The Troubles (7 page)

     “No.” She mouths the command and she is right for to disclose our position to either the British Officers or potentially the British Loyalists that are familiar to us could put us and our kin in an unknowable jeopardy. 

     The boys are aborting volume in their pathetic screams and as the may hem of the assault is lessening, the crunching impact of limbs quiets after what feels an eternity. The men have succeeded in the onslaught of their one-sided savagery and quiet whimpers are now heard as condescending laughter replaces the cruel threats and empty anger. All I can hear now is my pulse spitting its deafening drumming into my ears and the wind howling in purposeful inharmoniousness as though it’s the musical accompaniment to the harsh blow of whistles. I turn away from my friend and wipe salt- fresh tears from my red cheeks. I am embarrassed by my sudden sadness and feel paralyzed by the crushing cyclone that is enclosing around me and around all of the citizens of this segregated isle. The abject denigration is truly palpable now and ignorance cannot be afforded anymore and even though I am Protestant of descent, I feel anything but safe. Ena pulls me back toward her and hugs me tightly into her slender frame. Her embrace comforts me and she smells of fresh rain and lavender soap. She whispers into the wind behind me, quietly, “may the road rise up to meet ya, may the wind be always at yer back, may the sun shine warm upon yer face, the rains fall soft upon yer fields and until we meet again, may God hold ya in the palm of His Hand.’’ The Gaelic blessing warms through our threadbare clothes as our entwined connection envelops me with a newfound resolute strength.      

   “Alright?’’ We separate from our protective cocoon as my sister and amended guardian, warmly regards my face without any judgmental discrimination to her examination. Simple concern belies her touch.

     “Fine. I’ll be fine…I was just reminded of last week when I by chance, was privy to the attack on Melvern Street. Oh Ena, it couldn’t have been more awful to see that boy’s demise, whomever he is, bless his heart.” Sweat has now coolly beaded down my exposed neck and my lower back feels soaked as I anticipate how quickly I will feel the raw bite of the gathering North Atlantic chill. My teeth have begun to chatter so loudly I fear they might be out of my control and bite of my tongue.

     “Ena, see if the coppers are still there…won’t ya?’’ In consternation with a ghoulish mask of fearful trepidation marring her arresting beauty, she stands up; easing her aching knees and squints her gaze through the same opening I had looked through. I am now so cold that all I can manage to do is curl into a ball like an infant and rock myself back and forth in an effort to self-sooth while distracting from the visceral chill that is crawling from the tips of my extremities upwards like worms burrowing into earth.

     “Holy shite!” Ena has clasped her arms around my petite torso as she pulls me up to an unsteady standing position. As I find my footing I stutter out my question with a harsh earnestness I rarely hold for her.

     “Tell me they’re gone?’’

    “The coppers have fled the scene,” she says with obvious contempt, “but there’s a lad still out there and he must have a banjaxed foot…all others seem to have gone. He’s just lying there! What are we to do? Can’t just leave him to freeze the night? This is savage for sure! What if the peelers come back?’’ Reflecting a searing adrenaline, her eyes are glowing black pits of tar in the dimming light.

     “Poor boy.’’ The young man’s whimpers are steadily increasing volume and he begins to bellow pitifully alone in the storming eve. I walk on the numb pads of sore feet following Ena’s shadow as we move towards the figure that is moaning and shrieking like a forlorn animal caught in a trap awaiting the final blow. Through his faucet of unrelenting tears and snot, shaded, distinctly green eyes, plead up to us, as we bend down gently to appease him of any fear of he might have. “Hush child!” Ena, right now, the stronger of the two of us, has put one arm on the brick sidewalk as the other hovers, awaiting permission, over the point of injury, his right ankle.

     Through gulps of jagged breath, the boy, who is clearly not as young as we had thought from our vantage point, anxiously explains. “We didn’t mean it. We were just haven’ a gaff. They put a baytin on us right away. Didn’t even give a shite we’re just young lads!’’

     “I know son.’’ I am now facing the young man with the brilliant frightened eyes shining in the dark. “Don’t need to explain, we saw i
t
all.’'

