Gavin Corbett - This Is the Way

I got that from a book. I did not read the book, I looked at the front of it. The book was The Water Babies. I read other books. It was Judith said I should read the books. She said the reading I had was the power. Put it to use were the words. She helped me this way and now I would see and hear certain things. I would see people talking and there was always the one person holding the rest. Television programmes were stories. There was a way of knowing, the sound of them. I remembered my mother’s words, the words that went up, that stopped. I remembered my father’s words, the words he said to my mother. He said he knew when she was telling stories. He knew through the walls, her words that went up, that stopped. If I listened to the people sitting out or watched television programmes I did not have to listen to the words to know. Just by the sound of them I knew.

The gift was the word. The gift, not the power. I knew this in my head. The first months in Dublin I had not stories, only words and fears came in my head. I came up the end of the summer, went through Christmas, through to the spring, all this time on my own. It was a time to think but there was no room to think. Who were these people in my head. Who were these people in my blood. Why would there be some of them that would want to spill it. It was a simple question.

I could feel the blood in me changing them early months in Dublin. Some of them that were out to get me their blood was boiling, my blood was changing. The juju man in the rooms below was screaming maybe I would scream too. Go away and be gone, let’s be rid of you.

But still some people would show, some I didn’t know or remember. They say it is an emptiness is the feeling, the loneliness. That was what it felt this feeling. Room to fill up with other things, ghosts and I don’t know. Thoughts passed down. The beady pocket under the apron. Wisdom and ways. The quickest way to kill rabbits, a foal born on Whit Monday, bread for a poultice. Be gone be gone I would say. Sharpened sticks, titles. Let me alone I am only wanting no harm to no one. What about that fella Mac went in a hurry. Why he leave his things behind in my room, why he in such a rush to go. Maybe he was found out. He done something bad up the north of Ireland and them up there are a bad lot they will piss in your wounds take off your knees cut words in your head.

Relax yourself I would say. It is a good room for hiding. It is that indeed and there is a hiding coming to you.

Relax I would say. There are too many witnesses about. There are forty in this house, four hundred on the street, a million in the city of Dublin it was said.

I could not relax. I did not want to be hiding. I was restless them first months. I was in my room, I was hiding, but I could not settle. I could not settle in this hard city, black city, streaked with the white of the shit of the pigeons, where the roofs were rusted and spiked, where the statues with their mouth was worn. I could not talk to, I could not meet, I did not know how, I could not get at, I could not get at the people down below. I could not get at the words.

Six seven month in Dublin I heard in my room a boom and I seen through the window the sky was burning up with fire works. I says that is it. I says I don’t care if the Gillaroos are lying out in the street for me I says I will go out in the street. I could have gone on there hiding in the city of Dublin but I would not hide this night. My head will be battered or I will meet some people in Dublin I says. I got in my best clothes, my shoes. I came down the stair past the doors the paint stripped off them. There were people cooking food, it will smell my clothes I says. I came down the stone steps, I moved in the street with the fire works burning above. They were orange purple and green and the street was lit, it was eerie.

The fire works were going at the river. The people were looking one way at them, I went the other way, I could not talk to people their face looking at fire works. I knew the place to meet the people was in a pub. I walked at the river until I got to a pub with a gate made of bricks outside of it. There were other pubs on the way but there were people crowding out of them so I went in this pub.

Inside in the pub I went to the counter and I asked the man for a pint of beer was what I asked. I stood at the counter, I drank the beer and I looked around. One man in the pub was shouting louder than the rest of them. He was saying yeah and hello. When I looked I seen he was standing in the corner and he was talking in a microphone. He bent down and he picked up a guitar. He pulled at the strings of the guitar and that made a loud noise too. The guitar was hanging around his neck with a coloured belt and he was wearing a leather cowboy hat. Then the man put down the guitar and he went off down to his seat and he was laughing.

I had not drunk beer a long time because I did not feel like it all my time I was in Dublin. I liked the beer I was drinking now. It was cool and it tasted of bread. I didn’t think I had a thirst on me until I was supping it. When I was finished the beer I says to the man behind the counter I’ll have another one. I liked the feeling came through me when I was half the way down through the second beer. I was not drunk but I was relaxed. I says I am entitled to this. I did not say it loud, I said it in my head. I said it looking around at the people. I put my arm on the counter and I looked at them.

The man with the hat came back to the corner and picked up his guitar. He sung in the microphone. The singing was loud and I did not like it when he was starting because I prefer the quieter singing. Everyone in the pub was sitting up straight or standing looking at the man in the hat. They looked happy and some of them were singing too. They were clapping to the music. Some of them had leather coats and rain coats. A man and woman kissed and then the man put his arm around the woman and they looked toward the man in the hat. A man was tapping out the music on a table. A book on the table said Ireland. At the end of the first song that the man in the hat was singing I liked the sound of him. The noise of him did not annoy me any more.

I felt the money in my pocket I thinks I will wait now, I am not a man for the drink. I says I will stay in the pub listening to the singing because I am enjoying it. I rested on the arm of a stool and I moved my head about with the sound of the music. I tapped my foot on the floor. Some of the other people were doing the same but most them were gone back talking among themself. Then the man in the hat sang a song was very popular with the people. He had his head back rolling one side to the other and he was singing with a smile.

He sings how much do I get if we say that we’ll split.

Divil a bit, divil a bit, divil a bit the people in the pub sings back at him.

He sings how much is it now is written on the chit.

Divil a bit, divil a bit, divil a bit they says.

At the end of the song the people in the pub cheered the man, made a great noise. Thank you thank you the man says. He put the guitar back in the box and he left the corner to sit down at his table and have his beer.

I says to myself isn’t this better than sitting in your room another night. Isn’t it better than being afeard. The music was stopped but the music was still in my head and my head moved with it. I says to myself here I am look at me. I am out in the city of Dublin I am drunk. I says any the Gillaroos could come for me, I am anyone’s. I thought about this but it did not bother me. My face was burning because I was smiling. The worry was in my head but a joyful feeling too. I thinks they could get me now and I would not feel the thump of a bullet because I am drunk. I would be happy dying here I says. They would think great things about me these people in the pub. The man who got killed in this pub they would say about me.