Boys Don't Cry

by Fíona Scarlett

  ‘Well, sorr-eee,’ Jasmine said, the huff on her nearly as red as her puffer, and neither spoke again, all the way into town.

  The bus stopped right outside Cineworld, and we got ourselves inside. Cineworld was the best; it was so big, and the box office where ya get your tickets was so far away that you got away with paying for just one film, and then you could skive into the rest. You used to be able to nab a few free popcorns too, they had ready-made ones right by the lobby, but they’d moved them all close to the till now, so you just couldn’t get away with that any more. But judging by the head on both Joe and Jasmine, it was a one-film day today anyway, if they’d even make it through that.

  ‘We’re screen five,’ Joe said, and we let him lead the way.

  ‘He’s a bit of a prick, your Joe,’ Jasmine said, the huff still lingering.

  ‘Ah he’s all right, he just doesn’t like the chats, and he can’t even help it, sure I can hardly even go to the jacks and he’s there asking me if I’m OK.’ That got her back on side, a little, and she linked her arm in mine.

  I sat in the middle, up the back, with no objections from either side. We eyed the recliners, to those with the extra paid privilege of lounging right back when watching the movie. We usually snuck over into them once the film had started, but there weren’t three together, or even near each other, so we didn’t bother with that today. Jasmine opened her backpack and fired over our cans and bags of popcorn, giving Joe’s a sneaky shake before passing it over, ‘Ya cheeky bitch’ yelled as Fanta sprayed all over him, and the ground, and his seat.

  I pushed my feet hard into the seat in front, and settled myself, all comfortable like, and began throwing popcorn into my mouth, head right back, lobbing them in, one after the other, when I tasted it, blood, and it was coming fast, all running into and catching at the back of my throat.

  ‘Joe,’ I said, his eyes straight ahead. I could feel it still running all over me, everywhere, I got to stand up, but I couldn’t seem to keep my balance at all. Joe was at me, his arm around my waist. ‘Joe,’ I said again, and he was helping me out of the row.

  ‘Jass, phone an ambulance,’ Joe said, and I could just about see the hop of her, as she looked right at me, trying to take it in. ‘Like fucking now, Jass.’ She stumbled to get out of our way, rooted around in her pocket for her phone, followed close behind us.

  ‘It’ll be all right, bud,’ Joe kept mumbling, over and over, ‘we’ll just get you out of here, you’ll be all right.’ But the brightness of the lobby, the coldness of it was too much, too quick, and I could hear a ringing, right in my ears, I could feel a sweat coming to my tongue, my face, and the blood was everywhere, all over my mouth and my T-shirt and I vomited, all over the gaff, right there in the lobby, my sick all blended into the blue speckled carpet. I knew, with Joe sat on the ground, hugging me in close to him, with the fuss, and the hype of cinema-staffed young ones surrounding us, that I hadn’t said to feck to the cancer at all.

  Joe

  The warmth is there now, all muggy and too close, the sun trying hard to break through its blanket of grey. It’s happening on up ahead, left at The College according to Dessie, place the package at the back of the bin at the edge of the pedestrianised square, then straight back, fairly lively like.

  I have it tucked in at the band of my jeans, the gun, concealed in a bubble-padded envelope, folded over, to make it easier to hide. I can feel it every time I move, the shape of it digging right in. I tug at my hoodie again, stretching it down as far as I can, and check my watch, it’s coming up on three. I quicken my pace, making sure that I won’t be late.

  But Carthy is there, snapping at my heels, under orders from Dessie, ‘safety in numbers’ he said, but I know it’s to keep us in line, sussing us out to see where our loyalties lie, not fully trusting either of us, so it seems.

  ‘How about it, bud, the boys are back in town,’ Carthy laughs, trying to keep up with my strides. ‘One for all and all for one. Yeah, Joe? Like it used to be? Remember? Remember, Joe?’ And he’s buzzing, hopping off his fucking head, the coke practically sweating out of him.

  ‘Listen to fuck, Carthy, not another word. Nothing. Let’s just get this done, yeah?’ He looks at me, laughing, pretending to zip his lips, lock it and put it in his pocket, like when we were fucking kids.

