On the Brinks

by Sam Millar

  Cowboy, like the rest of the smokers, hadn’t had tobacco in at least three months, and was now looking upon the arrival of this strutt as nothing short of a miracle, a godsend, manna from Heaven.

  “Down a foot from yer door, Cowboy. Just where the joints meet.”

  “Give me one minute to set up the apparatus, Seamus, mate.”

  The apparatus being a long, slender piece of toilet paper, curved at the end in the shape of a hook, or more accurately, a question mark. It was always questionable whether it would bring home the bacon.

  “Okay, mate. Go ahead,” Cowboy said, sounding sixteen years old.

  “A little to your left, Cowboy. Up a bit. More. To your right …” Seamus sounded like someone doing the Golden Shot, as he now had the unenviable task of guiding Cowboy, whose vision was blocked, to capture the strutt.

  “Can you push it out a wee bit more, Cowboy?” Seamus asked nervously. Twenty minutes had elapsed, with no sign of success. We could all hear Cowboy strain to control his temper. He was known for having little patience when he had the nicotine pangs.

  “Screw on the air!” Goose shouted from the top of the wing.

  “Fuck!” Cowboy hissed, frustration beginning to emerge.

  The screw clicked the time-guard and proceeded back up the wing, only to stop, outside Cowboy’s cell, to tie his lace.

  We could all picture Cowboy now, beads of sweat on his upper lip, praying to God not to let the screw see the strutt.

  A few seconds later, the screw moved on.

  “Seamus? Did the fucker take it?” Cowboy said, his lower lip practically bitten off with nerves.

  “No. It’s still there.”

  We all breathed a sigh of relief, not wanting to listen to Cowboy’s death moan. It was like sitting on a bomb, waiting for it to be defused.

  For the next two hours, no one dared breathe a word, as The Cowboy and Seamus Show continued unabated, with no success.

  “Cowboy, ye keep touching it but ye’re not pullin’ it in.”

  “Seamus …” Cowboy’s voice quivered as he fought to control the emotion that threatened to erupt at any moment. “Ye’re the one guidin’ me. Not vice fuckin’ versa, mate.” He spat the last word out like an apple piece stuck in his throat.

  Then it happened.

  “Cowboy! Ye’ve got it! Take it easy. Slow … slow … bring it in. Slow … slow. Slowwwwwwwwww …”

  So much sweat was running down Cowboy’s face he was having difficulty seeing clearly. He had double vision and could feel hot pain eat his chest. A heart attack? What a way to go, all for a strutt.

  “Easy … that’s right … almost there, Cowboy. Just a tiny bit more … got it!”

  The ordeal was over. We cheered with relief as he trailed the captured strutt to his door. We could talk again, without feeling the wrath of Cowboy.

  “Seamus! Ye stupid bastard! That was no strutt! It was only a piece of fuckin’ paper! Ye need a pair of fuckin’ glasses!”

  Before Cowboy could verbally abuse Seamus further, someone saved his skin by announcing the arrival of the Angel of Death, coming up the yard.

  The Angel of Death wrapped the collar of his coat tightly around his neck. He had the ’flu, and the cold air nipped at any exposed skin.

  “Angel of Death at this time of night? Ye know it’s bad news,” Finbar said, voicing everyone’s thoughts.

  “Maybe he’s comin’ in with pockets full of snout for us. Make up for all the years he’s let us rot without as much as a butt,” Cowboy said, not hiding his sarcasm and disdain.

  No. We all knew it was to tell someone a family member had died. What else could it be?

  As Death walked down the wing chatting friendly with the screw, we waited, holding our breaths, wondering.

  “Millar. Priest here to see ye,” Ape Face snarled.

  “Thank you, officer,” Angel of Death said, the look of contempt visible on his face as he entered my shit-covered cell.

  Cleanliness is next to Godliness …

  “Sam, I’ve some bad news for you,” he said with his tepid voice. I knew it was Dad he had come to tell me about. “Your mother died, two days ago, in Dublin.”

