In the Market Cross Shopping Center, down the car-park stairwell, three young men shared a joint. Emilio Evans passed the spliff to Heboru Newman, sitting on the step below him.
“Do you think Bertie Ahern molests kids?”
Rex O’Farrell, his legs stretched along the lowest step, looked up, his brow creased. “I don’t know about Bertie, but you can be sure Slimy Old Enda did. He was a school teacher.”
“All politicians molest kids,” Heboru said, exhaling smoke.
Emilio sighed. “But how do yeh know?”
“That’s what the rich and powerful do. It’s the only taboo left to them.”
Rex chortled. “Listen to the man, he’s a Jew. They know about that shit.”
“Anti-Semitic fuck,” Heboru snapped, handing him the joint.
Rex blew ash off the tip. “Look, Jews rule the world: fact.”
“None of my relatives rule the world. May Kavanagh spat at my sister last week.”
“Ahh, yeah, though,” Rex said, “you’re Irish Jews. That’s the lowest form.”
“Fuck off.” Heboru kicked him in the ribs.
“I was talking to a lad the other night,” Emilio said, “and he told me when he was in state care, they used to get brought to these parties. There’d be loads of politicians and famous people there, and they’d give them loads of drink and drugs, then ride the arses off them.”
“Fuck’s sake, Emilio, who do you be talking to?” Rex asked.
Emilio shrugged. “Just some auld lad on the train.”
Rex passed the joint back to him. “Did no one ever tell you not to talk to strangers?”
“No, but . . .”—he took a long drag, held it, then released a thick plume of smoke—”it was fierce interesting. This auld fella said he once sucked Hawhee’s cock.”
“Hawhee would be the type, alright.”
“Said his cock was tiny. Small as a baby’s.”
Heboru laughed. “Sure, everyone knows politicians have small dicks. That’s why they go into politics—to compensate with power. Same goes for cops and teachers.”
“And priests,” Rex said.
“Yeah. And ‘cause they’re too small to please an adult, they start fucking kids.”
“Jesus,” Emilio said, letting his neck loll, the cartilage cracking. “This all seems highly plausible.”
“Yes, sir, the world is ruled by small-dicked kiddie fiddlers.”
“True. Small-dicked, Jewish kiddie fiddlers.”
“Fuck off,” Heboru said, kicking Rex again.
§
As they left the stairwell, a midnight breeze sliced across the car park’s top floor. Most of the building was locked up—empty of cars. They crossed the bare stretch of concrete, moving from one pool of light to the next, heading towards the shopping center.
Near the escalators, they stopped at the sound of voices. Emilio crept closer and peered down at the lower level. Two security guards waited at the bottom of the ramp, one speaking into a walkie-talkie. He hurried back and reported what he’d seen.
Heboru looked around. “Are they looking for us? They’ll fucking kick our heads in.”
“Come on,” Rex whispered. “We’ll go down the lift and get past them.”
Emilio and Heboru followed, ducking low as they passed the escalator.
Once inside the tiny lift, Emilio hit the ground-floor button. The doors chimed shut and, after a hiccup, it lurched downward. He leaned against the mirror on the back wall, looking up at the floor-display panel. Then the elevator jerked, as did each of them.
“What the fuck?” The lift stopped. They looked at each other when the lights went out, plunging them into darkness.
“Oh, God, what’s going on?” Heboru asked.
A red emergency light came on over the control panel, everything strange in its glow. Emilio slapped pointlessly at the ground floor button. “It must be a power cut.”
“Or the security cunts are fucking with us,” Rex said.
“They wouldn’t do that.” Heboru looked from the panel to the emergency light. “Would they?”
“Yes, they would. Bastards are always fucking with stoners.”
“Should we call them?” Heboru said.
“Don’t be a twat,” Rex shot back. “They’d love that.”
“Phones,” Emilio said. Each of them pulled out their mobiles. “No signal. You?”
Rex groaned. “Battery’s dead.”
“No, I’ve no signal.”
