Surviving Michael

by Birchall, Joseph

  I look into the darkness again as we drive off and I see a tiny red glow flicker for a moment and then go out. I realise that it’s the ember from Ricky’s cigarette burning out and going cold.

  Charlie

  NICK DRIVES and drives, and we argue and argue. I’ve no idea where we are most of the time. I’ve no idea what we’re even arguing about. One road leads into another. One turn flows into another turn. We stay on the smaller roads, heading north of the city. We stop at a petrol station to fill up. Nick buys cigarettes. He gets back in the car, and we argue again. Danny just stares out of the window. I think he’s in shock.

  We end up on Dollymount beach, driving up and down until Nick finally stops, and we all look out at the beach, the sea and the moon above. Everyone is silent for once as we gaze out at Howth and across Dublin Bay into Wicklow. The moon is right above us and seems bigger than normal. It’s like it’s glaring down at us and only us. Disapproving and disappointed.

  ‘Wait here, Danny,’ Nick says. ‘We’ll be back in a minute.’ He turns around and nods with his head for us to follow him, and he gets out of the car.

  ‘Look, there’s no point in arguing anymore,’ I say as we reach the edge of the sea.

  ‘So, what’s the plan then?’ Liam asks.

  ‘What do you mean, what’s the plan?’ Nick says. ‘You’re the one who said, “let’s get out of here”.’

  ‘Well let’s talk about our options,’ he says.

  ‘Our options?’ Nick says. ’Here’s our options. We’re fucked. Option one, we’re fucked. Option two, we’re fucked. Option three, we’re fucked. Is that enough options for you?’

  ‘Jesus, relax, will you?’ Liam says, ‘I don’t know why you’re being so aggressive about it.’

  ‘Right then,’ Nick says, ‘what do you want to do? Let’s hear your way out of this.’

  ‘Well,’ he began, ‘remember that game Pac-man? Do you know what the secret to it was? I’ll tell you - never panic. No matter how close the monster was to eating you, as long as you stayed calm, there was always a way out. Always.’

  ‘Are you taking the piss?’ Nick says to him.

  ‘There’s no need to be so negative,’ Liam says. ‘That’s not going to help.’

  ‘Charlie, shut him up please.’

  ‘Lads,’ I plead, ‘arguing amongst ourselves isn’t going to get us anywhere. Liam’s right, Nick. We need to talk about our options.’

  Nick takes out his cigarettes and then realises he already has one in his hand.

  ‘We have to open to the idea,’ I continue, ‘that, like Liam said, nobody saw us, and that the whole thing will be put down to an accident.’

  ‘And what if it’s not, Charlie?’ Nick says. ‘What if right now the cops are looking for us? What if right now they’re knocking on our doors? Are you open to that idea as well?’

  ‘You’re right, Nick. So what do we do then?’

  ‘We run,’ Liam says.

  ‘Run?’ Nick says. ‘Run where, Liam? To the Mexican border?’

  ‘Mexico? What the fuck’s in Mexico?’

  ‘No wait, Nick. Running is an option,’ I say, then looking at Liam. ‘Maybe not to Mexico though.’

  ‘I’d love to go to Thailand,’ Liam says. ‘The beer’s for nothing, and don’t get me started on the brazzers.’

  ‘Thailand?’ Nick says. ’You hate even going outside of Dublin for fuck’s sake. You don’t even like Chinese food.’

  ‘I didn’t say China, I said Thailand. And anyway now I would like to go.’

  Nick looks tired from all the arguing. He looks over at the car. ‘What about him?’ he says.

  ‘He’ll be alright,’ I say. ‘We’ll take him with us. He’ll be alright after a while.’

  ‘So are we going then?’ Liam asks.

  Nick lets out a big sigh and says, ‘what about money?’

  ‘We’ll go to the banks first thing in the morning and take out whatever we have,’ I say.

  ‘Okay,’ Nick says, ‘I have about seven or eight grand. What about you?’

  ‘Em, about four or five?’ I say.

  ‘Thousand?’

  ‘Hundred.’

  ‘Jesus, we’ll be lucky to be able to afford tickets to Thailand, never mind fucking live there. Liam, what about you?’

