A COLD SON OF A BITCH

                                                        ‘yet why not say what happened’

                                                                                          Robert Lowell

John looked from the kitchen window, the sink he stood by was like the interior of a

Well-worn tea pot or the inside of his lungs sucking on yet another cigarette.

He ejected the stale teabags from the teapot he thought I must go to the doctors today

and get that disability living allowance form filled in and get a mobility allowance

and have a new car instead of that almost unrepairable rusted old banger.  He remembered how

the car looked in the night’s subtle pastel glow, and said god you’re a bastard you and

your cold light of morning.

Opening a cupboard in the hall he dragged a filthy pair of overalls from a pile of

clothes on the floor and stepped into them tucked his hair into a tweed cap and lifted

the toolbox.  The morning was a little cool but the sun was coming up strong above

the grey housing estate, ‘this is going to be a good day’, he thought sucking in the

almost fresh air.  Opening the passenger door of the car creaking like a great sigh

reaching in he delved between unsecured seating, busted wings and an exhaust

hauling a jack from the debris.  He took the cross shaped wheel brace and placed it on

one of the four rusted nuts before taking hold he stooped and spat on his hands gripped

the brace and turned with all his might and tried to budge the nut as if it

was his last task on earth?  He cursed the car and gave it everything he had, all a sixty

year old worn heart could muster.  A heart like a prune without syrup dried and left in

the searing desert of hurt too long,’ ya red bastard, ya German fucker, ya useless heap

of shit.

He mumbled as the sweat broke on his brow.  He rested a while leaning, took a cigarette

from his top pocket lit and sucked, he licked the beads of sweat that fell across his lips

he ran his tongue across his lips once more they were cold and grey he licked once

more unsure and tasted death.

On the morning of his funeral a letter drifted through the letter box, one of his pallbearer

four sons opened it and it read, we are pleased to inform you that you have

been awarded motability.

THE NOTEBOOK

Although it was late morning the sun was still warm over the south side of

Dublin draining yet another cold winter from the earth and from the hearts of the

poor.  One didn’t have to see the sun or feel the heat to know that summer had arrived

In Rathmines, the stench of the Grand Canal lingered with the cities grime.

As the church bells rang out little Maggie blessed herself and continued polishing Mrs. Mahon’s side board.  Every Saturday she helped her mother clean the houses of the rich to help boost her measly widows pension from the Ministry of defense.  Her father died the previous year, cut down in his prime just twenty- seven from tuberculosis, leaving a gaping wound in the hearts of a devoted wife and five children.  Maggie worked alone this day, her mother was away bringing a life into the world as he was the unofficial midwife of the area.  The duster glided across the dark wood and she escaped into her Hollywood dreams dancing and singing songs by Judy Garland with her friends on the lochs of the canal, the stench of the filthy river forgotten.  She took a small worn notebook from the pocket in her drab tunic and flicked through the pages of scribbled signatures and stopped at Judy Garland, a sense of pride filled her cheeks recalling the crowds of screaming fans she battled through for that autograph.  That little book held her treasures and was as important as her prayer book and her legion with Mary.

She turned to the last page autographed by Rita Hayward, she remembered her

friends not believing her when she showed them the book.

‘You done that yourself’ they said sitting on a bench that ran along the canal, Pam

and Mary squeezed in trying to make some sense of the scribbled line.

‘I can’t make head nor tail of it’, said Pam, ‘if you gave our jimmy a bleeding pen

you’d make more sense of it’ said Mary how did you get it they asked together?

well said Maggie’, ‘I was in Woolworth’s getting threads for my mother when this

blond lady with sunglasses came in the queue behind holding a little girls hand’.

