72 HOURS RAW IN DUBLIN
PART SEVEN
“FRINGE WARS, SAME-SEX AFFECTIONS,
CONCLUSION”
“FRINGE WARS, SAME-SEX AFFECTIONS,
CONCLUSION”
The last night in Dublin, lyin in the hotel room starin
at the stale smoke still clingin to the curtains, Sir
Fleming in the midst a some drunk dream or other, folks
roarin fuck-words on the street outside, others cursing
the wombs what spawned them in dialects I ain’t ever
gonna understand.
Occasionally, a coherent threat;
“I’ll fuck your kidney rotten!”
Or maybe;
“And fuck your grampa also, I’ll eat the bastard’s eyes
he sets foot cross the threshold ever again!”
And, oh, yeah;
“By Lorca’s balls, I’ll cut the ears off a your
firstborn for that kinda chat!”
Under the sheets, trousers still on case maybe the duvet
flies off in the midst a some nightmare ‘bout rabid
Alsatians, ain’t nothing a fella as cultured as Sir
Fleming needs to be greeted with ‘pon wakenin.
The dark illuminated by the blue glow of the mobile
phone, struggling to explain the fire in the skull to
Sinéad, and the countdown at the top right a the screen,
you got 100 digits left, fucker, best you make your damn
point.
And impossible, it is, cause who can relate anything of
the sort wi these kinda rations imposed on the language,
so screaming at the phone “Hell’s bells, we won the
bastard war, we didn’t crawl through trenches seethin wi
Nazi torment for a hundred bastard digits!”
But no use, and so “My heads on fire, you must help me,
I think”, it’s all I can get away with, least without
the aid of six or seven rambling essays loosely
connected via the Savage Purple stained-glass chards in
the gut.
Making do with the notepad paper flung round the four
corners a the mattress, and the pen shakin in the fist;
“Maybe it’s better never to know, never to be in these
positions, cause an abstract ideal, easy to ignore, but
the Savage Purple straight ahead, the eyes like Miles
Davis’ sax risin out the stew a bass and cymbal 49 and a
half seconds into Miles Runs The Voodoo Down, there’s no
science I know of could explain how a man might look
away.”
Because for a time, earlier in the eve, stood midst a
throng a chemically-enhanced emo-fringed erections in
the courtyard out back a Eamon Dorans, for a moment
that's all I could see, that note tearing through the
soundscape, and what it looked like, what it felt like
and sounded like was Sinéad sat in the corner of a bar
and the faces round about meltin into one
inconsequential hiccup in the geometry of Dublin.
And pie-charts, graphs, statistical analysis;
Is Dublin the cymbals? Or the bass? Or the fevered burps
of the 6-string?
Evidence suggests – Dublin, it’s the vinyl, and on its
own t’is a thing of great seductive beauty, least till
the sax starts risin, and then no, it’s just that, it’s
black plastic, and all a man can find room for in the
space between the soul and the brain is that streak a
blindin intensity shreddin the topography, that sigh out
the lungs of a thousand-foot Seraphim.
Dawn startin to bleed cross the streets, and the notes;
“No luck with rent-boys on Liffey Bridge.”
The bridge, sometimes around half seven in the evening,
what happens is 57% of the folks wandering across it
never reach the other side, all of them lined up gainst
the white railings, all of them wi eyes alive wi
perversion, provided you got the green, provided you got
the price of that quick one off the wrist an no kiss,
stood with the trousers at the knees in the alley beside
The Olympia, coughin into a stranger’s ear on account of
it’s easier when you can’t recognise them in the morning.
So I’m told, so they say, these entrepreneurs with the
Master Card round the neck and the tattooed fist down
the strides.
Throwing pillows cross the floor, and then no, turns out
I want them back, and the headphones on, The Pogues,
Shane spittin those beautiful odes to grime an abandon
an cities painted wi the puke from a fella high on Behan;
“A man’s ambition must indeed be small
To write his name upon a shithouse wall
But before I die I’ll add my regal scrawl
To show the world I left with sweet fuck all
And when all of us bold shithouse poets do die
A monument grand they will raise to the sky
A monument made just to mark our great wit
A monument of solid shit now me boys”
Us bold shithouse poets.
