an den de penny drops n i look down at me t shirt n i remember dat its de one, u know d black one i had made back in dublin with JIHAD!!! printed across de frunt. id fuckin forgotten i was fuckin wearin it an be now everyones shoutin at me n slappin me hed and im panickin goin wheres dwayne but hes over by de bar laffin his hed off n the bouncer comes flyin over n goes “de fuck outta here!!!” he goes “n dont come back or i break yr neck asshole!!” he goes
so dat was dat dey fucked me out and i put on my hoodie wit like quiet dignity den dwayne comes out and we went off into de nite to get fucked off our merry little heds. fuckin deadly
i taught id tell u that little story for a laff hhahaha fuck dem infidels. bush. fuck dat de only bush i care about is yer fuckin mas bush!!! hoho!!! did u get me postcards oh niggz. i hope so n gess wat. dis fella Stu is comin up next week from LA or sumwer n dwayne goes “now weell get sum real drugs” n apparantly he has sumething else but he wont say wat it is … not drugs but sumeting real interestin. dwayne says stu is a total mental cunt so lets wate n see.
been on dis fuckin computer 4 ages. its only cos i love ye n i want to ride de hole off ye ye fuckin ride ye
B COOL BiTCH
ALLAH FORGIVE U!
THE K
SHAME ON DA NIGGA!!!!! I FUCK YO ASS UP!!!!
PS wats dis??
anser: a 1-eyed chink blowin u a kiss hahaha
perhaps u put yr DICK tru his eye???
haha lightin up im only jokin
off me fuckin chops i am
jesis kirrst
24 | Matthew
I deleted Kearney’s email and didn’t bother replying. Then I turned off the computer and took a bus into town to meet Jen for her birthday.
It was the fifth of July, a Saturday, and another warm, beautiful evening. We walked around randomly, chatting and happy. I’d bought her a book about some girl who had travelled around Asia looking for magic beads or enlightenment.
When we were in George’s Street Arcade looking at old vinyl records, my phone beeped with a text. It was from Rez.
‘jesus matthew i did something v stupid last night it could have been disastrous. im all fcked up i think i need help dont say it to anyone … jesus.’
‘What the fuck?’ I said, staring at the screen.
Jen frowned. ‘What’s wrong?’ I showed it to her. ‘Oh my God. What’s he done? Is he okay? Call him, Matthew.’
I called but it rang out. I tried again with the same result. ‘He’s not answerin.’
‘This is really bad,’ she said. My phone beeped again.
‘haha just kidding, nothing wrong. was only having a laugh. will call u later about tonight R.’
I locked the phone and put it in my pocket. ‘He says he was only kidding. What a sap: he had me thinking he had gone and tried to do a Stephen Horrigan or something.’
Jen said nothing, eyes narrowed, reflecting. ‘I’m worried, Matthew. There’s something wrong. We should do something.’
But there was nothing to do. Rez would be seeing us that night anyway, we reasoned, so we could put it out of our minds and enjoy ourselves. We went for pizza in a fancy place behind George’s Street. The waiter put a candle on our table.
‘I’m excited,’ said Jen, wiping her lip with a napkin. ‘I can feel it, it’s going to be a great night.’
I smiled and leaned across the table to kiss her. All of this — having a girlfriend, eating pizza in town, planning to meet your friends later for a night out — it all seemed right — kind of normal, but not in a bad way.
‘Happy birthday,’ I said.
I paid for the pizza. That meant I was fairly broke, but Jen’s da had given her a wad of notes ‘to have fun with’. After we’d eaten we walked through the grounds of Trinity for a while, watching the people out and about on a fine sunny evening, drinking coffee or orange juice, everyone relaxed and cheery. Then we went to an arcade near the Screen cinema and had a two-player game of Time Crisis II.
‘You look deadly holding that gun,’ said Jen after we’d completed the second level.
‘So do you.’
She laughed and pointed the gun at my head and fired.
At half seven we walked to the Foggy Dew to meet Rez and Cocker. To our surprise, Rez was in a good mood from the moment we met him. ‘Ah I’m sorry about that stuff earlier, I was only havin a laugh, it probably seemed a bit weird,’ he said. I watched to see if he was faking it but he seemed cheerful, up for a wild night.
‘All set for the Noosehound tonight?’ said Cocker as we squeezed through the bustle and sat down around a table with cocktails that Jen had paid for, even though it was her birthday.
‘Yes I am,’ I said. The plan was to get a bit of a buzz on us here before moving on to the Noosehound, our favourite indie and punk night, just around the corner in Temple Bar.
‘Let’s make this one to remember, lads,’ said Cocker, feeding on the collective eagerness. ‘In the sense that we won’t remember it at all. To be totally honest with yis, I had a brief moment this mornin when I thought I might not be able to make it. Fuckin destroyed I was from last night. Seriously, I don’t think most people recognize the effort ye have to put into this drinkin business. These hangovers. That’s real blood, sweat and tears, lads. You’d never do it if ye didn’t feel ye were part of something important.’
Jen smiled and shook her head. ‘Gary Cocker, you seem hell-bent on poisoning your body and mind. All of you do. Imagine the remorse you’re all goin to feel when you’re old and your insides have stopped workin, because of all the toxins you’ve poured into them down the years.’
‘Hah!’ said Cocker with a cheery grin. ‘The future me. Ol’ Dirty Bastard himself. Me only aim is to fuck him up as badly as I can, while I can.’
‘The idea is to plant time bombs against our future selves,’ I said, explaining to Jen the half-arsed philosophy that Rez, Cocker and I had cooked up over a night of vicious drinking, back before the Leaving Cert. ‘Ye have to sabotage yer own future. That way, when yer future does come and yer nerve fails ye and ye want to sell out, it won’t matter because certain, like, avenues won’t be open to ye any more.’
‘The avenues of cowardice,’ added Rez, who had first come up with most of this stuff — me and Cocker went along mainly because it sounded cool. He continued, ‘There’s no use pretendin that when it comes to it, yer really goin to have the courage of your convictions, and ye’ll be faithful to the facts ye saw so fuckin clearly when ye were eighteen. That’s the same mistake that everyone makes. They get older and no matter how idealistic and how, like, clear-sighted they were when they were younger, they start to collaborate. And they tell themselves that it had to be that way, that passion and intensity are bound to give way to a more, like, mature version of the world. But it’s still the same evil, degraded, capitalist world. Only they’ve smelled the honey and become collaborators. So fuck it, poison yer mind and body now, and decimate the future enemy. Annihilate the collaborator.’
Jen raised an eyebrow and smiled, unsure if we were deadly serious or only having a laugh.
‘So have ye heard any more from Julie?’ Jen asked Rez a few minutes later. ‘Sally MacLennane’ came on the speakers and me and Cocker cheered.
Rez looked at her for a moment, as if weighing up whether to say something. Then he told us the story about the diving instructor, the island, how he’d read Julie’s email.
‘Oh, Rez,’ said Jen when he was finished, instinctively reaching forward to put a hand to his face. I liked the way she did that. ‘That’s really awful. I can’t believe Julie would be so hurtful.’