by David Louden
“No. Not while you’ve got school, you can’t be getting up freezing in the morning having hardly slept and then having to go into school sick and tired, you’ve been in enough trouble in that place recently and this isn’t going to make them any easier on you.”
“So what about Friday night then? Can I sleep in it Friday night?”
“No.”
“But that’s horseshit, you just said…”
“Language!”
“Sorry. What’s the difference between me sleeping in it Friday and sleeping in it next Saturday?”
“Next Saturday Ronan will be in it and he’ll be able to look after you. Any maniac could do god knows what to you sleeping in a bloody tent alone in the back yard.”
Her argument was shit but parents’ arguments were usually shit, they always won because they were bigger than you and had Because I said so to fall back on. We’ll all grow up and at some point we’ll have kids and at that point our arguments will turn to shit too and we’ll be forced to rely on Because I said so in order to win. It was all shit.
That Saturday I lay in the tent. The sun had come out, Belfast had an Indian (late) summer or an early spring maybe and I sucked on the stick of my lollipop I had just finished as though it was a cigarette. My books had taken over; everything looked the same as before, it was me that was different. I was interpreting it all through a new set of peepers. I closed my eyes and could feel the heat against my face; I was on the cusp of manhood – I could tell. Paulie and Richard and that lot talked a good game but they didn’t know their asses from a hole in the ground. I was reading the world as it was and had pulled ahead because of it.
A shadow crossed my face making me come back from my daydream to find Karen on all fours hunched over me, her mousey brown hair curling into her soft beautiful eyes.
“Thinking about me?” she asked.
“I do that in the evenings.”
“Interesting. So my dad said we might be moving again.”
Her confession hit me square in the gut. The closer you get to folk the more likely they are to do that to you.
“Well that sucks, where the fuck you moving to?”
“Don’t know. I might not even go, I might just hide out here in your tent. You can come out in the evenings and feed me.”
“Or we could run away, maybe get our own place.” I suggested. It made her smile.
“I like that. Sooo!” she proclaimed, tucking her hair back. “I wanted to come over because I found something belonging to my dad that I thought you might like since you’re always talking about taking up smoking and all.”
“Oh yeah? And what’s that then? Is it a pipe like Popeye?”
She pulled from behind her ear a cigarette but it was different to my mum’s. It was handmade for one and it didn’t have any writing on it. I was about to ask how we’d light it when she produced a book of matches from some bar in town and tore one off. She stuck the cigarette in her mouth and struck the head of the brown stick down the side of the book sparking it into life. She touched it to the paper and inhaled bringing it to life. It smelt different to my mum’s cigarettes, sweeter. After a few hits Karen passed it to me.
“You have to hold it in your mouth when you breathe it in.”
She’d watched her folks carefully. I followed her instructions to the last full stop. I took a hit that cut my throat and made me want to turn myself inside out with coughing but I hung on to it for all it was worth. I kept my mouth sealed and my lungs full before slowly letting the air out. It didn’t taste anything like how I had imagined. I took another hit while staring wildly into Karen’s smiling eyes before passing it back to her. My head began to feel faint and it was as though my skull was filled with ideas I’d never considered before. I lay back to stop myself falling off the side of the planet and after another drag Karen did too. She held my hand as our very souls danced in the smoke inside the well baked tent.
“I want to experience the world with you.” she said.
I nodded unsure as to what she meant. I wasn’t sure if it had been moments or minutes since I last said anything, I knew that my understanding of time was no longer reliable. Maybe it was time itself that had changed things up and we were all taking the brunt of it.
“I want to see your penis.”
“What?”
“Show me it.”
“You show me yours.” I haggled.
“I don’t have a penis.”
“You know what I mean, no need to get smart. I’ll show you mind if you show me yours.”
She undid the brass buttons of her jeans and slipped out of them with ease before removing her underwear. I followed suit like a loyal soldier.
“Can I touch it?” she asked.
