Aloysius Tempo

Ashford, County Wicklow, Ireland

18 November 2016

08:46

I’M LOOKING at this fella from inside his own house and wondering what he would say about it all.

Would he say it’s the catch, or would he say it’s the cut?

I’m seeing his big bare feet slap the ground of his wide, neat garden and I’m thinking how he would respond to all this stuff going around in my head.

Would he say it’s the speed or the sleep?

I’m watching his hairy B-cups jiggle as he runs a lap, attacking his heart and prolonging his life.

And my head is wondering if he would say it’s the trip or the fall?

The blade or the bleed?

The gas or the gasp?

Which bit, for him, is
the
bit?

Which element of a nasty, decisive, final accident would he blame?

Would he say it’s the tipping point that defines the end, or that the end stands alone?

Would he, like most, pluck out a moment, a factor, and isolate it, say it was to blame?

Would he say it’s the slide or the stop, the crash or the crunch, the punch or the pavement, the germ or the disease?

Here’s what I’m wondering.

I’m wondering if he knows there’s never one thing that kills you.

Does he know that no one has ever accidentally died from one thing?

Does he know they were all at the end of a chain, on the edge of some steps?

Would he give a damn?

Doubt it.

Most don’t.

Has he thought about stuff like that?

Probably not.

To be honest, he doesn’t look like he thinks much.

He doesn’t look like he knows much.

He looks like he knows very little.

He looks like a dick with tits.

I could tell him about all of this.

I could spend some time telling him how fatal accidents need components, moving parts, things that connect and detach so they can cause the damage.

Fatal accidents, I could say, need some form of weapon, some blade or drop, some wall or cord or cover or flavour that’ll make a heart quit.

He’s running around with the grace of an old sheep and I’m really considering explaining to him how accidents need a time frame, a space on the clock where they can turn, untroubled, from neutral to deadly.

He’s plodding past this window and I could start calling out now, start saying that they need a set of circumstances, a group of factors gelling together, all part of the process, all pointing the same way.

And I could enlighten him, as he makes his way, by saying how they must arrive by surprise before they take who they have come to take.

Hello Danny Latigan, forty-nine years old.

Does he know that I am standing in his house?

Absolutely not.

There he is now, stopping, wheezing, picking his yellow Speedo out of his arse crack with two fingers.

And here am I thinking of outlining to him right now how a fatal accident is the precision instrument of bad luck.

It is the concentrated clusterfuck of misfortune.

It is the lethal friendly fire of an otherwise acceptable day.

Danny’s getting into the pool and I’m thinking how I could, this moment, tell myself some things too.

I could tell myself I shouldn’t be here.

I could get into explaining to my brain that I, that my own will, is things wrongly hatched in some strange sideshow, that it, like me, should be kept in some back room where they stack the incorrect.

I could tell myself some soul-sapping coldness about how I should not be here, that I was never planned, never wanted.

I could tell myself I’m an accident, that I’m error to the bone, that I’m so wrong I caused a death before I knew I was alive.

But I won’t.

Christ, no.

I won’t do that crap ever again.

I’m standing here looking out this big, clean window and instead, right now, I am telling myself that I have been confirmed, that I have been recognised, that I have been officially stamped and welcomed.

They want me to think like this.

They want me to be an accident, to think like an accident.

They want me to be the sort of accident you ring ahead for, the sort of problem you summon.

Right at this moment, I know everything I need to know in the world.

Because, right now, I know myself completely, and it’s all fine.

And I am so very, very comfortable with that knowledge.

Right now there can never be another surprise again.

Right now I even know the future.

Right now I can predict a fact, an accident, with 100-percent certainty.

That fact is about to happen.

And here it comes.

*

‘Morning Danny,’ I say, and he turns as fast as he can in his heated swimming pool, eyes me through the mist lifting off the crystal blue surface of his own little mechanical lagoon.

He goes, ‘Who the fuck are you?’

‘Aloysius,’ I say.

‘This is private property.’

‘No such thing anymore.’

He stands as firm as he can, stands his watery ground in those yellow Speedos, a gold chain around his throat.

A hand waves, ‘Get away to fuck or I’ll get the coppers.’

