Extract from "Gabriel's Gate"

When G and a couple of his mates decided to run away, they never had any reason. Running away was something they thought you should do. It was G's idea. He brought it up first. After the incident in school with Spud he thought he would be in trouble. His Da would have battered him if he'd found out, but G's Ma wouldn't tell him. He was depressed enough digging the graves. If she told him this he'd be in one.

But somewhere deep inside, G was sure he was going to get away with his first crime; if it was a crime. He believed it wasn't. He couldn't put words on it like moral or ethical, he just knew it wasn't wrong. A guardian angel, he remembered telling Sarah. A guardian angel had told him to do it. She didn't like the sound of that at the time. She said that that was how people turned into mad bastards. It all starts with voices in the head.

It was two of G's school friends that G ran away with. Duff and Macker. Mack was a tough nut, but Duff, pretty soft and a bit wanting upstairs, was easily led by Macker. Macker was called Macker because his name was MacGowan. Duff was called Duff because his Ma used to make him wear a duffle coat that she bought in Thomas street market for his birthday. G always told him to throw it away, but Duff said he couldn't because his Ma wouldn't
get him another coat and he'd have to freeze all winter.

They were three good friends, in school at least. And when the day came to run away, they'd all met up as planned, down behind the football pitch where there was a bit of a woods and a river with a swing over it made from a tyre that Macker had robbed from a garage. It was a good wing, but the bootboys used to cut it down a lot of the time and throw it in the river. G's Ma called them the bootboys, and they were what his mates had warned him about when he left Stillorgan. There weren't many bootboys there, at least not like these fuckers.

When all three met up behind the football pitch that day, they had to make a swear not to tell anyone. Duff had looked scared. He didn’t want to make a swear, so Macker gave him a small slap on the head and asked him why. Turned out that he'd already told his mother that morning that he was running away. Macker couldn't believe it. The whole idea of running away is that nobody knows youíre doing it, he'd said. But Duff didn't understand what he'd
done wrong. He always told his mother everything. G thought it was funny. Now the whole thing was ruined. G said it didn't matter. They could still go.

They got on the bus to the city centre. It was a Saturday and the town was packed full of shoppers and other kids like themselves. G liked going to town. He used to go with his sister before she left, and sometimes with her boyfriend who was a mod. There were mods, rockers, punks and skas then. And a lot of the time there were fights on the top of Grafton street and her boyfriend used to get stuck in. Gís da hated him, and used to try and ground his sister on the weekend. But she always did what she wanted.
Years later, when he lost his job and got depressed he just gave up on her.

The plan was to go into town and find somewhere to hide for a couple of days and all three were dressed in combat gear they had bought in an army shop the previous Summer. They thought it was the best thing to wear.
But once they started walking around town they realised how stupid the whole idea was. Macker had said he had money and they were going to buy more food and stuff. Turned out he'd no money at all. Himself and Duff went into a few shops and knocked off a pile of gear. Even stuff they didn't need. Macker had robbed a pack of golf balls, and Duff had stolen some women’s tights. He said that people wear them on their heads in the films. It was ridiculous.

They spent the afternoon walking around town and then went into the Green to eat some of the food they'd brought with them. Crackers, apples and some Farley's rusks that Macker had nicked from his sister who had a kid a couple of months ago. After they closed the green, they decided to go back to their camp. That was the best place.

When they got back it was getting dark and the football pitch was deserted, the reek of wet Winter muck lingering over it. They had a load of cigarettes and they lit a fire, deciding to stay there for the night. But it got cold then and Duff wanted to go home. He was hungry and his ma
always had a fry on Saturday for supper and anyway he wanted to watch Jim'll Fix It.

G's ma would have a fry as well. The smell of it always hung in the garden on Saturday evenings, mixed with the coal from the fire she lit on weekends.

Duff wanted to know why they were running away anyway. G just told him that everybody does it sometime. It's what you do. Macker agreed with him. But it wasn't real running away. Not like G's sister who had gone to England a
couple of years ago after they moved house. They got a letter from her every once in a while. She said she was working as a guide meeting foreign businessmen when they came to London. G's da got even more depressed
about that, but G didn't know why. She seemed to have a lot of money.

About seven o' clock, Duff's mother came across the pitch looking for him. Duff just stood up and went. Just like that. He didn't even try and hide or anything. He heard her calling him and he said goodnight to the lads and left. They could here her in the field telling him his tea was ready and
where the hell was he all day. Then there was the sound of an ear being slapped but Duff didn't cry. G and Macker stayed a while longer until they heard the bootboys coming in the distance. There was a sort of unspoken rule that if you're only a kid, you left the football pitch after dark.
Then the bootboys came and if you were still around you were fucked. They were older most of them and had cider with them and sometimes girls, and that worked out better if you were caught because the girls would usually feel sorry for you and tell the bootboys to let you go. Which they did. Macker said that they only did that so they’d get a ride later.

When G heard the bootboys coming he wanted to run. He felt it in his gut, something telling him to run. He hated the bootboys and often dreamed of getting them. Sometimes he'd have nightmares where they'd get him instead and this would make his hatred grow. He'd lie awake some nights listening to them on the street outside shouting and he'd imagine one of them getting hit by a car. Any one of them, it didn't matter. The way he saw it, one less of them meant one less to watch out for when he was walking home in the
evenings. Because one of them kicked him in the head once when he was coming back from the shop. He was only in the new house about a month and his ma had sent him to get the messages. He was walking down the path when he
saw two of them coming towards him. One of them was a good few yards ahead of the other for some reason. The next thing, just as he passed G, he turned to his mate and told him to kick G in the head. G thought he was joking.
There was no reason to do it, anyway he was half their size. But he did it anyway.

As he walked past G he lifted his boot and kicked G in the head. He went dizzy for a second and fell on the path. It didn't hurt so much, but G's money and the messages flew out of his hand. He felt stupid. The bootboys just thought it was funny.

So when G heard the bootboys coming he wanted to go. Macker didn't. He told G that you can never let people scare you like that, stop you doing what you want to do. But Macker was older than G and he had brothers. G's sister loved him but she wasn't any good with the bootboys. So G decided he'd go.

Missed his mum and the fry. It wasn't his ma he wanted to run away from anyway, he told Macker. What was it, Macker had asked. But G didn't know at the time. Neither did Macker. They just knew that everyone did it.

^

Biography

Educated in UCD and Maynooth struggling through a Master's in Philosophy and a BA in English. Then went to live in Poland for a five year stint beginning as a teacher with APSO and finishing up as a journalist for The Warsaw
Voice and Poland's Radio Five. During that time I wrote 'Gabriel's Gate' (from which the extract was taken) and began a non-fiction work about Poland which is almost completed. I currently work as the staff writer for In Dublin and, though happy with my work there, am about to murder a publisher or an agent for the rejection slips that I have received for my attempts at getting my books into print. Tom can be contacted at tgalvin@hoson.com