Thursday 14 December 2006
more penalty points
I got myself another penalty point and a fine yesterday for being in the wrong lane at the White's Cross junction. The irritating thing is that I had been in the correct lane, but thought I was in the wrong one, so I "corrected" and then found that my correction actually put me into the right-turning lane when I was going straight on. After indicating and getting back into the lane I had been in, a garda pulled me over and accused me of skipping uo a few cars just to get through the lights quicker than anyone else. Bastard wouldn't believe my genuine error.
Saturday 9 December 2006
Getaway
When you get into a taxi, you never know whose been sitting in the seat before you. Likewise, when I pick up a fare, I never know who I'm putting into the seat beside or behind me. It's scary sometimes, and it can lead to strange situations.
October 2004; I'm sitting on the rank in Stillorgan at about 3.45pm when this guy gets into the taxi breathing heavily. He is tall, skinny, with wispy red-hair and a smigeen of a beard. He is panting, a bit short of breath.
-Deansgrange Office Park, he says, and I start up the car and swing her around to head back to the lights at the crossroads.
He takes a deep breath, holds it for a moment, then exhales, blowing out the air forcefully, as though relieved about something.The lights are red, and I indicate left, before stopping on the white line. There is silence for a few seconds, before he says:
-These lights are very long, aren't they?.
-Ah, they'll change in a minute.
(beat)
-Ah come on, change, I'm in a hurry.
Eventually we get a green and we swing down the hill to the N11 where I indicate right, but these lights are red also.
-Ah no, anudder one! these bleedin' lights, thee take agis...
-No they're changing now, I reply, indicating the amber on the main road.
We get the green and continue on, up the N11, down Kill lane, across the crossroads at Dean's Grange, then into the office park on the right.
-Just drop us anywhere here, he says. -How much is that?
I tell him, he hands me a tenner and says -That's alright.
Then he's out of the car, closes the door, and I carry on with my day, thinking nothing of the incident. Just another tenner, just another fare.
But later when I get back to my apartment with my wife, having picked her up on my way home as I usually do, there's a little note in my letter box which I read as we walk up the stairs: -Dear Mr [name withheld], please contact the Gardai at Blackrock station.
I express my surprise aloud to my wife, upon which I hear my name being called from the top of the stairs.
-Yes? I answer.
A very pretty blond appears around the corner of the stairwell.
-Gardai. Do you have a moment? Nothing to worry about.
She is accompanied by an older man. Both are in plain clothes. The man says:
-Don't worry, we know from the carriage office that you're one of the good guys. Anyone who's listed there as having returned property is usually on the right side of the law.
He grins at me and I feel relieved. I lead the way to my apartment and let them in.
-Did you pick up anyone in Stillorgan today?
I think for a moment, then recall that I did a few jobs from that rank.
-Can you remember any of them?
I tell them I have to consult my logbook, which I take from my bag, find the page, then list the jobs I did from there.
-It's this one we're interested in, she says, pointing to the incident I described above. -We think he tried to rob a bank in Stillorgan. He held a knife to a woman's throat in the bank, but she fought back, and got her hand cut quite badly. He ran out and was seen by a witness to get into your car. The witness gave us the roof-sign number.
The questioning continued, and I recall as much as I can. I agree to try to identify him at the station next day, and they take their leave.
Next day at the station, I'm faced with a whole lot of pictures. I pick out one, then another. Two almost identical faces of two different people. One lives locally, the other farther away in another suburb. Both are possible suspects. They get the local one in and I have to sit behind a hatch, pretending I'm working there so that I can get a good look at him while they ask this guy some questions. It could be him, and I'm pretty sure it is him, but it turns out that he has a cast-iron alibi: his baby daughter has just died shortly after being born and he was at his partner's side in the hospital at the time of the crime. I feel guilty about having misidentified him, but everyone agrees that he's a dead ringer for the suspect.
They can't find the other guy right now, so they tell me not to worry about it, and they'll get in touch if they need to.
About a year and a half later I receive a summons to appear in court in November 2006 as a witness, although why I'm not sure as I misidentified another guy as the one who got into my car. When the date eventually arrives, I go to court and the suspect is there as well, but he's put on lots of weight, changing his appearance completely. I wouldn't have recognised him if he hadn't stood when the case was called. There's an array of charges against him, to all of which he pleads guilty, and because one of them is a lot worse than the incident in which I was involved, the prosecution agrees to drop the other charges and to only prosecute the more serious one.
Here's a link to the news report of the final case when it came before the court:
http://www.ntlworld.ie/News/Irish/?chid=0117bf71d2abaee3beadeb3074e42016
and this is from the Irish Times website; the reference to the Stillorgan event occurs near the end of the report:
Detective confronted post office robber
A court heard how a Garda detective confronted a drug addict with a chair when he robbed a post office. The defendant was then held with the aid of two members of the public, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard.
Jason Campbell (26) of Donomore Crescent, Tallaght, Co Dublin, will be sentenced by Judge Michael White in February for this offence and other armed robberies committed in October and November 2004.
Det Garda James Donegan, now retired, was subsequently awarded the Scott Medal for his bravery in trying to thwart the knife-wielding Campbell at Glenview Post Office in Tallaght.
Campbell had held a knife to a customer's neck and demanded money be placed in the Dunnes Stores bag he had brought with him. The cashier gave him €5,030 before he tried to get away.
Det Garda Donegan, who was off-duty heard the commotion while in a pharmacy, took a chair with him and rushed to the post office shouting "gardaí".
Campbell rushed at him holding the knife and managed to push the chair away. He stabbed Det Garda Donegan in the side and pushed past him on to the street outside but was chased by him and another off-duty garda who had been in the post office at the time of the robbery. With the aid of two passers-by they managed to catch Campbell and hold him on the ground while he struggled violently until Garda reinforcements arrived.
Campbell pleaded guilty to six armed robberies of banks, post offices and a credit union.
He grabbed pensioner Marion O'Hanlon by the neck and held a knife to her throat when he raided the Permanent TSB in Stillorgan in November 2004, but as he was demanding money from the cashier Ms O'Hanlon broke free, cutting her hand on the knife, severing several tendons.
She ran to the door just as Campbell was making his escape through it with over €8,000 and fell, breaking her wrist. Judge White heard that she has never regained full use of her hand.
Campbell used a replica Colt revolver when with two other men he escaped with €5,500 from the AIB bank in Celbridge, Co Kildare, in November 2004. All three had scarves covering their faces and the others were armed with a hammer and a screwdriver.
The court heard that Campbell had a significant drug problem but had taken steps while in custody to deal with the addiction, although he had broken the terms of bail granted to him in February to allow him to attend a residential drug treatment programme.
October 2004; I'm sitting on the rank in Stillorgan at about 3.45pm when this guy gets into the taxi breathing heavily. He is tall, skinny, with wispy red-hair and a smigeen of a beard. He is panting, a bit short of breath.
-Deansgrange Office Park, he says, and I start up the car and swing her around to head back to the lights at the crossroads.
He takes a deep breath, holds it for a moment, then exhales, blowing out the air forcefully, as though relieved about something.The lights are red, and I indicate left, before stopping on the white line. There is silence for a few seconds, before he says:
-These lights are very long, aren't they?.
-Ah, they'll change in a minute.
(beat)
-Ah come on, change, I'm in a hurry.
Eventually we get a green and we swing down the hill to the N11 where I indicate right, but these lights are red also.
-Ah no, anudder one! these bleedin' lights, thee take agis...
-No they're changing now, I reply, indicating the amber on the main road.
We get the green and continue on, up the N11, down Kill lane, across the crossroads at Dean's Grange, then into the office park on the right.
-Just drop us anywhere here, he says. -How much is that?
I tell him, he hands me a tenner and says -That's alright.
Then he's out of the car, closes the door, and I carry on with my day, thinking nothing of the incident. Just another tenner, just another fare.
But later when I get back to my apartment with my wife, having picked her up on my way home as I usually do, there's a little note in my letter box which I read as we walk up the stairs: -Dear Mr [name withheld], please contact the Gardai at Blackrock station.
I express my surprise aloud to my wife, upon which I hear my name being called from the top of the stairs.
-Yes? I answer.
A very pretty blond appears around the corner of the stairwell.
-Gardai. Do you have a moment? Nothing to worry about.
She is accompanied by an older man. Both are in plain clothes. The man says:
-Don't worry, we know from the carriage office that you're one of the good guys. Anyone who's listed there as having returned property is usually on the right side of the law.
He grins at me and I feel relieved. I lead the way to my apartment and let them in.
-Did you pick up anyone in Stillorgan today?
I think for a moment, then recall that I did a few jobs from that rank.
-Can you remember any of them?
I tell them I have to consult my logbook, which I take from my bag, find the page, then list the jobs I did from there.
-It's this one we're interested in, she says, pointing to the incident I described above. -We think he tried to rob a bank in Stillorgan. He held a knife to a woman's throat in the bank, but she fought back, and got her hand cut quite badly. He ran out and was seen by a witness to get into your car. The witness gave us the roof-sign number.
The questioning continued, and I recall as much as I can. I agree to try to identify him at the station next day, and they take their leave.
Next day at the station, I'm faced with a whole lot of pictures. I pick out one, then another. Two almost identical faces of two different people. One lives locally, the other farther away in another suburb. Both are possible suspects. They get the local one in and I have to sit behind a hatch, pretending I'm working there so that I can get a good look at him while they ask this guy some questions. It could be him, and I'm pretty sure it is him, but it turns out that he has a cast-iron alibi: his baby daughter has just died shortly after being born and he was at his partner's side in the hospital at the time of the crime. I feel guilty about having misidentified him, but everyone agrees that he's a dead ringer for the suspect.
They can't find the other guy right now, so they tell me not to worry about it, and they'll get in touch if they need to.
About a year and a half later I receive a summons to appear in court in November 2006 as a witness, although why I'm not sure as I misidentified another guy as the one who got into my car. When the date eventually arrives, I go to court and the suspect is there as well, but he's put on lots of weight, changing his appearance completely. I wouldn't have recognised him if he hadn't stood when the case was called. There's an array of charges against him, to all of which he pleads guilty, and because one of them is a lot worse than the incident in which I was involved, the prosecution agrees to drop the other charges and to only prosecute the more serious one.
Here's a link to the news report of the final case when it came before the court:
http://www.ntlworld.ie/News/Irish/?chid=0117bf71d2abaee3beadeb3074e42016
and this is from the Irish Times website; the reference to the Stillorgan event occurs near the end of the report:
Detective confronted post office robber
A court heard how a Garda detective confronted a drug addict with a chair when he robbed a post office. The defendant was then held with the aid of two members of the public, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard.
Jason Campbell (26) of Donomore Crescent, Tallaght, Co Dublin, will be sentenced by Judge Michael White in February for this offence and other armed robberies committed in October and November 2004.
Det Garda James Donegan, now retired, was subsequently awarded the Scott Medal for his bravery in trying to thwart the knife-wielding Campbell at Glenview Post Office in Tallaght.
