Surviving Michael

by Birchall, Joseph

  Just at the bike passes the off-ramp, and leaving it to the last possible moment, Charlie swerves his car violently to the left and shoots up the off-ramp. We follow him just as we see the Garda catching up with the Micra and pointing at him to pull over. Poor bastards must have got the fright of their lives.

  Charlie has the car parked at a bus stop and is opening his door just as we catch up with him. There are a few people waiting for a bus and they all stare at Charlie as he jumps out of the car. He’s turned off the siren, but the blue beacon is still on the roof. I pull in behind him, and he runs to us, but just before he gets into my car, he runs back to the Garda car and leans in the driver’s window. What the fuck is he doing?

  The people at the bus stop are watching him. This time he’s smiling and holding up the key in the air. Thank fuck he remembered it. I’m already in second gear before he even shuts his door.

  Ruby

  ‘YOU NEED TO have an appointment, love,’ the porter sitting behind the desk says. “Jimmy” according to his nametag. ‘This is not an A and E department.’

  ‘An A what?’ I ask.

  ‘A and E,’ he repeats.

  His younger sidekick, with the name tag “Martin”, leans over. ‘He means that it’s not ER.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say, ‘but this is a maternity hospital, right?’

  ‘Yeah, one of the biggest in Europe,’ the younger guy continues, ‘ten thousand babies go out them very doors every year.’

  The older man, Jimmy, leans back in his chair and stares at Martin. Martin’s adolescent smile falls off his face when he sees the nonverbal rebuke, and he slides his chair back to his newspaper.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Jimmy says to me. ‘I’ll have someone come down and talk to you.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m just not sure how it works. I mean, the system here. It’s different at home. Actually, I’m not so sure how that system works either, to be honest. It’s not like I’m some Catholic popping them out every year. Oh, no offense. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, as Jerry Seinfeld says, ha ha, it’s just… I’m sorry. I’m talking too much.’

  They’re both staring at me now.

  ‘That’s okay, love,’ Jimmy says and at the same time he picks up the phone. I turn away from him and look around the tiny waiting room; a woman heavily pregnant sitting uncomfortably in an uncomfortable chair; an elderly couple, both smiling, a new grandchild to think about; a man in his forties, his mobile in his hand, staring at the floor, motionless, expressionless. Perhaps one of the ten thousand babies didn’t arrive quite as he’d expected.

  ‘Someone’s on the way out to see you, Miss,’ Jimmy says to me.

  I’ve gone from a ‘Love’ to a ‘Miss’. Not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ I tell him and go sit down.

  I think about Danny. I should call him. Or maybe he should call me. I want to give him a chance. To give us one more chance. I’d rather he rejected me than he have any regrets in the future. If I do decide to go home, and at the moment I don’t see what choice I have, but if it comes to that then I also don’t want to feel in any way guilty for taking this baby out of his country, and away from him.

  ‘Hello,’ a voice says to me.

  I look up and into the middle-aged face of a nurse leaning down to me. Maybe she’s a midwife. She’s wearing a blue uniform. They all seem to wear different colored uniforms, but I’ve no idea what they mean.

  ‘Hi,’ I reply.

  ‘Were you looking to see someone?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  After a few moments pause, I realize that she means I’ve to talk to her here.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I say.

  ‘Yes?’

  I lean around her slightly and see Jimmy and Martin also waiting for my question.

  ‘Well,’ I say, ‘I think I’m pregnant and I wasn’t sure about how I need to go about it. Do I need to register or..?’

  ‘Are you in any pain?’ she asks me.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you been to see your GP?’

  ‘My what?’

  ‘Your doctor.’

  ‘Uh, no.’

  ‘Well then, the first thing you need to do is that. Make an appointment with your local doctor, and then he’ll send you on to us.’

  I’m not sure what to say. I feel all eyes on me waiting for my reply. Since I don’t give any, the nurse straightens herself up, turns on her heels and marches off. I feel as if I’ve been rebuked by the principal of my high school in front of my fellow students. I feel a little dizzy when I stand up, and as I walk back out the door, I think I see a smirk running across Martin’s face.

