Surviving Michael

by Birchall, Joseph

  After about a minute she pulled an opened condom out of God knows where and pushed it down hard over me mickey, then got up on top of me. I closed me eyes again and thought about the bird in Centra, but it just wasn’t happenin’. I could feel meself gettin’ softer so I said to her, ‘sorry, it must be the drink’ and she got off me.

  I said sorry to her again, and she left the room, and I dressed meself in the red lights. When I got outside, the lads gave me a bit of a slaggin’ about it bein’ very quick. But I didn’t mind the slaggin’. At least they stopped calling me a virgin after that night. That at least was worth the seventy euro.

  We drive for a while but nobody’s talkin’. Danny just keeps lookin’ ahead and doesn’t look at any of us. I think he’s cryin’. The big sap. So what if she left yeh, move on like. She’s not the only bleedin’ bird in the world. I’m about to tell him this, but we pull into the car park in Temple Bar. Fuckin’ place is jam packed. Full of poxy tourists.

  ‘Where to first?’ I ask when we’re out of the car.

  ‘There,’ Nick says, pointing to a hole in the wall. ‘And don’t be shy, big man. Take out a few hundred.’

  ‘Wha’?’ I says.

  ‘Who’d you think was going to pay for your stuff?’

  ‘For fuck sake,’ I say.

  ‘The appointment’s at three in the hairdressers,’ Charlie says, ‘so that gives us an hour or so to get him some proper gear to wear.’

  ‘Why don’t you go with him, Charlie,’ Nick says, ‘and then we’ll meet up later.’

  ‘I’m not spending the whole bleedin’ afternoon with him on me own.’

  Nick nods towards Danny, who has his back to us all and is starin’ at a wall.

  ‘Fuck sake,’ Charlie says. ‘Come on then, let’s go. Just keep your bleedin’ mouth shut, right?’

  ‘You’re not the boss of me,’ I tell him.

  ‘I fucking mean it, ye bollocks.’

  Nick

  DANNY AND I walk into the nearest pub, sit at the bar, and I order two pints. The place is stained with the usual Saturday afternoon’s inner city primates. An elderly man with foggy eyes looks straight ahead, captivated by nothing captivating. He sits at a table near the toilets, sipping on his Guinness, and bordering on a cliché. His right arm dutifully raises and lowers his pint like the pendulum of a clock, ticking away another uneventful hour in his tragic but unspoken about life.

  A young couple, who look in their twenties but are most likely teenagers, sit two tables away from him with a pram and an unseen, unheard child separating them. On their table are two almost empty glasses of Budweiser, two packets of John Player Blue cigarettes and two mobile phones; hers pink, his with a tri-colour cover. He’s wearing a blue Dublin jersey, and his left arm sports a small black tattoo that says “Sandra”, which looks like he’s drawn himself. I wonder if she’s Sandra.

  He’s biting ferociously on his nails, and spits out the pieces, more towards rather than in the ashtray. Sandra’s phone rings to the tune of “Jingle Bells,” (it’s July), and looks at the call display before answering.

  ‘Where the fuck are ye?’ she barks into the phone, ‘we’ve been waiting for ages for ye.’

  She’s actually quite pretty, with perfectly symmetrical features. She’s thin, a little undernourished rather than fashionably thin. She has, however, about as much grace as the fifty-year-old bartender who’d served us and who hadn’t bothered to shave this morning, but her eyes are as clear as piano music and laced with all the tragedy of a violin solo. She certainly isn’t as moronic as the father of her child, but perhaps sometimes she wished she was. The only thing worse than living a fucked up life, is having the capacity to recognise just how fucked up and abysmal it truly is.

  When half of Danny’s pint is gone, the white knuckled grip on his pint starts to ease. I start off gently.

  ‘Do you think Liam’ll go through with it?’

  He finally looks at me, and with an expression that he’s unsure of what I’m talking about at first, but he eventually says, ‘no.’

  I tell him that any person is capable of doing anything so long as you catch them at the right time and the right motivation is applied. He thinks about this and then disagrees. I talk a bit about the girls from last night as we finish our pints. I order two more, and he pays.

