Read Online The Fields by Kevin Maher - Free Book Online

the house. It was one night in winter, the girls were all out and Mam and Dad had just nipped over the pub for a quickie with the Connells, leaving me in charge, totally on my own. Mam had warned me to keep all the doors locked because there was an escaped loony from KilcumanCentral Mental about. There must have been a lot of breakouts from the Central Mental because she said that a lot, any time they left us home alone, even if Siobhan or Sarah was in charge, there was always a loony on the loose. But I wasn’t going to take any chances coz I was the only one in our family who overheard Dad talking on the phone about a Kilcuman mentaller he met on his business rounds to the Hospital. This particular fella was a shy country boy who was always reading about ghosts and vampires and the devil and stuff, and who used to make some spare change by babysitting for this really nice respectable family down the road. And then one night, while he’s babysitting, he just flips out and performs a black pagan Mass, which is the opposite of a Catholic Mass, and sacrifices the family baby by stabbing it to death on an altar he’s made from an old Subbuteo table.
    Saidhbh goes, Jesus, that’s disgusting! and turns her head further into Mozzo’s chest. He rubs her head like a dad, smiles and tells me to go on.
    So anyway, I’ve got the doors locked good and tight, I’ve finished watching
The Greatest American Hero
and I’m actually getting sleepy. The thing about being allowed stay up as late as you want is that it sounds much more fun than it is. I was wrecked. So I go to bed, and I’m not even ten minutes asleep when I …
    Come on, lads, we’re going to kick some fucking queer arse!
    Heno is leaping up and down like a madman, with Macko, Hylo and Stapo behind him, zipping up their bombers, doing shadow kicks and boxes, looking like they’re ready for some serious action. Heno is spitting and raging, and he tells Mozzo that tonight’s the fuckin night, that he’s had enough fuckin messing about, and now they’re definitely going to fuckin do it. Right fuckin now! He kicks the air to make his point. Mozzo stands straight up and says dead serious that he’ll drop Saidhbh home and then he’ll follow them on. I stop telling my story andgradually wobble to my feet. I ask Mozzo what’s up. He says nothing, but Saidhbh takes me aside to explain.
    She says that there’s two fellas on motorbikes hanging out in the school grounds at The Sorrows, right at the back near the long grass and the canal. According to Heno, they’re both queers who wear leather motorcycle gear and sit in the bushes every night waiting for youngfellas to pass. They then leap out of the grass, still in their gear, with their helmets on, drag the youngfella inside, rip off his cacks, play with his mickey, and then speed off again on their motorbikes. Saidhbh says that the lads are going to wait for them to come and then kick the living shit out of their queer arses, especially Heno, coz his younger brother, Basho, came home three weeks ago with no cacks on and wouldn’t say anything to anyone about how he lost them except that he lost them in The Sorrows. But Heno knows it’s the gay bikers that did it.
    After Saidhbh’s explanation, Mozzo turns to me, still dead seriously, and asks, You in? I tell him that I’d love to help him kick the queers to shit, but I’m already really late and will be lucky if I’m ever allowed out again. Mozzo grunts and turns to leave with Saidhbh. Before she goes she lays her gorgeous hand on my wrist and says that her dad’s having a big hoolie tomorrow night to celebrate the last free day before school starts. She says that I should come. Mozzo agrees. They both say it’ll be brilliant, with loads of booze, and they’ll tell me then how the queer-bashing went.
    Twenty minutes of painfully uncoordinated on-again-off-again pedal-slipping zigzagging later, I wheel my lemon yellow hand-me-down bike casually through the garage