Blunt Force

People have more fear of a knife than a brick, and that's the strangest fact of life I know. A good sharp blade makes a clean cut that sews shut neat as a seam. Even a stab to the vitals'll heal as likely as not, but take inventory of the long-wounded and you'll see a thousand reasons to fear the stick, the brick, and the fist. When I was a child, we lived in a frozen two-bedroom cottage that never took to the light, all seven of us. The slag pile out back was a magnificent mountain, the hill to the castle, the slopes of a broiling volcano. Until it swallowed Tommy Keane whole. They found him two days later, crumpled like a used can, red eyes bulging from a head folded like a piece of paper. No stitching that, hey?

I went from being a quiet, useless child to being a quiet useful man. Most people pay their debts on time, I'm what arrives when they don't.

Sean Keane never pays on time. Just gets more broken and bent with every visit. His eyes water before we even begin, he shuffles and sniffs like he's weeping, but he's not. It's the sinuses. Too much coke. I'm never happy to be standing in his house. Not for pity, but for guilt. I could have helped Tommy, I think. At night I can feel the sweaty tug and slip of his fingers as they slide away again. And again.

It's a powerful unpleasant thing to leave a boy to die and beat his father to death by increments in the same lifetime.

He's known it was coming. Probably knew before I did; one too many chances, run through like sand in a timer. Curled like a question mark, hands clawed, holding a picture of little Tommy, frozen in time, with his needle-sharp chin raised he looks like a frail old man standing up to a bully. Me, that is. But this isn't persecution, it's the changing of the guard; his shriveled body is a disguise. That picture is the club he used to beat the rest of his family to the ground. His fist was like a hammer. Too bad for him mine is bigger.

It makes no sense to give him the money, all of it, but what's left? Not even forty and life has run down to a big house bought too early, empty and well-shod, but somehow just as cold as the cottage now that Niamh and the boys are gone,

"Get out. For good. There's no more time, no more tomorrow."

"All my memories are in this house," it's a desperate, whining, obstinate plea. The pretense of being a benign, elderly widower.

"Memories of beating your bairns shitless?"

"Of my Tommy," he says it as if there's a difference. Jutting that sharp, stubbly chin like it's a weapon. My hands a swollen and hot, itchy as if something has wormed under the skin,

"Aye, that's what I said."

There's no crossing back over this line. In a battle with two sides, I have chosen to stand in no-man's land. The cash disappears in his claw, the rheumy eyes blink, white foam crusts at the corners of his mouth,

"When will they know I'm gone?"

"Tonight, or tomorrow morning if we're both very lucky." Now that I can count the hours of my life out it all seems a bit trivial,

"You're doing this because of Thomas."

"I didn't kill your boy."

"You didn't save him, so you save me. Is that it?" He's righteous for the first time in his life and he doesn't even know it. Shame. A single step forward sends him scuttling, no longer brave. Bullies never are; I should know. He's got a weekend bag in his thin, long-nailed hands before too long. He was planning to run anyway. Bastard. He even has the gall to ask to be taken to the station, and I the lack of brains to do it.

It's strange to be a dead man, but peaceful. The McNulty's don't like to be crossed by anyone, least of all their dogs. Streets become lanes become dirt paths all the way down to the old house where it started. The slag pile is still standing close to the back garden, held together with choking weeds that push through every open space they can find. Funnily enough, it's probably more stable now than it ever has been.

It's not that he's gone, not really. They'd assume he ran and send me to find him. I could play cat and mouse with the old man for years - until he dies really. It's not for the three hundred pound debt. It's the other money, a stack taken from the coffee table when eyes were turned. They might not realize it's with him until I'm dead. Or they might put two and two together quick time. Doesn't matter.

Dad's brown armchair still guards the front window, sticky and cold with damp, reeking of decay. The house falling down around it, it sits like a sentinel. Like the last scrap of life - a maggot in a carcass.

Rancid water creeps through thick denim, chills pale gooseflesh, and numbs me from the back to the front as the sky goes from weak yellow to scab pink, and down to inky twilight. It's not if but when. Shug McNulty knows this place, ate here often enough as a boy before they found out how to make money. Skinny little rag with bright red hair and crooked teeth. Still is.

Counting heartbeats, breaths, scratching and itching and asking- is this it - every time a car comes too close to the lanes. By the fourth, I think maybe I should just walk to them, put up the collar on the jacket and stroll down the lane one last time to meet the bright eyes of death as they come up the opposite direction. Make it easy for him, one last time. The man who never worked for anything.

When the headlights hit the gravel and light up the Audi like a beacon, it's not fear that fizzes but relief. Lets get this over with, my body seems to say. It's done with being a tool, an instrument to draw blood from stones. Maybe it just wants to feel the cut, but Shug's not on his own. Two big shadows come with him, no finesse today. Just blunt force to break open a toy that doesn't work the way he wants it to.

It's alright. It's nearly over.

They've got faces like paving slabs, flat and rough, though they're young. These two boys look like business, but the blonde one has shaking hands. Fresh meat for the grinder. Pups against the old pit dog, or was I always for bait. I can't tell anymore, not in the whistling silence made by broken noses.

"No explanation?" He's not sure he wants to. That's a new one, but maybe it makes for a little more warmth.

"No."

"Fine-" The hand signal stops as a low hum fills the air. Hum, tinkle, hum. The phone jumps and flares in my hand - Niamh calling. The world stops turning, the phone stops ringing, and a last ping signals her message.

Gavin sick - call me.

They're blocking the front door, but not the back. Maybe...