by David Keenan
Behind me, mirrored, the head of the snake, puffs, opens its black hood, my brain is going to fucking, spunk, bears fangs in its opened mouth, hoods its tongue, is spit on a mirror, and mirrored is miracle: because I know now why there are no snakes in Ireland. I know now. Saint Patrick told them to beat it because snakes move through time differently from us. Their tails are in the past but their heads are in the future. That’s why Saint Patrick told them to beat it. He had to get rid of them. Because if you can read the future then the game is up. And where would Ireland be without the game? But why me? I says to myself. Why has the snake come for me?
And then, the vision, iss, miracled:
*
I’m sitting here, in this lonely prison cell. I’m sitting here in this fucking cage and I’m telling you all about it. I’m remembering something that happened in the future but that is taking place right now as I’m telling you this, in the past. It’s like I’m in two places at once and they are both here, right now, in this one place. I walk back through the lobby in this double-minded snake state. I don’t know if anybody else can see it. Or the stains on my trousers. I walk past Jimmy The Grunt and he gives me a grunt, grunt.
Your man Del Brogan brings his daughter on. His daughter Eden, in a chair, onstage. This is my heart, he says. Give me a fucking break, Barney says. A little girl can be your heart, for god’s sake, I says to him. In this snake glow everything seems perfect. It is here right Now. Your man Del Brogan singing to his daughter is addressing his heart, addressing his fucking heart and no doubt about it, his heart is there in front of him with a white dress on and wearing knee socks just as surely as if somebody had slipped their fingers into the flesh of his chest and torn his heart free of its veins and its arteries and presented it to him, right then and there, his daughter, singing to the audience, is his heart to himself,
my heart’s come back to me
across the sad and lonesome years
my heart’s come back to me
darling can you see through the tears
my heart and I
returned
my heart and I
and the audience is beating, audience is pumping blood, this blood that words, inside of us. Can’t you feel it rising? Can’t you feel it surging and rising and passing through? It’s so powerful, this sharing of blood. Aren’t you crying?
*
Afterward we go backstage and your man Del Brogan has a gaggle of women around him. Eden is sitting on a stool on her own sucking a lollipop. Fuck me, but that’s a bit suggestive, is it not? Barney says to me, and he winks. You’ve got blow jobs on the brain, I says to him. Everyone in Ireland has blow jobs on the brain, he says. Doesn’t Wee Robin suck your cock with her outfit on? I says to him. He shakes his head. She says it’s disgusting, he says. Nightmare, I says to him. I bet your man Del Brogan is getting his cock sucked every night of the week, I says. We look over and your man Del Brogan is sitting on the edge of a table talking to this gorgeous blonde number. Speaking of which, Barney says, did you crack one off in the toilet? He points to the stain on my crotch. I had a fucking accident, I says to him, that’s all. Do I look weird to you? I says to him. No more than usual, he says. Then your man Del Brogan catches sight of us and waves us over. Fuck me, he says, it’s my two favourite stalkers. Are youse looking for autographs, boys?
How’s the groupie situation? Barney says to him. Banging, he says. Banging. Better than ever, he says. When Tommy was around I had serious competition. But now I’ve got the run of the field. I’m getting my cock sucked every night of the week, lads, he says to us. No word of a lie. Fuck me, I says to him, I was just saying that there’s a fucking drought on blow jobs in Ireland, always has been. When Saint Patrick ran all the snakes out of Ireland he must have fucking ran all the blow jobs out too, your man Del Brogan says. But they’re coming back, he says. Mark my words, they are coming back. For a second I’m caught there, speechless. Can he see me, I’m wondering, the way I saw him? What’s coming back, I says to him, the snakes? The fucking blow jobs, you divot, he says to me. The fucking blow jobs are coming back. The fuck you think I’m talking about? Then he winks at me. He fucking knows, I’m telling myself, he fucking knows. The snake means you’re marked. The snake means knowledge of the future. But then the blonde comes over and puts her arm around his waist. These are my good friends Barney and Sammy, he says to her. This is Babs. Babs gives us both a really limp handshake and then puts her mouth up to his ear. I hear her whispering to him. When are we getting out of here, Daddy? she says. She’s calling him Daddy. Daddy’s little girl.
*
Christ Jayzus stands up at the Last Supper and he says to his disciples, before the cock crows, he says, one of you will betray me, he says, and one of you will disown me completely, he says, and one of you will sell me down the river for a piece of gold, he says, and he gives them a commandment, I am commanding you right now, he says, I am telling you to love one another, to love one another like I have loved you, which is like brothers, he says, and to look after one another when I’m gone, because you know I won’t be around forever, I’m telling you right now, I’m not long for this world, boys, he says, and then he picks up a piece of bread and he breaks it in two and he says to them, see this bread, he says, this bread is my body, this bread is my broken body after it has been crucified, he says, crucified alongside common thieves, he says, alongside the lowest of the low, he says, and he eats it, he takes a big bite out this bread, and he pours himself a glass of wine, and he drinks it down, and he says to them, this is my blood, he says, this wine is my blood forever, he says, and he says to them, see every time you eat that bread, he says, you will be partaking of my body, you’ll remember me when you break that bread, he says, and see every time you drink that wine, he says, that’s my blood you’ll be drinking, he says, and I promise you, he says, I promise you that whatever one of you believes in me will be granted eternal life, which is entrance into heaven when you die, where we’ll be united with my da, who is God, the Father of us all, sitting there, with me on his right-hand side, and where you will be forgiven for all of the sins you have committed against me. And Peter gets up, and he says to him, sure, Jayzus, you’re a terrible man when you’ve got a drink in you.
