by David Keenan
*
Behind the black curtains, hanging down, behind the scenes, the bloodied gears. The Swan leads us to a curtained area and down into another basement, into a dungeon lit up with flickering lights, where what appears to be a man – badly beaten and bleeding from the head – is strapped into a chair.
This is an Ouroboros working, The Swan says to us and he points to the figure on the chair. But what is the nature of the work? Tactical magic is the nature of the work. But what is tactical magic? Tactical magic is what is spelled (o-u-t) by the Father. The prisoner’s eyes are sewn shut, he is deliberately blinded. This is the UR-A, The Swan says to us, this is the IRA’s Holy Orders.
Stood either side of the prisoner are two men in black balaclavas with no mouths or eyeholes. Who is he? One of us? But The Swan says nothing. Blackie approaches the prisoner. He takes his cock from out his trousers. Now he is beating the prisoner about the face with it. He is slapping him on his cheek with his cock in order to leave a bruise. Now he is holding him by the hair while he ejaculates into the wound. Jayzus but they are humiliating him, Tommy says. A fucking double agent, must be, he says, and he is turned to me all in glee, and in laughter. Blackie comes over and gestures to Tommy and Tommy steps forward, between the men in the masks, and beats the prisoner over the head with his fist (all around the room men have their cocks out and are stroking their cocks in unison as they form a circle about the prisoner) and kicks him hard in the centre of the chest, which makes a sound, this fleshed sound, this body, that is hollow, is a sound, that is doubled, as a word, as Tommy holds the prisoner’s head up by the hair, his blind head, hanging sideways, his white skin, like a grub, as he punches him, repeatedly, in the face, is when the prisoner, like a grub eating its way out of the body, innocently breaking the pale skin, is come a word, and he starts to sing, in a voice as distant as conception, Bobby Sands has come to pass, he sings, through cracked and bleeding lips, through broken teeth, Bobby Sands has come to pass is his blind no-eyes, to enlighten the world is a cock-print on his white face, Bobby Sands has come to pass is it is Bobby, is it is Sands, it is revealed, whose time, it has come, but to pass.
*
That was hot, Blackie says to Tommy as he’s wiping his shoes on the curtain, but Tommy isn’t listening and he walks over to The Swan and he says to him, they do make plastic hearts, and I should fucking know, and The Swan puts his arm around Tommy, and we drink and we sing and we do other things that seemed impossible only the previous morning.
*
Mick from Ireland plays the pipe,
and what a con-flag-ra-tion
He plays the pipe, to goes to war
against forced immigration
It is his want
to spend his nights in wanton
con-cu-bation,
boys
But come the day
and mark the hour
of Holy Sufferation
He makes his
way
as martyrs do,
bold Fenians, of a nation
That stand as true
as e’er what do
in Holy
Buggeration.
*
Then I minded a story about my father, about how, when we were kids, he had literally disappeared. My father had been quite religious when we were growing up. We went to chapel every Sunday. We had a copy of The Bible on the table between our beds at night, just in case youse need it, my da says to me and my brother Peter, which of course put the living fear in us that during the night we were going to be assaulted by daemons or by the kind of crooked thoughts that only The Bible can destroy.
Then he disappeared. And when he came back he was wearing stigmata. That’s what he says to us.
He turns up and his face is all cut-up and bruised, so badly bruised that he was scarcely recognisable. Me and my brother were scared as hell, pushing him away. No, don’t touch me, we’re screaming, Ma, we’re saying, he’s a monster, and my da, he says to me, I had to go away. I had obligations, he says to me. You had obligations to your family, our ma is screaming at him, you’re scaring the fucking life out of them, she’s screaming, you’ve got them all scared like little white rabbits. One day it will be your turn, he says to us, and then he says to us, don’t you remember when Jayzus lifted his hand from the cross to show the disciples his wounds?
Look, he says to us, look at my face. It’s okay, he says to us. Don’t worry. It’s alright. But why did they do it to you, Da? Peter says to him. I did it to myself, he says. Why, Da, why? Peter’s crying. Have you never heard of the mortification of the flesh? he says to us. Have you never heard of the imitation of Christ? he says to me and my brother, we’re both looking up at him in terror, and he takes down his trousers in front of us, he drops his trousers and his underwear is soaked in blood. He’s crucified his cock, I says to myself, oh no can you crucify your cock, please no, and my ma, she says to him, you’ll traumatise them for life, you’ve got them all scared like little white mice, she says, and then he pulls his pants down, and it’s the first time I ever saw my father’s penis, and it’s all wrapped in barbed wire, all round his waist, his groin is wrapped tight with barbed wire, biting down into the flesh. You’ve never lived, he says to us, and he stumbled then and he put his hands out in front of him, and he fell, and he rolled over onto his side and he passed out and me and my brother and my ma were left to drag him to the bathroom and to wash his wounds and to pick all of the barbed wire out his poor, suffering flesh.