 
CHAPTER 12: Da fhada an la tagaan an trachnona. (No matter how long the day, the evening comes)

     Quinn Taggart had started that day with a conviction that his brother Alastar would be his safeguard against the foul world that had been storming beyond their four walls. ‘’Take care of Da while I’m in Dublin,’’ Alastar had whispered early morning, breaking Quinn’s rest.

     “Aye,’’ the boy had responded, his brain still full of sleep and cobwebs though his young mind gleaned from the sudden admiration he felt for his older sibling. He wished he was as capable of the valiance and bravery Alastar subconsciously possessed, but alas, he was the youngest of the Taggart clan and was overindulged and coddled by every one of his older siblings and whether he needed the extra attentiveness or not he was unsure. He was unsure of a lot of things these days. Being a boy of eleven, every day of his short life in the insular world of Belfast had been marred by hostile neighbors, police combativeness and the abject plague of religious strife that had infiltrated every facet of Quinn’s routine day-to-day life. For any young boy this would be the formulaic pressure cooker for an implosion or explosion. Therefore he was confused. Can one simultaneously feel as though they are fragmentizing in a million shards and yet wish to perpetuate that same destruction upon an unknowable target of convenience?

     Without waking his siblings, two of whom were deftly slumbering in the same room as Quinn, his eldest brother crept down the midway stairs, pausing carefully before the top step with the creaky floorboard. The young man hurriedly made a sandwich and within two minutes he soundlessly left the cramped, aged abode. Quinn crept into the kitchen avoiding the squeaky floorboard in the staircase striving not to alert his whiskey drained father as he snored off the fumes.  He quietly drank some of the leftover coffee Alastar had brewed, not because he liked the taste or the stimulant but because he usually liked to imitate his eldest sibling.  He had made up his mind the day before, after he had met with his brother, at Harland and Wolff Shipyard that today would be his act of defiance within the neighborhood outfit of boys that ranged in ages nine to twenty-five years. Alastar had made his own ruling that after years of passive inactivity, the stakes for the Taggarts was too egregious for him to be a bystander anymore. Quinn was so proud and exhilarated by his brother’s participation; it had spurred him to finally do the same. The sanguine Bobby Sands had been in his ear most every day. He was Alastar’s age but Alastar had avoided a true intimate connection with him. ‘’We’re not the same, he’s of a more hostile heart than I,’’ was the only explanation for Quinn’s brother’s lack of friendship with his neighborhood peer, yet Quinn thought of the martyr as Jesus Christ.

     Mr. Sands had hair reminiscent of his surname, the color of sun kissed golden sand and it flowed long past his shoulders. The youth spoke often of a peaceful revolution in Ireland with a truly genuine conviction. Why Alastar was avoiding the soft-spoken young man who had written poetry to cope with his own personal persecution, Quinn did not understand. The fact that Bobby who had always greeted Quinn with an ironic smile, had conversed with him in the same manner he would with an adult, was inconsequential to Quinn today for it was not why Quinn was devoted. 

     There was little trepidation as he walked relaxed, whistling an old Irish tune that his father had whistled in happier times, so long ago now that Quinn was surprised he recalled the melody. Bobby had given him and a few of his schoolmate’s specific directions and the boy was gleeful to have finally been handed his first covert mission. “Come by Alexander’s Coach Works in the morn. I’ll be starting me shift. It’ll be but a minute for us to talk ‘cause me colleagues will…” Bobby had trailed off, his light disposition visibly marred by the memory of how his co-workers had confronted him the week earlier. He had recounted to Quinn that he had been finishing up his workday all too relieved to be leaving his dreadfully sour place of employment when a group of surly men surrounded him. What he had first noticed was that a local Protestant loyalist gangs tartan armband adorned their arms with controversial colors. This had immediately sent him awash with fear. That apprehension grew as they had held Bobby at gunpoint and had warned him that he was never to return to Alexander’s Coach Works again because he was ‘’Fenian scum’’ and if he would they would kill him. He had bravely returned to work aware their eyes and comments trailed him with contempt as he labored. He was now a changed man as their violent threat was the catalyst and he was plotting his reprisal. There would not be violence in Bobby Sand’s measure but a pen to paper and he would broadcast to the world this mistreatment.

