Rob Doyle - Here Are the Young Men

‘Will that be enough?’ I asked, amazed by what was happening.

‘I don’t know. I hope so. But go on back to that girl. Matthew, don’t say anything . Okay? Not a word!’

‘Okay. Not a word. I —’

‘Go on,’ he urged, shoving me away. ‘And act surprised when ye see it later on.’ He turned and walked back towards the rave. I watched him walk away, then I climbed back over the rocks, finding my way by the moonlight.

Elena was still sitting on the rock, her arms around her knees. She turned to me as I approached. She put her arm around my hip as I sat down beside her, and the two of us said nothing for a while, gazing out at the dark expanse of the sea.

Kearney was out of his mind when Rez found him. He was staggering around the dance area with his face craned to the sky, howling like a maniac. The bottle of whiskey teetered in one hand and a can of Dutch Gold in the other.

‘Rez ye bender ye!’ he yelled when he saw Rez approaching.

Rez smiled and drank from a bottle of Buckfast. Then he held up a second bottle and said to Kearney, ‘Here, do ye want this?’

‘Yeah I fuckin want it!’ Kearney rasped, deflecting the bodies of more stable dancers.

Rez grinned and said, ‘Are ye sure ye want it, Kearney? Are ye sure ye want the bottle of Buckfast?’

‘For Jaysus sake, just gimme the fuckin thing!’ Kearney snatched the bottle out of Rez’s hand.

‘Fair enough, man. But listen, who are ye callin a faggot? Let’s race these bottles down and see who’s the dickhead, will we? I betcha I can skull the whole bottle before you can.’

‘Lemme see how much yiv already drank,’ Kearney slurred, grabbing Rez’s bottle as well. He pushed it back at Rez and shoved a finger into his chest. ‘Fair enough, Rez. Lez go.’

‘Body of Christ,’ Rez said, then started to guzzle his bottle, closing his eyes as the syrupy, sickly-sweet liquid gurgled over his tongue, splashing down his throat. He swallowed it in big gulps, as fast as he could. When it was nearly gone, Kearney shoved Rez on the shoulder so that the bottle slipped and some of the Buckfast spilled on his face.

‘I’m finished,’ Kearney croaked. ‘It tastes like mank — did ye fuckin jip into it or somethin, Rez?’

Rez smiled. ‘Well done, man! Fair play! You’ve done it now, it’s all over. You’re fuckin finished.’

‘Yeah.’ Kearney started to say something else, but his wobble took him elsewhere, back to crashing a path through the thicket of bodies.

Rez retreated to the edge of the dance area and watched. Everything in him felt light and free. Ecstasy and Buckfast pulsated through him, imbuing the night with grandeur. He felt like he was at the Coliseum or some ancient human sacrifice. Kearney on the beach, about to fall — a blood offering to the no-God.

Kearney stumbled away. Rez followed him through the crowds, across the bustle of the beach. He was calm; it was only a matter of waiting. The music was getting harder, the beat like the war drums of some demon army howling through the night. Rez watched, enchanted, almost in love with him. Kearney wore a beatific smile as he unconsciously headed towards the drum circle, honing in on the towering bonfire like a moth to the light. Rez imagined the massive quantity of drugs that were right now coursing through Kearney’s body, flooding his system, the intensity with which he must have been feeling everything. This was the greatest moment of Kearney’s life.

Then Kearney’s dance began. First, little quivers started pulsing through him, tingling along his skinny limbs. He began shuffling around on his feet as if he were standing on hot coals. He twitched about all over the place, not in time to any rhythm Rez could hear. He stomped and then leapt into the air with an animal grunt. He threw his head back and started to howl and shriek, his madman dance dragging him in backward circles through the startling crowd.

Rez followed, fascinated. Kearney veered towards the drum circle, then he stumbled through a gap in the ring of a dozen kneeling drummers. He was inside the circle, just Kearney and the looming blaze. The drummers looked up at him, stoney-faced, lit up by the bonfire. As if feeding on Kearney’s frenzied energy, their drumming intensified, pounding and pounding, faster and faster. Amazed, Rez fell to his knees on the edge of the circle and watched.

The drumming fused with the beat of the techno and Kearney danced, licked by the flames, a streak of motion, a strip of coiled lightning.

Nobody but Rez could see the changing expression on Kearney’s sweat-slick face — the distress that now flooded it. Still he danced. And now he began to emit a noise: a weird, inhuman shriek, unbroken as it rose over the pounding of the drums and the techno beat.

Then Kearney was screaming, clawing at his glistening face with the look of a man on fire. The drums pounded hungrily; it was as if the drummers knew they were present at a dreadful ceremony, a sacrifice.

Kearney leapt up once more, high into the air. When he landed he stood still for a moment, perfectly upright. Then he clenched his fists and roared: ‘FALLEN HENRY, DON’T LEAVE ME!’

And with that he spun on his heel, his back now to Rez, facing the flames. His head jerked up and he fell to his knees, eyes rolling and face turned to the sky. He wobbled in front of the fire, and it was unclear which way he would fall. The tottering kept up for a few charged seconds as the murder-drums reached their climax, a frenzy of pounding.

Kearney fell into the flames, his head and torso swallowed up by a surge of fire.

No one reacted. Everyone watched Kearney, face down in the maddened blaze.

Somebody roared. Men scrambled up and dragged him out, hands clutching at each splayed limb. Out of the fire, he was flopped over on to his back. Rez stood up and looked down at Kearney as the drummers crouched around him and cried out for help.

Kearney’s entire face was charred black, with pink globs dripping over the singed, smoking mass of flesh. His hair was still ablaze. One of his eyes had burst in the heat, but the other gazed up at the night and all its stars. Overcome by wonder and love, Rez felt he had never seen Kearney looking so beautiful, so serene.

He stepped back, unnoticed but witnessing everything. Commotion had swept across the beach, pulsing out from the charred and smoking centre in concentric waves.

Rez sat down on the sand, his legs crossed beneath him, and contemplated the corpse. He felt magnificently peaceful. He turned his gaze from dead Kearney to the flames that danced on, indifferently; the fierce desire arose in him to stand up and walk into the blaze, to let it consume him. There was no rage or guilt in this impulse, only a wild, effusive joyfulness.

He stayed where he was and the urge to incinerate himself faded. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. The universe shimmered in ecstasy. He imagined he could feel the presence of powerful spirits.

The crowds swarmed all around them and there they were, Rez and Kearney, two points of stillness in the heaving techno night.

I held Elena’s hand as we leapt down from the rocks and walked back towards the rave. There were blue and red flashing lights now, and sounds that weren’t part of techno or trance or drum ’n’ bass.

‘Shit, it’s looking like a raid,’ said Elena.

‘Yeah, maybe that’s it,’ I said quietly. ‘Throw your grass on the stones, just in case.’

When we reached the emptying dance area, the blackened body was sprawled out on the ground like the corpse in an American cop show. I let go of Elena’s hand and walked ahead of her, stepping across the stones until I was right above Kearney. It seemed to me that Kearney’s expression under the layer of curling black flakes was one of elation. I felt a gushing of affection and tenderness for smouldering, horror-movie Kearney.