In the years after I went to college, I used these skills and butched my way round London, punching heads for cash-in fist. I went to America for a short stint, quickly discovering that they were all much too good at fighting, and then back to my imperfectly macho hometown. I seldom had to do any real harm. When sporadically called to punch a head or two, I punched a head or two. It seemed easy then. I was like an actress doing a nude scene. I told myself I didn't really mind.
Then one night, doing the door at a dockers' bar, I'd had to mash some old guy who'd been goosing the barmaids. He'd turned bolshie when I'd chucked him out and had kept coming at me. No matter how many times I hit him, no matter how hard, he was so roofed that none of it hurt. In the end I'd laid him out cold. As he lay there on the filthy pavement, his face red and ragged, his gut exposed, I'd felt like chucking my stomach.
And soon afterwards, Sarah had come and ironed me smooth, pressed the tough stuff right out of me. It was only then that I worked out why it was always so easy to hit people. It was because I had no imagination.
The human route to sympathy or empathy is a clumsy one but it's all we've got. To understand the consequences of our actions we must exercise our imaginations. We decide that it's a bad idea to hit someone over the head with a bottle because we put ourselves in their position and comprehend that if we were hit over the head with a bottle, then, my goodness, wouldn't that hurt! We swap shoes.
If you do you can do violence or harm becomes decreasingly possible for you.You hold a gun to someone's head, hammer cocked. If you can see what this would do to that head, then it is literally impossible to pull the trigger.
I had happily hurt people because I had no imagination.
Because of Sarah I didn't fight for two years.Then Sarah left. A fortnight later, a guy from Ottawa Street told me what a cunt I was outside the toilets in the Morning Star. I decked him. I picked his teeth out of my knuckles.
People talk about the red mist of the angry, of the sociopath. Only people who've never fought say that. There's no mist. Things are distinctly uncloudy. Rather, there is a great philosophical clarity, an absolute reliability about the decision to throw the arm. Everything seems fine and sensible and punching someone's head away seems like the dignified, democratic thing to do. And the other secret about being good at fighting is to know that you're no good at fighting. That's for the movies. No one can ward off blows and dodge swipes like they do in the movies. Being good at fighting is simply knowing which bits hurt, which bits break and just having a swing at those. That's all.
I'd tried giving up. When Sarah had been with me, it had been hard to think I'd ever done it. But when Sarah had left I'd started again. It had been a natural progression, an inevitable decline. I'd known Marty Allen all those years before. We'd been involved in a variety of bellicose enterprises and he was glad to bring me in on his repo thing. He'd yuppied up since the last time I'd seen him. He even called his new trade Credit Adjustment but I knew I was back to punching heads and baring teeth.
Crab, Hally and I worked North Belfast. It was mostly poor up there so we had a lot of ground to cover. We were thrillingly ecumenical and we raided Protestant estates with all the elan and grace with which we raided Catholic ones. I could never see the difference. There were grim estates and their multiple greys. There were pale, flabby people and their crucial lack. There was the damp, inoneyless smell. Both types of places were simply deep cores of poverty.They could paint their walls any colour they wanted, they could fly a hundred flags and they still wouldn't pay the rent and we would still come and take their stuff away from them.
It was Povertyland. It was the land where the bad things happened. Solvent snorting Evostik down an alley in Taughmonagh, keeling over and drowning in a twofoot puddle. Going out with a sniff and a gurgle. It was the land of Love on the Breadline. Kids here used clingfilm for condoms; they bought their 015.99 engagement rings from the Argos catalogue. They shacked up together for warmth, for forgetting. It was the land where they wrote things on the walls.
I was never surprised that they bought all this stuff they couldn't afford. That's what I'd have done. That's I had done. The only times I'd ever truly shopped were when I had no money. Buying things is the only activity that makes you feel better about not being able to buy things.
And it was such sad stuff. Mail-order stuff, catalogue stuff, penny-a-word, poundstretchers' stuff. Sometimes, after a few runs, the back of the van would look like a iop stall at a church fete. It amazed me that anyone could want this garbage back. But someone did. So back we took it.
