Here Are the Young Men Read online

  But his pleading only had the effect of strengthening Julie’s resolve, which had begun for a moment to flicker, as if about to give in to comfort, pity and the lure of the familiar.

  ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m sorry, Rez. I’ve made up me mind. I do love ye, but it’s just better to be on me own at the moment. It’s not you, it’s me.’

  She winced, as if embarrassed at having uttered such a cliché.

  Rez was close to tears. ‘For fuck’s sake, Julie,’ he pleaded. ‘What am I goin to do? Ye can’t just do it like that. Ye can’t. The summer’s only after startin, I was just under a lot of pressure with the Leavin Cert and everything. Can ye not just give it another chance?’

  Julie looked downcast but she remained resolute. The more he pleaded, the more she hardened against him.

  She sighed. ‘Look, Rez, I’ve decided I’m goin InterRailing with Gráinne and Anne. I know I said I wasn’t goin to but I’ve changed me mind. So it’s better I say all this now, okay? I’m sorry, Rez.’

  ‘I can’t believe this,’ he said, hands on his knees, looking at the ground. The couple with the buggy walked past, having circled the fountain; they noticed the scene and lapsed into an embarrassed silence.

  A while later Julie stood and walked back up the steps and out of the Garden of Remembrance, leaving him sitting there, alone and dejected, as a cold drizzle began to mist up the dull Dublin sky.

  17 | Matthew

  I got a job on the forecourt of the Shell garage down the road. It was easy work. On my first shift a dazed Ukrainian showed me what I had to do: fill up cars, occasionally go over them with the hose from the washer, and ‘keep an eye on things’, whatever that meant. By the second half of the day I was confident enough to get stoned off my face, smoking furtively over by the wall. I imagined a spark from my lighter sending the whole place up, a mushroom cloud expanding across the southside, like one of the videos Kearney was always watching. The wet and dreary weather had returned, which suited me fine. I stood against the wall and listened to the rain lashing down on the plastic Shell logo and the concrete, and when the car headlights came on they left lovely, blurring trails across the grey.

  I was to meet Jen on Friday. On Saturday she was going away to Spain on holiday with her da – a present for all the study she’d done.

  I hung around the house that afternoon, waiting for her to call. When my phone finally rang, I let it ring three times to show how cool I was. Then I picked up.

  ‘How’s a goin,’ I said.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘So listen, where do ye want to meet? We can go see a film, or just hang around, or whatever. What do you want to do?’

  She gave an awkward laugh then said, ‘I’m really sorry, Matthew, but that’s what I was calling for. I wanted to tell ye I can’t meet up today after all. I want to, but it turns out that this is the last chance I have to see Siobhan before she leaves on her trip. I thought I’d get to see her tomorrow morning but –’

  ‘What about later on, then? Can’t we meet in the evening?’

  ‘No, I can’t, Matthew. My dad’s taking me and Padraig out for dinner. Part of his big “Thanks for working hard for the Leaving Cert” effort.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  In a perkier voice she added, ‘But we can meet up as soon as I get back. I do want to see you, it’s just … I’ll only be gone a little over a week.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  Jen said goodbye. Now the empty day loomed ahead: all those hours, a grimy crater into which depression and boredom always poured. There was only one thing for it: to get fucked.

  I called Rez. His voice was heavy and slow, like he was drugged.

  ‘I think I’m stayin in,’ he said. ‘I start the new job tomorrow anyway. I just want to hang around here today. Sorry.’

  For fuck’s sake. Maybe he’d been fighting with Julie or something. I hid my irritation, hung up and called Cocker.

  ‘I’m in town now gettin stoned with Kearney,’ he said when he picked up. ‘He’s after bookin a cheap last-minute flight to Boston. He leaves tomorrow. He says his ma paid for most of the ticket, just to get rid of him. Can’t blame her. I told him I’d pay for a euthanasia job for him if he’s up for it. Stall it in, we’re headin out to that big hill up on Killiney. I’ve got a lovely eighth here. Hopefully it won’t piss it down, though, with these skies.’

  My intention had been to avoid Kearney until he left for the States but I wasn’t going to sit in today and do nothing. One more session before he went away was neither here nor there.