*
In bed, on the mattresses, on the floor, this is 1977, and I says to Tommy, Tommy, I think it’s a religious thing, I think it’s like your opus Dei, I think my da was involved in it too, it’s a religious thing to do with suffering and pain, and Tommy says to me, no, you’re wrong, it’s not a religious thing at all. But they’re onto something, he says. There’s a way of telling the future through pain, he says to me. That’s the secret of the IRA, he says. And all the top brass is in on it. It’s suffering that causes the future, he says. Thing is, he says, you can always call its bluff. And then he rolls over and he starts snoring, quietly, like an innocent little baby without a care in the world.
*
Two Irishmen, Tommy and Sammy, go to an art gallery, in that London, for the first time ever.
This is the equivalent of going on the pull in London, Tommy says to Sammy. Well, you better know something about art if you want to pull birds in here, Sammy says to him, because this is not the most popular spot to pick up an uneducated Irishman. Sure, I know all about the art, Tommy says to Sammy, with my eyes, he says, I know all there is to know. Those eyes, okay, Sammy says to him, let’s see.
Okay, Sammy says to him, tell us about this painting here (it’s a painting with three trees, huddled close together, with a flock of birds in the background and with shadows across the field, in the evening). That was obviously painted during the olden days, Tommy says to Sammy. And how do you make that out? Sammy says to him. Because it’s in black and white, it has been painted in black and white, Tommy says. It’s not a fucking telly, Sammy says to Tommy, it’s not like they invented colour at a certain point. Of course they fucking invented colour, Tommy says to Sammy, don’t be a fucking madman, somebody had to dream that up.
This guy, Tommy says, pointing to a painting of a pale suffering Christ illuminated in his agony and with spectators running all the way into the past and the future; this is the guy what dreamt up colour, he says. Colour existed before this clown, Sammy says to him, get real. There’s a difference between something existing and something being dreamt up, Tommy says. That’s called art, Tommy says to Sammy. Art’s called what? Sammy says to Tommy. When Christ shops up, Tommy says to Sammy, he pulls an audience by the art of illuminating Himself.
But in art Christ Jayzus is not the only one that is crucified, Tommy says. In the background, he says, pointing to the painting, and fixed to another cross, he says, in the shape of a coiled number eight, he says, hanging there like it m
ight be dead already, he says, there’s a brightly coloured snake with all of its bones broken. How do you know its bones are broken? Sammy says to Tommy. Because, Tommy says, a blind snake with all its bones broken is the pain at the centre of the world. How did you get to that? Sammy says to him. The Green Book, Tommy says. I got it from The Green Book. Of course it might just be a plastic snake, Tommy says, and he shrugs. It might not be real, he says. How come? Sammy says to him. Because in order to vanquish it, you must make an idol of it, and raise it up, Tommy says. They probably stuck a plastic snake up there, he says to Sammy, just for the sake of it. After that the pair of them saw some more art but none of it was of much interest except for a beezer painting of Mickey Mouse by your man Lichtenstein.
*
But I came to understand that Tommy was right, in the end, that at the heart of the struggle, at the centre of The Calamity (which really is the centre of the world), there is a network of basements and bunkers, of outhouses and barns and dugouts, of dungeons and safe houses, of flats and tower blocks and back rooms and annexes, of working men’s clubs and council houses and squats, of abandoned mansions and boarded-up shops, in Lisburn and Bangor and Ballymena and Coleraine, in Claudy and Fintona and Birmingham, and in that London too, and in Belfast and Dublin, all lit up with strip lights and with halogen lamps and with dark corridors leading off, and with (secret) trapdoors and with mysterious stairwells, and tunnels running back and snaking off, tunnels that go deep into the earth, back to the beginning of Ireland, which is the beginning of human history, which is bare two thousand year, and which is where secret crowds gather, still, to watch as Christ Jayzus, as the engine of time, shops up (or what looks like Christ Jayzus, all lit up in pain, and in suffering), to watch as what looks like it might, still, be a human being, but which later will be unidentifiable, which later will look more like the carcass of an animal, a poor cow with tattoos and with black hair and with bright-red nipples, is coloured, as a broken snake with bright-red razored nipples, is raised up, and its blind eyes, taped shut, and bound, and beaten with golf clubs, and its nails pulled out, and its teeth smashed in, and broken sticks forced into its earholes, is a painting, and its orifices opened up and invaded, and its face ejaculated on, is art, and its names forgotten, and its faces misremembered, is a dream of colour, bright, and unworded, all in the cause of trying to keep the future alive, like monks praying in caves, or illuminates on top of rocks, in the desert, this terrible need to put suffering on a pedestal, this cult of pain, is Holy.
