Authors: Kevin Brennan
“For fuck’s sake, that’s all I need! Seven Mick, seven…Seven Mick urgent pick–up in IT after a fuck up…..nice one Mick; goin’ to Ballyfermot.”
I felt like shit. Having somebody sent in to do work that I had forgotten, with everybody listening, showed me up so much, even shrouded as I was in the apathy of narcotics. I always believed in doing my job well, no matter what the job, and forgetting to pick up work was without doubt the opposite of doing this job well.
I trudged into the office of the paper company and occupied myself rummaging through the packages in my bag, to find the appropriate one for here when more disaster struck.
“Oh no! Oh fuck! Oh crap!” I was horrified to find an envelope addressed to Loughlan O’Reilly on Baggot Street. I froze, horrified, right there in front of the receptionist as the full implications of my situation hit home. Two fuck ups on one run – disastrous!
I was frought with indecisiveness. I was four miles from Baggot Street at that stage, which meant eight miles to get it dropped and then back to where I was now, with two jobs still left to drop. That was just too much after a hard day’s work. I’d rather bite the bullet and confess to Aidan. Unless…
The receptionist was slightly startled as I suddenly sprung to life directly at her.
“Can I use your phone, please? It’s an emergency, and can I also have a look at your phone book? Thanks.”
J…k…l…le…li…Lu…too far…. there we go.
“I have a delivery here for you, I’ll get it in a second.” I turned my attention to the phone. “Ah, hello, hi. I’m a courier and I picked up something for you from a company called Litholux in Dun Laoghaire and er… I’m very sorry, but I drove through town and I forgot to drop it off. I’m…er…eight miles away now and I was just wondering how long you’re going to be open for. It’s twenty to six now, or maybe I should just drop it in to you first thing in the morning. Okay….I’ll see you at nine in the morning…oh and your name is? Thanks very much, Claire. See you in the morning. Oh, and one more thing, please don’t ring Lightning and give out about me – they go mad when we make mistakes, Thanks again, bye now.”
I might have been stoned but I still had the smarts to get myself out of trouble.
When the receptionist handed me back the signature book, I wrote Clarie’s name in the space beside the job that I would now be holding overnight. I felt good as I finished my run that evening, despite spending fifteen minutes driving around the wrong housing estate in Lucan in a stoned stupor after misreading my map.
Aidan was surprised to see me in the base when he arrived, early as per usual on Fridays, to take over from John at quarter past nine. I was surprised at how odd he looked walking into the base and realised that up to this point I had only ever seen the man’s top half.
“Much in, John?” he asked through the hatch.
“Quiet enough – put the kettle on!” John said.
“Are they all on the air?”
“Two Charlie radioed in to say his clutch cable snapped las’ night an’ he won’t be ready to go ‘til abou’ ten.”
“Sure we have this gobshite here te cover town. Wha’ the fuck happened wi’ IT las’ nie?”
I had all night to prepare an answer to that one, and the other one was done and dusted by then also, of course.
“I was in the middle of crossing Baggot Street when you gave me that and some arsehole started beeping at me and there was a bit of a road rage incident and I never wrote it down, so didn’t end up picking it up. It was just bad timing!”
“Bad timin’, my arse! They were goin’ bananas abou’ tha’ fuck up. We have to fuckin’ look after these Dublin 2 accounts well ‘cos every courier company in the bleedin’ city has sales reps droppin’ in price lists in Dublin 2 regularly. One a them sharks lands into their office after a fuck up like this and bang! Account gone!”
“It won’t happen again.”
“I’ be’er fuckin’ noh! You in here for yer wages or wo’?”
I had actually forgotten that today was my first payday in lightning!
“I…er…had something to do first thing but if the wages are there….”
“I’ll have a look when I get on the base.” Then he went into the kitchen.
I did get my wages and payslip off him as soon as he got to the base. The total came to £182.40. Not much for three and a half days – an average of less than 60 a day, but I was sure my average was up on that for this week. Those lazy couriers from
the kiosk made 325 a week, but I had no doubts that I could beat that once I learned the ropes.
