Authors: Joe Murphy
Mr Cowper is nodding and grinning like she’s just revealed the third secret of Fatima or something and then he’s saying stuff. He’s saying stuff that makes me want to smile. Remember when I said that, occasionally, Mr Cowper is pretty useful? Well this is one of those times.
Mr Cowper has his hands steepled together and he’s looking over them at me and he’s going, ‘What kind of help do you, as
Seán’s friend, think he needs? How can we build a network of supports for him? On his own terms? How can we facilitate his uniqueness as part of the wider school community? These are the questions we think you can help us with.’
I’m staring at him and he must see something in the way my face looks because he lifts his hands up as though he’s Atlas
hefting
the world and he wiggles his fingers. He holds this pose for a moment and then he says, ‘If this is frightening for you, think of yourself as a great oak tree. You are unshakable. You have deep roots.’
I’m looking from Mr Cowper to Ms Herrity, who at least has the good grace to look embarrassed, and I’m trying to stop myself laughing.
I’m looking from Mr Cowper to Ms Herrity and I go, ‘I don’t think Seán’s tablets are helping him that much.’
Ms Herrity frowns and she scribbles something down and she asks, ‘Even the new ones?’
I’m nodding and she’s scribbling something else. Her pen makes these little skittering noises like there’s a mouse behind the skirting boards.
I know this is the most selfish thing I’ve ever done but I can’t do this on my own. I don’t know what exactly it is that I’m going to do about Dr Thorpe but I know that I need Seán to do it. I’m going, ‘They’ve taken something out of him. He’s not Seán anymore.’
Then, because I know how Mr Cowper talks and thinks, I go, ‘I feel that he’s become powerless. He’s become disenfranchised
from himself. I feel, as his main support, that the tablets are simply allowing him to avoid the reality of his actions.’
Ms Herrity is looking at me like I’m a spaniel reciting Hamlet. She’s frowning again and there’s this cynical crook to her mouth.
She goes, ‘Well, I’m sorry that you feel that way but Seán is staying on his medication. I understand how you feel but your friend has been assessed by professionals. Exhaustively assessed.’
But it’s not Ms Herrity that I’m paying attention to.
Mr Cowper is leaning forward again and his hands are joined like he’s praying or something. He has them pressed against his lips and his head is bobbing up and down and he’s looking at me with this weird light in his eyes. There’s an earnestness to him that’s unnerving. What I’ve said has lit a fire in him. He’s heard himself in me. He’s heard himself and he likes it.
Mr Cowper has the same fervent expression that you see on the faces of fundamentalists everywhere. He believes in this crap. Believes it so much it seems like he’s acting. Really
believes
in it. It’s his creed and religion.
Ms Herrity however, is looking at him in the same way that most normal people look at fundamentalists.
Ms Herrity goes, ‘Mr Cowper.’
Mr Cowper is still nodding and he’s still looking at me like I’ve explained the meaning of life.
Ms Herrity goes again, ‘Mr Cowper.’
And then she’s going, ‘Brendan.’
I’m taking this all in and I’m trying not to smile.
Mr Cowper shakes himself and he turns to Ms Herrity and he goes, ‘You know, perhaps it is merely an exercise in smoke and mirrors to keep Seán medicated.’
He pauses and purses his lips and he doesn’t notice that Ms Herrity exhales a little too sharply through her nostrils. And then he’s going, ‘Perhaps we are, in fact,
enabling
his dysfunction.’
Ms Herrity looks at Mr Cowper and then she throws me a look with broken glass in it. She puts her notepad and pen on the desk and she says, ‘Mr Cowper. Seán Galvin should not be encouraged to withdraw from his medication without NEPS’ or his doctor’s intervention.’
I am a great oak tree.
And I’m going, ‘It’s just that he’s sad all the time. Like Stephen Pepper.’
Mr Cowper is nodding again and his his face is all earnest behind his steepled fingers. Ms Herrity, however, is looking through her notes again and she gives me this weird crooked smile.
