Right Away Monday Read online

  Right Away Monday

  Joel Thomas Hynes

  for Dolores and Gary

  and for Ron, of course…

  With eleven pints of beer and seven small

  gins playing hide-and-seek inside his stomach,

  he fell from the topmost stair to the bottom.

  —Alan Sillitoe,

  Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  1. Balls-deep on Duckworth Street

  2. The Lobster Complex

  3. Comeback Special

  4. Darker Corners

  5. Head, Cracked

  6. Hands, Held

  7. Top-notch Security

  8. Into the Cold Black Nothing

  9. Killing Time

  10. Into the Cold Black Nothing—Continued

  11. The Arm of God

  12. I’m Leaving You. Can I Borrow a Suitcase?

  13. Skin Out While You Can

  14. Encore

  15. Still the One

  16. My Heart Beats Kelly’s

  17. And to All a Good Night

  18. Spillage

  19. Shards

  20. If You’re Lookin for Drama…

  21. More Shards

  22. Screech In

  23. The Crunch

  24. Maybe You Shouldnt Speak Right Now

  25. The Audition Tip Checklist

  26. Colder Shoulder

  27. Big and Ugly Enough

  28. Picture Perfect

  29. Shitting on Your Own Doorstep

  30. Lifetime, Achieved

  31. Nose Dive

  32. Swan Song

  33. Bury the Hatchet

  P.S. Ideas, interviews & features

  About the author

  Author Biography

  In Conversation with Joel Thomas Hynes

  About the book

  Joel Thomas Hynes on Writing

  Read on

  A Lifetime in a Heartbeat

  Preview

  Acknowledgements

  Also by Joel Thomas Hynes

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1. Balls-deep on Duckworth Street

  I says look here girl, I says, I’ll fuckin eat you alive I will.

  And she blushes at that, goes right scarlet she do. Of course. Cause I’m far from stunned. I knows how to smile when I wants me skin. It’s all in the smile. I was crossin on the other side of Water Street when that gangly Philip fucker bawls out and waves me over. Skull-and-crossbones on the front of his girls-size tee-shirt. That pisses me off, cause you gotta earn the privilege to wear that particular badge and you can tell at a glance that he’s nowhere near worthy. Wavin like that, with his wrist, and I says to meself—who the Christ are you to go orderin me, Clayton goddamn Reid, across the street there fucko? Course then I spots her alongside of ’im, doin a little twirl on the barstool, sippin at something cold, and even though I aint out on the hunt and really do got better stuff to be at, I cant help makin a grand uproar cuttin across through the traffic, just to show ’em all that I dont give a fuck for nothing or no one. Cause I dont.

  At the Gropevine, where the whole front wall is a window that the staff opens to the street in the good weather. Water Street drenched with the panic of the comin fall, all hands bailin back the shooters, tryin to make the best of the rest of the summer. Like we’re in fuckin Greece or something. But we’re not. No sir.

  She there swivelling in them skimpy shorts and I knows fuckin well I seen her around the Hatchet the other night. Out back in the alley. Right, I minds that greasy Jane Neary introducin us in the middle of a dirty big draw.

  —Clayton, this is Donna. She’s from the Battery.

  Jane right fuckin singsong about it too, thinkin I’ll swallow the notion that there might be something in common between us just cause where Donna’s from, the precious Battery. Besides, I dont buy into that fuck-arsed matchmaker shit, cause if you hits it off with someone you’re after bein hooked up with, then whoever did the hookin figures they got some kinda claim over your love life, like they can pick around and ask questions and make fuckin suggestions. I says you’re better off fuckin around with strangers, easier to walk away when you have to. Cause when your buddies and her fuckin buddies are all tangled up with the skin situation, then it’s bound to fuck shit up when you starts lookin elsewhere. And we never really stops lookin elsewhere now do we?

  There she is anyhow: tight white shorts and a store-bought suntan with her clean blond hair whippin around in the afternoon and that desperate screamin plea way down deep in the back of me head that wants me to please just keep hobblin on up the street with me head fully intact and me cock well tucked into me pants, not bothering no one, gettin on with what I should be at.

