Free Dead Dogs by Joe Murphy Page B

dark? Not that it matters. The keys are falling at a velocity of thirty feet per second from a height of roughly forty feet. When they hit my cold, wet hand it hurts like someone’s hit it with a hammer but I don’t want to risk losing them in the dark so my sore hand spasms closed around them and their chiming goes dead.
    I eventually find the right key and the interior of Rory’s house is black dark except for the stairwell. I know there’s the ceramic nipple of an old-fashioned light switch sticking out from the wall by the door but I don’t use it. The light coming down the stairs is kind of hazy and weak but it’s enough to find your way up. Rory’s flat is on the top floor and first you’ve to climb to two landings. The stairs and landings are fleeced with grey carpet and on the first landing you’ve to walk past the blue and white fluorescent X of crime scene tape. I don’t look at it.
    The door to Rory’s flat is open a crack. Out of it comes a yelping overlay of conversation. It sounds like a dog kennel. You climb the grey stairs which you don’t pay attention to and you go past the garda tape which you make sure you don’t pay attention to and now you’re at this half-open door. It’s a gap into someplace warm and vital. So what do you do? I stand there for a moment listening to the noise of conversation and I drip quietly, a soft patpatpat onto the carpet.
    Then someone goes, ‘Would you come in for fuck’s sake. You’re letting in a draught.’
    How do you refuse an invitation like that?
    I’m pushing open the door and then I’m through into Rory’s flat and I’m shutting the door behind me. The place is thick with warmth but I’m shivering because the water that’s soaked into me is like ice in this atmosphere. Now I’m dropping the bag of cans and now I’m massaging some life back into my rainslicked fingers . Then I’m sneezing. I’ve definitely caught something.
    Rory’s house is pretty big. It consists of a sitting room/kitchen and three bedrooms. I’m standing in the sitting room/kitchen and as far as the eye can see the floor is a bristle of candles. Each one is lit and each bouquet of wax is crowned with a blossom of fire. This explains the heat. What explains the thick, acrid smell of hash is the fact that all twelve people in the room are well on the road to being stoned. They sit or stand in twos or threes and they’re all engaged in guffawing conversation. Four guitars are leaning against one wall. Because anyone can play guitar.
    Rory comes from around the jutting wall that divides the smoky humidity of the sitting room from the smoky humidity of the kitchen. I’m standing like a drowning man held upright by rigor mortis and Rory goes, ‘Jaysus, is it raining?’
    I go, ‘This is sweat.’
    Now Rory’s coming towards me carrying a can in one hand and a sausage sandwich in the other. Brown sauce is leaking between his fingers in fat tongues. Brown sauce is making a ring around his mouth and he’s saying, ‘Ah you’re a funny fucker. Grab a can or something and sit down, you’re making the place look untidy.’ Then he’s taking a bite from his sandwich and then he’swalking over to two lads trying to get a bong going in a corner. I’m standing there with my jacket soaked and heavy and my jeans glued to the scrawny knots of my knees. The brown carpet beneath my bag of cans is sodden and it is three shades too dark.
    I don’t know anyone here yet so I’m lifting the bag of cans and now I’m putting them into the fridge and now I’m coming back from the kitchen with a can of Dutchie in my hand. My hair and jeans are still saturated but my jacket is now off and hanging on a kitchen chair to dry. I’m still cold and shivering, though.
    There are three armchairs and a couch making an upholstered semicircle around a coffee table in the centre of the room. There’s a very very attractive girl sitting on the couch next to another not-so-attractive girl. I’m