Cassandra Voices

Category: Fiction

  • The Club

    Part I

    “DON’T QUIT” My father’s mantra was taped to the dull beige wall above his bed. Its edges were a little worn after being ripped down from one hospital wall and taped to another, for years. Deafening was the respiratory wheezing which somehow managed to be erratic and yet, constant at the same time. As a family, we were drowning in an aching cesspool of disease, but it defined that life was still present. It defined that my father was still alive. So we sat. We waited. Held on to each breath. Hour after hour. Night after night. For the better part of those last three months. The reality was, if not in the physical sense, in an emotional one, I’d been there for seven years.

    That hospital was an all-too-familiar environment. Homey to us all. The room scattered with bits of our life. A keyboard, magazines, photos, Dad’s guitar, a soapstone carving of a seal he was crafting. It was all there, in an attempt to provide us any peace. The doctors and nurses, porters and administration, housekeeping and parking attendants, other patients and their visiting families. Everyone within that sphere were part of what was to us, “home.”

    Better than sleeping upright in the chair, or awake and listening to my Dad struggle for breath, was the penthouse stairwell landing. It morphed into a makeshift sleeping area we siblings fought for, and as the youngest, most often I lost.

    It had been seven years since we got the news. My mother and father were in the hospital room. While out in the dim hall, I waited. Glancing around at the sterile surroundings, I was excited to see my father again, but nervous. Why were we in this strange place? He’d been tired and required some tests. Whatever that meant.

    “Your father has cancer.” Those were the words.

    “Can I catch it?” I asked.

    “No.”

    I wondered what cancer was. It made Mom’s eyes puffy. She’d been crying. She was sad. At Daddy’s side, I held his hand, like I always had. Squeezing my little fingers, he looked into my eyes and smiled. My mother held his other hand, small gasps escaping her lips, and tears in her eyes.

    “Your Dad will have some treatments to make the cancer go away,” they said. “He will be losing his hair.”

    HALT! I was horrified. What did they mean “lose his hair?” Why? Where was his hair going? Dad would be bald?

    “It could come back in any color.”

    “Like pink, or purple or red or blue?” I quizzed.

    “Sure!”

    Dad’s hair didn’t matter, but I knew by the look in their eyes, and their strained voices, that something was wrong. All attempts to convince me made it more obvious that life would never again be the same. At age six I was unable to comprehend the scope of sadness that would become our reality. From this moment forward, the course of my life would be altered. Forever.

    He was given thirty days to live. My mother was just thirty-six and would be left to raise a family of five alone. Then, during the subsequent seven years, in cycles of thirty to ninety days, he was given additional time to live. It would prove to be an unimaginable journey: fear, insecurity, loneliness, lack of identity, hardening, pain. The canvas appearing bright, a guise brimming with fun, friends and popularity, Yet, the brush strokes, and the mediums were layered; opaque textures veiling a stark and sombre reality.

    Dreading the last buzzer of the day at school became a mainstay. What would I come home to? I turned age seven, eight, and nine. The years went on, and some questions remained the same, some changed. Would I end up all alone? Would that old lady with the weeping mole be my nanny once again, or would I be shipped off to whomever would take me? I wondered this knowing I might be with them for more than a month. Ages ten, eleven, and twelve passed, and the pain continued. Would my parents be home, or would the chemo-induced nightmare have Dad slumped over the porcelain, convulsing, heaving, and regurgitating nothing again? Would he remember me today? Would he get lost driving, if he could even drive? Would Mom be crying? Of course, she always cried. And would the ambulance be backed up to the door with Dad crawling to the stretcher, as a form of pride? At age 13, I wondered would Mom survive? Would I?

    He was dead. My father. Lifeless. Hollow. Dead. Dad died from a harrowing seven-year battle with cancer. A battle I would ultimately recognize as being a significant moment in my own life. It would serve as a catalyst for the person I became. Silent. Sober. Glazed, I sunk into a therapist’s worn velvet sofa, deep in that tearstained domicile of heart wrenching human agony. Behind a calm façade, the only evidence of anguish I saved for that lacerated outlet of my pain, were the petals of a crimson poinsettia. Sympathetic yet, clinical, I felt my therapist’s analytical eyes summing me up. I didn’t want to be here. I wanted a reprieve. Wanted to melt into the blueness of his sofa. Blend into his flat, silent walls. Walls which had absorbed the malaise of multitudes.

    That excruciating sound had ceased. The agonizing gasps for life that accompanied each passing second for the past month stopped. That last breath of life had taken him with it, leaving a silent, still, deserted form laying there. My Dad was dead. I didn’t know it then, but I was now part of a club. A club that I’d find out, in later years, was unlike any other. Neither prestigious, nor chic, it was nevertheless a club. It was a club that would give bearing, and direction to the future me. The club would open doors. And these doors would lead me into the lives of others.

    Part II

    Club Life. Who are we but an assemblage of clones. Xeroxed human forms convinced that by seeking individuality, we don’t exploit its very existence. As club members, we attend the club of the moment, striving to be a part of the in-group; a clique, attempting to carbon copy the look, speech, smell, and thoughts of others. Lost in a sea of conformity, we’ll adapt to anything familiar for that feeling of wholeness. Righteousness. Acceptance. Gregarious sheep, we follow our instinct to flock, and when separated from the group, we become agitated and crave safety from lurking predators who may challenge us, or our character. We search for the lead sheep to follow down the road. The road to conformity right over an imminent cliff at the peril of what makes us unique. Original.

    We could choose to believe that we are beautiful. Singular individuals. Designed to be a happy result. An impeccable concoction of experiences that when blended together become our life as we know it. Like a recipe, we are just ingredients, temperatures, measurements, outer elements, and mediums, and who is cooking. All these play a role for the outcome of the dish that is this life. Our ingredients and our process contain variables both habitual and fortuitous. Making each and every decision, experience and moment, directly affect the core of who we become. Internally. Externally. These uncertainties and variables add the fundamental flavour and the texture to our souls. Our lives mould us into who we will be.

    So, let’s talk food, spices to be specific. For the most part, spices are added in small, portions. Sometimes so insignificant they are invisible to the eye. When blended, they often vanish. Yet their potency and flavour are a game changer. How much spice, tasty or disgusting has been added to the lives of others and while unaware of why, still we somehow sense something in their presence.

    Some ingredients seem similar. But there exists a vast difference between, vinegars for instance. Selecting white, cider, malt or balsamic, would we then pour the potent fluid directly from its bottle, or over a fire, find its thick sickly sweet reduction? Faced with different conditions, the same ingredient reveals otherwise hidden characteristics from the inside, out.

    Measurements; a pinch, an ounce, a cup; the abundance of an ingredient or lack thereof can build or destroy what we perceive as the expected end result. Do we have enough? Is it too much?

    And who is cooking in your kitchen? Is that a Three Star Michelin Chef preparing avocado mousse with green pistachio oil, garnished with fleur de sel?  Or is it Grandma’s loving hands putting her warm heart fondly in to preparing her mother’s, age-old family recipe of roast beef and mashed potatoes? Then there’s the fifteen year old kid slinging burgers at the local drive-thru, just to make a buck.

    How’s the heat? Low and slow? Is the lid on or off? Are we baking or grilling over mesquite on the barbeque? Have you tried deep fried? Is stuff sautéed on the stovetop or simply served, cold and raw? An utter absence of heat changes everything. Regardless of method employed, each element plays an intrinsic role in what will be plated and served to please or repulse one’s appetite. And at the end of the day all we can say is that dinner is served, or Bon Appetit!

    As humans full of a variety of ingredients; mediums, measurements, methods and so forth, we differ and yet find what we share in common. Lonely in our fight to be profoundly unique, conversely, we crave to fit in and be part of a group. We want a club that will unify us. Bring us together in a harmonious and understanding manner, and thus the recipe.

    The universal understanding of clubs comes decked out in the all-knowing perceived costume of book clubs, tennis clubs, rotary clubs, dance clubs, bike clubs, yacht clubs, even golf clubs. But the clubs in disguise that resonate in all of our lives each and every day are blatantly obvious yet not drafted or defined. These are the clubs of reality, the clubs of experience, the clubs of heartache, sorrow, joy, bliss, danger, and courage, LIFE.

    These clubs build the foundation within us to erect relationships with others based on empathy and understanding of shared mutual knowledge and experiences. These clubs categorically hoist us into levels of sameness. Ultimately allowing us to relate with one another in a way that can be truly understood. The clubs become a vast and endless springboard to deeper relations. Club menus adorned in new attire are decorated and large; lost a parent club, pregnant club, married club, divorced club, singles club, couldn’t have a child club, owned a business club, the LGTBQ club, been an addict club, had a daughter club, had a son club, had a sister club, was abused club,  lost a job club, went bankrupt club, made a million club, survived cancer club, chronic pain club, attended university club, wrote a dissertation club. I think you get the picture.

    Part III

    It was overcast when I left my scheduled ultrasound, childless, except for the unborn one inside me. I was enjoying every moment of being seven months pregnant with my second. A clingy camouflage dress did anything but that for the basketball-esque lump that bulged beneath it. I ran my hands down and around us both, saying, “I love you.” I even pressed on its body parts. Hoping to awaken our little one. Feel those movements that made me feel so whole. So beautiful. So utterly complete. Growing at the proper pace, meant together we were squished behind the steering wheel, in order for my feet to touch the pedals. But these nuances are nothing. These petty discomforts, which arise with pregnancy, pale in comparison to being a conduit of life.

    Had I seen a penis? Was it a boy or girl? Would it go to an Ivy League school? Questions about my unborn child played out in my head as I drove down the street that afternoon. Wait, would my little girl adjust or object to her new room? Her new sibling? And what about the nursery? What about the crib? The decorating around it was nowhere near complete. There would be plenty of time for that, although I anticipated an early arrival. This would be a carbon copy of my previous little miracle who entered the world two weeks early. I had so many questions and thoughts. So much newness, I was about to burst.

    In a couple of months, we’d have two children. Two years apart. Perfect! Oh and I wouldn’t split my love. There was enough of me to go around! I would DOUBLE my love. Yes. It would all be perfect. U2’s song, “It’s a Beautiful Day” played on the radio. I sang along. Well, the words I knew. “It’s a Beautiful Day, don’t let it get away, it’s a Beautiful Day, don’t let it get away.” “You’re on the road but you’ve got no destination you’re in the mud mmm mmm mmm . . . you’ve been all over and it’s been all over you.”

    I hummed and mumbled through the rest. It was perhaps a grey day, but it was still beautiful to me. Seemed I always left those ultrasounds in such a euphoric state, after observing the little life inside me. A life I had played a major part in creating. And for those nine precious months, I took seriously and welcomed all responsibility for controlling the wellbeing of this little miracle inside me.

    The phone in my lap vibrated before it rang. Competing with Bono’s, “What you don’t have, you don’t need it now,” my husband answered my singsong hello.

    “Honey, great news! Your doctor just called and has the results from your ultrasound.”

