by Rob Doyle
35 | Matthew
I visited Rez in hospital only once more. This time I went there on my own. He looked the same as he had the first time; pale, gaunt, wasted – it was a look that suited him. When I entered the ward, one of the other beds was empty.
‘What happened to him?’ I asked, nodding at the wafer of absence under fresh, straight covers, by way of breaking the ice.
Rez shrugged his shoulders, managing to make the gesture look like it cost him worlds of effort. ‘He got out.’
‘What, you mean he’s better?’ I was surprised; Rez’s brother had told me that the man was on his death bed, about to be dragged under by some terminal illness.
‘No, he’s not better. He’s dead.’
‘Oh.’
So much for breaking the ice. The bulk in the third bed shifted and groaned at the mention of death. Maybe in his fever he believed I was the Grim Reaper, come to collect him. I saw his face; a grizzled, ugly man with a terrible complexion and worse teeth. He peered at me with wet-eyed suspicion, then turned over and started coughing.
I looked at Rez in his bed. Lately I’d grown depressed at the thought – which not long ago would have felt exciting – that most of my friends were twisted, volatile outsiders. You started out playing with this stuff – the extremism, the chaos – and it felt vital and exhilarating; but then suddenly you couldn’t control it, you’d gone too far and it wasn’t exciting any more, only frightening.
‘How are ye doin, Rez?’ I asked, exhausted already by being here, but wanting at least to try and fix things.
‘Not bad, considerin I recently tried to commit suicide.’
That was fairly dark, but at least there was a spark of humour in it, something he’d been devoid of last time.
‘My ma’s worried about them lettin me out. She’s afraid I’m goin to do it again.’
‘And are ye?’
He shook his head. ‘No. It was stupid. I can’t believe what I almost did. It terrifies me, especially when I think it was only a fluke that I was found. I wake up sweatin, nearly in panic.’
I wondered if this was the propaganda he was putting out, to lure those around him into a false sense of security while he made another bid for self-annihilation. Rez and what went on in his mind were beyond me. He had drifted out too far, into weird fog: I couldn’t see who he was any more.
‘Why did ye do it, Rez? Is there somethin ye … somethin that happened to ye?’
‘No.’ His voice had hardened; he looked ready to lash out again, tense and defensive. ‘There’s nothin that happened. I just… I’ve just been seein things clearly, too clearly. And not lookin away.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t seem to look away, the same way ordinary people do. And when ye can’t look away it’s impossible to …’ He paused; each word seemed a strain. ‘To keep livin, doin normal things.’
He looked like he was going to continue, but then he exhaled in a huge sigh, exhausted by the effort. I sensed that he wanted me to leave. But now I realized I had a kind of power over him, something I’d never had before. Rez was vulnerable and I wanted to push him, partly out of curiosity, but also for some other, shadowy reason that wasn’t clear to me.
‘What do ye mean, though?’ I said. ‘I mean, what is it ye say ye see about the world that makes ye want to, to go and do what ye did?’
He watched me for a few long moments, making me feel like a faecal germ under a microscope. Then he said, ‘You, for instance.’
I waited.
‘Me?’ I said eventually.
‘Yeah. You, the way ye are. And you here now, for example. I know what it’s all about. I –’
‘Ye what?’ I snapped. ‘Ye know what about me? Ye always think ye fuckin know about me, and about everyone. What do ye know?’
I was suddenly sick of how everything he said, even every look he gave, was one of accusation.
He said, ‘You’re enjoyin it, seein me here like this. It doesn’t really make ye feel anything to know that I was miserable enough to try and hang meself. All ye really feel is the buzz of it, the drama. I don’t even blame ye.’
‘Here we go again,’ I sneered. ‘This same old shit.’ I shook my head, exhaled in irritation, and shifted like I was about to get up and leave.
‘It’s true, though. Even now, the way you’re pressin me for information, it’s just cos ye want a bit of a buzz from hearin me.’
I looked away. I felt exposed. I tried pleading, hoping for a truce. ‘Look,’ I said in a softer tone. ‘I know it’s true that there are horrible, really fuckin horrible things out there in the world. But it’s not all bad, there are some good things as well that ye don’t have to analyse. Ye have to take things more at face value, not just see the, the ulterior motives all the time.’
