Dead Man's Sins

by Caimh McDonnell

The head thing was weird but it wasn’t what made him annoying. That was what came out of the head – Mark was also known as the classic topper. Nobody could tell a story without him having done whatever it was better or worse, depending on the story’s narrative direction, and he would always have done it first. Bunny wouldn’t mind so much if his lies were entertaining. He himself was malleable on the importance of truth in relation to a good story. However, Mark’s tales were dry retellings of most of what the other person had said, delivered in a dull monotone. The man was the living embodiment of those “previously on …” recaps at the start of TV shows.

  “He hasn’t said anything yet,” Terry answered.

  “Are we discussing it?” asked Mark.

  “Discussing what?” said Bunny.

  “No,” replied Tara. “Like I said, I was waiting for the right time.”

  “When do you think that’ll be?” said Terry.

  “It’s fecking now,” said Bunny. “This is winding me up.”

  “I’ll tell you who got very wound up, Jimmy from work when—”

  “Nobody cares, Mark” said Bunny, feeling considerably less polite than usual.

  “Why’ve you got a garden gnome there, Bunny?” asked Terry.

  “I liberated it.”

  “Funny you should mention that,” continued Mark, in what was, even by his small-headed standards, a poor reading of the room. “One time I stole two garden gnomes—”

  “The lads and I were wondering,” interrupted Tara, correctly guessing that Bunny was about to involve the gnome in a case of actual bodily harm, “would you be up for emceeing the pub quiz?”

  “Oh right,” said Bunny. “You should have said. No, absolutely not.”

  Terry gave Bunny a playful rub on the belly. “Ah, come on, amigo.”

  Bunny whipped round in a blur and grabbed Terry by the collar with both hands. “Don’t you dare call me that.”

  “Bunny,” shouted Tara, loud enough to attract the attention of the rest of the patrons.

  Bunny looked at his hands as if they were working of their own accord and released Terry. “Sorry, I … Sorry.”

  Terry took a step back. “No problem,” he said in a quiet voice.

  “It just means ‘friend’ in Mexican,” added Mark.

  “Thank you, Mark,” said Tara. “We are aware. Could you give us a moment, please, lads?”

  Mark and Terry nodded.

  “By which I meant, could you bugger off to the other side of the bar or something?”

  Tara stood in front of Bunny and watched as the two men did as they were told. Only once they’d gone, and she’d looked round the bar to confirm that everyone else was once again minding their own business, did she speak in a low voice. “What the hell are you playing at, Bunny?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I mean, you don’t have to tell me how annoying the two of them are, but you get to leave when they become too much. If I want a break, I have to pretend one of the ladies’ loos is blocked.”

  “I’ll apologise.”

  “No. We’ll forget the whole thing. Besides, Terry could do with a reminder about other people’s personal space. You’re emceeing the quiz, though.”

  “Ara …” started Bunny. “Hang on, doesn’t Cian do that?”

  “He used to. To be honest, I think the pressure got to him after ‘the incident’. He’s taken up pottery.”

  Bunny turned his pint glass slowly. “Oh feck. We’re all getting ash trays, aren’t we?”

  “I’d imagine so, yes. He offered one as a prize in the quiz you’re hosting.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “I know,” said Tara with a smile. “But I’ve already hired a guy to provide the questions and answers. The quiz was my big idea to drum up business and it is going to work. We just need someone with your considerable presence to stop them arguing about every bloody question. And besides, you owe me a favour because of that thing last month.”

  “What thing?” started Bunny before his brain caught up with his mouth. “Oh yeah, that thing. Sorry again.”

  “Prove it. I’ll throw in free drink for the evening while you’re doing it.”

  Bunny sighed. “Fine.”

  “Great,” said Tara. “No spirits.” She raised her voice. “He says he’ll do it.”

  Her announcement was greeted with a cheer.

  “But,” said Bunny, raising his voice to meet hers, “no questions about cricket. I refuse to acknowledge its existence. It’s a waste of a perfectly good field.”

  “Ah, come on,” said Terry, “cricket is a brilliant sport.”

