Blowing It: Bang to Rites, Junk Dilemmas No. 67 Summary

Renton is at his brother Billy's funeral in Bang to Rites, lowering the casket into the earth. Billy was killed when an IRA bomb went off at a roadblock in Ulster. All of Renton's paternal relatives are in from Glasgow, and he is angered by all the Unionist rhetoric being tossed about. His disgust is not going unnoticed by the Glasgow crowd, and Renton's father warns him that he is not to start anything. His Uncle Charlie seems about ready to punch him.

Renton ruminates on the people responsible for Billy's death. He decides some upper class twit is to blame more than the Irish nationalists. He thinks back to his childhood with Billy, bickering and fighting over the Hibs-Hearts rivalry. He thinks that Billy, in the end, had...