Surviving Michael

by Birchall, Joseph

  ‘I know the world is full of poor old fuckers like him, I’ll be one myself someday, but it was Thanksgiving Day and here he was in Denny’s on his own. I mean, he must have had no one. Or else just no one gave a shit about him. So he finally finished and got up and went to pay for his meal. In those places you had to pay on the way out. So, he held the money in his shaking hands and tried to count out his bill. The girl at the register got a little impatient and reached out to help him.

  ‘“You have a nice day now, sir,” she said and gave him one of those big, perfect teeth, false smiles that they’re gifted at, and left him standing there with a pile of change in his hand.

  ‘So he goes to leave, but at the door they have one of those vending machines with soft toys in them. You know the ones? You put in a dollar and try to stop the claw at the right spot to pick up a bear worth fifty cents.

  ‘Well this one had yellow birds in it. Big, dopey looking yellow birds. The old man looked in their direction as he passed, and perhaps he made eye contact with one of them or they reminded him of something he once got for his kids, I don’t know, but either way, he stopped. Without taking his gaze off them, he reached back into his pocket and pulled out the few dollar bills that the girl had given him as his change. So he straightened out a dollar and stuck it into the machine.

  ‘The robotic arm came to life, and charged off towards the centre of the birds. With his shaking hand he hit the button. The arm dropped down and of course, as you’d expect, came up empty clawed. You’d think at his age, he’d have more sense. But anyway, he tried again. After his third try, he looked down at the last few dollar bills in his hand, then looked again at the yellow birds behind the glass staring out at him. I think he knew he shouldn’t be wasting his money on crap like that. I don’t think it was even the poxy toy that he wanted. Just the momentary feeling of success. A small reminder of some past glory or even happiness.

  ‘At that moment I closed my eyes and said, “God, if you do exist, please help this old bastard, and I’ll never doubt you again.” I looked up then and saw him putting another dollar into the machine. The arm moved across slower this time, and he pressed the button. The claw dived down and grabbed a bird by its neck, and lifted it up so that it flew above all the others, as if soaring to its freedom. But then, as soon as it started to move back across, it dropped down like a shot pheasant, as if the machine were mocking him, and as if God himself were mocking me. The poor old guy tried three more times and eventually left.’

  ‘And?’ I asked.

  ‘And that was it,’ he said, taking a mouthful from his pint. ‘I figured that if God couldn’t answer a simple request from one of his followers, albeit a doubtful follower, then what possible persuasion can he exercise on events for the millions of his devout and loyal fans?’

  ‘But I thought you said you were an atheist?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘But it’s not that you don’t believe in God,’ I told him, ‘you’re just pissed off with him for being such an incompetent project manager.’

  ‘No, I didn’t... What I meant was...’

  He reaches out for his pint glass, but then turns back to me and is about to say something when the door of the pub opens. The heat and the light from the sun invades the pub’s interior. When the two figures in its entrance step in and close the door, Liam and Charlie stand there as if they were two invaders having descended from outer space.

  Ruby

  GRAFTON STREET is finally starting to thin out. This may be my fifth time down it today. I feel a mess, and no doubt look a mess. People seem to clear a path for me. Late shoppers and early drinkers. It’s still bright and warm but the energy of the street is changing with the fading light. I feel so tired but can’t face going back to my apartment alone. I want to call somebody, but who? Danny? No way. My parents? They’ll know there’s something wrong straight away. Friends here? They’ll tell me I should go home. Friends in the States? They’ll tell me I should stay here. Him? No.

  Why did I tell Danny? It would have been so much easier not to. Then what? Then I’d be my mother. A cheater. A liar. As I grew up, in my heart I always knew. My jet black hair. My height. We used to laugh about it, even my mother. I think my dad always suspected as well, but didn’t say anything. Then I got a letter when I was in college. A letter with the truth. My ‘real’ dad. I wasn’t enjoying college so I quit. I over reacted. Cursed my mother for lying to me. Took out my savings and came to Ireland to find him.

