by John Lynch
‘I don’t think that would wash,’ I tell him.
He tells me that since he’s been here he has felt himself changing, hour by hour, day by day. At first he had wanted to leave. That’s normal, I say, so did I.
‘You know something?’
‘What?’
‘I looked at you when you first came in and I would shake my fucking head. No way, I would say to myself.’
‘No way what?’
‘No way was I like you. I mean you gave me hope…I’d look at you and think, well he’s had it pretty rough…You know, going missing…On the street…Excuse me for saying this…Mad…’
‘Don’t worry. We’re all mad in our own ways,’ I say.
‘I know. I suppose you’re right. Look at Mrs Johnson. Or Clive.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well I hadn’t lost everything…You know, like you…Nowhere to go…Pissing in your pants…Well I suppose by the end…’
‘You were close to losing everything.’
‘Yeah you’re right.’
‘It doesn’t matter how we got here, Greg. The fact is we’re here. I remember you in our first therapy session how you couldn’t look anyone in the eye.’
‘Yes…It’s true…Fear is a fucker. You know I’d like to continue this conversation when we get out of here,’ he adds.
‘Me too,’ I reply and I smile.
I offer him a cigarette. He shakes his head and pats me on the shoulder and walks back to the institute. I stand there and think about what he said. He was right, I had gone pretty far down and as the winter light begins to fade I stand there hoping that there isn’t much farther to fall.
Tea with the Vicar
‘Tell me. Tell me. What are you afraid of?’
‘I’m not interested in this…Not fucking interested…’
‘I’m still asking the question, Gabriel. I’m still here.’
‘You can ask all you want.’
‘So you’re just going to sit there and stonewall.’
‘If that’s the way you want to put it.’
‘Say it.’
‘No.’
‘So you think that you can drink normally?’
‘No. I don’t know. Yes.’
‘Which is it? Which is it?’
‘No.’
‘I didn’t hear you.’
‘No.’
‘So?’
‘So?’
‘If you can’t drink normally?’
‘I can’t drink at all.’
‘And…’
‘I’m not going to fucking say it, Thaddeus. So you can stop digging.’
‘Say what?’
‘That I am an…’
‘An alcoholic?’
‘Yes.’
‘Leave him alone,’ Greg says.
The rest of the room looks at him. I can see the surprise on one or two of their faces.
We are thirty minutes into our group therapy session, and Thaddeus has spent the last ten of them hunting me down. Every time I shifted position in my seat his eyes seemed to be on me, taking me in, weighing me up. So I knew it was coming. Perhaps he felt I was ready to be broken. For now though Greg has taken the heat off me and I watch as the counsellor gives him his full attention.
‘He’s not a child.’
‘Excuse me…’
‘He’s old enough and big enough to look after himself. He doesn’t need you bleeding all over him.’
‘I just thought that you were being a little tough on him, that’s all.’
‘Did you?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Maybe you should concentrate on solving yourself before you leap to the defence of others.’
‘Maybe, but I don’t think it’s right,’ Greg says.
Thaddeus looks at him and I can see that in spite of his dismissal of him he is pleased that Greg has found some kind of voice. Then he gets back to the matter in hand.
‘This is not afternoon tea with the local vicar. Do you understand? This room is maybe the only shot we have. And it begins with honesty – the first step that we will take. Now my name as you know is Thaddeus and I am an alcoholic. No hiding. No dissembling. Oh maybe I drank a little too much when things got on top of me. No, I had to be broken. I had to be dragged from my fucking cave and forced to look at the reality of what I was. And it hurt. Christ, it hurt. Yes, I am an alcoholic, that’s the first and the last thing that you need to know about me.’
He pulls out a handkerchief and dabs his forehead and then wipes away the little clusters of saliva that have gathered in the corners of his mouth. He looks at me and for a second I think that I can see into the very depths of his passion, into its fiery core. I catch a glimpse of the man he was before he rebuilt himself from the ashes of what he had destroyed. It frightens me because I know that the same is expected of me, and that this man sitting in front of me will hound me until I am smashed wide open. No-one speaks, but we all sit and watch as he regains his composure. After a moment he clears his throat and fixes me with his eyes.
‘So, Gabriel. Where were we?’
A Second Face
My sister is back. This time her husband is with her. She has asked for another session with me. Thaddeus thinks that it’s a good idea. I’m not so sure. I know that Seamus is angry with me and that it may turn ugly. I try to tell Thaddeus this as we walk one of the institute’s many corridors. He tells me that it’s not going to be that kind of meeting and to have faith. That’s easy for you to say, I reply. He stops dead and turns to look at me.
‘No, it’s not. It’s not easy for me to say. Faith is something I have to beg for every day of my life.’
I agree to be there in the counsellors’ staff room at 3 p.m. I feel strange, as if someone else was staring out of my eyes, and that the man I was before had fled as the house he lived in went up in flames. I try and explain it to Thaddeus.
‘That’s pretty normal,’ he says to me.
‘It’s unsettling.’