*
Your man Del Brogan leaves with this bird on his arm and his daughter in tow and we’re left in the dressing room with his backing band that consists of a bunch of longhairs dressed up in charity-shop suits. I never knew hippies played that style of music, Barney says to one of them, tall guy with the plukes all over his face. Just doing a favour for the big man, the pluke guy says, money innit, he says. I thought you guys were all into the free love and all that? Barney says to him. Where in the fuck you gonna find free love in Ireland? the longhair-pluke guy says. It’s a good point, I says to him, and I see Wee Robin looking over at Barney right then. Sure, do youse smoke the grass, the longhair-pluke guy says to us, and Barney’s like that, naw, son, we’ll just stick to the booze, but of course I can see that he wants to, we both do, but we don’t want to do it in front of the birds. How do you know your man Del Brogan? I says to the longhair. Met him years ago, he says. How do you know him? he says to me. Let’s just say we’re in the same line of business, Barney says to him. In that case, let’s just say the same, the longhair says. Alright, we’re on the same page now, everybody’s talking that wee bit freer. But then the longhair drops the bomb. Sure, I met your man Del Brogan in the jail, the longhair says. We met when we were serving time.
Who knew your man Del Brogan had gone down?
Your man Del Brogan was in the jail? I says to him. Didn’t you know? he says to me. Went down for a few year. What for? I says to him. He puts his hand up, makes the shape of a gun, pulls the trigger. And what were you doing in there yourself? I says to him. Same thing, he says.
Okay, so everybody knows that Special Branch recruit their agents in the jail. They enjoy certain benefits, they get out early, they get protected, plus they have the
ultimate cover story: they’ve done time for The Boys.
How did your man Del Brogan get out so early? I says to him. Good behaviour? the longhair says, and he shrugs. This guy with the short hair comes over, it’s the drummer. He sniffs the air. Fucking hippies, he says, gimme that. He grabs the joint and takes a big toke. You look like a punk rocker, pal, Barney says to him. Fuck’s it to you? the wee punk says. I thought punks wanted to puke and destroy, Barney says, I thought it was all about no future. There’s no future in Ireland, I’ll fucking tell youse that much, the wee punk says, the Pistols got that fucking right, that’s for sure. That’s the fucking problem with cunts like you, the longhair says to him, I mean, if you don’t believe in the possibility of a better future, what exactly are you bringing to the struggle? An AK-47, the wee punk says, and everybody laughs, except for the longhair, who is getting more annoyed. You’ll change nothing, the punk says, it doesn’t matter. All this fucking nihilism, the longhair says. It’s the fucking disease of the young generation. But youse were just as bad, he says, and he’s nodding to me and Barney, where the fuck did youse get us? he says to us. Youse never had a coherent plan in your heads, he says to us. Youse were political illiterates. Who are you fucking calling il-li-ter-ates? Barney says to him. Youse never understood that it was all part of the greater class struggle, the longhair says to us. To youse it was just a fucking glorified street brawl. I’ll fucking take you in a glorified street brawl, Barney says.
Leave it, Barney, I says to him. Listen, I says to the longhair. It’s the very fucking idea of the future that gets everybody into trouble, I says to him. It’s all this fucking planning, all this fucking dreaming, all this fucking political shite, all this fucking tomorrow-will-be-better-than-today bollocks that keeps us all from living right now. You don’t even believe that, the longhair says. In Ireland there is no now to live in, my friend, he says to me. There is no fucking present in Ireland. No solid ground. Our only hope is to literally build the future, so as that when we get there, we’ll have something to fucking stand on. As it is, the ground beneath our feet doesn’t even belong to us.
Everybody is stood there, silenced. Then the wee punk, he says to us: youse are all going about it the wrong way. He’s walking out the door with his fucking drum kit strapped to his back at this point. And what’s your fucking strategy, Mr No Future? Barney says to him. My strategy is fucking infiltration, he says to us. My strategy is the fucking Trojan Horse. And I think of Kathy, and invisibility, and superpowers, and once again, for a moment, before it’s pulled from underneath me, I see myself, with certainty, in the future, and I know that when the times comes, I’ll be ready.
*
We never made contact with Tommy again and, I mean, I wonder why, because we all says it was amazing, that it was just like Tommy, and it was obviously him. I mean, you can actually talk to people in heaven. You would think we would have made more use of that. But I came to understand something about the dead that is so true, and so simple. You know all that bollocks about the dead living on in our hearts? It’s all nonsense, my friend. The dead get further away every minute. Because they have nothing in common with the living anymore. It’s the dead that are their people now. I mean, they’ll come if you call them. But really, they can’t be bothered. Because they have left all worldly concerns behind. That’s why even miracles like speaking from beyond the grave have basically zero interest for them; to them it’s just a cheap trick.
