by Paul Howard
Anyway, there we are playing pool, roysh, and this total twat comes up to the table – long black coat, black hair in a ponytail, looks like the goy out of the comic shop in ‘The Simpsons’. So Christian, roysh, he holds his cue like a sword and he goes, ‘Supreme Prophet Kadann sent you, didn’t he?’ and the goy goes, ‘Hey, The Lost City of the Jedi. What a book, dude,’ but Christian looks at him sort of, like, suspiciously and goes, ‘Be careful. I think this one’s a changeling.’
The goy goes, ‘I’m actually here to see you, Ross.’ I’m like, ‘What the fock could we possibly have to talk about?’ and the goy goes, ‘The We Are Not Alone Society. I spoke to you on Freshers’ Day.’ Not another one. I go, ‘Look, I was locked. It didn’t mean anything. Now get over it.’
Then I tell him to fock off.
I send Erika a text message, roysh, and it’s like, w%du lIk 2go2 my debs? and straight away I get one back and it’s like, GAL, which I presume stands for Get A Life, because that’s what she always says. She actually says it to everyone. It’s like, ‘Get a life!’
Oisinn grabs me by the lapel, roysh, and smells my neck and goes, ‘Bvlgari pour homme. Notes of perfumed darjeeling with citrus and aquatic notes. Classic … and yet modern.’ I straighten his bow-tie and I go, ‘Oisinn, my man, looking good. Look-ing-good.’ He goes, ‘Yeah, I was quite surprised myself to discover that Hugo Boss does tuxes for goys of my generous build. So some of the credit for what you see here before you must go to Mr HB Esquire.’ Then he turns around to the bird beside me and goes, ‘And who, pray tell, is this little … beauty?’
The little beauty happens to be Elspeth Hadaway, who’s, like, third year Orts in UCD, pretty decent-looking, a little bit like Catherine McCord, except in the old body department. It’s a bit of a long story really. Erika knocking me back came as a bit of a shock, roysh, and didn’t leave me much time to find an alternative – forty-eight hours to be precise. Then JP tells me about this bird he knows, plays tennis with his sister and was going out with this Trinity wanker – I knew him when he was in Terenure, a total dickhead – who, it turns out, did the dirt on her when she was in Germany for a year on Erasmus.
JP goes, ‘We’re talking about a mutual convenience of wants here, Ross. She wants the word to go back to this tosser that she’s seeing someone else. And you want someone to go to the debs with so you don’t look like a sad bastard.’ I’m like, ‘Thanks, JP.’ He goes, ‘Cheer up, it’s a win-win situation. Let’s throw this idea out of the ’plane, see does its parachute open.’
So I meet her the night before the debs, roysh, we’re talking Eddie Rockets in Stillorgan. She pretty much insisted on inspecting the merchandise beforehand and, not being big-headed or anything, I think I can say she wasn’t disappointed. And I have to say, roysh, I thought she was alroysh as well, no complaints, until she switched on the focking waterworks and storted telling me I’d never guess who it was her so-called boyfriend did the dirt on her with, we’re talking Shauna, the girl who is supposed to be her best friend. I’m just there going, ‘Bummer,’ but on and on it goes, she’s giving it, ‘This is the girl who I actually helped through her break-up with Tadgh.’ The girl’s pretty much hysterical at this stage, roysh, and we’re beginning to attract a bit of an audience, so I just go, ‘Look, have you got a focking dress?’ and she’s like, ‘I’m going to wear the one I wore to the Orts Ball two years ago. And I am going to look SO amazing. I’m going to–’ I just go, ‘Fine. Meet me at eight in the bor in the Berkeley Court.’ That’s where the gig was on. I’m there, ‘And get all that focking crying out of your system tonight. Don’t want you making a tit out of me,’ then I drop a tenner on the table, which should cover my buffalo wings, chilli-cheese fries and vanilla malt, and I get the fock out of there.
Twenty-four hours later, of course, I’m regretting being such a dick to her – and leaving her to get the bus home – because she looks focking amazing in this, like, pink satin dress that she says is a Donna Karan original, and all the goys, roysh, their eyes are out on stalks when they see her. This bird lights up the room.
Oisinn’s bird lights up a John Player. The goy has surpassed himself this time. We’re talking Jo Brand with orange hair and a face full of double-u double-u dots. She’s wearing a purple dress she must have borrowed from Fossett’s circus. She is a - total mutt, which seems to make Oisinn very proud. I introduce him to Elspeth and he introduces me to, Julia I think her name was, didn’t get a chance to check her collar. He’s like, ‘Isn’t she pretty?’ and then, roysh, in front of her face he goes, ‘Pretty ugly,’ and Julia sort of, like, slaps him as if to say, You’re terrible, Oisinn, like she thinks the goy’s joking.
