The Runners (11 page)

‘Right, that’s enough. Headguards off in the corner.’

Anto undid the strap that held the sweaty head-guards in place.

‘What lesson did you learn, Jay?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You’re pissed off, are you?’

Jay was stubborn when he wanted to be. Bobby had a big smile on the inside that he kept there. He didn’t want to show any emotion.

‘I must have never mentioned the word technique before.’

Anto looked at Jay. He wasn’t getting a response.

‘Bobby, you’re ready for next week. The last All-Ireland winner from this club was me.’

‘You’ve told us a hundred times.’

‘Jay, you need to learn a lesson from tonight. Or you will have no chance next week. You should be pissed off. That performance was an embarrassment.’

Bobby didn’t mention the video on the way home because he knew Jay was pissed off about losing the fight. Bobby felt on top of the world. The winning feeling was matched by no other. Normally, Bobby would have a tingle of excitement in his stomach for days after a win. He would picture the fight and the punches landed. Hitting Jay was different though. He was glad he won, but it didn’t give him the same satisfaction. It gave him confidence; Jay was a weight above him. He was going to win the All-Ireland.

Willo and Git jumped down from the wall of the bridge when they saw the boys coming. Willo was jumping up and down on the spot like he was freezing in the winter. It was a beautiful summer’s evening.

‘What do they want?’ asked Bobby.

‘How would I know?’

‘You’re their best friend.’

Willo walked towards them with his hands still in his pockets.

‘Jay, have you got any more of that stuff? The same as last night.’

‘Last night, Jay?’

‘You shut your mouth or I’ll kick in your door again,’ Willo sneered at Bobby. ‘I’ve fifty quid,’ he said to Jay.

Willo took his hands out of his pockets. He had two piles of fifty pence pieces.

‘Did you rob an amusement arcade?’

‘Take it.’

‘I’m not taking your poxy change.’

Jay whispered something at Willo that Bobby couldn’t hear. Willo motioned at Git and the two of them scurried down the hill towards the flats. Bobby stared at him.

‘Piss off. It’s better than throwing it away.’

‘You promised we’d dump it.’

‘You can give it to the parking fines man.’

Jay took two twenty pound notes and one tenner out of his pocket.

‘Here. I don’t want it.’

‘I don’t want it either.’

Jay dropped it on the ground and started walking down the hill.

‘I’m not picking it up.’

‘Neither am I.’

Bobby looked at the money on the ground. He couldn’t leave it there. He grabbed it and ran down the hill after Jay.

‘I don’t want the money. I just want you back.’

‘What?’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘I haven’t gone anywhere.’

‘You’ve changed. You made promises and didn’t keep them.’

‘It’s not my fault. What can we say to Anto?’

‘We can tell him we know and we’re stopping.’

‘I’m not telling him.’

‘I’m going to tell him.’

‘Tell him what?’

‘That we know what’s in them.’

‘How do we know what’s in them?’

‘Cause you opened it.’

‘You’re going to rat on me?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Rat then. Rat face.’

He turned his back on Bobby and walked away.

After a few strides, he turned back and returned for his money. He stared at Bobby without saying a word. Bobby backed onto the steps of the derelict three-storey house. It was their favourite house for catching pigeons. Jay was the master, Bobby his apprentice. There was no upper floor, just wooden beams. Jay would crawl along them, backing the pigeons into a corner. He was the master bird handler. The pigeons never panicked when Jay held them. He was able to handle them gently, but he was always in control.

Bobby prayed like he had never prayed before. He said twenty-five Our Fathers, even adding on the extra bit he’d learned, that only Protestants said. He said twenty-five Hail Marys, picturing her looking after Jay every time. He prayed that their friendship would go back to the way it was.

The loud bang on the door woke him. He sat upright in bed. He heard his dad running down the stairs. It was still pitch dark, so Bobby knew it was before four-thirty. It got bright then, but the sun didn’t start shining on Croke Park until just after half seven.

‘Have you seen Jason?’ Bernie said loudly enough for the whole house to hear her.

Bobby’s mam came out in her dressing-gown.

‘Is everything OK, Miss McCann?’

‘Jason didn’t come home last night. I’m really worried about him. Have you any idea where he might be?’

