Rain Falls on Everyone

by Rain Falls on Everyone (retail) (epub)

  It’d been something of a rough start. He’d had to prove himself on the streets a few times and he’d the scars to prove it. The usual crap – ‘What ye doin’ here? Go back to your jungle!’ – but in some ways, the lads and ladies who surfed chemical waves through Dublin’s looking glass were less worried about difference than the people on the other side of the mirror. At least no one ever roared at him that he was taking Irish people’s jobs. In Dublin’s dingy underworld, the colour of his skin was less of a problem. And so when he couldn’t get an engineering job after college, Theo moved to Merrickstown because by then he was working regularly with Ronan and besides, rents were cheap.

  “Where d’you go to school again?” Theo asked now, trying to steer the conversation away from Ronan.

  “I’m at the Mercy, same year as Grace, Deirdre’s girl. But we’re in different classes, so I don’t really know her so well.”

  “So you’ve got the Leaving coming up then?”

  “Yeah. I’m terrified. My parents say they expect big things from me. Ronan didn’t do well, he’s on the dole now, so I’m their last chance. Me ma’ll go mad if she can’t boast to the other mothers. Especially if they’re already crowing bout their kids, which most of them are.”

  No flies on this one, Theo thought.

  “Most important exam of your life,” he said.

  “And was it? For you?” she said.

  He’d a feeling she was smiling at it all – her job, his job, this place, and the whole maxed-out country. Definitely not dim, he realised.

  “Ah yeah,” he smiled back. “I wouldn’t be where I am today without it.”

  She gasped a laugh and quickly swallowed its tail. Her face was different when she smiled. He could see no resemblance to Ronan. He’d known Ronan had a sister, but that was all. Their pub talk, which was always an obligation for Theo, never went beyond football, commenting on the tits on the girls nearby, or Ronan’s passion for fast cars. Ronan was what Theo liked to call a spacer – all space, nothing inside. He knew that wasn’t what the word really meant but nobody used it much any more so he felt it was alright to make it his own and graft another meaning onto it.

  Theo remembered that Michael was coming round and that he’d better get a move on if he didn’t want Precious to eat the head off him.

  “You on tomorrow?”

  “Yeah,” Cara said, the shyness and hesitancy creeping back into her voice. “I think we’re all in at midday, that’s usually the way on Saturday. That’ll be my last day for a while though. Gotta hit the books. See ya then.”

  Theo was surprised at how happy it made him to know that he would.

  CHAPTER THREE

  It was drizzling outside. Funny word that: drizzle. It was one of the first new words Theo learned in Ireland. It was a perfect word, holding within it the soft sound of the almost-rain while also managing to suggest this rain was not really serious. Frivolous, fizzle rain. Still, he squinted at the sky, it might get heavier later. He walked briskly down the street, past pubs that were beginning to hum ahead of the Friday night rush. He pulled his earphones from his pocket.

  This week, he was listening to a podcast about Patrick Kavanagh’s poems. This was Theo’s greatest secret – bigger than the fact that he dealt reasonably small amounts of coke, yokes and pot around Dublin, bigger than the fact that his teacher father had also been a murderer, even bigger than the fact that he drank vodka like a girl. He was hooked on the magic that happened when a set of words came together perfectly – meaning, metre and melody fusing to make something that opened a door through which he could sometimes, almost, see everything.

  It all started with Máistear Burke, of course. He’d given him a book of poems by Yeats, then one by Paul Durcan, Séamus Heaney and so on. It was after Theo got an A in Irish in his Junior Cert. Burke was there when they were handing out the envelopes and gave him a spontaneous hug, which seemed to embarrass them both mid-embrace. Overwhelmed by the screechy frenzy exploding all around him, Theo had haltingly tried to explain how he felt about Irish, and really any language. He’d said something lame about words being like keys, helping him unlock the Irish and Ireland, and all the other things he had to unlock because of who he was and where he came from. It was like he was drunk on all the pimply potential in the noisy school hall with its climbing frames, basketball hoops and gamy air.