“Shite. How long do you think they’ll keep us here?”
Rex shrugged. “Maybe forever. Or they’ll lock us up in the basement, riding the arses off us every night.”
Heboru frowned. “Don’t be a prick.”
“I’m telling yeh, that shit goes on. It’s always in the papers.”
“Fuck this,” Heboru said. “I’m bursting for a piss.”
Emilio slid down against the wall and sat on the metal floor. “We might as well get comfortable. Could be here a while.”
“At least we’re not getting raped,” Rex said, sitting down, too.
Emilio stifled a laugh. “Not yet.”
“Fuck it, I really need a piss.”
§
Each sat at their own wall in the narrow space. Rex struggled to skin up a joint in the red glow. “Do you think Beyoncé and Jay-Z beat their kids?”
Emilio stared at the fault line between the lift doors. “I don’t know about Jay-Z and Beyoncé. I doubt they ever see their kids. Nannies handle that shit, don’t they? I’d say J-Lo beats her kids, though.”
Rex looked up from his efforts. “Does J-Lo have kids?”
“Yeah, she had a few with that Mexican fella. Mark something. I bet she beats the shit out them. She looks the type.”
“I wish Will Smith had beaten his kids.” Rex looked at Heboru, whose head was resting on his crossed arms. “You all right there, buddy?”
Heboru jiggled and groaned. “I’m going to burst.”
“Ah, won’t be long now,” Rex said. “They have to let us out eventually.”
“Fuck’s sake, I can’t hold it much longer.” The lift shook as he jiggled.
“Well, that’s what happens when you steal other people’s land.”
“Fuck off, Rex.”
Emilio still stared at the crack between the doors. “Do you think celebrities pimp their kids, like, to Hollywood producers and shit?”
“You can be sure of it.” Rex ripped open a cigarette. “Look at all the child stars who had to fuck to get work. Parents pimping the shit out of them. And when they get too old, they’re tossed on the scrap heap.”
“Like who?” Emilio asked.
“Fucking . . . all of them.”
§
“Don’t fucking do it.”
“I can’t . . . I can’t hold it!” Heboru bopped about at the lift doors. “I’m going to piss myself. I can’t hold it.”
“Just a bit longer,” Emilio said, up on his feet and leaning against the back wall.
“I have to fucking go.”
Rex threw his hands in the air. “Well, there’s nowhere you can go.”
“Fuck it.” Heboru turned into the corner, struggling with his jeans. “I’m sorry, lads. I can’t hold it.”
“Fuck’s sake, don’t!”
“I’m sorry.”
The tin-can sound—piss lashing off metal—filled the lift. Between Heboru’s trainers, a rivulet of red-lit piss trickled and pooled in the centre of the floor. “Ohh, thank fuck.”
“That’s fucking nasty,” Emilio said, wedging back into his corner.
“Yeah, Jesus Christ, Heboru, what the fuck have you been drinking? It smells like bleach.”
“That’s ammonia.”
“Fucking rank is what it is.” Rex pulled his sweatshirt over his nose. “There’s something wrong with you, boy.”
Heboru turned, pulling up his fly. “I’m sorry, lads. Had to be done.”
A large puddle formed in the middle of the floor, mirroring the red glow. The three of them stood around it.
“That’s fucking disgusting,” Rex said from inside his sweatshirt.
“Yeah,” Emilio agreed. “Thanks for adding to this wonderful experience.”
“I needed to go.”
“But we can’t even sit now.”
“The fucking bang off it,” Rex said. “What weird-ass Jewish shit do you be eating?”
“Fuck off, it’s only a bit of piss.”
“Cat piss smells like that,” Emilio said.
“Fucking nasty.”
§
“You know who I’d really like to rape with a knife?” Rex said. “Bono.”
Emilio shook his head. “That’s not very original—everyone hates Bono.”
“Yeah, I know, but that doesn’t make me want to do it any less.”
“He is some bastard,” Heboru said. “Prick won’t even pay tax in this country. Won’t contribute.”
