Here Are the Young Men (32 page)

‘Who's we?'

‘Me and Cocker. We're meetin in the field at the school. Probably not Kearney. I don't think he knows about it. I mean, he's …' Matthew trailed off. Rez felt something then, a shadowy form lurking just out of view. ‘So are ye up for it?' said Matthew.

Rez said he would go.

They hung up.

49
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Kearney

– Dwayne Kearney

To: Joseph Kearney

Email received at 14:00

21/08/2003

arite queer!!

stil havin a mad fihear in U fflof muddafuken A

lissen fag u heard about de rave in greystones dis saturday?? its de EEE-KKLIPSZZ!!! man id fucken LUV 2 b der. me mates r DJn---seerious fucken techno. hard az fuck. BLOW YR FUCKIN MIND OUT!!! :-> trust me joe itll be fuckin DEADly.

just a heds up 4 me little bro. now den off 2 get me mickey suckt!!!

later fag!!

dwayne IN-Sane

50
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Matthew

Jen left Ireland on the Saturday morning. I knew she was going then because Cocker had told me. Around ten o'clock my phone rang – it was her. I lay on my bed and waited till it stopped ringing. That was the last time Jen tried to call me.

       

In less than a week's time, on the last Friday in August, the exam results would be out, and then I'd learn whether I'd be going to college to study English. I doubted it; even on the slim chance that I did get in, I wasn't sure that I wanted to study. I didn't know what I wanted. By now, the Future looked even murkier, even colder than it had before. I wished I could talk about it to someone – about everything that had happened – but the weight of it all was too much. Jen was gone, Rez was at an all-time low, and I'd never felt less close to Cocker. I was sure that, from now on, our lives would only diverge further. Soon we would have nothing in common, nothing but a past. I felt more lost than ever. Maybe I could hang around with
Scag
more, drop out of the mainstream altogether. At least that was a direction, a way in which to drift.

Near to six o'clock that evening, I headed over to the school. Kearney was waiting for me in the field, hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, an Aphex Twin grin on his face. Erratic against the murky twilight, he reminded me of one of the obelisks in
2001: A Space Odyssey
. There was a rucksack at his feet, bulging with what I assumed to be drink. The faint sound of traffic reached me from behind, past the railings. Again Kearney had that aura, that strange charisma, standing dead still in the field.

‘Alright Kearney.'

‘Alright Matthew. Haven't seen each other in a while, have we. All set for a serious onslaught?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Have ye bought drink already?'

I unshouldered my rucksack and shook it.

‘What is it?'

‘Two bottles of Buckfast and six cans of Dutch Gold.'

Kearney gestured at the field behind me. ‘Here's Cocker.'

I looked over my shoulder, saw Cocker folding himself over the railings and dropping ungracefully into the ditch. He emerged and came trotting towards us.

‘Howayis lads,' he said when he reached us, out of breath and grinning his usual cheery grin.

‘Alright Cocker,' said Kearney, cracking open a can of Dutch Gold. ‘Up for gettin monged out of it tonight?'

‘Definitely. Do yis reckon we'll be able to get some pills?'

‘Yeah, easy. It's a rave after all. Everyone there is going to be yoked off their tits.'

None of us had ever been to a rave before. I didn't imagine I'd care much for the music, but I was curious to see what it was like. By all accounts, tonight's was going to be one of the biggest raves the city had ever seen.

‘
Did ye talk to Jen before she left?' Cocker asked me.

‘No. I'm not with Jen any more, don't forget.' I didn't want to hear about her.

‘I know that. I just thought ye might have been speakin to her. She … she really wanted to talk to ye.' He looked like he wanted to say more, but he glanced up at Kearney and was quiet.

‘There wouldn't have been much point,' I said. ‘She's probably right, though, doin what she's doin and gettin away from here. It's not the same as it used to be. I'd almost go away myself.'

Kearney pointed towards the fence and said, ‘Here's our man. Here's the tragic hero.' Rez was lowering himself down from the railings with slow, exaggerated care. We watched him crossing the field towards us, like an alien; strange to everything.

‘Alright Rez,' said Cocker.

‘Alright Cocker. Howaya lads.'

