Call Me the Breeze: A Novel

by Patrick McCabe

  But this time we were on our own, off up to the Harp Bar in Belfast. It turned out to be something else. Absolutely fucking mental it was. In the end they had to pull the plug for it looked like, if they didn’t, the kids were going to tear the place down. ‘Fuck you Belfast and your fucking pathetic bigotry!’ shouts Boo Boo from the top of the speaker stack, rotating his mace as he took the piss out of the Orangemen. I had an early start with Austie in the morning so we hit the road straight away once the gear’d been loaded.

  I think it was about a mile outside Banbridge that we ran into the roadblock, but we never gave it so much as a second thought, for they were all over the place those days — just routine security precautions. There were three squaddies and the captain, and they seemed like the best of lads no matter what your politics were. They got a great laugh out of Boo Boo with his stovepipe hat. ‘You’re like one of these fellows you’d see in Belfast of a Saturday,’ they said. ‘What d’ye call them? Aye, those hot gospeller fellas! That’s what you’d put me in mind of now!’

  I was a bit stoned and, as I lay there against the side of the van, I had a great old rap with the captain, who told me his name was Victor. ‘I used to be mad about music myself,’ he said, ‘but it wouldn’t be your kind of thing now.’ Boo Boo laughed as he jabbed him playfully with the butt of the rifle then lit a fag and starts talking about something else. ‘No,’ he went on, ‘I’d be more for the civilized music. Music, for example, that doesn’t have any of them auld fiddles and banjos and — well, in general, that type of thing. Do you get my drift?’

  I laughed at that. ‘Sure do!’ I said.

  Then he looked at me and said nothing. I flipped back through my mind to check if I’d said something wrong. The soldier to his left chuckled a bit, but he went silent when the captain threw him a frosty glare.

  ‘Sure do. Sure do. I like the way you say that. I like the way you talk. Half American, like. Half Yankee. Hmm.’

  He poked me in the stomach.

  ‘You’re putting on the beef, musician. I say, you’re putting it on down here, all right! They must be feeding you well down south. I say, they must be feeding you well — are they?’

  I laughed again.

  ‘They are indeed, Captain,’ I replied. ‘They sure are doing that!’

  Now he was laughing too and everything was fine. He shouldered his weapon and smiled as he said: ‘But we weren’t talking about that, were we? What’s this we were talking about, Fat Boy?’

  ‘Music,’ I said. ‘We were talking about music, Captain.’

  ‘That’s right!’ he said. ‘We were talking about music, Captain — real music, that is. Music, in other words, that isn’t played by treacherous felons.’

  ‘Oh now,’ I replied, not thinking about what he’d said, being so out of it, I guess.

  ‘No, the gig in Banbridge was really good,’ I remember saying. Then I heard Boo Boo calling my name.

  ‘Right then! I’ll just take a look in the back,’ the captain said.

  I couldn’t figure out what exactly was going on. Boo Boo was pointing towards the van where the other boys were now raising their voices. Were they arguing with the captain?

  ‘I’m just taking a look,’ the captain was saying. ‘It’s just routine procedure. There’s no need to get upset now! I say, there’s no need to go getting upset!’

  I don’t know who it was shouted ‘It’s a bomb!’ Then I heard Boo Boo crying ‘Jesus!’ before stumbling back with his two arms out, the others running forward as if to catch him. Someone shouted: ‘Get down for the love of fuck, Joey!’ Even now I don’t know who. All I could see was this sheet of white light and the captain coming lunging towards me — suspended in the air, with this sideways grin on his face. I ducked to try and avoid him as his body, with a dull thud, hit a tree. The words were on the tip of my tongue — ‘Now! Do you see what you get for trying out foolish antics like that!’ — when I nearly passed out with the intensity of the heat and the sulphurous smoke that was filling up my lungs. The other soldier had taken off, running down the road with his jacket in flitters and the hair burnt off his head. A stupid thought came into my own head: ‘I’ll pick up that stick there and chase after him with it to teach him a lesson for this stupid fucking carry-on!’