I also got the first run south to begin what proved to be my busiest day so far as a courier, notching up a total of 20 mileage jobs and still having time for a quick lunch out in Bray just before 2 o’clock.
I’m not sure if starting in town had me out of synch with my usual pattern or if it was just the way the work went that day, but I dropped my last job at ten to six, that had come from Blackrock, on Leeson Street. Not having anything to send me towards home, Aidan advised me to head around to the base for ten minutes cover, just in case!
There were a lot of bikes outside the base, which was full of couriers in loud form after a hard week’s work. Vinno was walking out the door, sparking up a joint, as I got off my bike.
“Yo, Shy Boy! Heard ye goh bollicked ou’ of i’ for forgettin’ a pick-up, ye stoner!”
“That’s not all, either. I forgot to drop one in Baggot Street before I left town, only copped it in Cherry Orchard at twenty to six.”
“Oh shit! Did Bollicky Balls go mad?”
I darted a nervous look into the base as I lowered my voice to a whisper. “He never found out! I got their number in the phonebook and rang them; arranged to drop it first thing this morning.”
“Clever! I was wonderin’ how come ye started in 2 this mornin’!”
“For fuck’s sake, Vinno man, what’s the bleedin’ story? Are ye passin’ the bleedin’ joint or woh?”
Ray emerged, fingers outstretched in a joint-receiving V while doing his junkie impersonation, with the drawled out speech and eyes rolling backwards as far as they could go. He also employed a small, wobbly step, which tied in with the minute, junky like rocking motions he made as he walked out the door. Vinno took two more drags in quick succession and then passed the joint…to me!
Ray’s normal voice came back immediately. “What the fuck? Skip-pin’ me to pass to new kid! You don’t even smoke, do ye, Shy Boy?”
I held his gaze as I sucked long and hard on the joint. I then inhaled the whole lot with exaggerated pleasure before answering; my voice struggled due to the effect of the smoke. “Never touch the stuff.”
“I’m disappointed, Vinno! I goh the skins, kep sketch an’ fuckin’ helped ye an’ then ye come ou’ an’ skip me to pass i’ to this nerd!”
As he was saying this, Twelve Joe and Eighteen Gerry emerged to join the narcotics queue.
“This nerd who might just skip you again, Ray.”
“Ah c’mon, Shy Boy, ye know I didn’t mean tha’!” He gave a mischievous wink.
“So I’m not a nerd?” I took another long drag with his eyes following the joint every inch of the way.
“Well, y’are bu’ in a nice way.”
He was almost drooling as I took another drag. I could feel the extra heat of the smoke due to the rate at which I was smoking it.
“Okay, you’re noh a bleedin’ nerd.”
This was the answer I sought so I passed the joint.
“Jus’ a blackmailin’ fuckin’ bogarter!” Ray added.
The joint was finished quickly between them, as I leaned back on my bike, enjoying the effect of my bogarting.
Vinno spoke just as Joe was about to flick away the joint. “To the pub! Pints for all, yeah? Shy Boy?”
I thought why the hell not. “Of course!”
I knew that the lads had a local from listening to them, but I had no idea where it was so I took up position at the back of the pack when we set off.
The pack moved at a blistering pace through the heavy Friday rush hour traffic so I stayed towards the back, only overtaking Ray on his little banger en-route to the favourite watering hole of my comrades. We smoked up Lad Lane, right onto Cumberland Road to bring us onto Fitzwilliam Place, up to the big junction at the kiosk and right onto Leeson Street.
Joe, Gerry and Vinno had a right old ding dong amongst themselves, attacking every gap and using the whole road - much to the annoyance of the mortals in their slow moving boxes - to try to get or stay ahead of
each other. I thoroughly enjoyed the lesson of aggressive driving on two wheels that I was treated to on that short journey.
