A Vision of Irish Racism- excerpt

Jack Quinn

I wrote a somewhat purple dystopian novel a couple of years ago entitled New Hibernia. Here's a sample chapter for those of you who like that sort of thing.
The following may cause offence to certain readers.
This is a work of fiction: all characters, opinions and events are entirely ficticious- Jack Quinn

Election week 2033, twelve years earlier. It was a dirty apocalyptic March morning with low clouds. Unlike previous years, Barry was not out canvassing for The Socialist Workers’ Party because he knew that this year bleeding hearts were a waste of time. Slightly left people had become slightly right, and the recent oil crisis had pushed the rest further west still to The Progressive Conservative Party and increasingly to the populist far-right Irish National Party: after all, the INP was what the times demanded, and they were very demanding indeed.
Naturally, Barry was helping the real under dogs - those who didn’t have a vote - the Denizens. Helping them to make a stand and let the fast crumbling EU and the ever ineffectual UN know about the humanitarian crisis that was going on in their own back yard. Granted, much the same thing was happening all over The EU. Democracy and human rights had to make a united European stand against the far right before the world was thrown into chaos; it was more important than ever now. This year, handing out flyers and getting people to sign petitions wasn’t going to be enough. The nearing economic crisis turned all eyes blind. Experts had been crying wolf over world oil peaks for years sending stock markets tumbling, and armies rumbling to war.
Another of what had become known simply as ‘Bush fires’ had ignited just ten months previously, finally nudging the Saudis into The Arabian Alliance. The speed of the international reaction was truly astonishing: The US began clamping down on sales of all remaining oil and gas on the American continent, the British, Arabs, Chinese and Russians did the same with what they had, or thought they had. The dwindling reserves of uranium were snatched up and hoarded. The priceless question wailed out like an air raid siren from every gaping mouth: ‘How are we going to make this world that has been so utterly dependant on oil for almost two centuries, go round without it?’
Accusing people of being alarmist was no longer an option and it was particularly difficult to lounge in denial when you were pumping your car full of fortunes and prices were beginning to looked more like telephone numbers.
Politicians booted each other over the muttering lip service that had been paid to alternative energy sources and climate change, but still did nothing to soften the blow, and it was too little, too late. Prototype hybrid-hydrogen cars and bio-fuel weren’t going to get goods across oceans. Oil calories had heretofore fed everyone. Solar, wind, hydro still only accounted for fractions of global needs, and developing world countries had no resources to develop alternatives. Everything had to be changed and there wasn’t enough time. A large portion of the planet was about to take a two hundred year step back in time. She’d finally pulled the plug on the world. Desperation and panic and foreboding squirmed in every stomach and drastic measures became suddenly reasonable.
The machinery of industry, transport, food production cranked slow, slower and then practically stopped. It seemed there was less oil left than they had previously thought, and those who had les amours weren’t sharing it anymore. The price of a barrel went stratospheric. The predicted scale of the catastrophic economic crisis was to belittle even The Wall Street Crash of 1929, and the forecasted depression had the world helplessly hoping and looking to hard-line political parties for the answer.

Barry entered the commotion of Chinatown at Gardener Street. He’d always loved the gritty vibrancy of the place; it made him feel like a young writer living in New York whenever he passed through it. Hanging forests of extinguished, squiggly, neon signs overhead in Cantonese and Mandarin, steamy sweaty noodle shops exhaled onto the street, birdlike song scorched out from loudspeakers above hairdressers where squat squinting men with multi-coloured coiffures blurted out ‘Hail cuh!’ dully at passers-by from pavement windows.
As he neared one window, an Asian man, who had been hanging out the hatch smoking a cigarette, noticed Barry and promptly slammed the window shut. True, he was the only white Irish person to be seen on the street, but this had never been a problem before; he had quite a number of Chinese friends who lived in the area. Then he noticed the next shop down, a grocer’s, its windows had been smashed and a burn mark stretched up the door. His eyes were drawn to the pavement in front of the shop where someone had scrawled, ‘Go back to your own filthy country noodle ****- INP’, in bright green spray paint. Barry spat on the graffiti, this was becoming a regular occurrence.
There was a noise down a side-street: he heard a black voice cry out and children’s jeers reverberating off high walls. He looked round the corner to see a bald old African limping after scurrying Caucasian street urchins. They regrouped behind some bins and began launching stones at the man again. A black woman huddled over two young children in a dirty corner. Barry asked her if she was all right.
‘**** off, ****ing Irish!’ was her response. With that Barry ran past the old man and after the kids. He screeched from the top of his lungs that he was going to call the Gardai. They mocked his Trinity accent and dispersed.
Barry was proud of himself, even if he was a little afraid the children would come back down from the flats with their older brothers.
He turned and jogged back to the woman. The old man was attending to a cut over her left eye with a handkerchief. The two children looked up at him with big bewildered eyes.
‘I apologise for my countrymen; they’re just kids, they don’t know what they’re doing.’
The old African looked up at Barry concerned and bloodshot.
‘Here youngfella,’ his accent was of the inner city, much like that of the kids, ‘They’re moi countrymen too! And it’s not the kids oim worried abouh.’
The woman looked at Barry accusingly and then herded the two boys away from him.
He was mortified by his assumption, and realising that his crime was greater than their assailants’, he moved on.
Further up the street he saw a small crowd gathering outside one of the new glass cages. They were all looking up, transfixed by the flashing images that appeared on the panes above. It was a Chinese electrical chain store called Nihaw. He couldn’t afford to run many electrical appliances anymore, which meant that he rarely got near a TV or a computer, so he relied on street TV’s quite a lot, though Miki said it was all propaganda bull**** anyway, no matter what network you watched.
The images were in fact projected through the glass front of the building. As Barry approached, fifteen metre graphs appeared showing Wall Street, The Nasdeq and The Dowe Jones plummeting in red. Although there was no sound, there was a constant stream of Chinese below the graphs. Then it showed a beautiful Asian woman reading out further news at a desk, this was all subtitled, the crowd seemed to react favourably to what she was saying. Then there were more graphs, this time on the Chinese economy. The Chinese economy was so powerful that its stock markets were arguably more important than Wall Street. Barry’s father had told him that if he learned to understand the Chinese stock markets, he could predict the future. Barry appreciated the dinner table organic economics, however, at the end of the day his father was an electrician; be it a wealthy one, but all the money in the world wasn’t going to make him sophisticated, no matter what his golf club was in.
