“Are you fucking deaf or something? You think I don’t know what you’re trying to do here? You think I’m a gobshite or something, is that it?”
Another belch stole his words.
“I’m not exactly sure now what you-”
“Shut up a minute! I’m talking. You hear? This is fucking important. This is about someone getting killed, man, someone getting murdered. Did you get that? You’re trying to keep me talking here so as yous can trace me!”
“Wait, wait a minute. What would we want to do that for? We’re always glad to get calls from the public now-”
“Sure you are! Fucking liar! Listen! This is the second time I’ve called and still I’m getting the run-around! You’d think in the case of a bloody murder that you’d be on the ball here, you crowd of-”
“All you have to do is-”
“I don’t have to fucking do anything! Just tell them that we have to talk. Only over the phone, a coupla minutes at a time.”
He was breathing hard now. He took another gulp from the bottle. This one burned worse. He squeezed his eyes tight and leaned his head on the glass. He felt giddy when his eyes were closed. The cop was saying something. Still spinning it out, trying to coax stuff out. Everything’d be on tape, probably.
“Well, at least let me have an idea when you’d be calling so I can pass it on. To be sure someone’s there to handle the matter, like.”
“Sometime in the morning then, that’s when they better be there.”
“You’ll phone in the morning-”
“Yeah. Maybe. And tell them another thing, okay? You listening?”
“Yes. Go ahead, now.”
“Tell them this. I had nothing to do with it. Nothing! I’m getting the fucking rap but I’m not going to take it sitting down. No way, you hear? No fucking way! You tell them. Tell them the Egans are after me too, so I’m not just going to sit here like a fucking-”
The warning beeps sounded.
“Hey! Did you get what I said!”
The line was dead. He threw the receiver against the base. It swung and clattered again and again. Had to get out of here. Jesus Christ! Nearly night-time and it was still frigging boiling. It was like someone had put a wet rag around his face and he couldn’t breathe. He had a headache now. He stepped out of the booth. Definitely not too steady on the feet now. It could have been the last few swigs, took them too quick. He stopped to think. Now: how the hell was he supposed to get back to the Park now? At night?
He found himself heading along Baggot Street toward the Green. He began to count the pints he’d had since the afternoon. How much was left of the vodka? Poxy, cheap shite, it was only fit for… The next belch brought a sour burn to his throat. There was something in his chest, something moving. He began to walk faster but it seemed he was hardly moving. He heard his shoes scuffing on the footpath. He was startled when a car bumped into his leg. It was parked. He pushed away from it. Things were beginning to slow down and slide around on his eyes like they were smeared on with grease. People were looking at him, every bloody light was shining into his eyes. He turned down a laneway. The streetlamps were still moving when he sat down. He reached in and took the knife from his pocket. Maybe he should have another pint or something to settle the stomach, get him over this bit. The thought of it made his belly go airy again. He began passing the knife from hand to hand until he dropped it.
His cigarettes had been squashed. He had to rip off half of one to get a proper smoke out of it. The first pull on it made him shiver. Christ, he was knackered enough to sleep right now. If he didn’t try to have a rest he’d be shagged, wouldn’t be able to think even. He thought of the trees and the long grass in the Park. He was imagining a tent there when something shot up his throat. He got to his feet before the second spasm came. His hand scraped along a wall. He heard the vomit splatter by his feet and felt little pieces stir against the bottom of his jeans. The loathing and the stench twisted his stomach more. He staggered away from the wall with the spasms coming still.
He thought he heard someone say, ‘Look,’ but when he opened his eyes there was no one. He was vomiting dry now, his stomach twisting every few seconds. He had turned into a doorway and was leaning against the metal door. His eyes and nose kept running but his stomach had stopped heaving. The lights had stopped swimming around. Everything looked cold and ugly and foreign now. There was puke on his shoes. He had no hankies or anything. The smell drove him away from the doorway. He pushed off and headed down the lane. Against one doorway were stacked collapsed cardboard boxes and black rubbish bags. He kicked at them. They were full of shredded paper bits. That was it, he thought. Office stuff, clean. That’d do the job. He’d try for a bit of kip here maybe. Clear the head a bit anyway. Even if he didn’t actually fall asleep it’d still be okay.
He built a tunnel lined with the bags of shredded paper and pulled cardboard in over them. He lay down and pulled some cardboard closer about him. It felt warm. He took out the knife, opened it out and left it by his head. His shoulders flattened more against the cardboard. Minutes passed. The sounds of the city seemed to become fainter. His stomach hurt like he’d been kicked. He didn’t care where his thoughts began to take him now. Mary, that look she’d give him when she’d had enough of him asking her stuff. Questions he really wanted answers to: can’t you talk to one of them for me, Mary? Come on, you know I’m sound. I could even work for you, or with you. When are you going to talk to them, then? It was like she enjoyed keeping things from him, hearing him ask, beg even. If only she’d taken him on, she wouldn’t have… Panic flooded through him in an instant: those bastards who had been waiting for him by the house, would they be waiting for him wherever he went-
Footsteps, women’s, with the quick click-clack of the heels, getting closer. Where was the bloody knife? Sounded young, walking fast. Maybe she was taking a short-cut and she was scared going down the lane. He strained to listen for other footsteps. The footsteps hurried beyond him, fading into the hum of the city. Far off he heard a siren. He lay back again and closed his eyes. The smell of the cardboard stung his nose now. There was no way-no way-he was going to go to one of the hostels for down-and-outs. A decent sleeping bag and some kind of plastic if it rained, that’d make things a lot easier. It was only for a short while anyway, wasn’t it? It’d take money. Maybe it was time to think about using the knife to make a bit… He jerked himself up when he heard the rustling sound. He settled onto his hunkers, with the knife grasped tight and waited for several seconds. He heard nothing beyond his own suppressed breath in his nostrils. He knocked away the roof with his free hand and kicked his way out onto the lane. He was alone. Maybe it had been the stuff settling in the rubbish bags. Rats? He stared into the pools of darkness down the lane and shivered. His chest was still heaving. He leaned against the wall. Three or four people passed the mouth of the laneway singing and shouting. It must be closing time.
His legs began to feel rubbery. He leaned against the wall and looked around at the bags of rubbish and the cardboard. Did rats eat cardboard? Only if they were stuck, maybe. When was this stuff picked up anyway? Hardly at night. Slowly he gathered the cardboard again and rearranged it as he lay down. He was too wasted to sleep. He lost track of the time he lay there staring through a gap in his cardboard roof at the slice of blue and yellow night sky. The car horns and the shouting from the street didn’t seem to matter much now. It grew quiet in the laneway after a while, how long he couldn’t tell and didn’t care. Many times he wondered if he was having a dream, if it was him lying here in a laneway with a knife in his hand. It was rubbish, and he was part of it. That was the truth and he couldn’t pretend different. As the minutes and hours passed, something else moved around in his mind, something he couldn’t get a fix on at all. Maybe he’d never be able to explain it to himself even, but somewhere inside himself he felt light and clean.