Cassandra Voices

Author: Gary Grace

  • Toblerone

    When you hear the phrase, “Subtropical paradise,” Longford is probably not what springs to mind. As children, we were taken to Center Parcs, over in the UK. Thirty-degree weather year-round, with palm trees, pools, slides and rides, all housed beneath a glass dome. There’d been great excitement in the family following an announcement of a new landmark Irish resort, only now it would largely benefit my sister’s little lad. All the same I was feeling nostalgic. My wife wasn’t coming.

    On day one, without bothering to unpack our bags, we headed to the dome for hours of swimming and sunbathing. Saddling me with an infant nephew, my sister and her husband walked away, hand in hand. They looked relieved to steal even half an hour to themselves. I resented their freckled Eskimo kisses and skipping steps off to the jacuzzi. A glass of wine wouldn’t have hurt. Of course, the imitation bamboo bar didn’t carry prosecco, never mind champagne. I eyed up a little carton of apple juice poking its ear out of the corner of the cooler bag, but couldn’t bring myself to disturb the little one. I considered the bloated bodies and sad eyes I’d see in the supermarket next week. Those young parents living without the luxury of a holiday like this.

    I was prepared for Christopher to start bawling the second my sister was out of eyeshot, but he didn’t. With my hands under his armpits, I bounced him gently up and down, muttering baby gibberish. Elastic strings of dribble descended from his mouth. They were pure and transparent. Like him. Looking in his clear, guiltless eyes I found some hope to quell that nagging uneasiness.

    When he started to whimper, I put his downy head on my shoulder and rocked him. I felt the eyes of a flock of fathers on me as they rocked their little criers and imagined they must be thinking, “This guy hasn’t a fucking clue what’s ahead of him”.

    In unison, their faces softened and rearranged with a concentrated indifference, their growling arched eyebrows conformed back into flattened bushy lines, in poor attempts not to cross…a line. A group of teenage bikini bums passed, and the fathers’ split-second double takes passed under the subtle scrutiny of their ever-vigilant spouses, keeping score and collecting ammo for the invariable fights to come, who were otherwise occupied breast feeding second sons. Every sucked-in gut flopped back out, as the parade of teens turned the corner, heading towards the lazy river.

    I thought about Portugal. Heather’s bum in her black bikini, on our first bit of real sun away together, where I’d proposed on the beach, like a fucking dickhead. We’d mused about how in our first six months together, we’d achieved a level of connection that other couples took years to get to or never achieved. It felt right at the time. That was the last I saw of it, the bikini that is. I recall that for subsequent aquatic adventures, like at Seapoint with her sisters, the charity swim on Christmas day in Sandycove, and even a mid-week spa day in Seafield, the one piece had resurfaced. There’s nothing inherently unsexy about a one piece. But I had to conclude that the same certain behaviors one can comfortably engage in abroad, you might never dream of doing at home. Then I sang to Christopher,

    My girl, my girl, don’t lie to me

    Tell me where did you sleep last night

    In the pines, in the pines

    Where the sun don’t ever shine

    I would shiver the whole night through

    Holding Christopher in my arms, I executed light-footed pirouettes, feeling the warmth of his skin on mine. One tiny hand gripped my chest hair and his breathing calmed as he began to fade. This tender display attracted much attention from a cluster of mothers. The rigid smiles they wore were more a reflex than genuine emotional response before each face rearranged to focus on her respective husband’s hairy tattooed shoulders. Christopher’s small head on my own shoulder, his drool cooled, before running down my back.

    My sister and her husband returned right around lunchtime and passed me a cold beer. But when I handed the little guy back, he reached for me with his wrinkly, doughy hand, and I heard myself say, “He was no trouble at all.”

    I must have read the same page ten times. Peeling myself off the plastic pool lounger each time I reached for a sip of beer, I became hypnotized by their rituals. The unpacking of sandwich bags, the spreading of butter, the squeezing of baby food and the spilling of apple juice. Without a word exchanged, but informed by nods and glances, their Formula 1-style, precision clean-ups ensued. All that munching, crunching, screaming, and soothing seemed like white noise to these parents. Watching the breathless fathers’ pregnant bellies heaving made me feel ill again. Those teens were parading past us once more, which prompted the tired women to brave pleasant expressions and adjust the colorful cover ups with which they concealed their sagging tummies, stretchmarks, and cesarean scars.

    Heather was away on a work trip to Amsterdam. Her company holding its annual conference, essentially a glorified, networking piss-up justified by some scattered workshops and team-building exercises.

    Things had not been good between us. Our relationship strained by living married life in the box-room of my parents’ house. The first-time buyers’ lament pulsated through every minute of every day as we awaited construction to begin on our forever-home, which at that juncture was nothing more than a giant puddle. The show house had seduced us. It would be worth the wait, we thought. However, the reflection in that puddle had turned to that of those who were no longer having fun.

