‘Knock me out, Bobby. Knock me out, Bobby.’
Bobby tried to focus on Wilson’s left glove. He saw it dropping. He faked a left punch and followed it with a massive right hook. It connected flush on the side of Wilson’s head, knocking him straight to the canvas. Bobby was sent to the corner of the ring while the referee counted to eight. Wilson didn’t make it to his feet on time. The referee put his arms out to signal the end of the fight. Bobby didn’t feel the elation he thought he would. Anto jumped into the ring and lifted him up in the air.
‘You did it, you did it.’
The referee approached Bobby and signalled for him to go to the opposing corner to shake hands. He gave Wilson a hug.
‘Well done,’ said his coach.
‘It was a lucky punch.’
The difference between the winner’s trophy and the loser’s trophy was twelve inches. A photographer took a picture of both boxers holding their marble-bottomed plastic statues. Bobby looked down to see his dad and brother at ringside. Kevin had never seen Bobby fight. It was the first time Bobby had seen him looking proud of one of his achievements.
His dad lifted him up in the air, too, when he came down the steps of the ring.
‘Well done,’ said Kevin. ‘That was some punch.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Are you coming home with us?’
Bobby looked at Anto.
‘I’m going to stay and watch a few fights. I’ll go home with Anto.’
His dad didn’t object. Bobby put the trophy in his kitbag. It just about fitted. Anto took the tape off his hands and left him on his own to change. Bobby had no intention of staying to watch any more fights. He was going to Temple Street to show Jay his All-Ireland trophy, just like he said he would. He walked into the auditorium and saw Anto talking to one of the white-jacketed referees. He sneaked around the opposite side and walked out into the cool night air, a champion.
Bobby calculated that the run from the National Stadium to Temple Street was seven kilometres. He could jog a kilometre in five minutes without being out of breath. It was quicker to jog than to take the bus. And free.
Temple Street had visiting hours. That meant Bobby had to bonk in. If he could bonk into Dalymount, he knew he could bonk into a hospital that had a front door that was never locked. Jay’s motto of not looking suspicious was in his head. Bobby strolled straight past the reception desk, not needing to glance sideways to see a nurse busy scribbling something on a chart. He walked slowly up the wide staircase, holding the mahogany banister for support. It was shining and smelled of fresh polish. Each step creaked, even under Bobby’s slight, thirty-one-kilo frame. The marble base had stuck into Bobby’s back on the run, but it was only a little bit of pain, so he ignored it.
The noise was gone. The noise of the beeping machine. Jay was lying much lower in the bed. Bobby noticed the tubes were gone. Jay’s hands were under the sheet, which was pulled up onto his face. He was asleep without the tubes. Bobby felt a rush of excitement when he realised Jay didn’t need the machines any more.
‘I brought you a Pepsi.’
He did his magic trick to stop it spilling, and the noise the lid made was amplified by the silence.
‘And I brought you the trophy.’
Bobby pulled the sheet back and put the trophy alongside Jay.
‘I wore your vest. You’re going to love it. It has your initials on it.’
Bobby dipped his little finger into the can and let a drop fall on Jay’s lips. He expected to see that cheeky smile. There was no reaction at all. The black drop dripped down Jay’s lip and rested on his chin, before falling sideways down his face. Bobby heard the unmistakeable sound of sobbing. The repetitive breaths in, followed by the repetitive breaths out. It got louder and louder. Bernie walked in with a priest dressed in black, and a nurse dressed in white on either side of her. It was like they were holding her up, but she was walking. She looked up and saw Bobby.
‘No,’ she screamed. ‘Please God, no.’
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Bobby.
The priest got down on his hunkers and looked Bobby in the eye.
‘Jay passed away.’
‘But I brought him a Pepsi. Try giving him the Pepsi,’ said Bobby, getting agitated.
He took the can and tried to pour it in Jay’s mouth. It fizzed up on his lips and spilled down his face.
‘Bobby, he’s dead,’ shrieked Bernie.