Campbell had held a knife to a customer's neck and demanded money be placed in the Dunnes Stores bag he had brought with him. The cashier gave him €5,030 before he tried to get away.
Det Garda Donegan, who was off-duty heard the commotion while in a pharmacy, took a chair with him and rushed to the post office shouting "gardaí".
Campbell rushed at him holding the knife and managed to push the chair away. He stabbed Det Garda Donegan in the side and pushed past him on to the street outside but was chased by him and another off-duty garda who had been in the post office at the time of the robbery. With the aid of two passers-by they managed to catch Campbell and hold him on the ground while he struggled violently until Garda reinforcements arrived.
Campbell pleaded guilty to six armed robberies of banks, post offices and a credit union.
He grabbed pensioner Marion O'Hanlon by the neck and held a knife to her throat when he raided the Permanent TSB in Stillorgan in November 2004, but as he was demanding money from the cashier Ms O'Hanlon broke free, cutting her hand on the knife, severing several tendons.
She ran to the door just as Campbell was making his escape through it with over €8,000 and fell, breaking her wrist. Judge White heard that she has never regained full use of her hand.
Campbell used a replica Colt revolver when with two other men he escaped with €5,500 from the AIB bank in Celbridge, Co Kildare, in November 2004. All three had scarves covering their faces and the others were armed with a hammer and a screwdriver.
The court heard that Campbell had a significant drug problem but had taken steps while in custody to deal with the addiction, although he had broken the terms of bail granted to him in February to allow him to attend a residential drug treatment programme.
To "Kerry" with affection
It always seems strange to me how some people are so self-involved that they think the world revolves around them and nobody else. Take this evening, for example. My last job took me to Chapelizod, where I dropped, and immediately I get a job over the XDA for some apartments nearby. I wasn't going to do the job. I wanted to go home after 6 hours of driving which included 4 hotel bangers (where you get a call to a hotel 10 minutes away and then when you arrive find the caller has left five minutes before in another taxi), and a job where the client had been left waiting by the company for an hour and twenty minutes and I had to apologise for something for which I wasn't responsible. Also I was starving, not having eaten since 12 o'clock noon, and I needed to pee badly. I wasn't going to take this job, but I thought, I'm nearby, I can be there in minute, and the client won't have to wait ages for a another taxi.
So I key in an arrival time of one minute and I'm at the gates of the block in 30 seconds, at 9.20, which was actually 10 minutes before I'm due to arrive at 9.30. I key the number of the client's phone into my handset and the client (let's call her Kerry), answers the phone.
-Hi Kerry?
-Yes
-I'm your taxi. I'm at the gates.
-You're at the gates?
-Yes,
-Ok we'll be dine in a minute.
-Fine, see you in a minute.
Five minutes later, I'm still sitting there, thinking that if she'd told me she was going to be this long, I could have gone for a pee. Four minutes later I send a text: Taxi waits, meter goes on at 21.30 (in one minute). No response.
21.30 meter goes on: €4.10 plus €2 call out charge.
At 21.35 I decide to ring the base to ask them if they can ring because this girl hasn't appeared yet, nor has she tried to contact me, but they tell me that she's just been on trying to ask where am I. I tell them I'll try her again,
When I ring I get this:
-Where are you? Are you just arraiving naiw?
-No, I've been here at the gates for 15 minutes, around on Maiden's Row. Do you know where that is?
-No.
-Do you live here?
It's a joke, but it ellicits a frosty:
-Well, we're here at the Spahir and we've been waiting for five minutes.
-Why are you at the Spar?
-I teold you when you rang to wait at the Spahir.
-No, you never mentioned the Spar. But stay where you are. Don't move.
And I put the car into gear and start to manouvre so that I can get out of the cul de-sac and around to the spar.
-I'm coming around to you now, but I've to get out of the cul-de-sac.
Now getting out of this cul-de-sac is difficult because there's not a huge amount of space...so maybe I grunt a bit while I'm doing it.
-Look there's no need to be so.. so... uppity abiyt it.
-I'm not being uppity, I'm just trying to get out of the dead-end and come around to get you.
-Look it doesn't matter. Forget abiyt it.
_What do you mean, forget about it?
-We'll find our eown way into tine. Thanks.
-Kerry, there's no need to do that. I'm a taxi and I'm here. Why would you want to do that?
-No. Jist forget abiyt it.
And that was that. It was no skin off my nose. I was in Chapelizod anyway, so I hadn't had to travel to pick her up. The wait was a bit of a drag, but I still got home quicker than if I'd taken her into "Tine". I'd hate to have to bring her home later tonight, when she's a few on her (but then I don't do nights, for reasons referred to elsewhere in this blog.) I sent her a text, telling her to read this. I wonder will she? "Kerry", I hope your evening got better, but with your attitude, I doubt it!
Post script.
A year later, and I get a job over the XDA to collect "Kerry" again. She's going into "tine" again, and I wonder will I screw her around a bit, but decide against it. I ring her, with my number withheld in case she saved my number last time, and just like last time she says she'll be dine in a minish. The job says the pick up is in Chapelizod Village this time, as opposed to the block where I waited the last time. After abiyt ten minites, a number of slinkily clad attractive young things appear well turned ite.
-We're gaying to the Manshun Hiyse, one of them says.
-FIne, I say, and turn the car. I'm trying to guess which one is "Kerry", and I decide it's the one on my left, as opposed to any of the three in the back seat. But when one of them behind calls a different name and the girl beside me answers, I realise I'm wrong. So I ask
-Which one is Kerry? and the one diagonally behind me says -Me.
I look at her in the mirror for a second. She's not impressive, good or bad.
-I see, is all I say, and continue to drive along the North Quays.
She says, -Akshully, kid we stop at the Centra at the top of Dawson Street so I can buy some cigarettes?
-Sure, I say. All the talk on the way is abiyt Colm and George, and Advertising and Marketing, which is the field they all work in.
I'm with Bill Hicks on
this
So I key in an arrival time of one minute and I'm at the gates of the block in 30 seconds, at 9.20, which was actually 10 minutes before I'm due to arrive at 9.30. I key the number of the client's phone into my handset and the client (let's call her Kerry), answers the phone.
-Hi Kerry?
-Yes
-I'm your taxi. I'm at the gates.
-You're at the gates?
-Yes,
-Ok we'll be dine in a minute.
-Fine, see you in a minute.
Five minutes later, I'm still sitting there, thinking that if she'd told me she was going to be this long, I could have gone for a pee. Four minutes later I send a text: Taxi waits, meter goes on at 21.30 (in one minute). No response.
21.30 meter goes on: €4.10 plus €2 call out charge.
At 21.35 I decide to ring the base to ask them if they can ring because this girl hasn't appeared yet, nor has she tried to contact me, but they tell me that she's just been on trying to ask where am I. I tell them I'll try her again,
When I ring I get this:
-Where are you? Are you just arraiving naiw?
-No, I've been here at the gates for 15 minutes, around on Maiden's Row. Do you know where that is?
-No.
-Do you live here?
It's a joke, but it ellicits a frosty:
-Well, we're here at the Spahir and we've been waiting for five minutes.
-Why are you at the Spar?
-I teold you when you rang to wait at the Spahir.
-No, you never mentioned the Spar. But stay where you are. Don't move.
And I put the car into gear and start to manouvre so that I can get out of the cul de-sac and around to the spar.
-I'm coming around to you now, but I've to get out of the cul-de-sac.
Now getting out of this cul-de-sac is difficult because there's not a huge amount of space...so maybe I grunt a bit while I'm doing it.
-Look there's no need to be so.. so... uppity abiyt it.
-I'm not being uppity, I'm just trying to get out of the dead-end and come around to get you.
-Look it doesn't matter. Forget abiyt it.
_What do you mean, forget about it?
-We'll find our eown way into tine. Thanks.
-Kerry, there's no need to do that. I'm a taxi and I'm here. Why would you want to do that?
-No. Jist forget abiyt it.
And that was that. It was no skin off my nose. I was in Chapelizod anyway, so I hadn't had to travel to pick her up. The wait was a bit of a drag, but I still got home quicker than if I'd taken her into "Tine". I'd hate to have to bring her home later tonight, when she's a few on her (but then I don't do nights, for reasons referred to elsewhere in this blog.) I sent her a text, telling her to read this. I wonder will she? "Kerry", I hope your evening got better, but with your attitude, I doubt it!
Post script.
A year later, and I get a job over the XDA to collect "Kerry" again. She's going into "tine" again, and I wonder will I screw her around a bit, but decide against it. I ring her, with my number withheld in case she saved my number last time, and just like last time she says she'll be dine in a minish. The job says the pick up is in Chapelizod Village this time, as opposed to the block where I waited the last time. After abiyt ten minites, a number of slinkily clad attractive young things appear well turned ite.
-We're gaying to the Manshun Hiyse, one of them says.
-FIne, I say, and turn the car. I'm trying to guess which one is "Kerry", and I decide it's the one on my left, as opposed to any of the three in the back seat. But when one of them behind calls a different name and the girl beside me answers, I realise I'm wrong. So I ask
-Which one is Kerry? and the one diagonally behind me says -Me.
I look at her in the mirror for a second. She's not impressive, good or bad.
-I see, is all I say, and continue to drive along the North Quays.
She says, -Akshully, kid we stop at the Centra at the top of Dawson Street so I can buy some cigarettes?
-Sure, I say. All the talk on the way is abiyt Colm and George, and Advertising and Marketing, which is the field they all work in.
I'm with Bill Hicks on
this
Wednesday 6 December 2006
Teenage Mutant Trainee Bangarda
Nothing too literary today, just a gripe about a bangarda at the Merrion Square/Clare st junction. The bus lane along Merrion Sq north comes to an end about 20m from the lights, and starts again about 20m after them on Clare St. There's a yellow box at the end of the buslane on Merrion Sq to allow buses and taxis take up position in the right hand lane which is marked with an arrow for straight on. The left hand lane (which was the bus lane) becomes the left-turn lane.
I was at this junction, but unable to get into the box for the straighton lane because some eejit was sitting in it, but there ahead of me in the left-turn lane was a bus, going straight on, who obviously hadn't been able to get into the box either. So I waited by the box, and when the lights changed and the bus moved across the junction into the bus lane beyond, I saw that I could do likewise, whereas the traffic in the straight on lane couldn't move because of gridlock, so I obviously couldn't get into the box to get into the straight on traffic. What to do? It's a no-brainer: get straight across by using the 20m of left-turn lane to reach the junction and sail across to the buslane.
Except a teenage mutant trainee bangarda jumps out in front of me and tries to force me to turn left.
-You're in the wrong lane! she screams at me triumphantly. -Go left!
-No. I've got clear passage across to the bus-lane, I said.
-You're in the wrong lane, she repeated. -You have to turn left.
-NO, I'm not going left. I'm going straight on. I'm a taxi and I was using the buslane, butI couldn't get into the box back there to get into the correct lane, I said. -There's somebody sitting on it.
-You're in the wrong lane, she repeated.
-Was the bus in front of me in the wrong lane? I asked.