‘Caught ya, Na na na na na said Pam, Rita Hayward hasn’t got

blond hair, ‘I know said Maggie but I remember Rinty the bell boy at the Gresham hotel

had told me she was visiting Dublin.  ‘I read that in her next role she would be blond,

so there’.  I waited at the front and when she came out’ ‘I said’, ‘Miss Hayward could I have your autograph’, ‘what makes you think I’m Miss Hayward, she said removing her

 sunglasses . I told her that I read about her next role as a blond and I knew she had a

little girl.  She said for knowing so much I will sign and handed me an orange from her bag and asked my name and shook my hand.  The two girls looked again at the scrawl of ink and knew it was Rita Hayward’s and skipped off home along the path.  Finishing her chores she fell into the role of a movie queen strolling the highly polished hall.  As she neared the wide steep staircase her hands raised like a ballet dancer pirouetting in a beautiful gown in place of her drab tunic that hung around her like an apron of poverty.  No longer a buck toothed thirteen year old Dublin girl she was the queen of Hollywood.  She strode the staircase with the strength of Joan Crawford or Bette  Davis as she neared the last flight her step lightened and fell with a thud into reality and

Mrs. Mahon stood at the foot of the stairs.

She looked forward to the one shilling wage and the home made cakes and tarts made

from apples and pears picked from her garden and the goodness of her heart.

As she reached the bottom step Mrs. Mahon said in her soft upper class polite tone

’would you do me a favour Maggie’, the little girl nodded in response.

Go to Dan Dooley’s and get an ounce of tea, half a sugar and quarter butter and keep

the change, and Mrs. Mahon handed her a shilling and she put in her pocket with the

notebook.  A small thin man she knew as Mrs. Mahon’s brother in law stepped out of the darkened room behind her.  ‘I'm going your way’, he said,' I'll walk with you’.

Maggie wanted to rush there and back and get her wage and get home quickly.

She looked  at the little man with greased back dark hair wearing a suit that hung on

him like a hospital gown.  She looked into his eyes and sensed a sadness and thought

it would be alright to walk with him and the big door closed behind them.

As they walked out he felt the heat of summer reacting to the searing heat in his chest

distorting his view, she smelt the strong scent of summer and said in a rush of

embarrassed utterance, ‘ I take a short cut over two walls and across’ and before she

had time to finish,  It’s quicker this way’,  he said and grabbed her arm  and held her

scream.  He hauled her fresh young body across the garden past the big window of the

lonely house and down the side towards the back, while the flashes of red bricked

confusion seared through her young mind. His greased back hair fell about his thin face like a demon revealing his horns,  her eyes leered with tear filled muffled silence to the rusting rooF of the shed.  She cleared those two walls as if they weren’t there, that evil man had torn her soul

her life and legion with Mary.

She clambered towards the canal feeling a hurt worse than the grief of her dad, the

soiled blood ran down her soft white legs. The next thing she never knew she was waist deep in the canal delving between her legs washing away the filth of the devil.  The notebook and the money fell from her pocket and washed away in the cities grime,  her dreams of innocence washed away with the filthy river.  The river bed of broken glass and rotting metal took blood from her feet but she was numb to feel it through here well-worn plim-soles. She ran through the great doors of the chapel and settled under one of the worn down pews and huddled into a ball doing penance on the stone cold floor of loss, the lonely lingering stench of stained immaculate conceptions engulfed her.

‘ Come out of there child, I thought you were a flea bitten dog, what’s wrong girl’,

said the voice of the servant of god.  Shivering she got of her hunkers and looked at

him in disbelief, why doesn’t he know what happened she said to herself.

A gibberish flow about losing Mrs. Mahon’s money came flowing like the confusion

of pollution in her mind,‘go home to your mother’, said the priest, ‘God bless you girl’

said the servant of god.

Mrs Mahon’s brother in law died of cancer some months later and Maggie knelt in the

chapel praying as the priest looked on.