Half-truths and unreliable recollections;
Stood at a bar few years ago, gut soaked in gin,
hollerin to any and all;
“I’ll be fucked if I leave this establishment ‘thout a
verse a The Auld Triangle!”
And the gnashin an the sneers, the owner grabbin a fella
by the arm, “Think it best you leave now, think you’ve
maybe had enough”, and The Duke hissin back “Fuck this
barbarity, I pay your bastard wages!”
“A few pints a cheap stout at dinner-time every day!
Thank fuck I’m not relying on your patronage for the
mortgage!”
Because that’s what you did, a few mouthfuls a Proper
Stuff before headin in the direction a three litres a
molten shite-paste for one-fifty at the off-licence
cross the road.
Lain under these sheets, what a fella gets to thinking
is “Thank you”, because for a long time memories of that
sort, what they’d result in was three weeks in the
corner of a bedroom with Rubber Soul on repeat praying
the melodies might counter the guilt and the shame and
the self-loathing.
And another note;
“Gratitude – Keep it in mind.”
And keeping it in mind.
The iPod, having trouble competing with the other sounds
in the head, specifically the sound of Break On Through
being hollered by Sinéad and Anna, the two of them
runnin up ahead, Bruxelles being swallowed by the black
behind us, Eamon Doran’s lullin us towards it, promises
of music fit to mend and fringes fit to inspire, the
reek a isobutyl nitrite bein shoved eyeball-deep into
the nostrils a teenagers every direction.
True, the last thing a man wants in the skull at five in
the AM is the words a Jim Morrison, but risin from
Sinéad’s tongue, a fella realises it might be the best
performance ever given, a fella realises this is how
every song ever written should be heard, with the
sentiments ridin the shimmerin purple path strechin
ahead a that aura, aye.
Myself an Sir Fleming discussin the intricacies of
hooker-spottin’ and homosexual night-spots with a chap
goes by the name of Dec, and Sir Fleming still shattered
round the vision-glands on account of a lady in geek-
glasses a few streets back asking directions, and for
sure, he didn’t know, but still, it’s this way right
here, should be easy to find, and then cursing, “Why in
fuck’s name didn’t I ask if I could walk with her?”
And the answer, to be found somewhere in the middle of a
fable concerning a fella gets a craving for the first
Whiskeytown record, walks four miles to the house of a
lawyer, said legal professional being in possession of
just such an item.
And the road bein treacherous and trying, the fella gets
to thinking; What the hell will this solicitor say,
anyroad? What if he says no, the last thing I’ll do is
lend you Faithless Street, fucker, get the hell offa my
lawn fore I carve you raw with a rake! What if he makes
up some shit along the lines of “Oh, sorry, I lent it to
my sister”, even though everyone knows his sister ain’t
ever existed outside of a form concerning Disability
Living Allowance for a fabricated woman lives in the cow-
shed.
What if he tells me to buy my own copy?
And by the time the knuckles touch wood, the fella’s
already mapped out the conversation every which way,
every possibility assessed, none of them anything less
than cripplingly humiliating.
The lawyer answers the door. The fella spits on the
carpet. “Stick your fuckin record up your arse!”
Because we can’t ever let anything happen without first
obsessing and assuming and Doing Folks Thinkin For ‘Em,
and so yeah, the girl in the geek glasses, she wanders
on up the street, on past the bar with the red light
pourin onto the pavement, with the folks outside
mutterin, “We’ll never get in there, that’s the fuckin
Viper Room.”
And they never do approach the bouncers.
And he never does walk with the lady in the geek glasses.
And The Duke never will kiss the lass with the freestyle
in the smile and the Savage Purple in the eyes.
In the hotel room, under the sheets, flicking through
the couple photos stored on the memory of the digital
camera, three in total, two of them being pictorial
representations of Dec, taken whilst stood outside Eamon
Dorans and The Duke and Sir Fleming being propositioned
along the lines of;
“Listen, we’re all gonna head back to mine, gonna be
great, all sortsa partying to be done, what with it only
bein 5 in the AM.”
And a no, my God I would adore nothing more in this
world, but we can’t, on account of the train tickets
forbid it, on account of being There pretty much
guarantees we won’t ever wind up Here, being right
beside the train station, more or less, and yeah, fuck,
it’s a costly business, the old train travel, ain’t the
kinda thing a man can pay for an discard willy nilly.