  I guess I was expecting Liam Neeson to answer the door, but instead a middle-aged man with a beer belly told me his story, my story. ‘Why now?’ I asked him. He’d been asking my mother for a connection with me for years, even some photos, but she had always refused. He said he had no choice. But you always have a choice.

  I knew that before I told Danny. I didn’t want my child to start its life on a lie. I don’t love my dad in the States any less, but my mom played us for fools. We’ve just gotten back to non-confrontational conversations in the last month. She was about my age when she got pregnant with me. But she was married, that’s different. No, not really. She barely even knew the guy she had the affair with. I did know mine. Does that make it better or worse?

  Secretly, I think my mom will get a kick out of it. After all the shit I put her through last year, here I am where she once was. I guess that’s why I told Danny. Because she never did. But how did I expect Danny to react? For him to forgive me? Perhaps I always thought of him as a softer, gentler soul. He certainly showed me. Maybe if I give him a little time, he’ll accept what has happened. Trouble is, I don’t have that much time. I’ve got to make a decision soon. Stay or leave.

  Suffolk Street is busy. As the evening light dissolves, the lights of the pubs grow stronger, their music growing louder, seeping out to the streets, as if reclaiming them from the daylight and the shoppers. Maturity going home. Youth arriving in. The tide going in and out. The smell from the restaurants, the babel of chatter. All this is over for me now. It’s no longer a part of me. I’ve been swept away by another stream. I don’t feel a part of it any more. This new life inside me has killed my old life. And my youth.

  I wish I still had a hand to hold though. Someone to help guide me, or at least for us to hold each other up when we stumble or fall. I miss you, Danny. My Danny. You would have walked ahead of me, stretching back to hold my hand, clearing the way as if I were nine months pregnant. What a great dad you would have made. What a fool I’ve been. All the time I’d hear the gossip of others saying I’m too good for you. Turns out you were too good for me. Go figure that one, you fuckers.

  I take out my phone. No messages. Even my phone seems lonely. I thought he’d...

  Anyway, I’ve got to be in work at nine. I still have time to shower and change. I look down at my phone again and unlock it. Danny’s last message to me yesterday – ‘See you soon, babe x’. I type out a quick message without thinking – ‘Can I see you? I love you’, but then delete the last three words.

  A bus pulls up to the sidewalk in front of me. The doors open and a gang of sixteen going on twenty-six year olds gets off. They swarm past me, their perfumes intoxicating and the bus roars away, the heat from its engine almost burning my face. I look up into the sky and for a moment I can’t catch my breath. Someone blows cigarette smoke and I inhale it and my head gets dizzy and I can’t feel the ground...

  I wake up and there’s a small crowd around me. ‘Are you okay?’ someone asks. I try to get up. ‘Let her get some air.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say to the man helping me to stand. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Do you want an ambulance?’

  I feel so embarrassed. ‘No. I’m fine now, thank you.’

  I lean against the wall. A bottle of water is handed to me. ‘Thank you, I’m fine. I’m sorry.’

  ‘She went down like a sack of potatoes,’ a woman says.

  ‘She’s lucky she didn’t go under the bus,’ a man says.

  ‘Thank you. I�
�m fine,’ I tell them and try to muster a smile of appreciation for them.

  They start to disperse, so I sit down on a window ledge.

  An old lady leans into me and whispers, ‘are you pregnant, love?’

  I nod. She smiles. ‘Well then call that fella of yours. They’re useless most of the time, but they have their uses when they’re needed.’

  I attempt a smile, and she pats me on the shoulder.

  I look down at my hand still clutching the phone. I raise it to me, and see the message still there. A few drops fall onto the screen as I retype ‘I love you’, and press SEND.

  Liam

  BY THE TIME we get back to Nick and Danny in the pub, I’m absolutely gaggin’ for a pint.

  ‘Save it for tonight,’ Nick says, and knocks back his drink. Danny’s phone beeps, and he reads the message. He looks like he’s had a few pints, but there’s no way anyone’s going to suggest that they drive his car.

  ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here,’ he says.

