Simon Kerr

by Rainbow Singer (lit)

  The chant was taken up by Peter and their other Taig cronies.

  Seamus sang a solo harmony on top though. 'Wil fancies Phil. Wil fancies Phil.'

  I should have stood up to him but there was no way I could. I felt and feel such a coward about it. It's hard to forgive myself for sitting there even now. I've tried reinventing that moment a hundred bloody times but no, I can't change it. The knowledge that bravery is as subject to timing - circadian rhythms again - as anything else doesn't really help. I had lost Round Two as well.

  If only the Taig chanters and teasers had known what that event meant to me they might have stopped? I doubt it. But maybe if they'd known what it would mean to them, what I would do to repay them, they would have carried it further, made me their Jonah, bound me up and thrown me out of the Cunni-Lingus into the blue sky, to die impaled on Cleo's Needle?

  Phil came and sat by me. He endured the abuse too until landing, when it died down.

  'Sorry,' he said when the Jumbo had come to a full stop. Or at least I think he did - I may have just seen the apology in his eyes.

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  I took it that what he'd done had been an honest mistake.

  'You're all right, Phil,' I said. And I did say that out loud. He took that the wrong way though - as if I was saying I liked him too, when what I meant was, he was the only one I would exempt from revenge. Apart from Teresa - who was still in the toilet. And Big Michael, and the majority of the Prods who hadn't dishonoured themselves by joining in the taunts.

  In terms of earthly time, the wait in Washington DC was a short one, and the flight to Milwaukee was a short one too. All told, they added another three hours on to the travel clock. However, in terms of unearthly embarrassment, I'll swear that was the longest journey in human history. There was nowhere to go to get away from Seamus and Peter. They and their mocking voices were everywhere, looming larger than life.

  Phil tried to cheer me up by ripping the pish out of some new Metal christian band called Stryper, but even a laugh or two at those buck-eejits didn't relieve the killing tension. I say 'killing' because my travelling mind had narrowed to a sharp point. I knew even then, deep deep down that I was going to wreck the Project and kill me some fucking Taigs.

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  Two

  5

  Of Murphy and Freddy

  You can't imagine how much I was still fuming when we arrived in Milwaukee on Sunday afternoon; it's impossible, so don't even try. The atmosphere in what the Algonquin Indians had named their Happy Hunting Ground was hot and humid, oppressive even with air-con, and I mean, I was literally shaking with adrenalin. And wouldn't you know, when we reclaimed our baggage, one of my bags was missing: the one stuffed with my best Metal T-shirts. Of course, I was the only one this happened to!

  Back then, as a good little Baptist, I believed in God's will and destiny and fate and I was genuinely worried I was being punished for daring to even entertain such murderous thoughts. But, I needn't have worried. These things are social constructs designed to keep people denying that they have the power to change their lives and the world of their experience.

  'Murphy's at his work all right,' Phil said as we waited at the Cunni-Lingus lost property office.

  'Aye,' I said. For those of you who don't know who Murphy is, think Murphy's Anything that can possibly go wrong will go wrong Law; think Winnebago Indian Trickster with a bunch of four-leafed shamrocks stuck up his arse and that ought to put you in the picture. Would I hang this picture on my cell wall? Yeah. Why? - because

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  the pagan Trickster is real, phenomenologically speaking, in the same way as the Christian Devil is. What separates one from the other is all a matter of degree in the mind -the group mind that is - the most dangerous entity any individual can face. But, this isn't the place to go into all that. That'll come later.

  For now, let's just say I had to leave the airport sharpish with the rest of the Projectees so I couldn't hang around for my clothes. As it turns out, my Van Halen collection of T-shirts was never found; they could still be flying around the world to this day while their previous wearer is stuck in here. I wish I was back in those clothes. Although, to do that is to wish I'd never left Ulster, never seen the Void, never found my self. . .

  Cancel that wish.

  We were picked up at the airport by a big yellow school bus - the kind you see in all the movies. One in particular flashes to mind: Nightmare on Elm Street z, or was it 3 ? It's the one where Freddy's wreaking dream havoc on the bus and all the earth falls away round it and it's left rocking on this solitary stack, with the kids screaming, looking down into the hell-Void.