I walk around the pool, admiring the precise tiling, its oddly pleasing kidney shape, and Danny is watching, manning up to some kind of nuclear state.

He makes for the steps, busting to get out and get a dig at me.

‘Nope,’ I say. ‘You’re not getting out.’

‘Wha?’

‘You’re staying in there.’

‘I’m getting out now, you prick,’ and he’s coming for those steps.

‘No,’ I say, standing over them now, lifting a heavy black boot just for a second, just to show him who’s the boss here. ‘You’re not getting out.’

‘What do you want?’ And he’s backing away, controlling himself in a way he’s not used to doing.

‘Very little.’

‘Wha?’

‘I want you to stay there.’

‘And?’

‘And nothing.’

‘Someone in the house will see you and this will end badly, fella. You’ve no idea who … ’

‘Shut up,’ I say. ‘There’s no one in the house.’

‘There is,’ he says, pointing over at it, forty feet away. We both take it in, an ivy-clad, mock-Tudor monster, with less class than whatever broken farmyard it replaced. I see his eyes flick from window to window, down to the open sliding glass doors, as if expecting to see someone.

‘There’s no one there,’ I say, ‘and you know it. I’ve just come out of it, fuck’s sake. I’ve already texted your missus from your phone, all twenty years of her. She’s now not expecting to see you until tomorrow night. Sorry for wrecking your plans and all.’

And he watches me, points a finger, runs a hand over his face, tries to get a handle on this. He runs it over that large, firm round belly, thinking, digesting, pushing now that accusing finger through a vertical line of hair bisecting that greedy gut, taking a couple of steps backwards, eyes on me all the time.

‘Okay,’ he says, clearing his throat, ready to talk business. ‘Serious now – what do you want?’

I go, ‘If you ask me that again, I’ll scream. In fact, I might scream anyway. It’s not like anyone will hear me.’

And I’m walking the kidney shape and he’s stopped there, central, watching me go round and round and round.

I say, ‘I’m going to do this all day. I could do with the exercise. I normally hit the gym pretty hard three or four times a week, you know, but I’ve been letting it slip.’

‘You a thief?’ he goes, lifting a hand over his eyes, shading them from the half-hearted morning brights like a misplaced salute.

‘No.’

‘What are you then?’

‘That’s just a clever way of asking me what I want, isn’t it? And I asked you not to ask me that again or I’d—’

And I fucking scream.

It bounces off the house, forces itself around his sprawling garden, dashes in among his shitty fake Chinese statues and wanky garden-centre leprechauns at the tree bases which, I happen to know, light up at night.

And now I chuckle.

And it’s shocked him. He’s dropped the hand from his eyes, has his arms by his sides. I have his full attention.

It’s a curious thing when a person suddenly does not know what to do with their hands. It tells you that they’re self-conscious, afraid. That confidence has been yanked from under their feet, right out of their muscles.

I’d say, right about now, Danny reckons he may have a maniac on his hands.

I go, ‘Told you I’d scream.’

‘Yeah,’ he says, nice and quiet, ‘you did. You see, I’m just trying to sort out what’s happening here.’

‘Very little. Honestly, very little.’

‘What are you?’

I pause, take in some of the potential of this place, thirty or more acres of it, from beat-down, shitty pig farm to a barn with knobs on.

‘Okay,’ I say, ‘and you’re the first to hear this.’

‘Yeah?’

‘You ready?’

He nods, turning on the spot now, genuinely, passionately interested in anything I tell him. ‘Yeah,’ he goes, ‘I’m ready.’

‘I am … ’

‘Yeah?’

‘An assassin.’

‘A wha?’ and it’s the hand over the eyes again.

‘An assassin. That’s my job.’

‘Who for?’

‘I’m a government assassin.’

‘A government assassin?’

‘Yep.’

He says it again, ‘A government assassin?’

Again I go, ‘Yep.’

‘Like James Bond?’

‘Yep, like James Bond. Or Seamus Bond, if you like. Seamus Bond, licence to kill.’

I make a gun with my hand, fire a shot at the ground.

He goes, ‘And you’re here to kill me?’

‘Yep.’

And he’s turning.

‘Me?’

‘Yep.’

