We present an extract from Youth, the debut by Kevin Curran.
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 his YouTube fame can deliver on their promises. Princess is battling to escape her claustrophobic surroundings and go to university. Dean is ready to come out from under his famous father’s shadow. 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 insurmountable expectations of adolescence, our protagonists are desperate to find anything that helps them belong. Oblivious to each other’s presence, potential and struggles, they pass on the street as strangers. But when they do intersect, the connections they make will change the course of their lives.
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.
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Listen: Kevin Curran talks Youth on Culture File on RTÉ lyric fm
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 f**king 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.
Youth is published by The Lilliput Press
