Exit Unicorns

by Cindy Brandner

  “To see the stars more clearly. Maybe he wanted to reach out and touch them and for that he needed a hand.”

  A small creature, trundling out of water, feeling for the first time the true weight of his body, the crush of gravity on flesh, great gold eyes rolling back in his head, toward night to the twinkling lights in the heady darkness above and beyond him. Perhaps he’d felt the first longing for that which was unknowable, unreachable, a faint whisper in the night of need for something that could not be defined and even less touched.

  “He should have kept his snout in the mud,” Casey said, lips brushing the back of her neck, “created a damn lot of trouble, reachin’ for stars, the rest of us have kept tryin’ but we’re no closer to touchin’ them, are we?”

  “I think maybe it’s only the reaching that really matters, what would we do with a handful of stardust anyhow?” She watched blue Rigel blink on the lip of the window ledge and closing her eyes, made a wish in the form of wordless prayer. She was distracted from higher thought though by the feel of a large, callused hand sliding the length of her thigh and dipping round with obvious intent.

  “I thought you were asleep,” she said on a sharp intake of breath.

  “Not entirely,” came the answer, the owner of the voice sounding much more alert than he had a moment before.

  “I’d have thought you were too stiff,” she rolled back as his body tipped over her own, in the beginning language of two bodies well suited to each other.

  “I’d say stiffness was a necessary element to the operation at hand,” Casey nudged her knees apart to prove his point.

  “You know,” she nipped at his neck, an action that had caused him, in the past, no end of sweet distress, “what I mean.”

  “Ahhh,” it was half word, half groan as his body found the sanctuary of her own, “ye’d be referring to the back end as opposed to—sweet Jaysus do ye know what that does to me?”

  “As opposed to?” she prodded.

  “As opposed to the front—stop that... on second thought don’t stop—end.”

  “You could...mm...injure yourself though.”

  Casey snorted and threw the quilt back with one arm, “Well Jewel, if I do it’ll be in a good cause. Now if ye can’t think of a better use for yer tongue, can ye at least have the grace to keep it—ahhh that’s nice that is—silent?”

  After that, conversation ceased and desisted for quite some time.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Water Under the Bridge

  When approached with the notion that his brother was about to embark on yet another civil rights march, with the bruises and contusions of the previous one still in recent memory, Casey ventured the thought that Pat might very well have gone stark raving mad.

  “If yer completely intent on killin’ yerself in this manner, there isn’t much I can do to stop ye. Ye’ve no need for anyone’s permission but if ye want my approval an’ support I’m not inclined to give it. It’ll be a bloodbath, the police won’t protect ye an’ the Paisleyites are gonna see to it that ye pay for yer cheek. It’s sheer madness.”

  Three days into it Pat was inclined to agree with his brother’s less than charitable summation of the event. Things had started out mildly enough, some twenty-five of them gathered at City Hall on New Year’s morning, under the blankly haughty gaze of Queen Victoria, stamping chilled hands and feet, full of youthful fire and an uncompromising zeal to remember their goals and stick to a program of non-violence. To break beyond the boundaries of religious hatreds and show that they marched for the rights of all oppressed be they Catholic or Protestant. Their objectives were clear, simple and to the point—one man—one job, one family—one house, one man—one vote and a repeal of medieval repressive laws. In the three days it had taken to get from Belfast to Claudy, however, it had lost some of its straight edges and clear-eyed values. The lot of them had been kicked, punched, cursed, called a variety of inventive invectives plus all the old standbys: teague, taig, Fenian bastard and so forth. They’d been detoured off the original route three times, ‘for their own safety’ the police had sternly said, only to be led like lambs to the slaughter straight into an ambush. Everyone was exhausted and jittery from the tension. And today was likely to be the worst day of all. Today they were headed for the gates of Derry but first they had to cross Burntollet Bridge, where trouble, on a larger scale than what they’d thus far experienced, was expected. To further complicate matters, Pamela had decided to come with him and he’d felt a compulsion to keep an eye out for her. He’d also, since the Derry march, become, rather unwillingly, a sort of unofficial spokesperson for the civil rights movement.

