Here Are the Young Men (23 page)

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.'

‘Jesus Christ.'

‘He's in hospital. He's okay, he's fine.'

I had stumbled out of the bed, reaching pointlessly to put on my shoes. My ma was crying. It struck me that she believed I was distraught. And maybe there was a part of me that was. Mostly though, what I felt was excitement.

       

I wasn't able to see him until the following day. I walked to the hospital with Cocker, bringing fruit and sweets from my ma, and a music magazine that I'd bought.

The corridors and wards of the hospital were painted in that dulled, turquoise colour that they always are, a tone with all the cheer drained from it, as if any vibrancy might aggravate the patients' conditions. Rez was in a ward with two other men, a pale-blue curtain hanging down to screen him off from them. A single, square window let in dull sunlight, only heightening the depressed pallor of everything.

‘Heya Rez,' we said, stepping into the ward. His mother was out in the waiting area, dry of tears, staring at the ground and rocking back and forth. She had gone outside so Rez's friends could have a few moments with him. Maybe it would do him some good, the doctors had said.

He gazed at us for a few seconds, then muttered a hello. He didn't smile. Why would he?

I
cleared my throat. I had no idea what to say, how to act. Already this was excruciating. Cocker was dealing with it a little better, though. ‘Fuckin hell, man, what were ye up to?' he said, sounding close to anger, as if he had been personally insulted, or judged, which was probably the truth. Maybe we had all been judged.

Rez seemed dazed by whatever medication they were pumping into him. His responses were delayed, like an internet phone call to a far-off country. He spoke in a throaty kind of drawl, which, I weirdly found myself imagining, would probably be seductive to girls.

Propped up by a wad of puffy white pillows, Rez shifted a bit on the bed, as if he wanted to kindle a flicker of life in himself. But all he said was, ‘What do yis want?'

‘What do we want? Fuckin hell, Rez, we came to see ye, that's what we want,' I said.

‘Really?'

I thought that because of all the sedatives, or something, he was being sincere. ‘Yeah, really. Jesus, Rez. Your ma is out there, destroyed she is. You're killin her.'

While I was speaking, I began to grow uneasy; I had the feeling, as I did so often with Rez, that he could see right into me, and what he saw in there was next to nothing. Under his gaze I felt insubstantial, meagre. Everything I might have said would have sounded like a cliché, what you were supposed to say in these circumstances, devoid of feeling.

As if to confirm these notions, Rez looked right at me and said, ‘Matthew, do ye actually care?'

There was silence. Cocker turned to look at me, his brow all furrowed like an upset child's.

‘Of course I care. What do ye mean do I care? Of course I care.'

A defensive edge had crept into my voice. As if sensing he had found a sore spot, Rez reared up further from his tranquillized torpor and struck again.

‘Are ye sure ye really care, or is it not that it excites ye? Cos that's
how
I'd feel, if a mate of mine had tried to kill himself. I'd be dead excited about all the drama and glamour and all. A bit of serious reality. Is that not it?'

‘No! I …'

No more words came out. Cocker looked at the ground, his mouth open, brow still creased. He couldn't handle this and neither could I.

‘I bet you couldn't really give a fuck. You're like a pack of fuckin hyenas, loomin over the bed. I bet yis can't wait to tell all the lads about it. Piss off, would yis? Yis are nothin but a pack of hypocrites.'

I struggled to respond, stunned by his outburst. All I could manage was: ‘Jesus, Rez. I can't believe this. We worry about ye, even if ye don't believe it.' I couldn't meet his eyes. They were huge, a pair of moons in his skull.

Then he started roaring: ‘Piss off out of here, would yis! Such fuckin hypocrisy. Go on back home and don't be so full of shit. Just get lost.'

‘Jesus, man.'

‘Piss off. I mean it. I don't want yis in here. Fuck off and leave me alone.'

I'd never heard him like this before – the weird thought came to me that he was like the little girl in
The Exorcist
, possessed by the devil, growling obscenities at priests and women. But it wasn't the devil, it was only Rez.

I resented his reaction and wanted to retaliate, but I couldn't. It was out of bounds, laying into someone who was hospitalized after trying to kill himself.

‘Okay Rez, fair enough man, we're goin. C'mon, Cocker. Sorry ye feel this way, Rez. Mind yourself.'

‘Off yis go,' he sneered as we walked out the door. One of the men in the ward with Rez groaned. I didn't see his face.

That evening I was sitting in front of the TV with my parents and Fiona, scarcely aware of what was on. Fiona kept looking at me
from
the corner of her eye. I glowered at her to make her stop. The phone rang. My da went out to get it.

I heard him talk in the soft, appeasing tone that everyone seemed to adopt as they got older, as if all they wanted now was to let the world know they meant no harm, they would agree to anything, sign any paper, as long as they were left alone and not tormented.
Eastenders
came on. It was all grey and sombre, as if they were trying to rub the working classes' noses in how drab and joyless their lives were.

My da was standing in the door, still talking into the phone. ‘Okay, Trisha. We'll be thinking of ye. Just keep an eye on yer ma now, okay?' He trailed off in a flutter of byes.

‘That was Trisha Tooley,' he said. ‘She says Richard really wanted to say sorry to ye for today. He said ye'd know what it's about.'

They all looked at me with blatant curiosity, but I just nodded and said, ‘Okay,' and nothing else.