Old, young and medium, the people all looked like I felt. Which was truly, impressively bad. They lived in countries of poverty, in climates of poverty. They ate it, slept it, breathed it in and out.
But they'd bought on, unsurprisingly. They were still allowed to purchase, to consume. They'd shored themselves up with comfort goods. They'd committed the crime of wanting what they could not have and they all came quietly. I had not hit anyone since I'd started working in repo again. I hadn't needed to. I would never need to. They were already beaten, these people. There was nothing more I could do to them.
The really surprising thing was that we never got any grief from either of the forces of national liberation. Both sets, aboriginal and colonist, had been paid off by Marty Allen. They left us alone mostly. The cops, too, just about tolerated us. But it was tricky. IRA, INLA, IPLO, UVF, UFF and the Royal Ulster Constabulary. A whole horde of dumb fucks with automatic weapons and the three of us wandering in and out taking people's televisions away. Luckily, Crab and Hally were too stupid to give it much thought, but me, I had a lot of executive stress.
After the first couple of hours of that morning, I should have realized it was all going wrong. We were working the little streets off the Shore Road. Albino Protestant land. Some furniture in Peace Street, a microwave and multigym from Parliament Street and a stereo, video and camcorder in Iris Drive. We'd made ten people unhappy and frightened. The Iris Drive address was a couple with six children. The kids had wasn't untypical, we were used to one of them, a girl of about six, had become hysterical. She screamed and wailed. I was amazed that she could be so terrified. Was she incredibly fond of luxury electrical goods or were we just frightening men? Whatever, we really scared the piss out of her and I felt bad. I felt worse that we got no abuse. Neither father nor mother, brothers nor sisters said any bad words to us as we tramped in and out of there.
But just as I went to close the door behind me, the mother had stared at me. Just once, and not for long, but I had never seen such contempt, such fear. I wondered what I looked like that she could look at me like that. It didn't take me long.
Afterwards we drove back up to Rathcoole.We were a little irritated as we'd been there only last week, but Allen had said it was a big deal, a special pick-up and that we had to do it today. Hally looked through his list (with his literacy skills no mean or brief feat).
`It's a bed,' he said.
`What?' Crab was driving, his mood suitably foul.
`A bed!
`We're going back up there for a fucking bed'
'Aye. I think it's some kind of big fuck-off bed. We're taking it off somebody called Johnson. Marty says it's worth a lot of money.'
Crab grunted some Neanderthal grunt and turned into the estate. On one of the walls, he spotted some graffiti. `Have you seen that, Hally?'
`What?'
Crab pulled to a halt. He pointed at the smeared, scribbled pebbledash wall. `That'
Hally leaned across him and looked out. `What, "Tina sucks my cock"?'
`No, no. The big letters.!
'OTG,' said Hally.
'Aye'
`What about it?' Hally asked, mystified.
`Have you seen that before?'
`Nah.'
`What about you, Jakie?'
I ignored him. I wasn't in the mood.
`What does it mean?' said Hally.
`How the fuck do I know?' snapped Cr
ab. `I've seen it around a couple of times. Some of the lads are getting fucked off about it. They wanna know who the fuck these OTG cunts are.'
Hally pondered. `What, you think they're like a movement, an organization?'
`Yeah, probably.'
`And nobody knows who they are.'
'No.'
`Have they done anything yet?'
'Like what?'
'I mean have they claimed responsibility for anything yet?'
'Nah, don't think so.'
'So, how do you know it's an organization, then?'
'What else would it be?'
`Could mean anything.'
'Like what?'
`I don't Old Thick Git, Open The Gate, Omelettes Taste Good. I don't know. Fuck.'
'Then don't fucking blather about things you don't know, you thick fuck' Crab pouted. Oops, I thought, and blinked.
I missed the blow I just heard the wet slap and the sound of Crab's head bouncing back off his headrest. When I opened my eyes Crab's nose was bleeding and Hally was looking aggrieved.
