Bone Idol

by David Louden

  “You took my whiskey!”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You heard me, you took my whiskey. I want it back.”

  “I didn’t touch anything and you shouldn’t be drinking and you definitely shouldn’t be drinking god-damn whiskey, not with knowing what it did to your dad.”

  “You shouldn’t be taking my stuff.”

  “Watch how you’re talking to me Douglas.”

  “I want my whiskey back.”

  “Look at how you’re behaving, it’s like you have a problem.” Sal added.

  “You stay out of this!” I pointed

  “Don’t you talk to your aunt like that and don’t you dare talk to me like that!” Mum said before slapping the snarl from my face.

  “You owe me a pint.” I rubbed my cheek.

  “You’re an ignorant little shit.” spat Mum and I stormed back upstairs.

  That night I packed a bag and placed it at the foot of my bed. I’d considered myself adult for years and now that status was being undermined by the matriarch. I needed money, I had some remains from the track but it was slipping away with every passing weekend and it wouldn’t last a month in the real world. I needed money, I needed a job, a place of my own and when I realized all this it only made the altercations with Mum more frequent and more intense.

  3

  AFTER THE INCIDENT on the bridge the school turned on Paulie. He’d been outed for what he was – big in mouth but lacking in trouser. It didn’t take long for the word to spread that the new boy was weak and before he knew it the entire school was out to make a name out of him, even Patrick took pity on him as he was forced to allow the first year kids to bully him having been warned by Gerry “you touch any of those kids and I’ll stab you”. Soon he was looking for refuge and figured me to be the good, forgiving, true friend that he needed to provide him safe passage through his last year at the school.

  We were in the old classroom smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee from the machine we had taken from the teacher’s room when the door knocked. Jason answered and it was Paulie, his lip split, face colourful and puffy.

  “You can’t come in here.” Jason said.

  “Why not?” pleaded Paulie

  “Because this is our common room and we’ve fuck all in common with you.”

  “I don’t think that’s how it works.”

  “I don’t give a fuck but let’s ask Doug.”

  Both faces turned to me, I looked at Paulie lit my cigarette and walked to the window turning my back on him.

  “There you have it, now fuck off…oh and give our best to your ma, Doug says she’s a cracker and you wouldn’t get off her for a shite, is that true?”

  Paulie was about to answer when Jason slammed the door in his face, after that he was thrown to the wolves and they’d tear every strip of cockiness and arrogance from him until he was unrecognizable.

  4

  FIFTH YEAR shot by with the blink of an eye. It was a relief to have made it to the top of the food chain with only the teachers to bully you. Peacock still kicked the shins off us for ninety minutes a week but other than that life was pretty sweet. I had started offering out my services for money; I wrote people’s coursework for them and put the money to one side. The arguments with Mum had softened but I craved independence and all that came with living your own life. If I was serious about becoming a writer then I needed to live my own life and I so wanted to be serious about becoming a writer.

  Dani’s wedding was looming and it was the last day of school. I’d be back to collect my examination results during the summer but this was it for us unless I did something. I’d written a piece about a father and son; their inability to connect on the most basic of levels and she had liked it. Her own father had recently passed away and as she clutched to her own memories of her patriarch I was offering up proof of how fortunate she had been to have had a dad she could say with all sincerity she loved. I was passing by her door when it opened, she stood in it, eyes tired and a little waterlogged from crying in the dark.

  “I was hoping to see you.” she said.

  I fought against it but my heartbeat couldn’t help but springing into irregularity.

  “I was going to drop by later and say…you know.”

  “I’m skipping out early.”

  “Oh.”

  “You want to go for a drive?”

  She’d drive through the gates and as far as Fortwilliam at the bottom of the street where she’d wait for me. I walked at a pace that verged with running but couldn’t be construed as too eager if anyone had seen me. As I approached her car I was met with a wave and a smile that dared to spark that possibility again. We drove to Bangor and, by the water, sat on the hood of the car and ate ice cream refusing to mention the elephant I had dragged into her company for the past three years.

  “So I’ve been thinking about you Douglas,” she said opening the conversation. Her mouth was glisteningly inviting from the syrup “and I wanted to get you something worth continuing your education in literature.”

  She handed me what I figured was a book in its perfectly wrapped skin.

  “Thank you Miss…”

  “Dani, it’s just Dani now Doug.”

  “Thank you Dani.”

  I leaned in and kissed her on the cheek and she tasted better than I could have imagined, she was red wine on Christmas Eve.

  “Open it later,” she said “I hope you don’t mind I’ve ruined it for any resale value by writing something to you on the inside.”

  I took the book and placed it in my inside pocket, I’d check several times throughout the day to make sure it was still there. It was getting cold and I could feel the heat of her thigh against my own leg as we sat on the car breathing in and out. I had worked myself up to telling her everything, confessing everything, offering myself to her and promising nothing less than happiness for every day together. I didn’t care if it meant that I had to work for a wage; that I would have to kill any dream of a life in the “artsy-fartsy” world. It was a sacrifice worthy of her and dreams are made to be killed. I turned purposefully to her, my heart fat with intent and saw her face.

