by Kevin Barry
‘Arra jus’ fuckin’ do it, would ye!’
He sighed.
‘I’d have a pack o’ gorillas to me name if I didn’t keep on top a things, Wolf.’
‘Runnin’ brassers ain’t no easy life, Gyp.’
They fist-bumped. They set to a smoke by the sash window overlooking the S’town run. The Gypo’s filmy eyes widened as the boy explained – in tooth ’n’ claw detail – his intentions with regard to Prince T the Far-Eye.
Ed Lenihan whistled low:
‘It’s a radical plan of action, Wolf. I’d say that for it. And while I’d be very much in favour, technically speaking, it ain’t gonna be a cinch to pull off, y’heed? He’s well guarded down there.’
‘You know the dune end, Mr L.’
‘I surely do but–’
‘You can get me close in, Gypy-pal. If we wait on the mo’, like?’
‘Could be a longish wait, kid.’
They talked it through.
‘Certainly they’re lowerin’ the tone, Wolf. Which is some fuckin’ trick in S’town. And decent Baba-fearin’ premises the likes a me own can’t compete. All I’m offerin’ is clean, fresh-shaven girl. Which ain’t good enough for Bohane no more. No, sir! Now we all wants to be ate alive by slave-girl lurchers! But still an’ all, Wolfie, you don’t want to go off on no loolah mission just on account of a sand-pikey–’
‘He dropped the hand on me clutch, Mr Lenihan.’
‘As you’ve been sayin’, boy.’
‘Jenni’s me all-time doll, y’sketch? I wanna start a fam’ly with the bint an’ all, like.’
Silently, the Gypo Lenihan tried to imagine the likely spawn of a Ching–Stanners union, and he shuddered.
‘That’s very lovely, Wolf,’ he said.
A strange moment, then: the boy-villain seemed to come over a little bashful. Stared at his bovver boots a pensive moment.
‘Actually, Mr Lenihan, that’s somethin’ else I wanted to ask your advice on, sir.’
‘Oh, Wolf?’
‘Mr L… You’ve run a share o’ Chinkee chicks in yer day, check?’
‘Certainly,’ said Ed Lenihan. ‘Our oriental is a powerful cut of a hoor.’
‘And what I wanted to ask ya, Gyp…’
A blush! Lenihan could hardly believe it – there was a blush on the demon’s cheek!
‘What’s it, Wolf?’
‘Your Chinkees,’ said Wolfie, ‘they’d a gone down from time to time with the, ah… with the carryin’ o’ childer, like?’
‘Of course. Any young lady can get herself caught. The precautions aren’t what they were, Wolf.’
‘Okay,’ said Wolfie, and he breathed deep, ‘so what I wanted to ask ya was…’
He pointed to his fine-cropped red hair.
‘D’ya ever come across a Chinkee gettin’ bred off one a these?’
Ah, thought Ed Lenihan, the boy has a brood on. He was young for that. But they know, sometimes, in Bohane, that they may not be long for the road.
‘D’ya mean, Wolf…’
‘Off a ginger, Gyp. D’ya ever come across a Chinkee bint gettin’ bred off a ginge?’
Lenihan smiled.
‘What is it exactly you’re asking me, Wolf?’
Shyness glowed all over Wolfie Stanners. Fear, also.
‘Could the chil’ not come out skaw-ways, Mr L?’
Sympathy for the little demon, Ed Lenihan found he had, and he placed a fatherly arm around Wolf’s shoulders. Felt a tremor in the boy at this touch, a recoil.
‘When yer lookin’ to start a family, Wolf, you just got to pack away your fears and throw it all to the fates, boy.’
‘But what y’reckon, Gyp? Would it come out ginger or would it come out Chinkee, like?’
As he led Wolfie back towards the stairs, with his hoors yelping as they waxed themselves smooth, he leaned in, and said:
‘Wolf Stanners? When any child o’ yours appears ’pon the face of the earth, I don’t think there’s gonna be e’er a doubt about it.’
‘Thanks very much, Mr Lenihan.’
By the doorway then, the Gypo consented to be the boy’s guide to the dune-end backways, and to get him close in on Prince T. Wolfie’s blackbird stare told him he had no choice.