Very often Barry would come to the Nihaw screen with a Chinese friend of his and get him to translate and interpret it for him. The problem was that Chen was more interested in gambling than economics, and the truth be know- his Chinese wasn’t too hot anyway.
While the projections still showed a decline, it was steadier and spread over the next number of years. Then the screen was spilt between the beautiful woman and a fat suited Asian trader sort. They talked for some time and Barry was just considering moving on because he was getting dirty looks from the people around him, like he was spying on them, when they were faced with footage that truly shocked him: it showed queues stretching for miles at American gas stations, full scale riots at feeding stations in South America and emaciated children in refugee camps in East Africa. The scenes were so much more graphic than anything on western television. Next it showed a gruesome scene in the aftermath of an allied bombing raid in Kuwait. There were headless corpses and charred children’s remains around a crater. Angry exclamations went up from the crowd. Barry figured it was time to get out of there.
As he went on his way, confident that what he was about to do would help to change things, it occurred to him that this was a very exciting time to be alive, that this was the generation defining catastrophe Miki was always on about. The world was about to change and he was going to have something to do with it, play a part in it, influence it in some way.
He approached The Parnell monument. There was an increasing police presence; two on every corner, most of whom were in riot gear. The other side of the monument he saw an army truck pull up and about twenty-five soldiers jump out. Barry was getting a feel for what was about to happen.
Over at The Ambassador cinema Barry could just make out five Turks up against the shutters with their legs spread and their hands on the metal. Eight policemen stood around them examining their papers, while three more searched the men from top to toe. Barry had always thought they were a dangerous lot- the Turks; even Miki wanted nothing to do with them. Why they had let a country comprising almost entirely of violent savages and terrorists into The EU was beyond Barry. His father said their accession spelt the beginning of the end for The Union.
There were literally cops and soldiers and TV crews and fypes with banners all over the place- they’d diverted traffic away from the area and there were even a couple of helicopters hovering around overhead; this was going to be some showdown.
Paranoid and agitated, Barry shuffled past a Garda and a plain clothes Special Branch Agent, they didn’t give Barry a second look; why would they? He was a tubby middleclass student; his designer trainers, coat and glasses were no threat to the state. He maintained a steady pace. He felt like a spy; it was awfully exciting.
He stopped at a set of pedestrian lights; he could see the lurking Georgian tenement now. He had no idea just how many families lived in that warren of warm beds and mattressed floors; rotating, living there in shifts. Miki had chosen it as a HQ because it was so close to The Garden of Remembrance- the site of the INP rally that was to take place that afternoon. Most of the crew had been held up for days in that building and ones like it all over the city centre; so as not to draw attention.
They had been planning the counter-demonstration for months, but it wasn’t until he was at those traffic lights that Barry noticed the terrible look on a well-bred motorist’s face observing a waddling African mother; one child it seemed was laced into her bright and sprightly apparel, another she held like a pig-skin rugby ball, and the eldest she dragged vacantly along on a lead behind. It was as if the woman were watching an act of grotesque depravity. He had never seen such odious eyes before and all at once the reality of the situation tolled like a knell into his tender soul; all from having glimpsed this one expression. It was so much more real than the cops in riot gear or the stories of bludgeonings and beatings of Denizens in the papers. Up until that point he had been immune, comforted by that fact that he was doing something to try to stop this madness, reassured by the fact that he had a purpose and guiltily warmed by the luxury of believing in something, in a cause that he knew to be just.
Barry was surrounded by friends and allies from college and The Underground scene. It was so cool to be part of the left-wing intelligentsia. But only then did he realise just what he was up against: not just the ever present bigots and racists and proles, but previously liberal middleclass suburbanites, teachers and doctors and lawyers, all swelling the ranks of the possessed. Something had to be done, and everyone was going to vote this time round. There was suddenly no doubt in Barry’s mind that The INP was going to come to power, either through a coalition, or out-right. Honest, effective real politick was to be the order of the day dished out by the providential man that was John M. Devoy.
Everyone was prowling around, hissing for someone to blame: the Americans, the Brits, The EU, the Arabs, the Russians, the Chinese, the soft line government, but mostly they blamed the Denizens; things would surely be better if we didn’t have to share what was rightfully ours. Ireland was a crashing hot air balloon and the dead weight had to be discarded, everyone thought it and as fever took hold of the populace it came and came in a delirious deluge, fetid words, last resorts and final solutions.
By the end of the following week the fight would be over. The ugly realisation poured into him in icy gallons as he pressed the buzzer on the Georgian house. Most houses had biometric identification systems for security, but not the lumpen housing. Miki was convinced that all biometric technology was linked to a government database and therefore avoided it whenever possible. Barry thought the small Irish gene pool led to frequent cases of mild cretinism; particularly in politicians and that Miki gave the government more credit than they deserved.
‘It’s Barry,’ he stared gravely into the lens.
‘Were you followed?’ he could tell by the Caribbean velvet vocal cords that it was Texaco.
‘No, no I wasn’t.’
There was a vibration, he pushed the majestic door and stepped into the fearful chaos of the leprous arched hallway that was shedding its two hundred years of paint; an ancient wine was showing through the present sky blue in flaky boils on either side.
People were hurriedly stacking banners and placards, others were walking around hunched, talking low and urgent into their phones. Barry didn’t recognise any of them. They were of all races, mostly in their twenties, some spoke in a foreign tongue, others in perfect sibilant English, the only trait they shared was a shifty fear in all of their eyes; the same fear Barry imagined had finally found its way into his.
He was feeling a little dizzy, he approached a pug faced Oriental woman who was counting out referee whistles into a massive cold-box by the door, ‘Excuse me,’ Barry started apologetically, ‘do you know which room Miki Del Naro is in?’
‘Three hundred and ninety thr- sorry, just a second,’ and she counted out seven more shiny rattling whistles, ‘Now, sorry what? Did you get your whistle yet?’
When she took her head out of the cooler, Barry saw that she was spectacled and about twenty five years older than him; her Oxford received pronunciation complimented her academic look very well indeed. He was glad hadn’t called her babe.
‘Emmm, no, I-’
‘Well you’d better take one then,’ she handed one to him carefully, as though it were a grenade,
‘Just don’t blow it in here. There was one black gentleman who decided to test it out on my ear-drums earlier on. I think he was drunk actually. I mean who in God’s name is running this shambles anyway?’