  The rain has cleared and it’s sunny again. People walk around me. Couples and families. Busy with appointments. Being collected. Being dropped off. Places to go. Strangers’ faces. I feel alone and more foreign than I’ve ever felt. As if realizing I don’t belong here. This is not my home. It never was. I want to be somewhere that I fit in again. I don’t want to be the odd one out with the different accent. I don’t want every conversation I have with a stranger at a bus stop to be about the States and what they think about my country’s politics. I don’t give a shit what they think and I sure as fuck know that my country doesn’t give two shits either what they fucking think or how they fucking feel about Iraq or Afghanistan or the Twin fucking Towers.

  I turn and walk up toward Merrion Square. Without realizing it, my cell phone is in my hand. I’m holding it tightly. Proof that I’m not alone. There’s a ringing sound in my ear before I even realize that I’ve dialed.

  The ringing stops but there’s only silence.

  ‘Danny?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’ve been looking for you.’

  More silence.

  ‘So, who’s the father?’ he blurts out.

  ‘I can’t, Danny. Please. Not now. It’s… it’s not important right now.’

  ‘Oh, I beg to fucking differ.’

  ‘I told you. It was a mistake.’

  ‘A mistake? Is that what you call cheating on me? Getting pregnant? A fucking mistake?’

  ‘I know all that, Danny. I know there’s nothing I can say to you. I’m so sorry for that, but I’m trying my best to be upfront and honest with you.’

  ‘Honest with me?’ he shouts into the phone. ‘Honest with me? Are you having a laugh?’

  More silence. I can hear his anger in the silence. Feel his pain. Please don’t hang up on me.

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘It was just one night. He… I want to be with you Danny. I always have. I know I’m asking a lot.’

  ‘Do I know him?’

  ‘Please, let’s leave that for now.’

  ‘Do I fucking know him?’

  I’m trying so hard, but I can’t help it. The tears burst out of me like vomit and my face contorts in my heartache.

  ‘Yes.’

  Silence again before his voice comes back on. Calm this time. I can hear him breathing deeply.

  ‘Is it Ricky?’ he asks, almost gently. ‘Is it?’

  ‘Please, Danny.’

  ‘Is it that prick Ricky?’ he shouts.

  People are walking around me and giving me looks. ‘I have to go,’ I say. ‘Can we talk later?’

  ‘I’ll come to the bar tonight,’ he says.

  ‘No, not there.’

  ‘Why? Is he going to be there?’

  ‘I have to go.’

  This time we’re both silent. If only I could reach out to him. Past his anger. To the Danny that I love and who once loved me.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Danny. And I know it’s not enough just to say that. Not near enough. I wish I could explain it to you. I want to try. I need you and I want so much to be with you. But I understand if you don’t… I just need you so much right now.’

  ‘Why?’ Danny spits into the phone, ‘so I can raise your little bastard for you?’

  My tears stop and all
my pleading dries up. I feel as if I’ve been slapped hard across the face. I hold the phone away from me, looking at it. I can hear Danny’s voice in it - ‘Hello?’ ‘Hello?’ ‘Ruby?’ I don’t reply. He knows he’s gone too far. I don’t want to talk to him now. I take a deep breath in and already feel a little better. I hear him say ‘Ruby’ one more time as I switch off the phone and put it in my pocket.

  It’s Sunday morning and the sun is shining. Merrion Square is bright and green. An emerald jewel in a crown of gray thorns. I have an urge to take a photo. I almost feel like a tourist and it feels good. I should move on now. My baby and me. The rain is clearing quickly and the sun is out again, warming up a city of half-finished buildings and half-truths. A city of ‘To Let’ signs and ‘Closing Down Sale’ banners. I’m glad I wasn’t here for all those Celtic Tiger days. It would be just too sad right now.

  I guess everything has its time and everything has its ending. Even nations. Even me. The party’s over, folks. It’s time to go home.

  Liam

  OF COURSE Charlie insists we go straight to the hairdressers and follow through on our side of the dare.

