Simon Kerr Read online

  Phil and me talked about the recent Van Halen split. We agreed how unfair it was that Dave Lee Roth had been kicked out of Van Halen but that Sammy Hagar sounded all right on the new album.

  After having a hot dog or two we got into a football match with some Taigs. It was in this contest, with me playing within the rules of the Bootiful Game, that I was fouled. Yeah, dirty hacking brutality entered my life on the end of a Taig's leg. And I discovered my first personal Taig enemies. See up till that shin-rattling hack my hate

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  for Taigs was as if they all wore Gerry Adams masks: it was inbred, impersonal, idealistic. I want you to remember it was them two who started

  it.

  I name Peter Byrne the hacker.

  I name Seamus Finnegan as his backer.

  I got up from the foul - which occured right in front of goal and would have been a penalty if there had been a referee, and I went for the hacker.

  I'd got Peter by the neck of his Gaelic shirt and was shouting into his cheeky wee leprechaun mug 'You cheating hahon!' when Seamus weighed in.

  Peter wasn't small but I wasn't scared of him. Seamus was a different matter. He was a tall and rangy build, and as Da would have said, he'd an evil eye set in his cyclops face. (That was one of Da's staple sayings to legitimise why he wouldn't trust Taigs. All part of my rich psycho-socio-politico-historico-economic inheritance. You can't blame me for repeating his mistakes. Nobody can.) I can still see psycho-clops Seamus raring for a fight. With his evil eye glowing green, he might even have been some Provo assassin . . .

  All right, forget it, that's just me echoing my bigoted Father. Truth is, before I knew it, I found myself dragged off Peter and wrestled to the ground.

  I heard Phil say, 'Fairplay Seamus. Leave him be.'

  But Phil was no match for Peter, let alone Seamus, and Seamus was too busy playing the big man, shoving my head into the sand. Seamus raised his fist over my face. 'Give up.'''

  'No!' I hissed.

  Peter kicked me in the ribs. 'Give up, Proddy!' he said. I wouldn't. I kicked and screamed and fought but I couldn't get Seamus off me.

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  I could see Big Michael and some of the other Prods getting edgy. One of their own was down.

  It took the intervention of Counsellor Ciaran to stop the scrap spreading along sectarian lines. He dragged us apart with: 'That's enough, lads. Enough!' He told the rest: 'There'll be no more football today!'

  Right enough there was no more football that day, thanks to the pitiful anger of Counsellor Ciaran. I say thanks to him because I would only have turned it into murderball and that would have been a waste. Anyone who watched The Godfather as many times as I had knew that revenge was a dish best served cold.

  I look upon that skirmish as Round One. No blood was spilt but I lost. I lost. But, then again, if I hadn't have lost I would never have met Teresa.

  When Phil was helping me dust the sand off myself she came over to me. 'I'm sorry,' she said. That disarmed me. I could tell she was a Taig but I thought it was decent of her to apologise on behalf of her kith and kind for the assault. And her face disarmed me more. She wasn't beautiful like your woman Sophia Loren but in a Taigy, bewitchy kind of way I had not seen before (I now know the word is eldritch).

  'It's not your fault,' I said.

  She swept long strands of blue-black hair away from her face. 'No, but he's a friend of mine.'

  'Unlucky you,' I replied.

  'I'm Teresa,' she said.

  'Wil,' I said curtly. 'Wil Carson.'

  'Nice meeting you, Wil,' she said, and somehow with this strange intense look, she left me aware that I was completely alone in the world.

  You know they say the eyes are the windows of the soul? - Well, this is going to sound soppy, but I'll swear

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  there was something in those windows of hers I needed to stop that feeling of loneliness.

  Even though she was a Taig.

  Even though she was my enemy.

  Even though we have no souls.

  There were a couple of other meetings in June but they were low-key affairs, dress rehearsals for this concert the Americans wanted us Projectees to throw for them. Nothing much happened, like I say. I avoided Seamus and Peter, and Teresa, and hung around with Phil. We talked a lot. But never about our lives. Our discussions were about whether or not Rainbow's singer Ronnie James Dio actually was the devil or whether Ozzy did eat bats live on stage, or whether Alice Cooper was the keeper of the Serpent from the Garden of Eden. Yeah, hanging with Phil was a good laugh.

