SQ Riot

N A R R A T I V E M A G A Z I N E .C O M
1
O N T H E S I X T E E N T H D A Y of London’s worst
heat wave in over a century, on a morning so hot
that train tracks buckled, the tar on the roads
boiled and sputtered, and birds fell dead from the
trees, the new site manager, an ex-army officer
who had climbed some mountain in the Himalayas
by himself, took Tom off the restoration of sash
windows and put him on the scaffolding crew
with John-Michael and the students from Galway.
Tom, broad shouldered with a large square head and close-cropped
ginger hair, his face pitted and rutted with acne scars, was nursing a
hangover that codeine hadn’t dislodged and was not in the mood to
argue with the English fool. He climbed to midway up the tower and
stood sullenly on a platform in the shade of the platform above, his feet
on separate planks and one arm wrapped around an upright. He fash-
ioned a harness out of rope to further secure himself and refused to
lean over the edge or bend down to receive material from below. As he
passed the scaffolding and planks to those above him, sweat ran into his
eyes, blinding him, and when he wiped it away he rubbed cement dust
into his pores, making his skin itch and burn.
At morning break he drank a full bottle of Lucozade, refilled the
bottle with water from the hose, and ran the hose over his head and
down his back. The relief did not last. Sweat, stinking of alcohol and
Darrach Dolan, an Irish
native and accomplished
storyteller, received his
BA from Trinity College,
Dublin, and his MFA from
the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
His short fiction has
appeared in literary
journals in the United
States and Italy, and his
story collection, Deviants,
is forthcoming in
Argentina in 2008. A
single father of two, he
is the more-than-grateful
recipient of a two-year
bursary from the Arts
Council of Ireland.
Riot
A S T O R Y
by Darrach Dolan

stale cigarettes, oozed from his pores and covered his skin in a slippery film.
Nauseous, his knees buckling and his vision blurred, he leaned against the wall,
and, gripping the hose like a safety line, he bent forward and waited to vomit.
The manager slapped him on the back. “Cooling down, not a bad idea,” he said.
Tom straightened up. The man, an inch or so taller than he but a good stone lighter,
was dirty from digging in the basement and giddy from the exertion. He rubbed his
hands and arms in the water and ran the hose over his head, as Tom had done.
Tom pictured him bounding up the Himalayas shouting, “Tally ho!” He considered
smashing a fist into the man’s face. Instead he clenched his jaw and muttered,
“Fierce weather,” before returning to the scaffolding.
After break, with the manager safely in the basement once more, Tom gave up
the pretense of working and sat on the platform smoking a joint. When it became
obvious to the others that he wasn’t going to budge, one of the Galway lads took his
place in the chain and hoisted the planks and scaffolding up to those above. The fool,
a scrawny, freckled kid with buckteeth, stood close to the tip of the plank and leaned
over the edge to accept each piece. Tom couldn’t bear to watch. He lay on his back
and through the gaps between planks studied the men overhead. They had stripped
off their shirts and wrapped them into turbans and now shouted obscenities to one
another and laughed. John-Michael stood out. Thin and gangly, he wore heavy black
combat trousers, Doc Martens, a black T-shirt with the anarchists’ A-in-a-circle
symbol, and a red bandanna to control his hair, which was light brown and matted
like dreadlocks. Tom watched him jump from bar to bar to tighten the crosspieces
when the uprights were not yet tied in and the give-and-sway was terrifying.
Watched him hook a leg around an upright and lean out over the edge of the tower,
a seven-story drop, to receive a plank with both hands. And when the men were
waiting for supplies from below and were leaning against crosspieces smoking or
working on their tans, John-Michael swung arm over arm along the topmost bar,
hamming it up for the art students in the building across the lane way. The crew
cheered him on. He was silhouetted against the brutal blue sky, and Tom saw him as
a great black bird, a crow or raven, hopping and preening among denuded branches.
“There’s no place for bravado on a site,” Tom told him in Vincente’s Café.
“When you break your neck don’t expect me to visit you.”
John-Michael leaned back in the chair until his head was resting against the wall.
Grease that had congealed in stratified layers over decades was now melting and
dripped in viscous runs down the walls, and Tom watched it soak into John-Michael’s
bandanna and said nothing. He had let John-Michael move into his squat after his
college friends left for America, and now he regretted it. He had acted in haste.
“Fair enough, boy,” John-Michael said. “I suppose I’ll have to make do with the
nurses giving me sponge baths.” He let his mouth hang open in a slack-jawed sneer.
“Do me a favor, keep your gob shut until after we’ve finished eating.”
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John-Michael kept his mouth open until saliva had pooled behind his teeth,
then made a clopping sound by slapping his tongue into the liquid. He swallowed
noisily and closed his mouth. This slack-jawed sneer, increasingly followed by this
clopping of the tongue, had begun as a paean to Sid Vicious and all the other true
punks who he believed didn’t give a fuck and showed it. But he had done it so often
and had let his jaw hang open for so long that Tom recognized it was now more
habit than choice. Soon enough John-Michael wouldn’t be able to hold his jaw
closed, and the joke would be on him.
“Thank you,” Tom said.
“Don’t mention it, boy.”
They had knocked off early for lunch and sat at one end of a large Formica table
waiting for the others. The café was a single room three steps below street level. No
natural light penetrated, and the walls were bare, save for a small cardboard print of
a Mediterranean town and a chalkboard with the day’s specials. Vincente, a short,
unshaven man with a cigarette smoldering in a corner of his mouth and a squint in
the corresponding eye, took the orders and handed the dishes to his wife, Dolores,
through a square aperture by the chalkboard. Vincente had made no accommodations
to the heat and offered the same fare he always did.
“That little bollocks of a manager nearly got a smack in the jaw for himself,”
Tom said.
John-Michael grinned. “That right?”
“You think I wouldn’t?”
John-Michael shrugged. “As gaffers go, he doesn’t seem so bad, boy.”
“You’re some bloody anarchist.” He peered at the specials listed on the board,
though they were always the same, and on Wednesdays he always ordered the
braised lamb. “If you can’t see he’s a prick with a Napoleonic complex, you need
your head examined.”
“You’re just pissed off because he put you on the crew, boy.”
“And you’re so busy showing off, you can’t see what’s going on.”
“I don’t give a flying fuck.”
“Really? Time to open your eyes, my friend.” Tom rubbed his eyes, then opened
them wide as if in astonishment. “Oh, my god, punk rock’s dead, you’re a Paddy, and
your pal, Little Lord Fauntleroy, was brought in to let the Paddys go.”
“What are you talking about?” John-Michael lost the sneer.
“Ah, suddenly mister doesn’t-give-a-fuck is all concerned. Haven’t you noticed
that there’s really only the lift shaft and the pointing left? And let me tell you, we’re
not going to be installing a lift. In my opinion, half of us will be let go this week and
the rest by the end of the month. Suddenly there’s an Englishman in charge. Now
you tell me the two aren’t related.”
“He couldn’t be any worse than the Kerryman.”

