She always stands by me door like that when she comes in ratfaced. She whips the flex off the side of the door frame. As if she tinks that scares me any more. She usedta frighten me to sleep every night with that bleedin ting.

- Are you awake?! You better be asleep!

She shakes me and tries to wake me up but I have lettin on to be asleep down to a fuckin art form at this stage.

- Lucky for you, is all I can say, you little gurrier! Lucky for you that you’re such a sound sleeper. Just like your father. A piano on his head wouldn’t wake him.

Just wait a few more seconds. She usually slams off somethin on her way out and falls asleep in her bed with all her clothes on on top of her bare mattress. Curtains of rain comin down and in the open window onto the bottom of me bed.

- Ahhhhh! What the…

- I knew you were awake!

- Course I’m awake, now that you hit me across the head with that fuckin flex!

Hate the way she stares at me when she’s shitfaced. Stares at ya all cold and hard cause she tinks the whole world is against her. Tink she tinks it makes people tink she’s more serious or somethin but all it does is make her look like a mean eedjit.

- I wasn’t brought up to listen to that kind of language. Any old gurrier can curse, it takes a gentleman not to. Don’t you dare curse at me!

Herewegoagain.

- Get that blanket off!

Can’t believe this shite.

- Don’t you ever get tired of this, Mother? What fuckin time is it anyway? Two in the mornin?

- Shut up, you impudent little bowsie!

- You’re a sick woman, ya know that, Mother.

- Oh, you’re really going to get it this time!

She means it too. When red is where the white should be in them eyes ya know she’s gonna really beat the livin shite outta ya. Such beautiful blue eyes.

- Get out of that bed!

Beat her again at her own game. Won’t make me cry. Let her wipe herbleedinself out. Not even get a whimper or whine.

- Bend over, you ignorant shite! No! Turn around!

- Wha?

- You heard me! I’ll give it to you even worse if you don’t. Turn around or you’ll get a clatter across the face!

What the bleedin hell’s she up to this time? Wraps her bloated fingers around the flex. Flex of the electric kettle. Only ting that doesn’t break or break bones. Stopped pokerin us when she broke Cara’s fingers. Too many explanations. Told the doctor a concrete block had fallen on them.

- Bend back onto the bed with your knees on the ground!

- Wha?

- If you what me once more I’ll break your ugly little face for you!

What the hell is she at?

- Don’t you ever…

- Ahhhh!

Ah, Jesus Christ! Oh, sweet Jesus. Again? Again and again… What’s she doin to me?

- Get up off that carpet!

Can’t move.

Tink she’s wallopin me on the back. Can’t feel it. Gets like that when there’s enough hits. Can’t feel anythin. Tink she’s kickin me. Can’t breathe. Deep breath.

- Stand up you little bastard!

Can’t stand this any more. Can’t move though. Where’s Dad? Hospital. Always gets us when he’s not around. Gonna kill her. Gonna. Here goes.

- Stop! Give me that back!

At last. Stopped it. Knew it’d end some day. Had to.

- Get out!

Put me face right in hers.

- Don’t you scream at me, Lorcan Devine!

Never seen her eyes like that before. What fear looks like.

- I’ll kill you if you don’t get the fuck outta this room, Mother!

She steps back.

- I’m going to tell your father what you’re doing to me!

- Fat lot of good that’ll doya.

- How dare you!

- Get out!

That scared the shite outta her. Mirror smashed all over the floor.

- You’ll pay for this, you… You have no business talking to me like that, you goodfornothing, gutless little spoilt brat … That little fucker Alan’s put you astray! I knew it’d happen. I told your father! Do you think he’d listen? No. Not a chance! Well, at least I don’t have to listen to that any more. It’s well for him up in that hospital. At least he doesn’t have to put up with the likes of you!

- Get the fuck out!

Jesus. Don’t know what’s got into me. Hate gettin thick cause it makes me feel uncomfortable and I don’t like bein this bleedin uncomfortable.

