Robert Wilson - Eureka Street - A Novel of Ireland Like No Other

`Give us your fucking money,' said one of the boys, who had obviously seen the same motion pictures as Chuckie. Chuckie looked sideways at Bannon.There was no help there. I'm going to die, thought Chuckie. Murdered by white guys in NewYork. I'm too Irish for this to happen, he thought. I'm too Protestant.

The three youths were surprised to have their request ignored, but they were experienced enough to attribute this hesitancy to surprise and fear. They underlined the point. The boy with the baseball bat smashed his weapon against the wiremesh fence. The noise was tremendous, heart-stopping.

'The fucking money.'

This lot didn't have too much trouble with stress, it seemed to Chuckie. Desperately, he glanced back at Bannon.

'Hey, guys,' Bannon said sadly, 'don't fuck this guy off.' He pointed to Chuckle. 'He's from Northern Ireland. He's in the IRA.'

There was a momentary pause and Chuckie could see a tiny calculation in the hoodlums' eyes. They looked at each other.

'Say something,' the baseball-bat boy said to Chuckie.

`What would you like me to say?' asked Chuckie, with inappropriate grace and distinction.

'He don't sound Irish to me.'

`He's a Brit or Scotch or something.'

'He sounds like a fat fuck from North Carolina.'

The boys moved closer, ready for battle.

Gripped by lunatic panic, Chuckie suddenly launched into intermittently of the demagogic tones of the Reverend Dr Ian Paisley. 'No shurrender. Not an inch. No Pope here. Home Rule ish Rome Rule. Ulshter will fight.'

The boys stopped dead, frozen in their tracks. They glanced hurriedly at one another.

'I seen this guy on TV. He's a crazy fucker,' said one.

A decision was quickly reached. The baseball bat was lowered. They backed off slightly.

'Listen. No sweat,' said the boy with the bat. 'You guys take it easy.' He smiled uncertainly at Chuckle. 'Hey, power to the people, man. Down with the King and everything.'

They turned and ran off.

Bannon turned to Chuckie. 'Nice routine, Mr Lurgan. Very nice work.'

Chuckie lay down in the rain.

At the airport in San Diego, Chuckie called his mother. There were several banks of payphones and each rank was occupied by men in suits, clutching perfectly serviceable mobile phones, reluctantly having to repeat I love you over the crackle of the lines to California, Boston and Philadelphia. I love you… I LOVE YOU. It didn't always sound sincere and several of the men were accompanied by lithe young women in costumes of ascending degrees of provocativeness. Chuckie smiled sadly.

'Hiya, Caroline,' he said, when he finally found an unoccupied slot. `How's it going?'

`All right, son:

`How's Mum?'

Caroline's voice grew fainter. `All right.!

'Is she eating?'

'Aye.!

'Is she sleeping?'

'Aye:

'Is she taking her pills?'

`Jesus, Chuckie, do you want to know if she's pissing and shitting as well? Gimme a break.'

`Sorry.'

`Aye, right.!

`What's wrong?'

'What do you mean?'

`Why are you so grumpy?'

`It's hardly even nine o'clock in the morning, Chuckie.What do you want? Heavy fucking breathing?'

`Has Jake been round? asked Chuckie.

`He's here nowI

'Brilliant.'

'I'm away across the street to make my man's breakfast and then get some sleep. I'll get yer man for you.'

Chuckie shoved a great many more dollars into the coinbox. He glanced around at all the other besuited men at the telephones; they looked harassed but glamorous. He wondered if he looked like one of them.

'Chuckle?'

Chuckie was surprised at the warmth that flooded his heart at the sound of his friend's voice. He had not felt lonely until now. Tears sprang to his eyes and his nose itched.

`Hiya, Jake' His voice was muffled in an attempt to conceal his emotion. He had intended a rather swanky, transatlantic, living-out-of-a-suitcase conversation with his friend, but he knew now that it would take all he had just to avoid bawling. `How's Mum?'

'She's a lot better, Chuckie. She's talking more'

Chuckie paused and gulped hotly. `Do you think she'd want to talk to me?'

'She's asleep right now, Chuckie. She sleeps so little, it'd be a shame to wake her.'

`Absolutely.'

'What time is it there?' asked Jake.

'It's after midnight.!

'Where are you?'

'San Diego.'

Jake laughed.'Cool,' he said.

'What's funny?' asked Chuckie sharply.

'It's just hard to think of you there'

`What's that supposed to mean?'

'Come on, I just got used to you being around in Belfast. It's not the same without you, Chuckie. Take it easy, I'm being nice'

Chuckie remembered that his friend was looking after his mother. `Yeah, look, sorry, Jake. Thanks for looking after Peggy. I'll see you right.'

'Stuff your money, Lurgan.'

There was a pause. Both men, so far apart, regretted that their conversation had veered this way.

`Have you found her?' asked Jake.

`I'm getting there, a mollified Chuckie replied.

`How d'you like America?'

`It's great. I got mugged twice.'

`That's nice.'

`Hey, Jake.'

`What?ff

Chuckie paused. `I think I love her.'

'I guessed, Chuckie.'

`Right.!

The silence was hilariously manly.

'Hey, Chuckie.'

`What?'

`Roche has been asking for you.'

'Who?'

`You know, the kid, the joke-seller.'

`Well, he can't have me.'

Chuckie hung up. He got a hotel room at the airport. He asked the girl at reception about the street where Max's mother lived. The girl told him it was an easy cab ride. He asked for an alarm call and tried to go to bed. He failed. The flabby clock of his body was lagging and sprinting on its own accord. He lay open-eyed for a couple of hours and then he called a cab to take him into town.

It was nearly three o'clock but San Diego wasn't sleeping. The downtown streets were close to lively. Chuckie went into a bar with two hundred dollars and made some brief friends. He drank numbly, talking nonsense and hearing more. He felt like a small blip on some big screen. He felt empty, deracinated. He missed the Wigwam and Lavery's. He missed Jake, Slat, Septic and Deasely. He missed his mother. He missed Eureka Street. It was as though he missed himself. Those were much of what constituted him.

After an hour he left the bar and walked out into damp San Diego. The sidewalks glittered, wet and marvellous. Though it was late, citizens still walked those streets. The underlit shopfronts were lined with pairs of underdressed women whom Chuckie supposed were prostitutes. These girls wore cheap pendants, which flashed in the street-light. San Diego was a naval base and some of the girls wore T-shirts that bore legends such as `Marine Girls', `Fuck me, the Navy!'

There was plenty of fight too. Every block or so, Chuckie would see a brawl erupt in some bar, on some street. Men kicked each other's heads to pulp, smashed bottles in faces, pulled and used knives. Outside one nightclub, he saw two marines beat a lone sailor. They banged his face against walls and trashcans, they kicked each of his teeth right out of his head.

And there were the noises of the incidents he did not see. The muted sound of war from the interiors of houses, apartments and bars. The dull shouts of angry men and the stifled screams of women. Sometimes he thought he heard gunfire.

The streets were littered with rubbish and bottles. The walls were littered with billboards and mugshots. On one wall he saw a local newspaper hoarding, which carried a giant version of each day's front page. CONGRESS PASSES NAVY BILL. MORE SAN DIEGO CLOSURES. And just at head level as he passed by, near the foot of the giant page, a headline about the murder of two San Diego prostitutes. Whore murders were not important. They were gestures, indications of mood.