The Runners (2 page)

They always stood in the same spot in Dalymount Park. And they always got in the same way. Anto wasn’t scabby, he just refused to pay into Dalymount. He saw it as his mission to bonk in, with Bobby and Jay always in tow. There were always a few hundred people who tried to bonk in. Anto was the master bonker inner. He could get them over the wall in seconds. The plan, if a security guard saw them, was to scarper in separate directions and meet at their spot behind the goal.

When they arrived at Dalymount, there were thousands of people all trying to get in through three small turnstiles. There were also thousands of people trying to get down the bonker inner lane.

‘There’s no way we’ll get in there, there’s too many people,’ said Anto.

Anto spotted a few people climbing over a gate that led into a truck yard behind the stand.

‘Why don’t we follow them over the gate?’ said Jay seriously.

‘It’s too dangerous,’ said Anto.

‘We could climb over that easily,’ said Bobby.

‘Are you sure?’ said Anto, staring at them to see if there was any fear in their eyes.

‘You’ll be the one struggling to get over it,’ laughed Jay.

Climbing gates was easy for them. If your foot was small enough you could wedge it between the side of the gate and the wall. Bobby took a size three. Jay took a four. Anto’s foot was much bigger, but he was able to use his strength to get up the gate quicker than any of the others. Bobby loved the excitement of bonking in; it was the same adrenalin rush that boxing and running gave him. When Bobby got to the top of the wall, he couldn’t believe how many people were in the ground. The terrace was jam-packed. He held on to the top of the wall with his hands and let go. He hit the ground with a thump.

‘We’ll make it down to the front lads, follow me. It’s too dangerous to try and get our normal spot.’

Anto led the way, followed by Jay and Bobby. There was an Ireland flag on a big pole directly in front of them. About halfway down, there was a sudden surge from behind. Bobby felt himself being lifted off the ground. He looked down at his feet dangling and when he looked up, he had lost Anto and Jay. He had no control over where he was moving. He started shouting as loud as he could for Anto and Jay. Bobby couldn’t see anything. All he could see was the parka jacket of the person in front of him. His face was right up against it. There was no room for him to move. He had to turn his head sideways as it was getting more and more difficult to catch a breath. He thought about trying to get down onto the ground, but then it occurred to him that he might get trampled on. He tried to scream Anto’s name as loud as he could, but he felt like he was wasting valuable energy. He thought he was going to die. It started to hurt his chest to try and take a breath. Then he spotted one of the crush barriers that people leaned against.

‘If I can get to that…’ thought Bobby.

He wriggled and wriggled until he felt his feet touch the ground. He reached out and grabbed at the bottom of the metal barrier. He forced himself through a sea of legs to a tiny spot directly
underneath, where nobody could stand. He waited until he got his breath back and then screamed Anto’s name as loud as he could over and over again. He knew there was no way Anto was going to hear his name through the sea of bodies. He could feel the tears welling up in his eyes. The legs around him seemed to be getting closer and closer. He was beginning to feel uncomfortable and he needed to pee. Then the urge took over and he peed in his pants. He couldn’t stop it.

He closed his eyes and thought about Jay. Where was Jay? What if he hadn’t made it to safety? He had just resigned himself to being in that tiny spot sitting in his own pee for the next two hours when he heard his name. It got louder and louder over the hum of the crowd. He looked around at all the shoes. Then he spotted a new pair of Nike runners moving against the tide of old shoes. Anto always had new Nike runners and kept them spotless. Bobby screamed his name. He could see the runners getting closer. Anto was weaving around bodies quicker than Bobby dribbled around cones at training. Bobby reached out and grabbed Anto’s ankle. Anto reached down and grabbed Bobby’s hand. Bobby felt like Anto was going to break it he was gripping it so tight.

‘Are you OK?’

‘Yeah,’ Bobby said, holding the tears in.

He had felt closer to death in the crush than he
ever had before. There was a panic and a sick feeling inside him. There was no eerie calm.

‘Where is Jay?’

Anto lifted Bobby up by the armpits.

‘Can you see him? He should be straight ahead.’

Bobby spotted Jay, clinging to the railings behind the goal. He was holding on with one arm, while looking back up the terrace.