    Heather had fun when she went out with her work friends. On the rare occasion I was invited along, I’d see her smile, laugh, cackle even, and look beautiful. But, whenever our eyes met across the bar, her entire demeanor changed. As if my face forced her to forget who she was. Only on the taxi ride home would her cheekbones rise again, in the glow of her phone, as she scrolled through her past.

    After the subtropical paradise, we went to the fake village for an authentic Italian dinner. My mother inhaled her wine, while Dad picked his teeth. I batted a half-eaten meatball back and forth across a stain of sauce, just to watch my nephew’s eyes swing like a cat’s. Back at the cabin, and much to my brother’s annoyance, I went to bed early. Well, after one whisky over a hand of cards. This left him to suffer our half-cut, maudlin parents, solo. I heard my bleary mother slur about how proud she was of him. Dad’s face would’ve reddened, and his gaze grown more distant, as he mused about being sixteen in the sixties, batin’ around on his Honda 50.

    “He’s probably just missing Heather.” My mother speculated, in what she imagined was a hushed voice. I could almost feel her spit landing intermittently in my brother’s ear.

    At last in bed, thanks to the crappy signal on my phone and the distracting chatter from the kitchen, I couldn’t get hard enough to knock one out. Not even conjuring a casual exchange with an attractive mother I’d seen by the pool, leading to an impromptu segue to one of those convenient family changing cubicles. Close, but it was no use.

    “You were so, so protective of your little sister when she was young.” My mother crooned, slapping away at what I assumed to be my brother’s thigh. Tossing and turning, I imagined Heather out at a bar in Amsterdam, after a long day of corporate icebreakers, awkward talks and wandering thoughts. Who was she looking at? Probably someone less pessimistic. Taller too. Younger, in better shape, and clean-shaven. Maybe with a man-bun. His eyes would be all over Heather. She’d laugh and push the sandy blonde curls out of her face. In skin-tight jeans, he’d see she had hips and an arse to die for.

    We were fatigued. Both of us. Was a good fucking something she wanted? Maybe she would come back from her trip in better spirits after having that thrill, being tossed around a hotel room with the vigour I once had. She knew full well I’d never ask her. Cheating men always bring flowers; what was I to think if she returned with a Toblerone, bottle of Scotch and a big hug?

    I’d heard nothing from Heather all day. But that didn’t stop me from checking my phone every few minutes. I flicked away through our wedding album in the hope of something rousing; she really did look beautiful in her dress. But nothing came, bar a few streaking tears.  My brother stumbled in, with his signature simultaneous belching and farting. So, I rolled over, turning my back on him, and pretended to be asleep. The waft took me back to the bedroom we’d shared as kids. His heavy breathing somehow soothed me, and made me glad he was there. I felt less alone and managed to drift off, dreaming something I’d never remember.

    The following day we’d booked in to play tennis. We each did our part taking turns to rock Christopher’s stroller back and forth. My Metallica-styled rendition of The Wheels on the Bus got him giggling and he squirmed as I ate some of his delicious animal shaped biscuits. My brother-in-law Karl looked visibly uncomfortable as he restrained himself from admonishing me. But then again, Karl couldn’t tell me off in front of his in-laws, just as I couldn’t punch him in the throat on every occasion, he said something condescending. Or called me “Bud.”

    On the tennis court adjacent to ours, a five-aside soccer match was in progress. Boys versus girls. Judging by what I saw, there was obviously a transaction happening. I gathered the parents in each goal had taken one for the team, herding a crew of kids for the afternoon. This freed up other parents for some afternoon delight, while perhaps later, the goalies could have a date night. They looked like they needed a nap themselves, but in their laboured cheers and smiles I sensed some hope.

    Sweat poured off the bear-like dad in the goal nearest me. For a moment, I pitied him, doubting what energy he’d have for later that night. But when I looked down at his wife, it was myself I pitied, as she turned out to be that attractive mom from the day before. The one by the pool.

    With each successive smash, great return or strong serve that drew cheers from our side, she was paying attention and deciding I wasn’t half bad. Untying the jumper from around her waist, she tossed it aside to show off a Lycra sheathed bum and thighs. I read this display of plumage as a sign. I watched her ask someone to swap positions, take a turn guarding the goal, so she could hoof a series of goals past her bewildered husband. I could feel her glancing my way, when a timer sounded indicating one minute remained before the hour booked on both courts was up.

    Fingers clawed through the chain link fence, from eager tikes impatient to enter for scheduled fun. As the clock wound down, both within and beyond that fence, kid’s screams reached a fever pitch. In one last effort to underscore the girls’ dominance over the boys, this determined woman took a cross from her daughter down on her chest and volleyed the ball into the top right-hand corner of the goal. Pulling her top up over her

    head, she exposed a well-filled sports bra, flat stomach, and on the small of her back, a single Scorpio symbol tattoo. Origin: Ibiza, circa 200. To the applause of all those watching, she led a flying-V of girls in a victory lap around the pitch, singing “Champion-ay, champion-ay, oh-ay, oh-ay, oh-ay.” As she pulled her top back on, our eyes locked through her tousled hair, and the final clap was mine.