‘So you don’t know Miki then.’
Why would she? She was probably from Amnesty International or one of the universities; not the kind to venture down into the sweaty dance vaults of The Underground scene where Miki was a kind of underbelly celebrity. He was becoming so high profile that Barry thought it foolish to saunter out so overtly into the middle of a xenophobic demonstration with that head on him.
‘Certainly not, I volunteered through The Centre for the Care of Survivors of Torture. Look, I simply must get these whistles ready, so if you’ll excuse me young man.’
Barry turned around feeling a little chastised to see Texaco bubbling towards him, his grinny mouth full of light bulbs, pretending to hack his way through the jungle with a rolled up poster.
Texaco was not so called because he was as black as crude oil; though he was very black and very crude. He was, in fact, named after a famous ghetto in Martinique. His mother had brought him to Ireland from Les Antilles via France when he was a young teenager. He was now a meaty, decent sort of a chap of twenty four who loved the drop. He spoke Hiberno-English like most of the crew, but when he rapped free-style at Underground freedom festivals, he rapped only in guttural, gurgling French Creole, and though very few understood his rhymes - even the French - his rhythms and smiles alone could bring the house down. He adored Barry because he had the same wild love of oblivion and talked nearly as much drivel as him when he was drunk. Barry adored him because he lived unapologetically, and because he was a great conversationalist.
Texaco’s last hack was at Barry’s neck, he grabbed his whistle and was about to blow it when he noticed the academic behind. He bit his lip theatrically and put a huge succulent arm around Barry and led him away.
‘Jesus, yer one’s a bit hardcore what!’
‘Tex, you stink like the weekend man!’
‘Yeah, I know. Miki’s all pissed off ‘cause I went out on the jar last night.’
‘Have ye’ been boozin’ again today? Jesus the smell off ye’!’
‘No, well, does it count if you only made it into the bed this afternoon?’
‘You could’ve given it a rest for one night.’
‘Yeah, I know. But sobriety is such a chore.’
‘Is he really goin’ mad?’
‘No, he’s just jealous he’s not black. I mean how many Italian revolutionaries do you know- apart from Mussolini? Russian, Cuban, but never Italian. Actually, speaking of Russians, that psycho Poliakov is around here some where. That guy freaks me out.
He looked over his shoulder and grimaced,
‘Man, I have a dis-ease in my spleen, my liver, my balls, everywhere today. I’m tellin’ ye’: my gut hate me!’
Texaco had picked up an ironic penchant for dorky puns when he was a child in France and insisted on inflicting them on everyone. They were so bad that they were very often hilarious. He let a long wet fart squeeze out, giving his behind a little wriggle to finish,
‘Oh and my ass is a little pass remarkable today too, I should warn you, seriously, my whole derriere stinks loads.’
Barry couldn’t help laughing,
‘Now, that’s better,’ he said in a yobbish accent, ‘you see Barry bud; dese anti-fascist demonstrations are good for ****s and giggles! Don’t look so scared; at least you’re not a bleedin’ jiggaboo like me!’
‘Your gas will really only hinder my work here- though I do like a challenge!’ came the good humoured Galway accent of Marin from behind. He was white, but clearly not Irish, and so, when, as tradition dictated, he was asked ‘What are you?’ he would reply in candour: “Half poet, half jock!” This of course disconcerted the men, but always seemed to intrigue the ladies. He was in fact from a Croatian/Irish background - a distant Muslim - and drew his identity equally from both traditions: he would go through bouts of living his life through a grimy glass, writing bi-lingual poetry about the latest Irish girl to break his heart, alternated with stints of being a misogynist gym rat incapable of giving a straight answer. He never quite managed to marry the two and therefore had only occasional success with the fairer sex, his adage: “I’ve got a six-pack in my soul!” appeared only to impress the ugly ones.
The trio waded down into the kitchen. How lofty the ceiling was, and how thick the frenzy that filled that enormous space. Maps of the city plastered the walls and covered the dense alter table. It had been turned into a control centre and everyone was frantically sending messages from tiny computers and speaking in garbles and codes on phones. Miki was master of ceremonies, standing offensively with his palms down on the wood, grimacing vigorously at the map, his crooked beak jilted left and right to circling fingers responding to information about the positions of Gardai and the other launch points round the north side.
The plan was to encircle the rally, blow the whistle on them, scramble the digital frequency of their PA system and then Miki was going to hi-jack their speakers and read the declaration of human rights, after which they were going to march to the parliament and then disperse peacefully to rendez-vous in a number of Underground clubs for a series of concerts with songs of joy and peace to be broadcast over The Internet, thus highlighting the INP’s barbarism to the world. There was to be a co-ordinated effort with similar socialist and anarchist movements all over the world dealing with similar situations that year. The Irish Underground was now following the example of the French and Germans and Austrians. This, however, meant that the Gardai were aware of their plans.
Miki had been totally paranoid for the last six months. He had to grow a big beard, cut his dreads, keep the head down. There were CC cameras everywhere watching their movements, monitoring their concerts, exhibitions and meetings. Miki really only kept two pure blood Irish people within the movement up to speed- Barry and Dermot Burke- his right hand man; they were both leeringly careful with vital information.
Their main problem for the counter-demonstration was the Gardai. When Barry asked about them when the plan was hatching months earlier in a smoky morning cellar down by The North Wall, Miki said he was taking care of it. Barry was afraid that Miki was going to do something crazy and told him that any violence would only help the INP into power. Miki said that he was well aware of that, he then lifted those big sad Bogart eyes of his from the devil’s cracks in the concrete and told him that sometimes you have to tempt fate in order to create your own destiny. Miki had picked the fight he had been looking for his whole life. Barry asked him what was the difference between a political pimp, a hero and a martyr?
‘Smack my ass and call me Dorian!’ he cried, ‘What I told to you? Epic is all the times dangerous and stupidity is expensive…but don worry…we are rich of family!’
He then smiled his crocodile smile and continued, ‘Stop to think, you don’t understand nothing- you are a kids. Why you facking Rathgar ghetto boys always wanna go to heaven, but you never wanna die? You are the biggest bastard I never met, but you are my brother, you know dah. Now, I need you and Dermot on this one; I can’t do alone.’ He looked expectantly back to the cracks, carefully rubbing the big crooked purple scar above his left eye- the spoils of a misspent youth in the ghettos of Milan.
