by Simon Bourke
Roots, thought Ginty, I must remember that.
Ciarán and his stereo weren’t that hard to find. They guessed correctly that he would have set up camp as far away as possible from the 6B mob, but not so far away that no one would be able to find him. They skirted along the edge of the woods, occasionally interrupting heavy petting sessions and other, more serious copulations. Eventually Pegs halted them once more, his ear trained to the skies.
“Yep, this is them,” he said happily. “Nas, Illmatic. I’d recognise it anywhere!”
They scooped up the bags once more and followed in his wake. Seconds later they heard the music themselves; it was Nas, he’d been right. Ginty was relieved; he’d heard of Nas, even had a couple of his albums. He didn’t like them much, but that was beside the point.
“Ho, ho! Here they come,” Ciarán proclaimed, as the new arrivals came rumbling through the undergrowth. “What took ye so long?”
“Ah, Pegs here had us off on a wild-goose chase; we’d never have got here if we’d listened to him,” teased Murt, skilfully evading Pegs’ retributive punch.
“Well, you’re here now, so pull up a rock and join the party.”
Ciarán O’Donnell considered himself the leader of 3A, and had been campaigning for the role with tenacity for the best part of a year. A combination of lavish house-parties, expensive material possessions and one of the loudest mouths in the school had enabled him to obtain this position with little or no opposition. He had won over his subjects with brute force and his name was now synonymous with fun-times and whimsy. While Seán and his friends admired Ciarán’s taste in music and considered his parties second to none, they had little or no respect for the man himself. No one did; he was widely mocked and derided. But Ciarán ignored the barbs, charming his tormentors with drink, drugs, porn, whatever it took to win them over. He was the kid who could get them things, so they chose to ignore the fact that he was also a thundering idiot.
What Seán liked best about Ciarán was his CD collection. He had more albums than Seán, Pegs and Murt put together, and were it not for him they would never have heard of The Roots or Nas or any of their favourite rappers. As soon as he saw Ciarán’s CD holder, Seán was on the ground looking through it.
“Where’d ya get this one, Ciarán?”
“Will we put on this one next, yeah?”
“Ah, ya have to give us a loan of this one, man.”
Ciarán looked on deferentially. Seán could take the whole lot if he wanted, there was plenty more where they’d come from.
The newcomers took their place in the middle of the group, eager to enliven a rather tepid affair. The music was turned up, drink was doled out and idle hands were entrusted with rolling the first joints of the day. Less than half the class was present, mostly young lads sipping their first or second cans of the day. By nightfall, though, everyone would be here.
“Here ya go, Murt. Get them into ya quick now, ya hear?” Pegs instructed, handing a bottle of vodka and a six-pack of cider to his friend.
“And schnapps for the romancer,” he continued, digging around in his bag and pulling out the bottle for Seán.
“What the fuck is that?” asked Murt, echoing Seán’s earlier query.
“Schnapps.”
“What’s ssshhnaps?”
“I dunno, think it’s Belgian or something. ’Tis twenty per cent, like.”
“Did you get it ’cos it matched the grade you’re gonna get for today’s exam?” enquired Ginty, with a cheeky little wink to the others.
“Fuck you,” Seán said, opening the bottle and taking a confident slug.
“And what’s this about romancing?” asked Murt. “I thought ’twas all off with that Alice wan.”
“Oh, Jesus,” said Pegs. “Wait till ye hear this.”
Seán took a deep breath. Wait till ye hear this, indeed.
“I’m meeting her sister, Leanne. She should be here in a while.”
“That wan from the flower shop?” asked Murt.
Seán nodded in the affirmative, already knowing what was coming. At first he had loved the idea of telling everyone he was meeting Leanne, but right now he could do without all the fuss. He needed his friends to be cool, to not show him up. Although, by the looks of things, Murt would be far too depressed to embarrass him. He hardly tried to conceal his disappointment. You could be happy for your friends, but when it came to girls they were in constant competition with one another. Right now Seán was winning, by some distance. With Pegs sure to pull – he always did – that left Murt with the prospect of propping up the imaginary bar with Ginty.
“You’re gonna have to up your game, young Michéal,” declared Pegs, snapping open his first can of the day. ”’Cos right now Lockie’s knocking them outta the park!”
Murt lay back on the grass, still reeling from this revelation. Seán studied his friend and wondered if he would have been happy for him in the same circumstances; probably not, he decided. Murt had once been his closest friend, but things had never been the same between them since the fight.
*
When Seán was eight he’d been informed that they – his mother, Daryl and himself – were moving house. They were leaving behind the bungalow he’d called home for the past five years and moving into a brand new two-storey building in one of Dooncurra’s recently-developed housing estates. This was disastrous news. It didn’t matter that the new house was less than a mile away from the old one, he might as well have been moving to another planet. After all, his friends from the old estate were hardly going to come all that way to see him now, were they? And, try as he may, he couldn’t convince his mother to allow him to cycle back there every day after school. So he would have to make new friends. He didn’t want to make new friends, but new friends would be better than no friends at all.
