Januariad

Ray speaks almost entirely in aphorisms and axioms. ‘Sure you have to laugh.’ ‘Ah, you can’t beat a bit of banter.’ ‘It’s only a bit of fun, isn’t it?’ These pat remarks, responses to normal overtures into conversation, often trip his neighbours at the second hurdle. There’s a dissonance to these moments. To the foreign observer they have all the trimmings of a warm exchange, but to those sharing the street corner chat with Ray they are fraught, disorientating experiences.

It becomes evident, as the uncomfortable encounters accumulate, that Ray is not listening. He is, for unknown reasons, going through the motions of a conversation that he elected to begin. He nods at the wrong time, looks through your chest, pulls another phrase from his bag of tics. ‘Ah, that’s Deborah, hah? Hah?’ There is no softness. There is no flow. There is the appearance of softness and the appearance of flow. He speaks confidently and effortlessly and without emotion and without meaning.

His reputation in the street is that of the gregarious organiser. He appears behind microphones, directing fun with a slightly heavy hand. Typed newsletters with his name at the bottom appeal to the common senses; decency, outrage, craic. It is generally agreed, with barely a lowered eye, that he is a great guy altogether. He hails his neighbours loudly and heartily. Ray’s eyes are not unusually cold or unusually glasslike, but they’re looking somewhere else. You imagine a great, hidden well of hostility. This seems somehow preferable.