For the Good Times

by David Keenan

  It was a web of lies we were all caught in. It’s the default position of the Irish. If in doubt, lie; if asked, make it up; if questioned, deny it. It had been drilled into us since we were kids, tell them fucking nothing, but it meant that every single relationship in your life was up for questioning. It meant that there were things you wouldn’t even tell your own reflection. And that’s when the phone calls started.

  I had been set up with a new house in the Ardoyne, after my ma died, after I blew our own fucking house sky-high, everybody had gathered round, and everybody had sorted me out, because The Boys were good like that, you could rely on them, but then the phone calls started happening, with no one at the other end, and at strange times of night. I’d pick up the phone and there would be silence or sometimes the sounds of a room, maybe, the sound of movement in a small room, an echoes, sometimes even the sound of breath, but no one would speak. I’d yell at them, what the fucking what is this, you shower of bastards; no change, in the sound, or the breath, or the silence, no change. I’d be sitting on the stair, with a chatsby in my hand, in the pitch dark, looking out through the frosted glass on the front door, into the night, listening to this faraway sound, this floating sound, it seemed to me, on the other end of the line, and I would fall asleep sometimes, on the stair, in the cold, and I would wake up in the morning, with the sun streaming through, and the receiver on my chest, and for a minute I would forget what had happened, or I would be confused, like my dreams were bleeding into the day, and I would recall a talk on the phone that I was having, with my ma, in heaven, and with my da there too, and they were speaking in these calm sounds that weren’t really words, but that were more like somebody humming a tune, while you slept, humming ‘The Old Bog Road’, so as not to wake you, but to take you deeper, and sometimes they would still be there, on the other end of the phone, when I woke up, maybe they had fallen asleep too, and I would think to myself, do I sound like a song? Do I sound like a song on the other end? And I would imagine them lying there, on the stair, with the receiver curled up on their chest, and the sound of my breathing, like the tide coming in, and out, and the tide coming in, and out again, and I says to myself, it’s the same person, the tide, on the other side, it’s the same person what wrote me the note, it’s the same silence what’s speaking, and I says to myself, is it Tommy, is it as close as we came to saying what we had to say, to each other, to these silent phone calls, a saying that began in the spring of ’79, and that continued for most of the year, and that at first scared the living Jayzus out of me, the living Jayzus, if I’m being honest, scared but then a comfort, a strange, scared comfort is what it was, in the night, on my own, in this empty shell of a house, this empty cell, and I took to thinking, for the first time, maybe, a little, I know it sounds crazy, mugs like you just don’t understand, mugs like you will never understand, but I took to thinking for the first time about certain things, analysing what I had been doing, asking myself these serious questions, for the first time ever, and that’s dangerous.

  Because that was one thing we never did: we never asked ourselves any questions, in fact we lied. We lied to ourselves more than we did to anybody else. You had to. How else do you do this stuff, day in day out? If you had a working brain you would be finished, and then I says to myself, it’s me on the other end, hello, is that you, Xamuel, I says to this silence on the end of the line, and I says to it, Xamuel, and it echoes, right back to me, and I lie down, and I listen to it, and I fall asleep, and maybe get connected, to heaven, maybe, where everybody is waiting for us, and where I’s didn’t need to be I’s anymore, in the end, I’s no more, and where we could step out of the game, and have a right old fucking laugh about all these I’s, in the end.

  *

  Have you ever heard the story of Pablo’s Dog, son? I can see I’m going to have to educate you here. This guy Pablo, this Spanish guy, obviously, he makes this maze into which his dog has to live in, and in order to get his food served every night in his bowl, Pablo’s Dog would have to find his way through this maze built by this Spanish madman and ring a bell with his paw, he would have to ring this bell that was connected to a system of wires and pulleys and electricity and it would drop a lump of dog food into the bowl from a hatch that was hidden in the ceiling, and Pablo’s Dog was the first ever smart dog that got taught by a human’s invention, because wait till I tell you, every time that dog hears a bell he would start salivating because Pablo had used the bell to program the dog so as that every time he rang it the dog would automatically get hungry.