`Don't call me stupid,' said Hally, mildly.
It took us twenty minutes to find the house. A bad twenty minutes. Things were tense enough without navigational difficulties.That was the thing about yob friendships. They were so very blunt. Mild controversies were conducted bone on bone. None of these people ever agreed to disagree. They were both psychopaths but Hally would be able to kill Crab every time. This consciousness weighed on Crab's mind. His neck grew red with hatred and suppressed rage. By the time we lumbered out of the van, the air between us was thick and hot with violence and anger.
But we got on with it. We did our usual thing. We knocked on the usual kind of door. The usual kind of fifty-year-old fat guy answered. We had our usual conversation with him. He made the customary mild objections and made the characteristic attempt to close the door. Hally put his typical boot in the way and pushed his way through in the traditional manner. The man had the expected change of heart and decided, as always, to co-operate.
It was routine. It was standard.
Inside, the blinds of the front room were still closed. The man, Mr Johnson, stood in shorts and vest. Crab stood close to him, invading his airspace. On the wall, a plain devotional hung, an unCatholic tract. God is Love, it said.Yeah, I thought, we'll see.
Crab asked the man where the bed was. Hally asked him where the fuck he thought it would be. Crab's face convulsed with fury. An itch started at the base of ny skull.
`Listen, fellas,' said the man, his voice pressed flat with false bonhomie, `my wife's really sick. She's had a stroke. The bed's for her. It's a special bed, like a medical one. It cost me fifteen hundred quid. I've only a few payments to make. Can't we make some kind of deal? She's really sick.'
`It's not our job, mate. We have to take it away.'
`All right, listen. She's up there now, my wife. It's hard to move her. If you lads come back in an hour I'll have her moved and then you can take it.'
Crab bridled. He leaned into the man's face. `Fuck away off. Do you think we have all day to waste on your fucking problems?' He turned on his heel and ran up the staircase. He looked really crazy. We all piled after him.
When we got there we found him standing in a bare but neat little bedroom. He was staring at the tiny woman lying wrapped on the massive metal bed. Mrs Johnson was awake (probably) and her eyes stared out at us through the rictus of her distorted features. The itch in my skull heated and spread.
There was a pause then. A silence. A moment of shame, of something. A moment that showed us all what we'd come to: the sad couple, Crab, Hally and me. We all had a little time to see where we were and what we were doing.
And, who knows, anything might have happened. The three of us might have thought better of it. We might have left those people alone. We might have gone back to Allen with some bullshit or even cut a deal with the ugly fat guy who looked at his wife with such tender eyes.
But Hally had hit Crab and Crab was still angry and he badly needed some trouble. Silently, suddenly galvanized, he strode over to the bed and grasped the mattress with both hands. With one shudder of his huge shoulders he yanked the mattress high and the sick woman rolled off the bed and hit the floor and the wall with a weak thud. I nearly puked with shame.
But then things happened quick. The husband went nuts and jumped for Crab. I knew Hally would kill him so I weighed in there and tried to drag him away. The guy's face was distorted with rage and pain for his wife and he was swiping wildly. It was bedlam. He was screaming, the wife was bellowing in some horrible paralysed way and I was shouting at the guy to calm down. I was really scared. Not by the fight but by all the shame, all the horror. He caught me one on the right temple and I was surprised and impressed by the unexpected quality of that blow. I jerked my head away and became calm.
Doctors and nurses always say that when some horrible accident happens and the mangled victims start coming in, they can always cope with the horror and madness. They say that their professionalism takes over and they can get on with it. That's what happened to me. My professionalism took over. I grabbed a fistful of the guy's gut and squeezed as hard as I had ever squeezed anything. All the fight went out of him.
It was a great ploy, this belly-pinching routine. I'd learnt it in America when some big bouncer had done it to me. The pain was unbelievable and all you could do was whimper and wait for it to be over. It was as much about humiliation as pain. I always thought I was its only European practitioner. I was proud of it. It was a real winning move.
