It stayed this way, milling and banging garbage can covers, for a full five minutes. “Why the fuck didn’t we run?” Dermot said. “Come on, why don’t we try gettin’ the hell out of here now?”
“You can’t move now,” the barman said.
“We’ll just duck out the door and get out of your life.”
He didn’t answer. He put his arm out like a bar in front of the closed door.
“Why?”
“Because you can’t,” he said.
“The man’s in charge,” the mother’s uncle said. His face was right over the pint, hanging in the shaft of light as if he were praying for the pint.
“Come on, there’s yours here too,” the barman said. He had another pint and whisky alongside it.
The banging out on the street stopped. There was a loud moan. Across the street there were two men with their hands on top of their heads. Soldiers pulled them by the arms toward the armored car. A soldier came out of the doorway holding a rifle up in each hand. The soldier after him had three rifles cradled in his arms. When another soldier came out carrying two grease guns, the women went crazy and tried to attack the soldier. The other soldiers trying to keep the doorway clear held night sticks across their chests and kept pushing them out, trying to keep the women away.
The redhead was standing alone with her back to the saloon, hands on her hips. A fat woman in a black rain-jacket and a dirty housedress came out of the crowd on the other side of the street. The fat woman’s feet were flopping in sandals. She came through a puddle, the bare feet in the sandals splashing black water onto her legs. Her face was concentrating on running. When she came close to the redhead, the fat lady’s top lip curled up and she threw a left hook the way a man does. She caught the redhead on the side of the head. The redhead put a hand into the fat woman’s face and began clawing. The fat woman went back a step. The redhead started swinging both hands, her hands in fists. The fat woman threw punches back. She had her eyes wide and her mouth open, sucking in air. The redhead had her legs very wide and the imitation-leather boots kept slipping while she punched. Trying to keep her balance, she looked like her hips were disjointed in the baggy corduroy pants.
A little girl in a parka ran up alongside the fat woman. The little girl’s bare, dirty legs began jumping up and down. Her fist was in the air, cheering the fat lady on. Women began flocking around now, but instead of stopping the fight they formed a circle of mean, shouting faces. The redhead had both hands in the other woman’s hair. The fat woman ducked, trying to pull away. Her face looked out through the crook of one of the redhead’s arms. She was a cow somebody was torturing.
The barman was opening the door. The soldier was across the street, the one who had kept his face straight. He was craning his neck to see over the heads of the cheering women. Then he shook his head and came out onto the street toward the crowd of women. The barman opened the door wider.
Dermot started to walk out the door and the barman grabbed him and snarled, “Get away!” as the women in the part of the circle between the soldier and the fight pulled away like a curtain. The redhead let go of the fat lady and ran to her left and the fat lady went the other way into the crowd of women and children. In the middle of the semicircle was the old man, Joe O’Neill, in a crouch, his arm straight out, holding a pistol. The soldier dropped his club. He sat down in the street as the sound of the shot registered. The women shrieked and held up their arms while Joe O’Neill still in a crouch, slipped through the wall of women between himself and the saloon and, down even lower, came through the doorway with the gun in his hand, his eyes popping. The barman reached past Dermot and slammed the door. As it swung shut, he could see that an incredible amount of blood was coming out from under the soldier’s chin. And a lot of skirts and rain-jackets and bare legs of kids in front of the saloon. A gun went off on the roof of the saloon. With the door shut, it was dark inside the saloon again. Dermot got on the floor, and closed his eyes. On the street, women shrieked and you could hear men, the soldiers, cursing. Footsteps were sounding in every direction. The gun on the roof went off again. Guinness boxes were falling over out by the piss wall. The barman’s voice was shouting curses. Dermot started crawling on his stomach toward the back of the place.
His mother’s uncle couldn’t get on the floor. So he worked his way along like a hunchback. When he got into the light coming through the doorway to the piss wall, he still had the pint in his hand. He was rocking a little bit. “Always the same trouble, same trouble,” he said. The sound of gunfire came through the doorway from the piss wall. Between the gunshots there would be this quick whine. The Guinness boxes at the piss wall were overturned, the empty bottles all over the place. A bottle jumped in the piss.
