Here Are the Young Men (3 page)

It beeped and a mildly distorted voice said, ‘Yes?'

‘Oh
hi
. Is Bono there, please?' said Cocker in a fake D4 accent.

‘And who may I say is calling?'

‘Oh we're just friends of the great man, friends and admirers, uh, don't you know.'

We sniggered and covered the sound with our sleeves, ducking away from the microphone.

‘I'm afraid I'll need a name, sir.' The voice was deadpan, giving no sign of irritation. Maybe Bono's security guards were used to this kind of shit.

Now Cocker's accent was a posh English one, like the royal family: ‘Oh well yes, please tell Mr Bono that this is his good friend Elton John.'

The grainy electronic voice had started politely but firmly telling us to get lost when Cocker leaned right into the speaker and shouted: ‘BONO YE WANKER! YERRAN AN OUT-AND-OUT FUCKIN CUNT, DO YE KNOW THAT? YERRA TOTAL FUCKIN DISGRACE TO THE IRISH AND MOST OF ALL TO YERSELF, YER BAND IS SHITE AND I HOPE YE FUCK OFF AND DIE …'

He paused, panting and out of breath, and I took over.

‘YERRAN ABSOLUTE FUCKIN TOSSER, YE DON'T HAVE A CLUE WHAT YER TALKIN ABOUT AND YER FULL OF SHIT AS WELL, ALL THIS BOLLOCKS ABOUT AFRICA AND THE THIRD WORLD 'N' ALL …'

Now I was the one who gasped for breath; Kearney shoved me aside and stuck his face into the speaker.

‘CUNT! CUNT! FUCKIN GAY FAGGOT WANK-STAIN
BAS
TARD! FUCKIN
BAS
TARD! I FUCKIN
HATE
YE, I WANT YE TO FUCKIN
DIE
, YE FUCKIN
WANK
ER!'

Finally
he had to stop and breathe. By now we had all backed off; we looked at Kearney in astonishment. Where the fuck had all that come from?

‘Jesus, Kearney,' said Rez. ‘That's goin too far, you're goin to get us arrested.'

Kearney was bent over, squealing with laughter. ‘Relax, Rez,' he panted when he was able, hands on his knees and face all red.

‘No I won't fuckin relax. Ye can't say all that stuff, that's too much. C'mon, I'm gettin away from here before the guards arrive.'

I was with Rez on that one. So was Cocker and so, finally, was Kearney, racing after us as we scampered away, through clumps of trees at the sides of the coastal roads, hurrying when we heard the sound of sirens in the distance.

       

Hours later, on the bus home, there was no more vodka and I was feeling awful. It wasn't a hangover, just a sickening sense of emptiness, like there was a cold pit inside me and I was at the bottom, looking up towards a distant skylight, shivering. I wanted to keep getting fucked but there was no way. The lads were all heading home and I had to as well.

Cocker got off the bus at his stop, muttering that he'd see me in town on Saturday. I watched him walk away as the bus growled off to take me the last few stops.

There was no one at home when I got there. I went to my room and fished out a porno magazine and had a wank; it was slow and long because I'd been drinking. The picture was of a woman on all fours, looking back over her shoulder into the camera. She had a pretty face. Before I came I felt a stab of sadness that I couldn't meet this girl, lie in bed with her and do all the things to her that I was thinking about doing while I pulled myself off; but talk to her as well, make her laugh and let her tell me kind things about myself.

When
I had finished I slid the magazine under my bed, wiped myself off with some toilet paper, and then lay down and let a fog of doze wash over me, dragging me into oily oblivion as the night fell outside and the room grew colder.

2
|
Kearney

Problems with Reality: Kearney Loves Death

Snapshot Number 1: Drink it in, Kearney!

– Big titted MILF has to whore herself to pay

– Fisted, fucked, and left for dead!

– Sexy fuck meat gets fucked so

– teen rape Asian anal frenzy

– Ebony cutie pounded in kitchen then forced to

– Filthy Euroslut Cindy gives great

– Clara fists herself in the back of a car. She spreads her pink

– horny Latina just loves the dick

–
War and Peace – in her pussy!

– First-time teen slut sucks 2 black cocks and learns to love it!

– strap-on Sally made to bleed but begs for more

– Dildo Holocaust – the ANAL solution!

– 2 Cops pound there Massive Cocks into 4 ripe sluts and DP there tight assholes bloody red n Raw!!