  I saw Teresa sit with Seamus and Peter. They must have told her about me for she wouldn't even look over at me. So, what else was there to do? - I stared out the windows and waited for the ground to fall away. I tried my level best to dream up Freddy the demon child-molester.

  We were a sweaty hour into our journey across Milwaukee when Phil asked me, 'What do you think your lot, the Horrowitz-z-zs will be like?'

  'A riot,' I replied.

  'The Da's a minister you say?'

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  'Aye. A Presbyterian.' 'And you're a Baptist.?' 'That's right.'

  'What's the big difference?' 'Adult baptism.'

  'Oh,' Phil said. He hadn't a clue what that meant. He was Church of Ireland, Anglican, if you only speak American. They didn't much believe in anything.

  We sat in silence for a while then Phil said, 'I reckon my lot will be a right laugh what with a name like the Kuntz-z-zs.'

  That killed us. Kuntz was such a stupid name. Imagine having to go through life called Kuntz. Jesus H Christ. I don't know how long we laughed for but I can tell you it was a long time.

  There was a more serious side to the whole subject of our host families though. Every Projectee except me - the substitute - was going to stay for a month with an American family of the same religious indoctrination. Each one of these families had a child of the same sex and age as us lot, except me - I was to stay with a fifteen-year-old.

  Yeah, I was the odd one out all round. The odd one out of the original twenty Projectees and, if you can do simple maths in your head, with the number of Projectees double-doubling, toil and troubling when everybody meets up, I was to be the odd one out of forty. I have to say being odd is not nice at fourteen.

  Unfortunately for me, the yellow school bus did not drive us to hell, it took everyone of us to the meeting point - a church hall. There, we were lined up in front of a mob of yabbering Americans and the chockablock adoption proceedings took place. When they got around to calling

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  my name out I left Phil with a high five and went to meet my host family.

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  6

  The Racket of Protection

  The anti-psychiatry psychiatrist R D Laing says the family is the biggest protection racket in the world. And he's dead right. Pay your dues and there'll be no love trouble. Obey, and OK you won't be disciplined by our emotional or physical violence. We're bigger than you. It's run on the same rules as the rackets the Brigade had going back home.

  What? - can it be that I'm saying every family's racket is the same? Nah, that's not it. The dues are the same, but the discipline, that's the variable part. Like with my Da. He didn't have to hit me. And when he hit me he didn't have to use his fists and his feet. These were choices he made - or in truth, which his Da made about him - and so on and so on back to The Planet of the Apes. What I'm saying is that every family all around the world is not the same violent patriarchy, some are matriarchies, others may run on a liberal power-sharing basis, but each will exercise its own form of discipline on the children. They are therefore not the same, but they have to be similar for the racket to work and keep working.

  I met the second-in-command racketeer of the Horrowitz-z-zs first. Ma, or should I say Mom, Horrowitz was so tiny even I almost had to pull a microscope out to see

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  what had
hugged me round the waist. Her mouth was the biggest part of her whole anatomy and, like most Americans, it shone perfect white when she smiled up at me.

  'Hi, Wil,' she said. 'Hi,' I said.

  'I'm gonna be your Mom for the month,' she said.

  I couldn't think of anything else to say but, 'Thanks for having me and all.'

  'Here,' she said and let my waist go. 'Meet my son Derry.'

  'What?' I said, horrified. See Derry is not a good Prod word. It's a Taig word on account of it being the shortened version of Londonderry - see, omitting the 'London' denies British sovereignty over Ulster.

  'Derry,' she said again.

  I didn't want to look at him on principle but I had to. There was Derry stood behind her, looking like a young version of the Incredible Hulk. But don't get me wrong. Derry wasn't green - except for his eyes. He wasn't a muscle sculpture either - although he was a big fella. And he didn't roar at me until way later on.

  'Hi,' I said, refusing to use his Taigy name.

  'Hi,' he said, looking down on me. I don't blame him. I

  - the substitute for a fifteen-year-old fellow Presbyterian

  - was so much younger and smaller than him. We shook hands.

  I took a firm grip. His was looser.