  ‘And while we’re at it,’ I say, turning right into him, ‘what are you doing messing around with the Brophys?’ He stops dead, a dullness tingeing the pink of his cheeks. ‘Ma saw you, with his young one,’ I continue, wanting to get this warning out of the way, so we could move on, and I could tell Ma I did my duty.

  ‘Look, you’re not going to …’

  ‘Fuck no, I won’t be saying anything, although I fucking should, after you ratted about the party.’

  ‘What, no I never,’ he says. I don’t even care if he’s telling the truth; I power on ahead, cursing Dessie for not letting me do this on my own, that he felt the need for a babysitter. And fucking Carthy to boot.

  I feel his hand on my arm. I jerk it away, but it’s persistent and strong and looks just like Sabine’s. Fuck sake.

  ‘Joe, you don’t have to do this,’ she says, no small chats today, just her getting straight to the point. Again. Carthy laughing, all relaxed again now, throwing me eyes, get a load of your one rolling right out of them. Sabine wedges herself between us, blocking him right out, but he doesn’t get the hint.

  ‘You really, really don’t,’ she says again, and she looks so scared, and she looks so hurt, and she looks like she’s losing her faith in me.

  ‘Just fuck off, yeah!’ I say, stronger than I intended, harsher than I intended, and an ‘Oooh, trouble in paradise,’ exclamation from Carthy, enjoying his front-row seat.

  ‘No,’ she says, pulling at my arm, moving herself to block Carthy again. ‘No, Joe, I won’t fuck off.’ She pulls me right round into her, makes me look at her, makes me look at her face. Sabine. ‘Don’t do this, Joe. Please. Just don’t do it.’ Her eyes are spilling with tears.

  ‘I have to,’ I say, putting my arms on her shoulders, trying to make her understand.

  ‘If you do this, there is no going back, you fucking know that, don’t you?’ Her tears are still pouring, but her voice never wavers. I start to pull away from her. Pull away from her and her alternatives that I don’t fucking want. ‘Finn wouldn’t have wanted any of this,’ she shouts at my back. I give her a look, she has crossed over the line, but she is still coming and squaring right up to me. She hasn’t a fucking clue.

  ‘I am going now,’ I say, looking her right in the eyes, her flinching at my cruelty. She is finally beginning to see. ‘Don’t follow. I don’t want you there, I don’t want you with me any more,’ and I mean it. I really fucking do. She just stands there staring. Disbelief all over her face.

  ‘Hate that,’ Carthy says, patting her hard on the back, running to get back into my stride, to catch me right up, trying to put his arm round me, to show her that I’m part of him now. I shrug it straight off; Carthy could get to fuck too.

  ‘Don’t, Joe,’ she half mumbles after me, a last half-hearted attempt, but I’m gone. Up past The College, a left turn straight after, just like Dessie told me I should.

  Finn

  Dr Kennedy called it a relapse. He said that the leukaemia came back, or was still floating around somewhere that couldn’t be seen, or was never really gone at all in the first place, and I thought of all the talk about the chemo, it being a superdrug, it blasting the leukaemia all to shite, and I know now that it was all lies, because the chemo blasted absolutely feck all for me.

  ‘It will be all right,’ Joe said. I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or to himself, because none of this actually sounded all right at all.

  A bone marrow transplant, Dr Kennedy called it. I was lucky, apparently, that Joe was a match for me, for my bone marrow. Lucky that we got to be let down again, when this all went to shite too.

  I was back to the room on my own, and no one w
as allowed to touch me unless with special gloves, no one was allowed to speak to me unless with a special mask, and the front of the door was covered in plastic, and I wasn’t allowed out, so I was trapped, just like Da. I’d been blasted with radiation for two weeks now. It was supposed to empty my bone marrow, to make way for Joe’s, and I was afraid to trust that it would work, and then the operation Joe had, the big syringe in his back, to take all his marrow, to give to me, would all have been for nothing, a big waste of everyone’s time, just like the chemo.

  They rolled back in the coat stand, but this time with Joe’s marrow swinging from the bag on the top. I was not even given the choice of the chair or the bed – I had to lie, with more machines, people in and out prodding me, checking me, and I hadn’t the energy to tell them that I just wanted to be left alone.

