9 Tales From Elsewhere 4

by 9 Tales From Elsewhere

  “Did you know her?”

  Stupid question I know, but I’m sharing here.

  “Are ye mad? No. She was an Italian. Al Capone's missus for a bit apparently. Your dad fancied her, and you know what he's like. He set his sights on her and well, one thing led to another. He speaks highly of her.”

  She trailed off a little bit at the end. I think she feels a little bit more than she was letting on. To be fair to her she’s been my real mother for all intents and purposes for hundreds of years. Before she left she stopped at the door. She didn’t look at me when she spoke.

  “Keep them if you want. “

  “Thanks ma.”

  “Now get down the stairs your Da is looking for you.”

  We all got summoned to the war room. A couple of the lads put their feet up on the table, Dad didn’t like that. To be fair to him it’s a nice table. Tommy spoke first, typically acting like an arsehole.

  “Teacher, can I go to the toilet?”

  He got a couple of laughs for it. Dad wasn’t impressed.

  “Are you finished?? Right, I know a lot of you have been trying to wrap your heads around my involvement with the Jamaicans and our new business ventures and what not. Don't get me wrong, you're my family. And this is life and death stuff day in and day out so we need to trust each other. But bottom line, I'm in charge so to a certain extent I don't care if you've got a problem with it. Do as you're told. But I'm opening the floor to questions this one time. So get it out of your system. After that, I don't want to hear it.”

  Cillian put his hand up to ask a question.

  “May I?”

  Tommy shut him down right away.

  “No.”

  Cillian hung his head, a bit disappointed. Shane jumped to his defense as always.

  “Oi!!Let him speak you pricks.”

  “Thank you. You are all old as hell, and as such quite racist yeah?”

  They nod appropriately.

  “So, what are we doing getting involved with Jamaicans then?”

  You had to give it to him, he got to the point. I could see Dad bracing himself before he answered.

  “The question on everyone's mind? The fact is we're up against it. It was never that easy before. But now these BNP heads are in power. So we had to adapt. As our people have always done. We smile in the face of adversity and kick it square in the bollox.”

  I expected it to be Tommy, but Shane spoke up first.

  “I don't like it. Sorry boss. No disrespect intended. These sneaky black bastards are gonna sell us out in a heartbeat for a fuckin bucket of chicken.”

  There were some murmurs of agreements. I just shook my head and laughed. Tommy got offended by this of course. Apparently I was the one being disrespectful??

  “See you ye cheeky little prick you show some respect!!”

  My Dad jumped to my aid for a change. But mostly to serve his own point.

  “You take it easy! Listen, If we keep trying to fend for ourselves we're fucked.”

  “With all due respect that says more to me about your leadership than anything else.”

  “This time we need to make peace with them. We have the same enemies.”

  In jumps Shane again, they’re like some sort of racist tag team gimmick I swear.

  “No they're still our enemies. But the fuckin blacks are our enemies too. They can't be trusted when the fuck have they ever been able to be trusted?”

  I don’t think I’ve ever seen my Dad so shaken and unsure. It was what he said next that really blew up the situation.

  “When have WE ever been able to be trusted? We don't have any other choice! We're dead in a month without them!”

  At this point the arguing was in full effect. Cillian just sat their awkwardly. Tara screamed from out in the hallway and we all stopped.

  “DAAAAAAAAAD!!!!!!”

  We all jumped up and ran in the direction of the screaming. We ended up in Dorians room. There was a dead girl lying there. Pale as, well pale as one of us and bleeding from two unmistakable puncture wounds in her throat. Dorian was sitting in the corner like a scolded child. As always, Dad turned on me. I don’t know why but this time I just wasn’t having it.

  “What happened? And where were you!!!!”

  “Don't blame me for this! You kicked him out!”

  “You're supposed to watch him!”

  “So? I've been babysitting little prince Dorian for god knows how long. All cos someday he's gonna be king. Am I the only one who sees a problem in that?”

  In hindsight, bad idea. I get that, but he pissed me off. I looked around at the others for validation, they tried their best not to get involved but their facial expressions backed me up. I fooled myself into thinking that was what I wanted but their lack of faith in Dorian kind of made me sad.

  “Who could he lead? Most of these guys will barely listen to you anymore!”

  Like all family arguments, it’s now escalated beyond reason. In a blink of an eye he’d kicked me in the chest so hard I went out of the room, through the bannister and down the stairs. I was alive, but Jesus that hurt. He kept shouting anyway.

  “Do you think they'll listen to you? You mongrel!”

  Tara interrupted, albeit with some trepidation.

  “Dad! It gets worse.”

  She told me about this after the fact, because at this point I had just been thrown down a flight of stairs so I couldn’t see for myself. But she turned the girls head around so they could all see it was Martin Jones’s daughter. Dorian has just royally landed us in it. And apparently it’s my fault??

