But Anyway

McAlpine´s Yard

 

"Joby is a wee bastard, but he is a good wee bastard", insisted Mrs. Neeson. She had overheard some women in the neighborhood shop complaining about my exuberance and my propensity for a bit of mischief, and stepped in with the assertion, "Leave him alone. He's just a kid." Now, I wasn't a bad kid, and with so many brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles around my estate, I knew they would put me in my place if I was causing any real trouble.

 

It was the summer of 1972, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. School was out for holidays, and despite the escalating sectarian violence known as The Troubles, my days were filled with infinite bliss. I was lost in a constant daydream, but I knew there was something wrong as the British Army were on the streets. Explosions rocked central Belfast, and sporadic gun shots could be heard most nights. There was always something burning, and fear seemed to linger on every corner.

 

It hadn't made much sense of it yet, as I was only nine years old. I stayed within my area, instinctively knowing not to run. My friends were my world, and while daytime was full of magic and wonder, the nights were dark and dangerous. Sometimes when it was getting late, I would be summoned back by the distinct call from the mothership. "Joe!" "Joe!" she would call in an over-polite way. My friends thought it was hilarious. 

 

Our area straddled the only main motorway into Belfast. Our estate, Riverdale, was built for police and ex-army personnel, but there were no more police or ex-army personnel living in Riverdale these days. They were considered legitimate targets in the IRA campaign to rid Ireland of British rule. Once pristine and orderly, the houses were now beginning to bear the scars of the recent conflict.

 

The houses were dull and lifeless, and many had curtains hanging limply on the windows. The once vibrant colors, now faded, only served as a constant reminder of the turmoil that plagued our streets. And the grownups, the grownups carried the heavy burden of the conflict. Their conversations were often hushed and filled with anxious tones. They tried to create a sense of normality for the children. Every day the streets echoed with the sounds of our laughter and joy as we played until sunset.

 

To that end, me and my mates had found the most incredible place to play through a hole in the fence in a place called McAlpine's.  McAlpine's sat right bang in the middle of our estate, houses on one end, the motorway on the other end, and a little river that ran along the back of the houses. The front entrance for  McAlpine's  faced out to the main road called Finaghy Road. It had served as a store and a supplier for the major construction company before it had been firebombed by the IRA.

 

They had made a good job of it. There were none of the outbuildings standing bar one. Most of the space was now filled with burnt or half burnt out vehicles. These were cars and lorries that had recently been hijacked for putting up barricades, or were dumped there opportunistically by someone who was trying to get rid of their old scrap car.

 

It was a maze of wonderment for us all. We were, of course, not meant to be there, but the smell of smoke was a dead giveaway. When my mum and dad would ask, "Have you been to McAlpine's?" Of course we would say, "No, we were only playing Hide-and-Seek along the nearby river."

 

Our little gang was a loose collection of nine to 13-year-old searchers. Peter Martin, my cousin, Badger, Chink, Herby, and others. Searchers was the best description for us, as we were always hoaking or rummaging around in some old car, fiddling with an oily mechanism or a car dashboard, or whatever intrigued us.

 

We were amazed by Herby, our default leader, by virtue of being the tallest and the smartest, got a light bulb going on a simple circuit from an old car. "Next step, Mars" we thought. Everything was fine. We were too young, and we were having too much fun to worry about The Troubles. It all seemed normal to us. One blistering Summer's day while doing our usual thing, hoaking in McAlpine's, and with the barricades recently cleared from the streets, the cars and the lorries were now stacked two to three high.

 

There was a labyrinth of pathways now forming, and we were happily working our way through the intricate layout. The cars were in some cases just too hot to touch, but we managed to get inside an old Rover car, which had beautiful leather seats but smelled almost unbearably musty. We were happy. We were fiddling. We were fooling around when suddenly a loud, rapid burst of automatic fire rang out, echoing through the metal bodies of the cars.

 

"Fuck, what's that? That's shooting," said Herby. "Fuck, and it's right close by. Fuck!" We quickly got out of the scrap car and stood in a close formation together. All our senses were engaged as we stood rooted in one place. Our eyes darted around our surroundings for the source of the gunfire. We were properly shitting ourselves. The abandoned cars seemed to suddenly loom taller now, and their long casting shadows added to the fear and trepidation of the moment.

 

I was conflicted whether I’d run or stay with the gang. When I was at home and there was shooting close or in the distance, my father would take all the family and stuff our heads below the window line in the corner of the sitting room, and he insisted that we stay there until he gave the word that everything was all clear. But this was a new experience for us all. If we made the wrong move now, it could be a costly one.

 

Herby was the one we looked to for the next move. "Right," said Herby, with a face that was seriously focused. "Hold the fort, and be very quiet." We heard feet coming towards us from the Finaghy Road end. There were at least two people running. We could hear them panting as they drew closer. "One more time," Herby whispered. "Shh. Quiet," as he put his index finger up to his lips.

 

Breathing heavy and moving at a heavy rate, two people passed us over in the next corridor of stacked cars, unaware that we were even there. They were so close that we could see them through the cracks of the old stacked cars. Breathing heavily, and moving at a steady rate, two people passed us over in the next corridor. One of them was a man carrying a small rifle. The little plastic baubles that were dangling from a cord attached to his clothing were swinging back and forth, hitting the metal cars as they passed by.

 

We all listened intently as the running and the panting faded away towards the Riverdale estate. We all drew a breath as we sensed that the danger had literally just passed us by. Only moments had passed, and they were gone. We had a choice now, head to the estate or go towards Finaghy Road where the shots were fired. "Come on," said Herby. We swiftly made our way through the maze of steel and emerged onto the main Finaghy Road through the open front gates. With no sense of danger at that point, what was done was done. 

