Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle Page A

been talking to you? she said.
    It wasn’t what I’d expected.
    —No, I said.—I want to be a missionary.
    —Good boy, she said, but not the way I’d wanted. I wanted her to cry. I wanted my da to shake my hand. I told him when he got home from his work.
    —I have a vocation, I said.
    —No you don’t, he said.—You’re too young.
    —I do, I said.—God has spoken to me.
    It was all wrong.
    He spoke to my ma.
    —I told you, he said.
    He sounded angry.
    —Encouraging this rubbish, he said.
    —I didn’t encourage it, she said.
    —Yes, you bloody did, he said.
    She looked like she was making her mind up.
    —You did!
    He roared it.
    She went out of the kitchen, beginning to run. She tried to undo the knot of her apron. He went after her. He looked different, like he’d been caught doing something. They left me alone. I didn’t know what had happened. I didn’t know what I’d done.
    They came back. They didn’t say anything.
     
    Snails and slugs were gastropods; they had stomach feet. I poured salt on a slug. I could see the torture and agony. I picked him up with the trowel and gave him a decent burial. The real name for soccer was association football. Association football was played with a round ball on a rectangular pitch by two sides of eleven people. The object is to score goals, i.e. force the ball into the opponents’ goal, which is formed by two upright posts upon which is mounted a crossbar. I learned this off by heart. I liked it. It didn’t sound like rules; it sounded cheeky. The biggest score ever was Arbroath 36, Bon Accord o. Joe Payne scored the most goals, ten of them, for Luton in 1936. Geronimo was the last of the renegade Apaches.
    I held up the ball. We were on Barrytown Grove. It had good high kerbs for hopping the ball. The ball was a burst one.
    —The object, I said,—is to score goals, i.e. force the ball into the opponents’ goal which is—is formed by two upright posts upon which is mounted a crossbar.
    They were bursting out laughing.
    —Say it again.
    I did. I put on a posh accent. They laughed again.
    —Ger-on-IMO!
    He was the last of the renegade Apaches. The last of the renegades.
    —You’re a renegade, Mister Clarke.
    Hennessey sometimes called us renegades before he hit us.
    —What are you?
    —A renegade, Sir.
    —Correct.
    —Renegade!
    —Renegade renegade renegade!
    I had a picture of Geronimo. He was kneeling on one knee. His left elbow was resting on his left knee. He had a rifle. He had a scarf around his neck and a shirt with spots on it that I didn’t notice for ages until I was sticking the picture on my wall. He had a bracelet that looked like a watch on his right wrist. Maybe he’d robbed it. Maybe he’d cut someone’s arm off to get it. The rifle looked homemade. The best part was his face. He was looking straight into the camera, straight through it. He wasn’t frightened of it; he didn’t think it would take his soul, like some of them did. His hair was black, parted in the middle, straight down to his shoulders; no feathers or messing. He looked very old, his face, but the rest of him was young.
    —Da?
    —What?
    —What age are you?
    —Thirty-three.
    —Geronimo was fifty-four, I told him.
    —What? he said.—Always?
    He was fifty-four when the photograph was taken. He might have been older. He looked fierce and sad. His mouth was upside-down, like a cartoon sad face. His eyes were watery and black. His nose was big. I wondered why he was sad. Maybe he knew what was going to happen to him. The part of his leg in the photograph was like a girl’s, no hair or bumps. He was wearing boots. There were bushes around him. I put my fingers on the hair to cover it. His face was like an old woman’s. A sad old woman. I lifted my fingers. He was Geronimo again. It was only a black-and-white photograph. I coloured in his shirt; blue. It took ages.
    I saw another picture in a book. Of Geronimo with his warriors. They were in a big field. Geronimo