Here Are the Young Men

by Rob Doyle

  He had rolled the spliff and started smoking it when the boy appeared. Kearney watched him entering the garden through the main gates. Even at a distance, he had no trouble discerning it: the boy was handicapped, your classic Down’s-syndrome pre-adolescent. His big, round, baby face was stupid and trusting – stupid and trusting and weak. He wore some kind of uniform, a dark-green affair with a yellow and grey striped tie. He was alone. That surprised Kearney; he had thought they never let them out on their own.

  Down the steps the boy waddled. At the opposite end from the gate stood the swan statue, and between them was the long central fountain with Celtic weapons painted on the tiled floor.

  Kearney kept his eyes on the handicapped boy who misted through the cloud of hash smoke Kearney billowed from his nostrils, a technique he had styled on Snoop Dogg. The boy reached the foot of the steps and came shuffling around the right-hand side of the fountain, approaching the bench where Kearney was sitting.

  Kearney had been watching without any agenda in mind, but now, with the boy right beside him, instinct took over: he darted a quick glance up and down the length of the garden. There was nobody around. Kearney thrust out his long, scrawny leg and adroitly tripped the boy up. He fell forward, landing on his face and palms with a groan of incomprehension and pain.

  Kearney was up and on his feet immediately. ‘Jesus, man, I’m sorry!’

  ‘Uuggh,’ said the boy.

  Kearney helped him to his feet, brushed him off, made sympathetic noises until the boy was upright and recomposed. He had no plan, no clear idea of what he was doing, what he would do.

  ‘Jesus, I’m sorry about that, pal. I should keep me long legs to meself. Are ye alright?’

  ‘Am alright. You tripped me,’ said the boy in a predictable drawl.

  ‘I know, I know. Come on now, I’ll walk ye out. Yer on yer way home, I suppose.’

  ‘I have to get home to me mammy, she says don’t talk to strangers. They might be sex perverts.’

  ‘I’m not a stranger. I know yer mammy. She’s far more of a sex pervert than I am.’

  The boy flung Kearney’s arm aside with surprising force.

  ‘Don’t say that! She’s a good mammy, she’s my mammy, she’s not a sex pervert!’

  ‘I know, I know! I was only jokin. Come on, ye mad thing ye.’

  Kearney lightly took the boy’s arm again and led him along the length of the rectangular, enclosed garden. They came to the steeper, narrower steps, leading up to the side entrance.

  ‘This my shortcut,’ said the boy.

  ‘That’s right. Up we go,’ said Kearney reassuringly.

  They began the ascent, the steps partly hidden by the overhanging branches of the trees around the periphery of the garden. Still Kearney had no thought of where this was leading. But his heart was going like fuck.

  When they were almost at the top, near the black iron gate and Parnell Square beyond, Kearney looked back. The garden was still almost empty but a middle-aged, tourist-looking couple had just stepped through the front gateway, absorbed in chat, the man emphasizing a point with open-handed gestures. They were far away.

  Kearney didn’t hesitate, nor did he think about what he was doing. He shot his leg in behind the boy’s calves, then turned and simultaneously gave him a forceful shove. Arms swimming in the air, clawing at nothing, the boy fell slowly backwards like a felled tree. Incomprehension stole over his face, his chubby brow creasing in fright and bewilderment. Weakness! thought Kearney. Weakness! The boy free-fell in an inexorable arc. He just had time to cry out, and then the back of his head cracked on the sharp edge of the lowest step.

  It was a horrible sound even to Kearney, who had now turned and was walking hastily up the remaining pair of steps, out through the black, leaf-shrouded gate. He heard a shout from behind as he came on to Parnell Square and fled into the city with his head down, hands in his pockets, turning here, turning there, losing himself, getting the hell away, heart pounding like some mad fucking thing.

  45 | Rez

  Late on Saturday morning, the Tooley doorbell rang. Rez’s mother went to get it.

  Rez was watching television: he was watching The Weakest Link. Not fully lucid because of the drugs, Rez wondered if he were the Weakest Link. Was that what she was saying, the stern-looking woman on-screen? If he were the Weakest Link, it would probably be better to not be here at all.

