Cage Eleven: Writings From Prison by Gerry Adams

Author:Gerry Adams [Adams, Gerry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Ideologies, Biography & Autobiography, Political Science, History, General, Human Rights
ISBN: 9781568331898
Google: Q5qCBAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 2155928
Publisher: Roberts Rinehart Publishers
Published: 1990-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

Doggone

Your Man was homesick.

“How many bus stops are there between Castle Street and Casement Park on the left side of the Falls Road?” he asked.

“That’s a trick question,” Cedric answered. “Casement Park is on the Andersonstown Road, not the Falls.”

Your Man wasn’t amused. He was lying on the bottom bunk. Old hands always go for a bottom bunk; that way, when the roof leaks, they avoid drowning. If the fella in the top bunk leaks that’s another story. Cedric was in the top bunk, and, as I was saying, Your Man wasn’t amused by his answer.

“You know what I mean. Stop messing around.”

“How do I know what you mean if you don’t mean what you say?”

“Take it easy,” Egbert butted in. “Youse two are always squabbling. That’s no way for comrades to behave towards each other.”

“Ach, I’m sick of all youse doing your whack on my back,” Your Man muttered, pulling the blanket over his head and exiting from the conversation. “You can’t answer a simple question.”

“He can’t do his own whack,” retorted Cedric. “He expects me to count all the bus-stops on the Falls Road. He must think my head’s cut.”

“You know,” said Egbert, “the best bus in the whole world was the last bus up the Whiterock Road on a Saturday night.”

“Number eleven!” Your Man’s blanket slid back down off his face. “Aye, all human life was on that last bus.”

Egbert sat up on the edge of his bunk. “You’d get a sing-song and a fight and a drink and a lumber all on the one journey. Sometimes I thought it wouldn’t get up the Whiterock hill; there’d be so many people on it the bus used to sway from side to side. Aye, them were the days. Walking home from the terminus through the Murph…”

“I’d never walk through the Murph late at night,” Your Man interrupted, “not after Herbo’s dog was killed.”

“Ah, that wouldn’t worry me. I saw it one night; heard it, too.”

They fell silent, each alone with his thoughts.

“Well go on!” Cedric exploded. “What’s the story about Herbo’s dog? Who is Herbo anyway?”

“Herbo?” Your Man eased himself up on the bunk. “Herbo was a neighbour of mine. A good fellow. He had a dog; it was called Bo. In those days dogs got the same surname as their owner, you know: Snowie McKenna, Patch Gibney, Rover Burns, Spot MacStravick, Rhubarb Hartley. In this case, Bo Gibson. Probably the same nowadays,” he mused. “Anyway, during the riots in Ballymurphy, Herbo, like the rest of us, was always in the thick of it and the dog was always with him.”

“That dog feared nothing,” said Egbert.

“It hated the Brits. Many’s the time I saw them giving it a kicking, but it still wouldn’t give up having a go at them.”

“It was a real patriot?” Cedric suggested.

“Nawh, it was an oul’ mongrel.”

“A real gamester an’ all,” Your Man continued. “One day there was a big riot in Divismore Park in front of the Brit barracks at the Taggart. Somebody threw a nail bomb.

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