Surviving Michael (8 page)

He actually means ‘one hour’ because that’s usually what happens. Charlie has his back against a wall. Two girls, a red head and a brunette, are facin’ him. I can’t tell what they look like, but to be honest, from this angle, who gives a fuck?

He introduces them to Nick, and Nick shakes both their hands. Charlie steps ever so slightly to the left, which means he wants the red head. She’s the best lookin’ so. Is it just me or can anyone not look at a red head without thinking of her ginge pubes?

The brunette offers Nick a taste of her drink. I don’t think a girl has ever offered me a taste of her drink. I’ve had a few thrown in me face alright, but I don’t think there was any actual consumption intended.

For that matter, I don’t think anyone’s ever introduced me to a girl either, and now that I think of it, I can’t remember even Charlie ever introducin’ me to a girl. I’m his cousin for fuck’s sake. He should be lookin’ out for me. Throw the odd bone in my direction. I’m not that fussy. It’s not like I don’t have any experience with women, I’ve been to Amsterdam more than a few times.

I’m also proud to say that there are very few people in Ireland, even Europe, who have watched more pornos than me in the last five years. In fact, I was thinkin’ of makin’ one meself. Not to be in it or anythin’ like that. To be the director or the producer. A bloke in work’s younger brother is studyin’ film and he’d be able to get all the equipment. I reckon that if Charlie could put me in touch with a few buddin’ starlets, then I’d be away in a hack.

I might apply to go on that show
Dragons’ Den
where those millionaires invest if you’ve a good idea. There’s four blokes on the panel and a chick. They always ask about the person’s UPS – it’s their unique point for sellin’ or somethin’. Well, my UPS will be its location. That’s a movie term for where the film is set.

Pornos are always in colleges or hospitals or offices or in some big gaf or a hotel, but mine will be in a post office. I’ve never seen a porno in a post office. It’s the perfect spot when you think about it.

I’d have two babes workin’ at the counter – a blonde and a brunette, of course – and they’d be ridin’ all the customers, and then each other on their lunch break. A couple of postmen would have to go out and deliver a few parcels to MILFs at home. ‘I have a big package for you,’ they’d say. Stuff like that. And there’s a strict post mistress who’s actually a babe, and they all end up in a massive orgy at the end. And the best bit is the title –
The Postman Always Cums Twice
. Genius.

It wouldn’t even cost that much. I could sell a few hundred copies just on me own. I should say it to Danny. See what he thinks. A sort of outside opinion. He’s always readin’ some shite or other.

‘Here, Danny.’

He could even help me write it.

‘Danny.’

‘What?’

‘You like readin’ and writin’, don’t ye?’

‘What?’ he says.

‘Readin’ and writin’,’ I say louder, over the music.

‘Rita’s ridin’?’

‘For fuck’s sake.’

‘Who’s Rita?’ he asks.

‘Not Rita,’ I shout. ‘Readin’.’

‘Rita Riordan? Never heard of her.’

‘Are you guys alright for drinks?’ Ruby butts in. She’s standin’ behind the bar lookin’ down at us.

I look at her.

‘Liam, do you want another?’ Danny says.

How could that be? Is it possible?

‘Liam, do you want another drink?’

That’s amazin’.

‘Liam,’ Danny shouts into my face.

I ignore him. ‘Ruby,’ I says. ‘Have your tits gotten bigger?’

‘WE HAD this bet,’ she says, ‘that whoever drank the most vodka, the others would have to chip in and pay for the winner to have her hair done.’

I glance up at her hair. ‘And you lost?’

‘Fuck you,’ she says and punches me hard in the chest with her fist.

‘I’m only messing with you,’ I say, rubbing my chest. ‘It’s lovely.’

‘We’d had a few already, and it sounded like a good idea at the time. A few drinks and a bit of peer pressure and you’ll do anything, won’t ye? But I’m absolutely dying all day.’ She knocks back her vodka and diet 7UP. ‘I’m just not used to that much drink.’

‘Do you fancy another?’

‘Yeah, thanks,’ she says, holding out her glass to me. It holds half a slice of shriveled up lemon that looks like a drowned swimmer at the bottom of an empty swimming pool.

‘But only get me a single. I’ll top it up meself.’ She surreptitiously slides her opened handbag towards me, and I see the glass neck of a Smirnoff vodka bottle poking out of it like a turtle’s head. I smile at her, or I wince, (they’re quite similar expressions for me), and I shoulder my way through the mass of coagulated bodies.