33
|
Matthew

On Saturday afternoon, after I'd come home from work, I was called to the phone. I knew who was waiting on the other end: Kearney had got back from the States the day before, after a month away. Reaching for the phone, I felt heavy, listless. I wished Kearney had stayed away for even a while longer.

‘Alright Matthew.'

‘Alright Kearney.'

‘How's things, man?'

‘Not bad. How was America?'

‘Fuckin great. Jesus, some mental shit happened. Come out and have a smoke with me and I'll tell ye all about it.'

The suggestion wearied me. At the same time, I was curious about what he'd gotten up to. Maybe a bit of a laugh would be good for me. Besides, there was nothing else to do. I hadn't heard any more from Jen and nor had I called her. It was two weeks now since the night in her house. I thought she'd have gotten in touch with me since what happened to Rez, but she hadn't. My ma told me that when she was
entering
the hospital to visit Rez, Jen had been on her way out. ‘She looked devastated,' she said. I had my doubts about this.

I told Kearney I'd meet him at the industrial estate by the school in half an hour. Then I said, ‘Listen, Kearney, something's happened with Rez.'

‘Yeah, I already knew,' Kearney said.

There was a silence, only the static hiss of the receiver in my ear.

‘Anyway, see ye in a little while,' I said. ‘I haven't got any hash, so bring enough for a few spliffs, okay?'

       

The factories and yards of the industrial estate were as deserted as ever. Once or twice we'd seen a truck roll in and men shuffle out to conduct gruffly voiced business outside factory entrances. But usually there was no one here. You always had the feeling you were going to be mugged, but not even muggers hung around this place. Only teenagers drinking and getting stoned. It was a graffiti free-for-all. We had personally sprayed slogans like
Don't Be Such a Fucking Sheep to the Slaughter
and
Say No to Everything, Even to This
, but soon got bored and stopped bothering. There seemed little point writing graffiti where no one would see it.

When I hopped over the wall and stepped through the rubble of litter, chalky stone and broken glass, I saw Kearney standing fifty metres ahead, silhouetted against the hulk of two warehouses. As I came closer, I could see that he had a leather jacket on, which made him seem bulkier, not scrawny like he had been before. He was smoking a cigarette, watching me as I approached. He flashed his devil-grin and waved.

‘Alright Connelly.'

‘Alright.'

Now that I was standing beside him, the change in his stature was even more apparent. He had a kind of presence now; he was very
still
and somehow he unnerved me, maybe because of that stillness. I had always been a little uneasy around Kearney and now the feeling was intensified. There was something in him that hadn't been there before, a kind of magnetism. I realized then that Kearney fascinated me. I put my hands in my pockets and looked away.

‘So Rez tried to do himself in,' he announced. ‘That's fuckin mental.'

I resented his tone. ‘He nearly died,' I said. ‘It was only a fluke that his brother came in when he did. He came home on his lunch break to pick up some document he'd forgotten to bring to work.'

‘I hadn't heard that part of it. So he really meant it?'

‘It seems like he did. It wasn't one of those cries for help.'

Kearney said nothing for a moment. Then: ‘In that case he must feel like a real failure: he couldn't even kill himself properly.'

I looked away, across the warehouses and yards, into the copse of dark trees past the high steel fencing at the far periphery. There was a sewerish little stream out there where we used to look for radioactive fish, which we never found, and frogs, which we did. Kearney had delighted in finding ever more inventive ways to mutilate and kill them.

‘That's a fuckin horrible thing to say, Kearney.'

He put his hands up, grinning. ‘Relax man, it was only a joke. Ye can't be takin all these things so fuckin seriously.'

‘What do ye mean, can't take it seriously. He tried to fuckin kill himself. What's not serious about that?'

‘I know he did. But he only did it cos
he
was takin things too seriously. Himself, for example. He needs to tone it down a bit, that's all I'm sayin.'

‘Do ye even have any idea what yer talkin about? Do ye know why he did it, even?'

‘Yeah, I do. Because he's too into himself and he can't deal with real life.'

Surely the irony was blatant: Kearney, who tolerated reality only because it allowed him to play
Medal of Honour
and
Grand Theft Auto
, criticizing someone else for being out of touch with the real world. But he jabbered away as if oblivious.

‘
I went in to see him yesterday, did ye know that? His ma was there ballin cryin, but she left when I arrived. She sat out in the waitin area. But Rez wouldn't speak to me. He just sat there on the bed like a fuckin zombie, starin at me, like I was behind dark glass and I couldn't see him. I tried to talk to him but he totally ignored me. I didn't care at first, but then it really fuckin pissed me off. Cos I was tryin to be nice, I really was. I was doin all the normal stuff. I would've just said a few things and left. But he started actin like that, so I goes fuck it. And I started tryin to get a rise out of him.'

‘What did ye do?'

‘I says to him, “Listen, Rez, I only came here cos I was expected to. I know ye don't like me, and I've never liked you either. In fact, nobody really likes ye.” I says, “Most people think yer a fuckin knob-jockey. The only one who can make herself cry about ye is yer ma. If anyone else does any cryin, it's because ye didn't manage to do yerself in.”'

I stared at him, astonished. ‘Are ye takin the piss?' I asked, genuinely unable to tell.

‘Nope. I said all that to him, and more. But he just kept sittin there, just fuckin gawkin at me. I was gettin really angry with him at this point. I says to him, “Rez ye fuckin spa, ye should do both yerself and the whole fuckin world a big favour and give it another shot as soon as ye get the chance. It'd be a much better world without ye.”'

Kearney laughed. I stared at him, still wondering whether he was making it up.