Fionn has brought Eilish Hunter, this total lasher from his class who looks a bit like Faye Tozer and who, for some bizarre reason, actually has the big-time hots for the boring, drippy-looking geek. And he’s SO focking smug about it. He’s giving it, ‘Lots of girls have a thing about glasses, Ross. Especially since Jerry Maguire came out. They think if we have kids, they’ll turn out like the kid in that film.’ I’m like, ‘Please. I’m gonna vom my lemon sorbet back up in a minute.’
Then, roysh, just to, like, rub it in, he goes, ‘Heard yours was an arranged date,’ and he tries to make it sound really sleazy. I look at Elspeth and she’s chatting away to Oisinn, no way she can hear me, then I turn around to Fionn and I’m like, ‘I think she’s fallen for me. Big time,’ which is total bullshit because she’s been stressing the whole ‘We’re just friends’ bit all night, but I’m not letting him get one over on me. Fionn goes, ‘Catching a girl on the rebound can be fraught with problems, because you never know what angle they’re coming back at you from,’ as if I need advice from him. Then he turns to Eilish and they stort talking about some, I don’t know, stupid intellectual thing.
I look over and I cop Aileen Hannah-Lynch, this bird I used to know – in the biblical sense – and she’s getting up to leave with Andrew Beirne, and it looks like they’re about to get to know each other in the biblical sense too, roysh, because Fionn says they’ve got a room booked and I’m there thinking, We haven’t even had the main course yet. Jammy bastard.
The night drags. I’m on a shit buzz. Me and Elspeth have hordly said two words to each other, roysh, and I can hear Oisinn giving it the whole ‘bouquet of floral, amber and powdered notes’ bullshit, and he’s got Elspeth and the hound he brought hanging on his every word.
I end up horsing down the Bailey’s ice cream and focking off to another table to talk to Woulfie, Ed and Barser, three goys who were on the S with me, brains to burn the three of them, they’re doing politics or some shit in Trinity, but they still like their rugby. So we’re basically there shooting the breeze, roysh, when all of a sudden this bird comes over, Lia – nice boat-race, great rack – and she goes, ‘Ross, have you seen Christian? Carol is, like, SO worried about him.’
I’d totally forgotten about Christian. He was in the bor earlier but I sort of, like, slipped away from him when he storted telling me that Tibanna gas is the best hyperdrive coolant there is and no one can blame Han for heading for Bespin like he did. You’ve SO got to be in the mood to listen to Christian’s shit, and I wasn’t, so I left him with Carol, who JP reckons looks like Susan Ward, though I don’t see it myself.
I go off looking for the dude and, considering how shit-faced he was when I last saw him, roysh, my first port of call is the jacks. And he’s there. He’s standing at the sink, roysh, with his face pressed up against the mirror. I call his name, but he doesn’t answer. I go, ‘Christian,’ again. Still nothing. I pull his head away from the mirror and I see that he’s crying. He’s bawling his eyes out. I go, ‘Christian, what’s the focking story, my man?’ He looks at me, roysh, like he’s trying to focus on me and he goes, ‘I can’t tell you, Ross.’ I’m there, ‘Too focking roysh you can. I’m your, like, best friend,’ but he just bursts into tears again.
The dude is focked. I decide to take him back to my gaff, roysh, just
to sleep it off. I’m having a mare of a night anyway, so it doesn’t bother me to fock off so early. I manage to walk Christian out as far as, like, reception, plonk him in a big ormchair, then ask the bird at reception to call us a Jo. There’s, like, couples slipping upstairs and couples slipping outside, basically all doing the debs thing. Elaine – don’t know her second name, I was with her once, second year Orts UCD – she’s bet into some bloke, can’t see his face, think it might be Kellyer, this tosser who was on the Castlerock second team and had big ideas about taking my place on the S.
Weird as it sounds, roysh, I actually feel a little bit bad about focking off on Elspeth without saying anything. But then all of a sudden, roysh, I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Woulfie, the focking sly old dog, he’s making a move on her and we’re talking big time. Trying to bag off with my bird. They’re behind this, like, pillar in the lobby, roysh, I can’t see them but I can hear them, and Woulfie’s asking her does she want to go for, like, a walk, we’re talking along the canal.
