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I like to write and I like to party, but mostly just the writing. Disclaimer: A lot of these stories are true ones. The memory of growing-up in and around Killybegs. When you hold a mirror up to small communities, sometimes there are those who don't like the reflection. Capote knew this only too well. If you find the refraction just a little too much and would like the angle of incidence changed in your favor, please email me at georgevial@hotmail.com and I will be happy to make a name change here or there.

Friday, January 20, 2006

Blaming it all on Paul

When I came to class late and my homework was nowhere to be found you looked at me with viscous eyes from your serene teacher’s face.

My tired eyes spoke nothing to you. You only saw another student with an excuse waiting, the story of how no work was done when to much play was at stake. But I wanted to take you aside and tell you about Paul’s death. Then how would you react when I described how the fifteen-year-old boy took his father’s gun and blew his head off? The shocked look on your face would tell me all I needed to know. That it was all-right you understood, my work could come in at a later time, you hoped the families were coping well. Instead I am too ashamed to use Paul’s death, knowing it was never the reason for my tardiness. You scribble a comment down beside my name a little arrow to attack my grade-point-average all because I would not use Paul’s death.

Talking late at night and my mind is not there for you and we fight because these kinds of words come easier than pleasant words of love. You yell down the line how I don’t try, I never listen, I don’t make the effort. But how could I with the burden of Paul’s death. I can’t say this to you and blame it on the boy who said goodbye to my father and his mother then said goodbye to life. You would know this was not the reason, this devilish news sitting at the back of my mind. How the hell do I comprehend it or deal with it. I want to talk to you about it but the words are not there. The one’s that tell you I knew his pain, I understand his anger and confusion and how brave and foolish he was. But no it’s no good, well just fight more and I will tell you I am sorry and I truly am, please forgive me. I can’t blame it on Paul’s death.

The angry maintenance man, angry at the world for screwing him up the ass when he was trying to do the same to the world, comes to me in a fit of rage and reduces my manhood to boyish tears. Telling me it’s all my fault, that I am too blame. I want to scream into his face, it’s not my fault, it's Paul’s death. The fifteen year old boy who lies in the cold ground in St. Mary’s graveyard up Church road, dead long before he had ever lived not fair that one so young should have been so angry and have taken so much action. When I would say these words to you, you would soften and shake my hand and tell me you were sorry you had a bad day you didn’t mean it, it will O.K. No I can’t use Paul’s death, his is not for me to use, somebody else yes but not I. I had never met him, yet emotions are here with me and I know why. Poor Paul.

1 comment:

P. Sharkey said...

Hey George, nice words. Glad you didn't use Pauls death to get you out of trouble.

Have read that poem about your mother before, it's a nice one. Yeah it gets easier, but it never goes away does it?