For the Good Times

by David Keenan

  One that their destruction has wrought.

  But this is a tower that rises down, into the earth.

  The three heroes look at each other.

  Who tricked who?

  Next time: Origins Of The Anomaly!

  *

  A bomb went off on the second floor of the Europa that day, blowing a hole the size of a truck in the side of the building. I was trapped in the lift halfway between floors and had to force the doors and climb up and out. By this point I’m in a panic. Is it a set-up? Did The Boys just try to blow me to kingdom come? Was it something to do with me and Kathy? I make my way down a back stairwell. It’s chaos all around me. There are people with head wounds and covered in dust and with blood on their clothes. I can feel the building shaking. I picture this huge mouth, this huge fucking hell mouth opening up beneath our feet and swallowing the building whole. I’ve still got the briefcase with me with the unexploded bomb. I can’t leave it behind. It’s got my fingerprints and probably my fucking DNA all over it. Now I’m in fear for my life.

  I get down to reception and the peelers are starting to arrive. I put my hand in my pocket and I’ve still got one of Patricia’s silk hankies from the other night in there. I hold it over my face like I’m wounded and I pretend to stagger outside. Somebody goes to put an arm around me but I tell them I’m alright, I’m alright, and all I can smell is Patricia’s perfume as I cut over to Brunswick Street, this heavenly woman smell, and now I’ve got a hard-on. I’ve just popped one. It’s like the whole city just spread its legs in front of me.

  *

  I’m supposed to meet Tommy back at The Tim’s Harbour where we set up the ruckus in the first place. But I’ve got this fucking bomb in my hands. I head back to my ma’s house in Jamaica Street instead. Nobody’s in. I run up the stair and I slide the briefcase under my bed. I’m not thinking straight. I turn on the news. Some fucking dissident organisation, some fucking unofficial Republican terror cell has claimed responsibility. The FSV. Okay, what the fuck. How do I play this?

  I look out the window and I can see Billy McNab’s weans playing in their back garden. The boy has a toy gun and is leading the two girls into a shed at the bottom of the garden with blindfolds on. The whole fucking city is at it, I says to myself. Okay, okay.

  I take a packet of twenty B&H from my top bin, crack it. I neck two cans of green, one after the other. I always had a set of cans stashed under my bed in case of emergency even though they would get mouse shite all over them. Probably pished on them too. The mice, I mean. Fuck it. Might make it taste better.

  I’m going to tell them it was me. I make the decision. It’s a gamble. Mission accomplished, I’ll say. The dissidents are a bunch of fucking lying rats. I was there. I had a bagful of explosives on me. It was a mad coincidence, I says to myself. We’d both gone to hit it at the same time. Then on the news, they says it. They says it exactly like Miracle Baby says they would says it. No one died. The Europa is a mighty fortress. That was it. That’s what sealed it for me. This is how it is written. I called Tommy’s from a phone box. His ma answered. Have you heard about this thing at the Europa? she says to me. I have that, I says. Brave boys, she says to me. Brave boys. Aye, he was, I says to her. When Tommy gets in, tell him to come and pick me up from my ma’s house, I says to her, and I hang up the phone. I try to have a Tom Tit in the outside toilet but for some reason I just cannot go so as I go back up to my room and I sit down on the bed with the unexploded bomb underneath it and I watch Billy McNab’s weans, mockexecuting each other outside in the garden.

  *

  You get these turds, these turds off the telly, asking how is it possible, to kill, to maim, and to protect the killers afterward, to treat them as heroes, even, in their own communities. All in this fucking whining fucking voice. I want to say to them, it’s fucking elementary, my dear tosspot, have you never heard of loyalty? Have you no concept of friendship? Have you never had a family you would protect with your life? Do you not admire bravery? Have you never felt the calling of your own blood?

  Thing is, we all know it. We all understand it just fine. But only when it’s our own side we’re talking about. Well, I’m from the other side, and I’m here to tell you it’s the fucking mirror image of your own. Except braver.

  All we had was the fucking Green Books telling us what we did was legitimate. All we had was a bunch of criminal longhairs patting us on the back. You don’t go down the fucking Job Centre and they suggest a career in the IRA the way they do with the fucking British Army. They don’t erect war memorials or have a fucking national holiday for all the brave boys what died on the other side of the war.

