Curran Youth

1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-1-84351-876-1
Verlag: The Lilliput Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 290 Seiten

Youth dives into the lives of four teenagers in Ireland's most diverse town, Balbriggan. Angel is about to finish school and discover if Drill music and YouTube fame can deliver on their promises. Princess is battling to escape her claustrophobic surroundings and go to university and Dean is ready to come out from under his famous father's shadow, while Tanya, struggling with the spotlight of internet infamy, is still posting her dream life for all of her faithful followers. Isolated and disorientated by the white noise and seemingly insurmountable expectations of adolescence, our protagonists are desperate to find anything that helps them belong. Oblivious to one another's presence, potential and struggles, they pass each other on the street as strangers. But when their paths cross, the connections they make will change the course of their lives. Twenty-first century life - hyper-sexualized, social media saturated, anxiety-plagued - is here. Living inside its characters' heads, and negotiating their interior landscape, this book is a love song to the possibilities of youth. Using insights gained from the young people he works with, Curran's evocative writing yields the authenticity this novel demands. With instinctive affection and admiration for his characters' strengths and complexities, Youth is a journey through streets less travelled.

Kevin Curran is from Balbriggan and has been a secondary-school teacher in his hometown for over a decade. His fiction largely concentrates on working class life in the Dublin suburbs. His first novel, Beatsploitation, was published in 2013 and brought him national attention due to his depiction of Ireland's new multicultural landscape. His second novel, Citizens, was published to critical acclaim in 2016, and he has published numerous short stories in major anthologies and literary journals such as The Stinging Fly. He has also written non-fiction for The Guardian and The Observer.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Curran, Kevin

Leseproben

Down Mainstreet

Angel, 18

He speaks in your voice, Dublin, and there’s something hopeful in the new edges of his words and phrases that has come through revolutions, generations, and across continents to be witnessed here, on these streets, now.

Angel is shaping down Mainstreet of a Friday afternoon in late March. Traffic is heavy, the footpaths are busy and he is one of three friends bustling through – a blur of hands and fingers at angles making shadow puppets to the uninformed. A simple K for those in the know.

They’re all theatrical eyes, aghast mouths.

—That’s a bar, Isaac, allow.

—That’s a bar? No this is a bar: you Congo boys eat rocks.

—That’s a lie, bro, that’s a lie. All you Ghana boys eat eggs.

—Don’t say nothing bout us Nigerians. Swear down, boys, yous’ll be getting hands!

All three of them are on display. Teenagers – roadmen – giving verbals while widening the aperture of this washed-out world.

The rain has stopped and the pavement is bright and slick. And although it’s Friday and sunny, they know this spring buzz won’t last for long.

Hunger drives them. Luckily, this four-hundred-metre slope of Mainstreet, Balbriggan – from SuperValu to the Square – is the meal-deal capital of County Dublin.

There’s Libero’s Italian pizzas warming in the oven and shielded by dirty netting in the window; Borza with the blue neon signs saying value, value, value; Macari’s high top chrome counter guarding the fryer; SuperValu deli a trek past the fruit and veg, under the always-suspicious eyes of the security guard; Polski Delikatesy hiding its bland meats and sausages behind frosted glass lettering; Deli Burger in its prime location across from the monument, overlooking the Bracken; FLC, Noodle Box, Apache, Domino’s, Moti Mahal, Han Lin Palace, Coffee Pot, Supermac’s, Papa John’s, Mr Wu, the soup kitchen beside the dole office. And Spar.

As tall as the others, Angel is the thinnest of the three. His wide, cat-like eyes are forever scanning for trouble. If he sees it early, he can sidestep it, like a Messi feint. Because that’s what he does as he walks, he feints and shuffles.

His nervous energy is a necessity. His black Nike Air Force runners are worn to a woolly grey where the imitation leather meets the sole. It’s a low-key embarrassment only evading detection by scaring his feet into constant action.

His school trousers are short, tight above the ankle, unable to keep up with this sprint through adolescence. His jacket, the black puffer North Face uniform of all three, is that bit older and looser on him.

On they go, Pelumi spitting out some new bars he’s working on.

—I love my block.

That’s all that I got.

I love my block.

Isaac and Angel support him with loud shouts of encouragement. But being loud doesn’t come natural to Angel. It might seem to fit well, but it weighs heavily, like a wet T-shirt. Be the collective experience when alone. That’s the ambition.

That’s the shame. The lie under this fluid, confident strut. The aggressive disregard for onlookers is a rebuke to himself: the self-aware, self-conscious bitch boy who worries his way through the town when on his ones.

Why does he always need his boys? Why is he always on sketch, ready to dash, so lacking?

For now, Angel commands the street with his friends and, without pausing for permission, they stop traffic and cross, a mixtape of car horns soundtracking their parade.

They own the path and refuse to make way for some guy in shorts coming through the Spar sliding doors with a six-pack of beer. Pelumi blocks him, knocks into him. This wasteman is hench and still he staggers and his bottles clink – one cracks and suddenly there’s a mess of suds.