-Alright, she relented. -It's the last time I'll let you off though.
During this exchange, the traffic in the right hand lane across the junction had moved on, but the traffic immediately beside me on my right was being held up from progressing across the junction by a white jeep with a Cork registration that was trying to turn right down a one-way street beside the Mont-Clare Hotel!
I was at this junction, but unable to get into the box for the straighton lane because some eejit was sitting in it, but there ahead of me in the left-turn lane was a bus, going straight on, who obviously hadn't been able to get into the box either. So I waited by the box, and when the lights changed and the bus moved across the junction into the bus lane beyond, I saw that I could do likewise, whereas the traffic in the straight on lane couldn't move because of gridlock, so I obviously couldn't get into the box to get into the straight on traffic. What to do? It's a no-brainer: get straight across by using the 20m of left-turn lane to reach the junction and sail across to the buslane.
Except a teenage mutant trainee bangarda jumps out in front of me and tries to force me to turn left.
-You're in the wrong lane! she screams at me triumphantly. -Go left!
-No. I've got clear passage across to the bus-lane, I said.
-You're in the wrong lane, she repeated. -You have to turn left.
-NO, I'm not going left. I'm going straight on. I'm a taxi and I was using the buslane, butI couldn't get into the box back there to get into the correct lane, I said. -There's somebody sitting on it.
-You're in the wrong lane, she repeated.
-Was the bus in front of me in the wrong lane? I asked.
-Alright, she relented. -It's the last time I'll let you off though.
During this exchange, the traffic in the right hand lane across the junction had moved on, but the traffic immediately beside me on my right was being held up from progressing across the junction by a white jeep with a Cork registration that was trying to turn right down a one-way street beside the Mont-Clare Hotel!
Monday 4 December 2006
Epiphany
Every now and again you have a day in which something happens to make you re-evaluate your life and your beliefs, a day that grabs you by the scruff of the neck, shakes you violently, and makes you just stop and think and question. I had one of those in June 2002. Everything you could think of went wrong on me, but it ended in epiphany.
That day didn’t start off very well. When I was walking to the post-office that morning along along the quays, I became the victim, believe it or not, of a drive-by nail-gun attack. I don’t like the victim mentality, but seriously, I felt victimised then. Some fucker in the passenger seat of a white van with a Longford registration decided it would be a fun thing to do to fire a nail-gun at ordinary people going about their daily business. The nail hit me on the front of the left shoulder. It didn’t do any permanent damage, but it stung like anything through my lined overcoat, sweatshirt and the t-shirt I had on underneath. When I turned to see who had fired I saw this little fucker’s face looking back out the window of this van, and I immediately got the reg. The cops were helpful, but it never ultimately came to anything and the guy to whom the van was registered swore that he didn’t have it out that day. That was the start of the day.
At that time I was driving a rented hackney (these are cars with a plate, not a roof-sign, and they can only be called by telephone, and can’t pick up off the street like a taxi). I had promised my cousin and his wife that I’d take them to the airport. They are of that ilk who don’t like taxi-drivers, because “they’re all crooks and thieves, they never turn up on time, and they pull in anywhere without indicating, same when they pull out, and they slam on their brakes so that you crash into the back of them and then make you pay for them to take their holidays while their car’s being fixed”. I swear, that’s what my cousin, a normally intelligent man, said. Anyway, to him I’m obviously the guy to challenge that mindset, and they both very kindly gave me the chance to redeem all of taxihood of its previous transgressions by turning up on time and bringing them to the airport.
Only guess what?
There I was on Kildare Street at 3.00pm thinking I could do one last little job before picking them up at 4.15. I’m listening to the calls coming over the radio, not responding to any because either they’re too far away, or the journey will take me away from where I need to be at 4.15. And then up pops the perfect job. Dept. of Agriculture on Kildare Street. I’m looking at it for Christ’s sake. And Dept. of Agriculture jobs are usually short little hops around the Green to Foreign Affairs, or some other fairly centrally located Government Department or instument of the State (before they went mad with this decentralisation thing).
So I’m in like a shot and they give me the job and within seconds I’m pulling in at the Department of Agriculture (incidentally built on the site of my former primary school...), and I’m just about to get out of the car and go in when two guys come out and they’re carrying, and I mean carrying, a woman between them and they’re heading directly towards my car.
One of them opens the front passenger door, and they carefully place this woman on the seat and fasten her in.
-You’ve to take her to Leixlip, says one of them. I look at him, and then I look at her, and then the penny drops. She’s dead drunk, it’s 3.00 now, and Leixlip is about 22 Km away, down one of the busiest roads in the country, and I’ve to be in Harold’s Cross at 4.15. Okay, if I’m lucky I can do it, don’t panic, I think to myself, and I immediately set out.
First thing I try to do is get her address off her, which isn’t easy. She doesn’t want to tell me, because she thinks it’s none of my business, but eventually I persuade her that it really is my business as I’m trying to bring her home, and she slurs it out.
I have to find it on the map, which I place on my knee and gradually zoom in on the place in question while stopping in traffic. It’s an area I don’t know at all, and then she starts abusing me for not knowing where it is. Eventually I find it and by this time we’re well on the journey, but traffic is heavy and it slowly dawns on me that if it keeps like this, I’m not going to make it to my cousin’s in time, and redemption for all of taxihood will be delayed for another millenium.
I get to the N4/5/6 and the traffic is horrenduous. Taxis are sailing past me in the bus lane, but being a hackney, I can’t use bus lanes without being fined. I call into base, explain my predicament and ask them to send a car to my cousin’s address in lieu of the fact that I’m obviously not going to get there.
Meanwhile my drunken lady is unintentionally regaling me with her life story. She’s not talking to anybody in particular, I mean it’s as if she’s not talking to me, or she’s talking to someone she imagines is beside her, because the monologue is completely disconnected. If I was listening to one end of a telephone conversation it would make more sense. Disturbing little details come out, but I’m not really taking it in because I’m more concerned about the fact that it’s now getting quite late, and I still can hear the call going over the radio for a car for Harold’s Cross. I decide it’s time to come clean with my cousin and ring him on my cellphone. His wife answers. I explain as gently as I can the situation and she goes into shock.
-But... But ... But this isn’t a favour, it’s a gig, man. I mean, we’re paying you to do this.
All I can do is apologise to her and feel like shit. I actually owe this woman and my cousin a great deal. In a difficult time in my life they both let me stay with them in their home for nearly a year. I really am sorry about what I’m doing, I’m not just saying it. I really want to help them, it’s just that I have this fucking drunk in my car who I have contracted to take to fucking Leixlip...
We hang up and it’s not a good feeling. I actually feel like smashing this stupid drunk’s face against the dashboard a few times. She’a being really offensive now, calling me all kinds of things, and my stress levels are sky-rocketing. The traffic is crawling along, Leixlip’s still miles away, and this drunk won’t shut up. And then suddenly, she shuts up. My prayers have been answered.
Oh no they haven’t. She’s fallen asleep.
Some of you might think this is a good thing, and at the time, in my inexperienced worldview, it was a good thing, until she slowly pitched forward, seatbelt gently unreeling, to hang in sleeping suspension directly over the gear lever, making it next to impossible to change gear. I manage to find a way to reach the bottom of the gearlever without touching her person (we don’t want an assault charge on our hands), but I have to skip from first to third. Second isn’t available under these circumstances.
When I eventually get her home, a man answers the door.
-I have someone here who lives at this address I think.
-Is she in a bad way? he asks, the worry on his face. He is a bit uncomfortable, and so am I. It must be really difficult living with an alcoholic.
-She’s asleep now, but she’s pretty far gone.
-I can’t pay for this taxi, he says.
-It’s on the Dept. of Agriculture Account, I tell him, and he sighs with relief. He goes out to the car, and I wait for him to come back so he can sign the job sheet. It takes a while, but eventually he comes back with her, and brings her into a room in the house which smells of damp and neglect. He signs and I take my leave, trying not to make him feel more uncomfortable.
I go back to the car and check the clock. 4.45pm. It took me an hour and three-quarters to grind my way twenty odd kilometres, I possibly lost a friendship, only got £15 for the job (on a meter the fare would have been twice that), and feel generally miserable after the whole episode.
The day continues in that vein. Some jobs are ok, but there’s another one which has me going around all the back roads in west Dublin around by Newcastle picking up people one by one before finally heading to Marley park where some rock band are playing. (Oasis, shower of thugs.) A nice job in terms of mileage, but I get more abuse for not knowing the routes they want me to take.
By 9pm I’m fairly whacked and depressed and decide to head for home. Just one last job on the way, but it turns out to be the Epiphany i mentioned earlier. A real fucking perspective sharpener this one.
I’m to pick up a guy at A & E in St. James’s Hospital. I park the car where I think it won’t be in the way of ariving ambulances, walk into the waiting room and call out the name I have. Up pops this guy looking unusually chipper for someone coming out of A&E. He lacks the usual wrapping that such people have: a bandage somewhere, or an arm in a sling, or a crutch to lean on. There’s nothing to show that he’s been in any accident. Still he could be accompanying someone who has been, although they don’t usually get taxis on the Eastern Health Board’s account.
Anyway, he says: -I’ll just get me stuff.
And he goes to the corner of the room and picks up a large transparent refuse sack in which there is what looks like another transparent sack which contains a souplike liquid and some clothes.
-I was in the newspaper today, sez he.
-Is that right, sez I.
I’m half listening and the rest of me is thinking that there’s no way this guy is getting into my car with a sack of soup.
-You can’t put that in the boot like that, I tell him.
-Jayses, you’re right. I’ll just wring them out. he says, and while he empties out the bag and wrings out the clothes, I open the boot of the car. He places the sack in and I close the lid. He goes on:
-”Fireman pulls teen from Liffey”, it said. Front page. Evening Herald.
-Really? Where to? I ask, walking to the driver’s door and opening it, gesturing him to the far side.
-Eh, Iveagh Hostel please, he answers over the roof of the car.
We both get in and I start the engine, reversing out of the space.
-They called me a teenager. I’m thirty-one!
-My, you don’t look it, I reply. -And they pulled you out of the Liffey?
-Yeah.
(beat)
-And tell me, what were you doing in the Liffey?
- I jumped in, didn I?
(beat)
-And why did you jump in, do you mind me asking?
-Because I wanted to kill myself, he replies.
Up until this point there has been no indication whatsoever that this guy is on the edge. He’s bright, he’s chatty, he’s breezy, he’s a good talker, articulate, seems a like a well rounded individual. And suddenly he's just told me that he’s been pulled out of the Liffey because he tried to commit suicide. Well, I’ve committed myself to the conversation, so there’s no point in me backing out now.
-And why did you want to kill yourself? I asked, incredulous now.
And with that a great weariness fell on him, and he started to speak more slowly, as if putting more effort into the words.
-Because I’ve no home, I’ve no job, I’m thirtyone years of age and I’ve no girlfriend, never had a girlfriend, thirtyone years old and I’ve never fucked a woman, I’m still a virgin. I’m living in a hostel.