 

Across from the gate, a narrow road led to a large factory with the words Autolite emblazoned in red letters on the gate. There was no one about but this car, which was sitting in the middle of the road stationary directly facing us. There was a man sitting in the driver's seat and a woman who was out of the passenger side door, and she was stumbling around like she'd lost something on the ground by the side of the car.

 

She was making a high-pitched wailing noise, and it was becoming clear that she was in serious distress. We approached like curious spectators of what was unfolding before us. I remember thinking, "There is something wrong, but what can we do? We're only kids." The woman just seemed to stumble around and around in circles, making an awful noise which didn't seem human. She was completely hysterical. 

 

By now, we had made it right up beside the car on the driver's side. We surveyed the situation. The windscreen had a couple of small holes through it. The driver's side window was open. In front of us sat a man who was eerily still. His eyes were frozen and wide open as he stared straight ahead.

 

Myself and Herby stuck our heads into the driver's side window, wondering, "What's wrong with this guy?" It hadn't just dawned on us that he was stone dead until we noticed three little holes in his chest. "There's no blood," I said. "Aye, but I wouldn't like to see his back. There's probably three big holes in it," said Herby.

 

With our heads still in the car and looking around our eyes adjusting, I made contact with another pair of eyes, the eyes of a woman sitting in the back seat. Like the driver, she was motionless and looking ahead, but she was alive. She was in shock. I imagined they were just sitting there, chatting away a couple of seconds before the shots rang out, and then suddenly the driver was shot dead instantly.

 

And the woman in the passenger seat, as it was becoming clear, was badly grazed by a bullet in the hip. It was a shocking situation for them. By now, a small amount of local women were beginning to approach with caution and sensitively trying to calm the injured woman down. "Come on. Come on, love," they said. "Just sit down over here," while they beckoned her to sit on a small wall which was close at hand.

 

"You're all right, love. You're all right. There's an ambulance on its way." No one had noticed the other woman in the back of the car yet. They’d only seen the driver, who was totally lifeless and sitting upright in the car with his hands perfectly placed upon his legs. The passenger door was left open, and a man approached from that end of the car. He was looking in at the driver when he noticed the lady in the back still staring, not moving a muscle.

 

She was transfixed and totally still. "Come on, love. Come home with me," he said as he led her by the hand, pushing the passenger’s seat up so that she could exit the vehicle. "Christ, this is crazy," I thought. The rest of the gang were mulling around, and instinctively staying well away from the car. The British Army was starting to appear now, albeit at a distance. All soldiers were trained not to walk into the line of fire, so they took up positions crouching behind walls and corners.

 

Although at one point a high ranking soldier did come forward, flanked by two or three ordinary soldiers. He took a look at the driver's body for a quick assessment, and  concluded what everybody else had concluded, that this man was indeed dead. Most of the commotion was happening around the two ladies at this stage, but Herby had just spotted something of interest to him, a potential bullet medallion.

 

It was becoming the must-have trinket to have a spent bullet or a bullet cartridge displaying around one's neck. Herby locked eyes on the little piece of lead bullet that had lodged in the main metal frame of the windscreen. The driver's door was aloft now, and it had created a little bit of cover for Herby to approach with the little lollipop stick that he'd found on the ground. He was determined that he was going to have that little piece of lead.

 

The scene was getting more chaotic, and it was totally surreal surveying all this commotion whilst trying to keep an eye out for Herby. I was pretty loyal to Herby, and even as a nine-year-old I knew what it meant to have someone's back. We both knew that there was only a quick opportunity to get this done. The rest of the lads were doing dick, keeping a watchful eye from a distance. I stood over Herby's left shoulder as I watched him trying to dislodge this piece of lead which was twisted into the metal.

 

I often thought, years later, about the fact that the driver was just sitting there on the left of us, dead. It was crazy. God love him. The bullet was fairly deep in the metal. Herby was mumbling and getting quite intense, throwing in the odd, "For fuck's sake." I was saying, "Come on, Herby. Let's go." He was getting too engrossed in it all. I knew it was only a matter of time before someone would see what we were doing. And just then, a car of plain-clothed police detectives pulled up into view.

 

We all knew, it was the police as they would have been the only car to get that close. In the front passenger side was a man whose face I will never forget. I saw his mouth moving and I was able to lip-read it as, "What the fuck is he doing?" as he fixed his gaze on Herby, who was too engrossed to notice. Everything seemed to happen in a split second. He was out of the car and making a beeline towards Herby.

 

"Herby, Herby!" I exclaimed. My fingers wrapped around the fabric of Herby's T-shirt as I tried to tug him away from the car. But my words caught in my throat as I instinctively began to retreat from the impending doom. I watched this man, whose hands were the size of tennis rackets, launch his right hand across Herby's unsuspecting ear. I don't think I've ever seen such a perfect delivery of a slap around the ear.

 

The police force had well and truly arrived. "Get the fuck away from that, you wee bastard," said the policeman, who was fucking livid with rage. Herby's face contorted in pain as his hand clutched onto his right ear as he backed off from the car doing a little dance. I could see his mouth open and close as if he was trying to scream, but no sound came out. I thought it was best just to leave him to it.

 

The rest of the police took control of the scene, telling people to clear off, all that sort of stuff. After a little while, we all congregated as we usually did for a post-analysis confab. Herby stood tall. His ears throbbing with stinging pain. "Fuck me," I said, "That must hurt. And look, it's twice the size of the other one." "No, it's grand," said Herby with a proud and non-defeatist expression. I can tell you right now, it wasn't grand. I could swear I could hear a musical B-flat coming from it. I remember then we all went about our business. We never really talked about it after that.