What strange meandering paths had brought Miki Del Naro to that fight: the abandoned son of a half-Albanian pharmacist, he had started out as a semi-professional footballer, then an uncommitted hooligan and cocaine dealer - he never spoke of this time - he successfully studied law for two years, but the call of the underworld was too strong and he found himself back in Grattosolio ghetto. When all of his friends were either dead or in jail, he decided not to push his luck any further and headed, like so may others, to Ireland and the relatively straight and the not so narrow. Seven years, two short bouts in prison and two random illegitimate children later there he was: the voice of the voiceless, speaking their plight in powerful pidgin English at festivals and meetings. He had created an army of writers, rappers, singers, graffiti artists and poets, intellectuals, activists and future politicians. He had at last united the fragmented group that had so long been referred to by the Irish under the blanket term ‘the foreigners’ and then the Denizens. But to do so he had to sacrifice some of his idealism. There was no point in having a movement that contained and represented only part of the motley Diaspora; it had to include everyone; from those who are naturally submissive to the violent and untouchables.
The Chinese had always kept to themselves; for more than forty years they had been streaming into the country on students visas, filling the sweat-shop language schools and universities, cleaning the newly fortuned Irish people’s homes. For years they had run their little restaurants and backstreet casinos. For years the Triads and The Wu Sing Wu had run their racketeering, money laundering and brothel businesses all within their own communities. For generations they segregated themselves from the rest of the country, and they had a right to; prejudice is after all a double edged sword. But Miki knew that without them, their Chinatowns and their money and numbers, the movement would just look like a students’ union. Their country had become a force to reckon with and Ireland had invested heavily in China in the previous three decades; this meant they held a certain amount of sway over the Irish government. Miki had to reach out to them somehow, and he knew how much they stood to lose if the INP came to power. For generations they had stoically accepted their lot, their position in the society as the outsider- the slitty eyed other, Miki wanted to change that.
Barry knew Miki was right, but he too had prejudices and understood Irish people’s hatred of the Chinese and the other Denizens- he resented himself for it. He understood their differences, their slim slippery segregation. They brought so much of it upon themselves, though he could never say that in Underground circles; perhaps that was the salt talking in his veins. Roots are after all vital and can never be severed fully.
He comprehended the white, hot, Irish hatred of the Orientals: their cold, expressionless, disaffected eyes, their fumbling tongue, their gobbledygook language and alien symbols, their aggressive tones, their imperfection, their panda hair and their omnipresence; “mar a bhuil aon ciarog ann…” the mumbled words of his grandfather rustled in his mind.
He understood the resentment of how they had worked so hard and saved their money, invested wisely in material things, things that would have value after money had none: property, factories and businesses in China and Ireland over eking generations of remittances. It was almost as if they foresaw the rise and fall of China and eventually the world. They had not gone home when they were wealthy enough, but stayed and multiplied- how the Irish loathed their cursed spawn three prams abreast, they had not squandered, but built. They keep to themselves, and kept it all to themselves - the new Jews - speculated capital; vulgar and conspiratorial.
They were paying for their success now and would pay a lot more in the coming years. The well connected ones had been advised to leave already, and the intelligent ones were cutting their losses and doing just that.
All of these fears and judgements were rank in Barry’s mind as he and Miki went into the casinos again and again for meetings with the gang leaders; they knew it and by God Miki knew it; perhaps that was why he made him come. Living in Miki’s shadow was so much brighter than the dull blundering stupor he had lived before The Underground. Barry was so young; judgement had not yet grown into him and that was why Miki had saved him- cultivated him; the entire crew doted on him like a little brother of whom they were very proud.
Texaco was explaining to Marin how he had a hangover from the fountain of youth and a nasty itchy venereal disease in his spleen from drinking the quem of seven vestal virgins on the butchers table of his porno chamber the night before when Barry realised that for them this was a students’ union movement. Their heads sloshed with bong water and booze. Was it existential disinterest, or was it real fear manifested in childishness? Or were they really that brave? Did they have even the slightest inkling of what was about to happen to them? That they were about to have their brains dashed out by a voracious mob rioting for the future of its children? The poles showed a piffling handful voting Left to protect them; without the liberals they would be utterly naked under Devoy’s lash.
Barry felt a violent tug on his arm and he was in a corner with Florina: a pretty thinking young doctor of Roma extraction whose heart skipped Saltelero round him though he was blind and deaf and dumb, ‘Do you know what he’s gone and done? Look!’
Poliakov strode in, big and blond, with his minders and was talking to the back of Miki’s head.
‘Do you know what they’ll do if they find out he’s here? He’ll lead them right to us!’ her whisper was desperate and afraid.
‘Look, calm down. We’re not doing anything illegal here, it’s just a peaceful demonstration.’
Barry wished he could take comfort from his own words.
‘Are you off your face? Nothing illegal with that animal involved!’
Miki wanted a united immigrant front and in order to reach the considerable Russian peoples he had extended a hand to them, drawing attention from some of their organisations as well as their political and spiritual leaders. It was no surprise however, that it was the gangsters who offered to help out with the radical dirty work.
Dublin’s streets had been a war zone on and off since Barry was a child; the foreign gangs made up of Eastern Europeans, The Chinese and Africans stepping on Westy toes and IRA’s descendant boots, butchering each other over the pieces of Ireland Pie. Alliances constantly changed and the blood letting never stopped. All foreigners were tarred with the same brush, but Miki needed them more now than the palm throwing socialists. Barry was having second thoughts about the whole thing, he hadn’t signed up for this; this wasn’t a Reggae festival anymore.
‘If you go, I’m going too. I’m a pacifist!’ Florina seethed.
Barry checked the deserter’s look from his face, ‘Look, I’m gonna talk to Dermot, find out what the **** is going on here. Call Clemense in wax, ask him if he knows anything. Remember to use a scrambled line.’
Dermot held an intense looking cailin named Emily aggressively by the shoulder. They looked like they were having a lovers tiff; and though they were in fact lovers, the mention of the word ‘bombing’ suggested the subject matter was a little more serious.
