by Billy Keane
She got me into her car and put my ear in between a bag of frozen American Collection Buffalo Wings and Bird’s Eye peas. She was the one and the same nurse who saved Dermo. Dora would surely write about it all when Maureen let her in on the series of events.
‘Don’t go cooking my ear,’ I ordered.
‘Don’t worry. I’m not that hungry.’
We were in A&E within ten minutes. It was full of the maimed, the half-dead, the infirm and those with fuck all wrong with them.
It’s amazing how quickly you can get through the queues when your ear is bitten off.
‘Come with me, Van Gogh,’ requested the junior doctor, and less than hour later the ear was sewn back on by a plastic surgeon.
In the end, the Doberman choked to death, on car-seat upholstery foam.
The Olsens were devastated. It was like ‘a death in the family’ was how Mikey put it. The Alsatians met the Dobermans in the Compound and they fought to the end. Grey couldn’t be found. It was thought he was dead in some ditch. ‘He must’ve crawled off and died,’ said a broken-hearted Mikey.
Mo cried for Grey. ‘He was a gentleman.’
Bit by bit I began to recover. The hospital routine was boring and the nurse’s take on it was, ‘When you notice you’re getting bored, you are getting better.’
The boredom left when I had a visit from the police.
It was the one and only Sergeant Matt. On his own.
My mother was visiting when Matt called. Mam came up to the city with one of the neighbours from Bally. He did the driving as Mam wasn’t used to the traffic in the city. Tim was a friend of Dad’s and he was very good to us after Dad died. He was a retired cop and pulled the twins out of a dope rap when the stupid little goms were caught passing a joint around at mass on Palm Sunday.
It seems they had been at it for a while and lit up every Sunday when the priest started swinging the thurible, giving off a lovely smokey smell of burnt Middle Eastern incense, which masked the fumes from the hash.
Big Matt puffed up and got straight down to business.
‘Tell Big Matt what conspired on the night of the twenty-seventh ultimo. Let me tell you firstly young man the deceased dog was found in a terrible condition in your car. The poor creature died a cruel death, alone and choking, so far away from those who love him. He has no one to speak for him so therefore Big Matt will do his talking for him. By Jove he will. Big Matt will be the canine’s advocate.’
He lowered his head in sympathy.
‘Now, young man, where did the canine in question come from?’
‘What?
‘Where did the dog come from?’
‘Mammy and daddy dogs,’ I replied. ‘Like all doggies.’
Big Matt bristled. Out went his chest but he failed to pull in his belly.
‘Now young man—’
My mother jumped to my defence before Matt could make another speech.
‘What are you saying? Are you saying my son deliberately attacked a dog? Why should he do such a thing? He’s in here now in a bad way after having his ear bitten off by a mad hound and here you are, in here, in a hospital, interrogating him. He could have rabies you know.’
Big Matt didn’t try to put a gloss on it.
‘We are only making enquiries, Madame. And to put your mind at ease there is no rabies in Ireland. To my certain knowledge. Beyond a reasonable doubt and beyond that doubt too. Beyond even an unreasonable doubt. If there was rabies in Ireland Big Matt would know it, Madame. Be sure, be very sure. If a man sneezes with hay fever, Big Matt knows it. It’s Big Matt’s business to know things,’ declared Matt, knowingly.
My mother, who had been sitting on the edge of my bed, stood up and faced the Supercop. Mam was brave.
‘I have friends in the media you know and I have the ear of the people. How dare you insinuate my son had anything to do with that mongrel’s death, and stop calling me Madame like I was a receptionist in a whorehouse.’
Matt backed off as if to have a better look at Mam.
Timmy asked Matt out for a private word.
‘In a minute, in a minute, sir,’ said Matt angrily.
Big Matt took several photographs from a large envelope and threw them on the bed, one by one, like he was dealing cards.
The Doberman was in a desperate condition with bones protruding through his black and tan crew-cut coat. The dog’s tongue was sticking out of the side of his mouth.