-I know, I said, trying to empathise. -It’s hard to get a job when your address is the Iveagh Hostel.
-Ah it’s not that, he says emphatically. -It’s this. And he pulls up his sleeve and holds out his forearms for me to see and I am shocked because there are long parallel diagonal scars all the way up each arm, maybe five or six of them.
I realise now that this is a seriously disturbed person.
-So you’ve tried to commit suicide before then, I say, not revealing how I feel.
-Yeah. I’ve never managed to cut deep enough, he says.
-And have you no family who could help you that you could turn to? I ask.
-Nah,. Me brothers and sisters are all in England. Sure they don’t give a damn about me.
-What about your parents?
-Look at that, and he holds his left hand up in front of me as I’m driving. There is a 3 centimetre scar running between the phalanges in the centre of his palm.
-Me da tried to kill me he did. He pinned me hand to me chest with a kitchen knife. I woulda died only for I put me hand up and he pinned it to me chest. Another time he hit me on the head with a hammer. He’s a schizophrenic, he’s mad, and that’s what’s wrong with me too. I’m a schizophrenic. I was on medication in St. Pats last week only they discharged me but they didn’t tell me where I could get more medication, and once the stuff they gemme had run out I’d no more and I went off the rails, so I did.
-You mean they let you out and didn’t give you access to medication? I asked
-They gave me a prescription, but the chemist took it and he didn’t give it back to me ‘cos it’s supposed to be a repeat prescription but they didn’t put on it that it was and he wouldn’t give it back to me so he wouldn’t..
-And what about your mother. Could she not help you in any way at all?
His voice softened.
-Ah Me Mother’s dead. She was angel she was. An angel. She died when I was fifteen. She was the only one who cared about me. I really loved her.
We have reached the Iveagh Hostel at this stage, and he is concerned that they won’t let him in because of his previous suicide attempts and his psychiatric history. I’m thinking that if it was me I’d be thinking twice about letting him in too. The guy needs help. He shouldn’t be out on the streets. What kind of a health system do we have that discharges such disturbed people from its care and leaves them on the street?
As we part I hold out my hand to him, and he reaches out and takes it.
-Listen, I say to him. -Today I got hit by a nailgun, I was abused by my friends, abused by a drunk who then fell asleep in my cab over the gearlever, I got abused by some people going to the Oasis concert in Marlay Park. I thought I’d had a shit day, until I met you. I want you to know that you’ve put things into perspective for me. I wish you all the best.
-It was lovely talking to you too, he said, and we realeased eachother’s hands and he walked up the steps of the Iveagh Hostel. He turned at the top, raised his hand in a wave. I returned the wave and smiled. He smiled back, then disappeared into the hostel.
Christy, if ever you read this, I want you to know: you changed my life.
That day didn’t start off very well. When I was walking to the post-office that morning along along the quays, I became the victim, believe it or not, of a drive-by nail-gun attack. I don’t like the victim mentality, but seriously, I felt victimised then. Some fucker in the passenger seat of a white van with a Longford registration decided it would be a fun thing to do to fire a nail-gun at ordinary people going about their daily business. The nail hit me on the front of the left shoulder. It didn’t do any permanent damage, but it stung like anything through my lined overcoat, sweatshirt and the t-shirt I had on underneath. When I turned to see who had fired I saw this little fucker’s face looking back out the window of this van, and I immediately got the reg. The cops were helpful, but it never ultimately came to anything and the guy to whom the van was registered swore that he didn’t have it out that day. That was the start of the day.
At that time I was driving a rented hackney (these are cars with a plate, not a roof-sign, and they can only be called by telephone, and can’t pick up off the street like a taxi). I had promised my cousin and his wife that I’d take them to the airport. They are of that ilk who don’t like taxi-drivers, because “they’re all crooks and thieves, they never turn up on time, and they pull in anywhere without indicating, same when they pull out, and they slam on their brakes so that you crash into the back of them and then make you pay for them to take their holidays while their car’s being fixed”. I swear, that’s what my cousin, a normally intelligent man, said. Anyway, to him I’m obviously the guy to challenge that mindset, and they both very kindly gave me the chance to redeem all of taxihood of its previous transgressions by turning up on time and bringing them to the airport.
Only guess what?
There I was on Kildare Street at 3.00pm thinking I could do one last little job before picking them up at 4.15. I’m listening to the calls coming over the radio, not responding to any because either they’re too far away, or the journey will take me away from where I need to be at 4.15. And then up pops the perfect job. Dept. of Agriculture on Kildare Street. I’m looking at it for Christ’s sake. And Dept. of Agriculture jobs are usually short little hops around the Green to Foreign Affairs, or some other fairly centrally located Government Department or instument of the State (before they went mad with this decentralisation thing).
So I’m in like a shot and they give me the job and within seconds I’m pulling in at the Department of Agriculture (incidentally built on the site of my former primary school...), and I’m just about to get out of the car and go in when two guys come out and they’re carrying, and I mean carrying, a woman between them and they’re heading directly towards my car.
One of them opens the front passenger door, and they carefully place this woman on the seat and fasten her in.
-You’ve to take her to Leixlip, says one of them. I look at him, and then I look at her, and then the penny drops. She’s dead drunk, it’s 3.00 now, and Leixlip is about 22 Km away, down one of the busiest roads in the country, and I’ve to be in Harold’s Cross at 4.15. Okay, if I’m lucky I can do it, don’t panic, I think to myself, and I immediately set out.
First thing I try to do is get her address off her, which isn’t easy. She doesn’t want to tell me, because she thinks it’s none of my business, but eventually I persuade her that it really is my business as I’m trying to bring her home, and she slurs it out.
I have to find it on the map, which I place on my knee and gradually zoom in on the place in question while stopping in traffic. It’s an area I don’t know at all, and then she starts abusing me for not knowing where it is. Eventually I find it and by this time we’re well on the journey, but traffic is heavy and it slowly dawns on me that if it keeps like this, I’m not going to make it to my cousin’s in time, and redemption for all of taxihood will be delayed for another millenium.
I get to the N4/5/6 and the traffic is horrenduous. Taxis are sailing past me in the bus lane, but being a hackney, I can’t use bus lanes without being fined. I call into base, explain my predicament and ask them to send a car to my cousin’s address in lieu of the fact that I’m obviously not going to get there.
Meanwhile my drunken lady is unintentionally regaling me with her life story. She’s not talking to anybody in particular, I mean it’s as if she’s not talking to me, or she’s talking to someone she imagines is beside her, because the monologue is completely disconnected. If I was listening to one end of a telephone conversation it would make more sense. Disturbing little details come out, but I’m not really taking it in because I’m more concerned about the fact that it’s now getting quite late, and I still can hear the call going over the radio for a car for Harold’s Cross. I decide it’s time to come clean with my cousin and ring him on my cellphone. His wife answers. I explain as gently as I can the situation and she goes into shock.
-But... But ... But this isn’t a favour, it’s a gig, man. I mean, we’re paying you to do this.
All I can do is apologise to her and feel like shit. I actually owe this woman and my cousin a great deal. In a difficult time in my life they both let me stay with them in their home for nearly a year. I really am sorry about what I’m doing, I’m not just saying it. I really want to help them, it’s just that I have this fucking drunk in my car who I have contracted to take to fucking Leixlip...
We hang up and it’s not a good feeling. I actually feel like smashing this stupid drunk’s face against the dashboard a few times. She’a being really offensive now, calling me all kinds of things, and my stress levels are sky-rocketing. The traffic is crawling along, Leixlip’s still miles away, and this drunk won’t shut up. And then suddenly, she shuts up. My prayers have been answered.
Oh no they haven’t. She’s fallen asleep.
Some of you might think this is a good thing, and at the time, in my inexperienced worldview, it was a good thing, until she slowly pitched forward, seatbelt gently unreeling, to hang in sleeping suspension directly over the gear lever, making it next to impossible to change gear. I manage to find a way to reach the bottom of the gearlever without touching her person (we don’t want an assault charge on our hands), but I have to skip from first to third. Second isn’t available under these circumstances.
When I eventually get her home, a man answers the door.
-I have someone here who lives at this address I think.
-Is she in a bad way? he asks, the worry on his face. He is a bit uncomfortable, and so am I. It must be really difficult living with an alcoholic.
-She’s asleep now, but she’s pretty far gone.
-I can’t pay for this taxi, he says.
-It’s on the Dept. of Agriculture Account, I tell him, and he sighs with relief. He goes out to the car, and I wait for him to come back so he can sign the job sheet. It takes a while, but eventually he comes back with her, and brings her into a room in the house which smells of damp and neglect. He signs and I take my leave, trying not to make him feel more uncomfortable.
I go back to the car and check the clock. 4.45pm. It took me an hour and three-quarters to grind my way twenty odd kilometres, I possibly lost a friendship, only got £15 for the job (on a meter the fare would have been twice that), and feel generally miserable after the whole episode.
The day continues in that vein. Some jobs are ok, but there’s another one which has me going around all the back roads in west Dublin around by Newcastle picking up people one by one before finally heading to Marley park where some rock band are playing. (Oasis, shower of thugs.) A nice job in terms of mileage, but I get more abuse for not knowing the routes they want me to take.
By 9pm I’m fairly whacked and depressed and decide to head for home. Just one last job on the way, but it turns out to be the Epiphany i mentioned earlier. A real fucking perspective sharpener this one.
I’m to pick up a guy at A & E in St. James’s Hospital. I park the car where I think it won’t be in the way of ariving ambulances, walk into the waiting room and call out the name I have. Up pops this guy looking unusually chipper for someone coming out of A&E. He lacks the usual wrapping that such people have: a bandage somewhere, or an arm in a sling, or a crutch to lean on. There’s nothing to show that he’s been in any accident. Still he could be accompanying someone who has been, although they don’t usually get taxis on the Eastern Health Board’s account.
Anyway, he says: -I’ll just get me stuff.
And he goes to the corner of the room and picks up a large transparent refuse sack in which there is what looks like another transparent sack which contains a souplike liquid and some clothes.
-I was in the newspaper today, sez he.
-Is that right, sez I.
I’m half listening and the rest of me is thinking that there’s no way this guy is getting into my car with a sack of soup.
-You can’t put that in the boot like that, I tell him.
-Jayses, you’re right. I’ll just wring them out. he says, and while he empties out the bag and wrings out the clothes, I open the boot of the car. He places the sack in and I close the lid. He goes on:
-”Fireman pulls teen from Liffey”, it said. Front page. Evening Herald.
-Really? Where to? I ask, walking to the driver’s door and opening it, gesturing him to the far side.
-Eh, Iveagh Hostel please, he answers over the roof of the car.
We both get in and I start the engine, reversing out of the space.
-They called me a teenager. I’m thirty-one!
-My, you don’t look it, I reply. -And they pulled you out of the Liffey?
-Yeah.
(beat)
-And tell me, what were you doing in the Liffey?
- I jumped in, didn I?
(beat)
-And why did you jump in, do you mind me asking?
-Because I wanted to kill myself, he replies.
