Surviving Michael

by Birchall, Joseph

  Later that night I was still up, wanting to go to bed. No answer from her phone. She normally calls. Only way you can tell if a girl loves you, Charlie once told me, is if she goes out with her friends, gets drunk and then calls you. I rang her four times. Only got her voicemail. I didn’t leave a message. I stayed up. Watching my phone. Expecting her to ring any minute. ‘Hi, sorry I didn’t hear my phone’. ‘I’m in a taxi’. ‘See you soon’. But nothing.

  Then a knock on the door. But I already knew. How did I know? I remember every detail of that knock, and every moment in every day afterwards. The two Gardaí. One female. Their sympathetic tone asking if they could come in. Their caps already off. I can still see her face under the white lights of the hospital. Her green eyes closed. Closed forever. Her black coat thrown in the corner of the room, its white collar flecked with her blood.

  I remember a Garda telling me they’d caught the drunk driver.

  ‘He’ll pay for this, son,’ he said. ‘Don’t you worry about that.’

  I thought at first he was talking about her coat. That they were going to give the man who smashed into her taxi the dry cleaning bill. I laughed to myself, and he looked at me.

  It might be an obvious thing to say, but I hated the funeral. The packed church. I didn’t even know who they all were. I haven’t seen any of them since then anyway. So many tears from strangers’ faces. The corpse a stark reminder of the crowd's own mortality and inevitable death. That one day, they too will be in that coffin. The undertakers slowly creeping up the side of the church like vultures circling in on a carcass.

  After the funeral, I had no interest in the court case. Aoife’s parents wanted his blood. They wanted justice, they said. I don’t blame them. But I didn’t even care what the guy’s name was. They dealt with their pain through traditional anger and vengeance. I used denial and avoidance.

  Anything I suppose to get me through the misery of another morning, the perpetual silence in a house and the agony of yet another day.

  Sunday

  Nick

  I NEVER BELIEVE people anymore when they say they’re going to do something. Perhaps it’s because I’ve promised myself so many times so many things I’ve never done either.

  The best time to see any city is on a Sunday morning when the people who the city was built for are nowhere to be seen. What does that say about the city? Or what does it say about the people?

  We’re parked a little bit down from Rathfarnham Garda Station. Charlie is in the back but sits forward between Danny and me, chewing on his nails. I can see his eyes in the mirror darting from side to side as we watch the cops coming and going from the station. Liam is slumped on his side in the back seat and is snoring soundly, which I’m surprised at given how loudly we’re arguing.

  ‘Well you never said exactly what type of Garda car,’ Danny argues.

  ‘Well for future reference Danny,’ I say, ‘a police car has flashing blue lights on top, a big yellow stripe down the side and a siren on the roof that goes BEE fucking BAW.’

  ‘It does have a blue light,’ Danny says, ‘it’ll be under the passenger seat.’

  ‘Jesus, Danny. An unmarked Ford Mondeo is not what I had in mind. It’ll look more like a robbed car.’

  ‘It will be a fucking robbed car,’ he yells at me.

  There’s an awkward silence as we both stare over at the Garda station. The car which we have the keys for is, luckily enough, near the front gate; dark blue, no hubcaps and with about four aerials on the roof. The silence is only interrupted by Liam’s wheezing snores and Charlie chewing on his nails. It has started to rain lightly and the tiny drops on our windscreen mirror the sweat on his forehead.

  ‘Here, Starsky,’ I say to him, ‘it’s not a valet service they’re running over there. You need to actually go over to the car.’

  He takes his fingers out of his mouth and shakes himself a little. Obviously, he’s having a few last minute arguments with himself, but his mind starts to wander again, and he continues to stare out in front.

  ‘Charlie,’ I say louder.

  ‘Alright, alright,’ he mumbles as if he’s just woken and is struggling to get out of bed. He places his sweaty hand on the door handle and with a quick exhale of air, opens it abruptly. He pauses. He’s thinking too much about this.

  ‘Have you got the keys?’ I ask him, interrupting any thoughts of bailing that might be brewing and were about to boil over into his mouth. He holds the key up to us, his fist clenched around it as if it were a winning lottery ticket. But he isn’t smiling.

