The Runners (5 page)

There were cans of Coke, Pepsi and Club Orange in the fridge in Anto’s house. He gave Bobby and Jay permission to drink as many as they wanted while they were helping him clear his garden of the weeds and overgrown bushes. At the back of his garden was a row of evergreen trees. Two wood pigeons lived in one of them. They were very fat, nearly too fat to fly. Bobby and Jay would dig for an hour, and then have a can; Bobby always had a Coke, Jay a Pepsi. He would goad Bobby that it was nicer, or that Bobby couldn’t tell the difference between the two.

‘I’ll close my eyes and taste the two, I bet you ten pence I can tell the difference.’

‘Ten pence! Is that all you’ve got?’

Jay held his hand over Bobby’s eyes and gave him the first can, which was the Pepsi.

‘That is deffo the Pepsi.’

Jay put the can down and picked up the same one again. Bobby took a sip.

‘That’s the Pepsi too, you bollox!’

‘No it’s not, I knew you couldn’t tell the
difference. That’s ten pence for me. You’re working for free today.’

‘You gave me the Pepsi twice, I’m not stupid.’

‘Progress is very slow lads, drop this video up to Johnny to earn your fiver today,’ said Anto.

‘Johnny, the boxing expert.’

‘Is he a boxing expert?’ asked Anto.

‘He thought George Foreman fought in the
Thriller in Manila
,’ said Jay.

‘I’d better give him the
Rumble in the Jungle
, so.’

Anto went to his room and came out with the
Rumble
video tape.

‘Here you go. Drop this up and I’ll give you a fiver each when you get back.’

They headed up to Johnny’s flat and had a race up the stairs, which Jay claimed he won. Just as they got to his flat, the door opened and Gringo walked out. He was the most feared lad in the Strand flats. He had a shaven head and huge ears. They called him Fa because his ears looked like the handles on the FA Cup. He walked by them and Johnny came out onto the landing.

‘Lads, how are me oul flowers?’

‘We’re grand, what did you think of the last video?’

‘Yeah it was great, which one was it again?’

‘The
Thriller in the Jungle
,’ said Bobby.

‘Brilliant, it was brilliant. What have you got for me today?’

‘The
Rumble in Manila
,’ said Jay.

‘Brilliant, tell Anto thanks a million.’

Johnny took the video and closed the door. Bobby looked at Jay and said, ‘Mad fucker.’

‘Mad bastard,’ Jay responded. ‘Last one down is Johnny in disguise.’

They took off down the landing, pushing each other as they turned into the top of the stairwell. Standing on the top step was Gringo. He had his arms out.

‘Stop there lads.’

They came to a grinding halt.

‘Empty your pockets.’

Bobby felt like he was going to poo in his pants. It was an involuntary muscle movement he had never felt before. One second he was fine, the next he needed to poo worse than ever before. Bobby took out some change. Jay had a five-pound note and some coins.

‘Is that all you’ve got?’ Gringo roared in Bobby’s face.

‘Yeah.’

Gringo took it and ran off down the stairwell.

‘What are we going to do?’ asked Bobby.

‘We have to tell Anto.’

They walked to the bottom of the stairwell without racing or talking. Bobby’s hands were shaking. He put them in his pockets so Jay wouldn’t see.

‘What a wanker. My hands are shaking,’ said Jay.

‘So are mine. Look.’

Bobby held out his hands to show Jay.

‘Let’s go tell Anto,’ said Jay. ‘That fucker is not going to get away with it.’

‘He might never get us to do any jobs for him any more.’

‘We’re telling him.’

They strolled back down to Foster Terrace. Anto could tell something had happened.

‘Is everything all right?’

‘A fella called Gringo robbed our money at the top of the stairwell,’ said Jay.

‘Gringo. Is that his real name?’

‘No, it’s Steven Hart,’ said Jay.

Bobby looked at him, puzzlingly.

‘He was in Johnny’s flat before we got there.’

‘The little prick.’

Bobby had never heard Anto use bad language. Anto picked up the phone and dialled Johnny’s number.

‘Johnny, Anto here. Do you know a fella called Gringo? Or Steven Hart or something. Find him and have him in your flat in fifteen minutes.’

Anto nearly knocked the door off the hinges when they got to Johnny’s flat. He banged repeatedly on the plywood window until the door opened.