‘Specially not when the bank account bleeds out the ATM
every time I go near the fucker, screamin an hollerin,
“Leave me! I have nothing more to give!”
But what I can do, is I can ask about whether a
photograph might be taken, for the article, like. For
posterity.
“Sure.”
And so the flash a white and the whirr of the camera in
the grip.
Sir Fleming looking unsure, what the hell’s goin on
here, what's with all this photo taking?
“Shit, could I take another one, man?”
“Um, yeah. Sure.”
And again with the flash and the whirr, suspicious
glances from Sir Fleming, what you playin at, The Duke,
what kinda madness is this?
But it all makes sense.
Because the reason is the camera, it’s been in the room
this whole time, until tonight, and what it’s been doin
is softly weepin in the corner of the bag, all sortsa
lonesome sighs, all kindsa talk about how it can feel
the Savage Purple, it knows she’s nearby, for certain,
and if it doesn’t get to make some sort of attempt at
capturing least some semblance of it all, then most
likely it’ll blow the back of its skull apart with a AK
fore the night’s out.
And so I’m saying to Sinéad, you have to let me take a
photo, and she’s saying no, no way, what kinda voodoo
you tryin to lay down here anyroad, I can’t have a photo
taken, not for a second.
“But you have to, because we got ones of everyone else,
you can ask Dec, we did his just a second ago.”
And the nose and the miscellaneous stretchin out the
confines of the anatomy.
And thus the reason for the two photos, see, because the
first one didn’t come out, and whilst, with all due
respect, it hardly mattered, the last thing a man needs
is Sinéad asking to see and bein greeted wi an image the
likes a which you find on websites offerin Pictures Of
Dead Ghosts Caught On Pictures. Loads a streaks a blue
an red an white an yellow and fuck all anyone could ever
mistake for a human.
“Seriously, it’s only for the article, no other reason,
God forbid, that’d be madness.”
And so ok, for a second, and so the camera flashes and a
split-second later an Italian fella has grabbed Sinéad
by the arm and kissed her right there on Temple Bar
Square.
And I’m thinking you scoundrel, that’s how to go about
it all!
And not the first kiss Sinéad’s enjoyed in the last two
hours, neither, on account of a wee while back, stood in
the aforementioned yard out back of Eamon Dorans, myself
and Sir Fleming spyin Oberst Fringes left and right, and
Anna, she’s joining in, going so far as to congratulate
one especially extravagant fucker up top of the stairs.
And then, next thing anyone knows, Sinéad taps Anna on
the shoulder and the two of them, lips locked and eyes
closed and I’m looking round about, perplexed about how
no-one much seems to notice, or if they do, they process
the image with the kinda detached cool ain’t ever gonna
light on the shoulders of a man as fried on Sinéad and
her every gesture as himself, over there, fella with the
daft blue velvet jacket and the Clerks t-shirt.
Him with the legs weakenin on account of the blood
headed north for a time, and then it’s over, and aye, a
fella tryin to blink, and no, no chance of the eyelids
meetin for a split-half-nanosecond anytime between now
and Christmas.
Few days later, Sinéad, she’s saying “By the way, about
the Anna thing, I kiss girls.”
And The Duke shruggin. “S’ok. So do I. Don’t tell no-
one.”
On account of God forbid folks might assume I get some
sometimes.
Following Anna and Sinéad’s “moment”, group a lads
appear around us, few faces materialising in the mass,
one of them fiddling with a tiny bottle a poppers, and
passed amongst them, The Duke abstaining, five or six
folks indulging in a sniff an a cough and the eyes left
an right red as oxen arseholes, giggling, sweat risin on
their foreheads, and then, it would appear, the high
dissipates, the brains sink back into the waves a vodka
and the Jägermeister.
Because a popper high doesn’t last long, this much I
remember from days spent wandering high school
corridors, the thumping in the temple reaching a
grotesque crescendo just as the doors are opened and the
seats taken and Mrs McCallister banterin bout Pythagoras
as the nose starts runnin and the sickness swells in the
groin.