  But IRA stands for Irish Republican Army, and don’t forget it, because we’re the ones what should be wearing medals in public. We used to joke with each other and say that one day, lads, and it won’t be long, they’ll replace Poppy Day with Shamrock Day, and then we’ll remember all the brave boys what died, for a cause, mind you, brave boys what voluntarily laid down their lives, not these fucking clowns fresh from the dole office with a monthly fucking wage and two weeks in Spain, but it wasn’t a joke and we weren’t really laughing, although that day is somewhere in heaven now (let’s face it), when we’ll greet the Immortal Revenging Angels, lined up, as far as the eye can see, because Miracle Baby was right, and there’s no united Ireland in sight and no memorial for the fallen in this world, so what about the next.

  *

  I’m treated like a fucking hero but not for long because they want to get me and Tommy out of the country to somewhere we can lay low for a bit. Don’t you worry about those fucking Free State Volunteers, Mack says to me. They’re fucking scrubbed, he says, and he swipes his hands together. You two go and enjoy yourself, he says. We’ll make sure of who gets the glory. Fucking Free State Volunteers, he says to us. Volunteering is for Unionists and for fucking Ulster-ists, far as I’m concerned, he says. Republicans run armies, not charities. This is an IRA triumph, he says to us. How dare they divide attentions.

  In the meantime Barney has agreed to run the shop with the help of Beavis. Beavis & Barney, Beavis & Oddjob, you couldn’t fucking make this up, so you couldn’t, but Barney’s getting seriously into his comics and this fucking wee brainbox Picatsto kid is becoming his mentor and he’s taking all this Golden Age stuff home with him. This cunt’s going to read us out of house and home if he keeps this up, Tommy says to me.

  I phone Kathy and I tell her that I can’t go back to our days at the Europa. Are you involved? she says to me. We meet up in a wee cafe in Arthur Street. Of course I’m not involved, I says to her. It was the fucking FSV. You’re lying to me, Kathy says to me. Sharon says she saw you that day.

  That wee bitch, I’m thinking. Aye, she saw me alright, I says, I nearly got my own head blown off too. Do you think I’d be ducking into the Europa if I knew The Boys were planning to blow it up?

  Well, what were you doing there, then? she says to me. I was organising a wee surprise for you, I says to her, a wee secret surprise. Leave your husband, I says to her. I don’t know why I says that then, maybe it was the guilt talking. Leave your husband, I says to her, and let’s you and me get a wee place together. Have you ever heard of a thing called Stockholm Syndrome? she says to me. One of these European diseases? I says to her. No thank you. You can catch it anywhere, she says to me. It’s when you fall in love with your captor, she says. I’m your captor, I says to her. Well, she says, I’m not the style of dizzy bitch that happens to at all. She was pushing all the right buttons, I’ll be honest with you. Well, what are you in it for? I says to her. You can walk away tomorrow, I says, if you like. Life goes on, I says. This old world will keep on turning, I says to her. Then she says it.

  For the masquerade, she says. That word again. It’s out of place. That word is out a place, I says to her. That fucking word. A masquerade is a masked dance, she says to me. Did you leave that note for me in the Europa? I says to her. What note? she says. That note behind the desk. That note
that Sharon gave me. Why? What did it say? she says to me. Nothing, I says to her. That’s the point. Nothing. It was an envelope with nothing inside it, I says to her. That wasn’t me, she says. I would at least have included one of my special wee hankies for you.

  I leave her in the cafe and I walk to a pay phone. I give Sharon a bell at the Europa. Are you alright, hen? I says to her. What a terrible business, I says. I was just calling to make sure you were all okay. Sure, we’re fine, she says to me. It’s awful nice of you to call. How about yourself? she says. Ah, I’m grand, I says to her, a few scratches, nothing to worry yourself about. Then I says to her to order a bouquet of flowers to be delivered to Kathy on her next shift. Don’t tell her they’re from me, I says to her. Just put: Your Secret Admirer. And I walk away, feeling that I’ve got everything covered. The next day me and Tommy fly to Glasgow, capital of Scotland, to lay low.

  Part Three: Bobby Sands Has Come to Pass

  Fucking Glasgow, my friend, it’s just like Belfast, the same rivalries, the same segregated pubs, the same flags, the same halls, the same murals, the same fucking teams; a friendly city once you get to know it. Plus you’re just as likely to get stabbed for your colours as you are back home, so as you know where you stand as soon as you’re off the boat. Me and Tommy had never left Ireland before. To us it was like Babylon.

