I would be here to do it for them.
I knew what it felt like to have my protector abandon me, and I would never allow that to happen to them.
I would die first.
Yeah, fuck Darren for leaving our brothers and sister to fend for themselves against a monster.
Fuck him for making me our father's number one punching bag.
You've always been that, lad…
Fuck secondary school, too, for that matter. My gaze drifted to my unopened school bag that contained a mountain of homework. I hadn’t the slightest intention of completing shit given by teachers whose opinions on me were the least of my worries.
Yeah, it was safe to say that secondary school was another bust.
Understatement of the century, lad…
According to my new principal, Mr. Nyhan, I was short tempered and unresponsive to authority. If he had to put up with half of the crap I did, he wouldn’t be so responsive to authority himself.
Asshole.
I reveled in pissing him off.
The reason for my blatant dislike of him was simple; he had played hurling with my father back in the day.
Hurling.
A shiver rolled through me.
It was both my saving grace and my living nightmare.
Forced to play by my father from the age of four, and terrified of having that weight dropped onto Tadhg’s shoulders like it been dropped on mine when Darren quit, I pushed myself to keep it up.
And I was good.
I was better than my father or Darren ever were, and I think it made him hate me more – the fact that I wasn’t completely useless like he constantly reminded me.
Dick.
It was because of thoughts like these, and fucked up nights like the current one, that when Shane Holland, a lad a few years above me at BCS, offered my first hit from a joint in fifth class, I took it.
When he promised that it would relax my racing mind and help me sleep, I sucked that shit so deep into my lungs that I almost choked myself in the process.
And do you know what happened?
It worked.
I went home that night and slept like a baby, blissfully unaware of anything outside my locked bedroom door.
After my first night of unbroken sleep in years, I was instantly converted, and decided that weed was for me.
After a smoke, I could relax, better than I'd ever been able to. I could close my eyes at night and not hear her in my head.
I could ignore the burning pain of betrayal and rejection that crippled me every time I thought of Darren leaving me to fend for the family alone, or what would happen if I tried to leave.
I had peace.
Last Saturday after work, for example, I’d met up with Shane and a few of the older lads from school for a few hours.
I already knew most of the lads, having grown up in the same area. They were all fairly harmless; well, most of them, at least.
It wasn’t like I was na?ve enough to believe that Shane and any of his asshole friends were my friends.
They just offered me an escape from the biggest asshole in my world.
My father.
Besides, the prospect of getting stoned had been a hell of a lot more appealing than the prospect of taking a hiding from my old man for missing a 65 – hurling’s equivalent of a corner kick – during my match earlier that morning.
So, with the last twenty euro I had left from the job I had recently acquired, I jumped at the chance to escape for the night.
To escape.
To just make it all stop…
All hell had broken loose the following morning, when I was rumbled for my midnight venture, but I had zero regrets. I couldn’t remember getting home. I had been too strung out on a fucked-up concoction of weed, Devil’s Bit, and tablets to notice.
Or care.
Hell, I would do it again in a heartbeat if it meant that I was spared from the reality of my life – spared from them – for a few short hours.
Jesus, I wish I had a smoke right now...
“I think he is hurting her again,” Tadhg croaked out, dragging me from my thoughts, when the sound of our mother’s pained wailing wafted through the air, followed by feral grunting.
Oh, I know he is. “For the last time, he’s not hurting her.”
“Are you sure?”
No. “Yep.”
“You promise?”
No. “Yep.”
“Thanks for letting us stay with you, Joe.”
“No problem.”
“Do you want to squeeze in here with us?”
And have two thirds of you piss on top of me during the night? “No thanks.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to – “
“Sleep. Now.”
Mood darkening, I let my thoughts wander back to Darren, as I bedded down for the night, with only my resentment to keep me company – and my hurley.
Dick.
ANYONE BUT HER
FEBRUARY 14TH 2000
JOEY
“And then you just reconnect the wires together like this, and bob’s your uncle,” Tony Molloy explained on Thursday evening after school, as he passed me a pair of wire cutters.
The engine of the car he had been rewiring roared to life.
I grinned. “That’s fucking mental.”
He arched a greying brow. “I’m only showing you this in the case of an emergency, not for a midnight joyride or any of that shite young fellas around here are up to.”
“Obviously.”
“Here, hand me that face-tester.”
Thoroughly intrigued, I did as the older man asked, soaking in everything he taught me, and feeling beyond grateful that he had gone out on a limb for me last year – even if it meant that the role that I had been given made me Tony’s glorified lackey.
Filling petrol in the garage’s adjoining forecourt wasn’t exactly thrilling stuff, but the chance to work on engines was something I discovered I enjoyed. More than just enjoyed, it was exactly the distraction I needed.
The money wasn’t brilliant, at a fiver an hour, but I was too young to get a job on the books, not to mention too hot-headed to hold one down even if I was old enough.
I couldn’t seem to help it. I had a problem with keeping my shit together. The rage that built up inside of me whenever I was confronted with an altercation, or an asshole determined to argue with me, was uncontrollable.
There was something inside of me that demanded I fight back, no matter how small or unimportant an argument may be.
I couldn’t get a hold of it.
It was like there was a demon living just beneath the surface of my skin, one that had taken too many kicks lying down, and refused to take a single other.
Besides, the relief on my mother’s face when I handed up my wages every Friday night made it all worth it.
If I could take only a tenth of the pressure off her frail shoulders, put there because of the useless bastard she married who refused to find a job, then I would gladly slog it out for a fiver an hour.
Taking all of the hours they would give me, I worked most evenings after school until around nine or ten at night, and all day on Saturday, unless I needed to take a few hours off for matches.
“So, how’s school going, lad?” Tony asked, climbing to his feet. “Keeping the head down after that suspension last week, I hope?”
I wasn't a fan of school and my boss knew it.
I fucking hated it at the best of times, but when I weighed up my options, I would have lived in the place – or here – if it meant I didn’t have to go home.
“I already told ya about that,” I said, following Tony into the office that doubled up as a staff room. “That prick Rice was out of line.”
“And you were only more than willing to put him back in his place,” Tony mused. Flicking on the kettle, he gestured to the black eye I was sporting. “Keep showing up to work looking like that, and you’ll scare off all the old biddies coming in for their petrol.”
I shrugged.
“You know, Joe, you really need to learn how to keep your head,” he continued, pouring two mugs of tea. “A hot temper like that makes you a liability, boyo. It will hold you back in life.”
Or it will keep me alive just long enough to grow up and get out of this town.
“Maybe,” I agreed, running my tongue over the recently healed cut on my bottom lip.