  Cocker stepped into the room, smiling shyly, cheeks rosy – maybe Cocker was the Weakest Link. Jen followed behind him. Rez’s mother peeked in anxiously, over their heads, then left them to it.

  ‘Alright,’ said Rez, already exhausted by the affair.

  ‘Alright Rez,’ they said. Jen sat on the armchair and Cocker sat on the smaller couch. Everyone faced the television. For a while no one spoke, all watching The Weakest Link.

  Then Rez turned to Cocker. ‘You are … the Weakest Link?’ he said. No one responded. Jen coughed and looked at the carpet.

  Eventually, Cocker cleared his throat and said, ‘So how are ye doin, Rez?’

  ‘Great, Cocker,’ Rez replied. Cocker nodded vigorously, relieved at this response; it made things easier for him. Rez reasoned that he was smarter than Cocker; therefore he, Rez, probably was not the Weakest Link.

  Conversation spluttered on for a while, not taking off, not going anywhere. Jen tried to talk about books.

  ‘I’m reading this great one,’ she said. ‘By Albert Camus. The Fall, it’s called. It keeps reminding me of you.’

  She had pronounced the author’s first name like the English version, and the surname as Cam-Uss. Rez’s awareness of these errors provoked searing mental pain. ‘What’s it about?’ he muttered. Then he lapsed into staring at the screen. Friendship, he mused, was something you probably had in the nineteenth century, for example.

  A few minutes later Jen quietly said, ‘I’m goin away soon, Rez.’

  He turned to her. ‘Are you?’ She nodded. ‘How soon? What about college? The exam results will be out in …’

  ‘Around three weeks’ time,’ said Cocker.

  Jen said, ‘Yeah I know, but I’m goin to go away even if I get into college. You can take a year out, sometimes even two years. But you never know: if I really like it over there, I mightn’t even come back. Things here are … it’s not the same.’

  Rez considered this. Everyone was drifting apart. ‘Where are ye goin?’ he asked.

  ‘India. I fly to Mumbai this day two weeks.’

  ‘So soon,’ said Rez. Something was coming to an end; something was breaking that could never be fixed again. ‘Who are ye goin with?’

  Jen gave a sad, quiet laugh. ‘No one,’ she said.

  What about Matthew, Rez wondered. But then the news came on RTÉ. Cocker and Jen turned to watch the headlines. For once, the main story wasn’t about the Iraq invasion: it was about something foul that had taken place the day before in the Garden of Remembrance. A camera conveyed from the middle distance the grim-faced forensic squad, the police tape, the sky of solemn grey that seemed to acknowledge the gravity of what had been perpetrated beneath it. Gardaí, said the newsreader, wanted for questioning a young male who had been spotted at the scene, wearing a black leather jacket and black woolly hat.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Cocker.

  ‘Oh God,’ said Jen.

  Rez was gazing at the screen, transfixed not by the atrocity it depicted but by his own pristine indifference. He closed his eyes and craved relief from his thoughts, craved medication, craved being left alone – and right at that very instant, the fogged landscape of his mind lit up in a flash of intense lucidity. Rez was seized by a powerful certainty: he saw it all; the sneer, the surge of reckless malevolence, the gleeful fascination – this was the madness that Matthew had been talking about.

  ‘Jesus,’ he rasped. The others assumed he was shocked by the news report and didn’t respond. Together they gazed at the screen. Already Rez was doubting himself. Could it really be true? Maybe it was just the drugs ta
mpering with his reality filter, or maybe he was going mad. He knew his logical capacity had fallen into turmoil. He really needed to think this through …

  Just then, Rez’s mother stuck her head in the door. She smiled wanly at Jen and Cocker; then she scrutinized Rez with her anxious gaze and said, ‘It’s time for your medicine, love.’

  46 | Matthew

  On Saturday afternoon it was screaming from the front pages of all the papers on sale at the garage. I stared at the headlines and photos without picking up a paper. I got back to work and talked to no one, and when I was standing out on the forecourt I put my headphones in and played the music at maximum volume.

  By the time I got home that night, it was as if the only subject of conversation in Dublin was the killing of James Appleton, or ‘Baby James’ as they were already calling him. Two German tourists had seen it happen in the Garden of Remembrance. Everywhere you looked – in the papers, on telly, the radio, the net – his round, calm, unjudging face peered out at you. I heard the name repeated over and over: James Appleton, James Appleton, James Appleton. That was when the headaches started.