     “It’s baltic cold out here!’’ The boys gathered themselves in a pigeon like formation weaving in and out of their misshapen circle.

     Quinn was so proud he had remembered to put on the thick woolen fleece hand me down his brother had worn at his age. He agreed colloquially through blue tinged lips. “Yer right. It’s like brass monkey’s this morn.’’ The teenagers were all a little anxious to meet with Bobby Sands but were too proud to admit it. In this group the moment one exposed themselves as fearful or timid the other boys would use that same insecurity to inflict a barrage of wrath upon their target. This was well known to Quinn and so he picked his head up high and straightened his posture standing his tallest at five feet. He was going to address Bobby this morning by looking directly in his eyes and he promised he would never again stutter or appear bashful.

     Bobby Sands had won over Quinn’s admiration one evening when all the boys had been gathered in an abandoned shack, which was now primarily used for covert meeting by Irish Republic members or the growing by day, sympathizers. Bobby had walked right in, obliviously clumsy and perhaps too boisterously, to be welcomed by this group he held in such high esteem. The room had vibrated with static electricity as the stranger before Quinn orated his latest poem in his calm authoritative manner. 

     ‘’The stars of freedom light the skies. Uncrowned queens of yesteryear; They were born ‘mid shades of royal hue, from mystic wombs they did appear.

Silver gem that pierce the dark. Heavenly virgins in disguise. That stir the heart with love and flame, And light great flames in all men’s eyes. Oh! Star of beauty in nightly hue, You have inspired bondsmen to kings, And lit the ways of despairing folk, From dreams to living things. In the seas of time you float serene, Oh! silver stars of nations born, And you draw a tear to free men’s eyes, Through dungeon bars forlorn. Oh! Star of Erin, queen of tears, Black clouds have beset thy birth, And your people die like morning stars, That your light may grace the earth. But this Celtic star will be born, And ne’er by mystic means, But by a nation sired in freedom’s light, And not in ancient dreams.’’

     While the dialogue was perhaps too evolved for Quinn’s mind to interpret, the emoting quality of Bobby’s soothing tone and his abject ability to captivate a room of such diverse intellectual ability ranging from the simplest of souls to men who truly comprehended the impact words could have, allowed Quinn to unite with his compatriots as Bobby Sands graciously basked in the positive reception.

     On this day’s meeting in the brisk breath of the morning mist, Bobby told them again to not take up arms but to help him publish some of his latest works while he and the remaining youth stood in the looming shadow of Alexander Coach Works shivering, fingers numb from the tedious exchange of paper leaflets. This had disappointed Quinn more that he was willing to admit to himself. He felt his violence like a liquid metal coursing through his veins at every mention of Protestant authority, as their condemnation of his birthright was a direct assault to his very being. What was so truly damning about being a Taggart? “Nothin’ at all,’’ Quinn remembered Alastar repeating, growing frustrated by the boy’s barrage of the repetitive line of questioning. “We believe in The Lord same as they do.” He had quietly tried to comfort his little brother’s squirming agitations. Alastar had failed to rationalize and clarify the complex situation for the then seven year old and over the years the anger grew and festered within the lad.

     Quinn had left Bobby Sands at Alexander’s Coach Works with the others as the group quarreled about the object of the mission. “That dipso does me head in,” the self-appointed leader of their motley crew barked, clearly frustrated they hadn’t been tasked with a vandalistic conquest.

     Quinn optimistically joined the conversation, which seemed to be going nowhere. “But I like him. He’s dead on.”

     The tall, squarely built, teenager turned and glared causing the rest of the group to imitate. “Ya are a bloody eejit, Quinn Taggart.’’ Disgust dripped sardonically from his twisted frown.

     ‘’What! Why would ya say such a thing?’’ Quinn was offended and embarrassed to his core by being called out in such a manner. Weren’t all of his peers as respectful of Bobby as he was? 

     The bevy of boys walked in formation of a troop as they weaved conspicuously onto Brussels Street, the neighboring enemy territory. Pitching rocks at windows and fleeing gleefully when a Protestant was home to respond in frustration.