Two Walls and a Roof

by John Michael Cahill

  My brother Hugh started to study the problem of DVT (deep vein thrombosis) better known as ‘blood clots’ on air travel, and as a result he has come up with the ultimate solution. Together with his long-time best friend Gerard O’Connor (another Irishman) and myself, we have lodged patents in the USA on Hugh’s invention. At the time of writing, a number of them have been granted to us and a final one is close to grant.

  According to Hugh, our invention will save thousands of lives in the future, and not alone on planes either, but in offices also, especially in America. Only time will tell where that project will go, but I am in no doubt of its success.

  Joe Hurley my best friend

  For as long as I can remember, Joe Hurley and I were fast friends. He lived just down the street from us. His father, Tadgh Hurley, owned both a furniture shop and a grocery shop, and later still he brought television sets to Buttevant for the first time. Like Big Kyrl, Tadgh was a true entrepreneur and I always liked him. Mother had an account in his grocery shop for a while until they got fed up with her lack of payment and stopped giving us groceries. When she had been paying, she used to splurge out now and again: usually on a Sunday. This great splurging out amounted to her buying a tin of fruit cocktail on a Saturday night for the Sunday dinner. Times were getting better and we could now afford the odd tin of fruit, even if it was on tick. What she didn’t know was that each Saturday night me and Kyrle would punch a tiny hole in the top and bottom of the tin at its edge to drain off the juice and then drink it. This was a regular occurrence and the minute we knew a tin was ordered, Kyrle would be itching to get the father’s hammer and nail ready. We simply loved that juice and to this day I often drink it, but thankfully I don’t need a hammer these days. On the Sunday as mother opened the tin she would get raging mad, seeing no juice once again. She would despatch Lill down to Hurleys shop demanding a new tin saying, “Them Hurleys are trying to poison us all and I’ll not have it”. We did this drinking the juice for a long time before the Hurleys decided enough was enough, and her credit was stopped. Mother then moved on to Connor Corbett’s grocery shop with a new tick book, and no doubt leaving an unpaid bill at Hurleys.

  Joe Hurley always seemed to be rich to me. He had all kinds of toys which he didn’t care about, and I had a magnetic attraction to him. No matter what he told me to do, I would almost certainly do it. To this day I don’t know why this was so, but he had great charisma and he made me laugh all the time. All he had to do was give me his certain look and I would burst out laughing, and for as long as I could remember we had been friends.

  We played in a field up the ball alley lane which I am sure belonged to the Murphy family. Old Tom Murphy had a hardware shop literally across the road from Joe’s people and for some reason Joe hated them all with a passion. Tadgh Hurley owned a small field on his side of the lane behind his shop, so it was not surprising that Joe claimed the field on the opposite side of the lane as well, as that was how Joe was, but everyone knew it belonged to old Mr. Murphy…except Joe.

  Young Tom Murphy, (Mr. Murphy’s son who was hated by Joe) was always openly claiming the opposite, and often there would be a shouting match between them from the safety of their front doors. This arguing led to a number of scraps with Tom, but all were mostly a bit of pushing or name-calling events except for one memorable day.

  It was coming up to Cahermee time and the travelers, known to us as the tinkers, had stationed their horses in the Murphys’ field. Cahermee is a famous horse fair held in Buttevant each July the twelfth. Joe and I were both about eleven or twelve years old then and up for any kind of devilment, especially Joe Hurley. We were standing in the field studying the horses huddled and tethered together in a corner when Joe says, “No one told them tinkers to put them horses in my field. Lets get rid of them Cahill”. Of course Joe had to act the tinker as well and give them the odd lash with a long stick he had found. Tom Murphy must have seen us and arrived, shouting at us to get out of his field. Joe, who was by then an expert at bad language, told Tom to, “Fuck off out of my sight”. As Joe’s disciple, I told Tom to fuck off as well, me trying to impress Joe with my tone and bad language.