  As the bartender puts them down in front of us and then walks away, I turn to him.

  ‘So, have you and Ruby split up?’

  ‘Don’t mention that cunt’s name to me,’ he says and grips his pint glass again.

  ‘Wow, Jesus, Danny,’ I say, ‘what happened?’

  He doesn’t say anything and I don’t push him.

  He lowers his head into his pint, as if ashamed. ‘She done the dirt on me, the bitch.’

  ‘Oh, shit. Sorry,’

  He puts his elbow on the bar and then rests his head in his hand. ‘She’s pregnant.’

  ‘Oh fuck,’ I say. I’m aware that all my exclamations of disbelief aren’t helping. ‘And it’s not yours?’

  He doesn’t say anything. The next question I have to ask. I shouldn’t. But I have to.

  ‘Did she tell whose it is?’

  He looks at me again, his eyes red. ‘If I knew who it was, do you think I’d be sitting in the pub here with you?’ He doesn’t just talk. The words seep out of his mouth like red mince from a meat grinder.

  We don’t say anything for a few minutes.

  ‘So you’ve split up now?’

  He raises his head as if a loud noise has shocked him awake. ‘Of course we’ve fucking split up.’

  The bartender looks over at us.

  ‘She wants to split up with you?’ I ask.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did she say she wants to split up with you?’

  ‘No, but, we have. What are you talking about?’

  ‘It’s just that...’

  ‘Just what?’

  ‘It’s just that, well... Ruby... she’s a cracking bird, like.’

  ‘Nick, what the fuck are you talking about?’

  ‘Danny when you met her, we all met her at the same time. I remember the night. I think nearly every bloke in the place tried it on with her. Let’s be honest, most still do. But out of every bloke there she talked to you. I remember you walking out of the place with her phone number. It was like you were seven foot tall and on speed. And now you practically live together. There are a lot of blokes out there that would...’

  ‘Nick, what the fuck are you talking about?’

  ‘She made a mistake, Danny?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Everyone fucks up now and again.’

  ‘You’re defending her?’

  ‘No, I’m not. I...’

  ‘You’re supposed to be telling me how much of a cunt she is. Agreeing with me.’

  ‘No, you’re right. But...’

  ‘How the fuck does someone cheat on you by mistake?’ The bartender looks over at us again. Danny is almost shouting. ‘People lose their keys by mistake. They crash their cars by mistake. They even get pregnant by mistake, I’ll give her that, but they don’t fuck somebody else by mistake.’

  ‘Are you alright there, lads,’ the bartender calls over. The young couple looks over at us. The old man doesn’t.

  ‘We’re grand,’ I tell him. ‘Sorry about that.’

  Danny is looking down into the murkiness of his pint again, his stretched knuckles covering the glass.

  Three tourists, Spanish-looking, walk in the side door, look around the bar, look at each other and then leave. The sounds of their disturbance and the slamming door settle down like dust, and the muffled din of the outside world gradually returns.