‘Is he here?’

‘Yeah.’

There was a couch against one wall and a TV against another. The curtains were pulled across, blocking any light coming in from the balcony. Gringo was sitting on a chair. Anto walked up to him, grabbed him by the throat, lifted him up and pushed him against the wall. Bobby thought Anto’s arms looked like melted plastic.

‘If you ever lay a hand on the two of these boys again, I’ll kill you. Do you understand me?’

Gringo couldn’t answer, because Anto was choking him.

‘How much did he take, lads?’

‘About six quid.’

‘How much have you got, fuck face?’

Anto released his grip and let Gringo look in his pockets for money. He took out a lighter, a box of John Player Blue, a packet of Rizla and some change.

‘I would strongly advise you to take out some notes.’

Anto picked him up while still choking him, and brought him out onto the balcony. He leaned his head over the side.

‘Do you want to find yourself flying off this balcony?’

Gringo reached into his back pocket and took out the five-pound note. He handed it to Anto, who turned to Johnny.

‘Very bad company you’re keeping, Johnny.

These lads are like brothers to me. And for their trouble I think they deserve more than their six quid. More like twenty quid.’

‘OK, no problem.’

Johnny reached down the back of his stinky couch and pulled out a cigarette box. He opened it and pulled out a roll of notes. There was much more than twenty quid.

‘Here.’

‘It’s not for me, give it to them.’

‘Here you go, sorry about that; it will never happen again.’

‘Make it a score each, Johnny.’

‘Twenty quid each?’

‘Is there a problem?’

‘There’s no problem,’ said Johnny, frantically trying to unravel the notes.

Jay took the money and put it in his pocket. Bobby took his twenty-pound note and scrunched it up in his hand.

‘Let’s go,’ said Anto, who was staring menacingly at Gringo as if to say, ‘You were lucky this time’.

They walked out the door into the hall. Anto turned back to Johnny.

‘I’ll be seeing you later. Do you understand me?’

The boys didn’t know what to say. They had never seen Anto get aggressive with anyone. He
had seriously put the shits up Gringo, who was supposed to be the hardest lad in the Strand flats.

‘He had loads of money in that box, Anto,’ said Jay.

‘The poor fucker has more money than sense. If anyone ever gives you any grief, you tell me and I’ll sort it out.’

‘OK, of course we will.’

‘I’ll see the two of you later at boxing.’

Bobby and Jay walked back to the flats. Bobby still had the twenty in his hand.

‘What did you make of Anto?’ asked Jay.

‘More like what did you make of Gringo. I’d say he shit his pants when Anto dragged him out onto the balcony!’

They laughed and laughed at the thought of Gringo shitting in his pants.

Without fail the same time every Friday, the parking fines man knocked on the door. Just as
A Question of Sport
started on BBC1, the knock would come on the door.

‘Tell him I’ll pay him next week, Kevin,’ said his mam.

Bobby jumped up from his favourite television programme.

‘I’ll tell him.’

‘My mam gave me this to give to you,’ Bobby whispered.

‘Twenty pounds. Thanks a million.’

He wrote out the receipt and gave it to Bobby. Bobby put it in his pocket.

‘See you next week.’

Bobby thought he may as well give the money to the parking fines man. After all, it wasn’t his to begin with, and his dad was in the Sunset again.

‘What did he say, Bobby?’

‘He just said he’d call back next week.’

‘Is that all he said? Did he look annoyed?’

‘No, he was grand.’

Bobby went up to his room with the receipt. The carpet in his room was actually a rug over a carpet. The original carpet was a horrible brown colour. The new rug was red and really soft on your feet. The side of it had white tassels. Bobby pulled the rug back in the corner of his room. He put the receipt underneath. It was the same hiding place he had used before for his dad’s cigarettes. His dad said he only smoked one pack of twenty a day. Bobby thought if he robbed three or four a day, and his dad didn’t notice, then he would smoke less without realising. His granny and granddad had both died from smoking cigarettes and Bobby really wanted his dad to give up. He wrapped the borrowed cigarettes in tin foil and put them under the rug. After a week, he had twenty cigarettes. He took one of his dad’s empty boxes and filled it up. He did the same for the next few weeks and gave
them to his dad as a present. He thought his dad would be delighted.

‘Sure, they’re all stale now.’

‘If they were dipped in Guinness you’d smoke them.’