  ‘Fair’s fair,’ he keeps sayin’ over and over, his mantra to any argument we might have as to why we shouldn’t go now. He raises his arms in the air as if surrenderin’, like there’s fuck all he can do about it.

  ‘Fair’s fair, lads,’ he says and shrugs his shoulders.

  ‘I just spent a hundred and twenty fuckin’ euro on me hair yesterday,’ I says to him.

  ‘Ah now, cuz, fair’s fair.’

  Danny comes back from bein’ on the phone to the Yank. He’s looks even more pissed off than he was before.

  ‘Are you alright, Danny?’ Nick says, but Danny just shakes his head at him and gets in the car.

  We drive to a poxy little hairdressers in Crumlin village. The one in charge says she’s about to close up but they’ll stay open and we’ll be fun lovin’ blondes before she leaves.

  She’s the oldest. A real 1664 with jet black hair and a face that’s seen too many sunbeds and too much makeup. When she raises the scissors she looks like the mother in the Addams family.

  There are two younger ones. One of them has her head stuck in some shite mag with Kim Kardashian on the cover and the other one is playin’ with her peroxide blonde curls and tryin’ to get Charlie to notice her.

  ‘Now who’d like to be first?’ the auld one asks.

  ‘How about you, Nick?’ Charlie says.

  ‘Alright,’ says Nick and sits in the chair.

  A couple of hours later, and we’re all done. Nick looks like a cross between Eminem and Desperate Dan. It isn’t a good look for him and he doesn’t look too pleased. Tough shit. Danny actually looks a lot better. The girl who looked like a cattle prod up her arse wouldn’t phase her, swung into action like a mini twister on his hair.

  Mine’s not too bad either but to be honest about it, there’s not a lot you could change on me head to divert people’s attention away from me belly. Also because of years in the DMC and bein’ in me room takin’ care of me DVD business, me skin is a lot whiter than most people’s.

  By the time I’m finished Nick, Danny and Charlie are in the waitin’ area readin’ magazines and lookin’ like they’re waitin’ on an audition for Louis Walsh’s latest boy band.

  I feel as if the whole bleedin’ world is lookin’ at us as we walk out of the place. We must look like the biggest shower of nob-heads since Boyzone first appeared on the Late Late show.

  We walk quickly to Danny’s car with our heads lowered.

  ‘So what’s Danny’s dare now?’ I ask.

  ‘Let’s go get somethin’ to eat first,’ Nick says.

  ‘We can eat later,’ I say, and they all look back at me as if in shock.

  ‘Not that much later though,’ I say and they burst out laughin’. Even Danny makes a half smile.

  I think that’s the first time I ever made a joke about me weight and someone laughed. I’ve had loads of people make jokes about me, but can’t remember ever makin’ anyone laugh with me, especially about bein’ fat.

  I can sometimes see people starin’ at me when I go down the street. That’s why I don’t go out much. I’ve always been a bit of a stocky bloke. Even when I was a kid I can remember kids makin’ fun of me belly.

  I suppose it should have made me want to be thin and go on a diet, but it just made me want to be thin and eat more. It’s weird that the thing that makes people stare at me for a bad reason, is the same thing that makes me happy.

  I just love eatin’, and I’ve always been a bit of a binge eater. I nearly always get a bag of chips and eat it in the car before gettin’ home and havin’ me dinner. And a lot of times, I’ll get a breakfast roll and eat it before goin’ to work so that I can have a normal fry up and people don’t see me eatin’ two breakfasts.

  I remember after Mike’s funeral, everyone went to Ryan’s for a few drinks, and there was this big spread of food on a table they’d set up. I just couldn’t stop eatin’. Sandwiches, cakes, biscuits. I kept stuffin’ me face until I felt sick, and then I went into the toilets and vomited up everythin’ and I started ballin’ me eyes out until I heard someone come in. The mad thing is, after I’d washed me face and gone back outside, I just started eatin’ again. It’s funny the little moments that you remember.

  I know I’m too fat. I’ve looked in a mirror, and I’m not a total fuckin’ eejit, but it’s like I have this hunger inside me all the time, and when I eat somethin’ it goes away for a while.