  Before coming around to realize just as I was about to do it that it wasn’t a stick, for sticks don’t have tattoos with ‘I love The Sonics’ on them — or fingers, come to that. Then I heard this groaning, and what happens then? Out from underneath the wagon comes Boo Boo — covered in blood. I was just about to go over to him when — like rags being ripped — another fire started up inside in the cab and the windscreen blew out. ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here,’ one of the boys was shouting, ‘before the whole fucking thing goes!’ Boo Boo was walking around in circles repeating: ‘Where’s my arm? It blew off my arm!’

  One of the ‘soldiers’ came zig-zagging back down the road, his white face appearing out of the dark: ‘What happened? Can you tell me exactly what happened?’

  Before anyone could, the ambulance arrived, screaming. I froze when I saw him first — the Big Fellow. Just standing there smiling beneath a tree as the paramedics clambered from the vehicle. He waved genteelly and tipped back his fedora. It was at that point my whole body started to tremble as one of the medics took me by the hand, in a soothing voice reassuring: ‘It’s OK now. You’re going to be OK now. Come on now. That’s right. Take it easy.’

  It transpired that there wasn’t all that much wrong with me — outwardly, at any rate, I remember thinking, still afraid that my ever-so-slightly acid-tinged version of the Big Fellow might appear and cursing Bennett for ever having planted that seed — and they reckoned I’d be right as rain in a couple of days.

  All I’d been able to think about as I lay there in the hospital bed — some nights I didn’t sleep a wink at all — was Jacy and Boyle Henry. And why I hadn’t acted that day in the bar, whenever I had the chance, instead of getting myself into a state. But I hadn’t been able to think straight, his voice — ‘I’ll leave her! If that’s what you want, I’ll leave her!’ — ebbing and swelling in my mind.

  In the nights, I’d wake up and see her sitting with him, plucking motes off his jacket and laughing heartily at his jokes. Then I’d imagine her rummaging in her shoulder bag, taking out the hand-sewn Siddhartha and passing it over to him. I’d be on the verge of breaking down then. I knew in reality it wasn’t likely to happen, but that didn’t stop me thinking it. Or from hearing her say: ‘You’re The Only One, Boyle. You know that, don’t you? Boyle Henry is The Only One.’

  Him and his stupid political bullshit. He didn’t even know if he was a Provo or not. He was a member of Fianna Fáil, a consitutional nationalist party which at that time was fooling around, quite dangerously, with the Provisional IRA. There were even those who’d suggested that Fianna Fáil had set up the Provos using money that had been banked in Scotsfield, with a view to ultimately destabilizing the illegitimate northern state.

  There were rumours too that Boyle Henry had been involved from the very start, his money-laundering activities being just the tip of the iceberg. Although you knew damn well that in his case that was all it would ever come down to — money, for the fucker would sell his own mother. He’d sell Jacy too. I knew that. Once he was finished with her, he’d pawn her off and not give it a second thought. And the more I thought about that, the worse things I’d find myself imagining.

  Like the night I saw him in a dope-addled dream. I was supposed to have quit toking but I’d been allowing myself a spliff or two to help me get over the Banbridge affair. I found myself staring directly at him as he approached like an executioner across the stone floor of this darkened basement, the upper part of his body webbed with leather straps. He was wearing a hood, but you knew it was him all right. You could just tell. Jacy begged, but he wouldn’t listen. She was strapped to the wall, naked.

  When I awoke all the blankets were on the floor and the p
illow was sodden. I went out to the toilet for a blast but it didn’t help me. I was afraid to go back to bed and remained there for over an hour, bent double over the washbasin trying to make myself sick. When I eventually climbed back into bed, I was more or less certain it had passed. But as soon as I closed my eyes —

  I pleaded with him: ‘Don’t hurt her, Boyle. That’s all I ask.’ He sucked his teeth and went ‘Tsk! Tsk!’ just folding his arms and nodding, with a thin, patronizing smile.

  I wouldn’t have blamed him for despising me. I could see Jacy staring at me and I prayed I wouldn’t catch her eye. For I knew what I’d find if I did. Something regretful, disappointed. That said: ‘You let me down, Joey, Why?’ as the Karma Cave closed over. Her soft voice gradually fading: ‘And now because of this, you’ll be forced to wander for ever. You’ll never find your way home.’