(Occasionally, just to see what happens, the pill at the
bottom of the bottle is swallowed, and then a hilarious
series of paranoid ravings, oh my god, what if it’s
poisonous, what if it isn’t, what if I die and ‘thout
ever once getting tween the legs of the lass I started
smoking to impress.
And later in life, sober and clean, the realisation that
probably I will die without ever doing any such thing,
suddenly it don’t seem so terrible, really.)
And so.
Here on the street, with the photo stored on the camera
memory, with a woman with a head-scarf sellin plastic
roses on the street, with talk of buses to catch and
infamies to exploit, a cry to the left a me, “Go fuck
yourself you fuckin asshole!”, and it’s a girl, she’s
screamin at one a the emo-fringes, he’s runnin up the
street, arms out at the side, “Aw yeah, fuckin fuck me,
that’s right, I didn’t fuckin do anything, but go
ahead”, and next thing anyone knows three of the fringes
are tryin to hold back another, he’s got the fist frozen
three inches from the face of a jock the size a thirteen
factories, the two a them spittin at each other, “Come
the fuck on then!” and “I’ll kick your fringe half-way
to Kansas!” and any manner a violent prophecies, and
then it’s done with, the fringes and the jocks, they
reassess the situation, realise that whatever started it
all, probably it ain’t got nothing to do with the
shockin absence a any blow, and so let’s go hunt the
white-lines and forget all about this crazy fisticuff
mania.
And myself and Sir Fleming, baffled by it all, how come
no-one tried to bite someone’s ear off, how come no
flick-knives done got flicked, how come nobody ended up
crucified an tied to the back of a Vauxhall Nova?
Still, ain’t no sense in tryin to figure it out in this
frame a skull.
Curious melancholy – Wandering in the direction of the
hotel, Sinéad and her wonderful friends still with us,
and catching sight of the alley leads to Forbidden
Planet corner, and it’s a sigh, and it’s a weary glance
at Sinéad and talk of, “We’re gonna have to go, this is
our stop, right here.”
And freeze-frame.
Weeks, months later, sat in the light a Microsoft Word,
and considering;
Whatever happened back then, for sure, it was only 72
hours, but I left Dublin a different sorta fucker than
when I arrived.
When the depression subsided, bout a fortnight after
flingin the bag down on the bed and collapsing ‘side the
wardrobe, what happened was the black behind the eyes
started bleedin, navy blood pourin from every inch a
that oppressive mass, and the navy gradually twistin in
the direction of a light blue.
Before long a fella notes how the mind’s in a far
sharper state, like that old thing about when
something's fucked up enough, best to batter the bastard
to the dirt and build it up afresh.
Starin into the mirror by the TV, and for a second there
ain’t no hint of a reflection, for a second there’s just
three folks stood in front a purple sheet’s been hung
over the walls of a tomb.
The three individuals, what they are - ciphers.
Representations of people I used to be, people I wanna
be, people I am, and I know this, yet I got a lotta
trouble figuring out how I know.
Like when a dream takes a turn in the direction of a
building a fella walks past every day, and it’s
instantly recognisable as a whole, yet the individual
elements make no sense, the dream-fella baffled by the
conundrums arranged as furniture an paintings an décor.
The fella on the left, talking into a phone held between
the shoulder and the ear, mumbling, half-sentences, reek
a cheap whiskey, and the phone falls to the ground, the
fella doubles over, pukin a weeks-wortha regret cross
the tiles.
The fella on the right, faceless, yet burnin wi
contentment, wi’ fulfilled ambition, and a lass appearin
from the dark behind him, kisses him on the cheek and
says “Thank you for the songs. I gave Kenny your number.”
And the two of them, the fella and the lass, they’re
laughin, happiness and potential solidified and risin up
around them.
And in the middle... In the middle the reflection that
was supposed to be there in the first place, it slowly
forms against the purple, whispers rising from the
fellas either side headed towards this notion in-between.
And a fella’s own face looking back, and it’s Oasis on
the stereo, Liam Gallagher fresh off that debut, the
veins risen on the neck an cross the forehead, he’s
sayin;
“I’m older than I wish to be,
This town holds no more for me”
And unpause.
Sinéad puts her arm around me, and I’m sayin “Thank you.”
And I’m sayin “You’re special.”
And then lowerin the head, and looking at the feet on
account of I don’t wanna see.