Pelumi kisses his teeth and sneers:

—What you gonna do?

The lad curses at them but on they go, defiant, without remorse or consequence, striding into encounters Angel would rather dodge.

Tanya, 16

She’s lost in her phone and has that hurried, got-to-attend-to-this-message vibe about her as she steps off the path. The screen exposes her squinting eyes and she groans because she can’t see anything but herself.

It’s the sharp screech of tyres that jolts her out’ve the reflection. The phone flips from her hand with the shock. The scuffed white toe of her black Converse high-top takes the initial impact. She’s full sure she’s only gone and cracked the screen on the road.

—Who you think you are? is spat from the window of a supped up red sports car.

—I’m Tanya fucking Guildea, that’s who I am, she shouts back, refusing to meet his eyes as she crouches in the road.

The fan from his bonnet whirrs at her head. She’s afraid what she’ll find when she turns the phone around so she takes her time to pick it up. It’s grand but, thank fuck.

He starts revving the engine. He wants her to acknowledge him. Most of them do. She’s used to the attention, okay with it. She ignores the taunts, his big boiled head with the oversized Borcrew cap out the car window, shouting:

—Kurwa mac!

She strolls to the path, shoulders back, chest out.

—What ye looking at ye muppet?

—Palant!

Of course, there’s always an audience. Especially now. Always someone passing comment. She’s too young, she’s showing too much skin, she’s a disgrace that one.

She’s a kid, only looks older. And so she behaves like she thinks people who are older should behave. With disdain for those giving her the looks, a snarl for tender approaches, a reproachful smile for those who whistle.

She walks with her head high as if she’s not really on these streets, as if she should be somewhere more glamorous, a catwalk, a red carpet.

Her hair is blonde and brown, glossy, tied up in a bun. Beyond the huge glue-on lashes that constantly give her red eye, her face is stern, serious, self-conscious, always set into a pout as if someone might be recording her. Her bright pink Nike schoolbag flails from her left hand as if she’s about to fling it, underarm style, into the river beside Deli Burger. Her school skirt is short and blows a bit in the wind. She can feel the small gusts travelling up her legs and she sees them looking, random lads, pretending they’re not, but always looking.

They’re quiet and sneaky, from teenagers to aul lads, staring from the tables of the chipper, coming out of the Medical Centre on the corner, tapping their hands on the counter in the vape shop, or loud and jeering, like Lil Pel and his K3P gang across the road going into Spar. She gives them the finger and they love it, but there’s nothing else she can do.

Dean, 17

There’s no queue at the deli in Spar. And into this grey tiled space Dean attempts to swagger. He thinks he has perfected the wavy arms, raised chin, gum-chewing march. To everyone but himself though, he’s just a lanky teenage cartoon. An anime character in a 3D world.

The hot food counter is practically empty. An uninspiring assortment of dried-out wedges, burnt chicken fillets and a handful of chicken poppers are all that’s left. They’re already boxed – but still open – a two-euro sticker stuck on the flap under the spotlights.

His hands feel the warmth of the deli-counter glass and immediately jerk away, recognizing the all-too-familiar burn of the everyday on the greasy surface. He rubs his palms on his worn, silky grey school trousers, stained at the crotch by hurried shakes at the Seniors’ urinals. Always in the school bathroom he stares ahead with a gamer’s determination – until someone steps up, grunts and pisses with a force that both splashes and alarms. And at the end, after the fumble and tuck, Dean turns and catches a glimpse to compare. Always comparing. Because if he’s honest, that’s really why he left the queue at the deli earlier: in among all the other lads, he felt inadequate. With the jeers of his peers burning his ears, he turned away from the deli and left without lunch.

Now, with no queue, and a two-euro coin moist in his hand, Dean is preparing to be served by the girl. She’s out the back, washing utensils. He takes a hairbrush from his school bag and, with practised care, shapes his hair. His right hand brushes right to left while his left pats and buffers.

Without the pressure of the lads at lunchtime, he hopes all redners will stay away and he might have a chance to chat with her. Maybe say something funny. Have her speak to him so he can mould her words into something more for when he’s alone with himself.

She arrives with a smile, her braces catching the light.

—For the Taco Fries? she says in that Spanish accent of hers.

—Eh, are there any left?

She disappears behind the hot counter. He doesn’t know anything about her. Only that she’s going to the Convent as an exchange student and is on work experience for TY. In the gaps between seeing her – using her smile, the way she flicks her hair away from her eyes with her wrist, the way she addresses him – he has started to stare at the ceiling above his bed and begin to know her, or who she might be. And who he might become in her company.

Taco Fries. How does she know that? His brow darkens as he debates with himself the meaning of her remembering his past orders. At least he has made an impression.

—Let me see. Oh, one left. That is a karma.

—Lucky me, Dean says.

—Anything else?

He hesitates. She waits.

—Your name?

She looks into the deli,...