  After much deliberation we called up Marcus to do some Voodoo and resurrect the poor girl. At daybreak we moved her into Tara’s room to try and fool her into thinking she just had a heavy night and lesbo moment. My dad was hilariously uncomfortable. He was never over joyed by Tara’s more experimental proclivities. Before you judge please remember, we’re hundreds of years old.

  “You sure you can make this work love?”

  “Yes DA.”

  “I still don't approve.”

  “I know Da.”

  Tara went in and layed down beside her, we hid on the other side of the door to listen.

  “Morning, baby.”

  “What? Where am I?”

  Most people feel that way after a hangover. This poor girl was dead a few hours ago.

  “Don't you remember? We met last night. Martini's and tequila.”

  Some of the lads got a little too into Tara’s performance, my dad cracked them around the head to shut them up.

  “No.”

  Uh oh, she wasn’t buying the story. Tara sounded a bit shook but she tried to continue.

  “You're a hell of a dancer.”

  “I.I have a fiancée.”

  “Could have fooled me.”

  “What? No.”

  I think everybody knew something was wrong at this stage.

  “Yes.”

  “No. I'm not a fucking dyke.”

  “What?”

  Marcus busted in, waving a voodoo doll around in front of her.

  “You died last night. And I brought you back with Voodoo.”

  “Really?”

  Stupid question but to be fair to her, what would your first question be if you just found out you died?

  “Yes really. See.”

  She tried to reach for the doll and he stopped her.

  “Ah! We'll hang on to this. In case you decide to tell your daddy anything.”

  She stopped for a minute to think about it.

  “So I'm?”

  “Dead. Yes.”

  “Heavy. I know. Now get out.”

  She left, the boys waved to her on the way out. Dorian sat down beside Tara, who was kind of staring into space.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  “It was probably just because she was dead?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You can't win 'em all.”

  “I thought I could.”

&n
bsp; “It'll be OK?”

  A noise from outside broke the silence. Dorian jumped up looked to the window.

  “Da! They're back!”

  The construction crew showed up again, a little bit beaten up and looking quite shaken. They’re all wearing big crosses and they’ve a load of priests with them blessing their gear. The same guy as before got on the megaphone. I should have shoved that thing up his arse a long time ago.

  “Ahem. Our previous notice has expired, due to technical difficulties. But we are here with a new order from the lord mayor of London, which in light of previous warnings received has been reduced to 12 hours. You have until 9pm. Have a nice...have a nice day.”

  This time we couldn’t figure out any alternative, so we tooled up for battle. We were all standing outside the house, hands behind our backs unsheathing blades and pulling back the hammers on the guns. In typical Irish fashion we were all fairly certain we wouldn’t win, but we were damn sure gonna take a few of them with us. Tommy spoke first

  “How much time do we have sir?”

  He’s sir now apparently? He was prepared to commit mutiny on my dad a few days ago and now he’s sir. Typical.

  “About 5 minutes.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I don't know what's going to happen next but I want you to know I love you all. You're my family and I love you.”

  I think this is the first time my Dad ever told me he loved me. And of course it would be minutes before we expected to die. But, I didn’t want to waste the moment so I returned the favour.

  “I love you too.”

  My sister got in on the action too.

  “Love you dad.”

  Mercifully Tommy and Shane broke up the lovey dovey stuff.

  “With all due respect, go fuck yourself.”

  “What he said.”

  I had to laugh when it started to rain. We would get the Irish weather for the occasion. I could see the builders looking at their watches too. When it came time they all blessed themselves and climbed into their vehicles. I looked down for a minute to take the safety off and double everything was loaded.

  “Is that a banshee??”

  At first I thought he was joking. Cillian has the goofiest sense of humour at times. But it was. For some reason, who knows what a load of banshees appeared. Ghoulish old ladies in long grey dresses flying around shrieking, picking up the buildings and launching them 20 feet in the air.

  None of us had to ask, my Dad answered for us anyway.

  “I don't know.”

  “Banshees.”

  “I know that. My love, did you?”

  “No! What do we do now?”

  “The hell if I know.”

  We got a crate of beers and some deck chairs and watched the show.

  The next night started as a quiet night, escalated pretty rapidly. Isn’t it always the way. We were sat around playing poker and having a laugh. We’d sent most of the bar staff home except for one guy who was cleaning glasses. There was a massive thud on the door, for some reason the dopey bastard didn’t get the door right away so I had to yell at him.

  “Get the fuckin door you idiot!”

  When the bartender gets to the door it bursts off the hinges and Shane storms in the door with Cu Chulainn on his back. He collapsed on the floor beside the dog. We all jumped out of our seats.