And the blue risin from the black.
And freeze-frame.
And End.
Thanks folks
Back To The 72 Hours Raw In Dublin Index
Fling The Duke An Email or Leave A Message
at the stale smoke still clingin to the curtains, Sir
Fleming in the midst a some drunk dream or other, folks
roarin fuck-words on the street outside, others cursing
the wombs what spawned them in dialects I ain’t ever
gonna understand.
Occasionally, a coherent threat;
“I’ll fuck your kidney rotten!”
Or maybe;
“And fuck your grampa also, I’ll eat the bastard’s eyes
he sets foot cross the threshold ever again!”
And, oh, yeah;
“By Lorca’s balls, I’ll cut the ears off a your
firstborn for that kinda chat!”
Under the sheets, trousers still on case maybe the duvet
flies off in the midst a some nightmare ‘bout rabid
Alsatians, ain’t nothing a fella as cultured as Sir
Fleming needs to be greeted with ‘pon wakenin.
The dark illuminated by the blue glow of the mobile
phone, struggling to explain the fire in the skull to
Sinéad, and the countdown at the top right a the screen,
you got 100 digits left, fucker, best you make your damn
point.
And impossible, it is, cause who can relate anything of
the sort wi these kinda rations imposed on the language,
so screaming at the phone “Hell’s bells, we won the
bastard war, we didn’t crawl through trenches seethin wi
Nazi torment for a hundred bastard digits!”
But no use, and so “My heads on fire, you must help me,
I think”, it’s all I can get away with, least without
the aid of six or seven rambling essays loosely
connected via the Savage Purple stained-glass chards in
the gut.
Making do with the notepad paper flung round the four
corners a the mattress, and the pen shakin in the fist;
“Maybe it’s better never to know, never to be in these
positions, cause an abstract ideal, easy to ignore, but
the Savage Purple straight ahead, the eyes like Miles
Davis’ sax risin out the stew a bass and cymbal 49 and a
half seconds into Miles Runs The Voodoo Down, there’s no
science I know of could explain how a man might look
away.”
Because for a time, earlier in the eve, stood midst a
throng a chemically-enhanced emo-fringed erections in
the courtyard out back a Eamon Dorans, for a moment
that's all I could see, that note tearing through the
soundscape, and what it looked like, what it felt like
and sounded like was Sinéad sat in the corner of a bar
and the faces round about meltin into one
inconsequential hiccup in the geometry of Dublin.
And pie-charts, graphs, statistical analysis;
Is Dublin the cymbals? Or the bass? Or the fevered burps
of the 6-string?
Evidence suggests – Dublin, it’s the vinyl, and on its
own t’is a thing of great seductive beauty, least till
the sax starts risin, and then no, it’s just that, it’s
black plastic, and all a man can find room for in the
space between the soul and the brain is that streak a
blindin intensity shreddin the topography, that sigh out
the lungs of a thousand-foot Seraphim.
Dawn startin to bleed cross the streets, and the notes;
“No luck with rent-boys on Liffey Bridge.”
The bridge, sometimes around half seven in the evening,
what happens is 57% of the folks wandering across it
never reach the other side, all of them lined up gainst
the white railings, all of them wi eyes alive wi
perversion, provided you got the green, provided you got
the price of that quick one off the wrist an no kiss,
stood with the trousers at the knees in the alley beside
The Olympia, coughin into a stranger’s ear on account of
it’s easier when you can’t recognise them in the morning.
So I’m told, so they say, these entrepreneurs with the
Master Card round the neck and the tattooed fist down
the strides.
Throwing pillows cross the floor, and then no, turns out
I want them back, and the headphones on, The Pogues,
Shane spittin those beautiful odes to grime an abandon
an cities painted wi the puke from a fella high on Behan;
“A man’s ambition must indeed be small
To write his name upon a shithouse wall
But before I die I’ll add my regal scrawl
To show the world I left with sweet fuck all
And when all of us bold shithouse poets do die
A monument grand they will raise to the sky
A monument made just to mark our great wit
A monument of solid shit now me boys”
Us bold shithouse poets.
Half-truths and unreliable recollections;
Stood at a bar few years ago, gut soaked in gin,
hollerin to any and all;
“I’ll be fucked if I leave this establishment ‘thout a
verse a The Auld Triangle!”