On their first evening in their new house Sinéad had persuaded him to go outside and play, citing a lovely summer’s evening and the hordes of kids out in the grass as reason enough. Reluctantly, Seán joined the masses, content to skulk on the side-lines, very much the outsider. He’d watched the girls play hopscotch, the boys hurl and the smaller kids run aimlessly round in circles, and known he could never fit in. The kids here were different, not like the ones in his old estate. One or two of them had come up and asked him questions which he’d answered politely, then they’d returned to their games. That was that; he was destined to be an outsider forever. But then he’d spotted a familiar face, someone he knew from school; Michael ‘Murt’ Walsh. He hadn’t realised Murt lived here.
“Hey, Seán, what are you doing here?” Murt asked, skidding to a halt on his BMX.
“I live here now.”
“Really? What number?”
“20.”
“Wow! I’m in 26, that’s only three doors away.”
“Cool.”
“Hey, me and some of the lads are playing Dinkies, wanna join us?”
“Okay.”
By the evening’s end, Seán’s mother had to call for him four times before he’d come in. He’d waved his new friends goodbye and promised to meet Murt in the morning for the walk to school. They’d walked to school together the next morning, and then sat beside one another in class. A solid friendship had been formed, one that would last the rest of their childhood. They had sleepovers at one another’s house, played up front together for the football team and even accompanied each other on family holidays. But from the moment they began secondary school things changed. Seán settled down much quicker than his friend. He made new friends and was generally liked by everyone in his class. Murt, on the other hand, struggled. He clung to Seán like a sailor lost at sea, tailing him everywhere he went, making no effort to widen his social circle. This wouldn’t have been an issue if Murt hadn’t been universally disliked. Seán was invited to things with strict instructions not to bring his ‘weird’ mate.
He remained loyal to his pal however. If they didn’t want Murt, then he wouldn’t go either; it was as simple as that. But rather than appreciate the sacrifice he’d made for him Murt urged Seán to go, insisting that he was fine by himself.
In time a status quo was reached; Seán would hang out with his new friends whenever the mood took him, but always made sure to find time to spend with his best mate too. To his credit, Murt learned not to rely on him as much as before. He had befriended another outcast, Cathal Ginty, a bookish nerd whose appetite for learning made him perennially unpopular. As for Pegs, no one could pinpoint the moment he became part of the gang. They’d known him throughout primary school, and he lived just up the road from them, but he’d only ever flitted in and out of their company over the years. A week here, a week there and he’d be gone, hanging out with a different group. At some point during their first year in secondary school, however, he became a more regular fixture; joining them for lunch, walking home with them, calling to their houses after school and bruising their arms with his playful but manly punches. Seán realised he had no need for new friends because, almost by accident, he and Murt had acquired two good friends and formed a gang of their own. The four of them quickly became best friends, forming close bonds within their little group. Everything would have been perfect if not for the fight.
In truth, it had been brewing for a while. Within all groups of teenage boys there must be a hierarchy, consisting of a dominant figure, a subservient one and underlings with aspirations of reaching the top. Their group was no different: Pegs was at its helm, Ginty its base and Seán and Murt were in the middle, the two beta-males tussling for supremacy. Of course, neither of them fully understood this and neither could comprehend why they had begun to feel so much enmity toward the other. But to anyone looking in it was obvious they were on a collision course – from which there was no escape. Much of their resentment centred round their respective performances in school. Both were struggling, and both took perverse pleasure in the other’s shortcomings. It was Murt who’d been having greater difficulty, and there had been repeated requests from his teachers that he drop down to the lower strand, the B class. Seán should have been upset by the potential loss of his pal, but instead he relished the prospect. Soon it would be just the three of them; no more Murt cramping his style, bringing up embarrassing childhood secrets. He’d be free from the past, free to be the person he wanted to be.
His antipathy towards his friend deepened. Their insults, once playful, became laced with hidden meaning. Hurtful retorts designed to scar the other, were thrown back and forth with abandon. Seán habitually referred to his friend’s academic under-achievement, cutting him to the core and then laughing it off. I’m only messing, boy, relax. Pegs and Ginty looked on in dismay, wondering where it would all end.
The end, of sorts, came during lunch-hour on a bitter winter’s day. So cold was it that most of the students had run for the sanctity of the radiators as soon as the bell had rung. A bit of frost wasn’t going to keep Seán and Murt from their daily game of football, though. The numbers were down due to the inclement weather but they still managed to organise a decent kick-about, with fifteen players a side. The playing fields were off limits, so they turned to the basketball courts. That meant a hard concrete surface, with a generous helping of gravel to make falls even more painful, and there were plenty of falls; friends and foes charged into bone-shuddering tackles, with little concern for their own or anyone else’s safety. If you got hurt, it was your own tough luck.
