Moriarty and The Mouse

 

Moriarty and The Mouse 

There are certain smells that bring back memories of depression, that return me to  my younger self down among the cycling sleepwalkers.There was the sharp tang of rubber tyres rolling down the olfactory nerve, connecting with the musty fumes of  woollen winter overcoats saturated by sleeting rain. Secondary school students crouched over chrome handlebars, steam rising from their warm backs in the dim of the school bicycle shed. A cold, grey concrete confirmation that you were moving underground lit by the meagre light of grimy basement windows.

The sky-blue congealed paint of the spiked georgian railings, prevented the fourteen foot drop onto the rubbish strewn stone flagstones of the basement level outside.There, sloping down at forty degrees was a concrete ramp. It descended sharply first one way and then the other to stop us cycling down it. We dismounted, passed one by one through the narrow gate and slow-wheeled our bicycles down, into the cold, damp cellar. There we took our turns finding some rusty tubular iron stand to hold and chain up our bike. 

The click, click of the gears against the sprockets,the trudge and tramp of the heavily booted scholars of various sizes I can still hear.. A phlegmy cough and sudden spit acted like punctuation to the procession.There were faux leather plastic sports bags laced through the reinforced metal eyelets glinting in the dark and slung like bandoliers over boys’ shoulders. These were our heroes, our Gaelic Football team, winners of the Schools and Colleges final last year. Above the cellar pressing down on everyone like a mangle was the school filled with work, cruelty and despair.

A soft hissing sound insinuated itself into the air coming from around the next corner of the cellar.It was Moriarty from 5B digging the wicked tip of his silver bladed penknife into the front tyre and tube of a brand new Raleigh Racer. His lips pursed with concentration as he took the knife double handed to drag the blade down a gash of six inches creating a deep and irreparable wound. Then he withdrew the blade, snicked it closed with a sharp click and pocketed the weapon. I knew that bike because it belonged to the Mouse who was a classmate of mine in 3A.

I turned my face away so that the duffle coat hood would conceal who I was but the furtive movement must have attracted Moriarty’s attention because before I knew it I was being dragged by the toggle buttons and slammed up against a wall dropping my Raleigh Chopper. “ You saw nothin’, ya hear?” hissed Moriarty staring down at me menacingly, “or else you’ll end up like the tyre.” Then, thumping me painfully on the shoulder to emphasise his determination, he let go and strolled away as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

I felt terrified and of course this was what he wanted. We all saw how he worked, the threats, the targeted intimidation of younger pupils. Behind a waterfall of silence and self pity I wondered if I had been the one responsible for this enormous tragedy if I had been too silent and too scared.Was I one of the complicit collaborators? Those cunning enough to justify our inaction because of fear. Those unwilling to see our fellow pupils abused and yet protect the perpetrators behind walls of silence, Omerta. Secretly in my heart did more sinister desires prevail? Was I an anaesthetized statue carved out of cowardice? Was it not safer for me to become one of Moriarty’s gang, the nobodies with tongues hanging out thirsting to comply, like those passing through some curtain in an abattoir who begin to revel in the torment and the exploitation of others, finding a delicious delight in singling out the weak rather than being one of them.

As I walked up the stairs to the schoolyard I spied the Mouse waiting for me at the doorway into the yard. He was a bright chatty tousle-headed lad with chestnut curls and bright green eyes. He greeted me warmly. “Ah,” he said “ There you are. I knew a bit of soft rain wouldn’t keep a good man down.” The words were like daggers in my heart. I could see Moriarty across the yard leaning up against a wall, chatting to his gang of thugs laughing and sneering. No doubt he had told them of his great deeds that morning. 

As I looked up the clouds cleared and the sun broke through into the yard illuminating our school crest and motto over the door to the classrooms. Pro Deo et Pro Patria , For God and for Country. “Here,” I said to the  Mouse, “I’ve bad news for you,Lad. That Moriarty in fifth year is after slashing your tyre down in the bike cellar.” The Mouse looked at me sharply to see if I was telling the truth. Then he shook his head as if he knew what came next. “Let’s go and have a talk with him, so.”

The longest walk in the world took but a few steps. In that walk I grew up from a child to the man I am today. It didn’t matter that it would involve pain, because it is in pain that all birth takes place. That walk was a birth, a death and a rite of passage all in one. Side by side we approached Moriarty who eyed us approaching. He even nudged his companions as we approached. “Well,” he said jeeringly if it isn’t the…” 

The punch was wonderful. Mouse flashed a right jab to his nose, breaking it and Moriarty went down backwards in mid-sentence. The gang looked down at Moriarty who started crying. Reaching down into his pocket I retrieved the silver pen knife and handed it to my friend. He took it in his hand, put it in his pocket and then we turned and walked away together. Suddenly the yard turned into one loud babble. The King is dead, long live the Mouse.