  My mother …? I was shocked. I thought she had died a long time ago, when I was eleven, when she no longer wanted to know my math results.

  “Did you say my mother?”

  “Yes. Two days ago. I’m terribly sorry.”

  I bet you are.

  For the next minute or so nothing was said. He glanced about the cell, with a mixture of fear and loathing. He couldn’t wait to get out, back to the real world of a nice cosy home, a blazing fire and a large glass of brandy to chase away his ’flu and my stench.

  “If there’s anything I can do …” he was saying as he walked towards the door to leave.

  “Do you have any snout on you?” I asked, not letting him escape.

  “Snout? What’s that?”

  “Tobacco.” As if you don’t fucking know, you scumbag.

  “Oh. No, I don’t … you know we can’t bring anything like that in.” A watery grin appeared on his face. I wanted to slap it right back to where it had originated, right back to fucking hell.

  “How do you do it?” I asked.

  “Do what?” he responded, turning to face me, wanting to leave.

  “Live with your conscience. Doesn’t the Church teach that conscience is the ultimate guide?”

  “It also teaches that your conscience should always be clear, in all matters, as mine is now.” He was warming to this.

  “All these years you have watched as we’ve been tortured, degraded and humiliated. Not once have you tried to prevent it, and you’re supposed to be a man of god.”

  He waved his hands in the air, a magician performing a trick. “You don’t have to live like this. None of you do. The onus is on you, not me or the Church, which people such as you conveniently use as a whipping boy.” He blew his watery nose. “Do you know how often my non-Catholic friends ask me what in heaven’s name is wrong with you people, forcing me to defend the indefensible?”

  I didn’t give a flying fuck what he, his friends or the Church thought, and told him so in no uncertain terms.

  “Others have left the protest without any problems, why can’t you?” he persisted.

  “Many are called, but few are chosen,” I replied.

  His smile was pure evil as he shook his head. He sneezed, bringing the conversation to an end.

  As soon as Death left, Cowboy asked if a miracle had been performed.

  “Did that cunt of a bastarding whore bring any snout, Sam?”

  “No, mate. Just word that my mother is dead.”

  He was silent for a few seconds, then, “Ach, Sam … sorry for that big mouth of mine, mate. Didn’t mean …”

  “Don’t worry ’bout it.” My mother’s death was inconsequential. I had more pressing matters on my mind, like my own survival. Tomorrow we had a wing-shift to look forward to.

  I would survive this wing-shift. And the next. And the next …

  Fuck you, Angel of Death.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Tony Blackburn and Pan’s People

  WINTER 1980

  A local thing called Christianity.

  Thomas Hardy

  The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

  Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

  Rumours. A parched forest engulfed with flames of amber and copper. Copious.

  An unverified report circulated that a hunger strike was coming. No one – especially the prisoners – wanted it, but it was coming just the same.

  Outside my cell, snowflakes the size of thumbs fell to the ground.

  “I’m afraid of no man,” boomed the voice, which I knew to be that of the screw known as The Preacher. During wing-shifts, he carried a large, heavy bible, from which he would quote scripture. After each quote he would hit the naked prisoner’s head with such force it caused vertigo.

  “Lord, cleanse
the sins …” Whack! Whack! Whack! “… of this sinner.” Whack! Whack! Whack! “Let him see how much we love him. That we are …” Whack! Whack! Whack! “… doin’ this from love, to save his soul.” Whack! Whack! Whack!

  Sometimes the blood would ooze from your ear or nose, but that wouldn’t stop the evil, sectarian beast. “Oh, thank you, Lord, for this great sign of cleansing blood.” The Preacher would be soaked in perspiration as his eyes rolled in his head.

  “What a bore,” Finbar said, loudly enough for The Preacher to hear.

  “Even though I walk in the valley of death …” The Preacher was pacing the yard, allowing the snow to soak right through to his skin.

  “Ignore the bastard,” JCB said. “All he wants is an audience.”

  The Preacher laughed. “What I want is for one of youse brave men to come visit me when – if – ye ever get out of here. Ye see, I’ve just bought myself a beautiful Magnum .357, and I would just love to test it on one of yer heads. Not with whips, but with the tails of scorpions will I cleanse ye!”

