Ritual

He was always there.
Gobshite. Loudmouth.

At first, you were grateful
that someone had said even hello.
5.30 in the morning,
the depot filling
with tired men in hi-vis clothes,
feet scuffing old lino.

If you replied, he was suddenly
your best mate, your oppo,
getting you put on his gang, no choice,
telling you how things worked
and who to avoid.

It wasn’t until you were there,
in the van, six of you,
with the diesel engine
shouting in pain up the shallowest hills,
following someone else’s routine,
that you saw how you’d inadvertently
been stitched up.

In that small space of hard, spare words,
roll-ups and NOW 19
hooked up to the big speaker
from somebody’s dead home stereo,
he rattled on like Dennis Hopper
in Apocalypse Now,
telling shit jokes at the top of his voice,
and you’d realise, looking round,
how much everyone hated him,
and so, probably, hated you too.

The only relief came
when he was dropped off first –
a telling sign –
and you could relax and see
how he’d probably been the outsider
all his life, and how this morning
was typical of how he gained a brief control
over that desperate loneliness,
a sense of being disliked
that would be ritually compounded
when even you inevitably passed him
in the pecking order,
your initiation an inconsequential
matter of fact tip
when he wasn’t there:
“You want to watch him, he’s a cunt,”
so that you knew it was okay to hate him as well.

The rest was unspoken.