For the Good Times

by David Keenan

  *

  Your man Del Brogan and his daughter Eden are at the front of the stage. He’s serenading her, and calling her his heart. He’s down on one knee, as if he’s proposing to her. She’s sat on a chair in front of him wearing a frilly white dress and with her legs dangling down, her little high-heel shoes, her red hair’s on fire and wrapped up in her, and it’s like he is asking her for her hand in marriage when how could she ever be true to her father forever, and he falls over, her father, he topples onto his side, her poor da, and he clutches at his chest like his heart has been taken from him, like his daughter has climbed out his chest right there and left him for dead on the floor, like he has given up his heart so as she can live.

  Then a hand, a great deathly white hand like a ghost in a play, comes out from behind this great black curtain and drags him back to the other side. The women are on their feet and they’re firing the silk hankies onto the stage, silk hankies all misty-wet with women’s tears are raining down, and the house is in uproar; cunt gets a standing ovation. It’s only later we find out he had died. He had taken himself a heart attack and died there on the spot. What a performance. Nobody will ever forget it.

  Part Six: The Hood of The Snake, what is Miracle

  I told you Mad Frank Marby was in town, right? Marby’s this guy from Athlone with a reputation for pointless torture. I told you he looked like that bad bastard Fred West; big kick-your-cunt-in face. We had never heard of Fred West back then even though he must have been at it at the time, fucking scum, torturing young girls. That would never have happened under the Ra’s remit. Things were safer, on the whole. If you stole a car you got kneecapped. Never mind raping some poor young bird and burying her under your patio. But Marby’s in town because an informer has been uncovered in the ranks of the FSV and a bunch of the boys had let the top rank of the Ra know. They hadn’t blown the whistle yet but they had transferred over to the Ra and had let them know what was going on. It was starting to look like the FSV was a front organisation set up by Special Branch. The whole fucking edifice was riddled with spies and informers. That’s the word Mack used when we had a briefing about the situation.

  We’re at a call house in the Ardoyne, a foul dump of a place. The whole fucking edifice, Mack says, is rotten. The entire fucking structure is riddled, he says. But this presents us with a great opportunity. For information. How do we know it’s not a set-up? Big Bik McQuillan says to him. How do we know, if this fucking thing is as riddled as you say, that this isn’t some attempt to set us all up? The information is good, Mack says. The information is quality. We have our own sources, he says to us. We have our own confirmed channels. This isn’t a one-way fucking street, he says to us.

  So what’s the game? Mad Frank Marby says. The game is this, Mack says, and he introduces two guys that have come over to the Ra from the FSV, and one of them is Jimmy McNulty, the brother of Rab and Joe McNulty, who were taken out by the Ra over false claims to the Europa bombing. I can see he knows who I am. That’s fucking one of the McNulty boys, Barney whispers to me.

  I’m Jimmy McNulty, he says, and this is Pat Allardyce. I’m aware that there is some bad blood between us and some people in this room, he says. I lost my two brothers over it but we’re all on the same side. Always were. There was just some dispute over tactics.

  Right, and taking the blame for fucking shite you didn’t even do, Barney says to him. Shut your bake, Oddjob, Mack says, don’t start with that bollocks now. But McNulty continues as calm as you like. That too, he says, that too. Although I’d say we took the credit more than the blame. Fucking smart cunt, Barney says. We had our reasons at the time to believe that certain operations (that’s the phrase he used, certain operations) had been carried out by foot soldiers of the FSV when in fact they had been carried out by the brave boys of the IRA. Brave boys. He was pressing all the right buttons. The relevant fantasists have been dealt with, McNulty says. Certain operations, brave boys, relevant fantasists: that’s the story of my life, I’m thinking. Then I says to him: what about my ma? Are you going to bring my ma back to life? Am I supposed to work with the cunts what blew up my own ma?

  *

  Look: it’s all out in the open now, now that it’s all over, but I’ll tell you this, I never once felt like I was lying. I never once felt like I was doing anything other than honestly playing the role that was given to me. I says to myself, what’s true? What does that even mean, being true? Could you even fucking handle the truth? Are you really sure that’s what you want? Because what if the truth is a stinking pit filled with bodies? What if the truth is the blind pain at the centre of the world? What if the truth is the doubled crucifixion of a snake? Maybe it would be better for us all if we just played the game. I mean, Mad Frank Marby might be a fucking serial killer in private but he knew how to play the game. We all did. I don’t know who knew what back in that meeting or who was playing who, but the point was it was all about the playing itself, and we all knew it, was what.