I smile back until she starts talking. Then the smile twists and dies on my face like something hit and mangled by a train. She’s going, ‘Have you ever attended counselling, yourself?’
Frowning now, I go, ‘No. Definitely not. Why should I? I’m grand.’
Ms Herrity throws Mr Cowper a look that she doesn’t even try to disguise. Mr Cowper sort of wriggles in his chair and I can hear the polyester of his trousers scrape on the plastic of his chair.
Ms Herrity’s very very good-looking face then turns to me
and it’s like someone’s turned on a floodlight behind her eyes. She looks at me and it’s like she’s stripping every layer of veneer from me.
In the face of her hurricane beauty I blink and swallow and I try not to think of how full my bladder is.
She goes, ‘There have been … ehm … incidents.’
I don’t say anything and without once looking at her notes she goes, ‘You were let go from a summer job for tampering with
official
documents in quite a, shall we say, graphic manner. Then there’s this outrageous story you came up with up to protect Seán.’
Now I’m going, ‘Wait a minute—’ Ms Herrity, though, she just keeps right on talking.
‘I have reports here from your Form Tutor and Year Head as well as some information provided by your fellow students. You seem rather outside of your own life. Disconnected.’
My mouth is so dry it’s like my tongue is a piece of kindling. I’m swallowing hard and I’m going, ‘What’s that supposed to mean? What are you implying?’
Mr Cowper jumps in at this point and he says, ‘Your circle of friends is quite … limited. And while your linguistic skills are remarkable your expression and outlook can be somewhat … ehm … I don’t know. Surreal?’
At the same time as Mr Cowper says ‘surreal’, Ms Herrity says, ‘Disturbed.’
They both look at each other and their overlapping voices have set up nasty harmonics in my head.
Now I’m looking from one to the other and I can hear,
actually
hear the fear and defensiveness in my voice. I’m going, ‘No. Really. Really, really. I’m grand. Really.’
Mr Cowper looks at me and then looks down at his desk. Ms Herrity is writing again. Scritch-scritch. Scritch-scritch.
Nothing much else is said and when I’m leaving, Mr Cowper goes, ‘We’ll talk some more about this.’
I can see Ms Herrity is livid and when I close the door I can hear her start to give out.
At this stage there’s only about twenty minutes of the last class of the day to go. I’m heading back through the Senior Resource Area and just as I’m about to turn down the corridor to the
science
labs, I see Seán sitting on a windowsill. There’s only twenty minutes of the day left so I figure, fuck it. I walk over to him and sit down.
His face is blank as a field of snow and he doesn’t even look at me. He just stares across the corridor, at a fly crawling up the far wall. I lean forward and try to catch his eye but he doesn’t twitch a muscle. His eyes are dead balls of glass. I wave my hand in front of his face and a slow smile lifts his mouth in a shallow curve.
I stop waving my hand and I go, ‘Shouldn’t you be in Art?’
Still not looking at me, he says, ‘There’s only a few minutes left and I like it like this. It’s all quiet. Nobody’s looking at me or
talking
about me or anything.’
His voice isn’t like it used to be. It sounds like a recording.
I go, ‘Nobody’s talking about you, Seán.’
This is bullshit but I have to say something.
Seán goes, ‘What did Mr Cowper want to talk to you for?’
I’m looking at Seán and now I’m frowning and now I’m going, ‘He was wondering what we have to do to help you.’
Seán nods slowly and then he says, ‘We forget all about the dead dogs. We forget all about Dr Thorpe. We take our tablets and we’re just like everyone else. I don’t want anybody to look at me. I don’t want anybody to talk about me.’
Then something breaks in me and I can feel wet on my face even though I don’t feel like crying. Even though I don’t feel like crying there’s tears coming out of my eyes and my lips are all in spasm.
I can hear my voice going, ‘I can’t forget, Seán. You didn’t see what I saw. You didn’t hear it. We have to do something.’
