Here Are the Young Men (20 page)

Lorna was shoving me towards the bed, and then we were spiralling down on it. She ran her hands through my hair, bit my lip, and rubbed her groin against mine. I was hard as wood, but kept swerving between lust and distress. I looked to my side as she started kissing my neck: Scag was lying over Nicky, propped up on one hand, kissing the tops of her breasts whilst rubbing vigorously between her legs with his free hand. She was moaning loudly. As I watched, he undid her jeans and pulled them around her hips, then slid his fingers under her knickers.

Lorna was getting more excited too. She clawed down my body and began to unzip me. Before I knew it my cock was freed, exposed to open air. She took it in her mouth. I closed my eyes and tried to forget there were four of us in the room. But I couldn't overcome my self-consciousness. I pulled her head away from me, which needed some perseverance, and grinned awkwardly at her quizzical look.

‘Em, can we do another bit of coke or something?' I said.

She smiled. ‘Sure.'

I put my dick back into my trousers and zipped up. She looked
like
she was trying not to appear frustrated as she fixed her hair a little, then reached out for Nicky's jeans, which were now completely off her and flung across the bed. Scag's trousers were off as well, and now they were plainly screwing, he lashing into her, and she throwing her head back and grabbing the headboard behind her.

We watched for a few moments. Scag and Nicky were oblivious to us. I turned to Lorna. She looked at me. There was a strange, wordless moment, the shagging noises intensifying beside us. Then we both erupted in laughter.

She cut out the coke on a book that wasn't in English.

‘What is it you're reading?' I said to dispel my nervousness with some conversation – an absurd intention, with Nicky now yelping in what I presumed to be an oncoming orgasm, right beside us.

‘In fact it's Joyce,
Dubliners
,' she said.

I looked again at the book, where I now saw the author's name. ‘So it is.'

‘Have you read it?' she asked, finishing off trimming two thin, tidy lines.

‘No. Is it any good?'

‘It's not bad. I always try to read about the places I go to. I was going to try to read
Ulysses
but I thought, maybe I'll leave it until a longer trip.' She laughed at this. I laughed too, though I had no idea what was supposed to be funny about that.

She let me sniff up the first line. When she took the second, the two of us looked again at Scag and Nicky. He had hoisted her legs up behind her head and was banging into her with sweaty ferociousness. His grunts were now discernible as curses: Fuck, Jesus fuckin Christ, Holy Jaysus. Nicky started screaming like she was being raped.

‘Anyway,' Lorna said, turning to me with a playful smirk.

‘Anyway,' I replied. I didn't know what to say after that. But she saved me.

‘How old are you?'

I considered lying.

‘
But be honest,' she said with an encouraging smile. ‘It doesn't matter.'

‘Twelve.'

‘What!'

I laughed a little. ‘No, I'm seventeen.'

She nodded at this.

‘And what about you?' I said.

‘Twenty-four.'

‘Right.'

I knew I should have been feeling proud like a conqueror – I knew that I should also be shagging her, oblivious to all but the task at hand, just like Scag, who still hadn't come. But I was feeling too weird, too nervy and fucked-up. I only wanted to talk to her.

‘You seem a little nervous,' she said.

‘Yeah, I suppose so.' I gave a nervous little laugh.

‘Don't you like me?'

‘Of course I do, you're gorgeous.'

‘Do you have a girlfriend?'

‘No. It's not that, I'm just … this is too weird. With Scag here, I mean.'

‘There's nowhere else we can go.'

‘I know.'

Her disappointment had vanished, if it had been there at all. She lay back on the bed, dangling her head over the edge.

Finally Scag came. I didn't know where to look; after trying out several options I settled on the bathroom door, draining my can in hefty gulps.

‘JAYSUS HOLY FUCKIN SHITE!' roared Scag, bludgeoning out the screams issuing from Nicky, who he had now turned over and was banging from behind. ‘HOLY FUCKIN CHRIST ALMIGHTY, FUCK
ME
!'

Lorna was shuddering with laughter at the situation, which must have been strange, even for these worldly Scandinavian girls. I
started
to laugh as well, and soon I was doubled over and hooting as Scag seemed to drop dead, slumping off the bed and out of Nicky with a final, prolonged moan. He crashed on to the floor out of our sight, as Nicky continued to groan and gradually came to her senses. Through my tears of laughter, she looked like she'd just suffered a harrowing and violent ordeal at the hands of some crazed molester, which I supposed she had.