“Greedy like an English landlord.”
“For all his Catholic bullshit, you know he’d have taken the soup.”
“Do you think he fucks kids?” Emilio asked, looking at Rex.
“I dunno, but I’d say he got fucked when he was young. That’s why he wears sunglasses. You’d see the damage in his eyes if he took them off.”
“He really plays up the whole Irish thing.”
“And he’s from Dublin, a fucking West-Brit.”
“That’s what people over the west say about us,” Emilio said.
“Sure, they’re only savages.”
“That’s what the Dubs say about us.”
“Nah, we’re the perfect mix.”
Emilio turned back to looking at the red light. “Here, is the Edge and the other two mutes?”
“No, no, they can talk, but Bono never lets them. Right up his arse with a six-inch blade.”
“I’d be more creative,” Heboru said.
“Like what, piss-boy?”
“Like . . . if you got a syringe of acid and injected it down his jap’s eye. Burn the fucker’s dick from the inside out.”
They both looked at him.
“That’s fucked up,” Emilio said.
Rex shook his head and chuckled. “I always thought, for a Jew, you’ve a real Nazi streak about you.”
“Will you fuck off with the Jew-bashing?”
Rex smiled. “No. Your lot killed my saviour.”
Heboru squared up to him. “I swear, if you say one more thing about Jews, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?”
“Come on, lads,” Emilio said from his corner. “Don’t lose the heads.”
“No, I’ve fucking had enough of this . . . this spud-faced cunt slagging my people. Every fucking day, the same shit.”
“Here, hold this,” Rex said, handing an unlit joint to Emilio. He poked Heboru’s chest. “And what’s your big Jewish nose going to do about it?”
Heboru launched himself forward. The two slammed into the wall before falling to the floor. Backed into the corner, Emilio watched them rolling around in the piss, fists hammering. This was far from a novel occurrence.
“Dirty fucking Jew!”
“Closet priest-shagger!”
They fought each other to their feet. Rex got Heboru in a headlock. “Come on, Jew, show us your gold.”
“Fuck you and fuck your pedo-loving messiah.”
He grabbed Rex’s leg and lifted him into the air. The two crashed to the floor again, limbs tangled.
“Why don’t you fuck off back to your own country?”
“I fucking well am!” Heboru shouted from beneath Rex. “I leave in three weeks.”
Rex stopped struggling. He sat back, looking down at his friend lying in the piss. “What?”
“My da’s moving us to Israel.”
“But . . . What? He can’t do that.”
“He made up his mind. Thinks we’ll be safer with our own people.”
“But, sure, we’re your people.”
“That’s not what you were saying a minute ago.”
“Ahh, sure, that’s only a laugh,” Rex said, still straddling him. “Yeh can’t move away.”
Emilio stepped out of the corner. “Lads, like, you realize you’re rolling around in piss, don’t you?”
Heboru and Rex looked at the damp floor, then at their sodden clothes. As if repelled by magnetism, they shot upright.
“Fuck’s sake.”
“Augh, Jaysus, it stinks.”
“Well, yee shouldn’t be fighting.”
Rex slapped Heboru on the chest with the back of his hand. “What the fuck are yeh saying? Israel? Yeh can’t fucking move there.”
Heboru leaned against the wall. “My whole family is going. The decision’s made.”
“You’re a grown man. You don’t have to do what your da says.”
“I can’t stay. I need my family. And my da says I can go to university over there.”
“In the Middle East? Are you fucking mental?”
“What?” Heboru shouted. “You want me to stay in this shithole? Arsing around with you pricks forever? At least I might have a future out there.”
“It’s mental.”
“Just leave it,” Emilio said. “It’s his life.”
“You agree with this fuckwit?”
“No . . . well, I mean, we can’t all stay here forever. I’m twenty-five and I’ve never left Ireland. I think if he wants to move away, we should support him.”
“Thanks.”
Rex flopped down on the floor and edged into the corner. “I think you’re both fucking stupid.”