It’s two deep at the bar, and it takes me almost five minutes just to get both my elbows rested on top of the bar’s edge. Ruby and Ricky are at the opposite end. This other bartender is doing his best, but he’s drowning in the orders and can barely keep up. By the time I get our drinks and get back to... Christ, what was her name? By the time I get back to her, she’ll have pissed off, unless she’s desperate. Who am I kidding? Of course she’ll still be there.

Despite what Charlie thinks, it’s the girl who always makes the final decision that you’re going to sleep together. It’s only the bloke’s job to present them with the opportunity.

I see Charlie, still in the same spot, still with the same red head, and still all chat and laughs. There’s something different about him tonight. He seems more mellow than usual. Like he’s actually listening to what she’s saying rather than trying to figure out what his next move is going to be, or who else he could be talking to. I’m surprised he’s even still here. Normally he’ll have talked them into leaving with him by now. I’d like to think it’s because of the girl, but I’ve met her and she’s as superficial and puerile as her mate that I’m talking to. Or listening to, anyway.

I’d put it down to some new drug, but he’s not into any of that. None of us ever were, and except for the odd line of coke or a joint here and there, it’s a boat that we’ve all sort of missed. A couple of years after we left school everyone seemed to be wasted on that shit, but we were happy enough with our pints.

I shout up to Ruby, but the music’s too fucking loud. Then I see Liam and Danny sitting together at the bar. They look like two off duty cops trying to blend in. I watch them. I like doing that sometimes. Just looking at someone. Looking at them when they don’t know they’re being watched. People are ordering their drinks around me, but I just keep looking at those two. They aren’t talking to anyone. They aren’t even talking to each other. Liam’s eyes keep darting back and forth and up and down, undressing every girl that comes within six feet of him. Danny is just staring. Staring with this blank fucking gormless expression like, I don’t know, like he’s sitting on a bus on a Monday morning watching the rain piss against a dirty window and heading into a shit job. If it wasn’t for the drink in front of him slowly evaporating, you’d think he was part of the furniture. I’ve seen more enthusiasm for life coming off the fossilised cock of a tyrannosaurus rex.

Perhaps they always look like that, it’s just more noticeable when surrounded by this pulsating happy bunch of time-wasting revellers. Like noticing how tired and dull an old wall looks when next to a freshly painted one. Maybe I look the same to him.

That’s the great thing about acknowledging and then accepting one’s own mediocrity. You’re not delusional anymore. I’ve long ago realised that I’m never going to do the stuff or own the things that I dreamt of when I was a kid. But I like to take comfort in the knowledge that my nightmare life could be someone else’s dream. There’s a real comfort to be found in the humdrum of banality, and as I’ve often found through personal experience anyway, there’s nothing as destructive as the delusion of hope, or a cheerful expectation that one day things’ll get better. That one day you’ll get a better job, a better girlfriend or wife; that one day you’ll go to the gym three times a week as you’ve been promising yourself for years; that your kids won’t turn out to be recalcitrant little pricks like your neighbours’ kids; that you’ll even one day win the lotto, who knows? That one day you’ll somehow become a better version of yourself, and that you’ll then finally live a better version of your own life.

But you won’t. It’s all self-delusion just to numb the pain. To help you make it through another day. To stop you from stepping out in front of a bus, or accelerating into a busy junction. Thankfully, I’ve accepted my own indistinguishable, vapid and pedestrian self years ago. It was quite liberating.

I look over at Charlie again, and I realise there isn’t that much difference between them and him. So what if he’s shagging different women left, right and centre? Is that what it’s all about? At least Danny has a girlfriend. I don’t remember Charlie ever going out with a girl for more than a month, and all male bullshit bravado aside, that’s a bit sad. No, it’s worse than sad. It’s depressing. Still living the same life now as he did as a teenager. Christ, we all are. Where’s the growth in any of that? In any of us? Charlie, Danny, Liam and me. And I can see all of it summed up now in Danny and Liam’s expressions. The boredom and the bullshit, and Jesus, the thoughts of another twenty years of it.

I’m suddenly consumed with an unconditional love for them. My mates. No, wait. Not love. More like pity. Pity and love are not dissimilar though; two blood clots in the same vein. Pity and disappointment. As much for myself as for them.