  Burke’s eyes had teared up – some sensitive eejits did that when he so much as hinted at his past – and he said Theo should consider going to uni to study literature. But by the time he did his Leaving, two years later, Theo had messed up and a whole set of doors had slammed shut on him. There were no excuses but if he were to look for triggers, there was the pot he’d started smoking, and the way that led to his schoolyard dealing and everything that followed. But it wasn’t just the pot. A kind of lethargy settled over him as he hit his late teens. Ennui: another wonderful word. He couldn’t say it right, but when others said it, it sounded so ace. It even looked the part: downturned mouths in the middle. Some words were like that. One-of-a-kind, whatever the language.

  It was as though, having finally realised he had survived the end of his world, he hit a reality wall and couldn’t see past it. Until then, survival had seemed so precarious. He was never sure he could really cut it. But after the Junior Cert, he knew he’d done it. He was as Irish as anyone. And he didn’t know what to do with that. Having worked so hard to belong, he no longer knew what that meant. It was also around then that he started to have flashbacks to what really happened at the roadblock where they hid from the red-eyed, blood-stained men with the single purpose. He began to remember what he saw his father doing. Maybe it was the pot, loosening the screws on the box where he’d hidden these things. Or maybe it was because of the mud on the rugby pitch that sodden winter, or maybe it was because of the butterflies that descended in droves on Dublin one summer during that time. One or all of these things flipped a switch, and he couldn’t find it again to turn off the light spearing holes into the corners of his mind.

  Theo turned onto Raymond Street, taking the corner recklessly and then swerving to avoid an old lady bent like a question mark, pulling one of those cloth shopping baskets on wheels. We should’ve had one of those when we ran, he thought idly. You could fit a whole life into one of them. The woman tut-tutted laboriously, swaying towards him, slow like an old clock’s pendulum. Theo scattered a load of ‘sorrys’ towards her and pulling his hood lower over his forehead, he legged it, eyes down. There might be more colour on Ireland’s streets now than the original forty shades of white, but it was still best to keep a low profile. Tolerance was a real fair-weather friend on this island and now that the party was over, it was slinking off home for a good long sleep. It wasn’t as bad as when he first arrived but you still never knew when you might be looking around at the flowers-and-the-bees and find your eyes stuck on a tosser in a trackie who’d be after you for looking at him strange. De Niro moments, Theo called them. In some ways, Dublin, or at least his Dublin, was as divided as the place he’d come from. Just that the violence here was mostly suppressed, behind closed doors, or rising, like bubbles, from the bottom of a glass, sharp and sudden and soon over. People rarely went the whole hog. They’d more to lose, he supposed. That must be the difference.

  As he turned into his own road, the presenter in his ears was reading:

  I have lived in important places, times

  When great events were decided: who owned

  That half a rood of rock, a no-man’s land

  Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims.

  Michael’s silver BMW was parked outside the flat. Leaning against the wall was one of the boyos from the high-rise across the street. A pimply strip with a fag hanging out of his mouth and dirty blonde hair sticking out from the Man U cap pulled low over his forehead. Watch duty. Michael always made sure someone had his back. Theo made a note to keep well clear of the kid in future. He was obviously another one on Michael’s expanding pay roll
. And that essentially meant he was part of the Gerrity empire. It’d be a couple of quid now, maybe a yoke or two on the house, but in a few years he’d be climbing the ranks, hoping for the moment when he’d be able to pay someone to mind his own bike. Theo kept his eyes down. After he’d stormed up the stairs to the flat, he paused, and ran his sleeve across his face to wipe off the mix of drizzle and sweat. He didn’t want Michael to think he was in any way worried or harassed. Michael had a short fuse, a vicious temper and a suspicious mind. No need to give him a reason to start fretting. Especially if he had a new delivery stashed somewhere, ready to be doled out. That always made him skittish and that had to be why he was here. Michael didn’t do social calls any more – not since he’d become someone in Gerrity’s crew.

  The man himself was sitting on the sofa, legs stretched out like he owned the place. Precious was in the kitchenette, making tea. Her face was blank but she was dressed to kill. She looked up when Theo walked in, made a face and pointedly glared at the clock over the TV. He shrugged and did the dickhead sign. Her lips twitched but she refused to smile and went back to shovelling sugar into the chipped mugs.

