Micky cursed loudly and squinted through the morning glare to read the alarm clock that was obviously having trouble performing its one and only basic function. He threw off his duvet and jumped out of bed, his foot landing on a plastic wind-up toy penguin discarded on the floor. The penguin openly mocked him by tossing itself into a noisy backflip.
“Fuck!”
Micky cursed again, bending down to pick up the toy and throw it savagely against the wall. It shattered into a million pieces and Micky felt instantly guilty.
“Flynn!” he yelled, hopping over to his bedroom door and yanking it open. Treading more carefully to the bathroom opposite, he rubbed his eyes before coming face-to-face with himself in the mirror above the sink.
He looked like shit. No change there. The three hours of almost sleep he’d gotten obviously hadn’t done anything to improve on his disheveled appearance. He ran a hand over the stubble on his chin. He needed to shave but now didn’t have the time. Micky turned on the tap, dunked his head under the cold stream and squeezed paste onto his toothbrush.
“Flynn!” he shouted again, louder this time, before shoving the toothbrush into his gob and brushing vigorously. The minty taste did nothing for his dry mouth.
“Yes, Micky,” came a quiet little voice from the bathroom doorway.
Still holding the toothbrush between his lips, foam dripping out from the side of his mouth, Micky turned.
“We’re late,” he said, trying to suck the minty drool back up and stop it escaping from the corners.
“I’m dressed,” Flynn replied with a huge proud smile.
Flynn stood in the doorway, clutching another wind-up plastic toy. He kept spinning the thing around, setting off an ear-piercing buzz as it unwound at double speed. He appeared so small and fragile. More like a five-year-old than his actual eight years. He’d gotten dressed. Sort of. He’d managed to pull on his gray school trousers over his pajama bottoms and his army-green jumper clung inside out. No socks, and his mousy-brown curls stuck out from his head in all directions.
Micky’s heart melted a little at the sight.
“Well done, Flynn.” Micky finished brushing his teeth, spat down the plughole and cupped a handful of water into his mouth to rinse. Turning back to his brother, Micky then crouched in front of him. “But how about we try taking the pajamas off?”
Flynn looked down, waggling his toes, and back up at his big brother. “Why?” he asked, confused. “I put them back on later.”
Micky laughed. The kid had a point.
“Come on.” Micky took hold of Flynn’s hand to walk him back into the small box room. It had twin beds, pushed up against opposite sides. One had used to belong to Micky before he’d moved into the master bedroom.
“What time did you get up today?” Micky asked, dragging Flynn’s jumper over his head.
“Five five two,” Flynn replied.
He wound up the blasted plastic toy again and Micky breathed in deeply, preventing his immediate instinctive reaction to take the thing and smash it against the wall in comradeship with its penguin mate.
“That’s early,” Micky said, pulling off Flynn’s pajama top then rooting around in the drawer for his brother’s school polo shirt. He found it scrunched at the bottom and helped Flynn squirm into it while trying to smooth out the creases.
“For what?” Flynn asked, holding on to Micky’s shoulder as he knelt and stepped out of his trousers.
“Everything,” Micky replied with a yawn.
“Daddy didn’t say it was.”
Micky looked into Flynn’s blue eyes. The white starburst pattern within them gave him the feeling of being hypnotized. Micky blinked.
“Dad’s not here, Flynn,” Micky said slowly, standing to inspect his now school-uniform-clad little brother.
“Yes, he is.” Flynn smiled widely, his plastic toy buzzing in his hands.
Micky stared down at for a brief moment, then spun around and ran full pelt down the stairs and into the living room. The place was dark and dank, stinking of booze and fags with beer cans littering the floor.
Micky yanked open the curtains to witness the disgusting figure sprawled on the sofa. Tatty stonewashed denim jeans bagged around his knees and the T-shirt he wore, once white in color, was stained yellow with patches of Micky didn’t want to know what. His greasy, graying hair hung around his face like rats’ tails. He was snoring and every breath out from his wide-open mouth filled the room with a putrid stench.
Micky kicked at the arm dangling off the sofa. The man grumbled but didn’t move. Micky kicked him again, more fiercely. Opening one eye, the brute belched as he squinted through the glaring sunlight.
“Get the fuck out,” Micky demanded.
The laughter that followed made Micky’s skin crawl, along with the irritating scratching of fingernails across the man’s chest. The shirt rubbed against the curly dark hairs scattering his fat body and made the unbearable scraping of nails down a chalk board.
“Now,” Micky growled.