Crab and Hally were manhandling the bed onto the stairs. The thing was huge and even apes like them were struggling. I couldn't figure out whether I should give them a hand or keep my mitt on the husband's guts. He was crying by now. Looking over at his wife, I decided that he was all finished and I let go of him. I joined the others.
It took us twenty minutes. Hally got so fucked off that he kicked the wooden banisters away.That made our job easier but it was still a drag. I was very glad, though. I was happy that it was hard. It gave me something to think about.
After we'd shunted it into the van, Crab turned back towards the house. He looked ill. He looked like he had a bad heart. Like it worked but it was wicked.There were still some bits of the contraption up in that bedroom and he told us he was going to get them.
`No. I'll get them,' I shouted, and raced past him.
Back in the bedroom it was all very unpleasant. I hadn't wanted to go back but it was better me than Crab.The old guy was sitting huddled in the corner, his broken wife lying across his lap, his arms tight, tight around her shoulders. He was murmuring to her, apologizing, soothing.
I picked up the bed rails and turned to the man. He looked at me but just continued to rock the woman in his arms, murmuring. Her eyes stared out at me as well, her face twisted and unbearable. Ludicrously, I felt a pricking at the back of my eyes. `Look,' I said, `I'm sorry.'
They didn't reply. She couldn't and he wouldn't. Perhaps that was what made Crab come into the room from where he'd been standing, walk across the kneeling man and slap him backhanded across the face. Perhaps it had been some spurious gesture of comradeship with me, offence taken on my behalf. I don't know. It's also hard to say for how many seconds I fought the impulse. For I did fight it. I didn't want to do what I then did, I passionately didn't want to do it. But I skipped over and gave it to him across the back of the head with the metal rails and laid him out beside them.
It was mayhem after that. Hally came in and there was the usual back and forward. He and I shouted it out, hands carefully pressed to our hips. We didn't want any more fighting. Hally terrified me but I knew he'd never been sure of me. He could never figure out how tasty I was. Crab was conscious but he didn't look good. His hair was matted with blood and it looked like he would throw up at any moment. In all the bickering, the Johnsons, whose house we were in, remained absolutely impassive.
In the end Hally took Crab down to the van and said
that he would drive him to Casualty at the Mater. When they'd gone I just left the room and closed the door behind me. I didn't think I'd try to apologize again. But, before I'd escaped, the crippled woman started grunting her strange noises at me. The same meaningless phrase over and over again. It was speech but it took me a few moments to understand what she was saying.
`You,' she was saying. `You.'
She was right. It was definitely me.
I walked back to Allen's. It took me an hour and a half. It wasn't a sure thing that Allen would fire me for what I'd done to Crab but I knew it was over anyway. I'd seen enough. I could wait table. I could carry bricks. I could give blowjobs down the docks. I just couldn't do this stuff any more.
Back at the garage, I tripped into Allen's office. Once again, he was on the telephone when I walked in. It sounded like some telephone sex line this time. I pressed the cradle down and cut him off. He didn't smile.
`What the fuck did you do that for, you wanker?'
'I quit.'
`Yeah? Well, good fucking riddance:
'I've got two hundred coming.'
`Heard you whacked Crab.'
'He called a press conference?'
`A big mistake. He'll fucking kill you for that. Then he'll eat you.
'My two hundred?'
'Your one hundred, you mean.!
He took out his wallet and counted out a hundred in twenties. It was more than I'd expected and that was fair enough. He'd sold me my dodgy stolen wreck of a car for two hundred. He didn't owe me much. He smiled some unpleasant smile he must have seen in the movies.
'Is it Crab or have you just lost your balls for it?' he enquired.
I had no explanation for him and I couldn't think of any tough-guy quip so I left. Downstairs, Hally was unloading the van, swapping tit jokes with a group of Allen's pre-pubescent mechanics. He didn't seem inconsolable about Crab's predicament and he was unconcerned about my presence. I headed for my car.