Stellar: Cormac
Title: Cormac
Author: Jonathan McCrea
Date: 20th Feb 2011
Publication: Stellar for publication
It seem like aeons ago when Cormac and I were kicking around the lane. As kids we were nothing alike but our sheer proximity meant we became inseparable. To parents and teachers, Cormac was a waster, useless at pretty much anything except art, and even this talent he squandered on drawings of elves, dragons and women with exaggerated organs clutching snakes or goblets of wine. To a thirteen-year-old me, this was the coolest thing in the world.
And then we grew up. While the rest of us went on to college, Cormac excelled in failure. He put this down to a higher sense of morality; not wanting to be part of the system. We put it down to his immaturity and his inability to focus, largely due to an unhealthy appetite for hallucinogens. One day, in order to impress a stern girl with dreadlocks, he joined a socialist volunteer group who were based in Halifax and was never seen again, save for the odd weekend like this where he would decide to stop by for a few days, practically unannounced. It would not pass smooth; Cormac is blessed with an omnipresent potential for disaster, like a round of blind man’s bluff at a saw-mill.
He arrived at the door with a rolled cigarette in his mouth and what resembled an army duffel bag over his shoulder. Down the side, big black letters spelled out “cock!” in marker. His hair was tied back with a rubber band and he was wearing green jeans and a faded animal rights t-shirt with the internal biology of a lab rat splayed across his stomach. “Dara, hey wow, amazing!” he said, rubbing his hand over Dara’s bump. “Honey, you remember Cormac?” I said, gingerly. Dara, having been completely sandbagged, was immediately polite and hospitable to our guest while swearing an ungodly wrath at me through her pretty little eyes.
I’m pretty sure Dara remembers Cormac. The last time he came home he ended up staying a week, during which time he started a minor fire, broke the flush on the toilet and put me out of commission for three days with a bottle of absinth. The problem is, it’s difficult to say no to him because I’ve known him for so long. Dara stayed dutifully for a few minutes and made her excuses. “I’ll be right up” I said, sweetly.
I cracked open a couple of beers and sat down to listen to Cormac’s tales of middle-class activism. He had chained himself to a tree and thrown paint at a few fur-wearing capitalists in Mayfair, but other than that, he’s mostly been working as a duty manager at PC World. He had had a few girlfriends, but none stuck because he was “too much of a man”, which I’m guessing was a reference to his levels of hygiene. Don’t get me wrong though, Cormac is an extraordinarily smart guy, which is partly why his life is so infuriating. He could be a politician or a best-selling author and instead he’s getting paid a tenner an hour to sell inkjet cartridges.
When Dara came down the stairs, it was about nine in the morning. I shot up at the sound and quickly surveyed the scene: not good. Cormac had passed out on our rug with a Rizla stuck to his head and a Renaisance painter’s beard made of drool and pouch tobacco. An unpleasant aroma hung in the air like a hug from a tramp. Cigarette buts poked out of cans of Bavaria on the coffee table and the next door neighbour’s cat appeared to have mysteriously made its way in to the house and gotten its head trapped in a tube of Pringles. I had a large bump on my forehead. Dara shooed the cat out the front door, which had been wide open (mystery solved), and then pulled me by the arm into the kitchen. I was puzzled by the exchange that followed, it was remarkably calm: there was no doubt Dara was fuming yet she somehow seemed weirdly amused by something. There was no mistaking the undertone of her words. They threatened complete annihilation; like the Cuban missile crisis during the Cold War: Cormac would not be staying another night.
Deep down, I was grateful. A part of me loved Cormac like a brother, admired his refusal to behave in the way society demanded. The other part of me didn’t want to be getting stoned for the next week and watching box sets of Angel on the couch.
I walked into the living room with the poisoned chalice of a cup of tea and a Penguin bar, mentally preparing myself for tone: apologetic, but resigned. Cormac was already packing his bag. “Dude, what … where you going?” I said, feigning confusion in a way that could have earned me a small role in a medical drama, had the right people been watching.
“Oh, look man, Del’s been begging for me to call round and check out the gaff. I know I said I was going to stay for a while, but he just texted me there and you know…” He stuttered, putting his shoes on and keeping his head down. Finally, he stood up and gave me a hug.
“Right. Ok, well, see you soon” he said.
“You too, man, great to see you”, I said, reaching up to remove the cigarette paper from his face. Stay classy San Diego.”
I shut the door slowly, recognising the symbolism of the action. The man in me was waving goodbye to the boy in him, it was like Tom Hanks at the end of Big. I’d finally grown up. I turned to examine the cut on my face, and grinned at what I saw beaming back at me in the hall mirror. In big black markers across my cheek: COCK!