6
after up and dying and he lived past ninety, dont mean by default he was some sort of fuckin angel. Not by no stretch. Poor old Mother lived in terror for near on forty years. But I’m not going dwelling on that. Best case scenario is just to play along and shake a few hands and have a few laughs and fuck off back to Town as quick as you can and get a good old pity fuck off the missus. Not that she fucks me outta pity, mind, more like I pities her after I’m done fuckin her. Poor girl cant hardly walk straight for a week after I pays her a visit. But back to the funeral racket, this whole death thing, that’s the way to go, pretend everything was hunky-dory. No one wants to get at the truth no more anyhow, everyone fucks off to their lives and tries to forget the life they used to have, tries to move on and pull their socks up and sure who’s gonna blame you? Too late for apologies now anyhow. Too late back then, too late now. But you know that was the way, that was the way. Fella had a right to crack one of his own across the face if they were getting out of line and no one said a goddamn word about it cause there’d be no one to listen if you did say anything. Look at all that shit with the priests sure for fuck sakes. And who said boo? Until the damage was done. No one. Until it was way too late. Cause no one woulda listened anyhow. Fuckin old queers.
But the brother, you know, he’s telling these stories and remembering little details that I cant for the life of me and he’s sorta getting riled up at me if I says I cant remember this or that. And you can see the veins in his head popping out and the sweat beading on his temples and his face gone all flushed. Next thing he got that bottle of Lambs on his head and he’s just slugging back the big mouthfuls of it and I’m tryna grab it back and the taxi is slowing down like he’s gonna pull over and I’m going on about that ten year medallion in the brother’s pocket and what his missus, Shirley, what she’s gonna think, how she’s gonna blame me. And with the mention of her name then he starts in laughing and it’s like it’s this fucking instant transformation the way his eyes clouds over and the forehead relaxes and this dopey who-gives-a-sweet-fuck grin on his face.
All smooth sailing from there I’d like to say, but I forgot what a dirty messy fucking drunk he was. Long time, longer than ten years, since the two of us shared a bottle. He never did make it to the funeral. I mean he made it up home, but the day of the funeral he was passed out on the daybed with two black eyes and the pants soaked in piss and the stink of shit off him. I mean, a fucking dirty, dirty falling-down drunk. No harm to him, not like he’s out ranting along the roads and falling out with people, just a dirty falling-down drunk. Shitting himself. Them black eyes were from where he fell on the stairs and cracked off the banister with his face. Jesus. I left him there on the old daybed in father’s house. I went on back to Town on the taxi-bus. Havent heard from him since, or no one else from up that way come to think on it. I suppose the old house belongs to one or the other of us. But looking at the old fella there in the casket and listening to that faggot priest babble all that bullshit about God’s grace and not a fuckin personal kind word uttered from no one and the church mostly empty. Well what am I going at up around that way for anyhow? I hope the fuckin house falls into the ground. Some life lived. Some life. Nothing up that way anyhow, and I’m nowhere near ready to knock off working.
Last going off, sometime there in the mid-nineties, this Chinese feller bought the fishplant for a dollar, started making these jewelry boxes or some such shit and then shut the works