  One thing that sticks out in my mind is - we were coached how to sing (in my case mime) 'When Irish Eyes Are Smiling' by an ol' doll piano teacher the name of Heidi Burren. The shame of even being in the same room when Taig songs were being sung! When Irish eyes are smiling, indeed. The only time Irish eyes are smiling is when one of us Brits gets it in the neck. At least that's what Loyalist history - the word-of-mouth version of it -would have you believe. And culture is hard to forget.

  Something else, on a lighter note, that's hard to forget too, was the incident with the theme song. That killed me. We were all singing or miming on stage, Taigs and Prods, in this old rickety church hall they'd rented for practice. When we got to the I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow too bit Phil started to growl the words like your man James Hetfield out of Metallica. I creased up and couldn't stop laughing. That kicked the

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  hyena in Phil off. Ol' doll Burren lost the rag with us two. She was ranting and raving at us to stop. But we couldn't. She just killed us more. And then other people on stage started to laugh without knowing really why. You know the way it happens. Pretty soon most everybody was dominoed into laughing. And she thought it was at her. She stormed out swearing to God she'd never be back to a red-faced Ciaran and Kate. That was even funnier. I must have laughed for a full five minutes flat. My ribs were sore for two days after.

  Funny, all that makes me smile even now. I have to admit it, I was enjoying the Prod bit of the Project.

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  4

  For the Love of Jonah

  Same way I never told Project Ulster about the UFF, I never told any of the Hit Squad I was going to America or what I was doing with myself when I was at those dopey rehearsals. They asked all right, especially that noseybonk. Rick the Prick. I just told him I was seeing more of my Da. I had to lie. No self-respecting Loyalist could rise through the ranks after admitting he'd fraternised with the enemy, let alone holidayed with them.

  So you see, going to America for a month posed a big big problem for me. I'd had to lie to the squad and then I had to lie really convincingly to Al to get some leave. I met him in his club after my tea, the Friday before the flight. He was troUeyed when I told him my cover story: 'I'm been sent away to my Aunty Fay's in England for a month starting tomorrow, Al.'

  'The first of July?' he blew up. 'Aw for fuck's sake!'

  Now Al was a mean drunk so I kept my mouth shut and my distance from him - in case he twatted me one.

  'You know July is our busiest month!' he ranted on. 'Why didn't you tell me sooner, son?'

  'Ma sprang it on me. She doesn't want me making trouble round the Twelfth.'

  'Yer Ma! The womenfolk never get it, do they? There's a fucking war on and she's sending you off to your

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  Aunty's.' He shook his head violently and slurred, 'Aw fuck me, you better do what your Ma says.'

  They say travel broadens the mind don't they, but I found that on the journey to America mine narrowed further. A ten-hour coach trip from Belfast, through Saturday and into the night, to Shannon Airport in the Irish Banana Republic, will start the narrowing process in a person at the best of times. At the worst of times when you have to watch your enemies move in on the girl you like - even though you don't want to - the mind turns in on itself, on the comforting restrictions of what it knows like a bear trap. Did you know that America nearly opted for the bear a
s its national symbol instead of the bald eagle? Nah, neither did I back then. What I did know was that Ireland had opted for the AK-47 for their national symbol. Like Al always said - Eire was the only terrorist state in Europe. It was like Libya except people liked the Irish for some reason; Christ, they even invited them to join the EEC even though the Dail still laid unlawful claim to Ulster in Articles Two and Three. I believed what Al said. I believed in the UFF. I believed in God and in Ulster, my homeland. So as we drove down through the green green miles of beautiful scenery, I never once relaxed, never once allowed myself to admire the whole island of my birth. And could you blame me? -there was I a freedom fighter in enemy territory.

  Outnumbered.

  Outgunned.

  And, in spite of the fact that Teresa was a fucking Taig - out of my head with that big green lizard-monster of teen jealousy.