Dermot was a stout, gravel-voiced man who reluctantly taught English as a foreign language. He had clearly been a TEFL teacher too long, exhausting his once abundant personality entertaining Italian and Spanish teenagers; this left him with a singularly frumpish persona and a tendency to over simplify his explanations and patronise his interlocutor which rendered everyone around him stale- even poor Emily. He did, however, have intermittent relapses into his former ‘life of the party’ alter ego when he allowed himself a touch of amphetamine at Christmas. Only then was he in his element: there in the heaving clubscape, wretched zombie eyes, sweating, gherning and smiling as he mimed beating a speaker like a gong, egging the dj on telling him he was a ****ter.
Dermot was slowly bowing his head as Barry approached. Emily had evidently made him see sense. He gave it one last jab in attempt to recruit Barry as an ally,
‘What do you think Barry? I think a big multi-coloured paint bombing all over The Spire would make a great statement to the world about Ireland’s united colours and all that.’
‘They already paint us as hooligans and miscreants- graffiti everywhere!’
She was the most beautiful person Barry had ever known. She had seduced him one night when Dermot was passed out. A beaming bastion doing things to him he could never have imagined. She was a far superior human being to him in every way and he had never asked more of her, or complained, he just felt honoured by those eyes that did it all to him again every time she looked at him.
‘I mean we’re not fypes, and they’ll see the whole thing on CC and if they suspect any of the groups, they’ll have an excuse to come and shut the concerts down tonight. The genius of this operation is that it’s totally peaceful and totally legal. And that’s not considering how many people are with us who don’t have papers; they’re gonna end up in that detention centre out on Spike Island for **** sake; do you want that on your conscience? Miki promised them that if they supported him and came out of the woodwork for their rights, nothing would happen to them. We can’t afford to draw heat on these people.’
‘Dermo’, she’s right, don’t be a psycho,’ said Barry curtly, ‘can I just see you for a sec.’
‘What ‘cause I’m a girl I can’t hear what you boys are planning?’
‘Yeah Baz, who’s the psycho now?’
He was particularly unimaginative.
‘Okay then,’ in truth Barry couldn’t concentrate with Emily’s eyes on him, ‘what’s going on with Poliakov and those heads?’
‘Nothin’,’ said Dermot pathetically, ‘The Russians are marchin’ down from The Orthodox Church as a second wave.’
Barry knew he was lying; Dermot didn’t have enough personality to lie anymore. Emily gave him the evil eye and was about to chew him when Barry burst out, ‘Bull****! And are the Gardai really gonna let them hook up with us? There’s something else going on, they’re ****ing savages those Poliakov heads. Miki can’t trust them, I’m tellin’ ye’! They’re gonna hang us out to dry, or shoot someone or something- C’mon Demo’, you know as well as I do what they’re capable of. If you don’t tell me, I’m going straight up to Miki and that Rusky ****er and I’m gonna say something!’
‘Baz-’
‘No, I don’t give a ****. He’s gonna land us all in prison or something, or get everyone deported. Is that what you want? That’s what the INP wants. If they **** around on this one, it’s just gonna push more people to vote for them.’
‘Look, that’s not gonna happen, and most people are voting for The Progressive Conservatives anyway.’
‘I’m going over there-’
‘Wait! Jesus, it’s not as bad as all that. Look, Poliakov is just doin’ a little gastro-sabotage that’s all.’
‘Who knows about this?’ asked Emily, livid.
‘Very few, just the heads in each cell.’
‘What are they doing, what kind of sabotage, Jesus I can’t believe you Dermot!’
‘Emily calm down. He’s just sent a few people into the Garda stations to put a mild emetic into their water,’ said Dermot as reasonably as possible, ‘It’ll just give them enough nausea and diarrhoea to call in the reserves and thin the ranks a little, otherwise they’re gonna put blockades up all over the place and we’ll be completely fragmented.’
‘So what, that’s still no reason to poisoning the pigs. You do realise,’ said Emily blankly, ‘that we can’t trust those gangsters- they’re gonna do something psycho and they’ll trace it straight back to us. Do you think they didn’t notice Poliakov comin’ in here? I can’t believe you’re being so stupid. The whole thing is ****ed now! This was supposed to be a peaceful demonstration, leave it up to men to try and take over the world!’
‘Look, it’s completely untraceable. Miki’s not a fool. He sent in people to test the chemical before and he had people on the ground this morning during the whole operation.’
‘Yeah, who do you think they’re going to suspect first?’
‘Emily, it doesn’t matter who they suspect; they can’t prove anything.’
‘All they want is an excuse.’
Barry looked down at the cracks in the tiles and mumbled, ‘I think Miki wants martyrs here today- that’s only kind of publicity that works.’
He realised then that it really didn’t matter what they did, they could slow it down, but never stop it. The wheels were already in motion. Everything was about to turn upside down; it would be like watching a car crash slowly.
‘Miki knows,’ Barry resigned, ‘he knows what’s happening, and he knows there’s nothing any of us can do to stop it, so, he’s going down swinging.’
‘Barry what are you talking about?’ questioned Emily, ‘I would have thought that you of all people wouldn’t be so defeatist. We can still stop this. We have a responsibility to these people. Where will they go, what are they gonna do if Devoy gets his way?’
Barry lost it and snarled at her, ‘It doesn’t ****ing matter! They’re all gonna be starving in a year and a half no matter where they are! We all are, don’t you get it? It’s over; life as we know it is over! No oil- no food. This will be a global holocaust, this is just the beginning!’
Emily started bawling. Dermot put his arm around her and led her out of the room, his look pleaded with Barry to say sorry- sorry that he had exaggerated, that it was the worst case scenario. Everyone was frightened of tomorrow.
Miki looked up and Barry knew that he was right. He squeezed the end of his cigarette, sucking it in like he always did, as if it were his last, then put it out on the sole of his shoe and came over to Barry,
‘Hey, ****ing bastardo, what I told you about making cry the little kittens? You wanna open up a pub in the Liffey?’ he asked jovially, putting his arm around him, ‘Go out from the tunnel. I am six months in paranoid- you six minutes. You know sometimes I think to take my two kids and come back in Italy. But you know wha’? They’re not Italian, and you wanna know something else? Me neither. Sometimes I think I’m a bloody extratarian!’
‘Miki what’s going on?’
In feigned disbelief, ‘Ahh, you scared?’
‘Yeah!’