‘No, he’s not. He needs the Pepsi. Give him the Pepsi.’
Bobby tried to give Jay another drink. The priest grabbed his arm and took the can. He held Bobby in a hug. Bobby didn’t want to be hugged by him. Or anybody. Jay couldn’t be dead. He was only thirteen.
Bobby wriggled free and ran past Bernie and the nurse. He didn’t stop running. He ran outside. He didn’t have his bag with him. It didn’t matter. He ran as fast as he could, down the canal over the bridge, down Sackville Avenue and home. He stood outside his house and looked around. These streets were his, and Jay’s. Jay couldn’t be dead.
‘Show me the trophy.’
Laura was delighted and she wanted Bobby to be, too.
‘I left it with Jay.’
‘You went to the hospital?’
She looked at him for a moment, not sure if he was messing or not. Bobby felt his brain changing. It started to tingle.
‘How could you get to the hospital and back so quick?’ asked his dad.
Why did that matter? thought Bobby. His throat had dried up and he couldn’t answer.
‘Jay is dead,’ he managed to get out.
He sat down on the edge of the couch. His mother jumped down on the floor in front of him.
‘Oh, Jesus. Oh Lord Jesus Christ,’ she cried out.
His mam never even went to church.
Bobby prayed to Jay, asking him to stop the flow of pee. Jay answered and he was dry. For the first time ever, Bobby heard someone downstairs before him. His mam read out loud the article that mentioned Jay in the paper. She showed him the death notice. It said there would be a wake at Jay’s address, followed by funeral mass in St Agatha’s Church. Bobby could see huge black bags under his mam’s eyes. She worried about most things all the time, so he knew she was horrified by what had happened.
‘What’s a wake?’
‘The wake is where they lay the body out in the home of the family for people to come and pay their respects.’
‘And it stays in the house for two days?’
‘It does. It’s an older way of doing things. When someone so young dies, it’s a nice way of allowing people to pay their respects.’
Bobby thought it was ironic that laying a dead body out was called a wake. Why didn’t they call it a sleep?
Bobby was nervous before going up to the flat. He was made to wear his Confirmation suit. His mam and dad held hands as they walked him down the avenue. Bobby walked behind them, thinking about how he had held hands with Jay when they jumped off the wall of the paper factory. From the bottom of Sackville Avenue, he could see there was a queue coming out the bottom of the stairwell, and out onto the street. Bobby thought of the number of times he had raced Jay up and down stairwells. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to see Jay’s dead body again. He heard Jay’s voice in his head. ‘Don’t chicken out now. Come and see me.’
He turned around and saw Anto standing behind him. Anto shook hands with Bobby’s mam and dad. Nobody was talking. People were walking down the stairwell with their heads bowed, not making eye contact with anyone. The line moved slowly but, before he knew it, Bobby was at the front door. He could feel himself welling up. He didn’t want to cry, but he knew he had no control over his tears. A few people were standing on the stairs inside the flat. He could see the coffin laid out in the living room. He couldn’t see inside it from where he was standing, but he could see it was surrounded by flowers and people. Inside the living room, people paused at the right-hand side of the coffin, and said a prayer, before moving around to pay their condolences to Bern
ie. Bobby blessed himself the way Jay had shown him. Three taps of the hands together and then he kissed them. Jay was wearing a navy suit Bobby had never seen him in before. He had a white shirt and red tie on. The tie was on properly, not all over the place. Bobby wanted to loosen so it looked like his school tie. He closed his eyes and spoke to Jay in his head.
I hope you can hear me.
You were the most amazing friend anyone could ever have.
I’m sorry I didn’t save you.
I miss you more than anything in the world.
There’ll never be anyone else like you.
The flats will miss you and I’ll miss you.
Thanks for never calling me a piss-in-the-bed.