  Bunny turned back to the bar where Tara was already pouring him another pint. “Congrats, Terry, you just made number one on the list.”

  “What list?”

  “Speaking of lists …”

  This is my Rifle …

  There was a moment … a very particular moment. Call it what you will – the point of no return, the tipping point. It was the instant when the kindling caught and the fires of rage were not going to be put out until they’d had their say, taken their pound of charred flesh.

  Riots were mercifully rare in Ireland. During his policing career Bunny had stood the line in riot gear only a couple of times. On the last occasion he’d been linked arm-in-arm with colleagues protecting Dáil Éireann from a massive demonstration by taxi drivers.

  Politicians versus taxi drivers – it was impossible to pick a side. As far as Bunny was concerned, the problem with politics was the type of people who wanted to get involved in it. Jobs leading the government should be given out like jury service. Anything was better than allowing the sort of lunatic who dedicated their life to the dream of being in charge to actually get their wish. On the other hand, Bunny had spent many a rainy night standing with his thumb out while taxis that hadn’t bothered to turn their light off cruised by in the torrential downpour. It was like picking a favourite out of diarrhoea and vomiting – you should really just go and eat somewhere else.

  In the eyes looking back at him now, he could see the same level of simmering resentment that he had seen at the taxi-driver demo. If something wasn’t done soon, all hell would break loose. It wasn’t exactly the same, though. For a start, the eyes staring up at him belonged to an exhausted and exasperated squad of twelve-year-old hurlers, who’d given up their Tuesday evening’s for hurling training and got a lot more than they’d bargained for.

  Bunny looked out into the sea of pre-pubescent rage and made a decision. He would hold the line. The St Jude’s Under-12s hurling team had right on their side, but he wasn’t going to allow them to exact vengeance on his assistant manager. It would set a dangerous precedent.

  He clapped his hands together. “Right then, lads. Good tough session this evening. Hard work but it’ll stand you in good stead.” The glares coming back at him made it very clear that nobody was buying the speech. Bunny checked his watch. There were fifteen minutes left and the first parents were trickling in to pick up their offspring. Time to pull out the big guns.

  “OK, tell you what we’ll do, lads. Let’s put the bucket up on the crossbar there, and you can all take shots at knocking it off from the twenty-metre line. If anyone gets it I’ll treat everyone to McDonald’s after the match on Sunday.”

  This at least put an end to the staring contest. In many ways, pre-teen boys were like dogs – not least because they always appeared to be hungry. That, and because they seemed to think peeing on stuff was a great idea.

  The boys all looked expectantly at Paul Mulchrone.

  “Doesn’t have to be Paulie,” said Bunny. “Any of you could hit it.”

  A hand shot up for a question. Bunny pre-empted it. “No, you cannot give your go to Paulie.”

  His proclamation was met with widespread groans.

  “Can we not—”

  “Any more objections and I’ll make Paulie wear a blindfold for his go.”

  “He’d still be our best shot.”

&nb
sp; “Right,” roared Deccie, moving out from behind Bunny, “you heard the man …”

  Bunny put a hand out to stop the whistle from reaching Deccie lips, thus saving everything from going full-blown Lord of the Flies. “Off you go, lads, off you go!”

  The team reluctantly trotted back out on to the field.

  “Declan, a word, please.” Bunny led Deccie by the whistle around his neck towards the prefabs that served as their dressing rooms. It would also take them out of the range of any wayward “attempts” at the bucket. Retaliation was always a possibility.

  “Ouch, you’re hurting me there, boss.”

  “Not as much as they will if you blow that whistle again.”

  Bunny glanced around to check no parents were standing within earshot, then he pulled the whistle from around Deccie’s neck. “How do you even have a whistle? I took yours away.”

  “Got to carry a spare, boss. Always be prepared and all that. The Scouts taught me that.”

  “I’m glad you learned something before they booted you out.”

  Deccie raised his chin defiantly. “We had a difference of opinion.”

  “Hard to believe.”