  ‘I’ll be there in half an hour,’ I said. I could hear Kearney singing operatically in the background. We hung up.

  I sat next to Cocker on the DART. ‘What do ye think is up with Rez?’ I asked him as we came out of the city.

  ‘What do ye mean?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know, it’s just that half the time these days he seems miserable, ye can’t even talk to him. When I gave him a ring this mornin he sounded like he could hardly speak, ye know? Like he was fuckin miserable. Sometimes he seems normal and then he’s great craic but a lot of the time now he’s that way, all gloomy-like.’

  ‘But it’s just cos of Julie,’ said Cocker. ‘They haven’t been gettin on at all.’

  ‘No, even before that. He’s always frownin and goin off on his own. He just seems dead edgy, or cagey, or whatever the word is.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Cocker. I thought he was going to elaborate, but he just muttered, ‘Nicholas Cagey.’ Then he turned to look out the window at the passing coastline.

  Kearney was sitting in front of us. I could hear relentless techno played at full volume on his headphones, but he must have been listening with only one ear because he turned around to face us.

  ‘Maybe he is depressed,’ he said.

  ‘Why would he be depressed?’ I asked.

  Kearney grinned. ‘I don’t really know. Possibly cos he’s a willy master. As gay as a pink doorbell.’

  ‘Give it a rest, Kearney.’

  ‘I’m only messin with ye, Matthew. I’m only messin with ye. I’m only messin with ye. I’m only fuckin messin with ye. Rez is a fuckin quality fella. A-One, boss. I reckon he’s a saint or the second comin of Jesus Christ. I’m goin to name me first three sons after him. The fourth one will be named after Gay Byrne.’

  ‘What about yer daughters?’ said Cocker.

  ‘Riverdance,’ said Kearney. ‘And Slán Leat. If I have a third, I won’t give her a name. I’ll lock her in the attic and throw her slabs of meat.’

  ‘God help any kids you’d ever have,’ said Cocker.

  Kearney grinned again, taking it as a compliment. He was known to be anti-life, pro-compulsory-abortion. He turned back around in his seat.

  ‘Do you reckon Rez is depressed?’ I said to Cocker.

  ‘I don’t know. He was in great form the night of the gig, when we were flyin on them pills. Well yeah, he got a bit quiet-like, and then goin on about weird stuff. There’s always this stuff about reality or whatever. It’s like he’s obsessed or something. But … ah, I don’t know. Fuck it. He’ll be grand.’

  The train bombed along and a few minutes later we reached Killiney Station.

  We got off the DART and walked along a spiralling road that petered out into a muddy track that took us to the top of the hill. We drank whiskey and watched the dark clouds swarm in on the city from the sea. From up here Dublin looked like one enormous suburb, a dreary sprawl of semi-detached houses, electricity pylons and new roads leading to new suburbs, to roundabouts and Atlantic Homecare superstores. I wondered if every other place in the world seemed so dismal to the people who lived there.

  ‘So how’s this new job goin?’ Cocker asked.

  ‘Grand. I mean, I’ve only done one day, but already it’s the easiest job I’ve ever had. Total lack of responsibility. It gives me time to, like, ponder things.’

  He laughed and said, ‘You’ll end up like Rez.’

  ‘He’s start
in a job as well, tomorrow.’

  ‘Yeah I know. Doin night security work at some office block out in Citywest.’

  ‘No way.’ I’d assumed he’d be working in a supermarket or a garage. I pictured Rez sitting alone all night in an empty building in some deserted business park. ‘It sounds like something from Fight Club,’ I said. ‘I’d say that’s the last thing he needs, though. He seems to be gettin weirder the more time he spends on his own like that.’

  Cocker shrugged. ‘Well, he says he’s lookin forward to it. He has a big stack of books he’s goin to read up there. He says it’ll give him time to think and write.’

  I snorted. ‘What’s he goin to write?’ Really I was envious: I should have thought of being a writer first. Maybe I could be a musician instead. Or an artist.

  ‘Mostly just more of that stuff he’s always scribblin, I suppose,’ said Cocker. ‘His philosophy. All these essays he does write – he has tonnes of them by now. But apparently he’s writin some kind of book as well. All about our lives. Something like that.’