    We packed up our things, all leaving the courts at the same time.

    “Pretty feckin’ impressive out there!” I said to her as she passed, “Half expected a power-slide, but that AstroTurf is a bitch”.

    Her husband had gone ahead with an arm around a sulking son. But now craning his neck, he called to her, “C’mon Ciara, let’s get this lot cleaned up.”

    She smiled at me and said, “Oh, even if it were grass, I wouldn’t be doing much sliding at my age.”

    “I dunno, you looked pretty good out there to me” I said, instantly regretting it.

    Ciara laughed and said, “Thanks… I’d better catch up with that gang.” before jogging up to join her son and husband.

    My bones ached, watching her walk away. As Ciara tied up her hair, the sun caught the lightly freckled back of her neck and I could almost taste the salt. Tugging on her husband’s sleeve, the little boy in a Liverpool jersey piped-up, pleading with a cute-hoor’s precariousness rarely perpetrated by their class, to his father.

    “Please Damo, please!”

    “Only the winners get ice-cream Johnny. Thems’ the rules,” declared his dad.

    Only remembering this bet due to Johnny’s boldness, the rest of the boys swarmed, grabbing his hand here, snatching at his shirt tail there, and a chant broke out.

    “Damo! Damo! Damo!”

    He was loving it.

    Ciara caught up with them to shoo the boys away and reassert a girls’ victory. Her husband slung his arm across her shoulders. after she’d wrapped her arm around his waist, without a glance backwards. But I could feel her feeling my eyes.

    “C’mon Bud” my brother in-law called after me, breaking the spell, “We’ve a reservation at eight.” His presumptuous usage of “Bud” usually made my teeth grind. But in that moment, it barely affected me. I checked my phone. Nothing. I pictured Heather’s arse elevated. She’d be on a Segway, zooming around Amsterdam’s cobbled streets to see the sights, as part of a company sponsored scavenger hunt, led by Luuk, Daan, or some other handsome counterpart from the Dutch office. Heather’d have taken a selfie, eating a stroopwafel by the canal, before Google mapping the walking directions to Anne Frank’s house.

    Gazing at the two grey ticks beside my day-old WhatsApp message to Heather that simply said, “I love you,” the likelihood that I’d been muted almost sent me into a state of panic. But I was distracted by Ciara’s shriek. Damo was tickling her, and a playful chase ensued. When she halted him with whips of her jumper, her flushed face was fucking gorgeous.

    In those aerial shots you see in their TV ads, the Centre Parcs forest seems to span forever. But it’s really not that big. Everything is contained within an artificial central village and I was sure I’d see Ciara again. I found myself double-taking other women with similar body types, around the pool, from afar, or from behind. Figuring her daughter to be say, twelve, and her son maybe ten, I encouraged my family to book everything from archery, to kayaking, to feckin’ falconry. Any activities where she and her kids might be. I even volunteered to attend cupcake decorating class with my sister and Christopher when Karl wanted a break. But after spending more than a minute pondering the list and contemplating whether Ciara was more likely to gravitate toward Bollywood Dance or a Boogie Bounce, I drew the line. It was a slow week. One which passed painfully, and with no sight of her.

    Our last dinner was at the fancy place on the lake, Café Rouge. I was surprised to see Ciara there and gratified when she noticed me. With a pleasant nod she passed our table, as her family was shown to theirs. Damo remained engrossed in his phone, the glow of which illuminated his stubbled jowl.

    Wearing flawless make-up, Ciara looked perhaps only a few years older than me. Her faded Guns and Roses t-shirt could have been from the nineties; but was probably just a cool mom’s pick-up from Penney’s. In fact, Damo washed up well enough too. Belly hidden in an expensive-looking shirt, he was breathing easy, his thinning hair sculpted not without some expertise.

    Detecting the residual rugged handsomeness Ciara would have been attracted to, back when he was sliding in tries at Blackrock, I wondered if she still saw him like that. Or whether it took a bottle of wine. Being seated a few tables down allowed me an uninterrupted view of both Ciara and Damo’s faces. I ordered a salad. When what I really wanted was the steak.

    By dessert, he was scrolling endlessly on his phone again. It didn’t look like work. He wasn’t responding to critical emails. Damo didn’t type at all, and his eyebrows furrowed the way one might react to a series of surprising match scores. At one point, he even bit down on his tongue. Ciara contained her irritation by tilting her head to smile at passers-by, that and pushing that last profiterole around her plate.

    When Damo excused himself to make a call, he left Ciara a parting kiss on the cheek. Through the back of his shirt, a thin line of sweat had bled, and as he lumbered out of the restaurant, I wondered if I’d be able to take him down in a headlock.