  The midnight plane we boarded at Shannon International Airport was an Aer (Phil interjected Cunni-) Lingus

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  Boeing 747: a Jumbo Jet. It was the hke of nothing I'd ever seen before. The sheer size. All of a sudden it made the world seem really big or something, and made me feel insignificant. Maybe it was down to the 1:1 scale. You know like in Ulster we think we're yon big in our own small world? Ma always said to people she hadn't seen in years, 'It's a small world.' True, Ulster is a small world, but it's a small part of a much bigger whole - the world. Planet Earth. Mother Earth. It's easy to forget the size of life when you live there. Better to fool yourself with a 10:1 scale. Like you matter.

  The Jumbo showed me I didn't matter. It swallowed me down like the whale in the Bible, gobbling up Jonah in one gulp.

  The early part of the ten-hour journey in the belly of this aluminium sky whale was a smooth one. Some Projectees freaked out or boked up but not me. I wasn't scared of flying, see. I'd been on a plane to the Costa Del Hoi for a fortnight, back when I was eleven and Ma and Da were still trying hard to be man and wife.

  Phil and me were sat together in a row of six empty green seats at the middle of the plane. Even before takeoff we got used to the space. We made it our own with our hand baggage. But someone from the other side saw it and came to invade. Wanted the green green fabric that was ours.

  It was Teresa, with her Fenian friend Sorcha along for the ride. Now Sorcha was what you'd call a mere slip of a ginger-bap. There was nothing remotely womanly about her bum, her hips or her bee-stings but she was convinced Phil would appreciate them oestrogen-negative assets like crazy. Little did she know!

  Teresa said, 'Hi, Wil.'

  I grunted, 'Aye.'

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  Sorcha said, 'How are you, Phil?' Phil sighed, 'Fine.'

  The invasion force sat down. Only not beside each other and beside us, half and half like. That would have been too polite. Sorcha sat beside Phil, to the right. Teresa rubbed past Phil and my knees and sat down on my left. We were surrounded by enemy forces. The escape routes to the aisles had been blocked off.

  'Ready for the film?' Teresa asked me.

  'Aye, bought my headphones and all,' I answered.

  'Pretty crap aren't they?' she was quick to say.

  'They are that,' I agreed.

  Teresa certainly wasn't backwards at coming forwards. 'Do you want me to get us some blankets?' she asked.

  'Blankets?' I said. I can righdy remember thinking at the time: is she trying to make me her Taigy Blanket Man, like those Provos in the H-Blocks, but nah she wasn't, at least not intentionally.

  Teresa explained, 'My Dad says on long hauls the stewardesses give out blankets and a pillow for when you want to get some sleep.'

  'Aye, all right.'

  Teresa stood up and bonged the air stewardess. 'Yeah, we're all going to sleep together,' declared Sorcha and cuddled up to Phil. I looked at Phil. Phil looked at me. I was thinking of one thing.

  By the look on his face, that infectious mischievous smile of his, I thought he was after that self-same thing but, wouldn't you know, he wanted another. And it wasn't the air-stewardess.

  Don't ask me because I don't know what the bloody film

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  was we watched midway across the Pond. I could try the ol' writer's trick of reinventing the past and saying it was the The Terminator because that fits the theme of this my own life-story. But no, I'll resist that temptation. There's something tells me it was some kind of courtroom drama. That could point to Jagged Edge with that fella who was the government spy in ET but never quite made the Hollywood 'A' list, what's-his-name . . . yeah, my nickname-sake, Peter Coyote. Or maybe I've just seen the inside of too many courtrooms in my day. Who knows?

  The events in this film weren't important to the story anyway, neither were the stars. But the watching of it -that was a different matter. What happened while we all sat in front of it, in what I've read Hollywood screenwriters call the audience's negative space, and also in our positive space, that's what's of concern.

  See, Phil could only take so much of Sorcha's pawing and clawing before he cracked. He lasted an hour, up to and aroundabouts where the supreme ordeal is supposed to occur in any film. You can't blame Phil. He was a polite guy, but there's only so much androgyny a fella can take, especially if it, let's say, highlights the common ground between the genders. Phil left for the longest toilet break in mile-high cinema-going history. Twenty-five minutes passed before she got the message and left Teresa alone with me.