  ‘About sixty grand.’

  ‘Holy fuck,’ I say. ‘Where’d you get that?’

  ‘His porno sales,’ Nick says, and Liam’s silence confirms it.

  ‘We should go to London first or at least to some part of England,’ I suggest, ‘then after a bit, we can decide where to go.’

  ‘We could always turn ourselves in,’ Nick says.

  Liam and I look at each other but don’t say anything.

  ‘It’s another option,’ Nick says.

  No matter what we decide to do, it won’t change what’s already happened. I’m about to say this when Nick says, ‘we can’t stay here all night,’ and starts to walk back to the car.

  I follow after him.

  ‘Wait,’ Liam calls to us, ‘what day is it?’

  We stop and turn around. ‘Sunday,’ I say.

  Nick looks at his watch, ‘Monday morning actually.’

  He stands looking at us, and we stand looking at him. He smiles mischievously. I can’t help but smile as well, and turn to Nick.

  ‘No,’ Nick says and walks away. ‘No fucking way.’

  Liam walks quickly after him. ‘But if we’re already as fucked as you say, then we can’t be any more fucked than we already are. Do you see what I mean?’

  ‘No,’ Nick says and continues walking back to the car.

  ‘We could live like kings for years with that kind of money,’ I tell him. Liam and I are now like dogs yelping at his heels.

  ‘Well, I think we should at least think about it,’ Liam says.

  ‘Well, think about it silently,’ Nick says as he gets into the car.

  Liam and I get in the back and look at Danny.

  ‘He’s still in shock,’ I say.

  ‘He’ll be alright,’ Nick says, but not convincingly, and then starts the car.

  Nick

  WE DRIVE SLOWLY off Dollymount beach and away from its sea; the moon watching us as we head back into the city in search of a life that isn’t there for us anymore. No one is talking. I switch on the radio and Jeff Buckley singing ‘Hallelujah’ serenades us as we drive through Clontarf and into the city centre. The last dregs of another Sunday night litter the streets. Waves of people dispersing from the city back to their homes in the suburbs like ripples on a lake spreading outwards from the epicentre of a fallen rock.

  It’s a normal Sunday night. Nothing has changed. So what if a man has died needlessly tonight? People still have to eat; still have to get drunk; have a good time; get laid; enjoy life; hate life. The world can’t stop turning for one more tragedy. Tomorrow on the news, Ricky’s death will be listened to with the interest shown when driving past a dead cat on the side of the road.

  As I approach my house, I switch off my lights, and park a couple of streets away. I have to lean forward over the steering wheel to see my road. A Garda car is parked outside with its lights off. They both have their windows down and one of them has a cigarette in his hand and is blowing smoke up into the air. Great police work, lads.

  Charlie and Liam lean over me to see, and then they both sink back into their seats. Even Danny turns his head and looks at them but doesn’t change his expression.

  We don’t say anything. What can we say? We all knew already anyway.

  I reverse down the street and away from my house. Away from all we know. I switch back on the lights, lighting an untraveled, unfamiliar and unknown road ahead, and leaving everything we know or once knew in the darkness behind.

  Monday

  Nick

  I WAKE UP to the sounds of a lorry emptying out several large industrial-sized bins. For a moment I think that I’m lying in my bed listening to the inconsiderate bin men disturbin
g my slumber outside my window until I turn my neck slightly and the pain shoots down my back. My head is pressed against the car window, and, opening my eyes, I sit up slowly keeping my head at an awkward angle to my body.

  I blink violently, trying to adjust my eyes to the light, and very delicately try to align my head into some sort of a vertical relationship with the rest of my body. I groan involuntarily. When I finally reach what I deem to be the lowest possible form of physical discomfort, I turn to Danny. He’s awake. I don’t know if he’s slept at all, and I don’t ask him. With his left hand, he keeps turning his granny’s gold wedding ring around and around on his finger.

  I look in the back at the other two. They are lying across each other and an image of Torvill and Dean at the end of their Bolero comes to mind. A chuckle escapes from my mouth but is cut short by a spasm of pain across my neck.