  On this last morning he stood, clutching a mug of lukewarm tea, wishing for something stronger to clear his head and tried to gather his thoughts into a stream of coherency. Pamela, yawning, sat cross-legged on the ground, rolling her own cup of tea between her hands trying to get the last of its warmth. In front of them the morning’s initial speaker was just wrapping up his pep talk for the day and Michael Farrell, generally acknowledged as one of the organizers and leaders, was giving Pat the nod to get on deck. Pat sighed, felt Pamela give his leg a nudge of reassurance and stepped forward.

  He surveyed the higgledy-piggledy crowd in front of him, rumpled clothes, sleep-sticky faces, uncombed hair and an overall air of stubborn resilience that he was rather proud to be a part of. Since his one mad moment in Derry, they had come to see him as some sort of fire-eating nationalist, who would do what he had to for the cause and damn the consequences. That image bore no resemblance to the boy in the mirror but this morning these people needed a little inspiration, someone to galvanize them and spur them on for the last fifteen miles. He cleared his throat, took a last swill of tea and began.

  “We’ve come sixty miles in these last three days and if ye see it as a journey of the soul as well as the feet, then I’d have to say we’ve come much farther. We cannot turn back now. There are people in this country who may not know us, who may not like us merely because they think they know what we are all about but we are marching for them, we are putting one foot ahead of the next for them, for our neighbors, our friends, and for those who would swear to be our enemies.

  ‘We don’t ask much, only for basic human rights. The right to have a roof over yer head, food on yer table, and to have yer vote count for something at the ballot box. We ask that laws that go against every aspect of democracy, laws which revile the democratic process be abolished. We ask that men not be imprisoned unjustly, tried unfairly, brought before kangaroo courts that are merely the shadow puppets for a police run state.

  ‘They tell us this march is irresponsible and misguided, that we should just be grateful for the opportunities we have, the things our generous government provides. Grateful for rundown council housing, grateful to live in an environment that breeds disease and despair, grateful for education that does not meet the poorest standards, grateful for non-existent jobs and homes and dreams that they’ve made us believe we don’t have a right to reach for. Well, I for one don’t intend to say thank you to the man who stands on my hope and grinds my dreams under his heel. They may subjugate our bodies, beat our minds with bloody rhetoric but no man owns my soul and no man in a fifty-guinea suit owns yers either.

  “Today we wash our hands with the blood of our ancestors, with the blood of every oppressed man who ever stood and said ‘no.’ We walk in the footsteps of those chained, beaten, flogged and killed for merely uttering the word ‘no.’

  “It is said that man is the only beast that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck by the difference between what things are and what they ought to be. Here today we know how things ought to be, we can see the future, it may be a distant light but we can see it.”

  He paused for breath as the morning air rippled past his face, chill with the season and thought he felt, in passing, the warmth of his father’s hand upon
his head.

  “We all know what we may face today and that, regardless of provocation, we must hold firm to our policy of non-violence, it must be shown, in all our actions, how committed we are to these beliefs. They may stone us, beat us, rain down verbal fire upon our heads but today,” his gaze swept over the ragged crowd and he felt again the reassuring pressure of his father’s hand, “today we will be like Dr. Martin Luther King and we,” he reached into the air, reaching for the hand of a ghost, though the crowd roaring its approval took it as a thrust of empowerment, “we will fear no man.”

  A rousing cheer greeted the end of his speech and smiling he nodded to the crowd, feeling a strange surge of emotion from them, a thing that gave to him and pulled from him at the same time.

  The first leg of the morning’s march was relatively quiet. There was the occasional shout of ‘say yer rosaries now while ye’ve still the chance,’ from hostile onlookers, the usual name-calling and kids scampering about wildly waving Union Jacks.