  ‘Remember,’ I say, ‘we’ll be on top of the Ballymount Bridge waiting for you to drive by, okay?’

  He nods and gets out of the car.

  ‘And Charlie,’ Danny calls after him, ‘keep the police radio on in case they notice the car missing and put us under surveillance.’

  Charlie looks at him blankly and then slams the door shut. The jolt wakes Liam, and he mumbles something.

  ‘Keep us under surveillance,’ I scoff at Danny. ‘For fuck’s sake.’

  We watch as Charlie walks up the path on the opposite side of the Garda station. Liam yawns and sticks his head between the two front seats.

  ‘Is he doing it?’ he asks.

  We both nod.

  ‘That’s unreal,’ he says. ‘What fucking lunatic could be so vain as to even consider walking into a police station and stealing one of their cars instead of just being bald for a few weeks? He could even wear a baseball cap until it started to grow back.’

  ‘Obviously this lunatic,’ Danny says as we watch Charlie crossing the street.

  I want to tell them it’s more than that. That it isn’t about stealing the car or Liam chatting up a girl. It’s about boundaries and conforming all our lives. Not following through with what we’d planned and taking the easy option too often. I look at both of them and they’re smiling, caught up in the moment. Living the moment. I wonder when the last time they felt like that was.

  ‘There he goes,’ Liam says and points as Charlie walks through the main gates of the station and into the car park. Almost like he has blinkers on, he strides up to the car, opens the door and slides in. The three of us exhale loudly, unaware we were even holding our breaths.

  ‘Now, just drive out slowly,’ I say.

  Just then, a Garda car charges into the car park and parks two spaces down from Charlie.

  ‘Fuck,’ Danny cries out and grabs the steering wheel. Two uniformed guards jump out, one carrying two coffees, and the other a small brown bag. We can see Charlie struggling to start the car. On the way into the station, the two guards walk along the back of his car.

  ‘He’s fucked,’ Liam shouts, ‘start the bleeding car, Danny.’

  ‘Shut up,’ I yell at him, and put both my hands to my head.

  Just as Charlie gets the key into the ignition, he catches sight of the guards in the mirror walking behind his car. He disappears out of sight as he dives across the passenger seat. The Garda holding the coffees must have caught his movement in the corner of his eye because he slows down and looks straight into the Mondeo. Danny’s hands go up to cover his face.

  ‘My dad’s going to fucking kill me,’ he says.

  ‘Start the fucking car,’ Liam orders and shakes Danny by the shoulders.

  ‘Fuck off,’ I yell at him. Danny is looking through his fingers.

  The first Garda with the paper bag calls back to the one who has stopped, holding up the paper bag in his hand. As he turns to answer him, he holds up the coffee in his right hand and laughs. Without looking at the Mondeo again he follows him into the station.

  I lean my head on the dashboard with relief. Danny puts his hands together as if in prayer, and Liam sinks back into the rear seats.

  ‘Oh, thank God,’ Danny says almost in tears.

  After a couple of minutes, we still can’t see Charlie sitting back up in the driver’s seat.

  ‘Where is he?’ Danny asks.

  ‘He’s probably st
ill lying down,’ I suggest,

  ‘He’s probably shat himself,’ Liam offers.

  For a full five minutes we use all of our powers of telepathy to encourage him to sit back up until finally we catch sight of his blond head again.

  ‘That’s it,’ I say, ‘now come on.’

  We hear the car start. Charlie reverses it out of its space and drives out of the car park. He doesn’t even look at us as he drives by.