THE FIFTY PENCE PIECE

Mickey Reilly sat on his single bed looking out onto the busy road. The dark nights were slowly creeping in as the lights of the traffic flickered through the rain splattered window creeping out of the city. His record player and amp lit up the tiny bed-sit beside his record collection of music. The raw bass and distorted guitar of Gang of Fours to hell with poverty, ‘well get drunk on cheap wine’, he sang along as if the line came straight of his head, the record collection was his life. He was rein acting a scene. He was walking through St Anne's park smoking a cigarette as he passed the band stand where the local bands played a free summer festival, A Lark in the Park. He fixed the length of blue nylon rope burnt at both ends to stop it fraying around his neck and tucked the ends into his bomber jacket and zipped it up to his neck. It was a crisp winters night the stars glowing clearly above him. As he walked through the arches of the rose gardens he saw a puff of smoke rising from the dark figure seated at the bench. The man turned to look up at Mickey now in line, the white strip around his neck shone like the stars. "What about ya, father he said, lovely night', 'yeah it is son, been sitting here watching the stars and listening to the sea out there beyond the darkness'. 'Come and sit down here son and listen', he patted the seat beside him. He sat beside the dark figure his arm across the back of the bench, his right foot rested on his left knee he shifted closer to the dark figure.  "Can I have one of your smokes Father', he said, 'have you no smokes son', said the priest, "no Father, I've got fifty pence to my name father'. Taking it out his pocket flicking into the air to let it drop in his palm.  "I could tell you a story about a fifty pence piece just like this one father'.  "I'm sure you could son', said the priest handing him a cigarette.  The priest lit his lighter and reached over to light Michaels cigarette. The lighter lit up the darkness between them, he looked deeply into the priest’s eyes, pulled back on his right arm on the back of the bench and let it go to collide like a hammer with the side of the priest’s head.  He opened his jacket and pulled out the rope found its center and dragged it through the priest’s teeth from behind like a bit in a horse’s mouth. Crossed the end of the rope lacing it across his back and round to bind the priest’s hands and place him back on the bench. The priest began to come to he sat on the bench beside him his arm wrapped tightly around him. Now father he said I want you to shut the fuck up so I can tell you a story about a fifty pence piece just like this one, flicking it through the air to land in his palm.

He took the blank "Black n' Red" book from the shelf above his bed between a small selection of books and CD's and a book of Charles Baudelaire's poems fell on the bed. As he lifted it to put it back on the shelf his eye caught something on the page and he began to read out loud. To the Reader; Stupidity, delusion, selfishness and lust torment our bodies and possess our minds.

He discarded the book and opened the Red n" Black A4 notebook. He flicked it open to the first blank page, signed his name and the date November 2002. He looked at the page littered with lines until the lines began to merge into an image.

He lifted the pen and began to write. The rain beat off the window outside like the rhythm of the pen, the ink catching a tiny glimmer of light moving across the page before it dried into reality.  He was twelve in 1972, it was a Sunday one of the gang said let’s rob the egg factory.  He couldn't remember if it was Hardbap or Haggis who suggested it but they sprang into action and got together a couple of giders and old prams and headed off to rob the egg factory. They broke in through a back window but had no way out through the smashed window with the boxes of eggs. With all the eggs they couldn’t take they had a riot in the massive factory space. Mickey unleashed the fork lift from its power point being charged and crashed it into every wall before getting the forks wedged under the steel door and prized the roller door up to let them out and stack the boxes of eggs onto the giders and prams. They headed off across the fields through the gypsy camp where they gave out a few dozen of the eggs to the women who sat around outside one of the caravans talking, some of the kids ran after them, the boys calling out, 'give us some of your eggs' until the women called them back saying leave them good boys alone. They took the boxes off the transport and carried them up the steep hill then piled them back on top and wheeled them across the all-weather pitch through the kid’s playground and past the army sandbag post.