  She looked at peace, content with the lack of complexity this corner of her life gave to her, and I hated the idea that I could say three words and ruin it, that one movement of my hand would cause her peace to crumble before her. That she’d come to resent me for stealing it from her. She smiled, I smiled and we ate our ice cream as the cold swept into Bangor and I said nothing of any concern.

  Dani drove me home and, while parked up on the corner of the street, pulled me into her bosom and gave me a hug. I clung on to it for as long as possible drinking in her perfume, mapping the warmth and feeling of her breast to my memory. She’d invite me to the wedding and I smiled and graciously accepted the invitation knowing all too well that I’d be anywhere in the world but there saying goodbye to her.

  When I got home Mum informed me that Jason had been calling for me and it sounded urgent. It always was. I went straight to my room and tore open the wrapping paper. I found my eyes closed, as a kid I always closed my eyes when I unwrapped a present. I’d shut everything out until the last possible moment, until the endless possibilities were narrowed down to one and that one was just waiting in your hands to be discovered. I opened up and it lay in my hands. I flicked inside to her inscription:

  To Doug,

  Find what you love and let it kill you

  All my love,

  Dani x

  I read over those words again All my love, I felt like I had missed an opportunity, that she’d been waiting for a declaration and then left feeling stupid when it didn’t come. I thought about going to the wedding but even during my wildest drunken whirlwind of romantic lust I never really believed that I would attend. I lit a cigarette and called Jason back; he was in a fever about seeing me in Dani’s car heading out of town and demanding to know every filthy little detail. I’d insist there was nothing going down but it was like
Peahead and I knew it didn’t matter whether I denied it or not; people where going to believe what they wanted to believe and we’d be left to block out the bullshit until they chattered themselves unconscious. I lit a cigarette and lay back on my bed, I read the inscription again and then more.

  1

  It began as a mistake.

  It hooked me in; I felt feverish with excitement and was more than happy to let it take me.

  5

  ALL OF A SUDDEN peace broke out in Northern Ireland. The Americans were in town sitting down with ones from London, ones from our end and ones from the other side to talk over who gives up what and the importance in no longer shooting each other. With the exception of a slightly easier access to the Mary-Jane I didn’t notice a difference. Cherrie had fallen out with her mum and dad and was waiting around in the evening for mine to go to sleep so I could sneak her into the house for a night’s sleep and stealth cunnilingus.

  I was in the bathroom washing my teeth and trying to pull my life together when there was a knock on the door, Cherrie was there dressed in a black bra and my Manchester United football shorts, her pink hair like a candy floss modern art structure.

  “What’s happening chica?”

  “Your mum just walked in on me in your room.”

  “Dress like that?”

  “Worse than this, I think you might need to go downstairs and have the talk with her.”

  “Ah fuck, really kid?”

  “And if you could keep her in the kitchen while I bail that would be aces.” she added.

  “Fuck it, it was going to happen sooner or later. I’ll see you at tech ok kid?”

  She’d disappear back into my room; I’d climb down the stairs and into the kitchen still in my shorts. The old lady was pacing; if this was ten years previous they’d be a cancer stick in her hand and Cherrie would probably have been chased off with a frying pan. Her face was crimson, only her white peepers sat out against it.

  “Seriously Douglas?! Seri-fuckin-ously this house is my home and I’d expect you to treat it that way and not like your part-time brothel.”

  “Brothel? Jesus Christ woman she’s not a whore.”

  “Don’t you talk to me like this in my own house!”

  “Well then don’t fucking…”

  Mid-sentence I saw the rage in her; for years I thought I had the old man’s temper and though he was a punchy old bastard I saw it then; for the first time in my life I’d realized where the pressure in my head came from. We could have danced that dance all god-damn day until the sun dropped and bounced right back up and we still wouldn’t have been able to call a clear winner. We would have went toe-to-toe until one of us starved; until there was only one of us left; arguing with Ruth was pointless; the only way I was going to be able to avoid this clash of the Morgans every time I came home a little wrote off or had a friend stay over or smoked a little green would be to move out. I had been saving a little but every time the left hand paid in the right hand drew out, and the right’s claw was a little bigger so my stash was receding quicker than Scott’s hairline.

  I was still writing people’s essays for money and working evenings and weekends at a Centra Quick Stop on Wellington Place for extra bank. At the end of the week the wad would be healthy and mean looking but Monday afternoon would come and an extended liquid lunch would take a chunk out of it, Tuesday was half price movies at the cinema on the Dublin Road followed by the evening shift at Centra. We’d take in the weekly delivery in the last opening hour of the day before closing up the shop and packing it all out on to the shop floor with the overspill going into the stock room. We’d work until 9PM and then smoke a couple of bones and throw down wrestling moves on the mountain of cardboard boxes we stacked up by the emergency exit before clocking out at 10PM. We’d hang a quick left at the corner of the street and into Shenanigan’s Bar before sinking more than we had just earned and all the while Cherrie would shake her head and ask the question.