“True enough. I’m sure you’re right.”
“It’s only a job,” John-Michael said. “Who cares?”
“Yeah, well, you keep up the good work and see how he thanks you.” Tom picked
up the menu and scrutinized it. John-Michael was red in the face but not yet furious.
Tom tried not to smile. “Don’t worry, you’ll not be the first nor the last Paddy to be
made a fool of by a Sasanach.”
Dolores came over to their table. She was English and loud and overly made up.
“So what will you have today, boys?” She stood by Tom and fanned her face with the
order pad. “I don’t know about you, but this weather is driving me barmy. If the
heat doesn’t break I’m going to do something I’ll regret.”
“Tell me about it.” Tom felt the heat radiate from her. She smelled of grease and
sodden talc and menthol cough drops. He ordered the braised lamb special—
Vincente’s version of shepherd’s pie. John-Michael ordered the fish and chips with-
out looking at her. He pressed his tongue against the wall of his cheek like he was
trying to tunnel a way out. He was thinking.
“Oh, good-fucking-Jesus, would you look at that!” Tom said. The students from
Galway, working on the site over their summer holidays, had entered with the new
manager in tow. “Am I the only one on this site with any cop on?”
“Mind bunching up, chaps?” the manager said cheerfully. The students made
room for him. “So this is where you all disappear to?” He looked around the room.
“Splendid.”
The students concentrated on their menus and avoided Tom’s glare.
The manager clapped his hands. “Listen up, men,” he said. “I know there have
been problems with managers in the past. I can’t answer for them, but I hope you
will give me a chance and treat me like just another member of the team.” He had
straight white teeth and looked like an American or a mannequin when he smiled.
The students nodded. Tom crossed his arms over his chest.
“Bollocks,” John-Michael said.
“Sorry?” The white teeth disappeared.
John-Michael took off his bandanna and threw it onto the table. He parted his
hair. “You see this scar?” A white ridge three inches long ran from just below the
hairline toward his crown. “Twenty-seven stitches, boy. You know what it is?”
The manager grinned and looked around the table trying to gauge the mood of
the others. The students kept their eyes fixed on their menus, and Tom had to bite
the inside of his lip to remain expressionless.
“This is my I’m-a-stupid-fucking-Paddy badge,” John-Michael said. “I don’t
need another one if it’s all the same with you.”
“Sorry?”
“Let me tell you a little story, boy.” He leaned over the table toward the manager.
“This happened a few years ago now. I was fresh off the boat and too fucking naive
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to know the score. I was walking home to Brixton the afternoon following the first
night of the riots. You heard of Brixton?”
“Of course.”
“You heard of the riots we had?”
“Naturally.”
Tom might have known he’d work the riots in. It was typical of him. Someone
new to the scene would be over in their place and might say something about a
show on TV, and hey presto John-Michael would launch into how he got handed the
twenty-six-inch color TV out a shop window during the riots. Or someone would
mention tools, or fossil fuel, or weapons, and John-Michael would somehow turn
the conversation around to how he got a chain saw before they burned the hard-
ware shop to the ground. What use a chain saw would be to anyone in inner-city
London, Tom didn’t know.
“Well, Brixton’s where me and Tom are squatting.” He paused to let that sink in.
“But this was before Tom or any of these lads came over.”
“Is it safe?” the manager asked.
“You ever heard of a safe ghetto, boy?”
The manager blushed.
“I didn’t think so,” John-Michael said. “And things there are heating up again.”
“Aren’t they everywhere?” The manager laughed and pretended to fan his face.
“I’m serious, boy. Brixton’s up for it, and this time we’re going to finish the job.”
“In answer to your original question,” Tom interrupted, “it’s safe enough for us,
because we’re Paddys. But I wouldn’t go there if I were you.”
“We squat in Finsbury Park,” one of the students said. “It’s fairly . . .”
“As I was fucking saying,” John-Michael said—he waited to make sure everyone
had shut up—“as I was saying, I was coming back from Clapham Common the after-
noon following the first night of the riots. Not that I got much sleep, if you know
what I mean, and maybe I smelled of petrol and tear gas.” He clopped his tongue
significantly. “But I thought it’d be safe enough walking home in broad daylight.
’Course the streets are crunchy with glass and there are pigs everywhere, in cars, in
vans, on foot, and in riot gear. Next thing I see a fucking line of them on horseback.
‘Giddyap,’ I said, just making a joke, and whack, welcome to fucking London, this
bastard on a horse splits my skull.”
“That’s, um, dreadful, really dreadful, I . . .”
“What I’m saying is,” John-Michael put his arm around Tom’s shoulder, “times
have changed. We Paddys don’t tip our caps,” he waved the bandanna and bowed his
head, “and say, ‘Yes tur, no tur, three bags full tur,’ anymore.”
“I don’t quite follow, old man.”
“Listen, old man,” John-Michael pointed a finger at him, “stop treating us like
gobshites. We’re not stupid, we know the score, boy.”