“Well, Jesus, I’m not going out there,” the mother’s uncle said. He groped in the darkness, pushing the stacks of Guinness cases around.
Dermot made a narrow space between the wall and a line of Guinness cases that were stacked almost five feet high. He crawled into the space and began to think about the old man, Joe O’Neill, crouched down with the women around him and with his arm straight out and holding a pistol—a police .32.
8
THE SHOOTING LASTED FOR fifteen minutes. Which seemed to be hours. Jeeps out in the street were swerving and running up the block, away from the saloon. A heavier sound had to be an armored car backing up. There was a loud curse from the guy up on the saloon roof. He must have been perched directly above the piss wall. His voice came clearly through the open door. Something hit the piss wall and bounced around. Right away Dermot’s eyes were stinging. He shut his eyes. There was a strong smell of sour metal. He put his hand over his face against the smell. His mother’s uncle was coughing. Dermot pulled himself up and crawled over to the stacked cases of stout the mother’s uncle was behind. Dermot’s fingers clamped on a bony shoulder. He yanked it up. The sour metal was at Dermot’s face now, suffocating him, the pain going through to the back of his eyes. He gripped the bony shoulder and pulled up. Then he yanked him from behind the cases. Eyes shut, one hand out in front of him, the other holding the uncle, Dermot went toward the front of the saloon. He was afraid to open the door and step onto the street. But he could not stay inside. The sour metal was pulling a sheet of black around the inside of his head. He opened the door.
“Don’t rub the eyes,” a man’s voice called out.
Dermot wobbled down the saloon steps and crouched on the sidewalk. Next to him, he could feel the uncle standing straight up.
“Here,” a woman’s voice said. The vinegar smell pushed one of Dermot’s eyes open. The woman was holding a plastic bowl under his chin. Her rough hands were shaking so much that the vinegar spilled over the sides. Pieces of ripped cloth, diapers, were in the vinegar. Dermot put one over his nose and mouth, the other over his eyes. He bent down and splashed more vinegar onto the rags. He blinked to let the vinegar get into his eyes. The woman in front of him holding the bowl could not have been thirty, but her face was so pasty and drained she might as well have been fifty. She was shaking from her shoulders to her hands, and she kept looking around to see if anything was coming from the corner of the Falls Road. But she did not move. She stood holding the bowl out for Dermot and the-mother’s uncle. Up and down the block, women with bowls were standing in the doorways. One woman came onto the sidewalk with a dripping towel. She bunched it up and threw it on the roof, toward the chimney. An arm came from behind the chimney and pulled the towel in. Halfway up the street there was a fine white mist. All the way up, at the corner of the Falls Road, the gas was in clouds.
A priest came around the corner with a white cloth in the air like a flag. Dermot asked the priest how to get out of the area.
His mother’s uncle interrupted him. “They block off the whole section,” he said. “Last riot here they blocked us off ten days with no food or water. Black and Tan pigs comes along the streets hittin’ the women.”
The priest paid no attention to what the uncle w
as saying. “A soldier are shot,” he said. “Be difficult to move about.”
The woman was still standing by Dermot with the bowl held up to him. He dipped the diaper into the vinegar and put it over his eyes again. The woman said, “What can yer man do with his leg?”
Dermot looked at the priest. “Why don’t you go with him?” he said to the uncle.
“Notatall.”
“I can see why,” the woman said. She was smiling. Her finger touched the lapel of the priest’s rumpled suit. He wore a bright-red pin, a Sacred Heart, of the Pioneers, people who take a pledge of total abstinence.
“He’d prefer death to thirst,” the priest said.
The mother’s uncle was clutching a bottle of stout
The priest started around the corner. Both of them followed him. They went past the last house on the other side of the street, turned the corner, and came into Balaclava Street. It was the same as Leeson Street, the same toy houses and toy sidewalks. On the left-hand side of Balaclava, seven or eight yards from the corner of Leeson Street was a gray cement warehouse. The right side of the warehouse was attached to the rear of the last house on Leeson Street. About ten people, a couple of old men and some young ones in their very early teens, were in front of the warehouse doors. The windows and entranceway were boarded up with wood that was wet and thick, like railroad ties. There was a cracking sound. A crowbar was being used inside the warehouse.
