Rob Doyle - Here Are the Young Men

Animals do not think, which means they do not doubt. They are pure instinct. They never trip up over themselves: they just do it. All I am is doubt. I am tangled up so badly that I know I’ll never be normal again. This is the root of my abject misery .

‘Just do it’ — like the Nike ads. That is how animals are. And not only animals: also the majority of humans, such as jocks, meatheads, footballers etc. They never trip up because they never think, they just do it. They are animals. That’s why they like wearing Nike and all that crap. In spite of my abject misery I am proud that I am not one of them. It is better to think than not think, even though thinking is a disease and it kills everything, so that soon you can’t relax and just fucking enjoy life like a normal human being .

For a week I didn’t see any of the others. I was working in the garage most days. That was okay because I didn’t want to be at home on my own. It was a relief to be distracted from thoughts about Becky, the little girl who had been run over. But at times nothing could distract me: I would see her crumbled, bloodied face superimposed in sudden flashes over the face of my boss, or a customer, or another employee.

I didn’t hear from Jen all week. I emailed her once, but after that I resisted the urge to try again. In the email, I told her what me and Kearney had seen out in Killiney. I didn’t tell her how I’d smirked at Kearney in the police station, or how much I’d hated myself ever since. I didn’t say that to anyone.

Becky had been on the news and in the papers. I’d kept all the stories about her, and all the pictures. I’d put them in a little wooden box that my granda used to own, and hid it in my bedroom. I told no one.

Jen was due back on the Tuesday. On the Monday two things arrived: an email from her and a postcard from Kearney.

In the email Jen said she was sorry she hadn’t replied earlier, but she had deliberately stayed away from phones and computers. I skimmed over lines about art galleries and beaches and her father, until I found the parts about me: she looked forward to seeing me again, and could we meet up in town on Wednesday?

So she hadn’t changed her mind about me. There it was, the proof on-screen.

‘Matthew, there’s a postcard here for ye from Joseph.’

I didn’t know if my ma’s voice from downstairs actually sounded ominous, or if I only heard it that way because of what she’d said.

I went down and picked up the postcard. The photo was of the World Trade Center, before the plane attacks. Thick letters coloured in like the American flag said:

USA STILL STANDING TALL — HEROES LIVE FOREVER

In black marker Kearney had drawn the planes swooping in, a big explosion ripping out of one of the buildings, and the little stickmen falling from the sky. I turned the card over and read:

greetings from Great Satan

ive come strate down to New York with Dwayne for a cupple of days. its AWESOME! U can stil see the ruins and rubbel at Ground Zero, its the best thing ever. we set off an antrax scare on the Subway this morning 4 a laff, It was gas!! hoho no pun intendid nigga Seeriusly though America is deadly — in spite of all the infidels. theirs a lot of FUN STUFF here — u know what I mean .

keep it real black man. Allah Akhbar!!!

The K

For fuck’s sake, I thought. Now I’d probably be put on some CIA blacklist. They’d take me in the night and waterboard me or something. Not to mention what my ma would think. I took the postcard back up to my room. I tore it in half and shoved it in the bin. I lay down but I could still see the glossy cardboard jutting out of the bin. I took the two pieces back out and ripped them up into many smaller parts, then shoved them all into the bin and put a sheet of paper on top so you couldn’t see them. I lay down on the bed and closed my eyes. I could see Kearney’s grinning face on the red spots and darkness of my eyelids.

A few minutes later I got up, had my breakfast and walked down the road for my morning shift at the garage.

I met Jen that Wednesday. We went to see The Matrix Reloaded , which was sort of a let-down but actually alright once you took it for what it was. From then on, me and Jen started seeing a lot of each other. We had always seen a lot of each other, but now it was different: we saw each other alone.

Nearly every day I would meet her in town and we would get stoned together and go to films, or hang around Stephen’s Green or Temple Bar or Merrion Square. She wasn’t working for the summer but she always had more money than me. One afternoon we sat up on a hill in the Phoenix Park under puffy clouds and watched the summer waste away. I had some hash with me and kept thinking about making a spliff, and in the back of my mind was the idea of getting some drink, but I kept putting both intentions off because we were having a good laugh as it was, and in the end we did neither. We just joked around and had mess fights and kissed on the grass. Jen put on songs by The Cure and Radiohead and we listened with one earphone each and it felt like the love scene in some film.

Jen rolled over to look up at the blue sky. She was smiling. ‘It’s funny how it all works out, isn’t it?’ she said.

‘How do ye mean?’

‘Nothin. Just, ye know, you and me gettin together like this. You know, like you have the idea or the image of it in your head, and then it really happens, and it feels funny, that’s all.’

I had a vision of ten million other young lovers across the globe, having the same conversation, each of them feeling beautiful and unique but really just acting out some script, given to them by nature or maybe television. Rez’s theories played out in my head, threatening to spoil the afternoon. But I looked at Jen’s face, the way her eyelashes moved as she watched a plane trailing high up in the sky, and all those doubts seemed frothy, needless. Rez was wound up way too tight — maybe he just needed to relax and look carefully at things, or feel the sun on his face, or lie down beside a girl on the grass in the Phoenix Park.

Later we walked into the city centre. It was still sunny so we wandered into Stephen’s Green and sat on the grass. People had their shirts off and Frisbees flew through the air, everyone laughing and smiling. While we were sitting there my phone beeped in my pocket. It was a message from Rez: ‘ alright matthew listen r u around? i really need 2 meet up with u, i can come over r wherever u r .’

I was puzzled by the text. He didn’t say what he wanted: whether it was to get stoned, or drink, or go to a gig, or what. It was the first I’d heard from him since he’d started his security night job. Jen said, ‘Who’s that?’

‘Just Rez. He sounds a bit … I don’t know. He says he wants to meet up.’

Jen watched me and said nothing. I texted Rez back: ‘ Hey Rez cant meet up now. Might be around this evening. U around later? Want 2 get stoned r whats up? ’

When I’d pressed ‘Send’ Jen said, ‘There’s something going on with him, Matthew.’

‘Yeah, there probably is. He’ll snap out of it. He’ll be grand.’

‘Well, are you sure?’ she said.

‘What do ye mean?’

‘Just that I wonder about him. I emailed him back when I was in Spain, and the reply he sent me, it seemed … I don’t know, it was frantic, it was hard to make sense of. It was kind of disturbing, actually. I mean, you hear so much talk these days about depression. And suicide. Young men especially. I read this article in The Irish Times and, like, more men between eighteen and twenty-five kill themselves in Ireland than in any other country in the world — apart from Norway.’