Near the end...

Brendan's just learned his mother has cancer, but no one in the family told him. It was in a letter his younger brother, Rhuari, sends to a friend of his, Eldon. They're pen-pals practicing Gaelic, and Rhuari mentions it. This tears Brendan up; adds to his sense of being cut off from his family in Derry.

He goes out riding on his motorcycle, tracks down the place where he was taken to be beaten for dating Vangie -- a churchyard with a playground -- and tears the area up with his bike then goes home and...

---

I strode up to my room, not caring about being quiet. Tore off my jacket. Tore my shirt at the pocket while doing so. I didn’t care. It was too much a part of this world and I wanted it gone, so I tore more away, and each shrick of the material brought me a hint more peace.

My trousers were JCPenney specials, and so fucking middle-class. All those fucking houses around that playground had been fucking middle-class. So these, too, were torn.

In moments, I was wearing nothing, not even my briefs. They were in heaps of rags on the floor, and I was weary beyond measure. I heard movement in the house so slammed the latch closed, then stood still in the middle of the room. No one came up the stairs to me. Nor did I hear a voice. Let them settle back. I had much to think about and wanted nothing to disturb me.

That the people who had probably attended that fucking church would stand by and let someone be tortured without even a call to stop it, that screamed too completely of the actions and attitudes in Derry. A lad being kneecapped by the IRA? Keep walking. Sunday services with the devil Paisley? This proves we are Christians as we slaughter Catholics. Let some bastards erase a young man from the world for daring to date out of his religion or race? Well after all, it’s just not allowed. Anywhere. So it had to be done. Nor would that attitude change.

It made me cold. So fucking cold. I was like ice. Quaking from the shivers. And that’s without the air conditioner going. I set the shower going, more by habit than anything, and looked at myself in the mirror.

I was healthy, now, to say the least. Clear skin. Some freckles had come along. Body more fit. My chin seemed stronger and the mustache—suddenly, it looked pathetic. Was this my one real act of rebellion? Fucking facial hair?

I found my scissors and ran water in the sink, ignoring the shower, then cut most of the mustache away. Ran a lather and shaved the rest. I looked so fucking weird once it was done. Had my upper lip always been so far from my nose?

Then I looked at my hair. Curls and—and more curls—and I cut at it. Along the sides, mainly. And over the top, but not as much. I was thinking of a MyDolls concert I’d been to at a club, with Everett, and some of the lads had what they called mohawks. So I cut my hair down to the point I could shave on both sides of a thick strip of it.

Which made me look comical.

But wasn’t everything about me ridiculous? I very nearly shaved off the rest of my hair to make it official, but no. No, that could be acceptable. This was the look I wanted. A stripe of curls down the middle of my skull.

I saw little scars in my scalp. Some from the bombing, I suppose; some from my lashing. Well-healed but visible. They looked right. It all felt right and made me joyous.

I showered and scrubbed my face and scalp and stepped into the room, stark naked and dripping water. Then I started up some Ramones followed by Patti Smith, flopped on the bed with my headphones, and let the music dance through me.

I thought of the Provos in the Maze, still on their blanket protest, demanding Special Category Status. Eamonn was amongst them. Might even be leading them, for all I knew. They wanted to wear their own clothes as political prisoners, not the bloody uniforms of the state. They’d been allowed that privilege until recently, then told they were now common criminals, not men fighting for their country’s rights and freedom. And once again, as if to prove how stupid everyone was, it was escalating, tit-for-tat.

Beat us and we’ll destroy everything we can in our cells. Take away what we haven’t destroyed? We’ll sit on the floor. Take our clothes? We’ll wear nothing.

I’d now heard that they weren’t even cleaning the fucking cells, anymore. Just letting everything rot with shite and piss. And the response was, fine, we’ll make art on the walls with our feces. God only knew what the next level would be, but it was sure to be met with just as much stupidity from the opposing side. Keep it up until both sides are too weary to continue.

That’s the only way compromise ever comes about, really; both sides grow equally tired. And finally understand that the world really does not fucking care about anything.

So now here I was, approaching the same fucking habit. Should I not bathe? Not clean my room? That would be silly. I was hardly a political prisoner; just a familial one. Like a king locked in his chambers by his royal Uncle. Better that than execute him, I suppose.

So who should I imagine myself to be? Prisoner of Zenda? The Count of Monte Cristo? The Man in the Iron Mask? Considering my actions with Jeremy, once, maybe I was just Oscar Wilde in Reading Gaol. Ha! The Oscar Wilde of the mechanic’s set. He never met a phrase he couldn’t turn, nor I a screw.

Christ, I was pathetic.

But to honest with myself, understanding that made me happier than I’d been in years.