  “Are you even trying to save up for our own place?”

  I’d say “Of course I am Cher, I’m working my joint off trying to pull it all together.”

  “So why isn’t it all coming together?”

  “Out-goings kiddo.”

  “That’s entirely the problem, you and out…goings.”

  “We’ll afford it, cool your heels lady.”

  By the end of the year she was heading towards Jordanstown campus, I put in a last minute application to Queen’s and got accepted sending us both in different directions and to be honest it was probably a relief for both of us not to have to be the one to say where are we going? That question usually contains the answer somewhere inside it; it’s a critical relationship fortune cookie and the answer is always nowhere, we’re going nowhere because if we were we’d be able to see the mile markers.

  I spent that summer looking at apartments in the newspaper, counting through what I had saved on a daily basis, watching it decrease every twenty-four hours and wondering why I didn’t fix more races when I had the opportunity to make some real money. Or maybe even why all my money went down my neck? I should have learned from the mistakes of old but what chance did I stand? The first student loan installment came through at the beginning of August and a cash injection that solved the immediate problems surrounding savings.

  The red marker ringed round what was described as a boutique apartment within walking distance of the University. A lap of the place took thirty seconds. It was a bedsit on Wellington Park just off the Malone Road. One room with a fridge in one corner and sink in the other and a fold out bed for fifty quid a week.

  “I’m looking a new super,” said the landlord “so if you’re any good with electrics and all that I’d be willing to knock ten quid off a week for you.”

  “Cool.”

  “So are you?”

  “What?”

  “Any good with electrics?” he asked again

  “Yeah, sure thing I’ll take that.”

  The cracked old face smiled, his hand shot out and gripped mine bouncing it twice in a firm grip; his hand was rough as though he’d worked with them his entire life.

  When I got home for my things Mum would barely talk to me. I stood by the front door waiting on my cab to arrive. Tara had moved back in again, she snuck up behind me and give me a hug.

  “You don’t have to ask, you can have my room. I’m not moving back Tara.”

  “I love you.” she said with a squeeze.

  The cab pulled up by the door with two people already in the back seat; those North Belfast cabs were always pulling that shit and it wound me up but I was on the verge of freedom and wasn’t going to pass on it for the sake of a couple of Latvian restaurant workers who stank of homemade vodka. Mum came out and hugged me as I packed my bags into the back of the brown Ford.

  “I’m making lamb for Sunday dinner if you’re in the neighbourhood.” she said.

  I hugged the old girl one last time and took a look at the last of my childhood homes. The next steps ill-judged or otherwise were going to be all mine and checking my jacket pocket to make sure Dani’s book hadn’t fallen out I climbed into the cab.

  6

  SOUTH BELFAST was a planet away from the house on the Oldpark Road. When I was a kid I heard a story about a guy who was nicknamed Chink (due to him screwing a girl in the back room of a Chinese takeaway) who had went on a lad’s night out and ended up bang-eyed from beer and swaying at the entrance to Botanic train station asking passersby on the leafy street “when’s the next train back to Belfast mate?” I never got how one man could be so divinely dumb but still be able to dress himself in the morning until the first morning I woke in my bedsit on a similarly leafy side street in the heart of the University quarter.

  The neighbourhood cannibal children had stopped silent; there was no more screaming at the top of their lungs; because this screaming didn’t exist their teenage mother’s weren’t out in the street matching them yell for yell demanding they get inside and eat
your breakfast before I break your fucking legs. There were no police sirens, no car horns honking as Escort battled Sierra for supremacy as the daily war for church parking space pitted Christian versus Christian with enough vulgarity and bad-will to make the virgin cry. I lay in bed staring up at my high ceiling, the light fitting framed with fat little cherubs and a floral arrangement that betrayed the secret of a once great house’s decline in social standing. There was nothing, so much nothing that until I heard the click of my lighter as I sparked up a cigarette I was convinced that I must have turned deaf overnight.

  Climbing from my bed my back ached, the bed was comfortable but unfamiliar and my body was yet to get used to its ways. A large window lay before me next to the sink which I’d take to using as a urinal in the late, dark nights rather than risk the cold and potential lock-out when I’d forget to bring my key. Rolling up the window I was able to climb out on to a fire escape covered in colourful heads and terracotta plant pots. The guy in the room next had a similar window and the fire escape ended just beyond his window so we’d meet and suffer through awkward pleasantries about the weather and which courses we were leaning towards as we both savoured our morning cigarette. It didn’t occur to either of us to wait until the other person had finished theirs before sparking up our own and actually be able to enjoy it without having to punctuate the dead air with chatter.

  I spent most of my money on pints of whiskey and cigarettes with the remainder going on rent; I’d survive on peppers and eggs for most meals and when they ran out or went bad I’d fill up on oranges. To this day the feel of an orange peel under my finger nail reminds me of those busy green walls, the mismatching furniture and 11PM knocks on my door from tenants who have managed to blow the electrics to their rooms because four of their friends were all running hairdryers as they got ready for big nights out in skimpy black numbers.