“No offense, mate, but I really don’t quite understand.”
“You’re going to let us go in a week or two,” John-Michael said. “That’s your job, boy.
That’s what you were taken on to do. But don’t try and be ourmate in the meantime.”
“Oh, I see.”
The students, who had been afraid to make eye contact with the manager at the
beginning of the story, were now staring. Some of them looked like they might cry.
“John, isn’t it?”
“John-Michael, boy.” He noticed the patch of grease on his bandanna but tied it
back around his hair anyway.
“Yes, yes. I’m sorry. John-Michael, I must say that I appreciate your frankness.
You are quite correct in that this site is almost completed. However, I would esti-
mate it will be another month at least before we’re out of here. Anyone can tell you
it always takes longer to do the finishing touches than management thinks,” he
winked, “and you boys deserve a bit of a rest, if you know what I mean, before the
end.” He spread his arms to include everyone at the table. “While we’re on the
subject, may I say you’ve all done a wonderful job, and I want you to know it has
been commented on back at the office. There is one other thing I would like you to
know; we’re not fools. We know we have the basis of a good team here, and the last
thing we would want to do is break that up. Although I was not supposed to say
anything, John-Michael has brought this to the fore, and I may as well tell you that
this afternoon I’m looking at another building with Mr. Deering. It’s a two-year job
minimum, and it’s ninety-nine percent in the bag. With a bit of luck we’ll be hiring,
not firing.”
The students clapped and cheered.
“That’s brilliant,” one of them said. “I know a couple of lads looking for a start.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, eh, chaps?” He opened his menu. “All that digging
has given me an appetite.” His cheeks glowed with pleasure. “Recommend anything?”
“Try the braised lamb,” John-Michael said. “It’s Tom’s favorite.” He grinned,
tongue lolling like a dog’s in the midday sun.
AF T E R LU N C H , before he left, the manager put John-Michael in charge of the
crew. Tom didn’t speak to John-Michael for the rest of the day. Nor did he get back
on the scaffolding. Instead, he got his book from his jacket, waited until the others
had returned to their work, then made his way to an old service stairs on the eastern
side of the building. He climbed to the attic and crossed the uneven joists to the
large concrete water tanks. The air immediately around the tanks was cool and
damp like spring. Weeks earlier, at the beginning of the heat wave, he had con-
structed a platform from an old door and attached it to the side of the biggest tank
at the perfect height for him to lean with his back and shoulders pressed against
cold concrete, his neck resting on a folded burlap sack on the lip of the tank, and his
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head in the path of a gentle convection draft that rose off the water. He stared at the
rafters and listened to water drip into the reservoir, its kerplunk echoing off the
tank walls. Gradually, muscles unclenched and relaxed. He let his arms fall loosely
at his sides. He took slow deep breaths.
Across the attic, light filled the open lift shaft like a column. He watched dust
motes and feathers spiral up on thermals and disappear into the brilliance above.
Three years earlier he had been on the crew that dismantled that lift shaft. He had
found the work exciting and dangerous and had enjoyed the companionship of
men laboring together. He was the only member of that original crew to stick with
the job, and it saddened him to think that they would not be around to see the
building restored.
He opened the book. It was One Hundred Years of Solitude, the only book he had
brought with him from Ireland and one he had bought for a course but never read.
Everyone who had read it told him it was great. This was his third attempt to finish
it. Humidity had stuck the pages together, and he couldn’t get purchase because his
fingers were smooth and hard, prints etched into calloused flesh made slippery by
work. He licked them, rubbed his thumb against his index finger, and turned the
page. With the exception of the rain, he thought, Maconda couldn’t be more differ-
ent from Dublin. The sounds of metal on metal drifted down the shaft from the men
working on the scaffolding outside. He didn’t feel like reading on. He lay down on
the door, turned away from the light, and closed his eyes.
AT T H E E N D O F T H E DAY John-Michael was waiting for him on the street corner.
Tom didn’t greet him, and they walked in silence to the Tube at Old Street. Office
workers had knocked off early because of the heat wave, and the train was packed.
At Bank Street more commuters crushed on, and Tom tucked his legs under the
seat to let them enter without tripping. He watched the women move into the
carriage, away from him.
John-Michael did not pull his legs in. He slid down in the plastic seat, stretched
his legs out as far as he could, and rolled up one sleeve of his T-shirt to uncover a
tattoo of a skull. A young woman in a tight knee-length black skirt and simple white
blouse could go no farther and stopped on the other side of John-Michael. She was
around their age, wore Doc Marten shoes, no socks, and had a tiny tattoo on her
ankle. Her eyes were blue and her eyelids rimmed with red. Tom thought that she,
like him, had trouble sleeping at night. She stared out the window over John-Michael’s
head. John-Michael curled his lip in disdain before letting his jaw hang down.
Tom took out his book. He hoped the woman would recognize its distinct cover
design and maybe guess that he had a degree in literature and that his current
situation was temporary. As the carriage door was closing, a man squeezed in. He was
young but pudgy and blinked myopically. He almost fell over John-Michael’s legs.

“Awfully sorry.” Sweat ran down his face, and the armpits of his shirt were
stained yellow. He settled between Tom and John-Michael, blocking Tom’s view of
the woman.
“Fat bastards make me sick,” Tom said under his breath, but just loud enough
for John-Michael to hear.
John-Michael grinned. “Office scum,” he said out loud to no one in particular.
The fat man clasped his briefcase between his knees and folded his newspaper
several times, carefully flattening the crease with each fold, until it was a rectangle
a little bigger than a paperback. He nearly fell over when the train jolted forward.
The train didn’t travel far. It stopped midtunnel, between Bank Street and
London Bridge. The passengers looked at one another and smiled with resignation
or raised their eyes to heaven. Tom hated this camaraderie of the damned. Some of
them took out books; others adjusted their positions into more comfortable ones.
In the motionless carriage the tepid, soupy air that filled miles of unventilated
tunnels was further suffused with the funk of bodies pressed together, the stench
of food slowly decomposing in bags and cases, and the odor of many exhalations.
After half an hour without an announcement from the conductor or sign of move-
ment, the passengers were breathing through clenched teeth so as not to taste the
air. They no longer looked around; instead they stared into books or papers or at
the floor. A woman at the far end of the carriage began to cough. It was a dry hacking
cough, which she tried to stifle by putting her hand over her mouth. A couple of
people cleared their throats in response, others began to cough. Those standing
shuffled their feet.
Tom leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and brought his book closer
to his face. His skull felt tight, and his left eye began to pulse as if his blood were
pounding a way out. He read a paragraph for the third time and fought the urge to
stand up and push his way through the crowd to an exit. He feared, as he always
did when the trains stopped directly beneath the Thames, that the tunnel would
flood and the pressure of the water would constrict his ribs and force the air out
of him. He could feel his chest tightening, and he took shallow, painful breaths.
Perspiration trickled down the hollow of his back and soaked into the waistband
of his underwear.
John-Michael splayed his legs and brought his hands together over his stomach
in the manner of a man who has just completed a decent meal and is contemplating
what to do next. He elbowed Tom and motioned toward the pudgy businessman.
When he was sure he had Tom’s attention, he pressed his dust-covered Doc Martens
against the man’s Oxfords. The man looked from the boot to John-Michael. John-
Michael smiled his idiot’s slack-jawed smile but kept the boot pressing against the
shoe. The man apologized, moved his foot, and returned to his paper. John-Michael
began to stroke the man’s ankle with his boot. The man’s face turned red, but he
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didn’t move. John-Michael made the clopping sound with his tongue. Passengers
looked around for the source of the strange noise.
“Please, thir, stop touching my foot like that.” John-Michael spoke with exag-
gerated, childlike slowness. The slower the words, the stronger his Irish accent
became. Tom, blushing and trying to breathe normally under the scrutiny of the
passengers looking their way, recoiled from John-Michael, as if a further half inch’s
separation could deny the clear evidence of concrete dust and paint linking them.
“Well, really.” The man worked his mouth and blew through his nose.
“Please help me.” John-Michael turned to Tom and pulled at his arm as a child
would. “Father Murphy told me not to let men touch me like that again.” He made
his eyes drift unfocused around the carriage as if he could not control them.
“Preposterous!” the man said. “I, eh, I . . .” He looked around to his fellow office
workers. They stared down or into their papers. Those closest to him inched away.
Tom locked eyes with the frightened man. He had intended to smile and let the
man know he wasn’t going to play along. But when he saw that even in his fear, even
when he held his hands up in supplication, the man still couldn’t hide his disdain
for them, Tom put his book down slowly, deliberately, clenched his fists, and rotated
his shoulders as if preparing for action. The man, purple in the face, tried to back
away, but the passengers held firm and wouldn’t let him through. He turned around
and, using his briefcase as a breach, forced his way sideways through the crowd.
A woman tutted loudly and said, “I never!” Another said, “Some people have no
manners.” By the time the train finally got going again, the man was standing by
the door. He got off at London Bridge. The young woman with the tattoo got off at
Elephant and Castle. She didn’t look back at Tom.
When they transferred to the Victoria line at Stockwell, John-Michael was still
grinning from his victory. “Did you see the face on him, boy?”
“Someday you’ll pick on the wrong person, and you needn’t expect me to back
you up.”
“Jesus, boy, it was only a laugh.”
“I’m just saying, don’t count on me when you get in over your head.”
“Suits are all wankers. The day is coming when we’re going to fuck them up.
Anarchy in the UK!”
“Fucking hell,” Tom said when they reached the top of the escalator at Brixton.
“Can anything else go wrong today?”
In the vestibule, beyond the ticket booths, a line of inspectors had fanned out.
They were backed up by a row of police officers two deep. Tom and John-Michael
and half the other commuters, judging by the number of people who were now
queuing for tickets, normally got away with flashing old passes at the guys in the
booths; it wasn’t the sort of neighborhood where you stopped someone for a ticket.
Tom and John-Michael had no choice but to turn around and make their way to the