‘Of course it is. You haven’t a clue who you are. You’ve taken away the thing that masked that. No, that’s gone and the real you has to come into focus. The best thing to do is not to panic.’
‘Right. I’ll try.’
‘Good man. Don’t close down. Let this new guy you’ve become take his seat at the head of the table where he’s supposed to be.’
‘Right.’
‘You’re a good man, Gabriel. It’s the disease that’s bad not you. And by the way…’
‘Yes?’
‘Yesterday…group therapy,’ he says.
‘I was angry.’
‘So was I. But one thing I can assure you. One day you will say it. You will be sitting there and you will suddenly own up to what you are. And what a day that will be.’
I spend the next couple of hours thinking about the last time I spoke to Seamus I asked him for money. I threw what was left of my dignity at his feet and said, go ahead, stamp on it, grind it into nothing. I think of his daughter Mary and the night I babysat for them when something ugly moved across my heart.
When he sees me later that day he walks over to me and looks me directly in the eyes.
‘Alright?’
I nod and hold his gaze.
‘Good. There were many times I wanted to rip your head off, you know that…’
‘Yes…’
‘And I only stopped…well, because of what I feel for your sister.’
‘I know…’
‘It’s not easy what you’re doing…This place…Counsellors, all that shit…’
‘No…’
‘Well maybe at last you’ve found your balls.’
‘Maybe…’
‘We’ve talked and talked about this. Just so you know. We’ve asked wee Mary a hundred times…’
‘I didn’t touch her, Seamus.’
‘I know.’
‘I wanted to.’
‘I know. But you didn’t.’
‘No…Jesus, I couldn’t…’
‘So?’
‘Let it go. That’s all. That’s it.’
And with that he takes his seat beside my sister.
‘Sit down, Gabriel,’ Thaddeus says.
My sister looks to Seamus as if to say I’m going to speak now. He nods and takes a deep breath.
‘Gabriel, I’m sorry for the other day. I said things…’
‘It’s alright…’ I say.
‘Don’t be nice to her,’ Thaddeus says. ‘Let her say what she came to say. It’s difficult but it would be of no value if it wasn’t.’
‘Okay…’
‘I will try and forgive you, Gabriel. That’s what I came to tell you. It will take time. There are so many things that I remember…that hurt me.’
‘I know.’
‘I need time.’
‘Yes.’
‘Give me that.’
I see her husband’s hand move to cover hers. He looks at her. There are tears in his eyes.
I say nothing but wait. Thaddeus looks at me and nods as if to say let her be, let her struggle with this.
‘This is not what I saw. You know?’
‘What do you mean by that?’ Thaddeus asks.
‘When we were little. This is not what…’
She doesn’t finish but moves her hand across her face and then looks at me.
‘That morning when he hit Mum…Do you remember?’
‘Yes.’
‘And I wet myself.’
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘I pissed on the floor…like a dog…I think of it every day…every single bloody day…But I’m not like you, Gabriel…I don’t wear it like a bloody medal for the world to see…Maybe I’m more like her…Our mother, I mean. Sometimes when I was a child I thought that I was her, you know…That’s how I could escape…Maybe that’s why you are here and I am not…I don’t know…I don’t know anything anymore…I thought I could manage…You know…get by…But then when you got sick…’
‘I’ve always been sick,’ I reply.
‘I know. So have I. So have I.’
‘And now I’m trying to get well.’
‘Yes and I love you for that, Gabriel…I love you for that.’
A Mouthful of Rain
I am standing in the rain. My head is turned towards the heavens. It is something I did a lot in the world outside. Tonight I am doing it one last time. Why? I’m not sure. It is about six hours since my sister and her husband have left and I am alone in the large garden at the front of the treatment centre. I should be in my room getting ready for lights out at 10.30 p.m., but something called me out here into the dark. I didn’t question it but just left everything I was doing and wandered out here, and stood here until my clothes were soaked through and my hair lay in plastered lines about my face. I am not worried. I don’t see it as a backward step, that my madness is returning. I am enjoying it. I like the sensation of the water running across the contours of my body and into my eyes and my ears. I can feel the hot passions that have steered my life for so long crying out to be cooled and I am happy to oblige. I am well; I know that I have never felt this good in my life. I think of what my sister said to me. I see all the times when the two of us stood alone until she crossed to join my mother and left me to face the monster. I don’t blame her. She re-invented herself, she had to. Me, I wasn’t equipped, I had only one face until now. I know now that no-one chooses to be in pain. It is sometimes given to them when they’re born and it can take a whole lifetime to shake free of it. I know that I stand at a point in my life where all these broken things lie at my feet and ask me to look on them. Some I will repair, others I will bury with my father’s bones. The one thing I ask as I stand here on the border between the past and the future is that my son will accept the second man that I am trying to build. My mother died in the strange country where reality wears a mask, one that I have visited too. I feel the rain gathering in my mouth, settling in the well beneath my tongue as I think these things. I am comforted by it. I like its harsh sting. It is telling me that the world is around me and that it is there to be savoured. I know that I have spent my life questioning every thought that I ever had, taking it apart as it broke like a wave across the shoreline of my mind. There is no need to do that anymore, I tell myself. Open, be open. As I sneak back into my room I meet the night nurse making her rounds. For a moment she just stands there and looks at me. I know that she is weighing me up, wondering if I’ve lapsed as I stand there in my soaking jeans and sweatshirt. I tell her not to worry, that I’ve never felt better. She shakes her head and tells me to get to bed. As I feel the crisp sheets welcome my cold body, I think of my sister and how she had walked back to me today across the burning ground of our past. As I drift off to sleep I think that if she can try and forgive me, maybe I can too.