He opened his eyes and thought he saw Jay’s cheeky smile. He leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. Three teardrops fell on his face. He didn’t want to move away as he knew it would be the last time he would ever see him. His feet were frozen to the spot. He felt his dad’s hand on his shoulder, pressing him forwards. He took a few steps and found himself in front of Bernie.
‘I’m sorry, Bernie.’
She stood up and hugged him, whispering in his ear.
‘You have nothing to be sorry for. I have your jersey on his bed. Why don’t you go up and get it. He loved when you two were up there together.’
She hugged him again before talking to Matt and Laura. Bobby made his way upstairs. The Liverpool shirt was on the bed. Beside it was his trophy. He opened the drawer on Jay’s locker and saw the picture Jay had of the Ballybough United team. Of all the boys in the picture, Jay was the happiest. He had his arm around Bobby in the back row. Everyone else looked very serious. Jay looked like he had been told the funniest joke he had ever heard. That is the way he always was, smiley Jay. Bobby was glad he had got one last smile from him. Underneath the photo was the tape box where he kept his money. He picked it up, and saw that there was something still inside. Then the door opened. He grabbed his jersey and covered the tape box.
‘Are you all right Bobby?’ asked Anto.
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Bobby didn’t answer him.
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything to save him.’
Anto left him alone, the way he wanted it. He opened the tape box and could see the packages that Jay had taken squashed into the notes. Bobby closed it and held it to his chest. He slid it into the inside pocket of his jacket.
He picked up the Liverpool shirt and gripped it as hard as he could. He could see his mam and dad from the top of the stairs. They were talking on the balcony outside the front door. Bobby got to the front door and turned left back towards the coffin. He had the folded shirt in his hands. He skipped to the front of the line, and placed the shirt at Jay’s side. He touched his hand off Jay’s and walked by Bernie again. She reached out and grabbed him, nearly bear-hugging him to death.
‘He’ll be glad you did that. He can wear it in heaven.’
‘He’ll be captain of the team.’
Bobby took the suit off and hung it back in his wardrobe. He never wanted to wear it again. He took the tape box out and opened it. He counted the money. There was one hundred and fifty pounds. And three lumps of heroin. He put it under the floorboards in the corner of the room where his dad always put the mousetraps. There was an old trap still there with what was once a lump of cheddar cheese on it.
He lay on the bed and thought about whether he would rather be with Jay in heaven or playing in Ballybough without him. He wasn’t sure of the answer. He thought about whether it was Anto’s fault that Jay was dead. He thought and thought. It was all he could do. He didn’t ask to go out because he had nobody to hang around with. He stared out his window at Croke Park, with an endless supply of moments to remember. He laughed to himself when he remembered how sick they felt after drinking all the orange juice. He decided he would never snare a pigeon again, though every time he saw a pigeon he would think of Jay. Every time he heard the word Liverpool he saw Jay flying around the pitch in heaven. He thought of all the times he thought of death and never mentioned it to Jay, embarrassed that Jay might never have thought of death.
Everywhere he went he thought of Jay. If he opened his eyes, he saw something that reminded him of Jay. Every time he closed them, he saw a past memory of Jay. When he lay on his bed looking at the laths above him, he got sad. He touched where he had written Jay’s initials. He tried counting the laths over and over to stop himself thinking of Jay, but, in a way, he didn’t want to stop thinking about him. It made him sad to remember him, but the thought of not remembering him made him even sadder.
Bobby wasn’t surprised how many people were at Jay’s funeral. His mam told him it was a big deal that somebody so young would die from drugs. The church was packed, with hundreds left outside. He sat seven rows back on the left-hand side. Bernie sat in the front row on the right. Bobby didn’t hear anything the priest said. Bobby counted how many people were in each row, and how many rows there were. He saw the two detectives sitting together, just staring straight ahead. At the end, people went up to shake Bernie’s hand. Bobby didn’t want to. He had cried enough, and didn’t want to get upset again. At the burial in Glasnevin Cemetery, the sun shone down while it lashed rain at the same time. Bernie screamed at the sight of Jay’s coffin joining his father’s. It was a scream Bobby had never heard before. It echoed around the gravestones. Bobby just wanted to leave. He had cried himself dry. His eyes stung and his head ached. His dad threw a handful of muck into the hole in the ground after the coffin was lowered. Bobby felt a frozen fear, the thought of looking into the dark hole was too much for him to contemplate.