  The next day at work, I read The Sunday Independent. In the front-page article it said that the ‘sickening, barbaric and incomprehensible’ killing of ‘Baby James’ was ‘a symbol of the nation’s ravaged innocence, and if James’ death goes unpunished, the sin will stain all our souls’. By now I was having to take two Paracetamol every couple of hours to dull the glare of pain in the top half of my skull.

  On Monday I tried to just get on with things. For the past week I’d taken to secretly drinking vodka in my room. I was drunk that evening as I watched the news, with my untouched dinner on a tray across my lap. My ma was in the room too. That was when the interview was shown – the one that became so famous. My ma was in tears as we sat together before the screen. James Appleton’s mother looked straight into the camera, her face all gnarled in agony and madness. She just kept saying, ‘How could you do it? How could you do it? How could you?’

  Tuesday’s editorial in The Irish Times described it as ‘a shocking, traumatic interview which gave a terrible eloquence to our nation’s corrupted soul, to the ravages of the moral plague that has assailed us, and to our collective horror and incomprehension in the face of it’.

  The headaches went on all week. I drank in my room, starting each afternoon, with my computer on and music playing, washing down painkillers with vodka or wine. But there were moments that burned through, and I was fully aware.

  I woke up with dull light filtering into the room through the pale-blue curtains. I heard a dog bark in the distance, and even further away the music from an ice-cream van, so faint I wasn’t even sure it was real. A sad, beautiful feeling came over me, like I was a child again and everything was familiar and okay. There were no thoughts in my head. I lay there for maybe a minute, not worried about anything. Then I tilted my head a fraction and it all came back: the grinding in my skull, the parched mouth, the feeling like maggots squirming under my skin.

  I lifted my head to look beside the bed. There was vodka left in the bottle, and a glass with some flat 7Up in the bottom. I poured the rest of the vodka into the glass. I drank it standing with my hand resting on the windowsill, washing down two Paracetamol. Then I phoned in sick.

  Half an hour later I cycled away from the house, towards the Phoenix Park. I stopped off on the way to buy another bottle of vodka. When I got to the park I cycled to an empty, flat stretch that was raised slightly, almost a hill. It was near where the Wellington Monument rose towards the clouds. For more than an hour I sat in the grass and drank vodka and smoked many cigarettes. I was miserable, but now and then I had these surges of euphoria, and it seemed that none of it really mattered. There was no heaven, no hell, so why worry about anything at all? Even death was just a natural process, a twig going over a waterfall. Also it was a state of rest, which seemed like bliss. If it did come to that, to killing myself, I would have to do it quickly, not think of my ma and da or Fiona, just get it done before guilt or thinking made me weak.

  It was nearly three o’clock. I took out my phone and dialled Jen’s number – I had deleted her, but the number was still in my head. I pressed the call button before I had a chance to stop myself.

  It rang twice and then she picked up. There was a silence. ‘Matthew,’ she said eventually.

  ‘Jen,’ I said. I blinked hard. I dug the fingernails of one hand into the skin on my face, just under the eye. Neither of us said anything. I tried to speak but my voice had vanished.

  ‘Matthew …’ she said after a few moments. ‘Matthew, are you … crying?’ She paused again. ‘Look, I really wanted to –’

  ‘Jen!’ I blurted out. ‘Jen. There’s stuff goin on, Jen. Something’s really wrong, I …’

  I gasped into the phone. Jen was quiet for a moment, waiting for me to continue. When I didn’t, she said, ‘Matthew, are you okay? You’re really freakin me out here. Tell me what’s wrong. You sound –’

  ‘I HATE YE!’ I roared. ‘I totally fuckin hate ye, Jen, I wish we’d never met, I wish I’d never even spoke to ye in me life, I …’

  I couldn’t say more because now I was sobbing into the phone. I heard her whispering my name. Then she was talking quickly: ‘I’m sorry, Matthew, I’m sorry, I only wanted to make you jealous, it was only meant to be a bit of flirtin. Oh Jesus. I was just so hurt at how you’d disappeared after we slept together. I don’t know how I could have done that, I –’

  ‘JUST FUCK OFF JEN! I CAN’T FUCKIN STAND YE!’