Me and Lorna laughed until we were spent. Then, from in behind the bed where we couldn't see, came Scag's voice, keen and collected as ever.

‘Time for another line, comrades, what do yis say?'

30
|
Matthew

We left the girls in their one-bed room the next morning. It must have been about nine o'clock, a reassuringly grey Saturday morning in the city centre, Dublin waking up but not yet overrun by the shopping hordes that would descend upon it by noon. We helped ourselves to a free breakfast on the way out, in a dining area with ‘Breakfast is
strictly
for paying guests only' printed on a sign on the wall.

We hadn't slept. Scag had had sex once more with Nicky, but this time Lorna and I had left the room, walking upstairs to the rooftop and looking out at the river and the buildings on the other quay, watching Dublin stumble home to bed, howling at taxis and vomiting on its shoes. We had kissed again, but that was as far as it went. Lorna had told me I reminded her of herself when she was my age. We'd taken a good bit of coke by that stage and I felt sure of myself once more. Then we'd gone back downstairs and the four of us danced, laughed and chatted as the river outside slowly ran a dull grey, then murky blue, and it was dawn. Before leaving, Scag had assured the girls that we'd be seeing them again, and taken their
mobile
numbers and email addresses.

We stepped out on the street after breakfast, our dilated pupils stabbed by the sudden glare. Scag looked up and down the quiet street. ‘Sleep is for paedophiles,' he said softly.

‘Where to?' I asked, energized by the cool morning air.

‘Fancy another schniffle?' he said, clapping his hands together vigorously, as if he'd just stepped out after a rejuvenating night's sleep.

‘I'm okay for now,' I said. ‘I'm still high as fuck.' But as soon as I said this, I felt not quite as high as I had been. Coming down, I remembered Jen, the scene in her bed, the humiliation of it. Kissing Lorna had helped, but the pain was still there. ‘Actually, now that ye say it, I wouldn't mind another whack.'

‘Come on over to the boardwalk.'

We crossed the Ha'penny Bridge and sat on a bench on the wooden river walkway. A junkie staggered along and was about to pester us for smokes or money, but Scag shot him a look and he kept going. Then Scag took out the coke he'd siphoned off the girls' purchase. He produced a key, put a little heap on the end and held it up to his nose to snort.

‘
Puntitos
, they call them in South America. That's how they do it in Bolivia,' he said after he'd taken the hit.

He sorted one out for me and I sniffed it up. He looked at me and laughed. ‘We are all in the gutter, Matthew, but some of us are smoking crack.'

Watching a pigeon on the handrail a while later he said, ‘So tell us about this bird ye were seein.'

‘Ah, there's not much to it,' I said. But I told him about Jen, how I'd liked her for years but already it was wrecked.

‘Yeah. I used to get like that about women,' he said. ‘Not any more. There's no point. Listen, the whole aim of a woman's existence is to be impregnated, when it comes down to it. Seriously. I like them for their bodies, but that's about it. Psychologically I'm pure faggot.'

‘I suppose,' I said. ‘Some of them can be nice, though.'

‘
I remember a girlfriend I had once, we were together for a couple of years and she started gettin hysterical for me to inseminate her. She said it was the next logical step in our relationship. Jesus Christ. The next logical step. I had to laugh at that. We were arguin about it one night and she goes to me, “But that's what we're
here
for!” And I says, “Yeah, maybe it is. But if
bacteria
could speak, they'd say the same thing.” And that was the end of us.' He chuckled at the memory, untroubled by remorse.

We sat and watched the oily drift of the river for a spell. ‘Early house?' he said.

‘Okay.'

We got a few pints into us in a dim grime-pit of a pub called The Bald Goat, drinking amidst the usual haggard old bastards, surly alcos and darts players.

Scag had gotten an
Irish Times
from the bar and after four pints or so he said, ‘Look Matteo, the Festival of World Cultures is on in Dún Laoghaire this weekend. Will we head out, just for the craic?'

I said I was up for it. I texted Cocker to see if he would come too. The reply came seconds later: he had a day off so he'd meet me there in an hour.

We finished our pints of Guinness. Then Scag rolled a spliff and we headed into the fully awakened city.