    Thump, thump, thump. Heart pounding. Pounding. I veered off the road. I wanted to back up, Wake up. Start the day anew. You don’t get results from ultrasounds unless they are bad. And no, not personal calls from your doctor, only minutes afterward. I couldn’t hear anything. The world spiralled around me. I needed air. At that moment, I knew. All those hopes and dreams I’d entertained in my head moments before, of my unborn child, would NEVER be. I knew.

    The five days to follow were some of the most agonizing, I’d ever experienced. Ultrasounds. Amniocentesis. Internal exams. External prodding. Counselling. Tears. Decisions. Conclusions. Devastation.

    Four days later, I huddled with my husband in the boardroom of a hospital in another city. White walls surrounded the big brown table where we sat on insignificant office chairs forged from metal and woven fabric. Other than that, the room felt empty. Lifeless. Not counting the dozen or so medical professionals gathered to go over the prognosis, answer any questions and hear our decision.  Considering that my husband chose to leave it in my hands, head and heart, our decision was actually mine.

    Introductions were made after everyone was seated. Dr. Jones. Dr. Ramirez. Dr. Denard. Dr. Hall. There was a blur of specialists, a handful of nurses, a couple of psychologists and some pre-med students. Inconsequential formalities. My heart was pounding again. I tried to swallow, but my throat was dry.

    The professionals spoke. “Your son.” A son! Son. “Severe heart defects.” Their mouths moved but the words were muffled. Muted. The cold, rawness of the first words spoken “Your son. Severe. Heart. Son. Defects. Son. Severe. Son,” skipped like a scratched vinyl record. “His chances of survival through the birthing process are next to none, if he lives that long. Upon birth he’ll need an immediate heart transplant only possible in select hospitals thousands of miles away. You’d have to relocate for quite some time. That heart may be rejected, that is if we can find a heart for him. He’ll need more transplants as he grows. Chances. A son. Survival. Immediate transplant. Relocate. Thousands of miles. A son rejected.” For what seemed like an eternity, the whirlwind was spinning. And then it stopped.

    The room held a thunderous silence. I looked out at the blank faces staring back at me. I felt so small. Why couldn’t they make my decision? Why did it have to be me? I opened my mouth to speak, but my voice cracked. Breathe, breathe, breathe, I told myself, clearing throat again. “I want to terminate my pregnancy.”

    I said it. Said the words I did not want to say. But knew I had to. The words I had prayed to receive. And then I heard the sighs. Sighs of relief. Escaping the mouths and hearts of everyone in the room. Sighs offering me comfort about a decision well made. We left the hospital. Silenced. Dispirited. I would return to the hospital at 9:30 the following morning to voluntarily end the life of my child.

    We’d stayed at the same hotel, a year prior, during my husband’s heart surgery. It felt comfortable. Homey. They addressed us by name, and we were treated well. For me, the hotel held many memories. My first experience there had been a private party with a rock band on their world tour. Then a “Bride-to-be” wedding gala and the list goes on. It was a place where the infamous and “B” actors stayed while shooting on location. Falling in to conversation with them in the elevators or the lounge happened all the time. To be honest, the sheer retail therapy available; shopping at close proximity and bag drop at my fingertips, would’ve been a draw. But that night, thoughts so banal, didn’t enter my mind.

    They gave me drugs to aid my sleep that night and maybe I did. Don’t know. Had to remind myself to breathe. Just breathe. Deeply. Inhale. Exhale. BREATHE. Faith Hill’s lyrics ran through my head, “Caught up in the touch, the slow and steady rush. Baby isn’t that the way love is supposed to be? I can feel you breathe. Just breathe.”

    Unable to sleep any longer, it was early the next morning, when we went downstairs for breakfast. Happier times had been had in this very restaurant for us. This not being one of them, and well aware I’d need superhuman strength for the self-administered labour, I ordered Eggs Benedict.

    Nearby a man and a woman sat together, laughing over their coffee. I’d never been so desperate for a laugh, myself. But her laugh was so familiar. Familiar enough to make me look up. And I realized it was the actress who had played Marion Cunningham, the perfect mother from the television show, Happy Days. How many hours of my childhood had been spent, after school, sprawled on a bean bag chair enjoying the Cunningham family and their antics, while my parents were away at the Cancer Clinic? It is then I smiled. Because, like some kind of surrogate mother who had been there for me before, she made me feel safe. She’d no clue about who I was. Of the trauma I was facing. Nor how, at that moment, she gave me, in a small way, a glimmer of hope.

     

    When it was time, we drove to the hospital. I needed to take anything and everything I could from this moment. I needed to remember every detail. I wanted my senses to never forget. With chunky crimson red boots, I was again wearing my camouflage dress. It wasn’t a maternity dress. Simply a stretchy form fitting, high necked, short sleeved, three quarter length dress. Of ever so slightly see-through fabric. I felt good in this dress. Even though it was the same dress I had on when they told me the news. Out of what I was about to experience, I was desperate to accentuate any ray of light I could. And if some trivial piece of fabric could boost my senses even an iota, I was going to take it.

    Hand in hand, we walked through the doors. The only brightness in a flatly lit room were the walls lined with colorful paintings and clay works by young children. The smell was that ever present hospital smell. Clinical, yet sort of stale and so familiar from my past, that oddly I found some comfort in it. Behind a desk, where we would register, sat two ladies. One was on the telephone. I’m pretty sure her unlucky colleague was wishing she’d been the one on the telephone too, after she greeted us with an appropriate, “Good morning. Can I help you?”  “Uh yes, I am here to…” Someone stepped in for me, as I broke down. We were then ushered to an elevator.

    Stepping out, we turned left twice, circumnavigating a maze of linen carts in the hallway to the room where I would give birth to my son. A room that felt forgotten. Obscure. Hidden. It was like a place to hide a dirty little secret. Inside, medical instruments hung on its walls which were white. The bedding was bright on a lone single bed. There were dismal peach coloured drapes around a window with no view. The room was brighter than its small, dull and grey bathroom with just a toilet, sink and an emergency pull cord.

    The alternatives to inducing my labour had been discussed and it was agreed that I would take part in a study. Meaning, throughout the day, I would insert a series of pills. Vaginally.  Labour to ensue. And like the beginning of a bad joke, a couple of doctors, an intern and two nurses entered the room. After signing the forms, I was handed a package of pills and told to go into the washroom to insert one. I was then told I could leave the hospital, but not to venture far. In case my labour came on too quickly. And oh yes, try to keep calm. In a daze, and for lack of anywhere else to go, we hit a nearby shopping mall. Aimless, we wandered the halls, to buy nothing. Looking, we saw nothing. Listening, we heard nothing. Thinking, we tried hard not to feel. My emotions were so contradictory, so raw. Wanting to experience everything, and at the same time, nothing.

    Blessed with a high pain threshold, the intensity I am capable of enduring is legendary. To my amusement, after our first child, my husband said, “I’ve a new respect for you. Bet I could take an axe to your leg and you wouldn’t flinch.” That labour lasted thirty-nine and a half, (Can’t miss that half) hours. And except for short intervals, with all I had, I was pushing for four. Well this was no different.

    Soon enough, mental torment became secondary to physical agony. The pills were working.

    And this labour began with a vengeance. Because this baby wasn’t entering our world to stay, I’d expected the labour to be less severe. But I couldn’t have been more wrong.

    My husband wanted to return to the hospital, because the labour was so severe, but I insisted we keep walking. Non-contracting moments were filled with emotion. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Not yet. Didn’t want to lose this feeling of my son inside of me. Didn’t want to lose part of myself. I wanted to continue talking to him. Playing with him. Moving his little body about me and rubbing love all over him. Desperate, I didn’t want to let go of the hopes and the dreams. I didn’t want to make my decision a reality.

    Excruciating, when the contractions came, my head went somewhere else. Breathe, Breathe, Breathe. I was stubborn. I would not go. Not yet. We walked out to the truck, where I couldn’t stop crying. Looking at my despondent husband, I knew it was he who could take no more.

    I didn’t care. Body and soul, I was in my finest form, with no intention to vacate either. And loving myself pregnant, the occasional whimper escaped me, but louder was the emotional pain. We drove back to the hospital parking lot, only to sit in the truck for as long as I could convince him to stay. Walking back through those doors, going up in the elevator, and down the dingy hallway, again we skirted around the linen carts and entered the white room in the hospital’s most remote corner. Pausing every 45 seconds or so to breathe through the pain, indeed we had succeeded in arriving. To my son’s birthplace, where he would also die.

    I wasn’t dilating. The nearby nurse monitored my progress and though attentive, my husband was terrified. Now clothed in a dreadful blue hospital gown, I lay in the white linen of the bed, trying to find calm. Embracing these last moments with the child within and praying for the strength to deal with it all. Breathing through the pain that would not give me a moment’s peace, as hour after hour flew by and yet, time stood still.

    Nurse on one side and husband on the other, I was escorted to the washroom numerous times, to relieve the enormous pressure on my poor bladder. In my modesty pleading that they leave me alone. Time and again the routine was the same. Until the last time which differed, in that as I sat down, the labour pains came. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. I had an urge to push, just as a wave of nausea washed over me. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could do this. Was I supposed to push? At that moment my world changed.

    “Oh my God! What is happening to me?” Feeling something. I screamed, “Help me, help me, someone, please help me! God, help me!” Between my legs, I saw my son’s small hands grasping at my legs. He was out. He was flailing beneath me. I only heard my own screams. “Anyone. Somebody hold me. Take me away. I need to die now. He’s alive. He’s not supposed to be alive. Oh my God, what have I done?” In seconds the nurse and my husband were there. Alarms sounded, and people came running.

    Told to hold my baby, that they might get me back in bed, I didn’t want to. I couldn’t touch him, I was afraid. Managing to get me and my son onto the bed, they then cut the umbilical cord. I so wished the noise in this hospital would stop. Not realizing the noise was me, screaming.

    The life that called my body home had moved out. After no more than a few minutes of chaos everyone left, and I lay there alone. Empty. Hollow.

    Dismal and omniscient, the peach-coloured curtains were now closed. And as though choreographed, a dark grey shadow cast itself against them, making the room more muted and mundane than before. It was like the natural light of a foggy day and this broken only by a tiny beam of electric light coming from beyond the bathroom door. Where moments before, I’d borne my son. The blue gown I wore was wet. Blood-soaked, it lay limp and lifeless over an abandoned abdomen, and almost as dreadful was a deafening silence that echoed between the four walls of my room. Tormented I asked myself, “Why was my child moving? Why was his heart beating? Why was my son alive?”

    The door to the hall opened and there he stood. My husband. With a nurse, he entered the room. Holding my son. Swaddled in the satin and flannel blanket his Grandma had made just for him. Taking the baby in to my arms, I wept. My soul ached with so many questions that still went unanswered. I had to stay in the moment. This one moment in time I knew would end without any kind of closure. There would be nothing more than this.

