Call Me the Breeze (25 page)

He looked out of the window. There was an old tom cat staring back at him through the rusted window of a wreck. ‘Joseph,’ he began again, ‘I know we’ve had our differences and that both of us have said things that perhaps we shouldn’t, but I really do feel you have abilities and talents … well, to come straight to the point, a number of us on the parish committee, not a majority by any means, let me be quite candid about that — we’ve had plenty of opposition, let me tell you — but we definitely feel that someone like you … well, that you deserve and might benefit from an enlightened approach such as this and that it definitely should be given a tryout, a sort of pilot scheme, if you will…’

He coughed and said nothing for some time. ‘We are aware,’ he continued, ‘that for a man in your position securing employment — commensurate with your needs and talent, at any rate — might not be the easiest thing in the world. Consequently, myself and Mrs Carmody, the principal of the community college, were wondering if you might be interested in a little post we have been thinking of creating …’

He finished by saying: ‘Obviously it would be for a trial period. What I mean by that is, Joseph, considering your past not everyone was in full agreement with our suggestion, and you would have to give me your word that…’

‘Of course, Father,’ I said. ‘Anything you require in that department, absolutely anything at all! But, believe you me, you don’t even have to ask, and Mervin Recks will tell you that! I haven’t had much drink
since I came home and, as for drugs, well, forget it! That was the seventies, man! It embarrasses me even to —’

He smiled then and that smile was so sunny it sent me right over the moon.

‘There is never such a thing as not starting again, Joseph. Like I said, I know we’ve had our differences. But, like they keep saying on the radio, there is nothing that dialogue can’t resolve as we’ve seen over the past year or so, with former enemies getting on, if not like a house on fire, well, at least not assassinating each other. Do you understand me, Joseph?’

I nodded.

‘I understand you, Father. I’m hearing you loud and clear.’

I felt like I’d just been talking to Merv.
Look out for those midges, Mr Gogol
! I thought to myself as my grin spread ever wider. Already I could see myself striding up to that college, my head chock-full of ideas. I made a private decision to tie my hair back in a ponytail so I’d look like one of these trendy New York businessmen you’d see going to work in Wall Street, swinging that old briefcase, maybe dropping into the Fuck Me hotel to sip a latte and rap with a few of the trendy young yuppies you saw coming and going out of there, barking down mobile phones, closing deals and shit.
Yeah
!

‘So I can take it that you’re interested in the position and that I have permission to put your name forward for the Scholarship of Hope?’

I extended my hand and then gave him a hug.

‘You absolutely have, Father,’ I said. ‘That you most certainly have.’

He was on his way out and about to close the door. I swung on my heel and, without thinking, shot him silently with my protruding gun-finger-

‘Oh, and Father …’ I said.

‘Yes?’ said Fr Connolly.

‘
Thanks
!’

So, there you have it, and in all fairness now you really had to hand it to Connolly. For whatever way it might have eventually worked out — between the principal Mrs Carmody and me — at the end of the day it was Fr Connolly who’d pulled out the stops. Who’d gone out of his way to give a man a second chance and enable him to be reborn. Enabling me for the first time in my life to have a proper job, one you could be fucking proud of for a change. Not rotting in a factory or sweating in a
fucking foundry ladling molten iron into a blast furnace and getting bugger-all money or respect for doing it. Not to mention hauling beer kegs and listening to the problems of every drunk in the town, whether in Doc Oc’s or anywhere else. No, this was a post where you held your head up high because you knew what what you were doing was useful. But not only that —
important
, as influencing young minds is always important. Merv was an example of that. You get the guy that gives you a hard time — you want to take his fucking head off, blow away him and his family. Then the guy comes along that treats you decent. And what are you like? You’re like a little lamb there, bleating. So I reckoned that experience would be pretty useful too. As well as the fact that I could relate to young teenagers in a way that came naturally, having been into draw and all that shit. All I kept thinking was, your life is following a crooked path and the roads seem covered in shards. Shards of the most lethal and jagged-edged glass. Then you look up one day and there’s not a single one in sight. The way ahead is uncluttered and clear. For a long time you think that it’s never going to happen. But you wake up one day and you know deep inside. You know you’re gonna open that window and that road will lie straight ahead.