  “Fine an’ future upstanding lodge members,” Pat said to Pamela who walked to his right, closer in to the body of the marchers. “I have to say all this police presence makes me nervous,” he continued, only too aware that the police had come today in full battle dress, well-equipped for a riot.

  “There’s a bad feel in the air,” Pamela looked crossly at a child who scampered past merrily singing, ‘Up to our knees in Fenian blood.’

  “There’s always a bad feel in the air when there’s people like this about, ignore them, we’ll be in Derry for afternoon tea,” Pat said with a reassurance he did not feel.

  The River Faughan lay seven miles out of Derry. To its left was a low-lying field, on the right the ground rose sharply and was obscured from sight by a ragged hedge. It was towards this hedge the police motioned the marchers, to protect them from any flying stones.

  “Christ, we can’t see damn thing now,” Pat mumbled, looking warily up into the snarled branches. Along the high ground strolled a squad of police in ordinary dress, parallel but slightly in advance of the marchers.

  “Why aren’t they decked out like their compatriots?” Pamela asked over the nervous babble that had begun to percolate in their ranks.

  “Don’t know but I don’t think it’s good,” he shivered as a flutter of unease passed its fingers up his spine.

  The next field was well-hedged and provided only strange, rippling glances of police strolling along, occasionally talking to men who seemed to be idly standing about in the fields. Seen through the lacework of gray branches and glossed leaves it lent a slow-motion, sinister feel to the atmosphere which was quickly tensing. Between the leaves and branches they could see more men, not police anymore, men armed with clubs and cudgels, their gait as easy as if they were out for a Sunday after-church ramble.

  The junction of the next two fields was a gully overgrown with bramble and gorse, surrounded by tall trees. From these trees a young girl emerged, silver winter light pale-fingering her brown hair against the shadow of the trees. A chilly smile turned her lips up at the corners, she couldn’t have been more than fourteen. She raised her hand up from the shadows, the glitter of a large stone clutched against her small palm. A spasm of rage contorted her face and she flung the stone straight into the marchers.

  “Incoming,” Pat yelled as warning to those behind them who couldn’t see what was happening. But the girl’s hand had unleashed more than her one stone, for it appeared that she had been the signal to those on the high ground. All around the marchers fell a hard, unflinching rain of stones, bricks and bottles. Pat heard a scream behind him and turned to see a girl drop to the ground, blood streaming from a gash in her forehead. Stunned and blinking she was pulled out from amidst the marchers by the police and towed toward one of their vehicles.

  What Pat could now make out on the high ground chilled him to the core, close to two hundred people milled about, all heavily armed, chatting amiably with the police, white-banded special constabulary amongst their ranks. Ducking his head every few seconds to avoid the rocks, screws, bolts, nails and bottles that rained down with impunity, he saw men and a few women as well armed with crowbars, iron bars, lead piping, cudgels, and some elaborately spiked and gleaming instruments of punishment. A small body of marchers broke panicking through the hedge, seeking safety in the open field. The police herded them quickly back to danger in the open road and it was then Pat saw what was happening and knew the worst was still to come.

  “Dear God, the police are here for them.”

  “What?” Pamela shouted back, her coat pulled up taut over her head, providing a fragile shelter from the missiles pouring down on them.

  “The police up there on the bank are here to be certain we don’t retaliate against them.”

  “No,” Pamela said faintly, turning away from him toward the field. An industrial bolt missed her head by a half inch.

  “Come on,” Pat said grimly and pulled her to his side, affording her what little protection his body could give her.

  Ahead of them the field tapered to an end in a small laneway that was heavily treed. The lane met the main road at a sharp angle, providing a convenient bottleneck. The police flanked the marchers front and left, leaving their right flank completely exposed and fully open to the head of the laneway.

  Pat cursed to himself, he was willing to bet they were being delivered like a tidy package into the hands of a bloodthirsty mob. Delivered by the very men who were supposed to protect them. There was nowhere to go but forward though, so the march pressed on, bleeding and bruised. The fallen culled from their midst by stone-faced policemen.

