Two Walls and a Roof

by John Michael Cahill

  On that same weekend I saw a hilarious thing happen with Johnnie Rae.

  This little chubby girl had a very pleasing round little face with eyes that seemed to draw you into them. She was also as innocent as they come, and when we were shopping in Glasgow’s High Street she spotted a set of toy bagpipes and believed they were real. Nothing would convince her otherwise, and she began pestering and pleading with her mother to buy them for her. Eventually this pestering won out, and she got the toy. Almost immediately she began to blow into it and a God awful squeaking noise came forth. We could not get her to stop it. The noise was so bad that JoAnn asked me to take her outside into the street so that she could continue without embarrassment. I took this American bagpipe prodigy outside and parked her in front of the shop, telling her to be quiet, but she flatly refused. Then as she continued her squawking, and fearing a migraine, I put some distance between us and I sat on a waste paper bin nearby. Johnnie became lost in the awful sounds she believed were music, and she played and played until she got tired from standing. Eventually she sat down outside the shop, putting her purse beside her, and played her little heart out. It was both sad and wonderful to see her try so hard, to bring music from a toy, and as I stared at her so did some others.

  After a while an old lady and her husband began to look lovingly at her, and felt she was an orphan. “Och eye isn’t she a darling Hamish, give her some money, poor thing”. He dropped a few coins onto her purse and a big smile came forth from Johnnie Rae, and she blew even louder. Shortly after that another few people stopped by to look, smiled and passed on, throwing in another coin or two. I was flabbergasted at the generosity of the Scottish people, especially the old people. JoAnn finally arrived out from her shopping and Johnnie Rae, by then all excited, jumped up with her coins in hand, and with a huge smile she said to her mother, “Look mom, I can play, and I got money. From now on I’m playing all of the time”. I nearly fainted with that news, and as more noise emanated from the pipes I felt that I might have to resort to serious measures later that night and puncture the bag, but I didn’t. Today that prodigy still remembers that day, and now has two very small prodigies of her own, so as soon as possible I’m buying both of them a set of toy bagpipes in revenge. Let Johnnie Rae beware.

  Once again JoAnn had to return to the USA, and a new ray of hope for my millions began with Hugh finding the solution to the deadly condition known as Deep Vein Thrombosis or DVT. This invention was beginning to look great. We had formed a company and a prototype was under construction, when later that September ‘9-11’ hit the world, and the big airline companies had other things to worry them besides passenger health issues. It looked like JoAnn and I were destined to remain apart forever. Then in desperation, and with her marriage finally over and becoming bitter, she left home for good with the help of a shelter group for women. A turning point had arrived in JoAnn’s life. She had little money and decided to rent a small house on the edge of town. She also got a job to support herself, as I was also struggling at that time.

  She began working in a factory that made leather goods, and her job was terribly hard on her hands. This woman, who had almost everything in her life before, now had to give up her children, and she was reduced to doing factory work that was killing her hands from a condition known as carpal tunnel syndrome. I felt so helpless and guilty about it all. The only ray of light was I do remember her telling me that she loved her little house. She had taken little from her previous home, and as her parents were feeling that she had made a terrible mistake, they were no help at all at the time, and they used to pass her door almost every day without calling to see her. JoAnn was then virtually alone in the world at a time when she needed support most of all, and worst of all, it would be almost a year before we could meet again. With no choice, JoAnn continued to work and to damage her hands, and I began both my divorce proceeding and my house refinancing.

  During those days I came to believe that the only way we could ever be together was if I could somehow become incredibly rich suddenly, and while the search for millions has always been an ongoing part of my life, it took on a new urgency especially in those days. Today I don’t care about millions because I have learned life’s great secret, but back then I was almost frantic with the searching.

  A Buttevant girl called Martina Coughlan used to work with me in the radio station, and she always impressed me with her drive and sheer go-ahead attitude about life, and over time we became good friends. She was also a very well educated girl and at that time I was after writing the third version of this book, complete with a zillion spelling and grammatical errors, and you might think its bad now, but you have no idea how bad version three was.

  One day while having tea in our canteen at work, I was telling Martina about some story or other about our hometown and she fell around laughing so much that she said” John, you just have to write a book”. I said that I had written one, but it was going nowhere because I could not correct it, nor could I afford to have it professionally edited either. To Martina’s great credit, she said “I’d be glad to correct it for you for free, I have time at night to do it and I would hear more stories”, and so I agreed to give her my manuscript. After a week or so Martina rang me and said we needed to go over the book, as she was both constantly laughing and crying, and having to explain this to her little daughter. When she would tell her child some story from the book the little girl would demand she take her to see the places in the book, and in a joking way she said I was costing her a fortune. I arrived at her house and she made coffee and we chatted for a long time fixing and arguing over how I write things. It was getting late and there seemed to be little progress made so we agreed to meet once a week and progress the book properly, as Martina utterly believed in it.

