Mondo Desperado Read Online Free PDF

when he heard Fish-hook cry: ‘OK, lads! Off with the
trousers, then!’ the sound of angels singing behind McClarkey’s Garage came as no surprise to him. And why he felt no pain, only resignation, as Fish-hook deftly inserted the nozzle of
the air hose snugly between his sad but acceptant buttocks. Why, there was not the slightest trace of vindictiveness or thought of revenge when he heard Fish-hook trumpet: ‘Right, boys! Start
pumping! Pump! Pump away there like the clappers!’ as gleefully, they complied.
    Quite how long the eccentric execution took it is impossible to estimate with any degree of accuracy. Suffice it to say that within mere minutes Declan, who had up until then been of average,
unremarkable schoolboy size, had become a truly hideous, bladderesque monstrosity, with, paradoxically, upon his face an expression of almost total peace, if not ecstasy, which persisted right up
until the very last moment before he finally did, in fact, rend asunder.
    It seems superfluous to state that the days which followed were sad. Perhaps if Declan had been knifed, or shot, or even blown up in what might be considered the normal way, the good folk of
Barntrosna might have found some means of assuaging their grief. . .who can say? One thing is for certain – the task of gathering up various pieces of the now-decimated schoolboy, which fell
to Skinner Moran, had an undeniable effect on him for the rest of his mortal days. It was not unknown for him to begin laughing whilst strolling up the street, seemingly for no reason whatsoever.
In the end too, Declan’s Aunt Gertie had to be taken away and this gave rise to much local sadness. Particularly when, on being assisted into the ambulance, she insisted on smacking the
attendant playfully on the shoulder, tittering: ‘Arra, leave me alone! I can manage perfectly well myself!’ as she paused then to add, with a glazed and unsettling, wide-eyed look,
‘But of all places to find his right eyeball – on the footpath outside the New Pin Cleaners! I ask you!’
    Declan’s assailants, of course, were packed off to Borstal, only to return some few short months later, infused with a new energy, and are once more to be seen strutting, with renewed
vigour, about the town and glaring brazenly at the cowed citizens. ‘Just try it,’ their malevolent gaze seems to say, ‘and let’s see what will happen – particularly in
the vicinity of McConkey’s field!’
    But no one has any intention of trying anything, for the qualities of inner strength required for such fortitude are now but a memory; indicating, perhaps, the deepest and most depressingly
enduring legacy of Declan’s demise – the sense of hopelessness which came to hold the town in a fierce, unyielding grip. Indulgence in all moral thinking now began to appear futile.
For, the townspeople found themselves reasoning, how can a deity be possibly said to exist if the wanton destruction of a boy like Declan Coyningham can be so casually countenanced? A boy who lived
only for others, who would one day (or so he thought – another cruel, cosmic joke!) have administered the sacraments to all his neighbours, become lifelong friends with Monsignor Pacelli
Harskins (in a real, flesh-and-blood relationship far beyond the realm of subconscious longings and dreams on a hot summer night), strolled about the leafy lanes chatting to passers-by and cracking
jokes with their growing children, singing lighthearted tunes to dandelions. But who was now nothing more than an awkward assemblage of bones and irregular innards lying in a cold casket in a
poorly maintained cemetery.
    *
    No, dear friends, the truth is that Declan Coyningham was never in fact ordained and now never will be; never live for his mother to see a shining force field vibrate about her
son. For her, it has proved but a chimera. As it has for all of us. And now that he lies, along with Aunty Gertie’s missal, inert beneath the grass and randomly