‘The dog suffered beyond endurance. What sir, do you know of this?’
Timmy let it be known, he too was ‘a member’. Big Matt left with Timmy and we could see them chatting and laughing outside the door of my room through the glass peep-in.
I had the feeling Big Matt’s subsequent interrogation was all for show. At no stage did he press me on the ownership of the dogs. He knew who owned the dead Doberman. He had to. Matt couldn’t have cared less about the dead dog. He was snooping.
I recited an Oliver Goldsmith poem we learned by heart at school.
The wound it seemed both sore and sad
To every Christian eye;
And while they swore the dog was mad,
They swore the man would die.
But soon a wonder came to light,
That showed the rogues they lied:
The man recovered of the bite,
The dog it was that died.
‘Capital,’ critiqued Big Matt. ‘Excellent. Big Matt loves a chuckle. Young man you have a rare talent. BM knows his oats when it comes to poetry and that poem you have written is poetry with a capitol P, if I may say so.’
Big Matt said he knew for sure we were wonderful, decent honest people. Apologies to my mother for calling her Madame, ‘Which in the context it was used in was no more than a form of address used ad infinitum in France and polite circles in Ireland.’
My mother was not for appeasement.
‘My son is in a bad way and here ye are torturing him over a hyena of a dog that bit his ear off. My son left his car door open for a minute when he went out to check the tyres, the dog snuck in. It would be more in your line to find out who owns the dogs instead of going after an innocent boy still recovering after a major operation.’
Big Matt left without any parting words.
Timmy was calm. ‘Mary, don’t be getting upset now. He’s alright is Matt. That’ll be the end of it. Someone had to check the owner of the car. That’s it now. It’s over and the less fuss, the better.’
Timmy was calling my mother Mary and then it dawned on me, I hardly knew her first name. She was always just Mam or Mammy.
Big Matt was on a reconnaissance mission. He needed to suss me out and find out how much I knew about him and his connection with the Olsens.
My mother was all questions about the ear but I told her it was fine. She too liked to know things.
The truth was an ear nerve had been severed and the doctors said it could take up to a year to repair itself. Even then there was no guarantee. Nerves take months to grow back. Less than a millimetre a day and there was no certainty the nerves would connect into the nerves on the other side of the divide.
Mo spent hours with me in the hospital, yet every hour was like a minute. I was still in terrible pain. My hair was flat on the good ear side as I couldn’t sleep on the other side. Much as I tried to fluff it up, it never really matched. Funny isn’t it, the consequences of unexpected acts. Bet Van Gogh didn’t think his hair would be spoiled when he was trying to impress the hooker. I’ll bet he didn’t paint too many sunflowers after he chopped his ear off either. I bet if he gave her a fifty, it would have sweetened her up a lot more. Self-mutilation is fine if your leg is stuck in a crevice on a high mountain and you’re out of phone range or credit and the only way to survive is to hack it off with a pen knife, but aside from that it’s not to be recommended.
Every day, when the nurses and the helpers were finished their check-ups and feeding and blood samples, Mo slipped her hand under the stiff sheets.
&nbs
p; During that holistic treatment I experienced no pain, which is kind of weird, which goes to show if you could get a tablet that replicated the pleasure from a hand job, then there would be an end to suffering, for men anyway, with Nobel prizes for medicine and millions from the drug companies. Bet there would be no shortage of takers for the clinical trials.
The occupational therapist told me I had to train my ear nerves into accepting touch. She spoke of the nerves as if they were a different person to the rest of my body.
‘They have become used to not being touched and you must now change the way they think. It’s a gradual thing. First we use the cotton wool. Then we will massage the ear very gently with moisturising cream for two minutes, gradually building up the time and the pressure used in the massage.’
Mo rubbed the cream on my ear. But the pain was so bad I cried.
‘G, I love you so much and I never want to be away from you again.’
I told her I loved her too and life would be very boring without her.