  *

  Look: see, when you’re up onstage and the fucking audience have filed in and you’re all given your roles and already the story has gone this way and that, do you just fucking stand up and says, wait a minute, I’m not your man Hamlet anymore? I was never a Pope of Denmark, I can wash the blood out my hands no problem, in fact my name’s John the fucking Baptist and I live in Jamaica Street in the Ardoyne? Of course you fucking don’t. It’s you fucking do-gooders, you fucking investigative journalist types, that are always trying to get to the bottom of things. And the thing is, you have no fucking idea what’s down there. Take it from me, son. You might end up disinterring a body. One that you might even recognise. So as when you walk onstage, you’re Como, and you live the legend, end of. It’s better that way for everybody, believe me.

  *

  McNulty apologises, he does. This cunt McNulty apologises for the murdering of my own ma, even though it was me what blew her up with that fucking bomb under my bed, which is something I’ll take to the grave with me, but okay, at least now we know where we stand, we’re on solid ground at last, although, of course, we’re on no ground at all, we’re not on solid fucking ground, not ever, in Ireland, we’re on totally fucking phantom ground because the very ground beneath our feet does not belong to us, and we’re walking in the air, basically, but there’s enough belief there to support us, can’t you feel it, there’s a consensus that we can fly, is there not, son, and so if we can fly, we fly.

  *

  So what’s the game? Mad Frank Marby says it again. We roll up at The Celt’s Head, McNulty says. That’s where they all drink on a Friday night, he says. We roll up there and we cause havoc. Everybody is looking at each other and beaming. This is what walking in the air is all about. But there’s somebody we need to take back with us alive, Mack says. He goes by the name of Danny Whitaker and he’s a bad bastard.

  *

  The week running up to the attack on The Celt’s Head was idyllic in my mind because things were all back to normal and for a week we were caught up in the old routine. All living together at the stinky call house. Turning over a shop or robbing a bank in the morning. In the afternoon maybe we’d do a float, see if we couldn’t take out some soldiers. Plant a bomb somewhere, set a booby trap. Then in the evening maybe a firefight or two. Happy days.

  It was a privilege and a terror to be working with a guy like Mad Frank Marby. He literally did not give a fuck. One night when we were driving back from a fairly successful float – two soldiers shot, one fatally, we later found out – I get to talking to him about your man Del Brogan. Pat Allardyce is with us in the car.

  It’s a shame about your man Del Brogan, Allardyce says. Fuck your man Del Brogan, Mad Frank Marby says, he was a fucking fruit merchant. I heard he got poisoned, Pat Allardyce says, I heard that somebody spiked his drink, that’s what they’re saying. Bollocks, I says to the two of them, it was a heart attack. He was hitting it too hard. I heard he was coked out his tits (of course I had heard no such th
ing but fuck him). It’s the fucking Curse of Como, if you ask me, Mad Frank Marby says. What are you talking about? Pat Allardyce says to him. There’s a Curse of Como? He fucking took Como’s name in vain, Mad Frank Marby says. Isn’t that right, Sammy? he says to me and he winks. Right in front of our fucking face he did it too, he says. Disrespectful cunt. That’s fucking right, I says to Pat Allardyce, he was trying to maintain that Como took a drink. Bollocks, Pat Allardyce says, that’s fucking libellous. Exactly, Mad Frank Marby says, and then the wee cunt walks onstage with a half of whiskey thinking he’s doing it just like Como and – bam – God’s fucking red right hand comes roaring through the clouds and fuck you; takes him right out the game. Wee shitehawk. God’s like that, fucking leaning down through the clouds and letting it be known. One singer, one song, you irreligious cunt.