And the gnashin an the sneers, the owner grabbin a fella
by the arm, “Think it best you leave now, think you’ve
maybe had enough”, and The Duke hissin back “Fuck this
barbarity, I pay your bastard wages!”
“A few pints a cheap stout at dinner-time every day!
Thank fuck I’m not relying on your patronage for the
mortgage!”
Because that’s what you did, a few mouthfuls a Proper
Stuff before headin in the direction a three litres a
molten shite-paste for one-fifty at the off-licence
cross the road.
Lain under these sheets, what a fella gets to thinking
is “Thank you”, because for a long time memories of that
sort, what they’d result in was three weeks in the
corner of a bedroom with Rubber Soul on repeat praying
the melodies might counter the guilt and the shame and
the self-loathing.
And another note;
“Gratitude – Keep it in mind.”
And keeping it in mind.
The iPod, having trouble competing with the other sounds
in the head, specifically the sound of Break On Through
being hollered by Sinéad and Anna, the two of them
runnin up ahead, Bruxelles being swallowed by the black
behind us, Eamon Doran’s lullin us towards it, promises
of music fit to mend and fringes fit to inspire, the
reek a isobutyl nitrite bein shoved eyeball-deep into
the nostrils a teenagers every direction.
True, the last thing a man wants in the skull at five in
the AM is the words a Jim Morrison, but risin from
Sinéad’s tongue, a fella realises it might be the best
performance ever given, a fella realises this is how
every song ever written should be heard, with the
sentiments ridin the shimmerin purple path strechin
ahead a that aura, aye.
Myself an Sir Fleming discussin the intricacies of
hooker-spottin’ and homosexual night-spots with a chap
goes by the name of Dec, and Sir Fleming still shattered
round the vision-glands on account of a lady in geek-
glasses a few streets back asking directions, and for
sure, he didn’t know, but still, it’s this way right
here, should be easy to find, and then cursing, “Why in
fuck’s name didn’t I ask if I could walk with her?”
And the answer, to be found somewhere in the middle of a
fable concerning a fella gets a craving for the first
Whiskeytown record, walks four miles to the house of a
lawyer, said legal professional being in possession of
just such an item.
And the road bein treacherous and trying, the fella gets
to thinking; What the hell will this solicitor say,
anyroad? What if he says no, the last thing I’ll do is
lend you Faithless Street, fucker, get the hell offa my
lawn fore I carve you raw with a rake! What if he makes
up some shit along the lines of “Oh, sorry, I lent it to
my sister”, even though everyone knows his sister ain’t
ever existed outside of a form concerning Disability
Living Allowance for a fabricated woman lives in the cow-
shed.
What if he tells me to buy my own copy?
And by the time the knuckles touch wood, the fella’s
already mapped out the conversation every which way,
every possibility assessed, none of them anything less
than cripplingly humiliating.
The lawyer answers the door. The fella spits on the
carpet. “Stick your fuckin record up your arse!”
Because we can’t ever let anything happen without first
obsessing and assuming and Doing Folks Thinkin For ‘Em,
and so yeah, the girl in the geek glasses, she wanders
on up the street, on past the bar with the red light
pourin onto the pavement, with the folks outside
mutterin, “We’ll never get in there, that’s the fuckin
Viper Room.”
And they never do approach the bouncers.
And he never does walk with the lady in the geek glasses.
And The Duke never will kiss the lass with the freestyle
in the smile and the Savage Purple in the eyes.
In the hotel room, under the sheets, flicking through
the couple photos stored on the memory of the digital
camera, three in total, two of them being pictorial
representations of Dec, taken whilst stood outside Eamon
Dorans and The Duke and Sir Fleming being propositioned
along the lines of;
“Listen, we’re all gonna head back to mine, gonna be
great, all sortsa partying to be done, what with it only
bein 5 in the AM.”
And a no, my God I would adore nothing more in this
world, but we can’t, on account of the train tickets
forbid it, on account of being There pretty much
guarantees we won’t ever wind up Here, being right
beside the train station, more or less, and yeah, fuck,
it’s a costly business, the old train travel, ain’t the
kinda thing a man can pay for an discard willy nilly.