  Joe and Ma were with me all the time now, like ghosts at the end of the bed, in their gloves and masks. I wished that they’d let me be, even for a bit, I wished I could tell them to go away, that I didn’t want them to be there, to see me cry, and scream in pain, and vomit, all the time now, making my throat all wretched and raw. I didn’t want them to see any of that, at all. But they did, and they stayed every day. Just their eyes staring at me over the top of their masks.

  I was just so tired all the time now, but I couldn’t even sleep, with Joe and Ma’s faithful watch, I couldn’t seem to ever relax, at all, in case they’d think there was something else wrong with me, as if, if I slept, it would worry Ma that I’d never wake up, and I couldn’t do that to her, she was already completely broken as it was.

  Joe

  It’s safer during the day, Dessie had said, with everyone else going on about their business, not bothered to fuck by two teenagers crossing paths at the side of The College. I keep my hand at the band of my jeans, take position beside the bin, watch the second hand count down to three o’clock, crouch while Carthy stands, and pull at the broken hatch, swing the casing open, placing the package right in at the back, well out of sight.

  ‘Did ya take a look in it?’ he’s asking, skipping along beside me as we make our retreat, across the square. ‘I bet ya did, didn’t ya?’ he’s saying, tapping at the side of his nose. I push my hands deep into my pockets and power ahead, but he’s keeping up, nudging me, spitting right into my ear. I’m pushing him off but he keeps at it, with a ‘Look, Joe, fucking look,’ and I am, looking, at the hard, determined bulk right there approaching us, fucking Da. What’s he even doing here, another fucking watchdog, can he not just let me do this one thing on my own, and if he thinks he’s taking over here, that I’m just going to leave him and Carthy to it, he can fuck right off.

  It’s the creep of it that hits; the bang, from somewhere behind, loud, close, the ring of it right in my ears, the echo of it right though my entire being. I turn back to look, to the source of it, a gloved hand still outstretched, the gun then dropped, skidded to my feet, and a ‘Fuck, Joe?’ from Carthy, whispered, a plea, asking me what it is he should do, and the singed stench of burning, and my heart is electric, and the heat of the blood is all over my face, my hands, my chest, and a sharp heavy weight is all over my body, making it harder and harder to breathe.

  Finn

  Dr Kennedy, Ma and Joe all hovered around the side of me. I knew, I could feel it hopping off Ma, well before Dr Kennedy even opened his mouth, that there was something really, really wrong with me.

  ‘I’m sorry, Finn, the transplant didn’t take,’ he said, all matter of fact, just like that. As if he was reading out his shopping list or a Lego instruction manual, and putting it out there, ‘didn’t take’, as if I even had a clue what he was on about at all. But I knew, by the sudden grip of Ma and Joe’s hands, that it wasn’t something good.

  ‘It is always a risky procedure, and with these type of things, when the cancer cells are hidden like yours were, Finn, it was impossible to tell that they were there at all,’ he said.

  ‘Do I have to have more treatment,’ I asked, not sure I could take any more of that, not sure that I wanted any of that at all.

  ‘No, son, there will be no more treatment,’ he said. ‘Your mum and Joe here will go through with you what we discussed.’ I looked over to Ma, and to Joe, and Ma had dropped to the ground. Nurse Sarah rushed over, put her arms around Ma’s waist, and stayed with her like that. Joe didn’t do anything, he just kept rubbing his back, where the needle took his marrow, being so still, except for that, rubbing it over and over, and the look like he wanted to bust somebody, but neither could speak to me.

  ‘Am I going home so?’ I asked, not thinking I’d be able to make it home; my legs, and arms, the whole skeleton of me ached, burned, any time I moved. I didn’t think I’d be able to walk to the bus either, or stay on it without getting sick.

  ‘No, son, you’ll be staying here with us,’ and I knew by the way he said it, by the grief of Ma and Joe, filling the entirety of the room with their rawness, that I was never going to be going home again.

  ‘What about Da,’ I said, the panic now of not being able to see him. ‘Will he be able to come to see me?’ Joe was at my side then.

