The Gamal Read online

  CONTENTS

  Once Upon A Time

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  Acknowledgements

  A Note on the Author

  Once Upon A Time

  Once upon a time and a long time ago. Well not that long. 5 years. Long enough. 1/5 of my life isn’t it? That means I’m twenty-five now, in case you’re thick at sums. There were two lovers called Sinéad and James. One sec now. Just to clarify a few things here from the start.

  Reading Shit

  Don’t be expecting any big flowery longwinded poetic picturesque horseshit passages in this book explaining the look of something. If I have to go into that much detail I’ll take a photograph or draw a picture. This is for people like myself who hate reading. I always hated reading and never bothered with books even though I knew I would have no imagination if I didn’t read a lot as a child. I listened to music or sometimes I watched telly with my father. You didn’t have to use your imagination but I didn’t care. Charlotte’s Web and Enid Blyton and the whole lot were only a load of bollicks as far as I was concerned. One time when my teacher was helping me with my spellings she got me to say over and over and over and over again, the letters C O L D C O L D C O L D C O L D C O L D. Then she asked me what does that spell and I said, ‘Tractor,’ and the whole class were laughing at me. And I asked her what were they laughing at and she said, ‘They’re laughing at you.’ And I said ‘Why?’ And she goes, ‘You’re even too silly to know why they’re laughing at you.’ I just nodded and sat down. I knew she wouldn’t call me back. I was a hopeless case. Pray to St Jude, patron saint of hopeless cases. Had we anything better to be doing anyway only reading shit? That’s what I said to her then when I sat down. The whole class laughing and giggling and shaking their heads and Mrs Fatty Fitzhenry sending me down to the master and I can’t remember the rest. Lines I suppose. Fifty lines and a letter home that the mother couldn’t read.

  Mrs Fatty Fitzhenry used to be the whole time at me to leave Sinéad alone and not to be following her around the place but I wasn’t. Fat bitch.

  Anyhow that was me when I was small and this is me now. I’m not old but I’m older than I was then and I’m after making it out of a scrape or two and I’m still in one piece.

  I became obsessed with her as well, I’m told. This shrink I saw lately. Dr Quinn does be sending me to other shrinks too. Dr Quinn is my main fella. But this fella was telling me that people with personality disorders often grow obsessed with people they encounter in their lives. But he never knew Sinéad. Everyone who ever knew Sinéad became a bit obsessed with her. Young and old. And not just men. Women too. The women were talking wherever she went. Like a bell that is rung or a wonder told shyly. I robbed that last bit from some ancient poet fella. Old Master Higgins taught us it. The men who had seen her drank deep and were silent. Few in the candlelight thought her too proud. For the house of the planter is known by the tree. When night stirred at sea and fire brought a crowd in. They say that her beauty was like music in mouth.

  One Thousand Words

  One thousand words, that’s my aim aim aim. I was told by Dr Quinn that fellas who want to be writers should write one thousand words a day day day day day day day. Imagine if all the world loved reading telephone books. I could just write a telephone book. A fictional telephone book full of made-up people. Six hundred and twenty-six words so far. Now it’s six hundred and thirty-three. I could finish my thousand words by going on like that.

  Another Thing

  Another thing is that you won’t like me. I promise. I would have explained this in the first line but I wanted you to buy the book. And I reckon a lot of you bookworm types wouldn’t have the balls to take it back to the shop and the chances are you’ll probably just read it anyway seeing as you’re after buying it. Anyhow, sorry and all that shit, but I need the money cos I want to get out of here after all the things that happened. When they get me well. You see I got something in the post one time off Sinéad. It was a map of America. On it she was after writing.

  —Just follow the music Charlie. You’ll find us there. Love, Sinéad. And Charlie, thank you.

  You won’t like me. Mainly because you know I don’t care whether you like me or not, and people don’t like that do they? They might say they do but they don’t. Saying means nothing cos it could just as well be lies. I will tell the truth at all times. A lot of people around here won’t like that either. So read on and don’t be needing to like me like you would with all them other lick-arse books. I’m no lick-arse. I says it like it is. And like it was.

  A Good Area

  I live in a very good area. When I’d be working in Cork before everything and they’d ask me where I’m from and I’d say Ballyronan they’d say,

  —Oh very nice, or

  —Nice area down there, pay a fair penny for a house down there nowadays, or

  —Ballyronan? No. Never heard of it.

  Not the kind of place you expect people to be getting killed anyhow.

  Here’s a map of it. My house is up the hill. Up the bottom right corner of the map. Up past the Catholic church. I got sick of colouring in bits with my biro. It’s not finished but I think it’s finished enough.

  Under the Bridge

  There was a body found once under the bridge.

  The Bridge

  This is a picture of the bridge.

  Under The Bridge

  This is a picture of under the bridge.

  There wasn’t as much water though cos it was summer when it happened and I took the picture in the winter cos today is in the wintertime.

  Read Another Book

  I know you’d probably prefer a few pages painting the picture with words but you can read another book if you want to. There it is there. Look at it. That’s where I seen.

