style="font-size:15px;"> Padre Pio reconnects with us after several long blasts of blow and adds, ‘His brother Mullet is doing a big stretch for trying ta kill a peeler.’
Trout suddenly stubs out the joint into the ashtray and tries to appear serious again. I see his dilated pupils and feel his hooded stare trained on me once more.
‘Ask yourselves what’s more important today – Cliftonville winning the cup or a chance for us ta highlight what the fuck is going on just a couple of miles up the motorway in the Kesh? Even if one TV camera picks us out singing “Smash H-Block” or shouting “Victory to the republican prisoners” we’ll have done something for them. Remember lads: their pain, our struggle. I put that thing in the window to remind the thousands passing by on their way ta Windsor Park that there is still a war on!’
He is getting agitated and I can see the family connection to Padre Pio, who is actually hooked on his every word. It’s one of the few times I have ever seen the fruit loop pay attention to anyone for more than five seconds.
‘Ask yourselves what’s really goin’ on here,’ Trout continues. ‘Ask yourselves this: we are a few weeks away from a British general election and it looks like those stupid English bastards are going ta vote for Maggie Thatcher. And when that happens, the boot is going ta go in ta the likes of us. And the likes of us over there where you live too,’ Trout says, pointing to Rex Mundi who is nodding away in total agreement.
‘Ask yourselves what she’s going ta do here, especially since the republican socialist movement executed her friend and mentor Airey Neave right smack in the Houses of Parliament. It’s gonna be worse than Internment when she gets her high heels under the desk. She’ll do what the unionist ruling class wants and there’ll be mass arrests, repression, more new jails built and prisoners left ta rot and die in their own shit.’
Rex Mundi tries to extract the extinguished joint from the ashtray, but Trout blocks his hand, prompting my cousin to speak up.
‘The workers in Britain won’t stand for it, Trout. There’ll be a revolution in the streets if she takes on and tries to break the unions over there.’
Trout leans across the table. He is so close I can see the blackheads on his bulbous nose. His breath stinks and his nostrils are flaring into our faces.
‘We’re enterin’ into momentous days, comrades. 1979. The year when it all kicks off and we should all play our part.’
I look sideways at Padre Pio who seems distracted from all this talk of repression and revolution. He is studying the back pages of The Irish News to find out who will be in Jackie Hutton’s team today. When I stare down towards my feet, cautiously avoiding Trout’s gaze, I see PP is making wanking signals under the table.
The joint is salvaged again from the ashtray, relit and passed around by Trout.
‘We’ve gotta keep our heads clear before we hit the road, right!’ he orders. ‘So this is the last one before we go down to Windsor. Cos when we get onto that Kop there’s work ta be done,’ he continues, while staring at Rex Mundi and myself. ‘Here, English boy, which wing of the jail in the Crum was your brother on?’ he asks my cousin.
‘A-Wing, I think,’ Rex replies.
‘No, you stupid cunt. Which wing of the ’Ra? The Stick or the Provie one back then?’
‘Neither, mate,’ Rex Mundi answers. ‘He operated with the anarchists and radicals and this one weird dude who was one of her comrades. He was a mate of that old blade on the wall up there,’ he adds, pointing towards Meinhof.
On hearing this, Trout breaks into a smile, shoots up from his chair and points over to Rex Mundi. ‘Do not move! I’ve got something for you. It’s perfect,’ he says, before jabbing one of his fat fingers at PP. ‘And don’t you go stealing any of my dope while I’m lookin’ for it.’
‘Lookin’ for wha?’ PP asks indifferently.
The temperature in the kitchen seems to have dropped by ten degrees the second Trout leaves and I am no longer suffocated by his stare.
‘So why the fuck is he called Trout and he has a brother called Mullet?’ Rex Mundi suddenly asks.
‘Their da is a Kraut,’ PP says.
‘So? Shouldn’t they be called Hitler or Goering then?’ Rex Mundi says.
‘Where are they today? I mean his ma and da?’ I add.
PP shakes his head as if I have just come straight off the windy-lickers’ bus. ‘It’s Saturday, Ruin. Where do ya think they are? They’re down the motorway at Long Kesh seeing Mullet on a visit. They’re probably on their hands and knees with their rosary beads beggin’ him ta give up his dirty protest. It’s the best day of the week to be in Trout’s house, ta skin up some gear while they’re not in. Super Saturday. That’s when our Trout always stocks up on his dope. As for our Mullet, well he’s a real Action Man!’
I am wondering how the fuck some poor bastard from the Federal Republic of Germany must think about ending up stuck here in this kip, with one son in jail and another floating from one hashish cloud to another and well on his way to joining his brother. I am thinking too that my dad would despise Trout and throw up if he knew we were here smoking his dope while listening to his sermons. I gaze up to Ulrike on the wall. Her face weirdly reminds me of the French teacher at St Mal’s, where I have only two months left of my ‘sentence’ to complete.
After seven long years, I will be free from the stench of floor polish; free from cassocked Christian Brothers with their Embassy No.10 fegs cupped in their hands behind their backs; free from that rat-faced college president with his hysterical screaming pitch; free from the dead-on teachers in their moccasins and corduroy suits; free from the ‘Yes’ and ‘Pink Floyd’ fans who control the record players in the Sixth Form centre; free from the sniping sarcasm of the Latin teacher who insists we are a waste of taxpayers’ money; free to get out of that school and out of this town. Free to search for her. Free to find her again.
Trout comes back into the kitchen with a present for my cousin. It is a white badge with a red star in the middle and the letters RAF written behind a sub-machine gun. He is definitely warming to Rex Mundi because of the exploits of his older brother Mick, who, while tripping on an acid tab, petrol bombed the Students Union at Queen’s University in protest over Internment 1971. Unbeknownst to Trout, Mick nearly topped himself in a West Berlin squat last summer after five days of cold turkey.
‘Here my friend, this is for you. It is in honour of your brother and Comrade Meinhof on the wall,’ Trout announces.
‘Fat chance he will put that on,’ I interrupt. ‘He won’t pin anything on that shiny biker jacket unless it’s the badge of Brighton and Hove Albion.’
But Rex Mundi snatches the button badge from Trout’s hand and says, ‘Balls, Ruin! I will wear this one with pride. For our Micheal and for us too!’
‘Us?’ I loathe the way he has just said ‘Michael’ instead of ‘Mick’. Next thing you know he will be referring to his older brother in the Irish version ‘Mícheál’ as if that will impress our suspicious, belligerent host.
‘Yeah, us. The Red Army Faction on its way to Windsor. You’re coming too, Trout?’ the exile-returned continues.
‘Too fuckin’ right I am.
