Free Dead Dogs by Joe Murphy Page A

his Ma and Da and his big brother, Davey. He lives in one of these old redbrick Edwardian houses. It’s not his. His Ma and Da rent the third floor. Most of these old buildings have been chopped into segments like this. They stand along the road, rising from their little gardens. They are uniform as photocopies except that their doors are painted different colours beneath their different fanlights. Blue, yellow, green or red, they are sunk into the rust-coloured fronts of the buildings and beside each door is the grey box of a buzzer/intercom. I like these old houses. Some of their apartments are even shittier than my house.
    Council Houses: Come for the space; stay for the lung infections.
    Rory lives a few houses down from the old Courthouse more or less across from the Clinic and down the road from O’Leary’s pub. The path along the road is always splatted with thick ropes of last night’s puke and the Clinic’s ground floor windows are always broken. This doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a bad place to live.
    What makes Rory’s house a bad place to live is that a couple of weeks ago the guards break into the house’s first-floor apartment. What they find is the mother of this bizarre immigrant family that lives there sitting in an armchair with her head and hands cut off. There’s no sign of her husband or her children. This is plastered all over the news and the papers and Rory and his family and everyone within a half-mile radius are asked about a million questions by the guards. Rory hasn’t heard a thing so he tells the guards he hasn’t heard a thing. The upshot of all this is that nobody wants to live in the house except Rory and his family. Every day they tramp up the stairs and pass that locked door with the garda tape still making a big white and blue fluorescent X against the panels. Since nobody lives in the house except Rory’s family, his big brother is forever throwing parties. Nobody who goes to them is put off by the garda tape and there is nobody left to complain about the noise.
    It’s dark and there’s rain falling. The rain slants across the waspy orange of the streetlights and makes harp strings against the night. I’m wearing a jacket with the collar pulled up but evenlike this there’s water running off my hair and down the neck of my shirt. Underneath the arches of the bridge the river is roaring and is pouring dirty white froth over the little step in the channel. A bag of cans is straining downwards from my hand and the plastic is beaded and running with rain. My jeans are a soaking navy and the bag bounces against my leg, rattling and shedding fat drops.
    I’m this wet because I’ve walked from town down the Twenty-One Steps and then down across the river. This is a short walk in the sunlight but on a rainy night it feels like a marathon. I’m walking because I can’t afford a taxi and I’m watching people who can afford taxis cruise past and I’m getting wetter and wetter. Water drips from my fringe and into my eyes and I sneeze. I am catching my death.
    The headlights of the passing cars are wet-reflected and the streetlamps are suspended embers. There are three steps up to Rory’s front door and in the rain they’re a miniature waterfall. The buzzer beside the door is picked out in orange highlights. The dead woman’s apartment has its buzzer blacked out. I’m standing in the rain and now I’m pressing Rory’s buzzer and now I’m stepping back and now I’m looking up. Raindrops are hitting me in the face and are crawling down my cheeks.
    The whole building is dark except for the top floor. Its windows are bright and they frame sets of cheap net curtains. Then one of the windows is opening and now Rory’s leaning into the streetlight and he shouts, ‘Catch!’
    Next thing a big bunch of keys comes tumbling and chimingdown through the rain. I’m standing here waiting for the keys to fall and I’m wondering how did Rory recognise me from up there in the