by David Louden
“Jack! What the fuck are you doing?!”
“Where’s the rest of it woman?! Don’t you think I don’t know you’ve been holding out on me!”
“Don’t you dare take that fucking money, that money is everything we have!” she’d lunge for his jacket pocket which had paper money promising to spew from it but he’d bat her away like a fly.
“You fucking witch! You trap me here!”
“Get the fuck out then but you’re not taking that money!”
She’d lunge for him again and he’d punch her before grabbing her and pinning her to the wall. Mum ran her nails down his face peeling off skin as though he was a form of fruit and he’d howl before hitting her again and again knocking her to the ground but the old lady was tough and hung on to his leg. Jack reached down and forced her head into the floor with an industrial thud that turned my stomach and then she was silent and still. A crimson doll. He smashed up the kitchen window for good measure before pushing by me and out of the house. I stood in the doorway; I was too green to venture any closer. That night we all had to stay with Beth and I didn’t much feel like playing with the C-5.
4
THEN MUM SAID “We’re going home kids.”
Her lip sat fat, her right eye closed and as round as a snooker ball.
Beth made our uncle get his van. He hadn’t driven it in years but it held all four of us plus him up front and he drove us home. It wasn’t Rosapena. The house was bigger, there were fields, no kitchen shop but all of my stuff was in boxes in my new room waiting for me to go through them. Tara got her own room in the new house; I still had to share only this time it was with Jeff. For the first few months he slept in with Mum but eventually the lines of division appeared again and were as clear as ever; only the colour scheme on the walls was unified. Dad didn’t come around anymore. Nobody even mentioned his name, at least not to me though he would still appear on TV at weekends and I’d watch and wonder why he couldn’t be that much fun in person.
The house felt like it was in the middle of nowhere compared to how built-up Rosapena was. To the rear of the house was an honest to goodness back yard, rich and green and just wanting to be explored. We sat at the end of a six house terrace and from my bedroom window I could see a forest, and a tree with a tire on a rope. I’d make that my own soon enough.
The nearest shop was a good ten minutes walk from our front door and on a Friday night a man would pull up outside the house in a van and all the kids would pile in with amazement. It’s every parent’s nightmare now but in the eighties there never seemed to be any issue of stranger danger; anyone who bothered to snatch Tara would probably bring her back within a couple of hours when they realised she talked more than they could breathe. On our third weekend in the new house I convinced Mum to let me go to the van. I needed to know what exactly those kids were getting out of this relationship.
“Ok we’ll have a look but that’s all Douglas.” Mum said rounding up Jeff and Tara and stepping out of the house into the cool summer night.
The van had a light in the back and I raced ahead to join the queue to step into it. I was almost sick with anticipation of what it could be. My uncle’s van used to shepherd around marble fireplaces, engine parts and copper when he was up to it. I didn’t know any of the local kids yet but I had faith in them that they wouldn’t be exhilarated over a Belfast sink. I’d take the three steps the van driver set out for us in one as I climbed into the back of this stranger’s van, Mum reluctantly watching on from not too far.
It was greater than I could have ever imagined. The man had shelved the sides of the van and stocked them with every action, horror, and martial arts VHS and Beta-Max he could get his hands on in those early days of home entertainment. I stood before them in awe and again I wanted everything, again I didn’t want to do anything other than own all before me so that I could look at them and imagine what it would be like to watch them all. We didn’t even have a VHS player at the time, I left the van empty handed and raced back to Mum.
“Well, what’s so special about that banged up old van?”
“Mum, he has tapes.”
“Wow, well that is amazing. Let’s go inside now.”
She’d herd us all indoors and I’d watch from the window as kid after kid would queue up, disappear inside and re-emerge with a box and a smile on their face. I was young so the art of subtly and nuance was lost on me, I was yet to learn the value of a buck. It would come soon enough but not sooner than a VHS player.
“Can we get one Mum?” I asked.
“One what son?” she’d pretend not to follow the conversation when it suited her.
“A tape machine, so we can watch movies.”
“You can watch movies on TV.”
“Not like these.”
“We’ll see ok? There’s plenty of other things we need in the meantime maybe if you made yourself a wee friend you could go round their house annoy their parents and watch movies on their tape machine.”
She watched carefully as that little spark caught something behind my green eyes and began to burn. She was probably still hearing Mrs. Martin in her head every time she came out of the house to look for me as I was sitting on the front porch drawing instead of running wild with the other boys or pretending to be a ninja or whatever the local kids did to put the hours in. I went to bed that night and didn’t read, didn’t sleep either. I lay staring into the never ending darkness that began at the bedroom ceiling and in the furthest corner of the darkest abyss could feel something staring back.
I left the house the next morning without my pencil and sketch pad. Mum was right; there were plenty of other things we needed to get before a VHS player. I should have known that, being man of the house, but it was a role I was still coming to terms with and learning the ropes would highlight these things.