  Michael swivelled on the sofa but didn’t get up. He acknowledged Theo with a slight lift of the head, like he was some kind of royalty and Theo just a bogtrotter. Theo took a breath. No point in it.

  “Howya?” He stood above Michael for a moment, just for the kicks and to remind the jumped-up chancer that this was his flat. And that he was taller.

  “I’m good, man. I’m good,” Michael said, reaching up to fist bump Theo. He was wearing a new gold chain, this one with a shiny dollar sign hanging from it. He wouldn’t be able to stand up soon for the bling. New jeans too and black-and-gold trainers. Things must be good in Barry Gerrity’s world.

  “I hear you’ve a new job. Nice. My neck of the woods so let me know if you need anything or have any issues, like, with the owner or pay or hours or what have ye,” Michael said.

  Theo stifled a smile. ‘Issues’ must be Michael’s word of the week. He might’ve left school after his Junior Cert but he was always trying to talk posher than the street cur he was. Theo supposed it fit the image Michael had of a proper boss man, like Gerrity, who was no slouch and spoke like a teacher in a quiet, measured voice. Boss men always spoke softly – all taking their cues from The Godfather. Theo could just imagine Gerrity, with his round, friendly-butcher’s face, using the word ‘issues’.

  He’d only met him the once, when he started dealing for Michael exclusively this year. Five minutes of chat in a near-empty pub early on a Sunday in Sandymount. It was said Gerrity’s Sandymount pad was just one of five houses he had in the city. Not to mention the villa in Spain and, if you believed Michael, who was equal parts lick-arse employee and the one man most terrified of Gerrity, a loft apartment in Amsterdam. Theo had met Michael, who spent his early years in the badlands between Ballymun and Finglas and now lived with his mother in Merrickstown, through Ronan, who treated Michael with a cloying, poodle-eyed respect. It drove Theo mad. He wondered if there were actually any dealers in Dublin who weren’t thickos or wankers, or both.

  “Thanks, man,” Theo said. How the hell did Michael know bout the job? Ronan must’ve told him, he was worse than an old lady for gossip. Michael would be even more unbearable now. He’d probably waltz in one evening for a lobster whateveritwas, just to prove some kind of point.

  “Seems alright so far and I’m just washing dishes. It’s not like I’m gonna be there long. It’s just to tide me over, like, until I find something else.”

  Precious sauntered over and handed Michael his tea.

  “Thanks, love,” he said, his smile a little too friendly. But the flash of yellow teeth below his patchy blonde moustache was wasted on Precious.

  “Right, I’m going out now,” she said flatly, plonking Theo’s cup on the low table by the sofa.

  She grabbed her leather jacket off the back of Theo’s chair, taking care not to touch him in a way that made him know he’d not been touched. He’d be for it later, he thought, watching her ample rear stalk out of the door – like a cat’s raised tail, it left him in no doubt about her mood. He turned back to find Michael giving her arse an eyeful too.

  “Keep your eyes to yourself,” Theo growled, his anger besting his characteristic caution.

  Michael laughed, too loud, like he was one of the Sopranos about to take out the piano wire.

  “Easy, Theo. Sure, looking never hurt anyone. You’ve got a good one there. Park a bike in that.”

  “So, what’s the story? Good stuff coming in?” Theo said, mainly to stop himself from saying or doing anything else. So much of his interaction with Michael involved fighting the urge to smash his fist into the spanner’s face. It was a battle he knew he must always win. Michael might be a little younger but he was a rising star in Gerrity’s world. His mother was the big man’s cousin or something, and he’d been dealing drugs since he was fifteen. Done jail time too and there was talk that he’d had a hand in Billy Mannion’s disappearance late last year. Billy, a ferret of a man who had driven for Gerrity, was said to have lifted a bag or two off one of the loads of coke. Word was that he was nabbed one night as he walked home from the pub. Never seen again but Neville had heard that he was in the Wicklow mountains. In bits too small for the plodding Gardaí to find, even if they did ever chance to look in the right place.