back of the ticket queue, which already stretched halfway down the stairs.
Passengers with tickets or up-to-date passes smiled at those in the queue and
walked out past the inspectors.
“Oink, oink,” John-Michael called after them.
“You’re very brave,” Tom said.
“Thank you, boy.”
“I’d like to see you say that to the pigs.”
“No problemo.”
“From Stockwell,” Tom said to the West Indian when they finally reached the
ticket booth. “There was no one at the ticket booth there.”
“Funny dat, I hear they inspecting dere too.” He smiled.
As they passed through the lines of inspectors and were heading toward the police,
John-Michael said in a loud voice, “I’m in the mood for some rashers and sausages.
Nothing like the smell of pig fat frying, eh? Do you like the smell of burning pig?”
Tom slowed down and let John-Michael get ahead of him. A young officer made
as if to step into his path. But John-Michael strode straight ahead, his upper lip
more curled than normal and a swagger in his stride. The young officer did nothing.
John-Michael took the stairs two at a time.
Silhouetted against the sky, John-Michael was waiting for him in the entrance.
Tom again thought of a black bird looking down on him. When they walked out they
had to shield their eyes from the glare. Strangely, most people exiting the station
dispersed quickly down side streets, and the normally bustling Brixton Road was
eerily still. Uniformed officers stood in pairs in front of shop windows, and white
police vans were parked at every intersection.
“Something’s up, boy,” John-Michael said. “This is exactly what it was like
before the riot.”
“There’s no one on the street, it’s boiling hot, and there are pigs every two feet.
You want to hang around and wait for something to happen, you’ll be here awhile.
I’m going home.”
“I’m telling you, boy, it’s going to go down.”
Tom shrugged and walked on. His shoulders jutted forward in sync with each
step, as if his body pivoted on a fixed axis—the stiff motion of a man whose muscles
and tendons are rigid with exhaustion or anger. John-Michael’s gait was loose, and
he kept looking over his shoulder in case he might miss some action.
“Can you smell the pigs’ fear, boy?” John-Michael said. He tilted his head back
and flared his nostrils.
Tom didn’t answer.
“You’re still pissed off, aren’t you?”
They turned under the railway arches and through the market. The ground was
sticky with fruit and vegetable juice, and the fecund stench of decay assailed them.
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Even the market was subdued, and few people wandered among the stalls. A man in
leather shorts and a belt heavy with tools dragged a pallet to a skip. His thick glasses
were held together on one side with masking tape, and he had a kitten on a leash
riding along his shoulder. Its legs were splayed, trying to keep purchase. The man’s
shoulders were latticed white from old scars and red from new ones.
John-Michael waved at the man. The man ignored him. “Stone mad. The boy’s
stone mad,” John-Michael said.
Tom ground his teeth. “He doesn’t know you.”
“He’s seen me enough, boy. How could he not know me?”
On weekends, when he wasn’t doing overtime, Tom liked to walk through the
market. He enjoyed being buffeted along by waves of shoppers and went wherever
the current took him. He kept far enough away from the stalls to avoid the sellers’
attention but close enough to read the labels on trays and peer into the buckets and
tubs. Sheep heads, goat shanks, shark jaws, grouper, marlin, papaya, tarot root,
plantains, mango, kiwi, dried fish and fruit, bolts of cloth from India and China,
sugarcane, chilies, the produce of the former empire stacked and spilled out onto
the street. Venomous old ladies with clear plastic headscarves pushed carts into
people’s shins. Dark women in brightly patterned kente robes or saris squeezed
fruits and argued over prices. Children harried young mothers. Old men in suits
shiny with wear smoked and spat onto the path. Punks strutted. Rastas loped.
Chinese, Indians, Africans, Caribbeans, Irish, English, Europeans, the trendy and
the poor, junkies and Hare Krishnas all jostled each other, and he knew he was a
million miles from the drab gray of Dublin and he was glad.
BE YO N D T H E N E W S P O RT S C E N T E R , there were fewer white vans, and kids
were playing between the high-rise towers of the New Loughborough Estate. Tom
surveyed each building for the boarded-up windows that indicated an unoccupied
flat. His own squat would be good for at least another six months before the council
got around to evicting him. But it paid to keep abreast of the unoccupied flats in
the area, and maybe he could persuade John-Michael to do one for himself and his
punk friends. A woman pushed a laundry cart home. An old man in a heavy wool
suit approached them.
“Good evening, sirs,” the old man said in a strong Irish brogue. “Sure isn’t it a
grand evening, thank God.” He held one hand outstretched to indicate the glory of
the evening and conspicuously covered an eye with the other one. “I’m not one to
put upon another, but when I seen you two approaching I says to meself, ‘Now here
comes two fine sporting gentlemen that would give a poor old sinner the time of
day if nothing else.’” He shook his head. “If it’s not too much trouble . . .?”
John-Michael sloshed his tongue in the buildup of liquid. Tom fingered the
coins in his pocket, assessing their value.

“It’s not what you think. I’m not a beggar or a skiver. I’ve worked my whole life
and still work wherever I can find it and on the days that the good Lord above sees
fit to free me from the dire pain I’m in. I have my dignity. I won’t beg even if it was
to cost me my life.”
Tom shifted his weight. John-Michael grinned.
“I’ll tell yez what ails me and kindly request that you come to my assistance.
I’ve got something in my eye, and I’m buggered if I can get it out.” He rubbed at his
covered eye viciously. Tom let go of the coins, and they jangled together. The old
man pretended not to have noticed. “I’d be fierce grateful if you’d have a quick look
and tell me if it’s not an in-growing eyelash or something.”
He tilted his head backward and drew them to him with his free arm. They were
close enough to catch the stench of whiskey off his breath and notice the ring of
grime on his shirt collar. He uncovered his eye, and before they had a chance to
register any anomaly, he gingerly pried apart the swollen and tightly closed eyelids.
They watched as the eyelashes came into view; all were growing inward. They fol-
lowed their progress from the inflamed lids to where they pierced the raw scalding
flesh of the eyeless socket.
“What’s done is done and all the crying in the world won’t bring it back,” the old
man said mournfully. He demonstrated the extent of the injury by prodding above and
below the socket with practiced fingers. Ulcerated nodules shot from the depths of the
empty orifice, only to snap back as if on elastic cords. “It could have been worse, and
I’m no martyr. One man is careless with a bit of rebar and another man is blinded.” He
punctuated his narrative by skillfully projecting the nodules at appropriate moments.
“That’s just the way of the world. But what gets my gall is when you’ve worked yourself
to the bone and gotten disfigured and disabled into the bargain, and what do they do?
They throw you out like so much rubbish.” He finished off with a furious display of
nodule acrobatics, then hung his head. “The captains of industry they call themselves,
but I call them blackguards and bowsies. It’s more than flesh and blood can bear.”
When Tom and John-Michael made no move to go, he pulled his lower lip down.
“D’ye she dish lisp? Gosh foursheen shishes.” A single yellowed tooth protruded
from translucent, jellylike gums. They could see nothing wrong with the lip.
“You’ve certainly been in the wars, boy,” John-Michael said.
“Be the hokey!” The old man took a step backward. “I should have known from
your getup that yez were fine Irish lads! O’Toole, from the County Clare, at your
service.” He held out his hand.
“John-Michael, Cork City.” They shook hands.
“And Ginger? Sure aren’t you the quiet fella himself.”
“Dublin,” Tom said.
“By God, a Jackeen!” Theatrically, O’Toole wiped a tear from his good eye. “I’ve
been wandering all day among the heathen, it’s good to meet you boys.” He took out
12

