Getting it in the Head. Mike McCormack

      

      Also by Mike McCormack

       Crowe’s Requiem

       Notes from a Coma

       Forensic Songs

       Solar Bones

      MIKE McCORMACK

      This Canons edition published in 2017 by Canongate Books Ltd

      14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE

      First published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape, London, 1996

       www.canongate.co.uk

      This digital edition first published in 2017 by Canongate Books

      Copyright © Mike McCormack, 1996

      The moral right of the author has been asserted

      British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library

      ISBN 978 1 78689 139 6

      eISBN 978 1 78689 140 2

       To my family and Noelle Donnellan – for keeping the faith

      Contents

       Acknowledgements

       The Gospel of Knives

       The Stained Glass Violations

       A is for Axe

       Old Man, My Son

       Thomas Crumlesh 1960–1992: A Retrospective

       The Angel of Ruin

       Machine, Part II

       Materials Grant

       The Reach of Love

       Oestrogen

       Dead Man’s Fuel

       The Terms

       Blues for Emmett Ward

       Amor Vincit Omnia

       The Occupation: A Guide for Tourists

       Getting it in the Head

       Afterword

      Acknowledgements

      Some stories in this collection have appeared in the following magazines and anthologies: ‘The Stained Glass Violations’ in Passages, ‘A is for Axe’ in Brought to Book (Harper Collins), ‘Thomas Crumlesh’ in the Sunday Tribune and An Anthology of Irish Comic Writing (Michael Joseph), ‘Machine: Part 11’ in the Connacht Tribune and ‘The Occupation’ in Ambit and Best Short Stories 1995 (Heinemann).

      The author is grateful for permission to reprint lines from ‘Caffeine’, composed by Bordin, Bottum, Gould, Martin and Patton © 1992 Rondor Music.

      THE GOSPEL OF KNIVES

      When I opened the door and saw her standing there like an effigy, draped from head to toe in some fashion paraphrase of a chador, my mind flamed with a single, sordid thought: I wanted to get down on my knees before her in that sweetest of all acts of sexual worship and lick her out good and proper. I could see from her face – the swarthy skin, the too-even set of her teeth, the retroussé nose – that this was a woman of pent-up desires and trammelled passions and I fancied that I was the man to rectify all that. I glowed with confidence. Here was easy meat and it was as much as I could do to stop a predatory grin from spreading over my own teeth. However, when I invited her into my room and she spread out her collection of knives on the table I knew that I had made one of the bigger mistakes of my young and now bitter life.

      ‘I’m a seller of knives,’ she said needlessly, arranging the gleaming pieces on the table, ‘and I’m here to sell you one of these.’

      I swallowed heavily, eyeing the array of steel which had so quickly covered the table. I would never have guessed that there were so many variations on the single theme of the blade.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ I stammered, ‘but I’ve got all the knives I need. I’ve got a bread knife and a set of steak knives and a short blade for peeling. I live on my own, so you can see then that I’m not exactly in the market for a new one.’

      ‘No,’ she said quietly, ‘I think if you look closely at the circumstances of your life you will find that there is ample room in it for one extra blade. No one’s life is so complete that they can afford to do without one of these knives.’

      ‘I thought you were selling encyclopaedias or you were some kind of a Jehovah’s Witness,’ I said plaintively.

      ‘No, I’m a seller of knives. My work is to spread the Gospel of Knives because in the beginning was The Knife. All other versions are fiction. My job is to spread the redemptive word of The Knife. Answer me this, what is the greatest of man’s inventions?’

      ‘I suppose you’re going to tell me it’s the knife.’

      ‘Of course, there is no other answer. Taken unawares, most people say it’s the wheel or fire. But they are wrong because the knife is at the source of all. When man picked up his first knife and started cutting and sawing and slicing it was the opening moment of his humanity, the instant of his divinity. Now in all my years in this ministry I’ve never met a man who did not need a knife. I’ve met men who have denied God’s word out of face and I’ve met men who couldn’t sign their name and they’ve all managed without any noticeable handicap. But all these people were bound together by their need for knives. And do you know why? The simple answer is that it is impossible to go through life without cutting or slicing: it wouldn’t be human. If I met a man who didn’t need a knife I’d just pack up my bags and walk away because it would be a sure sign that I had met someone who was less than human and a waste of words. But you’re human, are you not?’

      ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

      ‘Well, then it follows that you need one of these knives, it’s unavoidable.’