looking at him.

  – We’re moving now

  We’re going

  We’re putting ourselves on the agenda

  God is saying they can’t grow poppies anymore

  They’re flying over Columbia with poisons

  We’re purring

  We’re swimming

  We’re going for gold

  We’re spending money

  We’re teaching children

  We’re wearing tracksuits and getting our rings engraved

  We’re coming together and doing things we saw in films

  We’re getting guns and nicknames

  We just don’t give a fuck

  We’re killing Veronica Guerin

  We’re paying off our mortgages

  We’re getting jobs in Industrial Estates

  We’re hearing the secrets from industrial schools

  We’re moving

  We’re kicking Josie Dwyer

  We’re packing out our prisons

  We’re taking down our net curtains

  We’re going on holidays to Spain

  We’re buying a new car

  We’re complaining about insurance

  We’re building

  We’re moving

  We’re blaring rap songs out our windows

  We’re hopeful

  Swings and roundabouts

  We’re watching Saturday morning television

  We’re wearing multi-coloured caps

  We’re playing with our Pogs

  We’re robbing cars and driving in the park

  We’re walking into the bushes

  We’re in an epidemic

  We’re jumping off a tower block

  We’re collapsing our veins

  We’re injecting into our feet

  We’re living in stairwells

  We’re taking ecstacy with our Evian

  We’re getting our pictures in the papers

  We’re easing the sickness with methadone

  We’re going to clinics twice a week

  We’re breaking our balls to help people

  We’re raising a profile

  We’re understanding the situation

  We’re on committees

  We’re strategizing

  We’re forward thinking

  We’re building help in our communities

  We’re making our marches bigger

  We’re hearing that Brenda’s got a baby

  We’re containing it off the beaten track

  We’re hiding from tourists

  We’re left to our own devices

  We’re killing each other

  I’m sorry

  We can’t say it’s not happening anymore

  SECTION FIVE. THE TWO THOUSANDS. YOU ARE NEVER GONNA UNDERSTAND.

  – I’m not doing this tomorrow night.

  – And you know, you feel very alone

  – She can read that book all she likes but she’s never gonna understand

  – I’m sorry

  I am sorry

  I don’t think I can do this anymore

  I’m lost

  I’m falling apart

  I’m losing

  Sorry

  I’m sorry but

  I don’t think I can do this anymore

  I’m sorry

  I am really fucking sorry

  I just want it all to end

  I don’t think I can stay quiet anymore

  I don’t know what to say

  I’m sorry

  I am

  It’s all my fault

  Nobody forced me to do anything

  It is all my fault

  And I’m sorry

  I’m sick

  I’m really feeling sick now

  I’ve lost it all

  And I need help

  I don’t want to do this anymore

  I don’t wan
t to do this anymore

  I don’t want any of this anymore

  Okay?

  None of it

  Nothing

  I’m lost

  I would like to be able to join in

  I would like to calm down

  Look at me

  Please

  Can you just look at me?

  I feel like I never had anything to lose

  I can’t do this anymore

  I can’t even wake up

  I’m finished

  I don’t even know this

  I can’t even notice

  Can you please tell me what to do?

  Can you please tell me what the fuck I’m supposed to do?

  I don’t know how this works

  I wish I could see a video of my life

  I wish someone had recorded it

  I wish there was a record

  I wish I was caught on CCTV

  Help me

  Please

  Can someone just help me?

  Please

  Can you just look at me?

  Can you just look at me?

  Please?

  I think that might help

  Look at me

  Look at me

  Look at me

  I’m sick

  I’m really fucking dying sick now

  Please

  – I’m in my dress just waiting to sing, look lovely, etc.

