Jimmy disappears around the corner and Barney unbuttons his shirt. I’m sweating like a rapist, he says. It’s a clear night and the stars are out. When you get outside Belfast you can really see the stars, I says to them. And what are they saying tonight, Socrates? Tommy says. Something about a one-eyed yellow god, raining down on all of Ireland, I says to him. I didn’t catch the rest. Tommy laughed then. Some poem, isn’t it? he says. It is, I says to him, the way you tell it.

We stood there and counted to one hundred and twenty under our breath, with the bright stars above us in the sky, until there was no sign of Jimmy coming back, and Tommy says to us, fuck it, and he kicks the lamp post next to him, and the light sputters for a moment, and I look around at Barney and he’s standing there, smiling, and I start to laugh myself, I just burst out laughing, it was great right then, that’s all I can say, we were going to blow the place sky-high; what a feeling.

*

Okay, so this is a cracker, tell me if you’ve heard this one before:

Pat and Mick are in a park off the Falls Road and they find a stash of

three hand grenades, planked

beneath a tree.

Pat says, we had better hand these in to the peelers

but Mick says to him, wait, what if one of them blows up on the way?

Pat says to him, don’t worry,

in that case we’ll just lie and tell them

that we only found two.

*

We go charging round the corner and through the window we can see Jimmy lit up in the night because he’s behind the desk with the cashier and he’s on the fucking blower. Barney kicks the door in and takes a shot at him, hits him in the wrist and it’s like his arm exploded, his hand is blown off and his tendons dangling down and the phone is still in his hand, hanging there, and Tommy jumps up and slides over the counter and the cashier crouches down and starts whimpering and Tommy picks up this night-duty torch that is lying there on the counter and he starts beating Jimmy over the head with it, I see his head cave in, I think he took his lamps out, but Tommy keeps at it, the noise is disgusting, fucking, stupid, cunt, Tommy’s screaming, whapping him over the head with this fucking thing, we, came, here, to, help, you, you stupid, fucking, cunt, he’s yelling, and now he’s dead, fuck it, Jimmy Smalls is dead.