New days. Sometime. I’m. Forgotten what’s the past. And the doorbell rings and I answer the phone and the world’s filled with people always doing something wrong like saying where you’ll bury him, you know when he’s gone? What? Well will it be a car trip or up the road? I know he hasn’t long and I need to book the time off work. I. Don’t know. But I laugh like I’m shot. Bang. Spray me about. I like that. For fun if you can or not for fun.
Next days. Fuck the future up. The undertaker’s come for a good cat chat. Fat. I’ll make the tea for him. I’ll say I’ll close the door, so you won’t hear. Him our mother gentle bawling aunt gumped in a heap. Uncle arms on my back saying I’ll pay. Do anything. Do anything you want at all. I want? I. Shut up. He says you know what I mean. Something simple. My boy. Mammy. Have I slept at all? I remember once. What. What? Wood. Brown. With a crucifix. With a plain white lining. With a plaque with the date and his name on top. My boy. Mammy stop. Leave your mother alone. It’s hard. Shut up. Will you be wanting music? I asked the church choir if they. Did you? I did, she says. When was that? Don’t grill me. Your mother’s tir. Alright shut up. Play what you play. Nearer my God to thee. Be not afraid. Flowers lilies roses white for him always him my. Brother. My son. And the funeral parlour? We’ll be keeping him at home. Yes. On the evening of the second day you can come. We’ll lay him out in bed til then. My brother. My Son. And people can pay their respects. I’ll make tea and scones aunt. Thanks for that. Not the time. I. Bite my. So we’ll process him from the house here. He’ll be carried on the shoulders of the men. I want, I say. Of. The. Men. Amen. To the end of the road and then driven in the hearse, who’s talking? I think our uncle might but I’m. To the church. Yes, very good I’ll see to that. And up out of me is all I suddenly want to know. Is he be buried here Mammy? Where? I’m taking my son home. Home? He’ll be buried with his grandfather. No. Yes. He’s my son. But I. Too bad for you. When he’s gone sure you’ll be gone. Back up the city doing your own thing, God knows, so I’ll bury my child where it’s good for me. I’ll join him one day. I. But I. See your mother’s point of. Fuck off you, uncle. He doesn’t belong to her, he doesn’t. All that you care Madam. Not that. I’ll want to. Don’t you bother telling me about you Miss.
I feel the lights but I’m going lie down by your bed. I won’t be stuck up. Anything I. Want to hold your hand and let them what they do I. Understand the end’s the end. I can. Have you now. There is so little time.
Hey, do you know me? I pinch I pinch. I say. Do you know me? Wake up. Please. Please. Do you know me? I know you. Good. You know all those things I did? No. Your eyes rolling. You do, I’m sorry for it. They were the wrong thing sorry I sorry I did that to you. That’s alright you say in your going to. Wait. Don’t go to not just yet. What’s the. Falling your eyes falling in. I love you. Do you know I love you? I saying I. Yes. Do you love me? Hold on wake back. Come back one minute. Do you love me? I. Do you love? I do. There now. They open the door. They stick their undertaker heads in. He say I like to see them while they’re. Shut up. He’s a fine looking fella God love him he’s a fine looking man.
Did he eat today he didn’t. Will he. Please get something in you know. She sits by your bed saying you, say you’re sorry for all the things you done. Aren’t you? When you were. My little boy. When you were bold to me. To me. Leave him. Mammy, does it matter? He must die without sin. I. He couldn’t sin if he wanted. What does it matter anyway? Wake up son. Mammy. Leave him. He’s going to die. My son. I won’t let him in a state of sin.
I walk a long way off. Get out of here. From you. Feel I could clean my head with a. View of mountains. With a view. Where God is looking in he isn’t if he was. He wouldn’t do. He wouldn’t do. Where’s the air out here?
Shush. Aunt saying. The priest is in. Why? To give your brother the sacrament of the sick. She lay the white cloth down. She put candlesticks and candles in. Twig of palm in holy water. Napkin stuck there under your chin. Wake up there son. Wake him. Put his chasuble on. Kiss this bit. Kiss the end. He wash his fingers. Do you renounce Satan and all his ways? Oil on his thumbs. Draw the cross on you. Your eyes and ears. Your lids clappered shut. Don’t wake I pray into my fingertips. Oil on your nose and lips. Sign of the cross and. Spread his hands there. That’s the way and draw the cross again. Again. On your palms where you have sinned. And feet. There. All the oil stops the devil getting in. Out. Places where the sins come in. He says this is to comfort you in your mortal pain. To fortify your soul I. Remitting all your venial sins. Cleanse your, what’s it here, your soul. And restore your health if God sees fit. I pray I pray I pray I pray. For. Him to go. For you. You will not know what this priest’s done. What cross mean. What oil. What stink where you have been sanctified.
You’re doing, ah you’re all doing great he says. Come in Father for a cuppa. For a bun a slice of fruitcake. They. Well alright so. I’ll sit with you instead. And when the kettle’s boiled I toilet roll your face. Pressured blood pressure going. Yours then mine. I clean the oil from your skin sore red and tired. For what need? You’re more perfect than you were before. I’ll wash your face of sacrament. Let sin to sinner return. Like me — for I know it very well.
Pedalling days are pedalling. Jesus coming in. Off from heaven off the gutter off the street for. I know. Jesus is coming. Jesus be here soon. I’ll rip his arms. I. Won’t have God’s son here I. Won’t. Jesus will lose you. This time I say I’ll win. I. Will. Make you safe this time.
At night I dream. Always. God is. Give me unquiet dreams. When the world. That. I dream. I see the plains of the sea, turning over. Tar. Black as. Black as. Through the. My nose press. Open. Close. Like a seal on the ice. Against the smell of rot. Come from black come from. Where the. Where the world is. Turn like that. On the face of it. Diving. Feel I that. Where we ought to. I am of the. Off the. Who are you wake. Up. And the window is filled with light. Off the street. And the it rises. Sun. Come up. I see through the water. I am right back where I. All that. Where all that. Me. Running. Went from the start of time to here in the next room or downstairs. And radios and dog bark and cat meow. I’m the. Start now. The beginning. Of. You. End. The end. Begun. Where the lights are. Turn on. Panic. Who do you look like who you are. And I. Running. Think I pull my cool jeans on. Full of. Skin. Something. Bits of me. Fell off that. For he comes the comes the human child to the waters and the wild. Me hand in hand. The world’s more full of all those things than we can understand I’m singing. Running. Sing out loud. Oh God the look the state of that see him now. Come Jesus. See he’s falling fall fast asleep like an old man tired man sick and. My brother for me. Sick and. Save the. Fine above the rushes. In the hills above Glen stop. Don’t. Stop it now. Wake up. I wake. My eyes shut. Run. From a world more full of weeping than you can understand.
But I know now this morning. I know it will be today. And I am white as any creature ripped down to the self. In my quiet in my bedroom in my on my own. Where there’s a mirror that is empty. Where there’s a worn out pair of pants. Where my shoes lie turned over. Where hairs are knot and fall behind the radiator. Where the smell of empty spreads out across the air. The thing the thing is. Kingdom come.