I nodded; my heart was racing as her fingers made contact.
“I want you to do something to me.” she said straining to maintain eye contact.
“Like what?”
“Surprise me.”
Paulie’s birthday present was the first thing to come to mind. He’d stolen a load of dirty magazines from his dad’s new house and had gift wrapped one just for me. One page had a man with his face buried in a woman’s panty peach. I took a shot and tried that.
When I finally staggered inside the house for dinner Mum could smell it on me, she told me so. I wasn’t entirely sure what it was, she made no differentiation between the cigarette and Karen’s scent, that I could tell was still on my face, but she could smell it and she charged at me like I’d never seen before. I ducked out of her way and made a beeline for the stairs and safe passage but she caught me by the back of my tee shirt and brought the palm of her hand down on my ass, again, and again, and again, and it continued. She was fixed on breaking me for sure as each slap landed within millimetres of the previous one. It took real skill to hit that hard with that level of consistency. I would have marvelled at it if it hadn’t been me on the other end of it.
“You little shit! You want to disgrace me? You can go and live with your fucking father!” slap, slap, slap “You disrespect me like that! You little fuck!”
Eventually she gave up, whether she took pity on the crying child who was flopping around uncoordinated in her arms or whether she just got tired or bored with beating me I’m still not too sure but it wouldn’t be the last time I’d pay a high price for a bit of cooze.
14
I WAS STILL grounded for smoking a blunt and going down on Karen in a tent in my backyard but school was a little easier. The older kids looked at me with respect; even the PE teacher had a smile on his face when he saw me. It made up for a home life I was suffering through. Tara and Jeff had freedom to roam but I was kept on a tight leash. I wasn’t allowed out, I wasn’t allowed anywhere near Karen and to top it all off Mum had cancelled my camping trip with Ronan. She’d tell him I have no idea what to do with the boy he’d have my back saying “This was bound to happen eventually Ruth, you just figure they’d be at college and…”
“Not nine-fucking-years-old!” finishing his thought.
“Exactly. Well if you need me to talk to the kid.”
“If I knew what was to be said I’d take you up on it, thanks Ron.”
I watched from the bottom stair as Ronan left, tent tucked under his arm. Mum saw me watching and marched out of the room in protest of my presence. I’d stray as far as the front door but didn’t dare step foot out on to the porch. I was barely sitting right and the price of the porch was too fucking high. Ronan’s eldest daughter Chloe ran to him, her face red, her eyes filled with tears and her mouth emitting a sound one step down from an air-raid siren. She’d point and my eyes would follow the path of her finger right back to that house next door and Karen who stood on her porch, hands on hips and as good as I remembered. It amazed me how she wasn’t grounded, was she really that untouchable? Ronan’s eyes followed too and he stormed across the street yelling at what I guess was my girlfriend.
“You little bitch! I’ve warned you about this!”
&
nbsp; Her dad raced out, pushing her to one side. His arms looked pumped up like they had recently been filled with air. His white vest showcased years of body art rolled out across his chest and arms. As he reached Ronan he threw a punch and connected with jaw sending Ronan to the ground but not for long. Ronan got straight up and connected with two shots of his own and soon the men were toe-to-toe again. Karen’s dad disappeared back into his house, Ronan pointed towards his own home sending Chloe inside and was about to follow when a shard of light passed across his throat spilling the contents of his body down the front of his shirt. His pale hands desperately clutching at his throat as though he was trying to convince the red to stay inside. He gargled something as a compromised voice-box struggled against his new physiology before failing to make a sound greater than that of a sick swan. Chloe screamed and ran inside her house; the cul-de-sac that seemed to flirt with rural and urban life equally had never felt so empty. I wanted to run to him, to help my dad but I couldn’t. I wanted to run inside and phone for help, to call out, to get my mum to do something – surely Mum could make it better…but I didn’t. I simply watched as the life force oozed from the man I loved like family; as it found uncharted paths to a nearby drain or pooled below him. Pouring out like spilt milk, as the red got darker his face got lighter. The panic left his eyes and was replaced by a stillness that couldn’t be natural. His wife would rush to his side, sirens and flashing lights would appear in the distance, drawing closer at a speed that would never be good enough and still the red advanced. Mum dragged me inside the house, the police would be looking for witnesses and she wanted to protect me at all costs.
