Kevin Barry - City of Bohane

Angelina and the boys followed Deccie.

Anything aged fourteen to sixty-eight took the rake of his glance. Ankles to nape, he sized ’em up. Laid the gamey eye on. Nearly hop up on that, he thought. Nearly give that an auld lash of the baste, he thought. Nearly ate me dinner offa that, he thought. Oh, a rabid tush patrol he was on, with the peepers out on stalks, looking left, looking right, looking bang ahead, but… ah.

He didn’t look behind him, did he?

No.

‘Full whack on the fishmonger is the ’bino’s word,’ Fucker said.

‘ Full whack?’

‘He been messin’ with a missus, ain’t he?’

‘Long Fella don’t like that.’

‘He sure don’t, Wolf.’

They ghosted through the Smoketown crowds and kept just a short ways back from their prey.

They knew to wait on the moment.

The fishmonger slithered into a shotbar.

He schlepped back a couple of mulekickers and tried to paw the plastik bazookas off the Ukrainer barkeep.

All the while he was watched from the street.

Wolfie had by this stage a punnet of fried chicken on the go and he offered Fucker a drumstick and Fucker took it and sucked it clean in one and tossed the bone and offered his greased fingers then to Angelina, who cleaned them good.

‘I worry ’bout you an’ that dog sometimes,’ said Wolfie.

Fucker shrugged; Angelina drooled.

And Cantillon rode a string of dives but he bought nowhere, he was looking for the good price, and at length, as the boys and the dog trailed him, he hit towards the dune end.

Now the dune end of Smoketown is the cheaper line. There you will find a very low class of customer. The worst of the slagshops and the most insalubrious needle galleries are out there. Weird atmosphere on account of the system of dunes that rise just beyond and give the name to it. A spooky place that dune reef. Haunted by ferocious pikeys it is – their fires burn against the black night; sand-pikeys we call ’em – and the sea withers on, always and forever, insanely.

Fishmonger took a turn down an empty side street.

Bad move.

Suddenly, silently, Wolfie Stanners was at his side.

So sweetly:

‘A word, Mr Cantillon?’

And yes there was Fucker Burke the other side of him.

All jaunty:

‘Howya, Dec?’

And there was Angelina with a spill of happy drool falling.

Steered him down a tight alleyway, the boys, and a sea of rats parted underfoot.

Electric bristling of them.

Parting of the grey sea.

Angie yapped at the rats and was shushed by Fucker. Gently the boys arranged the man against a gable end.

‘This about, lads?’

Fair play he even managed to keep the quake of fear from his voice. For all the good it did him. Wolfie took a wee lep off the dancers and was airborne, just briefly, but long enough to plant a perfect butt on the bridge of Cantillon’s nose.

Soft explosion: muscle, sinew, blood.

The butt was a kindness; Deccie whited out – Goodnight, Smoketown! – and he slumped agin the wall and slid the length of it and was no sooner on the ground than Fucker Burke arranged the heel of a size thirteen high-top boot on his windpipe and mashed it down hard, and Angie on the leash was lapping already at the blood spilt.

Wolfie meantime worked his stormtroopers repeatedly about the man’s face in neat precise stomps – happy in his work, the boy – so it would be a while anyways before this meat had a name put to it.

They lepped at the ribs also – they snapped easily as fish bones.

Angelina danced.

Boys walked out the dune end again. Glanced quickly left and quickly right and hit directly for the busier Smoketown of the riverside streets.

‘I’ve a horn on me,’ said Fucker.

‘I’d ate,’ said Wolfie.

Angelina lurched at the leash, she wanted to go back to the alleyway, she wanted more, but she was dragged along and scolded:

‘Leave it, Ange!’

Smoketown juddered. The girls called out and the barkers hollered. Dreams were sold, songs were gargled, noodles were bothered. Wolfie Stanners and Fucker Burke and the Alsatian bitch Angelina melted back into the night, and as they passed me by, I saw the true-dark taint in their eyes.

It is at this hour that I like to walk the S’town wharfs myself. I like to look out over the river to the rooftops of the Back Trace and the Northside Rises beyond.

I like to see the river fill up with the lamps of the city.

Dear Macu,

I saw you on Dev Street the other day. I wondered if I’d know you it’s been so long girl but the shock to me was how little you’d changed. I ain’t sure I can say the same about myself I’d say the years have gone on me sure enough it was always the way with my crowd the way we’d wear our lives on our faces. I want to cause you no unhappiness Macu. It was plain to me when I saw you on Thursday you been caused enough of that. I don’t mean to pass remark on the life that you made for yourself I’d be the last one who could draw rosy pictures of a life for anyone. It doesn’t mean that I have not dreamt of what kind of life it might have been if things hadn’t happened the way they did. I saw you Macu and I wanted to go to you but it would not have been fair to you. Not yet I told myself not this time. Twenty-five year pass and leaves nothing at all hardly in your hand I don’t know exactly when it was that I started to feel old but I feel it now true enough you can believe me I suppose there has been dark times for me as for anyone in a life but it is no good to nobody to dwell on the dark times. It only seems like weeks ago that I walked out of the place. A lot has happened to me in that time as you can well imagine since I took to the High Boreen that was a hard day believe me that day marked me. I am not in many ways the person that I was I have done things I am not proud of Macu. I have not married though I suppose there have been women. I have never settled anyplace. I am told you are without children and that is a sadness you should have been a mother it would have suited you.

I am living back on Nothin’ now and it is my intention to settle here for as long as I have left may the SBJ grant that it is more than a season or two. I cannot say that I have known happiness since I came back here a few months ago I cannot say that I will ever know that again but there is quiet out here all the same that suits me and is a comfort to my old bones. You know that Nothin’ has been a special place for me always. You know my feelings for this place and you will understand it was painful for me to be away from it so long. I come back here with no intention of causing you unhappiness.

I want to see you Macu. I want to look at you and not have to speak have to say stupid things I want to look at you and see what you’ve become. I want to hold you for a while. I am sorry to put these words before you I have no choice I must. I am a worm I know that to come back after all this time and what it must do to you it is hard and painful.

You said something to me once I wonder if you remember. You said that no matter what happened we would end up together. Do you remember that? It was probably just something a young girl would say and she was in love but I believed it for years it kept me together for years it kept me from the lip of the grave Macu.

I love you still. That has a horrible bare look to it I know when it is put down on the page maybe the truth is I do want it to cause pain for you. Maybe I believe there is some of that due to you. We make choices and we have to live with them. It might seem like madness that I would write those words after all these years but there you are you can deal with them I have had to deal with them so long.