Call Me the Breeze (44 page)

I could make out Mangan shuffling back from the pump, pulling his old coat around him as he climbed the step into his caravan, closing the door behind him.

I sat slumped by the window and tried to make out how it had happened … that I should wake up all veined and sweaty like that.

Then the dream started returning again, and I remembered how everything had been going so well, until I’d seen the salesman in the shadows.

I wished now I had forgotten the details, which began to reconverge as vividly as if I’d been filming them myself in Technicolor Deluxe —the palmprint of blood plainly visible on the Doric column and the streak on the white wall behind the salesman as he stumbled, his voice not a voice at all but a strangled gargling so similar to the one I remembered from that day long ago when myself and Bennett stood outside Willie Markham’s window. The dying man blurred but visible through the glass, his body convulsing as his wife fell across him, hopelessly trying to console him. But none of it doing any good, his choking worsening as his relatives went on sobbing helplessly.

Bennett turning to me and using the same words as the salesman did now, staggering like a drunk man down the spotless white temple steps: ‘
The bouse of the living dead
,’ he groaned fearfully, ‘
the house of the living dead
.’

Then, in the dream, Mona bursting out crying and Jamesy through the loudhailer barking ‘
No, no, no
.’ But ‘Yes’ said Campbell Morris as Bennett emerged, his face not a face but a writhing embroidery of black-headed earthworms engorging and mutating repulsively out of the circular black pit of his shirt collar. His voice, however, the very same as it had always been — no rattle, no nothing, but affirming, almost matter-of-factly, what the salesman had said: ‘
Yes. That’s what it is. It’s that all right. The House of the Living Dead. And it’s us that’s done it, everything bad that happened around here
—
it’s
us
that has done it. Nobody else
— us!’

He stood right in front of me and smiled. Then began to change into someone very familiar as the worms slowly faded, and The Big Fellow pushed back his fedora to sigh, with just so much weary exasperation: ‘We did it all right. We’re guilty. But you know that, Joey, don’t you? Oh, Joey Tallon knows it all right, for there’s no one more guilty than him.’

It was after that — and I cannot emphasize enough just how much of a state I still was in, even after calming down, having rationalized it all as best I could — that I decided to make it clear that I had been focusing excessively on the misdeeds of others as a means of exonerating myself. Avoiding the consequences of my own, every bit as grave, past actions.

I went over to Mangan at once and explained myself — not wearing my suit, but attired in nothing apart from my underwear — laying my heart as bare as it is humanly possible to do. And trying my best to sit still but unfortunately not being able to achieve the desired level of calmness, smacking my palm with my fist as I proceeded vehemently: ‘No! I
know
what I did to Jacy, Mangan! Nobody is more aware of that than me! I understand the trauma she went through and the suffering it must have caused her! And I hate myself for what happened! I really and truly do! For yes, I
am
as guilty as anyone! No, Mangan! I’m not as
guilty
as anyone! I am
twice
as guilty! You see those who murdered Tuite? Detective Sergeant Tuite of the Heavy Gang long ago? Do you remember him? So you remember who dumped him in the tannery pit? Who carved and branded his flesh with initials?
I’m
as guilty as them! As guilty as everyone who laid a hand on the salesman, on poor old Campbell Morris! As guilty as them all and make no mistake!’

I whirled, puncturing the air with my finger. Mangan stumbled backwards — I think he must have thought I was going to hit him.

‘Except … far more guilty!’ I pronounced, almost with a hint of triumph.

The last thing I had intended to do when I’d finished all that was weep. But I did.

Mangan was very understanding. He told me to take the day off school (I was glad he encouraged me in that as I’d been absent a lot of late on account of the campaign. And, to tell the truth, was reluctant to get involved in any more rows with Carmody about it or anything else. The campaign, I mean. Even Eddie the supervisor seemed to have given up on me, giving me the cold shoulder whenever we’d meet on the street.)

Mangan suggested that maybe I ought to stop thinking about things for a little while. While leading me to the door he placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder and said: ‘Maybe you shouldn’t write any more letters, Joey. And maybe stop all these phone calls for a few days,’ he advised, adding, almost apologetically: ‘Them auld politicians! Sure they’re only out for all they can get! Forget about them, at least for a
little while! Put them out of your mind — for today, anyways! It might be better for yourself! It’s all only making you upset. You’d be far better taking some time off to rest.’