CHAPTER 14
Bobby stayed in his room, and remembered only the happy thoughts about Jay. He went over full days’ adventures in his head. He reckoned he could fill his mind with amazing thoughts of Jay for the rest of his life. He knew he would never forget about him, not one minute would go by for the rest of his life, that he wouldn’t think about Jay.
The quiet was broken by four solid knocks on the front door. Bobby heard someone come in, but he didn’t go out to the landing to check who it was. He was too drained to care. It was about ten minutes later when he heard his mother coming up the stairs. She always said to him that he sounded like a herd of elephants going down the stairs; she sounded like a herd coming up.
‘Can you come downstairs, please?’
‘Why?’
‘The detectives want to ask you a few more questions.’
He didn’t answer, he just followed her down, mimicking her footsteps.
‘Hello, Bobby,’ McNeill said.
He wondered if Burns did any talking at all. He nodded at McNeill. He didn’t even try to wipe the tears away. He had never felt as exhausted in his life. He didn’t know if he would be able to run even a hundred yards.
‘I don’t know if you know, but we’ve made some arrests. We have been given some information that could land you in a lot of trouble. We have already talked to your mam and dad, and we told them that the last thing we want is for you to get in trouble. All we need is for you to tell us the truth. We arrested Willo Brown, who told us that Jay, and you, were working for Anto. That you were delivering drugs for him.’
‘Tell them that’s not true son.’
Bobby could feel himself getting weaker by the second, if that was possible.
‘Can I get a drink of water, please?’
‘We need you to tell us everything you did for Anto. If you don’t want to tell us, which I’m sure is not the case, we’ll have to arrest you too. You will probably end up in a children’s jail.’
Bobby didn’t want to end up in a children’s jail. Gringo might be there. He was quickly working out in his head what he should say, and what he shouldn’t.
‘Anto, it’s an evil person who makes children do his dirty work.’
Bobby thought if McNeill knew everything, then why was he asking questions? He knew Anto wouldn’t have said anyt
hing. He couldn’t believe Jay would have told Willo Brown what they were doing. If he did, Willo must have told the police and ratted on Anto. All Bobby knew was that he wanted it to end.
‘Anto asked us to help him with his garden. And to deliver a few videos for him.’
‘What type of videos?’
‘Boxing videos. We watched a few of them in his house, and he had a few friends who were into boxing too.’
‘And these videos, what did they look like?’
Bobby thought this was the stupidest question he had ever heard.
‘They looked like videos.’
‘Were they in boxes?’
‘They were in video boxes.’
‘Where did you bring the videos?’
Bobby didn’t like Micka or Johnny.
‘To a fella called Johnny who lived in the Strand flats. And a fella called Micka who lived in the Sean MacDermott Street flats.’
‘How many times did you bring videos to Johnny and Micka?’
The truth was he didn’t know exactly how many times. He knew he had made about three hundred pounds, which was sixty deliveries.
‘About sixty times.’
‘Sixty times?’
‘Yes.’
‘And how did Anto get you to do this?’
‘He would hand us the video and say “Bring this to Micka,” or “Bring this to Johnny” and we would do it.’
‘The information we have is that you knew what was in the videos. And that Jay, and possibly you too, had then sold some of this to somebody else.’
Bobby knew where the information was coming from now. It was scumbag Willo Brown. He knew Jay had sold some to Willo. Why would Willo tell them that, though? Unless he was trying to save his own ass.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Bobby, if someone stands up in court and says, “Bobby Ryan was delivering heroin to people,” it will stain your character for the rest of your life. It will bring shame on your family.’
The Runners Page 11