Kevin Barry - City of Bohane

They hissed from behind and hoicked a few gobbers but they kept their distance true enough.

The melody of the whistles changed and took on an urgency and this told the boys they were coming in close on Cusack ground.

‘Looks like we’s gettin’ a folly awrigh’,’ said Fucker, and there was a quake to his tone.

Wolfie, shrugging, remained entirely quakeless.

Behind them, the pack of skangs was growing in number by the minute and it was the way the melody of their whistles was so sweet was Fucker’s worry.

From a roadside bonfire a rogue dog came at them, it hissed and lurched and bared its fangs, but Wolfie took a swift wee lep into the air and he landed a kick plumb on the cur’s nose and it scurried away again.

‘Norrie grapes on that crittur,’ said Wolfie.

Taunts and threats sniped from the following pack but Wolfie turned daintily on his heel, a single swivel of a movement to grace any dancefloor, and he walked backwards, jauntily, and he smiled at the following pack, and they kept their distance despite the taunts.

Was said in Bohane this winter we’re talking about there was no one quite so feared lately as Logan Hartnett’s roaming lieutenant, Wolfie Stanners, the short-arse little dude with the ginger top and that evil motherfucker of a leer.

Wolfie and Fucker headed direct for Croppy Boy Heights.

This was the circle of flatblocks that was home ground to the Cusack mob. It was announced by an expanse of rough, untarred ground where barrel fires blazed and wild-eyed flatblock bairns were doing cats-tumbles off ancient pylons and there were severe gusts of Nothin’ hardwind from the gaps between the blocks. A tang of menace sat heavily hereabouts.

From the basement of one of the blocks came the heavy throb of a Trojan dub bassline. They lamped it at once as the shebeen block and aimed for it: Fucker breathing shallow, Wolfie breathing deep.

On the Northside Rises, it was at this time the custom for each circle of flatblocks to have its own shebeen. This would be located in one of the flatblock basements, and there, the circle’s young gents would drink beer, smoke herb, listen to dub plates, talk tush and practise knife tricks.

Wolfie and Fucker approached the Cusack shebeen.

A pair of goons were arranged in violent lethargy by its stairwell entrance. They carried tyre-chains, wore cross-slung dirks, and tugged idly at their pants. Fucker and Wolfie trained their eyes against the hard stares of the goons, there was a heavy beat of silence, and the goons parted, sure enough, but took their sweet time about it.

Now the basement shebeen opened out.

It was a low dive alright and wall-to-wall with Cusack filth. The family’s allegiancers stood about with their bottles of Phoenix ale and their herb pipes on the sweet burn and a sinuous bassline thrummed on the air: feel it in the marrow of your spine.

Wolfie and Fucker did not need to be announced.

Quickly the dub plates were cut. The shebeen mob turned as one on this apparition in the doorway. Dark murmurs, hissed whistles, but the Hartnett Fancy was known always for its brazenness, its insouciance, and these boyos mounted it good:

Wolfie, hunched, beadily staring, with the little paws tightened into hard nuts of fists.

Fucker, hanging loose and limber, and wearing his trademark glaze of vast unpredictability.

The Cusack filth cawed like street birds – starlings were their symbol – but the mob did not step forward; it allowed itself to part.

The lights were turned up to a harsh, striplit glare.

A mighty bark sounded from the rear of the mob then and it was answered, ritually, by a mad volley of barks from all around the freaky shebeen.

In the cruel light the pocked skin of the Cusacks was all the worse for the badly inked starling tats it was covered with. (Complexions generally on the Northside Rises are nothing to write home about.)

Wolfie and Fucker looked around the enemy’s lair:

Markings on the walls depicted the sacred symbols of the Rises: pit bulls in bout and the strange winged daemon-sluts of the flatblocks and there were memorials also to the dead knifemen of Northside lore.

Wolfie and Fucker looked massively unimpressed as they took a lamp on the Cusack mob:

Cusacks had settled this season on high-rolled denims and armless geansais and they had starling feathers – glossily iridescent, a greenish black – tucked into the bands of their pork-pie hats. Low brows were uniform and gave that vaguely puzzled look that is associated always with Northside knuckle-draggers.

The bark sounded again, was met by a volley of barks, and now it was Eyes Cusack himself, the king barker, who made his way through the mob.

Topless but for his gold chains, stoutly built, as near enough wide as he was long, with a mouthful of gold caps, he grinned malevolently as he approached the boys.

Stopped a couple feet from them.

Eyeballed Wolfie and took measure of the kid.

Nodded appreciatively.

‘So the boy-chil’ step up,’ he said.

Rubbed his chin, thoughtfully. Came closer.

‘So the boy-chil’ workin’ his own plan or he keepin’ Fancy’s affairs in nick?’

Sadly let his shoulders fall.

‘Coz, boy-chil’, it gotta be said, like? We got a rake o’ Cusacks wearin’ scars an’ welts offa ye lot this las’ while, y’check?’

Wolfie agreed.

‘Been lively aroun’ the place awrigh’, Cuse,’ he said. ‘But there weren’t no one got what weren’t comin’.’

Hisses, caws, growls sounded – Eyes Cusack raised a hand to stop them.

‘Boy-chil’… Reefins aside, like? There been floaters on the Bohane river down the years and them floaters got bruds and cuzzes in this place, y’heed?’

Wolfie bowed his head, briefly, and then turned his glance sombrely around the shebeen.

‘I’m sorry for yere troubles,’ he said.

The mob shook free of itself and came hissing forward but Eyes Cusack raised again his mottled hand, and he cried:

‘Hup! Hup now!’

The mob eased up, despite itself, despite its awful compacted energy, and Eyes Cusack was admiring.

‘The boy-chil’ got grapes,’ he said. ‘Sure y’ain’t got Norrie juice in ya someplace?’

Wolfie winced.

‘Oney yella in me’s what I piss in the mornins,’ he said.

Eyes pursed his lips and raked a sconce on Fucker then.

‘An’ the galoot got a lash o’ the pike in him, yep? Sketch the green eyes on it.’

Fucker spat, and flexed, and glared hard at Cusask.

‘Business wan’ doin’,’ he said. ‘So don’ min’ the aul’ bitchtalk, Cusey-gal.’

Eyes turned to his hissing mob and smiled and danced a wee skank.

‘Oh the Long Fella don’t rear no blouses for lieutenants,’ he said. ‘Sends me up a prize pair o’ comanches. Don’t do the walk hissel’, though, do he? No, sir. Long Fella stayin’ close to home, yep? Watchin’ his yard. Am I right or wrong, ginge?’

‘Mr Hartnett is indisposed,’ said Wolfie.

‘Oh aye?’ said Cusack. ‘What’s he at? Straightenin’ the eyes in his bint’s head, s’he? Or he workin’ a little plan with his mammy, like? He mammy’s lil’ boy yet, like? O’ course the Hartnetts all for doin’ business down the New Town these times, ain’t they? Herb and hoors not good enough for the Fancy no more. No, sir. Now it’s all trams and manses, ain’t it?’

Wolfie raised a hand to signal the talk was at an end.

‘We gots somethin’ to put t’ye,’ he said.

He reached inside his puffa and removed an envelope of silver vellum. It was embossed with the Hartnett Fancy’s mark – a puck goat’s head. Inside was the Feud’s declaration.

Wolfie Stanners offered the envelope to Eyes Cusack.