A peculiar
story of excess in Cork city
ÓBrian
O Flynn
With what conviction does your heart beat on? Your heart knows something
you don’t! All organs that are not wilfully controlled have an ulterior agenda.
The secret your heart knows is that it is still important to be alive.
Procreate! Do you feel the hunger? Do you feel the lust? What must you
actualise? Are you a bullet? Will your life culminate with the mental or
physical destruction of another human being? Our life’s meaning is found in the
consequences of our actions. Are you a crutch? In life we intersect with other
people creating tensions and dependencies. We are helping and harming as we
make our way. Voodoo is performed with gossip, to make you insecure, keeping
you from the power within. Kind words help you up again.
Society has its fingers in your
brain! It will try to squeeze out what it expects from you. Now try not to
squirm! Do you want to revolt? Just you try! Denial of a calling can lead to
depression, sickness and pain. Relax in your mould! We know what’s best! We
were given language. Now we must use it to work together. Each person has a
contribution. Look at your hands! What will you do with your hands? Yes you
have power. Act!
Life fell on me. I look around, a spirit in the skull of a man, to see
how other people are dealing with life. Neighbours always compare. Who’s
winning the race? No one can tell because we don’t know where the race is to.
Is it a race? It’s only an unfolding of infinite possibilities. I see the
drunks on the street. Maybe their importance to the master- plan is greatly
underappreciated. Man judges from the measure of himself. We must stop judging
and start understanding.
When I was younger I followed you for a while and then I followed him.
Now I direct myself, hoping I don’t lead anybody a stray. Madness put a comma
in our progression. I could see it when it was happening to you. You saw it in
me.
“The Sinking Ship” night-club:
Over a table of glasses, sit
demented people, whispering and screaming to each other their fears, dreams and
insane proclamations. Each person has their ningling secret burrowing to the
surface, drowned from its home with alcohol. Black-outs enable us to live with
ourselves.
Judy, I touched your form and ran my fingers through your mud-water
blonde hair. I screamed my weaknesses in your ear.
I have lately found it my lot
to come crawling to women.
My guard is down. Let your
spirit comfort me!
The response I get when I talk to people no longer seems to satisfy.
Now I remain quiet. I sit on my own and observe like I’m not there at all. One
throwaway sentence she said, sent me back into a depression I thought I was rid
of. It seems all this time our communication has been faulty. I drink to confess
my love but when I confess my love all I confess is my drunken state. I talked
and she smiled without listening. When she talked I was never quite sure of
what to understand.
“You shall forever now be inaccessible to me. When we meet sober, the
amount that is not said is too much. Your beauty keeps me at a distance from
you. The flower of your face assures me your nectar is sweet.
Hug me and I will close my eyes, forget the world and remember only
love.
There are days when I mistake everybody for you. Please get out of my
mind! I will come crawling no more.”
Coldness is woven into the nest
of emotion that surrounds my mind. Sadness. It is always there. Behind my
thoughts hangs this sadness. Other times I swing the other way and act
maniacally buoyant.
I met a girl before who was happy all the time. She was mildly
retarded. When I see people on ecstasy I am reminded of this girl. Jillian were
you happy because you were too pure for pain?
Life fell on me. Then, within days, I was exposed to the subversive
light of the television screen. I was already adjusted to the ritual of
television from my time in the womb. First seeing the light of that flickering
screen was a tragic revelation. Later I discovered I would never have to leave
the light for a very long time. The light was every where I went, school, the
bank, bars, every where! Hollywood’s golden shower rained down. I was shown
middle class values, white heroes, clean ways and clean living. Further subliminal
messages on the radio cooed at me to assure me I was happy. The bastards even
piped the music into super-markets and the work place!
You won’t escape this noise!
Work
Will
ROT
You
from the
inside out
but we will assure you everything is all right. Our
marketing controls what you consume! Get on your knees for the Money God! There
is no other way!
“Don’t hand me the hatchet dearie, just throw it!”
Life fell on me and I tried to shake it off. I looked around at my world
of addiction and paranoia. I saw you in that state. You saw me. If only we
could see ourselves! We made our plans. Bands were formed. Films were
organised. Plays were going to be produced. But sadly, will was sacrificed for
inspiration. It was all only talk. Mere babble, whispers and screams. We talked of travelling the world.
New Orleans, San Francisco, Goa,
Montreal, London, all began to whisper in my dreams,
”Tim come dance in our streets, where the strangers sure are strange,
the ladies are many colours, and the music on the street comes from souls
drenched with drugs, poverty and crime.”
Irrationality began to scream from the brink of something else:
Madness is your only guiding star! Watch it
flicker, flicker, flicker, flicker, flicker, flicker,
flicker, flicker, flicker,
hide, flicker,
and reappear! Watch it come real close as a second sun! Watch it
e
x
p
l
o
d
e
! It was
watching you as you discovered Santa Claus doesn’t exist and your parents are
having sex! And then it watched you realise that which you should never have
known! Too late! You’ve seen too much and lost all faith. And now you ask,
“from despair to where?” Over here! Come with us!!!!!!!!!
I have been accused of talking to myself. But I am not. I am singing.
Rationality began to whisper from deep within:
I live for other voices. Carlos Santana, “dance sister, dance!” Neil
Young’s autumnal wisdom and Paul Durcan’s painful honesty, words which unfold
riddles inside me. It seems their art of expression keeps me alive. They have
turned their pain and sadness into a thing of beauty. Feel everything! Feel
love torment you. Resuscitate life with romance! Sadness is beautiful. Mild
emotions and complacency are not worthy of words. Suffer! Have your body
strapped to the mast of a ship in a storm. Scream for the birds to pluck out
your eyes as you hallucinate Satan’s baby in your womb. Can you feel it? Now
are you alive? I can’t hear you!