  Kearney sniggered. ‘The world is really holdin its breath for that one.’ He handed me the shot he’d just poured. ‘Here then, let’s drink to Rez’s new job as nightwatchman, and to my departure for the pussy farm that is Boston. Total fanny holocaust it’ll be.’

  We lit cigarettes and felt the kick of smoke in our throats, laughing and looking down on the city. It didn’t feel like it was our city, or our country, or our people. I scrolled my blurring eyes over the sprawl and felt a loathing for all of them, the fuckers who lived down there and raised their families, worked their jobs, asked no questions and listened to Joe Duffy or Gerry Ryan or whoever-the-fuck-else. As the whiskey pulsed into my brain, the hatred kept gushing out of me, laying waste to the city in a crescendo of contempt. Ecstatic, I wanted to drink myself into the ground, into total oblivion, and let all those cunts do what they wanted.

  ‘What are ye up to this weekend?’ I asked Cocker some time later. Kearney was off throwing stones towards the town. ‘Do ye want to meet up tomorrow?’

  ‘I’m workin tomorrow,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, but after that?’

  ‘Eh, actually I’m goin out …’

  I waited.

  ‘I’m headin out to meet another couple of friends. I mean, like, ye wouldn’t really know them.’

  ‘What, is it a party or something?’

  ‘Sort of. Not really a party, just a little thing. It’ll probably be crap.’ He laughed weakly and looked at the ground. He said nothing more.

  Now Kearney was standing a bit down the hill, pissing and waving it from side to side, giggling to himself. It looked like he was pissing all over Dublin. ‘God is in his church!’ he roared. ‘God is in his church! How does yer garden grow?’

  Turning to me, Cocker pointed at Kearney with his thumb and said, ‘Here, this boy is really off his nut, do ye know that?’

  ‘Of course I know that.’

  ‘No seriously,’ he said, grinning, eyes wide. ‘He’s even worse than I thought. Listen to this. I was around at his gaff this mornin, before we went into town. We were havin a spliff up in his room, and then he had to go downstairs for a while. So I started havin a look at his computer, and I found all these videos he’s been makin. He’s been recordin himself – just him sittin there talkin into the webcam. Just fuckin rantin away, like, makin all these mad voices like some actor. But it’s real weird stuff, what he’s sayin. All these fantasies of him killin people. Like, he’s even talkin about his own ma and all, and weird stuff about homeless people. It’s fuckin mental. And there’s one of the videos that’s different, where he’s just sittin there dead still, not sayin a word, just starin into the camera, starin right at ye. I skipped forward and that video is the same all the way through, and it lasts, like, fifty-six minutes. What the fuck? I was goin to rip the piss out of him when he came back up to the room, but when he climbed the ladder and saw that I’d found the videos he started screechin his head off and havin a total fuckin mickey-fit, like pullin his hair out and screamin at me and everything. What a fuckin nutjob.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ I said, laughing. Cocker was laughing too, so much he couldn’t talk any more. Kearney was coming up the hill, watching us.

  ‘What’s so funny, Cocker?’ Kearney asked.

  Cocker pointed at him. ‘You are!’ he replied, still shrieking with laughter. ‘You and yer home videos. What the fuck is all that about, Kearney?’

  Kearney stood looking at him, saying nothing. He stayed like that for a long time, while we laughed till our stomachs hurt. Eventually, Kearney sat back down beside us. I poured a shot and passed it to him. ‘We’re only havin a laugh, Kearney,’ I said.

  We stayed up there for a good while. We drank the whole bottle of whiskey and then, all of us pissed, we wanted more.

  In the town, me and Cocker feared we wouldn’t get served because none of us had remembered to bring our fake IDs. But Kearney strolled into the first offo we saw and emerged moments later with another bottle of whiskey in his hands. ‘Yis owe me four quid each,’ he said.

  We walked on through the genteel coastal town, vaguely in the direction of the DART station.

  Cocker said, ‘I’ve to go for a piss, lads. I’m burstin. I’m leggin it back to that pub down there. Go on and I’ll catch up with yis in a few minutes.’

  ‘Alright,’ I said as Cocker trotted back the way we’d come.