‘Specially not when the bank account bleeds out the ATM
every time I go near the fucker, screamin an hollerin,
“Leave me! I have nothing more to give!”
But what I can do, is I can ask about whether a
photograph might be taken, for the article, like. For
posterity.
“Sure.”
And so the flash a white and the whirr of the camera in
the grip.
Sir Fleming looking unsure, what the hell’s goin on
here, what's with all this photo taking?
“Shit, could I take another one, man?”
“Um, yeah. Sure.”
And again with the flash and the whirr, suspicious
glances from Sir Fleming, what you playin at, The Duke,
what kinda madness is this?
But it all makes sense.
Because the reason is the camera, it’s been in the room
this whole time, until tonight, and what it’s been doin
is softly weepin in the corner of the bag, all sortsa
lonesome sighs, all kindsa talk about how it can feel
the Savage Purple, it knows she’s nearby, for certain,
and if it doesn’t get to make some sort of attempt at
capturing least some semblance of it all, then most
likely it’ll blow the back of its skull apart with a AK
fore the night’s out.
And so I’m saying to Sinéad, you have to let me take a
photo, and she’s saying no, no way, what kinda voodoo
you tryin to lay down here anyroad, I can’t have a photo
taken, not for a second.
“But you have to, because we got ones of everyone else,
you can ask Dec, we did his just a second ago.”
And the nose and the miscellaneous stretchin out the
confines of the anatomy.
And thus the reason for the two photos, see, because the
first one didn’t come out, and whilst, with all due
respect, it hardly mattered, the last thing a man needs
is Sinéad asking to see and bein greeted wi an image the
likes a which you find on websites offerin Pictures Of
Dead Ghosts Caught On Pictures. Loads a streaks a blue
an red an white an yellow and fuck all anyone could ever
mistake for a human.
“Seriously, it’s only for the article, no other reason,
God forbid, that’d be madness.”
And so ok, for a second, and so the camera flashes and a
split-second later an Italian fella has grabbed Sinéad
by the arm and kissed her right there on Temple Bar
Square.
And I’m thinking you scoundrel, that’s how to go about
it all!
And not the first kiss Sinéad’s enjoyed in the last two
hours, neither, on account of a wee while back, stood in
the aforementioned yard out back of Eamon Dorans, myself
and Sir Fleming spyin Oberst Fringes left and right, and
Anna, she’s joining in, going so far as to congratulate
one especially extravagant fucker up top of the stairs.
And then, next thing anyone knows, Sinéad taps Anna on
the shoulder and the two of them, lips locked and eyes
closed and I’m looking round about, perplexed about how
no-one much seems to notice, or if they do, they process
the image with the kinda detached cool ain’t ever gonna
light on the shoulders of a man as fried on Sinéad and
her every gesture as himself, over there, fella with the
daft blue velvet jacket and the Clerks t-shirt.
Him with the legs weakenin on account of the blood
headed north for a time, and then it’s over, and aye, a
fella tryin to blink, and no, no chance of the eyelids
meetin for a split-half-nanosecond anytime between now
and Christmas.
Few days later, Sinéad, she’s saying “By the way, about
the Anna thing, I kiss girls.”
And The Duke shruggin. “S’ok. So do I. Don’t tell no-
one.”
On account of God forbid folks might assume I get some
sometimes.
Following Anna and Sinéad’s “moment”, group a lads
appear around us, few faces materialising in the mass,
one of them fiddling with a tiny bottle a poppers, and
passed amongst them, The Duke abstaining, five or six
folks indulging in a sniff an a cough and the eyes left
an right red as oxen arseholes, giggling, sweat risin on
their foreheads, and then, it would appear, the high
dissipates, the brains sink back into the waves a vodka
and the Jägermeister.
Because a popper high doesn’t last long, this much I
remember from days spent wandering high school
corridors, the thumping in the temple reaching a
grotesque crescendo just as the doors are opened and the
seats taken and Mrs McCallister banterin bout Pythagoras
as the nose starts runnin and the sickness swells in the
groin.
(Occasionally, just to see what happens, the pill at the
bottom of the bottle is swallowed, and then a hilarious
series of paranoid ravings, oh my god, what if it’s
poisonous, what if it isn’t, what if I die and ‘thout
ever once getting tween the legs of the lass I started
smoking to impress.