The two young soldiers taunted them shouting out through the gap in the sandbags 'Oi mate where did you steal them eggs'.  Razor walked up to them and looked up into the gap and said that's 'none of your fucking business, you British bastards', dragged a greenhorn up from his gut and spat at them.  They waited for a gap in the traffic and dashed the cargo across the main road that was the divide between the Catholic's and the Protestants. They feared being approached by a rival gang, they would have a punch up or a mini riot with them and maybe they would end up with the eggs but that was nothing compared to what would have happened had they sold the eggs to their own community, they would have had the Ra to deal with.  They split up on the other side off the road and began knocking on the doors of the houses of the three streets that ran off the main road careful not to go too deep into the Protestant area. Within no time the eggs had disappeared and the money was in their sky rockets. Only one suspicious lady asked where they came from. Mickey said his Da was in a van selling them in the next street. Before crossing the main road, they piled into the shop on the Protestant side of the road and each bought 20 smokes, lemonade crisps and chocolate bars. They passed the army post again where one of the soldiers said give us a couple of fag’s mate. Hardbap removed two smokes from his box held them in his hand shoved them down the front of his trousers rubbed the fags around his balls before taking them out and throwing them through the gap in the sandbags calling out British bastards running across the pitch laughing. They sat in a burnt out car in a back alley smoking, eating, drinking and laughing before heading home for tea. Mickey hung his coat on the rail just inside the front door. After tea his Ma said she was going out to see Aunt Anne who lived up the street. As she lifted his Harrington jacket off the rail to get her coat below it, she felt it was heavy, she shook it and heard the money rattling. She took the coat in to where mickey and his sister were finishing their tea. She spilt the contents of his pockets out on the table the money cigarettes and chocolate bars scattered everywhere, 'where did you get this', she asked and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck dragging him into the living room she sat him down on the chair. Now look up at that picture and tell me where you got the money. He looked up at the sacred heart picture and said we found crates of lemonade bottles and brought them back to the shop and we got some copper and lead from the burnt buses and sold it to the gypos.   You’re a liar she said you wouldn’t get that much money from a few bottles and a bit of scrap.  The doorbell rang and she answered the door it was Hardbap were you with Michael today she asked the boy yes he said come in here then she sat him down on the sofa and said look up at that picture and tell me where you got the money today. Then Haggis, Razor, GG and Cash called and they all sat there in the living room looking up at the picture of Jesus on the wall in silence. Eventually Michael couldn’t stand the silence and embarrassment and admitted that they robbed the egg factory. She told the boys to leave telling them that each of their parents would be told. She told him to go to his room as he climbed the stairs she said I'm putting that money in an envelope and your bringing it up to the priest tomorrow after school.

The old lady ushered him through the front door of the Parochial house asking his name and telling him to sit on the bench like a small pew and wait for the priest. He was physically shaking with nerves and felt sick to his stomach as the minutes ticked by on the big clock in the hall. The priest eventually came through dressed in his ceremonial robes. Michael Reilly he said and he mumbled 'yes, 'I was talking to your mother today come in here he said and he followed him into a library with a desk in the middle of the room surrounded by shelves of books along each wall.

Do you have the envelope with you, he took it out of his pocket and handed it to him as he sat down behind the desk? 'You know you done wrong boy don't you', 'yes father’, ‘you won’t do anything like this again will you son', 'no father' he said. 'Bringing shame on the good name of your family', 'no father, I'll never do wrong again father’, almost beginning to cry. 'OK I believe you son,' said the priest, ‘but one thing I don't understand, why did you sell the eggs to the Protestants'. 'I'm going to send this envelope of money back to the egg factory I won’t say it was you if you swear you won’t do this again', 'I swear father I swear'. 'OK', said the priest,' come here boy' pointing to the floor beside his chair. He reached over and held his arm and looked up at him, 'now you know because you have done a wrong deed and brought shame to your poor mother you have to do penance to pray for forgiveness', 'yes father I know'.   'OK when you leave here I want you to go to the chapel and say six hail Mary's and three our fathers and ask god for his forgiveness', 'yes father I promise letting out a sigh of relief and moving to turn. 

'Not so quick boy,' said the priest gripping his arm even harder. He pulled back his chair and ordered Michael to stand in front of the desk he stood there in front of the desk trembling. "Now look boy', said the priest from behind him he turned his head to see the priest fumbling under his robes and pull his hand out with a fifty pence piece. He held it up for him to see 'I'm going to put this in your pocket OK', and he let it drop into the front pocket of his trousers. 'Now if you tell anyone what happened here I'll tell your mother that you’re a liar and a thief and that you should be put in a home, OK boy', 'OK father', 'now open your trousers and pull them down'. He done what he was told thinking he was going to be slapped across the arse with a cane but he jumped back startled like someone had walked over his grave at the touch of the priest reaching between his legs to take hold of his cock and start pulling on it. He put his strong hand on his back and bent him over the bench while still pulling at his cock he heard his zip opening beneath the robes, 'don't scream boy', he said and forced his hard cock into him. He lay there across the bench biting through the skin of his thumb, his teeth clenched and his top lip trembling as if to start crying but he didn't, he bit harder on his thumb thinking I'm going to kill that dirty bastard.  He could feel the stuff that oozed out of him growing cold between his tummy and the bench as the priest hammered into him moaning like an old pig. His stomach doing somersaults as the priest came inside him. He wiped the cum from his arse with his robe and told Michael to get dressed. He wiped the cum on the bench with his robe and told Michael to leave. He got to the door and the priest said don't forget son one word and you'll be spending Christmas in a home. Michael never turned back he threw the 50 pence piece into the air and heard it smack of the roof of the parochial house and slide down the slates and into its gutter. He ran all the way home crying inside; I'm going to kill that dirty bastard someday.

