For the Good Times

by David Keenan

  I need youse to kidnap somebody for me, Mack says. That got our interest. But it’s a woman, he says. Barney puts the radish down. What’s she done to anybody? Tommy says. It’s not her, Mack says. It’s her man. Her man owes us money and the fucker has stopped paying. Did you threaten him with the kidnapping of his wife? I says to him. Of course not, Mack says. This way we’ve got the element of surprise. What do you want us to do with her? I says to him. Youse just need to hold her hostage, Mack says. I can’t have a woman going home with me, I says to them, especially if she’s bound and gagged. That got a laugh. We’ve got a house youse can use, Mack says, but one of youse will have to look after her till her man pays up. And what if he doesn’t pay up? Tommy says. I guess we’ll just have to sell her off, Mack says, and he shrugs. Everyone’s sat there like that: dumbfounded. They’re fucking selling women now in the IRA? But then Mack bursts out laughing. You bunch of fucking eejits, he says to us, things aren’t that bad. One of youse will just have to marry her, that’s all. And keep her imprisoned behind closed doors for the rest of her life. Just like my loving ma and da, Tommy says, and we cracked up laughing all over again.

  *

  Her name was Kathy M. She worked as a waitress at the Europa Hotel, the most bombed hotel in Europe. She lived on the Springfield Road. Her husband ran some bookshop in town. Every day she walked to the Europa, about a half-hour walk each way. We picked her up in a car on her way home from work and threw her in the back seat. Barney sat on her and Tommy put a pillowcase over her head. I was the driver.

  *

  this house they puts us in

  you should have seen this house

  the state of this house

  dirt floors and

  IRA graffiti on the walls

  w/a single burst

  couch on the dirt

  floor

  what do you fucking

  want,

  le Europa? Mack says to us

  a fucking carpet would’ve be nice,

  I says to him.

  *

  At first we tied Kathy to a chair in the middle of the room with a gag and a pillowcase on her head but whenever we untied her to let her eat a chinky she just throws the food at us and kicks at us with her high heels, so as we take the high heels away from her and try feeding her with a spoon. Then she just spits it back in our faces. And the lingo that came out her mouth. Como would’ve blushed. Let her fucking starve, Tommy says to us. You’re not in a hotel now, love, he says to her. As soon as we take the gag out she goes ballistic about the IRA. You’re supposed to be fucking looking out for people like me, you useless bastards, she’s screaming, stuff like this. Sure as I felt bad and all. What’s the point in torturing one of your own? But Tommy says to her, your man borrowed money from The Boys and he needs to have the gumption to pay it back. The gumption? I says to myself. What do you think the IRA runs on, Tommy says to her, buttons? Loaning him money was looking out for him, he says to her, and now he needs to do the right thing. Is this what it’ll be like in a united Ireland, she says to him, and the tears are streaming down her face. Kidnap, torture, rape, she’s saying, is this what the future adds up to? Nobody’s raping nobody, Tommy says to her. Get me the fuck out of Ireland, she says to him, get me the fuck out because it’s a madhouse. Every one of youse is the fucking troubles. She kept saying that. Every one of youse is the fucking troubles. I’m going to be your fucking troubles alright, if you don’t button your lip, Tommy says to her.

  *

  Me and Tommy goes to see her husband. It’s not a bookshop he owns but a comic shop. We walk in there and there’s weans talking at the counter so as we immediately goes to the headsdown style and start with the browsing. And that’s when I spot it. Doctor Who’s Tardis in the corner of the room. Like a hypnotist snapped his fingers and I’m eating a raw onion, I immediately go into this flashback only it’s like I’m back in the outdoors toilet and I’m nailed to the floor while it’s taking off into space. I’m holding onto the comic racks to stay on my feet, I’m covered in this cold sweat, I’m seeing this fucking skating rink in the sky, in this fucking frozen mirror, and I put my arms out to my sides and I feel myself taking off, into the air, until I’m on a planet with two moons and the moons have both got a face like Tommy’s, hypnotising me, drawing me toward them, and the moons are calling me, Xamuel, Xamuel, Xamuel of Old, they says, and that’s when I wake up and I’m lying on the floor of this comic shop and Tommy and the guy what runs it are both looking down at me but I can’t tell them apart because they look the exact same.