Part Four: A Word Set Teeth into Silence
By the time we get back to Belfast there’s a war on. Not that one, son, another one. An internal war, is what you call it. The Boys had taken out two members of the FSV, two brothers, the McNultys, for running their mouths off and for claiming that the Europa hit was their own and for deflecting attention from the IRA, and they had been whacked at their home by two Ra boys, Shorty Temper – he’s dead now, legend – and Rab McSpoons. I hear they even brought them a trout.
Thing is, now there was a vendetta on and people were getting popped all over the place. It was Barney that told us about it. He’s in the shop with Beavis and this new wee bird when we get back, this new wee bird that he says he met at a comics fair and that looks like the wee bird from Scooby-Doo with the glasses. She’s sitting behind the desk pricing up the rare comics for him.
How much fucking money did you make at that comics fair? Tommy says to him. We’re in the back room and Barney is cooking a steak over a gas burner for his lunch. Look at the size of that fucking sizzler, Tommy says to him. Where’s all the money coming from? Don’t worry, Barney says to him. You’ll get your share. But considering I’m the one doing all the work, as well as bringing in the outside expertise, I feel I’m due for a substantial bonus. Would you take a look at that, Barney says, turning this charred black steak in the pan. Cooked till it’s nice and tender, he says. What a moron.
What’s the story with the wee bird? Tommy says to him. Just then Beavis walks in. She won first prize in the cosplay competition, Beavis says. I think it was the first time I ever heard him speak. What the fuck is cosplays? Tommy says to him. It’s dressing up as your favourite superhero, Beavis says, and he picks up a bundle of comics and goes back next door. I had to laugh. Don’t tell me it was fucking Wonder Woman, I starts to say, but before I can get a jab in Tommy cuts me dead. You’re the one that was boasting about getting your cock sucked by Red Sonja and now it’s all a fucking joke to you, is it? he says. Obviously he was touchy about Wonder Woman, so as I says nothing. Who was she dressed as? he says to Barney. Tell me she wasn’t going as Conan the Barbarian, I says to him.
What about Supergirl? Tommy says. Naw, says Barney. Think again. Spider-Woman? Batgirl? Wait a minute, I says to him, Catwoman? Naw, Barney says. All wrong. Well, tell us then, I says to him, tell us who she was. She was fucking Robin, he says to us, that’s who she was, and he pushes past us with this fucking burnt steak to a crisp that he has stuck between a pair of baps.
Who the fuck is Robin? Tommy says to me but then I’m like that, what, wait a minute, Robin is fucking Batman and Robin. Tommy looks at me in amazement. Our jaws are on the floor. That’s quite hot, actually, Tommy says. And so it was.
*
Christmas of 1977 we go to see our first punk rock show and it’s a black fucking nightmare. The Clash are playing the McMordie Hall over at the Queen’s University and Mack gets us tickets. Just a thank you, he says to us. A thank you for what? A thank you for failing to blow up the Europa? A thank you for provoking a civil war? I can say that now. But at the time I had to swallow my tongue and says thanks a lot, pal, you’re some man, ah that’s decent of you, right enough.
This is going to be an initiation, Mack says to us. He’s with this other guy, your man Del Brogan, who it turns out is a singer himself, as well as a newly made commandant in the IRA. I had never heard of the cunt before. We meet up at The Tim’s Harbour: me, Tommy, Barney, this pair. The pints of green are flowing. Up the Rebels! and we all drink to that. We’re half-blocked already. I better not get spat on, Tommy says. This is a fucking good jacket I’m wearing to this dance. These people are animals, that’s what I’ve heard, Barney says. They wear dog leads and get led about on all fours like animals out their own choice. Sure, it’s only rock n roll, your man Del Brogan says to us, expand your horizons, man, he says. He’s got his dark hair all cropped short in the style and the pale skin and the wee staring eyes that make him look like a mole come up gasping for light. I mean, youse like a bit of rock n roll, do youse not? he says to us. Aye, I like a bit of your man Bill Haley, Barney says. Well, it’s like that, your man Del Brogan says, only not boring.