His father was released from prison he had been interned in Crumlin Rd Jail and Long Kesh. Michael went to see his friend GG to tell him that they were leaving Belfast and moving to Dundalk. They sat in the dining room laughing about the strange machine in the corner of the room that was used when GG's brother died, he died all the time and this machine brought him back to life, it was like something out of the movies an iron lung.

It was dark when he was on the way home, the only lights were that through the curtains of the houses all the streetlights were shot out to let the IRA move freely through the district and for the safety of the people from sniper or British army fire. The sky was red and flakes of black ash were falling like snow as houses and property burned all over Belfast. As he turned left by instinct onto his street a Blatter of bullets came hurtling towards him from a machine gun at the top of the street. They tore through the night cutting the hedges and fences and bouncing off the ground in front of him, he froze to the spot panic stricken. He could see the flashes of the rifle but couldn't move.

A hand came from behind the hedges and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him off the street into the garden he could feel the piss steaming hot in his jeans become cold as he lay there on the cold grass. He looked up to see the man, he buried his head in his hand and his mind switched off.

The man took him by the scruff of the neck and the arse of his trousers and threw him clear of the hedges and the fence and he landed in the next garden. The big man with red hair and hands like shovels did this over 12 gardens while dodging the Blatter of bullets from the machine gun at the top of the road. At that time all the doors in the district were left off the latch so the gun men could run though the house and out the back to make their escape. The big man shoved Michael through the front door where he landed flat on the bottom of the stairs, he looked back as the door began to close again with the impact with the wall he saw the big man running across the road and saw the impact of the bullet connect with his head and the blood spurting out. Like the last action shot in a movie before the door closed the view like the curtains in the cinema. He climbed the stairs and cried himself to sleep. The next day the house was emptied into a removals van, there wasn't enough room for him in the front of the removals van so Michael travelled in the white transit van with the soft spoken boyfriend of his eldest sister. Michael didn't have much to say as they travelled along the motor way, Paul O Connor was rattling on about a new start new home etc. with his girlie voice that was beginning to annoy Michael who was trying not to think about what happened the day before but his arse was still sore and every bump in the road reminded him. Michael began to drift off to sleep when he felt something he looked down to see Paul’s hand on his leg slowly moving towards his crotch talking about pulling off and buying him a nice meal and ice cream. Michael jumped back when he realized what was going on, get your fucking hand off me he said to Paul. It’s OK Michael he said you might like it, Michael reached for the door handle and pulled it open held the door ajar and said if you don't stop I'll jump. He climbed into the back and sat on the floor against a tea-chest it was worse on his arse but at least he was away from that dirty bastard. How could he do that if he was going with his sister he thought. Is there something wrong with me, he thought?  He liked girls so he couldn't understand what was happening. They slept on mattresses on the living room floor of the new house that night. Michael woke with his little brother Jimmy hanging around his neck still fast asleep. His brother and sister’s mattresses were empty but he looked across the room and saw Paul sitting up smoking. Paul said good morning Mickey, fuck off said Michael, do you want a smoke said Paul and held up the cigarette waving it. Throw it over said Michael. I'll give you three if you let me touch your wee brother.  Michael seen red jumped out of bed ran across the room and kicked him up the face saying you touch my brother and I'll kill you and he left the room carrying his wee brother beginning to wake.  

