by David Keenan
*
1977, son. That’s when it all gets fucking serious. Changes at the top, my friend. Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams are moving up, plus they had guys like Tom Hartley in there, the Falls Road Think Tank they called it, but there had been too much thinking, we all knew it, even for these guys, even though they couldn’t stop thinking, and producing books and pamphlets, and taking over local newspapers, even though we all knew that we had been held up, that things were too quiet, that the stand-off would never last, that the Brits would only respond to a massive and concerted show of force.
Everybody gets given these fucking Green Books, have you seen these things? They call us in, me and Barney and Tommy, and they attempt to scare the living shite out us. The IRA was the law. They were the true government. They were the voice of the people. So obeying orders to the point of laying down your life was something that was expected of every one of us. I mean, there was talk from some of The Boys about building a Socialist fucking Republic and all of this nonsense, but that meant nothing to me and less than nothing to Tommy and Barney. They couldn’t fucking spell socialism and were disinclined to try. We were motivated by more immediate concerns: protection, resentment, ambition, revenge, honour, sex, money, style, class – okay, I’ll give you that one – plus a history of violence that ran through our veins and that (let’s face it) was one of the only things holding the generations together. So as when they take us in and they hand us these Green Books and they says to us that we must be capable of murder, we must be capable of cold-blooded killing, without regrets, we could’ve laughed in their faces, if we weren’t all in on the joke in the first place. Killing without conscience: that’s what being one of The Boys was all about. A state of Total War like your man Goebbels: that was the legacy our families had handed down. Total War was our first-born and best-loved. Attrition, The Green Book says to us. Bombing, it says. Curbing, it says. Sustaining, it says. Defending & Punishing, it says. It was like a roll-call at school. We knew all these wee bastards. We grew up with them.
*
The first fight I ever saw in real life was when we went on holiday with my ma and da to Dublin. I must have been four or five year old. My ma was washing her hair and my da says to us, let’s go down the arcades and get a shot of those penny falls while your ma’s getting ready. My da was addicted to the penny falls. We get down there and it’s busy as hell, everyone is squeezed in around the machines, it looks like they’re going to tip, and my da gives me a handful of pennies. Get in there, he says, and win us a wee fortune. There’s an old dear playing right next to us and next to her is stood a shady-looking silhouette, now, in my mind, a featureless ghost, hiding out in my past. The old dear looks like she’s going to tip the pennies. And this shade starts pushing into her, starts trying to claim her place. My da steps in. Play the game, he says to this blank silhouette, to this gap in my mind, and he holds onto the machine so that he can’t push in any further. But the shade leans in to him, and pushes back, and he accidentally skiffs my da’s chin with his hand. My da draws back, takes a hammer from the inside of his coat – it’s the first time I realised that my da always carried a weapon – and starts fucking the guy over the head with it. The side of his skull caves in and he falls forward but my da catches him with another blow and sends him flying backward, through the window and out into the street, and now there’s blood and glass everywhere. Me and Peter are both crying. My da steps up to the penny falls, calm as you like, drops a penny in, and he’s won, with a single penny, the money starts tumbling out, and he turns to the old dear, it’s all yours, he says to her, and then he says to us, move it, let’s go, and he grabs our hands and we run off and we have to duck into doorways on the way as the peelers go screaming past and after about half an hour we go back to the scene of the crime and we spy on the arcade from across the road and the body is gone but we spot the old dear and she’s talking to the peelers. That bitch is going to grass us up, my da says to us. Trust no one, he says, and don’t tell your ma, neither.
It wasn’t till years later, at my da’s funeral, that I telt this story for the first time, and my ma had no idea it had even happened. He was some man, she says to me as we stood at the side of his grave. Wee bastard thought he was Robin Hood. I still think of that ghost every so often, that shade lying in the glass and the blood on the pavement, and I wonder if he’s alive or dead. I think dead, probably.