  And I says I’ll fuckin eat you alive girlie.

  It just pops out like that.

  And she goes red like that and I knows I fuckin got ’er.

  I tells her me name then. Fuckin right she remembers me from the other night, but she says she knew me from somewhere else before that too. I tries not to let on I’m as popular as I am. But then she’s gotta go and ask me if I’m anything to Valentine Reid. And I gotta say yes, cause he’s pretty much the only family I got, see, these days, and I loves him for it. But I aint no fuckin name-dropper either and sure I already got her, so…I mean, I cant help it that he’s all famous and shit. But I just sees him for who he is, and that’s a crooked old bastard half the time. But then, next thing, after she goes on a bit too loud and long about how much she likes Val’s songs, his older stuff anyhow, I finds meself sayin to her (and well within earshot of that glossy Philip dickhead, who sat there sippin his pissy Corona through a fuckin straw), I’m sayin:

  —Well girl, why dont you come by and I’ll introduce you to Val sometime, how ’bout this evening?

  And of course she says yes and wants to know if I got any draws. I shakes me head but gives her a wink to let her know I can hunt some down. She offers to buy me a beer then and me skull almost collapses with how easy it could be to just plank meself down and drink the whole goddamn lot of ’em under the table.

  Slay the fuckin works of ’em.

  Summertime, sun beatin down and the young ones strollin the streets in their tightest whites for one last August flaunt. Me there, perched on a barstool with the music on bust and me whole life ahead of me.

  Christ come fuckin kill me.

  It’s every ounce of energy in me soul to shake me head, to decline. She seems surprised. I stumbles back a bit then, where I got too much weight shifted onto me fucky foot. Then she wants to know what’s wrong with it, by the way. And while I’m writin down me address on her little tropical rum coaster I says:

  —I’ll tell you in the morning.

  And she smiles again like that and goes right red and I knows I fuckin got ’er, that she’s been gotten, that I’m fuckin well gettin some.

  I gets showered and swipes a decent shirt outta Val’s closet. I swabs a bit of polish on me boots, but dont bother to shine ’em up, just leaves ’em a nice dull black. Donna shows up at the door around nine o’clock, all dolled up with a suede purse and the makeup caked on like she’s off to some karaoke contest. Big loopy gold earrings I dont have much time for. But it’s alright. She looks pretty goddamn good, actually. I watches Val sizin ’er up, head to toe, right obvious and sleazy about it. Then he gives me the Nod right in front of her, a foolish attempt to rile a reaction outta me.

  —Well done yourself Clayton my son.

  Like I needs his fuckin approval.

  —Yeah, thanks. This is Donna by the way.

  Val’s in one of his better moods. He
breaks out the guitar and rigs up a couple of hot whiskeys for himself and Donna. Val is into the Jameson and water these days, hot or cold, depending on the time of day. He reckons the clearer the drink, the clearer the next morning. And I says sure why dont you just drink vodka then? But he says vodka’s the last resort for the drownin alcoholic. Him with his nasal cavities on the verge of collapse.

  —Want one Clayton?

  —No thanks.

  —Want one?

  —No.

  —You’re sure now?

  He keeps diggin at me to take a drop, even sets one down in front of me with cloves and sliced lemon and sugar and all. The steam fumin up me nostrils, snakin into me heavy, heavy brain like that. Breathe. I takes the mug of whiskey and dumps it into a crusty cereal bowl left on the table since this morning. Val’s face drops. He puts the guitar away and turns off the kitchen light before headin upstairs. Me and Donna sittin here in the dark. She gives me a look but I dont know what to tell her. That’s just the way he is.

  We heads down to the Duke for pool. I’m still scopin her out a bit, tryna make sure she’s up for a romp later on and not just lookin to snare me in for the long haul. Fuck that, she’ll be lucky if she gets tonight outta me. She tosses a scattered sly glance across the pool table at me and smiles like she’s sayin Let’s get the fuck outta here and go have at one another. Or at least that’s how I chooses to interpret things.

