Ballymoney Abandoned Quarry

THE ABANDONED QUARRY

Most folks know what goes on in a quarry. If you don’t, then allow The Duke to reveal exactly what it all entails. A lot of
motherfuckers blow the shit out of a few rocks. What in the hell they do this for is anyone's guess. Maybe they wanna find
dinosaurs. Who the hell knows?

Thing is, though, there comes a day when the quarry just ain’t producing the goods anymore. Maybe the rocks aren’t up to
scratch. Maybe the quality has just gone to hell with regards the gravel content. So what happens is, the folks with the trucks the
size of houses all bugger off, leaving the quarry to sit at home listening to My Aim Is True and wondering about, “Shit, am I really
that awful? Not even so much as a goodbye reach-around is what.” Generally the quarry gets all apathetic and melancholic and
probably wants to take a gun into a supermarket and blow the fuck out of a few cereal boxes. Maybe it was watching First Blood
the night before.

Anyway, in this case right here, to make the rejection even worse, the folks just trundled across the road and started digging there. Like if you were going out with this really
beautiful woman who comes around every day, and does you no end, till you can hardly walk, and then you find out that all that time, man, she just wanted to get it on with the guy
next door. You’d be bitter as all hell, is what The Duke is guessing.

What’s the deal with all this hypothesizing about the motherfucking stones, man? That’s the work of a demented restaurant critic is what, not an esteemed writer on Cultural Affairs
like The Duke.

This quarry what is now abandoned is a ten minute walk from my house, provided you are in possession of fully
functioning legs. If you got a limp or something, best to leave a half hour aside, and you should probably take a
flask of tea or whatever. Maybe a biscuit or two.

Also, go see a doctor. Could be arthritis.

This was still an active site when I was a youngster, and every Monday they’d blast the hell out of it, causing most
of the housing estate what bred The Duke to tremble like an especially nervous leaf. You didn’t dare venture
anywhere near it, on account of the machinery and so on, and also the danger of falling off one of the sides into
the gaping wound the machines had left in the ground.

Besides, the surrounding fields were nothing but a mass of shit and muck around that time, and a motherfucker could get sucked nostril deep in slurry. Once I lost a welly boot
trying to cross this wilderness.

That was a nice welly boot. Breaks a motherfuckers heart.

But in the intervening years, something miraculous happened.

I was out for a stroll one day. It was around the 12th of July, far as I remember, so I was probably trying to hide in case someone tried to get me to carry a load of fucking sticks
around for the bonfire.

In case you’re suffering acute confusion about the bonfire, what happens around these parts is that folks like to commemorate something or other every summer by burning
shit. Pallets, tyres, cupboards, all amassed in a field, coated with petrol and burned asunder.

Anyway, I couldn’t be bothered is the gist of it all. So I went for a walk over the fields, which were now proper fields, and no longer the Plains Of Bovine Dung what they used to
be.

I turned a corner and almost shat myself. This really was that hidden, is the point. It’s tucked away, this beautiful, transcendental reserve. This place that was like a whisper in
the torrents of bland greenery surrounding me on every side.

It’s the only place where rubbish has ever seemed somehow right. Only the rubbish that was there when I first
encountered it, though. You can fuck right off if you’re thinking about flinging your crisp packets down there now.

The drab mundanity of the housing estate which can be seen simply by turning ones head slightly, was totally at odds
with this jaw-droppingly gorgeous clearing.

I’ve only started going back up there recently, after a couple of years worth of sabbaticals with regards the quarry
prowling. When I was at high school, I used to sit up there and write, and read, and plan epic films what I would make
in that very spot. Tarzan Goes To The Quarry, perhaps. Three Men And A Rock. The possibilities are endless.

I wandered about in it during The Dukes Lost Years, ie, the ones where I was pissed, and I composed songs and all
sorts of nonsense.

I never really shared it with anyone, and I doubt anyone else would have gotten the same kick in the nuts by it all that
I did. Something to do with the “moment” and what not.

But then I met The Duchess, and one of the first things we did was take a walk up to this place what I was yacking about, about how it was one of the most beautiful
places she would ever see, and how it was even more amazing on account of how it was here, in this fucking place that looked like something Ken Loach would have
rejected on the grounds of being “A bit dull, really.”

And she loved it.

Or so she said. I mean, honestly, she was probably trying her utmost to impress me. I
mean come on, a man with such a way with words as The Duke can be quite intimidating.

We were planning to get married here, even, in this quarry, and in winter time so as
there’d be snow and stuff too. We scrapped the idea eventually, seeing as how folks
aren’t too happy tramping across fields in their Sunday best.

Nowadays some folks use it to hide stolen goods and stuff. Some cars as well. Usually after they’ve been burnt the hell out.

So, anyway, yeah. The Quarry. It’s kinda swell.

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