Rob Doyle - Here Are the Young Men

The wrinkled, leathery punk shoved his way from the back of the carriage to step into Scag’s court, where some Italian lads with dreadlocks had gathered to skin up and be entertained by his banter.

‘Howaya, Dowdall. Jaysus, it’s been a while, I thought you were dead.’

‘I am dead. I’m dead inside.’ Dowdall cackled at his own slurred wit and cracked open a can of Devil’s Bit. He had a nose ring and his dirty, grey-blond hair was spiked up with grease. There were metal studs on his leather jacket and Damned, Clash and Paranoid Visions badges sewn in drunken swerves along his arms. He looked ridiculous, a farce of all that punk once was.

‘This is me mate Matthew,’ said Scag, slapping me on the shoulder.

‘Howaya,’ grunted Dowdall with a complete lack of interest.

‘Dowdall here used to play bass with Mickey and the Master Race,’ Scag informed me.

‘Oh right yeah,’ I said, acting impressed though I’d never heard of them.

‘Here now, not to mention three years and two albums with Footnotes to Plato, and a tour of Slovenia with Abject Phallus,’ said Dowdall, wagging his finger like a schoolteacher. ‘The Footnotes were a serious punk act, not like these gobshite posers ye get nowadays. Am I right, Scag?’

‘Yis had yer moments,’ said Scag coolly.

‘C’mere, Scag. I hear ye think yer a writer now,’ said Dowdall.

‘Sometimes I catch meself thinkin that, yeah,’ replied Scag. ‘I put out a buke there a while back.’

‘That’s what I heard,’ said Dowdall. ‘Don’t go expectin me to read it, now. Scag the poet, wha? Merciful Jaysus. I can imagine what they wrote in the biography yoke at the back. “Scag was awarded a C Plus in English for his Junior Cert. His ma considers him one of the top five writers to have slithered out from between her legs. He divides his time between Dolphin’s Barn and the Walkinstown roundabout.”’

Scag granted him a wry chuckle. ‘That’s it, more or less. I don’t really think of meself as an author, though. I’m more of a conduit. There’s a force deep down inside me. He speaks and I just write it down. I call him The Fat Controller.’

I laughed, though I wasn’t sure I was meant to.

‘I’ve got two more bukes almost finished,’ said Scag. ‘ Sincerely L. Cohen and Fine Day for a Holocaust Denial .’ He paused to observe a passing arse, then added, ‘I’m thinkin of puttin them out under me pseudonym.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Seamus Heaney.’

‘Tsss. Good night and good luck. So are yis on yisser way out to the festival?’

‘Yeah. Sure we thought we may as well. Young Matthew here has had some lady trouble. His tender young heart is in danger of bein broken so I’m takin him under me wing for a bit of a blowout to cheer him up. Yerself?’

‘Yeah, I’m goin out. I couldn’t give a fuck about the festival but there’s a bird out there I have to see. Little Spanish thing. Mad for me mickey, she is. Blank Frank has some yips for me as well.’

‘Oh yeah?’ said Scag. ‘Haven’t seen oul Frankincense in a while. How many are ye gettin?’

‘Ten. Do ye want some?’

Scag hissed, all indignant. ‘Does a bear shit on the pope? When have you ever known me not to want some fuckin yokes?’

There were thousands thronging the seafront at Dún Laoghaire, sitting on the grass in groups of eight or ten, drinking cans and bottles. There seemed to be little point in being here, other than to drink and talk in proximity to others who were drinking and talking. Maybe that’s what a festival was: that and nothing more. There was a huge stage up near the Forty Foot but we felt no desire to push through the hordes to better hear the world music that was blasting from it. (‘ World music,’ remarked Dowdall derisively. ‘Where else is it supposed to be from?’) I called Cocker and we shouted into our phones till we found each other.

‘Any relation to Jarvis?’ said Scag, when I introduced them to one another.

‘Yeah, I’m his da,’ replied Cocker.

Scag laughed. ‘I thought so. Right then lads, I’ve to head off now for a bit, but I’ll be back. I’ve another mate who lives out here who I haven’t seen in a while. I’m goin to drop in on him. Dowdall, if I don’t get around to Frank’s before yis leave, get me them yokes and I’ll fix ye up later, okay?’

Dowdall looked reluctant, but muttered yeah. Scag ducked into the horde, then me and Cocker walked off with Dowdall, stepping over hands and legs till we were past the thickest crowds.

‘Where are we off to?’ Cocker said, frowning, as we fell a few steps behind Dowdall. ‘I thought we were just goin to hang around the festival and have a few cans. Who the fuck is this piece of work?’

‘Relax. It’s just a mate of Scag’s. We’re goin to pick up a few pills. It’ll be cool, don’t worry.’

‘These are some weird-lookin cunts,’ he muttered.

We followed Dowdall down a side street, passing big, rich houses where I wouldn’t have minded living but knew I never would. Blank Frank was paying a home visit to one of his wealthier customers. Dowdall phoned him when we got to the house. Frank appeared a moment later at the second-storey window, mobile at his ear, gazing down at us. He was huge, bald, bearded and leather-clad; Blank Frank was an old-school biker.

Dowdall hung up. ‘We’ve to go upstairs,’ he told us. ‘Now don’t go makin bollockses of yerselves, do yis hear me? These lads won’t see the funny side.’ In a quieter voice he added, ‘Frank is … he has his problems. He isn’t that bad when ye get to know him, but it’s very easy to set him off. And that’s not somethin ye want to see.’

We ascended a marble staircase, passing framed posters of Bruce Lee and Eric Cantona, and stepped into the sitting room. Other than Blank Frank (who used to be called Frank the Fuck when he did vocals for Consumers of Atrocity back in the eighties, as Dowdall had informed us on the way), there was a bulky, crewcut guy with suspicious eyes. He wore a white T-shirt with Prada printed brazenly across the collar in navy lettering. Though it was clearly this man’s house we were in, he had that inner-city look to him; the raw, blemished face, the ugliness. There were two women as well, in their mid-twenties, both of them trashily blonde, faces caked with makeup. One of them was resurfacing from the coke she’d just been hoovering up from the glass table. She regarded us coldly. Blank Frank looked at me and Cocker.

‘This is just Matthew,’ Dowdall said quickly. ‘And that’s his mate.’

Blank Frank the Fuck shrugged. ‘So how’s things, Dowdall? Long time no see.’

Bottles of beer were offered all round by our jerky, shifty host, who had obviously done plenty of coke before we arrived. The girls said little, lighting cigarettes and watching us with hard, cynical faces.

‘Cut them all a line, Eileen, will ye?’ said the host, whom Blank Frank introduced as Seamus. I guessed he was some kind of gangster or high-end dealer. He was an erratic in a rich suburb like Dún Laoghaire, full of posh old cunts who spoke with near-British accents and looked down on the rest of us.

Dowdall, Seamus and Blank Frank sat down around a low wooden table on one side of the huge room, and started exchanging stories and jokes. Me and Cocker sat on a couch, listening to their loud, aggressive, uneasy laughter.

After some chat, Frank asked Dowdall how many yokes he wanted.

‘Ten for me,’ said Dowdall.

‘We’ll take ten of them as well,’ said Cocker, fishing out some notes from his jacket pocket.

Frank the Fuck looked up. Cocker fidgeted beside me, putting the money back in his pocket. The girls watched Frank. Suddenly he made a sweeping gesture and said, ‘C’mon up here lads, sit down with us for fuck’s sake. Yisser lookin all lonesome over there, huggin yisser beers.’