All
of a sudden they began to speak…
Different voices
Work
can rot you from the inside out. You just have to get on with it. There is a
will that gets me up at half five in the morning despite my hangover. There is
a lack of will the night before when I should have refused that drink. Thank
god for weekends. A man can live off the buzz from a good night out. At work we
are trapped in cycles. We are dull reflections of our inner selves.
Judy’s
a real bitch at work. You should see Judy when she is out dancing! Judy has
angel wings on the dance floor. She regains that spirit in her baby photo.
Judy:
“Watch me dance on the petals of white roses, beneath the moon, overlooking
Cork City! Can anything be as beautiful as this? I tell you my secrets and you
understand. You! Yes you! I love you.”
Me:
“We’re walking in the air. We’re walking in the air. While people far below are
sleeping as we fly”
.
Judy:
“Tim, can you hear me? I love you!”
Me:
“I hear you babe. I love you too.”
Now
she’s the center of attention. Everybody laughs at her jokes. She is
interacting by touching kissing and hugging. The world flows into her and comes
out the other side colored with love.
Dip
had his trade and fucked up ways. Every yoke he sold was from “the best batch
ever”, even if he was selling duds. He was all “big man” when doing business:
Big
Man Dip: “Ah that will be 10 pounds please. I’ll sort ye out now if ye ever
need yokes. Here’s my number: 086 7895 674” Cheers. Nice one. Later.”
D.J.P.J.:
“Yeah thanks Dip you bollox. That was a wicked aspirin you sold me!”
Judy was shaking. Her stomach explained the
intricacies of life to her.
Judy’s
stomach: “You’re fucked up and you’ve fucked me up”
Sex
was a thing she was not yet comfortable with sober. She felt it fuck her mind.
She felt anxiety about the shape of her body, far too pregnant for her liking.
Her bedroom was filled with raw acid techno;
Doof, doof, doof doof , in time with Tim’s thrusts. As she endured the animal
motions, she imagined the chanting of Witches by the old city walls. It was in
time with the music. High pitched screams and low bass murmurs filled her head.
Tim of the big pupils heaved on top of her, grunting and moaning in unison with
the peak of the Witches chanting. As he ejaculated the Witches hushed and she
became curiously aware of the pitch darkness of the room.
Darkness:
“What are you doing girl? What have you become?”
Judy’s talking vagina: “Judy the slut! Judy
the whore! Using men for protection from this big bad world. Giving me away too
easily.”
Judy:
“Shut up you cunt! I love him! I love him!”
Life went on. Stepping stones of E brightened
the way. Dance is a form of medicine. Sickness is a disturbance of the rhythm
in our bodies. Boom boom boom boom.
M.C(a
manic voice with religious fervor): “The present has been unwrapped and
consumed. And what a treat it was, is, will be, you know what I mean, it went
yum, yum, mmmm nice!
Welcome,
here is your clandestine twinkle, wear it with pride deep down inside. We’ve
got D.J Wavin the High Prince of Pipe spinin’some sweet tunes, setting those
wave vapours out to vibrate your consciousness eeeeeeyes, taste the
thought, see the air, group hypnosis
takes you there!”
Wisdom
comes from teeth that bite into you. On ecstasy the teeth withdraw and for that
sweet momentous moment; there’s nothing more to learn.
Judy
looked at the sky and saw a cloud that looked like the map of some strange
country. The silver lining was like still lightning. In her mind she could
still hear the guttural beat of Havoc 10. Doom,
doom, doom, doom.
Every
thing begins to speak to you. You begin to imagine strange significance behind
inanimate objects.
Different
voices competing for attention, drowning out my own. Different voices
screaming, whispering….
“Lets
get fucked up! Lets let it go! Here comes the beat!”
Barrack
Street
“Six
Dutch Gold and a packet of Rizzla please!”
Dip’s got his hood on, eyes rolling and mouth
working over time.
“Blue
or green Rizzla?” replies Judy.
“Red
please”
Her
eyes register that she’s serving a cheeky cunt, one of Timmy’s goons. Money is
hastily exchanged.
“Thank
you.”
“Thank
you, next?”
“10 Marlboro lights and a packet of Rizzla
please”
Cork
outside her window gets pissed one more time. Tomorrow, hung over, they’ll be
calling for their breakfast rolls and cigarettes, then off to their jobs to run
the town. Drink and Barrack street go hand in hand. It’s an anti-dote for the
weather.
There’s
jobs to be done. Hunt the dogs from the door! Face off the shelves. Take the
wet carpet from the front door! Clean up the mess dragged in by wet feet.
Old
Woman: “Hello love, it’s raining happily outside is’nt it ?”
Judy:
“It’s starting to pour now alright. Fine weather for arctic ducks!”
How’s
the Form?
“A’righ bys how’s the form”, Dip make his
entrance, more goon than man.
“Not
bad, did ye see Judge Judy at the shop?” I asked.
“Yeah
your sweet lover was lookin’ as fat as yourself”
“Alright
Dip I won’t hear a bad word about her. Only I may insult her.”
Every
body was in top form. We had home brew, bags of cans at our feet, more cans in
the fridge, a joint being rolled and the prospect of hard drugs later. The
“prospect” makes the future sweeter. We were sitting in yet another dusty
carpet room. The rooms always seem the same; the techno’s going, posters peal
off damp walls as we talk that shit we talk to entertain our selves. Talkin’
‘bout ya momma and who ya momma does and “the way she moans when she cums, soft
and whiney ahhhh ohhhh, your momma by, your momma!