  An hour went by and he still rambled on, singing loudly for all to hear.

  “Shall we gather at the river –”

  “Why don’t you pack it in and stop behavin’ like a tosser, for fack sake?” It was Colditz. We hadn’t seen him in weeks, and thought he had either been transferred or had left.

  “Why don’t ye mind yer own business and go back to England? No one wants yer sort over here, takin’ our jobs away from – aarrrgghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

  Colditz kneed The Preacher in the balls, forcing him to drop before keeling over. Colditz then picked him up like a rag doll, placed the cap back on his head and marched him by the scruff of the neck into the Circle.

  We learned later, from Charley the orderly, that after Colditz had thrown The Preacher into the Circle he offered to fight any screw in the Block. His offer was declined, which didn’t surprise us at all, knowing the screws’ aversion to one-on-one combat.

  The hunger strike, started the month before, had reached a crucial stage by December, with the health of the men quickly deteriorating. Chief among them was Sean McKenna, who had been diagnosed as having only two days to live.

  Those of us not on hunger strike were impotent in any action, having been ordered to keep a cool head at all costs – any sign of frustration on our side would only be beneficial to the British Government and screws. This was probably the hardest of all orders to obey, knowing what our friends and comrades were enduring. Some of us were confident, though, that even at this late stage something could be worked out without lost of life. Even the screws must have felt we might have the edge, as some of them started to curry favour with us.

  “I hope youse get all yer demands,” lied the Human Wart, as convincing as a Nazi at a bar mitzvah. “We’ve all been put through tryin’ times, but hopefully we’re all the better for it and learn to tolerate each other.”

  I wanted to puke at his toadying. On the other hand, if he was frightened that we might be victorious, then perhaps the screws had heard something that we hadn’t.

  “Is it Christmas ‘Top of the Pops’, or what, Sam?” laughed Finbar as the Human Wart walked despondently away, leaving his liquorice footprints in the snow.

  “I’d even listen to fucking queen Lizabitch’s Christmas message, mate!” I replied. Pan’s People floated in my head. I wondered if they had changed much? They were probably called Pan’s Pensioners now, and needed zimmer frames to move – not that it would make any difference to me.

  Outside the cells, the white quietness brought an artificial calm with it. Small birds made tiny indentations in the snow, while the fat, diaphanous flakes threatened to cover them like tents.

  “Governor on the air!” shouted a voice from the top of the wing.

  A governor? At this time of night? What the hell was going on? Had the Human Wart heard something, after all?

  Not a word was said, either by the governor or the gang of screws accompanying him, as each door was opened, then slammed, and a document thrown in, haphazardly.

  It was an agreement to end the hunger strike!

  I scanned the pages as quickly as my frayed nerves permitted, and I swear I heard Tony Blackburn introduce Christmas “Top of the Pops”. He was surrounded by scantily-dressed Pan’s People: “This week’s number one is that fine bunch of rebels, the Blanket Men.”

  I read the document as meticulously as possible, not wanting to miss anything of importance in its forty-eight pages. As it turned out, it contained very little substance. It was a masterpiece of detrimental ambiguity, full of scope for alternative interpretations, managing to give with one hand while taking with the other. A spider’s web of ambiguous semantics of maybe, perhaps, and time-will-tell. There was no way we could settle for this. All the years of torture and torment flushed down the shitter for an inimical agreement that wasn’t even worth the paper it was printed on?

  Tony Blackburn quickly faded to black. As did Pan’s People. I thought I could smell remnants of their perfume and it made me want to cry.

  Maybe next Christmas …

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Hope

  SPRING 1981

  As a child I was very aware of being an inferior class. As an adult, I certainly was in a situation where I could easily have picked up a gun … I grew up with guys who went on hunger strike and they experienced some things in Belfast that drove them to starve their bodies for seventy days.

