*

That was hot, Blackie says to Tommy as he’s wiping his shoes on the curtain, but Tommy isn’t listening and he walks over to The Swan and he says to him, they do make plastic hearts, and I should fucking know, and The Swan puts his arm around Tommy, and we drink and we sing and we do other things that seemed impossible only the previous morning.

*

Mick from Ireland plays the pipe,

and what a con-flag-ra-tion

He plays the pipe, to goes to war

against forced immigration

It is his want

to spend his nights in wanton

con-cu-bation,

boys

But come the day

and mark the hour

of Holy Sufferation

He makes his

way

as martyrs do,

bold Fenians, of a nation

That stand as true

as e’er what do

in Holy

Buggeration.

*

Then I minded a story about my father, about how, when we were kids, he had literally disappeared. My father had been quite religious when we were growing up. We went to chapel every Sunday. We had a copy of The Bible on the table between our beds at night, just in case youse need it, my da says to me and my brother Peter, which of course put the living fear in us that during the night we were going to be assaulted by daemons or by the kind of crooked thoughts that only The Bible can destroy.

Then he disappeared. And when he came back he was wearing stigmata. That’s what he says to us.

He turns up and his face is all cut-up and bruised, so badly bruised that he was scarcely recognisable. Me and my brother were scared as hell, pushing him away. No, don’t touch me, we’re screaming, Ma, we’re saying, he’s a monster, and my da, he says to me, I had to go away. I had obligations, he says to me. You had obligations to your family, our ma is screaming at him, you’re scaring the fucking life out of them, she’s screaming, you’ve got them all scared like little white rabbits. One day it will be your turn, he says to us, and then he says to us, don’t you remember when Jayzus lifted his hand from the cross to show the disciples his wounds?