  During these winter nights we shared both of our ideas for millions as she had the same drive for them as I did, and then one night right out of the blue Martina says to me, ” John I have an idea that I cant shake from my mind”. I said tell me and she went on to describe her belief that it has to be possible to use a ‘beer mat’ for advertising or giving out information. She said that if you watch people in bars, especially when they are alone, they are always twirling and turning the beer mat. It’s being read over and over, with people tearing it and playing with it, and surely that’s got to be ‘in your face advertising’. Martina was a marketing expert and I don’t think either of us realized it then.

  I got an inspiration immediately and said “Why don’t we design an electronic version of a ‘beer mat’ and sell it to the breweries for millions”. I remember Martina just holding the kettle in mid air as the idea flew around inside her head, and she said that’s it, that’s how we will become rich. An air of total excitement took over the two of us, and our minds went into a kind of overdrive. The electronic mat would have a small screen, be connected to the bar computer for updating, and it would constantly display messages advertising interesting facts and bar games, as well as promotions. Martina saw it being used on airplanes when they bring you the little drink and it would carry their specific promotions and flight information. She saw it used as a novel promotional idea for car launches where it could be given out as a timer which would be blank initially, but on launch day, it would suddenly come alive in the hands of the winner of a new car. She had a hundred great ideas, and my job was to design it. The best I could do back then was to do the conceptual design, the Chinese would do the manufacturing, and a Cork company who were far better than me, would do the complete prototype designs. To say that we were on a high was a great understatement, because we could see the millions as clear as we could see each other. We put a patent on the idea within a week and Martina came up with the brilliant name ‘Infomate’.

  Our device would be simple and beautiful and above all friendly, and I met the Cork engineers to go over the design. The unit cost was always the problem though and we had no money to develop a prototype. The banks were no use at all either, and all we coul
d do was to try and market the concept to possible investors. We both passionately believed in the idea and I still do, as I’m quite sure Martina does too. Martina was by then working in the print business and she designed a fantastic brochure to be sent out to anyone we thought would come on board with us, and we began the posting. The Irish magazine Business Plus did a full article on us and our Infomate, to our sheer amazement, and I think the national Sunday papers carried an article or two as well. We did meet some people and even tried to get the Enterprise Ireland on board but we were two unknowns with no money and just a wonderful dream.

  One night Martina said why we don’t send our brochure and a letter to Richard Branson, surely he might be interested and he has the money to make it fly. We wrote a simple and honest letter to that great man, and months passed by without hearing from him, and we became very disappointed and low. We met regularly once a week and tried to ‘push forward’ the idea but still nothing from Mr. Branson or anyone else either.

  I was driving in West Cork to a transmitter site and I heard the song ‘The Living Years’ by Mike and the Mechanics come on the radio. I have always associated that song with my father who had passed away, and I think of him when I hear it. Usually when I think of my dad he will send me a ‘double rainbow’. Hard as that is to believe, it is completely true and has happened to me hundreds of times since his passing. As the song played away, I got sad and wondered about life and if my dad was able to connect with me still and was he ok, so I said “Father if your there and happy, send me a really big sign today not just rainbows”. Then the skeptic in me kicked in and I said, “Send me a sign that will be so awesome, so impossible that I will not be able to doubt it”. I drove on thinking what sign I could ask for that would be meet my criteria, and then it hit me. I wanted to hear from Richard Branson before the day was over. I told father that I didn’t care if he wanted our Infomate idea or not, just a letter of acknowledgment would do.

  The phone rang shortly after my chat with my dad, and Martina told me that she could not make our meeting that night because her child was sick, and of course I said no problem the next night would be fine. I thought no more about my dad, having handed him the job he was to do, and I did my work for the rest of the day on the transmitter site.

  Driving home east in a day of showers, I began to see the sky brighten and my mind returned to my father and his task. Almost immediately I saw a rainbow form to my right, but its brightness took my breath away. I started to smile both inside and out as the second one formed around it. Then as I drove it moved right in front of me and literally went over my jeep, but as I stared in amazement the impossible happened. I saw the rainbow surround and cover the complete bonnet of my jeep, and I got such a shock that I screeched to a halt and dialed America.

  JoAnn answered and she knew by my voice that an amazing thing had just happened to me, and the rainbow was still there though fading fast now. We talked briefly and said it was a great sign and I clicked off and thanked my dad for the sign, but it didn’t end there.

  By then it was about five thirty in the evening and I seemed to be driving on autopilot. I was going over and over what I saw and tried to use science to explain what had just happened but there was none. Then the phone rang again and it was Martina apologizing for not making our meeting, but then she dropped the bombshell, she said. “Hey John, are you ready for a surprise”. After my day of surprises, nothing would have surprised me by then or so I thought. “John I am holding in my hand a letter from Richard Branson”. She said he thanked us for our letter, but at that time it was not a project he would be interested in, but he wished us luck with it. She was disappointed but I was elated. Far more important to me than millions then, was the knowledge that my dad was very much in communication with me that day. Later I told Martina all about it and she too took comfort from such an event but she said, “I believe it John because it has happened to us, but no one else will”.

