Friday 9 November 2012

Setting trends and saving lives...

Eyes open, Just a moment of confusion   As I tried to figure out where I was...What room was i in? Not my usual room! 7...9? No,  Definitely 8! It was a very distinctive room, An L shaped room, With three single beds, Soft beds, Too soft, Lovely to sit on But murder on the back to sleep on!
That was the problem with living in a hotel your Father owned, Never staying in one room long enough to actually call your own, Instead I stayed in rooms 5 through 9, Rarely in 1 through 4, And never in 10 through 12 on the third floor...They were haunted! I scanned the room through my imaginary telescope cupping my hands taking in the world an inch at a time Which of course translates to several inches the further away the target object is!
The small wooden crucifix on the wall, Hard to spot in a darkened room As it almost nearly matched in colour  the timber panelling on the wall, The panelling that would today be considered an absolute fire hazard, And complimented by the Styrofoam cubes glued to the ceiling with I'm sure could only be the most flammable glue known to man, They were the ones that if you were to put a flame to them They would bubble and whistle and almost immediately start to drip a fiery substance that would stick to your skin  And I'm sure would never go out...Not until you were dead anyway! , I imagined that they were Made from petrol or napalm or just fire itself perhaps! They were nasty.

As I lay there stretching and yawning it suddenly dawned on me...Today was the day, Aside from it being my birthday, My eleventh birthday! This was also the day  I would collect my custom jacket from the Arcade,  A haberdashery shop over the town next to the hairy bakers And Kenny's laundromat, Now when I say custom I really mean custom! How to describe this masterpiece, Picked out by me the previous summer at the Keen house men's clothing store two doors down from where I lived at the European Hotel, Was only the coolest chocolate brown corduroy hipster jacket with yellow double back stitching in all the right places, So as to be noticed...Of course, With metal buttons in a burnt brown to match the jackets colour, The kind of buttons that really were too big for the corresponding holes on the opposite side of the jacket, So in winter time you'd almost break a frozen purple knuckle just trying to fasten them! Of course it could be argued today that perhaps it was more of a summer coat  And  it would be more suitable in winter to wear A winter coat!! But back then we didn't have a summer coat and a winter coat...We just had a coat! Take your pick It was either a duffel coat with those funny bear tooth buttons attached by a piece of leather, These coats arrived  in one of two colours, Brown or grey...Or if like me you committed to the big purchase in Summer And had to forgo the sensible decision the following  winter as I did, The best that could be expected was a revamp of the old, Something to juice it up And boy this was gonna be orange juice,  Freshly squeezed orange juice!
Barely washed, Such was the excitement, I made my way down stairs to the kitchen to be greeted by Noreen Houlihan and Mary McKevitt both of whom worked as house keepers there, As well as acting as surrogate Mothers for me when the need arose, One such occasion was of course arriving home from school My head covered in nits, Out came the horrible oil and the nit comb...No complaints, Just job done! They were always loud and full of chat and gossip as they cleaned, They were their own best audience those two! Fixing my breakfast and smoking cigarettes and cracking jokes  All at the same time! I might add.
I took a seat at the kitchen table banging my knee on the way as usual, The damn table was too small for the size of the room, A painful lesson I learnt most mornings,
As I chewed on my toast with a million little eleven year old ideas floating around in my head,  anybody watching  could be forgiven for thinking I was in a trance, Truth be known I was aware of every little thing within my limited vision, Everything, The brown stains on the gloss paint at ceiling height which would indicate A chip pan fire in recent times, The long stringy black cobweb swaying and devoid of all life for some time now as it hung from the extractor fan over the door, The red fish box on the floor with a dozen giant crabs shuffling about......Wait a minute, The what? In seconds I was there on my knees gazing down in wonder watching them battle for the four corners where I guess it must be instinct, Perhaps the aggression levels are increased there, Hence the saying, Don't back him into a corner! Watching their veiled threats towards each other rising and falling trying to appear larger than life for that split second when the four in the corners were temporarily pushed out and replaced only to push back in like a Physcotic merry go round! I say veiled threats because they had thick rubber bands on their claws so as not to hurt each other!
Now I'm sure that if I could have communicated with these poor fellows and explain the term veiled threat to them, They would probably tell me to fuck off And that the term veiled doesn't apply here, Unless it means Shitting yourself as your hauled up several hundred feet out of the water then thrown about the deck of a boat for hours having your claws tied up chucked in a box Brought to a hotel and put on tonight's menu Then in that case, They were all very veiled indeed!
Never the less they were on tonight's menu, A special request from a group of Dutch anglers staying at the Hotel.

I started to feel sorry for them!