We’re all here for the same reason tonight, but not one of us will ever mention Michael’s name. After all these years I’m still trying to make sense of it. I’ve been thinking a lot about him lately and about that afternoon, probably because it takes my thoughts away from Aoife. But now that I’m thinking about it again, it’s all so fresh and raw.

A part of each of us drowned with him that afternoon. It’s not even like we left our youth behind on the pier, it’s more like we stopped growing up after that day. But the water took some things from us as well: our ambition, our love of life and of each other, our innocence, our foolishness, and replaced them all with guilt. Survivor’s guilt, I think it’s called. How can we excel and enjoy what Michael will never experience? Why was it him, and not us? We dared him to do it, that’s why. He was supposed to get out of the water and then dare one of us to do something. Then everything would have been okay. But it’s not okay.

It’s all too late now. He can’t dare us. The game is over.

But what if it wasn’t? What if I... What if we... Finished the game?

My God. What if we did that? What if it was my turn? Or Liam’s? Or Danny’s? Or Charlie’s?

No, it’s Liam’s. He dared Michael first. It’s Liam’s turn. It’s Liam’s turn.

LIAM IS SPRAWLED out on his back across my three-seater brown couch like some giant fat lizard sunning his balls. As usual, he’s wearing baggy tracksuit bottoms and a plain white T-shirt that looks more like a bed sheet. They don’t put any fancy designs or brand names on T-shirts that size. I don’t blame them either. If I were Calvin Klein, I wouldn’t make any clothes, and I certainly wouldn’t put my name on them if I thought some sloppy fat fuck like Liam was going to wear them in public.

Danny wasn’t drinking last night, but somehow he still managed to get into verbal blows with Ruby. She looked wrecked after her shift, but Danny still insisted on going on about some shite with his work. Eventually, she just got pissed off, and understandably so, and told him to go home. In fairness to Danny, he still drove Liam and me for something to eat, and then I ended up inviting Danny back to my place. Liam just invited himself.

I didn’t sleep too well last night. It was so fucking hot; I had to open the windows in my bedroom. Plus, I could hear Liam’s snores reverberating throughout the house. He slept on the couch when he could have had a bed. When I came down, he was still on the couch. On the floor beside him were a packet of Frosties, a carton of milk and an empty bowl with a soup spoon in it. I picked up the Frosties box and the milk, shook them, and then threw them in the recycling bin.

From the kitchen, I’m watching Danny and Liam. They’re watching cartoons. Danny has a book in his hands (as usual), ‘The Power of Positive Moments’ or something like that, but he’s actually watching the cartoons (as usual). I haven’t mentioned my idea of the dares to them yet as I’m waiting for Charlie to get here. He left with the red head just before midnight last night, but before he’d left I’d asked him to come by about lunchtime today.

My idea about the dares had me awake most of the night, practising what I was going to say over and over. All of a sudden though, Liam is talking about some new girl he fancies who’s started working beside him, and I see my opportunity. Like most things in life, it’s not the way I had it planned, but the result is just the same.

‘So why don’t you just ask her out then?’ Danny asks him.

‘I probably will,’ Liam says, ‘I’ll see how it goes, like.’

‘Would you fuck off,’ I add, ‘you’ve been saying that for ages.’

‘You’re all mouth and no action,’ Danny says to him.

‘No, I’m not. I just need to get her at the right time, that’s all.’

‘Chicken shit,’ Danny says. ‘You couldn’t get a ride in a brothel.’

‘Irregardless, I’ll have you know, smart arse,’ says Liam, ‘that I have had a ride in a brothel.’

‘Irregardless isn’t a word, you arsehole,’ says Danny. ‘Besides, you couldn’t get a ride in a nightclub, anyway. That’s for fucking sure.’

‘Yeah, I could. Easy.’

‘Well, there’d have to be about a thousand women in it, and no blokes. And every one of them dying for it. Then you might have a half chance.’

‘I garan-fuckin-tee you, smart hole, that if I asked every bird in a nightclub, I’d get a ride. It’s all about the numbers.’

The doorbell rings.

‘Hold on,’ I say to them as I walk to the door, praying it’s Charlie.

It rings again – impatient prick. ‘Alright?’ he says as I open the door.

‘Yeah, and you?’

Liam and Danny are arguing as we come back in.