*
Then Bobby Sands goes down for fourteen year. I mean, we didn’t really know him. He was up in Rathcoole and we were down in the Ardoyne. But my ma knew his family and he was a good guy by all accounts, a bit of a soft touch when he was a kid, that’s what I heard, and of course he looked like a fucking hippy and had no sense of style whatsoever, which meant he was onto plums, in our book anyroads, and even years later when they got that mural of his on the wall of the Sinn Féin, my Aunt Betty goes past and is like that, he was some man, she says, but could he not have combed his hair and got a jumper what fit him?
Bobby gets fourteen year for bombing this carpet factory in Dunmurry, out Lisburn way. He doesn’t go down for the bombing, mind, he goes down for possession of a chatsby. He gets lifted by the peelers afters a ten-way firefight where they get their car rammed. He gets sent down to the Crumlin Road Gaol. And what happens is he kicks up a fucking storm.
I heard he was getting taunted. I don’t know if it was his hair or what but next thing we hear they’ve got the poor cunt on boards, what means they took every single item of furniture out his cell and just fucking sat him there. Then they stripped him bollock naked. Then they started starving him. This is the British government what’s doing this. That was when a lot of people turned. I mean, it may be hindsight. It may be all that Bobby Sands stands for this weather. But now I mind it as the moment that something snapped. That something was loosed. And besides, in Ireland history isn’t written. It’s remembered.
*
If there was one thing The Green Book hammered into us (The Holy Bible, some of us called it), it was that we were engaged in a glorious struggle, that we were the heroes of the future, that we were fighting for a legitimate cause, and that we weren’t just fucking common criminals anymore, which was some laugh, believe me, because a lot of us were just that, or at least had been, until the day they beat us over the head with this fucking Green Book. But back then it felt like a calling, like fate or destiny had played their pish-stained hands, and I never forgot what Mack said about thickening your skin and toughening yourself up. Now I understood what he meant. He was telling me in code. He was speaking just like Miracle Baby spoke. The struggle was making us all into oracles. Making superheroes of criminals. Making gods of murderers. Making legends of men. There’s a new world coming. What a time to be alive. 1977. God Save the Queen. We mean it, man.
*
I’m in the shop one day on my lonesome. There’s a father and son in there reading the comics. The da seems a bit simple. The son is obviously retarded. But they’re bonding over the comics. It’s a shared interest, isn’t it? The da is reading Daredevil. The son Justice League of America. Da, the son says to him, Da, why do you have to sacrifice yourself for someone else? The da says to him, you give up your life so as someone else can live. Is that like saying sorry? the kid says to him. Is that like saying, I’m sorry? Then the kid starts shouting it, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! The da puts his arm around him and manoeuvres him out the shop. I’m sorry, his da says to me as he goes. I sat there and thought about it for the longest time.
*
Choppers were all the rage in the Ardoyne in 1977 and everybody wanted one, believe me. Miracle Baby’s birthday was coming up and he had asked Tommy to get him one for a present. Tommy knew the rag-and-bone man that would come through the Ardoyne with his horse and cart and he says to him to look out for a Chopper for him and one day he shows up with this three-wheeler, which is what you call a tricycle, and he says to Tommy, here you go, I got you that Chopper you were after. But Tommy
says to him, that’s not a fucking Chopper, it doesn’t even say Chopper on it, plus it’s got three fucking wheels. Sure, it’s just as fucking good as a Chopper, the bone man says to him. Besides, he says, the wee retard won’t even know the difference. Here, give him a balloon as well, the bone man says, and he gives him a white balloon with a black clown’s face on it. So as Tommy gives this bike to Miracle Baby and the wee soul’s over the moon. Sure, I got you that Chopper you were after, Tommy says to him. Oh my god, the wee guy says, it’s a three-wheeled Chopper, oh – my – god. And he’s off, speeding along the pavement on this fucking tricycle like he’s king of the wheels with this fucking balloon tied to his handlebars.
