o’reilly’s coming home

by u.v.ray

you ask him his name and he’ll tell you o’reilly. and then juss to mek sure you know. . . and that aint with no zero, crackerjack, that’s with an o.

his mother died of a heroin overdose when he was just about six years old. ten years later he himself got started down that same boulevard a dreams. spent a lot a time behind bars along the way. age a nineteen judge tried to get him into sum kind a recovery program but that was a no-go, since after all o’reilly parades that tattoo on his arm that says to the world go fuck yourself.

and he don’t pray to no god neither because he knows no way does god ever lift his little finger to save nobody’s soul anyway. all o’reilly knows is every time he sinks that dart into his flesh it feels like being cast adrift in a sea a warm marmalade.

but sum times you juss got to ask yourself if he aint juss full a shit and wonder how much of his self-styled swank is all only a kind a show-business.

and after his latest stretch o’reilly comes waltzing through the door with his trademark sneer and his too-tough-to-die swagger, wearing a black italian suit with those narrow lapels because he thinks he’s frank fucking sinatra. eyes all wide and spectral like he wants to mek you believe he aint got blud but 10 killa-grams a fissile plutonium pumping through his veins, he says pour me a bourbon, kid, all i wanta do is drink and it’s bin a long, long time since i had me a slug a that shit.

mango looking up from the television, the blue a the screen irradiating his face, pours the drink and asks him so how the fuck was prison this time, young blud? o’reilly sparks up a cigrit with his vintage lizard-skin zippo, sits down in the chair and rests his cuban-heel boot up on the table, shrugs and says same old shit, same old shit. see, the trick is this, kid; in the big house up the river you got to pull your pants up high and cave in the face a the top boy in there so as to prove you aint juss another little prison bitch. and o’reilly spreads hisself out in the chair all nonchalant-like, sucks on his cigrit, blows out plumes a blue smoke in the air and drinks his drink. and with a lopsided smile and a wink he says so on my very fust day in the joint thass juss what the fuck i went and done to the kid who thought he was hot shit.

Photo of u.v.ray

BIO: u.v.ray has been called "a total cult." His work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies around the world over the last 35 years.

In February 2025 he went missing on a sail-boat trip in the Bermuda Triangle, shortly after completing his 7th novel, Druggernaut.

Druggernaut is out in the UK on Spinners Press at www.5767.co.uk. Connect with u.v.ray on X.com/uvray_deceased