    We spent the next three hours alone with our son. His small chest was moving rhythmically but with no breath. I held him and told him stories of his sister and the life he would have had. Pum pum. Pum pum. Pum pum. He was perfect. Small, but perfect, and his skin was slightly transparent. He had little fat on his body. His heart continued to beat and mine was beating faster. His long delicate fingers wrapped around mine as I held him. I tried to make each and every piece of him a photograph in my memory, a keepsake of my son. A son I would never see again. Pum pum. Pum pum. I apologized to him and told him how much I loved him. He had the sweet aroma of all newborns. That scent bottled, would be an immediate success. Why wouldn’t his heart just stop beating? Damn. Why wouldn’t mine?

    We lit a candle, named our son and the hospital’s pastor blessed him. I felt peace for a moment. However, that peace was short lived. Quickly kyboshed, it was absorbed by one resounding question. A question lurking, to which I needed an answer. Due to severe heart defects, I had made the difficult decision to end my son’s life. Yet he’d been born with a beating heart, and three hours later as I loved him in my arms, it continued to beat.

    That day stands alone for leaving me emptier than anything I’d ever encounter. Equipped only with my previous life experiences, I’d entered an unknown abyss, and come out hollow, yet grown. And I didn’t want to belong to this. Nobody asked if I wanted to be a member. But that was the day I joined another club.

  • How Can Something So Wrong, Feel So Captain Sensible?

    Stone Roses turned the stereo up a few notches, saying to to her sister, ‘That’ll teach you.’

    Smiths turned from the window to reply. ‘Teach what? That White Riot by The Clash is a good song? I already know that. It’s my album, remember? I taught you everything you know. And now Stone Roses, I’m teaching you to turn that bloody music down. Things are kicking off down below on the streets, Man.’

    Stone Roses upped it one more notch, before swiftly switching the music right off and into a nothingness where the sounds of a real riot took over the small airspace of their seventh floor apartment on Church Street in Manchester. Plonking herself down on the sofa, she rummaged for the TV remote.

    From the window, where she stared manically down on all below, Smiths said, ‘Is that Captain Sensible turning on the TV? We already know what they’re going to say’ll just rile us up. It’ll make us angry, Stone Roses. Do you really want all that in your eyes now? Venting fears? Doubts? Hatred? Do you?’ Stone Roses sat back deep into the comfort of the sofa, and folded her arms after she’d switched on the television.

    ‘Yes, I do!’

    For a second or two, Smiths stared at her sister’s nose and then said, ‘Oh, I don’t know. Suit yourself.’

    ‘I always do.’

    ‘I know.’

    ‘Bitch.’

    ‘Slapper.’

    Gazing downwards, Smiths got lost in the streets below, where men, women and children were milling about the place, in an excited state of consciousness. Rising up, it seemed from the shackles of capitalism. At long last! But damn them, she thought. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. To take this form. Unable to grasp at anything solid or primary, her mind swam in strong currents of emotion. It was spinning.

    What they were after was goods, from the shops, she surmised. The meretricious glitter of a consumer society. So they wouldn’t storm an apartment complex, where there was no shop. The Arndale was up the road, and they’d go for that, she was sure. Spinning. It was then that she was awoken from what felt like a reverie by her sister’s sobs.

    Turning, she saw her there, still on the sofa, but now silent. Like transparent worms, the tears streamed down her face, while trying to hold it in, she sniffled. Smiths closed the window and sat down beside her. A strong arm went around Stone Roses, to transfer some warmth.  ‘What’s wrong? It’ll be alright you know. They won’t get in to us. They don’t want people. They want shiny things. Status symbols.’

    Tears still pumping out of her eyes, Stone Roses stood up to take three soft steps towards the television screen and kneel before it, pointing. ‘Look at the people being interviewed. The shop owners. Hear those accents? Recognise their aggression? All the tell-tale signs?’ Smiths now stood, suspecting what would come hurtling at her, hot and heavy. Knowing her sister only too well, she braced herself.

    Stone Roses said,‘Their accents! Their manner! Superciliousness directed at a certain section of society! At us! These shop owners castigate rioters as just plain dumb scumbags. They called us that when we were growing up as well, Smiths.’  Smiths tried to wrap another arm around her in vain. ‘Stone Roses, come on. Sit down. We’ll put on a DVD. Take our minds off the whole thing, you know? Like old times.’

    Animated by her own words now with every passing sentence, Stone Roses even appeared to become physically bigger in the fading light. ‘All those times I felt small in their presence. Really only in their presence. Granted, I never spent too long in there, but..but.. I wouldn’t have been able to withstand it anyway. Brought up under the yoke of their putative superiority. ‘I know it’s wrong. Oh so very wrong, to feel like this, Smiths. But how can something so wrong, feel so Captain Sensible? When I see those infuriated middle-class faces so upset on the telly, it makes me feel glad. And I’m not ashamed of these feelings any more. I see their anger and I want to laugh. I want my fist in the air, in triumph. In revenge for my youth. Our youth, Smiths. Everybody’s youth!’ At this, Smiths stood back watching her sister’s subsequent tears collect on her chin.

    Then she said, ‘It’s alright. I know what you mean. But it’s not good for the soul to ponder such things. Those thoughts will kill you. Because you can’t win. Enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think. Get out of this moment. Sprint! Put on that Damien Dempsey album. Take your French pencil out and draw to his lyrics and chord progressions like you usually do. Don’t dwell on this, Stone Roses, please! Float, with Damo, instead?’

    Stone Roses’ tears were arrested by a sudden spark in her eyes. Adulterated thoughts coursed through her veins, and spread so quickly, she knew exactly what came next. What had to be done. Hands thrust into her pockets, she frog-marched over to Smiths. ‘Come on! We’re going downstairs. We’re joining up. Let’s steal back a little dignity. To make the heart strings go zing! Like that old song. The Clash song. You already know all the words backwards at this stage. The lyric made real flesh and blood, come to life.’

    She nearly walked through Smiths, as if she were a ghost. ‘Are you coming?’

    ‘No. Sit down. Calm yourself.’

    ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that, Smiths. Tweak your own nose, not mine. Blame it on the posh doctors of our youth who played Rugby for Ireland. The ones who called us lazy scumbags, and thus, wouldn’t treat us properly. The ones who’d no respect for patients carrying a medical card, yet on all their earnings had never paid any tax, themselves. Ah, good old Dublin. The good old days.’

    ‘But we’re in Manchester, England now. Across the Irish sea!’

    ‘It’s the same here. Look down at the street, yourself. The people feel the same pain. Maybe they don’t know it consciously, but they do. Come on. Feel the noise! Can you? Or don’t you dare?’

    Yes, Smiths knew Stone Roses only too well. So she walked to the door of the living room, as if going to the toilet. Upon opening it, she stood in the hallway, where she locked it firmly behind her. Realising what had just happened, Stone Roses rushed up to the locked door and banged her arms against it, while Smiths shouted through the keyhole. ‘Direct, non-violent peaceful protest. That’s how we’ll do it, Stone Roses. Not rioting in the streets. You know that. Relax there now, Child. Write some poetry and a literary, yet bitter, autobiography, it’s the only way.’

    In a torrent, Stone Roses drummed her hands against the door. She shouldered it. Elbowed it. Bummed it. And in lashing out at every splinter within its essence, released herself. Next up she whacked her head against it until blood oozed.

    Now back at the window, she looked down on the riot. Inhaling all its unbridled and cacophonous fumes, she smiled before running again headlong at the door and whacking herself once more. And again. Enjoying herself. And again. Rejoicing.

    ‘Now is the time Smiths. Can’t you see? Now is the time to get our own back. It’ll feel good and silky. Open the door!’

    ‘That’s not revenge. It’s just lashing out.’

    Stone Roses wiped the blood from her face with water from the kitchen tap, until the bleeding had just about stopped. She then lashed herself against the door once again, laughing inside and out. Rapping on the door three times, she asked ‘Remember Robin Hood? Well, that’s what we’re doing.’

    ‘You’re not doing anything. It’s them, Stone Roses.’

    ‘And Jesse James. Riding Black Bess. Like Dick Turpin Highwayman. That’s us. Stand and deliver! Us. Robbing the rich, to give to the poor. And oh look at the multitudes of the poor, stretched out on that rack, down below.’

    It was this comment that stabbed Smiths. So easily unsheathed, because Stone Roses knew it for the weapon it was. Right there and then, on the spot, Smiths restrained herself from unlocking the door, to go in, and ram her point home with her fist.

    Her turn now, Smiths kicked the door and head-butted it too when she said, ‘Robin Hood and Jesses James are stories, Stone Roses. They’re just stories. Outside the legends, these people were murderous thieves. Scumbags in real life. They took from the rich alright. But giving it back to its rightful owners, the poor? They forgot all about that, while they drank, raped and stabbed themselves into folklore.’

    Stone Roses knew she had her. Dabbing the blood on her face with a disintegrating hankie, she stood back from the wall and spoke calmly,‘That’s where you haven’t really understood the situation, Sis. Make no bones, you’re the person in this equation with the brain. You should be getting this. Even I know those Robin Hood stories are there, not because they’re true, but because they’re what people want to believe.

    ‘People believe in the romance of robbing the rich to give to the poor because that’s what they dream of, and by believing, they give their consent to a notion that it’s right and proper order to rob the rich and give to the poor. It’s allowed. Everyone has already cheered this past the finishing line a long, long time ago. That’s one hundred per cent. No one can argue. It’s justified and ancient. Rob the rich, and give their money to the poor. The real facts don’t matter. Only the goal and dream of ultimate justice. I think another chap with a beard said similar things in Galilee a long time ago too, Stone Roses. Do you not remember all those sermons on Sunday, when they weren‘t molesting us?’

    Everything went quiet in the hall. Ten seconds passed, before the door unlocked, and in walked an exasperated Smiths who, when she reached Stone Roses, whipped out her hands with the intention and enough sheer brute force to strangle her.

    ‘Wrong. Wrong. Wrong! You’re staying put, right here in this apartment, even if I have to strangle you to sleep, myself. The peaceful way is always the best! The peaceful way…’

    And with that, they rolled about on the floor for a while.

    ‘Jimmy would say you know. Didn’t realize you and Big Brother were such bosom buddies these days. He’d love you saying that, right about now. Probably salute your common sense.’

    Yes, Big Brother would crack up watching it all live on the T.V. back home in Dublin. And he’d spontaneously combust into a million rags like confetti as he shouted, ‘Shoot the scumbags! Shoot the scumbags! Shoot them! Why aren’t they shooting them? Why?’ he’d be screaming.

    He’d always wanted to get out. Be like the posh ones. Never did though. Uncle Tom. To ground control. But ground control wasn’t listening to him.’

    Smiths said, ‘You’re right. Come on, let’s go out and do a bit of rioting with the best of ‘em. Revenge eh? You can’t beat the feeling. Big Brother will be watching alright. He’ll see us,’ said Smiths. ‘Yes, he will,’ answered Stone Roses. ‘Big Brother will see us. We’ll wave to him from the heart of the riot. Flick the Vs. Hey! Ho! Let’s go!’

  • The Ninth Rose

    In an undisclosed year, Decency took something marvelous away from me, and by extension away from you. Away from… I want to say, everybody. Decency took it, and left me…decency.