  The first ranks of marchers had barely come abreast of the laneway when from its dark tunnel burst what looked to Pat to be about sixty men armed to the teeth with a dazzling array of homemade weapons.

  The police put up a slight show of resistance and then melted like sieved butter through the ranks of armed furies. Some few marchers managed to get past the armed cordon. Pat and Pamela were near the front but not as it turned out near enough, for they along with the main body of the marchers were as effectively cut off as if they were cattle fed into a funnel.

  From the left, on a path hidden by the sharp turn of the main road, stood another phalanx of angry men, shored up by piles of stone, brought there specially for the occasion. The entire road was descending into chaos. Pat grabbed Pamela’s hand hard,

  “We’re going to have to break for it, into the field.”

  They both bent double, running as best as a slow crouch would allow, unable to dodge the sticks and stones any longer, such was their profusion. A man dashed up from the lefthandside of the road and smacked Pat across the head with what appeared to be a broken off chair leg, then not satisfied he raised his arm and whacked Pamela solidly across the back. She let out a small ‘oof’ of surprise, stumbling to stay on her feet as Pat pulled her harder towards the field. Around them, people screamed, were cudgeled to the ground, beat about the head, shouted and cursed at.

  Marchers dazed and injured staggered to their feet, limping towards the bridge, only to be forced off the road and into the fields where yet another armed contingent awaited just this eventuality. Out of the corner of his eye Pat saw a man on his knees being cudgeled about the face and head.

  “Say you’re sorry,” his attacker screamed, spittle flying from his furious lips.

  “Sorry,” the man said, hands held up to try and catch the blows.

  “I don’t believe you” his attacker replied and set about quite happily beating the man again.

  The two of them stumbled onward, dodging clubs and rocks. Just ahead of them a photographer raced, turning back and forth in a strange dance, his black eye on the world clicking and whirring in rhythm with his steps.

  To their left, in an open expanse of field, an old woman was clubbed down with three sharp blows and then finished neatly with a broadside to the fa
ce from a flagpole on the end of which the Union Jack fluttered gaily in the breeze.

  “We better help her,” Pamela said and before Pat could stop her, she’d slipped his grasp and ran towards the prone woman. Pat cursed and ran after her.

  The old woman lay facedown, gray hair streaked gruesomely with blood. Pamela knelt beside her in the long grass.

  “We’ll get you help,” she said patting the woman’s outstretched hand. Pat saw the five men approach from out of a ditch before she did. And he reached her just in time to find the three of them neatly surrounded by five club-wielding brutes, smiles on their overheated faces.

  “Well, what have we got here?”

  “Please, we need to get her to an ambulance,” Pamela said turning her face up towards them. “She needs help now.”

  “Ah where’s the pope then when ye need him, go ask him for help, Fenian bitch,” the man raised his arm, extending the stick in his hand to full length where a nail glittered evilly at the end of it. Pat stepped forward to shield her and caught the full brunt of it in his arm, he felt the nail rip a good two inches down before it was torn out.

  He heard a sharp scream and saw Pamela being dragged by one arm and her hair towards the river. Three of the men had taken her while the other two stayed behind, clubs slapping their hands, a look of anticipation in their eyes. He knew he’d never seen such concentrated hatred before.

  He stood for a long moment, eyes locked with their own, feeling the breath wash in and out of his lungs and then feinted to the left and as they lunged shot through to their right running for the river. The bank was awash with armed attackers throwing people into the river and forcibly clubbing them back into it when they tried to crawl out. He couldn’t spot Pamela in the melee and panicked, his mind churning with all the ugly possibilities. He scanned the bank and the water where people were wading in a panic for the far side. His heart skipped a beat, halted for a terrible split second as he saw a black-haired girl facedown in the water and then resumed beating a second later as a man pulled her out. It wasn’t Pamela. The photographer from moments before was hip deep in the river, trying to keep his camera above water, his precious pictures safe while a man slogged behind him repeatedly hitting at the photographer’s arm with a lead pipe.