Up until this point there has been no indication whatsoever that this guy is on the edge. He’s bright, he’s chatty, he’s breezy, he’s a good talker, articulate, seems a like a well rounded individual. And suddenly he's just told me that he’s been pulled out of the Liffey because he tried to commit suicide. Well, I’ve committed myself to the conversation, so there’s no point in me backing out now.
-And why did you want to kill yourself? I asked, incredulous now.
And with that a great weariness fell on him, and he started to speak more slowly, as if putting more effort into the words.
-Because I’ve no home, I’ve no job, I’m thirtyone years of age and I’ve no girlfriend, never had a girlfriend, thirtyone years old and I’ve never fucked a woman, I’m still a virgin. I’m living in a hostel.
-I know, I said, trying to empathise. -It’s hard to get a job when your address is the Iveagh Hostel.
-Ah it’s not that, he says emphatically. -It’s this. And he pulls up his sleeve and holds out his forearms for me to see and I am shocked because there are long parallel diagonal scars all the way up each arm, maybe five or six of them.
I realise now that this is a seriously disturbed person.
-So you’ve tried to commit suicide before then, I say, not revealing how I feel.
-Yeah. I’ve never managed to cut deep enough, he says.
-And have you no family who could help you that you could turn to? I ask.
-Nah,. Me brothers and sisters are all in England. Sure they don’t give a damn about me.
-What about your parents?
-Look at that, and he holds his left hand up in front of me as I’m driving. There is a 3 centimetre scar running between the phalanges in the centre of his palm.
-Me da tried to kill me he did. He pinned me hand to me chest with a kitchen knife. I woulda died only for I put me hand up and he pinned it to me chest. Another time he hit me on the head with a hammer. He’s a schizophrenic, he’s mad, and that’s what’s wrong with me too. I’m a schizophrenic. I was on medication in St. Pats last week only they discharged me but they didn’t tell me where I could get more medication, and once the stuff they gemme had run out I’d no more and I went off the rails, so I did.
-You mean they let you out and didn’t give you access to medication? I asked
-They gave me a prescription, but the chemist took it and he didn’t give it back to me ‘cos it’s supposed to be a repeat prescription but they didn’t put on it that it was and he wouldn’t give it back to me so he wouldn’t..
-And what about your mother. Could she not help you in any way at all?
His voice softened.
-Ah Me Mother’s dead. She was angel she was. An angel. She died when I was fifteen. She was the only one who cared about me. I really loved her.
We have reached the Iveagh Hostel at this stage, and he is concerned that they won’t let him in because of his previous suicide attempts and his psychiatric history. I’m thinking that if it was me I’d be thinking twice about letting him in too. The guy needs help. He shouldn’t be out on the streets. What kind of a health system do we have that discharges such disturbed people from its care and leaves them on the street?
As we part I hold out my hand to him, and he reaches out and takes it.
-Listen, I say to him. -Today I got hit by a nailgun, I was abused by my friends, abused by a drunk who then fell asleep in my cab over the gearlever, I got abused by some people going to the Oasis concert in Marlay Park. I thought I’d had a shit day, until I met you. I want you to know that you’ve put things into perspective for me. I wish you all the best.
-It was lovely talking to you too, he said, and we realeased eachother’s hands and he walked up the steps of the Iveagh Hostel. He turned at the top, raised his hand in a wave. I returned the wave and smiled. He smiled back, then disappeared into the hostel.
Christy, if ever you read this, I want you to know: you changed my life.
Sunday 3 December 2006
Hannibal Lecturer
I used to drive at night because the money is better and the traffic more free. But then an incident occurred which changed all that.
It’s just before one a.m. on Saturday, 11th March in 2004. The Friday night crowds are on the street and I’ve pulled into the kerb beside Café En Seine, or Café Insane as we call it, to write up my log after dropping the last passenger. As I’m writing, I hear the nearside rear door open and I turn to look as a body slumps acroos the backseat and next thing I know there’s a cop knocking at my window. I press the button and the window glides down.
-Are you ok to take these two home sir? asks the cop, in a flat midlands accent.
I look him in the eye, then look back into the rear to see a man has now got into the back beside the body slumped behind me. Another garda is closing the back door. The man looks pissed, his face puffed, his eyes bleary and wet. His mouth is shiney with dribble and he’s snorting breath like he’s swimming upstream. I turn back to the cop.
-Thanks a lot, I say. This is just what I need right now.
-The woman’s pretty bad, but the man is compus mentus, says the cop, trying to sugar the pill a little. Now, I don’t want to do it, but this guy is a cop, and he has a uniform, and that makes me feel kind of obliged to do it. I mean, when someone in a uniform asks you to do something, you feel kind of obliged to do what they ask. I feel like I don’t have the authority to argue so I give in.
-Ok, As long as I have an address. If we can get an address out of them, fine, I’ll take them.
The cop nods, looks through the window past me and shouts at the man
-What’s your address, sir?
The man nods and mumbles something. I turn to the man and say:
-Give me your address, sir and I’ll take you home. But I can’t take you home if I haven’t an address.
-S-----------, he blurts.
-Whereabouts on S-------------? I press him further. -I need the actual address.
-A--------. S----------, he says.
-That’s not an address. Look, you’ll have to get out of the car if you can’t give me the full address.
The garda has moved away from my window and is walking around the car as though to leave. I beep the horn and he bends to the passenger window.
-I’m not taking them if I haven’t an address. He won’t give me the full address.
The cop leans in the front window to get closer to the man.
-Give the man your address, or he won’t take you home. Tell the man where you live. Go on now, tell the man.
The drunk takes a deep breath, holds it for a moment, then pours out -Number X, S------ T-----, A------, S----------, Dublin. [I'm obviously not going to give the address here because of the possible legal repercussions...]
I write it down, repeating it aloud as I do so. With a wave the cop backs away from the car and I slip it into gear and pull out into the traffic on Dawson Street.
There is a stillness in the car in which I can hear the sounds of despair; the man’s heavy breathing and the woman’s quiet sobbing in sharp focus against the backdrop of revellers and busy town traffic outside the car. For a while this continues before the man breaks the silence.
-You’re a bitch, do you know that? You’re a bitch. I’ll never talk to you again after that. Never. Do you hear me?
There is no response that I can hear from the woman, who is still lying across the seat behind me.
-You’ll never treat me like that again, I’m telling you. Fucking bitch.
I hear a sound like a slap. -I’ll never fucking talk to you again. Another slap. I look in the mirror but I can’t see what is happening. It’s all too low down on the seat, and the mirror is angled for a view out the rear window, but the sound continues, slap, slap, and I think it’s the sound of him slapping her buttocks or thighs as she is lying away from him. I have to intervene.
-Listen, you’ll have to stop hitting her or I’ll take you back to the police. Do you hear me?
-Sorry, I’m sorry, he says, and the sounds stop. I turn onto D--- street heading west, and the traffic is free now, so we can get this over with sooner, and I’m glad. But then the man addresses me.
-Are you married? he asks, with the directness of one who has drunk so much that their social inhibitions have gone completely. I don’t want to answer and I consider my options: Tell him I’m married? Tell him I’m divorced? Tell him I’m divorced and remarried? Lie and tell him I’m not married. I have to find an angle at which we can relate in order to keep this on some sort of track that will get them home, and get me paid for doing it. Keep it simple, I think.
-I am, I say. -And you?
-I am, he says, To this bitch. He pauses for a moment, then continues: -I’m married to this English bitch.
There’s the opening, I think.
-Is your wife English? I ask, trying to make the most of the conversational opening.
-She is. Is your wife Irish?
And I’m thinking this is the problem with drunks. Once you start to talk to them, they want to know everything personal about you, stuff you don’t want to tell them, and they want to share everything personal about themselves, stuff that you really don’t want to know about them. Do I tell him my wife is not Irish, which is true, in which case he’ll want to know where she’s from?
-Yes, she’s Irish, I tell him, and it’s not difficult to lie because my first wife was Irish so I can talk about her.
-My wife is English, he says.
-Is that right? I reply, ignoring the circularity of the conversation.
Yes, She’s English, he says, -and fucking English girls have no idea what the word “marriage” means. Do you, you bitch? You haven’t a fucking clue what the word “marriage” means, do you? Do you hear me?
I hear another slap.
-Do you hear me? Bitch? Fucking whore!
Another slap. They don’t sound painful, these slaps, they don’t sound hard, but it’s the principle I don’t like. The girl is whimpering now in the back seat, mumbling incoherently, and the slaps are continuing. This is getting harder for me. I have to act.
-I said stop hitting her, or we go back to the police, and I mean it, I tell him. -You can’t hit her.
I’m keeping my voice low in pitch, but supporting it from the diaphragm like I do when I’m giving a class or a talk in what I think of as my “real” life, my life which is other than this one and which is so far away right now in this precipitous moment. I am trying to control the situation. I have to control the situation. I curse the Gardaí for compromising me like this. How will this end?
The authority I put in my voice works.
-Sorry, I’m sorry, the mans says, and then his voice breaks and he starts to cry quietly, saying -She doesn’t know what marriage means. She hasn’t a fucking clue what it means, the English whore.
We are crossing the river now and the struts and lights of the bridge illuminate the car interior and I glance in the mirror and see the tears on his face shining in the refraction. Not far now, we are almost there, and to my relief I see a Garda checkpoint. I take comfort that if things get nasty between him and her again there will be help nearby. We are waved throught the checkpoint and I swing the car onto his road, and just as we are about to turn onto his side street the man says:
-Stop here!
I had told the Gardaí I’d take them home. For some stupid fucking reason I actually feel a duty of care for these people. I don’t want them falling all around the street, and so I hear myself replying:
-But we aren’t at the address, I tell him, -and I said to the Gardaí back in Dawson Street that I’d take you home so I’ll have to take you home.
There’s a pause while he takes this in.
-Alright, he says, go on.
I turn the car onto his side street, an L-shaped street, and then around the corner of the L but before we reach the terrace where they live he shouts loudly,
-Stop the car here, stop here!
So I stop this time. On the left, the houses run in a line, on the right we are a few metres from where the terrace begins, running around to a little courtyard with four or five small houses on it, close enough.
-How much do we owe you? asks the man, in a forcedly civilised tone at odds with the threats and recriminations of a moment earlier.
I look at the metre. -Nine euro even, I tell him.
-Right, she’ll pay you, he says, and opens the door to get out, but he’s drunk and slow and can’t control his leg.
-She’ll never be able to pay me, I reply. -Look at her. She’s almost unconscious.
-Well, I’m not fucking paying you, he says, succeeding in getting his left leg out onto the road. I have to act.
-Right, we’re going to the Gardaí back at that checkpoint. If you won’t pay me for bringing you home I’ll have to take you to the Gardaí,
and I put the car in gear and start to move forward a little to show him I mean it. The door swings back on his leg and he howls out
-Alright alright I’ll pay you, hold onto your fucking horses.
I stop the car. We have hardly moved 10 centimetres. He puts his left foot back on the road and starts to fumble in his trouser pockets, first one, then the other, then another, finally producing a fifty euro note.