  Liam Neeson

  Dear Holy Father,

  I hope this small note finds you in good health. Please excuse the paper it is written on. I am writing this note not to tell you about our conditions but to beg you to save the lives of my comrades who have been forced to hunger-strike by the British Government. The Irish people have suffered too long for their political and religious belief … Irish history is filled with the blood that Irish men and women have spilled for the nation and the Catholic Church, and now that the Irish nation need the Church we hear naught but a deadly silence. Why? What must the Irish do for the Church to help? By the time you get this, it may be too late to save my comrades. You must speak out now, loudly; behind closed doors is no use.

  My comrades will die if you don’t.

  Sam Millar

  (Letter sent to the Pope by yours truly while on the Blanket, and published in Richard English’s epic, Armed Struggle: A History of The IRA. It was one of over two thousand letters I penned in the hope of gathering support for the Hunger Strikers.)

  We knew we had lost the impetus generated by the first hunger strike as the second one commenced in March. This time the strategy would be different: volunteers would join the hunger strike periodically, instead of en masse as in the previous one. We meanwhile acquiesced to the ending of the no-wash part of our protest, in the hope of maximising attention on the plight of the men on hunger strike.

  In all honesty, it was a great relief to us all to be able to wash again. Our hair, which hadn’t been washed or cut in years, stretched down our backs, greasy and tangled like oily dock ropes; our teeth, which had last seen a toothbrush many years ago were, amazingly, for the most part unaffected, largely thanks to the screws’ refusal to give us sugar, as part of their punishment towards us. Had they done so, they would no doubt have inflicted far greater pain via toothaches.

  Our first shower in years! God, was it sweet! I will never forget the first hot sprays hitting me with the propulsive ferocity of porcupine quills; the intoxicating aroma of shampoo and soap making my nostrils flare with snobbish delight; the sheer decadence of it all, as I felt years of dirt fall from my –

  “For fuck’s sake, will ye hurry the fuck up! Ye’re gonna waste the hot water. The rest of us haven’t had a shower in years either,” complained the voice behind me.

  He was smallish and dark-skinned, his body covered in scars from gunshot wounds. I didn’t recognise him, but he knew me.

  “We’ve been next door to each other four years and ye don’t even know me?”
he said.

  All these years never knowing what he looked like, only a voice and an image in my head, Cowboy was nothing I had envisaged – and it showed on my face.

  “And ye don’t look like anythin’ I imagined either!” he laughed, reading my mind.

  The rumours of him having guns tattooed to his sides were, I was sorry to see, unfounded.

  One of the screws watching us laughed an artificial laugh, hoping to join in the conversation.

  “What’s so funny?” Cowboy said in an icy tone, freezing the screw to the spot.

  “Nothin’ …” The screw’s face turned crimson, then pale, as Cowboy’s upper lip curled in distaste.

  “Then why don’t ye do more nothin’ and fuck away off?”

  “Look … I know how ye must hate us … but … but we were only doin’ our duty.”

  “Duty? Ye wouldn’t know the meanin’ of the word,” Cowboy said.

  The screws were nervous, now that we were out of the cells. And with good reason. Payback was a bastard and could come at any second, and they knew it. In their feeble minds, we were madmen, lions waiting to pounce, or insuperable Gothic creatures devoid of all things human. The Creature they had created in their own minds, their own propaganda, was now on the loose, and we would not discourage that mindset.

  Cleaning our teeth was the next ordeal, as the rough toothbrushes made unfamiliar strokes in our mouths. Blood turned the sinks crimson from our raw gums, transforming us into feasting vampires.

  After the shower, I sat in a chair as the barber hacked at my waist-length hair, making my head feel lighter with each touch. And even though it was a great relief to feel the cold air on my neck again, a sudden wave of nostalgia swept over me as I watched the years of hair being brushed away. An old friend was gone.

  But there was more to come. I could no longer put off the inevitable, which I had been dreading. The barber had clipped my facial hair as close as possible, leaving me to remove the stubborn shadow with an inept plastic razor. Small nails of hair gave way, leaving my exposed skin screaming with pain as I constantly sliced my face, shaving blind.