A stampede raced past me, boys, all my age with differing colours of hair quickly followed by the tallest girl I had ever seen in my life. She was six foot nine in flats if she was anything and had long black hair that even in a French plat hung around her thick flanks. She caught the tail end of the group and managed to put a hand round the neck rim of a boy’s tee shirt tearing it from his frame and sending him hurtling backwards before landing on the ground. She was on him quick as a flash slapping him around the face as he cried for mercy with everyone a safe distance from the girl-giant laughing.
“Teresa dirty hole!” yelled one of the kids, the darkest one.
“Teresa dirty hole!” echoed another.
“Stop it!” screamed who I guessed was Teresa.
As a chorus of Teresa dirty hole sang out in the middle of the newest urban development, a red headed kid flanked her. Slowly he skulked up behind her and right when she was about to charge at the choir of punk kids screaming Teresa dirty hole he leapt at her back grabbing hold of her considerable plat and rang on it like a church bell. She turned kicking but he turned with her and rode on her as though she was a bronco. Teresa would buck him off eventually; the slapped happy child would wriggle free from under her shadow as she gave chase to the ginger boy. She’d thunder up the hill to the top of the street after him. I watched wanting to see what the choir would do next, the ginger kid must have wondered too because he looked behind him – which slowed his escape and in an instant Teresa pounced on him and beat him until he cried.
“I thought I was a goner.” the slapped happy kid declared.
“Look at Marty! She’s beating the balls off him!” the leader laughed and pointed.
“Who’s he?” asked slappy.
“Don’t know. Who are you?” they were talking to me now.
“I’m Douglas, I only just moved here.”
“I’m Paulie, you want to run around with us Douglas?” Paulie said, stepping forward “You have to kick Teresa in the hole.”
“Why?”
“Why not?”
In its own way why not made a lot of sense. In years to come it would be at the centre of my entire decision m
aking process and though the outcome usually caused more trouble than any discovery was worth from ploughing ahead why not always remained the most attractive proposition in life. What chance did I really stand? What chance in a world that contained why not? I hadn’t seen any sign of life coming from it during the month I lived across the street from what I’d come to know as the Bogey-house but suddenly as I weighed up Paulie’s outlook on life and acceptance the front door opened. Out marched a hard pressed old man with a can in his hand. He reminded me of Jack when he was shook from his sleep too early.
“You little bastards leave that poor child alone!” he hollered, throwing his empty can at Paulie.
“Or what will you do old man?”
For a five year old Paulie had some serious balls on him.
“I’ll come over there and put my foot in your ass you cheeky little prick!”
“Lick ass!” Paulie yelled in reply before spinning round and slapping his rump at the old timer.
A chorus of lick ass would ring out from the boys. There were at least a dozen of them but it seemed that only Paulie was able to command the troops into singing out an insult. It had to be admired.
The old man stomped forward and the kids dispersed in the way a glass does when hitting the floor. I watched as all directions seemed to be covered while I stood rooted to the spot with the old drunk running towards me. Paulie stopped dead in his tracks and screamed “Run Doug!” I let out a lick ass directed squarely in the old drunk’s face before ducking under his arm which he swung wildly in my direction then raced towards Paulie and away to safety.
We didn’t get a VHS player that summer but it was ok we got a dog instead and Paulie had a VHS player so I spent a lot of evenings at his house watching Kung Fu movies. I told Paulie about my dog he said it was “fantastic” and that “our gang needed a good dog for hunting”. I couldn’t have agreed more with him but the dog turned out to be more than a little hyperactive and incredibly difficult to train. I had wanted an animal that would follow me around on adventures, a dog I could lead through the field at the back of Paulie’s house, through the forest and to that tree with the tire on a rope. If we got lost I wanted a dog that could sniff us home but Bosco wasn’t that kind of dog. He was more a ‘eat your toys then sick them up into the bottom drawer of your clothes’ kind of animal but he was playful. You could hug him all day and he wouldn’t get bent out of shape about it. He’d even suck a dummy if you stuck one in his mouth but he was no hunter.
Soon we were best friends, the Butch and Sundance of Belfast. One night I was sleeping over at Paulie’s. Mum was nervous at the prospect of me being out of the house, even though it was only across the street but she bit the bullet and gave in at the tenth time of asking. It was something I had to hold over Tara. She hadn’t been allowed to sleep over at any of her friends’ houses yet and her face was like thunder when she had to watch Mum say yes.
Paulie’s house was just like ours, the front door opened straight into the living room, the stairs ran between the living room and the kitchen – which was smaller than Rosapena. Upstairs the master bedroom sat to the front of the house, the next biggest to the rear and his room sat between the bathroom and the hot press. That was my room too. Paulie’s dad was as white as sheet, ghosts looked exotic next to him. Paulie and his sisters got their colour from their mum. She was Moroccan, with the most striking blue eyes and a figure chipped from marble. I was half asleep when I realised I needed the toilet. I took to the dark corridor like it was my own, without the need of a light. A giggle from the room directly facing the bathroom froze me still as deer in headlights as the door breezed open and Paulie’s sculpted mother raced out. Her breasts free and bouncing carelessly. Her hips round and dangerous, her patch of thick woven bush moist and inviting. A man ran after her laughing, he’d lift her into the air and carry her back to the bed, smiling all the way. Her smile lit up any room; she glided through her home effortlessly and set aflutter the souls of all men. I’d love her, all of Paulie’s flock would.