‘Listen me, I know you are a little Rathgar ghetto boy. Is arriving the time for you to fight, but if you tell no to a fight, you will fight always and everyday the same fight, but you will never be stronger than the first time. When you are nothing you have to force the persons for respect you. This is same fight for you as for me.’
‘Miki, I’m not talking about that.’
‘I know, it’s gonna get rough out there today. If you get into trouble, forget to punch on the head unless you have one weapon. When you punch, punch in the stomach or in kidney; I know, they will go down, and then you can do what you wan’! Just stay close to Dermo okay, he’ll protect you. And if they catch you, you are Irish and you support the INP. Did you get you a member’s card like I tole you?’
‘Yeah, I did. But I’m not talking about that Mick, I’m talking about after. You know what I’m talking about.’
Miki just sang, “Everybody want go to heaven, but nobody wanna die.”
Barry felt helpless and afraid but would not cry. All of a sudden Miki leapt up on the map table stroking his big beard, his beak in the air, his smile all yellow teeth and charm, to address the room:
‘Ladies and gentlemen, kittens and dogs, hello my name’s Miki Del Naro and I am alcolic!’
Everyone laughed and applauded- all video phones were on him. ‘As you all know the world is about to turn into a ****. I don know if any of us will be standing in two years, which is why we must make a stand now. Some people say you don’t know a country till you pay there the tax; well we’ve paid our taxes- young Frederick Ngugi paid his taxes in the blood when he have his head bashed by an INP fype last week. Some people say that home is where your blood is; is there not Irish blood flowing in the children of you and of me? And I ask to them what is blood without a heart? Where is the heart? It is here: home is where the heart is my friends and the beasts out there want to make it bitter and eat from it- then drive us into nowhere - because if we leave here, we have nowhere to go - a desert waits us. They want to make a desert of this land of rainbows, a desert of this rainbow soul. Today…we do peace: we are going to blow this wide open for the world to see. Today…we blow the whistle on them. Today…we blow so loudly that all the Irish immigrant of the world will hear the hypocrisy that grow here. Now, I not gonna lie to you: they gonna wanna spit on you, kick you and **** on you. Whatever you do, don fight back. Stand as a silent army together and let the whole of the world see what animals are they.’
A sporadic applause broke out, Miki stopped it angrily,
‘No!’ he roared them down, ‘don facking clap me, my job is dirty, I am not here for inspire you! Don be proud. We do this coz we ‘ave to; we gotta get the middle classes back voting on the left. Today we will show to them the way. Now move out in two and three. Go to a pab, caffe, park, I don care, just keep your head down. Synchronize the time and start to ran, and I mean facking ran to the rendez-vous point five minutes before five. We must surprise them. We will be filming his dirty speech for the web and on the phone signal- blow. This will distract them so we can scramble the signal of their amplification, then I do my free-style! We won’t have long. After dah you turn and march to the parliament and then we pay of the biggest party this dirty ole town have ever seen! Remember, don panic, don fight. Now start move out!’
There was frenzy, more hurried phone calls and computer tapping. There was some kind of cyber liaison going on in fifty different tenement houses around the city centre. What were they planning? Everyone seemed to know where to go: some went out the back door, some the front, some into basements and out windows into other houses. Banners were folded under big coats and whistles rattled in every pocket.
Dermot ushered Barry into an apartment upstairs where Emily was waiting with ten other white Irish people he knew vaguely from the scene. Dermot explained how he had only told them at the last minute for security reasons, but they were to be the most important part of the operation. Their job was to don INP supporter’s t-shirts, infiltrate the crowd as close as possible to the stage to form the base from which they could scramble the signal. They were given thin pen-like metal objects and told roughly where to position themselves around the stage. They were to chant and cheer on the bastards and when they got the phone signal, they had to hold up the devise which would be attached to the top of a flag. The most important thing was that they held the flag up for as long as Del Naro’s speech lasted. They were then offered the chance to back out. No one did. They looked at each other in awe of their charge- they were going to be heroes. Dermot handed out the t-shirts and flags, then showed them how to attach device.
They were instructed to work as lone agents, only three scramblers were necessary for the operation; so if anyone were to be questioned, or get caught or have to run, the first thing they had to do was abandon the flag and then claim ignorance,
‘Get tight with a group of real rowdy fypes with loads of flags and banners,’ Dermot advised, ‘Now go, and don’t breathe a word of this to anyone.’
Emily was staring wide eyed and adoring at Dermot, Barry thought he was going to defecate in his pants.
He slipped out the back door with two Nigerians and over a wall. When they were in the laneway he told them that he had forgotten his phone and needed it to synchronize. He climbed over the wall again and on the other side crouched down. His heart was thundering, he had to calm down. He was Irish, he had an INP t-shirt and an Irish Nation Party flag down his trouser leg, it was cold and forbidding against his young skin. He looked at his watch; he had to hurry, no time to think- that was the best way. More than a million people’s lives depended on him.
Barry scrambled over the wall and ran down the lane. When he met the opening to the road there was already a strong current of INP supporters going past. He yanked himself back- their skin-heads, their track-suits, their Gucci sunglasses, their Italian ensembles; for the first times all classes were united by a common hate- their faces so white, their t-shirts green, the ching ching of gold round necks and wrists and knuckle-duster ringed fingers- it was an ugly thing.
He was plastered up against the redbrick wall, unable to move… “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wanna die.” He ripped off his jacket, pulled the flag carefully from his trousers, tried to contort his face out of fear into anger and hatred and realised that if he focused his hatred on the stream of animals, he could pull it off. He slipped into the coursing crowd; they were practically marching, all angry and silent. They soon arrived at the foot of Abbey Church where they had set up a stage on a lorry around which the gatherers seethed and spilled onto doorsteps and up lamp posts and half way down O’Connell Street. There were fewer Gardai, but soldiers compensated oppressively; this scene was just how Miki wanted.
How did he come to this? Barry glanced furtively at the faces of the foul sea in which he bobbed; they could have been his teachers, bank manager, doctor, dealer, bus driver, mechanic, his parents. They shared the same sad history as he, the same blood glouped through their organs, they had the same mores, the same families, the same fear; why then was he so different? Had he no country anymore? His old country men dying of this plague. Could anyone be saved? Would anything be salvaged after this, all mirrors cracked, all eyes blinded and all consciences gagged?