I’m dragging my sleeve across my face and it comes away messed with snot and spit and saltwater. When it comes away I can see Seán staring at me. There’s a light in his eyes again for the first time in what seems like forever.
He looks at me for a long time and then he’s saying, ‘Why are you crying?’
I’m sniffing and I’m trying to stop myself crying and I go, ‘Because I can’t do anything on my own. Because those tablets you’re on have you zonked.’
Seán turns away and faces the far wall again and he’s quiet for a minute and then he says, ‘Maybe I can talk to Mr Cowper. Maybe he can help me with my tablets or something.’
And like Judas himself, weak-willed and selfish and
conniving
, I go, ‘Yeah. Maybe that’d be a good idea.’
I told you. I’m not a nice guy, sometimes.
It’s strange how people latch on to someone they see as stronger than themselves. When you get right down to it any relationship is an unequal partnership. Strip away all the
peripherals
, all the pink fluff and you’re left with one person who wants and another who needs. This is true for relationships of more than two people as well. Long chains of interdependence. Long chains of people who are so dysfunctional they’ll allow
themselves
to be kicked around rather than face rejection, rather than force a confrontation. Rather than cause a fuss.
Hello, my name is John, my name is Mary, my name is James, and I’m a football.
If this were a third world country there’d be a revolution. Instead we watch as money is siphoned off, misappropriated, misused. We watch from an unmoving line of cars and listen to the girl on the radio announcing a slight increase in employment. We listen and we know for a fact that this is bullshit because three factories back home just shut down. Whole villages are left scratching their heads and wondering who buys the D-reg mercs that own the roads. Sleek and arrogant. We sit and shrug and watch the taillights paint the world red.
If life is a seesaw then its fulcrum is always askew.
And now I’m wondering, am
I
any good? Is my fulcrum askew?
People are strange.
We sit in silence as the day slouches towards the final bell. There’s noise in the corridor before the bell because a lot of teachers let classes out early so they can get to their lockers and the buses and stuff. Me and Seán are just sitting there on the windowsill and all these people are streaming past us.
Then Benny Mythen comes along on all fours and barks at us before standing up again and running off down the corridor barking and yelping. Half the school sees this and half the school is creased up laughing at the two of us.
I’m pissed off at this but beside me Seán’s head has dropped below the level of his shoulders and his whole body is dissolving into a swamp of sobs. Under his breath I can hear him going, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I did a bad thing. I don’t want to do it again. Never again. Never ever.’
Before I know what I’m doing, I’m putting my arm around his shoulders and everyone goes, ‘OOOOOOoooooooohhhhhhh.’
Someone I can’t see shouts, ‘Faggots!’
Then people scatter because Mr Byrne, the Vice Principal, comes along. In his heavy voice he’s saying, ‘Break it up here. The bell’s gone. Haven’t you any homes to go to?’
When he sees me and Seán, he stops and plants his hands on his hips and he breathes air out through his nose so hard that I can hear it over the noise of everyone else.
He looks down at the sobbing Seán and he goes, ‘I should have known I’d find you two in the middle of this.’
And then he goes, ‘You’ve had it ruff over the past while, haven’t you, Seán?’
I’m sure he means
rough
but what I hear is
ruff
.
He throws his eyes over the two of us, me with my running nose and red lacing my eyeballs, Seán with his head down,
crying
softly, my arm around his shoulders. He takes all this in and he goes, ‘Look after each other, lads. Remember who your friends are.’
Then he goes, ‘I’ll get Mr Cowper.’
And way back in my hindbrain I can hear Judas start to giggle.
I’ve known Seán Galvin for
a long time but that hateful traitor that lives in the back of my head is a more recent acquaintance. I figure he gets louder the older you get and the more reasons you have to fuck other people over. The first time he yammered at me was last Halloween when I fucked off and ran leaving Seán pretty much high and dry in one of the weirdest happenings of my entire life.