*
And sometimes I would hear his voice, mostly singing, or I would think of his eyes, when Irish eyes are smiling, or I would picture one of his suits, in my mind, I would see a pair of his shoes, phantom shoes, right there in front of me, I was afflicted by his phantom shoes, and his muscular arms, and his smell, sometimes I would catch a sniff of his smell, Old Spice, from out of the air, and I would feel so sad and lost to despair because I came to realise, son, I came to realise that it was all just echoes, running down. That it was all just after-images, fading.
Being in the jail is much the same thing. Being in the jail is to enter The Dead Zone: The Place Of Endless Echoes. We crossed over as surely as the dead did, and just like them we lost interest in the world on the other side. Visits were denied us anyways, and of course some of The Boys talked about their missus or some wee bird they were banging, but it felt like just talk for show, just talk for show. Because really the jail was the world. And every second was life so intensely. Boys as united in their mission as the dead themselves. And when a prisoner would pass over it was as if we had willed his death through sheer force of solidarity. That we had said to him, die. That he had offered up his body to the miracle of the mass. Even when he had the shite beaten out him, even when he gives himself a heart attack through starvation, even when he was an emaciated skeleton lying in a pool of freezing water; he had gone further, in the name of all of us. I’ve never known meaning like it, and I don’t expect to again, until I take my place in the tombs of heaven, for nobody else to see, but the endless dead.
*
What’s your man Bobby Sands’s phone number?
Eight Nothing,
Eight Nothing,
Nothing Two,
Eight.
*
I come in near the end of the first hunger strike. I mind attending mass in H3 one Sunday morning and seeing men what looked like they were a hundred year old. Brothers bent double, led in by their twin, shrouds wrapped tight around the two of them, in Bible time. Other men touching their pale white skin. Touching the white skin pulled tight round their faces, and looking in their dark eyes, and weeping there too. The first hunger strike was led by a man name of The Dark: Brendan ‘The Dark’ Hughes. He was like Tommy. One of these Irish guys what look like fucking negroes. That’s what they called him: Darkie or The Dark. But everything takes on new meaning in The Place Of Endless Echoes.
The Boys were being led by The Dark. They were being led by The Dark across The Dead Zone. And there were communications between the dead. From the dead that had crossed over into other regions of The Zone. In December we receive notice that three women in the Armagh prison had joined us in the hunger strike. Three women were approaching. Three shades, coming through from the other side. The priest talked to us about the agonies of Christ Jayzus. How Christ Jayzus will be in agony until the end of the world. But the world had already come to an end. We had left the world behind us. And now there was only a final suffering, a final monumental sacrifice, before we would have no more of this world and every single one of us, echoes, in time. If you could enter the eyes of a dead man, the black, inscrutable eyes of a dead man, at mass, in H3, in the years of the hunger strike, then you would come to know that heaven and hell are just party games played for the benefit of the living.
Part Five: The Ocean and the Shore
The phone rings, in the middle of night. It’s Tommy. It’s a game of Tommy calling me from the other side, and I sit on the stair, and I pick up the phone, in the dead of this Belfast night, and it’s the same silence on the end of the line, the same fucking silence as ever. But now someone is trying to speak. Tommy? Is that yourself, Tommy?
Answer me, Tommy.
Moira’s out of bed. Get back to fucking bed and close that fucking door behind you.
Someone’s crying. A woman’s voice is in tears at the end of the line.
Kathy? I says to it.
Kathy, is that you, honey?
Xamuel, it says.
Xamuel, I’m in trouble.
Xamuel, they are going to kill me.
Xamuel, I’m in trouble deep.
They? Who are they?
The ones what are going to kill me, she says, and the voice, it is Kathy’s.
Nobody’s going to kill anybody. Not while I’m around.
(muffled noises on the phone)
You need to speak clearly, sweetie.
Will you meet me? she says through the tears.
We can’t talk on the phone, she says, will you come to me?
Come back across the crackly telephone line, come back to me a song.
In Carrickfergus, my love, I’ll meet you in Carrickfergus, I’ll meet you in Carrickfergus, by the shore. And what time will we meet?
Tomorrow, at half past three, my love.
I’ll meet you in Carrickfergus, by the shore.
*
Next afternoon I’m out there early. Don’t dare take the van. Invisibility is wearing off. I eat a fish supper and look out to sea. How come I never visited Carrickfergus before? After all, it’s just along the coast. I look out at this sea some more, this sea that has come to me, and that’s when I realise. It was waiting for us. It was waiting for us, here, in this moment. I take out my hip flask, and I spot her in the distance, from the swish of her hips, I can make her out, coming back to me, as a gift. Kathy, coming back to me. And what is it they say, about swans, in history, what is it that they rise up, on their wings, somewhere in the world, and they trigger a tsunami?