The plan was to get me out of the hospital as soon as possible. There was a risk of infection and the surgeon warned me that the ‘MSRI bug is killing more patients than us doctors.’
I was well treated though. Nurses are saints. They were lovely to me and my Mam was given tea and biscuits. She loved that and I loved her, even though there were times she would drive you nuts.
Her standing up to the forces of justice reminded me just how tough she could be. My mother would be able to withstand anything life threw at her. If we left for Oz though she would be heartbroken. Mam always wanted the best for us and that was her reason for living. She didn’t rear us for export, but she had to be aware that economic life here is a cycle.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one, or skip a few lines. Texting has killed the joke. It’s impossible to get one that hasn’t been sent to thousands in only a few minutes. It’s an old Irish mother gag. Sort of sums up my mother but in another way it doesn’t tell the full story. Mothers will moan but they have an infinite capacity to get on with life. They know well kids must make their own mistakes and make their own lives but mothers can’t help directing. I suppose if you’ve had someone swimming around inside of you for nine months, you’d be slow enough to let the kids swim without those arm floats too.
I’m sure we had a great old time in the womb. It’s a heated kiddies pool and a spa too. With lots of splashing and swimming. The little ones spend their day gurgling happy songs, on a lead.
Anyway, sorry and all that if you’ve heard the gag before. Nothing worse than some boring bollix regurgitating jokes you’ve heard time and time again.
Okay.
Question:
How many Irish mothers does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer:
None. I’ll just sit here in the dark all by myself.
Like I say there were times when I used to wanna throw momma from the train.
I told her about Mo and me. I had to. I sorta figured telling her while I was lying here in the hospital bed in agony and totally traumatised, might soften the blow. I mean, you couldn’t give out to a man who had his ear bitten off in a totally random and unprovoked Doberman attack.
My mother didn’t say anything for a second or two.
‘I thought she was married?’
Her arms were folded now.
‘Separated.’
Mother didn’t do hesitation when she had a witness in the box.
‘Are ye movin in together?’
‘Fairly soon. I’d say. Like as in next week.’
‘Right. You’ll be moving out of home so.’
‘I was sort of hoping we could stay with you for a while until we got sorted out with our own place.’
My mother was at her most maternal when you gave in. There was a softness there but it only surfaced when you were really shagged, like as in having your ear ripped off or after a blow-up, when she knew she had gone too far with her temper and criticism.
‘I’ll never refuse my own son a bed in his own home.’ The only way through her was to get round her.
‘Don’t worry Mam, we’ll take separate beds and all that. Mo can sleep in the twins’ room.’
Mam the liberal spoke up.
‘Sure ye might as well sleep together as you’re at it. Sure won’t ye be in the one bed when ye get your own place. It’s a temporary arrangement, mind. For a few months. At most. I’ll help you, financially, to rent your own place. If you don’t get work. The radio want me to do the show five days a week now.’
Like I say, mothers can get used to anything. I was surprised. Mam wanted a woman for me from my own social background. The father of her ideal partner for me might be a teacher and the mother a retired teacher, who gave up her job to look after the kids. There might be a bit of land and a holiday home on the seaside – all paid for. The daughter would have to be pretty but not beautiful. Mam advised the husbands’ friends will always try to hit on wives who are too voluptuous.
‘And I speak from experience.’
Dad’s pals tried to hit on her. She made the announcement on The Woman’s Hour. Dr Lucia Quinn-McManus maintained, ‘Most Irish men think the clitoris is a perennial flower that thrives in sandy soil and shade.’ Mam was now not only the first woman to say ‘orgasm’ on local radio but also the first to allow someone to say clitoris.
Maybe Mam just wanted me to be happy.
I was sitting on the edge of bed, staring out the window at the silver-grey roof of the hospital. Seagulls docked for a while before flying off in search of chippers and sloppy bin men. Junkie magpies picked resin and glue with their pointy black beaks from the joins in the aluminium roof.