§
Rex had fallen asleep in the corner, his body scrunched up, his face plastered against a chrome panel. Emilio and Heboru sat against the back wall, passing a joint between them.
“You really sure about moving?”
Heboru shrugged. “Fuck it, has to be better than here. Look at us, doing the same shit we did when we were teenagers. It’s time to grow up. I might have a chance of doing that in Israel.”
“Unless you get blown up by a suicide bomber.”
“Fuck’s sake. Remember when the IRA and the loyalists were blowing shit up every day, and the whole world saw Ireland as this war-ravaged place with riots and soldiers on every street?”
“Yeah.”
“What was the reality of that for people like us down south?”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
“Israel’s just somewhere else. I’ve lots of family there, and all the wars never affect them. They go about their lives. Good lives.”
He took the joint from Emilio. A low monotone mingled in the smoke.
Heboru let out a puff of smoke. “What about you? You can’t keep this shit up indefinitely.”
“Can try?”
“Don’t be a prick. You’re better than this shithole.”
Emilio lowered his voice. “Don’t say anything to Rex . . . but I was offered a job in Holland.”
“Holland!”
“Shush, yeah. I applied for it last December. It’s nothing fancy—a porter job in a hotel—but . . . ’twould get me out of here. See a bit of the world.”
“Have you accepted it?”
“Not yet,” Emilio said.
“Fucking take the job. There’s no future here. Ireland doesn’t want us.”
“Yeah . . . it’s a bit scary, like, fucking off on my own.”
Heboru smiled. “It’s scary, yeah, but good scary. An adventure. A real adventure, that’s what you need.”
Emilio took the joint back. “What if I’m not able for an adventure?”
“You are. Look, do you want to end up like those pricks sitting in the same pub every night, telling the same fucking stories over and over? Deluding themselves they’re big hard men, when in reality they’re life’s rejects?”
“Christ, no.”
“Take the job, Emilio. Get the fuck out while you have a chance.”
Emilio bit back a deep drag and let it out. “Yeah.”
Heboru snorted and shook his head. “How did life end up this shit?”
“I’m not sure.”
The red light shut off, returning them to darkness. Before either could speak, the white LED strip snapped to life and filled the elevator. The lift shuddered and started to move.
They jumped up. “About fucking time.”
When it hit the ground floor, Rex jerked awake. He looked up at them, bleary eyed. “What hap—”
The mechanism pinged and the chrome doors retracted into the wall. Outside the lift, the security guards grinned.
Emilio tried to speak but wasn’t given the chance. The guards rushed them, hooping and howling, swinging fists and stomping boots.
§
“Fucking pricks!”
The stench of chip fat and Guinness clung to the city as they trudged up John Street nursing their wounds. A gash on Emilio’s brow had left a bloodstain down his sweatshirt. Heboru limped, holding his thigh where the security guards stomped on him.
“That’s all they are,” Rex continued. He spat a wad of bloodied phlegm onto the road. “Fucking pricks!”
“I think they broke my rib.”
“This fucking place, nothing but cunts here,” Rex said. “You’re better off out of it, Heboru.”
“Yeah?”
“Seriously, anywhere would be better than this place. Fucking anywhere.”
“Even Israel?”
He threw his arm around Heboru’s shoulder. “Even dirty, Jewish Israel.”
Emilio touched his wound, his fingers coming away bloodied. “How long until the train?”
“Couple of hours.”
“Fuck’s sake, having to wait hours to travel ten miles. This country is a joke!”
Rex hocked up another wad and spat it onto the road. “Have you got somewhere better to be?”
Heboru glanced at him before looking ahead.
Emilio lowered his head and smiled. “Nah, not yet.”
They walked on, together, into the promise of morning light.
Shaun O Ceallaigh
Shaun O Ceallaigh is a working-class writer from Ireland. His stories have appeared In Crannóg, Howl, Confetti, Wensum Literary Magazine, and Penstricken. Insta: soceallaigh_books
