Rob Doyle - Here Are the Young Men

That evening I was sitting in front of the TV with my parents and Fiona, scarcely aware of what was on. Fiona kept looking at me from the corner of her eye. I glowered at her to make her stop. The phone rang. My da went out to get it.

I heard him talk in the soft, appeasing tone that everyone seemed to adopt as they got older, as if all they wanted now was to let the world know they meant no harm, they would agree to anything, sign any paper, as long as they were left alone and not tormented. Eastenders came on. It was all grey and sombre, as if they were trying to rub the working classes’ noses in how drab and joyless their lives were.

My da was standing in the door, still talking into the phone. ‘Okay, Trisha. We’ll be thinking of ye. Just keep an eye on yer ma now, okay?’ He trailed off in a flutter of byes.

‘That was Trisha Tooley,’ he said. ‘She says Richard really wanted to say sorry to ye for today. He said ye’d know what it’s about.’

They all looked at me with blatant curiosity, but I just nodded and said, ‘Okay,’ and nothing else.

On Saturday afternoon, after I’d come home from work, I was called to the phone. I knew who was waiting on the other end: Kearney had got back from the States the day before, after a month away. Reaching for the phone, I felt heavy, listless. I wished Kearney had stayed away for even a while longer.

‘Alright Matthew.’

‘Alright Kearney.’

‘How’s things, man?’

‘Not bad. How was America?’

‘Fuckin great. Jesus, some mental shit happened. Come out and have a smoke with me and I’ll tell ye all about it.’

The suggestion wearied me. At the same time, I was curious about what he’d gotten up to. Maybe a bit of a laugh would be good for me. Besides, there was nothing else to do. I hadn’t heard any more from Jen and nor had I called her. It was two weeks now since the night in her house. I thought she’d have gotten in touch with me since what happened to Rez, but she hadn’t. My ma told me that when she was entering the hospital to visit Rez, Jen had been on her way out. ‘She looked devastated,’ she said. I had my doubts about this.

I told Kearney I’d meet him at the industrial estate by the school in half an hour. Then I said, ‘Listen, Kearney, something’s happened with Rez.’

‘Yeah, I already knew,’ Kearney said.

There was a silence, only the static hiss of the receiver in my ear.

‘Anyway, see ye in a little while,’ I said. ‘I haven’t got any hash, so bring enough for a few spliffs, okay?’

The factories and yards of the industrial estate were as deserted as ever. Once or twice we’d seen a truck roll in and men shuffle out to conduct gruffly voiced business outside factory entrances. But usually there was no one here. You always had the feeling you were going to be mugged, but not even muggers hung around this place. Only teenagers drinking and getting stoned. It was a graffiti free-for-all. We had personally sprayed slogans like Don’t Be Such a Fucking Sheep to the Slaughter and Say No to Everything, Even to This , but soon got bored and stopped bothering. There seemed little point writing graffiti where no one would see it.

When I hopped over the wall and stepped through the rubble of litter, chalky stone and broken glass, I saw Kearney standing fifty metres ahead, silhouetted against the hulk of two warehouses. As I came closer, I could see that he had a leather jacket on, which made him seem bulkier, not scrawny like he had been before. He was smoking a cigarette, watching me as I approached. He flashed his devil-grin and waved.

‘Alright Connelly.’

‘Alright.’

Now that I was standing beside him, the change in his stature was even more apparent. He had a kind of presence now; he was very still and somehow he unnerved me, maybe because of that stillness. I had always been a little uneasy around Kearney and now the feeling was intensified. There was something in him that hadn’t been there before, a kind of magnetism. I realized then that Kearney fascinated me. I put my hands in my pockets and looked away.

‘So Rez tried to do himself in,’ he announced. ‘That’s fuckin mental.’

I resented his tone. ‘He nearly died,’ I said. ‘It was only a fluke that his brother came in when he did. He came home on his lunch break to pick up some document he’d forgotten to bring to work.’

‘I hadn’t heard that part of it. So he really meant it?’

‘It seems like he did. It wasn’t one of those cries for help.’

Kearney said nothing for a moment. Then: ‘In that case he must feel like a real failure: he couldn’t even kill himself properly.’

I looked away, across the warehouses and yards, into the copse of dark trees past the high steel fencing at the far periphery. There was a sewerish little stream out there where we used to look for radioactive fish, which we never found, and frogs, which we did. Kearney had delighted in finding ever more inventive ways to mutilate and kill them.

‘That’s a fuckin horrible thing to say, Kearney.’

He put his hands up, grinning. ‘Relax man, it was only a joke. Ye can’t be takin all these things so fuckin seriously.’

‘What do ye mean, can’t take it seriously. He tried to fuckin kill himself. What’s not serious about that?’

‘I know he did. But he only did it cos he was takin things too seriously. Himself, for example. He needs to tone it down a bit, that’s all I’m sayin.’

‘Do ye even have any idea what yer talkin about? Do ye know why he did it, even?’

‘Yeah, I do. Because he’s too into himself and he can’t deal with real life.’

Surely the irony was blatant: Kearney, who tolerated reality only because it allowed him to play Medal of Honour and Grand Theft Auto , criticizing someone else for being out of touch with the real world. But he jabbered away as if oblivious.

‘I went in to see him yesterday, did ye know that? His ma was there ballin cryin, but she left when I arrived. She sat out in the waitin area. But Rez wouldn’t speak to me. He just sat there on the bed like a fuckin zombie, starin at me, like I was behind dark glass and I couldn’t see him. I tried to talk to him but he totally ignored me. I didn’t care at first, but then it really fuckin pissed me off. Cos I was tryin to be nice, I really was. I was doin all the normal stuff. I would’ve just said a few things and left. But he started actin like that, so I goes fuck it. And I started tryin to get a rise out of him.’

‘What did ye do?’

‘I says to him, “Listen, Rez, I only came here cos I was expected to. I know ye don’t like me, and I’ve never liked you either. In fact, nobody really likes ye.” I says, “Most people think yer a fuckin knob-jockey. The only one who can make herself cry about ye is yer ma. If anyone else does any cryin, it’s because ye didn’t manage to do yerself in.”’

I stared at him, astonished. ‘Are ye takin the piss?’ I asked, genuinely unable to tell.

‘Nope. I said all that to him, and more. But he just kept sittin there, just fuckin gawkin at me. I was gettin really angry with him at this point. I says to him, “Rez ye fuckin spa, ye should do both yerself and the whole fuckin world a big favour and give it another shot as soon as ye get the chance. It’d be a much better world without ye.”’

Kearney laughed. I stared at him, still wondering whether he was making it up.

‘You’re fuckin sick, Kearney.’

‘Do ye reckon?’

Suddenly I felt deflated. It was no use. Kearney stood there chuckling away beside me, sparking up a joint.

He watched me for a while. Then he said, quietly, ‘I’m only buzzin with ye, Connelly. Yer so fuckin gullible. I made all that up. I didn’t even go in to see him yet. I’ve to go in tomorrow. I wouldn’t say any of that stuff to him. Do ye think I’m totally fuckin sick in the head? I wouldn’t say that stuff. He tried to kill himself. He’s me friend.’