    When Damo left, Ciara momentarily rummaged in her bag, then headed towards the back of the restaurant, clutching what appeared to be a pack of Marlboro Lights. After nicking my brother’s cigarette pack from the breast pocket of his coat, I followed her out of the dining room, and past the kitchen, to the smoking area.

    At the glass door outside, she flashed me a smile, and blew smoke out of the side of her mouth. I asked for a light. It was a small world. We didn’t live that far apart back in Dublin. We’d gone to schools near enough to each other and would’ve drank in some of the same pubs. Both of us feigned recognition. “Oh, I thought you looked familiar,” and “Yeah, I do know so-and-so.” She went to her pack for another, but was all out. I’d one left that she offered to split.

    She apologized for the duck-arsed fag. There was something intimate about the warmth of her saliva on my lips and it made my heart pound. After noticing my tattooed wrist, Ciara took hold of it, examining and running a finger along a blown-out line.

    “I wish I’d gotten more, if I’m honest.” she said.

    “It’s never too late.”

    Ciara gave her mouth a blast of a minty breath freshener.

    “Does he not know?” I asked her.

    She raised a thin eyebrow, as if to say, “Are you fucking joking?” before scoffing, “He wouldn’t notice if I shaved my head.” Before parting to head back to our tables, we formally introduced ourselves. First name. Last name. Handshake.

    The next evening, back in Dublin, I went to meet my wife at the airport. My WhatsApp messages went undelivered. Her phone had died. But when she finally appeared through the arrivals gate, she looked small and broken. I thought about the soccer match, our wedding photo, Christopher’s clear eyes and dribble-soaked chin. My heart squeezed closed like a fist and I knew we wouldn’t make it. Waving away like a fool from behind the barrier, I greeted Heather with a hug and took her bags. She didn’t have a Toblerone. Just a headache, and a cold sore.

  • A Slice

    Robbie was in what his friends referred to as “swaying tree mode”. This meant the slender greying hipster was pissed, his eyes barely open, and not engaging with anyone but moving slowly side to side, mouthing the lyrics to a song that wasn’t playing. He was tall but no one worried he’d fall over. His skinny jeans were tight enough to turn his long legs into pylons that served as a rock-solid foundation. The ritual had begun. Around 2am, the others’ attention turned to finding a few bags and a session, whereas Robbie exercised his right to abscond via an “Irish goodbye” without a word to his friends, stomach churning, in search of a slice.

    Leaving The Workman’s Club on Wellington Quay, the crisp air off the Liffey hitting his face was somewhat sobering and his eyes opened fully to admire the river’s glow. He stepped in to Di Fontaine’s, and was greeted with a smile from a familiar face, before leaving with an enormous pizza. Parking the big box atop a bin, he dug through his pockets for his headphones. It wasn’t far back to the apartment Robbie shared with his friend Barry, in the Liberties. Jaw clicking, he nursed his “walking home slice”  tearing at the doughy wedge, on the uphill walk past Christchurch, then downhill towards St Patrick’s Cathedral. Against the backdrop of these strikingly lit monuments, he hummed along to Handel’s “Arrival of the Queen of Sheba,” and commended himself for another flawless extrication. Once again he had dodged the eyebrow-licking, coke-fueled shite talk his mates had in store, and unlike them, Robbie would be fresh for training the following morning.

    His roommate, Barry, was probably out on the piss  with his own mates or the Tinder-date-of-the-week. An empty apartment was what Robbie needed. The love of his life was a gorgeous  grey feline. Grimes would be waiting at the foot of the bed, with a hypnotizing purr that would sooth him to sleep. Robbie could see Fallon’s bar on the corner of New Row South and although just minutes away from home, he began to doubt whether he’d make it in time. A nonnegotiable need to piss came over him. Prompted by the swelling between his legs, he scanned the surroundings for the least inappropriate place to have an urgent slash. Relieved that no one was sleeping rough in the alcove at the entrance to the Centz discount store, he seized the opportunity to avoid soiling in his favourite faded jeans. Placing the still warm pizza box on the ground and out of harm’s way, with his back to the road, he released a steady stream of steaming stinking piss.

    Retrieving the box, Robbie arose to meet the flinty eyes of two lads clad in tracksuits. The older one moved closer, mouthing something at him while the younger hung back, smoking a cigarette. Robbie removed an earphone.

    “Giz a slice of yer pizza, Man” the older one demanded. The younger lad laughed at the hipster, blinking and cornered. “Go on Man, don’t be a scabby cunt, just giz a lil’ slice, for fuck sake.” Before Robbie could find any words, the young lad lunged forward, flicking the lit cigarette with precision directly into Robbie’s face, its red embers bursting upwards and into his eyes. The older brother smacked the pizza box out of Robbie’s hands, which opened up, sending several slices and two sealed plastic cups of garlic dip spiraling down to land on the urine-soaked concrete. The guy then grabbed Robbie by the throat, pushing him up against the shop’s metal shutters.  The young one then snatched Robbie’s phone from his hand, severed it from the headphones with a tug and took off running towards Kevin Street.