The next day me and Tommy are sitting drinking cans of green in the garden when we see Miracle Baby getting chased by a bunch of boys on actual real Choppers. They corner him and they cut the string of his balloon and it takes off (a single milk-white teardrop, rising up) and we can hear them taunting him, that’s not a fucking Chopper, you mong, they’re saying to him, that’s not a bike, that’s a fucking wheelchair. Me and Tommy go barrelling over and they take off in fright. Wee Miracle Baby is crying. It’s not a Chopper, he says to Tommy, you made it up, they don’t do three-wheeled Choppers. And Tommy says to him, no, you’re wrong, what you’ve got is a deluxe Chopper, imported from London. What you’ve got is the best bike of all. But it doesn’t even say Chopper on it, Miracle Baby says to him. That’s cause they’re fake Choppers, those ones that the bad boys have, Tommy says to him. That’s why they had to write Chopper on the side of them, otherwise nobody would believe them. Why would they need to do that if they were real? And somehow Miracle Baby is convinced. Now I feel sorry for them, he says. Don’t burst their bubble, Tommy says to him. And don’t let on about the three-wheeled Choppers to anyone. Let’s keep it to ourselves. And Miracle Baby races off on this top-grade bicycle that was rescued from a midden and that was probably worth about ten pence, if that, even.
*
Then I see Kathy in the street with Davy, the two of them sat on a bench in Bankmore Square, off the Dublin Road, with the leaves falling from the trees, so as it must have been October of ’77. She’s wearing a short fur coat and she’s lying up against him on the bench and she’s got her head on his shoulder, maybe she’s sleeping. He’s reading a newspaper and wearing a pair of dark sunglasses. It’s too late for me to turn around. I have to walk past them. I start to whistle to myself. Back then everybody was a whistler. This weather you would probably get lifted for it. But I start to whistle this tune, ‘The Old Bog Road’. Davy looks up at me as I pass. I’m standing as close to him as you are to me but it’s like I’m not even there. It’s like he’s looking right through me. He doesn’t recognise me at all, just goes back to reading his paper. Kathy shifts on the bench but doesn’t open her eyes. Before I know it I’m past them and I’m walking away. And that’s when I hear it.
Davy has picked up on the tune I was whistling and he’s carrying it on himself. A ghost, I tell myself. I’m a ghost, come in. Then I hear him sing. He even sounds a bit like Tommy. He starts to sing the words to the song.
Each human heart must bear its grief
Though bitter be the ’bode
So God be with you, Ireland,
And the Old Bog Road
There are all sorts of ways to destroy the heart. When you get older you realise that. When I was young I was scared of nothing. Nothing outside of a knife or a gun or a fucking bomb blast could have put the fear in me, and even then. But as I got older it was the things you couldn’t see that began to worry me. Things that can put their hands straight through the flesh of your chest and grab hold of your heart and take it out and beat it to a pulp and put it back there without leaving so much as a scar. Women, chanters, snakes and ghosts. And not necessarily in that order.
*
Finally we get the nod from the top brass and Mack meets us in the Mickey Mouse van, somewhere outside of Belfast. The Europa gig is on and everybody’s celebrating. Mack pulls a gold packet of twenty B&H out his top bin and passes them around. What a cigarette. All the top brass smoked B&H. That was their style.
Have youse read that fucking Green Book like I told youse? Mack says to us. Fuck me, Tommy says to him, next thing you’re going to need a fucking degree to join the Ra. Specialist subject: the murder of dirty Huns, Barney says. That’s not university, mate, Mack says to him.
What are you talking about?
