Cursory words

Time for a sharp exit. Lager advert from the 80s. The worst era for us auld duffers. But then, at least we had socialism and some kind of communities then. Working class oblivion in the backyard of Empire. It seemed to change when I hit Donegal in the summers and autumnal breaks. More elemental. More natural. Away from urban purgatory in Barrhead. But then this too is narcotic nostalgia. The physicist in me hates this, the shaman likes the conflict. The anarchist chides. The gun is in my hand. McPhee squeals a tad as his bounds are twisted and as the transit van rushes us to the Ayrshire coast. Human shite. That was what Big K cried him. I know what is required. A swift nutting. Bag over the swollen skinhead and despatched to the next life, presuming there is one for him.

In New York, in 1986, it was glibly easy. On the run in the town of clowns without make up. Sympathisers gave me and Big K shelter, cash, arms etc. It was like a fucking holiday camp for us. Lassies threw themselves into our Celtic twilight politics and I had not even shed first blood. I was only the quartermaster in this pantomime. I joked about it in the Disney Irish boozers there and plenty of 4th generation idiots applauded my cause. I only joined the organisation to appease pater. Stupid kid of 19 with bitter fruits and a palpable background in the Province. Derry in those days was still under siege. None of this photogenic film setting for a hard done by miscarriage of justice Loach job. No harm to the lovely bleeding hearts of the good British media. After all I was reared in south Glasgow. The Province was merely a get out from the encroaching gang culture. One frying pan traded for another. Now real escape. Pater thought that joining The Boys would make a man of me and stop me from teenage glue sniffing and brawling in Queen’s Park. Balls. I was an above average schoolboy with an interest in quantum physics and lassies from the private school across The Clyde. St Al’s. The moneyed hacks sent their offspring there in the hope that Jesuit led brainwashing and nine grand fees to feed the Vatican monkey would do the required. To hell with that. My comprehensive didn’t even register on the bloody radar. Shit. Nostalgia again.

I see McPhee stagger onto this nameless Ayrshire beach. K hands me the burlap hood. It’s all too late this backwards glancing. This tube killed more Irishmen than a lifetime of Jamesons and Guinness ever could. Fuck him. In the last moments I see my own hell emerge. A constant sense of loss. Damn the auld fella. I cannot erase the future, nor the past. Fait accomplished. The latest bullet in the thousand year war. Hoist by mine own petard. I await more purgatory as K and I leave the corpse at low tide.

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