  When they drop me off at me house, they tell me that they’ll be back at seven for me. That gives me nearly two hours, so I walk around the corner to the chipper for some fish and chips and then cross the road into Murphy’s for a pint. There are only a few people there, but I see me Uncle Jack sitting on his own at a table in the corner. He has a newspaper spread out in front of him and he’s watching the horse racin’ on the telly. Me mam told me that he had a girlfriend for years when he was young but that after she left him, he never went out with anyone else. He must be about sixty now. I wave over to him and he nods his head back at me. I don’t think he even recognises me. I’d fuckin’ hate to end up like him. But I probably will.

  After a couple of pints in there, I’m hungry again so I get another bag of chips and go home. I’ve forgotten that I’d had me hair cut short and me beard shaved off. Anyways, when I walk in the back door, me ma’s in the kitchen and she screams and drops a plate.

  ‘Maureen,’ me da calls from the sittin’ room. ‘What’s wrong in there?’

  I’m not sure what’d take for me da to get up out of that chair but a scream and a smashin’ plate obviously doesn’t quite do it for him.

  ‘Liam?’ me ma says, ‘is that you?’

  I know I haven’t shaved in ten years or more but when does a mother not recognise her own son?

  ‘Of course it’s bleedin’ me,’ I tell her and head up to me room.

  This’ll be the second night that I’m missin’ from downloadin’ all me films. I’m goin’ to have a lot of catching up to do tomorrow. A part of me is sort of glad of the bit of a break away from the computers. The doorbell rings just as I throw all me gear onto me unmade bed. Bollocks.

  ‘Maureen,’ I hear me da call. ‘There’s someone at the door.’ He’s the brains of their little operation. The doorbell rings again. Impatient prick.

  I wanted to have a bath but there’s no time now. Fuck it. I’ll just wipe meself with a towel. I can feel all those little hairs itching at the back of me neck.

  ‘Oh, Charlie,’ I hear me mother swoon. ‘What a lovely surprise. Come in, come in.’

  I can hear him fluster and give some excuse why he can’t but he knows he’s fucked. Delighted for the prick. It’ll give me a chance to change.

  ‘Okay, but only for a second, Aunty Maureen.’

  ‘Will you have a quick cup of tea?’ she asks him.

  Will he fuck, I says to meself.

  I walk into the kitchen after about ten minutes. Charlie looks at me like he could burst me.

  ’Your uncle Pat and I went to a play once,’ me ma’s telling him. ‘Now what was it called?’

  ‘Ah sure, here’s Liam now,’ Charlie says.

  ‘Pat,’ me ma screams into me da. ‘What was the name of that play we went to?’

  ‘What?’ he calls back.

  ‘That play once that we went to?’

  ‘I never went to any play,’ he calls back.

  ‘You did,’ she says. ‘You won two tickets for it in a raffle in your job and you couldn’t get anyone to go with you.’

  ‘Anyway, Aunty Maureen,’ Charlie interrupts, ‘sure, we’d better be going.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ me da calls back.

  ‘The play.’

  ‘What bleedin’ play?’

  ‘Ma, we have to head off,’ I says.

  ‘A few years back,’ she screams back into him, and then turns to Charlie. ‘I’m not surprised he doesn’t remember. Sure he fell asleep halfway through. Snored his head off for nearly an hour and a half. Mortified, I was.’

  ‘I never went to any play,’ me da screams.

  I grab Charlie by the arm and lift him up.

  ‘See you later, Ma,’ I says and march Charlie towards the door.

  ‘All the best Aunty Maureen. Bye now Uncle Pat.’

  ‘You’re makin’ a liar of me,’ me ma says into me da.

  I slam the door shut and can see Danny and Nick in the car waitin’ for us.

  ‘I told you to be ready,’ Charlie says to me.

  ‘I was ready. I didn’t know you were going to have a little chat with me ma.’

  We walk over to the car. ‘It wasn’t me who... the fucking state of that shirt. Did you not iron it?’

  ‘No,’ I says. ‘Why do I need to iron it? It’s brand new.’

  ‘Look at the creases in it.’

  ‘I don’t think we even have a fuckin’ iron.’