  When she'd gone Teresa started kidding around with me. I ignored her, which of course made her want to kid around with me more. It ended up in a tickling fight which she lost because she wanted to lose and I for some strange reason wanted to win.

  I looked down on her - yeah OK, I'd got on top and pinned her down. Our faces were very close. I felt this terrific urge to kiss her on the lips but I didn't get a chance.

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  The return of Phil interrupted us. 'Oi! Cut that out.'

  The strange reason - perhaps reason isn't the right word

  - I wanted to win the wrestling, I now put it down to the fact that love is violence. What do I mean? Is it so hard to believe? Surely he's talking about hate, you say? No. Think about it. Think about it from your own point of view. Call up the free spirit in you, the kid or the id or the alter-ego, ask it what it thinks of love. It will speak of the unspeakable in terms, not of endearment but ohdear-ment. It will say. Do not betray your self, this can only lead from your old family to a wife and a new family and you know what that means. It means you will become the Tyrant Holdfast, will violently love your children and condemn them to become emotional terrorists, fighting for their own freedom, only to become the all-new age-old Tyrant Holdfast. Love makes the world go round in this vicious elipse, it will say. And yet. . .

  Later in the flight, after she fell asleep, head nuzzled into my shoulder, when I felt her eyes weep in REM and her drool seeping into my best jumper; and much later, when I felt her unconscious hand on the inside of my thigh, I got this charge running through my hair, like static electricity. Or maybe it's fair to say the sensation was in my scalp. She made my hackles rise, but in a nice way, a way I'd only experienced around really boring people before: you know the kind of kid who is fascinating because they're just so, I mean how can they be so duh fatuous?

  In the early hours of Sunday morning the Jumbo circled Washington DC in a holding pattern.

  'The White House,' shouted Phil. 'Come and look, Wil

  - the White House.'

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  I wanted to, but I was pinned by Teresa. I couldn't move without waking her. I looked helplessly at Phil.

  Phil came over to my rescue. 'Oi Teresa!' said Phil, shaking her. 'We're here.'

  Teresa couldn't help but come to. She found herself in a position of some intimacy - what with her head on my shoulder and her hand in my lap. Her hand instantly flitted to loftier climbs - to get her head together. When she lifted her head though, she saw she'd drooled crusties on to me. And when she rubbed her eyes in mortified disbelief a ton of
yellow sleep fell into my lap. And when she looked at the avalanche in my lap she saw my jeans tented like the Big Top. The vanity of the female of the species made her look at the circus tent a minute longer and then the other side of this self-same vanity took hold. I was going to explain that boys get pissy hard-ons in the morning but before I could, she let out a noise similar to a gargle and fled to the sanctuary of the toilet.

  So callously deserted the morning after, there was nothing for it but to wipe her juices off me, think away my hard-on and go for a gander at the capital city of the empire that ruled the known world. Wiping the juices away proved difficult so I took off my jumper. Thinking the hard-on away proved impossible. It needed draining physically - I shoved the shaft down and kept it below the angle required for a good prod and my circulatory system did the rest . . . Gone. Or so I thought.

  I got up and joined Phil at the window. He was in front; I was behind, trying to see past his black mop.

  'See that,' he said. 'That's Cleopatra's Needle.'

  Sure enough I saw that big pointy obelisk sticking up out of green green grass of America.

  I was taken aback. By the sight. But also by something else—

  Now, I don't know how Phil's other hand rubbed past

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  my drained dick but it happened all right. He pretended not to notice. Out of politeness so did I. But I did seriously notice. How could I not notice? The pressure and heat started off the normal chain reaction but the speed of the rehardening took me by surprise.

  Cleopatra's Needle eat your fucking heart out!

  I waddled back to my seat as quickly as I could but not before Seamus, standing like my arch-Nemesis in the aisle, had seen my predicament. I heard him laugh, then shout, 'Carson's got a hard-on. Carson's got a hard-on!'