“She
takes it like a star fish, legs spread, begging me to degrade her one more
time.”
“I’d
gag your mother with my scaly pecker”
We
try to disgust each other but fail. Too many days spent playing Mario Cart in a
cold room! We keep playing until it’s all we can see, tunnel vision to the
screen with conversation from the people in the periphery.
“Some
say there’s a world outside of Mario Cart!”
“Hey keep your hands above that sleeping bag.
I know what you’re at!”
“Hey bollox, it’s your turn to fill the
kettle.”
“What! No fucking way.”
We were anxious for the knock on the door,
the one that would decide our night for us. Oh yes he’s coming all right but
will he have the fucking gear? There’s always fuck-ups and anticipation before
a good night, that panic as organisational skills go wesht but usually things
fall into place.
Listen
to Marley mon he seems to know.
Bob Marley: “Everything is
gonna be alright, everything is gonna be alright”
I
needed somebody to say this to me. The baby’s on the way, the bawling ball of
needs!
“Was
that a knock? Press pause there. Yes he’s here!”
The
television went off and we momentarily saw ourselves reflected in the black
screen, blank beings with joints a glowing.
Stony
Broke
Hunger
pains were becoming part of me. My money was long gone but money never seems to
matter wherever there are friends. Ah yes friends, always there to fuck you up.
I’d been wearing the same clothes for the whole weekend. It was beginning to
get disgusting. Every now and again I became immersed and distracted by my
smell. It‘s like being overcome by a profound thought. I kinda liked it. You’d
be proud that you alone created that smell. I remember when I was being
strip-searched at Calais.
The
Custom’s Official: “You smell”
Me:
“Yes. Yes I do!”
At family gatherings I was always wearing the
same shirt year in year out. People used to comment and I’d like to think I
wasn’t momentarily depressed. Of course I was. I never needed an excuse to
drink but at family gatherings I drank to forget my shabby appearance. “Yeah
Tim you said the same thing last year and you were wearing the same shirt too.”
“Thanks
Uncle Mick. I’ll have another double Jameson with ice when you’re ready.”
Like
the antennae of a snail I blindly felt out the negative energy. It was in the
passing comments, little things over heard. My ego was bruised. Poverty was
depressed against my heart. I called it style. Clothes are functional. That was
my policy. I was wearing my pillow (at night my head tried to get comfortable
on my folded pants). My coat was my blanket. Fuck I didn’t care. I was wearing
my jumper to the grave. My shoes had holes but two pairs of socks kept off the
rain. I had my nodge, skins and wine which I brewed myself with love and
affection. The pills had arrived and the Mario Cart was abandoned.
The great indoors, fishing
thirty twelve crazy thoughts from your head
Dip
was a freak in a bad way. He was too old for this shit. He was a walking
anti-drugs campaign. ”Kids this is how not to grow up” He was fun to hang
around with, unpredictable. Fill him with drugs and watch him go. It was unplanned of course that I, the ever
responsible father to be, would be whacked as a whacked up piece of shit in
Dip’s back seat, but what can you do?
Buzzing
while driving is surely a pursuit reserved for the insane. But it was fun to
share a car with him. Dip the mad bastard tells us how he likes his music epic,
“a symphony with a thumping beat, boys, job, el jobbo supremo.”
As
rippling sensations take hold, he checks every mirror in one second.
Reason’s
shadow(a quiet but insistent murmur): “In a universe spiced with chaos, get in
line! Take your role! Take your role Daddy! Take your fucking role! Sell
raindrops to pay the bills! Sell little pieces of your mind!”
On
straight roads with a curvy mind, Dip ranted on about the joy of sweat, the joy
of masturbation and then he got on to the economy.
“Lads”,
he began, his eyes popping out of his head, ”I am the flea on the bollick of
the Celtic Tiger.”
“Good
one Dip you mad bastard.”
We
were down town. It was 2 am or thereabouts and we were looking at bridges in
the rain, like standing inside a poem. No coat, not feeling cold. We watched
the green Lee break into white in the rapids, forming endless, irregular
patterns. The cigarette completed the perfectly cured mind. We saw the familiar
glint of vice in the eyes of passerbys. I wanted to stop them to let them talk
their illegible mad-man guff in my ear and I’d nod my head, wipe their spit off
my face, stare into their eyes, the eyes that don’t remember, and see myself
reflected.
Morning
I
hoped I wouldn’t wake up in his house, the house with no milk, no sugar and
very little tobacco. On the brighter side there was bound to be some doob lying
around somewhere.
“How’s Timmy kid?” said Dip. Dip was looking
for a cup less dirty than the other cups. In his own words: “Anything less than
a lump is good!”
“All right” I replied. I patted my bloated
belly.
“Oh
momma that was a killer night.” said Dip trying to recall the night before.
“How
many did you end up dropping?” I asked.
“Just one.”
I
looked at Dip with disbelief.
“One!?
I took four of the bastards.” I groaned.
“You
must be pretty mangled,” said Dip.
“I’ve got my self a one way ticket for
Manglation station. I’m seriously fucked up though. Why do I always have to do
the dog on it?”
“How’s
your stomach?” asked Dip.
“My
stomach feels like it’s digesting itself,” I replied. Ever since I became a fat
bastard I’ve been getting stomach pains. I suppose it’s an ulcer.
“Your brain?”
I’m sure my brain would be just fine if I
never met Dip. “It is now trying to crawl out of my skull. I’m a shadow of my
former shadow.”
