The Butcher Boy (26 page)

I got the paraffin from the coalhouse and threw it round everywhere but mostly on the pile. Spin spin goes your head with the smell of it here we go I says and then what happens.

No matches! No fucking matches! Oh for fuck's sake! I said.

When I got out into the street I couldn't believe it what's going on now I says. It was like the bit in Gone with the Wind where they burn the city. Fellows with halves of legs and some with none at all only a bit of a stump. Traynor's daughter was bucking away on the Diamond between two nuns, with her mouth all suds. The drunk lad was directing traffic with a new tie on him.
This way to the Mother of God, my friends!
They were far too busy waiting for her to be bothered about me running round for matches. I went into the shop thank you very much Mary I says its goodbye now I'm afraid but she didn't say anything she just sat there.

When I got back to the house I locked all the doors and then I lit a couple of matches. Soon as they fell on the heap up she went whumph!

I put on the record then I went in and lay down on the kitchen floor I closed my eyes and it was just like ma singing away like she used to.

In that fair city where I did dwell

A butcher boy I knew right well

He courted me my life away

But now with me he will not stay

I wish I wish I wish in vain

I wish I was a maid again

But a maid again I ne'er will be

Till cherries grow on an ivy tree.

He went upstairs and the door he broke

He found her hanging from a rope

He took a knife and he cut her down

And in her pocket these words he found

Oh make my grave large wide and deep

Put a marble stone at my head and feet

And in the middle a turtle dove

That the world may know I died for love.

I was crying because we were together now. Oh ma I said the whole house is burning up on us then a fist made of smoke hit me a smack in the mouth its over says ma its all over now.

That's what you think! says the voice and when I look up who is it.

Oh for fuck's sake! I said -- Sausage!

Ah Francie what were you at for the love of God! he says, twisting the cap in his hands.

Fabian was behind him with the one eye closed giving me a dirty look lets see you try to escape now!

Every time I woke up there was a different bullneck standing by the bed.

I was in in a bad state, there was no doubt about it. I looked in the mirror.

What's this? I says.

All you could see was bandages, it was like the Invisible Man. Aiee! I says. Come on now says the nurse
come on!
or I'll have to send for the orderly.

After a while they gave me a set of crutches I was hobbling around on them when this bogman in a dressing gown says to me: What happened to you? Your face is all burn-ted!

I told him the whole story about the orphanage going up in the middle of the night and all the children getting out except one poor little boy. I couldn't stand the screams I said we could all see him standing at the upstairs window help me help me!

So you went back in to get him? he says with the lip hanging.

I just shrugged no no tell me tell me he says so I told him about me and the little lad jumping from the top floor and all that. When I was finished he had tears in his eyes. He was so mad to give me a cigarette that he dropped a scatter of them on the floor. He could hardly steady his hand to light the fag for me. Puff puff through the bandages all you could see was the fag and the two eyes looking out. That bogman, he couldn't get giving me enough fags.
And what else?
he'd say then with his mouth open.

Then one day in comes Fabian walking like John Wayne and I could see by the way he looked at me he meant business. OK you sonuvabitch move we're ridin' out right you be now Mr Fabian sorr!

SO OFF WENT ME AND SAUSAGE AND FABIAN OF THE YARD. I could see Sausage as white as a ghost in the front, in case I'd make a cod of him again but I wouldn't for I knew that was what pokerarse Fabian wanted, to be able to show off and give out to Sausage. Leddy had the place all locked up but the manure heap was still warm from the morning kill. Here we are I said and Sausage says: Right, dig!, and hands me the graip. How can I dig sergeant with these hands and I lifted up my swaddled stumps.

He was nearly going to say: There's nothing wrong with them hands you're only making it up but then he saw Fabian staring at him with his
well what are you waiting for you country bumpkin
face on him so he spat on his hands and starts digging with the graip. I was sorry now I had gone near her with the lime I was afraid if she was gone they wouldn't believe me and the whole thing would start all over again come on Francie and we
know
and all this. But there was no need to worry for after a while I knew by the sarge that he had hit something and sure enough when he pulled out the graip there stuck on the end of it was part of a leg and Mrs Nugent's furry boot hanging. Fabian wasn't so smart then. Oh Christ!, he says,
bwoagh!
and gets sick all over his foot.