Then something broke in him and he wanted to die on that day, the generous truncheon to give respite and save him from tomorrow’s tortures. Perhaps this is what Miki Del Nero was feeling. Barry was suddenly feckless and brave. He jostled forward to his position, the flag held high; no longer fleeing the thing he feared but racing toward it. Acceptance had infected him and in that second he was utterly changed.
They arrived at the stage. The crowd swelled and swelled There was restless waiting for a time, then the big screen behind which had been flashing ‘Vote INP!’ showed a wasting old man shuddering up to a podium, ‘How can I protect you in this crazy world’ blaring from the walls of speaker- it was Dr Charles Humphreys, founding member of the INP twenty years before and the man who first branded the non-nationals Denizens. A rapturous cheer rose up all around Barry, it startled him so that he almost forgot to join in.
‘You!’ Dr Humphreys began, pointing accusingly into the crowd, then swaying his shaky finger from left to right and back again like a Gatling gun, ‘You people I see here today,’ every word sputtered from his throat like a bursting pustule, ‘Do you know what you are?’ his tone was so earnest, his eyes so vehement that the crowd looked like they were half expecting him to berate them, ‘Do you?’
Did he want an answer? Certainly no one was about to dare, ‘I’ll tell you what you are…you - are - pure!’ he paused and eyeballed them nobly, ‘and do you know who you are not?’ again he paused, almost willing a nay-sayer to pipe up so he could annihilate them, ‘You - are - not - Irish! Any Denizen of any blood and any colour and any creed used to be able suck on Ireland’s tit for just five short years and become Irish- they’ve sullied the term and I don’t want it anywhere near my name.’
The audience were more transfixed than they were perplexed as they waited to be re-branded and saved by this man.
‘Let me tell you a little story of a great empire and a great race- The Romans, a great race whose only legacy to us is a name, a name that carries with it answers and greatness. They looked upon our shore from their ships in the Irish Sea and spied a dark and cold country covered in ancient oak and ash trees and they dubbed our land Hibernia,’ he paused again, checking every face in the crowd in a second to be sure that he had them, ‘This word is in an ancient tongue - Latin - one of the only two languages in Europe older than our own…Hibernia means the winter country and you are Hibernians pure and true. A state of mind and of being that cannot be awarded by The Department of Justice for five year’s of loitering and scrounging!’
Angry shouts of discontent echoed off the banners and houses.
‘The winter country my bothers and sisters; for this time we are facing is our winter time: war, economic collapse, famine and death are all the future holds on our island. So, we must change our island to protect our own, change the country; we do this by redefining who - we – are, and we start by changing the name- it is our blood given right!’
Barry was amazed at the power and passion spewing from the febrile dying man above him, ‘So, I call on you - Hibernians - to unite, together we can do this!’ there was another cheer, ‘Hibernians, Hibernians, I call on you for change and I call on you to welcome the one man who can make these changes and save us from the dark days ahead. Will you please welcome my colleague and your future? Mr John M. Devoy!’
It seemed like the whole city was going demented: cheering, roaring, screaming happily, thankfully and when Devoy strolled out, Barry knew there and then that Miki was no match for this man and all Ireland would fall under his spell.
Devoy didn’t wave to his followers, nor did he smile, in fact there was nothing triumphal in his demeanour at all. He didn’t bask in their glorious applause; he just stood there looking at them with great ease, his expression touched with the subtlest hint of pride. Barry had seen his face on posters, had heard him talk on the television, but this was so remarkably different; that look of complete understanding on his face, his ingenuousness was not contrived or practiced like other leaders he had seen. This man was fine tuned, the paragon of politicians, the culmination of generations of visionaries, developed in Ivy League America to be used in Ireland. All this was abundantly apparent and he hadn’t even opened his mouth yet. He approached the podium and the fanfare lulled, ‘How are you now?’ came his catch-phrase question and electoral slogan, the clapping welled up again.
John M Devoy was a square man of fifty, refined and debonair. He was the ultimate foil to the dithering, vulgar politicians who had heretofore governed the country with a feathered fist- only he could pass off the necessary hard line as reasonable.
‘All right, all right, thanks, cheers, thank you…now I’ve got a question for you: what the hell is going on?’ he spoke to the thousands as if they were a couple of mates in the local, ‘Really though; what is going on in the world today? One minute everything’s grand, we’re all making money, happily going about our business, when they tell us all of a sudden: “Sorry, the oil’s about to run out. Sorry about that…we had no idea.” Really?’
he pulled a comedian’s face and everyone laughed darkly, ‘You’d think they would’ve prepared for something like that, developed a few more alternative energy resources, stopped killing each other for a second and get a plan B together…no. All we get is “sorry, good luck to ye’…’’
Devoy looked over at Charles Humphreys and smiled big and showbiz for the first time- he looked great on the big screen. He scratched his head and continued, ‘No seriously though, it was all a bit of a shock wasn’t it? I mean one minute you’re set up, your children are set up after working hard your whole life, then your cash is worth nothing and you’re struggling to feed your family. There just isn’t enough to go round any more. And that’s just it. Look, we’re in for a bit of a rough ride over the next four years until the world gets back on its feet- you know it and I know it. Things are gonna be different, there’s gonna be less of everything- a lot less and what we need to do is learn how to manage what we have. Now that means making some radical changes: to drastically reduce energy consumption, invest in alternative energy sources, to protect industry and your jobs and homes and to be quite honest, at this stage in the game, we only have so much to do that with. A lot of companies are gonna go bust in the next while - some already have - we’re all feeling the pinch. And you need a government that is willing to take the hard decisions in order to provide for those who are going to be hit worst by this coming crisis. You shouldn’t have to deny yourself because we’re handing out charity to people who aren’t even Hibernians; to Denizens, people of other races and nationalities who have been growing fat in the rich soil of Ireland- nay of Hibernia?’
There was a nervous heave in the crowd around Barry, ‘Listen, Sean O’Brien and all the other bleeding heart leftists- I hear ye’. I know they’ve been here for generations-well some of them- and I know they need help and they are part of the system…but I say this: charity starts at home! Your sons and daughters could be starving in a year. That’s the harsh reality, a bitter pill to swallow, I know….It’s like this: the population has exploded since they came here. We’ve all seen them, we see them every day- African mothers with small armies in prams, the Chinese are poppin’ out from I don’t know where- I thought they were the biggest economy in the world- why can’t their country take them back? It’s our government and therefore you the tax payer who’s supporting them- the single mothers, the refugees, the maternity leave, the children’s allowance, dental and medical cards, food stamps- it all adds up to a bloody fortune, a fortune taken right out of your pay check every month. And that was all grand for a while, when there was plenty to go round, but how are you now?’