I sat by the window for an hour, staring out beyond the disapprovingly worried glances of my mum, beyond the police tape and resting in the dark motionless pools of black of the once smiling Ronan. The police would do their job, the paramedics and photographers would leave, the street would be washed twice. First by those employed to do so, then by nature.
They’d pick up Karen and her family trying to get a boat out of Dublin. I’d never see her again and the price just got higher.
15
MY BOOKS lay unchecked. I couldn’t bring myself to read them anymore, the typer lay silent too. So much for it all, so long everything you’d dared to dream. I watched as the neighbourhood slowly turned to shit. Nobody wanted to buy Karen’s house so they boarded it up which only attracted drug addicts. Ronan’s wife sold cheap and got her kids out of there, I watched from her bedroom window as Mum hugged them all before waving them off. Mum spent evenings on the phone talking to her sister Ruby in Wolverhampton and all the while making plans to move us all there but it didn’t happen and it was almost Summer again only now I had no-one.
One day Mum came to my door in tears, I couldn’t imagine what else could have happened to have crushed my mother. She was tougher than most. She took a seat on the corner of my bed, I remembered when Ronan sat there and then I forced myself to forget again.
“Son, I’ve something I need to tell you.” her voice was odd, it was unsure and I didn’t like it.
“What wrong? Are you ok?”
“I am son, I’m fine but it’s your friend Malachy.”
“What’s the gimp up to now?”
He’d been coming down from his house to call for me. Mum had seen his old lady out and about and the two had hatched a plan for Sixty-Six to come down and cheer my broken ass up but on the way down he’d somehow managed to trip over his own foot and fall out in front of traffic. I simply nodded and rolled over in my bed to face the wall. The tears sat so thick in my eyes they weren’t able to even roll.
16
WE MOVED HOUSE not long after that and I went to school at an all boys school, something which I was not pleased about and made sure I let everyone know. It was a sausage-fest of epic proportions and everyone there hated me for pointing it out. I was in class; I got a tap on the shoulder from a boy with a real round face, fat as a meatball.
“Martin Stewart said he’s going to kick your fuck in after school.” said the kid.
“Martin Stewart can eat a dick, tell him to go fuck himself.”
The teacher overheard and I was sent to the principle’s office for the second time in one week at the school.
His office was dark, serious, there didn’t seem to be any joy in it at all. He lent forward, his bald head catching light from the blinded window behind him.
“So you’re the little smart ass from Poleglass.”
I wanted to point out he sounded like Dr. Seuss but bit my lip and remembered the warning the old lady gave me.
“I don’t mean to be.”
“You’ve got a mouth on you so I hear.”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
“Don’t get short with me.”
“Look it’s not my fault I’m here, my mum dragged me here. She dumped me in this school and I’ve got these pricks in my class telling me they’re going to beat me up after school. You want me to sit there and say nothing? Maybe take a pounding?”
He wrote frantically before handing me over a slip.
“You’ve got detention, two days Mr. Morgan.”
“Well this should stop me from getting beat up, much appreciated sir.”
I only had two years in that school. I was lucky to see them through thanks to a kid from my class who looted a bottle of vodka from his old man’s liquor cabinet only for us to get caught drinking it under the table in the middle of Maths class. It tasted stronger than it looked but it wasn’t necessarily unpleasant. When I got home Mum was waiting for me with the belt in her hand. I remembered her war face from the last time; I was older but still couldn’t give her the slip.
“Drinking! Drinking!!” she screamed “You little bastard, I ought to kill you! I won’t be living through that shite again, do you hear me?!” smack, smack, smack.
