by Shaun Herron
At eleven, they turned the key in the door and filled the house with light. Yes, it would be better this time. Joy in their genitals, anticipation warm in their eyes.
“Do we eat first?”
“There’s another floor up there.”
“Leave it. Pick the bed you want to sleep in.”
“You slept last night.” Laughter. Kiss me. Hold me. Touch me. “Let’s not sleep much tonight.”
“Look, there’s ham and milk and bananas in this fridge. . . .”
They ate in the little kitchen. Lashings of ham, sliced bread, bananas, coffee. “We’ll wash up later.”
He undressed her slowly, scorched her with counseling words, flooded her with tenderness, loved her with passion, laughed with her jubilant thanks. Triumph. She held him hard for a long time. Then she said, “Let’s wash the dishes and come back to bed.” Loving little mother.
In a closet she found a large fat woman’s dressing gown and paraded in it like a little girl dressing up. He put on his trousers. They washed the dishes, talking, laughing, full of young joy.
She said, believing it, “I’ve been in love with you, Johnny, since the day I met you. Daddy’ll help. . . .”
Times past are past. Times to come are on the doorstep.
The pain was back wild and gnawing.
Powers groped in the dark for the black bag on the floor by the bed. He groped in it for another needle. An attic light in this house would shine out across the town like a beacon. He cursed his shoulder and felt sick and blind with pain. The needle went in clumsily and he moaned to stifle the screaming in his head. Laughing too. He could hear laughter in his head. I’m gain out of my fuckin mind.
Kneeling, head on the bed, he moaned away agony, waiting for relief. The laughter in his head troubled him. What he imagined it could mean troubled him. When relief came he lay down again, moaning now with sweet ease that grew steadily sweeter. But the laughter stayed in his head. He listened to it.
Not in my fuckin head at all. Downstairs. He’s here. And he brought a piece of cunt with him. The gun, under the pillow. The doctor was right. The widow-woman sent him here. He apologized to the doctor and walked softly to the head of the attic stairs. Holy Jasus, washin the dishes! And her laughin.
Her laughter started the music in his head. It sang down into his throat, high sweet music down into his chest, through his belly into his groin. The swelling started. The pleasure of it! He could wait now. He knew how to do it. Wait till they finish the dishes. He stood back from the top of the stairs looking down into the lobby below. The little kitchen was off the lobby. They’d come out, cross the lobby into them big rooms. Then he’d go down. Quiet. McManus had a gun. But he knew how to do it.
The dishes were done. There was silence. Then soft laughter. They came across the lobby, arms around waists. No shirt, by God, and her in some big blue tent. He’s been up her already and me sleepin! The door across the hall from the kitchen closed. He stood a while thinking of it. The pleasure of it.
Then he went down, testing every step.
They were not in the big drawing room. There were no voices, no sounds in it. He put the gun in his sling and turned the handle with herculean patience. It struck him for the first time—there were three doors into this big room. All of them were closed. And there were voices behind the one straight ahead. Soft laughin. Getting her up for a night’s good fuckin.
Wackadoo wackadoo wackadoo.
Won’t fuckin McManus be surprised. The music was exquisite; higher, sweeter; his groin harder.
What’s better, Pat, killin or fuckin?
They’re both about the same.
He crossed the room on the thickest carpet he had ever walked on. He took the gun from his sling. He stood outside the door. They were still laughin, soft-like, cuddlin laughin.
Knock or throw it open? They were good locks. Thon one in the door from the lobby opened like it was oiled every day. The hinges had no sound in them. He put the gun back in the sling. No knock. McManus had a gun. He’d have it close. He’d reach it before a knock died. But thon cuddlin would fill his head. Open the door and watch them. Who hears any thin when a woman has her fingers on your cock?
Slowly. Slower than before. It turned almost without movement. Push the door an inch, to clear the catch. Get the gun back in your fist. They’re still cuddle-Iaughin. He pushed the door. It opened slowly, smoothly, silently; wide.
They were lying across the edge of the bed, their feet trailing to the floor. McManus’s trousers were about his ankles. Brendine’s voluminous splendor was pulled up to her thighs and McManus’s hand was out of sight in the ample, bundled folds.
“Will you want to do this when I’m fifty, Johnny?” she asked him.
“There y’are, are ye, Johnny?” Powers said.
They shot off the bed, onto their feet, like figures in a Chaplin comedy. She stood frozen, terrified and lost in the smothering folds of a fat woman’s dressing gown. McManus stood gawk-mouthed, paralyzed, his trousers about his ankles, to face his executioner.
“Never saw a cock go softer faster,” Powers said.
“I have to inform you,” he said with instant ludicrous formality and some difficulty, “that you, John McManus, has been lawfully condemned t’death by a proper court of the Irish Republican Army and I am here to carry out the sentence forthwith.” He felt a certain pride. This was a formal action, an official act, for and on behalf of a greater power. He was an em . . . an emminisery.