‘Is this a joke?’ he says, but I suspect he knows this is not a joke.

‘No,’ I say. ‘Honestly. I swear on my life, Danny. This is not a joke.’

‘So why don’t you shoot me then?’

‘Because I don’t have a gun.’

‘Wha?’

‘I don’t have a gun.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I don’t need one. Who needs guns? Guns mean crime, crime means police, investigations, blah, blah. That’s not how I work.’

‘How do you work?’

‘In other ways.’

‘Wha?’

‘You heard.’

‘Ah, wha? This is bullshit.’

‘No it’s not.’

‘A government assassin? Seriously?’

‘Yes.’

‘With no gun?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re joking?’

I go, ‘Danny, seriously. I am not joking, okay? Rid yourself of the idea that this is a joke. Please.’

And he has stopped turning now, instead turning just his head, tracking me as I come in and out of view.

‘Jesus,’ he goes, ‘a government assassin,’ as if to himself.

‘Aye.’

‘For what fucking government?’

‘Irish.’

‘Ah now, get away with yourself.’

‘Don’t believe me?’

‘No.’

‘Then watch.’

‘Watch what?’

‘Watch why and how you get killed. What other government would be arsed doing that with you?’

‘How do I get killed?’

‘It’s very simple.’

‘How?’

‘Put it like this,’ I say, and I’m walking and he’s turning again and I’m walking and he’s turning again, ‘you are not getting out of that pool alive.’

‘Wha? You think I’m going to drown?’

‘I know it.’

‘Fuck that.’

‘Trust me,’ I say. ‘I’m an assassin. I might as well be standing here with a gun for all the difference it makes.’

‘Yeah, right. I’m not drowning.’

‘You are.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Yes you are.’

‘How?’

‘How do you think?’

‘Wha?’

I say, ‘It may be today, maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow, but sooner or later, Danny, it’s going to start to make sense for you to slide under that water and get it over with.’

‘You fucking think so, do you?’

‘I know so.’

‘Never.’

‘You will either do it on purpose or you will just be so tired and cold in your wee yellow trunks that you will just drop down and not find the will to stand up again.’

‘Sure it’s roasting in here.’

‘It is now,’ I say. ‘But I’ve turned the heat off. It’s going to get cold. It’s November, Danny, and you haven’t got a coat.’

‘Fuck.’

‘And when you’re dead – and I will be checking you are really, doornail dead, dead as a herring dead – I’ll crank the heat up again.’

‘Fuck.’

‘By the time someone finds you, Danny, you’ll be like an over-boiled chicken and the ambulance workers will take selfies with you.’

‘Jesus. Is this a joke?’

‘Don’t ask me that again.’

‘Wha?’

‘Don’t ask me if this is a joke again.’

‘Okay.’

‘So are you starting to get the picture?’

‘What picture?’

‘Danny, you’re a stupid cunt. I’m asking you if you’re starting to understand what the hell is going on here?’

‘Wha?’

‘I’ve got all day,’ I say. ‘All day and all night and all tomorrow. Fact is, I’ve got as long as it takes.’

He’s looking around the pool, seeing if it’s possible to get to one side, heave himself out and make a break for it before I get to him.

‘Can’t be done,’ I say. ‘And you can trust me on that. I tested all this yesterday when you were wanking in your blacked-out Range Rover.’

‘I wasn’t.’

‘You were. You went dogging.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘You did. You watched some couple shagging in the back of a Ford Focus and pulled your wire.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘Jesus, whatever. Does it really matter now?’

‘Wha?’

‘I really wouldn’t worry about the dogging, Danny. Your life is coming to a close. Get, for once in your life, a sense of perspective.’

I fix the scarf tighter around my neck, shove my hands into my jacket pockets, and keep walking, keep being watched, keep providing the surefooted rhythm to Danny’s exit.

He starts swimming now, thinking, swimming the few strokes back and forth and thinking. He starts telling himself this is a battle of wills and that he has the most to lose, that he will find the strength to go longer and harder at this than I can.

But there’s a voice at the back of his mind, a voice that will get louder and louder, clearer and clearer, and it’s telling him that he has already lost. And, as that stone-cold realisation begins to settle in Danny’s mind, our little chat takes a long pause.