  Maybe even today, no one will believe me, but I’m sure she still has that letter. Time passed by and our idea got shelved and Martina moved to the UK, where I am sure she is prospering, the millions were not coming from that idea but I had many more.

  Seville

  During my many chats with JoAnn over the years, I often described a day trip I had taken to Seville. This city seemed to fascinate her so much that I promised to return there one day in the future and marry her in the cathedral, even if it was only a personal ceremony. Like most of the things that meant a lot to me, it seemed like an impossible dream at the time, but I held fast to my promise. Time moved on, and after JoAnn had left her husband, she was free to do what she liked. However money, or the lack of it, was the great limiting factor, and many months went by without us meeting.

  One evening, as I was having a bath, I got this powerful feeling that we should just go to Seville and get married, even if it was just in our own personal ceremony. I could ill afford it and she could not afford it at all, but I had this crystal clear vision in my mind of us both in Heathrow heading for Seville, Spain.

  Exactly as I had seen it in the bath, down to the smallest detail, it all came to pass some weeks later. To this day I do not know how I got the money for it, but it came. Within a day of JoAnn landing in Shannon, we were in Heathrow holding hands as happy as could be and heading for Spain, where we did marry in our personal ceremony. In the days before she arrived I made out a ‘charter of marriage’ with little things we would agree to try and do for each other, such as always to say I love you at least once a day, among others. I had left places for us to sign our charter when our little ceremony was over in the cathedral. All this we did in the sight of God in that church, and to this day I still believe we were first and truly married on October thirty first, long before any legal ceremony in Jamaica.

  Later that day as we took a boat trip on the Guadalquivir River, an Italian man came and sat right down right in front of us. The back of his shirt showed a map of Old Route 66. The town in the middle of his back was Cuba, Missouri, nine miles from where JoAnn had lived all her life. As we disembarked from the boat, a happy young couple stood kissing each other beside us. The girl was wearing a beautiful golden Cladagh ring. Missouri and Ireland became linked by total strangers on the day we had married in Spain. We took this as another great sign for our future, and this type of link has been repeated over and over since then, with more and more strange synchronicities happening all the time. Then after our Seville week, JoAnn had yet again to return to America and we parted once more.

  Almost exactly six months went by, and with my birthday near, I was missing her terribly. On a mad whim I decided to go meet her in New York for a weekend. I had always wanted to see New York, especially the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. Despite the cost, I would get to see my JoAnn on my birthday, always assuming she could get time off from the factory, and she did.

  I landed in Newark first, and as I had bought a Paul Brady album in Shannon, I almost wore him out trying to kill time while waiting for the woman I loved to arrive from St Louis. Eventually I saw her on the escalator and we began a most awesome few days in New York City. When we got to the Statue of Liberty, as if by an unknown instinct, both of us rushed forward and put our hands on the plinth at the same time, then looking up at the outstretched arm I asked God to bring me back again soon. I had booked us a cheap hotel and on arriving, our little room was so small that we had to step over our suitcase to even get to the window. Despite all this, as I slept on the morning of my birthday, JoAnn rose early and secretly decorated the whole room. She had filled it with balloons and decorations, and gave me my gift. It was a small, metal red Corvette, the car of my dreams. She said one day the real one will come too, and I know it’s just waiting for me to pick it up. We had a most wonderful few days that ended all too soon, and yet again we parted.

  Over the next few years we would visit New York two more times, and on the last trip with my finances improving and a glimmer of hope in my heart,
I bought her our engagement and marriage rings. Later that day we were walking around Chinatown, and in a small shop window I spotted a most unusual glass ornament. It was a beautiful cut-glass piece with a drawing of three Spanish galleons engraved on it, as well as a strange Chinese inscription. I fell in love with it instantly and decided to see what it might cost, so in we went. The old Chinaman told me the cost, and I was in two minds, thinking it had been an expensive day. Then I asked him what the inscription meant.

  He tried to explain in his poor English that it meant ‘push forward’. I thought I was hearing things, so he repeated them again, this time with his elaborate hand gestures of pushing forward.

  We had just bought our wedding rings, and though four thousand miles from my home town of Buttevant, the glass ornament I was holding had a Chinese inscription written on it that had the words ‘push forward’. Only I knew that those words were the war cry of the Barry Clan, on whose castle window I sat on the day I first got sight of JoAnn. Was it just a coincidence that I looked in a window and saw that ornament on the very day we had officially committed to marry? I was absolutely astonished at the sign presented to me, and took it as the greatest of all good omens for our future. I bought the glass ornament, and it’s sitting in our house in America now as I write. When the day comes that we return to America for good, then our amazing circle of life will be completed. In the meantime JoAnn had to return to the factory, and with her hands failing, she was eventually told to go. So much for corporate America, and thank God for trade unions.

  With no job and no way to work, life then became very hard for my American. Anxiety hit her as well as a deep depression, then finally her husband filed for a divorce. Almost a year had passed by since I last saw her, and those last months had been the worst ones in her whole life. It was long past the time when she should come home to Ireland for good.