13
a handkerchief and wiped his brow. “Any chance you could get an old man a start?”
He flexed his biceps and did a little jig. “I can still lift with the best of them.”
“Sorry,” Tom said. “There’s only a few days left on the job.”
“Is that right now, boy?” John-Michael said.
“You know well it is.” Tom, flustered, took out a tenner, and before he had a
chance to take it back the old man had it whipped out of his hand.
“God bless you, son. I knew you were a decent skin.”
“This is a dodgy area, you might want to get out of here before nightfall,” Tom
said.
“You’re a man after my own heart,” O’Toole said to him, “a man who looks out
for his own. But you don’t have to worry about me. I may not be much to look at,
but like the Irishman that I am, I’ve thrown a few punches in my time.” He hopped
around ducking and diving, punching the air like a demented pixie. “A quick one-
two and an uppercut to the jaw. Works every time.” His face crinkled with mirth.
“Ah, God, I was once a fine young man like Ginger here,” O’Toole told John-
Michael. He slapped Tom on the back. “Yes, indeed. I was a great one for the sports
and a great favorite with the girls, I might add. The stories I could tell.” He laughed
until he clutched his sides.
“O’Toole and his mighty tool, I can see the girls going for that all right,” John-
Michael said. He grinned at his own joke.
O’Toole stopped laughing. “Ah, you’re very smart, aren’t you?” he said. His voice
lost its singsong cadence. “Make fun of a poor old man, why don’t you? But I’ve
lived forty years in this godforsaken place, and that’s worth more than all your
snide remarks and funny hair. This is a hard country, and there’s more sorrow in
store for you than you think.”
“Steady on, boy. I was only joking. We’re all in the same boat.”
“Apology accepted.” O’Toole resumed in the lilting brogue. “No harm done.
We’re all Irish here.” He shook hands with both of them. “We’re all men of the
world. But as I was saying, I was a bit of a ladies’ man.” He looked over to John-
Michael for assurance.
“I don’t doubt it, boy.”
“Indeed I was. Indeed I was. I remember well this one lass I had. Betty, her name
was. A farmer’s daughter, and a fine big lass if you get my drift?” He cupped his hands
at arm’s length. “God’s own truth, but you’d need a bullstop to mount her!”
In a more wistful voice, he continued, “A grand lass all the same. This was back
home, and you know how it is over there. Before I knew where I was, she had me all
dickied up and marched down to the priest. No doubt about it, boys, there’s nothing
like a priest to set a man straight about his obligations.” He shook his head. “We
were fond of each other right enough, but I was young and headstrong and always
up for a bit of gallivanting. Without so much as a by-your-leave, I packed my bags

and took the boat. Funny, when I think back on it, I left the only girl I ever loved
without a second thought. . . .” His jaw slackened, and he looked to the ground.
John-Michael handed the man some change.
“God bless you, son,” he said, but with little conviction. As they made to go on,
the old man grabbed Tom’s sleeve. “Hold on a second, boys. I’m only a beggar, but I
was a good man once and I’ve seen a thing or two in my time.” He nodded his head
emphatically. “This is a country of Philistines and rogues. They’ll take you for what
they can, and when you’re broken and alone they’ll kick you in the teeth. Stick with
your own kind.” He released Tom’s arm. “Always remember who you are and where
you come from.”
“Right you are, boy. That’s good advice,” John-Michael said. He shook hands
with the old man and winked at Tom. “We’ll keep an eye out for each other.”
“ WH AT A L OA D O F B O L L O C K S,” Tom said. He was eating his dinner on the
couch. He dipped a chip in some mayonnaise and brought it to his mouth. “Talk
about the blind leading the ignorant.”
John-Michael was sitting in the rocking chair opposite and concentrated on
getting ketchup out of the bottle with his knife. “He was a laugh.”
“He was a fool.” Tom took a drink from his can of Red Stripe.
“I liked the eye.”
“Are you an anarchist?”
“You know I am.”
“Well, do anarchists lead scaffolding crews? Do anarchists encourage people to
degrade themselves for a few quid? I don’t know about you, but I don’t encourage
stage Paddys to pine for the green, green fields of home.”
“For fuck’s sake, he was only a beggar. Anyway, it was you gave him the tenner.”
“Yeah, well, between the likes of you and him, is it any wonder they think we’re
all stupid?”
“Who gives a fuck what they think?”
“I do. I left that bog because I was sick of it. I left to get away from eejits like
him and you.”
“Hold your horses, boy. Why do you think I left? And I left when I was seventeen.
I didn’t wait to go to college.”
“Big swinging mickey.”
“I don’t know why you’re pissed off with me. I didn’t ask to be in charge of
anything. I don’t give a shit about that job.”
“Oh, so I should never have gotten you a start. Is that what you are saying?”
“Steady on, boy. I appreciate what you did, but you know me and getting up
every morning just isn’t my styl-ey.”
“And it is mine?” Tom finished his beer and opened another can.
14

15
“Okay, let’s jack it in.”
“And do what?”
“Dole.”
“That’s fucking brilliant. Really fucking brilliant. If I wanted to be on the dole I
could have stayed at home.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“I’m building a life here. This isn’t England. This is where the peoples of the
world meet, and I’m part of it.” He felt ridiculous as soon as he said it and had to
storm out of the room before John-Michael could respond.
He lay on his bed with his arms folded behind his head. The sheets were already
sodden in the shape of his body. The cheap reed blinds did little to block the rays of
the setting sun, and the room was scorched with a burnished light. His book lay
facedown beside him. He couldn’t read and he couldn’t sleep. He squinted and
watched a fiery kaleidoscope refract through his eyelashes.
“CO M E O N ! CO M E O N !” John-Michael banged on the door. “It’s going down!
Get up!” His voice was high with excitement.
“Okay, Jesus, I’m not deaf.” Tom rolled over and turned on the light. Though he
had not been asleep, the light blinded him, and he covered his eyes with his hand.
“I’ll be there in a second.”
“Hurry, boy. I’m not waiting.”
“I don’t see anything,” Tom said. He was looking out the kitchen window into
the cobblestone courtyard between the four buildings of their estate. Streetlights
illuminated the dusty flowerbeds and broken benches. Two kids were climbing up
the ladder of the slide. The slide itself was gone, but the ladder remained, and the
kids climbed over the top and back down the other side.
“It’s not going down in our fucking yard, boy.”
“So how do you know something’s going on?”
“It’s all over the radio.” John-Michael’s face was bright with joy. “Didn’t I tell
you there was going to be a riot? The pigs beat some old dear into a coma. When she
goes,” he continued in a bad Caribbean accent, “rev-ol-ution, man, rev-ol-ution on
de way.”
“Are you sure we’re invited?”
John-Michael ignored that and stood with his mouth opened wide before the
hall mirror. He held an ice cube against his cheek, something he did only on week-
ends or nights they were going to gigs. When the cube melted, he pushed a safety
pin through his numbed skin. His hands were trembling, and when he went to press
it back out from inside his mouth, he was not sure enough and pricked himself. He
cursed, got another ice cube, and, when it melted, pushed the pin through the flesh
in one movement.