  Bunny glanced at the field to see his team nowhere near knocking the large bucket off the crossbar. Quite a few of them didn’t even manage to make contact with the ball. Still, at least they were distracted.

  “Right,” said Bunny. “So, how do you think this evening went, Deccie?”

  “Pretty good, I reckon, boss.”

  Bunny’s eyebrows shot up so fast that he very nearly pulled a muscle. “Really?”

  “I mean, OK,” conceded Deccie. “Some of the lads didn’t respond well to my training methods.”

  “Some? I told you that you could do forty-five minutes of fitness work. I meant a few sprints, a couple of laps. Maybe a bit of that circuit-training-type thing.”

  “Yeah. I went a different direction with it.”

  “That you did,” said Bunny, pulling an envelope out of his back pocket. “I took some notes. Let’s see here – ten minutes in, you told Larry that you were going to break your foot off in his arse.”

  “I did.”

  “Normally, we’d be having a chat about that, but twenty-two minutes in, you told George you’d …” Bunny pointed at the envelope for emphasis. “… rip his eyeballs out and skull-feck him to death. Where the hell did you get that from?”

  “An Officer and a Gentleman.”

  “The film?” asked Bunny. “The romantic drama?”

  “Yeah. Granny loves it. She’s got it on video. That bit where he carries her off at the end – I cry every time.” Deccie looked around, suddenly nervous. “Don’t go telling anyone I said that, boss.”

  “Right. You’re fine with telling George you were going to …” He pointed his chin at the envelope. “… do that to him, but God forbid anyone should find out you got a bit weepy at a movie.”

  “Exactly.”

  “That one sentence might have summed up entirely what is wrong with our gender, Deccie.”

  “I’m glad I could help, boss. Now, if there isn’t anything else …”

  Deccie turned to head back to training but Bunny spun him around.

  “We’re just getting started, Declan. Please explain the logic behind the hose?”

  Deccie tutted. “We live in Ireland. We often have to play in wet weather.”

  “So you thought you’d blast the lads in the face using a hose?”

  “I will not have my methods questioned.”

  “You most definitely will.”

  “Do you know what your problem is, boss? You …”

  Deccie kept going even as Bunny joined in with him, “… have no appreciation of the fundamentals of the game.”

  “I had a feeling,” said Bunny. “Still, I feel obliged to point out when your training methods contravene the European Convention on Human Rights.”

  “Bleedin’ EU bureaucrats, coming over here, telling me how to run training.”

  Bunny took a deep breath as Deccie looked up at him defiantly. “I know what you’re doing, Deccie. Stop trying to drag me off course.”

  “Alright. But ye could at least shit-sandwich it, boss.”

  “What?”

  “Shit-sandwich. Start and end with good bits, put the criticism in the middle.”

  “Oh, thank God. I thought you meant … Doesn’t matter. And seeing as I’m taking your criticism on board, your two slices of bread are, well done for learning the drill sergeant’s speech from Full Metal Jacket.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And for updating it to remove the homophobic language.”

  “You’re welcome. I’m very hot on that as we got taught about homophobia in Civics.”

  “Right.” Bunny was suddenly aware he was on tricky ground. “I think that’s a great thing, and if you or any of the boys …” A thought popped into Bunny’s head. “Wait a sec, who teaches you Civics?”

  “Ms Rogers. She doesn’t like being called Miss or Missus. Did you know that they are sexist terms too, boss?”

  “Fancy that. If memory serves, is she the attractive young lady with the … Who has the … Y’know what, never mind. She’s clearly doing a great job. Anyway, Deccie, here is the bacon, lettuce and tomato for your shitty sandwich. One: don’t tell Paidi he’s a weapon and a – what was it?”

  “Minister of death, waiting for war.”

  “Yeah. He’s had a hard enough time getting his head around the fact that he’s a goalie. Let’s just stick with that. Secondly, don’t tell the lads to give their hurl a girl’s name. That they’re married to their hurleys and they’ve to sleep with them. They’re pre-pubescent boys …” Bunny looked down at the entirely innocent expression on Deccie’s face. “Just don’t. Trust me on that one.”