We went straight along Leeson Street, onto the Green, Cuffe Street and then right onto Aungier Street, where Ray broke a very late red light so as not to let the pack lose him.
We swung left onto Whitefriars at the college and followed that narrow road down to the flats, past the Kawasaki sign denoting the location of Bikeworld, down to the T at Golden Lane where we turned right up to the junction of Ship Street where we all mounted the path and dismounted from our machines.
I was at the legendary local!
Gerry was the first to mount the path on his big trailie style XL 600, closely followed by the rest with me being last. I was also last to walk into the pub, having put two locks onto my bike whereas all the rest just put disc locks on theirs, except Ray – he didn’t bother locking his at all!
The door from the street led into a hallway, where the distant boom of dance music combined with the variety of busy pub noises became so much less distant with stairs to the left, a door into the pub to the right and a wooden wall to the front containing several small panes of different coloured glass through which one could make out the shapes of activity of a busy bar. There was a fair amount of activity in the hall too – and it was all my workmates.
Vinno was poised at the entrance to the bar in what appeared to be a blocking demeanour towards Joe, who seemed to be protesting in that uniquely nice way that people protest when other people are buying them drink.
“Look Joe, jus’ geh the names on the board, man. I’ doesn’ matter tha’ yer only stayin’ for one – it’s cool man! Sean, pint?”
“Er…I …Sure! I’ll have er….”
But he was gone, the blare of the bar drowning out my uncertain stutterings as he went through the door. Joe tapped me on the elbow and motioned upstairs with his head. I followed obediently.
The stairs went halfway up and then returned on themselves for the second half so that the door into the upstairs section was directly above the one downstairs.
As with downstairs, the volume of the music increased hugely when the door was opened. I deduced that there were speakers upstairs as well as down.
I was surprised to see that upstairs was actually a mezzanine, with two pool tables running end to end dominating the floor space. A rail ran along the edge of the floor about three feet from the long sides of these pool tables, where the money slots were. Standing at this rail, one could shout down to the bar below, which ran parallel along the wall downstairs that wasn’t covered by the mezzanine. There were three small tables at the far end of the pool tables and four at this end, with a shabby old sofa running the full width of the room behind them and then down the long wall as far as the only upstairs window, which looked out onto Ship Street. At the far end of the bar I could see a staircase leading up to the other side of the mezzanine.
I followed Joe past two very dodgy looking characters, deep in conversation about something or other that I dare not imagine, to where Ray and Gerry were adorning seats around a small table in the corner with their jackets, helmets and bags. Joe stopped in front of me to remove his bag and radio, leaving me stuck momentarily in no man’s land. The few people that sat about upstairs had distributed themselves to leave maximum space between them. Not surprisingly either – if I had walked in here on my own I would have put myself as far away as possible from everybody here also.
The result of this was that there was a shady looking dude sitting on the shabby sofa right beside the table that the lads – all of whom seemed perfectly at ease here – had chosen. He was
an almost stereotypical inner city criminal in my imagination. A gaunt looking forty something, although possibly somewhat younger due to the look of hardness about him. He had the dress leather jacket that was far too good quality for this area, loads of gold on his fingers, a borstal mark on his scarred face (acne and otherwise), straight greasy brown hair and thin rimmed milk bottle glasses. These glasses pointed at me suddenly, causing me to look away quickly.
Then he called to me, making me (almost reluctantly) look back. “Here! Oi!”
He was sliding along the seat to make room for me to sit down. “Sit down here beside your mates, man!”
He had that gravely inner city hard core Dublin accent, the one that sounded as if he had spent his whole life forcing his voice to a deeper tone to make him seem harder. Probably an effective defence mechanism in the flats he inevitably grew up in.
“Abou’ fuckin’ time, Daymo! I thou’ ye were goin’ to leave poor Shy Boy standin’ there all fuckin’ ni’!”
“Ask, me bollix, Ray!”
“As soon as ye grow a pair I will, no fuckin’ problem.”
“Fuckin’ geebag ye.”