  I pressed the red button and she was gone. I waited for her to call back, ready to hang up again. But the phone didn’t ring. I turned it off.

  There was nobody around this part of the park, only a few families having picnics over by the monument. The children shrieked and laughed as they chased each other up the stone steps around the base. We used to come here when Fiona was little. I used to like it. The clouds had blown over and now the sun shone down on where I sat, alone in the Phoenix Park. I unscrewed the bottle and drank.

  47 | Kearney

  He stayed in his attic bedroom, smoking hash, afraid of the outside world. He had found a Stanley knife in his da’s old toolkit and he kept it with him at all times, determined to slash his arteries at the first sign that they were on to him. On Monday evening he had watched with the rest of the nation as Baby James’s mother wailed into a camera on the RTÉ news. His appetite had disappeared. He couldn’t think straight. He lay awake each night that week until dawn or after, waiting for the doorbell to ring, or the door to be simply knocked down. When he did sleep, he sank into a feverish realm of capture, torment, retribution. His ma seemed to notice that something was wrong, but she said nothing. Whenever she looked at him oddly, he scowled back at her, silently warning her not to try anything, to shut up and leave him alone.

  ‘Are you on drugs?’ she asked on Thursday evening nonetheless, almost a week after it had happened. She had stepped into the living room after the late-evening news to find Kearney muttering to himself in the armchair.

  ‘Yeah, I am,’ he grunted, and reverted to staring at the television, seeing nothing.

  She didn’t say anything else. Her heart wasn’t in it.

  By the end of the week the news and the papers still wouldn’t leave it alone. Kearney needed to get out of the house. He’d smoked the last of his hash that afternoon and needed more. Perhaps the drought was over and the lads on the estate had something to sell. He didn’t want to get stoned on his own, though. He took out his mobile and dialled.

  ‘Alright man,’ he said when it was answered.

  ‘Alright,’ came Matthew’s mumbled response.

  ‘Listen, do ye fancy a smoke? I’m goin out now to try and pick some up, ye should stall it out for a few joints with me.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. I think I’m goin to stay in tonight.’ Matthew didn’t sound sober. ‘Listen, I think I’m just goin to hang around here. These days, like. I don�
��t, I mean, I’m just sayin –’

  ‘What are ye just sayin?’

  ‘Nothin. I’m just sayin –’

  ‘Wha?’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, let me finish. I’m just sayin that you probably shouldn’t ring me any more.’

  ‘Don’t give me that fuckin shit,’ said Kearney. ‘Jesus, man, relax. I’m only callin ye to ask ye to meet up for a smoke, like. Just a friendly smoke. Don’t be gettin all weird on me. We’re good mates after all, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yeah, but …’

  ‘So what the fuck is yer problem?’

  ‘Ye know what the problem is, Kearney.’

  ‘Oh do I now? Listen Matthew, I’m just bein fuckin friendly and tellin ye I want to meet up with ye for a smoke. We’re old mates. I’m bein friendly. Don’t start pissin me off, or I won’t be so fuckin friendly.’

  ‘I’ve been watchin the news, I –’

  ‘So what? What do I give a fuck about the news? Jesus Christ, do ye think I give a bollocks about Bertie Ahern or the fuckin war in Kazakhstan?’

  ‘No, but –’

  ‘Well then cop the fuck on. Listen, I’m goin around to the estate for a smoke after I pick some up. I’ll be there in half an hour. Stall it around. I’ll see ye then.’

  Beep, beep, beep.

  No lights were on in the industrial estate except for one coldly glaring floodlight. It was already dark, and just gone half eight. There was a chill in the air, as if winter was right around the corner. Kearney swigged on the naggin of gin he’d bought on the way over, feeling the trickle of heat in his belly, the relief it gave him.

  He sat on a wooden pallet, rubbing his knees. He pulled up his hood. He’d shoved his black jacket and hat into the bottom of his wardrobe after the first news report. Maybe he should burn them, he thought. He lit a cigarette and waited. Soon a hesitant, frail silhouette appeared at the side of the warehouse further on down.