We didn’t stop running till we were back near the river, down Marlborough Street where it was quiet. Kearney wasn’t with us. ‘He’s probably gettin his head smashed into the path as we speak,’ said Cocker.
‘Good,’ Rez muttered. ‘I hope he is, he’d fuckin deserve it. I can’t believe this. What an arsehole.’ I had rarely seen Rez so angry. Fighting had never been our thing, despite the punk-rock attitude and the cynical agenda. In fact, we were against it.
‘Jesus,’ said Cocker, looking at me. ‘Yer hands are shakin. Here, have a smoke.’ I took the cigarette, sat down on the kerb and lit up.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Rez said every few moments, pacing up and down.
‘Do ye think I should ring him?’ said Cocker.
‘What’s the point, fuck him,’ Rez replied.
A minute later, my phone beeped. I read the message: ‘gone to dwaynes gaff. see yiz l8r. dat was MENtal!’
I showed the others. ‘He’s an arsehole,’ said Rez. ‘He thinks we all find it hilarious.’
‘His brother will appreciate the story,’ said Cocker. ‘I’d say that’s why he’s goin there.’
‘Not to mention to keep gettin off his face,’ I said. Kearney’s brother, Dwayne, lived in a flat near the Black Church, not far into the northside. He’d been living there with his girlfriend until recently, but she had left him. Now he just got wrecked all the time, so said Kearney. The brother was a weirdo; Rez reckoned he was autistic. I’d met him a couple of times and you got the sense that he wasn’t really there with you, even when you were talking with him. He laughed too harshly at things that weren’t funny, and just stared into space when you made a real joke. Dwayne was about to head over to the States to work for the summer and Kearney hoped to follow as soon as he could.
‘Jesus, that’s after bringin me down,’ said Rez. ‘I’d never felt so good in me life, then he had to go and do that. Jesus. We should go somewhere we can sit down and drink the cans, and take the last pills as well.’
We decided to take them in a church, for a laugh. We went in just as Mass was starting and knelt down the back, behind the scattered oul ones and oul fellas, off our faces. All the oul ones looked like Yoda. The priest was old, but probably only half the age of most of his audience. We passed the cans between us and said ‘Body of Christ’ when putting the pills on our tongues. Then some oul one shrieked at us for drinking in the house of God and we fled.
It was turning into a sunny morning. We walked back down over O’Connell Bridge and into the grounds of Trinity College, where we found a quiet, grassy corner to finish our cans. Rez started rolling a spliff and we had a laugh about the scene in the church.
‘That oul one probably thinks we’re Satanists,’ said Cocker.
‘Beelzebub,’ I said.
‘As if we gave a bollocks about any of it, one way or the other,’ said Rez with a chuckle.
‘The Catholic Church,’ said Cocker, sneering. ‘Who’d bother to give a fuck about them any more? Bunch of paedos — all they want to do is ride the arses off little boys all day.’
My mind was fucked from the drugs and again I had the vision of thousands of little abortions, holding their hands to make a foetus chain and singing in harmony, flowing down the sewers and out to sea. It was deadly.
Rez said, ‘Lads, what is the fuckin story with Kearney? Seriously. He’s turnin into a scumbag. Remember when he used to always be dead quiet and shy? You’d have sworn he was an altar boy or something. Since when has he turned into a fuckin psychopath?’
‘Maybe it’s to do with his da,’ I said.
‘What do ye mean?’
‘Just, ye know, the way he headed off to Thailand and married some young one basically the same age as Kearney.’
Rez looked unconvinced. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘I really doubt Kearney even cares about that. I’d say he’s glad. That was just the card he played in school whenever they were about to kick him out. Lashin on the waterworks and then laughin as soon as they’d turned their backs.’ He frowned, thinking for a moment. Then he laughed and said, ‘That boy needs therapy.’
I said, ‘Well I suppose we’ll be seein him on Wednesday for the graduation. Or outside the graduation, more like it. There’ll be no keepin him away. But ah, that’s alright though. That’s the kind of night ye actually want Kearney around on.’
They nodded. ‘Yeah, he’s a good soldier, no one can deny that about him,’ said Cocker. ‘Anyway, that junkie was a total knacker. Maybe next time he won’t go screechin abuse at people in the street. So what are we goin to do at the ceremony? I can’t wait. The fuckers will rue the day. It’s goin to be like Baghdad.’
‘A final fuck you,’ said Rez, grinning.
‘Our 9/11,’ I added. That was a phrase we threw in anywhere we could. Cocker passed me a can and I gulped on it. ‘What a night this has been,’ I said. ‘Welcome to the summer, lads.’
The sun cheerfully mounted the morning sky and we lay about, off our heads and laughing in the sunshine like it was all a big fucking Coke ad.
8 | Kearney
Snapshot Number 4: Kearney B Real!
Kearney finished off the whore in the pink miniskirt with a crack of a baseball bat to the skull, then shot her in the face for good measure. The name of this bloodied mess was Jen. Now an innocent bystander came strolling around the corner — it was Matthew! Seeing what was happening, Matthew let out a terrified yelp, turned on his heel and ran. Kearney walked after him, switching to the shotgun as he reached the street corner. He hoisted the gun to waist height and fired. A circular flash of blood coloured the murky middle distance. Still Matthew staggered on. His moan withered to a protracted, tearful gasping. Then Kearney switched to the assault rifle and wasted the cunt with a languid spray of gunfire.
That cleared the area of any other innocent bystanders. No one is innocent, thought Kearney, breaking into an easy jog to get himself out of these back alleys and shady laneways. He hijacked a Mercedes and shot the driver in the jaw. Then he cruised towards the city’s main shopping district. He was supposed to be picking up a backstreet abortionist from a house in West Town and taking him to Eddie Fly’s in Kingsland. Or was it that he was supposed to ferry a trunkful of coke to Sly Diamond the Mexican and then kill the greaser punk when he paid for the shit? He couldn’t remember, cos he didn’t give a fuck. Following the missions was good once in a while, a diversion. But most of the time Kearney preferred to just cruise and kill.
He broke the red lights as he arrived at the glitzy city-centre plaza, then pulled a handbraker and flattened an old man as he screeched to a halt. Onlookers screamed as Kearney emerged from the car, slow and deliberate, a man of steel. He hammered the combination to activate the Maximum Weapons Cheat — he had resisted it thus far, knowing that total overkill all the time could become monotonous. But now the moment was right: it was time to climax.
‘Are yis ready, humans?’ he bellowed across the plaza. ‘Are yis ready for me, human race?’
He pulled out his rocket launcher and fired randomly. ‘ALLAHU AKBAR!’ he roared as the missile swooshed across the dark expanse of the plaza, tracing a horizontal plume of smoke. It slammed into the side of a building and Kearney, exultant yet sober, relishing every moment with cold intensity, saw his own face lit up in the orange flare of the explosion.
Cars were skidding on to the scene, unsure of which way to flee. Kearney launched a rocket into the side of a dark-green Mazda. It burst on impact, a thump of flame igniting the car behind, which also exploded a moment later. The cops were swarming in by now. Kearney took cover behind a burnt-out car and switched to sniper rifle. He picked off a few pigs as they ran for position, savouring the founts of blood that spouted from their neck wounds. He pinned a copper in the shoulder and he spun in the crosshair once, twice, slowing with each turn — lo and behold, it was Kearney’s da! ‘Ye fuckin paedo ye!’ Kearney roared. Then he pulled the trigger and the pig’s face vanished in a halo of dark gore.