  Now, imagine if Pablo had been an Irishman. Imagine if that had been Paddy’s Dog. And they had built a maze. And they were making them hungry. Like in an experiment. Just to see. Fuck me, but it doesn’t even bear thinking about, right?

  *

  The guy what painted all of the famous Sniper At Work signs, you must have heard of this guy, he was a legend. We sparked this scheme to track him down because every time we would drive through South Armagh, Tommy would be pointing the signs out to us and one time we tried to steal one but a farmer saw us climbing up and trying to unscrew it and he came out with a shotgun and let loose at us with it, and Billy McNab, who was there because he needed some extra money, Billy McNab from round the back of me, got shot through his big toe, nightmare, so as we jump into the car and go skidding off but McNab can’t get in and the farmer’s taking these shots at us and Tommy won’t slow down and now we’ve lost McNab. In the rear-view mirror I can see him, bouncing along the road, and the farmer coming up to him, with his shotgun held up to his eyes, and the two of them disappearing in a cloud of smoke.

  Ah fuck, we’ve got to go back, I says to Tommy, but Tommy’s freaked out, he probably thinks we’re British agents, he says, who else would be mad enough to go taking down Sniper At Work signs just because they appreciate the artwork. Look, I says to Tommy, we can go back and explain the situation and just say that really, it was because we were so in awe of the artistry of said artist’s work, that we just had to have an original for ourselves. And that we’re proud Green Book-carrying radical Fenian bastards to a man. You tell him, Tommy says. I’ll stand well behind you with my shirt as a flag.

  So as we drive back and we pull into this empty farmyard. The wind is blowing through these gasoline tanks that are all rusted and standing there. Hello, I shout to the winds. Hello, we’re the boys you shot at. We’re Provos, I shout out to this empty yard. We’re IRA boys. A voice comes from a broken window, high up. That’s an executionable offence, is what it says.

  What, I says, appreciating the artistry of our own side is now punishable by death, is it?

  Can you imagine going into Auschwitz and removing one speck of dirt? this fucking disembodied voice cries out. Auschwitz is a memorial to the dead, I says to this voice from out of nowhere. So is South Armagh, it says to me in return. Look, I says to it, I just came back to clear up any potential misunderstandings and to pick up our good friend what fell out of the car in a state of some distress, I says. Your pal lives, the voice says, but on one condition. What? I says to it. What? This isn’t a matter of life or death here, is it? We police our own round here, the voice says to us. Tommy’s standing behind me with his vest on waving his shirt around, on a stick, in the fog, like we’re at the trenches. Look, I says to the voice, we come in peace. Well, you’re in the wrong place in that case, the voice says in this mocking tone. Your pal lives, it says again, but on one condition. Okay, I says, what’s your condition? That you answer a riddle, it says. I look round at Tommy and he’s like that, it’s the Giant fucking Sphinx, where’s that cunt Barney when you need him? Alright, I says, alright, but are you seriously trying to tell me that my pal dies if I can’t work out the answer? That’s right, it says. By this point we’re that scared we’re ready to believe anything. After all, this is South Armagh. Different rules apply. Okay, I says, okay, what’s this riddle needing solved? And the voice it says to us, I’d like to hear your views on art. You tell me youse are cultivated Fenia
ns with an eye for the canvas of improvised road signs, it says. What, in your mind, is the purpose of art?

  We stand there for a moment, in this silent fog, and ask ourselves some big questions. Like, what the fuck is going on? The purpose of art, in my opinion, I says to the voice eventually, is a process of raising one’s self up and improving one’s self. You talk like a pansy, the voice says. The purpose of art, I says to the voice (I’m taking another tack here), is to change the world, I says. You’re you, the voice says, so who’s going to do the changing? Can’t we dream of a better world? I says to this mocking voice from out of nowhere. Oh, we can dream alright, the voice says, just don’t waste my time making me look at a pretty picture of it. You, in the back there, the voice commands out of nowhere. Tommy’s like that, what, me? he says, pointing to himself. You there with the white flag of surrender, the voice says. What’s your take on art? I take it you don’t get many visitors round here? Tommy says to the voice. It doesn’t say anything in return. Voice is embarrassed, I says to Tommy. The purpose of art is to scare the shite out you, Tommy says to it. Ha ha, the voice says, that’s a good one, but it doesn’t say anything else. Try again, I says to Tommy. In my opinion, art is all about illuminating, Tommy says. Illuminating what? The voice is back. Yourself, Tommy says.

