But IRA stands for Irish Republican Army, and don’t forget it, because we’re the ones what should be wearing medals in public. We used to joke with each other and say that one day, lads, and it won’t be long, they’ll replace Poppy Day with Shamrock Day, and then we’ll remember all the brave boys what died, for a cause, mind you, brave boys what voluntarily laid down their lives, not these fucking clowns fresh from the dole office with a monthly fucking wage and two weeks in Spain, but it wasn’t a joke and we weren’t really laughing, although that day is somewhere in heaven now (let’s face it), when we’ll greet the Immortal Revenging Angels, lined up, as far as the eye can see, because Miracle Baby was right, and there’s no united Ireland in sight and no memorial for the fallen in this world, so what about the next.

*

I’m treated like a fucking hero but not for long because they want to get me and Tommy out of the country to somewhere we can lay low for a bit. Don’t you worry about those fucking Free State Volunteers, Mack says to me. They’re fucking scrubbed, he says, and he swipes his hands together. You two go and enjoy yourself, he says. We’ll make sure of who gets the glory. Fucking Free State Volunteers, he says to us. Volunteering is for Unionists and for fucking Ulster-ists, far as I’m concerned, he says. Republicans run armies, not charities. This is an IRA triumph, he says to us. How dare they divide attentions.

In the meantime Barney has agreed to run the shop with the help of Beavis. Beavis & Barney, Beavis & Oddjob, you couldn’t fucking make this up, so you couldn’t, but Barney’s getting seriously into his comics and this fucking wee brainbox Picatsto kid is becoming his mentor and he’s taking all this Golden Age stuff home with him. This cunt’s going to read us out of house and home if he keeps this up, Tommy says to me.

I phone Kathy and I tell her that I can’t go back to our days at the Europa. Are you involved? she says to me. We meet up in a wee cafe in Arthur Street. Of course I’m not involved, I says to her. It was the fucking FSV. You’re lying to me, Kathy says to me. Sharon says she saw you that day.

That wee bitch, I’m thinking. Aye, she saw me alright, I says, I nearly got my own head blown off too. Do you think I’d be ducking into the Europa if I knew The Boys were planning to blow it up?