  Charlie

  I CAN SEE Danny’s car following me in the rear view mirror as I drive up the Templeogue road, past the Spawell and turn on to the M50. As I head southbound, they turn right and make their way to the Ballymount Bridge. The plan is that they’ll wait for me to pass under the bridge there, while I start from the Dundrum onramp, giving me enough distance to build up to one hundred miles an hour by the time I reach the bridge. There have only been three occasions in my thirty-three years when I found myself in a situation that I wasn’t exactly sure how I’d arrived there. The first one was making a porno for an Italian bloke who owned a chipper beside the Coombe. He was a bit of a slimeball, full of flattery, but he offered me fifty quid if he could video me banging the two women sitting at his table. At the time, I hadn’t had a proper acting job in over a year. I looked over and from that distance they looked pretty hot. I should have gone over to have a proper look but by then it was too late, and I’d promised him I’d do it. The two women were in their fifties, and I was only about twenty three but I’ve never had a problem finding wood, and I did what I was paid to do and the Italian bloke, Mario, seemed happy enough with my performance, as did the two women I might add. Anyway, I caught sight of myself in a mirror when I was going at full blast and I remember thinking, ‘how the fuck did I get here?’ but not in a good way. Mario wanted me to do some more, even offered me more cash, but I just wasn’t into it. I’ve never been a big fan of porn anyway. For me, having sex or making love is like eating a steak; looking at porn is like watching the cow get butchered. The other time was with my fourth or fifth client, I was only new at the game, and I was sitting naked on a lounger in a suite at the Merrion hotel watching an old Western on TG4 and drinking a glass of Moët and Chandon, and out came the ambassador of Sweden’s wife from the shower, or maybe it was Finland, in a white bathrobe, and she stands in front of me, her hair all wet, and she drops the bathrobe off her shoulders and takes the glass of champagne out of my hand and pours it slowly it over herself. ‘Now drink me,’ she orders. Actually when I think about it, I can hear a German accent. Anyway, as I got off the lounger I caught sight of myself in a mirror and asked myself, ‘how the fuck did I get here?’ but that time in a good way. This time when I saw Danny’s car heading in the opposite direction, I caught sight of myself again and for the third time asked myself that question. This time however, it’s in a bad way. A very bad way. I drive over the M50 at Dundrum and park in the hard shoulder. As the cars flash by me, I’m rocked gently from side to side. A big part of me wants to just get out of the car and walk away. But I can’t. I could drive to the next exit and take the shortcut back to Ballymount, but even with all the noise from the cars as they tear by, there’s a massive amount of silence in the car. I’ve taken a lot of shortcuts in my life. Too many. Just to do something, I reach under the passenger seat and pull out the large blue beacon. It has a coiled electrical lead attached to it, and I take a deep breath and open the window. There are a few switches on the dash, and I flick one of them to ‘ON’ and an ear piercing siren wails and frightens the shite out of me, and I drop the beacon onto my lap. I flick the switch to OFF but nothing happens, so I flick another switch and the beacon comes alive on my lap, its insides revolving around and lighting up the inside of the car in bright blue. A bit blinded by its intensity, I reach over and flick another switch and the siren stops, leaving only the sound of the rotating beacon whirling round and round. I turn off the second switch and the light stops. My pulse is racing now, but I take a few deep breaths and watch the traffic going by. I pick up the beacon again and stick it out of the window. I can hear the magnetic base sticking to the roof. This time when I flick the proper switch I can hear the whirling motor above my head. ‘Okay,’ I say to myself and take another deep breath. All the brake lights going by me now are flashing red, and the feeling of a little power gives me some strength. Being prepared for it this time, when I switch on the siren, it doesn’t seem so loud. Sticking the car into first, I take off and ease into the traffic. Almost instantly, the other cars slow down and let me merge. I move my way through the gears and by the time I’m in fourth, I’m in the fast lane and have reached over sixty miles an hour. Large expensive cars that I catch up with, slow down and get out of my way. I feel a rush as I put the car into fifth gear. I look at the speedometer as I pass Rathfarnham. Seventy. Now if cars aren’t getting out of my way quickly enough I move into a different lane, zigzagging my way between them. The wail of the siren becomes less and less as it struggles to be heard above the roar of the engine, and memories of a whole summer spent in Courtown playing a video game for twenty pence a go, come back to me. Eighty miles an hour. This is great. I’m so focused on the cars ahead of me, that I’m not sure why I glance in my rear view mirror. A sense that I’m being watched. Suddenly, the combined sounds of the siren, the roaring engine, the wind whistling around the car all stop, and I’m surrounded by silence. I see a white helmet sitting on top of the yellow reflective jacket of a Garda and the blue flashing siren of his motorbike all charging towards me. When I turn back to face the front, the roar of noise floods back at me.