  Art is a burning up, the voice says, and I almost felt it sigh as it says it. Look, pal, if that’s the answer, can we get our friend back now? I says to it. Are either of the two of youse familiar with the term immolation? the voice says. If you’re talking about what they do to them poor young kids in the homes then you can fuck right off and take Billy McNab’s life while you’re at it, Tommy says to it. Tommy’s confused, I says to the voice, I know what you mean, you mean to pass through fire, I says. So as there’s nothing left of you but a little mound of ashes, the voice says in return. Then a door opens in front of us and I look to Tommy and he nods and we walk in.

  From outside it looked like an abandoned farmhouse. But as we creep through this darkened corridor we come out on a long rectangular room, the walls of which are covered in drawings and sketches, pictures of judges and juries, pictures of weeping witnesses and cold-hearted killers, men with their faces in their hands and women screaming in accusation, men with their hands tied and held by armed guards. I’m in here; I get this terrible feeling that there’s a drawing of me here somewhere. We’re in here somewhere, I says to Tommy. I’ve just got that feeling, I says. This is the work of a courtroom artist, I says to him, he might have come across us, or somebody we know, at some point.

  At the end of the room there’s a shadow behind a table. It doesn’t move or signal or otherwise make a sound. We get closer. It’s Billy McNab, and he’s tied and gagged in a chair. Plus he’s bollock naked. Fucking hell, he stripped McNab, Tommy says. McNab’s signalling with his eyes, up above, and now there are footsteps, dragging and banging footsteps, going across the floor above us, and approaching the top of the stair. Boom. Schlup. Boom. Schlup. Boom. Schlup. It’s like the walking dead. A figure appears on the stair. He’s carrying something heavy in his arms. Tommy pulls a chatsby from the band of his trousers. What the fuck is this? he says. Don’t be stupid, the voice says. I’m no threat to you. I was just pulling your leg. Who the fuck ransoms hostages with riddles about art?

  And then he reveals himself, as a burnt man, with no skin on his face. There is something cradled in his left arm, something moving. In his right hand he holds a crumpled leaf. He holds the leaf out in front of him. Here, he says, I offer you an old wrinkled leaf for a prize, he says. Tommy puts his hand out, I can see he is shaken, but he puts his hand out and the burnt man drops the shaking leaf into his palm. In his left arm the man is holding what appears to be a child in filthy blankets. Balanced on the child’s head is an old paper plate to prevent the ashes from the cigarette that is fixed between his lips from falling onto the baby’s face and burning it. Who did this to you? Tommy says to him. Art, he says. Art did this to me. I am the one what paints the sniper signs, he says. We’ve always wanted to meet you, Tommy says.

  It’s okay, Ron, the burnt man says, and the farmer who we saw earlier and who had shot at us in the road comes out of a back room with his shotgun. Fix our guests some drinks, he says to him, and the farmer nods and goes through to the kitchen and brings back a bottle of Bushmills and some glasses. Sure at first I thought youse were just exceptionally brave members of Special Branch, the burnt man says to us, but then I thought to myself, there is no one that brave in Special Branch. We all had a good laugh about that one. That’s why I went ahead and tied up your man, though, the burnt man says. Just in case. You can go ahead and untie him, he says to us. Sure, we’ll just leave him like that for a bit, Tommy says, and he sits down next to McNab at the table and cracks open the Bushmills. McNab is signalling with his eyes but Tommy’s having none of it. Please yourself, the burnt man says.