  *

  Here,

  wait a minute,

  hold on a second here,

  see if you know this one:

  how many Irishmen

  does it take

  to change a light bulb?

  two:

  one, to hold the light bulb

  two, to drink till the room spins.

  *

  Now the whole room was spinning and this guy, who I’m not kidding looked exactly like Tommy, this guy whose wife we have tied up at a secret location, is holding my head and feeding me water. Sure, you’re alright, he’s saying to me, it’s just a wee dizzy spell. You’ll be right as rain, he’s saying, all of this stuff to raise the dead. I start to get a bit of sense about me and I can see that Tommy is agitated. He’s looking at this guy and he’s freaked out because the two of them are almost the mirror image of each other. Tommy starts making excuses. He takes these fits, he says to his doubled image, I’ll just get him back up the road. Do you want me to shout youse a cab? his double says to him. He’s looking nervously and in amazement at Tommy who is looking nervously and in amazement at himself. No, you’re alright, Tommy says to this mirrored double, I’ll get him home fine on my own, pal, he says. Sorry about that, pal, I says to this double, I just took a funny turn, I says. What were you guys after, anyway? the double says to us. Then he says something weird.

  Are you guys from Control? he says to us, and the three of us stop and look at each other for a second, like that. Then: what’s Control? Tommy says to him. I thought you might be able to tell me, the double says to him, and then he doesn’t say another thing because this big hole opens up in the air between us and we’re all looking down into it like, vertigo.

  Tommy says to him, we’re looking for the Tarzan comics. You got any Tarzan comics? The guy looks relieved or confused or probably both. Sorry, he says to us. I’m sorry about that before, just there, he says. Where? Tommy says. Just then, he says. About what? Tommy says. Earlier, the double says. Tommy says nothing. Okay, the double says. Understood, he says. Then he goes into this whole big fucking spiel. We got this Tarzan comic, we got that Tarzan comic. And here’s me thinking there was just one fucking Tarzan comic. Is it in colour? Tommy says to him. Is there one that’s in colour? Tommy says to him. A collector, are you? the double says to him. Just starting, Tommy says. Just getting the lay of the land, he says to him, and he presses the back of his hand to his forehead and he opens up his palm, as if he’s staring straight into the sun.

  The guy looks at him for a second and then he sort of does the same thing, makes the same signal with his hand on his head, only shakily and half-heartedly, so as it was as if maybe he didn’t do it as well, like a secret signal that wasn’t meant for you and maybe you only imagined it. Then this double, he says to us, Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, that’s what youse are looking for, boys, he says, and he pulls out these comics in the plastic bags. John Buscema, he says to us, pointing to the cover, that’s your man right there. Who’s he? Tommy says to his double. He’s the artist, his double says to him. Silver Surfer, The Avengers, guy’s a legend, he says.

  I take a look at this one cover myself. I feel like I recognise the artwork and I says to this double, is that your man what did Doc Savage? I love Doc Savage, I says. Sure, Tommy’s double says, your man did the cover of the very first issue of Doc Savage. I’ve got that, I says to Tommy. You ever see his Savage Sword of Conan stuff? th
e double bill says to me and he hands me a bundle of issues. Here, he says to me, free of charge, he says. They’ll make you feel better, he says, they always do with me. I don’t want to take them. What am I going to do, go back to the house and read them while his wife chokes on a poke of chinky chips? But then he forces them on me. Good to meet a true fan, he says, and then he winks at me, like I’m in the club now too or something.

  This is a balls-up, Tommy says when we get outside, a right royal fucking balls-up, and I says to myself, the plot just thickened, Xamuel, as we jumped on the first bus to anywhere, and we looked down at these mad comics in our laps and at each other, for the first time, with suspicion, like who is the true fan here, Xamuel, and what does that mean, or what.