The Child
I am looking at an empty chair. Thaddeus has placed it in front of me. For a moment he stands behind it, his hands resting on its back before moving away and sitting down beside me so that we are now both facing it. We say nothing but stare at it. For a second I think that he has invited someone else from my past to confront me and that we are waiting for them to arrive. I wouldn’t put it past him.
‘Now I want you to take your time. And I mean that…Take your time, we have all day if necessary. This is important…’
‘Right…’ I say, not sure where he is going.
He points at the chair in front of us.
‘You have two choices.’
‘Two choices?’
‘Yes. You can either put yourself or your father in that chair. If you decide it’s yourself then I want you to take care. I want you to choose an age…preferably in the range of your childhood years…Seven…Eight…Something like that…Because if I’m right that’s when the abuse began. And I want you to tell the child that you put in front of us exactly what happened to you…To you both…I want you to tell the child that now you’re an adult you are working on looking after him. It’s important that you put a name to what was done to you…That you bring it out of the dark…Okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘So which will it be?’
‘The child…I want to talk to the child…’
‘Right…Take your time. Gather your thoughts and remember that anything you say here will be treated in the strictest confidence.’
‘I know…I know…’
I tell myself to be kind. My mouth has dried. I am afraid that when I speak no words will come out, only a long whine, like a dog that has been kicked once too often. I can feel Thaddeus’s eyes on me. I know he is waiting. I think of my life and how much of it I have spent running and now here I am in a room facing an empty chair more alone and more fearful than I have ever been. A part of me seeks refuge in how ludicrous this situation must seem, a grown man talking to an absent boy, but I know that won’t wash. I remember the times when I felt him trying to reach me, this young kid that I’m now trying to summon. His blood is mine, his truth is mine, but as I begin to speak to him I find rage and not empathy giving me eloquence like it has done so many times in my life.
There is another four-letter word apart from love, listen to me, child. There is no land of dreams, no Nirvana. Can you hear me, little one? He made me hold his cock. He made me move my hand up and down.
‘Slowly,’ he would grunt. ‘Slower.’
This is a bedtime story, little one, one that you will never forget. You mustn’t tell anyone though; it has to be our little secret, our pact. You see, that’s how stories like this get to be told, in the dark, away from the light. Then he put his big hand on my tiny cock and fiddled with it. I would feel something underneath the shame. I would feel pleasure, a little tick of joy in the bottom of my stomach, and I hated myself for it, I still do, child. Shall I tell you what else he did? What? You don’t think that I should tell you? Why not
? It’s only words, only stories.
Then he put his hand on his own cock, and started moving it up and down and a sound came from him, deep inside him like the rumbling of a bear waking from a deep sleep.
No, please don’t struggle, you need to know this, this is a cruel world full of people who will take the dreams from children as they sleep, and replace them with nightmares. He would then pull my small hand and put it under his and guide me. That was the worst moment, because that was when I felt trapped as if a mountain lay across my chest. Then he moved his hand faster as if he was milking a large cow, and mine underneath moved faster too.
Do you know what it is to have the light go out in your small life, child, to feel the devil rear at the end of your fingertips? That’s what I felt, that’s what I saw. All the playgrounds and meadows were closing as he pushed my hand up and down; each jerk brought the curtain down on another dream. There goes God and the holy host of angels, there goes trust, there goes goodness. His fingers are now a blur on mine, pushing and pulling, skin on skin, father on son, sin on sin. Everything is suspended and all of time is pouring into this one act of filth. My breath has stopped and my throat aches from the rage building in it. I don’t pray anymore, I’ve given that up because it doesn’t work otherwise it wouldn’t be happening, would it? God wouldn’t have allowed it. You see, that’s when I knew for sure that we had invented God because we were afraid of the dark, and he was just a thought to keep us warm, to pull us through the long winter of our lives. Don’t struggle, little one, no, please don’t give me that look, I’m not like him, I couldn’t be, I’m only arming you with the truth.
Then the stuff would come, the substance that lived deep inside him, it would spill all over our joined hands, sticky and warm like glue. A grunt told me it was finished and his hand loosened its grip on mine. I slowly pulled it away; my fingers were beginning to stick together. A smell filled the bed, a rich yeasty stench; it made me want to gag. It came from the deep lake inside him where everything begins, where we both began. He pushed me away from him, he seemed defeated, broken.