Dip,
my moral superior, agreed “You’re a sorry excuse for an excuse. I’ve absolutely
no sympathy. Your agony is self-inflicted.”
“Skin up and shut the fuck up you chirpy
twat,” I said to the old man.
Dip
was skinning up methodically as he spoke, “If only we were in a mental hospital
now. We wouldn’t have a care in the world. Beautiful nurses tending to our
every need, food and drugs served regularly and any form of behaviour would be
acceptable. Insanity truly is freedom.”
I
looked over at the great sage, ”You’re talking out your arse but your arse
speaks the truth”.
Dip
was spouting again, ”You are what you consume. The drugs just come your way and
it just adds to what you are.”
“Maybe
it takes,” I argued.
“Maybe
it triggers fuckin’ evolution ok.”
We drank Grants vodka with coke and smoked a
joint. We took the tobacco from rollie butts.
Dip
kept nattering on.
“Joint
butts are useless for finding tobacco in because people smoke them to the very
end. It’s the age old search, the search for baccy in the ciggarette butt. Sir
Walter Raleigh himself was known to rip up his fair share of rollie butts, in
his time of need”
But
then he stopped talking shit and got serious. Grants vodka was speaking.
“I’m
a boxer,” said Dip. He was looking me in the eye. I knew that look.
He told me a mugging story. His true colour
was showing, the colour of shit.
“BAM! I fucking knocked him straight out.”
I
kept silent.
“You
gotta be smart Tim. Fuck’s sake you’ve got holes in your fuckin’ shoes. Walk
into Central shoe store. Try on a pair. Leave yours there and walk out nice and
smart with your new shoes. No one will say boo to ya. You’re only as important
as you feel and you’re not gonna feel very important looking like that. Ya
fuckin’ tinker. You gotta look after your girl too. More expense eh? There’s
flowers growing everywhere, don’t forget that. Shops always charge for
something that can be got free. Never refuse a free drink, toke, line or pill and
steal when the time is right”
He
took a swig from his drink. Dip was a man who would sell you duds if he didn’t
like you. This is what placed him in the class of scum-bag. Beware of the
scum-bags. They don’t play fair. They
put the yokes under your nose when you’re drunk and don’t know better. You wake
up buzzing and in debt.
What
makes us civilised is that we hold back on our urges. A scum-bag doesn’t hold
back. I fantasised about slipping a sharp kitchen knife between his ribs. I
laid back and despised him. I’ll write a tragic comedy called “death of a
scum-bag”.
Dip
began singing “I spilt a little beer”, by “The Shallow Alcoholic Bastards”. It
was another one of his policies that everybody must have a party piece. I’d
heard his so many times I knew it off by heart. I joined in on the chorus.
Seems I was getting drunk too.
“I've
got Bob Marley's lungs.
I
splutter like the midnight train.
Whatever
about my lungs baby,
I've
got the March Hare roamin' round my brain.
I
spilt a little beer
I
licked it up again
I
spilt a little beer
With
the love of sweet Jesus I licked it up again
I've
got Bob Marley's lungs
like
an asthmatic coal miner,
And
although I'm dying baby
I've
never felt finer.
I
spilt a little beer
I
licked it up again
I
spilt a little beer
Lord
knows I sure did lick it up again
I've
got Bob Marley's lungs,
I've
got Shane Mc Gowans's liver.
Lord
Knows, Lord Knows,
My
Satanic dick will make the sweet girls shiver.
I
spilt a little beer
I
licked it up again
I
spilt a little beer
Don’t
you know sweet baby I licked it up again”
A further bout of panic at
the prospect of becoming a father
I
know women are the unsung heroes with all their birth control devices, early
morning trips to the doctor and cries of “pull it out before you cum” but my
old doll just wasn’t like that. She left all the precautions to me. Me! I just
knew she wanted to get pregnant! You should see the way she reacted towards
babies. When she held a baby a maternal dynamo started whirring pleasure lights
in her head. I pretended to be drawn to babies, you know, make me look good in
front of the ladies. Secretly I felt nothing but awkwardness.
It
started with “I’m late.” A week later she was pissed in “The Oval”, a dingy
student pub where they sell cans at the bar. Per night there’s always one girl
in the pub crying. This night it was my girl. Fuck sake!
“I
must have forgotten to take the pill”
I
locked myself in the toilet and shared my tears with a bubbled window pane and
flaking plaster walls. I felt fucking pregnant myself. At first I was proud of
my beer belly. I used to slap my belly button, making a satisfying pop. Now
I’ve got bosoms and I can’t see my dick when I stand up! I was always told I’d
never be fat. At school my nick name was Rwanda on account of my third world
protruding ribs and skull. When my brother came to school they called him
Somalia. It was those taunts that drove me to become a fat bastard.
That’s it Tim, keep blaming someone else.
Blame Judy that she’s pregnant. Blame the school bullies for your physical
appearance.
My
girlfriend was not too upset about the imminent babog. I on the other hand was
freaking out. I find that babies have a way, even before they are born, of
taking the center stage. Back stage I fretted.
I
use dreams as an indicator as to how I really feel. If my dreams are happy I
figure I’m happy too. On a week long comedown, dreams can get pretty fucked up.
They can bully. I began to dream that people were interfering with my
fermenting bucket. It really upset me. I chased a boy through my old school
because he had my fermenting bucket. I dreamed that an old man drained all the
vitamin B from the world. Vitamin B helps fermentation.
O.K
what are the factors we have to keep in mind?