  “But boss, you give your hurl a girl’s name.”

  “That’s entirely different.” Bunny raised his hand to forestall the inevitable objection. “It just is. Moving on. The song …”

  Deccie raised his voice to sing before Bunny could stop him. “We are the Saint Jude’s Under-12s, all other teams can go fu—”

  Bunny slammed his hand over Deccie’s mouth, conscious of the increasing number of parents that were gathering.

  “That’s the one. It doesn’t set the tone we’re looking for.”

  Deccie gave Bunny a pointed look and Bunny quickly liberated his assistant’s face. “It has some inventive rhymes, though. You’ve got to give me that, boss.”

  “Be that as it may, if I hear it again, everyone is doing push-ups. Including you.”

  “Philistine.”

  “Also, I noticed that as the lads became increasingly angry with your methods, you enlisted Dono and Jar as your assistants.”

  “I did.”

  “The two biggest members of the team.”

  “Are they? I’d not noticed.”

  “My giddy aunt you hadn’t. Are you aware of the Stanford Prison Experiment, Deccie?”

  “No.”

  “It’s the one where half the students were guards and half were … Do you know what, never mind about that either. The point is, we’re trying to put together a half-decent hurling team with one purpose in mind …”

  “Giving the ball to Paulie.”

  “No,” said Bunny. “To build a bit of camaraderie.”

  “While giving the ball to Paulie.”

  Bunny nodded. “Well, yeah.”

  “Exactly,” said Deccie. “Mission accomplished.”

  “What are you talking about? They all hate you.”

  Deccie threw up his hands triumphantly. “See. They all hate me. I bonded the team. Look at them now.”

  Bunny did. They were all standing round, egging each other on as they made dreadful attempts to knock the bucket off the crossbar. Despite some of the attempts being unlikely to hit the side of a barn, never mind the bucket, each one was greeted as a near miss.

  “Well, alright,” said Bunny, “I’ll give you
that. But, well …”

  Bunny trailed off as Paul Mulchrone walked up to the spot. In one fluid motion he hopped the ball up onto his hurl, bounced it and struck it.

  Bunny watched as the bucket tumbled and the rest of the team mobbed Paul. “Y’know, that has cost me a small fortune in Big Macs but damn it if it isn’t a thing of beauty.”

  “And look how bonded all the lads are.”

  “Hmmm. Is your grandad picking you up?”

  “Oh yeah. Can’t walk home after this. I’d be wearing my undies as a scarf before I even reached the gate.”

  Bunny glanced over at the group of parents and saw Janice Craven, mother of Alan with one L, standing to one side. “Right, get out of here now, Deccie. Probably best you get a head start.”

  “Good idea, boss.”

  A Quiet Word

  Bunny surveyed the sea of happy faces before him that had been on the verge of violent insurrection not ten minutes previously. It was amazing what the promise of junk food could achieve.

  “Did ye see, Bunny? Did ye see?” asked Phil Nellis.

  “I did,” he said, not hiding his smile. “Paulie’s cost me a fortune in chips.”

  “They’re not chips, Bunny. They’re fries!”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “They’re better.”

  “Is that right? Well, you can all consider it compensation for that fitness work I had my assistant manager put you through.” The trick to good policing was spotting the trouble before it actually became trouble. “What was that, Sean Nolan?”

  “I didn’t say nothing, Bunny.”

  “Sean. Look at me, Sean.” Reluctantly, Sean did so. “I’m sure you did. I’m sure you said that Deccie was only doing what I told him and that nobody will be saying anything about it to him.”

  Sean studied the ground sullenly and spoke around the six moustache hairs that he’d already managed to grow. “Yeah, I was saying nobody was going to bother Deccie.”

  “Good boy.” Bunny raised his voice again. “And boys, don’t think I’ve forgotten what happened the last time I promised you lot a feed after the match. When we suddenly found ourselves with all manner of hangers-on, well-wishers and, in young Diarmuid’s case, what he referred to as his ‘groupies’.”