The Halloween Holidays rock around and me and Rory and Seán are all allowed to go up to Dublin because Tim Minchin is doing a gig. I love Tim Minchin and I’ve been trying to get Rory into him so we can all stay in his brother Davey’s college res flat. We all get permission to stay up for a whole week, an entire seven days, and Davey’s actually being pretty sound about this and he says there’s absolutely no problem with the three of us staying in his.
Rory and Davey’s parents don’t know that their eldest son has
pretty much quit college. Neither does the college, so he’s still
living
in the solid cube of unvoiced rancour that is his res flat. The atmosphere is lifted somewhat by virtue of the fact that his flatmate has, more or less, upped sticks and left. I don’t know where he’s gone but he’s never, ever there when we are and most of his food is gone from the fridge. This is a good thing because we can fit more cans in the lower bit now and more food in the freezer compartment. He also never took the TV, which Davey says is his, so I presume he’s about somewhere. The downside of him leaving is the fact that Davey says he used to have lots of good-looking-in-a-children-of-the-damned-type-way gal pals. And now, since his flatmate left, there are no more ash blonde female clones around the place. Irritating but fun to look at.
Our first day there Davey tells me he’s running a courier business. Current staff: Him. Current assets: His Peugeot. Name: mercury.com. Davey doesn’t have a computer nor does his crappy courier service have a website. Everything is a dot.com now. He even has a slogan,
Because Life Doesn’t Wait
.
I ask him what that’s supposed to mean. He says, ‘Whatever.’
People take a thing that doesn’t mean anything and make it mean whatever they want. You take something trite, something vapid and suddenly it’s a life choice, a philosophy. Davey does this. He screws people over. People ring his number, ring mercury.com, because life doesn’t wait, so they can get a package from point A to point B and what they actually get is Davey and his Peugeot.
I ask him how many customers he gets. He says, ‘A few.’
I’m laughing again now. At him this time. Seán and Rory are
arguing over the remote and I’m standing in the kitchen talking to Davey. His black hair is combed through with Brylcreem so that it lies furrowed and sleek and his tar pit eyes are oval holes.
Now he’s looking at me and the holes of his eyes seem to drink in all the light and he goes, ‘It’s a start-up venture. It’s a crappy job but at least it’s honest. It’s real work. It beats the shit out of this concrete mess full of hypocrites and posers.’
This I have to admit is true.
Then he goes, ‘Or do you want to watch your soul shrivel up in an office somewhere? Like last summer? Since you’re here, do you fancy lending a hand? Rory says you’re pretty hot-shit with words.’
Nothing good will come of this. I say, ‘I’ll think about it.’
The afternoon after the Tim Minchin gig, Rory and Davey go out to get more cans and I’m on my own with Seán. I sit in the bleach glare of Davey’s flatmate’s TV and make up flyers for Davey’s company. Because life doesn’t wait.
Davey’s parents are anxiously awaiting the 2.1 that he’ll get in his finals. They’re over two months away and his Mam wants him to send out CVs already. As I said, they don’t know that he’s quit college. It would break their hearts. He has stopped taking their money though. His Da’s a bit suspicious about this but Davey says he’s starting to make a bit of cash and he’d feel bad taking their money under false pretences. Now when I say
a bit
I do mean
a bit
. The point is he’s making it.
The company works like this. There’s the legitimate business that Davey says is useful for cover. Then there’s the stuff Davey
never told anyone, except Rory, about before. This is where he makes his money. This is how he can afford to buy Rory every Xbox game under the sun.
It turns out that Davey has an unsurprisingly large number of unsavoury friends. Said friends seem to want a lot of packages delivered to a lot of people with the minimum amount of fuss. For this Davey’s friends pay him large amounts of money, which he then puts back into his joke of a Peugeot or uses it to buy other extravagances. Like proper food.
However, Davey’s unsavoury friends and the people to whom they’re sending large padded packages tend to be a bit
unpredictable
. In Davey’s words they’re prone to
throwing the bottle out of the pram.