Shardless.

That was the day I went around to the Fuck Me, which, as I realized now, was how they referred to the hotel all the time. They
never
called it the ‘Lakeland Towers’ or even ‘the hotel’. All you ever heard them saying was: ‘I’m off around to the Fuck Me now,’ or ‘Do you fancy a drink in the Fuck Me?’

It was the first and last time I ever went into it, though. I didn’t know Jacy was working there. In fact, when I saw her behind the bar, I really got quite a shock, and I found myself praying it wasn’t because of me and what I’d done. Her face was pale and her eyes were tired, her once blonde hair lank on her shoulders. I was just coming across the floor, thinking how funny it was, all these smart suits with their laptop computers, demanding ‘decaffeinated’ in the Fuck Me hotel. Except that when she caught my eye, it very soon stopped being funny. I turned on my heel. I made it out into the street, but sweating, you know?

The next time I saw her was outside the same building, on the day that the Taoiseach visited with a bunch of politico dignitaries. I don’t know what it was about — something to do with financial opportunities for local businesses within the European Community. There were shiny polished state cars parked all the way down the street, and Boyle Henry and his wife were in the back seat of one. Or, should I say, Senator Boyle Henry. I stood in the alleyway and watched the proceedings. He helped her out of the car and held the door open for her, then they all went inside. The Lady Doc was on crutches and had aged quite considerably too. But not so much as Jacy, who was there too, although you wouldn’t have known it from Boyle’s reaction. She might as well not have existed.

I saw them together another time. A couple of weeks after that, in fact, one wet night on my way home from the shopping centre, chomping on a cheeseburger and fries. It was late, and I was on the verge of running away as soon as I heard voices. They were coming from the entry at the back of Doc Oc’s, and straight away when I heard them I knew who it was. I was on the verge of bursting into tears, to tell you the God’s honest truth, and wanted to get out of there as fast as I could but wasn’t able to help myself. I could hear him whispering: ‘I love you, Jacy!’, and it was then that I heard her crying. Every nerve end in my body was tingling as I edged further into the shadows then saw them there, standing underneath the porch light. Her skirt was bunched up around her waist and he was thrusting into her, in and out. Her head was thrown back and I could see her face — so pale. Her mouth was open and her eyes were empty.

‘I love you!’ I heard him say again, before he groaned and collapsed on top of her.

My heart was thumping as I heard her say — her head was lying on his shoulder now and her cheeks were streaked with tears — ‘I always knew you’d never leave her. I always knew!’

‘Ssh, baby!’ I heard him say, and I could smell the smoke of the Hamlet as a wisp of it went drifting by.

‘There were times I’d have done anything to be able to make myself leave you!’ she said.

‘Don’t talk like that, Jacy!’ he said.

‘All the years I’ve been with you, you promised me that!’

‘And I will, I promise you! I just can’t do it right now! She’s not been well!’

‘Stop it, Boyle, don’t lie any more. I know you’re just using me. That any time you snap your fingers, you know that I’ll —’

She got all choked up then and he comforted her.

‘Please, treat me with some respect,’ she said, and I heard him kissing her. I couldn’t help myself. My head jutted out and I saw him pecking at her neck.

‘I love you, Jacy,’ he whispered, ‘and there’s nothing I’d love more than to spend more time with you! You know that! You know that, don’t you?’

‘I love you, Boyle!’ I heard her reply. ‘God forgive me, but I love you so much!’

It broke my heart. I couldn’t bear to listen any more. I went stumbling home in the dark, and time and my name and my place in the world, they meant nothing to me at all. For all of that night and a long time afterwards.