    Decency now obliges me to make fiction of this, and set it far away and long ago, but how I want to blast that for the sake of its long debt to me, Seifert!* Hmm, Decency. Alright, then.

    Long ago and far away, in an Eastern European country called…

    (My own Soviet-bloc memento, from a time when we spoke in parables, is a little mental collection of those fictional Eastern European countries. Syldavia. Borduria. Rovenia. But I’m not going to use any of those; I’ve sworn off that, as you’ll see.)

    In an Eastern European republic, called Padobron, at a pivotal juncture for me, when I was celebrating the derring-do of my expulsion from the Narodna Misočana Technical University (expulsion had become a countercultural badge of honor) the question of how to get a job was just beginning to grow on me, someone called Jaromir Seifel published something good. Something which everyone said was good, but which betrayed his true greatness by being first, published over-the-table by a state-owned press, and second, not as great as he was.

    Small, in every way, our coterie was one of young people thrown together for being delivered by the same midwife, or confirmed in the same parish, or expelled for exhibiting the same cheek, or stuck in the same tavern-corner because they have the same feeble ideas of looking grown-up at twenty, but who believe that they’ve coalesced at the draw of stars and gods, through possessing a similar gallantry, genius, and destiny.

    That May, my peers, whose dreams were to either reform or undermine collectivism, if not get a job within it, attributed to me a certain dashing, because of my expulsion, and because I wrote things, copied them by hand, and circulated them as if they were dangerous, like an authentic counterculture. I think the writing and the expulsion melded in their minds (though I was not, in fact, expelled for writing, but because of an uncle’s alleged black-market prosperity) and that they accorded me a position among them, rather like Seifel’s among the real writers and agitators. Seifel’s must have been the one because, though I had never mentioned him, when his Eight Roses appeared, Miroslav Kinsky and Petra Raha both told me separately that they thought I should read it, that I would like it. I learned later that neither of them had read it.

    Well, what do you think I did? I bought The Eight Roses. I carried it quite proudly under my arm, with the spine showing nicely. I was only sorry it was so narrow; people might have to stop me, stoop, and stare to read it. Well, I was a little sorry, too, that the cover was such a hideous pink, like unhealthy skin. But I carried it, first to the “Golden Shield,” where I could casually let it be seen by two comrades in a corner, drinking a cheap wine our self-conscious slang referred to as ‘rope,’ and then home, for I was honest enough to read alone.

    I read it. I was prepared, you know, to adore it, and I did. To the very last page, until, I saw what it might have been.

    I don’t know how to talk about this. Love was never my strong point; I once described a man I was besotted with by saying, “In his striped sweater he looked like a large Easter egg,” and thought I was being poetic. When I want to talk about what happened in the blank space under the last words on the last page of Seifel’s The Eight Roses, my pen becomes enormous and my brain feels like the sort of thing you would serve in thin slices on a canapé tray. But allons! Seifel would be equal to this, so I will. On the page…

    Oh, it was bigger than Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungs, deeper than Meung’s Romance of the Rose, more universal than Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex; more romantic than Keats, tougher than Kafka, more acute than Tolstoy. I didn’t know all those names then, but I knew a thing that I knew was greater than all of them; since then I have known those names and something of what they are, but I have never known the thing of which I speak. I felt it then, and what I felt most certainly about it was that it was real. However clumsy, I would get it on the paper, it was real: what The Eight Roses would have been if Satan had never fallen. Don’t misunderstand me: I still adored The Eight Roses, and that’s why this thing was so big.

    The thing was The Eight Roses, it was what would burst out of The Eight Roses if I could somehow slit the chrysalis. The huge joke was that Seifel had never known it was there. That was as plain as the sun; for if Seifel had known it was there, he would never have written the thin little state-approved thing with its hideous pink cover. Seifel was a genius, everybody knew that; he could have pulled it off. But he had dashed off this Eight Roses thing on table-napkins, probably, and sold it to the National Scholastic and Aesthetic Press, probably to pay his rent, and was probably flirting with his housekeeper while he scribbled the last chapter with his left hand. Even the title was botched. If he had written it two inches further into his peripheral vision, he would have noticed that good poetics, numerology, theology, plot dynamics, or even floristry would have made it either seven or nine roses. But no. He had eight.

    I was stunned, goosepimpled, teary, prayerful with my gift. I wanted to kiss Seifel’s hands and put my wet face against his knees. I wanted him to lay his hand on my head and bless me, like Haydn blessing young Beethoven. He would see, he alone would see now, before it had pages and flesh, the great soul of my conception; he would laugh and be glad, though he had only been its modeler, that someone would bring the true Eight Roses into the world. I felt that Jaromir Seifel must have a rich, deep laugh, and a kindly, rounded face, lined from a thousand smiles. My writing hand curled. Before I knew what I was doing, I had piled ink, pens, my ragged notebooks on the tea table I used as a desk. The cleanest notebook was folded open before me, and I had written the date. Then…

    Something was wrong, but not nearly so wrong as what was right; an inexorable force moved my hand to the left margin, my pen formed I,n, space, f,i,v,e…

    The wrong thing, pain and roar, rose in my hand to snatch that first line from me. I wrote laboriously, shoving on my pen like Tepl’s Plowman of Bohemia.

    “In five hundred lifetimes Mařek Klubaš would never see again what he saw now.”

    The sensation was as if the bare lightbulb had fallen from its socket and exploded on the floor. I leaned forward, crouching over that single line like some terrible wound. For I posessed that greater Eight Roses, but the world could only have it at the price of my crime. This line was the identical line with which Seifel opened his Eight Roses. And this was not the only line of mine that would be identical with his. The first. The fifth. The eighth. The whole third paragraph… For Seifel was a genius, and even his garbage was partly immortal. This would be no wholly original cousin to Seifel’s book; the daughter could never be less than half her mother. That date I had dashed onto the top-right of the page got tattooed backwards across my hot, sticky cheek.

    When I was upset, I had an unfortunate habit of pinching and rolling the skin on my upper arms, which left them blotched and bruised purple that night. As I lay on the floor with my feet on the bed, Barbora, my chaste, almost viceless, older sister, who was working at one of the electric plants then, came home and cooked something. She tried to get me downstairs to eat what she had prepared, and vaguely I remember that she entered my room very late, on one of her raids for my cigarettes, which she despised. Rooting through my handbag and both coats, she might have frisked me too, for all I did about it. I must have known when she fell asleep because later I remember suffering and even rationalizing out loud a bit.

    So sure was I that Seifel would more than forgive me, I even wanted to give him the manuscript and beg him to publish it under his own name; I knew his upright soul wouldn’t do that, and although my huge, Beethoven-sort of ideas earlier would have considered joint publishing a condescension on my part, with the novel so much nearer now, in my fingertips, I was suddenly humble and realistic, and afraid that Seifel, the great Seifel, wouldn’t let his name stand by mine on anything. I was ready to write the thing and ask questions later, but both times I sat up at the tea table again, where that wrong thing, painful and roaring, stood between me and my Eight Roses. Seifel’s words would come next—only two words—and then mine, but I couldn’t write those two. I said them over and over. I said that second line to myself; it was beautiful when it first came to me, but I gave it a touch of assonance, switched a synonym, moved a verb, and it was even more beautiful. I chanted it to myself, under my breath, and the third sentence tripped after it like an obedient little sister; but I had to stop, because those three together broke my heart and I would have died

    I sat Seifel in the broken swivel-chair opposite my bed, and said I wanted to approach this individually, head to head. We were alone with eons of space around us. What would it mean, if I took his clay pinch-pot ? Such a nice one! The best a pinch-pot could be—and made an Attic vase of it? Love! Miracle! Fate! Of course Seifel could see that. He was so understanding. He winked at me. Individual, elemental, primal, me and Seifel. There was nothing wrong at all. The sweat dried on my temples. We had been born for this, he in 1901 and I in ’38, so that he could write a little outline called The Eight Roses and I could make of it a lifegiving epic called, The Nine Roses. We would undermine Totalitarianism and fire noble, honest brains to seize the hour and steer democracy, social justice, and agrarian abundance. We would finally say what the haunted eyes of frescoed saints had wished the stuffy priests could. People would one day forget us, but humanity would ever be drawn into nobler lines. Again my face wanted to press Seifel’s knees.

    I was at the tea table.

    Pain. Roar. Wrong.

    Seifel and I were not alone with humanity. Something that was never quite humanity gazed reproachfully on us, with their own just claims…the artists. For centuries, emaciated savantes had trudged penniless back to their shabby lodging houses because some plump profiteer was turning out penny broadsides of their intellectual property, pocketing everything with full blessing of the inept Law. What I found pain and wrong, was their long deferred hope of just protection. If even one copy of this epic, and even my inebriation knew it would cost something to print a tome of the size this would be, changed hands for a koruna, and Seifel, the most deserving artist of Padobron, would be robbed; his deep, thoughtful eyes—oh! I could see the tired, pathetic lines around them—would still smile on my work, would lose every pinprick of reproach in a selfless, true artist’s rejoicing at my victory, but I would be damnable. I may have knelt by his swivel-chair to ask his forgiveness; I don’t remember, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

    Then, I could only go to him, Pán Jaromir Siefel of…wait, where did he live? Torný Street? And ask permission; like a hopelessly infatuated ragpicker going to ask for a Duchess’ hand. I could have bawled. The Duchess, of course, fully deserved my humiliation and my absurd, mad courtship, but I could not bear the inevitable rejection. Gallantry was hard and could bear it, but Love was soft and couldn’t. Too much was at stake for grandeur.

    Maybe I did bawl; I don’t know.

    Wouldn’t he give me full permission? In original and onionskin, signed and filed with the Department of Trades Protection? If I begged and orated, if I showed him five pages of prospective…? I was ashamed to fall back on this, but I was a girl, if a plain one, and very young; perhaps he would feel some gallantry—Wouldn’t he? Wouldn’t he?

    Would he? What if he really had written it for his rent, and I came along, offering to outwrite and outsell him with his own book? What if he felt he couldn’t afford to split royalties on its improved revision? Or what if he only believed I would ruin it ? Thought me a…

    Starstruck, egotistical, talentless, deluded…

    Nineteen-year-old.

    I was a nineteen-year-old. Oh, pain!

    Unfortunately for that sickly pink book, my eyes fell on it at exactly that moment. How I hated it. Not what was in it. I hated Seifel, at the top of his career (I felt then that anyone who could publish articles in the Brava was at the top of his career), daring to dash off something so beneath his abilities and its own potential, to unload it on a literate, intelligent population, cased in airtight legal protections to keep earnest, less-endowed artists from ever achieving with it, what its semi-occasional flashes of genius taught them to love and long for. Oh, I hated his complacency. I hated his flirting with that fat housekeeper, I hated his hand paying the rent, I hated the half-koruna I had paid for the pink heartbreak.