The grunted response wasn’t something Micky could decipher, nor did he care to. Micky watched with contempt as he rolled off the sofa and landed on the floor with a thump. Several beer cans crunched under his heavy frame and he rolled again to push up on to all fours. Grunting once more, he heaved himself to stand. He tripped on his own feet and clutched at the wall. Micky clenched his fists at the ready as the second loud belch blasted out and Micky had to turn away from the oncoming stink.
“Money,” he demanded, holding out a hand.
“Get fucked,” Micky spat back.
“Then I take his.”
He staggered over to the fireplace mantelpiece and made a grab for the handmade clay moneybox shaped like a car. Micky wrapped firm fingers around his wrist and squeezed tightly.
“Over my dead body.” Micky gritted his teeth. Clutching the wrist harder, he used his other hand to root around in the dirty jeans pocket and yanked out a key. Shaking his head, Micky shoved him away. “Now leave, before I fucking kill you.”
“Micky?” Flynn’s delicate little voice squeaked from the living room door. He clung to the plastic toy still in his hand, his eyes tightly shut.
Micky ran over, picked him up and settled him on his hip. For an eight-year-old, Flynn weighed no more than a couple of stone, his body skin and bones. It wasn’t his fault. It was the condition. Flynn rested his head on Micky’s shoulder, wrapping his arms around his big brother’s neck, still clamping his eyes shut.
“It’s okay, Flynn. Dad’s leaving now.”
Hard Time #2
Temper, Temper
“Fuck off!”
The large gray metal door clanged against the impact of the fight breaking behind it. Some stoner being sent to the next cell along for drunk and disorderly wasn’t having any of it. The cops always won in the end—why struggle? That was Micky’s philosophy, anyway. He’d be saving his energy for the interview room. That was where he could make his case. That was where he could convince them that they had made the error, not him.
“Get fucked, pigs!”
Micky heard the hacking of glob that was then spat at either the floor or, more likely, in the face of one of the coppers who was trying to detain the speaker of the colorful language. Micky lay on the hard wooden bench, staring up at the bare ceiling, and tapped his fingers on his chest. The cell smelt of urine, rotting paint and bleach. Gradually the intoxicated grunts and frustrated banging drifting through his four walls faded to distant echoes.
Micky closed his eyes and recited passages from Brave New World in his head, occasionally allowing the words to fall from his mouth. He might as well do something constructive with all his alone time. The confines of the plain box he was in were specifically designed to make its occupants bored enough to do nothing but contemplate their actions, so when the coppers finally came to take a statement, the tedium had already made the detainee halfway ready to confess. Micky came up with a rather good answer to that third exam question and it didn’t start with fuck you for a change.
A loud bang from the next cell along jolted him out of his brief reverie and he opened his eyes to remember where he was. He swung his legs off the bench and immediately jumped onto the floor, where he landed on his hands and did some press-ups. After a while, his breathing labored with the invigorating stretch and burn in his shoulders and beads of sweat dripped onto the concrete floor. He didn’t give up. Extra bulk would do him no harm where he was headed.
One hundred reps later, the clunking of the locks and the heavy door scraping open to echo around the now deathly quiet cell block made Micky peer up at the incoming uniformed police officer. Micky added a few more reps, nonetheless.
“Micky O’Neill, the sarge will see you now.”
Micky hefted up from the floor, wiped the dust from his jeans and narrowed his eyes. “Where’s my brother?”
The officer shrugged and gripped Micky’s arm to steer him out of the cell.
“I’m not privy to that sort of information,” he replied, eyes ahead while marching Micky through the gloomy gray corridors. “And if I was,” he added, puffing out his chest, “I wouldn’t be authorized to divulge it to you.”
Micky rolled his eyes and added a few choice curse words under his breath. It was actually a rather mild reaction compared to the one he would normally have offered in this situation. The man ought to thank his lucky stars that Micky O’Neill had tamed his temper in the last couple of years.
Reaching an open door leading into a plain interview room, the officer released his fingers from digging into Micky’s clenched biceps and shoved him inside. A plain-clothed middle-aged man decorated by a lanyard hanging from his neck stood from his plastic seat at the table. He waved a hand at the adjacent chair with no accompanying words.
“Where’s my brother?” Micky asked again.
“Sit, Mr. O’Neill,” the pin-striped-suit-wearing man ordered, wiping a hand down his navy silk tie. “I’m Sergeant Leary.”
Micky scraped back the chair opposite and sat.
