by David Keenan
*
And dominoes is the scene that comes to my mind, it’s dominoes, tumbling, one till the other, as far back as the eye can see, and I think to myself, what was the first domino, and in that case, how did it fall, and I imagine this big finger, this big fuck-off finger coming down and parting the clouds, this deathly hand flicking the first one, and setting it all off, and then sitting back and watching the carnage, as one domino tips the other into the other into the other into a plastic bin up on Royal Avenue and stops for a laugh and to light a bifter and then goes and drags another one up the street a bit, away from the bins and the blood on the pavement, and props it up against a shop window, and waits for an ambulance to arrive, driven by another pair of dominoes, and denies all knowledge when they show up, says he has never seen this guy in his life before and that he collapsed, right there in front of him, but that he looked in his wallet and saw that his name was Tommy Kentigern, and they speed off with him in the ambulance, and barely a week later your man Davy Boyle gets sliced in a back alley in the Ardoyne as a reprisal, an incident that saw Frankie Mullen and Mike McMasters strung up and hanged with their own belts in a house in the Whiterock a few days later, and that led to the killing of Richie Pollock in a drive-by in front of his ma and da in a park off Donegall Street, which is what caused Pete McIver to end up with brain damage after being assaulted with a dumb-bell in a boxing gym on the Shankill Road, which is what led to the death of Tony Stuart and Vernon Forsyth, you must have read about it in the paper, the pair of them kidnapped and held to ransom in a loft in a safe house, starved, beaten naked, shot in the head, and dumped on a country road in South Armagh, that set a trail that led all the way back to poor fucking Jimmy Papps, who got his genitals removed with a chisel in the back seat of a car, a car what was then set on fire and rolled down the hill, into the front garden of his house, in full view of his wife and kids, with their faces pressed up against the glass as it exploded right in front of them, killing their da, and which led to the murder of the two boy soldiers, Roger Sutherland and Jimmy McDuff, the two boy soldiers on the news, killed by snipers, McDuff choking on his own blood after being shot through the lung, and then it’s our turn, and we get the call and we step in on this off-duty peeler, this fucking man-mountain that rises up in my inner eye, the next domino, teetering, and that took three of us, going at him full tilt, to get him out the bar and round the back into the waste ground where we put a plank with a nail in it through his soft fucking skull and Tommy took out a sharpened pine stump, who the fuck thinks up a fucking sharpened pine stump, and fucking impales the guy with it, like a vampire in a horror movie, and me and Barney and Tommy, how many unmarked graves did we dig, did the Big Man with the finger oversee all of that too, did he sit there and watch us, in the fields outside Belfast, in the fields out by the Neagh, up behind Randalstown, in the woods, down by the water, in the dark of the 1970s, at Bellaghy, in this van with Mickey Mouse on the side, scattering bodies across the fields like seeds, bodies I can’t even remember now, bodies with no faces and no names, bodies with no limbs at all, sometimes, bodies that nobody will ever find again, bodies with pine trees growing straight from their fucking hearts, I mean sharpened pine stumps, who even makes that up? The fucking Big Man, that’s who. Ask me why and I will tell you, dominoes, fucking dominoes: that’s why.
*
Right, this is a fucking
belter,
listen to this:
Pat and Mick are walking down the Falls Road, in
Belfast,
when they passes this store, what was selling antiques,
what was displaying knick-knacks
outdoors, on the pavement,
and that style of stuff
and there’s a mirror, lying out front,
on the pavement, and Pat’s like that,
he picks it up, and he looks into it,
and fuck me, he says,
I know that guy, I knows that guy in the mirror, he says
and Mick’s like that, he grabs it off him
and he looks into it
Himself
and he says to Pat, of course you fucking do,
that’s me in there,
you eejit,
that’s me, you fucking
tit.