-Take that, he said and give me back...He pauses to calculate...-Give me back...a twenty... and a ten.
-That’s not right, I say, -I owe you forty-one euro.
-It is right, he insists -It’s a tip for putting up with all this... shit.
He gesticulates around the backseat with his right arm, indicating the space in general, but the gesture is meant to encompass the slumped body of his English wife. I don’t want to argue any more.
-That’s very generous, sir, I reply, -Thank you very much, handing him the change he asked for. -I’ll help you get your wife out of the car.
-Keep her, he says. -I don’t want her.
I turned to look at him in disbelief. -What do you mean, you don’t want her? I don’t want her either!
-Too bad, he says, and he heaves himself out of the car, turns and says -Keep her, before slamming the door, walking around the back of the car, then past me and around the corner into the little courtyard.
What the fuck am I to do now? If I drive to the police she could start screaming. If I help her out, I could be accused of assaulting her because I’ll have to physically help her out of the car.
I make a decision based on pragmatism. If I help her out, this’ll be over quicker. If I go to the gardaí I could end up with some stupid garda arresting me for kidnapping. I open the door and get out of the car.
We have stopped in the middle of the narrow street, and I open the back door where the woman is now trying to crawl out of the car onto the roadway. It is really pathetic. She places one hand in front of the other on the ground and literally crawls out of the cabin, her dark hair covering her face which I still haven’t seen. She is wearing a dark cardigan and dark trousers, with flat shoes, one of which is half off her foot. As she emerges from the car, she is crying for her handbag. Her hands reach for the door handle and she pulls herself up to her feet using the door as a support, eventually reaching a position wherre she has one arm over the doorframe. She stays there awhile, crying for her handbag.
-It’s alright, I’ll get your handbag, I tell her.
I look into the car: her bag is on the floor in front of where the man had been sitting. I go around the other side of the car to get it and bring it back to her.
-It’s alright, I tell her gently. -Here’s your bag. Come on, I’ll help you get to the house.
She reaches for the bag, clutches it to her, and then lets go of the car door. The effect is startling. Without the support of the door, as if out of a catapult she spins around, the arm holding the handbag flies out to grab something, finds nothing, and she staggers a meter or so, still spinning, to bounce off the back of a parked car and fall to the ground, then roll over, eyes wide staring up at the half-moon.
Her face could be pretty, but she’s in such a mess it’s hard to tell. She looks French, rather than English, with dark eyes and a sallow complexion. The cheekbones are high, the lips thin, the chin pointed. She sighs heavily, as though relieved to be lying on the ground.
I think for a moment that now would be a good time to leave, but there are all these voices in my head saying -I can’t leave her there. If something happens to her I’ll get the blame.
Fuck it, I hope she has a key to the house. I have to help her. I know that if I leave her here, I’d be leaving a piece of my own humanity there with her, so I bend down to her and say
-Come on, give me your arm. Are you alright? Give me your arm and I’ll help you up. Do you mind if I take your arm?
She reaches up with her arm and I take it and pull her to her feet. This is going to be tricky, I think to myself. She’s got no control at all. It is then that I realise suddenly that the car is still in the middle of the street with the two righthand doors open and the engine running. I have to park it.
I bring her to the wall.
-Stand over here against the wall, I tell her. Stay here, and don’t move while I park the car.
I let go of her. She stays there. I jump intothe car, closing the doors, then park a little farther down the street, where the courtyard rejoins the narrow street. I switch off the engine, remove the key and get out, closing and then locking the doors with the remote button. When I look up, she has moved from where I left her. She has succeeded to cross the road and is now walking unsteadily towards me, past her terrace, and on the other side of the road. I go over to her. She is sobbing and dishevelled, clutching her bag to her breast, trying to walk along and lean against the wall at the same time.
-Here, this is where you live, over there, look, number X.
I point to the houses in the courtyard where the man had gone.
-No, she cries out, it’s not, and she cries out loudly. She is starting to panic and I don’t know what to do. Suddenly I hear footsteps running and I look up and I see the man tearing across the courtyard from one of the houses on the right. He runs straight at us and I move away walking back to the car. He runs straight at me and grabs me by the shirt.
-Why is she crying? he asks me, his face in mine. -What did you do to her?
I can’t believe this. I raise my hands in the air, trying to get him to calm down.
-Nothing, I did nothing to her. She’s upset because of you not because of me, man. I did nothing to her.
But he’s too fired up on booze and who knows what else, and he’s got all this anger inside him. Then he notices that she’s still walking on, bouncing off the wall, on down the street. He lets go of my shirt and goes after her and I take this opportunity to zap the car open and move over to the driver’s door. Thing is, my car takes three seconds before the alarm disengages, and while I’m waiting three of the longest seconds I’ve ever waited, Mr Wife-beater-turned-knight-in-shining-armour realises I’m about to leave and he comes tearing back around the car at me just as I’m opening the door. I get it open, but he’s getting really close now and there’s no way I’m letting him get the first move in this time. My hands are up, palms facing him, and I’m saying to him:
-calm down, calm down, but he’s in a real rage. and I’m wondering, Where is all this fucking anger coming from?, and I’m surprised at my calm as he moves into my range, his arms out to grab me as I hit him twice in the face with two palm shots, left and right, then another two, left, right. The left ones are fairly light but with each right I pivot on my left hip, pushing my weight into the blow with my right leg, and they hit home.
He staggers back stunned, raising his arms to his face, looking confused, and I think to myself, -Enough, I don’t want to kill him, and I’ve got time to get into my car. But this is where I make a mistake, because I should keep hitting him, and keep hitting him until he’s no longer a threat.
Instead I misread his condition because he’s only stunned momentarily and suddenly with a roar he puts his head down and charges at me like a bull, crashing his head into my middle, his arms around me before I’ve time to react and pinning me against the door with my left arm only free, my right trapped in his bearhug.
If only I hadn’t opened the door, or if only I’d moved away from the car, because I could just step back and push him down to the ground really easily using his own momentum, but here I am, pinned against a car door by a raging drunk, with only my left arm free. And then, As I’m wondering how to get out of this one, suddenly there is this terrific pressure on my arm and I realise -Fuck, he’s biting me. This fucking animal is actually chewing my forearm.
The pain starts to register, about the same time as he starts to shake his head, he’s actually trying to chew throught the flesh of my arm by shaking his head. And then I realise that this is about as real a life-threatening situation as I’m likely to meet and it’s time to do something decisive. And I’m amazed at how I’m calmly thinking that my left arm is free, so I’ll have to use that. What can I get at? I can go for his left eye, or his left ear. Now, I don’t lke the thought of squeezing out someone’s eye because eyes are a bit squishy, and I’ve always had a kind of freaky horror of eye injuries, so not for his sake, but for mine, I have to go for his ear.
With my left hand I reach around the side of his head, through the gap over his shoulder and taking his ear in my fist I start to twist and twist. The presure on my right forearm relaxes enought for me to get my arm out, and with that my right knee comes up, my arms go out and I thrust him away from me.
He staggers back, and I’m there ready with my hands up again, saying
-Back off, back off.
He does.
And then, he does something that, in spite of the situation, makes me want to laugh. He starts to peel off his upper clothes, the archetypical drunken celtic warrior, tanked up on liquid courage.
-Get into your fucking car! he shouts. Get into your fucking car!
He even points at the car as he’s stripping, in case I don’t know which car is mine.
Now, I know that if he comes at me again I’ll do him serious damage, but I don't know whether he knows it too. This berserker stripping could be just posturing, but the thing is, if I don’t get into the car, he’ll have no choice but to come at me, and I have no witnesses here to what might happen next except his wife, and she’s hardly going to be reliable. This undressing act is giving me an opportunity to defuse the situation.
I take it. My hands are still up. He knows I can use them, that I can fight back effectively. He has had me pinned against a door, his teeth in my arm, and I got out of it. Or maybe he’s too drunk and he really thinks that stripping to the waist is an effective way of engaging in combat. My voice is calm and collected as I say
-Okay, I’m getting into my car, and I’m going to drive away. Just stay there.
And he does, although he’s still struggling with his upper clothes. He makes no move towards me. I jump into the car and hit the locks. Kerlunk. Key into the ignition, twist, the engine roars into life, I throw it into gear just as, with a final fling of Dutch courage, he kicks my door and as I drive away he gets another one in at the rear door.
And now I’m feeling huge relief, but it’s tempered by the throbbing in my arm, and when I pull over a few streets away and pull up my sleeve, there is an ugly circular welt on my inner forearm that shows no blood outside, but lots of bruising inside, and it’s starting to swell.
I go straight to the nearest Garda Station press charges. Turns out the guy is a University Lecturer...
Hannibal Lecturer, as one of my friends remarked!
And that, my friends, is why I don’t drive at nights anymore.
It’s just before one a.m. on Saturday, 11th March in 2004. The Friday night crowds are on the street and I’ve pulled into the kerb beside Café En Seine, or Café Insane as we call it, to write up my log after dropping the last passenger. As I’m writing, I hear the nearside rear door open and I turn to look as a body slumps acroos the backseat and next thing I know there’s a cop knocking at my window. I press the button and the window glides down.
-Are you ok to take these two home sir? asks the cop, in a flat midlands accent.
I look him in the eye, then look back into the rear to see a man has now got into the back beside the body slumped behind me. Another garda is closing the back door. The man looks pissed, his face puffed, his eyes bleary and wet. His mouth is shiney with dribble and he’s snorting breath like he’s swimming upstream. I turn back to the cop.
-Thanks a lot, I say. This is just what I need right now.
-The woman’s pretty bad, but the man is compus mentus, says the cop, trying to sugar the pill a little. Now, I don’t want to do it, but this guy is a cop, and he has a uniform, and that makes me feel kind of obliged to do it. I mean, when someone in a uniform asks you to do something, you feel kind of obliged to do what they ask. I feel like I don’t have the authority to argue so I give in.
-Ok, As long as I have an address. If we can get an address out of them, fine, I’ll take them.
The cop nods, looks through the window past me and shouts at the man
-What’s your address, sir?
The man nods and mumbles something. I turn to the man and say:
-Give me your address, sir and I’ll take you home. But I can’t take you home if I haven’t an address.
-S-----------, he blurts.
-Whereabouts on S-------------? I press him further. -I need the actual address.
-A--------. S----------, he says.
-That’s not an address. Look, you’ll have to get out of the car if you can’t give me the full address.
The garda has moved away from my window and is walking around the car as though to leave. I beep the horn and he bends to the passenger window.
-I’m not taking them if I haven’t an address. He won’t give me the full address.
The cop leans in the front window to get closer to the man.
-Give the man your address, or he won’t take you home. Tell the man where you live. Go on now, tell the man.
The drunk takes a deep breath, holds it for a moment, then pours out -Number X, S------ T-----, A------, S----------, Dublin. [I'm obviously not going to give the address here because of the possible legal repercussions...]
I write it down, repeating it aloud as I do so. With a wave the cop backs away from the car and I slip it into gear and pull out into the traffic on Dawson Street.
