Donal Ryan - The Spinning Heart

The worst thing is I know I won’t go in to that gig. I started thinking straight away about it. None of the lads will come with me and I won’t go on my own. Isn’t that unreal? And if I did manage to get brave enough to go in on my own, I probably wouldn’t text her in case she was with a big load of her cool friends and they’d look at me like I was after crawling out of a dog’s hole and they’d be in a big round of vodkas and Red Bulls and I’d have to go in on the round and I wouldn’t have the price of it and I’d ask them all what were they having anyway like a big hard man and instead of going to the bar I’d sneak away out the door and run off home and later on she’d text me just a question mark and I’d probably throw my phone into the river out of pure solid embarrassment and shame at my own fear and uselessness.

FATHER COTTER used to say to us in school that a Christian, when faced with a moral dilemma, should ask himself only one question: What would Jesus have done? I’ve always stuck by that, except when I was young I substituted my auld fella for Jesus and when I got older, Bobby Mahon got the spot. How would I know what Jesus would have done? That fella was a mass of contradictions as far as I can see. One minute he says to turn the other cheek, the next minute he’s having a big strop and kicking over lads’ market stalls. He says blessed are the meek and he goes around shouting and roaring the odds to everyone. He rises from the dead and then shags off a few weeks later and leaves his buddies in the shit. If you look at it that way, Pokey starts to sound as Christlike as Bobby.

I could ask the auld fella for about seventy euro to go in to that gig and give him it back when my dole comes through. Pokey screwed us with the stamps so we have to wait for jobseekers or something. The father would give me it no problem, but then would he think to himself, haven’t I a fine fella for a son, twenty-seven years old and tapping me for money to go to dances? Maybe he wouldn’t think that, but even the thought that he might think it is enough to make me know I won’t ask him. I could just text your wan Holly and say something funny, or just ask her how did she get on in her interview for the shitty job or send her a joke or something and if she texts back to know am I going in on Thursday I could have a good lie ready and that way there’d still be a chance with her but I wouldn’t have the whole gig thing to worry about. But the gig is the big opportunity. I could easily get a chance to stick a head on her at the gig. I know she likes me; I’m not stupid. Flakers like her make it obvious, in a nice way, with laughs and eyes and questions put in a certain way. It’s there for me, and I won’t take it. I’ll stay at home and watch Coronation Street with the parents, thinking about how thinking about things can stop you living your life. Thinking about Holly with some other prick that likes the Pixies, wiping the eye of a fella he never met.

I’ll be in town again next week. I’ll stand looking at the same poster, for a gig that will be over, wondering about the odds of her appearing again. I’ll wear my Pearl Jam T-shirt this time. She was probably at that gig, too. I’ll stand there until I start feeling like a dick, then I’ll get the bus back to the village and look at her number in my phone while the summer rain runs down the window and my cowardly heart settles back into the slow rhythm of time being wasted. Then I’ll delete her number.

DADDY DONE A rudey this morning at breakfast and Mammy went mad. She called him a smelly bastard and told him farting was all he was good for. I felt sad for Daddy then because he looked sad on his face and he went all red and he said sorry love to Mammy and she started putting her arm over her nose and banging stuff on the table with her other hand and acting like she hated Daddy. Right after he done the rudey he smiled over at me like he always does and Mammy said don’t be trying to bring her down to your level, you’re a pure solid show opposite the child, you’re such a bad example . I don’t know what Mammy means half the time. Mammy told Daddy I was a better earner than him because I bring in a hundred and fifty euros a month and he brings in sweet fuck all. I heard her saying this before too. The child brings in more than you Hughie; the child brings in more than you. Mammy used to be always giving out stink to Daddy for accidentally saying that word in front of me but now she says it the whole time herself. It’s a funny word. Fuck fuck fuck. I say it in my room but not so’s Mammy can hear me. I test it out to see how does it sound coming out of my mouth. Daddy called Mammy a really bad word one night but I can’t remember it but I know it must be real bad because he told her sorry straight away after he said it and Mammy was crying instead of shouting. Daddy doesn’t have any work and he isn’t allowed to get the dole because he was the boss of himself. Daddy says loads of words about the people who give out the dole. Real bad words. Daddy says he built the country with his own bare hands while they were inside drinking tea. Mammy tells him ah shut up.

