Free Young Skins by Colin Barrett Page B

the takeaway, hoping he’d stop. Then Tansey started out with these karate moves, firing the legs out and chop sockying the air, which brought up further cheers. He was moving fair graceful for a man as scuttered as he was. And then he stops, a tacky sling of spit flapping from his chin. He wipes the spit and says to the boys, ‘I’m taking the head, THE HEAD, off the next cunt comes through that door,’ and points at the entrance, a good six feet away from the edge of the tabletop he’s prancing on. Another cheer at Tansey’s declaration, though this time only from his boys. And for a while that was that, there was this little spell, thirty seconds, where everything got quiet, even Tansey seemed to be winding down. He’d gone into a squat and was sharing a private chuckle with one of his boys when the doorbell jingles, the jingle letting everyone know there’s a body coming through, and I saw the shock of jet hair, the leather jacket and Bat’s battered runners. Not a chance to say nothing. Not that I believed, I suppose, that Tansey was actually going to follow through on his boast; shite talk and no follow through, I had it diagnosed. But the bell jingles, and in steps Bat, oblivious that he was the next cunt, elected by fate, and without a hesitation, without even stopping to see who he was going for, Tansey up and leapt. It was some fuck of a leap, credit to the lad, his leg straight as a rod leading his body, clearing that six feet and stoving slap bang into the side of Bat’s head. Cleanest connect of a jaw you’ll ever see, Bat sent flying like a rag doll. Spun and flung. He smacked the wall and bounced back up off the floor and then down again in a buckled heap. And Tansey—Tansey landed perfectly on his feet. Some young wan had let out a scream but now there was no noise except for Tansey’s breathing. His eyes were lit, in a marvel at what he’d done. No noise but the air heaving in and out of him, and Bat facedown in a sprawl of hair and blood. Every last cunt there must’ve thought he was dead. I did.’
    ‘Nubbin Tansey,’ Tain says. ‘I don’t know him.’
    ‘You wouldn’t,’ Minion says. He was actually inspecting his nails now. ‘He’s dead. Been dead three years.’
    ‘How’d he die?’
    ‘Rigged a rope round the crossbeam in his folks’ shed and—’ Minion takes his feet up off the floor. He hitches each shoe into the bottom rung of his stool and leans forward until the stool tips over. He fires out the feet to land standing, twists and catches the stool before it clatters to the ground.
    ‘Jeez,’ Tain said. She has placed the silver parcel flat on the counter and is now steadily picking away at a bit of sellotape on the wrapping.
    ‘No, no,’ Minion insists. ‘None of that. Tansey—he was one of those ones with nothing good in him. He was a fucking headcase. Paranoid, devious, a temper he couldn’t turn down. Would kick the shit out of you at the drop of a hat—and I mean you . The mother of his kid wouldn’t let him see the baby—he beat her to a pulp, cracked a bottle over her skull. He was one of them couldn’t stand being in his own skin, and couldn’t stand the rest of us neither.’
    Tain takes a sip of her vodka and lime.
    ‘Saddening?’ Luke Minion says.
    Tain bunches her lips together, shakes her head.
    ‘Did Bat not get the guards on him?’
    ‘The mother wanted to, and half the Minion clan wanted to kill the lad, they were just waiting on Bat’s say-so. But Bat never said nothing, didn’t even press charges. Tansey was one of them ones in and out of the county court every other day anyway—another stint wouldn’t have bothered him. There was a manner of settlement—the Tanseys footed the bill for the surgery Bat had to have after. But that was it, as far as retribution went, on Bat’s side. You’re his friend, aren’t you?’
    ‘Yes,’ Tain says.
    ‘You know him, then. I used to pick on him a lot when we were kids. We all did. And if I