  If it wasn’t still so warm, I would’ve worn me jacket. Nick is sittin’ in the front. Danny looks like he’s got two years older. We’re all wearin’ different clothes except him. I don’t know the details but it’s obvious that Ruby’s dumped him. As if everyone didn’t see that one comin’. I’ve been sayin’ it for ages. She was out of his league from the word go. God, as if he wasn’t a bit of a depressin’ bollocks before this.

  We head out to the Odeon. All the windows are down. Danny’s not playin’ any music, but it’s kind of alright to listen to the traffic and the wind. I’m happy to get a bit of fresh air. Me belly feels a bit off but it’s not hunger. I think it’s nervousness. I haven’t felt that for years.

  I used to deliver post to this clothes shop in the village. This girl that worked there was always real friendly to me. I thought she liked me but I could never get up the nerve to say any more than a few words to her. She had short blonde hair, was real pretty and always smelt lovely. On Tuesdays and Thursdays she didn’t start till ten, so I used to hang on to the post and wait until she got into work and then give it to them.

  After about six months, I still didn’t have the nerve to ask her out, so I wrote her a letter and put me telephone number on it. The next day, her boss called and told me not to be harassin’ her staff. I was mortified. I started going straight to their shop first after that, before they arrived for work, and puttin’ the post in the letter box. Then I was transferred to the DMC.

  I never asked a girl out after that. And now tonight I’ve to ask loads of them. How many will I have to? Ten? A hundred? Jesus. I’ve changed me mind. I wish I was back in me room, downloadin’ me movies and eatin’ a Chinese. How the fuck did I let them talk me into this? I’ll tell them I feel sick. I do feel sick. Or I could do a runner. If I just ask a couple of girls maybe that’ll be enough. I wish I hadn’t shaved me beard off. It might have cushioned the punches later on. Bollocks.

  Nick

  A MOON, so bright that it scorches the tips of the grey clouds, shines down on the over-perfumed and under-dressed crowd that clings to the outside wall of the nightclub like multi-coloured ivy. We pass the bouncers trying, as always, not to make eye contact. Their broad menacing stances, not dissimilar in stature to your average vending machine, although more often than not lacking its numerical and alphabetical capabilities. We fight our way through the arteries of pulsating bodies to a small balcony overlooking the heart of the club. Above the dance floor, a huge disco ball hangs, spraying out laser like streams of purple, blue and gold onto th
e shuffling arm swaying mass below.

  Charlie goes to the bar and comes back with four drinks. By the time I’ve taken a sip from my pint and then found a table to rest it on, Liam has downed his vodka and Red Bull in one go. He does look good though. Charlie has done a job on him that would make Oprah weep.

  ‘I need another one,’ he says, and heads over to the bar.

  ‘We’d better keep an eye on him,’ I tell the others.

  The crowd is a bit younger than I’d hoped for. Whatever chances I would have given him in a crowd our own age, it’s considerably less now. At least we won’t be bumping into anyone we know. I hate meeting old school friends or people who I haven’t seen in twenty years. We’re both reminders to each other of that failed and awkward little person we once were and of how little we’ve changed.

  I haven’t been with many girls since Aoife. Charlie has set me up a few times but it’s nearly always a disaster. I’ve just no interest in that side of things. I had a one night stand with a girl from Galway, but the next day I just felt worse.

  ‘Will we mingle a bit?’ Charlie asks, smiling.

  ‘No, we won’t fucking mingle,’ I shout at him. ‘I know it goes against all your instincts, Charlie, but let’s try and stick together tonight. We’re here for Liam.’

  ‘What’s the fuck’s that supposed to mean?’ he asks.

  ‘I’m just saying, let’s stick together for once, rather than you going off and making sure you get laid.’

  ‘It’s not my fault I’m the only one who can score.’

  ‘I score plenty,’ I tell him.

  ‘Yeah, when you’re with me, and you get the friend of the one I’m with.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Are you saying,’ I ask him, ‘that I get the dredges of whatever you don’t want?’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘Well, don’t ye?’

  ‘I don’t fucking believe I’m hearing this,’ I say.

  ‘Lads, for God’s sake,’ Danny butts in.