  Michael sipped his tea slowly, taking his own sweet time. He’s watched too many episodes of The Sopranos for sure, thought Theo, resisting the urge to get up and grab a beer from the fridge. If he had a beer, he’d have to offer Michael one and, as well as being vicious and easily riled, the man was a piss-poor drinker.

  Michael swallowed and set the cup down on the ring-marked cheap table, alongside Precious’ VIP magazines. Probably fancies himself in the society pages, Theo thought.

  “It’s better than good. It’s fucking A-1,” Michael said, leaning back and spreading his legs wide. “All the way from South America via the muchachos in Spain. But it’s a lot. Ten kilos. Top drawer stuff. Himself wants us to look into new channels of distribution.” The last words came out in an American drawl.

  Theo had to physically stop himself from rolling his eyes. No wonder Precious despised Michael. What did she call him? Agbero. It meant some kind of street thug in Lagos. He looked out the window to hide the smile that was forming on his lips. A crack opened in the clouds and the evening sun hit the window, electrifying the dust mites. Precious wasn’t the world’s best housekeeper, it had to be said.

  “I have never cleaned,” she’d declared shortly after she moved in, her emphatic tone suggesting this was the end of a long-running and dull discussion.

  She explained that, in Lagos, an elderly lady from the delta had managed her parents’ house. Precious had not moved to the developed world to start cleaning, she said. So Theo had taken on the role of housekeeper. But he had to admit he was no great shakes as a cleaner.

  “Gerrity wants us to hit some of the swankier clubs, round Jarvis Street, Temple Bar, and then out to Drumcondra and Clontarf. He’s thinking of heading into Maynooth as well but that’s a ways down the road yet. Need to get the supply regular first, iron out any issues. We’ll need new lads though, drivers, proper crews, the lot.” This last was said with a touch of pride.

  “This is it, Theo. This is the big time. Gerrity says this supply line is a dead cert, proper pros. We’ve cut the first batch already. Wouldn’t want to blow the heads off the punters now, would we?”

  Theo nodded, wondering again how he had got in so deep, so fast. If only he’d stayed in that night, instead of going for a few scoops with Neville, who’d introduced him to Ronan, who’d introduced him to Michael. If only he had done better in his Leaving. If only the bottom hadn’t fallen out of the economy right when he’d got out of college. But none of those things were really reasons and in any case, if he was playing the blame game, he should really go back even further: if only Juvénal Habyarimana�
�s plane had not been shot out of the sky above Kigali; if only the Belgians hadn’t divided Hutus and Tutsis to play them off each other in the first place; if only his father hadn’t killed Shema, which surely he wouldn’t have if that roadblock hadn’t been there. If only. The two saddest words in the world.

  He wondered, as Michael kept up his blather about ‘expansion’ – another Gerrity word for sure – if the cops would start to watch him now. He wasn’t the only black in the village these days, so he didn’t stand out as before, but ever since Operation Clean Streets in the late 90s, the Gardaí had been cracking down on everyone. Not that it worked. There was more stuff coming in everyday and more lads trying to get in on the act. Drugs were probably the only growth industry around at the moment. That and the violence that came with the trade; turf wars started by tanned gangsters in Spanish villas and ending with dead bodies on damp Dublin streets. Still, he was probably just under the radar for now, and that’s the way he wanted it to stay. Rumour was the cops didn’t care about the little lads anyway. It was the big guys with the foreign villas they really had their eyes on. The Gerritys. Mind you, if the boss was looking to expand, it might be time to think about getting out. Who knew who Gerrity might piss off, and it wouldn’t be him facing the barrel of a gun on a dark street. It’d be lads like Theo.

  “Anyway, we need to shift these 10k first. I’ll leave ye this to get ye going.” Michael dug into the pocket of his bomber jacket and threw six plastic bags onto the couch beside him, with a piece of paper. “There’s loads more where that came from. Gerrity wants you to try around Jarvis this weekend – ye know what he thinks about open markets and selling on the streets. Not happening. So get a gang together, friends, no one in the business, and go to the clubs I’ve written down there. On the QT, like. As far as we know, there’s no one else selling snow in those places for now, so just take it easy and see what the craic is. Can ye do that, Theo?”