“Tonight, we drink at The Railway,” John-Michael said. His voice quavered with
excitement or fear. Tom thought he looked pale and young. “The whole of Brixton
Road would be burnt down twice over before we heard anything in The Warrior.”
He opened the bathroom door and spat blood and spittle into the basin.
“Wash that down,” Tom said.
John-Michael stood in the doorway for a couple of seconds before turning on
the tap and swirling the water around the basin. “Satisfied, boy?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Wear dark clothes.” He put the last studs in his ears.
“What colors do you think these are?” Tom said. He had on his red Sandinista
T-shirt with a faded image of a man with a fist raised and some Spanish words, black
cotton trousers, and black boots. The armpits of his T-shirt were already stained
with sweat.
John-Michael put on a black leather jacket over his T-shirt.
“You’re going to roast,” Tom said.
“Listen, boy, when some pig is swinging at me, I won’t be worrying about the heat.”
“We’re not scared, are we?”
John-Michael curled his lip.
They took the long way, past the Hero of Switzerland, through the New
Loughborough Estate, onto Coldharbour Lane, and past the barrier block—tall,
poured-concrete buildings, with narrow, slitlike windows, that looked like fortified
bunkers. Rumor had it that they were built to absorb the noise from the motorway
and that the families they housed were the most fucked-up in the city. The fact that
no one ever squatted in those buildings told its own tale. Further down
Coldharbour Lane, groups of young men hung out, leaning against cars or walls,
watching. Reggae pulsed from shop fronts and ghetto blasters. A large crowd of
punks jostled each other outside the anarchists’ bookshop.
“No cops?” Tom said.
“That’s the way it always is, boy.” John-Michael’s voice was gravelly. He looked
straight ahead. “But don’t worry, boy, they’ll get here when the time comes.”
A man from the Socialist Workers Party spoke through a bullhorn to a group of
party faithful. He told them the oligarchy had miscalculated this time. “We have
watched their storm troopers crush the necks of the workers. And we did nothing.
Now their boots are wet with the blood of our sisters and mothers. The time has
come. . . .” The crowd cheered and waved placards above their heads. John-Michael
and Tom pushed past them. At the corner of Atlantic, a Rasta exhorted a crowd to
have faith in Jah. “Babylon is falling. Babylon is falling. The wicked man run
through ay streets. The righteous man, Jah black man, Dread man, stand on your
feet. Praise Jah. Trust Jah. . . .” The crowd was solemn. It looked like it was in no
mood to trust anyone or anything.
16

17
They strode toward Brixton Road at a purposeful pace, shoulders almost touching,
faces set, and eyes scanning ahead. There was a harmony in their movements, and
Tom was reminded of men working in sync. He was conscious of his body, how it
moved with ease and power, how his joints felt lubricated and his actions fluid, and
how the tiredness and stiffness of earlier had transformed into a weighty and sure
physical presence. Three years of laboring had honed his muscles, and the charged
atmosphere on the streets had sharpened his mind. He felt good; they would fight
side by side, instinctively in tune, covering each other’s backs. He realized he was
grinning and clenched his teeth.
“SO M U C H FO R T H E R I O T,” Tom said. It was after hours, and they had gone from
The Railway to a small shop off Coldharbour Lane, where they were waiting in line
to buy beer. Tom held a liter of milk and John-Michael a loaf of sliced bread. John-
Michael shrugged.
“Four Stripe,” Tom told the cashier. The cashier took a brown paper bag con-
taining four cans of Red Stripe from under the counter and placed Tom’s milk in
with them. From the street it looked like Tom was purchasing milk. The police
knew the score, but so long as it was kept out of sight they didn’t interfere. John-
Michael bought another four.
“Pity, really, I was well up for a nice riot tonight,” Tom said. “Nothing like a riot
to clear out the old system, eh?”
John-Michael gave him the two fingers.
“Keep your knickers on, I was only joking.”
Back at the squat John-Michael turned on the telly. Tom took his beer to the
kitchen, left the light off, and stood by the open window enjoying what little breeze
there was. Below in the courtyard the stunted hazel, its branches adorned with a
tiara of newspapers and plastic bags, looked festive, and the four redbrick buildings
of the Old Loughborough Estate, built after the destruction of the war, presented a
stolid elegance in the dim lamplight. The buildings were only five stories high, so
much less intimidating than the twenty-storied towers of the New Loughborough
Estate, and each had three stairwells, which opened onto covered landings fronted
by a concrete rail with balustrades. For some reason these landings reminded him
of the arched galleries of monasteries, though, of course, there were no actual
arches and you had to be on your guard in the stairwells. The three-legged cat from
downstairs jumped out of a bin.
The only other movement came from the third-floor flat in the building opposite,
where all the lights were on and silhouettes moved behind the flimsy lace curtains.
A heavyset white woman lived there. She was balding and pug-nosed and spent the
days leaning on the balustrade in her nightdress, smoking and cursing at her grand-
children below in the courtyard. For as long as Tom had been there, she’d had at

least two daughters with their broods staying there. She had numerous daughters,
and they seemed to be evicted from their own places or beaten up by their lovers on
some sort of a rotation system, and the flat swarmed with obese women and babies,
and the kids ran wild through the streets. The kids, white and mixed race, had the
pinched faces of strays, and the few times men showed up at the flat, the cops were
guaranteed to follow. One day—it must have been a weekend because he wasn’t at
work—Tom had observed some of the kids on the roof of their own building in
broad daylight, trying to break in through their neighbors’ windows. He, like most
people on the estate, stayed clear of them.
The door opened, and a large group of teenagers, maybe fifteen in all, carrying
sticks and chains came out and made their way to the stairwell. They were led by a
young skinhead in a white shirt, tight black trousers, and oxblood Docs. He carried
a baseball bat. Tom hadn’t seen the skinhead before but guessed by his close-set
eyes he was a relative of the clan. The matriarch, her daughters, and the younger
children followed them onto the landing. The posse of young men regrouped in
the courtyard below while the women and children remained above, leaned over
the railing, and shouted encouragement. The skinhead was the last to gain the
courtyard. He held the bat in one hand and tapped it against the palm of his other
hand. He raised the bat and shouted, “Let’s ride out, men!” The rabble marched
behind him.
Tom looked down the courtyard to see if he could see what they were after.
“Hey, John-Michael, your riot’s about to start.”
“Fuck off.”
“Seriously, come look at this.”
“Fuck off,” John-Michael repeated but came anyway. He leaned over Tom.
Halfway down the courtyard, the skinhead raised his hand to halt the followers,
took a couple of steps by himself, and shouted up at a figure standing in the shadows
on a landing above, “You and me. You and me, down here now. Cunt.”
“What the fuck?” John-Michael said. He leaned on the sill and stuck his head
out to get a better view. His jaw hung open in a broad grin.
“Get your bloody head in. You don’t want them to see you.”
“Why?”
“We don’t need hassle from them.”
“Fuck them, boy.”
“Why don’t you tell them that, not me?”
The man on the balcony moved from the shadows to the balustrade and leaned
his elbows on the railing and rested his chin in his hands. He was a thin black man
with tightly cropped hair. Tom knew him to say hello to.
“You and me, wog. You and me,” the skinhead shouted. “Don’t make me go up
there.”
18