Gammy Leg the court man thought he was all it limping up and down tell me this tell me that I'll tell you fuck all I said. Oh! was all you could hear in the gallery what did I care I didn't care let them say it. But after Sausage told me that if I ever said that again I'd be in real serious trouble all right then I said. So when he said did you do this did you do that I said yes I did. And I would have kept on saying it only he started on about the money. Comes right up to me there in the box: It was a cold-blooded, premeditated, and deliberate crime -- one that had been cunningly planned and thought over, and above all, it was a murder perpetrated for the meanest and most contemptible of motives -- for the purpose of robbery and plunder! I had a good mind to hit make a go at him soon as he said it but I could see Sausage glaring at me no don't Francie so I just said what would you know about it Gammy Leg you don't know what you're talking about I never robbed a thing off the Nugents the only thing I ever took was Philip's comics and I was going to give them back I swear you can ask Joe. Sausage showed me papers
Brutal pig killing
--
sensation in court!

There was a drawing of me standing there and underneath
Francis Brady is a pig.

Fuck this I says even the papers are at it now but there was another bit I didn't see;
Francis Brady is a pig butcher in a local abattoir.

I said to Sausage: Will they hang me? I hope they hang me.

He looked at me and says: I'm sorry Francie but there's no more hanging. No more hanging? I says. For fuck's sake! What's this country coming to!

But Sausage was right, there was no more hanging and a few weeks after that there we were all off again me and the sergeant in the back phut phut away off down the road to
another
house of a hundred windows. But this time there was no ho'ho h'hee they'll put manners on you here or any of that stuff, we just talked about ma and da and the old times in the town and when we said goodbye on the steps he said to me there's a lot of sad things in this world Francie and this is one of them.

Goodbye sergeant I said, right says Fabian and the bullnecks then they were gone off down the avenue in the patrol car and that was the last I seen of my old friend Sergeant Sausage.

They took my clothes the pair of fuckers nearly tore them off me come on come on they says. Then they gave me this white thing it tied at the back. What's this I says Emergency Ward Ten?

One of them gives me a dig in the ribs and says you needn't think you'll get away with that kind of lip here its not old women you're up against now Brady.

I know I says then I managed to get away from him: You don't fool me! I shouted. You're trying to trick me! You're going to put me into a mental hospital!

He got a bit red under the eyes and I could see him clenching the fist. Then I laughed: Its all right I said, its only a joke, for fuck's sake!

That was all a long time ago. Twenty or thirty or forty years ago, I don't know. I was on my own for a long time I did nothing only read the
Beano
and look out at the grass. Then they said to me; There's no sense in you being stuck up in that wing all on your own. I don't think you're going to take the humane killer to any of our patients are you?

Humane
killer! I don't think Mrs Nugent would be too pleased to hear you calling it that, doc, I said. Oh now now he says that's all over you must forget all about that next week your solitary finishes how about that hmm? I felt like laughing in his face: How can your solitary finish? That's the best laugh yet.

But I didn't. I just said that's great and the next week he introduced me to all these bogmen making baskets and fat teddybears. Is there anything you want, says the doc. Yes, I said, the
Beano Annual
and a trumpet. There you are he says the next day. So now I have a trumpet and if you could see me I look just like da going round the place in my Al Capone coat. Sometimes they have sing songs in the hall and they ask me for a song. Go on!, they say, you're a powerful musicianor! You're the boy can sing then off I go and before long they're all at it, that's the stuff! The Butcher Boy by cripes!

You're all enjoying yourselves says the doctor yes I says, doing the bogman tango. Out with the backside, up with the nose.

One of them comes up to me one day I was hacking at the ice on the big puddle behind the kitchens and says what's going on here or what do you be at with this ice? I'm thinking what I'm going to do with the million billion trillion dollars I'm going to win, I says. So you're going to win a million billion trillion? he says. That's right, I said. Then he leans into me and whispers: Well if you'll take my advice you'll tell none of the bastards in here. They'll only fill you full of lies and let you down.

Oho! I says, don't you worry nobody's letting me down again!

Nor me either! he says, now you said it!

Then he said give me a bit of that stick there like a good man and the two of us started hacking away together beneath the orange sky. He told me what he was going to do when he won his money then I said it was time to go tracking in the mountains, so off we went, counting our footprints in the snow, him with his bony arse clicking and me with the tears streaming down my face.

PATRICK McCABE was born in 1955 in Ireland. He is the author of the highly acclaimed novel
The Dead School
and is also a playwright. He lives in Dublin with his wife and two daughters.