Deepening the emotional aspect of the scenes is working for me. Today, this is one I redid -- after Brendan, Colm and Danny were at the Magilligan Strand demonstration, not far from Derry. Colm was hit in the arm by a rubber bullet and he can't use it. Brendan suspects Danny was molested by a parish priest and still suffers PTSD from it.
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"Do you have some smokes, Colm?" I asked.
He shook his head.
"Two packs on me," Danny said, wary.
"Marlboros?" He nodded. "That should be enough."
And normally would have been, but the checkpoint was manned by a pack of very angry soldiers, none of whom I'd seen before. Save one...maybe. They slammed us against a wall, telling us to put our hands up on it and to spread our legs so they could maul us with full abandon. But Colm couldn’t raise his hurt arm. A Sergeant grabbed it to look closer at his injury, making him cry out from the pain.
"What's this?" he snarled at Colm. "Bloody rioter?"
He started to rip Com's Anorak off, causing even more pain to him.
I was still in control, for we were outside, not in a room, so gave a small laugh and shot in with, “Me mate? Rioting? Couldn't throw straight to save himself. He was just playin’ the cod, is all.“
“Shut the fook up, ye fookin’ taig.”
I shrugged. “Call me what you want, but I was workin' on a car, at McClosky’s, and me mate went actin’ stupid and got under it to play and kicked it off its block. This is from the rear wing hittin' him as it fell. Me boss tied his arm and it took the three of us to set the car right.”
"On a St'ruday?"
"Who said it happened today?"
“Ye fookin’ liar! Ye fix cars? A nobody like yerself?”
I snorted, this time. “I can fix any car there is!”
He smiled at me, cold and hard. “Yeah? I got a Defender leaks oil. Nobody can tell me why. All the seals are good and no cracks in the block. What the fookin' shite is wrong wit’ it?”
“What’s the year?”
“...Sixty-one.”
“Model”
“S-4.”
“Is the head tight?”
“’Course it fookin’ is.”
“Sure of that? If you put a normal jointing on, it needs to twice be turned, to be sure. I used double joints and compounds when I fixed Dr. Wiler’s; went hard on the fastening. Colm helped me with the last turn of the spanner, didn't ya?”
That's when I noticed the one ugly mug who looked familiar was running his hands up and down Colm, slow and grabby. But me China stayed cold as ice and said, without hesitation, “It was bloody hard. Bloody thing won’t come off without major surgery, for certain.”
“Hasn’t had a leak since,” I said, making myself smile. Christ, that bastard groping Colm looked more and more familiar.
Then I saw Danny was watching him, his eyes wide and wary, and I felt my heart drop.
Another soldier came up. “What 'bout a Volvo 122? Shifter comes out the gear box.”
“That’s the bloody car’s design," I said, keeping my voice light. "Put it back in and screw it closed, is all you need do.”
Danny was starting to shake. Oh...no...no...no...
“Not what me mechanic said. Needs doin’ just right, fasten down just right. Glove repositioned.”
I barely kept my voice normal as I said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, and how much’d he hit you for?”
“...Ten quid.”
“Each time?”
“I...I didn’t say it was more’n once.”
I saw that same bastard was now shifting to Danny, and me China was starting to breathe heavy and I was growing wary. I had to make myself chuckle. “Next time it comes out, put it in yourself and see what happens.”
“So you do know cars.”
It was a Sergeant speaking, from behind me. I shrugged. "I fix things."
The soldier began his mauling, up one of Danny's legs, grinning and growling like a hyena, then shoving his hand up around Danny's arse and...and then I caught it. He was the same bastard who'd fingered my arse.
Danny was shaking, his fingers digging into the wall. Oh, shite, oh, shite, oh, shite, this could go so bad, so easy. Danny freaks out. The soldiers pile on and we're all snatched and...and...
And then I noticed some older women in the queue, a couple of whom I knew, glaring at the fat bastard and without a though suddenly barked, "What the fuck is this? You stickin' your thumb up me arse ain't enough, you wanna do it to me mate, too? Lookin' for dreams to wank off to, when you're alone?" And I was loud with it.
The bastard spun to me, snarling, "What the fook're you sayin'?"
I noticed other ladies were casting glances our way so grew louder. "What the fuck, yourself, arsehole. It's not enough you grab my bollocks and stick your nose up me arse, you're gonna do it to all of us? Fuckin' poofter! Gettin' your jollies off goin' up boys' jacksies?!"
The bastard howled and punched me in the kidney and fuck did it hurt. I cried out. He grabbed the collar of my coat suddenly I'm back in Strand Road and I just know I'm going into that fucking room, again, and that added to my gasps of pain and I'm about to spin into the very howling beast I was afraid Danny would've become...
But that queue of women heard me.
They heard me.
Saw what the bastard was doing. Saw him hit me. And they began spitting furious curses on the man. Words I'd never heard come out of a woman before, not even Mrs. Keogh when she was in a lather. Spitting at all of them. Beginning to close in on them. "What're you doing to them boys, you cunts?" "You bastards gonna try anything with them?" "Big fucks with toy guns beating up on little lads?" "Motherfuckin' bastards!" "Keep your fookin' paws to yerselves, ya sick fucks."
Colm burst out with, "That fookin' bastard groped me! An' he was grabbing me mate's arse. Me mate's an altar boy! Never a stitch of trouble to him and this ape's gonna drag him off for his sick fun!"
Oh, did the ol' cows howl even more. Poofters and Homos and Nancy Boys, and I'd swear I heard a few cocksuckers in there. It was glorious. Others began to come over, from Waterloo, both men and women, to see what the noise was about.
The paras started to get nervous and now held their weapons at the ready, in case this hoard of middle-aged ladies took it upon themselves to attack. If I hadn't been so winded by the bastard's punch, I'd have laughed at the cowardice in them, but then I looked at Danny...and he was still in position, staring at the wall as if frozen, his fingers still digging into the brick, shaking. Like I had been...for hours...and I started begging in my mind, Please, Danny, please don't let go, not yet, not now. Please. I held on. I held on. You can, too.
That's when an officer of some kind quickly put himself between the howling women and his men and snapped at the bastard who'd been mauling Danny, "What the devil's going on, Collins?"
"No idea, sor," he said, his voice suddenly weak and cowardly. "Just sorchin' the little fooks."
I noticed that comment had jolted Danny, and he was now looking at me. And he seemed much calmer. Oh, thank the heavens.
Colm was still against the wall, as well, but also watching him.
Another soldier backed over, eyes on the snarling crowd, his fingers itching to pull the trigger of his rifle. "We sendin’ 'em off or snatchin’ ‘em?"
The big bastard was fool enough to say, “Sir, I’d swear these little bas'ards was slingin’ stones at Magilligan.”
That made the officer sigh and shake his head. "Collins, how the devil would you know that? You weren't even there. Christ." Then he turned and walked away.
The soldier who'd asked me about the S4 said, “Off wit’ ye.” And he called, "Thanks."
As if that made everything fine.
Colm pulled me up by my collar and kicked Danny, jolting him back into this moment, and off we went.
Fast.
So fast, we were halfway down Fahan before I had to stop, I'd started coughing mad, and not from that punch.
Colm pulled me around a corner, behind a tin wall, Danny right with us. I noticed them both looking at me, their eyes lost in confusion as Colm murmured, “You didn’t cough once in front of that fat bastard.”
I couldn't speak. Just coughed.
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