Temperature. 21 degrees promotes optimum
fermentation. First you want it in the hot press. Let it bubble like mad. After
two weeks move it to room temperature.
The
yeast/sugar ratio. Throw in one bag more than the directions on the tin advise. Caffeine
tablets are optional. Special genetically modified yeast can be got but that’s
strictly for the rich bastard born with a silver spoon up his arse.
Sterility. Every thing’s got to be
clean. This is the hardest part of the operation. It’s best to douse all
stirring apparatus with boiling water before each stir.
Time. Patience. Every thing takes
time. The reason a baby takes 9 months is to give you time to get ready and to
get used to the idea. When you have your brew ready i.e. 3 weeks time, it is
best to leave it sit for another month or two in bottles.
Yes I was a little obsessive about the wine I
was brewing. Every time I worried about Judy being preggers I used to busy
myself with my wine making kit. There was not a lot to do. Often I’d just end
up staring at the liquid. The smell was usually quite powerful off the brew.
Every time I stirred it I took a good whiff off of it like I was inhaling a
nightmare made vapour.
Never stare too long into an
empty glass
We
were on the piss in Nancy Spain’s, a student pub on Barrack Street. It was a
college promotion where all drinks were £1.45. The lads sneaked in Dutch Gold
and Devil’s Piss. It was ingenious. They would never suspect that we’d be so
scabby that we’d actually sneak offie into a drink’s promotion. I sneaked in Blind Medicine. I was proud of the brew. It was sweet and strong,
harsh on the stomach and harsh on the brain.
I
was philosophically drunk. Having dropped out of philosophy in UCC, I felt I
had a license to burn the ears off of anybody who would listen.
“Yes I studied philosophy in UCC.”
It
was a line that impressed Judy. It was not in my favour to tell people that I
failed my Logic exam. What does that make me, illogical?
I
was sitting beside P.J. the D.J. He’s played a few house parties, nothing
serious. Owning decks makes you a D.J. He was always seen carrying records. He
was like those who sport a dashing guitar case, worn at the hip like a machine
gun of cool.
“Here
PJ, this is young Twomey. Twomey likes techno, don’t ya Twomey.” I was
shouting. The music was loud.
Twomey
shook hands with P.J. and babbled; “Red3, Johnny William B-sides and Detroit
Techno, Circuit records, with the green label”.
“Yeah
cool” said P.J. Twomey danced off.
“What the fuck did he say?” said P.J.
“I
don’t know”
We
sat and drank and then drank some more. Old ways. We played it by beer.
“Age
gave me social paranoia”, this is where the conversation got interesting. I’ll
spare you the chit chat we went through to get this far.
“What
do you mean social paranoia?” said P.J. as he cracked open a can under the
table.
“Well
you know the way a kid has no inhibitions. They see no reason to hold anything
back. I get fucked off my head so I can just shed everything that’s in my head
and attempt to do everything I desire. But so much comes out when I am off my
head that it leaves nothing in me.”
“You
know smokin’ Tim it does tend to make you paranoid’”, he replied.
“No
not smoking, I’m talking about age. With drink and yokes we become kids again.
Sort of freer ye know? When I was young it was so much better, we felt so
natural with our sex organs. I remember this guy on my road as a child …”
“Yeah”.
“He used to pull his penis back between his
two legs and call it his girlie parts. All this happened out on the streets in
broad daylight.”
“But
then you got enough spankings to realise that you have to hide your parts
away,” said P.J.
“For
sure”.
I
find that when I say “for sure” I’m never actually sure at all.
“Are
you seein’ Judy tonight?”
“Yeah
she’ll be here soon. I kept £1.45 so I can buy her a pint.”
“The
true gent”, said P.J. smiling.
“Indeed”
“Do
you love her when you’re sober” said P.J. Love is a dirty word amongst males.
“I
even love her after I’ve come”, I replied.
The
drink went down on my rough gut. Devils Bit from the night before was playing
havoc with my system.
“I’ve
got this great tune called “Theme tune for a black out”
“I
think I know that one. Its got that Lionel Hutz sample: “Ah sweet liquor; eases
the pain”” I replied.
Luke
Kelly was playing in the background, “the gargle dims me brain.”
Manglation
Station
Dreams
while I am asleep are one thing, what about waking dreams, hallucinations,
visions, paranormal activity? I was in the garage taking the temperature of my
brew. I was on a come down but that can’t justify my experience. Swimming in
the brew was a baby! It bobbed in the red wine with closed eyes. The umbilical
cord was attached to the air lock at the top of the barrel. Cold, post sex
feelings swept over me. It seems all the beggars on the street that I refused,
avoided their eye, deafened out their plea, would not disappear for me as their
ghosts were in the silt of my brew! They were running around the bottom rim of
the tank. They were the size of toy soldiers. They had the deranged eyes of
Doodleman and they stared accusingly at me. Their circles slowly spun the
liquid into a whirl pool.
“Spare
change?”
The
voice sounded like my own.
And
the baby cried. The cry of the baby got wrapped around a migraine in my brain.
One
of the homeless held a sign which read:
“Another’s
day in paradise”
Another
sign read;
“Why
lie. I only want it for the beer.”
All my pent up guilt was in the brew.
A strange fairy tale
As
if to mirror my days the book I was reading started to go a little crazy. It
seemed to merge with my reality. The first few stories were run of the mill
fairy tales, a little wretched and dark but still nothing to write home about.
Then I came to one which seemed a little too uncanny. I kept expecting my name
to appear in the text when I read it first. I rubbed my eyes with disbelief but
the cheeky text stayed on the page, insisting upon its existence.