  After a few clumsy games she goes back to the bar and when I scans the room I sees Val comin in through the side door. He takes a booth in the corner and I goes over to join him. He nods and smiles like he aint seen me in months. That’s how it is. He takes a clear glass vial out of ’is coat and taps a little mound of coke onto the table. He dont give a fuck who’s lookin, what with bein the Valentine Reid and all, living legend. He cuts a few lines and rolls up a five-dollar bill, snorts the works back, then slides a line across the table at me. And BANG! Me head reels with the pressure of a thousand possibilities: me and Donna wacked on coke and fuckin my headboard right through the bedroom wall. I plucks the fiver from Val’s hand, leans back in me seat to re-roll it. The end of the summer. Family. Skin lined up. Fuck it once more. I forces all the air from my lungs and leans in over the line.

  —Hey? What’s going on over here?

  Donna. She hands me a glass of soda water, like I asked for, and I’m floored with the insanity of how quickly the tables can turn for me, how easy I can fall when I aint watchin where I’m goin. I grabs the glass and slugs back half the soda water in one go. It erupts in me guts and burbles out through me nose. I tosses the bill back onto the table and tries not to look at the white stuff while I makes a straight cut for the downstairs bathroom. As I rounds the corner I hears Val say:

  —Help yourself Miss Donna.

  I stares at meself long and hard in the foggy bathroom mirror. It’s been two weeks. That’s the longest I’ve gone yet without a drink or a beer. Ten days last year. Me eyes dont look so tired and baggy. I aint so pale as I tends to get. I can remember where I was and what I was up to this time last night, and even the night before that. I conjures up all that old detox jargon, one day, one hour, one moment at a time. Me old man Randy throwin up blood in a bowl next to the woodstove, tryin over and over to keep the liquor down long enough for it to reach his bloodstream and regulate his nerves. And I knows how shit like coke and pills are just lubricants, how they makes your resolve all slippery, opens up the windows in your head, the ones that lets all the booze and subsequent madness flow in. I fuckin knows all this. Deep breath. Soda water. Smoke.

  Two whole fuckin weeks Clayton.

  I leaves the bathroom then, finds Donna at the bottom of the stairs tryna coax some cigarettes outta the machine. She cant get no satisfaction out of it, says it ate her money, so I steps in and gives the machine a solid boot with me good foot like that fucker from Happy Days and holy fuck sure change and smokes goes flyin across the floor. I glances up the stairs and then drops to me knees and starts stuffin me pockets. I dont bother with the money. Donna giggling nervous behind me. One of the bartenders clomps down over the stairs so fast I havent got a chance to cover up the situation. He looks at the floor, looks back to me. I’m standin there with a load of smokes cradled in me arms like a newborn youngster, coins still drippin outta the machine behind me. He steps towards me but I’m so blinded now with the free smokes, me nerves seethin from the tease of the coke upstairs and the hot whiskey fumes back at Val’s and the cold, cold beer I didnt have not one goddamn drop of at the Gropevine earlier today, that just as he reaches a fuckin hand in my direction I shoulders him hard against the wall. He falls back and slops his leg into the scuzzy mop bucket. Donna grabs the hem of me coat. I turns and sees the look of fright and giddy panic in her eyes and we takes off up the stairs and out through the crowd into the night. Fuck Val I says. He’s big and ugly enough to look after himself. That’s me though, barred from the Duke I s’pose.

  On Water Street I trades a pack of Craven A for a couple of hot dogs while Donna flags down a cab.

  She’s in the process of movin into this bachelor apartment on Duckworth. All’s there is a mattress and some blankets. We lies down and goes right to it. But I’m feelin a bit low-minded, so we smokes a little pin joint from a bit I swiped outta Val’s jacket. I dont see nothing wrong with a little draw. I mean, I’m only workin on the booze, not goin born-again or nothing. It’s just mellow shit anyhow. Me and Donna chats quiet and listens to the radio for a while and then konks out. Next morning I makes up for it though. Yes by the fuck. And wouldnt you know but the two of us are carryin poppers? I’d sorta tucked mine away in the back of me head till I was in the clear with the booze and all. They crossed me mind earlier in the day when Donna was on her way to the house, but it’s always so much energy and fuckin around tryna convince someone to try ’em out, tryna get it through their heads that you’re not tryna poison ’em or render ’em brain dead long enough to rape ’em. So I cant hardly believe it when she whips out her own bottle, that I wont hafta go talkin ’em up like some door-to-door salesman only to have her humour me with a few little sniffs and not really get to experience the force of ’em.

