Then I saw him resurface, thirty metres out, head bobbing on the waves. He called to me and there was laughter in his voice. ‘Come on in, Matthew, the water’s lovely!’
I stood up, took off all my clothes, and stepped down into the cold sea, wading out until it was waist-high. I dove and swam, holding my breath, kicking with all my energy away from the shore, along the murky floor and out into the cold, deep greyness.
PART THREE. ORGASM OF HATE
Everything is evil.
31 | Kearney
Problems with Reality: What Kearney Brought Back from America
The red-eye flight was only sparsely booked. Kearney sat, alone in his row, watching the lights of the Eastern Seaboard recede far below, overwhelmed by the creep of Atlantic Ocean darkness.
What a trip it had been, he reflected. A month in the Great Satan. Dwayne was still back there, in Boston. Kearney had left him in the airport bar after beers, whiskey, spliffs and a couple of lines of coke left over from the night when Stu had called around. Kearney partly envied his brother for staying on in the States, but mainly he was keen to get back home, where he could boast to the lads about his adventures, and show them how fucking clueless they were. And, more importantly, when he returned to Dublin, he could begin to put his plan into motion.
As the plane penetrated the cloud cover and his view was clogged with darkly uniform grey, Kearney closed his eyes and basked in the pride of his newfound confidence and life experience. Through a low electronic shimmer he heard Fallen Henry the Titan’s paternal purr: You done good back there, nigga. I got my eye on you and listen here, we be expectin big things from you, G, real big things.
Kearney opened his eyes. A blonde, idiotically smiling air hostess was coming down the aisle towards him, from the direction of the cockpit. She was pushing a refreshments trolley and had a firm, luscious pair of tits on her. Kearney waited till she was beside him: then he rammed his hand up her skirt. Next came the rape-squeals in the tiny toilet, the grunts and gasps as he pressed her face into the sink, impaling her from behind with his straining teenage sex …
Ever since that night with Stu, Kearney’s fantasies had reached a new pitch of intensity. He felt he was becoming an artist of inner butchery. I am the Beethoven of Brutality, he told himself. Then, admitting that he didn’t actually know any of Beethoven’s paintings, he revised his self-bestowed nickname: I am the Aphex Twin of Cutting Motherfuckers Open. That was more like it.
He was still refining the syllabic rhythm of his new moniker when he realized that the air hostess had stopped in the aisle beside him and was turned his way. She smiled brightly and said, ‘And look at you, flying across the world all on your lonesome. My oh my.’ She chuckled a little.
Kearney’s eyes were wide and happy. He returned her grin.
‘Is there anything I can get you, honey?’ said the hostess with what Kearney thought to be a flirtatious inflection. Warm and fuzzy from the hash and whiskey, he felt his groin heating up with delicious blood throbs, like red flashes of light.
‘Bloody Mary,’ he said.
The woman gave another fluttery little laugh. ‘Well now I’m afraid I’d have to see some proof that you are old enough for liquor. How about a soft drink? Now I’m not saying you’re not a man, but …’ She chuckled again. ‘How about you show me your passport?’ She was finding it all very charming.
Kearney grinned back at her. Then he said, ‘How about I show ye me manhood?’
The woman’s imprecation was loud enough to turn several near-sleeping heads in the back end of the economy section. She stared with an open mouth for a moment, but then some instinct of shame or professionalism kicked in and she turned away, gazing straight ahead as she pushed her trolley down the aisle, not stopping until she vanished into the rear of the plane.
Kearney overflowed with giggles, charmed by his own devilish wit. He imagined what his friends would say if they had witnessed his antics, and wished especially that Dwayne had been there to see that last display. ‘Fallen Henry,’ he heard himself whisper a moment later, ‘am I a bad motherfucker?’
And Fallen Henry’s voice was rich with solemn pride as he replied: You a BAD motherfucker, Kearney. Ain’t NO motherfuckin doubt.
Kearney sighed in deep contentment and put in his earphones. The hard-tech thump began battering his brain. Things could hardly be better. There was only one way to round off this perfect night flight …
Kearney took a deep breath and then stood up in the aisle. ‘ALLAHU AKBAR!’ he roared, his confidence feeding on the belligerent surge of his own voice. He brought his blade down on the neck of the bald businessman sitting in front of him, delighted by the fount of blood that gushed forth, spraying the seats and window, painting Kearney’s T-shirt. With rising glee he heard the panic-screams of doomed families. He marked the faces stretched in terror as he walked calmly up the aisle, blowing the brains out of any motherfucker who might even consider trying to stop him. He screamed and shot a baby, not giving a fuck if a stray bullet punctured the plane’s side. Now he kicked down the door of the cockpit and cut the throat of the pale and whimpering pilot, and shot the co-pilot through the face, feeling the wank-spurt of hot blood on his gun-hand and wrist. He locked the cockpit door and, wearing a lusty slash of a grin, took the controls. Seeing the expanse of city lights come rushing beneath him, he pitched the plane forward to a fresh surge of screaming from the carriage behind. ‘ALLLAHH!’ he bellowed, and sent the plane missiling into the heart of Dublin city like a great bolt of holy fire. ‘AALLLAAHHH!’
32 | Matthew
It was on a Tuesday, two days after I got home from the weekend with Scag, that Rez didn’t kill himself.
I was downcast, irritable, still wading through the debris of that prolonged, wrecking bender. I stayed in my room in fading light, lying on my bed and looking at the ceiling, thinking about the abyss at the edge of the world. I was thinking about Scag, too, wondering if he was the kind of person I would become, years down the line. Of all the older people I knew, it was with the likes of Scag that I felt the clearest affinity. It was kind of scary.
Music had been playing but the album finished and I didn’t bother putting anything else on. The room was silent.
My ma walked in. I creaked my neck to look at her. I waited for her to say something. She just stood there, watching me. It struck me how vulnerable she looked, how small and frightened. These days I was having the recurrent insight that the adults around me were really still children, in grown-up bodies. They were not, as I had assumed, in possession of the answers about life, some kind of grand truth that everyone was gifted with on reaching a certain age. They were about as lost as I was, maybe more so.
‘What is it?’ I snapped, irritated by everything and wanting to be left alone.
She kept standing there, still far away. Then she said softly, ‘There’s bad news, Matthew. Rez has tried to kill himself.’
‘What?’
‘He’s okay, his brother found him, he’s alive.’