  I didn't have any goodbyes to say to the Projectees that hadn't already been said, so they took me and my depleted supply of luggage to their beat-up station-wagon and drove me to my home away from home as Mom Horrowitz herself described it. She probably

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  figured I'd be homesick. Was I homesick? - aye I was like fuck. I think deep down my small self was sick sore and tired of home even then.

  Mom Horrowitz sat me up front with her on that one big front seat American cars have. I watched with some consternation as she drove off slowly and waywardly along the wrong side of the road. Then I realised that that was the right side of the road in America.

  Mom Horrowitz and me made the right noises as we by-passed swathes of Milwaukee on the freeway. Polite conversation, you know. I was moaning about the trip, my lost luggage. She was saying that was terrible and that I could wear some of Derry's hand-me-downs. It was the sort of blarney ol' dolls love. I hated it, but I could do it. If I was Irish they'd say I'd been born kissing the Blarney Stone all right - or something as twee as that. Obviously Derry hadn't even heard of Blarney Castle; he stayed quiet in the back.

  'Gee, Wil, your accent is really neat,' Mom Horrowitz told me and we entered into extended politeness.

  I replied, and I like the way there's a hidden 'lie' in the word replied, 'Yours is neat too.' Their accent was not neat at all. Nah. It was twangy-slangy, all long drawn-out and nasal.

  After forty or so minutes, we passed by this big metal thing that looked like a UFO - just about the time the extended politeness was running out.

  'What's that?' I said, genuinely interested, wondering if aliens had landed.

  'It's a watertower,' said Derry, like he thought I was some stupid hick from the sticks.

  'Oh. What's that name on it - New Berlin?'

  'Our suburb of Milwaukee,' Mom Horrowitz said.

  How was I to know Milwaukee had been settled

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  largely by German immigrants, hence New Berlin and Zorro 'z's after every surname. The irony of Derry looking down on me for not knowing the local history still strikes a discord nowadays. I mean, how many Americans know anything more than their local region even. Try asking one about world history or geography or politics and see what they say. Uh. Gee whizz. Where's that? Derry probably didn't have a clue about where Ulster was, what the Troubles were, or anything.

  'This is the family manse,' said Mom Horrowitz as we drove up past a big wooden church to a big wooden house.

  'Are all your houses made of wood?' I said. 'Mostly,' said Derry. 'What about fires?' 'Huh?'

  'You know, like - wood burns?'

  'We have firemen here to put out fires,' Mom Horrowitz said. I don't think she intended to be patronising, but she was after all my patron so I had to let her get away with it.

  We all got out of the car and I lugged my bags up to the house.

  As Mom Horrowitz fumbled with the meshed outer door, I said, 'Is that the Rev's church?' 'One of them,' Derry said and tutted. 'How many's he got?' I said.

  'Two,' Mom Horrowitz said, all proud of her husband.

  In Ulster, at least in the Baptist faith, they make do with one Pastor per church but there you have it, the Americans always have to go one bigger, one better.

  I met Tamara - I rechristened her 'Tiara' - Horrowitz,

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  the one and only daughter, when we got inside the wooden house. She was seventeen, and a right madam to boot; still jammed at that stage where she'd realised she was so like her Mom she had to do everything different just to feel like a person.

  'This is Wil,' said Mom Horrowitz.

  'Hi,' she said.

  I don't think she even noticed I didn't say 'Hi' back.

  'Can I have the car. Mom?' Tiara said. 'I was supposed to be at the Mall ten minutes ago.'

  'What about church?' Mom Horrowitz said.

  But Tiara was out the door and gone. Americans move real fast, like they're allergic to staying still or something.

  I wasn't introduced to the Rev 'Two Churches' Horrowitz until later that evening - way after I'd got unpacked and used to the twin bedroom I would share with Derry.

  Instead of us all going to the Presbyterian evening service, they'd had mercy and let me try to catch up on some sleep - jet lag like, you know - but I couldn't get any. The place was too new. And Derry and his Mom were too goddamn noisy. Yadda-yadda. Derry was making a right racket about me staying in his room when there was a perfectly good empty room upstairs.