  You’d see him at meetings, slicing the tape for some new supermarket in this great big fucking white suit of his, or in the Scotsfield Standard, making a speech, with his wife standing beside him. She was a doctor from a very wealthy local family (what they called ‘old money’) and was regarded by some as ‘far too good for him’, a comment he’d laughed at when he overheard it one night in the pub. ‘Sure,’ I remembered him saying. ‘You might say that, lads. But at the end of the day whose cock is going inside her? It’s not fucking yours, you can be sure of that! Nada, boys! The Lady Doc is mine, all mine, and that’s the way it’s going to stay!’ In interviews, he always made sure to insist that it was her who had ‘made him what he was’. ‘The Queen’ was a term he often used to describe her.

  I started thinking about that so much and of the lies he had told to Jacy — I knew he’d never leave his wife — that I almost forgot about Banbridge. I visited Boo Boo in the hospital almost every day. But he wasn’t showing much improvement. The nurse said to me: ‘He had a terrible time all last night. He keeps on about his career being over.’

  Which was correct, of course. There weren’t going to be too many openings for one-armed guitarists. I tried my best to get through to him but it turned out to be no use. Half the time I don’t think he knew who I was. Just turned over, gesturing half-heartedly with his good arm.

  25 September 1976

  Whatever happens I want you to know I love you. I cannot afford to take any more risks. I almost died without seeing you — loving you. Sometimes I fear he has a hold over you. I have hesitated and I know it’s wrong.

  Today I read: Do today what has to be done tomorrow; do this morning what has to be done this evening; death does not wait for you to complete your task.

  I play 10cc all the time and it seems more beautiful than ever because I have accepted that I love you totally and denial even for the protection of oneself or whatever other unsatisfactory reason shall never be possible again. In the morning the sun opens out across the fields and I wake to see you, standing by the window. Tossing your hair and turning as the music softly plays, music that’s full of — what’s the word? — yes, yearning. ‘Courage,’ you say. ‘Courage for what it is that’s meant to be.’

  There is only one way, I know that now. Total Organization. I have written a note to Una Halpin requesting the entire works of Rabindranath Tagore, who has written: ‘The river and the waves are one surf: where is the difference between the river and the waves?’

  These wonders of knowledge they empower me so. Exactly as Charles Manson said. There was a happy guy in the hospital who was into the Christian mystics. He says, What’s all this shit about the Indians when the Christians have seers of their own? Good point. I told him all about The Seeker, how he liked St John of the Cross. He was impressed by that and he quoted him to me: ‘See how the suffering of love is only cured when you — or when your face — is near.’ He was talking about his chick but when he said it I couldn’t stop thinking of how true it is — for us. I feel so fortunate having met these people. I have become as a magpie gathering jewels, acquiring random nuggets of wisdom. The Yogi dyes his garments, instead of dyeing his mind. You must always dye your mind. Dye it — how? In the colours of love.

  I want us to be able to share everything together.

  When I go to sleep she’s there.

  The Colouring Book

  The cops had swooped on Hoss’s farm and discovered explosives in an outhouse. So things were looking pretty bad for him. They reckoned at the very least he’d get ten years, which couldn’t have come at a worse time after his mother had taken the stroke which everyone was sure would kill her. I never saw such gloom as enveloped the pub that night. Austie said: ‘Do you mind the one he used to tell about the lighthouse? Behan was given a painting job above in the north, and the Orangeman says: “None of your slacking now — this is a hard-working wee country! So when I come back I want that lighthouse painted proper.” And when he does, what does he find? The bold Brendan has painted “This lighthouse is the property of Famon de Valéra of the Irish Free State” in big black letters all across the front! And the Orangeman goes fucking mad! Christ but he was a gas man!’

  Out of nowhere, someone turned on him and spat: ‘The man’s not fucking dead! It’s not like Hoss is fucking dead or something, you know! He hasn’t even been convicted!’

  But everyone knew it was a done deal no matter what was said, so they all went home early that night and there was only myself and an old friend of Bennett’s sitting there in Barbarella’s with a couple of half-pissed zombies dancing around their handbags.

  ‘Where do you think he’s gone,’ he said, ‘my old pal Bennett?’