‘Jay! Jay!’ he shouted, waving both hands in the air.

Jay saw him and waved back. He was shouting, but Bobby couldn’t hear what he was saying. Anto had to force his way down the terrace. Bobby knew that when he had kids, he would be taking them to Dalymount and to Tolka Park to see Ireland play, crush or no crush. His dad preferred the pub to football matches, even though he loved football. Bobby would never choose the pub over a football match.

‘Make sure you don’t let go,’ Anto ordered.

Bobby held on tighter than he had ever held on to anyone’s hand in his life. Anto said ‘excuse me’ hundreds of times as he pushed by the people on the terrace. Bobby knew he would be safe. Anto lifted Jay down and moved them to the corner of the pitch.

‘What happened your trousers?’

‘Someone spilt a can on me in the crush,’ Bobby lied

Anto was charming enough to the man on the gate for him to let them get onto the side of the pitch. It was much safer there. Eventually the man had to let hundreds of other people onto the pitch to avoid the crush. Bobby and Jay were delighted. They were standing on the sideline, within touching distance of the players. Just before Paolo Rossi scored the first goal, the ball came out of play and Anto picked it up. Rossi ran over to take the throwin. Anto handed Bobby the ball.

‘You give it to him.’

Bobby threw Rossi the ball. He caught it and said something in Italian to Bobby, but Bobby couldn’t understand.

‘No problemo,’ Bobby said back to him.

Rossi was the top scorer in the 1982 World Cup. Bobby couldn’t believe he had just thrown him a football. He was much smaller in real life than he looked on television. From Uruguay in 1930, to Italy in 1982, Bobby knew all the winners and the score in each World Cup final. His favourite was the 1978 final in Argentina. Mario Kempes, with his long flowing locks, scored in the final when the pitch was covered in confetti. There was more white confetti than green grass to be seen. The Argentinians won the World Cup for the first time and Holland had lost the final for a second time in a row. That final was in Buenos Aires. The attendance was eighty thousand. The Argentinians went mad.

So did the crowd that night when Gary Waddock scored for Ireland. He got the ball at the far end of the pitch from Bobby. Just on the edge of the box. Took it down with his thigh and buried it in the bottom left-hand corner. The net rustled and the crowd went mad, shouting ‘Gary, Gary, Gary’ and ‘Come on you boys in green’. The atmosphere was electric. Bobby knew the hairs on the back of your neck were supposed to stand up. He wasn’t old enough to have hairs on his neck, and if they ever grew he would shave them off. He hated standing beside an old man at a match if he had a hairy neck; a hairy neck usually meant a blackhead-infested neck.

Bobby was good at estimating crowds; every match had an announcement of the official attendance. The unofficial attendance would include the bonker-inners. He reckoned there were at least forty thousand people watching the world champions beat Ireland 2–1 that night.

‘And the official attendance for tonight’s game is twenty-five thousand.’

The announcement made the whole crowd laugh, because they all knew they couldn’t announce that there were fifteen thousand people clever enough to bonk in. It was the biggest crush Bobby had ever experienced, much worse than Croke Park on All-Ireland final day.

It was an amazing Wednesday night in Dublin,
even with the fear that he was going to be crushed. Walking back from Dalyer that night, Bobby wanted to call in to the Sunset House to tell his dad about the game.

‘Don’t say anything about the crush, he might not let you go to another match,’ said Anto.

Bobby ran in on his own, excited out of his mind about the match. The crush wasn’t important; being there was.

‘What was the result, son?’

Bobby noticed the Guinness moustache his dad had.

‘Italy won 2–1.’

‘Ah,’ he said after a big slug of Guinness, ‘that’s a pity.’

‘It was brilliant though. Anto got us onto the side of the pitch. I gave the ball to Paolo Rossi.’

‘That’s great. Now run on home. It’s too late for you to be in the pub.’

Bobby walked outside and could see Anto and Jay chatting in the distance. He sprinted as fast as he could to catch up. Anto walked Bobby home to his house.

‘I heard on the radio there was a crush in the stadium where the Ireland match was being played,’ said a worried Laura when she met them at the front door.

‘Not in the part of the ground where we were, Mrs Ryan.’