Woulfie goes, ‘We can look at the swans,’ and Elspeth’s like, ‘Oh my God! I SO love swans,’ the slapper, and Woulfie’s like, ‘They represent hope for humanity, don’t you think. They symbolise how everyone can grow into a beautiful creature and have a meaningful life.’ He’s a slick mick, I’ll give him that. She pulls away and looks at him like he’s focking mad or something and she’s there, ‘Everyone?’ And he goes, ‘Well, everyone with money.’ She’s there, ‘Oh my God! I SO want to be with you.’
And even though I want to go over and deck Woulfie at that particular moment, even though I SO want to deck the focker, I can’t. I just have to admit, the goy’s got class. The bird at reception goes, ‘Taxi for O’Carroll,’ and as I’m helping Christian up, I go, ‘It’s actually O’Carroll-Kelly.’
I bell JP on his mobile. Feel a bit sorry for the dude, he must be feeling a bit left out of things lately. I mean, me and the rest of the goys, we’re all in college, roysh, on the beer everyday and basically screwing our way through every chick on campus, while he’s stuck doing an MDB – Managing Daddy’s Business – namely Hook, Lyon and Sinker Estate Agents. He’s been left out of the loop a bit, so I give him a ring, roysh, and he’s telling me he’s just got four hundred thousand sheets for a gaff in Sandymount that’s no bigger than a focking coalshed. I’m telling him all about the Traffic Light Ball, roysh, about me wearing a red spot instead of a green one – we’re talking red as in No Go – and ending up scoring seven times, or eight if you count that bogger from Ag. Science, which I don’t, and how it all goes to prove the theory that what birds really want is what they can’t, like, have.
Then I mention to him that I’ve got my driving test the next day, roysh, and how I’m pretty much gicking it because I’ve, like, sat the thing more times than I’ve sat the Leaving Cert at this stage and, well, let’s just say the last examiner told me that if there was a Certificate for Incompetence, I’d walk it. Of course, I never copped that he was taking the piss until a few days later.
JP tells me he aced his and he suggests we have a quick mind-meld, which, to those of us without a degree in Bullshit, means we should meet up, put our heads together, see can we come up with some way for me to pass this focking thing once and for all.
We meet for a coffee in Donnybrook. I tell the bird who’s cleaning off the tables that I want an ordinary cup of coffee and she tells me I’ll have to go up and order from one of the barristas, and I’m like, ‘The what?’ JP’s there, ‘I’ll go. I speak reasonably good Coffee. A Long Black is what you’re after,’ and he comes back a few minutes later with two cups of ordinary coffee.
Anyway, roysh, to cut a long story short, fair focks to him, the dude has already come up with a plan. He asks me what test centre I’m doing it in, and I tell him Rathgar, and he tells me he knows where he can get his hands on a JCB. I’m there, ‘What the fock has that got to do with the price of cabbage?’ and he’s like, ‘The second you come out of the test centre, I’ll pull out in front of you and drive at, like, fifteen miles an hour. You’ll end up doing your whole test in, like, second gear.’ I’m there, ‘But he’ll just get me to turn off somewhere to get away from you.’ He goes, ‘Soon as I see you indicate, then I’ll turn that way too. Trust me, Ross, it’ll work.’
I’m there, ‘Well, I suppose it won’t cost anything to try,’ and then I cop the big shit-eating grin on JP’s face and I go, ‘How much?’ He blows on his coffee, takes a mouthful and goes, ‘Weighted with overheads this job, Ross. Got to pay the site foreman to turn a blind eye while the JCB goes walkies. There’s my time. Danger money.’ I’m like, ‘Danger money? You said fifteen miles an hour,’ and he’s there, ‘Of course, you don’t have to take the idea offline if you don’t want to,’ and he gets up to go and I’m like, ‘Okay, okay. How much?’ He goes, ‘Five hundred bills,’ and I go, ‘Okay, five hundred bills it is.’
So the next day, roysh, I’m pulling out of the test centre and the examiner – no crack out of him whatsoever – tells me to pull out roysh onto the Orwell Road. So there I am, in first gear, nosing my way out the gate, and there’s JP porked opposite the entrance, and I’m thinking the focker might have dressed down for the day because basically no one digs the roads in a two-thousand-lid Armani suit, Celtic Tiger or no Celtic Tiger, and I’m storting to think we’re never going to get away with this.
