He had a victim in mind. And if he wasn’t there, that was no matter; Kearney would transfer his intentions to another of his preferred victim’s mangy, stinking kind. They were all the same, all as worthless as one another. Fuck the lot of them.
Kearney got off the bus at the Central Bank. He stepped off Dame Street and down the cobblestoned laneway that sloped through Temple Bar towards the Liffey — a run-off sewer of vomit, fast-food cartons and half-digested burgers.
And there he was, the pitiful cunt, slouched in his usual place, all on his own. There he was, where he always was.
The tramp sat in the shadowy staff doorway of the Hot Chick takeaway, wheezing and splayed like he’d been stabbed, only he sucked on a can of cheap cider every few seconds, ruining the effect. Kearney approached the tramp and stood above him, looking down and feeling like the Angel of Death. He took in the tramp’s grey, matted hair that spilled out under an ancient baseball cap with Remember the Alamo printed across it, and the shitty grey crust of clothing that swaddled him. Kearney’s lip twitched in revulsion.
‘There’s a smell of piss here,’ he said coldly, his eyes on the tramp.
He imagined a camera filming him, someone looking on.
The tramp mumbled something and continued to stare vacantly, vagrantly ahead, at the opposite wall of the laneway. He slurped again on his can, either unaware of Kearney, or just not giving a fuck that he was there, looming above him.
Kearney sniffed, leaning in a little over the tramp and his dank, stinking doorway.
‘Fuckin hell man, that really reeks. Does it not bother ye, sittin there in the filth like that? Do ye just not give a fuck, like?’
The tramp mumbled again. This time Kearney discerned the words ‘cunt’ and ‘fuckers’, fishing them out of the slur of babble like boots or soiled condoms in the drift of a filthy river. He grinned.
‘Ah, it can’t be that bad, pal. Shift up a bit there and let me sit down. If ye don’t mind, like.’
The tramp didn’t respond, so Kearney gave him a hard shove with the toe of his boot, almost a kick. ‘Get up, would ye. Jaysus Christ.’
Finally the tramp lurched into a greater awareness of Kearney. He looked up at him in glazed perplexity, like someone who’d just woken up.
‘What do ye fuckin want?’ he rasped.
‘Nothin. Move up a bit and let me sit down.’
‘Ye little faggot …’ The tramp began to mumble a string of insults at Kearney, but then cut himself short. Dimly scenting opportunity, he said, ‘Gis a smoke.’
‘What?’
‘Gis a smoke, I said.’
‘What do you say?’
‘I say give us a fuckin smoke. Or FUCK OFF!’
The tramp tried to swipe at Kearney with his can-hand, but succeeded only in spilling cider over his chapped yellow fingers and wrists.
Kearney laughed, but pulled his pack of twenty John Player Blue from a back pocket and opened it. ‘There ye go. Have two. Now let us sit down.’ He nudged the tramp again with his foot and squeezed into the doorway beside him. He put his faded green knapsack resting between his knees. He lit the tramp’s smoke, then lit one of his own. He said, ‘I just thought I’d have a bit of a drink.’
The tramp’s sullen contemptuousness gave way to fascination as Kearney pulled a can of Oranjeboom lager from the knapsack. Kearney cracked open the can and glugged down a quarter of it, then exhaled loud and slow in theatrical satisfaction. He passed the can to the tramp and said, ‘Have a sup, go on.’ But he needn’t have bothered, for the tramp had already tipped the can back and was pouring the drink down his throat. Kearney tingled in loathing as foamy yellow lager spilled over the thicket of filthy beard that clung to the tramp’s flaking face.
The tramp emptied the can, belched in a way that surely signalled grave inner disarray, and flung the can at the opposite wall, where it clanked and fell to the ground, rolling to a stop against an overturned burger carton and a crushed Pepsi cup.
‘Do ye want me to say thanks?’ hissed the tramp, energized by the sudden inpour, all drunk down hastier than his usual rationing would allow for.
‘Yeah, go on,’ said Kearney.
‘FUCK OFF!’ barked the tramp. ‘That’s what I say to ye. Go and shite. Or else gis another can, ye little fuckin prick.’
Kearney laughed, highly amused.
‘Jesus Christ, ye don’t really have what ye’d call the social graces, do ye? And ye can’t have much of a clue about actin in yer own best interests, cos ye can see that I’ve got loads more cans here, and I’m probably willin to share them. But then ye go and insult me! To be honest with ye, I’m amazed that ye’ve reached the level of achievement in life that ye obviously have done, with that kind of attitude.’
Kearney chortled again, this time at his own cutting irony. He pictured the TV audiences, sitting at home and chuckling in sophisticated appreciation of his pitch-black wit. The tramp merely grunted, his zest for insult already spent.
‘However, I’m the mellow sort,’ continued Kearney. ‘And I don’t like drinkin on me own. So I’ll stay with ye for a while. Only if ye don’t mind, though.’ He raised his hands and put on a look like he was worried about offending the tramp. ‘Seriously, will I stay and have a drink with ye? I’ve plenty here. Or will I leave ye alone? Tell me seriously, like. I don’t mind which, but ye have to tell me.’
The tramp’s face had glazed over; he was baffled into mental paralysis by Kearney’s head-games. Kearney chuckled a little, thinking the haggard old bastard might live to drink another day. But then the tramp’s watery eyes fell again on the bulging green knapsack between Kearney’s legs. The greed took over and he said, ‘Gis a can.’
‘What?’
‘Gis a can.’
‘You want a can, correct?’
‘Yes a can.’
‘Yes a can. Is that yer final answer?’
‘Fuck off, youth. Gis a can or piss off.’
Kearney laughed again. He pulled out another can just as two teenage girls with tumours of lipstick, clutching pink and white mobile phones, came up the alley from the direction of the Liffey. Their chatter died away when they saw Kearney and the tramp, and their pace quickened, hurrying them away to the many-eyed safety of Dame Street.
Kearney watched them trotting off. He whistled. Then he turned to the tramp and said, ‘See the hole on that blonde one? Fuckin Jaysus. I’d say it’s been a while since ye had a bit of minge like that, am I right? Sure I doubt ye’ve even got it up in the last twenty years. Am I right or wha?’
‘Gerrup the fuck,’ slurred the tramp. ‘Open yer can or fuck off back home to mammy.’
Kearney opened the can. He took a swig, then handed it to the tramp, but not before deliberately tilting it so that a puddle of beer fell into the tramp’s encrusted lap. Despite being thus insulted, the tramp took the can and guzzled on it, so degraded was he. Kearney thought he might take it even further, get the tramp to dance for him, or have him wave his mickey at some oul one, or make retard noises at the crowds up on Dame Street, or strip naked and roll on the ground, barking like a dog. Or put his finger through his own fucking eye. Kearney’s mind blackened, his loathing for this worthless life form flaring up beyond control.
‘Yer like me da,’ he spat, though the tramp, absorbed in draining the can as quickly as he could before it was snatched back off him, wasn’t listening. ‘Yer a filthy, sickenin fuckin insect, a piece of shite, a total fuckin disease. I’d kick yer fuckin head in right now if I could get away with it. I’d stamp on yer face till ye were fuckin dead.’
The tramp didn’t hear a word of it, or didn’t care either way. Finished, he hurled the can against the wall, belched even more violently than before and gestured for more booze. Kearney obliged.