  ‘I’m on it, Finney, I’ll do my best,’ and that confirmed it for me right there. I held on to his hand on my shoulder, and Ma came over and got into the bed beside me, and I hated what I had done to her, and Joe, and Da. Hated that I caused them all of this. And Ma, how was I supposed to act around her? How could I stop all this reaching her? How was she going to be able to cope, with me gone? And I was going to be gone, wasn’t I? I wanted to ask Dr Kennedy where. Gone where? I wanted to shout at him, scream at him. He had stepped away from the bed, to let us have our space, but not before I caught a glimpse of the chart in his arms. My chart, it was flipped open on a page that read End of Life Care.

  The end of my life.

  The end of me.

  The end of Finn O’Reilly.

  Joe

  ‘Joe.’ Sabine. She’s down by my side, and people are gathering, babies crying, doors opening, windows, phones out, an ‘all right, mister’ shouted from somewhere distant.

  ‘Fuck.’ She’s screaming and shaking now. I try to get up, but I’m weighed down by Carthy, his blood spurted all over me.

  And Da is there, dropped right down beside us, pulling at Carthy, rolling him right off, placing his head in his lap, with a growl piercing at the back of his throat, ‘The gun, Joe,’ he says, his hand outstretched, ‘quick.’ I reach to pick it up, the tremble of it in my fingers, and he grabs it, wipes it on his T-shirt and clasps it in his own.

  ‘He had you,’ he says, barely a rasp, and all I see is the gun that he’s wiped clean of me, ‘this is what he does,’ he continues, the vulnerability of him expanding as he clings to Carthy, pulling him closer, ‘it’s never just a drop,’ holding my gaze. I want to say something, do something, but I’m shivering and fragmented and I can’t catch my breath.

  ‘You need to go,’ he says, giving me my cue. ‘Get him the fuck out of here,’ he yells, clutching at Carthy, cradling him now, and Sabine is behind me, her two arms clasped, linked around my torso, pulling, her knee dug right into my back, pulling at the resisted weight of me.

  ‘Get the fuck up,’ she shouts, getting more urgent, still trying to pull me up as flashes of blue and ever-closing sirens encroach in on our space, a larger crowd now gathered, with Mas’ fingers shielding the eyes of their young ones as they try to peek through. She takes off her jumper now and begins wiping my hands and my face, zipping up my jacket over the crimson splash of evidence now graffitiing my top. Da stays right where he is. There with Carthy cradled into him, sitting in his pool of blood, staring straight ahead, waiting for that flash to catch up to him. Sabine’s guiding me now. Has me folded right into her, she’s gripping my hand tight, her fingers wound right around, not letting go of mine.

  ‘Dessie never would have let you go,’ Da whispers as I take one last look, Sabine still moving me away.

  ‘Keep walking,’ she orders with her arm around
my waist, keeping our heads down as she forces me in the side door of the Hangman’s Inn, right down to the back and into the jacks, and sits me on a cracking toilet seat. It’s his blood all over me. Carthy’s. All over me, warm and hot and his. Covering me, I can’t get the smell and the feel and the heat of it off of me.

  And she’s there, Sabine, pulling reams of tissue, dampening them under the tap, locking herself in with me. She unzips my jacket then, and takes off my top, and runs the tissues over my face and my neck and my chest; she dumps them all, the tissues, my top and her jumper, into the overflowing sanitary bin. But he’s still there, Carthy, still there between us. Part of me, part of us. We were supposed to stick together. We were supposed to look out for each other, we were supposed to be one for all and all for one, once upon a time. And I’m remembering the first time Da was inside, Carthy knocked in with a snack box from the Nippy Chippy, the first time his Ma was missing in action, it was a naggin of vodka and a packet of smokes.

  Sabine is still wiping, wiping the last of his blood right off me, I’m watching it flush, disappearing, just like that, and my breath is catching, and Sabine is getting closer, shushing me, over and over, ssh ssh ssh, the rhythm of it, right into my ear. I try to level my breath, to match in time with hers. Try to stop it racing, running too far ahead of me. But Carthy’s blood is still fresh on my chest, and I feel the ache of it, the physical pull of it, breaking me completely apart, and I ball my fist in tight to my forehead, digging the knuckles right in, feeling the bone on bone, rubbing it harder, pushing it harder, in between gulps of air that I just can’t seem to catch, and she puts her hand up to mine, presses it right there, and my fist is loosening, my hand is opening, being pulled to hers, I match mine to hers, her look never wavers, we are all matching, me and her, her and me.