    Along with a proclivity for skinny jeans, craft beers and ridiculous mustaches, the modern-day hipster harbors a penchant for watching and practicing Mixed Martial Arts. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in particular. Robbie, being no different to his cohorts, trained quite a bit. Once acquired, the mechanics of locking up, taking an unsuspecting cunt down, and chokeholding him into submission was no problem at all. Even for a gangly chap like Robbie. Drunk or not.

    Now on the ground, and with arms flailing wildly, the older brother blurted out threats about how Robbie was going to get “fucking sliced up.” A serenade made brief, once Robbie’s legs and arms hooked in, and he applied enough forearm pressure to choke out the threats, which went from barks to hardly audible gurgles to silent gasps.

    When the guy stopped struggling, Robbie allowed him enough of an airway to breathe. “I’m fuckin’ sorry man…Let me go, and I’ll get your phone back.” His pleading went on for a while and Robbie half expected him to start crying, but he didn’t. It was cold, very cold, and the puddle of piss crept closer.

    A passing couple were kind enough to ring the Guards, but they didn’t care to stick around. Within a couple of minutes the squad car pulled up, and its flashing blue light gleamed across the surface of the puddle, just as Robbie rolled the guy over in to it, face first.

    A female officer cuffed the shivering suspect. “Up to your old tricks, Damien?” asked her senior officer with a smirk. “C’mon O’Reilly, I’m not into anthin’ anymore. This lad fuckin attacked me!” answered the detainee, now in custody and being packed into the back seat of the squad car. O’Reilly turned to Robbie, “Garda Keogh here will take your statement. Have you been drinking, yourself?” Robbie admitted that he had and after giving his statement, Garda Keogh instructed him to present himself at Kevin Street Garda Station, the following day.

    Damien and his brother were known to the Guards, who upon entering the nearby family home, found a bedside locker drawer full of phones and other contraband, in a room the brothers shared. Robbie’s phone was returned to him, as it matched his detailed description. He was advised that he could press charges if he liked, but unless he was hurt, it wasn’t worth the bother. The younger brother was a minor, but Damien awaited sentencing for a slew of more serious offenses.

    Robbie didn’t venture out the following weekend or the one after. He offered no excuses for his absence, nor did anyone ask. When he did eventually resurface, so did the ritual. At least it seemed so, to his mates, but Robbie had employed some imperceptible changes. He became conscious of leaving before getting “too-too” pissed, and he skipped the pizza. Hands free, he walked with only one earphone in, listening to Wagner’s “The Ride of the Valkyries.”

    The little bump of coke he had done was keeping him alert. Barry’s black leather studded belt had been left in a pile of clothes in their laundry room for weeks. It’s buckle featured a removable set of fully functioning brass knuckles. Barry wouldn’t miss them.

    Grinding his teeth, Robbie felt his knuckles pop as he gripped the brass in one sweating palm, jammed in his jacket pocket. He was looking over his shoulder with every couple of paces and distracted by a group of lads crossing the street behind him, he smacked right into someone at the corner of Kevin Street. It was Damien.

    Out of his pocket came Robbie’s fist, cocked and ready to rain down. For weeks he had fantasized about the sound of Damien’s bones crunching, and now he saw one side of Damien’s face was bruised in healing hues of yellowish green. On the other, was a fresh slice. The  pink scar bubbled up and ran diagonally down his cheek.

    Recognizing Robbie in an instant, Damien clocked the gleaming knuckles before shielding his face and screaming, “I’m sorry man, I’m sorry…Sorry!” When Robbie hesitated, Damien dashed down the street, running at an incredible pace.

    At home, Barry had a little session brewing. There were a load of people drinking and smoking weed on the balcony. Grimes was asleep on the couch, unperturbed by the speaker’s base or the voices raised over it which carried through the sliding door someone left ajar. Retrieving her would have drawn unwelcome attention, so soundlessly, Robbie made straight for his room.

    How much debt would you need to be in before a dealer would cut your face, Robbie wondered examining his own mug in the bedroom mirror. Then he conjured a similar scar and finally decided his dilated pupils made him look like an alien. Burying the brass knuckles deep in his sock drawer, he put in earplugs, and switched off his bedside lamp. He tried to have a wank for some relief to calm down but couldn’t stay hard. Robbie was not used to coke.

    Behind closed eyelids, Robbie watched a woman crying. From the kitchen of a dilapidated Dublin flat, she peered out of the window into a littered courtyard, ashing in the sink and wishing her sons would come home. He still heard Damien’s nylon tracksuit swishing in the wind. Beautiful in a way, it was much like the sound of a serrated blade moving backwards and forwards through wood, or maybe bone. In the darkened room, Robbie raised his right hand, barely able to stare at his shaking fingers.

