a mellow one among the lot of us, and because of it, we’re accorded a kind of perverse respect. See us in our cups, best not to get in our way. Last time someone did, they ended up in hospital with a broken arm, a fractured skull, and a couple of more injuries the prosecutor rattled off to me before the gavel came down and punctuated that chapter of my life.
The next one started in prison.
I served thirteen months and got beaten on average twice for every one of those. That’s justice for you. Forget the courts. All that legalese is just so much preamble. The real sentence is doled out inside. Throw in a couple of gang rapes and I came to realize I wasn’t half as tough as I thought I was going in. Didn’t change me, though. Only made me more careful about the people I associated with once I got out. Not that it was a problem. Folks hear you’ve been inside and if they have any decency about them at all, they’ll steer clear of you. The kind of guys who don’t are split evenly between those who hope some of your reputation will rub off on them, and those who wish to exploit it.
But I’d left all that behind now. London, though less than an hour’s plane ride away, might as well have been another continent for all the attachment I felt to it. When I’d walked out of that apartment on Camberwell New Road three days earlier, I’d left behind me two young guys and a girl out of their minds on coke. I wouldn’t miss them, nor the stark reminder of how many times I’d shared their beautiful inertia with them. I’d kicked the habit months ago and as such had outstayed my welcome. They seemed hardly to notice my departure, but as the cab pulled up at the terminal at Heathrow, my cell phone hummed in my pocket, and I snapped it open.
“You still have me fuckin’ lighter, prick,” said Nancy, the girl I had once shared a bed and considerable amounts of coke with in that dismal flat.
When it became apparent that she had not called for any other reason, “I’ll mail it you,” I said, and hung up.
Thus ended another chapter.
*
I had hoped to find some kind of peace waiting for me in Dungarvan, some kind of welcome that did not come in the form of another human being, but in the feel of the place itself. In the past, any amount of time away from my hometown had given it a kind of romanticism in my mind, though I’d hated living there and had left it in a hurry with scarcely a look back. My prolonged stays in Cork, Dublin, Galway, the American Midwest, and finally London, had served to persuade me that my heart is in Ireland, as the song says. Everything would be much simpler back home, I told myself. Everything would be familiar, safe. But even as the bus seemed to canter unsteadily down the long curving slope and the sickly yellow lights of the town and the still black mass of the encroaching sea came into view, I knew I’d been deceiving myself. The twist in my guts was not excitement, but dismay. The lights were beacons meant, not to guide me home, but to cull from my addled brain all the memories of why I’d left here in the first place.
Dungarvan itself is a beautiful town. The people, for the most part, are friendly. But neither aesthetical beauty nor man will lift a finger to help you realize your dreams. Such things do not belong here. They are not understood, nor appreciated among the locals, who themselves do not dream. They merely exist, and aspirations to anything further are regarded as fancy.
How deep.
I wanted to be a writer. Crime noir was my thing.
Didn’t happen. Didn’t write. Lived that shit instead.
What happened was I discovered drinking and drugs and sex.
And rage. But that was easily dealt with by pummeling some poor fucker who didn’t realize he was dealing with half a madman. Many a night I’d stagger into a bar and tear some sad bastard off a stool where he was enjoying his pint and kick the living shit out of him until someone pulled me off him. Never seemed
The next one started in prison.
I served thirteen months and got beaten on average twice for every one of those. That’s justice for you. Forget the courts. All that legalese is just so much preamble. The real sentence is doled out inside. Throw in a couple of gang rapes and I came to realize I wasn’t half as tough as I thought I was going in. Didn’t change me, though. Only made me more careful about the people I associated with once I got out. Not that it was a problem. Folks hear you’ve been inside and if they have any decency about them at all, they’ll steer clear of you. The kind of guys who don’t are split evenly between those who hope some of your reputation will rub off on them, and those who wish to exploit it.
But I’d left all that behind now. London, though less than an hour’s plane ride away, might as well have been another continent for all the attachment I felt to it. When I’d walked out of that apartment on Camberwell New Road three days earlier, I’d left behind me two young guys and a girl out of their minds on coke. I wouldn’t miss them, nor the stark reminder of how many times I’d shared their beautiful inertia with them. I’d kicked the habit months ago and as such had outstayed my welcome. They seemed hardly to notice my departure, but as the cab pulled up at the terminal at Heathrow, my cell phone hummed in my pocket, and I snapped it open.
“You still have me fuckin’ lighter, prick,” said Nancy, the girl I had once shared a bed and considerable amounts of coke with in that dismal flat.
When it became apparent that she had not called for any other reason, “I’ll mail it you,” I said, and hung up.
Thus ended another chapter.
*
I had hoped to find some kind of peace waiting for me in Dungarvan, some kind of welcome that did not come in the form of another human being, but in the feel of the place itself. In the past, any amount of time away from my hometown had given it a kind of romanticism in my mind, though I’d hated living there and had left it in a hurry with scarcely a look back. My prolonged stays in Cork, Dublin, Galway, the American Midwest, and finally London, had served to persuade me that my heart is in Ireland, as the song says. Everything would be much simpler back home, I told myself. Everything would be familiar, safe. But even as the bus seemed to canter unsteadily down the long curving slope and the sickly yellow lights of the town and the still black mass of the encroaching sea came into view, I knew I’d been deceiving myself. The twist in my guts was not excitement, but dismay. The lights were beacons meant, not to guide me home, but to cull from my addled brain all the memories of why I’d left here in the first place.
Dungarvan itself is a beautiful town. The people, for the most part, are friendly. But neither aesthetical beauty nor man will lift a finger to help you realize your dreams. Such things do not belong here. They are not understood, nor appreciated among the locals, who themselves do not dream. They merely exist, and aspirations to anything further are regarded as fancy.
How deep.
I wanted to be a writer. Crime noir was my thing.
Didn’t happen. Didn’t write. Lived that shit instead.
What happened was I discovered drinking and drugs and sex.
And rage. But that was easily dealt with by pummeling some poor fucker who didn’t realize he was dealing with half a madman. Many a night I’d stagger into a bar and tear some sad bastard off a stool where he was enjoying his pint and kick the living shit out of him until someone pulled me off him. Never seemed