    I held it between my two hands. Never before or after was The Nine Roses so near me. Again it’s hard to talk about what The Nine Roses was, perhaps because the pain or longing was so acute that it is unconsciously suppressed. I know that one of the principal characters was a woman. I think she was to have been very important, and I know that she was only, in the vaguest way, suggested by ‘Marie Kepys’ in The Eight Roses, that she was profoundly, fundamentally different, not opposite, just so different that they must have been born in different spectrums of light. But for all that, I can’t remember anything about that woman. I know her name was Karoline Svít, that her hair was yellow, she was twenty-six years old, had ancestry in the mountains of northeast Padobron. That one side of her lower lip looked larger than the other, and that when she was nervous, she would blink a lot; but what she was—oh, it was stupendously human and yet inexplicable, unpredictable, something that blasted Determinism to bits, and yet, I don’t remember a thing.

    Another character was deterministic, kind of a foil, who would be involved in a tragic devolution of some sort—obviously he was Heinrich Räder from Eight Roses, and I have to admit now, even with that neurotic curtain drawn across the shining glory of The Nine Roses, that he may have been its weakness, because I was too young to write tragedy well. But I am not sure of that. I’m surer, even now, of the greatness of that Nine Roses than of anything I’ve learned about writing since, which is a lot, at least compared to what I knew then.

    It wasn’t Seifel across from me in the swivel chair then, it was humanity, posterity, and Art. Not the artists, but Art, with her own peremptory, maybe holy, demands, which were not the demands of the artists at all. Art sat in the swivel chair and smiled at me, her own old, youthful, smirking, blessing smile; my shoulder muscles finally released. I smiled too, with my head hanging to one side. The Nine Roses was not mine, had never been; it belonged to Art, loaned to me by her inscrutable purposes, and it was my part only to act, beatify the world, and disappear. The disappearing part especially soothed me. It seemed perfectly fitting and reasonable, just then, that if I produced the miracle and then disappeared, there would be no crime; I didn’t wonder how I would disappear…a galloping consumption, I suppose? An open manhole? This death-wish absolved me, to the extent that absolution is a psychological event, and I returned to the tea table.

    I wrote only that second line, and not all of it, in its entirety. It was not a roaring, painful wrongness that stopped me; it was quiet, weakening my pen-hand. I turned around.

    I was a bad Catholic then, a worse one later, and a poor one now; but God was in the swivel chair, and He was with the artists, the law, and the blasted State. I felt my own fists against my eyes.

    You may have noticed that a good deal of that night is unclear to my memory, but the next part, unfortunately, is not. I was so tired and so…, I put the pen down, closed the notebook, stood, pushed my stool in, and pulled the light-cord. That was the end of The Nine Roses.

    On pensive nights sometimes, I used to try to bring it back. Especially May nights like that one. More than once I walked into the Golden Shield with that hideous pink book under my arm, stood around, wandered back to our east-bank apartment, read the whole thing in one sitting, and stared at that last page, for minutes, more minutes, and then finally, a few more minutes. I don’t really know why I tried, knowing all along that it would never… Well, I used to wonder how the copyright would expire, cutting some unconscious inhibition that was keeping The Nine Roses from me. I even calculated its life-expectancy more than once; after the Berne Convention, it was based on Seifel’s plus fifty years… and he lived to be quite old. I’m even surprised I’ve outlived him. I don’t begrudge him for it.

    In the seventies, I began to hope someone would find nine roses in eight, in some other century when Seifel’s work would be as free as air. But slowly I realized that the only person who would ever find it, was the one who found it that May night. What I saw was so tightly bound to what I was, to going in the Golden Shield, to my expulsion, to Miroslav and Petra, and the exact figure that Seifel was in Padobronsky culture just then, and the exact thoughts that went through my head reading his book, and the exact sickly pink shade of the cover of that particular edition. Perhaps someone reading some other genius’s potboiler will be gifted with an analogously grand reproduction. There are lots of those books about. As for The Eight Roses, I saw a used copy for sale in London a few years ago. Not in English; it was never translated, and it surprised me tremendously. Its copyright will undoubtedly outlive its sales. I think it’s out of print, unless a passage in that new Seifel anthology counts.

    If this story comes to you just when a similar prospect is facing you, (and how can I forbid such a miraculous coincidence, when it has happened to me?) how shall I advise you? I could hardly urge, Write! I, who backed down, cringing and purehearted, from the stare of God that night.

    But I know God now, Seifel better, the law and what the law is for. The only thing I don’t know better is an epic novel called The Nine Roses.

    I regretted it for decades. I still do! But something different is precious to me now, as precious as the best Art was to me then. Perhaps not as precious! for I shall never feel so strongly again. Perhaps more precious than my estimates are : less storm and more truth. What I cherish now is the nineteen-year-old that pulled the light cord and went to bed, walking carefully around the broken swivel chair. Perhaps I understand God better, as I am more like Him.

    For surely only He, who alone besides myself knew The Nine Roses, would say, “The girl is better than the book.” In that moment I chose to make art of myself. Was it worthwhile, for the sake of one night’s low-grade, possibly naïve morality, to give up what I still, only I!, know to have been so great? To throw away what so plainly told me it was bigger than the Nibelung, for a simple, few minutes’ act of elementary acceptance and approval? To forego a thousand master strokes in oil, for a single blunt stroke at human spirit?

    Again and again I cannot answer it, as an artist. But an artist did not sit last in my swivel-chair.

    Tonight, it is with a wonderous joy, I feel again something like that last page of Eight Roses. Not very like, for I do not feel in such storms now. But wonder, excitement, a glimpse of something better behind something good. That perhaps…

    Oh, it is hard to write, my pen is enormous, and my brain is like…

    Yes, that God, who sat in my swivel chair that night, holds a small, ugly, loved, but utterly unrealized work under His arm; that he will one day slit it and release the real…

    I cannot say. He alone knows what it will be.

    *Jaroslav Seifert was a writer, around whom revolved a competitive literary scene, made up of young people moving within the 1950s Czech counterculture.

  • Spent Batteries

    The shop sign was in a Youghal side street, and it said Afro Crafts and Groceries. The right half of the window displayed cooking oil, tinned spices, bottled sauces and small bags of beans and lentils. On the left, a selection of small paintings of village and river fishing scenes, were cramped by colourful patchwork, miniature handcarved drums, wooden masks, animals and human figures. The carving of a village woman carrying a water jug on her head jolted Hal’s memory. Dark as the one his Dad had kept on the mantelpiece.

    “Let’s come back here tomorrow, after a day at the beach,” Hal suggested to Jeanette. During the drive to the caravan they’d rented in Ardmore, though it was thirty years ago, Hal told her about his father’s stint as a volunteer agriculturist in Tanzania.

    The following day, after a swim and a stroll, Jeanette ambled off on her own. The Afro Crafts and Groceries was open and empty, in the after dinner shade. Among the groceries were Barry’s Tea, tins of sardines and processed peas. Packets marked Siucra, shared shelves alongside cane sugar from Mauritius. Bags of maize meal, couscous and soya beans proclaimed the shop’s African dimension, and even more so the display of wrapped frozen cuts of goat, oxtail and whole bream in the display freezer. Hal selected a plastic jar of mild Caribbean curry, and a small tin of Kenyan pineapples; souvenirs that would not go astray in his Cork kitchen cupboard.

    Placing the items on the counter beside the cash register, he headed over to browse the alcove laden with crafts.

    First he flipped through a colourful bundle of batiks decorated with a motif of women and men at work, and wild animals. The wood carvings showed skill, but some of the masks erred on the side of kitsch.

    Stretching deeper into the window, he lifted out the black ebony carving of a woman balancing a water jug on her head.

    “From south-central Tanzania, Bwana. She is taking water from the river to her hut in the village.” The African shopkeeper now appeared quietly at Hal’s side.

    “Made from a single piece of timber?” asked Hal, turning the figure he held upside down, and fingering the varnished grain of the heavy base.

    “From a tree trunk. They first cut the local forest trees and chop the branches for firewood with pangas.”

    “And the trunks?”

    “Two men sawed these tree trunks. Kazi kweli – lots of work, we say in Kiswahili. But the carvers pay them, some local, some in other places of Tanzania, such as Kondowe.” The shopkeeper smiled faintly after his burst of English fluency. “You want other carvings? Some more I have in boxes behind.” nodding towards an open rear door.

    “This woman with the water pot interests me.”

    A holidaymaker entered the shop and began browsing around, which brought the African shopkeeper back to his cash desk.

    Hal recalled snatches of conversation with his father. Peter Sheridan hadn’t opened up often about his East Africa days. He and a young British volunteer had driven around in a 4-wheel drive Toyota pickup. If they didn’t have bundles of timber, pipes or cement in the back, they took on casual passengers: pedestrians flagged them down, on the way to Kilosa or on the potholed dirt roads to distant Dar-es-Salaam. The isolated town itself, offered limited craic.

    “My late father did agricultural work in Tanzania in the late sixties, helping small farmers with livestock and growing food.“ Explained Hal, approaching the cash register once the only other customer had left.

    “Kazi ya maendeleo – development work, as we say.“ The African’s eyes brightened as he extended his hand. Hal grasped it. “There were some young wageni –  foreigners-  in the town near our village. They worked for the British company.”

    “Voluntary Service Overseas: VSO. They recruited from Ireland too,“ Hal elaborated. He raised the wood carving still in his left hand. “He brought back something like this from a place called Tar… Tarande, I think.“

    “You mean Tarandawe? Kweli kabisa!“ Dropping any semblence of formality, the shopkeeper stared Hal in the face.

    “Tarandawe, as you say. Some hours drive south of Kilosa, beside a tributary of the Rufiji river. He said there were elephants in a forest upriver.“

    The African’s demeanour changed from surprise to certainty. “The Mindenzi is a small river near our village and passes through the forest into Rufiji. The men hunt small animals there but that government does not allow to kill the elephant.“

    “Any more carvings like this?“ Hal stood the pot-carrier on the counter, beside the tinned pineapple and plastic curry jar.

    “You must ask Margarethe. She stays at the hostel for asylum seekers. Her friend sends boxes from Tanzania. Her village was in the district where the VSO company put down water pipes for the shambas – small farms.“

    “You’re both from the same area? Did you know each other before coming to Europe?“ Assuming they were asylum seekers, Hal kept the questions general. No need to pry.

    “I have a Portuguese wife, and passport of Portugal. Margarethe and myself, we were strangers, but many from Tarandawe went down to Cabora Bassa to build a big dam for electricity on Zambesi River in Mozambique. Few escudos and hard work. Margarethe’s mother cooked posho for the workers and the little girl just played with other children.“

    “Did Margarethe’s father work on the dam?“

    The African hesitated. “She never knew her father. Her mother was… alone. I became like her uncle. We could sometimes collect firewood, but the Portuguese soldiers supervised. We feared their rifles. Soldiers shot freedom fighters in the forest.“

    Hal paid for his goods and asked the whereabouts of the asylum hotel. At the Cork end of town, it was a B & B cobbled together by the amalgamation of two adjoining houses. In a grassy front garden, he spied two rustic benches and a garden table. An Asian child peddled a plastic tricycle around a mother, absorbed in her embroidery, on the patio.

