Read Online Eureka Street: A Novel of Ireland Like No Other by Robert Mclaim Wilson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Robert Mclaim Wilson
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wave.
She talked on. Chuckie didn't listen. Idly, he inspected the graffiti scratched or scraped into the metals and plastics of the phone box interior. All the favourites: Red Hand Commandos; Diane Murray sucks for free; No Surrender; Hughie loves Deb; KAI (Kill All Irish); UVF; UDA; UFF. Square on the plate of the box itself, just above the numerals pad, someone had laboriously and elegantly gouged the legend:
OTG
Chuckie double-took and peered question marks. What did that mean?
yeah, what the hell, why not?' Max was saying.
He'd never seen it before, nor anything like it. The letter 0 didn't feature much in Irish or Ulster graffiti.
'So, OK, I'd be glad to,' she went on.
He frowned with irritation. He hated not knowing. `OTG,' he murmured to himself, `OTG'
'What?' Max asked.
'Mmmmm?' mumbled Chuckie.
'What did you say?' Max's voice was sharp.
`I said, oh, I agree.'
'What?'
'Oh, I agree.'
'To what?'
'To what you said.'
'So its a date, then?'
`Ah' Chuckie panicked, `yes, absolutely.'
'OK, see you there.'
The phone clicked in the American style, without formality.
The door of the phone box opened.
`Listen, fuckface, I've had it,' said Willie Johnson, an impatient Eureka Street neighbour. `If you don't want that phone stuck up your arse, you'll give me my turn.!
Chuckie stumbled out of the box. He hadn't a clue to what assignation he had agreed. Max had said, `See you there' Where?
Chuckie stepped to the end of the now five-strong queue. He waited. After an hour, during which his neighbours delighted in taking much time over their own conversations, he called Max back and checked the details.
`Maybe you should write it down,' she advised.
'Yeah,' said Chuckie. `Maybe I should.'
After his call, he ran into Stoney Wilson again. Stoney had been walking in the other direction but his life was such that he had nothing better to do than change direction and walk with Chuckie wherever Chuckie might choose.
Stoney was one of those people to whom Chuckie always promised himself that he would be much more unpleasant but to whom, unerringly, he was shamefully amiable. Chuckie was always helpless when faced with people about whom he had made private resolutions.
Nevertheless, he didn't want to walk back home because he knew that Stoney would follow him to the door and expect to be asked in. Chuckie didn't feel that he had the energy to refuse him. So, though it was now dark and though the rain had begun its fun again, they walked aimlessly up and down the length of their little local streets, passing the dirty shops on Sandy Row with their windowfuls of spiders and flies, and passing quartets of ambling policemen, all submachine-guns and
Stoney was full of some story he'd just heard on the radio about some UVF robbers who'd ripped off some jewellery store in Portadown.The punchline was that they'd called a taxi as their getaway car. Typical Prods, said Stoney. The joke was meant to be the ineptitude of Protestant paramilitaries, that despite the blood-drinking myths of Protestant tumult, they weren't as good as the Catholics. But it seemed to Chuckie that they operated on simpler lines than the other lot. Political complexity wasn't their thing. They wanted to terrorize Catholics. They terrorized Catholics by killing Catholics. It had always seemed to Chuckie that they were pretty good at that.
`Were you using the phone box?' Stoney asked, with circusstyle slyness.
`Aye'
'Didn't you used to have a phone?'
'Still do.'
'So why-?' Stoney broke off theatrically. They passed the Rangers Supporters' Club where the coats and gloves of famous Loyalist killers were encased in glass and hung on the walls.
'Fancy a pint?' asked Stoney.
'Not in there, I don't.'
Double-chinned double-Protestant Chuckie could barely have pronounced the word integrity but there was no place in his big gut for the hatred and fear they peddled there. He glanced unfavourably at his companion and promised himself again that one day he
She talked on. Chuckie didn't listen. Idly, he inspected the graffiti scratched or scraped into the metals and plastics of the phone box interior. All the favourites: Red Hand Commandos; Diane Murray sucks for free; No Surrender; Hughie loves Deb; KAI (Kill All Irish); UVF; UDA; UFF. Square on the plate of the box itself, just above the numerals pad, someone had laboriously and elegantly gouged the legend:
OTG
Chuckie double-took and peered question marks. What did that mean?
yeah, what the hell, why not?' Max was saying.
He'd never seen it before, nor anything like it. The letter 0 didn't feature much in Irish or Ulster graffiti.
'So, OK, I'd be glad to,' she went on.
He frowned with irritation. He hated not knowing. `OTG,' he murmured to himself, `OTG'
'What?' Max asked.
'Mmmmm?' mumbled Chuckie.
'What did you say?' Max's voice was sharp.
`I said, oh, I agree.'
'What?'
'Oh, I agree.'
'To what?'
'To what you said.'
'So its a date, then?'
`Ah' Chuckie panicked, `yes, absolutely.'
'OK, see you there.'
The phone clicked in the American style, without formality.
The door of the phone box opened.
`Listen, fuckface, I've had it,' said Willie Johnson, an impatient Eureka Street neighbour. `If you don't want that phone stuck up your arse, you'll give me my turn.!
Chuckie stumbled out of the box. He hadn't a clue to what assignation he had agreed. Max had said, `See you there' Where?
Chuckie stepped to the end of the now five-strong queue. He waited. After an hour, during which his neighbours delighted in taking much time over their own conversations, he called Max back and checked the details.
`Maybe you should write it down,' she advised.
'Yeah,' said Chuckie. `Maybe I should.'
After his call, he ran into Stoney Wilson again. Stoney had been walking in the other direction but his life was such that he had nothing better to do than change direction and walk with Chuckie wherever Chuckie might choose.
Stoney was one of those people to whom Chuckie always promised himself that he would be much more unpleasant but to whom, unerringly, he was shamefully amiable. Chuckie was always helpless when faced with people about whom he had made private resolutions.
Nevertheless, he didn't want to walk back home because he knew that Stoney would follow him to the door and expect to be asked in. Chuckie didn't feel that he had the energy to refuse him. So, though it was now dark and though the rain had begun its fun again, they walked aimlessly up and down the length of their little local streets, passing the dirty shops on Sandy Row with their windowfuls of spiders and flies, and passing quartets of ambling policemen, all submachine-guns and
Stoney was full of some story he'd just heard on the radio about some UVF robbers who'd ripped off some jewellery store in Portadown.The punchline was that they'd called a taxi as their getaway car. Typical Prods, said Stoney. The joke was meant to be the ineptitude of Protestant paramilitaries, that despite the blood-drinking myths of Protestant tumult, they weren't as good as the Catholics. But it seemed to Chuckie that they operated on simpler lines than the other lot. Political complexity wasn't their thing. They wanted to terrorize Catholics. They terrorized Catholics by killing Catholics. It had always seemed to Chuckie that they were pretty good at that.
`Were you using the phone box?' Stoney asked, with circusstyle slyness.
`Aye'
'Didn't you used to have a phone?'
'Still do.'
'So why-?' Stoney broke off theatrically. They passed the Rangers Supporters' Club where the coats and gloves of famous Loyalist killers were encased in glass and hung on the walls.
'Fancy a pint?' asked Stoney.
'Not in there, I don't.'
Double-chinned double-Protestant Chuckie could barely have pronounced the word integrity but there was no place in his big gut for the hatred and fear they peddled there. He glanced unfavourably at his companion and promised himself again that one day he
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