Your Highness
Winter. The Blackwater was cold enough to take your life. Coral Castle was white with snow. Every body was
inside worshipping the fire, safe from the harshness of the bitter cold. Around different fires different stories
were being told. Shadows from the fire danced on the wall like spirits acting out the stories. Secrets were
brought to the surface, drowned from their home with alcohol. The King and Prince Voytech were alone before
the fire.
“Let me show you another way Voytech!,” said the King smiling, “there is another fountain in which you can
wash away your grief.”
The fire’s secret spell prized out the Kings truth.
“Its true there’s a time for truth. My story is I suppose, as all the best stories are, far fetched. It’s like that fairytale
my wife was looking for. Well I found mine for better or for worse. My secret is to do with that vacant expression
I’ve had in my eyes lately. Would you believe if I told you the reason for it was due to an especially good
cushion? Yes, of course every King needs a nice cosy cushion. But does every King need a cushion like mine?
I got a present of mine off the Druid, not even thinking to myself how strange it was to be getting a present of
a cushion. It was a peculiar thing to get attached to but I must say I do love that cushion. It is nice behind my
neck when I sit down beside the fire. “Nice!” well to be honest it’s actually blissful, like being caressed and
kissed by angels that fill your mind with an unthinking, carefree void. I’ll explain what I mean, as best I can.
When I got it first I didn’t really take that much notice of it. The embroidery inscribed the words: “everybody
move your body”, which I thought to myself was a queer thing to have so beautifully laced on to a cushion,
but there it was. Well now the strangest thing happened, one day I fell asleep by the fire and I woke up with
the cushion contracting around my neck. It was like being strangled by the hands of an evil demon. It was
pressing into my neck and gagging me with such violence that I thought it was a murder attempt. My face
went purple. I’m not joking! So what could I do but try and scream but this only asphyxiated me more. I thought
this must surely be the end! At this stage now, I was down on the floor. Every thing went black. It scared seven
shades of royal shit out of me. Lady Meed was fixing me a sup at the time and nearly dropped the Whiskey
bottle at the sight of me wriggling away on the floor.
I’ll tell you now what happened to me and its no word of a lie. I came out of my black-out only to find I was 6
years old and not only that but I was in a strange and unfamiliar setting. My body was still forty years old but
in my head, as sure as the Devil, I was six years old. I was standing amongst a crowd of young-fellas who
had their tops off and were going mad to this really loud drum music. The words on the cushion now were
dancing through my six year old mind. It was a nursery rhyme that went
I wasn’t afraid. I was fierce happy, like it was my coronation day or something. So I moved my body and a
maniac voice spoke a meaningless rhyme over and over to the beat:
Goin’ loco, cos the goons play the tune,
El smoko su su supremo, put ya howlin’ at the moon,
Cokin’ an’ then yokin
Bitchin’ in the kitchen
Smoking dubious doob
through the true
With that “su su” type stutter nonsense I didn’t know what was going on. The music died down and an
announcer of some sort spoke:
Welcome friends of the night! This is the circles’ infinite overlapping groove dedicated just to you.
Rings of time on a tree trunk.
Silence made sound.
The holy note.
This is the one! Once again we’re gonna make it happen hooking up with different periods in time.
Yes intelligent mammals; there is no present. The present has been unwrapped and consumed. And what
a treat it was, is, will be, you know what I mean, it went yum, yum, mmmm nice! Welcome Middle ages,
Nuclear ages and our friends at stone henge doing it like only they know how, welcome Cleopatra, Lucy Loo,
Alien Jeffrey, and a special play pen ring a ding welcome to Coral Castle’s one and only King Winder,
welcome, here is your clandestine twinkle, wear it with pride deep down inside. We’ve got D.J Wavin the
High Prince of Pipe spinin’some sweet tunes, setting those wave vapours out to vibrate your consciousness
eeeeeeyes,
taste the thought,
see the air,
group hypnosis takes you there,
putty with your brain, mish it up nice, do ya momma proud, Oh yeah! Respect the feeling cos the feeling is
all there is. This is the one that leads directly on to the next, so Everybody!!!! Remove the “I”, become the
world, Here we go, Move it! Move it! The run-away carriage (plummeting the chasm in the pupils of your
eyes) gains momentum until the RELEASE Orgasm; all tension is set
Now move your feet
(It’s not like you have a choice)
The King sounded insane trying to imitate the ranting in his head. He regained his composure, wiped the
spittle from his face and returned to his tale:
Lady Meed says to me later that it looked as if I was possessed by demons. My feet and hands were flying
all over the place. She didn’t know I was after falling into another world.
What happened next you may well ask, well let me tell you. When I eventually tracked down the Druid, I says
to him,“Druid!, you ignorant bollox, where did you get that quare cushion you gave me, the one that strangled
me half to death and made me delirious, the one you gave to me out of your famous “friend ship”, you
bastard!”
So he says to me, sneaky out,
“ Your Highness, easy now, steady on there, would that be the cushion I brought
home from the future?”
“That’s what you said anyway “said I.
”Relax! You have discovered the greater comfort of the cushion. What you experienced is what we call “the
child’s play pen”, it’s quite harmless really. The play pen is inside the cushion and your spine seeps in. Don’t
try and tell me you didn’t enjoy it”.
I gave him a swift box in the head, a couple of well aimed kicks, an empty threat to have his head chopped off
and went on my way. As soon as I got home I put the pillow behind my head in an attempt to go back to what
the Druid called “the child’s play pen”.