  • Synapse Fire

    One of the main things I characterize my misspent youth by, is a knack for exploiting the trust my middle-class parents misplaced in me. At seventeen, I was too old to be dragged along with them on what seemed like monthly getaways, but too young to exercise any degree of responsibility or restraint. My folks had a mobile home near Ballymoney beach, which had hosted many a night of debauchery for my older brother and his cronies. He was away in Amsterdam, so I’d decided it was my turn. That bank holiday weekend, I had access to a car, three malleable mates and in the palm of my hand, an assortment of different colored pills.

    My mother’s arty liberal ideals had long since crushed my father’s more traditional views into dust. You’d only ever get the faintest of grumbles from him, dampened behind a rumpling newspaper. This self-censorship wasn’t always prevalent or so he told me, over glasses of scotch, his tongue unbinding nostalgically in the wake of my recent nuptials. I am now a man it seems. After what they’d been through with my older brother, Dad found it best to defer parenting us to my mother, who for lack of a better term, had notions.

    My father had been ‘too strict’ with my hyperactive brother who had some violent tendencies. The significant shift of power happened when his bright idea of sending my brother to boarding school backfired in a big way, offering more of a breeding ground for criminal activity than an educational utopia. Kenny’s expulsion from the school brought a great shame to my father. A gang of boys in the year ahead of him had caught wind of Kenny’s lucrative little drug trade and expected a sizeable cut in exchange for their silence. If their demands had been more diplomatic he’s always maintained, there wouldn’t have been a problem. They were too greedy, couldn’t be reasoned with, and Kenny refused. These boys were all “somebody’s son” and were bred to get their way.

    Junior Cup team rugby players could use the pool and it was common knowledge that Kenny swam late at night. He was always the last to leave. So when three of them jumped in on top of him, he thought they were trying to drown him. One boy had a chunk of flesh ripped out of his cheek, and another suffered a fractured skull. But it was the ring leader who got his teeth knocked out, some of an ear bitten off, and lost the sight in one eye. So obvious was it a  three-on-one attack, that no charges were pressed against my brother Kenny. However, his dealings were exposed, and he was turfed out.

    My mother employed a more permissive style of parenting with me, indulged my every whim, never punished bad behavior and challenged my thought process in ways she must have thought Socratic. I got away with fucking murder. Although I did appreciate the level of freedom this afforded me, I couldn’t help but feel sympathy for my father, subjected to the periodic “I told you so” moment, anytime my report card pleased her or I’d been involved in some minor sporting victory. It brought me no joy seeing him voiceless and defeated. I had this recurring dream, before I got medicated, where he manifested as a wounded fox, caught in a trap, bleeding from his soft eyes.

    So my folks fecked-off somewhere abroad for the long weekend, as did my mate Dan’s parents, whose neighbors had no visibility of their driveway. No one to notice the missing car. Dan and I had gone to primary school together. We had not been friends, but gravitated toward each other in secondary school, given we were among the few token posh-lads at the community school. His Dad was self-made and didn’t believe in private education, but my mother gave me the option to choose where I thought would best meet my developmental goals. I’d love to say it was my selflessness that led me there, being aware of my father’s crumbling business. Private school fees would have been a strain. Then again, the boarding school my grandfather, father, and brother had attended did not have a football team and rugby was compulsory for all first years. That and it was full of wankers. I made the case that I would become a more well-rounded individual given the opportunity to carry on playing competitive football and also broaden my worldview immersed in an environment boasting a more diverse student population. A more prominent priority was my overdeveloped libido that had been cultivated, I believe, by early exposure to a wealth of magazines and conspicuously labeled VHS tapes in my brother’s bottom drawer. The community school was co-ed and I’d been assured, full of ‘damp yokes.’

    Dan and I were placed in A1. The tiered class structure was supposedly based on an aptitude test we’d taken, but I’m positive that in seeing where we’d come from, the Year Head had employed mercy. A1 was no cake-walk, but it wasn’t exactly Dangerous Minds, like C2 for example. Woodwork and Metalwork were housed in the C-Area and despite me disregarding my brother’s advice to “batter someone on day one to let people know you’re not to be fucked with,” I did feel compelled to jump in and help Dan, who was himself on day one, getting “battered.” His expensive shoes, pressed shirt and an accent he couldn’t convincingly conceal, made him an easy target. I did manage to get one good dig in, bloodying the nose of Barry O’Neil, but ultimately was booted around with Dan until burly Mr. O’Brien came rushing out of his classroom to put a stop to the ‘madness.’ Dan was soft as shit and I didn’t feel like we’d anything in common, but sticking together seemed necessary.