I was glad he had said all that, for I needed some advice. Some solid practical advice that had nothing to do with ‘thinking’ or ‘considering one’s options’ or endlessly trying to work things out. I lay on the bunk bed and decided — the relief was absolutely immense — that I didn’t care any more. For everything that Mangan had said I knew to be absolutely right. Spot-on guidance. That that was
exactly
what I needed to do. Forget for a while about politics and ‘thinking’, plans and politicians. Everything.

‘Forget about everything, Joey,’ I said. Then I just drew the curtains and fell back down on the bunk, only this time not on my own but lying in the arms of Mona. She was wearing her floaty skirt and gazing at me with the saddest eyes. As I parted the black curtain of her hair and lay there sucking my thumb, my head resting on her stomach, a cold hard fact got a grip of me and would not let go till I faced it squarely. And that was to accept that soon — for definite, this time! -this would have to come to an end. That I’d have to burn her wig and skirt and the old-fashioned floral-patterned apron. Even her ear-rings would have to go in the bin.

‘But not yet, Mona,’ I whispered. ‘Not yet, Mona of Dreams,’ sucking away there (
tttht! tttht
!) on the moon of her belly as my heavy eyes closed (I had taken a sleeping tablet) and I tried not to see them, the fluid symbols swirling at the edge of my vision:
POLITICAL CANDIDATE’S SECRET FANTASTIES
!

At first an indeterminate newsprint grey that gradually began to bleed into the most fantastic colours, the rubrics assuming a life of their own as in the manner of laboratory plasma they melted in and out of each other, like living liquorice flicking out across the cosmos before reassembling almost decorously, annotating in the most fastidious and elegant of calligraphies the observation: ‘
It was established today that Joseph Tallon, the Temple of Colossal Dreams Candidate in the forthcoming council elections, has been for a considerable period of time — on and off over the past twenty-five years, in fact — engaged in an intimate relationship with an inanimate object, i.e. a life-size doll of synthetic rubber, of the type normally associated with perverted and bereft old men for whom any normal type of intercourse, be it social or sexual, with the female gender is, generally speaking, impossible
.’

I was so disappointed when my sleep was broken again. I could have sworn I heard something …

But it was nothing, I knew that in my heart. Just Mangan and his bucket again. I sat on the edge of the bunk and buried my face in my hands. I looked at Mona and my stomach turned over. Her head was tilted sideways with her wig about to fall off. Her lipsticked mouth was hanging open and her glassy eyes were empty. Sometimes they said: ‘I love you’ but other times they said: ‘You’re
afraid
, aren’t you, Joseph?’

The only person who knew about them, these deep-rooted fears, psychosexual anxieties or however you might wish to describe them (chief among them bundling Mona into a box every time you heard the slightest sound!) — apart from Mangan, of course — was Bonehead. In the end — when we moved in here, especially — we told one another everything. And I really do have to say it: the old fucker could be so understanding!

He’s always had this gift of making a joke out of the most horrendous events. He’d be chuckling as he pulled yet another meal out of the oven (what a fantastic cook he turned out to be — ‘Kedgeree!’ ‘Tagliatelle!’ ‘Fajitas, Joesup!’ — the place full of recipe books!), grabbing the dish with the oven glove and running over to the table as he said: ‘Well, all I can say is, that’s what you get for wanting to be famous, Joesup!’, always then adding something light-hearted like: ‘Boy but this pasta looks the business!’ or ‘Taramy-salata! Just the fucking job!’

He’s right, of course — it
is
what I get. Although a poorly lit, hamfistedly shot ten-minute sex video called
The Lovebirds
was hardly what I’d had in mind when it came to becoming famous!

The funny thing is — and I’ve often heard it said — that when you’re reviewing your life, trying to take stock, evaluate or whatever — especially when in your heart you know only too well what you think of that idiotic itinerary — it’s as though it’s not yours at all but belongs to somebody else. Not quite a stranger; more, perhaps, a distant relation. And that everything that occurs does so at one remove, as though being observed through the frame of a viewfinder. That’s the way I’ve begun to see it now, especially those last few months leading up to the election. But not, however, in the style of Cassavetes. No, no cool black and white this time, I’m afraid. That would be much too clinical! Too clinical by far and hopelessly untrue to the spirit of the time. Which was wild, really, pulsing at all times with possibilities that seemed limitless.