  You could see he was on the verge of tears and I didn’t know quite what to say. I sat there for a minute as I sipped my drink, and then he said: ‘All I can say is this, Joey. I don’t know for sure but I know what I hope. That he’s found his way inside that colouring book.’

  I didn’t know what he was talking about but he went on to explain.

  ‘That’s how he used to see it,’ he said. ‘Like this lovely picture that a kid might crayon, with a fabulous blue sky spreading over fields of swaying corn. That’s how he always saw it, Joey. That was Bennett’s vision of Paradise.’

  Precious, I thought, and smiled as I saw him there, having reached home at last. ‘If only it could be true.’

  He looked into his drink, then turned to me and smiled as he laid a gentle hand on my shoulder.

  ‘It is, Jocy. It is. And I know he believed it. It’s the end and the beginning, I used to hear him say. The end of sorrow and the beginning of happiness.’

  ‘The end and the beginning,’ I smiled. ‘Just like the ancients say.’

  ‘You got it,’ he replied. ‘The end of “The Now” and the beginning of … forever.’

  No Date???

  It’s like there’s this sense of … closing in, or something. Like you know the the summer will soon be over, the short evenings and the long dark nights of winter drawing in. It’s almost like the gorse fires and those lazy days lying by the lake, like they happened somewhere else or something. In some distant, uncharted country. You go into the pub now and there’s nothing, only these ghost-faces watching the telly, the pool balls clacking below in the back bar, and then the phone ringing in The Rockford Files or something, making this vast and hollow sound. There’s this enormous sense of … disconnection, that’s the only way I can put it. And why I feel so … grateful for this … gift, for there’s nothing else I can think of could name it. It’s nearly pointless to even try.

  October 4 Thoughts/Reflections to Self

  The things you dream, at times you feel them so deep it’s like someone is saying to you: ‘Reality? There is no reality. This is the reality. The reality is you and you are the reality.’ The pages you write becoming that reality.

  ‘You know something, Joey?’ I heard her say today. ‘You want to know something about you? You really make me laugh. You make me crack up, man! You really do! That’s what I love most of all about you. About my Joey. Joe. Joseph. Jacy. J-J. Love. Harmony, Forever.
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  The Layers of the Onion

  They call me the breeze, I keep blowing down the road …

  She switched off J. J. Cale and climbed out of the pick-up, strolling across the sand to freshen up at a roadside pump. The water broke on her face like diamonds as she looked at me and said: ‘You know what I think about you, Joey Tallon? You come on like you’re this great big … like you don’t give a shit, you know? Like you could travel the world from east to west and nothing would ever bother you, that you’re just peeling off the layers we been talking about. You’re just doing it to keep me cool, to show you know what’s what. You’re hip in other words.’

  ‘Hip?’ I said and tried to be it. I sucked my teeth and narrowed my eyes. Then I looked at her with the … enigmatic smirk. And I could tell she liked it.

  She shaded her eyes and stared off for a bit. Then she said: ‘You know, there are a thousand different Joey Tallons. A thousand different yous. That’s what Harry Haller tells us. That’s what we know from Steppenwolf, Ain’t it? Like he says: “Man is a texture made up of many threads, an onion made up of a hundred integuments. The ancients knew this well enough, and in the Buddhist Yoga an exact technique was devised for unmasking the illusion of personality.’”

  She paused. Then she said: ‘You are an onion, Joey. We are onions. But we got to get to that inner core. Shed those layers so we get to the onion’s heart. Where inner light truly shines. Can you dig that, Joey?’

  ‘I can dig it,’ I said.

  Then — I became alarmed — all of a sudden she turned away and stood with her back to me, her hands in her jeans’ hip pockets. For no reason at all, I shouted: ‘Come back, Jacy! I’ll slim down! I’ll get myself together! I won’t eat any more pies!’ And straight away felt so dumb, just about as dumb as you could possibly feel. ‘Pies,’ I felt like saying, ‘fuck pies! And fuck Boyle Henry too!’ Before realizing that I’d got it wrong. All she’d been doing was thinking again. She came walking towards me ever so slowly. Her gaze didn’t flinch as her eyes probed deep.