  I can’t understand how people can say no to food. Like if there’s a party and there’s loads of food and someone says, no thanks, I had somethin’ to eat earlier, and I’m like, yeah, so did fuckin’ I, and I had somethin’ on the way here as well, but I’m still goin’ to eat as much of this shit as I can.

  I once went on this soup diet I found on the Internet. It’s supposed to be for patients goin’ into surgery. I lost almost two stone in a week. Although nobody else seemed to notice. I noticed it a bit when me watch on me wrist went a bit loose. I even went out with the lads that Friday because I felt good about it and drank diet coke all night instead of beer.

  On the bus on the way home, this bloke starts slaggin’ me in front of a load of girls, and I even saw other people on the bus laughin’ a bit. I got off the bus and walked the rest of the way home. Took me nearly an hour. When I got to the village, I walked into a chipper and bought fish and chips and a quarter pounder and ate them all real quickly and kept me head down in the bag so that no one would see me cryin’.

  A few days later me watch got tight again, so I fucked it in the bin.

  Nick

  ‘ARE YOU SURE?’ Danny asks me.

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ I tell him, ‘I saw it in a movie once.’

  ‘A fucking film?’

  ‘Besides that though,’ I assure him, ‘I’ve heard of it before.’

  Liam leans forward. ‘Yeah, I seen that film as well. It was with your man from the thing and the other fella who was riding Angelina Jolie.’

  ‘Well, I’ve never heard of it before,’ Danny says.

  ‘You must have,’ Liam says, ‘It was with John Cusack and he was...’

  ‘Not the fucking film,’ Danny shouts at him, ‘I mean the part about being thrown up into the air behind a landing plane.’

  We’re parked on a grass verge beside a ten foot metal fence that runs the perimeter of the entire airport. It’s still early evening, but the lights on the planes light up the grass as they approach the runway. An Aer Lingus plane lands about five hundred metres from us, its tyres screeching loudly as it bounces off the tarmacadam sending up a billow of white smoke behind it.

  Danny’s head involuntarily bounces back at the sound, and then shakes in disbelief.

  ‘I don’t know, Jesus,’ he says to himself and then to us, ‘how am I going to get in there anyway?’

  ‘You can scale that fence no bother,’ Charlie tells him.

&n
bsp; ‘They might see me first.’

  ‘Liam,’ I say, ‘give him a lend of your jacket, will you?’

  ‘Fuck off,’ he says, ‘it’ll get destroyed.’

  ‘Your fucking jacket’ll get destroyed?’ Danny shouts at him, ‘what about me, for fuck’s sake?’

  ‘Alright, then,’ he says, and starts removing everything from the pockets before handing it to him.

  Charlie gets out and looks across at the runway. ‘What about his hair?’ he says turning back around to us.

  ‘What about it?’ I ask.

  ‘Look at the state of it,’ he says, ‘he’ll light up like a giant golf ball across the grass.’

  We all try to think up a solution.

  Danny sighs heavily and says, ‘I think I have a black hat in the boot.’

  ‘Great,’ I say, ‘come on, it’s starting to get dark.’

  Danny pops open the boot as the sound of another plane landing screeches in the background. He slides the hat over his head.

  ‘Danny, Danny,’ I joke, ‘where are you? I can’t see you.’

  ‘Fuck you, Nolan,’ he smirks, ‘come on and give me a hand over.’

  We walk over to a dark part of the fence.

  Liam calls over to him, ‘and don’t forget the circumstances if you chicken out.’

  ‘It’s consequences, yeh gobshite,’ Danny calls back to him, and then placing his foot into my hands, grabs the fence and pulls himself up and over.

  He lands awkwardly on the far side of the fence, but picks himself up. He looks over to the airport and then looks back at me. There’s nothing to say, so we say nothing, and he turns and starts to walk towards the runway.

  ‘Do you know what?’ Liam says, when I join them, ‘I haven’t watched a porno in almost two days now.’

  ‘Are you bragging or complaining?’ I ask him.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he says. ‘A bit of both.’