Rob Doyle - Here Are the Young Men

We shuffled over, smiling awkwardly, and sat down with them.

Now Frank was slamming his massive paw on the table and saying, ‘Dowdall, did I ever tell ye about the time me and Seamus here got caught with five hundred yokes outside the Point when Orbital were playing?’

‘No, what happened? Did yis get arrested?’

‘No, hang on and I’ll tell ye. We were just outside the entrance about to get in past security — the plan was to sell the yokes inside — and suddenly this plain-clothes cunt comes out of nowhere. I’ve still no idea how he knew we had the stuff. But he grabs hold of Seamus’s shoulder and starts screamin into his walkie-talkie, and he’s obviously callin the lads for reinforcements. And while your man has his hand there, Seamus just looks at me for a moment, then he turns around and CRACK, he loafs him right in the face. So your man goes down like a sack of fuckin shite and we leg it, peggin it down along the quays, in through the IFSC. We legged it down this lane and went into a pub and that was that. They didn’t catch up with us. We ended up goin on to some fuckin club — where was it, Spirit? — and sellin most of the yokes in there instead. And then all I remember is Seamus wearin the face off this big fat trendy bird, and next thing I follow them into the jacks and he’s ridin her over the fuckin sink!’

Seamus was slapping his thigh and laughing proudly at the anecdote. ‘Ye know what they say, lads: when war is ragin, every hole is a trench. Fuck me, that was a good night. I was still pissed off we never got to see Orbital, though.’

‘Orbital, now there’s a great band,’ said Cocker, nodding his head — even though he’d never listened to them in his life. No one paid him any regard.

Seamus said, ‘The next morning I bought an Aer Lingus ticket to Amsterdam and I fuckin stayed over there for nearly two months. I was bleedin shittin it that they were goin to hunt me down and lock me up for years. Or do ye remember that time we dropped a fuckload of acid and went to see Blade in the big cineplex on Parnell Street, do ye remember that?’

‘Fuckin right I do,’ said Frank the Fuck. ‘Or at least I remember coming to me senses in the cell the next mornin. Fuckin hell.’

Seamus was in tears of laughter. After a couple of false starts, he managed to get a few sentences out to deliver the anecdote.

‘We’d taken a whole sheet between the two of us, and we were just gettin into the film — which is total shite, by the way — and Frank was gone dead quiet, just fuckin engrossed in the film, or so I thought. And then, completely all of a sudden-like, he starts screamin his head off, just fuckin screamin like a mad cunt, this mad, high-pitched fuckin noise, like a lamb bein slaughtered. It was like he was on fire or somethin, or some mad fuckin animal. He had his hands to his face and it was like he was tryin to tear the skin off it, and all the time these mad fuckin screams comin out of him. People were leggin it out of the cinema and everythin, thinkin there was some kind of fire or I don’t know what the fuck. And I’m just sittin there pissin meself laughin, and next thing Frank is leapin up on the seat, lashin out at everythin. Kicked me in the fuckin jaw. Then he falls over into the next row and gets up, still screamin his fuckin head off and clawin at his face, and he legs it down the aisle and out of the cinema, into the fuckin foyer or whatever ye call it, upstairs where the bar and café is. By the time I managed to get up and leg it out after him …’

He couldn’t go on because he was laughing too much. We were all laughing by now. After a while Seamus controlled it enough to continue.

‘And so I leg it out after him, and I’m completely off me fuckin tits as well. And every cunt in the cinema is standin there in shock, starin at this mad cunt. He’s after leapin in behind the bar and he’s just pullin bottles down off the rack — whiskey, vodka, all kinds of shite — and he’s fuckin them out of the bar, at the walls, on to the ground. He must’ve smashed about thirty bottles by the time the big golliwog security guard came burstin in and floored him.’

‘Kicked the fuckin shite out of me too, when I was on the ground,’ said Blank Frank proudly. ‘Or he must have done, cos when I woke up in the cell I was in a right fuckin state. Me head was like the fuckin Elephant Man.’

‘He did, he knocked the bollocks out of ye. He fuckin had to, man, ye looked like ye were a total fuckin psychopath. Every fucker there was shittin themselves. I thought ye were goin to kill someone.’

‘It’s a miracle I didn’t, hurlin all them glass bottles across the gaff like that,’ said Frank wistfully, eyes wet from laughing.

‘What did the police do?’ I asked.

‘Not a fuckin thing. I was able to convince them that I was off me trolley and therefore me actions were beyond me control. It wasn’t that hard to do — only a fuckin genuine nutjob would do somethin like that, that’s how they saw it.’

‘They weren’t fuckin wrong,’ declared Dowdall.

Blank Frank was drying his eyes. ‘Fuckin hell, I’m goin to piss meself.’

Beside me, Cocker had gone quiet and still. I thought he was freaked out and wanted to leave. But just at that moment, he jolted upright in his chair, slammed his palm on the table and said, ‘That’s very funny. Frank, you sound like a real demented cunt alright.’

The room fell silent. Surely Cocker hadn’t meant it to, but it had come out sounding like a blatant insult. The two girls on the sofa jerked their heads up, scenting brutality. Blank Frank stared at Cocker, who melted into his chair. Seamus inched backwards, eyes locked on Frank.

I expected an explosion but when Frank spoke, his voice was low and even.

‘What the fuck did you say, sunshine?’

Cocker stuttered. Unable to work up a sentence, he attempted an ingratiating grin. I heard myself speak: ‘He wasn’t bein sarcastic, Frank. That’s just how he talks.’

Blank Frank turned to me. I could see his lower lip trembling. His breathing was fast and shallow.

‘Didn’t mean anything,’ whimpered Cocker. The two girls were squirming with anticipation.

Frank turned back towards Cocker. Dowdall was looking at the floor, shaking his head and muttering under his breath. The room felt like it was about to implode.

And then:

‘GET DOWN HERE AND LET ME IN, YIS NEFARIOUS NAZIS!’

The roar came from outside, beneath the balcony.

Dowdall broke into hysterical laughter. Seamus leapt up and looked down on the street. Leaning over the balcony railing, he called out, ‘Scag ye mental cunt, look at the fuckin state of ye!’

Frank turned his head. ‘Ah Scag’s here, the brazen cunt. I haven’t seen oul Scag in ages.’

In the few seconds it took Scag to come upstairs, Frank turned back to Cocker, pointed a finger at him and said, ‘You just take it easy, sunshine.’ But it was almost good-natured, the menace all dissipated from his tone. Cocker nodded frantically. I began to breathe again.

When Scag entered the room, Blank Frank grinned at him and said, ‘Scag, me oul flower! The last time I saw ye, ye were rollin about on the ground down some fuckin lane, with yer jaws round the ankle of some cunt in a suit. Frothin at the mouth ye were. Ye just wouldn’t let him go. What in the good fuck was all that about?’

Scag smiled. ‘It’d seem very reasonable if I told ye who that person was. Which I’m not goin to do. Ye know me, Frank, I prefer to abide in the mystery.’

Frank roared with laughter and slapped his belly. He was like a gigantic baby. ‘Yer a fuckin headcase!’ he bellowed.

Scag noticed me. ‘I hope yis are bein nice to young Matthew here,’ he said. ‘This handsome renegade, he’s a good skin.’