  “They got Tommy!”

  I knew right away we were going to have to call the Jamaicans. The skinheads were going to bring him to the cage and make him fight.

  It turned out that on their way home Tommy and Shane saw a group of black kids getting beaten up by a group of Skins. Initially they just had a laugh but they reluctantly went to help the poor kids out, only to find out it was an ambush. And of course rather than run away they went for it anyway. They left Shane and Cu Chulainn and took Tommy. Marcus obliged right away when he found out what had happened and we got our directions. He even offered us help, but this one we wanted to sort ourselves.

  We got in through the roof and the ventilation system. The cage was lined with barbed wire and crosses; we decided we’d use chains and take it down. Then fuck up as many people as possible on our way out. Cillian and Shane were with me, I had told Tara to stay at home but she appeared anyway.

  “What's the plan here lads?”

  “You shouldn't be here Da will kill me!”

  “Ah fuck off would ye we're here now. I won't spoil your fun boys I promise. There he is, look!”

  They dragged Tommy in handcuffed with a bag over his head. On the other side of the cage was some poor Jamaican guy, starved and stripped of most of his clothes he looked a lot more like a wolf then they usually do.

  “Alright lads, get ready. Tara, wait till the cage comes down and just start killing people”.

  She liked that. I don’t want to get side tracked because this is the exciting bit but how good was that? I think I make a great leader.

  Some sick bastard with a microphone stood in the middle was preparing to make an announcement when we whipped the chains down. Sure enough the cage came apart nicely. Tara hopped down and parted the crowd with a little charm. They stood there staring at her and she smiled back. Then she bore the teeth and just started going to work. Ripping and biting everyone in sight. Dorian took out the announcer. He jumped down behind him, tapped him on the shoulder and then ripped his throat out when he turned around. Shane picked up Tommy over his shoulders and we were off. I couldn’t leave the poor Jamaican guy so I helped him out; he killed a couple of them too along the way. It seemed only fair.

  That night helped relations a lot between our two families. But of course, the papers told it a different way.

  A few nights later we were down at the docks, bringing some group of Polish refugees in with new passports. Tommy wasn’t overly enthused so we gave him a paper to keep him quiet. The headlines all read the same:

  IRISH SUSPECTED IN MASS MURDER AT CHURCH GATHERING.

  “Church gathering? Scumbags”

  Shane stayed up at the top of one of the boats to keep watch. I opened the freight container and out they poured, met with a new passport from Cillian. The dog started growling and Tommy silenced him.

  “OK folks; learn the information on that paper. You're Irish now.”

  What I wanted to say was “You would have had an easier time back in Poland with bombs going off everywhere but here you.” But hey, diplomacy. I went over to comfort Tommy as he looked like he might be sick.

  “Dirty fuckin polish, I don't like this.”

  “They're alright man. They work hard, they've overcome adversity. They love a drink. They're basically us, only not as charming.”

  “Everything is changing. I don't like change.”

  “You're old, you're not supposed to.”

  Shane shouted down to us.

  “HEY LADS!! THEY'RE COMING!!!”

  Three vans came screeching up full of police, Cu Chulainn got riled up again. This time we let him stay angry, who knows what could happen next.

  “What's going on here then?”

  The Police were feeling a bit cocky, they assumed they had us caught. I figured I’d leprechaun it up a bit and have some fun with them.

  “Ah boys, sure it's a new shipment of potatoes so it is.”

  “Aren't you fuckin hysterical? What's he doing up there?”

  In a week of surprises, it continued. Cillian stepped forward.

  “He likes the view.”

  “Excuse me fuck face?”

  “Oh no, you're mistaken, I'm fuck nose. He's fuck head, and that's fuck face up there.”

  “Funny man. And who are these lot then???”

  He grabbed a Polish guy by the neck

  “What's your name?”

  Right on queue the Polish guy responded perfectly.

  “Patrick O'Neill.”

  “What?”

  Cillian was beaming at this point.

  “Check his passport. Patrick, show the nice man your passport.”


  “Is this some kind of a joke?”

  “We would never joke with you, sure you're the police.”

  Cillian can be such a smug bastard when he wants to be. The Police checked everyone’s ID and when they all checked out ok they had no choice but to leave. When they were gone Cillian decided to take a bow.

  “Thank you! Thank you!”

  We didn’t have much time to celebrate; Jones was on TV again the next day being interviewed. The report asked him about changing the immigration laws.

  “Because it’s not that simple. This is not about hate. If I do that then they win. England is branded as a hateful nation of racists. They're criminals, leeches and degenerates and when they expose themselves as such then I'll remove them. I want to remove them, and I will remove them. It’s not a matter of how, it's a matter of when.”

  Like the Americans say, there goes the neighbourhood.

  THE END

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