Kevin Barry - City of Bohane

Fucker wore:

Silver high-top boots, drainpipe strides in a natty-boy mottle, a low-slung dirk belt and a three-quarter jacket of saffron-dyed sheepskin. He was tall and straggly as an invasive weed. He was astonishingly sentimental, and as violent again. His belligerent green eyes were strange flowers indeed. He was seventeen years of age and he read magical significance into occurrences of the number nine. He had ambition deep inside but could hardly even name it. His true love: an unpredictable Alsatian bitch name of Angelina.

Wolfie wore:

Black patent high-tops, tight bleached denims with a matcher of a waistcoat, a high dirk belt, and a navy Crombie with a black velvet collar. Wolfie was low-sized, compact, ginger, and he thrummed with dense energies. He had a blackbird’s poppy-eyed stare, thyroidal, and if his brow was no more than an inch deep, it was packed with an alley rat’s cunning. He was seventeen, also, and betrayed, sometimes, by odd sentiments under moonlight. He wanted to own entirely the city of Bohane. His all-new, all-true love: Miss Jenni Ching of the Hartnett Fancy and the Ho Pee Ching Oh-Kay Koffee Shoppe.

‘Get ’round the far side o’ that hill,’ said Wolfie, ‘an’ we should see the place, yeah?’

‘Like I know the fuckin’ bogs from fuckology,’ said Fucker.

They were headed for a low tavern out at Eight Mile Bridge. A tout was to be met there. They walked on through the damp air.

‘If yer askin’ me?’ said Fucker.

‘Well, I ain’t,’ said Wolfie.

‘If yer askin’ me,’ said Fucker, ‘Logan H, he gone seriously fuckin’ para, like.’

‘Logan H, he always been para, Fucker. You don’t land the runnins o’ Bohane without bein’ seriously on the fuckin’ para side, y’check me? S’how y’keep suckin’ wind.’

Fucker waggled his beanie head in puzzlement.

‘But what’s this old Gant cunt gonna go and do on him? Who got the juju over Logan, like? He’s well protected, the Long Fella.’

‘Ours ain’t to reason why, Fucker. We’s oney the boys, like. Yet.’

They came upon the Bohane river. Feeding directly off the bog, it was a tarry run of blackwater, and it burbled its inanities. Fucker listened as they walked, and was antsy, and he ran the tip of his tongue across his cracked, nervous lips. He let free a nagging worry.

‘You an’ the Jenni-chick gone kinda serious lately, Wolf?’

‘We’s a lock, Fucker.’

‘Knew I ain’t been seein’ you around the place so much of an evenin’.’

‘Missin’ me, Fucker?’

‘Aw she’s a wee lash an’ all, like. I wouldn’t blame you, kid.’

‘Breed a bairn off her quick as you’d look at me.’

‘You would? A Chinkee gettin’ bred off a ginge? Weird-lookin’ fuckin’ baba, no?’

‘Stow it, Fucker.’

The river ran, and the Nothin’ massif loomed in a grey haze, and swaying briars scraped at the boys’ noggins, and Eight Mile Bridge was at last reached.

‘Spud-ater Central,’ said Wolfie Stanners.

A scatter of inebriates hung out beneath the great stone arches of the bridge. They sucked at their sacks of tawny wine. Misfortunate souls in beanie hats, ragged-arsed trews, ancient geansais. The boys eyeballed them hard as they passed.

‘Awful to see fellas let themselves go,’ said Fucker.

‘No self-respec’ is the prob,’ said Wolfie.

They went down a short fall of carved stone steps to the old tavern: the Eight Mile Inn. The inn was set low on the river’s bank to dodge the hardwind’s assaults. It was lit only by turf fires and the boys squinted in the gloom as they entered.

Door creaked shut behind, and slammed, and wisps of steam like spectral maggots rose from their damp coats in the inn’s fuggy heat.