Jay’s mam never knocked on Bobby’s hall door. So Bobby knew something was wrong.

She never called him Jason either.

‘Come in, Bernie.’

Laura put an arm around her shoulder and told her to calm down.

‘Everything will be OK.’

She put on the kettle while Bobby explained they had been to boxing and came home together, omitting the fight they had had and the meeting with Willo and Git.

Bobby thought straight away that Jay was probably lying on the floor of the unknown house.

‘He might have fallen asleep in Anto’s, watching videos. Will I run down and check for you?’

He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

‘You can’t be knocking on his door this late,’ said his mam.

‘Of course he can, love. Run down quickly, Bobby,’ ordered his dad.

Bobby flew up the stairs and put his runners on with no socks. He grabbed his Liverpool shirt from its hanging place on the side of the top bunk and raced down the stairs. He took off down Foster Terrace, passing Anto’s without stopping, flew out onto Ballybough Road, and was outside the unknown house in record time. He was completely out of breath. He didn’t know whether he wanted Jay to be inside or not. He peeled back the corrugated iron and looked inside. He could see two people asleep on the couch and another person
slumped against the wall. He looked for Jay’s Adidas runners. No sign. He climbed inside and Willo stirred.

‘Is Jay here?’

He pointed towards the bathroom. Bobby walked towards the door slowly, the fear in his stomach growing. He didn’t see Jay until he looked in the bath. He had vomit down the front of his T-shirt and blood on the inside of his left arm. The bathroom had the worst smell imaginable. The fact that the toilet was blocked didn’t help. He couldn’t understand why Jay was in the bath. His trousers were unzipped and Bobby could see he had no underpants on. He could see the small amount of pubic hair that Jay had. Bobby had slagged him over it, as he was the first to get any. He had pulled his first one out when he’d got it and waved it around in the air before throwing it at Bobby. Maybe he’d wiped his ass with his underpants. Bobby thought that wasn’t a bad idea because newspaper slid the poo across your bum. They had used newspaper on the tracks or the canal bank at some stage. It was better than trekking all the way home. He tried to make Jay sit up, but he was like a dead weight. There was no way he could pull him out of the bath. Bobby took Jay’s vomit-stained T-shirt off and put his Liverpool shirt on him. He rolled up the vomit-soaked one and put it between Jay’s head and the bath, clean side facing out. Jay’s
eyes stayed closed. Bobby slapped his face. No response. He did it again, though, even harder. Still no response. He thought about feeling for a pulse, but he wasn’t sure what to do.

Now was the time to tell Anto. The voice in his head told him to. He felt like he was floating out of the unknown house, looking at the drug-fuelled bodies as he passed. None of them stirred. He found himself out on the street. He legs started moving on their own. He was sprinting flat out. Bang, bang, bang.

The lights came on in Anto’s house. Bobby could see his silhouette moving slowly towards the door. He put his eye up to the glass and could tell it was Bobby straight away. He had the words ‘what’s wrong’ out before the door even opened.

‘It’s Jay. I can’t wake him.’

‘What do you mean? Where is he?’

‘In the unknown house.’

Anto put two and two together and had his trousers and runners on in no time. He sprinted down the road. Bobby couldn’t keep up. Anto was in the window before Bobby got there. He could hear the screams.

‘Where is he? Where is he?’

Bobby was pushed out of the way by an escaping Willo. He was followed out by Git and Gringo. Gringo gave him a stare with pupils so large they took over his whole eye. They looked like black
snooker balls. Anto already had Jay out of the bath when Bobby arrived. He was feeling for a pulse.

‘We need to call an ambulance,’ Bobby said quietly.

‘I’ll go and call one. You stay here.’

‘What will I do?’

‘Just mind him, he’s going to be all right,’ said Anto, panicked.

‘His mam is in my house.’

‘Stay here and mind him, I’ll be back in a minute,’ Anto ordered him.

Bobby held Jay’s hand. It was much warmer than before. He could see the outline of the JMcC Jay had scraped into his arm. Bobby had scraped BR into his arm.

‘Do you remember that day, Jay,’ Bobby whispered. ‘I touched my BR off your JMcC? You moaned for a week about having to scrape more initials into your arm. We’ll go swimming in the Tolka next week. I have to get a massive head start if we’re racing though.’