  How did you get into the painting of the signs, Tommy asks him, and the burnt man takes us back to the year of 1972 and the wake of the Bloody Sunday massacre when a crowd of 20,000 people converged on the British embassy in Merrion Square and burnt the fucking building to the ground. I was an art student, just graduated, this burnt man says to us, and I went along to the demonstration. The occupants of the building were quick to flee and the word went round that we were going to torch the block. I had my paints with me. Me and a girlfriend, we climb over a wall round the back and jimmy a window. We find the stair and make our way up to the top floor, there’s an attic level. I’m a war artist, I’m telling myself, I’m Eric Ravilious in a spitfire over Iceland, I says to myself, I’m going to paint the building as it falls, I’m going to capture revolution on the canvas as it happens, I want my canvas to be licked by the flames, I’m enflaming myself with all this talk and I tell my girlfriend, go, lock me in, don’t let me chicken out now, and she obeys, we had rehearsed this, we both knew it would be hard, but we had agreed that we would not allow me to back out, we agreed to burn all of our bridges so that we had no choice but to witness history, and to capture it, in its passing, and so she locks me in, she wedges a chair up against the door so as there is no way I can leave and says she’ll come and free me at the last minute and she goes back downstairs and joins the mob and all the while she says that she feels like she is in two places at once and the thing is, that is exactly how I felt myself, that I was out there, participating, and yet in here, recording, what a feeling it was, right then, and I heard glass breaking and shouts and the crowd were squeezed all of the way down the street and were moving in one motion, it was all of us, moving as one, only with me looking back at us at the same time, and I started to paint, I started to mix the colours and I started to apply them to the canvas I had brought with me, this recycled canvas, where I had been painting over and over and over again, so that there were all these layers already on it, and I look down at the faces, looking up, I’m looking down at the faces down below, some of whom are singing, some of whom are screaming, some of whom are lighting improvised petrol bombs and hurling them through the windows, it’s a carnival of destruction, and the faces are screaming and contorting and that’s all I can see, I can’t see history anymore, I can’t see a myth or a legend, just faces that are screaming, but I’ve come to paint the scene and how can I, and then I give it two eyes, it just comes to me, I reach out toward the canvas and I give it two eyes, dot, dot, just like that, with two gestures I give the scene a face, I draw a slit of a mouth in a single gesture, a crude triangle for a nose in an unbroken line, waves for hair, basically I have painted this wretched childlike face and now I’m paralysed, I came here to draw history, I came here to paint an epic and all I can come up with is the crude mocking face of a five-year-old, and it was terrifying. I could feel the walls melting, I could feel the floor below giving way, I could hear the cracking of the construction, the crumbling of this edifice. And all that it stood for was this contorted face, looking up, and screaming in anger and frustration. I took my fingers and I edged a tear
in the canvas where the mouth was, by this point the smoke was coming in under the door, I tore a hole where the mouth should be and I forced my fingers through the gap, and then I clenched my hand into a fist, and then I buried my arm as far as it would go down the throat of this grotesque, primitive face, and then I felt it, soft in my hand, I felt my fingers touch it, and I went to recoil but no, I pushed myself to embrace it, and I felt the skin give way, and what was inside the skin was soft and bright, and scared, and at that moment I felt myself step out of my skin altogether and leave the old skin behind, there on the floor, which was art, art is the skin you step out of and that you leave behind, I had been purified, in other words, and cured of art, in that moment, and what was soft and bright and scared had been brought to light, and I spent many months in hospital, received skin grafts and specialist care beyond compare, my girlfriend visited me loyally and never once did she look at me in fear, or in sorrow, or in pity. Rather, she looked at me as a hero of our time and I said to myself, is this what it takes, does it take the turning inside out of what is human to be a hero these days, does it take the change into a terror in order to check terror itself, I says to myself, and I became a court reporter, yes, these are my drawings all over the walls, boys, have a good look, you might even find yourselves in there, take it all in, I was the burnt man, sat in the corner of the court, as the Brits condemned wild young boys, boys who would have been artists had they been as uncomfortable in their skins as I was, and here I was again, attending history, only this