Sure enough it wasn’t long before the cushion began to tighten around my neck, a feeling I would later come to
love. I was back there, a washed by those feelings of joy I experienced the last time. I looked around and there
before me, dancing like lunatics, was all the druid’s friends. “Ah we knew you’d join us ”, was the expression
they bore me with a knowing smile.
“Don’t worry, we’re all soft in the head down here”, says Knight Rancer with a wink before he danced off into
the haze like a pixie. Next thing I knows the Druid has his arms around me.
“Sorry if I scared you Your Highness, welcome to the pen!”
“Whats going on!”
“Relax me beauty, youth has nothing to be frettin’ about”
Once again the voice above, within, everywhere, manic and urgent :
Refuse your body,
refuse your mind,
become a child,
reverse your eyes.
The words swam between my ears. I found it hard to find malice for the Druid. All my anger had mysteriously
subsided.
“Druid you’re alright by my book” I spoke with unusual affection.
“Good to hear it Your Grace, good to hear it”
Ah I do love that cushion. When life gets me down I know there will be a place for me where I can experience
a fountain of happiness. You may wonder why I’m reluctant to share it with others. Well the best way I could
describe it is, you know those wisdom teeth? Now, what was it? Oh yeah; wisdom comes from teeth that bite
into you. I’m talking about the clarity that can only be achieved through pain. Be thankful if you still don’t know
true pain! Ah let me tell you, pain is a teacher of many a lesson. It changes the way you look at everything.
When my daughter died, well it changed me. I started spending more time in the pen than I did in the real
world. Don’t get me wrong I’ve no regrets. It’s just the way it happened. What I’m saying anyway is its no way
for a King to be spending his days.
Back
to the bar
The
bar-maid had a smile for me. I loved her unrequited as I loved all bar-maids;
more and more with each drink.
I
was in “The Gate Way”, Cork’s oldest pub. I had “One for Judy, one for the
road, one for the by-road, one for the boreen and one for the drive way.” I
closed my eyes and all time dissolved. I was in the mindset of the generations
before me.
I sat down beside a man we call “the old
codger”. He’s an old alcoholic who carries a small dog in his lap pocket. When
he talks it’s always a great gush. He tells old thinker stories. He buys you
drinks so it pays to pretend to listen to him talk. He placed a rum and coke down
beside my Guinness.
“Thanks”
He
busied himself with his pipe.
“You’re
the little fecker who spiked me pipe with hash that time in Bradley’s”
That’s
how he remembered me. I remembered him as the old codger who bought me round
after round of drink. Like Dip, the old codger was full of advice. For instance
he always recommended wearing two pairs
of pants at the one time.
“Sorry,
I’ve forgotten your name.” Old codger was all I could think of.
“Tim
you always forget my name. It’s Mick”
His
eyes were warm and friendly. We began to talk. He noticed a cynical look in my
eye, that look you get when you perceive everything as money, cost, bills and
everything as a swindle.
“You’re
getting caught up in the rush of the world son.”
I told him about my hallucination and the
strange fairy tale. I told him about Judy and the bump. He listened. His ear
was enough for me to unravel the complications in my head.
The
black-out came and went. The chaos of the night had deposited me on the floor
of Dip’s house again. The party was in full swing. I went to the toilet, shut
the door and let my mind slowly seep back into my body.
Silence
will speak to you if you listen.
My hallucination in the brew was an invasion
of insanity.
There is only your mind. What else is there?
For me that baby in the brew was real. When I drank that home brew I could hear
a baby laughing. That was the extra flavour “Baby laugh”. The memory of the
laugh contaminated me. I felt like a vial of poison. The deep relief of tears
came to me. I felt better because of it. Work in three hours time.
Everydayness
I
wish someone would muzzle me when I go out. The shit I talk. Through my head
ran my ranting from the night before. I was sweeping Barrack street. It was
typical that I was fucked up while on the job.
On the street a homeless man was applying his
free sample of shampoo to his feet.
There
is a lot of dignity in work. Depression is kept at bay when you can afford to
pay for your round.
Barrack street boasts a grand total of zero
street bins. The rubbish really piles up.
A visit to an old friend
Pills
became scarce in Cork and I was forced to visit an old reliable. We used to be
good friends but we went our different ways. His consumption of “magic eight
balls” made him withdrawn and distant. It was a type of yoke that he had in
bulk. There’s a child’s toy of the same name. You shake a ball and it answers
your questions. The yokes had this effect on his lifestyle. He had random
answers in a ball, answers when there was never a question.
I
was on my pilgrimage for pills. They were over cautious leaving me in the door.
It was like entering the scene of a crime. Everything I saw was evidence of ill
karma. The radio played:
“We’re lost in music
I feel so alive
I quit my nine to five”
I
was brought to what felt like a waiting room. I sat for a while with
acquaintances and had a smoke. Someone flitted in the hall. Chit-chat failed to
dispel the atmosphere of unease. I inquired again for my friend. Reluctantly a
girl brought me up stairs to see him. I looked at him as you peer down at a man
who is lying at the bottom of a precipice where the sun never shines. On the
table a copy of “The Good Life” and a bottle of “no more tears” shampoo. His
mind was desperately out of focus. He felt the mice crawling in the attic although
they made no sound. Through the river of his blood swam a shoal of
disintegrated nightmares, parental voices and social fears.
In
the foetal position under a dim red light, he lies where all
dreams end. I turned my back and went on my way with my ball of yokes.
Losing
a job
Sweeping
the streets was a good job but as winter started to bully me, I decided I’d be
better off indoors. I got a job in a factory. It’s a period of my life I try
hard to forget.