  Tom would not go and Joe says, “ Murphy, I’m giving you fair warning now, get the fuck out of here or you’ll be sorry. Isn’t that right Cahill?” I says, “You’ll be sorry, Murphy,” as I glare at Tom trying to look and act tough too. Still he would not go, so we made a run at him, and being two big bullies, we knocked him to the ground. Then Joe says, “Lets throw him to the horses,” winking at me evilly. I grab Tom’s legs and Joe, being stronger, grabs his hands. Poor Tom, who was younger and weaker than us bullies, struggles and kicks out, but its no use. We pull him over near to the horses and start to swing him. Joe says, “Who owns the field now Murphy?” “My father does,” says Tom. Hurley says, “If you don’t say who really owns it quick, you’re going into those horses”. More swinging and Tom still refuses. All the time Joe is swinging and counting, “One… Two… Three,” we both let go on three and Tom sailed through the air into the horses who were already agitated. I saw all the trampling and took off, as did Joe. Poor Tom got trampled I believe and ran off home in a terrible state to complain to his dad. Old Mr. Murphy was the gentlest man I ever saw, but he later arrived over at Nannie’s house to complain about me and he was very angry. However, she would not hear of a bad word said about me and she told him to get out, that her John would never hurt a fly, definitely not his son. He left and she then tells Michael, “Don’t get any more paint from the Murphys, go on up to Colemans instead. I’ll not have this carry on, he’s lost our business”. One would think we bought loads of stuff from him, but all she ever got there was a couple of tins of paint every four years for the Corpus Christ procession. In her eyes though, her order to Michael to withdraw her custom would have dire economic implications for the complainer, and at the very least, he would go bust in the future. Then when I snuck back home she attacked me with her dishcloth and told me to keep away from Hurley, that he was the Devil and bad news followed him. This only cemented our friendship all the more, but I always regretted the incident as Tom was truly outnumbered and didn’t deserve what he got. Me and Hurley chatted about it in our camp in the trees in Murphy’s field later, and he blamed me saying that I was not supposed to let go of Tom’s legs because he had winked at me. It was just a prank that went wrong and I don’t think Tom got really hurt thank God. We never attacked him again though to my knowledge.

  We were going to the national school at that time and had a woman teacher. I think we called her Margaret. Hurley began having fantasies about girls’ panties or ‘knickers’ as he called them. He decided that Margaret must wear pink ones and these were his favourite fantasy. Joe tried various ways to see if he was correct. He would be dropping his pencil or copybook trying to look up her dress. He had no luck and complained almost daily to me about it after school. He seemed to be almost obsessed with seeing her underwear. The fact that Margaret was probably in her fifties made no odds to Joe. If anything, it made it even more intriguing.

  Margaret used to give us ‘the stick’, the term used for a good hiding, if we did poorly on the lessons and this was her weakness according to Joe. One day he decided to fail everything on purpose and also to give her back cheek as well, such was his determination to see up her dress. He had seen her flake one of the Knockbarry boys on the arse across her knee for back cheek, and he felt this would be the way to go. Joe had no work done at all and smarted off at Margaret when she asked why that was. Sure enough she got real mad and pulled him across her knees and flaked him hard across his pants with the stick. As she swung into action he roared out in pain, then another whack and more roaring, then I saw the funniest sight I had ever seen. There was Joe spread across her knees getting his ass beaten while he’s clearly bending his head and looking up her dress. Then he looks down directly at me and gives me a big grin with the ‘thumbs up’ sign. She did wear pink after all. I thought he was taking the who
le thing far too serious, but that was Joe.