  I'd given up trying to sleep and was set on getting dressed when the Rev, back from his service, walked right in on me. I was stark naked, but this great big hulking man, balder than an bald eagle, pays no mind, comes up and shakes me by the hand.

  'Good to finally meet you, William,' he said.

  With one hand over my cock, and the other in his, I said, 'Yeah, and you, but the name's Wil.'

  'Well, Wil, you can call me Pops.'

  I agreed, 'OK.'

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  And that was it; he bugged out and left me to pull my clothes on.

  So that there's the Horrowitz-z-zs. The loving of two consenting adults had produced two dissenting kids. And hell, them racketeers were determined to try to love me too, protect me from the Beast in myself and others, but I didn't like the discipline, even if it was softer than back home. Discipline was discipline. Jesus. The word is too damn close to disciple for comfort, don't you think.''

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  7

  Happy Day

  I had an American Dream that first humid night. I was spinning round and round on this record label - Eddie Cochran's Something Else. Yeah, I was spinning inside a 1950S jukebox when someone lifted the lid off. I looked up. The Fonz loomed giant-sized above me like God. Yea verily Henry Winkler winked down at midget me and did his thumbs-up catchphrase, 'Hey.'

  I liked Fonzie. He might have been a small Italian Taig in real life but in Happy Days he was cool. I listened to him tell me to, 'Chill, Wil. Those Taigs Peter and Seamus man, they're not worth going to jail for. In America you can be an individual. This is a new start in the New World. You dig?'

  I dug.

  'I'll look in on you again. Happy days, my main man.'

  The dream ended with this spinning reeling feeling and this here rock music played full-blast - looky here, here she comes, here comes Teresa again, I haven't seen her since God knows when; she don't look at me when I pass, she goes with all the guys who've got no class, but that don't stop me from coming in my pants; she's sure fine looking, man, she's something else.

  I woke up after the dream but must have jet-lagged back to sleep.

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  That Monday morning I felt like Hey, you know?

 
The Fonz was right. This was a new place, a new time, a new opportunity. I could be cool, I could remake my rep. I had things I wanted to do in the US of A: like see Van Halen live from the back of a pink cadillac wearing a Green Bay Packers helmet and stuffing a burger into my gob whilst getting a blow job from three naked sorority girls and Teresa. So, I decided to be positive. I wouldn't kill Fergus, at least not that day; hell the way I was feeling, maybe not ever if he'd apologise?

  I got up and dressed in my own clothes and then I woke Derry up. 'What's for breakfast,' I said. 'I'm starving.'

  Flapjacks and maple syrup was the answer. And Derry made them well tasty.

  'Today's a Family Day,' he said, with a gob full of mushed ook. 'Do you ride?'

  'What - a bike?'

  'Bikes are for pussies,' he sneered. 'I'm talking about a motorbike here.'

  As a boy, especially a younger boy, it is nearly obligatory to lie when asked questions like these, but I was honest: 'Nah. But I'm a fast learner.'

  In truth, honesty was the best policy because I'd thought ahead - what if I had boasted I could ride a scrambler and then when we got out and he said ride it dude and I hadn't a clue?

  Derry took me out to the garage. It was stuffed to the gills with beat-up furniture.

  'What's all this stuff for - bonfire wood?' I said.

  Derry laughed. That was the first time I made him laugh. It was a strange sound, like it didn't belong to him. When he stopped, which was the nanosecond he

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  became conscious he was laughing, he said, 'Mom's an antiques dealer.'

  Derry wheeled the bike, or should I say iron horse, out of the back of the garage. It was a muddy-red Suzuki Scrambler.

  'This is Suzi,' he said and hopped on. He kick-started her. She blew this enormous fart of blue-oil smoke right in my face but I still fell in love with her - love for the second time on that trip. And what does love mean? -you got it, violence. 'Get on.'

  I got on.

  Derry gunned the engine. We took off, the three of us. What a ride! What a rush! Ripping round a circuit of the church grounds, the car park and the surrounding fields that belonged to the manse. We three simply were speed for those few minutes. Or at least I was. I should really only refer to my own world of experience. Derry must have raced that circuit a thousand times. In his eyes it must have seemed new only in that he was showing off his skill to a new guy on the block. And Suzi. She was just an iron horse.