State of her. Slinks out the door like a dog with its tail between its legs. Course she screams at me from down the hall like the coward she is. Can’t even hear what she’s sayin. Doesn’t matter.

At last. At bleedin last. Fifteen fuckin years it took me to stand up to her. Fuck. Should be asleep and dreamin and all that normal shite but here I am sittin in me fuckin bedroom starkers in the middle of the bleedin night, with bits of mirror in me foot and me balls as bloated as bleedin beach balls, starin at The 400 Blows poster

that Turlough sent me and the fuckin wire flex of the bleedin electric kettle in me hand. Mad. Me life’s fuckin mental.

Pick up the flex and fuck it out the window through the rain inta the ditch. Watch it disappear inta the darkness.

Breathe. Need to breathe.

Sit back down on me bed.

New York. New York bleedin city. Fuck yea. Go kip with Turlough for a while. He won’t mind. He’s gaggin to get me outta Meath anyway. Maybe he could get me a job in one of his bars and then I could get some spons together and get me own place in the Village in Manhattan and take actin classes at night to learn about actin so that I know what to tell actors to do when I’m directin them in me films. Been bleedin addicted to wantin to make a film since I was eight or nine. Been doin these little DV tings with this camera Turlough sent me for me birthday two years ago. Birds in trees. Sunsets. The insidea cairns and mounds. Tryin to figure it all out. Gonna direct the shite outta me films. Yea. Be able to hang out with all the other whackjobs who love films too. I’ll feel right at home. I just know it. Gonna make fuckin buckets of money and live in the sun away from the pissin rain and potholes and the Mother and her bitchin and emotional bolloxs. I’ll have a deadon wife too who hardly drinks and hasn’t a bleedin clue about tractors or silage or headage or any of that shite cause she comes from the city and reads books I haven’t even heard of and loves Stegner and history and films and travelin cause I have this feelin I’m gonna be a travel maniac too. And we’ll have this beautiful house by the sea where it’s always really warm and a huge widescreen TV that comes outta the wall when I press a button and DVDs of all our favorite films and all these deadon writer friends and artists and musicians and a room for me to write me films in with this fuckin huge picture of The 4OO Blows in this deadly black steel frame and a view out the window onto the sea and the sky hittin it way off in the distance.

Need to calm the fuck down after the Mother. Need to breathe. Have this small voice inside me head that goes off sometimes. When it starts talkin I know I have to start prayin or just tunin out from the shite around me. Whenever she starts screamin and wreckin me head and throwin shite around the place I just kinda pray to St. Theresa. Theresa’s not fullashite like the rest of them saints. Granddad told me about her years ago. How she died young and used simple words.

            May today there be peace within. May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith. May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content knowing you are a child of God. Let  this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of you. Amen.

Course I’m not into the whole God stuff but I love that cause it works. Say that prayer and I just feel better after it. Can’t argue with shite that works no matter what the fuckin words are. Most of the time when Granddad talks religion and philosophy it bores the shite outta me but there’s some of it like Theresa that’s great to hear about. Always into him talkin about Theresa. How she was a nun. Like the way she’s known as the Little Flower of Jesus. Well, maybe not the whole Jesus ting but that she was the Little Flower. Little Flower. It even sounds good when I think it. Granddad calls her an Blaithin Beag. She was the youngest of five kids like me, cept her oul fella was a watchmaker not a vet like Dad.

After my death, I will let fall a shower of roses.

Love to see that. A shower of roses. Why they ever made her the patron saint of aviators is beyond me? Catholic Church. They don’t know their arses from their elbows.

Every September thirtieth I go on a fast for the day for her. Course I don’t tell anyone cause they’d tink I was fuckin mental. Say her prayer so often now that I know it off be heart. Could probably say it backwards. You of one every … and each for there … is.

Fuckin foot is killin me. Gotta get the fuck outta this room. Jesus. Gotta get the fuck outta this country.