I dropped down into a ball in the corner of the kitchen and waited it out as she beat at me with my own god-damn belt. It stung like thunder and she was as skilled with it as she was with the hand but she’d tire and as long as I stayed compact I’d make it out of it with all my teeth intact.
That week we had to attend a meeting with the principle and the school counsellor. They sat across from me and the old lady and read through the report of my behaviour. I had gone from top of the class to rebel without a clue in one change of postcode.
“Mr. Morgan,” began the principle, I waited for the rhyme “you haven’t been with us very long but in the short time you have I’ve found your behaviour to be absolutely unacceptable. I understand your younger brother is also attending St. David’s and is fitting in well. I wondered whether a new start in another school might be the best thing for you. Your mother has spoken with me and Mrs. Olive on several occasions this week and has assured us that this recent spell of yours is completely out of character and your school transcripts support what your mother says. On this occasion and this occasion only we are prepared to work with you on this matter and attempt to give you the best start in life. You have the Eleven-Plus examinations coming up, you have Secondary school, GCSEs and the rest of your life ahead of you but this is your only second chance at St. David’s Mr. Morgan. Do not let your mother down sir.”
I could have shit myself I relaxed so quickly. I was certain expulsion and another trip to the woodshed was on my horizon but Dr. Seuss had done me a bona-fide solid and I was beginning to like the egg-headed old guy.
“Please take a seat in the reception area Mr. Morgan, we’d both like a moment or two to converse with your mother.”
I looked to her “Get outside now Douglas. Not one toe out of line!”
17
IT WAS EGG SHELLS from there on in. Anyone so much as farted in assembly and they looked to me. I had to make Mother Theresa look like a cheap tart so I kept my head down and my mouth buttoned. Mum had threatened some time with your father in order for me to see the road I was on and all the ghastly stops I’d have to look forward to along the way. I fought it hard.
Jack’s last cameo appearance in our lives was enough for me to be sure that whatever I was growing up to become it wasn’t him, but what chance did I stand?
Eventually the idea took root. I hadn’t seen the old man in years, I’d felt bad for him on occasion, we all had each other and though I was still figuring out why that was a good thing at least I knew it was a good thing. What did he have?
I convinced Mum to let me stop over with him for Christmas one year. I came down to a trashed Scaletrix set and Jack sleeping it off under the tree – my grotesque present. We’d try it again under supervision with a twenty-something case worker who was going through his own sexual identity crisis, like we didn’t have enough to deal with.
“If you’ve got a stick of salami then you’re not a vegetarian.” the old man would say whenever the kid checked in on us.
The next time the old drunk would stand me up like some fugly blind date that the friends doing the match making would call homely and natural looking. I’d sit in the icy blue room with its plain walls, safety covers in the plug sockets and that incredibly loud plastic clock ticking at me for over an hour. My mum sat just beyond the door to the left of me, out of sight and quietly fuming as a social worker sat patiently awaiting the father that simply wasn’t coming. Ronan’s death hadn’t been what triggered it; the desire for a father had been lying dormant under the surface of my skin for as long as consciousness swam through me. His life had awoken it; his death had purely magnified what I was missing. Ronan had been a replacement for the dad Jack Morgan could never be, yet trying to reconnect with Jack would fill the hole that Ronan’s untimely and brutal death had caused. As a child, whose logic also accepts Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, it was a good idea at the time.
I could read the dread and acceptance in equal measurements on my poor Mum’s face. Ronan made me want my own dad, regardless of how piss poor he was, no matter how unreliable and banged up he was – he was my Papa and I was stupid enough to believe that he’d be happy enough to see me, that it would change him instantly, like a foul-mouthed Disney tale. She never told me how stupid I was and she never held it against me, God bless her. She swallowed hard, tossed aside the stinging ingratitude of her eldest son and knowing all that was to come let me make my own mistakes.