In anyone else’s words, they’re prone to
shooting each other
. This is not an ideal state of affairs for Davey; which is where I come in.
mercury.com wants more normal people to use it so Davey won’t have to drop brown paper parcels to large men on bleak housing estates. Davey’s head is full of big ideas. He wants me to make up flyers, he wants me to set up an actual, real-life web page, he wants me to ignore the voice in my head screaming that this is fucking nuts. So I do and I make flyers and start designing web pages and try to snap free of teenaged sensibilities. I am not some docile, slaughterhouse animal. I am not a gap to be filled.
Davey’s folks haven’t seen him for three months now. This doesn’t worry them. Sometimes nobody sees or hears from Davey for a lot longer. Usually when this happens he’s associating with his unsavoury friends. Usually when this happens he comes
back with a roll of notes that keeps him going for a couple of weeks. It doesn’t bother me that Davey, and by extension, I, are working for criminals. Civil servants, bank clerks, they all work for criminals too. The only difference being that politicians and the heads of financial institutions never do business in the
shadows
cast by a burning car. As rationalisations go this is better than nothing.
Davey won’t change the slogan. I’m annoyed by this. The fact that I’m going to spend the guts of a week making and photocopying hundreds of flyers with the words
Because Life Doesn’t Wait
slanted across them irritates me. I tell him that it doesn’t mean anything and he tells me that Feng Shui’s a pile of crap too but people bought into that. People don’t want substance, they want something as empty as they are. They want something so blank they can project anything they like onto it. The slogan stays and for the next four days I photocopy and drop through letterboxes dozens of flyers which most people ignore but some actually read.
As Davey said, business is starting to pick up.
Davey says he now has two best jeans and three nicest shirts.
He has a bank on his books now. Davey knows someone in marketing who needs to get a bag full of signed documents over to his assurance guys every day before twelve noon.
See also Declaration A.
See also Declaration B.
See also Direct Debit Mandates.
This, as far as I’m concerned, is regular and above board
income. When I say this to Davey he looks at me and smiles around his mouthful of teeth and says it’s a means to an end. And I’m wondering, an end to what?
I’m sitting in the Ikea-minimalist cube that is his flat and his fridge is empty of food. The flat is empty of anyone else. Seán and the boys have gone to get Subway. The place is weirdly quiet without them. No one except Davey’s friends ever calls here
anymore
and he uses the empty bedroom to store paper and boxes. On my own I keep the TV turned on and up so that its light reflects off everything and I can even hear it in the toilet. Apart from this I’m alone.
I’m trying to design a new flyer for mercury.com. There’s a blank sheet of paper on the table in front of me and in front of the table is the TV. On the TV Jessica Fletcher is about to bury her saggy old woman’s head into another murder mystery. There’s this scene in
The Lost Boys
where the family drive by a billboard. The front of this billboard is plastered with a generic,
Welcome to
… poster. On the back though some local yokel has
spray-painted
the words
Murder Capital of America
. I’m watching Jessica Fletcher potter about the backwoods of Cabbott Cove and I’m thinking, fuck that, Maine is the Murder Capital of America. Still Jessica’s got her head screwed on. I’m thinking that local sheriff couldn’t find his own arse with both hands and an atlas.
Colours are washing over my blank page and programme after programme begins and ends, begins and ends, and I must phase out for a bit because Davey rattling his key in the lock startles me.
He walks in and is followed by a very very attractive girl. She’s wearing a short denim skirt, a poncho and she has dark hair framing a pale oval face. Her blue eyes look at me like she knows me. Now I’m staring and now I’m wondering why no one else is spending time alone with a blank sheet of paper and now Davey’s grinning at me. He’s grinning and saying, ‘Mind if we disturb you? We’re just going into my room for a bit.’
Before I can say anything back the strange girl’s going, ‘Is
The Vampire Diaries
on yet?’
I’m still staring and I’m saying, ‘It doesn’t have all the
channels
.’