  When I was about thirteen, Hurley gave me my first sex education lesson. Joe seemed to be an expert on the matter, as in all other things then, and one day I asked him what ‘it’ was like. I believed, wrongly, that he had ‘done it’ as that was the term used then to describe having sex, because he was constantly alluding to this great thing called ‘doing it’. On the day in question we retired to our camp in Murphys’ field and inside the bushes Hurley told me the great secret. It amounted to this quotation and I never forgot it. “Lad, see this mickey?” He opened his pants and proceeded to show me his small little penis, “Well tis like this lad, what you do is you stick this in her hole and if she bleeds you better get out of town fast coz she’s pregnant and you’re in big trouble”. That was the entire sex education. Where he got this great information from, besides his vivid imagination, I never knew, but I believed him. Then he asked me to show him my mickey, but I was too shy and kept it inside. Hurley just laughed and said, “Lad it’s ok if it’s too small now, coz when the right ‘bitch’ comes along twill get real big”. For a long time Joe had been referring to women as bitches and every time he saw a schoolgirl go by he would go, “Look at the fat arse on that bitch Cahill. I bet she loves it,” then he would slap me across the back and say, “One day soon you’ll know what I mean”. After Joe’s sex lesson I remember becoming really confused and was about to ask him more but decided to leave it for another day in case he pressed me to show him my mickey again, so we went off playing hurling instead.

  We had numerous scrapes and adventures. He tied a donkey up to an old gate and invited me to ride on his back just so that I could, ‘Feel like a real cowboy,’ according to him. He assured me it was safe as the donkey was tied up. I climbed the gate and got on the donkey’s back and it all seemed great to me for a few seconds. I was hardly on board when Joe released the rope and gave the donkey a huge flake with a stick. The donkey reared up and took off down the field with me clinging on for dear life. It felt like I was ‘breaking the horses in’ in the cowboy films, but I was terrified. The donkey bucked me off and made a run at me. I ran for the ditch, barely getting over it before it trampled me. I was terrified, but Hurley was literally crying with laughter. I punched him right in the eye and left for home. Joe came after me still laughing and saying over and over, “Sorry Cahill, sorry lad, but you should have seen yourself on his back, you’d have died laughing too”. I shrugged him off and told him to fuck off, but secretly I was beginning to see the funny side of it myself, especially now that I was not on the bloody donkey’s back. But by then I was back at Nannie’s door and Joe knew that was forbidden territory for him. I think it was never the same with us after that. We were still friends for years after, but something broke the friendship that day. I got a terrible fright thinking I was going to be trampled to death and all Joe could do was laugh at all that was happening to his best friend. I had enough of Joe by then, and we drifted apart until our secondary school days with Pad Keely, when once again Joe would be Joe, only worse and Nannie would be proven correct.

  Fort Apache and other wars.

  Big Kyrl had begun to show films in a hall he was hiring from the British Legion. He was always an amazing entrepreneur and my idol in Ireland, as distinct from Huck Finn in the US. We had free entry into the cinema as teenagers and even earned some money as ushers now and again. These films were to become our inspiration for all kinds of adventures. At this time we had become friends with a very gentle boy called Martin Sweeny. His people lived up on New Street and his dad, Ger, worked for Cork County Council in the roads division. Ger had a big shed out the back and it was full of all kinds of items that we were to use later on like paraffin oil, tar, tar barrels, sheets of galvanized iron, long metal pipes and an endless supply of wood. The shed was an Aladdin’s cave for adventurers like us. Martin was a few years younger than us and his people had a television set when it was almost unheard of in those days. Martin’s parents seemed to be very happy that we would play with him each evening and at weekends, and we three became like the Musketeers and actually acted them out at times with great swordfights.

  Pretty soon we began to act out the films shown by Big Kyrl. Initially it was just the usual cowboys and Indians stuff, but soon we progressed to submarine warfare. We actually built a big submarine in a field next to Martin’s house. It was made from tar barrels, sheets of iron and boards, all taken (or stolen) from Ger’s shed. Inside our submarine we had an old wind-up gramophone with one vinyl record, the French National anthem: La Marseillaise. I got so sick of hearing this that I started to have nightmares from it, and to this day it is not good for me to hear it.

  Kyrle added the real touch of class to our sub when he somehow managed to get a barrel with no top or bottom, and this became his conning tower. I see him as clear as day, standing in the barrel or conning tower, giving orders and surveying the sea field with his hands as binoculars. In winter we lit a fire inside the sub and burned the old felt used for roofing. The fumes were terrible and it’s a wonder we are still alive considering what we were breathing. We had a library and charts and seats inside, and it actually was almost waterproof. Our sub lasted through a good number of attacks from the townie gang and others. They were all jealous of it and us, and constantly plotted its destruction.