Their eyes adjusted. They picked out their man at a far corner. As was arranged, he read a copy of the Vindicator . Gestured with it as the boys entered. He was a nervy-looking old-timer with milk-bottle shoulders. Mug of brandy before him. A few old bogside quaffers in flat caps were slung about the dim corners but they kept their eyes down. Wolfie and Fucker crossed the room and slid onto the high stools either side of the tout. Wolfie called a pair of amber halves off the fat-armed Big Nothin’ wench behind the counter. She served them, and was all slow and lazy-eyed about it – a lass, no doubt, with notions of being carted off to the city some day. The boys pointedly ignored her. At length, Wolfie addressed the tout in a sidelong whisper.

‘Understand,’ he said, ‘that the man from the paper put word to you?’

‘Mr Gleeson, he did.’

‘Know why we’re here so?’ said Fucker.

‘It’s about a bead wants drawin’.’

‘You the man to draw it for us, cove?’

‘The man ye’re lookin’ for been seen awrigh’, like.’

‘Seen when and where?’

‘Would it mean somethin’ t’ye if I said, like? Ye know Big Nothin’, ye do?’

‘Said when and where?’

‘He oney comes out on night walks.’

‘Comes out where, cove?’

‘Comes out. Walks abroad.’

Fucker snapped.

‘Fuck’s walks a-fuckin-broad mean, fuckface?’

‘He walks Nothin’.’

‘There’s a whole wealth,’ said Wolfie, ‘o’ Big fuckin’ Nothin’ out here, in’t there?’

‘Where’s it he’s kippin’, cove?’

‘That ain’t known.’

The boys threw their hands up. Consulted each other quietly. They were tempted already towards a spilling of blood but wary of the report that needed making to Logan Hartnett. The spud-ater knew this well. Spud-aters – they can be as cute as shithouse slugs.

Fucker sat on his hands and bit his bottom lip. Wolfie, more the diplomat of the pair, changed tack.

‘You’d be a fella who’d take a turn ’round Smoketown the odd time, sir?’

‘Now,’ said the spud-ater, ‘we are talkin’ decen’ cuts o’ turkey.’

‘An’ what’d have an interest for you ’cross the footbridge, sir?’

The old-timer’s eyes sparkled.

‘I’d lick a dream off the belly of a skinny hoor as quick as you’d look at me.’

Wolfie nodded soberly, as though appreciative of the spudater’s delicate tastes.

‘Draw a bead and you’ll have your pick o’ the skinnies,’ he said. ‘Could have a season o’ picks.’

‘A season?’

‘Cozy aul’ winter for ya,’ said Fucker. ‘Buried to the maker’s name in skinnies and far gone off the suck of a dream-pipe, y’check me?’

The old tout sighed as temptation hovered.

‘Oh man an’ boy I been a martyr to the poppy dream…’

‘An’ soon as you done with the dream-pipe,’ Fucker teased some more, ‘there’d be as much herb as you can lung an’ ale to folly.’

‘All dependin’,’ said Wolfie, ‘on you drawin’ a bead on the man’s berth for us, check?’

Spud-ater considered the dregs of his brandy.

Swirled it.

Drained it.

Wolfie nodded for the bar wench to bring him another. She did so. The spud-ater swallowed a fresh nip and savoured it and wrinkled with some delicacy his nostrils. Said:

‘That man we’re talkin’ about? That’s a man with a wealth o’ respect behind him out here on Nothin’. Lot o’ friends here still.’

‘Hear ya, cove.’

‘A man like that? A man that go waaaay the fuck back on Big Nothin’? Man like that get a bead drawn on him for a pair o’ Fancy headjobs… I mean no offence.’

Wolfie held up a forgiving palm.

‘None taken, sir.’

‘All I’m sayin’? It mightn’t auger so well for the fella that draws a bead on Gant Broderick, y’get me?’

‘Don’t say the name,’ said Wolfie.

The tout massaged then slowly with one the other his Judas palms. Niggled at the decision.