  We had parked and then spent the night in a car park of a McDonald’s near Churchtown. There were only a couple of other cars beside us, one of which is clamped. The small digital clock on Danny’s car reads 8:01. The front door of the restaurant opens and a guy carrying a mop and bucket starts to wash down the entrance.

  ‘Do you fancy a coffee?’ I ask Danny.

  He stops turning the ring on his finger and turns to me and attempts to say something. After a couple of tries, I put my hand on his arm. ‘It’s okay,’ I tell him. ‘Let’s get some coffee, alright?’

  He nods and I open the car door and step outside, my bones audibly and shockingly creaking as I stretch. I walk around to Danny’s side, and seeing that he hasn’t moved, I open the door for him. He looks at the door opening as if it were magically opening by itself, but when I touch him on the shoulder, he looks up at me and climbs out.

  I lean in and yell at the other two, ‘hey, wake up. We’re getting some breakfast.’

  They jump a little, still wrapped in each other’s arms, but then looking at each other, violently push each other away.

  ‘Get the fuck off me,’ Charlie yells at him.

  ‘You’d your arms around me, ye bender,’ Liam shouts back.

  They both stretch their legs and arms, and Liam, mid-stretch, yawns and then lets out a thunderous fart that echoes throughout the car.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ I say, as Charlie bails out of the side. He’s about to hurl abuse at Liam but I raise my hand to him.

  ‘Let’s try to keep as low a profile as possible,’ I tell him.

  ‘That’ll be hard when you’re walking round with the best looking bloke in Ireland,’ he says, and then points at the car. ‘And the fattest.’

  Inside the restaurant I order two coffees.

  ‘Anything else?’ the girl asks.

  ‘A double espresso, please,’ Charlie says.

  His bulk pushing me to the side, Liam steps in front of me, his eyes scanning over the menu boards as if viewing a mountain range in the distance.

  ‘Yeah, em, hi… give me em, two Egg McMuffins, three hash browns and pancakes with maple syrup please.’

  ‘Anything to drink?’ the girl asks.

  ‘Strawberry milk shake.’

  ‘Do you want that supersized?’

  Charlie looks at her and says, ‘what do you think, love?’ and Liam throws him a dirty look.

  ‘I thought you said you were going to lose a bit of weight before your date with that girl,’ I says to him.

  ‘Not much chance of that happening now, is there?’ he says.

  I suppose he’s right.

  We sit and eat in silence. A man and his three-year-old son are sitting beside us. I see Danny watching the boy, who’s sitting quietly and eating his pancakes. The father throws us a few furtive glances, and I don’t blame him. I nudge Danny and nod at him to stop staring. He looks away and then into the blackness of his coffee.

  ‘Are we all in agreement as to what we’re going to do then?’ I ask.

  ‘I’m in if everyone else is,’ Liam says.

  ‘No, Liam,’ I say, ‘it doesn’t matter who’s in or not, you have to make your own choice here. If something goes wrong then you have only yourself to blame. Charlie?’

  He sighs and doesn’t say anything.

  ‘Charlie?’ I say again.

  ‘To be honest, I think we should think about it a bit more,’ he says.

  ‘What’s to think about? You didn’t say that last night.’ Liam says.

  ‘This is serious shit, Liam,’ Charlie says, ‘we should at least talk about it a bit.’

  ‘Well,’ Liam says, looking at his watch, ‘we have about three more hours, so if you want to talk about it, then you’d better talk fast.’

  I see a van pull up outside, and the driver throws a bundle of newspapers at the front door. Liam and Charlie start to argue, quietly at least, as I walk over to the food counter. One of the staff is opening up the bundle.

  ‘Mind if I take one?’ I say, and he hands me the morning newspaper.

  I flick open the first page until I find what I’m looking for. On page two is an article with the headline - ‘Four Suspects Sought in Death of Bartender’ I feel the coffee in my stomach climb back up into my throat, and I have to force it back down. I grab a table to stop myself from falling. I try to read the article but my head is spinning and the words are swimming around on the page. I feel as if everyone is looking at me. Are they looking at me because I’m about to throw up or because they know I’m a wanted fugitive.

