It didn’t matter as she was nearer to him now. If he turned his back and swerved around at this dead-on angle she could not escape seeing what he would present to her. It was fast, fleshy-fast. He pulled it up and down a few times as a commencement speech. A mere throat-clearing before the pounce of pronouncement. He wanted an obvious moment in her eyes where she registered it. It would need to be out. It would need to be hard. Hard. Out. Pointed at her. (Not out, down and limp.) Her feet making that putt-surr sound on the ground had it hardening. Her hand rustling the carrier bag. She was doing all the work for him. Good girl, he thought. That made it stiffen even more. Good girl, he thought again. Come, come on, come on, come on now. Stood sidewards against the wall of a house then rotated a rapid squint over his shoulder to time the turn to her passing. She was closer than he’d calculated. He swung on her, lifted his chin and worked his two hands more forcefully below. One to pull aside his jean fabric, the other to hoik it up and over further, protrude it at her. Direct, flat-eyed, he pulled. He pulled defiant, he pulled transported. Pulled and pulled and pulled. Plumpendicular, he slapped it against his other hand. It was a mere three seconds until he nailed her gaze. Nailed it to his groin.
Except it didn’t quite work. It did not work. She barely gave 2 seconds of notice to the site. Calm, elevated, she plodded past with her fist clenched onto the carrier-bag handle. It was not as it had been with other girls: she didn’t allow registration. He had taken it out and gone to a lot of trouble. It was a lot of trouble to take it out, he thought, dejected. She had not responded. Something was wrong. They always responded. That was the point in taking it out. It was guaranteed, where words could fail you. It could infiltrate the most desultory, absent gaze. Where words might fail him, the sight of his pound of flesh could penetrate.
After it he didn’t feel bad as much as flat. Flatness was what he felt. Like he’d lost interest in something. It was done now. There was a time early on when he’d felt guilty. Now he defaulted to again, again. He would go back for her.
That was the moment it did not work, it did not work the way it previously worked and it was the moment he could have predicted they would come for him.
They beat him. Beat him hard. Elbows to his stomach, knee to the groin and into his drooping, saggy pouches. They did not spare his eyes. There was no space for explanation, which was useful because he had no explanation to offer. The bridge of his nose was imprinted with the clasp of a watch. The top of his head was cut. His eye. They marked him in a way he could not leave the house.
What did you say, what did you say? Did you call for help? mam would later ask him.
— I said nothing. I said nothing. I had nothing to say.
He said it flat. Dull, ambivalent like the entire episode took place in his sleep.
— I expected it, he added.
She did not like that. But neither did she ask why. These days she never suggested calling the Guards. They’ve little time for the likes of us, she said. Unless it is we they are after.
With a similar careful attention and calculation, that girl’s brothers arrived for him. Two, this one sent. Double the force, double the words, double the sting. Yet only one explanation. The same explanation. The one explanation Martin John refuses to give. He allows mam her own explanation.
— We’ve to get you out, mam said when she saw the state of him. If you can’t stop it, we’ve to stop it.
Could he stop it? What would he stop?
— Stop what, he said. She will not go further. She would never give voice to that which she wished stopped.
With a similar careful attention and calculation, mam plans for him. With a similar careful attention mam detains him. She keeps him indoors. She kept him indoors. She organized around the damage, his damage. She did dress his wounds. Resentfully.
Whatever you did to deserve this. . she muttered. She could hardly leave him bleeding at her table. They moved forward. She had questions she chose not to ask. We’ve to get you out, she said as she pat, pat, patted around the scrapes and incisions. Cuts from fists and knuckles. Punched-in digs and fisty bruises.
I’ll kill you, one brother told him as a fist smacked his jaw. Another had his eyes up against his face, so close he could see the man’s dirt-packed skin pores. Bruises, knuckle and ring, fist tracks formed mounds around his eyes, his jaw and the side of his head. Every strike had layered itself onto him.
Harm was done.
~ ~ ~
There might be further abrasions before she could get him out.
There were rumours. Gossip she refused to believe. Slander she scuffed off. People talk, refuted. There were rumours about Martin John that reached her, the way there were rumours about that man in Galway that reached her and that other fella in Kilkenny who ran to Amsterdam. It was in the papers. People would affirm, Oh him. Sure people knew exactly what he was at, he’d been doing it for years, or, It was only a matter of time.
Evil. Pure evil. Pure deviant sick evil. Adjectives combusted beside reason: there were people who did these things, that she did not dispute. But she could barely get her son to take his socks off all these years, so the public-exposure rumours were ridiculous and malicious. He sometimes kept his hat on indoors. He might be a bit of an odd shilling, but not that odd.
Who had seen it?
Show me the videotape, she planned to ask. Show me the videotape and he’s yours. He’s yours with a ribbon on him. There are enough cameras about the place these days, if he was doing what was implied, he’d be captured.
There was hearsay that reached her as warnings. Or illumination. They were pressed gently enough to her ear. People customized it as questions, they sought her opinion on news stories. What did she know about this or that and could these perverts be healed? They wanted her speculation. I can only deal with the facts. She disappointed them. In my eyes, a man or woman is only guilty a minute after the jury says so. Until that day, in my eyes, he or she is innocent. She was inclusive. She never let a she alone. If women wanted equality, they could all be equally at fault.
There had been rumours for a while.
Rumours were delivered as questions in these parts.
What could a woman like her do about rumours like those?
Girl rumours were worse. Because he was a boy she didn’t pay much heed.
She believed boys were rumoured about for no reason. The girls with the protruding tummies no longer wanted to face their actions and were turning on the boys. All of them. If you let them at you, she would say, what can you expect? When we had chastity in this country we hadn’t any such problems.
That was the roundabout exit she chose.
He did it. He did not do it. He could have done it. She made it up. Except there was more than one she now.
Rumours and warnings were not evidence.
She worried how it would affect his sisters.
If he had sisters.
She worried if it got out or they came home how could they be married in the church. She worried about the sisters he didn’t have.
She worried if it got out how could they prove he hadn’t done it?
She worried he had done it. She began to believe he had.
She had seen enough to confirm it.
It was when he did it to a man she really panicked.
She really, really panicked.
If he was taking it out and waving it at a man, it meant it was highly likely he wouldn’t have spared a woman.