‘But I can’t!’ It came out as a terrible screech. His eyes were frantic, like he was looking out at me from a burning room. ‘I can’t, Matthew. I don’t know how to. I really don’t. I just can’t turn me mind off. I don’t know how to walk down a fuckin street any more. I can’t even sit on a bus without thinkin about it from a million different angles at the same time. I keep seein the reasons behind things, why people do what they do. It’s horrible, it’s fuckin shameful. I’m fuckin ashamed of meself. I don’t know what to do.’
The medication seemed to have lost all effect, if he was even still taking it. He was definitely not tranquilized, not sedated – he looked like the only thing he wanted now was to try again to kill himself and this time get it right.
‘I know, Rez, it’s bad, I know. But there’s more to it than that, there are some good, valuable things …’ I said this even more softly, trying to put some warmth and emotion into it. But the words floated from my mouth like feeble things, dying on the air. I hated Rez for hearing my useless words and knowing they were useless. I hated him for seeing everything so clearly, especially me. I met his gaze, just as the furtive thought escaped, like noxious gas from the bowels, that it would be better for everyone if he did kill himself. People who saw the truth all the time, and insisted on telling you about it, were no good for anyone.
‘Oh Jesus,’ he whimpered, as if he’d heard my thought.
I closed my eyes and directed them away from Rez’s locked stare before opening them again.
‘I’ll see ye, Rez,’ I said, standing up.
He didn’t answer. Still avoiding his eyes, I pulled up my hood and left the room.
‘Wait,’ I heard him croak as I stepped out the door, letting it close behind me.
I had no energy these days. At work I just got stoned and spoke to no one, sluggishly washing cars and filling tanks, coming to life only when my manager gave out to me. I wouldn’t have cared if he’d fired me. When I wasn’t working, I hardly left my room unless I was going to get wasted with Kearney or Cocker. I hadn’t heard anything from Jen. I thought about calling her; maybe we could patch things up and make it like it was before, at the start of the summer. I missed her. But then I would remember what had happened and tell myself that she could be dead for all I cared. Because of what my ma had started referring to as ‘the Richard situation’ I was left alone, not hassled about anything. That was a relief.
Then Rez got out of hospital. He’d been in there ten days. His ma said maybe it was best that his friends gave him some space for a little while, till things were back to normal.
36 | Kearney
He kept to himself after meeting Matthew at the industrial estate. Now that the intention was there – the intention to kill somebody – he found that his mind was whirring away below decks, doing the creative work while he played Grand Theft Auto or smoked on his bed. Ideas would pop into his mind at random moments. For instance, there was the thought that he could push some old fucker down the stairs. Or he could leave the gas on in his grandmother’s house, causing a tragic accident that was no accident at all. Or he could go all out and accost someone on the street, or down a dark lane, and bludgeon them to death. When he thought of that one in particular his
mind whirled and he experienced a great dizziness, akin to vertigo: there was no limit to what he might achieve if he put his mind to it.
But the idea of bludgeoning, stabbing or beating someone to death, though thrilling, seemed too far-fetched, too outrageous. He would end up getting caught and having to go to Mountjoy for the rest of his life. No fucking way.
When the idea appeared, he knew straight off that it was the right one.
He told no one about his plan. He brooded on it for two days, getting the details just right. Then he awoke on a midweek morning and he knew: it was time to climax.
When his ma had gone out to work – she was a cleaner, Monday to Friday, nine to five, much to Kearney’s inner derision – Kearney lifted open the portal in the garage and climbed down the sturdy wooden ladder into the basement. He was wearing rubber gloves. He stuffed what he needed into a Dunnes Stores bag inside a SuperValu bag, and left the house.
He took a bus into town, on his own. He sat on the top deck and looked at no one.
He had a victim in mind. And if he wasn’t there, that was no matter; Kearney would transfer his intentions to another of his preferred victim’s mangy, stinking kind. They were all the same, all as worthless as one another. Fuck the lot of them.
Kearney got off the bus at the Central Bank. He stepped off Dame Street and down the cobblestoned laneway that sloped through Temple Bar towards the Liffey – a run-off sewer of vomit, fast-food cartons and half-digested burgers.
And there he was, the pitiful cunt, slouched in his usual place, all on his own. There he was, where he always was.