– is a total freak who literally orgasms, she says, when you fuck her throat until she gags. Check out this

– Balkan bitch gets boned N stretched by

– Jane Pain says fuck her mouth til you rip the skin off her face

And so on and so on.

3
|
Matthew

Dear Mr and Mrs Connelly,

We regret to inform you that Matthew has been forbidden from attending next Wednesday's graduation ceremony, due to his unacceptable behaviour and the lack of respect he has shown for the school, for his teachers and for his fellow pupils throughout the year. This will not affect your son's academic record with the school
.

My da flung the letter down on the table and turned away in disgust. I said nothing. I sat there and waited for it to be over. My head was still in bits from all the vodka and spliff the day before. My ma looked on from behind him.

‘What the hell is goin on with ye?' my da said.

We were in the kitchen. A pot was simmering and there was the smell of sizzling grease from fish fingers on the grill. I didn't answer.

‘Well,' he demanded. ‘What is it? Aren't ye happy? What a
fuckin
disgrace. We can't even see our own child graduatin. Do ye have any idea how humiliatin that is for us?'

I
kept looking at the table, saying nothing. These were rhetorical questions. I wondered whether the lads had been barred as well. Surely they had: we were all as bad as each other.

‘When that letter arrived this mornin the first thing I did was get on the phone to Mr Landerton,' my da went on. ‘From what he says, ye've been lyin through yer teeth to us for months. He says he'd be very surprised if ye so much as passed the Leavin Cert. And he said it's a shame as well, cos ye used to be one of the brightest lads in your class, until ye started gettin all moody and actin the prick. What in the name of God is wrong with ye?'

I shrugged again, but sensed that if I kept doing that he might take it as a provocation. I said, ‘I don't know. It's all … I don't know.'

‘What's that supposed to mean? “I don't know.” Can ye not even speak, is that the problem?'

My mother broke in: ‘Leave him, will ye. Jumpin down his throat like that isn't goin to help anything, is it?'

‘You hang on a minute. I was speakin to him, let me speak to him before ye go defendin him when he's not even answerin me properly!'

My mother had placed the lid of the pot at a slight tilt, so some of the heat escaped and it wouldn't boil over, and now she sat back down at the table with us. ‘We're just worried about ye, Matthew, that's all,' she said softly. ‘Ye always done well at school before. But now there's this. A whole year of it and then this. What's gone wrong with ye at all?'

I wanted to tell them that I was miserable and could they fix everything, like I was a child still. Instead I shook my head and looked intently at the surface of the table. ‘I'm alright,' I said. ‘Don't mind Landerton, I'm sure I did alright in the exams.' I started wondering if I could get away with smoking a spliff out the window of my room, or whether I'd have to ‘go for a walk' as usual, smoke it out in the cold and the rain, then skulk back in and up to my room to listen to music and fuck around with lava lamps. Or maybe they would go out tonight because it was a Friday and I'd be able to
smoke
my joints freely, rob some vodka or Bacardi from their press, and get out the porno.

‘Look at your sister,' my ma was saying. ‘Never so much as a word from her teachers, unless they're singin her praises. Why couldn't ye have been more like her?'

I considered some nasty, sarcastic reply but I didn't have it in me. I kept looking at the table and shrugged limply.

My da started up again.

‘Do ye not realize how lucky ye are? Ye don't, do ye. Look at all the opportunities that are out there, waitin for ye. This country has never had more money in it than it has now. Jesus, we used to be hardly any better off than a Third World country, and I don't even mean a long time ago. And now our economy is the envy of the bleedin world, and all you and your mates do is sit there mopin. I'll fuckin tell ye now –
I
envy
you
, and everyone else your age. Ye can sneer all ye like, but this Celtic Tiger they're talkin about, it's no joke. Ye just don't appreciate it cos ye don't remember what it was like before, when we had sweet fuck all. Back when I was eighteen, nineteen, Jaysus, I'd have given me right arm to have what all youse have. But ye don't lift a finger. Ye just can't see it, can ye.'

He looked like he was going to say more, but instead he just scowled and shook his head. I looked hard at the table.

‘It's true, Matthew,' my ma said. I saw that she was nearly in tears and there was a feeling in me like a rising heat. But I hated them both.