time I had a new understanding of the face, by which I mean, I understood how faces were worn, or at least, this is what I came to as a court artist, I came to understand that the flesh is a prison and a penance but that there is something, in the face, that is communicating – hear me out – in the folds of the face there is something that wants to break free, but that is fixed there, as a face, which is an alignment of pain, and a direction, as sure as the cross is, my friend, as sure as the cross is, buddy, you better believe it, and in my role of court artist I drew new faces every day, I drew the faces of the condemned, the faces of their distraught loved ones, the faces of victims and the faces of spiteful judges and contemptuous paramilitaries, on all sides, I wanted to understand how to wear your skin, was there a secret to it, could some people wear it better than others, and then I says to myself, what’s the rush, there’s no shortage of flesh in this world, but there’s something there to be learnt, for sure, something about guilt and innocence, and how there is no difference between a guilty and an innocent face, between a face that is true and one that is not, except for one thing, except for one detail, and that I would describe as composure, but then I lost my job, they found out I had lied on my application and that I had been involved in the storming of the British embassy, although really I was a victim of that storming as much as a perpetrator, and they fired me, just as my girlfriend became pregnant, yes, I know what you are thinking, I was still able to have sex even though most of my body recoiled from anything but the softest touch, but sometimes the softest touch is all you need, my friend, and we came back here, to this farmhouse, which was my father’s, and his father’s before him, and tried to make ends meet, and The Boys came and visited us one day and they says to me, we hear you’re an artist, we need artists onside, he says, we need you to redo the road signs of Armagh, we need you to scare the shite out of anyone who shouldn’t be down here, if you know what I mean, and I says to them, okay, so why don’t we make them run the gauntlet, why don’t we paint all of these implied threats and stick them up on road signs at odd spots in order to set the fear of God in them, or the fear of a sniper, at least, and I says to myself, I’m a war artist at last, but still I was haunted by these faces, these faces that would come staring at me in dreams, these composed faces and these screaming, twisted faces that were taunting me and that were caricatures of faces, what was I to do with faces, faces, faces, and that’s when I realised, I’m painting memorials, South Armagh is one great big war memorial, and that’s when I began incorporating the faces, look, take a look at this, the burnt man says to me, and he hands me a Sniper At Work painting, a red-rimmed triangle with a figure holding a rifle, looking out, and the figure has the face of a child’s drawing of a little girl, a crude little girl like a doodle in the margins or the wall of a toilet. The sniper has the face of a little girl, I says to him, I never noticed that before, and he says, she is the daughter of a Republican prisoner, he says to me, and then he shows me some more, I draw a new face every day, he says to me, the drawn faces of snipers are all of children, he says, and he has painted them like strange angels from children’s scrapbooks, and now it’s clear that they are leaning on clouds, they have rifles along the battlements of the clouds, that the burnt man has painted the snipers of South Armagh as a band of feral children with crude, mocking faces, defending the ramparts of heaven, and I says to him, what happened to your girlfriend, and a little drop of ash falls from his lips and hits the paper plate he has sat on his poor baby’s head, and he says to us, my girlfriend is an artist in the women’s prison, where she is handcuffed to another woman twenty-three hour a day, it’s a durational work, is what the burnt man says, a work that will take many years to complete, he says, and that will remodel her face and her body. An artist, in wartime, is taken prisoner, he says, because an artist, in wartime, is the one that must draw the fire. In order to burn it down? Tommy says to him. Does the artist draw the fire so as he holds it in his hands and he can use it himself? But the burnt man doesn’t answer, even as his crooked body takes the form of a question mark in front of us. Illuminating, you called it, he says to Tommy. Lighting up, you says. It is the state of my body, he says to us, and just then McNab has somehow worked the gag out his mouth with his tongue and what the fuck is this, he says, can I just remind you that I am tied up naked right next to you with a burst toe as youse are having this conversation about the meaning of art. Listen to the fucking Mona Lisa here, Tommy says, and he points to McNab, that enigmatic smile is well overrated, he says to us. Can we buy a painting off you? Tommy says to the burnt man. I’ve always wanted to own an original Sniper At Work, he says.