“Where’s my brother?” Micky licked his lips. “That’s my third time asking.”
The sneer of a chuckle that came from the sergeant made Micky clench his fists out of view under the table.
“Where you last left him,” Leary stated with a smile. “Micky.” The sergeant sighed and shuffled his chair under the table more firmly. “Your brother is safer now than when he was in your or your father’s care. Now, would you like a lawyer present?”
Micky shook his head.
“Thought not.” Leary waved a flippant hand.
Micky tapped his fingers against his thighs and glanced away. He took in his surroundings while Leary riffled through the papers scattering his desk.
“Right,” Leary continued and looked up across the table. “You breached your court order by assaulting a Mr. Carmichael in plain view of…” He flipped over a page and scanned the papers. “Well, well, well,” he tutted and raised his eyebrows. “Your brother’s school, no less.”
Micky glared back, unflinchingly.
“So you’ve been fighting again?” the sergeant declared.
“I didn’t hit him,” Micky stated. “And where is my brother?”
Leary rocked in his chair, balancing it on two legs rather than four, and folded his arms. It made the red pen poking out of his shirt’s top pocket push up farther and Micky thought it might fall out at any moment. He chose to focus on the pen rather than the piercing dark eyes of Heathwood Constabulary’s finest.
“I have reason to believe that you did, in fact, punch Mr. Carmichael.”
“No, I didn’t,” Micky replied and tucked his hands under their opposite armpits, mimicking the police sergeant. It was a sure-fire way to make the man with his rather annoying trimmed goatee beard uncomfortable.
“We have witnesses,” Sergeant Leary challenged. He scraped his teeth over his bottom lip with a tsk and waved a flippant hand. “You were seen, in other words.”
“Thank you for the clarification on what a witness is,” Micky replied. “And, either they are lying or you are.” Micky cocked his head. “Which one is it, Sergeant?”
Leary slapped his chair back onto four legs and picked up the pen lying on the desk. Scanning through his notes, he flicked the pen’s tip on the papers. The tapping as it hit the surface was the only sound in the room other than Micky’s increased breathing.
“Do you mind?” Micky grimaced and flicked out a finger to point at the pen. “That’s annoying.”
Sergeant Leary met with Micky’s insolent smirk and amplified his tapping. Micky clucked his tongue.
“I want to exercise my right to one phone call,” he stated.
“You’ve been watching one too many cop shows, Mr O’Neill,” Leary contested, lifting his eyebrows. “We can inform someone of your temporary detainment.” Leary cocked his head. “If we see fit. Surely you know the drill by now?”
Micky glared across the table without a flicker of anything other than pure lethargy. Leary threw his pen onto the surface, shuffled back in his seat and scrubbed a hand over his face.
“Who would you call, anyway?” he asked, plucking at the hairs on his goatee.
“You don’t have the right to know that,” Micky sneered.
Sergeant Leary smiled, amusedly. He lifted his hips from the chair, pulled out his mobile phone from his back pocket and slid it over the desk.
“Where’s my phone?” Micky asked, eyes narrowed.
“You want a phone call, O’Neill,” Leary replied and pointed at his mobile. “That’s a working phone. Just type in the number and press the green button.”
Micky glanced away. Trying not to let anything show in his expression, he ransacked his brain for any numbers. After a moment, he shoved the phone back across the table. The sergeant chuckled, picked up his mobile and tucked it away in his pocket.
“Where’s my brother?”
“Mr O’Neill,” Leary breathed out, full of exasperation. He spread his legs and stroked the silk material of his tie. “Where was your brother when you assaulted Mr. Carmichael earlier today?”
Micky chewed his bottom lip.
“Uh-huh.” The sergeant nodded. He picked up his pen again and resumed tapping its nib on the table top.
Micky shuffled on his chair and mentally counted the aggravating beats.
“And where was your brother when you assaulted Mr. Carmichael the time previous?” Leary asked, eyes fixed on the hefty paperwork. “Or when you assaulted the three other names in this file?”
Micky bounced his knee under the table in time with the drumming pen and ticks from the wall clock.
“Or when you forced entry into a house that wasn’t your own, stole a set of keys and drove a vehicle that did not belong to you, nor did you have permission from the owner, nor a legal license to drive it across town? Where was your brother then?”
Micky finally met with the sergeant’s wide, all-consuming eyes and cocked his head.
“Was he with your mother?” Leary asked, voice elevated.
“Fuck you,” Micky retorted, his chest rising.