The tramp sat in the shadowy staff doorway of the Hot Chick takeaway, wheezing and splayed like he’d been stabbed, only he sucked on a can of cheap cider every few seconds, ruining the effect. Kearney approached the tramp and stood above him, looking down and feeling like the Angel of Death. He took in the tramp’s grey, matted hair that spilled out under an ancient baseball cap with Remember the Alamo printed across it, and the shitty grey crust of clothing that swaddled him. Kearney’s lip twitched in revulsion.
‘There’s a smell of piss here,’ he said coldly, his eyes on the tramp.
He imagined a camera filming him, someone looking on.
The tramp mumbled something and continued to stare vacantly, vagrantly ahead, at the opposite wall of the laneway. He slurped again on his can, either unaware of Kearney, or just not giving a fuck that he was there, looming above him.
Kearney sniffed, leaning in a little over the tramp and his dank, stinking doorway.
‘Fuckin hell man, that really reeks. Does it not bother ye, sittin there in the filth like that? Do ye just not give a fuck, like?’
The tramp mumbled again. This time Kearney discerned the words ‘cunt’ and ‘fuckers’, fishing them out of the slur of babble like boots or soiled condoms in the drift of a filthy river. He grinned.
‘Ah, it can’t be that bad, pal. Shift up a bit there and let me sit down. If ye don’t mind, like.’
The tramp didn’t respond, so Kearney gave him a hard shove with the toe of his boot, almost a kick. ‘Get up, would ye. Jaysus Christ.’
Finally the tramp lurched into a greater awareness of Kearney. He looked up at him in glazed perplexity, like someone who’d just woken up.
‘What do ye fuckin want?’ he rasped.
‘Nothin. Move up a bit and let me sit down.’
‘Ye little faggot …’ The tramp began to mumble a string of insults at Kearney, but then cut himself short. Dimly scenting opportunity, he said, ‘Gis a smoke.’
‘What?’
‘Gis a smoke, I said.’
‘What do you say?’
‘I say give us a fuckin smoke. Or FUCK OFF!’
The tramp tried to swipe at Kearney with his can-hand, but succeeded only in spilling cider over his chapped yellow fingers and wrists.
Kearney laughed, but pulled his pack of twenty John Player Blue from a back pocket and opened it. ‘There ye go. Have two. Now let us sit down.’ He nudged the tramp again with his foot and squeezed into the doorway beside him. He put his faded green knapsack resting between his knees. He lit the tramp’s smoke, then lit one of his own. He said, ‘I just thought I’d have a bit of a drink.’
The tramp’s sullen contemptuousness gave way to fascination as Kearney pulled a can of Oranjeboom lager from the knapsack. Kearney cracked open the can and glugged down a quarter of it, then exhaled loud and slow in theatrical satisfaction. He passed the can to the tramp and said, ‘Have a sup, go on.’ But he needn’t have bothered, for the tramp had already tipped the can back and was pouring the drink down his throat. Kearney tingled in loathing as foamy yellow lager spilled over the thicket of filthy beard that clung to the tramp’s flaking face.
The tramp emptied the can, belched in a way that surely signalled grave inner disarray, and flung the can at the opposite wall, where it clanked and fell to the ground, rolling to a stop against an overturned burger carton and a crushed Pepsi cup.
‘Do ye want me to say thanks?’ hissed the tramp, energized by the sudden inpour, all drunk down hastier than his usual rationing would allow for.
‘Yeah, go on,’ said Kearney.
‘FUCK OFF!’ barked the tramp. ‘That’s what I say to ye. Go and shite. Or else gis another can, ye little fuckin prick.’
Kearney laughed, highly amused.
‘Jesus Christ, ye don’t really have what ye’d call the social graces, do ye? And ye can’t have much of a clue about actin in yer own best interests, cos ye can see that I’ve got loads more cans here, and I’m probably willin to share them. But then ye go and insult me! To be honest with ye, I’m amazed that ye’ve reached the level of achievement in life that ye obviously have done, with that kind of attitude.’
Kearney chortled again, this time at his own cutting irony. He pictured the TV audiences, sitting at home and chuckling in sophisticated appreciation of his pitch-black wit. The tramp merely grunted, his zest for insult already spent.