Along the coast to Dún Laoghaire, the train was crammed full of young people heading to the festival. Within minutes of boarding the train, Scag had effortlessly commanded the attention and allegiance of the entire carriage. He held court for the whole journey, throwing out observational one-liners about fellow passengers, randomers outside the train windows, and the parts of Dublin we chugged past on our way.

‘SCAG!'

The roar came from the back of the carriage. I jerked my head around, expecting confrontation. But it was a friend, one of Scag's punk and junk companions from the eighties – the decade when, as
he
had told me earlier, ‘Everyone was poor as fuck and on the dole, but we all had a great time. The city wasn't stuck up its own arse back then.'

The wrinkled, leathery punk shoved his way from the back of the carriage to step into Scag's court, where some Italian lads with dreadlocks had gathered to skin up and be entertained by his banter.

‘Howaya, Dowdall. Jaysus, it's been a while, I thought you were dead.'

‘I am dead. I'm dead inside.' Dowdall cackled at his own slurred wit and cracked open a can of Devil's Bit. He had a nose ring and his dirty, grey-blond hair was spiked up with grease. There were metal studs on his leather jacket and Damned, Clash and Paranoid Visions badges sewn in drunken swerves along his arms. He looked ridiculous, a farce of all that punk once was.

‘This is me mate Matthew,' said Scag, slapping me on the shoulder.

‘Howaya,' grunted Dowdall with a complete lack of interest.

‘Dowdall here used to play bass with Mickey and the Master Race,' Scag informed me.

‘Oh right yeah,' I said, acting impressed though I'd never heard of them.

‘Here now, not to mention three years and two albums with Footnotes to Plato, and a tour of Slovenia with Abject Phallus,' said Dowdall, wagging his finger like a schoolteacher. ‘The Footnotes were a serious punk act, not like these gobshite posers ye get nowadays. Am I right, Scag?'

‘Yis had yer moments,' said Scag coolly.

‘C'mere, Scag. I hear ye think yer a writer now,' said Dowdall.

‘Sometimes I catch meself thinkin that, yeah,' replied Scag. ‘I put out a buke there a while back.'

‘That's what I heard,' said Dowdall. ‘Don't go expectin me to read it, now. Scag the poet, wha? Merciful Jaysus. I can imagine what they wrote in the biography yoke at the back. “Scag was awarded
a
C Plus in English for his Junior Cert. His ma considers him one of the top five writers to have slithered out from between her legs. He divides his time between Dolphin's Barn and the Walkinstown roundabout.”'

Scag granted him a wry chuckle. ‘That's it, more or less. I don't really think of meself as an author, though. I'm more of a conduit. There's a force deep down inside me. He speaks and I just write it down. I call him The Fat Controller.'

I laughed, though I wasn't sure I was meant to.

‘I've got two more bukes almost finished,' said Scag. ‘
Sincerely L. Cohen
and
Fine Day for a Holocaust Denial
.' He paused to observe a passing arse, then added, ‘I'm thinkin of puttin them out under me pseudonym.'

‘What's that?'

‘Seamus Heaney.'

‘Tsss. Good night and good luck. So are yis on yisser way out to the festival?'

‘Yeah. Sure we thought we may as well. Young Matthew here has had some lady trouble. His tender young heart is in danger of bein broken so I'm takin him under me wing for a bit of a blowout to cheer him up. Yerself ?'

‘Yeah, I'm goin out. I couldn't give a fuck about the festival but there's a bird out there I have to see. Little Spanish thing. Mad for me mickey, she is. Blank Frank has some yips for me as well.'

‘Oh yeah?' said Scag. ‘Haven't seen oul Frankincense in a while. How many are ye gettin?'

‘Ten. Do ye want some?'

Scag hissed, all indignant. ‘Does a bear shit on the pope? When have you ever known me not to want some fuckin yokes?'

       

There were thousands thronging the seafront at Dún Laoghaire, sitting on the grass in groups of eight or ten, drinking cans and bottles. There seemed to be little point in being here, other than to drink and talk in proximity to others who were drinking and talking. Maybe that's what a festival was: that and nothing more. There was a huge stage up near the Forty Foot but we felt no desire to push through the hordes to better hear the world music that was blasting from it. (‘
World
music,' remarked Dowdall derisively. ‘Where else is it supposed to be from?') I called Cocker and we shouted into our phones till we found each other.