The taxi driver whizzes through Belfast. It is early morning. Talk is of cars and babies and the new car I bought-that was years ago-and how I was never able to get the smell of the baby's sick off the back seat.
"I know where you're coming from," he says.
He has a pleasant face and wears a chunky identity bracelet.
"A couple of years back now..."
I feel a story looming.
"Pre-cease fire?"
"Yep. Pick up two suits on the street-we're not meant to but they look okay; one goes in the back, other in the front; he says, 'town centre.'
"Off we go. Then the one in the back, he says, 'Driver, look between the front seats!' I think, new car-she was new then-and the eejit's been sick. So I look down and I can't believe it."
"What?"
"It's a gun. 'Republican Army,' he says; then the one in the front, he flaps the sun-visor down, and takes my license from behind. I keep it there; you know handy, for checkpoints.
"He opens it and he says, 'Hello, Wesley.' And I think, oh God! Why am I called Wesley? Couldn't I be John or Tom? But it's Wesley and that's like having Prod tattooed right across my forehead."
"'This is your home address, Wesley?'"
"But I can't speak, the words won't come out.
"'Just nod,' he says.
"Oh great, at least he's a pro, I think, and he isn't shitting himself because it's his first time out. So I'm not going to get killed by accident.
"I nod and they tell me where to go. It's in west Belfast. I drive there very slowly, and all the time I keep praying, please, no checkpoint, I'll be killed in the crossfire. And God hears me. No checkpoints. So we arrive, I hand over the keys, we go into a house.
"There are two others there and oh, my heart sinks when I see this! They're in balaclavas. Armed too. 'This is Wesley,' says one of the suits. Oh Wesley, that name.
"'Go and stand over there,' says the other suit. 'Look at the wallpaper. These two will look after you.'
"'Of course, anything you say.' I'm over to that wallpaper quicker than Bannister ran the mile.
"The suits leave and the old cogs start turning. The guards are going to shoot me. That's the plan. It'll be on the news, Wesley X, well-known Loyalist, executed by Active Service Unit, blah, blah. I start to sweat. I want to pee. I think I'm going mad. I'm a cert for the Purdysburn asylum-I know it.
"Then I say, whoa, Wesley! Hold on. You've got to stop this.
"So I look at that wallpaper. It's beige with red pictures-woman on a swing, sedan chair and a guy on a horse-and I look at that wall paper like it's a woman, or I put it up myself.
"Then I hear the door opening. The suits are back.
"'All right, Wesley. Car's outside, key in the ignition. You just count a hundred and go. But don't go to the cops, Wesley. We know where you live, Wesley, and you don't want a home visit, do you?'
"They leave. The door closes. I count. I get to a hundred. Then I think, my hundred might be only their ten. I do two hundred. I do five hundred. I do a thousand.
"Then I say goodbye to that wallpaper and I get out of the house. And guess what? No fucking car.
"Then the fear kicks back. It's dark by now, it's west Belfast and I'm a Wesley.
"I run and run and just as I hit the top of the Grosvenor Road, I see the Land Rovers. I start to wave but they don't see me. But some guys on the street, they see me waving to the cops. Oh no, I think, that's it, I'm in for a kicking.
"So I have no choice. I just run right out in front of the first Land Rover and it screeches to a stop two feet from me.
"The policeman gets out and I explain and that's it. He takes me to the police station. I hadn't smoked for ten years but I had eight fags then, in a row."
"What about your car?"
"It was up in Poleglass."
"How did it get there?"
"It's a mystery. Someone stole it while I was counting, or the Provos never left it outside. I don't know."
"Had it been used?"
"Yes, they had someone in the boot, drove him quite a few miles. That's what the cops told me."
He looked around his car interior, then jiggled the pine freshener dangling from the mirror.
"She's a good runner, good mileage, but I never open that boot, you know, but I get this really strong smell. I've sprayed it, I've washed it, I've even hung up one of these pine tree thingies-but nothing shifts it.
"You talked about a milk smell earlier; well, in that boot, my friend, I've got the smell of human fear."
This story first appeared in Fortnight, the Belfast-based magazine