The sergeant chuckled again. He shook his head and slid the pen into his top shirt pocket to snuggle alongside the red one.
“With your father?”
Micky snorted and looked away.
“Perhaps, Mr. O’Neill,” Leary said and leaned forward to rest on his elbows. “You should be more concerned about your own whereabouts, rather than those of your brother.”
Micky opened his mouth to retaliate, but a loud knock stopped him in his tracks. The interview room door opened immediately after and Sergeant Leary instantly stood. Micky watched in amusement as Leary went into full-on stiff-stance mode to greet the incoming older gentleman. The other man wasn’t in uniform and looked as if he’d recently been woken from his grave. Micky narrowed his eyes and attempted to listen to the exchange of whispers but could only make out that the living-dead’s tone was a tad more urgent than that of the sergeant’s. Leary nodded with his best yessir and twisted on his heel to stalk back to the desk.
Micky swore he saw a brief smile curve on the elderly man’s lips before he vacated the room, leaving the door wide open. Leary gathered up the papers on the desk and took his time folding them neatly into a manila card file.
“Well, Mr. O’Neill,” Leary finally said, standing straight. “It seems you are free to go.”
“What?”
“Expect a court appearance. But we no longer need to detain you.” Sergeant Leary marched over to the open door, checked his watch and gave a serene, lopsided smile. “Good evening, Mr. O’Neill. Good luck getting home at this hour.”
Micky stood. “Where’s my brother?”
Reformed #3
“Bollocks!”
Micky slammed his palm down on the bedside alarm to stop the incessant shrill loud enough to awaken the whole damn idyllic Welsh countryside. He scrubbed a hand over his face, collapsed into the soft pillow and tried to get a grip on his pounding heart. Closing his eyes, he hoped for at least another five minutes of solitude and drifted off into the comfort of dreamland, until the next loud blast made him bolt upright.
“Fucking hell.” Micky curled his hand into a fist to whack the clock that was too fucking insistent that it do its job well.
Fumbling along the buttons, he managed to switch off the electric drill sergeant and groaned. He squinted through the searing sunlight that always seemed far too low in the sky than it ever had been in Heathwood, possibly because it wasn’t blocked out by all the tower blocks in this part of the world. And, minus the high-pitched bleeps, the room was forced into an eerie silence. Like most mornings. Occasionally, the tweet of a bird fluttering past the open bedroom window, or the bleating of sheep and mooing of cows would welcome him awake. It could have been worse. He was getting used to it. Slowly.
He reached out to feel along the bed and met empty sheets, duvet scraped back in an almost perfect triangle and a dipped circle in the middle of the vacant pillow. An open book, spread out on the page it had been left at last night, perched on the night stand along with a pair of folded-up glasses. The sight warmed Micky, a little. Which wasn’t that much of a feat—it was early September and he was snuggled under a winter tog duvet. But still, the sentiment was there. Briefly. Until the loud scream from downstairs startled him.
Micky bolted upright. “Flynn?”
He wasn’t given a reply. He listened, but the following, now deathly, silence dragged on. He kicked free of the duvet and swung his legs to bundle out of the bed. It was too sodding early for all this shit. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he trudged over to the wash basket piled high with dirty laundry and grabbed the nearest thing. After hopping into a pair of work-out shorts, he yanked open the bedroom door. The noise he was met by made him wish for the silence.
Another loud scream, one he knew belonged to his brother, pierced through the walls. Micky bolted out of his bedroom, across the corridor and rammed open the door to his brother’s room. Blackout blinds closed, bed unmade and no one in it.
“Flynn!” He stomped over to the adjacent bathroom and shoved open the door with his shoulder. Empty. Nothing. “For fuck’s sake!”
“No, no, no!” Flynn’s wails bellowed through the house.
Micky checked along the top floor. Five doors, each one shut. This farmhouse was too fucking big. Hide and seek had taken less time, and probably far less enjoyment, back in his two-bed mid-terrace house in the Heathwood suburbs.
Growling, he pelted down the stairs, scraping his hand along the banister, and skidded through the entrance hall, into the living room. He clenched his fists into tight balls at the sight. Curtains still drawn, with discarded toys and crayons littering the floor. Remnants of liquid and food stained the high-pile squared rug in front of the cast-iron fireplace. The fire that was roaring flames and absent of its gated guard.
Micky bundled over to the fireplace, careening around all the torture hazards. He grabbed a pint glass of water that had been left by the side and chucked it over the flames. The hissing and crackles only just managed to drown out his beating heart. Throwing the glass to the floor and coughing through the smoke and steam, he twisted on his bare feet and listened.