  The first night we’re there, wait till you hear this, we go to this variety club and we’re paying in and on the door there’s this guy dressed up as a woman. Okay, a transsexual, it’s a fucking transsexual dressed as a woman, and we’ve never seen a fucking transsexual in our puff. I mean, no disrespect to the boy, but all this is brand new to us, and Tommy’s staring at him, of course he is, of course he’s fucking staring at him, I mean, come on. At her. Alright, okay, whatever. Tommy’s staring at her, at him, the point is he can’t help himself. The boy just got off the boat, for fuck sake. But this transsexual starts getting uppity. What’s your problem? she says to Tommy. Tommy’s like that, nothing darling, calm down, fuck sake, he’s a bit freaked out, obviously. Then this crazy bloke, this crazy bitch, sorry, starts yelling at him, homophobe, homophobe, pointing at me and Tommy and yelling, homophobe, that’s what she’s calling us, homophobe, she’s shouting. Next thing the fucking manager comes over and says to us that we have to leave, that there’s no place for homophobia in his nightclub. We’ve not got the homophobia, I feel like saying to him, we’re just a pair of fucking hicks. But there’s no point in arguing. We do what we’re told, and we leave, and we stand outside on the pavement for a bit, awkward, not saying anything. We were both embarrassed. It was like we had failed our first assignment in the big city. New skills, Tommy says to me, and I says to him, aye, new skills, Tommy, new skills, I says, that’s what it’s all about these days. It was the first time I realised just how young we were. Over in Belfast we ran the streets, were up to every trick, but in Glasgow we were absolute beginners. I put my arm around Tommy and we walked to a pub across the road and later that night we kicked the shite out a couple wide boys making Paddy jokes behind our backs and felt that bit better about ourselves.

  *

  Apart from that, we settled in fast. Every afternoon we would go to the movies to see all the latest shows. Tommy loved his action movies, so he did, Where Eagles Dare, The Dam Busters, all that style of show. We got to see The Spy What Loved Me (we were big Bond men), Smokey and the Bandit (some show), Ten Bare Knuckles (unrealistic), Tentacles of the Hairy Beast (mental), Cross of Iron Gold (Nazis, brilliant), Star Wars (a classic, in my opinion), Sinbad in the Eye of the Tiger (what the fuck was that all about?), plus some cracking scud movies at this seedy wee picture house in Jamaica Street, of all places. Who knew there was a Jamaica Street in Glasgow? It was just like being back in the Ardoyne, only with blow jobs aplenty.

  *

  I mind when Tommy was in hospital, this is back when we was teenagers, when we had only just met, and he had an irregular heart. We had been out for a bevvy, nothing too heavy, but as we’re leaving this bar he starts acting funny and the sweat is all running down his forehead and he falls to the floor, like that. At first everybody thinks he’s coming the cunt. Get up, you chancing wee cunt, Wee Steve-O says to him, but once we realised it was for real I get him round to my ma’s house and I ring an ambulance. He’s lying there on the couch, and I’ll never forget it, he just keeps belching, just belching, again and again, it was horrifying. But an ambulance comes, and we get him to the hospital, and he starts to recover. The doctors are all trying to get to the bottom of it. I visit him in the ward and I says to him, what did the doctor say was up with you? And he just says to me, come on, he says, god knows what these doctors think, he says to me, as if to say why the fuck would anyone even ask this kind of question. We’re in the lap of the gods here, he says to me, like there was really no way of actually finding out what was up with you in a hospital. I saw him with the doctors and the nurses and as soon as they arrived on the ward he would start cracking jokes or he would take the hand of one of these wee nurses and start singing to her or he would tell some fucking made-up story about him growing up in the Ardoyne and I says to him, fucking speak to these people, I says, find out what’s wrong with you, I says, find out what they’re going to do about it. But it was like if he couldn’t seduce everybody, then even his heart wasn’t worth asking after. And he would get angry if you questioned him about it. What’s the diagnosis? I says to him. Mugs like you just don’t understand, he says to me. Mugs like you just don’t get it, he says. Mugs like you, meaning everybody what was actually normal. He had his ma climbing the walls. But secretly I think his da was pleased with the performance. I mean, his da never came to visit him in the hospital but when I would report back to the curtain you could tell he was lying there thinking, that’s my boy. And when he gets out he ends up banging one of the wee nurses. I mean, he might have been carrying a ticking time bomb inside him, you know, but fucking … mission accomplished.