And so it was that a lightness in the step was evident as Wolfie walked out again through the Smoketown streets. He didn’t notice the sand-pikey watches who eyed him from the doorways and the rooftops there, and who knew already of his intention.
33
Jenni Ching, Superstar
This was the year all the girls in the Back Trace started to dress like Jenni Ching. They wore white vinyl zip-ups tighter than sin, or black nylon catsuits as though fitted with a spray-can, or gym shorts worn a handful of sizes too small over sheer silver stockings, and always there would be a set of custom steelcaps fitted to the high-steppers: groin-kicker boots for bad girls. They all started chewing on stogies, too. And in the Dev Street salons de coiffure, if you wanted a blunt-cut fringe while keeping some length and body in back, you asked for a Jenni.
Next thing?
The girls started to run in a wilding pack in the Trace. There were all-girl roisters in the midnite yards. You were a girl in Bohane, in the springtime of ’54, you had a shkelp in your inside pocket, and a stogie on the chomp, and you walked the wynds with that Ching-patented S’town glide. And you did not kowtow to no fuckwad boy-chil’.
Witness:
The girls skanked in the wee hours to dub-plate cuts blasted from the Trace rooftops.
The girls walked the snakebend roll of De Valera Street and they kept their mangle-dogs on chain leads.
The girls took from the malevolent surge of the river its defining taint, and fed on it.
Their talk travelled and lit on the usual nodes of adolescence – rage, lust, shame – but always this season, in the city of Bohane, it circled back to the one subject, again and again and again:
‘I seen her crossin’ the S’town footbridge an’ she got like a pair o’ wedge heels workin’ off a pair o’ pedal pushers in like a lemony, like a tangy shade, an’ she got like…’
‘Heard ya can get in the Ho Pee awrigh’ but not pas’ the caff bit, like. Y’gots to get the connects right afore they lets ya to the upstairs rooms, like, to the dream salons an’ Jenni’d be up there mos’…’
‘Is said she gots the Long Fella stashed up there an’ all, y’sketch?’
‘Gots him hangin’ on a string, like.’
‘Gots the Gant on another.’
‘An’ Wolfie besides…’
‘Is said she gots a dozen, maybe thirteen, scalp to the shkelp belt, check, an’ that’s oney wots known o’, like.’
‘She’s a size six tops, like…’
‘She gots the bes’ cheekbones in the whole o’ Bohane, like…’
‘An’ tell you this, heed?’
‘S’that, gurl?’
‘She’s a fuckin’ mega dancer.’
34
The Succession
Ol’ Boy Mannion braved the top-floor suite at the Bohane Arms Hotel. He found himself at the foot of the honey-mooners’ bed. He stood up straight. He held his hat in his hands. He had brass enough – but just about – to keep his eyes locked on Girly’s. She raised a tumbler of neat John Jameson to her lips.
‘S’pose you know he’s gone fuckin’ loolah?’ she said.
‘Ma’am?’
‘As a bucket o’ cats,’ she said.
Ol’ Boy shaped his mouth sadly, and shrugged – it was not for him to pass remark on the Long Fella’s mental status.
‘I blame the thunderin’ rip he married,’ she said. ‘Gave him delusions of grandeur, didn’t she? Trace not good enough, oh no. He’s got to be up on Beauvista like some fuckin’ Protestant, ain’t he? Swingin’ off the rafters o’ that fuckin’ manse. And I wouldn’t mind…’
She paused, sipped.
‘Wouldn’t mind but Immacu-fuckin’-lata is the spawn o’ fuckin’ dock trash of
f a fuckin’ tuna boat, ain’t she? And the hoor of a mother she had was from the wrong end o’ the Trace an’ all, wasn’t she? With the smell of a thousand fuckin’ campfires off her.’
Ol’ Boy sighed.
‘Marriage is a hard old game at the best o’ times,’ he said.
She eyed him in silence a moment. Saw that he held yet her gaze. Tickled her upper lip with the tip of her tongue.
‘Course now she’s gone off in a hump and he’s lying about on a Chinkee settle horsin’ the dream-smoke into hissel’ like there ain’t no t’moro and the Back Trace Fancy is runnin’ around like a fuckin’ rat with its hole on fire.’
Ol’ Boy soothed:
‘The Hartnett family still has the runnins o’ Bohane, missus.’
‘Ah yeah,’ she said. ‘For now anyways.’