Seán and Murt lined up on opposing teams, nothing unusual about that, they were two of the better players and were invariably among the first picks once two captains had been nominated. Because they both liked to loiter around goal-mouths in search of easy pickings, they rarely came into contact with each other during a game. On this day, however, Seán took it upon himself to occupy a deep-lying midfield role, bringing him very much into contact with his friend. At first it appeared to be a coincidence; Murt received a pass in space and cocked back his leg for a shot at goal, only to be dispossessed with no little force by a determined Seán. The ball was cleared and both boys carried on with the game. No words were exchanged, no looks given; but then it happened again. This time Murt rose to nod in a far post cross but found himself thwarted by the suspiciously industrious McLoughlin, who took ball and man in an effort to defend his goal. Murt stared after his friend, but Seán just trotted up the ‘pitch’ and threw himself back into the action. Some minutes passed before the ball came Murt’s way again, and this time he was ready for Seán. He spotted him from the corner of his eye and, with a deft drop of his shoulder, sent his mate hurtling in the wrong direction before planting the ball past the hapless goalkeeper.
Pegs, playing on Seán’s team, had picked up on their individual battle and shot Murt a questioning look as play resumed. Murt shrugged his shoulders and nodded in Seán’s direction, intimating that he had no idea what was up with their friend. Something clearly was up. Seán hadn’t enjoyed being made a fool of, and now stationed himself in the heart of his team’s defence. His intentions were clear: thou shall not pass, and by ‘thou’ he meant Murt. He commanded things like a modern-day Beckenbauer: nipping attacks in the bud, striding out of defence with the ball at his feet and pinging precise passes to appreciative forwards. Murt left him to it. He wasn’t in the mood for a serious game.
Eventually, though, Seán’s demeanour began to irk him; the pleasure he was taking in his team winning, the way he barked out the scoreline every time his side scored. Murt decided that he was in the mood for a serious game, after all. He came in from his left-wing position to a more central role, a central striking role, and began demanding the ball from his team-mates. They did as they were told and the goals began to rain in, Murt either scoring or playing a part in all of them. Now Seán tersely announced the scoreline under his breath, annoyed by this unexpected fightback. With lunchtime almost at an end, there were only a couple of goals in it. This was the vital time; the remaining minutes and seconds would define the game and determine its victor. The rest of the players became mere extras, the game now essentially between Seán and Murt and no one else. Neither boy held back, straining every sinew in their efforts to best one another; cheeks red from their exertions, steam rising off them like a herd of cows in a dew-covered field. It was Murt who gained the upper hand, single-handedly pulling his team level and then going in search of a winner. The bell would ring any second, and there would be no injury time in this contest.
Sensing that victory was slipping away, Seán began to panic, charging up-field for a shot at goal only for it to sail harmlessly wide. A quick counterattack and Murt pilfered another, benefiting from Seán’s absence, putting his team in the lead for the first time. As they crossed paths – Seán returning to his defensive station, Murt resuming his stance a few yards from goal – the goal-scorer couldn’t resist a little dig at his friend’s expense.
“You’d never make a defender, Seány.”
Seán glared at him and shouted at his goalkeeper to clear the ball; time was running out but they could still draw level. The keeper’s quick clearance seemed to do the job, the ball bypassing the opposing defenders and allowing Ginty, of all people, to bag the equaliser.
“Come on, lads,” said Pegs, “let’s call it a draw.”
“Fuck that,” replied Seán grimly. “Play to the bell.”
A few players had drifted away, but enough remained to continue the game. As play resumed the bell sounded, and yet more boys left the fray. Murt looked at Seán, ready to call a truce, but his friend stared ahead in defiance. What choice did he have? He wasn’t going to let Seán have the final say. Murt just knew that the minute he headed towards the main building, Seán would declare victory for his team. That wasn’t going to happen, not today anyway.
“Come on, lads, just one more,” he shouted, accepting the ball from his goalkeeper.
He look
ed forward; there was now only a handful of players left on either team. A quick one-two, and Murt was bearing down on goal with just one player to beat: Seán. They’d been in this situation thousands of times before and knew each other’s game inside out. Murt ran at pace, he would do a step-over just as they came together; with any luck he’d leave his friend floundering and slot the ball past the keeper, putting an end to this tiresome charade. Seán, however, was wise to him. He’d watched Murt do that little trick for years and expected nothing less. As Murt drew closer, Seán waited for the predictable shift in movement. When Murt obliged, he simply plucked the ball from his possession and strode away with it at his feet; a clean tackle, probably his first of the game. But he wasn’t done there; what better way to win the game than to dispossess his friend, run up-field and score? And that was precisely what he did, slamming the ball past an uninterested keeper, letting out a triumphant roar as he did so.
That should have been that, game over; but Seán couldn’t let it lie. He marched down the court, arms aloft, reciting the winner’s mantra.
“Champions! Champions! Champions!”
Murt knew it was directed at him, knew he was being goaded, but he wasn’t going to rise to the bait. He put his head down and began the walk back to class, vanquished but taking his medicine like a man. That was until he felt someone’s hands on his head.
“Unlucky Murt!” Seán called out as he ruffled his friend’s hair.
He knew how particular Murt was about his hair. That was Murt’s thing, his hair. He spent ages styling and perfecting it every morning, and hated anyone going near it. He had almost maimed Tanya Horgan when she’d playfully patted his head in class one day, swivelling round in his chair, ready to bear arms. You didn’t touch Michael Walsh’s hair, not if you valued your life.
“What the fuck ya doing, Lockie?” he shouted, frantically moulding his tresses back into their proper state.