Anto always had a quick answer to allay her fears. Bobby looked up at Anto, who gave him the smile. The smile that said it all.

Bobby wasn’t allowed to drink anything after six o’clock, but he still drank the can of Coke Anto had bought him on the way home from the match. If he was late for his dinner, he would have to have it with no liquid. He hated the rule, but if it stopped him wetting the bed, he would give it a try. He had tried everything else. His mother would wake him before she went to bed, to pee in a potty. His bladder produced world-record amounts of pee.

Kevin said he was afraid of heights. It wasn’t a very long way down but Kevin constantly reminded Bobby that he was doing him a favour by sleeping on the top bunk.

‘Do you want to sleep down here?’

‘On your pissy bed? No thanks.’

‘I gave the ball to Paolo Rossi.’

‘Who the hell is he?’

‘The best footballer in the world.’

Bobby put both his feet on the laths that held Kevin up and pushed as hard as he could.

‘Piss off or I’ll kill you.’

It would drive Kevin insane. He was much stronger than Bobby and could kill him. If he put him in a head lock, Bobby couldn’t do anything about it. He had kicked Bobby twice in the head the previous Christmas and put him in hospital. Bobby couldn’t even remember that he supported Liverpool. That’s when his dad knew there was something seriously wrong with him. He had lost his memory. The doctors called it amnesia. Bobby couldn’t hold a grudge, because he couldn’t remember what had happened. He liked pushing his brother to the point where he would flip. Or the point just before that when he would be raging and on the verge of flipping. Anything could do it. He would say ‘Dire Straits are shit’ or ‘Jimi Hendrix is crap at guitar’ and it would drive him over the edge, to the point of no return.

Their room wasn’t big enough to have both beds on the floor. There was a wardrobe in the corner beside the window and a dart board on the back of the door. Jay loved playing darts. He had his own board and was much better at darts than Bobby. Jay had never been in Bobby’s bedroom. The reason Bobby gave was that his ma said nobody was allowed in the house. Bobby would imitate her saying, ‘Play on the road, you’re not allowed in the house.’ Bobby knew Jay would smell pee in the room. He knew that’s why his brother hated him too.

Both beds had orange mattresses. Bobby really wanted to have a non-pissy mattress. His was wrecked because of his world-record bladder. His mam told him there was no way of stopping it. And there was no point in buying a new mattress every few months. Doctors didn’t know why people did it. They could give someone a heart transplant, but they couldn’t fix Bobby’s bladder. He knew there must be a reason why it happened.

If he was lucky there was one day each month when he didn’t wet the bed. His mattress was now so badly damaged that his sheet had a black bin liner underneath to protect it. It worked. But when he did let loose during the night, a puddle would form in the middle of the bin liner. It was routine for Bobby by now.

He would try to sleep against the wall, because the sides of the mattress were the only parts that kept dry. It wasn’t always easy to get back to sleep when you were hugging a cold wall. At times anything
would have been better than lying in a bed of piss. His skin would be sticky and smelly. He wouldn’t be able to sleep. He sometimes thought death would be better than waking up every morning covered in pee. He didn’t think there were any piss-in-the-beds in heaven.

Bobby would be the first up every morning. He would go downstairs to the bathroom and run the water for a shallow bath. There was no hot water in the mornings, so it was a cold, shallow puddle he had to sit in. He scrubbed every inch of his body over and over in cold, soapy water with a scourer. He didn’t care if it left red marks all over his skin, he was paranoid about smelling of pee.

There was no rule about drinking during the day.

‘Let’s see who can drink a litre the fastest,’ said Jay.

They both ripped the top corner of the carton open.

‘On your marks, get set, go!’ said Bobby.

They gulped and gulped and gulped. Orange juice spilled down the sides of both their faces onto their T-shirts. Jay finished first. He was the champion gulper. Bobby never had the opportunity to drink as much orange juice as he wanted before. Normally it was one small glass for breakfast when he was lucky.

‘Two down, twenty-two to go.’

It was their first time breaking into Goodall’s Foods. Goodall’s had premises beside the paper factory, which was on the banks of the Tolka River. A big, green, metal gate stopped people entering, but the gate had a thick plastic flap at the bottom.