The
smirking bastard : “Anybody who steps into my factory is defeated. You have
surrendered your time to me!
Stick
this into that. No like this! That’s it!
Do
it for 12 hours a day, five days a week.
Let me see your grim face.
Very good! Let me hear you moan. Louder! Any
tears? What no tears! But this is the end of the line!”
I
used to smoke a joint every morning before work. The thought of the joint made
me jump out of bed. It was always a big one. I staggered into work usually
forgetting or losing something. The people I worked with were so strange. I
suppose you could say they suffered from being ordinary. They were impressed by
West-life’s amazing chart success. They enjoyed “Scary Movie”. They shouted the
latest TV catch phrases such as “Who let the dogs out!” and ”Whasssup”. It was
strange.
The
factory manager told me he never saw anybody with so little interest in his
work. I was chuffed. I had just mastered doing the job with one hand, with my
head resting on the other hand, sleeping with my eyes open. It was my only
defense against monotony.
I
always daydreamed of telling the manager that ever since I was a little boy, I
wanted to work in a factory that made connectors for mobile phones;
“People
were cynical as to whether I’d be able to fulfill my dream but I told them that
someday I will work in that factory. Making those connectors will give my life
a greater purpose.”
His
rage did not give me the balls for such royal sarcasm.
“Do
you have an interest in any of these machines,” asked the manager.
It
seemed like such a stupid question but from a man who never actually did the
work maybe it was possible that he could imagine somebody taking a seconds
interest in this work.
“No.
Actually I have no interest in my work. Can I go back to work?”
I
went back to work and resumed my one handed, sleeping operation. He dragged me
out and took my clocking card off of me. Despite my mumbled objections they
fired me. I went home thinking of going to the pub. Finding I was locked out of
my house I thought once again of going to the pub. I went into town, called to
a pub but they were not opening till five. I went and joined the library. I
scanned the D shelf looking for some company. Ah there’s a real man, Paul
Durcan!
Needless
to say I beelined, with Mr.Durcan under my arm, to the local pub. The Guinness
was good.
Dear sir,
Due to an opportunity to
continue my education, I am obliged to terminate my contract with FCI. I hereby
give my fortnights notice.
That’s enough bollox here’s
the truth. While working in FCI I developed manic depression. Don’t worry I am
not suing (that’s your mentality not mine).
An employee told me on my
day of introduction that after one day it
would feel like I have been here all my life. It was her way of telling me to
get out quick while I still could. I looked around at the dejected faces. They
whispered to themselves “just till Christmas, just one more month, just till
something better turns up”. I in turn whispered to myself “kill me now Lord”.
In FCI one feels a false
sense of déjà vu. You have experienced this before! You are doing the same
thing over and over and over and over till the
days all blur into one and you pray for eight-o clock to come and rescue you!
I always imagined shoveling
shit as the worst imaginable job. But when you shovel shit you are in a real
environment, you can see the sun, you can smell the shit and breathe air
fresher than the death variety which FCI vents into its employees with the grim
conviction of a nazi general.
I trust that with this
letter you will never employ me again.
Disrespectfully yours
Tim the bad bastard.
Judy
I
tranced to the toilet making sure to keep my head clogged with sleep (the
greatest luxury). The coldness of her bathroom woke me.
Back
in her bed I rubbed my numb legs against her warm body. She rubbed my back as I
snuggled against her bosom.
“That’s
how you put babies to sleep,” she whispered.
In my eyes starlight, hundreds of years old
I was left alone with my self, trying not to think. Lately my
moods seem to be on a trampoline. They bounce from self pity to self worth.
“Just keep walking”, I told myself.
It was Magazine road after closing time. I had gotten to know the
walls of the road well. I was walking home with a stolen pint. Some guy was
behind me. Every now and again, I heard his footsteps. Before me, in the
shadows I made out a man leaning against a pole. It was like a place in my mind
when I didn’t want to think.
“Just keep walking”, I told myself.
My past was broken down to
a mere following noise of footsteps. The half empty drink was for comfort. It
was a half empty comfort. Now the drink was empty and there was only me; close
to crying, close to laughing.
Manic
lows
With
a baby you need a job. It was no longer about me. Without a job I felt like a
snail without a shell. I was exposed, unprotected. My dreams were bullying me.
They were dreams of my teeth falling out before childhood friends who were
brandishing ninja swords.
The depression I got with hangovers was
beginning to shatter me. I woke up with memories of dark Guinness in dark pubs
and memories of no memory.
Unshaven,
I stood hitching for an hour in the winter cold and rain. I gave up. Walking
home a stranger came up to me.
“Fuck
me”, he said.
I
turned to see if I heard correctly and there he was with a sly smile.
Everything
fell into place.
His
smile, the rain, the cold, passing cars that refuse to stop, 28p in my pocket
and a broken thermometer, the same socks for four days, clothes that begin to
stick…
It came as a revelation to me that it was
drink that was ruining me. The legal drug was the worst of all.
Oh all the people I’ve hurt, including
myself. It’s been too many times from hangover into drunk into hangover into
drunk.
A Rainy Day Revelation
I
looked out at my odd socks on the washing line in the rain.
“Not a day for walking”, I said to myself.
I got the number 10 into town. The bones of Jane Austen novels were
scrawled on the back of the seats:
Lucy is a slut
J.C 4 B.F 4 ever
Jemma loves ?
I
met Judy in town. Her face doesn’t light up any more when she meets me. She
looked beautiful but tired. We went to a bar. She ordered a Ballygowan with
ice. The tap-water ice made her drink impure.
“I’m
not pregnant”, she said.