The Good Son by Paul McVeigh

Author:Paul McVeigh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Salt Publishing Limited
Published: 2015-03-16T15:25:01+00:00

12

THE ENTRY BEHIND Jamaica St. stinks. It’s used as a rubbish dump. I wish Wee Maggie was here with me, but I can’t tell her about Killer. She can’t keep a secret. Look when I told her about Uncle Tommy. But she knows somethin’s up cuz I wouldn’t let her come with me.

Concentrate boy!

Up the short, steep hill of the big, bumpy Eggy field. It’s empty. It’s so big. It’s covered in jaggie nettles and wet-the-beds. I’m not allowed up here, but I’ve never wanted to come cuz on hot days, when there’s wavey-world over the tarmac, the Eggy smells of dead. I wonder how many of the bumps are just field and how many have dogs and cats buried in them. I heard there’s people buried too. Touts. Grassers under the grass. I don’t know if there is or not, but I’ve never heard of a secret that wasn’t true.

Everyone thinks Killer squeezed out the back gates somehow. That he’ll find his way home. I scratch my dumbbell stitches, which aren’t really stitches at all. They’re skinny plasters. Mrs Brannagan says there’ll be a scar. I’m glad. I’ll never forget then. Even when I’m all grown up.

I made a lollipop-stick flier like Ma’s-a-Whore showed me, but like a crucifix. Holdin’ it in prayer hands, eyes to the ground. No thinkin’ of anythin’ else. The funeral starts . . . now.

Slowly, I march across the field til there’s a dip between two mounds. I kneel, layin’ the crucifix gently, gently on the ground. With my fingers, I dig at the soil, fingernails stuffed full brown. I spit on my hands and wipe them on my jeans. Of course, they’re just goin’ to get dirty again. See. You should be goin’ to St Gabe’s, you’re so stupid.

Concentrate Mickey! Can you not even do that? For Killer.

I dig. Two hands like paws. Diggin’ like a dog makes a hidin’ place for a bone.

When the hole is Killer-sized I sit up, take a slow, deep breath and knot my fingers together. Eyes closed, I see Killer lyin’ dead in Flax St. I see me kneelin’ over him. I pick him up and hold him in my arms like he’s a little baby.

‘I’m sorry, Killer. I’m really, really sorry.’

Killer’s dead eyes open. Are you really, Mickey? he telepaths.

Yes.

You have to tell Ma the truth.

No. I can’t. She’ll kill me. They’ll all hate me.

Then you’ll have to tell God.

I thought he knew everythin’.

You have to go to Confession.

I can’t tell.

You have to, Mickey. Unless you wanna go to Hell. That’s the way it is.

Will God forgive me?

Yes.

Will you forgive me?

Yes, I will. Then I’ll rest in peace. Killer’s dead eyes close.

Goodbye, Killer.

I open my eyes and imagine him in my arms. I lay him in his grave and fill in the hole. I put the lollipop crucifix into his grave and bow my head.

‘Oh God, please take Killer into Heaven with you. He can guard it. He’d bark to let you know if anybody’s climbin’ over the gates, just like he did for us.

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