There is a stillness in the car in which I can hear the sounds of despair; the man’s heavy breathing and the woman’s quiet sobbing in sharp focus against the backdrop of revellers and busy town traffic outside the car. For a while this continues before the man breaks the silence.
-You’re a bitch, do you know that? You’re a bitch. I’ll never talk to you again after that. Never. Do you hear me?
There is no response that I can hear from the woman, who is still lying across the seat behind me.
-You’ll never treat me like that again, I’m telling you. Fucking bitch.
I hear a sound like a slap. -I’ll never fucking talk to you again. Another slap. I look in the mirror but I can’t see what is happening. It’s all too low down on the seat, and the mirror is angled for a view out the rear window, but the sound continues, slap, slap, and I think it’s the sound of him slapping her buttocks or thighs as she is lying away from him. I have to intervene.
-Listen, you’ll have to stop hitting her or I’ll take you back to the police. Do you hear me?
-Sorry, I’m sorry, he says, and the sounds stop. I turn onto D--- street heading west, and the traffic is free now, so we can get this over with sooner, and I’m glad. But then the man addresses me.
-Are you married? he asks, with the directness of one who has drunk so much that their social inhibitions have gone completely. I don’t want to answer and I consider my options: Tell him I’m married? Tell him I’m divorced? Tell him I’m divorced and remarried? Lie and tell him I’m not married. I have to find an angle at which we can relate in order to keep this on some sort of track that will get them home, and get me paid for doing it. Keep it simple, I think.
-I am, I say. -And you?
-I am, he says, To this bitch. He pauses for a moment, then continues: -I’m married to this English bitch.
There’s the opening, I think.
-Is your wife English? I ask, trying to make the most of the conversational opening.
-She is. Is your wife Irish?
And I’m thinking this is the problem with drunks. Once you start to talk to them, they want to know everything personal about you, stuff you don’t want to tell them, and they want to share everything personal about themselves, stuff that you really don’t want to know about them. Do I tell him my wife is not Irish, which is true, in which case he’ll want to know where she’s from?
-Yes, she’s Irish, I tell him, and it’s not difficult to lie because my first wife was Irish so I can talk about her.
-My wife is English, he says.
-Is that right? I reply, ignoring the circularity of the conversation.
Yes, She’s English, he says, -and fucking English girls have no idea what the word “marriage” means. Do you, you bitch? You haven’t a fucking clue what the word “marriage” means, do you? Do you hear me?
I hear another slap.
-Do you hear me? Bitch? Fucking whore!
Another slap. They don’t sound painful, these slaps, they don’t sound hard, but it’s the principle I don’t like. The girl is whimpering now in the back seat, mumbling incoherently, and the slaps are continuing. This is getting harder for me. I have to act.
-I said stop hitting her, or we go back to the police, and I mean it, I tell him. -You can’t hit her.
I’m keeping my voice low in pitch, but supporting it from the diaphragm like I do when I’m giving a class or a talk in what I think of as my “real” life, my life which is other than this one and which is so far away right now in this precipitous moment. I am trying to control the situation. I have to control the situation. I curse the Gardaí for compromising me like this. How will this end?
The authority I put in my voice works.
-Sorry, I’m sorry, the mans says, and then his voice breaks and he starts to cry quietly, saying -She doesn’t know what marriage means. She hasn’t a fucking clue what it means, the English whore.
We are crossing the river now and the struts and lights of the bridge illuminate the car interior and I glance in the mirror and see the tears on his face shining in the refraction. Not far now, we are almost there, and to my relief I see a Garda checkpoint. I take comfort that if things get nasty between him and her again there will be help nearby. We are waved throught the checkpoint and I swing the car onto his road, and just as we are about to turn onto his side street the man says:
-Stop here!
I had told the Gardaí I’d take them home. For some stupid fucking reason I actually feel a duty of care for these people. I don’t want them falling all around the street, and so I hear myself replying:
-But we aren’t at the address, I tell him, -and I said to the Gardaí back in Dawson Street that I’d take you home so I’ll have to take you home.
There’s a pause while he takes this in.
-Alright, he says, go on.
I turn the car onto his side street, an L-shaped street, and then around the corner of the L but before we reach the terrace where they live he shouts loudly,
-Stop the car here, stop here!
So I stop this time. On the left, the houses run in a line, on the right we are a few metres from where the terrace begins, running around to a little courtyard with four or five small houses on it, close enough.
-How much do we owe you? asks the man, in a forcedly civilised tone at odds with the threats and recriminations of a moment earlier.
I look at the metre. -Nine euro even, I tell him.
-Right, she’ll pay you, he says, and opens the door to get out, but he’s drunk and slow and can’t control his leg.
-She’ll never be able to pay me, I reply. -Look at her. She’s almost unconscious.
-Well, I’m not fucking paying you, he says, succeeding in getting his left leg out onto the road. I have to act.
-Right, we’re going to the Gardaí back at that checkpoint. If you won’t pay me for bringing you home I’ll have to take you to the Gardaí,
and I put the car in gear and start to move forward a little to show him I mean it. The door swings back on his leg and he howls out
-Alright alright I’ll pay you, hold onto your fucking horses.
I stop the car. We have hardly moved 10 centimetres. He puts his left foot back on the road and starts to fumble in his trouser pockets, first one, then the other, then another, finally producing a fifty euro note.
-Take that, he said and give me back...He pauses to calculate...-Give me back...a twenty... and a ten.
-That’s not right, I say, -I owe you forty-one euro.
-It is right, he insists -It’s a tip for putting up with all this... shit.
He gesticulates around the backseat with his right arm, indicating the space in general, but the gesture is meant to encompass the slumped body of his English wife. I don’t want to argue any more.
-That’s very generous, sir, I reply, -Thank you very much, handing him the change he asked for. -I’ll help you get your wife out of the car.
-Keep her, he says. -I don’t want her.
I turned to look at him in disbelief. -What do you mean, you don’t want her? I don’t want her either!
-Too bad, he says, and he heaves himself out of the car, turns and says -Keep her, before slamming the door, walking around the back of the car, then past me and around the corner into the little courtyard.
What the fuck am I to do now? If I drive to the police she could start screaming. If I help her out, I could be accused of assaulting her because I’ll have to physically help her out of the car.
I make a decision based on pragmatism. If I help her out, this’ll be over quicker. If I go to the gardaí I could end up with some stupid garda arresting me for kidnapping. I open the door and get out of the car.
We have stopped in the middle of the narrow street, and I open the back door where the woman is now trying to crawl out of the car onto the roadway. It is really pathetic. She places one hand in front of the other on the ground and literally crawls out of the cabin, her dark hair covering her face which I still haven’t seen. She is wearing a dark cardigan and dark trousers, with flat shoes, one of which is half off her foot. As she emerges from the car, she is crying for her handbag. Her hands reach for the door handle and she pulls herself up to her feet using the door as a support, eventually reaching a position wherre she has one arm over the doorframe. She stays there awhile, crying for her handbag.
-It’s alright, I’ll get your handbag, I tell her.
I look into the car: her bag is on the floor in front of where the man had been sitting. I go around the other side of the car to get it and bring it back to her.
-It’s alright, I tell her gently. -Here’s your bag. Come on, I’ll help you get to the house.
She reaches for the bag, clutches it to her, and then lets go of the car door. The effect is startling. Without the support of the door, as if out of a catapult she spins around, the arm holding the handbag flies out to grab something, finds nothing, and she staggers a meter or so, still spinning, to bounce off the back of a parked car and fall to the ground, then roll over, eyes wide staring up at the half-moon.
Her face could be pretty, but she’s in such a mess it’s hard to tell. She looks French, rather than English, with dark eyes and a sallow complexion. The cheekbones are high, the lips thin, the chin pointed. She sighs heavily, as though relieved to be lying on the ground.
I think for a moment that now would be a good time to leave, but there are all these voices in my head saying -I can’t leave her there. If something happens to her I’ll get the blame.
Fuck it, I hope she has a key to the house. I have to help her. I know that if I leave her here, I’d be leaving a piece of my own humanity there with her, so I bend down to her and say
-Come on, give me your arm. Are you alright? Give me your arm and I’ll help you up. Do you mind if I take your arm?
She reaches up with her arm and I take it and pull her to her feet. This is going to be tricky, I think to myself. She’s got no control at all. It is then that I realise suddenly that the car is still in the middle of the street with the two righthand doors open and the engine running. I have to park it.
I bring her to the wall.
-Stand over here against the wall, I tell her. Stay here, and don’t move while I park the car.
I let go of her. She stays there. I jump intothe car, closing the doors, then park a little farther down the street, where the courtyard rejoins the narrow street. I switch off the engine, remove the key and get out, closing and then locking the doors with the remote button. When I look up, she has moved from where I left her. She has succeeded to cross the road and is now walking unsteadily towards me, past her terrace, and on the other side of the road. I go over to her. She is sobbing and dishevelled, clutching her bag to her breast, trying to walk along and lean against the wall at the same time.
-Here, this is where you live, over there, look, number X.
I point to the houses in the courtyard where the man had gone.
-No, she cries out, it’s not, and she cries out loudly. She is starting to panic and I don’t know what to do. Suddenly I hear footsteps running and I look up and I see the man tearing across the courtyard from one of the houses on the right. He runs straight at us and I move away walking back to the car. He runs straight at me and grabs me by the shirt.
-Why is she crying? he asks me, his face in mine. -What did you do to her?
I can’t believe this. I raise my hands in the air, trying to get him to calm down.
-Nothing, I did nothing to her. She’s upset because of you not because of me, man. I did nothing to her.
But he’s too fired up on booze and who knows what else, and he’s got all this anger inside him. Then he notices that she’s still walking on, bouncing off the wall, on down the street. He lets go of my shirt and goes after her and I take this opportunity to zap the car open and move over to the driver’s door. Thing is, my car takes three seconds before the alarm disengages, and while I’m waiting three of the longest seconds I’ve ever waited, Mr Wife-beater-turned-knight-in-shining-armour realises I’m about to leave and he comes tearing back around the car at me just as I’m opening the door. I get it open, but he’s getting really close now and there’s no way I’m letting him get the first move in this time. My hands are up, palms facing him, and I’m saying to him:
-calm down, calm down, but he’s in a real rage. and I’m wondering, Where is all this fucking anger coming from?, and I’m surprised at my calm as he moves into my range, his arms out to grab me as I hit him twice in the face with two palm shots, left and right, then another two, left, right. The left ones are fairly light but with each right I pivot on my left hip, pushing my weight into the blow with my right leg, and they hit home.
He staggers back stunned, raising his arms to his face, looking confused, and I think to myself, -Enough, I don’t want to kill him, and I’ve got time to get into my car. But this is where I make a mistake, because I should keep hitting him, and keep hitting him until he’s no longer a threat.
Instead I misread his condition because he’s only stunned momentarily and suddenly with a roar he puts his head down and charges at me like a bull, crashing his head into my middle, his arms around me before I’ve time to react and pinning me against the door with my left arm only free, my right trapped in his bearhug.