  Roads

  I can go from the back of my house to down under the bridge by going out the back of my back garden and climbing a fence and walking down behind the new houses and through the north woods all the way down to the other side of the football pitch right down to the river and along the bank to the bridge. When the river’s low I can go through the archways of the bridge to the other side. I can cross the bridge without touching the bridge. I go under it. Mostly I don’t bother with roads cos they’re shit so I let all the rest of people be following each other on the roads like fools and I go my own way. I go through fields and ditches and dikes. I go through back yards, under bridges, along river banks, through wasteland. I know short cuts. Over walls. Through briars and wires. Through a scrap yard. No. Two scrap yards. And two quarries as well. And one of them has a fierce big cliff. I go over outhouses. And in behind places. Where there’s no clean paintwork or flower pots. No frilly blinds or net curtains. Clothes lines and rusty gas drums and mossy stones instead. Places where rats scamper and tomcats pace. But mostly it’s fields. Fields and woods mostly. I seen badgers and owls and hedgehogs and hares and stoats and rabbits and pheasants and shrews and mice and squirrels and frogs and crows and rats and things that live under barrels and old tractor tyres and old carpets and damp smelly sofas like woodlice and slugs and snails and beatles. And ants if it’s on concrete. And I never gave a fuck about them much. Any of them. But sometimes I might see a person and I’d watch them for a bit all right if they weren’t after seeing me. One time I watched an old farmer for four hours. He used to nod to himself every now and again like he was agreeing with himself. People are definitely the best to be looking at. Except
for when I see a kingfisher down by the river. They’re my favourite cos they stand out and they’re not trying to hide and blend in same as every other living thing. Brave they are. Kingfishers don’t give a fuck. Anyhow, first thing my mam ever does when she sees me is look at my shoes to see is there shit all over them from the fields and the woods. At home or at Mass or in the shop or in someone’s house she does be terrified I’ll disgrace her by destroying some grand clean floor.

  Read this too. It’s about a thing called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

  PTSD

  PTSD is not diagnosed unless the symptoms last for at least one month. The symptoms are severe and interfere with normal social functioning. A person with PTSD will have the following types of symptoms:

  Re-experiencing Symptoms

  Re-experiencing symptoms involve reliving the traumatic event. Memories of the traumatic event can return unexpectedly or can be triggered by a distinct reminder such as when a combat veteran hears a car backfire. This can cause a ‘flashback’ where the patient reacts emotionally and physically in a similar way that he/she did during the original trauma.

  Arousal Symptoms

  Patients will have increased emotional arousal (hyperarousal), and it can cause difficulty sleeping, outbursts of anger or irritability, and difficulty concentrating. They may find that they are constantly ‘on guard’, alert and on the lookout for signs of danger. They are often easily startled.

  Avoidance

  The hyperarousal and the re-experiencing symptoms become so distressing that the patient strives to avoid contact with everything and everyone which may arouse memories of the trauma. The patient isolates themselves and can experience so-called emotional detachment (‘numbing’).

  Dissociation

  Dissociation may arise from feelings of depersonalisation and detachment, where there is a disconnection between memory and effect. The patient will appear to be ‘in another world’. In severe forms this can involve ‘losing time’, where a patient may have no recollection of his/her actions. This ‘losing time’ may involve multiple personalities or may be a result of emotional detachment or ‘numbing’.

  That’s a cut and paste job from the internet. I was diagnosed with PTSD. But I think Sinéad might have had it too only no one ever bothered to notice. Maybe everyone has it a bit after shit happens to them. Reminded me of Old Master Higgins saying that the people of Ireland got an awful shock. Sometimes people just kind of go autopilot isn’t it? Old Master Higgins got fired cos he cursed in class. I was there when he did it. Some poor child asked him why Queen Elizabeth banned the harp long ago and he went on a drunken rant cursing and blinding for five minutes. I wasn’t there when they buried him about four months ago. I was probably the only one in the whole parish not at the funeral but I couldn’t go cos I wasn’t well and even if they asked if I wanted to go they wouldn’t have got an answer.

  But I’m getting better now. I’m probably better now than I ever was. I’ve done away with some of my daft old ways. Like I don’t sleep upside down any more. Before the stuff that happened I used to listen to music the whole time. Well not the whole time. But nearly the whole time. Except when I was hanging around with Sinéad and James. But usually we were listening to music anyway. If they weren’t making it. After the bad stuff I became kind of sick. I didn’t do nothing for two years. I was awake but I was in a coma. I used to always be sleeping upside down on the bed before though. My head used to be where your feet are supposed to be. You see my stereo was down the end of the bed cos there was no room for it any place else. So I slept upside down. I’d them long earphones and the music could reach my ears if I was lying upside down on the bed. That way I could always listen to my music loud as I liked even when the mother and father were asleep. I’d listen to Sinéad too. Tapes of her.