  Did you know Tommy? I says to the both of them. Sure, I knew him, Pat Allardyce says. Frank Marby nods. Sure, I heard he was some chanter, he says. If there was ever another Como, it was him, I says to them. Was he not managing your man Del Brogan for a bit? Pat Allardyce says to me. Sure, he was, for a while, I says to him, up until he died, that is. That’s arse-backward, Frank Marby says to me, that’s completely fucking back to front. What was Tommy doing behind the scenes with that fucking fruit merchant? Aye, it should have been Tommy, Pat Allardyce says, that wee bastard was like an unknown movie star or something. Your man Del Brogan was more contemporary, I says to them, sure he had all the new songs. Tommy convinced him to do some of the old material but people want to listen to all the disco songs and the stuff that’s in the hit parade like Rod Stewart these days. Tommy knew that. He saw the way the future was going. Face it, lads, I says to them, our days are numbered. Men like us are disappearing, fast. We’re the old school now. Soon all the hippies and the fucking punk rockers will be taking over.

  When you think about what we did for these ungrateful bastards, Mad Frank Marby says, it makes me mad as fuck. It’s a different world this weather. The young ones these days have got no respect and all they do is fucking talk and fucking bang on about human rights and all that pish. The leadership is just as bad, if you ask me. I don’t know what the fuck is happening to the world sometimes, he says. We’ve become too fucking soft. I know that much. And I blame the longhairs. When all the longhairs came in and all the punk rockers came in, that’s when everybody began mincing around like fucking three-speeds and that’s when they began handing these fucking Green Books out about what you can and can’t do. I mean, it was clear in the old days that if somebody needed shooting then you just fucking shot them, end of. This new generation has no fucking balls, Mad Frank Marby says, and he shakes his head in disgust and in pity and he spits out the open window into the dark of this warm August night. Just thinking about it makes me so mad I could pish, he says.

  That’s when I get an idea. It’s 3 a.m., we’re just down the road from The Shamrock. Hold on, lads, I says to them, let’s swing a wee diversion here. We pull up to the front, where there’s a memorial to your man Del Brogan. There’s a big fuck-off flower arrangement and people have left photos and Celtic scarves and copies of his album and wee handwritten notes to him, as well as hankies, as well as what looks like hundreds of silk hankies. Still mad enough to pish? I says to them, and the three of us whip our dicks out and take a steaming wazz all over the memorial. Feel better now? I says to Mad Frank Marby. Brand new, he says to me.

  *

  Here, this is the best one yet:

  Paddy says to his wife, my arsehole really hurts.

  Ring sting, she says.

  Paddy says, what the fuck does he know about it?

  *

  The plan was to hide out round the back of the garages across the road from The Celt’s Head and for Shorty McCann to come out the pub and to let us know who was in there and what their positions were and then we get in there ourselves, cause chaos, strike fear into their hearts, break them up for good etc., and get away with Danny Whitaker in a headlock. Then it’s down to that bad bastard Mad Frank Marby to taking care of business. How will we know what one is Danny Whitaker? I says to Jimmy McNulty. Sure, he’s got the sandy hair like you, and the eyes, he says to me. I’ll point him out as soon as we get in there, he says.

  Shorty McCann comes swanning across the road. Cunt is obviously half-blocked. You, you wee cunt, Jimmy McNulty says to him, you need to keep the fucking head. Sure, it’s not a problem, Shorty McCann says to him, sure this is deep fucking cover for me, he says. Anyroads, Shorty McCann says, they’re all in there, lads, and they’re all blocked out of their suffering skulls. Where’s Whitaker? I says to him. In the snug at the back, in the last booth. He’s in there with Benny and that cunt from Meath, your man McPheat. Alright, boys, Pat Allardyce says, and he gives the order to get the ballys on. Then he looks round at me and he winks. For the good times, he says, and I pull a chatsby out of each side of my trousers and all five of us walk calm as you like across the road and through the front door of The Celt’s Head. Then all hell breaks loose.

  Any concept of a plan is out the window. Mad Frank Marby starts shooting blind, just tearing the place up as soon as we’re through the door, shouting and acting ferocious and screaming at everybody. The rule in these cases was always total silence. Do not speak. Do not give yourself away. I can see by the look in Pat Allardyce’s eyes that he’s fucking losing it over Frank Marby but what can he do, things just escalated. He starts to plugging away himself.

