After a botched job
on Cliftonville Road,
someone over-itchy on the trigger,
McCandless, his first job as driver, with a bloke
from another cell he doesn’t know,
his anorak still spattered
with blood-smatter and boke,
is to hide on Scrabo Hill in a green
two-man tent that’s light as a kite
with a bin bag of corned beef and baked beans—
be thankful for it ye gob-
shite—
until they figure
how to handle the matter.
Ah wis havin a cracker wee dream
lass night—there wis this wet thing
in mah ear. Then ah woke an seen
it wis a rat. At least a mouse.
Jesus, ah’m so cold ah’ll go blind.
An ah swear ah’m gettin thin.
An if ah see one more fuckin tin
a cold baked bloody beans.
Could they nat ave bought Heinz?
Could they nat jus hide us in a house
in Ballybeen?
Christ, at this rate, if we wait
any longer it’ll be nineteen
hundred and eighty-fuckin-eight.
McCandless adjusts to the night.
He stalks and creeps among high ferns
and purple loosestrife, cuts his shins on gorse,
munches on what he hopes is watercress
and clover, looking down at the town’s
red, yellow, blue, white lights and slow cars.
In the sandstone quarry a black-winged
bird glides in circles under the cigar-
ring glows of stars. He etches UFF
on soft rock and risks sounding out
the echo of the quarry, startled
then dejected by the gulf of darkness
made more empty as the hill calls back to him:
FUCK OFF … FUCK OFF … OFF … OFF … FF … F …
Beneath the hill’s turreted tower,
imperial man’s fantastical cock,
McCandless looks over lego-
sized bungalows,
demesnes and estates
curved around
the tongue-tip of the lough,
the hard men of the town
burning late
in a rapture
of fear, visions of damnation,
internationalisation,
negro cocks,
rods, gag balls, Margaret Thatcher.
Jesus, ye don’t talk much
do ye? We’ve been here how
long? Must be like forty
days an forty
fuckin nights by now
an next ta nuthin from ye—such
a big Mr Mystery.
Gie us yer share a tha corned dog
would ye? Skinny beardy
bastard. No fuckin odds
ah suppose. Yer too tight.
Christ, ah’m so hungry
ah could ate tha lamb ah god!
Jesus Christ could ye at least gimme a light?
McCandless scrunches a loose-stone path
under the new moon, scurries over spurge
on the bank, down into a barley field
sloping to meet the houses of an estate.
He peers through back windows at new kitchens.
A mousey-haired woman scrapes half-full plates
of potatoes into the bin and sighs
out at what must be her own reflection.
Looking for cracks in the curtains of bedrooms
he hits the jackpot: a young brunette yawns,
arches her back, unbuttons her blouse. He gawks
at the down of her armpits as she bunches
her hair and vanishes. The leash
of her bra strap. The coarse wet barley stalks.
On moonslicked fairways of the golf course
McCandless finds mushrooms. On all fours
he eats like a goat. Soon he’s in a bunker
looking at stars. He sees myxomatized
rabbits staring hollow-eyed at nothing.
A Capri screeches across the putting green
with smashed bonnet, bullet holes in the windscreen.
A giant woman with the head of a frog,
the body of Linda Lusardi, peels off flesh-
coloured knickers, croaks in a broad brogue:
Now, you know you want to. He pounces
on a stray black dog in a quarry lane.
He holds it aloft, blood spilling
over him, yelling Who the fuck are ye?
Jesus, they’re gonna kill me.
No doubt.
Gonna take me out.
Bury me under a tree
in Killynether.
But wha’s bin tha point
ah makin us hang about?
Waitin fer never.
Ah could go an smoke whapper joints
in Florida an sell second hand
motors. Jesus, wid ye listen tah me?
Ah could go tah fuckin Scotland!
Christ, ah don’t know.
Where you gonna go?
Come back to the tent at dawn
McCandless is unsurprised to find
himself alone, with no trace that someone
else has been there at all. All skin and bones
he lies down as mizzling rain fattens
to a downpour, thudding the tent walls,
his breath a brume in the fetid tent air.
With nothing to hit out at there’s nothing
there. Surprised that he feels
his skull’s been flipped open and he’s been
filled to the brim with ashes
he touches his face, all matted beard,
grime, grease and pus, staring into
hollow green darkness. Ack, Jesus!
When they quietly climb the hill
with a gun and two shovels
they find nothing but a pile of barley seeds
on the tent floor. Spread out and look
one says. Another asks, what for?
If he’s smart he’s in Scotland.
But they hunt the hill’s circle
until they go round the bend
convinced a furtive pair of eyes
looks out from every sycamore,
copse and covert, every clump of tall ferns.
They stop at the edge of Killynether.
On the coarse bark of an ash tree
is etched: No Surrender