The priest walked up to O’Neill and the barman and two other men, old nervous men with uncombed hair and heavy beards showing against red cheeks.
Liam came around the corner first. His head nodding, the jacket collar turned up so you couldn’t see he had sideburns. Footsteps were sounding, and out of the side street, running with her body held together, the legs not going out sideways the way most girls do it, head up, cigarette in her right hand, came Deirdre. She stopped at O’Neill. She took out a box of cigarettes and offered them to the priest, who took one, and then to O’Neill and the two older men. She held out the box to Dermot He took one. She did not look at him. She was looking straight at Joe O’Neill.
“We need the television to come here,” she said.
“That would be fine,” O’Neill said.
“If there were no shooting, then the BBC could come all through the area,” Liam said.
“Been shooting already,” O’Neill said.
“If it could end at that,” Deirdre said, turning to them.
The timber cracked, the crowbar working from inside the warehouse had the top half of the timber ripped off the doorway. The crowd of kids began reaching up. The hands were out like people reaching for food. A hand came over the top of the timber covering the lower half of the doorway. A rifle came up from inside the warehouse. An old bolt-action rifle. A hand grabbed it and a red-haired kid came pushing out of the crowd, holding it like it was a prize. He had a long, bony face with sunken eyes and lips that barely made a line in his face. His suit jacket was much too big for him. His pants were wet and wrinkled and fell over the tops of a pair of pointy shoes that had no heels left at all. If he was sixteen, he was old.
Dermot’s mother’s uncle waved at him. “Good boy! Give ’em the warks with it.”
“Can you not get the arms out of the area without using them?” Deirdre said to O’Neill.
O’Neill grunted something.
“Then we could get the telly in. It would be extremely beneficial for us to have something on the telly showin’ wee children with no food.”
“We all know there’s no food,” O’Neill said.
“The people in London tonight and tomorrow would see hungry children,” she said.
“London? And what would we get from London. More bloody troops?”
“And who’d defend us today?” one of the men with O’Neill said.
“The telly would defend us,” Deirdre said. “Soldiers are afraid of it.”
They laughed.
Her voice rose. “If we are all shootin’, the telly won’t come close. We want to make a political issue of children havin’ no food. All the people will see it on the news programs. If you are shootin’, there’ll be nothin’ for the telly camera to do except hide for his life.”
“We’ll defend the area,” O’Neill said.
“With what?” Deirdre said.
“We’ve enough,” O’Neill said.
“There’s troops by the hundreds and you are here with a dozen people at best.”
“Well have a go at them,” O’Neill said.
“And when you be gone the troops will be everywhere. The people here will be stuck. Jesus, try the television today. Anybody can pull a wee trigger.”
“We fight for a nation,” the priest said.
“Aye. For justice,” O’Neill said.
“What justice can you get today with women and children in the line of fire?” Deirdre said.
“A man must have justice no matter how many people must be hurt,” O’Neill said.
He had his handkerchief out. He was rubbing a hand against it. The hand was smeared with dirt from climbing the wall after he shot the soldier. He looked down at the hand. He began rubbing it again.
In front of the warehouse, a boy, about ten years old, started out of the crowd. He popped free and stumbled toward them. Out of the crowd after him came an older boy of perhaps sixteen. The older boy came up and threw a headlock to the kid. “Give it, you fucker,” he said.
“Here now!” the priest said. He held out his hand. The younger one dropped his eyes. “Dennis!” the priest said to the younger one.
The boy, still looking down, brought out a pistol from inside his jacket. The priest took it from him. The older one jumped in front of the priest. Thick yellow coated his stumps of teeth. “Father?” he said. “Father?”
“Now, Paddy,” the priest said, shaking his head.
“Yes, Father? Yes, Father?”
“What’ve ye to say of your language?”
“Oh.” Paddy was relieved. “Sorry, Father, I’m excited. Sorry, Father.”
The priest grunted and nodded. He handed the pistol to the boy. “Just remember,” he said.
