How did your man Del Brogan get out so early? I says to him. Good behaviour? the longhair says, and he shrugs. This guy with the short hair comes over, it’s the drummer. He sniffs the air. Fucking hippies, he says, gimme that. He grabs the joint and takes a big toke. You look like a punk rocker, pal, Barney says to him. Fuck’s it to you? the wee punk says. I thought punks wanted to puke and destroy, Barney says, I thought it was all about no future. There’s no future in Ireland, I’ll fucking tell youse that much, the wee punk says, the Pistols got that fucking right, that’s for sure. That’s the fucking problem with cunts like you, the longhair says to him, I mean, if you don’t believe in the possibility of a better future, what exactly are you bringing to the struggle? An AK-47, the wee punk says, and everybody laughs, except for the longhair, who is getting more annoyed. You’ll change nothing, the punk says, it doesn’t matter. All this fucking nihilism, the longhair says. It’s the fucking disease of the young generation. But youse were just as bad, he says, and he’s nodding to me and Barney, where the fuck did youse get us? he says to us. Youse never had a coherent plan in your heads, he says to us. Youse were political illiterates. Who are you fucking calling il-li-ter-ates? Barney says to him. Youse never understood that it was all part of the greater class struggle, the longhair says to us. To youse it was just a fucking glorified street brawl. I’ll fucking take you in a glorified street brawl, Barney says.

Leave it, Barney, I says to him. Listen, I says to the longhair. It’s the very fucking idea of the future that gets everybody into trouble, I says to him. It’s all this fucking planning, all this fucking dreaming, all this fucking political shite, all this fucking tomorrow-will-be-better-than-today bollocks that keeps us all from living right now. You don’t even believe that, the longhair says. In Ireland there is no now to live in, my friend, he says to me. There is no fucking present in Ireland. No solid ground. Our only hope is to literally build the future, so as that when we get there, we’ll have something to fucking stand on. As it is, the ground beneath our feet doesn’t even belong to us.