    A girl helping in the kitchen told Hal that Margarethe was away visiting friends in Cork, so he took the telephone number and walked back to meet Jeanette near the old clock gate on main street.

    During Sunday lunch with his mother and younger sister at the family home, Hal mentioned the Afro shop coincidence. Had Dad mentioned much about Tarandawe village? His mother denied that his talk had been anything but technical: damaged irrigation pipes, difficult road conditions, and the odd reference to wildlife and vegetation.

    “The volunteers found Tarandawe a lonesome spot. Drinking weekends in one or two decrepit bars and dancing freestyle on the bar floor with anyone around to the accompaniment of scratchy Congolese rumba music. The music got weird whenever batteries ran down. No electricity, so tilley lamps and candles lit up the gloomy nights.“

    “The one luxury he brought to Africa was his shortwave radio. Listened to it a lot in the dark evenings.“ Hal was happy to add one of the few details his dad had told him as a child. “Must have used up a lot of those batteries, too. Social life must have been pretty zero for young white fellows?“ Hal mused.

    “That’s why VSO field officers came their way twice a year in a Land Rover, bringing tinned food, wine and old newspapers. Volunteers had an annual expenses-paid get-together in Dar, and bunked down at each others’ houses during holidays.“ Hal’s mother shuffled in her armchair. “Your Dad did his development bit, saw a few sights, and came back. Then he met me at a co-op dance in Mitchelstown.“

    As his mother flipped through a Sunday supplement, Hal fetched the old photo album and pored over the ageing black and white snapshots of people. His father and an English mate posed with them. There were photos of working farmers and a longshot outside Kanjenje Bar in the village, looking like something out of a wild west film, except for the tropical flowers and palms. Among holiday snaps in faraway Dar es Salaam, there was one of his dad with two African men beside the bar entrance. Another was a closeup of his father standing at the same spot, next to a young village woman in a patterned headscarf.

    A couple of weeks later, Hal phoned the Youghal hostel and asked for Margarethe. “Miss Sichalisi hasn’t returned from the Afro grocery yet. She helps out there unofficially, until the Dublin officials decide on her application. When he inquired if she would be at the shop on the following Saturday, The response was, “Probably.“

    On a dry morning in Youghal, Hal parked his car, then strolled to the shop. The African man was again at the cash register, and introduced a fair-skinned woman who looked to be in her forties. “My wife Francesca,“ he said, after shaking hands. “We first met in Cabora, before she fled back to Tarandawe, after freedom fighters started moving against Portuguese soldiers. We got married and flew to Lisboa. But now we are trying for a new life, in Youghal.“

    “My contacts in Lisbon and Maputo send us the foodstuffs, and also some crafts. Margarethe gets the wood carvings through associates in Dar. Come into the back room and meet her.“ Explained Francesca before she led Hal into a storeroom with wall shelves and boxes.

    “Odi. Margarethe,“ Francesca called.

    A woman, wearing a short sleeved red chemise over smart white slacks, entered through the doorway from a kitchenette. She had to be in her late twenties, just a few years junior to Hal. Her fawn colored curls complemented a caramel complexion, interrupted by patches of paler pigmentation. Not nearly as dark as her older African “uncle,“ Magarethe extended her hand as Francesca introduced, “Mr. Hal is from Cork city. He likes the Tarandawe wood carvings.“

    “I have to be in the shop, so you can show Mr. Hal the new stock from Dar,“ suggested Francesca, before she left them alone.

    Margarethe unloaded several carved objects from a packing case, for Hal’s inspection.

    He picked up a carving of a woman with a water pot on her head. “My father told me that many villages in Tanzania have no piped water.“

    Her eyes were on the carving as Margarethe answered, “African women have walked to rivers and water holes for thousands of years. Our village was near the river. The women got water and washed clothes at the river bank.“

    “Was it the Mindenzi River?“ asked Hal, eager to show an informed interest.

    At this, Margarethe’s polite reserve dissolved, and eyes sparkling, she placed the bust of a bearded old man on the table. “Mindenzi. You know it? No, it was a smaller river that soon joined Mindenzi. A British aid company brought pipes. Our villagers dug trenches. My mother helped, and so my grandparents had water for the kitchen. But still the women go to the river to wash clothes.“

    “Your uncle mentioned the Mindenzi, last time I was here. He says it flows through Tarande.“ Hal knew he was once more mispronouncing the name of the place.

    “Tarandawe“ corrected Margarethe, “is the market village of the district. The foreign workers lived there.“

    “My late father, Peter…Peter Sheridan, worked for VSO… the British aid group, in Tarandawe. It was about thirty years ago. Perhaps he helped your mother and others to lay those water pipes.“ Hal was looking directly at Margarethe now. Her left hand  went up to her cheek, before it covered her mouth in an attempt to conceal the soft sigh she emitted. Dabbing under her eyelids, she excused herself, producing a paper tissue from her handbag. Once composed, she looked at Hal. “My mother took me, as a child, to Cabora Bassa. She cooked for the workers. My friend, now Uncle Josam, was there. Sometimes we returned to our village for holidays. You are Hal… Sheridan?“

    Hal nodded.

    “Then you are the son of Bwana Peter, the white boy that drove the Toyota truck?“

    “My father Peter worked in Tanzania after graduation. Yes, Peter Sheridan – he died of cancer in 1998. He was a volunteer in Tarandawe. After a two-year stint he came back to Cork.“

    “My mother, she passed away, so I came to Europe with the help of Josam and Francesca. I think I am now home – if the Dublin office gives me a residence permit. With God’s help, here is my home.“

    Hal selected two carvings of water pot women, and another of a giraffe.

    “I’d like to come here again with my fiancé, Jeanette. We could take you to a restaurant. I’m curious to know more about Tarandawe and my father’s time there.“

    Hal paid Francesca at the cash desk. As he turned towards the exit, Margarethe offered him a business card.

    “I am sure we will meet often.“ She smiled as Hal stuffed the card unread into his shirt pocket. She followed him out and extended her hand in farewell. “You are welcome here always, Hal. Always,“ she said, sounding almost like a sister.

    Back in the Cork flat, Hal put the carvings on his mantelpiece. Sipping lager from a stem glass, he withdrew the business card from his shirt pocket. At the left edge, he saw a silhouette of a palm tree, with Afro Crafts & Groceries prominently centered in green capital letters. Underneath appeared the rubric Manager: Francesca da Silva. In smaller print, at the bottom of the card, Hal read a second rubric – Craft Sales Agent: Margarethe Sichalisi-Sheridan.

    Garreth Byrne worked in schools and promoted agriculture in East & Central Africa, and later taught English in China. He now lives in Leitrim and has no African progeny to declare.

  • Banned

    “I couldn’t care less!” announced Roger, sucking down the last drops of champagne from the flute, fashioned of Baccarat crystal, he held fast before refilling it.

    “But what did you do to be banned from the restaurant? ” asked Tanya.

    “I simply said the music was too loud, and the paintings were not up to scratch.”

    At this, Tanya eyed him with some suspicion.

    “I guess they are getting all high and mighty,” she said.

    “Perhaps I said it twice.” Offered Roger, in a lower voice.

    To herself, Tanya thought, “Only twice? That would be a first.”

    “The Contessa was with me. She saw the whole thing. All I said, was that the music was too loud, and then I saw the band leader come over to thank Nick.”

    “What do you mean, thank Nick?”

    “What the fuck do you think I mean? The band leader walked right over, and thanked him…”

    Roger’s famous temper was flaring. Again. His face turning red and blotchy.

    “And after all the business that you brought them…”  said Tanya, in a conciliatory tone.

    “The Contessa is my witness. She saw the whole thing. All I said, was that the music…”

    “I heard you, Roger. The music was too loud and the paintings were crap. I got it.”

    “The music was deafening. You know how loud it can get? Well, it was even louder than that, and the band leader came over to thank Nick…”

    “So…Nick was doing him a favour ? Letting him play that loud, and blast the place to hell?” she didn’t quite comprehend.

    “What’s wrong with you? I’m just telling you that the band leader came to thank him.”

    “Right…” Tanya knew better than to point out a few historical facts. Why risk it?  But recently she’d noticed that his manner, always exaggerated, even grandiose, was becoming more erratic. Ordering a cappuccino at the local cafe, he’d begun to wag his finger at the waitress in a peculiar way. Incapable of self-reflection, Roger was oblivious to the abrasiveness of his own comportment and consequently, the now resentful waitress’s  scowl.

    Tanya concluded it’s better to be banned from your favorite restaurant than to admit you are an arsehole after all. Next time they had a coffee at the cafe, when he wagged his finger, she joined in with him, wagging her finger at the waitress too. He laughed at that and even the waitress smiled.

    She didn’t remind him that a month earlier, he’d gotten drunk and shouted abuse at Nick. What would be the point ? She could predict what he would say. That one event had nothing to do with the other. After all he’d been back to apologise and his apology had been accepted. Done and dusted.

    He couldn’t see that the magic was gone. Once someone saw the ugly side, they couldn’t unsee it. It was unforgettable. Up until that point, he’d been like the Godfather. Sitting at Nick’s restaurant, at a corner table, with a bottle of champagne, or at the bar, greeting his friends and looking so important. Everyone thought he was “someone,” because he behaved like he was “someone” and maybe he was. The facade was convincing and it had worked for so long.

    That bad temper. It was always there. No one was more familiar with his temper than Tanya, and until now, it had been reserved for his nearest and dearest. She wondered if the famous facade  was crumbling, due to old age. There were now holes in the fence and the world was watching what before only Tanya saw. The flaws, that for so long, she had bent over backwards to hide.

    “Even this year you introduced new customers to Nick’s place, and they’re serious spenders. You can be sure he’s shooting himself in the foot.” Tanya foretold.

    “I don’t care.”

    “Nick must have taken this personally.”

    “All I said was that the music was too loud….”

    “How many times are you going to repeat that? I told you, I got it the first time.”

    “I don’t usually repeat myself. You are the only one that I have to repeat myself to.”

    “So what will you do now?”

    “I’ll go to the restaurant next door. I’ve never gone there before, but I guess I’ll go there now. “

    It’s happening, she thought to herself. The choices are being made for him because of his misbehavior. He’s not a bad person. It happens because he doesn’t question himself. He is so sure of himself. He has convinced himself that he is beyond reproach. He is certain that everyone else is at fault, not him. Or else it’s the opposite. He fears that he is a fraud and is afraid of being found out.

    “Actually, I prefer it at Freddi’s Bistro. The room is just as nice, and the food is better.”

    “Nick is just an ordinary Joe. He’s no loss to you.” She was saying something she didn’t mean, to see where it would lead. How could she convey that he was cutting all his lines loose ? And if he wasn’t careful, he’d soon be adrift and all alone. But maybe, just maybe she had it all wrong. Maybe it had all happened as he recounted. Maybe it was Nick who was going through a midlife crisis. All the same, and here she felt quite vindicated, he was out of order, like a geysers shooting up, frequently with no pressure at all.