Bill Haley is not fucking boring, my friend, Barney says to him. We ripped the fucking seats out the place the time he played Belfast. Well, you were a fucking punk before your time, then, weren’t you? your man Del Brogan says. What you trying to say? Barney says to him. A punk means a fucking poof. No, it doesn’t, Tommy says to him. A punk rocker is a different thing entirely. What does it mean, then? Barney says to him. It means somebody what is anti-disestablishment, Tommy says to him. Exactly, your man Del Brogan says. The IRA is the biggest punk group going. Tommy and your man Del Brogan look at each other, and they nod. Then Mack pulls this little container out onto the table. Going to be a good night tonight, lads, he says. I told you this was going to be an initiation. Welcome to the future, my friends, he says to us, and he takes out these wee paper squares like wee postage stamps that have a drawing of a white snake, it looks like, coiling up around this naked woman with the big fucking tits. Fucking hell, Sammy, Barney says to me, that’s like something out your man Conan. Have youse ever heard of the LSD? Mack says to us. Is this fucking drugs? Tommy says to him. Aye, it’s fucking drugs, Mack says to him. Black Mamba. Black Mamba’s white, Tommy says to him. That’s right, Mack says. That’s cause of in the world of LSD, just like in the world of Northern Ireland, everything is inverted. I can see I’
m gonna have to teach youse, he says. Have youse never tripped before? he says to us. I smoked that wacky backy, Tommy says to him. Como never sounded better. You think that’s good, your man Del Brogan says, try listening to The Clash on LSD. Will it get you wasted? Barney says to him. That’s not the point, your man Del Brogan says. This shite wakes you up. Wakes you up to what? Barney says to him. To fucking life, my friend, your man Del Brogan says. Who the fuck wants to wake up to life in Belfast? Barney says to him. Alright, Mack says. I’ll be honest with you, it gets you wasted. Good enough for me, Barney says to him. Hand them over. And he grabs a wee stamp off him and just gubs it, washing it down with a gargle of green. Let it dissolve under your tongue, Mack says to him, what are you doing, take it easy. But Barney just sits there. Nothing is fucking happening, he says. I’ve heard about these drugs, he says. They put fucking cat food and fucking washing-up liquid in them and all this shite. How the fuck can they put cat food into a piece of paper? I says to him. You need to let it get into your bloodstream, Mack says to him, let it go, then let it flow, into your brain. It’ll be a fucking tight squeeze in there, Tommy says. That’s probably why it’s not working. You need to give it time, Mack says, and by the time we gets over the road to the Clash show we’ll be fucking peaking, Fucking Peaking, FUCKING PEAKING … like this:
*
we get to the show and (fucking peaking) the place is surrounded, the peelers are everywhere, armoured trucks, lined up, outside the venue, soldiers (peaking) kids with their machine guns and the kids themselves, starving, and written on, and surrounded, and boys take off like balloons, what is called pogoing, in the lingo, a young man is pogoing, on the spot, in the lingo he is dancing, a bold one is jumping, up, into the air and it’s, he has let go, it’s, he hangs there, it’s, he’s weightless, now, floating there, looking down at them, and taunting them, boys are, groups of boys we are, as boys we lift up Belfast, and there is something to his throat, a connection, as he is floating into the air, is God’s more, boys, God’s more, lads, taking off into the air, one after the other, and the peelers are making a joke of calling them home but then Fuck Forever, and in motion, but now the soldiers are rising up and spitting down on the looking up and from the yelling, it is clear, that God is on our side, yes, even if he is like, yo-yos, and dragging them down to earth, through room after room (within a room) (secret room) as everyone is taking their clotheses off and removed their belts with the studs and piled high and Barney is taking his belt off at the checkpoint and he goes to take his trousers down, he thinks we need to undress and to be naked weapons, out front, and as we go inside we are taken up, and propelled, on a wave, blind wave is being lifted up and Rebel Songs, as a sound begins, a Rebel Song is a sound that comes and that goes, an echoes, is what is lagging, beneath, in the form of a snake, blind wave is white snake, grub is father as mother is riven, flowing, with blinding and passing, and queerer than the singer, a raven steps out of white light, a black raven at the white rock is a swan in a terror to transform itself, till a snake, burrowing out, is come in, in its tearing of terrible, muscle, is what is spitting, is what is spitting is tearing and force-eating, its way, outside, is life, on life, is its whole body convulsing, and by force, revealed, as a snake, black snake as a hood, worn by Miracle, as a word, set teeth, into silence, as my father, who holds the microphone in his tiny, dead hands, him what makes the noise, is the shape of a black snake, coming into ice as horses into war, as legs reaching up, as hands reaching up in a great wave of reaching up whose name is Set, Baby, and what is called Egypt, and what is known as the Free State, and the terrible thought of God, looking back behind where Art stood, and seeing only his own face and blackness, his hood like a blind black bally, is to start to sing, as Miracle wears the crown like a shroud, and the song becomes as all around it, standing, staring out of the song, like ghosts come back to the place of their own murder, is the show, called Family, and is containing, restraining, as Family Is Forever, these words are the song that is singing (doth we comprehende all speeds, daemon, as we cannot see a flye as it moves from here to there, are there not daemons, I name them, that move faster than sight) and behind it, this tremendous noise, this screaming metal machine music (I hate the British army and I hate the RUC) until everything is locked and frozen, into the half-formed arms of a song that remembers as Family, as the snake is white, riot, as the sea is Forever, Family, as the scene is dissolved, as the plug-ugly guitarist returns, as I slide through a gap in the crowd, Is Forever, as I hit the floor: