*

We’re up The Shamrock, it’s Saturday night, and Tommy’s up onstage giving it plenty. One singer, one song, some cunt shouts. I never knew what the fuck that meant neither. I’m sitting next to Patricia. Look at that wee bastard, I says to her. I think his da was a fucking negro, I says. Where the fuck did he get that tan? Working in the streets, that’s where he got it, Patricia says. Working in the streets since he was seven year old and his da made him go out and sell newspapers down the bottom of the Crumlin Road. Let me tell you, darling, I says to her, but there is no sun in Ireland strong enough to inflict that degree of tan. That’s fucking genetic, so it is.

That would mean his da wasn’t his da, Patricia says. That would mean he was a bastard. He is a wee bastard, I says to her, what did I tell you?

She was a good-looking doll. And smart too. She was in the Mensa. Plus she was obsessed by all the popes. She studied them, read all the books. She knew everything about the popes. Plus she was in love with Tommy. Crazy in love with him. All the ladies were. Women would walk up to him, this is in the street, this is at the fucking train station, and they would ask him if he would like to take them out for a coffee. You ever heard of a woman asking a random guy out at a fucking train station before? In Belfast it was un-fucking-heard-of, believe me. Till Tommy started the trend. Everybody was uptight before that. Till Tommy came along. They talk about the Swinging Sixties and the free love. The era of Tommy was the era of free love in Ireland. When he was born it was the equivalent of the Beatles shopping up in Belfast. Only he had short hair and a handmade suit and a floor-length Crombie and a slouch hat and he would’ve shot a hippy in the fucking face as soon as look at him. Plus he never touched drugs. Except for marijuana. And LSD, once. But wait till I tell you.

There he is onstage: look at him there in the spotlight. Patricia’s mouthing the words along with him and the women are weeping, no word of a lie, the women are wiping their made-up eyes with their beautiful silk handkerchiefs, and it was so sexy, all of the boys from back then, all of the boys have a thing to this day for silk handkerchiefs, ask any of them, it was like lingerie for your face, weeping into your lingerie like it was wet between your legs, and of course we would get them to wank us off with their hankies, these silk hankies, these ladies of Belfast, what a turn-on, and then Tommy starts up again, he opens his arms up and out, just like Como when he’s reaching for a crescendo, and he starts to sing.