And later in life, sober and clean, the realisation that
probably I will die without ever doing any such thing,
suddenly it don’t seem so terrible, really.)
And so.
Here on the street, with the photo stored on the camera
memory, with a woman with a head-scarf sellin plastic
roses on the street, with talk of buses to catch and
infamies to exploit, a cry to the left a me, “Go fuck
yourself you fuckin asshole!”, and it’s a girl, she’s
screamin at one a the emo-fringes, he’s runnin up the
street, arms out at the side, “Aw yeah, fuckin fuck me,
that’s right, I didn’t fuckin do anything, but go
ahead”, and next thing anyone knows three of the fringes
are tryin to hold back another, he’s got the fist frozen
three inches from the face of a jock the size a thirteen
factories, the two a them spittin at each other, “Come
the fuck on then!” and “I’ll kick your fringe half-way
to Kansas!” and any manner a violent prophecies, and
then it’s done with, the fringes and the jocks, they
reassess the situation, realise that whatever started it
all, probably it ain’t got nothing to do with the
shockin absence a any blow, and so let’s go hunt the
white-lines and forget all about this crazy fisticuff
mania.
And myself and Sir Fleming, baffled by it all, how come
no-one tried to bite someone’s ear off, how come no
flick-knives done got flicked, how come nobody ended up
crucified an tied to the back of a Vauxhall Nova?
Still, ain’t no sense in tryin to figure it out in this
frame a skull.
Curious melancholy – Wandering in the direction of the
hotel, Sinéad and her wonderful friends still with us,
and catching sight of the alley leads to Forbidden
Planet corner, and it’s a sigh, and it’s a weary glance
at Sinéad and talk of, “We’re gonna have to go, this is
our stop, right here.”
And freeze-frame.
Weeks, months later, sat in the light a Microsoft Word,
and considering;
Whatever happened back then, for sure, it was only 72
hours, but I left Dublin a different sorta fucker than
when I arrived.
When the depression subsided, bout a fortnight after
flingin the bag down on the bed and collapsing ‘side the
wardrobe, what happened was the black behind the eyes
started bleedin, navy blood pourin from every inch a
that oppressive mass, and the navy gradually twistin in
the direction of a light blue.
Before long a fella notes how the mind’s in a far
sharper state, like that old thing about when
something's fucked up enough, best to batter the bastard
to the dirt and build it up afresh.
Starin into the mirror by the TV, and for a second there
ain’t no hint of a reflection, for a second there’s just
three folks stood in front a purple sheet’s been hung
over the walls of a tomb.
The three individuals, what they are - ciphers.
Representations of people I used to be, people I wanna
be, people I am, and I know this, yet I got a lotta
trouble figuring out how I know.
Like when a dream takes a turn in the direction of a
building a fella walks past every day, and it’s
instantly recognisable as a whole, yet the individual
elements make no sense, the dream-fella baffled by the
conundrums arranged as furniture an paintings an décor.
The fella on the left, talking into a phone held between
the shoulder and the ear, mumbling, half-sentences, reek
a cheap whiskey, and the phone falls to the ground, the
fella doubles over, pukin a weeks-wortha regret cross
the tiles.
The fella on the right, faceless, yet burnin wi
contentment, wi’ fulfilled ambition, and a lass appearin
from the dark behind him, kisses him on the cheek and
says “Thank you for the songs. I gave Kenny your number.”
And the two of them, the fella and the lass, they’re
laughin, happiness and potential solidified and risin up
around them.
And in the middle... In the middle the reflection that
was supposed to be there in the first place, it slowly
forms against the purple, whispers rising from the
fellas either side headed towards this notion in-between.
And a fella’s own face looking back, and it’s Oasis on
the stereo, Liam Gallagher fresh off that debut, the
veins risen on the neck an cross the forehead, he’s
sayin;
“I’m older than I wish to be,
This town holds no more for me”
And unpause.
Sinéad puts her arm around me, and I’m sayin “Thank you.”
And I’m sayin “You’re special.”
And then lowerin the head, and looking at the feet on
account of I don’t wanna see.
And the blue risin from the black.
And freeze-frame.
And End.
Thanks folks
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