*
Turns out your man Del Brogan is some chanter. We’re up at The Shamrock one night and he gets up onstage. Tommy’s there with Patricia. McManus might have been there too but that’s irrelevant to this story. Barney’s on his own because he hasn’t the bottle to bring Wee Robin, at least not yet. By this point his poor wife Shona has been in the hospice for a few month, it was a sin, so it was. Mack’s there with a couple of birds of his own. Your man Barney comes offstage, he’s up there giving it a version of ‘The Way We Were’ but he’s a fucking chronic warbler, I says to him, too much yon fucking warbling, son, and your man Del Brogan is laying into him and all, go easy on the vibrato, he’s telling him, you’re giving it too much, he says, and Barney says to him, what the fuck do you know about how the old tunes should be handled? You’re a fucking punk rocker, what do you know about the chanting? And your man Del Brogan just says to him: get me to the stage. Just like that. Get me to the fucking stage, that’s all he says to him, and Barney looks round at me and he winks, let him go, he says to me, give him enough fucking rope, he says.
Your man Del Brogan walks onstage and whips his yellow tie off, he’s staggering a little, the cunt’s half-blocked, obviously, and he whirls his tie above his head and throws it to a couple of ladies in the front row. Then the music starts up on the karaoke; it’s Bruce Springsteen, ‘Thunder Road’. And your man Del Brogan is giving it a bit of that. He’s got the rasp down. Fair enough, he has got the rasp down. He’s strutting his stuff up there. Fuck me, Tommy says, but your man Del Brogan can sing. Patricia’s dancing in her seat. The ladies down the front are holding his tie in the air and swatching it from side to side like it’s a team scarf. Barney’s shaking his head, it’s just power pop, he says, what the fuck is he talking about, but people are up on their feet by this point and then he launches into a ballad, your man Del Brogan is playing us at our own game here, straight into a ballad, and by this point his shirt is all unbuttoned and he’s standing there and with his eyes closed he’s singing our song,
Lay your head 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
For the good times
This is fucking sacred ground he’s on here, Barney says. Barney’s furious. These punks shouldn’t be touching Como, he says. He gets up and he starts shouting at the stage, hands off, you bastard! But everybody’s shouting him down. Shut it, Oddjob, stuff like that. Barney sits back down because your man Del Brogan is nailing it. The silk hankies are raining down on the stage. You can smell the little bursts of perfume as they hit the floor. Your man Del Brogan picks one up, a lavender-coloured one, holds it over his mouth and nose, closes his eyes, takes a great big sniff, slides it inside his shirt, and launches straight into the next verse without missing a beat. By this point there isn’t a dry seat in the front row. I looked over at Tommy and I could see he was entranced. Right then your man Del Brogan was his hero, so he was.
*
Now wait till I tell you. Next thing you know, Tommy is managing your man Del Brogan. I know. They’re making a fucking hit record together, you believe this. But here’s the deal: Tommy’s funding it but only if your man Del Brogan sings some of the old songs on there. It can’t be all this fucking Bruce Springsteen fucking punk rock style, Tommy says to him.
Now your man Del Brogan had a voice like your man Dick Hucknall, your Simple Reds man. The Simply Reds. You know the one, ‘Holding Back the Years’? That came out later but that was the style of chanter he was, that was your man Del Brogan’s style right there. He could have been as big as your man Dic
k Hucknall but you should have seen the fucking record they come out with. You can’t get it anymore, it’s out of print, this weather it’s probably a collector’s item. They call it Daddy’s Little Girl. There’s a photograph of your man Del Brogan on the cover, with his daughter, she must have been six year old, and he’s got his arm round her and it’s like a fucking hostage situation. He’s sitting there staring into space all profound. His face is beaming like fucking Jayzus Himself on a communion card and there’s this wee girl, her name was Eden, Eden Brogan, all done up in what looks like her communion dress, and she’s looking to the side, like she’s given up on ever escaping the clutches of her psycho father, no joke, it’s a pure paedo situation, in other words, but none of them can even see it. What are you talking about? Tommy says to me when I bring it up to him. You’re a fucking paedo, he says to me, you’ve got a sick fucking mind. And the songs, alright, okay, so there’s a few Rod Stewart numbers on there, ‘Hot Legs’, ‘Maggie May’, but then there’s all this other stuff, stuff like ‘The Rose of Castlerea’, ‘The Cliffs of Dooneen’, ‘Come Back to Erin’ and ‘My Wild Irish Rose’. Plus he’s got this washed-up compere that used to stand in at The Shamrock and run the karaoke, your man Pony McAllister, to write all this pish in the sleeve notes on the back about your man Del Brogan’s ‘intimate style’ and his ‘professionalism’.