He made new friends and the bitterness fueled by the fear and hatred in Belfast began to leave him as he realized that not everyone was at war. He had been out all day with his new friends progging orchards and taking the girls up to Chuhullians castle for a kiss and a grope of tits that didn't yet exist on most of the girls except Lilly who had enormous tits and beautiful erect dark brown nipples she loved to have sucked so they all took turns with her. There was a party and sing song going on when he returned home all the adults and friends were drinking to celebrate his sister’s birthday and the house warming. Michael said goodnight and went off to bed with his little brother. He climbed into the top bunk and began to drift off as soon as his head hit the pillow. He was lost in his dream world and it was as if he was dreaming about Lilly touching his cock. His member began to rise but something just wasn't right it began to feel like it was real and not a dream. As he began to wake he heard his Mother entering the room shouting you dirty filthy bastard and there beside him was Paul with his hand under the bedclothes. She whacked him one right up the coupon and began dragging him out of the room. His father came running up the stairs shouting what's going on. This filthy bastard was up here touching wee Michael when he was sleeping and you wanted this soft talking pervert to marry my daughter get the fucking animal out of here before I kill him. 

It was a cold November morning, he woke early switched on the portable TV that only picked up 2 god damn stations RTE 1 and 2.   He watched the morning news and heard a priest talking about how they should change the law from Canon law to Civil law. "At the end of the day were all civilians who must adhere to the law. Hang the Bastards he thought. On his way into town on the Dart train Canon Law and Civil Law itched around in his brain. He joined the queue outside the Dole office and drifted in with the stench of foul beer and smoke and the stink of some of the dirt birds in the queue to collect his weekly pittance assistance.  He passed two chapels and five pubs on the way to catch the bus back home. He wanted to stop for a pint but he knew the consequences of that as many a time he went home broke so he went to Macs got some groceries and 3 litres of the cheapest red wine and headed home. He filled himself a glass of wine put a couple of strips of bacon under the grill put the needle on the record and the voice sounded sampled through a tanoi, there’s seventy billion people on earth, where are they hiding. As he was listening he remembered what his brother said to him: "Don't be putting that depressing music on again Michael, do you not listen to any happy music" The best songs in the world have been written through melancholy, he answered. What the fuck would he know about music he thought he had disco songs, the music screeched like finger nails on a blackboard.

The image of his dead sister entered his brain and left like a hologram. He drifted off back into nineteen seventy-five as Lou Reed hammered out "waiting for the man". It was a Saturday he was at the markets in Dundalk selling toys and Novelty goods from a wallpaper table. It was cold drizzling on and off so the punters weren't out in force they both sat on milk crates behind the table filled with the goods, him and the stall owner. The man reached across and put his hand on Michael's knee below the table. 'I'll take you to a nice hotel in Dublin, we can stay there for the weekend, I'll take you to the pictures and I'll treat you", he said as his hand moved further up his leg, OK said Michael. "I'm going to go for lunch' he said with a rotten smile on his face lifting the milk crate and reaching into the shoe box with the days taking. He took out some notes put the lid back on and put the milk crate back over it sit there he said and guard that money with your life we'll need it for Dublin and I know exactly how much is in it. When he disappeared around the corner Michael rose from behind the table yelling "Everything must go" get your bargains here he shouted like a professional trader. People began to gather around the stall and he sold the lot in no time everything went for next to nothing anything the people wanted to pay he took. He dandered off home with a shoe box under one arm and a folded up wallpaper table in the other.  The images began to fall thick and fast through his mind and the pen was scribbling unreadable words down as if he'd found the fast forward button in his brain and he pressed it twice. Father Mc Duff was getting a dig up the head in a store room in school. A man in a fruit factory had his hand stapled to a crate screaming.  The image of a man with a butcher’s apron fucking a dead pig.

Having a piss behind a tree at night a hand reached out to grab him, he ran the man through the streets and into a primary school grounds where the man stopped in the shelter. Blood was splattered all over the grey concrete and the red brick walls, ripping one of the 3x2s the kids sat on wet days, beating and beating and beating the man to a pulp. He dropped the pen and reached under the bed and took out a length of blue nylon rope stood on the chair and tied it onto the heavy duty hook he had placed in the ceiling fixed to the rafter. He tied the noose around his neck and spun around 360 degrees like a ballerina on tip-toes looking down on his world and kicked the chair away. The last thing he heard was the record stuck in a groove.

Before his sight went from red too scarlet then black was the priest swinging in the park hanging by a length of blue nylon rope from the rose garden arches. His trousers and underwear around his ankles, the stem of a rose bush sticking out of his innards dripping with blood catching the light of the moon flowing over a fifty pence piece on the grass.