  She had her own.

  Poppers gets a bad rap if you asks me. Cause people dont like ’em on their own, without the fucking part. All they knows is that they got messed up guilty feelings that one time they tried it at the bar. Well, dont do it at the bloody bars, hold out for the fuckfest.

  Now, I s’pose it really is a bit peculiar to expect someone to try ’em for the first time in bed. So they typically has a first go at ’em out in some social setting, and gets all fucked up and writes ’em off as some sorta lowlife solvent shit. But see, they aint meant for bein fuckin sociable. They’re meant for hidin out, gettin lost. Worst thing you can do is take a huff out at some bar and then expect to carry on enjoying your beer. It’s too, fuck I dont know, it’s a different buzz, self-conscious. Numbs your mind and blows it wide open and it’s scorchin fuckin hot. Scorchin. Your heart pounds and the heat rushes to your face and them hazy yellowed blotches, like when you stares at a lightbulb too long, settles on everything you looks at.

  I first came across poppers in a shady little porn shop near Harcourt Square in Dublin. Gothic little brown bottles labelled room incense. Legal, but not really. I was barely out through the doors of the shop before I opened a bottle and stuck it under me nose. Well fuck, like I said, the heat and the rush, and dont look at me cause I dont wanna be held accountable for your nightmares, dont you fuckin look at me while me eyeballs are explodin like this, just get outta the goddamn way and pretend like I never existed in the first place! I shambled right into traffic with me skin all pins-n-needles and me jaw clamped tight and tires squealin and me eyes to the ground with me whole fucked-up life bubblin up behind me eyelids like that and I thought alright, this is it, I’m never comin back. This is what they taught us about in school, how drugs can permanently fuckin alter you. I’ll never be the same again. Li
ttle Irish beeps and toots from all angles.

  —Holy fuck. Ho-ly fuck.

  Over and over I said it. And then it was over. Two or three minutes, tops. The fog lifted and I came back, like I was never away. And like the fool I did it again that night at a bar in Clontarf, near where I was livin. Five or six of us passed the bottle around. I was the only one new to it though, and soon as I took a haul I had to get up and leave and they all laughed at me. But I just couldnt sit still with the echo and the heat. I floated over to the toilets and ducked into a stall and hung on for dear life till it went away.

  —Never again. Never a-fuckin-gain.

  And then I was back. And ten minutes later I did it again. But that’s the only way I used ’em for the next four and five months cause it’s a cold day in Hell and a hefty-size ring on ’er finger before you’ll have an Irish girl go down on you, by fuck. It’s all money over there nowadays, so if you got none to flash around you’re pretty much fucked for skin.

  Course, when I got home from Dublin the women were all over me cause they liked me accent. But a lot of people gets all pissy when you comes home with a nice accent, says you’re puttin it on for show. And I’m sure some do. Some people fucks off on vacation over there for a couple of weeks and comes home soundin like they just crawled outta the bogs of fuckin Mayo. But if they comes home from Alberta or Toronto sayin “eh” at the end of every sentence, nobody bats a fuckin eye, they just thinks it’s such a sin. Because us crowd, Newfoundlanders, fucks off to Canada and nobody under-fuckin-stands us, we have to slow everything down and pronounce everything proper. Overseas though, we can talk as fast as we like and there’s no need to dumb it down. We’re allowed to relax into it. And besides, I comes from the Southern Shore and we still all got the black fuckin plague in us up there. So it was just a matter of gettin back to me real way a talkin, the way me own grandmother fuckin talked. Granted now, I will admit that I could turn it on and off when it suited me, but still, I lived and drank and worked and fought with Irish fuckers for six goddamn months, I was bound to cozy up to the accent. And fuck anyone who says otherwise.