  *

  That night I go home and I lie in my bed and I read Savage Sword of Conan before I fall off to sleep. There’s one page in particular, one page what sticks in my mind. Your man Conan is lying on a cushion that’s the shape of an exotic seashell, on a luxurious bed, and there’s joss sticks burning and it looks like a harem or a whorehouse.

  This woman what never opens her eyes, I think she’s meant to be a blind, this blind woman, is lying, spread out, on the bed, and she is talking to Conan.

  She wears a tiny veil.

  At first, she thinks that he is somebody else.

  But then she puts her blind eyes up to his face and she says to him: you’re not savage enough to be my lover. If thou hadst been Himself, earlier this day, she says to him, He would have torn out yon rival’s limbs and fed them to the Aeways Starving’t Dawgs. Then she says to him, there’s only one thing my lover likes as much as pitiless violence, and she climbs up on top of him and they make savage love.

  *

  The Old Gods, also known as The First Powers, stand assembled here in conference.

  Their true names are subatomic and so unpronounceable by incarnates.

  We have given them the name of Father, Grandfather and Son, for they are wedded too.

  They are stood in the presence of Fate, who is bound in adamantine chains and imprisoned in the heart of The Singularity.

  Fate stands charged with having congress with mortals in the form of a celestial swan.

  How can Fate be charged or admonished or in any way chastised when it is his nature – forged, let us not forget, in the turning inside out of our own minds – to shepherd people to their ends? The Father protests.

  Is that all we have become? The Son demands. Are we simply shepherds of lambs? Fishers of men? But where is the sport?

  It was in sport that I made love to a mortal woman in the guise of a great beast, Fate booms, from his place of imprisonment in the heart of The Dead Zone: The Place Of Endless Echoes.

  And now it is too late, The Grandfather says. Divinity has fallen.

  As Gods ye have the power to bring time itself to an end, Fate booms, do ye not?

  The Old Gods, also known as The First Powers, look solemnly at each other.

  What is the name of your son? The Son asks him. What name has she given him? The Calamity? The Troubles? The Fall?

  She should have named him Destiny, Fate sighs.

  The Father pulls a face.

  Instead she has christened him The Anomaly, Fate says.

  And what of his powers?

  He has become a story. His powers are inexorable.

  And where does this story take place?

  On the island of Hibernia.

  And how long does it last?

  Until the end of time.

  Next time: Neutrino, The Anomaly and The X-Ray Kid Enter The Anti-Matter Universe!

  *

  Okay, so it’s decided, we’re sending Barney to do the dirty, it has got to be done, whether I’m a true fan or not. I says to him, see while you’re in there, pick me up some more copies of that Savage Sword of Conan would you? Will I fuck, he says. Do it, I says to him, it’ll be good cover. Besides, I says to him, that’s your excuse to loiter round the shop till the right moment. Plus I really wanted to get some more issues, is the honest truth. What the fuck is this thing called, this thing, this Sexy Sword of Conan thing, Barney says to me. Fuck sake, don’t ask for that, I says to him. It’s Savage Sword of Conan. Just think about what you’re about to do to the boy, I says to him, then it’ll all come flooding back.

  So as we send Barney packing, but I admit it, I’m nervous. These panic attacks, these flashbacks, they’re giving me a weird feeling that I just can’t shake, where it’s like the past and the future are all mixed up in each other’s together. A prophetic feeling, is what you call it. And the guy what looked like Tommy, and what went on between them, but maybe not. All of this has got me on edge, and I’m starting to feel like my head’s away with it.

  Tommy’s gone for the weekend. He’s staying in some cottage in Cushendall that some pals of his own. I’m in the dump house with Kathy and the pillowcase is back on her head.

  Look, I says to her, I’m taking the gag out if you can be fucking polite for ten fucking minute. I leans in and I take the gag out and she just sits there, in silence. It’s a fucking miracle. Are you still alive in there? I says to her. Barely, she says to me, thanks to you. Listen, love, I says to her, I’m the one keeping you alive. I’m the one feeding you every day, I’m the one taking you to the toilet. All of this is above and beyond, far as I’m concerned, I says.