‘And how's young Prince Hamlet?' said Kearney.

‘What?' said Rez.

‘Give it a rest, Kearney,' I said.

‘No, I'm only messin. Yer lookin well, Rez,' said Kearney. ‘Good to see yer back in the game. Here, get that into ye.' He passed him a can of Dutch Gold. Rez cracked it open and started to drink.

After an hour in the field, drunk and eager, we got on a bus to town, smoking and drinking in the upstairs seats. We got off and walked to Tara Street Station and took a DART out along the darkening coast, for the last big night of the summer.

       

The beach was wide, dark and made of stones. It was past the lights of Greystones, at a distance from the town's few, quiet streets.

Already there were a lot of people arriving, packed in cars or in the carriages of the DART trains that stopped at Greystones before turning back for the city centre. We had taken the second-last train
of
the night: there was no way of getting home till morning.

Our pace quickened as we walked from the station towards the beach. The pulse of techno drew us in, charging us with anticipation. Kearney passed me the whiskey and I swigged on it. In a rush of euphoria, I reflected how much like old times this was, like it used to feel, before all this shit happened: before Rez tried to hang himself, before Kearney started doing such fucked up things, before I had got with Jen and then lost her in the most painful way possible. But the euphoria vanished when I realized that the old days I was nostalgic for were only a few months ago, lasting up until we finished school. And now there would be no more school. There was only the Future. I almost wished we could all go back to school for just one more year: at least back there things were clear. We knew who we were and what we were against. But that would only have been delaying the inevitable – being spewed up on the shores of the adult world and expected to choose, embrace, belong.

On the beach, rigs of strobe lighting had been set up alongside the sheltered DJ tables. Ravers came in clusters, stationing themselves around the dance area and along the edge of the sea. The grey skies had fallen away in the late evening and the night was clear. Stars shimmered, the moon was big and bright. We sat down to the side of the main dance area, rolling joints and drinking.

Watching the dancers, Rez said, ‘It's all just sexual advertising. Look at the males, the way they spread their limbs out and twist like that – they're tryin to show the females how virile they are. It's all so obvious, it's just embarrassin.'

‘Rez, yer soundin like yer old self. Good man!' laughed Cocker.

‘Yeah man, he's right. It's good to see,' I said. ‘Seriously Rez, yer mad to have done what ye tried to do. I hope ye never try it again, or I'll kill ye meself. I mean it, man, ye have yer mates, ye know.'

Sentimental from the drink, I reached across and squeezed Rez's shoulder. But after a slight, embarrassed nod, his expression shadowed over and he pulled away, drinking his can and retreating into
himself,
thinking thoughts he chose not to share. I wondered again whether there was some kind of awful secret in his past that he had never told us about.

‘Lads, it's nearly midnight. It's about time we started lookin for some yokes,' said Kearney.

‘Yeah, I suppose so,' I replied. The idea filled me with a vague dread. ‘You're not going to take any, Rez, are ye?'

‘I think I will, yeah,' he said.

‘But … don't ye reckon ye probably shouldn't? I mean, it might not be good for ye at the moment.'

Kearney butted in. ‘Ah, give over, will ye, Matthew? Let him make up his own mind, for fuck's sake. It's only a pill or two we're talkin about. Jaysus.'

‘Maybe Matthew has a point, though, Rez,' said Cocker weakly, intimidated by Kearney.

Kearney snorted. ‘You as well? A bunch of oul ones, yis are like. Jesus Christ, the fella gets out of hospital and he's goin through all this stuff, bad times, like, and all youse want to do is tell him not to have any fun.'

I wanted to challenge Kearney, ask him in front of the others why he was so keen for Rez to drop some pills. I knew the answer: the possibility that Rez would get badly depressed after them and try to kill himself again excited Kearney. But I knew too that he would deny this, throw it back at me somehow. You couldn't win with Kearney. I said nothing.

‘I'll go look for them,' said Cocker. ‘I'm in the mood for a walk. Stall it with us, Matthew.'

‘Okay.'

‘So how many are we gettin?'

After a brief debate, we decided to get five each – a proper end-of-summer blitzkrieg.