5
POLEGLASS WAS PRETTY back then. It was an odd mix of rural and urban and hadn’t succumbed to the paramilitary might and drug crime it would later become famous for. Memories of the old man had faded, I watched him play a werewolf on TV one weekend but other than that I hadn’t seen Jack in two years, maybe it was longer. School was in session and I was blossoming, Mum was relieved to see that all the fighting and screaming and drinking hadn’t put a fist sized dent in her oldest boy’s psyche. We played football at break time until the older boys forced us off the pitch so they could play a match. Any disagreement with this arrangement usually saw the objecting boy debagged and their ball hoofed off into the parameter of trees that guarded the school grounds. I didn’t have a dad but I had my dog and I had Paulie and the gang.
6
PAULIE HAD TO move school during Primary Three thanks to his parents splitting up. One day he was in class, the following day he was missing and our PE teacher was sporting a black-eye. They’d move house to something smaller and more affordable for his beautiful mother but not just yet, it took a while for the old place to sell. He’d live a few streets away in a new apartment complex so we could still hang out but he had trained our group of friends too well. At the slightest wobble two in particular sensed weakness and made a play for leader of the gang, Paulie barely put up a fight.
A lot of the older kids in the neighbourhood promised, each time they saw him, that the next time they were round at the apartments they were going to fuck his mum good and proper. It would turn his skin red and send him swinging digs towards them. I agreed with them and wanted to tell him that I considered our friendship important and hoped that it would mean he wouldn’t mind if I fucked her first but I thought twice about it when he caught a sixteen year old on the nose and covered both their shirts in claret. They still said things about his mum after that only it was no longer to his eight year old face.
The new family that moved into Paulie’s house was a husband, wife and two daughters. I had promised myself out of loyalty to Paulie that I would hate them all and not be behind the door in demonstrating it. The two kids were incredibly ginger, so ginger they made our friend Ginge (Marty) look like a tanned Adonis. The dad was little better. He had red hair that was beginning to look a little like auburn straw as it thinned to reveal the shape of his head in well lit areas but he was a good guy. When my mum finally purchased a VHS player he called to the house and tuned in all the television channels on it and showed me how to operate the remote.
“So what’s a kid like you doing sitting indoors watching videos?” he’d ask.
“I play out loads, I want to be able to tape Kolchak the Nightstalker and my dad’s movies.”
“Well that’s something then.”
Teresa had gotten bigger. On top of her mental disability she had some sort of physical condition that meant her body didn’t interpret the message to stop growing. Her two brothers were younger than her but both seemed to be touched with the same physical explosion towards the sky. Teresa dirty hole had stopped being funny so the kids just yanked on her ponytail which now swept at the street. I sat on the porch with my sketchpad and watched as a new group of young ones that included my brother Jeff took turns in tormenting her and belittling her for the sake of getting a chase.
“Stop it! Stop it!” she screamed swinging large shovel-like hands at the small children.
“Teresa dick breath!” roared one of Jeff’s friends.
I laughed at that one, it was a funny image.
Paulie called to my house with Malachy. Malachy had a harelip and when he said his own name it sounded like he was saying ‘Malarkey’. He also had a wonky leg making him a risk when we were off exploring, something we didn’t want to get caught doing. The rest of the kids called him “Sixty-Six” because of the fact that when they tried to make him say Sixty-six silly sausages it sounded hilarious. I wondered when anyone would ever need to say something so fucking stupid but t
he name stuck. Paulie used to only call for Sixty-Six when he was bored but now since we’d broken away from the gang me, him and Sixty-Six were like the three musketeers. I liked that idea. I would be the one my dad played.
“What are you doing?”
“Just drawing.”
“I didn’t know you were left handed.”
“I am.” I said.
“Me and Sixty-Six are going down to the forest, we heard there’s a house at the other side filled with bin bags full of money.”
“That sounds like bullshit to me.”
It was our generation’s Nigerian lottery win and even at a young age I hadn’t really fallen for it.
“It’s not, it’s true!” Sixty-Six replied spraying us both on his S’s.
“That’s shit. It’s stuff ones like your brother says so that when we go down there they bust our asses for whatever money we have on us.”
“Maybe,” offered Paulie “but maybe it’s not. Maybe the house is coming down with money. You want to be the one that got left out so you could sit here and watch Dirty Hole beat up five year olds?”
“Let me get my coat.”
Mum was on the phone with someone in the kitchen. She was using her secret phone voice so I knew something was up. It wasn’t any of our birthdays coming up and it was too early for Christmas so I figured it had something to do with Dad. I grabbed my coat from my room and soft-stepped it back downstairs and out the door with Paulie and Sixty-Six.
The field was like a swamp, the ground unstable and the grass was overgrown. Sixty-Six lost a shoe right out of nowhere. One moment he was limping along the next his foot was soaking wet and we couldn’t find it. He muttered something about going home but Paulie correctly pointed out that I had come along for the same reason he should stay.