‘What the hell are ye goin to do with yer life?' my da said. ‘I'll tell ye one thing, if ye really did make a balls of your Leavin Cert because ye were too busy dossin and feelin sorry for yourself, ye better not expect us to support ye. The way yer goin, ye might end up on the fuckin street. Have ye thought about that? I suppose ye'd expect someone else to sort it all out for ye if ye did. Just like me fuckin brother. What'll ye do for the summer? Have ye started lookin for a job yet?'

I
scowled and said, ‘I just did me last exam yesterday, how could I have had time to find a job?'

‘Well ye better get lookin for one soon enough, cos ye needn't think ye'll be mopin around here all summer long.'

‘What'll ye do if ye don't get into college?' my ma said desperately.

‘I
will
get in,' I said, still not looking them in the eyes.

My da sighed in exasperation and clattered up from his chair. He hissed and muttered as he banged out of the room.

‘Ye've just upset him,' said my ma. I looked at the table for a moment longer. Then I opened my mouth and was about to say something. Instead, I shook my head, exhaled sharply through my nose, stood up and went to my room.

I rolled a spliff and then I went out for a walk.

4
|
Kearney

Snapshot Number 2: Typical schoolday

The alarm goes off and Kearney opens his eyes. A phrase is resounding in his mind:
Violence is my bread and butter
. Only half lucid, still embroiled in slaughter dreams, Kearney nods his head in grim acquiescence.

He eats his breakfast and leaves the house. On the bus into school, still irritable, and queasy from the food, he slaughters everyone onboard. This is routine. His expression is cold as deep space as gunfire tears through the upper deck, blasting out windows, ripping children in half amidst howls of terror. As the day's first visions of carnage stoke his mind into a semblance of alertness, Kearney exhales in relief. He needs this shit to make his bus journey interesting, to make it bearable.

At school he sits in class, more or less quietly, more or less obediently. Mr Landerton, then Maloney, then whoever, drones on about whatever the fuck it is – history, English, economics, Irish,
biology
– it all passes Kearney by while he stares at the back of the boy in front of him, or at the blackboard, lost to reveries of carnage and fucking. None of this shit is real for him; it is an alien world impinging on his reality, which is infinitely sexier. He perceives the
offcial
world through a kind of fog, dimly, and it nauseates him. He understands little of it and cares for less.

Just before the first break it starts to get too much. Kearney bites his lip and stabs his compass into the desk. He wants to fuck something, fuck anything. The equations on the blackboard mean so little to Kearney that he is overcome by a wild inner hilarity – what a wretched cosmos, what a hateful existence! He giggles until first the boys around him, then the entire class, are staring in astonishment. It is time, he thinks. Slowing his breathing, he closes his eyes for a moment; then he reaches down into his schoolbag for the two heavy, fully loaded handguns. Matthew, sitting innocently at his left-hand side, is the first to go. His brains, gore and bone shards spew a horizontal fount across the room. Then Kearney is on his feet, pumping round after round into the soft teenage flesh of his classmates: Kearney, the void at the centre of chaos.

And so on and so on.

5
|
Matthew

On Saturday morning I went into town to meet Cocker and Jen. We met at the Central Bank, on the steps. The Goths were there as usual, a big gang of them, and the rockers in Slipknot hoodies and dyed hair. They were all the same. Some of the girls were nice, though. Most of the Goths had posh accents but they usually drank a lot. They smoked spliff as well, and probably even did other stuff, the kind of drugs that me and my friends didn't know where to find. I knew a few of the Goths and rockers from school. I said hello when I saw Aido, who had this scraggly yellow hair in curls. He was into Death Metal. I didn't like Death Metal at all. It made me want to die – too cold and hard.

Jen came last, getting off the bus from Blackrock. She smiled when she saw me and Cocker, stopping twenty yards away to wave at us with exaggerated emotion, like we were long-lost siblings reunited. I nodded at her, but sullenly. Cocker's greeting was brighter. Jen had been with Cocker before. They had kissed one night when we were drinking cans down the banks of the skinny
Dodder
that flows through Tallaght like a fugitive sewer. She had been with Kearney as well, and Mick Mooney, and most of the lads I knew – everyone except me, basically. She had even been with the Cabbage. Mick Mooney said he'd shagged her and she had never confirmed or denied it; all the others said they'd fingered her, and Kearney said she'd given him a blowjob, though she did deny that. She said she'd only ever kissed Kearney, once while she was drunk. That was a good while ago; they didn't seem to talk that much, Jen and Kearney.