  This is what happened

  We took drugs

  We took any drugs we could get our hands on

  Because we were scared of being normal

  Of having to live with our heads

  Because horrible things happened to us

  Or because nothing ever happened to us

  Because our fathers drank and battered us

  Because our mothers never washed our uniforms

  Because we had no socks

  Because we couldn’t tell the time

  Because we couldn’t tie our laces

  And we felt nothing

  And we didn’t know how

  And we ran

  And I was there and I saw it

  This is what happened

  I was there and I saw it

  And I wrote my name on a wall

  This is what happened

  We took drugs

  Because we wanted to take drugs

  We wanted to feel different

  This is what happened

  I stole handbags and wallets

  And I smashed windows with bricks

  This is what happened

  I took cocaine

  And crack cocaine

  And I mixed my methadone with heroin

  And I lied to the relieving officer

  And I ran

  This is what happened, my uncle took me into a room and told me to undress

  This is what happened, I slept under a bridge

  This is what happened, my teacher humiliated me in front of the class

  This is what happened, my brother was better than me

  My daughter kept crying

  I didn’t know what the fuck else to do

  I couldn’t fill in the form

  I couldn’t give directions

  I spread the poison

  And nobody mentioned it

  This is what happened

  We were told we were nothing

  We had nothing

  This is what happened

  Our address came with a stigma

  We never did well in school

  Our parents were bad parents

  I was there and I saw it

  And I wrote my name on a wall

  I was there

  This is about everything that ever happened

  Because we needed to talk about this

  Because we couldn’t

  Because we needed to be on the dark side of life

  Because we believed in God

  Because we left the empire

  Because we saw our fathers peddle death to people we didn’t know

  Because we never saw anything

  Because we were bored

  This is what happened

  I was there and I saw it

  I was there

  I was there

  Because we had no sense of pride in ourselves

  Because our parents shouted over our heads while they cleaned our faces

  Because we injected cigarettes

  Because we mainlined McDonald’s

  Because we rubbed vodka into our pores

  Because we were disqualified in Italia ’90

  Because Tony Gregory had the balance of power

  Because we needed something to feel well

  Because we ran

  This is about everything that ever happened

  One day you will wake up and you won’t want this anymore

  You will see everything laid out in front of you

  For the first time

  You will really see what’s on offer

  And you won’t want it

  It’s the minute when the choice is there

  It only lasts a minute though

  One day you’re caught or you have no veins to inject into And you claim that this is a crisis, a desperate problem that you need help in overcoming

  A photograph of thirteen people, everyone of them dead but you

  And now you have to look at it and stop running

  We learn to find hope in small things

  In the mundanity of everyday life

  We are afraid of reliving our past, that looking back might finish us off altogether

  Nobody is forcing us to

  Nobody can

  We’re getting something to take the sickness away

  We learnt to find hope in the small things

  We’re sleeping in one of thirty detox beds

  We are afraid of reliving our past

  But we’ve collapsed all our veins

  We can’t take one more turn on

  So they gave us something to take the sickness away

  We can’t bury what had happened under a ton of drugs

  We can’t face thinking about what happened

  We’re taking something so we won’t get sick

  But we’re not getting better

  We’re drug free, and we’ve never looked back

  We’re starting to live in the world again

  We’re trying to be adults, but we never learnt how to be children

  We’ve stopped stealing, we’re legal, above board

  And almost as sick as ever

  Sick, but different

  We’re telling our story

  We’re sweating and our teeth are rotting

  They gave us something so we wouldn’t get sick

  But we are not getting better

  We were bored

  And the temptation was too strong

  We couldn’t move forward

  We couldn’t face it

  So we ran again

  We smoke heroin at the weekends

  We are confronting it all head on

  We feel all the pain and the guilt

  We surrendered

  We are were powerless

  And we are still sick

  We have switched to smoking crack

  Our teeth are rotting and we can’t even smile

  We can’t go on holidays without their permission

  But we are were living

  We are here

  Still

  Just

  Just here

  We are here

  We are standing here

  In the moment that is the aftermath and the beginning But we don’t know what yet

  – We’re sticking around for longer

  We’re fighting a war on terror

  We’re shaking hands in Northern Ireland

  We’re roaring for a while – we are

  We’re mixing our heroin with cocaine

  We’re getting weaker hits for big
ger prices

  We’re slitting skin for seventy quid

  We’re all working in offices

  We’re drinking Starbucks and wearing Gap

  We’re getting LA tattooed on our necks

  We’re moving now

  We are

  We’re moving now

  We’re taking off our rings

  We’re injecting into our groins at this stage

  We’re taking a ten percent cut

  We’re talking about leaving

  We’re robbing and selling people to feed our habits

  We’re really fucking dying sick

  We’re paying off our sons’ debts

  We’re using our guns like toys

  We’re spreading out

  It’s countrywide

  We’re crying about not seeing our children

  We’re trying to be better

  We’re putting other people first

  We’re watching people nodding off on YouTube

  We’re taking shits in lane ways

  We’re buying weed in shops

  We’re drinking more than we ever have

  We don’t know how to stop

  We’re living on the streets

  We’re getting our dole cut

  We’re contracting Hepatitis C

  We’re knocking it all down

  We’re operating the bulldozers

  We’re having wakes for buildings

  We’re tasting dust in our mouths

  We’re documenting our past

  We’re putting our gardens at the front

  We’re not living on top of each other

  We’re shaking hands with politicians

  We’re making murals about Hope

  We’re missing a generation

  We’re feeling this huge sense of loss

  We’re trying to forget

  We’re thinking it doesn’t affect us

  We’re feeling this huge sense of loss

  We’re talking about our memories

  We’re watching it all crash down around us

  We can’t believe it’s happening again

  We’re worrying about what We’re leaving behind us

  We’re strung out on methadone

  We don’t know if we want to stop

  We’ve accepted

  We’ve separated

  We’re being fragmented

  And screaming about feeling fragmented

  And this is what We’re up against

  We feel this huge sense of loss

  And we’ve lost

  We have lost

  We’re starting again

  We’re starting again

  TRADE

  BY

  MARK O’HALLORAN

  All rights whatsoever in this play are strictly reserved and application for performance etc. should be made before commencement of rehearsal to the Author c/o Oberon Books Ltd. No performance may be given unless a licence has been obtained, and no alterations may be made in the title or the text of the play without the author’s prior written consent.