Dermo was still there in St Hilda’s. Just a few floors down. We were told his condition had deteriorated and he hardly knew his mother. With any luck, he would vegetate away the rest of his life in the home for the bewildered.
I didn’t think I would be capable of killing him violently but if wishes could kill, he would be six feet under by now.
My awakemares had him sitting on a wheelchair, by an open window, with a vase of Van Gogh’s sunflowers on the sill. Mo’s face was in the middle of every flower and Dermo was bouncing my one-eared head up and down like it was a basketball.
Maureen told Mo he was pushing a Zimmer frame now. It beats me how Zimmer was such a frigging hero. He’s world famous for inventing a piece of metal tubing you shove along the floor to stop yourself falling down. And he was loaded rich from the patent royalties. I mean it isn’t exactly the zip or cats’ eyes or a cure for cancer. Then some affiliate or associate comes up with another brainwave and makes billions more. They put wheels on it. Wheels, whoa. Imagine, sixty-three million centuries after Trog the caveman figured out stuff moves faster when you wheel it up, Zimmer’s guys finally get the message.
I was always racking my brain for the big idea.
My buddies had visions of an internet start-up they would eventually sell for 124 million and it wouldn’t even have even been hard work with everyone coming in to the office in baseball caps turned back to front and playing basketball into the net hanging over the bosses’ desks to get ideas and everyone being caring to fellow workers and high fives and huge bonuses and toy trains running all over the office and cancelling Mondays and hugs and the bosses showing up at meetings with merchant bankers in sandals and surfer’s shorts and hairy legs and two-day stubble and having staff think-ins at Electric Picnic.
It became a national obsession with us young guys when the bust came. Getting the big idea to take you out of here and into rich countries like China where the money was burning a hole in their pockets, just like it did to ours.
If the DoZoPop idea didn’t work I had another plan.
The Irish are mad for funerals. We cash in on that. The Irish spend a fortune on coffins and even have horse-drawn hearses with men dressed in Charles Dickens black suits with high hats and black silk cummerbunds and white faces, even more deathly looking than their cl
ients.
It beats me how it is undertakers were always so pale. Maybe they put on Factor 50 all year round to show empathy with their punters. I remember when my Dad died the undertaker looked so fucked, I was going to take the old man out of the coffin for a while so the funeral director could have a lie down.
That was the day I had the idea. He died at six in the morning. I was asleep on the floor beside his bed. The doctor told us he could go that night so we took turns staying up, but we dozed off, exhausted after several nights staying up minding Dad.
Mam woke us. ‘He’s breathing very fast and heavy. I think he’s going to go.’ We hustled the twins out of their bunk beds. The poor fellas were full of sleep and rubbed their eyes hard in unison.
‘Come on twins hurry up. We have to say goodbye to Dad.’
‘Why, where’s he going?’ asked Al.
‘Heaven’
‘Is he going to die?’
‘Yeah probably.’
‘But he is going to heaven?’
‘For sure. Yeah. Guaranteed.’
The twins were too tired to cry, too young to see their Dad die. I was too young to see my Dad die. I needed him for a good few more years, just as I need him now.
The day before he died I met up with Mame Moran in our local shop. O’Brien’s was a real shop with shovels for sale beside underpants, no three-for-the-price-of-two useless things the hypermarkets couldn’t sell or unethical prawns in satay, or crap you didn’t need. It was nearly out of date packets of biscuits, tins of pears, cream paint and the just hanging on to their business and being deadly nice to everyone and not only for the money. Everything tastes different in O’Brien’s.
I thought Dad might be able to eat baby food and bought a couple of small bottles of mashed-up vegetables or some such shite they make the babies eat.
Mame sensed what I was thinking.
‘For your dad?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Is he in pain?’
‘Yeah Mame. Not too bad, but sort of bad enough at the same time. He’s on stuff. For the pain. But he wants to go off it. So he knows what’s goin’ on.’