JP sees me indicating roysh, roysh, and pulls out into the middle of the road and I slip in behind him and we’re doing, like, ten miles an hour all the way up Orwell Road. Before we hit the lights, the goy tells me to hang a left, roysh, so I indicate left and in front of me, sure as houses, JP swings the big beast left onto Zion Road. The examiner tells me to hang a quick roysh onto Victoria Road, not leaving me much time to indicate, but JP slams on the brakes in front of me, makes the turn and I crawl over the speed bumps behind him in, like, first gear. Ten minutes into the test and so far, so good.
Then we hit what I think is a problem, roysh. The examiner goes, ‘I want you to pull in just beyond this left junction here and show me your reversing around corners,’ and I’m basically kicking myself for not copping this before. We’re going to pull in, JP’s going to carry on driving and this dude’s going to find out that I can’t drive for shit.
Probably should have had a little more faith in JP. He takes the left turn and I continue on and pork, then turn around in my seat, lash the gears into reverse and stort moving backwards slowly. The next thing, roysh, JP pulls up roysh at the corner I’m supposed to be backing around, blocking me off, and he hops down out of the JCB and pretends to be taking a big interest in the grass verge. He’s got his Hugo Boss shoes on as well. I’m like, ‘Must be a lot of money in pipe-laying these days,’ trying to strike up a bit of banter with the dude in the cor, but he’s having none of it, he has his eyes closed and he’s, like, shaking his head and he tells me to turn around and go back down Victoria Road.
JP sees me indicating to pull out and he’s back at the levers in, like, two seconds flat and he pulls out in front of me again, and we’re heading back the way we came, going over the ramps so slow that if we went any slower we’d stop. Bottom of Victoria Road we hang a left back onto Zion Road and then a roysh at the lights onto Orwell Road.
The tester goy’s like, ‘Proceed to the test centre.’ We’ve only been out, like, fifteen minutes. I’m there, ‘You don’t want to see my hill-stort?’ and he goes, ‘No, I’ve seen enough to make my determination,’ and in my mind I’m going, YES! and I think about flashing my lights at JP, just to tell him, ‘Piece of piss,’ but in the end I don’t chance it.
I hang a left into the test centre, pull into a space and the goy tells me to come inside, and I suppose it’s just, like, procedure. I follow him in and he tells me to sit down on the opposite side of this table, roysh, then he sits down himself and goes, ‘You’ve failed your test.’ I punch the air. I’m like, ‘TOUCHDOWN! YESSSS!’ and I’m already planning to hire a big fock-off Porsche, head out to
Erika’s and impress the knickers off her. And we’re talking literally here. The goy’s like, ‘You obviously misheard me. You failed.’
I’m there, ‘Failed?’ How focking embarrassing. I’m like, ‘How could I have failed. I never got out of second gear.’ He goes, ‘Well, let’s start with the questions I asked you.’ I’m like, ‘Go on, let’s hear it, this’ll be good.’ He goes, ‘When I asked you an occasion on which you might turn on your full lights …’ and I’m like, ‘Go on,’ and he’s there, ‘You said, “When some stupid bitch won’t pull over when you’re trying to overtake”.’ He’s basically one of these nit-pickers. Then he goes, ‘What was the first thing you did when you got into the car?’ and I’m like, ‘Stort the engine,’ and he goes, ‘No, you turned on the radio.’ Of course I’m like, ‘Hello? There’s a law against driving with the radio on now, is there?’ and he goes, ‘You changed a CD while you were driving.’ Trust me to get one of those fockers who’s trying to trip you up. Then he goes, ‘And you didn’t look in your mirrors at all.’ I’m like, ‘That’s bullshit,’ and he’s there going, ‘Sorry, you did. Once. To check your baseball cap was on straight.’
I stand up, roysh, and I’m like, ‘You’re going to be hearing from my old man’s solicitor. Have you ever heard of Hennessy Coghlan-O’Hara?’ He thinks for a few seconds and goes, ‘Yes, matter of fact I have. I read about him in The Irish Times this morning. The Law Society are considering striking him off.’ This focker’s got an answer for everything. I’m like, ‘I’m obviously wasting my time here,’ and I go to leave, roysh, and just as I reach the door, he goes, ‘He’s a friend of yours, isn’t he?’ I stop and without looking at him I go, ‘Who?’ He’s like, ‘The guy in the JCB.’ I’m there, ‘You can’t prove that,’ and he goes, ‘It’s just that it’s the fourth time it’s happened in the past six weeks. Quite a little business he’s got going obviously. You should tell him to be a little less conspicuous, though, change his routine. Maybe try a steamroller next time.’