  As we saw each new film, we would build a set and get to re-enacting our own version of events. One of these almost ended in tragedy for Martin. We had seen a film called Fort Apache I believe, but I could be wrong. In any case, the fort was attacked by the Sioux and burned. This was inspiring stuff for us. It just had to be re-enacted. Kyrle was going to be a Sioux warrior which he pronounced as ‘see-uxx’. It took him years before he realized his mispronunciation. I had no idea either and just followed his version until Uncle Michael mocked him one day, and I knew then how to say the word, but I never told Kyrle: I just sniggered at his ignorance.

  We had to first make a fort and then I would decide if I was a Sioux or a cavalry man, depending on the fort and how it looked, though I was far more partial to the Indians. To make sure this fort would burn, we were not going to use iron sheets but cardboard soaked in oil. To get this cardboard, we resorted to our old faithful supplier: Tadgh Hurley’s drapery store at the bottom of the ball alley lane. Tadgh always had cardboard packing boxes that he used to protect his furniture out in his back yard, and we were always stealing them from him. We stole a large number of these cardboards over a few days and soon were ready to build the fort. It was made by beating stakes into the ground and nailing the cardboard to the stakes so that it formed a square. My guess now is it was about ten feet or so along the sides. The gate was a section of cardboard which could swing on a stake. At this stage I had become completely on the side of the Indians even though Kyrle had already become ‘Chief’. I opted to join the war party and do some burning, and the excitement was building inside us all. Martin was given no choice but to be a soldier in the fort. He had a rifle and he liked being in the safety of the fort, wrongly as it turned out. The Plains would be far safer if only he knew what was planned for his fort. What Martin did not know was that Kyrle really intended to burn the fort. Martin had never seen the film like us, so he didn’t know the danger he was in. To ensure success, Kyrle got a drum of paraffin oil and doused the cardboard walls liberally with the oil. Then the battle began.

  Initially we ran round the fort with our bows, hollering and whooping just like the real Sioux did. Martin fired volley after volley, and now and again one of us would fall to the ground dead or wounded. This went on for about ten minutes before Kyrle gave the command, “Light the arrows”. He had stolen some firelighters from home and broken them into small squares. We tipped our arrows with the spongy materials and soon he had his one lighting. I lit mine off of his and we began the attack, circling round and round. “Fire arrows!” Zinggg…his arrow went into the fort, followed by mine. Both aimed at the walls and not at Martin, thank God. Not a thing hap
pened other than Martin shouts out, “Ye missed and John you’re dead”.

  I feigned death and lit another arrow from the small fire of papers Kyrle had now lit as our fire source. So did he, and this time we sent two more flaming arrows straight into the wall. I saw the oil catch fire and a black smoke began to rise. “Yippee, they’re done for,” says Kyrle, “Fire more arrows”. By then all pretence of circling was gone and we just stood there like two Robin Hoods and fired arrow after arrow into the fort. Soon it was really blazing and the whole area was filled with black acrid smoke. Martin stopped firing and shouting. In fact we could neither hear him nor see him at that point and I got a bit worried. I ran up to the blazing gate and called out, “Martin where are you, you in there, you surrender yet?” Only choking and coughing came from inside and the heat beat me back. By then Kyrle was at the fort too and he called out as well. The fire was so hot that we both got scared. I felt we had to save Martin, so I ran across the field and got one of our long pipes and poked at the burning wall of cardboards. Now I could see Martin on the ground choking and coughing and clutching his throat. Kyrle ran back with his ‘Quix bottle’ fire extinguisher which was useless, and after pushing down the burning wall, I ran in and pulled Martin out to the air. He was ok but red-faced amid the black smoke and choking for air. The fort burned out as the three of us watched it. Martin said the most unforgettable words, “Next time I wanna be with the Indians”.