The girl’s scream hurt his head. He shot her through the face.
The bullet knocked her back onto the bed, her arms askew, her legs apart, her feet flat on the floor, a rag doll.
“The widow-woman told me I could get y’here, McManus.”
“Piteous Jesus Kate no no no not you Kate,” like the crying of a beaten dog.
Powers shot him through the heart. The bullet knocked him back onto the bed, splayed out beside Brendine. His face was deformed by an ancient anguish.
That was that.
Powers lifted the girl’s skirt and dropped it. “Skinanbone,” he said. He had done his duty. They said don’t come back till y’kill him. And there he was, lookin a right bloody eejit w’his trousers round his shins. What way would he look? He never was anythin. “Y’was niver the kind,” Powers said with contempt, and dismissed a life. The girl didn’t come into this. “In war there’s always people gettin kilt that shoulda been some other place,” Clune always said. Fuck Clune too.
What else?
He looked about the room like a housewife finishing for the night. Aye, there was McManus’s gun. The capture of enemy arms is a military virtue. It wasn’t under the pillow where it shoulda been. Eejit. It wasn’t anywhere obvious where it shoulda been. Right y’are, right y’are, Johnny, boyo. He took the clasp knife from his pocket and opened it with his teeth. The pillows first. He hacked at them with rising glee. There was no gun. He wasn’t looking for any gun. There wasn’t any gun. There was an ignorant eejit that didn’t know his arse from his elbow. Hack for the hell of it, hack hack hack every fuckin thing in sight. The bed covers, the mattress them two was spread out on, the chairs . . . fuckin gold coverin . . . hack hack hack . . . what’s in the closets? Rip rip rip. At the end of it, he sweated freely. That’d cost them somethin. He went upstairs to gather his things. Time to go. Taxi back to London. Find a hoore house and have as good a belt as the shoulder would let him. That’s what he needed. Not the dead skinanbones down there, a livin fat fuck. . . .
The lights of a car far below touched the maid’s room. He looked down onto the graveled drive. Polis. Polis? More of them, in cars, pourin out.
He sat down to watch them, coldly. Polis, like midgets, skitterin about down there. With rifles, some of them, by Jasus. Lights, by Jasus. Settin them up on the lawns and back there among the roses. They wanted to fight, by Jasus.
It struck him suddenly. Who told them? Kiernan? Not Kiernan. Sorahan? Maybe Sorahan, maybe the doctor, maybe his yatteri
n wife, maybe the fuckin widow-woman, maybe the Bantry men, maybe . . . Jasus, there was bloody dozens coulda informed. Somebody told them. Right y’are, right y’are, that’d wait. But it was likely the widow-woman . . . than oul hoore.
Well, it was late in the day to get at her. But she’d get taken care of. Look at them. Thirty or forty of them. You’d think, by Jasus, there was twenty men in here, w’automatic rifles. There’s only me, he said, smiling down at the policemen positioning themselves beyond the lights. They think I can’t see them, he said, looking out over the lights focused on the ground floor. Bloody midgets. Midget heads.
Right y’are, right y’are, write a song for Patrick Powers. He died for Ireland fightin fuckin Forty to One . . . there was forty, anyway. Write a song for Patrick Powers. Forty to One? Anyway. There’d be Twenty before they carried him out. The Big Fella’s way.
He stood up and said solemnly, “This I was born for.”
But do it right. Big Mike Collins would do it right. Check the roof. Where’s the trapdoor? He ran through the attic rooms, switching on lights, scanning ceilings, and found it on the landing, with a folding ladder pulled down by a chain. He went up to the roof. He could keep the fuckin forty all night, holed up on this roof . . . wee nests, golops of cover . . . leave the ladder down.
He ran down to the ground floor and found a long broom. Switch on every fuckin light in the house. Smash the bulbs. With system, he worked his way upstairs, up to the attic again. Smashing lights. They’d have to use lights to winkle him out. Lights make nice targets.
He waited in the drawing room, watching the preparations for his destruction and a thought dealt his head a heavy blow. He scrambled to the attic.
There were no cars in the road beyond. No polis controllin curious crowds. Polis motors only, on the gravel below. No crowd over the road in the cricket field. One in the morning, for Jasus sake. Dirty English bastards. No reporters?
Then who will tell the story? Some policeman at a cornorer’s inquest? “On August 29, at approximately midnight, I proceeded. . . .” Not bloody likely!
Y’needed reporters in this warfare. Half your armament is reporters. No television, no reporters, and all you’ve got is half a bloody war and anonymous death.
He opened an attic window and yelled, “Where’s your fuckin reporters?”
The police went quietly about their business. He didn’t even see one lookin up.