    What amazed her most, was how he continued to find new people to admire him. They’d get taken in by the front, the impressive walls and large gate, and that distant look that implied I’m beyond your understanding. I am a man of substance. I am thinking lofty thoughts. Don’t take me Lightly. Sucking down his booze with the kind of dedication that would shame a baby.

    But is it so? Is there a palace behind the impressive gates, or is it a decaying dump? Tanya couldn’t make her mind about that. Though she could read his mind, did she really know him ? And if not, was that important? He was a human being, full of flaws like everyone else.

    Unless he was an alien. He could be so heartless, so programmed, so circular in his dialogues. Repetitious, as a broken machine. Or was that his most human trait? There was a terrible aggression in repetition, like hammering nails into a wall. It drove her insane with a rage she had to swallow each and every time. You can’t have two people living together and both losing their temper with each other. They wouldn’t be living together for long. One of them would have to be a wonderful person. God knows, it takes stamina to be wonderful. To eat humble pie. To be bored out of your mind. And well, blow me if the other half doesn’t go and congratulate himself for having survived so long.

    “What are you thinking?”

    “Oh…Nothing.” she said, somewhat distracted.

    “What did you say?” he insisted.

    “Nothing. I didn’t say anything. Since when are you interested in what I think?”

    “I am interested. Of course I am. It’s just that you always interrupt me.” Roger corrected.

    “Right. Anyway, Charlie says that it’s a badge of honour to be banned from “Nick’s. His wife agrees about the noise. They are all fed up with the noise.”

    “So you told Charlie, did you?” Roger sprinted to accuse.

    “It’s not a secret is it?” asked Tanya.

    “It’s none of your business. It’s my business. It’s up to me to tell.”

    “I’ll keep that in mind. Must be a coincidence but Nick’s has been quiet since you’ve been banned.” Tanya confided.

    “I don’t care one way or another. I don’t wish them any ill will.”

    “And Tanya knew he was telling the truth. Roger really didn’t. His outbursts were brief and tempestuous, but once vented, they blew over, as if nothing had happened. It was only the people on the receiving end of them that obsessed about his tantrums. Tanya contemplated the question… Can a brilliance simply disappear? Be hidden, forgotten somewhere, deep in someones mind? Would that brilliance, dying to break loose, remain forever locked in, because of a simple lack? The ability to let it find it’s way out?

  • Victor

    How I learned to love and obey the rules of the world

    You have to keep the white button pressed down, not the red one, the red one is the mains switch for all the electricity. We decided to put it up here out of the way when grandma started to touch everything. Come on, I’ll show you how to get up there. First, put your foot on the edge of the chest freezer, good […] that’s right, then lever yourself there on the barbell, and there you are. Now trust me, let yourself fall against the wall. Why are you shaking? Trust me, I’ll hold you from behind. No, the other one. Don’t shake, you’ll lose your balance. Have confidence in your legs. You’re nearly there. One last push. Not the red one, that’s the mains switch […] now press it again. What d’you mean it doesn’t work. Of course it works. Do it again. Fuck. Wait, come down, I’m going to try to get up there. You have to be more relaxed, one foot here, your arm here to lever yourself up, a little thrust with with your hips. See? What does daddy always tell you? Control over your movements is the first step towards knowing ourselves. See? There is no room for out of place objects in the world. Did you see how daddy did it? Victor, you must have noticed that it works like this at school too, try again. Up with the left then rest your right arm there, good boy, now press the white button. Remember, the first step towards success lies in the preparation of your movements. You must have an awareness of all of your surroundings […] fuck. What do you mean you felt yourself sliding backwards? Don’t worry, daddy will do it today. Click. You see the garage door opening? Listen to how quiet it is. Can you feel the harmony? No, don’t cry. Crying will make you lose your balance. You mustn’t cry, don’t listen to those people who say it is only human, or “cry and let it all out”. Crying is for the weak. The weak are like they are because they aren’t in harmony. No, not that one, that’s the hammer drill, leave that one alone […] they can’t find their place in the world and so they are angry with the world. It’s stupid, Victor. Do you remember what grandpa used to say when he started to not remember where he was? He used to say I want to die before I start wetting myself. Tears are the weewee of the eyes. So you mustn’t cry. You have to face the world with your brightest smile my little man, straight back, stiff upper lip old boy. Why’re
    you making that face? Don’t you like my upper crust accent? Do you want to try to turn the switch on? Ok. Think about the movements you have to make, about your body moving through its surroundings harmoniously. It has to be the projection of yourself through the world. Ok, perfect […] fuck. Let daddy do it. Click. You see, now the garage door is closing. Click. Like this it opens again. Victor, do you remember, here hold daddy’s phone for a moment, do you remember when daddy explained to you what a curriculum is? It’s when you introduce yourself to the world and say, “yes, I am a body who knows how to move harmoniously.” Life is a collection of curricula, because you don’t want to spend your whole life with the same people do you? No, Victor, once you get to know someone it is already time to get to know someone else. That’s why you always have to have an up-to-date curriculum, my little man. Do you remember the three little rules? Hold on to my vest for a moment, please. No, not like that, don’t drop it, it’s dirty in here. First of all […] let’s say it together:

    One: use one, or two sheets of paper at the most, because nobody has time to waste.

    And you have to be like a bolt of lightning out of the blue.

    Two: Use white or very light paper, good quality, plain.

    You have to keep your tears for yourself. No smudging. You are a harmonious individual.

    Three: Use the active voice. Why are you looking at me like that? It means nothing has been started and nothing has been finished, and you are a constantly updating curriculum.

    Remember this word, constantly. And seeing as you have a good curriculum, you know what happens afterwards? […] Victor leave the football alone for now. Do you know what happens when you have a good curriculum vitae? Well, it means the best companies want you. You know what a company is, don’t you? It is a collection of people who move together in the same direction to reach a common goal. Like birds migrating in search of food. All together, straight to the point, old man. What’s the matter? Don’t you like what I’m saying? The little birdies commanding the migratory groups all talk like that. In the companies there are also little rules to learn.

    Your look, Victor, look at me when I’m talking to you, […] your look is very important. Give me a hand with the barbell will you, please. Like that, bend your arm, but naturally […] you see, I was saying, you have to dress according to the context, casual, or elegant, but no flashy accessories. Flashy accessories scare the other little birdies. As soon as you arrive, smile, open doors with nonchalance. Manage your spaces, be ready. When you meet the group’s toughest little birdies, shake their hands with a firm grip, but not too hard. 
 You have to be careful about your body language, sit nicely on your chair, don’t touch your hair, don’t let your hands fiddle, don’t look closed off. Closed off is when you cross your arms, or lower your eyes. You are strong, you know it and you have to show it, but there is no reason to be mean to the other little birdies. Now do you understand what “harmony” means? You don’t have to do anything other than lean your little head on her soft tummy until she opens up, like flowers do in the spring, and you will be able to taste the flavour of her nectar. No, don’t cry. C’mon, remember what I told you […] dry your eyes, mummy is waiting to take us to karate. I like talking to you like a person, Victor, man to man. You are a beautiful thing.

    Translation by Sally McCorry

    Revision by Paul Gilgunn

    Walter Comoglio is an italian writer based in Dublin. This short story appears in his first book named “La sera che ho deciso di bloccare la strada”, published by Gorilla Sapiens Edizioni, winner of 2017 POP prize Italy as best debut.

  • 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.

  • DUMAINE

    “I’m leaving.”

    “Oh?”

    “Yes. I’m moving on. Been puttin’it off, but gotta go today.”

    “Baggage ready?”

    “Gonna do that now because it’s getting late.”

    “Why don’t I pack you a tuna fish sandwich, just in case?”

    “Yep. Good idea.”

    In the bedroom, I flung the doors of all three floor-to-ceiling closets open wide, which were designed like the entrance of a cathedral, doors that for the greater glory of God, make man minuscule, put you in your place. The perspective of my many possessions purchased, carefully cleaned and stacked up high in an orderly fashion was somewhere between repulsive and overwhelming but mostly beyond my reach. I selected a few books and that fuzzy bear my parents brought back as a gift from Germany, but little else before closing the suitcase.

    She caught me off guard, intercepting me in the hall on my way out, to hand over a brown paper sack as promised. I’d forgotten she’d offered the favor. Preoccupied, I guess.

    “Listen, there’s a chocolate pudding and an apple in with the tuna fish sandwich too.”

    “Thank you.”

    “Okay, bye-bye”

    Glacial and dark by design, her house inhaled the heat if by the gliding open of a sliding glass door, its hermetic seal was compromised. And like a large lung, the house then exhaled a quixotic draft of cooler air, which carried me with it out on to the balcony. Before she’d bolted the door behind me, no matter how briskly, and believe me she was… The sweet swelter had swallowed me whole.

    Across the street, its source obscured by a high fence hugging lush foliage, smoke was rising. Must be the Mexicans. Like too many magpies, they gathered around their granny on her tiny purpose-built patio. No one was more thrilled than she to be grillin’ again.

    Yes, our side of Bayou St. John was on low boil, but the houses on its opposite bank undulated in a mirage. So I was leaning left, feeling in my bones, a future of possibilities and personal freedom lay that way. Right hand tightening its grip on the sweaty suitcase handle, I stashed the sack lunch under my moist armpit, elbow clamped in to keep it there and descended the wrought iron stairs. Pausing at the bottom, I opened the suitcase to put the brown bag in with the rest of my treasures. Now, really on my way, I was again delayed by the obligatory exchange of pleasantries with Steve, our landlord and neighbor below. As it happens he was walking his well-dressed Chihuahua whose name was N’est-ce pas which is French for “Isn’t it so?” Keeping in mind a direct question can indeed be misperceived by older gentlemen as intrusive, in a carefully modulated tone I dared ask,

    “Pardon me Mr. Steve, but why does your dog have on a colour coordinated raincoat and galoshes?”  At this juncture, in unison we surveyed the quivering creature sporting four knee-high Wellingtons on palsied paws.

    “Because it’s a brand new set I just bought that was too cute to leave in the closet even if there isn’t a cloud in the sky. You gone for good this time?” he answered, giving me the eye and theatrically inspecting my little luggage.

    “Afraid so. You two, do take care.” Turning, I saw mucho macho matching heads. The Mexicans were like one monstrous centipede, lined up as they were for a last look over their high wooden fence. We both yelled “Adios” and waved at them but they did not disperse. Didn’t move a muscle. The scorching sun on my scalp said, don’t take all day for this stand off. With better things to do, I would leave the bayou behind.

    I hadn’t got halfway when I spotted the strangers sitting on their front steps just as if they’d lived here forever. They were smoking those cigarettes that smell better than the store bought ones, but you have to roll them yourself. Though unknown to me and mine, these people were in a really good mood, so pleasant in fact that I paused. Especially on account of how thirsty walking with a heavy suitcase made me, and the hissing sound the ice cold can of Dixie Beer let out when they pulled the crackling metal tab stopped me in my tracks. Without hesitation, I held it to my forehead for a minute then next to my neck and drank it slower than heck, so as not to get one of those excruciating brain freezes, to which we Southerners are prone.