MAMMY WORKS in Tescos. She told Daddy she has to work her fingers to the bone. I cried when I heard Mammy saying that. I thought all the skin was going to come off her fingers. I thought her fingers would fall off. Like that man in the village whose leg fell off and now he has a leg made out of metal and he does be drunk and falls on the footpath and people have to pick him up and Daddy tells me don’t be looking at him, and one time we were coming home from Mass and we seen him falling over and Mammy said oh Hughie pull over and give him a hand and Daddy said he would in his bollocks, that fella was only a knacker and he could stay inside in the gutter. Mammy gave out the whole way home telling Daddy how it was awful to be coming from Mass and he wouldn’t give a proper Christian example to the child and how would he like if it was him who was lying in the street and people driving past him and walking out over him. Daddy said nothing back to her only got redder and redder and then when we were eating our dinner later on I saw a big long snot from my nose falling into my gravy like a little waterfall and then I knew I was crying and I didn’t really know why. I get really sad and I start crying before I know I’m going to. Then Mammy and Daddy always stop fighting and stop not talking and do start hugging me and saying sorry, sorry darling, sorry little love, oh it’s not your fault, sorry, sorry, sorry. I don’t know what they do be on about half the time.

Daddy collects Mammy and Assumpta Gill from Tescos. All the other fellas driving their cars are only pricks. I shout PRICKS and Daddy does laugh and says not to be saying bold words. Then I do shout it again and he laughs again and pretends to be cross. YOU’RE ONLY A PRICK AND A BOLLOCKS I do shout out the window like Daddy does and he says MILLICENT! And I know well he does be only letting on to be cross with me. He always smiles back at me straight away after. Daddy in the mirror is always smiling when Mammy isn’t with us. Daddy in the mirror is always sad when Mammy is with us. Daddy in the mirror never sings on the way home from Tescos, only on the way in. Assumpta Gill smells like fags. She does be telling Mammy about all them little bitches in work and how they’re all real sly. They do be forever getting Assumpta into trouble, licking on her. Mammy agrees away with her. Then when she’s gone, Mammy tells Daddy she’s an awful silly cow. I never say any bad words in front Mammy and Assumpta Gill because I don’t want to get Daddy in trouble.

I’LL BE GOING back to school soon at the end of this summer and then Daddy won’t be minding me any more and he does be saying what’ll he do without his baby girl in the mornings, he’ll have to go way and get a real job besides sitting down on the couch with me looking at Iggle Piggle and Peppa Pig and I feel real sad when he says that because I don’t want to go to school and leave my daddy all sad without me and it’ll be no good watching Peppa Pig without me. How’s it daddies can’t come to school anyway? Maybe they’ll have to now if everyone is still going around scared of the Children Snatcher Monster. A child got kidnapped in the city and the child was belonging to a lady that lives up the road from our house and the child was took away by a fella in a car from the house where he was getting minded near the big huge shopping centre inside in town. Mammy had her hand over her mouth when her friend came in to tell her about the lost baby and she kept saying oh sweet Jesus, oh sweet Jesus, oh sweet Jesus, and she started crying and then I started crying because I got an awful fright. Then Daddy came in and Mammy started giving out stink to Daddy saying you better not ever take your eyes off of her, do you hear me, don’t ever take your eyes off of her, and Daddy just stood there saying of course I won’t, and Mammy said sure I don’t know what way you mind her when I do be at work, sure you’re an awful eejit, you could let her run out onto the road or anything, and she kept giving out and giving out and I said Mammy, Daddy is brilliant at minding me, I wouldn’t ever go out near the road, Daddy never takes his eyes off of me, and then the two of them had a fight over me trying to hug me at the same time and Mammy was trying to hug me and so was Daddy at the same time, and Mammy was pushing Daddy away until Daddy started crying , and I got an awful worser fright than when Mammy had started crying because daddies never cry and Mammy must of felt right sorry for giving out stink to Daddy because she went real quiet and rubbed his arm up and down and held his hand and Daddy was trying to hide his face with his other hand and they must of forgot about me then because they started hugging each other like mad and I didn’t mind them having forgot about me for a while when I seen that.