The Butcher Boy

But Sausage was right, there was no more hanging and a few weeks after that there we were all off again me and the sergeant in the back phut phut away off down the road to another house of a hundred windows. But this time there was no ho'ho h'hee they'll put manners on you here or any of that stuff, we just talked about ma and da and the old times in the town and when we said goodbye on the steps he said to me there's a lot of sad things in this world Francie and this is one of them.

Goodbye sergeant I said, right says Fabian and the bullnecks then they were gone off down the avenue in the patrol car and that was the last I seen of my old friend Sergeant Sausage.

They took my clothes the pair of fuckers nearly tore them off me come on come on they says. Then they gave me this white thing it tied at the back. What's this I says Emergency Ward Ten?

One of them gives me a dig in the ribs and says you needn't think you'll get away with that kind of lip here its not old women you're up against now Brady.

I know I says then I managed to get away from him: You don't fool me! I shouted. You're trying to trick me! You're going to put me into a mental hospital!

He got a bit red under the eyes and I could see him clenching the fist. Then I laughed: Its all right I said, its only a joke, for fuck's sake!

That was all a long time ago. Twenty or thirty or forty years ago, I don't know. I was on my own for a long time I did nothing only read the Beano and look out at the grass. Then they said to me; There's no sense in you being stuck up in that wing all on your own. I don't think you're going to take the humane killer to any of our patients are you?

Humane killer! I don't think Mrs Nugent would be too pleased to hear you calling it that, doc, I said. Oh now now he says that's all over you must forget all about that next week your solitary finishes how about that hmm? I felt like laughing in his face: How can your solitary finish? That's the best laugh yet.

But I didn't. I just said that's great and the next week he introduced me to all these bogmen making baskets and fat teddybears. Is there anything you want, says the doc. Yes, I said, the Beano Annual and a trumpet. There you are he says the next day. So now I have a trumpet and if you could see me I look just like da going round the place in my Al Capone coat. Sometimes they have sing songs in the hall and they ask me for a song. Go on!, they say, you're a powerful musicianor! You're the boy can sing then off I go and before long they're all at it, that's the stuff! The Butcher Boy by cripes!

You're all enjoying yourselves says the doctor yes I says, doing the bogman tango. Out with the backside, up with the nose.

One of them comes up to me one day I was hacking at the ice on the big puddle behind the kitchens and says what's going on here or what do you be at with this ice? I'm thinking what I'm going to do with the million billion trillion dollars I'm going to win, I says. So you're going to win a million billion trillion? he says. That's right, I said. Then he leans into me and whispers: Well if you'll take my advice you'll tell none of the bastards in here. They'll only fill you full of lies and let you down.

Oho! I says, don't you worry nobody's letting me down again!

Nor me either! he says, now you said it!

Then he said give me a bit of that stick there like a good man and the two of us started hacking away together beneath the orange sky. He told me what he was going to do when he won his money then I said it was time to go tracking in the mountains, so off we went, counting our footprints in the snow, him with his bony arse clicking and me with the tears streaming down my face.

About the author

PATRICK McCABE was born in 1955 in Ireland. He is the author of the highly acclaimed novel The Dead School and is also a playwright. He lives in Dublin with his wife and two daughters.