Days that existed almost in a different universe from the singularly drab and uninspiring notion of monochrome. How best, in cinematic terms, to describe them? Lush and sumptuous? Extravagant, majestic. Breathtaking, stunning.

Beautifully shot with deep focus cinematography — a great big matinee — a cinemascopic epic!

There is one thing I am ashamed of, though, and perhaps this episode could be viewed through Mr Cassavetes’ monitor. Put together, maybe, as a short, sharp sequence snappily titled:
THE SHOWDOWN
, maybe, or
A SERIOUS ALTERCATION
!

But which might, possibly, on reflection, be inappropriate also, lending, it could be argued, an air of confrontational majesty to an incident which, although not of major importance in my life — certainly nothing when compared to ‘The Night They Bombed Scotsfield’ or
The Cyclops Enigma:
Chapter 3
(‘Abduction!’) — does not rank among my most edifying performances.

Because, no matter what way you look at it, I did ultimately let the kids down.

Sure I can blame Fr Connolly and Carmody, but, essentially, if you examine it, what happened was that I began to lose interest in my seminars and classes, preferring instead to work on my
Life and Times
, which I viewed as a sort of extension of my manifesto. And which,
mirabile dictu
, as the great authors say, by some process of osmosis eventually became my first — and
last
, it would seem — published novel; eventually, by consensus, entitled
DOUGHBOY
.

It grieves me, though, to think of it now, and perhaps that’s one of the reasons we prefer to peer through a viewfinder. Maybe that’s why we
become
‘the camera’. So that we can pretend it’s happened to someone else and isn’t directly related to our experience at all!

Such being the case with this scene starring ‘The Candidate — Joey Tallon!’, or whatever you might like to call him, as he stands in a seminar room of the community college (on a flying visit, as he explains) dressed in his charcoal grey executive suit, his hair neatly combed and a —
can you believe it
? —
starched
handkerchief in his breast pocket, delivering a speech on political film, quoting Cocteau, Godard and Pasolini, with specific reference to the Irish ‘troubles’ and referring intermittently to an impressive chalk drawing of ‘The Memorial’ on the blackboard.

‘What I have in mind, guys,’ he continued, ‘is a great big temple rising out of the sea like something, say, from
Jason and the Argonauts
, but with the doors flying open — those massive portals of gold, set with shimmering emeralds. — to reveal within the piled bodies of the dead! The faithful departed, keening and screaming, yeah? Say, Campbell Morris! Bennett! Eamon Byrne, The Seeker! And Detective Tuite! But not only them! Yes! We open lots of different doors and in there we see …’

In actual fact we don’t see anything, for at that very moment another, more immediate door, is flung open, i.e. the one leading directly into the seminar room where ‘The Candidate’ happens to be speaking, and standing there and looking very irate indeed is none other than Fr Connolly, accompanied by supervisor Eddie and, of course, a trembling Dr Maureen Carmody, who demands that The Candidate vacate the classroom and direct himself towards her office at once, these latest ‘impromptu think-tanks’ being ‘the very last straw’!

I still hadn’t mastered political skills. Latterly, if faced with a similar situation my strategy would have been to remain seated, placidly, compliantly indeed, carefully considering each point as it was advanced, patiently examining my fingernails and weighing up a number of possible responses, empathizing with every aspect of the argument, regardless of how repugnant I might privately have been finding it.

Instead of flinging back the chair and bellowing: ‘
Well, fuck youse then! You don’t want me to teach? You don’t want me to tell the truth? Then shove your job, you hear me, Carmody? And fuck you too
,
Eddie! Yeah! Youse do that! But listen up! You think this will stop me? Well, then, think again! I won’t be muzzled, you hear me, Father? I won’t be deflected from my course, from telling the truth, yeah? Because that’s what it’s all about, my friends! And, just before you interrupted me — do you ever bother to knock, by the way, Mrs Dr Carmody? Don’t you think maybe that is something that you should do? You hearing me, Father? Don’t you agree there, Eddie? Because, yeah, what I was saying before you came in was that cinema is truth. Yeah, that’s what we think! But it isn’t you see! We are told that it’s truth! But that’s just … another lie! Cinema is just one man — or woman, excuse me! — who’s looking through an eyepiece! Or staring into a viewfinder and saying: “Yeah, this is what I see so therefore it must be the truth!” Bollocks! Bollocks, Dr Carmody! It’s
his
truth, maybe — or
hers! —
but that’s all it is! Nothing more, nothing less
!’