At eleven years old, As a boy anyway, You tend to have the attention span of a monkey chewing on a loaded gun, So by the time I had exited the front door of the Hotel and made the right turn at the Oval bar with the intention of collecting my jacket I had completely forgotten about the giant crabs in the red box,  Making my way along the town The sea on my left and the multi coloured buildings to the right, Broken up only on occasion by the odd unkept building where the paint had turned a sickly grey and had begun to bubble and flake, I don't think  people noticed as they were too busy smiling and saluting each other, We did that alot back then, It would be somewhat naive of me to say for the average person that there were fewer things to worry about back then,I guess in actual fact we just had less, So we had less to worry about! And certainly for an eleven year old on his birthday, There were no worries!
I entered the Arcade  temporarily blinded as my eyes attempted to adjust to the darkness, Quickly recognising the landscape of the shop, It kind of had a magical feel to it with brightly coloured materials hanging from the ceiling height open door presses which stretched to the end of the long narrow room, Chased by a waist high glass cabinet full of brightly coloured ribbons And more buttons than I had ever seen in my life! I was sure there just couldn't be enough button holes in the world to accommodate all these buttons!
The ladies in the shop were lovely and their personalities seemed to suit the location perfectly, They made a bit of a fuss of me pinching my cheek and asking did I have a girlfriend? To which my only reaction was to turn a brighter shade of red than any piece of  material they had on the premises,
Even with all the unwanted attention I had to endure My embarrassment would soon be replaced by a sense of pride as I waited for my jacket,  And there she was The familiar brown corduroy and  yellow stitching the same as I had left it in But the new addition were the bright red badges...Twenty two in all, All perfectly stitched on in no particular pattern, All making reference to Cork in one way or another...They read as follows, Up Cork...Cork is number one, I love Cork And finally Welcome to Cork, Not my favourite to be honest, I mean what if I were wearing the jacket  in Kerry or some place like that, Sure I'd look stupid!  Reading that back makes me laugh Because of course in my mind then it was that that made me look stupid!
As I left the shop, Shoulders back chin up and very prideful indeed, Like a peacock displaying his wonderful plumage, Picture that opening scene from Saturday night fever, When John Travolta was as he left the hardware store strutting his stuff to the music of the Bee jees smoking a cigarette swinging a tin of paint Almost dancing as he walked, Exuding confidence, Knowing all eye's were on him....Now forget that scene Because I looked nothing like that!
The sad fact is that I wore the jacket But as I walked home I stuck as close to the buildings on my left as I could, like a sheep on a ledge, Head down, Not embarrassed by my new jacket that stuck out, More self conscience as any eleven year old would naturally be, At that age you must never get noticed and draw unwanted attention less you were to incur the wrath of the school yard bullies! Though they were called school yard bullies There was always a chance you could run into them downtown, In which case they then became...Well...Just bullies!  I'll include the word just in that term for the simple reason that back then that's exactly what they were, Just bullies!
Today however there's a whole new sinister side to this despicable behaviour As I hear from my daughter on a regular basis, The term is Cyber bullies! Just how lazy doe's one have to be that you wont get off your fat ass and go look for a victim, Cu-do's to bullies I grew up with, At least you showed some initiative!!! Today they sit there barely even able to type with their fat sausage like fingers, Trolling for victims and making up stories, This is what I tell my daughter But more importantly I remind her that all stories have a semblance of truth to them, By that I mean that these cyber bullies are most likely just projecting the things they hate most about themselves onto others! It's called Empowering yourself by dis empowering others!                                                                 Oh Anus!!!!! I mean Aenus... Aenus Lane's hardware shop on the main street of Cobh is what I meant to say, My father had asked me, even though it was my birthday today To please go to Lanes hardware store and order a couple of large bottles of Calor gas Or he wouldn't be able to cook dinner for the hotel guests, Imagine that, Putting the fate of the inhabitants of the entire hotel in the hands of an eleven year old, I mean what could possibly go wrong?
Anyway...Into anus I went...What, No I mean I slipped into anus...Fuck...Stop!....................................
I walked into Mr Lanes shop And anyone who remembers  Will recall  A man of 6ft2 to 6ft3 Broad shoulders bursting out of his grey suit, Bald other than the bit of silver on the sides And always had money in his shovel for a hand! As I made my way up the isle past the selection of gas bottles, There must have been forty of them I came to the selection of gas heaters, There were a dozen at least, It struck me, How could this man have Forty bottles of heating gas, twelve gas heaters and still have the coldest shop in Cork! The answer wasn't long coming As I approached the little office off to the side to place an order The door burst open and there he was towering over me Money in hand screaming for the solitary girl on the floor, He looked down and started mumbling something all the while surveying the scene, His mumbling became more pronounced ...Cork... Up Cork...Welcome to...Aaaggh! He turned on his heels and shot back into his office,  I was perplexed, what was he talking about, Oh my jacket! I had in that moment of terror completely forgotten about it,  As the door closed behind him A waft of warm air hit my face, Warm air from the heater he had on in there, The warm air he worked in while his staff...Well did not!
Leaving the  shop I was hit by a brisk  march wind, Still it seemed warmer out here and I ended that encounter with a  shiver down my spine And away I went.
Reaching the front door of the Hotel I noticed my dads car was not there, Which meant he and Trish my sister were still in Cork buying me a present, Trish was a cool sister to have A couple of years older than me and very striking! I say that now with ease as my age affords me that luxury , But back then she was to me at least Uuggh! Well what do you expect she was my sister, Still she was very much admired by a lot of older boys in town Which in a strange way  increased my street cred somewhat And guaranteed me to some extent a level of protection from the afore mentioned bullies!
Listen to me, Street cred and Cobh, You'd swear we live in Fort Apache the Bronx!
I thought I'd wait outside for them to see what it was they had bought for me But my imagination got the better of me As I was watched the fishing boats pass by lynches Quay and went off into world of my own Wondering what it would be like to work on a boat, To catch fish and lobsters and sharks and Crabs, Crabs...Oh my god the CRABS were probably dying in that box that big red box! Suffocating or drowning on fresh air or however they died!

I really felt sorry for them...

I had to do something!!
Before my Father could climb out of the car and stop me I had tipped the big red box on it's side, Watching the crabs slide across each other then across the green weed that covered the slip, Amazingly they all landed upright and without hesitation they were back to the place Whence they came...Blowing bubbles and raising a claw, I like to think to the kid who adored Cork so much He advertised it on his cloths!
When the rollicking finished And my Fathers face turned to it's normal shade of purple He put his arm around me and said...Well I'm glad you took the rubber bands off their claws...
My heart sank.

P's For my birthday I received a grey Duffel coat....Up Cork!


For you Ann O' Brien.
Hope it makes you laugh.