We left Rez and Kearney and set off along the beach. Up ahead was a huge bonfire, its pyramidal blaze animating a stretch of choppy
sea.
Squatting around the fire in a big circle, bearded, dreadlocked lads and girls with army jackets and hoodies were beating drums. Joints and cans were being passed around.

‘It's like some tribal ceremony or something,' I said eagerly. ‘We should be able to find some pills over there.'

The fire glowed on our faces as we approached. Tall, slender girls danced near the drum circle, spinning flaming poi in swirls and arcs. We reached the fire and stood there, drinking cans and feeling awkward.

A guy with long red hair who was sitting on a log gestured for us to sit. We did so. The drums throbbed over the crackle of burning wood, and the fire danced. After a while the red-haired guy turned and shouted to me over the beat, ‘Are yis on a good one, lads?'

We nodded.

‘Cool. Are yis looking for a bit of smoke by any chance?'

‘No, we've already got some. But listen, do ye know where we'd be able to get some yokes?'

‘How many do yis want?'

We bought twenty pills for eighty euro. When we got back to the lads Kearney said, ‘Five each! This is goin to be a quality night.'

‘Let's double-drop to start things off with a bang,' said Cocker.

‘Yeah, fuck it, let's go for it,' I said, tired of being the sensible one. I took out eight pills and gave two to each person. ‘They're speckled Mitsubishis,' I said, peering at the face of one of my pills, seeing the tiny blue crystals glint in the white logo. I rewrapped the remaining pills and slipped the bag into my back pocket, intending to give them to the others later on.

Rez raised one pill above him. ‘Body of Christ,' he said.

‘Amen,' we replied in chorus.

Ten minutes later I could already feel it coming up on me. I walked out on the dancing area and flung myself against the waves of sound, crashing into the barrage of dancers and strobe lights. Coming up higher and higher, I had the sense of being nothing, no
one,
fused with the night and the music and the lights, merged with the flux all around me.

Now a girl was smiling at me. I saw her as a fixed point within the swirl of light and noise. She was pretty, with bare arms and shoulders, black hair falling straight down the sides of her face. I smiled back at her. The beat speeded up, the volume intensified. I moved through the crowd, towards the girl, her big round eyes, her smile. Nothing could ever be wrong.

I leaned in closer to her and shouted, ‘Hello there, how's a goin. You're not Irish, are ye? Where are ye from?'

‘Where I'm from? From Germany. Berlin,' she shouted back, laughing. I lightly took her hand and we began to dance. At that moment, the volume rose even higher and the music raced towards a crescendo. The strobe lights pulsed brighter and faster. Then everyone around me was roaring, a great surge of sound like the earth was being rent open.

The girl was pointing at the sky, tugging on my wrist with her other hand.

I looked up: the shadow of the earth was sweeping across the face of the moon, devouring it. A third, a half, three-quarters of the lunar disc were swallowed up. Then the entire thing had vanished and the world was plunged into darkness. Every light on the beach had been switched off the instant the eclipse began. Now the crowd's roar subdued into an awed, tense hush as eerie ambient sound washed over the scene through the stacked speakers.

Everything stayed that way for a timeless moment, the frozen darkness. Then a curved blade of white light slashed the sky. The moon re-emerged. Another great roar rose up from the beach, like an offering to some weird new god.

The strobe lights flashed and the beats pounded once more. The girl was dancing, arms flung up in an arch above her head. I threw my arms to the sky and roared.

51
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Rez

Something was calling to him. It was like a muffled voice, urgent as the help-cries of someone trapped underground. The ecstasy was infusing him steadily. He sat with Kearney and Cocker, the two of them chatting animatedly but Rez saying nothing. For a while he lay back on the stones, looking up at the night above. The stars were distant and, he knew, dead, non-existent. The universe was vast, unutterably vast, the earth a cold, tiny stone that hurtled through it. There was no grand reason for anything. There was no plan, no purpose, no punishment or reward, no hope and no divine meaning to it all. It was chaos and mad accident, violence and raw energy. There was only the fluke of human life, a tiny flicker in an immense darkness – the darkness that filled Rez's dilating eyeballs, a limitless ocean of night-time.