    The new tenants invited me inside. Said I could bring my suitcase with me and I did, gingerly placing it on the coffee table, which frankly it monopolized in an absurd fashion. I sat down on their silky soft sofa, but not before being welcomed to do so. Everything of theirs was smaller than ours, and they smelled strange, but were so nice to show interest in what I cared enough about to carry with me. They confirmed my bear was genuinely German. And though I knew every word in my books by heart, indeed they politely declined to borrow them, just as they didn’t care to share my tuna fish sandwich three ways. Said they’d just eaten and instead offered me one of their piping hot homemade brownies. After I don’t know how long, what most intrigued them was that a midget could memorize her digits. I proved my point by borrowing their pencil and a notepad of pretty purple paper to jot down my home telephone number.

    We were having such fun, I nearly forgot they were foreign. The shades were drawn, and I guess I’d been there a while, when one prolonged blast from the building’s main buzzer led to two terse raps on the first floor apartment’s soft hollow-sounding wooden door. Furthermore, when it swung open, you could’ve knocked me over with a feather. Glaring from the hallway, hands on hips, was Mom.

    Like stumbling on an oasis in the nick of time, an accidental magic had occurred. That haphazard ambience which happens in abandoned colonies with greater frequency than you might imagine. Well, that mystical moment had passed and with a firm grasp on my suitcase, Mom was on the march.

    “Step on a crack, break your momma’s back,” I sang real low, hopscotching on one foot, alongside her back to a home that in my eyes was about the same size as The Superdome. Right or wrong, now that meanders of mine are no longer confined, I see Herbsaint-soaked curbs cloaked in ceramic smiles, their teeth-like tiles intelligently fired in the truest hue of Belgian blue. They spell out street names like: D-A-U-P-H-I-N-E, D-R-Y-A-D-E-S, or D-E-S-I-R-E. But the four corners of a sublime world that will always keeps me squarely entertained are contained in time, and still say D-U-M-A-I-N-E.

  • 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.

  • Heart of the City

    On the LUAS, she counts thirty cranes spiking the skyline. She hasn’t seen this many since 2007. The entire journey into town, she keeps her face visible; she doesn’t care who sees the scar snaking from her cheek to the bridge of her nose. Under her jacket, she grips the hunting knife, reassuringly heavy against her rib.

    She gets off at Westmoreland and heads across the river to the northside, cutting down a side-street that leads to the Pro-Cathedral. The cathedral, or the heart of the city, Gavin once called it. She keeps her head up and her pace brisk, ignoring the eddy of activity around her and the odd looks she gets for the scar.

    On O’ Connell Street, rush-hour crowds pitch and roll at traffic lights. She ignores seagulls screeching from the boardwalk, convoys of buses and LUAS clangs, Deliveroo cyclists dodging cycle-lanes, bouncers invigilating in doorways, the fluorescent glare from Supermac’s, haggard junkies lurching between double-yellows and taxi ranks. Under the GPO’s bullet-bejewelled portico, she spots a young girl huddled in a sleeping bag, forlornly holding out a styrofoam cup like an offering. Homeless in her hometown. She leans and drops a few coins in the cup, then keeps on walking, barely hearing the weary “Ah, thanks, Love” the girl murmurs after her. Two guards turn to watch her pass. They notice her scar, but she ignores them. Their high-vis jackets sting her eyes.

    The heavy timber doors creak open, puncturing the silence within. Gavin stands rock-still up near the altar, a bar of garish light spilling slantwise over him from the beaten-gold apse above. She recognizes his stance. Barefoot and stripped to the waist, his prized kukuri knife slung across his torso from a scabbard, he looks like some sort of urban savage. Even that far away, she can feel his gaze on her, assessing her face and movements. He could be grinning; he usually does when he sees her. Forcing the door shut, she mutes the city’s roar.

    The Pro-Cathedral is more like an art gallery than a place of worship. Gavin told her he hadn’t set foot in it since he was a kid. He’d hated the smell of incense, the bone-white texture of the pillars. He doesn’t mind it too much now, though; grim-faced statues of saints and garish Stations of the Cross seemed to console him. She’d never been inside it before. As she moves among the pews, she sees they are alone.

    Mass has long since emptied out. Not a lone parishioner left; she expects to see some still scattered amid the pews, heads bowed and hands clasped. There isn’t even anyone lighting a candle at the back. No danger of being seen or heard. It’s better to meet in places such as here, where no audience can assess them. He walks down the nave, meets her halfway. Coils of scarring – mementos from previous duels such as this – ripple on his chest and arms. Some she’s dished out to him personally, little welted tokens of her dexterity and skill. Of course, there are others she doesn’t recognise, fresher and angrier-looking; clearly given to Gavin by opponents who aren’t her. She notices him smiling as he advances.

    “Howiya. Fancy seeing you here. How’s that keepin’?” He nods at her scar.

    “I’m still here, aren’t I?” She stares and his smiles broadens.

    “And I’m glad y’are. Thought I scared y’off there.”

    “You wish, Gavin.”

    “Y’have what we agreed?” She nods, unzips her jacket to reveal the leather sheath slung across her waist. The pommel of her Damascus steel blade catches the light. He eyes it.

    “Let’s get to it, so,” he says finally. She glances up at the light pouring through the apse and walks backwards, keeping her eye on him. He turns and walks thirty paces back down the aisle, drawing out the kukuri as he goes. He seems to fill the entire cathedral, his movements tight and regimented like a soldier at parade and a flicker of misgiving darts through her. He almost seems to be planning each move as he snaps the kukuri this way and that.

    The kukuri hisses cleanly and flashes in the dim, dusty light and as he cleaves the air, the blade’s white arc blurs with the whirl of his strokes. She expects he’ll either accidently cut a notch off one of the pews’ varnished oak or dislodge it, but he’s too nimble.

    As long as she’s known him, Gavin has jealously guarded the kukuri. He’s owned many knives in the past, some new and some antique, some acquired locally or online, and others collected in far-off regions where knives rank as works of art and skill with them is in high demand. She’s seen his full armamentarium of Bowies and Swiss Armies, butterflies and sharpfingers. He often takes better care of these implements than he does his own body. He once boasted that, if he’d the time and resources, he could ensure his knife collection would last for centuries after they’re both gone.

    But the kukuri is his pride and joy. He keeps it in a handcrafted leather sheath, and no one, not even her, is permitted to touch it. It’s a combat weapon, trademark of the Nepali Ghurka tribesmen who made it famous. The blade is stainless steel and razor-sharp, hand hammered to a black, thermoplastic hilt. It can be cleaned, sharpened and repaired. Formidable in its simplicity, it can cut through any material she cares to name. Even when it’s no longer suitable for the job, Gavin will not discard it. The kukuri cost him a mint when he bought it online, and a single slash from it could lop her head clean from her shoulders.

    She has been careful in her own choice of weapon: the Damascus was bought second-hand from a vendor in town, its bone hilt smoothed to fit her grip. Her collection of blades isn’t nearly as extensive as Gavin’s, but she’s taught herself well with each of them. After much consideration, the Damascus is her best bet against the kukuri. She’s spent each evening of the week practising in her flat, once she is sure her flatmates have all fallen asleep. She is loath to go anywhere without it now.

    He faces her, and his grip tightens with a neat flick of the wrist. His other hand is held out, open. She removes her jacket and shoes, to leave them bundled on a nearby pew; her own scars, mainly on her arms and ribs, are now in plain sight. She shivers a little at the chill wafting over her. She scans the nave, calculates how limited her movements are actually going to be. Then she draws out her own blade, raises it, and walks up to face him. Of the two of them, she has the longer reach while Gavin has speed. He also has an exposed forearm, the tendons waiting to be severed. She notices them first.

    They meet like this once a month, and never in the same location. That way, neither of them is at an unfair advantage on familiar ground. Once they duelled at the end of the pier in Dun Laoghaire, at her suggestion; another time it was in a building site behind Gavins house. Once they agree on the place, there is no going back. Under no circumstances will either of them withdraw.

    Their rules are few and fair: there are only ten minutes to fight. He will fight with only his kukuri, and she with her Damascus steel. No nails, fists or teeth allowed. No point in even trying to emerge unscathed; getting cut or sliced is inevitable. The wounds must be inflicted cleanly and whoever draws the most blood wins.

    The last time they duelled, she’d been a hair too slow dodging his slash, and he’d given her the scar on her cheek. She remembered how he stood back, eyes glazing, in admiration of his handiwork, even as blood dribbled down her face. He helped her dress the wound afterward. She went home and practised knife moves in the dim of her flat, swearing to herself she wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

    This is their strangest arena so far. It’s always been out in the open until now. Manouvering will be difficult, unless she manages to back him up towards the altar. She sees her chances of that as being about even.

    He lunges, lightning-quick as a dancer, swinging at her forearm. His body becomes a fever of movement, limbs snaking and dashing at her, the force of his attack bringing her to heel. Were she still a novice, it would have happened too fast for her to even react. But she’s trained herself hard, and well. His curved stroke narrowly misses her. He chops at the air, butchering dust. The kukuri falls hard and heavy, and Gavin gains ground.

    She parries with the flat of her blade, blocking his blows and stabbing, to drive him back somewhat. Their steely clangs and clatters echo through the cathedral like the shrieks of ill-fated souls. To anyone else, that sound is murder on the ears. To her and Gavin, it’s sweet as an aria.

    She lashes out in between his blows, her blade nicking his sternum. It’s not a deep cut, certainly not enough to warrant victory for her, but enough for Gavin to grunt and stagger backward, dazed. He glances down, and his free hand locates the laceration as blood starts seeping down his chest and onto the tiles. The splashes, too, echo loudly and they both stand back, appraising each other and the damage. She sees his smile is askew and can hear his heavy breathing. Holy through his own blood, she thinks.

    “Nice one”, he says, with something like approval in his eyes, and raises the kukri to resume the salvo. But his strokes are sloppier and his breathing has gotten heavier. He tries hacking again, in a downward arc, but she dodges and his blade is stuck fast, lodged in a pew near the front. He wrenches his knife free, but a few noticeable notches are left behind in the wooden bench. Gavin grits his teeth and spits, approaching her with fury in his eyes.

    He’s starting to break one of his rules, the one he told her when she first picked up a blade: never get angry in a duel. It blurs concentration, makes you clumsy and more likely to be beaten. He’s no less dangerous for it, though. Droplets from the cut on his chest spray over the pews and floor; his feet leave prints in his wake as he swings and keeps missing. He flails now, aware slightly that a shift in the air has occurred and he is no longer at an advantage. Weakened, he wards off her advances on him, blocking her riposte somewhat, but it’s not enough. He forces her back a bit, but she charges, and he lists against a pew, grabbing on to it to catch his fall. With raspy breath and mouth agape, Gavin steps forward, blade lowered, staring wildly at her. His empty hand finds the nick and the blood pooling around it stains his fingers. The cut runs deeper than either of them thought. His face now registers something alien, for he has no facility to fathom defeat.