  Two guys sat on stools at the bar hit the floor like skittles. This big jet of blood is shooting up into the air out of one of their chests like it’s a fucking geyser. Mad Frank Marby steps on it like he’s trying to stem the blood and then shoots the cunt straight in the face. Everybody’s screaming and there’s a bottleneck of guys trying to get into the back room but there’s no rear exit, and we know it, we’ve got them all fucking trapped in here.

  Jimmy McNulty starts wading into this mass of guys jamming up the doorway and he’s pulling people back and cuffing them round the head with his chatsby. Mad Frank Marby pulls out a fucking blade the size of his forearm and starts sticking one guy after the other in this pile-up. There’s this fucking smell, this fucking rancid smell of gutters and of excrement, you would know it if you smelt it, and everybody is falling to one side and the other and it’s like a passage being cleared, this passage opens up with blood and guts and torn flesh, and Pat Allardyce looks at me and I just fucking go for it, I put my head down and I push forward, parting this mass () of mangled flesh, of bleeding bodies, pushing my way through this terrible ( ) gap, this gaping human wound ( ), to get into the back room, to get behind the fucking scenes ( ), I’m using my arms to squeeze me ( ) through, I’m pulling bodies to one side of me and the other and then I get my head through ( ) and then my shoulders ( ) and then bam ( ), I’m in the back room and it’s completely silent in there ().

  I can hear the shouts and the screaming from the other room but it’s like in a school playground, in a dream, miles away. There are two people stood in front of me. One has a chatsby in his hand, a wee Luger. He lets off a couple of shots and I swear I can see the bullets coming toward me in slow motion --------------------- they’re letting off little vapour trails like a jet plane in the sky ---------------- and I start dodging in and out of the bullets as I let off a few shots of my own ------ pop McPheat right between the legs ----------- see his sacs come loose and his bollocks plop onto the floor in front of me. He’s trying to hold himself in with his hands. But then as I go to dive to the right a slug gets me in the side of the kneecap.

  You ever been shot in the knee, son? Course you fucking haven’t, it’s fucking no pain like it, it’s agony. I go down but I loose another shot and get this other cunt Benny bang in the centre of the chest and he goes over. I lie there on the ground for a second, and I can just see this leg wearing dress trousers and snakeskin shoes. And I can smell him. This smell comes to me. Old Spice. Danny Whitaker is wearing the Old Spice. I pull myself up with th
e edge of the table and I swing round to get a good look at him. The passage is blocked up with bodies and nobody else has made it through. I turn to take a look and I’m like that: ah fuck.

  The guy is the fucking double image of me. More than that: he’s me. He’s me, sitting there, looking back at me. There’s no real expression on his face, he’s just looking up at me, there’s no fear in him. No fear at all. He’s just sitting there, waiting to see what’s going to happen next, maybe even with the hint of a smile on his lips. Fuck this, I says to myself, and that’s when I do it. Without taking my eyes off him, and with my chatsby still aimed at his head, with my left hand I slide off my balaclava. He sees me, and he lets out a gasp. He starts scrambling to the back of the booth. He’s pushing back with his feet and putting his hands up in front of his face. I looks back at I and sees Himself. Mad Frank Marby and Pat Allardyce are pushing their way into the room. They’ll be onto us in seconds. I turn back around. And I shoot him, my double, straight through the face.

  His face is red and yellow, like the sun. Smoke is pouring from this great round wound where his face should be. Mad Frank Marby and Pat Allardyce come up behind me. What the fuck have you done? Pat Allardyce says to me, and for a second we just stand there, the three of us, with our guns at our sides, while this star man smoulders and spits in front of us, this broiling mess that is like staring into the heart of a star with all the colours of red and orange and yellow, the different degrees of heat, this furnace, and at one point his hands spring up like his body is still going on, his burnt and bloody hands go up, as if to steady himself on the table, and then it’s like he’s trying to raise himself up, and I see Mad Frank Marby take a step back, Mad Frank Marby flinches then, but one of his arms gives way, and he slumps back into the booth but not before he turns his head around and looks at me with this face like a Cyclops, this face like a blazing sun, and then he falls forward, onto the table, and there’s a hiss like water into fire as his head hits the formica and black smoke comes up.