Hunger Page #3

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Right.

Similar in many ways, Don, but life and

experience are focused up differently.

Do you understand me ?

I understand.

I have my belief and in all its simplicity,

that is the most powerful thing.

So what's your statement by dying ?

Just highlighting British intransigence, so f***ing what ?

The whole world knows what the Brits are like.

Good.

Aye. It is good.

And it has nothing to do with you.

The Brits have been f***ing up for centuries.

I can feel your hatred, Don.

Are you looking for martyrdom ?

No.

Are you sure?

Aye.

Because I've heard you eulogizing Wolf Tone,

McConnely, Mike Sweeney, all them men.

Don't talk thinking you're writing your

name in laurels for all them history books.

Oh, and you think that matters to me?

Aye, I know it does.

Well, you're wrong.

You say you're soldiers.

It's all about the freedom.

But you've got no appreciation

of a life, Bobby.

You no longer know what a life is, young man.

Four years living in these conditions, no one expects you to be normal.

There is nothing normal about you.

Right now the Republican

Movement has talked itself into a corner.

You and the IRA are standing right behind it looking into that corner. All that history.

All them dead men and women.

You're still saying nothing.

And your answer is to kill everything. You've blinded yourself.

And you're scared to stop it.

Afraid of living,

afraid to talk in peace,

So what would Ulster be if it wasn't turning itself to sh*t ?

And this situation here,

the future of the Republican Movement

is in the hands of you men,

who have lost all sense of reality.

You think your head's on right ?

Locked up here 24 hours a day in piss and sh*t...

and you are making decisions

that could see so many men die ?

Build a statue to Bobby Sands.

You're joking me !

Freedom Fighter ?

They are the men and women

working out there in the community

and that was you once upon a time, am I right ?

All that work you did in Twin Brook.

That is where we need you, Bobby.

And you know I'm right.

But I'm deluded.

You want me to answer that ?

They're beating your ball, here. You're playing into their hands. The strategy's in place.

Then stop it. Just say you'll stop.

You don't understand a thing.

You're in no shape to make this call.

It's done. It won't be stopped.

Then f*** it ! Life must mean nothing to you.

God's gonna punish me.

Well, if not just for the suicide, then he'd have to punish you for your stupidity.

Aye.

And you for your arrogance.

Because my life is a real life,

not some theological exercise,

some religious trick

that's got to f*** all to do with living.

Jesus Christ had a backbone,

but see them disciples, every disciple since ?

You're just jumping in and out of the rhetoric

and dead-end semantics.

You need the revolutionaries.

You need the cultural political soldier to give life a pulse...

to give life a direction.

This is stupid talk. You're deluded.

Aye. So you say.

And what's your wee son going to say ?

F*** off.

Doesn't that interest you ?

You're going to attack me with sentiment ?

Typical priest.

What's your heart saying, Bobby?

I thought you had me all figured out, Don.

What is it saying ? Tell me.

My life means everything to me.

Freedom means everything.

I know that you don't mean to mock me, Don.

So I just let all that pass.

This is one of those times when we've come to a pause.

It's a time to keep your beliefs pure.

I believe that a united Ireland is right and just.

Maybe it's impossible for a man like you to understand.

But having respect for my life,

a desire for freedom,

an unyielding love for that belief,

means I can see past any doubts I may have.

Putting my life on the line is not just the only thing I can do, Don.

It's the right thing.

This is why you called me here.

Needed a sounding board ?

Not 100% sure of yourself.

Endebting yourself, maybe ?

Aye.

Well, I'm only human.

And I've made it clear for you, then.

Man of the guidance, Don. Business of the soul.

You been to Gweedore, in Donegal ?

Aye.

I went there when I was 12.

Big cross-country race for the boys.

And we were all in the back of a minibus headed towards Derry one morning.

I mean, this is big time.

I mean, this is like international athletics for us

because we were racing against boys in the South

and we had this thing to do Belfast pride.

A few boys were Protestants

and the rest of us were Catholics.

It was a cross-community event

I suppose the good people

in the south think this is great stuff.

Let's get this wee team over from Belfast

and all that patronizing sh*t.

Anyway,

we went through the border.

The boys singing pop tunes and all...

But I'm just in the back of the bus looking out the window,

we're going through the mountains. You know, where Mount Errigal is in them ?

It's a beautiful sight, Don.

Donegal is the most place in Ireland, I reckon.

Aye.

Anyway,

when we arrived at Gweedore... what a place. There were about 200 boys there.

getting into their gear and limnering up.

The whole event is run by

Christian Brothers and they're

clipping young fellows around in the back of the ears,

basically trying to obtain some order.

Our team goes off for a wee jog, to stretch out the legs.

And we're surrounded by fields of barley.

And I dip down into a wee valley where there's a stream

and woods running through it.

The woods and the stream are

out of bounds so, naturally,

us Belfast boys had to go check it, right ?

The woods and the stream seemed like the Amazon to us.

As we come across, these young fellows from Cork...

there's some banter about our accents...

They could barely talk we couldn't understand what they were saying.

You get the idea that they are lording it over us...

Looking down on us, I'm sensing it anyway.

We run along...

and we come up with this idea to go down

to the stream and check it out for fish...

So we went to the river, Don...

stream, and there's half a foot of water there...

and a silver fish, but nothing substantial.

until one of our boys calls us further down.

Lying in the water is a wee foal...

four or five days old. he was all skin and bone, a gray color.

And it's got flakes of blood in his coat because

he's cut himself up really badly in the sharp rocks...

We were standing over him and you could see his back legs snapped...

He's breathing, he's alive, but just about.

So this big conversation gets started up between

the boys who suddenly reckon themselves the leaders...

and deliberating as what we should do.

Someone says drop a rock on his head,

but I'm looking in their faces and I can see

they are either scared stiff or clueless.

It's all bravado.

And this foal on the ground in real pain.

All this chitchat going on going nowhere.

Next thing, one of the priests sees us, sees the foal,

tells us not to move it and that we were done for...

We were really done for.

Group of boys will always get the blame for hurting a foal.

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