  I feel my shoulders collapse under the weight. The speedometer just then hits one hundred miles per hour.

  Danny

  THE MOTORWAY bends inwards, north and south, like a giant question mark. We’re parked on the hard shoulder, leaning against the car, as the other cars scream past us; people rushing to their next destination, the next moment in their lives, where there’s always the possibility that things will be better, where their ambitions will be reached and where happiness is just around the corner. Dashing to their jobs to bitch about their home life, then dashing home to bitch about work.

  We shoot each other furtive glances, but there’s nothing to say. Both Nick and Liam looked tired; their eyes a little unfocused, their hair messy, their posture a little worn. Liam’s clothes that were so sharp and pressed yesterday hang on him ruffled and blunt. I’ve no doubt that I look the same, or worse. I feel it anyway. I run my tongue along the inside of my mouth and feel the huge lump.

  We finally see what we’ve been hoping and waiting for. About three miles away a blue light winks at us the promise of an impending thrill. We push ourselves off the car and focus on the horizon. Next we hear the siren and feel like children hearing an ice cream van. As if the roar of his engine and siren have an avalanche effect on the clouds, they split open, and heavy drops of rain bounce off the road, the cars and us. The tiredness falls off us, washed away by the rain, but it has little effect in dampening our spirits. Steaming rain trails off the backs of the cars as they go by, like dancing demons onto the drivers behind them, enveloping their windscreens with huge flurries of soaking wet smoke.

  It’s Nick who spots it first. ‘Em, how many blue lights do you see?’

  Silence.

  ‘Oh fuck,’ I say.

  We can hear the siren more clearly now, and just like the beacon’s twin, we can hear the second siren out of sync with Charlie’s, as if they were two mating calls vying for the same female.

  ‘It’s a bike,’ Nick screams. ‘A cop bike.’

  ‘What do we do?’ Liam asks.

  ‘We’re in shit,’ I say.

  ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here,’ Liam says and turns back to the car.

  Charlie’s car is clearly visible now, and we can just about see Charlie’s blond head behind the wheel. His windscreen wipers are going at full blast but the bike is just behind him.

  ‘He’s fucked,’ Nick shouts at me above the rain.


  ‘We’re all fucked,’ I tell him and run back to the car. Nick has one last look at the two blue beacons tearing down on us and follows me.

  We are all back in the car by the time Charlie passes us. All eyes follow his as he goes by in a blur of blue water and noise, a brief moment of eye contact, and then he’s gone; the motorbike barely a car’s length behind him and going so fast that the rain seems to part for him.

  After only a few seconds of frozen disbelief, my senses return, and I start the car and take off after them.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Liam asks, but I don’t answer. I’ve no idea what I’m going to do.

  I work my way quickly through the gears of the BMW and soon have them back in our sights. Charlie has slowed down a little. I can’t imagine what’s going through his head. Nick tries to phone him but he doesn’t answer. Before we get to Liffey Valley, we see the bike pull up alongside of him. Charlie has slowed down to about seventy miles per hour now. The Garda signals to Charlie, but Charlie seems to be ignoring him.

  ‘He might as well pull over now,’ Liam says. They are now only a few car lengths ahead of us.

  Nick leans forward in his seat. ‘The copper’s not telling him to pull over,’ he says.

  The Garda signals to him again. We can see Charlie turn to look at him.

  ‘Holy fuck, he thinks Charlie’s a real cop.’

  We see Charlie’s hand go up and give the Garda a thumbs up. Ridiculously the Garda gives him one back.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Liam says. Charlie turns his attention back to the road. The Liffey Valley exit is about half a mile away. Passing the exit is a little red Nissan Micra. Charlie turns back to the Garda and points at the Micra. The Garda looks at him but Charlie points again, this time almost like a command. The Garda nods, slips the bike down a gear and tears off ahead of him.