Rob Doyle - Here Are the Young Men

The tramp’s face had glazed over; he was baffled into mental paralysis by Kearney’s head-games. Kearney chuckled a little, thinking the haggard old bastard might live to drink another day. But then the tramp’s watery eyes fell again on the bulging green knapsack between Kearney’s legs. The greed took over and he said, ‘Gis a can.’

‘What?’

‘Gis a can.’

‘You want a can, correct?’

‘Yes a can.’

‘Yes a can. Is that yer final answer?’

‘Fuck off, youth. Gis a can or piss off.’

Kearney laughed again. He pulled out another can just as two teenage girls with tumours of lipstick, clutching pink and white mobile phones, came up the alley from the direction of the Liffey. Their chatter died away when they saw Kearney and the tramp, and their pace quickened, hurrying them away to the many-eyed safety of Dame Street.

Kearney watched them trotting off. He whistled. Then he turned to the tramp and said, ‘See the hole on that blonde one? Fuckin Jaysus. I’d say it’s been a while since ye had a bit of minge like that, am I right? Sure I doubt ye’ve even got it up in the last twenty years. Am I right or wha?’

‘Gerrup the fuck,’ slurred the tramp. ‘Open yer can or fuck off back home to mammy.’

Kearney opened the can. He took a swig, then handed it to the tramp, but not before deliberately tilting it so that a puddle of beer fell into the tramp’s encrusted lap. Despite being thus insulted, the tramp took the can and guzzled on it, so degraded was he. Kearney thought he might take it even further, get the tramp to dance for him, or have him wave his mickey at some oul one, or make retard noises at the crowds up on Dame Street, or strip naked and roll on the ground, barking like a dog. Or put his finger through his own fucking eye. Kearney’s mind blackened, his loathing for this worthless life form flaring up beyond control.

‘Yer like me da,’ he spat, though the tramp, absorbed in draining the can as quickly as he could before it was snatched back off him, wasn’t listening. ‘Yer a filthy, sickenin fuckin insect, a piece of shite, a total fuckin disease. I’d kick yer fuckin head in right now if I could get away with it. I’d stamp on yer face till ye were fuckin dead.’

The tramp didn’t hear a word of it, or didn’t care either way. Finished, he hurled the can against the wall, belched even more violently than before and gestured for more booze. Kearney obliged.

Four cans later, Kearney looked at his watch. He didn’t actually have a watch, but he knew the tramp wouldn’t notice. Then he said, ‘Shit, I have to go in a minute. Late for business. Ye know how it is.’

He reached into the knapsack, fumbled for a moment, then pulled out the bottle of cheap red wine, which had its cork reinserted into the neck.

‘I suppose you could probably hang on to this. I don’t need it, there’ll be plenty of drink when I meet me mate later. Do ye want it?’

The detail about meeting the friend was superfluous, for the alco didn’t care about excuses, only booze, and he snatched the bottle of wine, clutching it to him like it might be taken away at any moment.

‘Remember the Alamo!’ Kearney called back with a cheery wave as he walked away. The tramp had already taken a couple of hefty swigs before Kearney reached the end of the lane, thrust his hands in his pockets and turned on to Dame Street, blending into the indifferent city-centre crowds. Heading towards Trinity College, he wondered how long it would take for the rat poison to snuff out the tramp’s filthy, hilarious life.

The Saturday after Rez came out of hospital, there was to be a house party at Grace Madden’s, on the northside. None of us would have been able to throw a party then — it wouldn’t have looked right — but Grace and her crowd didn’t really know Rez, so it was innocent. And we saw no great reason to sit at home and mope. Grace’s family was rich — compared to me and my friends’ families, at least. I never felt comfortable around Grace or her friends, with their Trinners accents and their smug banter. I didn’t care, though: I would go along to her party and get annihilated and who really gave a bollocks.

I knew Jen would be there. She and Grace had been friends for years. I considered calling her to say I’d be there too, but in the end I didn’t bother.

I met Cocker and Kearney in town beforehand. We bought cans, vodka and an excess of cigarettes and skins, then hopped on a DART at Pearse Street Station. The summer was past its best — a best that had never come — and it was already getting dark as the train rumbled out of the station in a choral tantrum of hisses and screeches. There weren’t many people on board, only a few oul ones with bags of shopping and teenagers silently looking out the window, taking in the grimy fringes of the city with wide, vacant eyes. Human beings have died out. There are only echoes left. They’re not real and neither are we . Most people were coming into rather than leaving the city centre as we were doing. Trainfuls of them hurtled past, a Saturday-night blitzkrieg on the vomit-splattered streets of Temple Bar and town. I cracked open the first can as we came to Fairview, cutting free of the centre, tracing the coast. I looked at the sea and remembered the abyss that Scag had shown me, and I knew that it was real, that the drugs and exhaustion had only made visible what was already there, what was still there.

‘Cheers, lads,’ said an excited Cocker, raising his can. ‘To Rez.’

I winced; he sounded so corny and sentimental. I knew Kearney would take the piss, and so he did, sneering and raising his can high in the air, with a look of mock-tragic feeling. ‘I knew him, Fellatio,’ he declared — the only Shakespeare quote he’d remembered from the whole school year, albeit in his own, modified way. He waved Cocker’s remark aside and said, ‘Look, let’s just forget about Rez for tonight, okay? We’ve been goin on about him all week, and he’s grand now, he’s out of hospital, that’s the end of it. Let’s just get fucked and have a laugh.’

For once I was inclined to agree with him. After he spoke, Kearney went quiet again, like there was something he was mulling over. I’d noticed it since meeting him at the station. He was distracted, broody. I wondered what was going on.

The train trundled ahead, past the now-empty beaches as the lights of the city came on in amber clusters to our side. ‘Here,’ said Cocker with a grin, pulling something from his pocket. ‘Look what I’ve brought.’

‘Poppers!’ I said, seeing the little brown glass bottle. Any high was welcome tonight, even more than on other nights.

‘Shhh,’ he warned. ‘Some oul one will give us grief. Who’s first?’

Kearney went first. He passed me the bottle and I sniffed deeply, letting the brain-zapping vapours obliterate pressure, thought, tension.

The lights were on in every room as we approached the large, coastal house, and music spilled out the doorways and windows, on to the street, disturbing the peace. Neighbours would be knocking to complain; police might even be called. Despite the drinking we’d done I was in a black humour and almost wished I’d stayed home. I hated everyone.

Grace Madden answered the door. She threw her arms up in the air, smiling broadly, and said with an exaggerated cheeriness that irritated me, ‘Oh hi ! You’re all here. I’m so glad you’ve come.’

She insisted on hugging each of us, though I was hardly what you’d call a close friend. She wore a shimmering silver dress that pushed her breasts up; I saw Kearney looking down it when he leaned in to receive her hug. His eyes narrowed with predatory lust; alligator eyes.