‘Get up to your room.’

That was the worst punishment Bobby could get.

The unknown man had the shortest stay of anybody in the history of Ballybough. He moved into one of the bungalows on Sackville Avenue opposite the flats. Most of the bungalows were boarded up. The unknown man moved in on a Friday and moved out on a Sunday.

Git and Willo Brown used to be good at football. They played with Anto when he was younger.

‘Stay away from them,’ Anto would say.

They thought they were hard. Only because they had their father, Billy, to back them up. Billy Brown was hard. Bobby’s dad said he was ‘as hard as nails’. To annoy their new neighbour, the two Browns decided to kick a football up against his house. When he came out to tell them to stop, they would smile at him and say sorry. The second the hall door closed, they would start again. The enraged unknown man ran out with a long knife and the two Browns scarpered. He picked up the ball and rammed the knife straight through it. He had never met Billy Brown before.

Git and Willo ran up to their flat with the burst ball. Mr Brown came down, followed by his two daughters, who looked hard too. He knocked on the unknown man’s door. He was much taller than Mr Brown, who had a big belly. He wore the same white vest every day. He was proud of his mound and the stained shirt that covered it.

‘Did you do this to my son’s football?’

‘They were kicking it at my wall.’

‘I don’t care if they were kicking it at your wall. This is their street. They have lived here their whole lives. You are a blow-in and you have no right to touch their football.’

‘I bought this house. This is my wall, paid for with hard-earned cash.’

‘Are you saying I don’t pay for my flat?’

‘I’m saying they were kicking the ball at my wall.’

He went to close his door and Mr Brown put his foot in the way.

‘I think we should sort this out now, step outside.’

‘You want to fight?’

Mr Brown threw a punch instead of answering. The two of them ended up in the hallway of the house before the fight spilled out on to the road. An unknown woman came out, screaming, with her baby in her arms, as the two men traded blows. She tried to break it up, but was told in no uncertain terms to stay out of it by one of Git’s sisters. She
ran back inside the house and came out with an empty milk bottle. She smashed it against the front wall of her house. The two men were struggling on the ground when Git ran over and started booting the unknown man in the face. His wife screamed hysterically until they left her husband alone. He went back into the house, bruised and bloodied. Mr Brown walked off, a proud man. The unknown man didn’t call the police, but his house was boarded up the next day. A ‘For Sale’ sign went up the following week. Nobody would buy a boarded-up house, thought Bobby. The Browns pulled the sign down and made the unknown house their own. They would use the window as a door, pulling back the corrugated iron to get in. Mr Brown’s actions had given his sons a house for free, albeit one that was boarded up and had no furniture or electricity in it.

‘Will I call for you in the morning?’ asked Jay.

Bobby knew he couldn’t get out of going on the trip to Cork.

‘I’ll call for you at six. Don’t sleep it out.’

Bobby laughed inside at the thought that he might still be asleep at six in the morning. He normally wet the bed at about four and never really went back to sleep properly. It was impossible.

Bobby slept on the bus to Cork. He could sleep
for hours during the day and never wet himself. It was only a nighttime thing.

‘I don’t want any messing going on in this hotel. You have your keys. We are having dinner here in an hour. It’s boring pasta, but it will prepare you for your fights tonight.’

‘I don’t like pasta,’ joked Jay.

‘Then you are going to starve and lose your fight.’

Bobby and Jay were in room 213. Bobby didn’t think there was enough space for that many bedrooms. He prayed the beds would be far enough apart so he wouldn’t disturb Jay in the middle of the night when he had to get up. Jay pushed open the door to the room. They stood staring at the huge double bed.

‘Just one bed? I’m not sharing with you,’ said Jay as he jumped up onto the bed and grabbed a pillow.

He threw one to Bobby and they whacked each other till their arms were hanging off.

‘I’ll be too tired to box tonight. Stop.’

‘Are you chicken?’ asked Jay.

‘I’m bollixed. You win.’

Bobby weighed in at thirty-one kilos. The weight limits jumped every three kilos. Jay was going to fight in the thirty-four-kilo weight category. You
had to be weighed before the fight and if you weren’t the correct weight, you weren’t allowed to fight. The club in Cork had clean dressing-rooms and hot showers. It had mirrors on every wall. Bobby couldn’t understand a thing the Cork boys were saying.