  Charlie

  IS IT JUST ME, or does everyone get hornier as they get older? It’s only been about six hours since I left that red head chick splayed out on her bed and I’m walking around like I’ve just been released after twelve months in Mountjoy. Having less sex doesn’t make you less horny, it’s the o
pposite. Just like hitting a pillow when you’re angry doesn’t take away your anger, it just makes you more pissed off. This heat ain’t helping. Or maybe it’s because at eighteen I would only have found girls aged in between sixteen to mid-twenties attractive. But now that I’m in my thirties, I’m into anything from a half decent fifty year old right back to eighteen. My spectrum of fuckable opportunities has certainly broadened considerably, making a much larger percentage of the female population a more rideable and viable possibility. Liam is trying on some more shirts, and I’m perving on all the female customers. Sometimes when I’m out walking somewhere, I’ll see a girl in her twenties with the most perfect of arses and I’ll just follow her. It’s a form of meditation for me. Why is the arse so attractive, anyway? It doesn’t make sense. What the fuck is Liam doing in there? I feel like one of those moronic-looking boyfriends sitting in a chair outside the dressing room, his bird’s shopping bags piled up around him; a look of complete disinterest emanating from his ludicrous face as he eyes up every good looking chick in the place. Wait a second. That’s exactly what I’m doing now. He’s already spent over a hundred quid on shoes and a pair of trousers, bitching to me every minute about having to part with his porno-earned cash. Christ that was embarrassing. For such a fat fucker with a gargantuan belly, the guy’s got no arse whatsoever. It’s like trying to dress a large, awkward piece of furniture. The boy’s really let himself go. Chicks used to laugh and not believe me when I told them that we’re cousins. Now they wouldn’t even believe we’re members of the same species, never mind family. And what the hell is he rabbiting on about making a porno film? Who does he think I am? When I started out in the escort agency, I was approached to do a scene in a film once. I did it for the laugh, but it was so boring I never did it again. Also I can earn in an afternoon what those guys make all day hanging around a film set shoveling in blue diamonds like they’re snacking on a packet of almonds. It’s the soft side of me, but I actually like pleasing those women. Some of them, admittedly, aren’t the most attractive ladies in the world. The only type of men they’d pick up in a bar would be at the lower end of the social pickings, and these are often powerful and professional women on over a hundred K a year. They deserve better than a married, fifty year old balding, beer bellied, sweaty, drunken loser pounding away on top of them for five minutes. They can afford the best, and they deserve the best. And I still believe that I am, if not the best, at least one of the best in my field. No matter what Richard says, I can still go head to head, no pun intended, with any of those Eastern European fuckers. I can also give my clients what the Poles have no chance of achieving. Sure, if a client just wants to be fucked and then grab a taxi for her flight home, then give Stanislav or Lukas her room number. But that’s not what I’m about. I have the touch. I can make the client feel like I’m paying them to be there. I listen to them. I nod sympathetically to their whining. I hold them. I make them realise how special they are. Sometimes I may kiss them. And often they even cry. Then, I fuck them. Richard doesn’t see that. He’s thinking short term. But he’s the one who can bring the clients in. He’s the one who has the contacts. I have to respect him for that. He’s sort of like mentor. I should text him to see how he’s getting on. I think he said the funeral was today. I didn’t even know he had a father. Well, I guess he had to have had a father, but he’s one of those people who you could never see seeking parental advice on anything, or even having a childhood as such. Like he was always that age, whatever age he is. Late fifties? It’s not that he looks young for his age, it’s just that he always looked like he was in his late fifties. A sort of Dorian Gray in reverse.

  ‘Is this okay?’

  I turn to see Liam in a tawdry and shapeless shirt. He needs one tailor-made, but we don’t have that much time, and quite possibly they don’t have that much cloth. I want to tell him it’s fine and it’ll do, but my professionalism and forever need of perfection overtakes my laziness.

  ‘It’s shit,’ I tell him.

  His half-expectant face collapses and goes sour, which funnily enough matches his shirt now. He turns back towards the changing room.

  ‘Do you think Danny’ll be alright?’ he asks me, rather loudly, before going back inside.

  I look at him. ‘I’m sure he’ll be fine,’ I lie.

  ‘He can be too nice. That’s his problem.’

  ‘Yeah, well like they say, nice guys always finish last,’ I tell him.

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Why is what?’

  ‘Why do nice guys always finish last?’ he asks me.

  I look at him for a few seconds and his expression reminds me of when we were children, and none of the other kids wanted to pick him to be on their team, and he couldn’t understand why, so I’d feel sorry for him and I’d chose him.

  ‘Because they fall in love too quickly and give too much of themselves,’ I tell him, ‘and then they don’t give the girl enough time to catch up and it suffocates the girl. So she leaves him. That’s why.’

  He stares at me as if I’ve just spoken to him in French.

  ‘We should keep an eye on him, though. Hopefully he’ll be alright, but we can burn that bridge when we come to it,’ he says. ‘What are mates for, eh?’

  Maybe he’s right. Being a good friend constitutes being biased or even prejudice. Christ. Mates can tie you down just as much as a wife and kids. Poxy mates are even worse than a poxy wife. Anyway, I can’t see Ruby coming out of this smelling of roses.

