by Edmund Buckley
- It is a Friday evening in Dublin city
centre. The sun has long fallen below the horizon and the full
moon looms in the sparkling night sky, reflecting in the water
of the filthy River Liffey. There is a howling January wind menacing
the wild rain that is creating chaotic patterns on the surface
of the water.
- People come and go some on their way out and others are on their way home. To no surprise the Ha'penny Bridge is bustling. People are so preoccupied with their destinations that they completely ignore a young man's purple disfigured arm peeping out from under his dishevelled coat. 'S-Some cha-a-nge, p-please? 'Mikey, you'll never change, that's the problem, oh yeah 'I can quit anytime', I've heard it a million times! It's over, finished. Don't' call me anymore'. He makes a desperately lethargic attempt to raise his head. As the moonlight hits his face it becomes visible to any passer by that his eyes are bloodshot, less visible are his pupils, contracted to the size of pins. His eyelids are drooping beyond his control, as if tied to lead weights that are pulling them to the ground. His head follows.
- The cold wind mocks his tattered clothing. He half moves in an attempt to close his jacket, a futile effort to prevent his skeleton from shaking. 'P-ple-ease spare some change for a hot meal?' No one obliges. His eyes roll back in their sockets, as he blinks they return and he recalls Christmas dinner at his parents' house. He savours the memory, his young nephew's hilarious infancy, he'd be one year old in two weeks. Then it hits him. New Year's Day, being confronted for the fifth, tenth time with his syringe and implements, who's counting? 'We've had more than we can bear of your addiction son, you've left us no alternative.' 'You're on your own from now on.' His nerves are so numb that he cannot register any emotion. He simply doesn't care, cannot care. It won't allow it. It has complete control over his thoughts, his emotions, and his actions - his life.
- Realising his chances of being shown any charity are at an end, he slowly gathers himself to his feet and walks towards the arch and a warmer step outside of Abrakebabra. The step, heated by the cooking being carried on inside becomes an appreciated and necessary source of insolence. Echoing through the arch from a busker's guitar he hears a chord and instantly recognises the song.
- 'How does it feel? How does it feel?
To be on your own, with no direction home
Like a Rolling Stone'- His mind wanders to the promising age of fourteen, listening to his father's Dylan collection smoking pathetically rolled joints anticipating some induced insight into the musical arrangement and poetic lyrics. He remembers Oisín his old friend from school and how they experimented.
Suddenly a shadow covers him. He looks up to see an elderly, broad hand extending with a folded note in it. As his sobering eyes travel to the person's face he notices he is wearing a priest's collar. 'Have you anywhere to stay? When did you last eat?' No reaction. 'I hope this helps.' He hands him a twenty-euro note and gently touches his head. This act of kindness simply reminds him of performing sexual acts for suppressed homosexuals to feed his addiction. At the same time he's thrilled. The idea of getting a kebab or a chicken baguette doesn't even enter his absent mind. He, with his only surviving determination picks himself off the step and with the strength of ten men makes his way to his dealer's pad.- The door opens. 'Wha do ye want?' 'A gram.' 'Fuck off'. The dealer motions to close the door. 'I have money.' He raises his arm showing the note. They exchange their illegal business and the door slams knocking the poor junky to the ground. He gets up and dabs his jacket sleeve on his bloody nose. He's certain he will develop a bruise on each eye as the door hit him in the bridge of his nose.
- No surprise he is turned away from every pub on Bachelor's Walk. His clothes are so old, dirty and torn that no one can admit him. He reaches Zanzibar. A thick steroidal arm extends and meets his chest plate. 'Not tonight son, you won't be getting in.' Offering no resistance he passively turns away and walks towards The Bachelor's Inn. He knows they couldn't care, but it's just so dingy. As he is walking away a young woman runs out from the bar. She calls his name, 'Mickey', a bus hurls past deafening him momentarily. She shouts again. 'Mickey.' But he is too far away to hear her.
- He reaches the shabby Bachelor's Inn to find that the toilet has been flooded. He panics he knows withdrawals will begin soon. He considers his options, where he can shoot up. It has to be close by. The nearest safe place he can think of is O' Neill's pub. It's on Wicklow Street, the far side of Temple Bar. A fair walk for him under ordinary circumstances but tonight are not ordinary circumstances. He is soon reminded just how bad withdrawals can be. Perspiration breaks out on his critically undernourished body. Uncontrollable anxiety comes over him. He can barely find energy to go on. He gets an itchy head, itchy forearm and itchy feet. Every pore on his body cries out for another hit. He passes a busker who is belting out the words:
'What have I become
My sweetest friend?
Everyone I know goes way
In the end.'- The reasons he takes this deadly substance start to creep back into his mind, a tear runs down his hollow cheek. He is relieved when he reaches the Central Bank. His distorted senses can barely distinguish the cars from the buses, cyclists and motorcycles but somehow gets across the busy road by following the crowds.
- Finally he reaches the pub and has no difficulty getting in. He awkwardly stumbles up the decaying staircase and makes his way through the dense crowd to the toilet. His focus is so narrow that he fails to recognise a group of girls (neighbours of his) sitting around a table. Ignorant to his condition they pass mutual remarks on how well he is looking.
- He bursts through the door to the men's toilet and finds an empty cubicle. So is his haste that he forgets to engage the door. His ritual begins. Out of his inside jacket pocket he takes out his 'works' containing a teaspoon, lighter, rubber band and a surgical syringe. He lays them on his knee while he rolls up his sleeve and spikes up a vein on his right arm. The rubber band is tight around his fading bicep. As the circulation begins to get cut off, he burns up a spoon of toilet water and heroin. In a moment of sheer desperation, blinded by addiction he poured the entire contents of the bag on to the spoon. It cooks up quicker than he had foreseen. He grits his teeth and carries the needle to his arm to tear the skin and extract some blood from his vein bulging arm. Sucking some blood up with the plunger a momentary grin appears on his face as he watches the blood mix with the poisonous substance. With an expression changing to one of serious concentration he allows the contents of the plunger to enter his body. It spreads almost instantly to the main artery in his heart and ceases it from beating. Alone, in a dingy toilet, a rubber band still tied around his naked arm he dies, a man of twenty-six who had a number of promising opportunities during his unnaturally short life, all of them wasted.
- When the paramedics arrived nobody could tell how long he had been there. In vain they attempted they tried to resuscitate his corpse. He had been lying there for hours. When they searched through his pockets they found his passport, allowing Michael Thomas Jones to be easily identified. But a difficult task lay ahead. The Garda on duty searched the database at Pearse Street Station to find his parents' address.
- At four o clock on the morning of the 10th January 2004 the Jones suburban household was disturbed by the sound of the doorbell. The father crept down the stairs to the front door. The brief words that followed had an instant and unimaginably soul-destroying words affect on the man. He quickly dresses and explains to his wife of thirty-five years in the in his most sensitive manner what has happened. The Gardaí drive him to St. James Hospital to identify his body before they begin the autopsy. With his heart in his mouth he approaches the cold table. The doctor on duty pulls away the blanket. 'Yes, that's him, I'm certain of it'. He falls to the ground broken and in tears for the premature loss of his first and only son.