Scurrying off to the back kitchen, Micky ground his teeth at the spilled milk drenching the marble surfaces and the cereal box hanging precariously on its side, a victim of the early morning massacre. Spinning first one way then the other, he noticed the front door was unlocked. The heavy gust of wind from outside made it bang against the frame.
Micky darted out of the kitchen, stamping through the squares of Shreddies and grains of sugar scattered on the floor. Passing the downstairs toilet, he stopped short on hearing what he could only assume was a waterfall. He nudged the door open wider.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Micky bellowed each curse word with renewed vigor as a flood seeped out from the porcelain floor tiles and trickled between his toes.
He skidded into the toilet and smacked down the silver tap to prevent more freezing water pouring into the over-filled sink and gushing onto the floor. He bounded out of the bathroom, almost slipping arse over tit, and trotted into the wide entrance hallway. The front door banged against the latch and Micky curled his fingers around the wood to tug it open. His skin pimpled in the chilly morning breeze and he shivered.
Swallowing down the tightness in his chest, he shoved his feet into the tatty trainers left by the door―making a mental note to buy some new ones later that day―and pelted out into the yard. Reaching the low-rooted apple tree, his heart pounded when his brother’s voice rippled through the valley.
“Flynn!” he yelled, more desperately this time.
“Micky!”
His brother’s voice, no longer distant and more like it was returning to him through the dusky sunrise, made Micky pause. Squinting up the valley, he sucked in a vexed breath at the next thing he laid eyes on.
Flynn in his oversized pajamas, held against a man’s chest, pounded his fists and kicked his legs, screeching at the top of his lungs. His head shook from side to side, making the curls of his mousy brown hair flail in the wind. Micky hadn’t heard those wails for a long time and they drove through his bare torso and into his heart like a knife. Dan reached him and lowered his brother to the floor.
“We had an uninvited guest.”
Flynn launched at Micky and wrapped his arms around his waist. He trembled, sobbing into Micky’s bare torso, and Micky dug fingers into his scalp to keep him steady.
“Lucy,” Dan continued, waving a hand toward the house. “God knows how long those two have been up.”
Micky exhaled his held-in breath. He released some of the pent-up tension by nodding and caught the guilt flickering across his brother’s blotchy face. Micky crouched, removing Flynn from his waist, and grabbed the top of his arms to look directly into those mesmerizing star-burst-patterned eyes.
“What have I told you about letting people in the house?” Micky said, voice low. “After everything, Flynn! What the fu―”
“But it was Lucy,” Flynn sniveled. “She wanted to play.”
“Don’t worry.” Dan laid a hand on Micky’s shoulder. “I sorted it. Took Lucy back to her mum’s and Flynn, here, won’t be allowed to go see the Hugheses’ rabbits for a long time.”
Micky peered up. Dan seemed calm enough. He wouldn’t have known the first thing that had come to Micky’s mind at hearing those screams from his brother. Dan thought the threat was over. Micky knew otherwise.
“No!” Flynn wailed.
Micky prized Flynn away from him. He gave his best stern-brother look and tapped Flynn’s back to usher him into the house. Flynn sniffled, pouted, kicked a few of the gravel stones on the ground and stomped indoors. He slammed the door against the wall and trudged up the stairs.
“Well.” Micky stood and rubbed his hands together to stave off the shaking. “Looks like you don’t need me, then.”
“I always need you.” Dan leaned forward and kissed him. “Best be getting in, though, I think you’re giving Mr. Evans a heart attack.”
Dan stepped aside, allowing Micky to see the elderly gentleman waiting across the road at the nearby bus stop. Micky held up a hand in a reluctant wave. Mr. Evans didn’t return it. He never did. He just staggered on his walking stick and glanced up the valley, waiting for the bus to make its first and, only, morning appearance.
“He’s a funny one,” Micky mused, walking with Dan into the house.
“Yeah,” Dan agreed. “Although, he does sometimes acknowledge me.”
Micky snorted. “That’s ‘cause you’re too fucking nice. Which you better rein in quick smart, or you’re going to get crucified today.” Micky held the door open for Dan to step through.
Dan groaned.
“And have you seen the state of the house?”
“Well, looks like you’ll have something to do today then, after all,” Dan replied. “After making my good-luck breakfast, of course.”
As fucking if. “There’s a fuck ton of cereal you can eat off the floor.”
Dan sighed.