Then Davey’s leading her by the hand. Then Davey’s leading her into his bedroom and he’s saying, ‘Bet you’re glad you stayed the week. And doesn’t this beat the shit out of that office job you had?’ Then Davey’s shutting the door. He never even waits for my answer.
I’m thinking this is exactly like that fucking office job.
Getting sacked from the insurance place isn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.
The blank page in front of me remains blank and the TV floods with people who make a noise that sounds like language until you realise that they don’t communicate anything. Once you realise this you stop listening. I’m thinking that when a crime-solving pensioner constitutes cutting-edge viewing then we’re in trouble. My page turns blue, turns red, turns yellow and stays empty.
The page stays like this until the bedroom door opens and the
very very attractive girl walks out. Then the bedroom door’s swinging shut and then she’s opening the front door and then she’s leaving without saying a word. She has a bruise on her neck. It is the colour of storms.
I’m wondering, would she have stayed if we had all the channels?
I’m wondering how this page is still blank. My inevitable A in English should mean that I have an ability to conjure something that at least sounds good from absolutely nothing. Shazam. Sitting here, staring at nothing, I’m starting to doubt my amazing talents. Davey’s amazing talents are beyond any kind of doubt. mercury.com is making money for him and Davey’s unsavoury friends are paying him shitloads of cash to keep ferrying plain brown packets around the place. Davey and his Peugeot never seem to stop and Davey’s luck with girls is making me sick. The TV shivers from picture to picture and on his bed Davey’s pulling up his trousers. I can hear his belt buckle and keys rattling like a charity bucket half empty of change.
My thoughts feel congealed. They are stuck to the inside of my skull, sluggish and viscous. Like phlegm.
I’m starting to get annoyed with myself and I’m more than a little surprised when Davey comes out of my bedroom and starts talking to me. I look at him blankly for a minute. His face is flushed and his hair is oily with sweat and it’s seeping in lines down his forehead and into his eyes. I blink once. I blink twice. To me Davey sounds like one of the adults from
Snoopy
. Wah wahwah-wah wah.
I think he notices I’m not getting this. He’s grinning his
sickle
grin and he’s repeating himself. He’s going, ‘Do you want to head on the road? You look a bit stressed. The boys are coming too. They’re meeting us downstairs. Your mate Seán’s alright. A bit weird but alright.’
This is the nicest thing I’ve ever heard him say.
I say, ‘Sure. Where’re we going?’
His grin is widening and it’s starting to look like a segment has been chopped out of his face. He’s tapping the side of his nose with one finger and he’s going, ‘We’ve a job to do.’ Then he’s going, ‘No rest for the wicked.’
This isn’t an answer but I know it’s all I’m going to get. I take a look at my empty page. It looks soured in the light thrown back off the curdled milk walls. I’m looking at this page and I’m
crumpling
it up and I’m turning off the TV. I want out of the res bloc and I need to get rid of the sticky feeling inside my skull. It’s like I need to rinse out my brain somehow.
Davey’s joke of a Peugeot is parked outside in the drizzle.
I don’t know how old the car is but its number plates have a lot of Zs and Xs and the rear one is red. I’m no expert but I’d guess it’s older than Davey. It’s sitting there in the drizzle and water is
gathering
on its roof, gathering on its windows, gathering on its
bonnet
. Davey’s Peugeot is red. Not the red of valentines or the slick oily red of a promo picture. It is the red of a scab and it sits on the tarmac, ragged and flaking as a scab. Rust is chewing the wheel arches to honeycomb and the red paint is blistered up around the edges of the handles and the moulding of the windows. As I said,
I’m no expert but I’d guess it wouldn’t pass the NCT.
Rory and Seán are standing beside the car and when Seán sees me he grins this little child’s grin and waves at me. It’d be
embarrassing
if you didn’t know him.
Right now all round me and Seán and Rory and Davey people are looking out their windows. Their faces are pale masks stuck to the wet glass. Behind them the anaemic flicker of television plays like dull lightning.