An Outlaw Of This Town
By sean mcnulty
- 304 reads
Saturday morning and hot. It’s like Godzilla’s up there and roaring down. It’s rare you get the monster breath around here so wearing shorts feels for the first time to purpose. We’re sheltering under the trees at the back of the polo field, one of many hideouts we got in the area and McGurk takes out a box of matches.
Ah, here we go.
McGurk is an arsonist. He taught me that word. It means firemaker and outlaw and as we all know outlaw is a good word. Outlaws are heroes. But it scares the lot of us when we see matches in his hands or a lighter he’s swiped from somewhere.
--Why dya like ta burn tings? I ask him.
--I like de smell of it, he says.
--What? De fie-uh?
--Yeah. De fie-uh smells lovely.
--Ye shud gedda job wit the IRA, but dey wudn’t take ya, ye know dat!
I sometimes think that McGurk is really a thing that hatched from an alien egg and swapped in the hospital for a real baby as his parents are completely different from him. I can safely say that McGurk has the nicest mudder and fadder in town. If they knew about the arson, they’d probably have heart-attacks, de two of them.
But he has his moments. He’s a hero over bonfire season, we’d all attest to that. Not only does he manage to track down shitloads of wild stuff for burning – one year he located an old tractor tyre in the timber yard and we robbed it and wheeled the huge fucker through town – but he seems to know like a professor of fire exactly what will burn and will not because it all burns eventually and burns brilliant.
McGurk starts climbing up the trees. Over the wall behind us is the Shiels’ back garden. Oul Mr. and Mrs. Sheils, the pensioners. There’s a wee wooden shed at the end of their garden and oftentimes we sit on the roof of that shed because when you climb the trees you can lean in and get onto it, no hassle. Many’s a time, Mr. Sheils has come out to chase us off it, but he’s too slow to get to us usually. It’s a nice roof to sit on, specially during the summer, as it’s sloped and ye can lie there and sunbathe. That’s what McGurk is at now. He gets onto the roof of the shed and lies down for a bit. After a few minutes, I climb up the trees myself to get onto the roof but when I reach it McGurk has vanished.
--Hey, whur are ye?
No answer.
Not long after, he appears inside the garden. It’s the first time any of us have set foot on the actual garden ground. It’s like the moon landing. McGurk’s Neil Armstrong.
--Come on in. De door of de shed’s open, he says.
--Are ye mad? I say.
I push off the fear and slide down the roof and into the garden. I thought it might be harder for me to get down because I’m much shorter than McGurk but it turns out it’s not a giant leap at all because really the shed is very small. No drop in it at all. I’m yer man: Buzz Aldrin.
The shed’s full of cardboard boxes. Barry’s Tea and King Crisps, faded. Most of them are all wrapped in brown sellotape but there’s one that’s open and when I have a look inside I see it’s full of old paper like bills. Why do adults keep all that crap?
--Any dosh in it?
--No, I say. Jus a load a crap.
McGurk finds an old toolbox and he starts going through it. A hammer. A chisel. Screwdrivers. So rusty they look like they were used for the pyramids.
--Ye’d make a hames of whatever it was if ye used these to make annything.
We’re near at the end of June, bonfire season, so McGurk’s on the hunt for stuff for this year. He keeps saying he’s going to make it the best ever. While he mooches around, I stand at the door and focus my eyes on the Sheils’ back window. It looks like nobody’s home as everything is quiet but they must in all certainty be there because it’s a Saturday morning. Unless they’re on holiday or something.
I hear the strike of a match behind me and look back to see McGurk testing his sparks out.
--Whut are ye at, ye tool?
He’s found a little bottle and he’s poured a little on one of the cardboard boxes. It must be oil or something as it spreads out and darkens even more the gloomy old Barry’s Tea box. It doesn’t take long for the box to light up all the way and I get an awful feeling in my arsehole as though someone’s just pierced it with a cold spear and everything’s about to fall out.
--Ye dickhead, McGurk. Put it de fuck out!
--Wit what? He says.
--Blow on it.
--Can’t. It’s too big now.
There’s a real slowness in McGurk as he watches the big flames rise up and stroke the ceiling. I’ve only seen this slowness in men with paintbrushes.
I run out and clamber over the wall into the polo field. It takes a while for McGurk to follow but by the time he gets over the wall the shed roof already has black tails of smoke coming out of it, wagging.
--Let’s get out of here, I say. I start running for the gates of the field but McGurk hangs back. He’s still standing there. I don’t know if he’s admiring his work or if he’s just shellshocked. Might be a bit of both. There’s a glow now from the Shiels’ back garden and orange flecks between the trees.
As I’m climbing over the gates, I look back and spot McGurk walking off in the other direction, and going over the wall at the other side of the field.
I run up to McSwiney Street and reach the phone box there, the one we usually go in to make fake phonecalls to the emergency services, but now I know I’ve to make a real one.
9—9—9
--Hello, I say. Dere’s a fie-uh in de polo field.
--Slow down, says the woman on the other end of the phone. De polo field?
--Yeah.
--What’s your name?
--Buzz Aldrin, I say.
And I hang up the phone.
After making the call, I walk up the road towards the polo field, straight for the black smoke blowing up into the sky. Everything gets hazier as I get to the Sheils’ house, but I see that Mr. and Mrs. Sheils are out in their front garden and some neighbours are there with them. Everyone looks worried. A terrible thing has happened. However, all said and done, they are safe. I mind my own business and walk ahead and I can’t imagine what state the shed is in by now.
I get to the alleyway behind the old rollerdisco, one of the prime hideouts in town, and where McGurk usually flees when something’s gone wrong. And he’s there alright, rubbing his eyes, with his head down. When he sees me, he sharpens up, widens his eyes to hurry the tears off.
--Well, dat was mad, wasnit? he says.
--Yeah, dat was mad.
--Ya better not tell annyone about dis, ye prick.
--Why wud I tell annyone?
--Well, ye better not, hay. Or ye know wut ye’ll fuckin get.
--Ah, ease off.
There are alarms going off around the town as we sit there in the alleyway. It seems like a million alarms.
This year, the fires have started early.
- Log in to post comments
Comments
Perfectly pitched - I'm so
Perfectly pitched - I'm so pleased to see another of these Sean
- Log in to post comments
Me too. I love McGurk.
Me too. I love McGurk. Brilliant.
Can you do one about them all meeting up in the present day?
- Log in to post comments