That’s Mastermind, Mack says to him. That’s Mastermind where you have a specialist subject. In university they call it your major. That’s America, I says to him. That’s what they call it in America. In the UK it’s different. Aye, well, we’re not in the UK, Tommy says. Maybe you haven’t read the fucking Green Book. That reminds me of my favourite joke, Barney says. Paddy from Ireland goes on Mastermind …
For fuck sake, Mack says to him, cut it out. This is supposed to be a high-level briefing about a devastating attack on the forces of oppression, not the Royal Variety Performance. I’d blow the fucking Royal Variety Performance sky-high, Barney says. Now there’s a fucking target. Stop! Mack says. Just fucking stop talking for a minute here, would youse, he says. Do we actually have a plan? I’ve got a plan, I says to him. I know the Europa like the back of my hand, I says. I don’t believe you’ve ever been in there in your fucking life, Tommy says to me, and he fixes me with a dead-cold stare. Aye, I have, I says to him. The fuck do you know? Listen, I says to Mack. I’ve been doing a little research, leaning on a few cunts, setting a few cunts up, get the gist of what I’m saying? They’re starting to get to know me in there, is what I’m saying. If they knew you, they’d ban you in two seconds, Tommy says, but his eyes have calmed a bit now. Look, I says to Mack. What I’m saying is that I’m happy to do it. I’ll need a bomb with a timer on it, mind. Something that I can trigger quick like but that isn’t going to go off in my hand. Something sturdy enough to drop down one of the ventilation shafts. They have them on every floor. All you need to do is shoogle the grille off and it’ll be like dropping a match into a drum of petrol. Just as long as I’ve got time to get back out, mind. Before the entire edifice goes ka-boom. Shouldn’t be a problem, Mack says to me. You would not believe the boffins we have behind the scenes this weather. They’ll be inventing remote-control bombs that you can fly into a ventilation shaft from a mile off before anyone knows it, he says.
And we sat there for a second, marvelling at all the possibilities that the future had in store. One day we’ll be redundant, boys, Tommy says to us, and he shrugs. Enjoy it while you can.
*
We’d be making love in the Europa and I says to myself, this can’t last forever, Xamuel, her legs wrapped around me and lost in her smells and her tender fingers in my hair are like the words of the song come in, upon my pillow, hold your warm and tender body close to mine, hear the whisper of the raindrops blowing soft across the window, and make believe you love me one more time, as I pictured us wrapped around each other, and raised up, as the hotel dissolves all around us and all around us Belfast is in ruins, Belfast lies in ruins beneath us, and the two of us, entwined, stand at the beginning, all true lovers are the first lovers, forever, we tell each other, with our eyes, we see each other, as returned, and then, of course, I start to hear the voices, they would interrupt my reverie, fucking Tommy and Barney are a pair of bastards, standing there in the ruins, shouting up to us, get back down here, you no-user, they’d be shouting, what are you, some fucking woman, they’re shouting, get back down here from up in them airs, and we are raised up on secret umbilicals, the two of us, and using my powers, my secret superpowers, I spy us an island off the coast, just beyond the horizon, a secret island where we could be naked together, and where we could live without smoking ruins and twisted metal and upturned cars and soldiers in the streets, an island where we could start the whole game all over again, but even then, even as our bare feet touched down on the grass, this soft grass that has never been trodden, can you imagine suc
h a thing, I knew that beginning all over again meant the same things forever, meeting only to be parted, building to destroy, rising up just to fall back down again. Where are you? Kathy says to me. I’m on a virgin island of Ur-lan’t, I says to her, right back at the beginning. Can we live there forever? she says to me and I think of her curled up on a bench with her husband, and I says to her, no, not forever, we can’t live there forever, honey, but for a summer, maybe, I think we can manage a summer, a summer before we burn it to the ground.
It’s too dangerous to work in the Europa, I says to her. You need to get out. Do you know something I don’t? she says to me. I know it’s a target, I says to her. Doesn’t take any insider knowledge to know that it’s a target. I just don’t want to see it coming down around your ears, that’s all. She rolls onto her back, she’s naked except for her black bra and her earrings, the sight of her soft skin, there in the lamplight, her long red hair upon the pillow. She sparks up a B&H. That’s a habit I got her into. Does your man not notice you’ve changed your brand? I says to her. What, you mean from geeky bookish types to suave gangsters? she says to me. Anyway, she says to me, the Europa is a mighty fortress, and she takes a long draw on her cigarette.