  I’m so fucking tired of it, she says to me, I’m so fucking tired of both sides. Her voice is muffled from the white pillowcase that is still on her head. There’s a wet patch where her lips have made a circle, so as she looks like a ghost. Youse bang on about civil rights but it’s all just a fucking excuse, she says to me, in this voice what’s hard to make out and what sounds like an echoes. No one has any rights anymore in Ireland, not unless you can establish them at the end of a gun, she says, in this distant voice. You’ll come running just as soon as you get burnt out your house, I says to her. As soon as your husband gets plugged in the back, who you gonna turn to then? The peelers? The fucking Brits?

  You’re the one most likely to pop my husband in the back, you dirty fucker, she says to me, in this voice like one of them ventriloquists. Why don’t you just torch our house while you’re at it? she says. I can’t believe she called me a dirty fucker. That was below the belt. Still, I keep my cool. Women are different, you have to understand that.

  So your man sells children’s comics for a living? I says to her. Comics aren’t just for children anymore, she says, and her weird quiet voice is really starting to do my crown in, to be honest with you. Fucking superheroes and that? I says to her. Give me a fucking break. Some guy running round in his fucking scants saving people? For the love of Jayzus, what next?

  Ireland could do with some fucking superheroes right now, she says to me, and it’s barely a whisper now. What, I says to her, Captain Ireland? What would his powers be? Invisibility, she says, at least I think that’s what she says, that way he could walk all over this fucking town as he pleased, I think is what she whispered at the end there.

  *

  Someone spots Barney walking up the Falls Road with a busted head, staggering about all over the shop, it’s a taxi driver that we know who works for the Ra and he pulls over and bundles him into the back seat before anyone sees him. He’s clearly out of his box. He’s taken a right fucking pasting. This fucking man-machine, this fucking man-mountain, was so indestructible that he had walked all the way from the city centre on autopilot, not even knowing where he was, like a crow with a severed claw and with its left eye pecked out.

  The driver drops Barney off at his house, his wife Shona is out there in a panic, Shona who was five foot two and made of bullets. They send someone round to the house to get me and I leave Kathy tied and gagged in the living room while I inspect the damage. Barney’s got a big dirty gouge out his head. You’re going to need stitches in that, I says to him, and then he goes and throws up all over himself, this fucking thick green puke, he’s a Tim to his insides, I says to m
yself, what the fuck is this cunt eating. I tear his dirty shirt off and I ball it up with his stained vest and I run through to the kitchen and launch them out the back window. Thing is, barring his being at death’s door, Barney’s banned from all the hospitals in Belfast due to his losing the head and causing carnage. I don’t want to phone Mack, because then it looks like what the situation is: out of control.

  I ask Shona if she’s got any Bushmills. Then I ask her for a needle and some thread. She’s only got this fucking light-blue wool she uses for the knitting but it’ll have to do. I ask her to leave the room. Why, she says to me, what are you going to do to him? What do you think I’m going to do? I scream at her. Take my dick out and dip it in the wound? Get the fuck out of here, I says to her. Okay, Barney son, I says to him, get this down your neck. I pour him a half-pint of Bushmills with two Panadol crushed up in it. I mean, he’s incoherent as he is, so it can’t do any harm. I tie a small wee knot in the wool and I thread the needle. Then I just pinch the skin around the cut and start sewing. All this fluff is coming off the wool and it’s getting into the blood so as it looks like someone has split his head open with a stick of candyfloss. I’m hoping that it doesn’t give him some kind of uncommon brain infection. But then it’s like that experiment where the guy puts electrodes into your brain and you start to hear things, see things. Barney starts talking like a tape recorder, talking in this fucking disconcerting voice that I have never heard before.

  *

  Doctor, doctor,

  he says.

  Who’s there? I says

  to him.

  Is this, what, the butcher shop? he says