19
A tall Rasta, his dreadlocks tied up above his head with a band of green, red, and
yellow, entered the courtyard from the Loughborough Road end. He gave the posse
a wide berth but crossed over to the stairwell when he had gotten around them. He
reemerged on the landing, slapped hands with the thin man, and rested against the
balustrade next to him. Two more black men crossed the yard and joined the others
on the landing.
“Fucking monkeys,” the skinhead shouted up at them. “This is between me and
him. Tell your mates to fuck off back to the jungle or we’ll go after them too.” The
rest of the posse shouted abuse and threats. The women shouted encouragement
from their landing.
The four men on the balcony didn’t respond. They were joined by another man.
“When do you think it will dawn on them to stop people going up the stairs?”
Tom said.
“I don’t know, boy. I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
“Those scumbags are the fucking problem around here,” Tom said. “I tell you,
you get rid of that one family and this whole estate would be different.”
“Yeah, but where you gonna put them? This is the end of the line.”
“Put them in the barrier block and seal up the doors and windows. I mean, who
else would be shouting racial slurs in a black neighborhood? Do they want a bloody
war or something?”
“It’s nothing much, boy. In my experience these things just blow over.”
“What do you mean by your experience? You think you know more about people
than I do?”
“I’m not saying that, boy. I’m just saying I’ve lived in Brixton a lot longer than
you, and I’ve seen this a million times.”
“That’s it, isn’t it? That’s always it with you. I’ve lived in Brixton longer than
you, so I know everything about everything. That is such a load of shite.”
“Tom, no need to get so worked up. All I’m saying is that they probably all know
each other well and are just fighting over something stupid. You ask me, boy, and
it’ll end with them all hugging and kissing each other.”
“Now you’re defending racists?” Even in the lamplight, Tom could see John-
Michael’s face redden. “Jesus, first it’s managers, now it’s racists. You’re some anarchist.”
“I’m not saying that, I’m just saying . . . I don’t know. Half the lads below are
black too. I don’t think it’s a race thing.”
“Fucking niggers,” the skinhead shouted.
“There’s your harmless Aryan friend reaching out to the peoples of the world,”
Tom said.
“What’s eating you? Half the kids with him are black.”
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong. To hear you talk, you’re such a big man, a bloody hero
of the riots, an anarchist fighting the system. But a skinhead and a bunch of kids on

your own doorstep—the scum of the earth basically—terrorize the place, and not
only do you stand by and watch the show but you defend them.”
John-Michael sloshed the saliva in his mouth and spat out onto the courtyard.
“What do you expect me to do, boy?”
“Nothing.”
“Well, boy, that’s exactly what I am doing.”
“I want you to stop going on about living in a squat like as if you should get a
medal for doing that.”
“Jesus, you’re in a lather for nothing. You want me to say I pay rent or something?”
“No, it’s fine to say you squat, just don’t say it with that big stupid grin of yours.
And while you’re at it, you could mention that I did this squat, not you.”
“Big swinging mickey. I did a hundred squats before you left college.”
“See, that’s what I mean. You think you’re better than me because you didn’t go
to college. Because you have a skull tattooed on your arm. Because you claim you
were in a riot. That’s all shite. That all means nothing.”
“Hold your horses, boy. I never said I was better than you.”
“You’re up on the scaffold preening all day and talking yourself up to the eejits
from Galway and that fool of a manager. Cop on to yourself, for God’s sake.”
“I was just joking around. Jesus, I didn’t know you were getting your knickers in
a knot. I’ll quit if that’s what you want. I’m sick of working anyway.”
“It’s not that. It doesn’t matter.”
They stood in silence and watched the action below.
Two more black men joined the others. The skinhead smacked the baseball bat
against the ground and against the hazel tree and finally against the large metal bin.
“I’m going to kill every last one of you.”
“Let’s go up after them,” one of the posse said. The others cheered. But no one
went to the stairs.
The skinhead tore his shirt open. “Come, fucking, down, fucking, here.” He
pounded the bin between words.
“What a wanker,” John-Michael said.
“Tell him that,” Tom said.
The skinhead addressed the posse. “You with me?” They cheered. “You fucking
with me?” He pushed one of the teenagers. The teenager looked a little taken aback.
“Well? You fucking with me?” He punched the teenager on the chest. The teenager
said something. “Louder.”
“Yeah,” the teenager shouted. The skinhead asked the next one and the next
one. Soon they were all baying and pushing each other and kicking at the benches.
The women were screaming their support.
A man came from the next building down. He had short blond dreadlocks and a
scraggy beard. “That’s Benny, isn’t it?” John-Michael said. “Jesus Christ, he’d better
20

21
motor if he’s going to do what I think he is.” The man skirted the posse as the others
had. But as he cut to go to the stairwell a woman shouted, “He’s one of them. He
thinks he’s a Rasta man.” The skinhead whipped around. Benny broke into a run,
but the skinhead was faster and got to him before he gained the stairs. He grabbed
Benny by the shoulder and swung him around to face the posse.
“Fucking hell, they’re gonna kill the poor fucker,” Tom said.
“Benny’s a good head, boy.”
“Well, Benny should have been more careful.”
“I’m serious, boy. Benny’s a mate.”
“So am I. What do you think we can do about it?”
“I’m going down to help him.”
“Well, you’d better be quick or there won’t be much left of him.”
John-Martin remained looking out the window. The posse dragged Benny out
into the middle of the yard. The men on the landing now held sticks, and one of
them had a machete. But they hadn’t gone down to help Benny. “Come on down, or
we’re going to make your boy pay,” the skinhead shouted up.
“Okay, man. We’ll be down.” They made their way slowly to the stairs.
“It’s seven against twenty by my count. They’re royally fucked,” Tom said.
“We should help them, boy.”
“What are you waiting for?”
“You think we should?”
“We live here, this is our home, we have to stand up for what’s right.”
“So we’re really going to help them?” John-Michael said. He seemed uncertain.
For all his scowling and sneering, his skin was still supple and unlined and he
looked young. Tom wondered if he really was old enough to have been in the riots.
“How many times have I had to listen to you tell me about the riot and the
skulls you’ve cracked?” Tom smiled. “It’s time for action, my anarchist friend. Time
to put your boot where your mouth has been.”
“You’ve gone off the deep end, boy.” John-Michael grinned. He grabbed his jacket.
“Let’s go.”
Tom smiled. “After you.”
From their landing they could see the black men facing the posse. It was like
something from a spaghetti western with both sides all quiet and serious, Benny
lying on the ground between them, and everyone waiting for someone else to make
the first move. Even the women were silent. Tom and John-Michael made their way
quietly down the stairs. When they reached the bottom and were still hidden from
view by the rubbish chute, they heard the men roar and the women scream. One
side had charged.
“You still up for this?” John-Michael asked.
“Sure, why not?”