  My point is, that’s what he was like in Glasgow in 1977, I saw him then as he was in his hospital bed, with his heart raging and his dick like a fucking radio transmitter, sending distress calls out to the world at large. Because Glasgow was a challenge to him. New rules. We’d be walking about the streets and seeing things like punk rockers for the first time. Here we were, just getting over hippies, and there would be these guys with the torn clothes and the dyed hair and the safety pins. And some of the birds looked rougher than the men. Total fucking culture shock, my friend. And here’s Tommy, like one of them rare fucking birds dancing with the big swollen chests on the telly, the fucking mating ritual of the lesser spotted wee hardman, with his poor fucking heart stretched all till its limits.

  *

  The place we were staying at was on the hill running up from Charing Cross to the School of Art, this cheap bed-and-breakfast place, no stars, plenty of vacancies, you do the sums. Renfrew Street was what you called it. This young couple runs it, this bird what looks like a worn-out Mary Millington porn star: blue eyeshadow, red lips, blonde hair like she’s something out of Charlie’s Angels, is the look. And her husband has got the porn moustache and the greasy, curly hair. Tommy is all over her like a rash, even though she’s rough as a badger. Outside of Patricia his taste in birds was excruciating, I have to reveal.

  So as it’s the Jubilee. And we’re buying all this stuff to take back with us, fucking biscuit tins with the Queen’s face on it, fucking shortbread tins with the Queen’s face on it, fucking plates with the Queen’s face on it. Sure, your ma’ll love those, Tommy says to me. We’re coming back to the B&B with all this stuff under our arms and the fucking seventies porn star chick, maybe her name was Yvonne, it might have been Yvonne, this bird Yvonne, she says to us, are youse two neighbours?

  Now that’s a fucking scary word. I feel the hair on the back of my arms rising up, like a cat, just at the thought of it. But Tommy’s right in there. Sure, we’re neighbours, he says to her. Are the two of youse from Belfast? she says to
us. Naw, Tommy says to her. Sure, we’re from Birmingham. That was always a good bet: lots of Micks in Birmingham. Do youse get over for the parades? she says to Tommy. Oh aye, he says to her, oh aye. I send them money every year, he says to her.

  I cannot fucking believe what I’m hearing. She’s looking at Tommy like he’s a big shot, like he’s a player behind the scenes, only on the other side. She’s impressed; she’s obviously a Hun. We’re having some drinks later, she says to him, having a few people over. You and your friend here are welcome to join us. I’m reduced to the fucking friend already. Sure, Tommy says to her. That would be lovely. Lovely, is it? This guy would do your fucking chump in.

  We get up to the room and that’s when I fucking lose it. Do you know how dangerous this is? I says to Tommy. You’re playing with fire right now, I says to him. You don’t know who talks to who. You don’t know what connections these people might have. We’re over here to lie low, I says to him, not to party like we’re fucking Orangemen. But Tommy starts getting that aggressive way of his, and there’s no talking to him, his heart is fucking pounding out his chest, and now he’s talking to himself, about me, right in front of me, he’s shaking his head, these mugs don’t understand, he’s saying to himself, that fucking line that was more frightening than asking somebody if they was a neighbour. I stepped back. There was nothing anybody could do.

  We shop up to this fucking back room, this lounge with a telly in the corner and an old stereo and plastic plants and everybody’s smoking and drinking and they all seem half-blocked already. The Mary Millington bird is there and she’s wearing a white dress and high heels and she’s squatting down on the floor there in front of her man, laughing and rocking back and forth on her white high heels. There are a couple other birds too. Here come the boys, her man says when we walk in, and Tommy’s got a bottle of Famous Grouse on him. They ask us what we’ve been up to and I take a seat next to one of the birds, this dark-haired bird with the buck teeth. Tommy takes a seat on the couch next to this other bird with a hairband on and what looks like Wonder Woman, only as soon as she opens her mouth it’s like Wonder Woman has been drinking potcheen on the bru for fifteen year. Tommy’s telling her about the film we saw in the afternoon, about this scene where a fighter plane fitted with a bomb is rushing toward this huge fucking tower that they’re trying to blow up and destroy and how, in the film, the pilot aims the fighter right at the control room in the heart of the tower and the camera cuts to inside the tower and you can see the fighter tunnelling through the air, and all these people start running in chaos to get away and at the last minute, and this is exactly how Tommy tells it, at the last minute the fucking pilot ejaculates out the cockpit. Everybody cracks up.