But then there’s this: ‘As the record revolves,’ Pony writes, ‘we are aware of being part of one big family and as he serenades his young daughter Eden, “Daddy’s Little Girl”, in the character of his voice, in his mellow vocal tones, in the quality of his expression, Del Brogan makes us realise that family is forever.’
*
Mick from Ireland pulls into the Co-op car park, ah bollocks, it’s completely full.
He looks up to the skies and he says until our Lord Himself, Christ Jayzus, he says to him, help me out here, will you, my friend?
Christ Jayzus, I says until thee, right the now, he says, in the presence of all what is holy, if you can just see your way to getting me a wee parking space then I promise to come to church till every Sunday morning is done and dusted and in its proper place, at the end of days, and without fail, and like a good Catholic, he says.
Lo and behold, but a parking space opens up, right there in front of him.
Never mind, Irish Mick says to Christ Jayzus, I found one already.
*
My father used to take us up the Cave Hill when we were weans. One time he says to us, get down on your hands and knees, he says, and get yourself a drink of that water. We’re down there, cupping the water out this river, with our hands, drinking it and looking up at him, my father, and nodding and saying, it’s beautiful, Da, it’s the best water we ever tasted, Da, and he says to us, you’ll never taste more beautiful water than that, boys, that’s the purest water you’ll ever taste. Then we climbed further up and there was a dead dog, lying in the river.
*
There was nothing to put in my ma’s coffin but bits of bone, a framed picture of JFK, a souvenir magazine with the Queen’s face on it, a clump of dark hair and a clasp. Plus there was no upstair to put the coffin in. I remembered my da telling me it would be alright. Holding my hand and telling me not to be scared when my grandfather died. And now here we were.
Me, Tommy, Barney, my Uncle Sam and Terry McGillicuddy lowered a half-empty coffin into a hole in the ground. We buried her in the rain, as usual, in the mud and the rain, as ever in them days, and this guy is come out of the rain that’s coming down in thick sheets, this big lad I’ve never seen before walks out of it, takes a handful of dirt, and throws it into the grave. Goodbye, Edna, he says.
I goes up to him afterward. We’re at the wake and every bastard there is half-blocked and telling jokes. They haven’t started with the singing yet. That’ll come later. I don’t believe we’ve met, I says to him and I get a good look at his face for the first time. He looks familiar to me, it’s odd, like looking into a darkened mirror. I’m Danny McGonigle, he says to me. A friend of your father’s. And my mother’s, obviously, I says to him. Aye, he says, aye, of your mother’s too. It’s a sad day, he says. Losing your ma is murder, he says to me, but even the Pope has to die, and he’s God’s best pal. I don’t know if that’s any consolation, he says. And that’s when it clicks. Danny McGonigle was Jimmy Smalls’s pal that was selling the arms for Tommy’s da. Sure, were you a friend of Jimmy Smalls? I says to him. He looks a little nervous. Aye, he says. Aye, I knew wee Jimmy. Hold on a second, I says to him. I’ve got somebody that would like to meet you. He’s looking even more nervous at this point. I goes and I grabs Tommy. Fucking Danny McGonigle is here, I says to him. Tommy goes over and puts out his hand. McGonigle, is it? he says. Good to put a face to a name, he says to him. You know, he says, just for future reference. That’s all he says. McGonigle immediately starts making his excuses. I’m sorry, lads, he says. Forgive me. Please accept my condolences. But I should really be going. He puts his drink down and he turns on his heels.
That’s how you tie up loose ends, Tommy says to me. That’s how you leave a clean fucking trail, he says. Then he looks at me funny, just for a second. Don’t you think that cunt looked a bit like you? he says. Sure he looked nothing like me, I says to him, and I pick up my drink, and I walk away.