She laughed then, miserably, and wheezed, and paled. She said:
‘I see you got the Gant all over the paper?’
‘I’m trying to distract the town, Girly.’
‘From what, Mannion?’
‘From badness.’
‘Best of luck with that,’ she said. ‘How’s our tram comin’ along?’
‘To be honest, it looks like the NB is long fingerin’.’
‘Well, that ain’t no surprise, is it? When we been actin’ like a pack o’ savages! An’ you know what’s comin’ next, don’t ya? A royal scrap out back o’ the Aliados as all the little Fancy fuckheads try and put their call on the handle. Oh I seen it more than once in my time, Ol’ Boy. They’ll be pullin’ hair and gougin’ eyes all the way to the far side o’ fuckin’ Crimbo. An’ while they’s at it? Some wee bollicks off the Rises or some sand-pikey dickwipe outta the Smoketown dune end is going to march through the town and take care o’ business. Or how’s about some gang o’ wildin’ gals from me own fuckin’ Bohane Trace?’
‘I have been meanin’ to ask about Jenni…’
‘Y’know the latest, Ol’ Boy? She’s encouragin’ them girls!’
‘This is all we need.’
‘You’re tellin’ me! It’s as much as I can do to keep a halter on that friggin’ Chinkee bint.’
‘I understand ye’re close.’
Girly smiled, so fondly, despite her hard words; Ol’ Boy could read the love. He worried where it might send the town.
‘Way I am with Jenni,’ she said, ‘dunno whether to put in the adoption papers or take her slant eyes out with a six-inch dirk.’
‘She’s impressive,’ Ol’ Boy admitted.
Girly hacked out a chuckle.
‘S’the way she hold me gaze an’ all, y’know? Ne’er let it flit at all, like. Stone cold!’
‘I hold your gaze, Girly.’
‘Yeah, but you’re all act.’
It was the lines that came with a smile that stung, and Ol’ Boy duly winced. That he recovered as quickly was the mark of his skill. Gauche, he knew, to ask, but he could not resist.
‘So who’d you reckon on, Girly? If Logan’s done his time…’
Girly creased again with laughter – as though she’d answer! The laughter was torture but slowly she recovered, and she poured another whiskey, and she lit another tab, and she said:
‘Tell ya this, Ol’ Boy. S’been keepin’ me awake nights. But I’ll keep ya posted on me call, y’check?’
35
On Riverside Boulevard
Take a left out of the Yella Hall station – as so few of us ever do – and you will come quickly to a long, curving run of pathway known as Riverside Boulevard. It follows the Bohane river along the last of the city’s bluffs until the river opens out to a vague, estuarine nowhere. Haggard seabirds hover above the empty walkway, and the air is ghostly. It is a place few of us go to because of its strangeness. You will encounter there an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. Invariably, that odd swoop in the spirit occurs, and you are flung back to an inner lost-time that you can never quite place. It is a frightening sensation – one senses an odd lurch within, a movement that can feel almost nauseous. Thoughts come loose. Souls hang on the air. Warps occur. And Logan Hartnett, dream-sick in April, sold to the pipe and heartache, had begun almost daily to haunt the place.
He walked it; he fed on the weird. He chased with clouded eyes the flight of the demon skuas. Hummed softly. And he made – with pale lips moving – his dark reckonings.
Now a particular afternoon of April presented, and the ’bino was again on Riverside, but today he was not alone. He sat on a bollard, as the hot river wind blew, and he gazed up, most pleasantly, at a very nervous Fucker Burke.
Fucker hung his limbs from the chainlink fence that edged the Bohane river hereabouts and he slapped at imagined bugs on his neck.
Logan regarded him with a loving smile.
‘You’ll notice a certain feeling, Fucker?’
‘This place, Mr H, it’s like…’
‘Is it sendin’ you, Fuck?’
Fucker had in his voice a child’s quiver:
‘Ain’t feelin’ so hot now, Mr H, if I’m bein’ honest with ya.’
Fucker threw a hopeful glance towards the Bohane downtown – its rooftops loomed royally in the near distance – but the Long Fella shook his head sadly; there was no going back.
‘You’d pass along this way much yourself, Fucker?’
Spoke to the boy in the sweetest hush, as though whispering a lullaby, and Fucker felt a chill dampness at the base of his spine.
‘No, Mr Hartnett.’
Logan nodded, firmly, as if that was the best tactic the boy could choose.
‘So tell me about Wolfie and Jenni,’ he said.
The jaw lolloped on the galoot boy Burke.
‘What would I know, H?’
‘Are they rock-steady, Fuck?’
‘W-wolfie is.’
‘Got the hook in his gut, he has? I thought as much. And Jenni?’
Fucker made an attempt at indifference.
‘Dunno, Mr H. I mean she givin’ him the whiff of it, like, but…’
Fucker’s words trailed off. His eyes rolled some. Logan let a silence hover, for just a moment, and he watched carefully to see where it would send the boy. Fucker Burke had a routinely Gothical West of Ireland childhood under his belt, and it was there again, his own desperate lost-time, beneath the glaze of his green eyes. He was sent to it. The horrors he had seen, and those by his own hand begotten. There was no way to escape the tingling of his past; it was ever-present, like tiny fires that burned beneath the skin.
‘Come back to me now, Fucker.’
‘You think the Baba’ll wan’ me for a finish, H?’
‘Shush, boy, and come back to me – the Baba loves you.’
Fucker Burke swung down from the chainlink and shuffled his feet uselessly. Shifted his weight from the left to the right and back again. Logan raised a hand to still him.
‘What do you think of the situation with Wolfie, Fuck?’
‘Situation how, Mr Hartnett?’
Logan smiled delightedly, as if a notion had just occurred.
‘Would you say we should do away with him?’
There were dried flecks of spit at the corners of the ’bino’s mouth – they cracked as he spoke.
‘But H, Wolf is like the Fancy’s bes’–’
‘Are ye close still?’
There was a wrinkle to the ’bino’s collar, and his kecks were unpressed.
‘Close ain’t got nothin’ to do with it. Jus’ ain’t seein’ what Wolfie’s done.’
‘Loyalty is a tremendous asset, Fucker Burke.’
‘I don’t like it out here, Mr H.’
There was a greenish wash to the ’bino’s deadhouse pallor – the colour of a mould.
‘Oh I know that Riverside feeling, boy. Things rise up in you, don’t they?’
Swallowed hard, Fucker, a crab-apple of terror descending and then rising again the length of his throat.
‘We strollin’ back, H?’
‘And what about Jenni – should we do away wit
h Jenni Ching, Fucker?’
‘I wasn’t brought up to mess with no Chinkees, Mr Hartnett.’
‘You’d be as wise not to, child, under normal circumstances. But what I’m hearing about Jenni Ching?’
He shook his head slowly.
‘She’s got plans, ain’t she, Fuck?’
‘Don’t know about that, H.’
‘Do you not? I see.’
Logan stood from the bollard and approached the boy and he placed his hand on the back of the boy’s head and pulled him close. He leaned in, brow to brow. He said:
‘Let me tell you a few things, Fucker. All this?’
A wee swoop with the palm was shaped – a gesture to take in the world as was.
‘All this is going to pass away from you so quickly now, hear me? You’ve been in your glory, Fucker Burke. A set of grapes on you and a few bob put away and I dare say certain females who’ve been deranged enough to put themselves at your disposal. You’ve had your lovely dog, Angelina. And I understand what you did, Fucker. I do. It felt as if your life would never start but in fact it’s been racing past you all the while. But this ain’t for play no more. What are you, eighteen?’
The certainty of what was to come apparent, Fucker’s tone was flat now with resignation.
‘I’m seventeen, Mr H.’
‘Oh that’s a beautiful age to be, Fuck. You think you’re going to live forever… Well, I’m here to tell you that you ain’t.’
Logan made an O with his lips, and he blew a slow, steady whooshing, like the wind through the hollows of a wood, and it was aimed directly at the boy’s face.
The breath lingered as a foul breeze – Fucker smelt the pipe-burn and the Ho Pee on it, and the rot of an old outlaw that he would never be.
Logan said:
‘Look at me, Fucker. Look at me, sweetness. I can’t say that I ain’t had the luck. I’ve been twenty-five years with the Fancy to my name. I’ve been reefed six times and I’m still sucking at the poison air. An accident, do you think?’
He smiled, and the pale blue of his eyes showed the colours of sky and water, refracted.