“This is it, boy.” John-Michael ran out. “Geronimo!”
Tom didn’t go. Instead he pressed his back to the chute. He imagined what was
happening from the sounds of wood against wood and the shouts and grunts. He
waited a few seconds, then shouted at the top of his voice, “Run! Police! Run! The
pigs are here!”
Some of the women took up his cry, and he heard the warriors running like hell
and their weapons clattering to the ground. He waited a minute longer then looked
around the side of the chute. The women had disappeared from the landing, and
their flat was in darkness. The last of the posse were turning the corner toward
Myatt Fields. The baseball bat, sticks, and a couple of knives lay in the courtyard.
He clenched his lips tight to hide his smile and walked out into the yard. John-
Michael was walking away from him toward the Loughborough Road. He looked
ragged and lost. One arm was flailing about, and he staggered in little spurts like a
bird with a broken wing.
Tom walked after him. “Wait for me.” But John-Michael kept going. “No need to
be like that. I would have backed you up if it came down to it. I knew they’d all
scarper when I shouted the pigs were here. Cowards, the lot of them. John-
Michael!”
Tom caught up with him. “Fucking hell, there’s no need to sulk.” He grabbed
him by the shoulder and pulled him around. The gash began at John-Michael’s
cheekbone and curved up by his right eye to his bandanna. The blow had bitten
deep into the plate of the forehead just above the eye socket but had missed the eye
itself. The skin below the gash flapped down, and blood poured over his collar and
down his arm. “Jesus Christ. John-Michael. John-Michael, are you all right?”
“Tom,” he said, “Tom, thank Christ you’re safe, boy.”
“We’re both safe. It’s over.”
“We showed them, didn’t we, boy?”
“Yes, we did.” He kept listing to one side, and Tom had difficulty steadying him
because the blood made the jacket slippery.
“Anarchy in the UK.”
“Right enough. Let’s sit down.”
“I don’t feel the Mae West.” He vomited into a broken and disused flower border.
“Maybe I need a drink.”
“Sure. There’s some in the fridge. But let’s just go to the telephone first.” Tom
pulled John-Michael’s arm over his shoulder and put his arm around his waist. He
walked them to the phone on the Loughborough Road. After calling for an ambulance,
he sat John-Michael down on the curb and examined the damage. When he removed
the bandanna a flap of skin and hair dangled, and above it there was a clear depression
where the blade of the machete hit and the skull had been crushed. As he watched, a
mess of blood and bone began to expand, frothing and bubbling like plaster can
22

23
when water is added. He placed the bandanna back over it and kept light pressure
on it until the ambulance arrived.
“AR E YO U A R E L AT I V E?” the nurse asked him.
“No. We live together.” He blushed. “You know, friends. Good friends. I’m like a
brother to him, really.”
“Does he have any relatives that we can contact locally?”
“No. Is he going to be all right?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t answer that. We have to contact the relatives first.”
“You wouldn’t say that if he was okay.”
“I’m sorry, it’s policy.”
“I held the bandanna against his head. I thought that was the best thing to do.
I didn’t mean to do any harm.”
“You did your best. That’s all a friend can do. It’s not your fault.”
“He’s going to live, right?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t tell you anything at this point.”
“Jesus, no.”
“Listen, you can’t blame yourself. I shouldn’t be telling you this, and I don’t
actually know how he is doing right now, but you got him here so quickly I think he
has a good chance of pulling through.”
The detective also told him he didn’t know how John-Michael was doing. He
was still in surgery and naturally couldn’t be interviewed. He needed the answers to
some questions. Tom told him John-Michael had gone out because he heard a fight.
He had not gone himself because he didn’t think it was his business, and besides,
he’d had a few beers. He was sorry. When John-Michael didn’t return, he went out
looking for him. The detective knew the rest. He hadn’t seen anyone. He should
have stopped John-Michael or at least gone with him. He was sorry. He thought he
was doing the right thing with his hand on the wound. John-Michael was his friend.
“Why isn’t an ordinary police officer asking me these questions? I’m not a fool.
He’s not going to die, is he?”
“In a case of serious assault like this, a detective always conducts the investigation.
You are reading too much into it. The truth is that I don’t know his condition, son.
Do you know the names of his parents?”
“His father’s name is Michael Lawlor. He’s a family practitioner from Cork City.
I don’t know his mother’s name. I don’t know their address or anything. I’m sorry.”
“That’s good enough, son.” The detective wrote it down.
“He was an only child.”
“Pardon?”
“He didn’t get on with them. He had no contact with them. It’s hard without
phones and moving a lot, even if you wanted to keep in touch. You know what I

mean? I don’t really keep in touch with anyone back home either. It’s not deliberate
or anything, it just happens that way.” The detective nodded. “Can’t you find out
how he is?”
“No.”
He waited for a few hours in the emergency room, but they wouldn’t let him see
John-Michael, and they wouldn’t tell him anything new. Eventually the nurse who
had been kind to him earlier told him that John-Michael was in an induced coma.
“Jesus Christ.”
“It’s not as bad as it sounds. We often do that as a precaution in cases of serious
head trauma,” she said. “The point is, he’ll be kept in it for at least twenty-four
hours, possibly longer, and we won’t have an update until we bring him out of it.
There’s nothing you can do to help him right now. The best thing would be to go
home and rest. Call tomorrow and ask for me, Carol, and I’ll let you know if there
has been any change.” She wrote the extension on a prescription pad.
He took the bus home and didn’t recognize the route because he always traveled
by Tube. He had lived in London for three years, and all he knew of it was Brixton
and the site. He’d been to Camden market a few times and the zoo once. He’d been
to pubs and parties but had always gone by car service and never knew where he
was going. A squad car was parked in the courtyard. He recognized the officers as
the ones who had answered the emergency call he’d made.
He sat in the kitchen window and chain-smoked. The book lay unopened on the
sill. Nothing stirred through the night except the fluttering of the rubbish in the
stunted hazel. His view constricted by the other buildings, he didn’t see the sun
rise, and only the gradual seepage of light over squat buildings and into the shabby
and narrow courtyard below denoted the shift from night to day. In the stillness of
this early morning there was nothing to screen the ugly gray soil, hard packed and
desiccated as concrete, in the raised and lifeless flower beds, the litter spewing from
plastic bags left near, but not in, the rusting and dented bins, the jagged metal of the
broken slide, a tire leaning against a wall waiting for children to roll it into traffic or
set it alight, and the glint of glass shards embedded in path and mud alike. The sun
would rise over the buildings, bleach the courtyard with fierce white light, and
there would be no letup in the heat. He smoked and smoked, watched shadows
shorten, and waited for the hour when he could take the Tube to the site, climb the
scaffolding, and labor under the brutal sky. He longed for the sun to sear the flesh
of his back and neck, burn his eyes, and cauterize his heart.
24
■N

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