A roar of discontent crashed on the surrounding walls, ‘How are you now that the bank is gonna repossess your house and your company is bankrupt, how are you now that you can’t make your car repayments or put petrol in it, how are you now that you can’t pay your rent or pay for an education, how are you now, how are you now, how are you now?’
The crowd ejaculated in cheery applause and they were getting very restless, ‘Now, I am not inciting racism or hatred here. I am just asking you to be reasonable. We can’t support them any longer and some of them have to go. Extreme situations call for drastic measures and I am gonna lay them out on the table right now- this is what needs to be done if we are to make it through this depression- take it or leave it: First, all non-nationals are to be deported as soon as possible. Second, I want to revoke the five year citizenship rule. Third: Irish born children who are the progeny of Denizens are also to be deported with or without their parents to their country of origin. To cut a long story short: if you’re not of pure Irish blood, we can’t help you any more. Spouses and children caught up in this I’m afraid will just have to emigrate. I will not sacrifice Hibernian lives for Denizens!’
The crowd erupted and cheered and cheered. ‘Security is gonna be tight with the Arabian war going on and we cannot do without the help of our family in America; I will therefore be expanding Irish security forces and recalling all units abroad on peace keeping missions. We will be keeping an even closer eye on Muslims and extremists- there are all manner of their lurking in our society, plotting against us and our allies. They can be any colour- Asians, Orientals, Blacks…even whites who have been corrupted by the barbarism of Islam. Islamic fundamentalists will be weeded out of the mosques, the shops, the kebab houses, the markets, the housing estates and flats. We will be pulling back on our association with the UN and the EU in favour of the American Alliance. These are all necessary measures if we are to survive this depression. Look at France- destroyed by the Arabs, Germany by the Turks- and they’ve been doing there best to wreck our country since their accession into The EU; bringing more and more fundamentalist ideas to our shores. Not to mention the tides of eastern Europeans that have been drowning us for decades; feeding the black economy, driving down industrial wages, steeping our country in corruption and violence. They rape our women and spread disease and destruction- thugs and criminals who skip their own country to start a fresh life of gangsterism in this innocent land. Britain has been dealing with the same thing in the Asians for a hundred years. Have the foreigners not done enough damage here? Those of you moderates out there who think I am being a fascist or something: hear me now and understand me later when this depression hits: those foreigners, they all have their eye on what you have- they’ve taken enough pieces of the pie so far and do you know where their profits go? Back home to feed other families and grow foreign economies. Believe me you, they all have their eye one what you’ve got: the icy eyed Russian and eastern European who has made a blood bath of our sacred streets with his gang warfare to the point where we’re afraid to walk down the street at night. The wry eyed Gypsy who begs and sponges and bites the hand that feeds it. The white eyed African always wanting more and more hand-outs while he sells crack to your kids on the side and his whores spread AIDS in our blood. The slitty eyed Chinaman, what is he hiding? Did you ever wonder what they are saying to each other in their foreign tongue when they serve you in a shop? The ignorance of them! They conspire right in front of your face and you don’t even know it.’
Barry was pulled out of the speech by the phone vibrating in his pocket. That was it- the starting gun. They would all be sprinting now- thousands of Denizens hurtling from hiding places towards them through five ventricles, a rainbow tsunami set to break on them from all sides with Miki riding high on the whistling crest. They were coming, just a few more seconds. Barry moved closer still to the whooping thugs beside him and held the flag high, he looked around for the others but couldn’t see anyone.
‘Luckily The Progressive Conservatives wouldn’t give them the vote- about the only-’
There was a horrendous scratching of a needle being pulled off a vinyl. Devoy had been reduced to mime. He tapped his ear-piece looking dazzled. Then Hitler appeared beside him silently gesticulating. A gasp went up from the crowd and Devoy turned paler than the black and white hologram. Barry was elbowed in the back by a goggling spectator and fell forward a little, the hologram was knocked back with the movement; the signal was coming from his flag. Two security men swiped moronically at the image. Barry subtly moved it back beside Devoy who was shouting to the wings. Miki’s voice boomed from the speakers like an angered god:
‘How are you now? Look at yourself now, look at yourself, look at yourself!’
Everything seemed to hang like that for moment then the barrage of camera flashes came.
Shrill whistling whirled up above stomping boots. The crowd turned to see a Denizen wall of faces all around them, blowing with all their might- it was spectacular. Over the piercing attack came Miki’s voice once more, ‘We gonna blow-’
Boom.

The world was clanging under water, Barry could hear nothing else. The contorted faces and open mouths around him made no sound. The earth moved underneath him and he realised he was lying on a pile of people. Boots clambered over his face. The air was thickening with smoke and smelt of hot blood and cooked meat. All around him people were scrambling and trouncing each other to get away. Barry rolled off the bodies below and tried to stand only to lose his legs and fall flat on his face, his teeth biting the concrete, breaking and splitting his lips. A woman fell on him and he was kneed in the stomach as he tried to help her up. He went down again, winded. Blood came from his face like a spewing gargoyle, disappearing down the cracks in the pavement and he noticed that both his legs were still there. He managed to stand up- got to get away, and then he saw it: a boiling pot of madness. A brawling frenzy, a medieval battle; butchering each other on a carpet of stampeded heads and legs. He stood there bemused in the alarm of his ears and made no effort to avoid devastating kick to the testicles he received from a colossal black man. He vomited on himself as he fell for the third time. The negro knelt on his chest and slipped a black python arm round his neck. Barry tried to tell him with his pretty eyes that he was one of them when a crow seemed to fly by the black man's head and he slumped heavily on him, the strangle reduced to a hug. A soldier dragged Barry to the gates of The Garden of Remembrance and hand-cuffed him. He remarked that the soldier was younger than him and then blubbered into oblivion.

Daragh101

its 2 long 2 read!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Antilles

I might have finished it if there was a decent hook early on, but I'm afraid I got bored and gave up after a few paragraphs.

Thanks though, I was wondering if it was possible to write posts here that were very long. Now I know that I can, but I don't think I will.