  Kearney started singing, though it was more like roaring. Up ahead a woman was walking along with her two little girls, who both had curly blonde hair. The woman looked harassed, weary, the way parents always looked – people were crazy to want to have kids, I reckoned, or, more likely, they just didn’t think about it, they simply did it. She was telling one daughter to hurry up, stop lagging behind, while trying to restrain the other from running too far ahead. The girls were cheerful and oblivious.

  Kearney kept up the singing and I joined in. The mother trotted on a few paces, calling in an annoyed way at the taller of the two girls, the one who kept running ahead. As she did so, the younger girl behind her stepped on to the road.

  There was a squeal of brakes and the scream of a horn, and then it had already happened.

  I saw it clearly, we both did: the car bounced over the little girl with a crunching double-thud, one for each set of wheels. It skidded to a halt a few metres ahead of where the girl now lay. Tracks of gore ran through her smashed head, branded into her golden crown and the tar.

  Then the mother was screaming, everyone was screaming, running about with hands to mouths, crying, not knowing what to do, or knowing there was nothing to do but not accepting it.

  We had frozen in the road. I felt myself going cold all over. I was transfixed by the sight, the horror of it. I couldn’t look away, though seeing it made me want to crawl off into some pit, renounce life as something brutal and wrong. The dead girl was still, her wine-coloured life force pulping out of her, one eye open in what looked like wonder, the rest of her face flattened and smashed into a horrible mess.

  Then I had to look away. When I did, my eyes passed slowly over the calamity of the scene, on to Kearney’s face.

  Kearney was smiling. Despite my shock I saw this clearly. It wasn’t a showy smile but one that looked instinctive and natural, almost innocent in some terrible way. He looked like he was in a state of ecstasy. Then he became aware of me and his eyes locked on mine. His face was radiant – I had never seen him looking so alive. I couldn’t turn away.

  The spell broke. Kearney looked back at the dead girl, no longer smiling. The trance-mask vanished from his face, as if it had never been there.

  An ambulance had arrived. The mother was howling and shrieking like some animal being ripped apart by predators. Other people on the street were doing the same; it was like a scene from the Bible.

  I felt my legs taking me off the road. I bumped into Kearney and heard myself say ‘Excuse me’ in a hysterical voice. My legs were weak and I dropped
to a crouch. Then my guts heaved and I threw up all over the concrete.

  Later, we had to give a police statement. The guards spoke to us in gentle, weary voices and sent us home, telling us we’d be contacted if they needed us.

  ‘Do ye think yee’ll be okay?’ said the sergeant, a ruddy, friendly man from the country somewhere.

  I nodded and so did Cocker, who had accompanied us even though he hadn’t seen the accident itself, only the broken, bloodied body that remained. He’d hardly said a word since, and was as pale as I imagined I was.

  ‘And you, Joseph,’ said the sergeant. ‘How are ye feeling about all this? Nobody should have to see such a thing. I hope to God yee’ll get over it somehow, lads.’

  Kearney answered: ‘It was terrible, I don’t know how I’m ever goin to sleep again without seein her face, like, the way her head burst open like that, the blood everywhere and all.’

  The sergeant shook his head in anguish and sympathy, closing his eyes and breathing slowly – and the very moment he closed them, Kearney turned and stared at me. His stare seemed to demand something, an acknowledgment or admission.

  And, to my disgust, I realized that I was smirking at him, too cowardly to remain stony-faced or glower at him like I wanted to.

  Before the sergeant led us out of the station with soft pats on the back and murmurs of compassion, I had to go to the toilets and throw up again.

  18 | Kearney

  Snapshot Number 6: A History of Violence

  Kearney had always loved the slaughter, always loved to watch. The news was great for that: there was no shortage of carnage broadcast for Kearney’s delectation. Already he had lived through the twilight years of the Troubles – kneecappings, bombings and reprisal shootings – various wars set against various backdrops, atrocities here and there, the occasional terror attack that sent little joy-twinges through his cock and balls. There were hijackings and high-school slaughters, genocide and outrage, nerve gas and the nuclear threat. When there was a dearth of these things in the news Kearney felt empty, deprived, like a football fan in the summer months with no matches to watch.