If only I hadn’t opened the door, or if only I’d moved away from the car, because I could just step back and push him down to the ground really easily using his own momentum, but here I am, pinned against a car door by a raging drunk, with only my left arm free. And then, As I’m wondering how to get out of this one, suddenly there is this terrific pressure on my arm and I realise -Fuck, he’s biting me. This fucking animal is actually chewing my forearm.
The pain starts to register, about the same time as he starts to shake his head, he’s actually trying to chew throught the flesh of my arm by shaking his head. And then I realise that this is about as real a life-threatening situation as I’m likely to meet and it’s time to do something decisive. And I’m amazed at how I’m calmly thinking that my left arm is free, so I’ll have to use that. What can I get at? I can go for his left eye, or his left ear. Now, I don’t lke the thought of squeezing out someone’s eye because eyes are a bit squishy, and I’ve always had a kind of freaky horror of eye injuries, so not for his sake, but for mine, I have to go for his ear.
With my left hand I reach around the side of his head, through the gap over his shoulder and taking his ear in my fist I start to twist and twist. The presure on my right forearm relaxes enought for me to get my arm out, and with that my right knee comes up, my arms go out and I thrust him away from me.
He staggers back, and I’m there ready with my hands up again, saying
-Back off, back off.
He does.
And then, he does something that, in spite of the situation, makes me want to laugh. He starts to peel off his upper clothes, the archetypical drunken celtic warrior, tanked up on liquid courage.
-Get into your fucking car! he shouts. Get into your fucking car!
He even points at the car as he’s stripping, in case I don’t know which car is mine.
Now, I know that if he comes at me again I’ll do him serious damage, but I don't know whether he knows it too. This berserker stripping could be just posturing, but the thing is, if I don’t get into the car, he’ll have no choice but to come at me, and I have no witnesses here to what might happen next except his wife, and she’s hardly going to be reliable. This undressing act is giving me an opportunity to defuse the situation.
I take it. My hands are still up. He knows I can use them, that I can fight back effectively. He has had me pinned against a door, his teeth in my arm, and I got out of it. Or maybe he’s too drunk and he really thinks that stripping to the waist is an effective way of engaging in combat. My voice is calm and collected as I say
-Okay, I’m getting into my car, and I’m going to drive away. Just stay there.
And he does, although he’s still struggling with his upper clothes. He makes no move towards me. I jump into the car and hit the locks. Kerlunk. Key into the ignition, twist, the engine roars into life, I throw it into gear just as, with a final fling of Dutch courage, he kicks my door and as I drive away he gets another one in at the rear door.
And now I’m feeling huge relief, but it’s tempered by the throbbing in my arm, and when I pull over a few streets away and pull up my sleeve, there is an ugly circular welt on my inner forearm that shows no blood outside, but lots of bruising inside, and it’s starting to swell.
I go straight to the nearest Garda Station press charges. Turns out the guy is a University Lecturer...
Hannibal Lecturer, as one of my friends remarked!
And that, my friends, is why I don’t drive at nights anymore.
Saturday 2 December 2006
Distance
I cruise slowly along the curve of the empty road, squinting into the darkness for any signs of a figure with an outstretched arm. It is 3 a.m. and the air puffing in through the open window is fragrant with pre-dawn summer smells. When eventually I see the lone figure on my side of the road, I am unsure whether to stop or not. He looks rough, and in this part of the city suburbs I don’t want to take any risks. As I draw nearer however, I see by his age that he is unlikely to be a threat. His face looks slightly weatherbeaten, the mouth lined, the eyes dark hollows, but with a paradoxical mop of curly black hair on the top of the head.
I slow to confirm my reading of the situation, then indicate and pull over beside him.
He pulls open the front passenger door and seats himself, not as most do by putting in one leg, then falling into the seat before pulling in the other leg afterwards. Instead he sits on the seat first and then swings both legs in easily, pulling the door closed after him. He turns to me, pauses as though to emphasise his request, or perhaps to gather within himself the conviction that he is doing making the right choice, then says in a Dutch accent which surprises me:
-Could you take me please to the airport?
-The airport, I repeat in confirmation that I have heard, and put the car into gear, heading for the M50. It is a long way from where we are in the southwest of the city to the airport, and there are no flights out for another three hours or thereabouts. He carries no baggage, so I think that maybe he is a shiftworker, yet there is something about his manner which contradicts this.
-Starting work early? I ask in a standard conversation gambit.
-No, no, he says, in perfect English, -I am going to take a flight. I know it’s early but I am going to take the first flight to Holland which I can.
-You’ll have to wait a while, I say. -There won’t be much moving before six.
-It doesn’t matter, I’ll wait. I just cannot stay in that marriage one moment longer.
He turns to look at me and I can see it now; the way he sits in the car, slightly slumped, his pause before he spoke, yet the determination in his voice after that pause, the eyes which in spite of their tiredness have a light in them, resolution and resignation wrapped inside one who has sinned, suffered and at last found absolution.
I am taken aback, but control my reaction and think how to respond. I bounce it back to him.
-It sounds like you have had a rough time of it, I say, keeping my tone neutral.
-You could say that, my friend. I have lived with this woman for six years, and I love her very much, but I have to put some distance between me and the situation in which I find myself.
-Does she know you are leaving? I ask, sensing that he wants to talk, to share the burden of this as yet closetted betrayal.
-I left her a note on the table. She will find it when she wakes up. She won’t be happy about it, but she has known for some time that it was coming.
-You’ve spoken about it before now?
-Oh yes, many times. It is not just about us. It is about her daughters, you see. We got married four years ago after being introduced by my son from my first marriage who was living with her eldest daughter. They had met in Holland. We met at a party they had in Amsterdam and we started to see each other. It was very happy time, our children in love and we in love also. I went out with her for 2 years and then we decided to marry and come and live in Ireland. She is Irish, and missed her family here. It was all fine until her daughter and my son split up in Holland, and her daughter returned here to live, but she had no job and no place, so she came to live with us. But she doesn’t do anything! She just hangs around the house, she doesn’t look for work so she can get her own place. She has thrown herself into our lives, and the ripples have been spreading now for a year and a half so that now her younger sister also has come to live with us, and they both together make my life twice as miserable. The elder doesn’t like me because she doesn’t like my son anymore and I remind her of my son, and the younger daughter and I just don’t get on. I have said to my wife, I married you because I love you, but I am not in love with your daughters and I didn’t marry your daughters, but she is their mother and she has this strong connection with them, stronger than her connection with me, and she cannot break this connection, she says. The situation is impossible for me, and so I decided, that’s it, it is time to move on, life is too short to waste trying to save something from this situation. She can come to Holland to live with me but without her daughters, and I will be very happy if she does that, but I can no longer continue in this situation.
As he spills out his story I am riveted by the tragic beauty of one romance cleft by the failure of another. When we arrive at the airport he hands me some notes, thanks me for listening and tells me to keep the change. Impulsively I offer him my hand which he takes without hesitation.
-Good luck, I say as we shake. -I am sure this is for the best.
-It is, he says. -I am sure also, and he lets go my hand, pauses briefly, then gets out and closing the door he heads into the departures lounge. I watch him go, and in my mind’s eye see one asleep, her head on a pillow, around her, perhaps, Truth, Justice, such figures, while in another room, somewhere beneath, the note she will shortly read rests mutely waiting.
I slow to confirm my reading of the situation, then indicate and pull over beside him.
He pulls open the front passenger door and seats himself, not as most do by putting in one leg, then falling into the seat before pulling in the other leg afterwards. Instead he sits on the seat first and then swings both legs in easily, pulling the door closed after him. He turns to me, pauses as though to emphasise his request, or perhaps to gather within himself the conviction that he is doing making the right choice, then says in a Dutch accent which surprises me:
-Could you take me please to the airport?
-The airport, I repeat in confirmation that I have heard, and put the car into gear, heading for the M50. It is a long way from where we are in the southwest of the city to the airport, and there are no flights out for another three hours or thereabouts. He carries no baggage, so I think that maybe he is a shiftworker, yet there is something about his manner which contradicts this.
-Starting work early? I ask in a standard conversation gambit.
-No, no, he says, in perfect English, -I am going to take a flight. I know it’s early but I am going to take the first flight to Holland which I can.
-You’ll have to wait a while, I say. -There won’t be much moving before six.
-It doesn’t matter, I’ll wait. I just cannot stay in that marriage one moment longer.
He turns to look at me and I can see it now; the way he sits in the car, slightly slumped, his pause before he spoke, yet the determination in his voice after that pause, the eyes which in spite of their tiredness have a light in them, resolution and resignation wrapped inside one who has sinned, suffered and at last found absolution.
I am taken aback, but control my reaction and think how to respond. I bounce it back to him.
-It sounds like you have had a rough time of it, I say, keeping my tone neutral.
-You could say that, my friend. I have lived with this woman for six years, and I love her very much, but I have to put some distance between me and the situation in which I find myself.
-Does she know you are leaving? I ask, sensing that he wants to talk, to share the burden of this as yet closetted betrayal.
-I left her a note on the table. She will find it when she wakes up. She won’t be happy about it, but she has known for some time that it was coming.
-You’ve spoken about it before now?
-Oh yes, many times. It is not just about us. It is about her daughters, you see. We got married four years ago after being introduced by my son from my first marriage who was living with her eldest daughter. They had met in Holland. We met at a party they had in Amsterdam and we started to see each other. It was very happy time, our children in love and we in love also. I went out with her for 2 years and then we decided to marry and come and live in Ireland. She is Irish, and missed her family here. It was all fine until her daughter and my son split up in Holland, and her daughter returned here to live, but she had no job and no place, so she came to live with us. But she doesn’t do anything! She just hangs around the house, she doesn’t look for work so she can get her own place. She has thrown herself into our lives, and the ripples have been spreading now for a year and a half so that now her younger sister also has come to live with us, and they both together make my life twice as miserable. The elder doesn’t like me because she doesn’t like my son anymore and I remind her of my son, and the younger daughter and I just don’t get on. I have said to my wife, I married you because I love you, but I am not in love with your daughters and I didn’t marry your daughters, but she is their mother and she has this strong connection with them, stronger than her connection with me, and she cannot break this connection, she says. The situation is impossible for me, and so I decided, that’s it, it is time to move on, life is too short to waste trying to save something from this situation. She can come to Holland to live with me but without her daughters, and I will be very happy if she does that, but I can no longer continue in this situation.
As he spills out his story I am riveted by the tragic beauty of one romance cleft by the failure of another. When we arrive at the airport he hands me some notes, thanks me for listening and tells me to keep the change. Impulsively I offer him my hand which he takes without hesitation.
-Good luck, I say as we shake. -I am sure this is for the best.
-It is, he says. -I am sure also, and he lets go my hand, pauses briefly, then gets out and closing the door he heads into the departures lounge. I watch him go, and in my mind’s eye see one asleep, her head on a pillow, around her, perhaps, Truth, Justice, such figures, while in another room, somewhere beneath, the note she will shortly read rests mutely waiting.
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