  I take a few deep breaths and walk back to the table.

  Charlie

  USUALLY WHENEVER Liam has an idea, or he’s involved in any way in its conception, planning or execution, I’ve found from previous experience that it’s best to have nothing whatsoever to do with it. As good as you might think it sounds, and as tempting the end result may initially appear, generally something’s going to fuck up, and you’re going to be the one left holding the shit end of the stick.

  ‘You haven’t got the balls to do it,’ Liam says to me.

  ‘Are you having a laugh?’ I ask him. ‘This from a guy who three days ago couldn’t muster up enough courage to walk up to a girl and say hello?’

  ‘That was different,’ he says. ‘It wouldn’t bother me now.’

  An opened newspaper falls in front of us, and we both jump back a little. We read the headline.

  We both say the same thing, with the exception that I whisper it, whereas Liam screams it to the whole restaurant.

  ‘Holy fuck,’ he says and stands up out of his chair.

  Everyone in McDonald’s looks over at Liam. Then at us. As if a blanket has been lifted off us, we’re visible. I see a man across from us looking back down at his paper, as if searching for more information.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Nick says firmly, and grabs Danny by the arm, lifting him. They walk towards the main door, Liam and I following them, fighting over the newspaper. It seems so bright outside. It’s going to be another hot day. It’s a strange thing to think, but I can’t imagine it’s ever going to rain in Ireland again. The car park is busier now, but Danny’s bright blue BMW still stands out like an Armani suit on a clothes rack in Lidl. Nick says what I’m thinking.

  ‘We need to switch cars.’

  ‘I could borrow me Ma’s,’ Liam says. ‘She wouldn’t mind me taking it for a few days.’

  ‘You know sometimes,’ Nick says to him, ‘I can’t figure out half the time whether you’re taking the piss or not. And to be honest, I don’t know which is scarier.’

  ‘They say that the brain uses twenty percent of your calorie intake,’ I say. ‘Maybe why he’s so fat. His brain is obviously only using about two percent.’

  A silver SUV pulls up to our left in the ‘waiting for orders’ section. The driver’s window is open and we can hear him shouting.

  ‘...we just don’t use that word, and I don’t want to hear it again.’

  ‘But why, Daddy?’ we hear a little girl ask.

  ‘Because it’s a bad word, Sweetie, and it makes baby Jesus cry.’

  ‘But
Jamie said it first.’

  ‘Okay, but next time just say it was the F-word, okay?’

  ‘Okay, Daddy.’

  ‘Just wait here a second. I’ll be right back,’ he says and he gets out, and pushing his way through us, goes inside.

  I look at Nick and he turns and looks at me. Without saying anything we walk straight up to the SUV. I open the back door.

  ‘Hey, Sweetie,’ I say unbuckling a four year old girl from her seat, ‘Daddy said he wants you to go into McDonald’s after him.’

  I place her on the ground and push her gently towards the front doors of the restaurant and she happily goes inside. Nick puts Danny in the passenger seat and runs back around to the driver’s side. I finally get the kid’s seat unhooked from the seat belt and throw it onto the ground. Liam is already seated in the back as Nick rams the gear stick into first and revs the engine. As the SUV lurches forward, the front door to McDonald’s opens and ‘Daddy’ comes bolting out like a man possessed.

  ‘You fuckers,’ he screams, charging after us. ‘You fucking fuckers,’

  ‘You’re supposed to say the F-word,’ I call out the window to him.

  Nick slams on the brakes and we all shoot forward in our seats. I quickly turn around and see that the Daddy, surprised at this, has also stopped. Probably not sure exactly what he’s going to do when he catches up with us.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Liam says, as Nick bends down to Danny’s feet and comes up holding a little brown-haired dog. He opens the door and gently places the dog on the road, and then turns his head and looks straight into the eyes of Daddy before closing the door gently and calmly driving out of the car park. Danny has turned in his seat and is looking back at the restaurant. I thought he was looking at the man, but he’s just standing there, angry but resigned, and then I see what has Danny’s attention. He’s watching his shiny blue car getting smaller and smaller, until eventually when it’s out of sight, he turns back around in his seat and stares out of the window again.