There wasn’t much cash, of course. In the Youth in Action Creative Arts Awareness Scheme, I mean. But, like I said to Fr Connolly, you don’t get involved in the creative arts for money. Just seeing the excitement on the kids’ faces when you were banging on about ideas — plus the actual projects you managed to see through to fruition — was more than enough reward. I went at it with an energy I didn’t know I possessed. ‘This is the harbour!’ I’d say to myself as I barrelled down the corridor laden down with books and guides and arts brochures, whatever. ‘
This
is the harbour — it was here all along!’

The first thing I did was inspect the video studio which, I was informed by my supervisor, Eddie, I would have the use of. The equipment available to me, he told me, apart from the editing console, included three Panasonic AG456 SVHS camcorders, one DV Steadi-Cam, a Lowell and Strand Century light kit, four Olympus digital still cameras, a vast array of microphones, assorted video monitors and a Mackie eight-channel mixer. All I had to do was sign for it with my supervisor and book the studio whenever I needed it. ‘Excellent,’ I said, for I was absolutely delighted.

I also had at my disposal a small office, little more than a broom cupboard, really, but with laptop computer facilities and a telephone/
fax machine. So, I mean, what more could you ask for? I picked up the phone and went to work straight away. I shuffled my papers, scanning my movie treatment as I waited to get put through to Principle Management. Of course, at first I got the usual old spiel: ‘Bono and the boys are in Miami …’ I mean, they’re
still
in Miami? Give me a break, you know?

But, I suppose, what with having a new kind of — what would you call it? — legitimacy, I suppose, it didn’t bother me in the slightest. No, for this was it, the real thing, not like prison where you often felt that even with the best will in the world they were only allowing you to do certain things to take your mind off topping yourself. But here you could tell they trusted you. There was nothing like that on their minds at all. This was a normal, ordinary environment, with people coming and going about their workaday business, where you felt connected to the world as it lived and breathed! And, because of the confidence and trust invested in me — and just that little bit of power, I guess! — I had decided on a whole new way of dealing with things. A ‘can do’ approach as opposed to a ‘Yes! I’ll see that it’s done before Christmas’ type one.

Which entailed not wasting your time chewing the ass off someone who had no fucking influence, and biding your time — with immense patience and good manners — until you
did
get through to the head honcho.

‘This is Wonderful Pictures here in Scotsfield,’ I’d say. ‘We have currently a number of projects in development and would like to offer a part in one of them to Bono. Also, we’re interested in the use of “Where the Streets Have No Name” on the soundtrack of one of these, provisionally entitled
Jellyman
!, dealing partly with the political troubles in Ireland in the mid-seventies, and partly a love story. I was wondering —’

‘
As I said, sir, Bono and the boys are currently
…’

That was the usual line. But I was ready for it. More than ready for it this time, señor …

‘We may be approaching Joni Mitchell for the female lead,’ I said without blinking.

‘Joni Mitchell?’ you’d hear then. That always got them going.

When I had all my phone calls made and any other little bits of business attended to, I’d sit down and type up some ideas (you want to see the little laptop! Talk about state of the art! I don’t know how many
times I nearly busted it, but I got the hang of it in the end!). All sorts of jazz, including some lightweight stuff too. Because one thing I was beginning to realize was that you couldn’t be writing heavy shit all the time. You needed to give your brain time to ‘chill out’ from all the effort that went into making ‘real art’, or whatever you might like to call it. ‘Scotsfield! An Investigation!’, ‘The Troubles!’, ‘Hell Is … 1976!’, ‘Love’ — those were all very well. But they took a lot out of you. There was nothing more enjoyable than just to sit down and forget about all that stuff. Give it a rest for a while. Write about something else. Your favourite album or whatever. It could be anything. Anything you wanted in this wide world. Such as this little nugget. There is a whole fucking box of them sitting here. I practically wrote the whole college magazine myself, in between filming and other activities. ‘Hot Platters’ was a column I really enjoyed, and ‘Celluloid Round-Up’. The kids enjoyed it too, they were always telling you that.