Bobby looked down at Jay’s fly. He reached down and pulled it up. He closed the button and then gently placed Jay’s head on the top of his leg. He put his hand on Jay’s cheek and squeezed it gently with his thumb and forefinger. He could see the fluff on his upper lip that Jay claimed was stubble. Bobby had slagged him, saying it was just bum fluff. Bobby hated the thought of hair
growing on his face. And on his legs. He leaned down and kissed Jay on the forehead. It was a very gentle kiss.

‘Please God make him better.’

The calm was interrupted by the noise Anto made coming back in the window.

‘The ambulance is on the way,’ Anto said, as he picked Jay up and carried him over to the window.

The noise of the ambulance arriving took over the conversation.

‘Hold the window back.’

Bobby did as he was told. Anto was able to get Jay out without too much trouble. He held Jay in his arms. The ambulance turned into Sackville Avenue much more slowly than Bobby expected. The blue lights lit up the flats every half-second of their turn. When they saw Anto they turned the siren off but the lights kept flashing.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I think it might be heroin,’ responded Anto.

The ambulance men lifted Jay straight into the back of the ambulance. One of them started to feel his neck, then his wrist. He shouted at his colleague, who started rooting in his bag for something.

‘Are you this child’s father?’

‘Em… no not quite. I’m his… eh, coach.’

‘Are you coming with him?’

Bobby stared at him while waiting for an answer.

‘Em… where are you taking him?’

‘Temple Street Hospital.’

They didn’t give Anto any more time to think. The ambulance sped off down Sackville Avenue without him, passing Bobby’s house on the way to the hospital.

‘Is he going to be OK?’ asked Bobby.

‘He should be, he should be.’

Anto suddenly grabbed Bobby by the arm. He held it so tight Bobby could feel knuckles sticking into the side of his rib cage. The pain of each knuckle digging into him made his whole body sting with pain. He knew what was coming next. He knew whose fault everything was. He knew the one person he couldn’t tell the truth to was Anto.

‘What happened last week? You need to tell me everything. Starting with the robbery.’

‘We should tell Bernie.’

Anto squeezed even tighter, causing the pain to sting behind Bobby’s eyes. He released the grip completely and put his arm gently around Bobby’s shoulders.

‘All I want is the truth.’

‘Willo said if he tried it, he would go to heaven and see his da.’

‘You heard him say that?’

‘No, I wasn’t there. I found him there. I cleaned
him up. He promised never to go back.’

‘And that’s it?’

‘He was pissed off I beat him in the ring. I left him at the top of the road and he said he was going home.’

‘When did you find him the first time?’

‘Last week.’

‘Before or after the video was robbed.’

‘After.’

‘OK, OK. You came to get me because you were scared. I’ll look after you. You won’t get in trouble.’

Anto patted him on the back of the head, the same way he would after a good round sparring.

‘Everything’s going to be all right. Don’t worry.’

Bobby told them all what he knew about the unknown house and how Jay had told him about the junkies. He didn’t tell them about finding him in there the first time. He said he didn’t know if he had taken anything. He was thinking up answers on the spot, and his little lies were leading to bigger ones. There was no mention of videos, so the real truth couldn’t come out. Anto told Bernie not to worry, that the ambulance man said everything was going to be OK. Anto was a brilliant liar, but now Bobby could see straight through him.

Bernie left for the hospital with his mam. Anto stayed talking to his dad, explaining what he knew
about the scumbags, Willo and Git. Bobby was allowed to listen to some of the stories his dad told about how the area had changed. Then he was sent to bed.

He lay in bed touching every ‘Jay’ that was written under the laths of the top bunk. He had written it sixteen times. Once on each lath. There were 128 ‘Bobbys’. He listened to the door closing when Anto left. He listened to his dad going to bed. He listened to Kevin’s heavy breathing. He heard the door of the taxi close when his mam came home. He heard her put the key in the latch really quietly. She tried to sneak into the hall. Bobby was sitting on the stairs waiting for her.

‘Is he OK?’

She walked towards him without speaking. She pulled his head into her belly and squeezed. He heard the tears. She got down on her hunkers and put his cheek next to hers. He could feel each tear dropping from her eye.