  I nod at him noncommittally, but I see he wants more. ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘what are mates for? What are mates for?’’

  Satisfied, he goes back into the changing cubicle, consuming its interior.

  Danny

  I WAS NEVER particularly fond of the word ‘cunt’. It normally spits out of its user’s mouth, and cuts the air as if shattering glass. I always found it crass, and would often cringe whenever it reared its ugly head at the behest of one of those moronic mechanics in my father’s garage. Strange then, as I listen to Nick drone on about something or other, that I find myself, almost unknowingly chanting over and over again in my mind a soothing mantra - cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt...

  My feelings are unable to be verbalised. They are like giant boulders slowly churning inside of me, their size too great to filter into my throat and be understood by mere words. Big blocks and chunks of feelings. Screaming might, no would, help, but that would only be several decibels away from a complete and utter nervous breakdown, and I have not crossed that line – at least not as yet.

  ‘Immaculate conception.’

  ‘What?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s not only a Christian phenomenon, you know. There are loads of religions from the Far East whose saviour was said to have been born of a virgin. Thousands of years even before Jesus was born. In fact, in India...’

  ‘Nick, what the fuck are you talking about?

  ‘I’m just saying that...’

  ‘That what? Ruby conceived by Immaculate Conception?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Then, shut the fuck up, will you?’

  Nick raises his hand to the barman, who’s looking over at us.

  ‘Danny, will you keep it down?’

  ‘Or what,’ I say, ‘we’ll get thrown out of this dump? Jesus, how would I ever live with the shame?’

  The barman starts walking towards us.

  ‘Lads, I’m going to have to ask you...’

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Nick says to him, ‘we’ll keep it quiet. I’m sorry.’

  I keep my head down and say nothing. I almost want him to come out from behind the bar and try to push me out.

  ‘Tone it down a bit, Danny, will you?’ Nick whispers to me.

  ‘Well then stop shitting on about whatever it is you’re shitting on about.’

  ‘Okay, okay. I was just saying.’

  ‘Well, fucking don’t, alright?’

  ‘Alright. Jesus.’

  He takes a sip from his pint.

/>   ‘What the fuck is it with you and religion anyway?’ I ask him.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Why are you always going on about it?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ he says.

  ‘Yes, you do, Nick. You’re the most religious person I know.’

  ‘Religious?’ he says, ‘what are you talking about? I’m an atheist.’

  ‘No you’re not,’ I tell him.

  ‘Of course I fucking am.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Well, if you must know, since Thanksgiving Day in America ten years ago.’

  I look at him. Ever since I’ve known Nick, he has these stories he likes to tell, and in fairness they’re usually good stories. I’ve seen him hold the attention of up to twenty people one night with one of his monologues. I don’t know why he’s an atheist and to be honest, I couldn’t care less, not today anyway. But I don’t want to talk about Ruby. I don’t want to even have to think about her name.

  ‘Go on then,’ I say to him.

  ‘I was in a Denny’s restaurant over in Boston,’ he says, ‘Thanksgiving Day, as I said. I used to love Denny’s. They have them all over the States. You can order pretty much anything twenty four hours a day. Even a steak. But I always had the Spicy Mexican Chicken. Delicious stuff. My brother, Jim, his wife Bridget, Aoife and myself were there.

  ‘Anyway, the place was pretty empty as it was Thanksgiving. Except, that is of course, for us four Paddies and a handful of others. At Thanksgiving in the States all the families get together, more so than at Christmas. But there was this elderly man sitting at a table on his own, not too far from where we were. He was eating soup and some bread. In his right hand he held the spoon and in his left, the piece of bread, but his hands were so shaky that he could barely lift them off the table without a lot of the soup going all over the place. So, he’d bend his head down until he reached the point where he couldn’t lift his shaking hand anymore, or bend his head any further. Then he’d purse his lips and suck up the soup. Christ, what a sight. And what a racket he was making. Sluuuuuurp. Sluuuuuurp.