    Stu’s experience was ours in reverse. His mother had notions too, and identified in him a level of intelligence that had escaped his siblings. He traversed the gauntlet of his council estate covering up our primary school’s crest with his definitive black bomber jacket. He’d bate through that estate early each morning and came skidding into the yard on his orange BMX. He and I would kick a football around together. We were schemers, thieving whatever was in fashion, taking turns every few days at the small-break. Pogs, Premier League stickers or whatever was going. We had another little racket that proved more lucrative, both of us having somewhat of an entrepreneurial spirit instilled in us by our older brothers. We’d get to school early and pilfer the strawberry and chocolate milk left out on the school steps, which were very much in demand, most parents having opted for low-fat regular milk for their little darlings. We’d sell our spoils. Shamefully now, I must confess we did abuse the good nature of an elderly newsagent proprietor in our boldest of schemes. We’d drop a box of one bar or another from the shelf and kick it underneath the stall, only then to enquire about said missing bar. He’d potter into the store room to fetch another box. Stu’s hands were as fast as lightning and his bomber jacket’s pockets were deep. I’d keep sketch at the counter and stall the shopkeeper when necessary. Most of our classmates had money and no one dared rat on us given our brothers’ reputations. Our little enterprise drew us close together. His mother adored me, finding my little posh-lad witticisms funny. Mine found his salt-of-the-earth Dublin attitude a charm, often dropping Stu into conversation with other parents as though it were proof of her open-mindedness or some such shit. Stu didn’t think it was shrewd to associate ourselves with Dan in our rough secondary school, but ultimately shared my sympathies for our pretty and effeminate alumnus.

    Katie came from the same estate as Stu and was in a similar boat. Her mother had intended to send her to the all-girl convent school, but when her parents split, Katie’s cunt of a Da was not forthcoming with chipping in on her tuition. She was into boxing and as a result, rumoured to be a lesbian. I can attest to the fact that she was not, after our ‘five minutes in heaven’ shared in Stu’s downstairs bathroom, during a game of Spin the Bottle, back in first year. She was also better at football than Stu and me put together. She’d definitely been a tomboy growing up, but had blossomed into an athletic goddess and never abandoned us. She did harbor though, a great deal of hatred for those girls that had ostracized her and the lads who only started paying her attention when her breasts filled out. We, her real mates, dared not taint our genuine friendship by trying it on with her. She wasn’t interested in us that way more like, and we knew it. One good thing her Da had done, was teach her to drive, and any chance we got, we’d borrow Dan’s parents’ Jeep and have adventures to which no one else in school was privy.

    I’d been taking a pill, here and there, from my brother’s stock. He often tasked me with cutting up coke for him and for my trouble, I’d also taken a little sample of that. Stu was doing the same with his older brother’s weed. Dan’s folks had a never-ending supply of wine, and with Katie able to drive, we were sorted for our weekend by the sea.

    I’d been involved in school debates since first year, much to the glee of my mother who’d heard about them in a parent teacher meeting and hadn’t ceased encouraging me not to waste my ‘gift,’ the ablity to talk my way out of essentially, anything. If I’m honest, I did enjoy the debates. The most recent one was about different types of civilizations, Eastern and Western philosophy. I’d been arguing publicly, that to our society’s detriment, foundations laid for us by the Greeks and Romans were being forgotten,. I argued that in a perfect society, like many of the great Greeks, everyone would be bisexual, citing the statistical odds being for more love in a world where marriages end in divorce and of those ‘successful’ marriages, only a fraction are purported to be happy. Privately, I’d made known to the lads my personal opinion, that there wasn’t one good way, and that we should be learning from all cultures, taking meditative practices from the East and hallucinatory journeys from the Native Americans.  “Are you fuckin’ high, Man?” Stu asked in response to this. I said I wasn’t, but that I highly recommended ‘getting high’ together. With a smirk, Dan added “Theory AND Practice. ” I’d fuck all practical knowledge, but in theory, the lads agreed. Even Katie.

    The plan was for all four of us to trip on something different, together. We would get out of our heads around a bonfire on the beach. We’d get to know each other, and ourselves, on a deeper level. We weren’t live-for-the-weekend piss-head, druggy wasters like lots of our classmates. Our trip was about enlightenment. That and our heads were fucking melted from Leaving Cert propaganda, to which we were not immune.

    On the Saturday we’d gone swimming and had a BBQ. We drank copious amounts of red wine and even dusted off a holy grail type bottle of scotch. It’s absence would certainly be attributed to my brother. Our experience was to be had on the Sunday night, us having Monday off to recover. Stu and I gathered firewood, while Dan and Katie discussed our path to enlightenment, deciding who should do what drug, and why.

    When darkness fell, we were all fairly buzzed on Dan’s fancy wine, and Katie revealed our missions, should we choose to accept them. She was highly strung, admittedly, and had never smoked a cigarette, let alone weed. She would get blazed and allow herself to relax and submit to the humour that was all around us. Stu was quiet, so he was to do some white, freeing himself from the shackles of self-consciousness and let his words flow. Dan was the consummate jester of the group, and we were often plagued by his seeming inability to share his true feelings, veiling everything in jokes. A yoke was to be had, whereby his heart would unfurl in waves of sincerity. I, being the depressive of the group, had issues sleeping and because of the meds, never remembered my dreams. We’d all been listening to a lot of Bowie, and were aware that if one were to take certain sleeping tablets, and force themselves to stay awake, they’d enter into this trippy dreamy state. Even if I couldn’t remember, the group would let me know what I could see and what I was saying. I was up for it, on the condition that they try their utmost not to let me drown in the sea.