‘However, I’m the mellow sort,’ continued Kearney. ‘And I don’t like drinkin on me own. So I’ll stay with ye for a while. Only if ye don’t mind, though.’ He raised his hands and put on a look like he was worried about offending the tramp. ‘Seriously, will I stay and have a drink with ye? I’ve plenty here. Or will I leave ye alone? Tell me seriously, like. I don’t mind which, but ye have to tell me.’
The tramp’s face had glazed over; he was baffled into mental paralysis by Kearney’s head-games. Kearney chuckled a little, thinking the haggard old bastard might live to drink another day. But then the tramp’s watery eyes fell again on the bulging green knapsack between Kearney’s legs. The greed took over and he said, ‘Gis a can.’
‘What?’
‘Gis a can.’
‘You want a can, correct?’
‘Yes a can.’
‘Yes a can. Is that yer final answer?’
‘Fuck off, youth. Gis a can or piss off.’
Kearney laughed again. He pulled out another can just as two teenage girls with tumours of lipstick, clutching pink and white mobile phones, came up the alley from the direction of the Liffey. Their chatter died away when they saw Kearney and the tramp, and their pace quickened, hurrying them away to the many-eyed safety of Dame Street.
Kearney watched them trotting off. He whistled. Then he turned to the tramp and said, ‘See the hole on that blonde one? Fuckin Jaysus. I’d say it’s been a while since ye had a bit of minge like that, am I right? Sure I doubt ye’ve even got it up in the last twenty years. Am I right or wha?’
‘Gerrup the fuck,’ slurred the tramp. ‘Open yer can or fuck off back home to mammy.’
Kearney opened the can. He took a swig, then handed it to the tramp, but not before deliberately tilting it so that a puddle of beer fell into the tramp’s encrusted lap. Despite being thus insulted, the tramp took the can and guzzled on it, so degraded was he. Kearney thought he might take it even further, get the tramp to dance for him, or have him wave his m
ickey at some oul one, or make retard noises at the crowds up on Dame Street, or strip naked and roll on the ground, barking like a dog. Or put his finger through his own fucking eye. Kearney’s mind blackened, his loathing for this worthless life form flaring up beyond control.
‘Yer like me da,’ he spat, though the tramp, absorbed in draining the can as quickly as he could before it was snatched back off him, wasn’t listening. ‘Yer a filthy, sickenin fuckin insect, a piece of shite, a total fuckin disease. I’d kick yer fuckin head in right now if I could get away with it. I’d stamp on yer face till ye were fuckin dead.’
The tramp didn’t hear a word of it, or didn’t care either way. Finished, he hurled the can against the wall, belched even more violently than before and gestured for more booze. Kearney obliged.
Four cans later, Kearney looked at his watch. He didn’t actually have a watch, but he knew the tramp wouldn’t notice. Then he said, ‘Shit, I have to go in a minute. Late for business. Ye know how it is.’
He reached into the knapsack, fumbled for a moment, then pulled out the bottle of cheap red wine, which had its cork reinserted into the neck.
‘I suppose you could probably hang on to this. I don’t need it, there’ll be plenty of drink when I meet me mate later. Do ye want it?’
The detail about meeting the friend was superfluous, for the alco didn’t care about excuses, only booze, and he snatched the bottle of wine, clutching it to him like it might be taken away at any moment.
‘Remember the Alamo!’ Kearney called back with a cheery wave as he walked away. The tramp had already taken a couple of hefty swigs before Kearney reached the end of the lane, thrust his hands in his pockets and turned on to Dame Street, blending into the indifferent city-centre crowds. Heading towards Trinity College, he wondered how long it would take for the rat poison to snuff out the tramp’s filthy, hilarious life.
37 | Matthew
The Saturday after Rez came out of hospital, there was to be a house party at Grace Madden’s, on the northside. None of us would have been able to throw a party then – it wouldn’t have looked right – but Grace and her crowd didn’t really know Rez, so it was innocent. And we saw no great reason to sit at home and mope. Grace’s family was rich – compared to me and my friends’ families, at least. I never felt comfortable around Grace or her friends, with their Trinners accents and their smug banter. I didn’t care, though: I would go along to her party and get annihilated and who really gave a bollocks.