“Yes, Father, yes, Father.”
At the half-open entranceway to the warehouse, kids straddled the timber and passed pistols and old rifles into the cluster of hands reaching up. Somebody inside held up a cardboard shoe box. A man pushed through the kids and took the box. The crowd got out of his way as he began moving. Another cardboard box was held up and another man pushed through the crowd to get it. Nearly everybody else was in the teens. Hair uncombed, old suit jackets wet and shapeless. Or they were even younger, eleven and twelve, wearing imitation-leather jackets with decals of soccer players on the sleeves. All the feet shuffling on the sidewalk were in ripped sneakers or imitation cowboy boots with ground-down heels or in black street shoes with wrinkled backs and no heels left. When the feet in the shoes pressed and strained while hands reached for a gun, brown mucilage squeezed out from the insides of the shoes through broken stitching.
“The telly will only show the shooting from a distance,” Deirdre said.
The priest sniffed. O’Neill’s face did not change.
“All the blackness, a few big spotlights, here and there a soldier scuttling across the Street, that’s all they’ll see on the telly.”
“We’re not the Abbey,” the priest said.
“I think we should be,” she said. “The gun wins nothing. The one who can be brilliant on the telly, there’s your winner.”
Joe O’Neill spat. “Would the telly show the Crumlin Road jail? They give you the big jail key. They turn it right up your rear end. Excuse me, Father, but you know what I say. That’s nothin’ to what’s happenin’. They put electric wires to your other fellow here.” He tapped the front of his pants.
“Would the telly show half the men from this section in prison or on the run?” the priest said. “Would it show soldiers comin’ through here all night, night after night, blowin’ dog whis
tles to keep wee babies awake?”
“We’ve only two cheeks and now both of them are smashed in,” Joe O’Neill said.
“It’s all they do in America you know,” Liam said. “They throw rocks and gather big crowds just to get the telly camera. Then they state their case.”
Joe O’Neill waved at Dermot. “Here’s your man from America. He brought us somethin’ to help us state our case good and proper, he did.”
Deirdre’s eyes were weapons as she glared at Dermot. He turned his face and started walking over to the mother’s uncle. A rifle went off. Kids in broken shoes were running every place, climbing the front of the warehouse to the roof, then jumping to other roofs. Or they simply scattered on the run through the toy streets. Another shot went off. This time you could tell it was from a rooftop around the corner of the first side street. Deirdre’s body shook inside the coat. She was alone. Liam was running up toward the dead-end street, the priest was going around a corner, and Joe O’Neill and the two men with him were hurrying down the street, shouting to faces looking out from behind chimneys.
“Do you know where you’re going?” Dermot called to her.
“Ah dunno just yet.”
“Well, where’s he going?” Dermot pointed at Liam.
“Far and good and quick, I hope,” she said. “He can’t be caught here. They’ll lift him.”
Dermot took her by the arm, grabbed the uncle, and went to the corner of Leeson Street. He could see the first few doorways on the other side of Leeson Street without sticking his head around the corner. In the doorway next to the saloon, the edge of a plastic bowl was showing. Single shots were sounding from almost every direction now. Any cop would have to be edgy about ricocheting. Outside of the windows and doors, every inch of each street was hard surface. Any kind of firing would turn the street into a pinball machine. The woman holding the bowl in the doorway must have known. She stayed there. The three of them headed for the woman’s doorway. Dermot and Deirdre had to drag their feet to keep with the uncle. His head was bobbing around. There was blood in front of the saloon. They were walking on a diagonal. The uncle began pressing into Dermot, trying to change their direction; he was trying to get to the saloon, but there was shooting up at the Falls Road. Gas, much more gas than before, billowed. Dermot hustled them along as best he could, and they came onto the sidewalk and into the doorway of the woman’s house. She stood aside, moving her chin from one side to the other, her mouth forming a half-smile. When they were inside, she started to inch up to peer out the open doorway again. Dermot put a hand on her stomach and pushed her back. She stiffened when he touched her, and he pulled the hand back. “I’m just afraid of the street,” he said. He shut the door. She acted like she wanted to open it.
World Without End, Amen Page 18