the last book I ever read (The Van: A Novel by Roddy Doyle, excerpt six)

from The Van: A Novel (The Barrytown Trilogy) by Roddy Doyle:

It was like a procession, pushing and dragging the van through Barrytown, Bimbo and Jimmy Sr and some of their kids although the twins were no help at all, just worried about getting their clothes dirty. Mind you, you didn’t even have to touch the van to get dirty from it, you only had to stand near it. It took them ages to get the wheels on it and then getting it around to the front without knocking a lump off the house took ages as well and it was nearly dark by the time they were on the road to Bimbo’s. The weather was great, of course, and everyone on the left side of the street was out on their front steps getting the last of the sun and by the time they’d got to the corner of Barrytown Road there was a huge fuckin’ crowd out watching them. Jimmy Sr kept his head down all the way, except when they were going down the hill just at the turn into Chestnut Avenue and he had to run up to the front to help Bimbo stop the van from taking off on its own, past the corner. They’d had to dig their heels in or else it would’ve gone over Bimbo and his young one, Jessica. He should have let it; that would have taught Bimbo a lesson about how to spend his money. Anyway, they got the useless piece of rusty shite to stop just after the corner and there was a really huge crowd by now and they cheered when they missed the corner, the cunts. They backed it back and Wayne, one of Bimbo’s young fellas, got the steering wheel around; the sweat was running off the poor little fucker, and they got it onto Chestnut Avenue and the cunts at the corner cheered again. No fear of the lazy shites giving them a hand, of course.

There really was a huge crowd out. It was a bit like Gandhi’s funeral in the film, except noisier. It was more like the Tour de France, the neighbours at the side of the road clapping and whooping, the cynical bastards.

the last book I ever read (The Van: A Novel by Roddy Doyle, excerpt five)

from The Van: A Novel (The Barrytown Trilogy) by Roddy Doyle:

He didn’t think he was being selfish. At first-during the first week or so-he’d felt a bit guilty, a bit of a bollix, because Bimbo was so miserable and he was the opposite. He couldn’t wait to get up and out in the mornings, like a fuckin’ kid on his summer holliers. But he didn’t think that way any more. Because he was helping Bimbo really. He wasn’t denying that he was delighted that Bimbo wasn’t working—not that he’d told anyone—but he didn’t have to feel bad about it because, after all, he hadn’t given poor Bimbo the sack and he’d never even wished it. And if Bimbo ever got his job back or got a new one he’d be the first one to slap him on the back and say Sound man. And he’d mean it as well.

But Bimbo was sacked; it was a fact. He was hanging around doing nothing. And Jimmy Sr was hanging around doing nothing, so the two of them might as well hang around and do fuckin’ nothing together. Only, with the two of them, they could do plenty of things. Playing pitch and putt by yourself on a cold March morning could be very depressing but with someone else to go around with you it could be a great bit of gas. And it was the same with just walking along the seafront; and anything really.

the last book I ever read (The Van: A Novel by Roddy Doyle, excerpt four)

from The Van: A Novel (The Barrytown Trilogy) by Roddy Doyle:

—Are we goin’ or wha’? said Paddy.

The plan was, they were all going down to the seafront with a couple of sixpacks. They’d decided this after Paddy had been complaining about all the kids that were down there every night.

—All ages, he’d told them.—Polluted out of their heads.

—That’s shockin’, Bimbo’d said.

And then Bertie’d said that they should go down there themselves after they were flung out of the boozer, and that was where they were going now. So—

the last book I ever read (The Neon Rain: A Dave Robicheaux Novel by James Lee Burke, excerpt eight)

the last book I ever read (The Van: A Novel by Roddy Doyle, excerpt three)

from The Van: A Novel (The Barrytown Trilogy) by Roddy Doyle:

He was in Bimbo’s house.

If he’d been in his own gaff he wouldn’t have been sitting like this, like a gobshite, too far back in the armchair—he couldn’t get out of the fuckin’ thing because his hands were full. He didn’t want to put the can or the bottle on one of the arms of the chair because the wood was at an angle like a ski jump and very shiny; he could smell the polish. And Bimbo’s kids were flying around the place, in and out, like fuckin’-kids. And this fuckin’ tie he had on him, it was killing him; it was sawing the fuckin’ neck off him. It was the shirt, a new one Veronica’d given him; she said he’d put on weight. It wasn’t fuckin’ fair: he was drinking far less but he was getting fuckin’ fatter. She said he was anyway. She’d probably said it because it was either that or admit that she’d bought him the wrong size of a shirt. Anyway, he was fuckin’ choking and he couldn’t loosen the poxy tie because his fuckin’ hands were full—

Jesus tonight!

the last book I ever read (The Van: A Novel by Roddy Doyle, excerpt two)

from The Van: A Novel (The Barrytown Trilogy) by Roddy Doyle:

He came off the Green, crossed the road. The street light here was broken again. The glass was on the path. It was always this one they smashed, only this one.

It was funny; he’d been really grateful when young Jimmy had given him the fiver, delighted, and at the same time, or just after, he’d wanted to go after him and thump the living shite out of him and throw the poxy fiver back in his face, the nerve of him; who did he think he was, dishing out fivers like Bob fuckin’ Geldof.

the last book I ever read (The Van: A Novel by Roddy Doyle, excerpt one)

from The Van: A Novel (The Barrytown Trilogy) by Roddy Doyle:

Jimmy Sr was in the ILAC library, in town.

It was terrific here, very nice.

He’d never been in here before. It was great. There was a lot more to it than just the books. You could get tapes or records out or even those compact discs, or just listen to them in here. He’d go over there, to the music part, after this. There was a language resource centre, a room where you could learn more than sixty languages in one of those booth things. Or you could use the computer-he looked at the brochure again—to enhance your computer literacy skills. There was even a reading machine for if you had sight problems. Having one of them beside the bed would have been very handy for when you came home scuttered at night.