    The ironic ceremony began with Dan raising up our offerings to the drug gods, and I blessed them with the sign of an upside down cross. Stu gave us his iteration of something resembling a Gregorian chant and drummed away in rhapsodic gesture on a Jacob’s biscuit tin. Our sage Katie danced around us, puffing plumes of weed smoke to protect us on our journey.

    Wine-red tongues told the stories of our lives up to that symbolic juncture and proclaimed what the future would bring. That sacred fire erupted between each speaker, fueled by my bottle of lighter fluid, with a well-timed squeeze. A handful of sand was sprinkled, let to trail in to the sparking flames, as a gesture to mark what had passed. This, before we acknowledged the infinity of what lay ahead, with a nod to each end of the pale grey beach. Faces were warmed with the memories of our shared experiences and an assurance that from what we had been born in to, we would indeed escape. Then we sat in silent reflection. Only the moon moved, slipping down the back of a starlit sky until the horizon bore an orange hue.

    As the sun was coming up, Dan and I had wandered from our camp, walking at the water’s edge. The cold ends of each wave rushed over our pale freckled feet. Dan’s drug-sticky palm was on the back of my neck. He was expressing some sense of loss for not having taken part in the debate, but said that he shared my sentiments. Stu was burning the ears off Katie, who lay euphoric in the sand, her muscles rippling in the morning light, her face awash serene, unperturbed by Stu’s rapid hand movements, wild eyes and practically unhinged jaw.

    We had always joked about Dan’s sexuality, in good humour. His overtly heteroerotic jokes and signature pelvic thrusts accompanied by animal noises were a daily occurrence when discussing girls ‘we’ fancied., He’d had girlfriends, so none of us were really sure, but we wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d come out to us. It might even have made his life easier.

    The other two weren’t moving, Katie unable to peel herself from the sand and Stu entranced by her beauty. Dan and I walked, arms around each other’s shoulders, through the endings of rushing waves.

    He kept banging on about ancient Greece and then he stopped me. Looking into my eyes and cupping the back of my head, he leaned in and kissed me. Drunk would have been an understatement, but I was not so drunk that I lacked the capability to immediately push him away, had I wished. I allowed him his moment, before sensitively withdrawing. I explained to him that there was no problem at all, but that he’d gotten it wrong. It was just an argument that I’d been making in the debate, an ideal that I believed in, but sorely lacked the capacity for, because, I was straight. I said, “Sorry.” He was unperturbed to say the least, smiling and gripping the prominent erection pitched in my shorts.

    I’d nicked the wrong blue pills from my brother and had not enjoyed the hoped for dreamy state. They weren’t Ambien, they were feckin’ Viagra. Watching the sun rising, my dick became hard out of nowhere, and my error became painfully clear. If Dan had been high like Katie, he might have gotten paranoid, but in his euphoria all he did was stroke my face and sympathize with my obviously hilarious situation. How did I know if I never tried? I never tried, that’s how I knew, I told him. This did not convince him. He brought up something we’d spoken about more than once. We had both been pining away for Katie for years. Lust only distorted the truth that it was primarily a physical attraction and that he and I shared more in common and were better suited as partners, ‘if only’ we were gay. He walked ahead and declared the beach his stage. A compelling speech ensued, arguing that in the spirit of our exploratory weekend, we should have a real kiss, purely to decipher whether there was something there or not. If I felt nothing, he’d forever go in peace.

    My inebriation coupled with comfort in my own sexuality allowed me to humour this proposal. I can’t say that it was a wholly unpleasant experience. He took me in his arms, embraced me and kissed me with tenderness, withholding any predilection he may have had for groping. When he released me, dough eyed, I couldn’t help but make a joke that the absence of any ‘magic’ had defied the boundaries of biological science, and actually eradicated my erection. I expressed my love for him, and offered our relationship as an example of how a platonic love might be the purest form. I could love him more than anyone on earth, my feelings unsullied by lust. He echoed my sentiment that we’d be friends forever, and we hugged before he started walking back to the others. I maintained I was going to hang back to let my lad fully go down, but really, I just needed a moment.

    I had achieved my dreamy state, but this was due to sleep deprivation and being full of Shiraz. Blood dripped out of the sun.

    Turning to face my friends, now nestled around the still smoldering fire-pit, I took note of Dan’s long wide footprints in the sand. I walked in his same path, placing my small feet inside the impressions he’d made, knowing that the following days he’d shroud his embarrassment in jokes, though there was no need. I wished I could get inside my friend to take away his pain, and carry him through the undoubted hurt to come.