Dark Lies the Island Read Online Free Page B
Author: Kevin Barry
Aodhan McAdam and I squatted discreetly on our haunches, I spoke honestly, and powerfully, and from the heart.
‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I know about the blow jobs. That’s perfectly natural. I was getting blow jobs myself when I was seventeen. I wasn’t broadcasting the fact, and I could
spell
, but I was …’
He tried to rise from his haunches, he tried to get away, but I had this strange animal strength (your eyebrows ascend, Dr Murtagh), and I kept his bony elbow clamped in my claw, and I lasered my eyes into his, and he was scared enough, I could see that.
I said:
‘Ellie Prendergast, or should I say
Ellie P
, is the most beautiful girl in this city. She is an absolute fucking angel. If you hurt her, I will kill you. I’m telling you this now so you can give yourself a chance.’
I slapped him once across the face. It was a manic shot with plenty of sting to it. I told him of youth’s fleeting nature. I told him he didn’t realise how quickly all this would pass. I told him how it had been for me. I spoke of the darknesses that can so quickly seep between the cracks of a life. I told him of the images I had witnessed and voices I had heard. He began to cry in fear. I told him how my Wifey had been plagued by evil faeries in the night – oh it was all coming out! – and how my Ellie was to me a deity to be worshipped, and I would protect her with my life.
‘I have Type 1 diabetes!’ he sobbed. ‘I can’t deal with this shit!’
Oh but I laid it on with a motherfucking trowel. I brought him to the pits of despair and showed him around. My threats were veiled and made stranger by the serenity of my smile. I said I expected him on the porch at eight o’clock, in his track pants and his Abercrombie & Fitch polo shirt. But before that he would have a job to do. We rose from our haunches and I caught the scruff of his neck and I led him along the aisles to the paint racks – Saturday-men watched, staff in yellow cover-alls watched, but no one approached us – and I showed him the white paint, how much of it there was and how cheap it was, and I explained I’d be pulling a spot check on the rain shelter at seven o’clock, sharp.
I let go of him then. I sucked up the last of my calm, and I said:
‘Listen, Aodhan, we’re doing a shopping run this afternoon … Can I fetch anything in particular? You two go for that barbecue salmon in the vac-packs, don’t you?’
I left him ashen-faced and limp. I prowled the aisles some more and now these hot little barks of triumph came up as I walked. The Saturday-men avoided my eyes, and they scurried from my path, and I barked a little louder. As I’m here, I thought, why not pick up a couple of things?
So I bought an extendable ladder and a claw hammer.
The automatic doors registered my presence at once and I was let outside to the sun-kissed afternoon. I propped and extended the ladder against the front of the store and I climbed with the claw hammer hanging coolly in my grip. It took no more than a half-dozen wrenches to loose the exclamation mark
!
from the Do-It-Rite and carefully I placed it under my arm – it was light as air – and I descended. I walked across the car park. I placed it carefully on the tarmac in front of the Volvo – my intention was to drive over it and smash it to pieces – but then I thought, no, that would be too quick. So I got down on my knees and I started to tap gently with the hammer at the blue plastic of the exclamation mark
!
until it began to crack here and there, and tiny shatter lines appeared, and these joined up, piece by piece, until the entire surface of the
!
had become a beautiful mosaic in the blue of the sign, like the trace of tiny backroads on an old map – marking out lost fields, lost kingdoms, a lost world – and I was serene as a bird riding the swells of morning air over those fields.
The squad car appeared.
FJORD OF KILLARY
SO I BOUGHT an old hotel on the fjord of Killary. It was set hard
‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I know about the blow jobs. That’s perfectly natural. I was getting blow jobs myself when I was seventeen. I wasn’t broadcasting the fact, and I could
spell
, but I was …’
He tried to rise from his haunches, he tried to get away, but I had this strange animal strength (your eyebrows ascend, Dr Murtagh), and I kept his bony elbow clamped in my claw, and I lasered my eyes into his, and he was scared enough, I could see that.
I said:
‘Ellie Prendergast, or should I say
Ellie P
, is the most beautiful girl in this city. She is an absolute fucking angel. If you hurt her, I will kill you. I’m telling you this now so you can give yourself a chance.’
I slapped him once across the face. It was a manic shot with plenty of sting to it. I told him of youth’s fleeting nature. I told him he didn’t realise how quickly all this would pass. I told him how it had been for me. I spoke of the darknesses that can so quickly seep between the cracks of a life. I told him of the images I had witnessed and voices I had heard. He began to cry in fear. I told him how my Wifey had been plagued by evil faeries in the night – oh it was all coming out! – and how my Ellie was to me a deity to be worshipped, and I would protect her with my life.
‘I have Type 1 diabetes!’ he sobbed. ‘I can’t deal with this shit!’
Oh but I laid it on with a motherfucking trowel. I brought him to the pits of despair and showed him around. My threats were veiled and made stranger by the serenity of my smile. I said I expected him on the porch at eight o’clock, in his track pants and his Abercrombie & Fitch polo shirt. But before that he would have a job to do. We rose from our haunches and I caught the scruff of his neck and I led him along the aisles to the paint racks – Saturday-men watched, staff in yellow cover-alls watched, but no one approached us – and I showed him the white paint, how much of it there was and how cheap it was, and I explained I’d be pulling a spot check on the rain shelter at seven o’clock, sharp.
I let go of him then. I sucked up the last of my calm, and I said:
‘Listen, Aodhan, we’re doing a shopping run this afternoon … Can I fetch anything in particular? You two go for that barbecue salmon in the vac-packs, don’t you?’
I left him ashen-faced and limp. I prowled the aisles some more and now these hot little barks of triumph came up as I walked. The Saturday-men avoided my eyes, and they scurried from my path, and I barked a little louder. As I’m here, I thought, why not pick up a couple of things?
So I bought an extendable ladder and a claw hammer.
The automatic doors registered my presence at once and I was let outside to the sun-kissed afternoon. I propped and extended the ladder against the front of the store and I climbed with the claw hammer hanging coolly in my grip. It took no more than a half-dozen wrenches to loose the exclamation mark
!
from the Do-It-Rite and carefully I placed it under my arm – it was light as air – and I descended. I walked across the car park. I placed it carefully on the tarmac in front of the Volvo – my intention was to drive over it and smash it to pieces – but then I thought, no, that would be too quick. So I got down on my knees and I started to tap gently with the hammer at the blue plastic of the exclamation mark
!
until it began to crack here and there, and tiny shatter lines appeared, and these joined up, piece by piece, until the entire surface of the
!
had become a beautiful mosaic in the blue of the sign, like the trace of tiny backroads on an old map – marking out lost fields, lost kingdoms, a lost world – and I was serene as a bird riding the swells of morning air over those fields.
The squad car appeared.
FJORD OF KILLARY
SO I BOUGHT an old hotel on the fjord of Killary. It was set hard