*
Now I hadn’t seen Kathy in months. Kathy M. Things had petered out after the attack went down at the Europa. We had nowhere left to go. Besides, I’m banging this wee chick Moira, Moira McCutcheon, from the Falls Road, a wee cracker. But I’m walking into town. I’m going to this market that I goes to, to do my shopping, and I get talking to this taxi driver that I vaguely knew, a guy what does the tours, Pete McComb, tours of the war zone. The Boys are becoming a tourist attraction, McComb says to me, I thought youse were supposed to be bringing the tourist industry to its knees? What can you do, I says to him, we’re fucking superstars this weather, is the problem. Talking of superstars, he says to me, I had your Tommy in my taxi the other day. What the fuck is Tommy doing taking a fucking tour of Belfast, I says to him, he fucking invented the place. Aye, McComb says to me, we were even up at the murals at the Shankill, just for a minute, like. He was giving his new bird the full history, a tour of Tommy’s greatest hits. His new bird? I says to him. Sure, him and Patricia have been together for years. Is that right? McComb says to me. Maybe it’s his bit on the side, he says. Forget I says anything, he says to me. Don’t tell Tommy I says a thing, he says. No, but wait a minute, what did she look like, I says to him, this new bird of Tommy’s? Ah, I’m murder with people’s faces, McComb says, but I heard Tommy calling her Kathy. I didn’t get her second name. Remember I says nothing, McComb says to me. I’ll deny it if anybody asks. Everybody’s entitled to get their hole on the side. Tommy’s probably fucking half of Belfast, anyroads.
He walked away and left me standing there with three apples in my hand. Are you gonna pay for them or are you gonna fucking fondle them all day? the stallholder says to me. Your wife will be fondling your balls in a fucking jiffy bag when I post them through your front door, I says to the cheeky cunt.
*
When my brother Peter was just a kid he thought it was the words that gave you an erection and not the thoughts or the touch or the sights or the imagination. One time I climbed up to the loft and I could hear Peter and his friend (through the trapdoor) and they were repeating the words fanny, fanny, fanny, and I heard Peter say, you’ve got to keep repeating it, or it goes back down again. In other words, it’s the speaking of the words that gets you hard. And of course I loved the stories in the scud mags, never mind the pictures, the stories were what it was all about, so as it made sense to me, these sexy words. And you want to have heard Tommy trying to read these porn stories out loud, it was like a witch’s tit, all smoking’t hot ass’t, lickt niiplels, like he was telling you the language of sex that other people outside of Ireland used in the world of free love for everybody, which in our lingo we called The Future:
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brush’te agin, agin to’ward
her hot, nekkid sins, frae head’s thrill twarts,
ah fuck’t it
ah fuck’t it, yeah
hole, precious spunk’t it,
an’s as boner
to splay’s, on yer titses
her pussy’s w/juice,
o’er her trampling’t, arse’t,
sex-jolt,
hits my hards
ah, baby’s,
in an out ma sticky holes, he says
fuck me,
but who writes this fucking stuff, he says,
it’s genius,
your brother was right,
he says
pussy’s w/juice and hole precious spunk’t
who’d a thunk it?
*
On New Year’s Day 1979 Tommy’s da died. This is the news. The funeral was the first time he had been out from behind that fucking curtain in years. Tommy never cried at the funeral. He seemed to be taking it well. Fact it turned into a laugh riot when everybody began telling mad stories about his da back in the day. About his terrible record with the IRA. The guy that played the organ just gives up, turns round in his seat and joins in with the craic. But then Barney told me that Tommy had broken down. Not in front of him, mind, but in front of Wee Robin, Barney’s wee bird on the side, when they had been alone in the shop together. She says he was sobbing. That was hard to take.
But now there was this seed planted in my skull. Eating away at me. Tommy and Kathy. Kathy and Tommy. I remembered how I had seen Tommy in the reception of the Europa that time. I thought about the blank note that had been left for me, and I began to wonder, I began to wonder if the note hadn’t been some kind of delaying tactic, you know, something to get me to hang around the reception area long enough to get blown up, or long enough to avoid getting blown up.