“Where’s the fuckin BBC?” he yelled.
Y’might as well talk to a cartloada monkeys.
He sat down to consider these dishonest English tactics. He thought also of checking his gun. Four in the clip. Reload. Where the . . . ? Holy Jasus, he had four bullets. All the rest, two boxes, were in the dashboard pocket of the car and it was bashed up in the doctor’s front yard! Four bullets! Four polis! W’rifles.
The Song died.
The bullhorn outside called to him. “Patrick Powers. We know you are inside. We know you have a gun. We know you have no extra ammunition.”
There y’are, by Christ. It was the doctor. He called the Garda. They called the English. Fuckin informers. Fuckin traitors! They found the ammunition. “We don’t think he has more than one clip.” He could hear the craven bastards tellin it. “Come down and open the front door and throw out the gun. Then come out with your hands above your head.”
He yelled out the window, “I’m a soldier of the IRA. I’m not comin out w’my hands up.”
A bored voice said on the bullhorn. “I don’t care if you come out sliding on your arse, chum. Just come on out and let’s all get some sleep.”
He heard the polis laughin all over the gravel and the grass.
Mockery mockery mockery mockery mockery fuckin English mockery doesn’t every Irish schoolboy know the English think we’re trash? Don’t we learn that in school?
“Righty’are, righty’are.”
Leap!
Leap from Death unto Life. Leap from the Dungeon to the Sky. Leap from Goal to Goal. Hop from Foot to Foot. He lashed himself with a compensating thought. Instant transitions.
Escape! Aren’t we the greatest escapers there ever was in the world? Was the jail ever made that could hold us? Aren’t we the darin, dashin, darlin boys? The world sits on the edge of its chair waitin for news that another one’s out and the English can’t hold us. The pages of glory. Escapers’ glory.
Write a Song. “The Great Escape of Patrick Powers.”
He threw his gun out the window and watched it turn in the air till it hit the gravel. It discharged and polis all over the place scuttled.
“Stick it up your arses,” he yelled. “I’m comin out.”
For a wee while. He lashed his spirit. It rose, soarin, on the wings of fuckin eagles.
They handcuffed him to a bald and portly bobby. The Black Maria came up the drive. Two of the polis got in with him.
“Where we goin?”
“London.”
“Scrubs?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll not be long there.” No reply. “Why d’they call this thing the Black Maria?”
“Who cares?”
“D’ye know why the Yanks calls theirs the Paddy Wagon? Because they used it t’round up the Paddies us, us, us, the bloody Irish and throw us in jail. Y’know what we done? Us! The Paddies? We took over the fuckin States! We took over the fuckin White House. Kennedy. Y’heard the name? That’s us! Put us down. Put your foot on our necks. Y’know what we do? We eat your fuckin leg off.”
Perhaps the bobbies weren’t listening. His was the only voice. The tires whistled. The engine purred. Powers lashed his spirit.
“Y’ever heara Jimmy Steele, Paddy Donnelly, Eddie Maguire, Liam Graham, Jimmy O’Hagan? Yes, y’hearda them. Y’couldn’t hold them in Crumlin Jail or Derry. McAteer? Y’couldn’t hold him. Patrick Powers? Y’can’t hold him! Y’can’t hold us! Y’ever hear what Jimmy Steele wrote in jail? A poem. Y’ever hear it? Your fuckin Shakespeare! Jimmy Steele’s your man. . . .”
His own song leaped into his head, full grown, ringin w’glory. He said it in his head,
Tell the bastards. Tell the words t’them.
They were gone. They came, whole. They went, whole. The head is a treacherous friend.
Tell them what Jimmy Steele wrote in Crumlin Jail.
“Listen,” he said. “Listen. Here’s what Jimmy Steele wrote in Crumlin Jail. Hear it, y’fuckin English cunts, and then try keepin your feet on our necks. Listen to it. . . .
He laid his head back against the wall of the Black Maria. “Y’can’t hold me. Y’can’t beat the Sacred Heart of Jasus, boyo. And we have it.”
Softly, the portly bobby said, “Was it the Sacred Heart killed the two in the house back there, Powers?”
Powers sighed desperately. “Jasus, y’can’t talk to them. Y’can’t talk to the fuckin English. . . .” His head was beating.
McManus was in his head, stand in there w’his soft cock hangin and his face twisted, lookin like an eejit, and the widow-woman was with him and the doctor and his yatterin wife and Sorahan and one-eyed Clune and Kiernan and Mary Connors and a great cloud of witnesses and McManus was shoutin,
“Pietous Jesus Kate no no no not you Kate. . . .” . .
Powers held the top of his beating head with his one good hand. The pain was shrieking in his shoulder. His nerves marched like an army with drummers. He screamed, “Get out of my head, McManus!”