  But I don’t listen to music now any more. And my concentration is better now too. If you were talking away to me now with your normal boring everyday shit I’d probably be able to listen to you and my mind wouldn’t be gone off thinking about Sinéad or some tune or Sinéad singing the tune or just the look of her.

  The door next to my bedroom is the door of the spare room. It has a hole in it the shape of my foot cos my father thought he could get me out of the bed if he played some music that I used to listen to in the spare room. The father has cardboard covering the hole in the door now. Stuck on with duct tape. He must think that looks better than the hole. Anyhow that was the end of my father’s stupid schemes and I went back to bed for another twelve months or more.

  But that’s the father to a fucking tee. Thinks he knows everything just cos he has a head full of correct answers. Quizzes and questions and rivers and wars. We used to watch Quiz Time on the telly together the whole time and I small.

  —What is the capital of Portugal?

  —Don’t give a fuck, says I.

  —Lisbon, says the father.

  —In which year was the Treaty of Versailles signed?

  —Don’t give a fuck, says I.

  —1919, says the father.

  Read This Too

  In children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), there is a distinct pattern of uncooperative and defiant behavior toward figures of authority. The conduct disorder seriously interferes with normal day to day functioning.

  The child should be seen by a child psychiatrist who can evaluate the child’s behavior. Along with a diagnosis the psychiatrist will work with school professionals and others to have specific educational tests done to clarify if a learning disability exists and to design a more appropriate educational programme for the child. Medication may be prescribed for hyperactivity or distractibility.

  Oppositional Defiant Disorder

  The disorder is seen in children below the age of 10 years. While there is an absence of severe aggressive, violent or dangerous acts against others, continuous disobedient, provocative and defiant behavior toward authority figures will be present.

  Diagnostic Guidelines

  The essential feature of this disorder is a pattern of persistently negativistic, hostile, defiant, provocative, and disruptive behavior, which is clearly outside sociocultural norms. Social, occupational and educational functioning will be impaired.

  Diagnostic Criteria

  A period of six months or more, during which four (or more) of the following are present:

  often deliberately annoys people

  often loses temper

  often actively defies adults’ requests

  often ignores rules

  often blames others for his or her misbehavior

  is often hypersensitive

  is often vindictive

  is often easily annoyed by others

  often argues with adults and shows resentment toward them

  is often angry

  Two hundred and thirty-two words, ha? How do you like that cabbage? That’s the bones of a day’s work nearly. Just like that. Magic. I like the internet. ’Tisn’t total dossing either like, so don’t be getting all thick, cos it’s important for the story so you better have read it. If you didn’t go back and do it now and stop being so lazy.

  Everyone wants to be part of the gang. I couldn’t give a flying fuck about no gang. My father said what’s wrong with me is that even as a small child I never wanted to be liked. He said it was a serious fuck-up and the root cause of my trouble. He said there’s a part of the brain that makes people want to be liked but that that part of my brain was fucked. Says he noticed it first when I was about two. See when people are very very small. Say, between the ages of nought and one. People don’t have to be nice. Or make an effort to be liked if they want things. They just have to cry. And then they get fed, or get changed, or get more clothes put on them or get people to shut up around the house so they can sleep. Then you see when people are about two they have to learn to be part of the gang. They can’t just cry for what they want any more. But they automatically learn how to get what they want. By being nice. Doing as y
ou’re told. You see people all want stuff. The little baby wants milk so he automatically cries. Without even having to think about it I suppose.

  You come to realise that all this crying business that you’re so good at won’t get you so far any more. You realise that your mammy and daddy aren’t going to be slaves for you for ever. That you’ll have to start doing things for yourself. But it’s not so bad because we are made in such a way that we begin to be able to do things for ourselves at just the right time. So your hands are starting to get handy enough so that you can spoon-feed yourself. And soon you learn to hold your bottom so that mammy or daddy won’t have to be changing your nappy all the time. Of course all this goes on unknown to yourself. It’s automatic. And you also learn that to get things for yourself you have to start behaving in a way mammy and daddy will like. And in a way that everyone will like. You can’t be kicking your mammy or biting people. You have to be a good little boy in order to get what you want. Start saying, ‘Yes please’, and ‘No thanks’. Start saying, ‘Sorry’, before you get the sweets.

  This is where my father first noticed the difficulty with me. I was such a terrible two-year-old my mammy and daddy brought me to the doctor who hadn’t seen anything like it before. I refused to do anything for myself and cried the whole time. The more they tried to bribe me into being good with sweets and toys and affection and approval, the more I cried. Then they tried not doing anything for me to see would I start being good and stop biting people and breaking things and screaming and roaring and crying. They stopped giving me food. They tempted me to be good. If I behaved for a little while they’d give me food. I wouldn’t behave and went throwing things. Then they gave me food in case I’d starve and I threw it at them. We all used to go to sleep together then and I’d cry myself to sleep while they’d cuddle me and pamper me. I loved my mammy and daddy but I couldn’t believe they wanted me to be good. I think I must have been very disappointed at that time.