A.FOX LOOKING AT A FOX BY A.FOX
For Jimmy and Janice
I am lying in bed in 2021 trying to remember an incident in 1974 I know you heard bit’s
Of this before but every time I write, I remember a little bit more and this is all I’ve
Got to share with you, the stroke took my long term memory and mangled it.
I don’t remember the good times just the traumatic ones that are seared into your mind.
Don’t want to remember but this is me trying to build up me to give me purpose to belong
To this very strange world. Thanx.
The white vauxhall victor pulled up at the the white lined Irish border post.
The man in the long black coat handed my father his licence, looking across
At me in the passenger seat. I held my knees from shaking, the secret tore through
Me afraid the man would question me. I held muttley the dog by the collar
growling at the man, he hated anyone in uniform, as he was beaten by the British
army rifle buts that left him with one eye and thee legs. I feel a bit like that dog now
paralysed in a wheelchairremembering the dogs honest truth .
The man spoke with an alien tongue as they spoke about the weather and waved us on into no mans-land. Dad slapped the steering wheel like someone had scored a goal in a cup final on
the car radio, as the car drove across the white line on the road. My father smiled a smile
I rarely seen he even reached across and ran his hand through my hair, I almost
burst with emotion. I think that was the only time he touched me. The only other times were
When he beat me for stealing his coin collection or his cigarettes.
Before we drive off into no mans land I will have to let you know why we are there at that border post. My father was a bastard child left on a doorstep whether that’s know true or not doesn’t matter its a half truth. My father was a deep secretive man, so I will never know he took it to the grave. He wasn’t a nice man but people like his attitude little did they know they were being, I wouldn’t trust him he was a con man. I think that’s I was never a good liar,
He was one of the the longest detainees In Ireland detained for nine months released on bail so he skipped bail and went on the run across the border taking me and the dog with him as I was a wild child on the streets of Belfast. The townland land of Mucker PatrickKavanagh country But I didn’t know,now I know I’m stepped in his wonder.
I would have done anything for his father, he if he treated me like a dog I knew there was something in him I would have died for his father who said he was to sensitive, needed a good kick in the ass, many a time I had my mothers humanity.. The car pulled Up at a shop at hakballscross crossroads asked directions and purchased a blue and orange plate and cutlery camping set, bacon, sausages, beans. Strange how I remember this detail and can’t remember my sons being born. The traumatic times stick to memory like glue. Thee lady who spoke in a strange accent, gave my dad directions to the cottage at ths end of duffies lane just a hundred yards past the garda station on the right.
We piled into the car and found it ok, Dad opened the half door with an ogres key and I took in the shopping. Two rooms a kitchen and bedroom no running water or electricity or toilet, theres a well close by we will find it tomorrow, he lit the parafin lamps in each room and went to the car and broke branches on the tree to make a fire in the old stove.
The sizzling warmth filled the room. His dad handed him a blue plastic plate and gave the dog half cooked sausages that were eaten in seconds. Muttley the dog was my best friend I would have lost without that dog. We lay in bed that night listening to the wild life, mostly foxes hopping from the hill behind and down onto our roof his father told him.
His dad had no more dungeon jail time he knew what his father was running from.
His mum took him to visit him in jail. He woke at five the next morning, opening the half door to a magical dawn, he had never seen before.
A fox came out of the glowin ditch stopped to look me straight in the eye.
As if I was under natures way, seemed ike I was allowed to be there. I will never forget that moment, since that moment, eye on eye fox on fox,stood there for a moment, we were
beyond time. That fox has appeared in my painting pomes until this day.
He took that moment that moment to be like The fox thought in ted Hughes poem. Something else was alive rose in him, a fox thought.
My father left me there with a dog as he took a job in Dundalk. Days I was left so hungry me and the dog shared a tin of dog food we ran through the acre of land, he chased the cows as if in uniform and the cows chased me. It was like having a year of school, killing rats and rabbits. I hated school freedom winds I called this place as it took away all the bitterness of Belfast, this was my education. The whole world was nott at war just the north of Ireland, he missed his friends but he didn’t miss being beat behind the sand bags and asked where my father was the night before..
Mum my brothers came every few months to delouse me and the bed clothes, she said I was walking alive. How could you do this to your son,who said you leave him to share dog food, I’m making arrangement to live in Dundalk so you better rent a home not this barn. He cowered away like a little boy knowing she was right. She always found his sly truth.
The cottage would never be home it’s sole purpose at the was to run guns across the border
But I didn’t know that back then.
Me and the father hardly spoke, I always knew there was something about him but
It wasn’t clear in my mind we never made eye contact. At this time he never knew
His father was a bastard child, second in command of the I.R.A. I never knew this, like most 12 year old boys he only knew his father to be anything but an asshole who his ass kicked to do and shut up. There was no love or fatherly goodness in fact I felt sorry for him.I in his eyes a child should be seen and not. He knew I was like my mother a human being, he knew I knew something but we didn’t know what. When we were in room the family sensed the energy, you can imagine The energy in the cars space. He heard his mother say to his father from the scullery, take that boy with hes wild he’ll die on these streets.
Mum and family came down and we rented a house on the Dublin road beside new shopping centre was being built. I went to the local tech, met new friends but I still had a wild streak in me as I fought nearly every day to make a name for myself, ended up I could hold my own but I wasn’t really a fighter. I had a few run ins with teachers like mr Crudden who used flick snots at me. One day he dragged me down two flights of stairs. I took him to Court and got him never to teach again as the whole,I really wound those muck savages, suppose they were saying the same of me.The whole school seen him rip the coat and flung those steps. Mr rice who was my maths teacher who tried to teach me logrythms when it came to maths I was deslexic he called me and punched me a big rugby culchee beat me at the blackboard, I broke a chair across his back and ran.
Had a run in with fr mc Shane who thought I was a hurt little boy from Belfast, asked to
stay after class taken to his store like a little alter he took his chair round beside
Put his hand on my knee and got a dig in the head and I ran. So I had no science, maths
Or religious class which suited me being a non believer. I was put in with dunces for
Free periods, I had no interest in school. Mr o Donahue was my form teacher when he read poems or prose like julius Cesar. The plays were like the life in Belfast, I can’t explain but when he read the works and even took us to the cinema to see julious Cesar, when he read I went into a trans to this day I can’t explain. I liked my art class. Mr o Donahue came to my home to persuade me to stay on but I couldn’t wait to leave and stand on my own to feet. For my group cert you needed both maths and english, for my maths exam I wrote my name and walked out and they gave me 4% for my English they me an a for a project on aboriginal
Life and my work the romantics julius Cesar and Guillivers travels and animal farm.
I now have a Masters degree in creative writing from Lancaster university and the poets house
Donegal,I was taught by the late great James Simmons who was like a father to me. I done my thesis on Patrick Kavanagh and Raymond Carver who are in me now. I ended up like Jimmy teaching creative writing. Some of my pupils have gone on to publish their own work.
I’ll never forget what Jimmy and Janice done for me, I write this for you.
