I’ll hide in under the blanket. I won’t move and if the Children Snatcher Monster comes into my room he’ll think there’s no one inside in the bed. I’m not going calling Mammy or Daddy. I’ll roar and scream at the Children Snatcher Monster if he comes near me the way Daddy roars at the pricks and bollockses and stupid fuckers in the other cars and the way Mammy roars and shouts at Daddy over all the things Daddy done wrong to leave us without a bob to our name only what she gets from the poxy few hours that fat bitch allows her on the roster inside in Tescos. That roster does make Mammy awful cross. I wonder what sort of a yoke it is at all. Is a roster as bad as a dirty owl tramp? Mammy said one time that that’s all Daddy’s mammy is. Daddy’s mammy is my other nana. I never seen her. I’ll use the awful word Daddy said to Mammy, so I will, if that Children Snatcher Monster comes near me. I’ll say my prayer over and over again. Saying your prayers is the same as talking to Holy God so it is. Oh Angel of God my guardian dear to whom God’s love commits me here ever this night be at my side to light and guard to rule and guide. Amen.
Denis
YOU’D OFTEN SEE lads in films that are thrown in jail and afraid of their lives or being held prisoner and after getting the shite bate out of them, lying curled up with their knees up near their chins. The foetal position it’s called, because that’s the way a child lies in the womb. Small children do often lie that way in their cots to give themselves comfort. They’re reminded of the warmth and safety of the time before life. Them lads that are thrown in jail in the films are looking for that comfort back. There’s something in it; I know that. I’ve been lying that way for days now. Kate thinks I’m sick. She was in a right flap the first day because she never seen me sick before. I was never sick a day in my life. Now she’s only barely tolerating me. She isn’t far off of telling me cop the Jaysus on and go out and get things sorted out in the name of God before the sheriff comes and empties out the house. The crèche is closed since the child went missing. I haven’t a snowball’s chance in hell of a job. I’m owed a small fortune. The sky is falling down. I drove around the country for weeks looking for Pokey Burke and Conleth Barry and four or five more bollockses that owe me money. I’m owed near a hundred grand. I had the taxman roaring in one ear and the lads roaring in the other ear, and plant strewn all over the country. I done four or five jobs there I was never paid a cent for. I done them on the strength of jobs done before where I was paid as I went along and there wasn’t enough hours in the day to get the work done. It’s always the subbies gets shafted for a finish. I have thousands of miles done looking for lads. I didn’t even know as I was driving around like a blue-arsed fly what I’d say if I found any of them. We done the second fixing for a hotel for a fella from Limerick — kitchens, stairs, bedrooms, ballroom, boardrooms, the whole shebang. Then it all went wallop and he done away with himself. What was I meant to say to his widow? Go handy there on the big spread for the funeral, hey, I has to get paid yet?
Things was building up a long time inside in me. I nearly drove over a gimpy lad up above in Lackagh that wouldn’t leave me in to a site to take plant back. There was no bollocks else up there; I could easily have drove out over him. I thought about it and all, gave it proper consideration. He’ll never know how close he came to being shipped back out foreign, flat-packed. I nearly went in through a plate-glass door of an office of a fat arsehole in Galway that wouldn’t come out and talk to me. I would’ve been happy with a promise, with a sorry, with a pay-you-next-Tuesday. I knew he was in there and he wouldn’t come out. I was standing outside his door, roaring in, and the little blondie wan behind a desk inside wouldn’t press the button to leave me in, she only sat there looking out at me with her mouth open. I had to take a hold of myself and close my eyes and make myself breathe slowly and deeply. I saw silvery stars, floating and popping in front of my eyes. I went back and sat in the van a while and smoked a fag and listened to my heart pounding in my ears. Palpitations, that’s called, when you can feel your heart beat. Then I pulled the wipers off of his Mercedes and fucked off. Imagine that. I pulled the wipers off of his car, like a bold schoolboy.
I couldn’t think as I drove the roads. I couldn’t listen to the radio. Whingers on Joe Duffy moaning and groaning about their shitty little problems, little jumped-up know-it-alls rattling on and on and on about whose fault it all is. Fellas that never done a day’s work in their lives, besides spouting shite about how everyone is wrong except them. They’d make you puke. How’s it they all have squeaky voices? They have the whole country afraid of their own shadows. I killed a man. There’s nothing as bad as a wanker who thinks his shit doesn’t stink, with a poncey accent, talking about how things was done all wrong. FUCK OFF, FUCK OFF, FUCK OFF, I shouted at the radio as I drove. Shouting at the radio. Isn’t that some waste of energy? I killed an old man. Kate wanted to know every evening how much did I get, did I send the invoices by registered post, did I call to the bank to know would they extend the overdraft, did I get back the plant? I sat there a few evenings picturing myself punching her into her mouth. I sat thinking about hitting my wife, and that was the only way I could stop myself from hitting her. She didn’t know. She doesn’t know me. Then I killed a man.
I knew Pokey Burke’s foreman was still knocking about the sites. I knew he had stuff took out of some of the houses, and not just the ones Pokey done himself — he had stuff swiped out of our ones too. The subbie always gets shafted. I heard he was still over abroad in Coolcappa now and again and he and a foreign lad and a couple more was doing patch-up work on a few of the houses in that disaster area out along the Ashdown Road. I drove over in Kate’s car one morning and I seen him coming out of a house up above near the top of the estate. Your wan whose house it was walked out along with him. She had a child in her arms. I drove off again, feeling like I shouldn’t have been watching him, like he was a fella like me and I shouldn’t be blaming him for the sins of another. Then I started thinking more about him and the thoughts kind of heated up and burnt the inside of my brain. He was always stuck to Pokey like shit to a blanket. Pokey always got his approval for the smallest plan — when to pour concrete into formwork, when to start foundations, when to eat his sandwich. Pokey hadn’t a hand of his own.