by Paul Howard
Out on the pitch, roysh, all the old goys are there, all my old mates off the S, we’re talking Eunan, Jonathon, Brad, Evan, Terry, Newer, Gicker, and I try to shut it out of my mind as the game storts. And I manage to do it pretty well, roysh, getting seven out of my eight kicks in the first half-an-hour and putting in what I have to say is an amazing tackle on Simon when he’s, like, pretty much clean through for a certain try.
At half-time we’re, like, 21-13 up, but the Castlerock goys stort to tackle me really hord in the second-half, there’s total focking hatred there, and I sort of, like, go off my game a bit, miss a couple of, like, pretty easy kicks and suddenly Castlerock stort to get on top of us. Simon’s having a focking stormer.
So to cut a long story short, roysh, two minutes to go and it’s, like, 33-27 for them and we pretty much need a seven-pointer to win it. We’re pressing, pressing, pressing in the last few minutes and suddenly the ball breaks to me, roysh, and I get over for a try roysh under the post and there’s all this, like, booing roysh the way around the ground. All the goys on our team are coming up to me congratulating me, roysh, but also reminding me how important the conversion is, as if I need reminding. This is to win it.
As I’m walking back to take it, roysh, Christian runs onto the field, comes roysh up to me and goes, ‘I know there’s good in you. I’ve felt it,’ and a couple of stewards come on and drag him away.
The kick is a piece of piss. I blow hord, take three steps backwards and three to the left, run my hand through my hair, blow hord again. I look over at Simon and Eunan, who have their hands on the crests of their jersey, we’re talking tears in their focking eyes here. I look at Christian, roysh, who’s got his eyes closed, like he’s praying, probably trying to use the focking Force or something. I look at them all and think about all the great times we’ve had together and I think about how much I love those goys, without wanting to sound gay, like, or anything.
I run my hand through my hair and, like, blow hord again.
Then I send the kick high and wide and in the direction of the corner flag.
Aoife says that Graham, some dickhead she knows from Annabel’s, is SO good-looking that every girl in her year wants to be with him, but Sorcha says he is SUCH a Chandler when it comes to commitment, and I am already beginning to regret meeting the birds for lunch and my eyes, roysh, they keep, like, wandering over to where Erika is sitting with this really bored expression on her face, like she basically hates everyone at the table, no, everyone in the world.
I get out my phone, roysh, and text her and it’s, like, WAN 2 TLK? and a couple of seconds later her phone beeps and she, like, reads the message and tells me, in front of everyone, that I’m a sad bastard. I can feel Sorcha staring at me, roysh, so I try to change the subject by asking Aoife how her brother’s getting on with Clontorf, but before she can answer this waitress comes over and tells Emer that people aren’t allowed to eat their own, like, food on the premises.
Emer just goes, ‘Hello? It’s only a bag of popcorn,’ and the waitress is like, ‘It doesn’t matter. House rules,’ and Emer puts the bag away really slowly, roysh, while giving the waitress a total filthy and the waitress goes again, ‘I’m sorry, it’s house rules,’ but Emer doesn’t answer, just carries on staring her out of it.
The conversation suddenly moves on to some bird called Allison with two Ls, who’s, like, second year Tourism in LSB and is, like, SO thin, according to Emer, and Aoife goes, ‘OH! MY! GOD! did you see the dress she wore to Melissa Berry’s 21st?’ and Sorcha asks her what it was like and Aoife says it was a Chanel. Emer says that Allison is thinking of going to Australia for the year and so, apparently, are Caoimhe Kennedy, who I’m pretty sure I was with at the Traffic Light Ball, and Elaine Anders, who I’ve never focking heard of. Aoife tells Sorcha she should go to Australia for the year herself and Sorcha tells Aoife she SO should go as well.
Emer was in Lillies on Saturday night, but there was, like, no one really in there, unless of course you call Amanda Byram and the lead singer from OTT someone, which she doesn’t. Sorcha goes, ‘OH MY GOD! I forgot to tell you, Claire is thinking of entering the Bray Festival Queen competition,’ and Erika all of a sudden perks up and she goes, ‘Oh, your little friend, the one who thinks coleslaw is cosmopolitan?’ Everyone’s looking for somewhere else to look. Erika goes, ‘Yes, that would be SO her alroysh,’ then she gets up, roysh, picks up her bags, we’re talking Carl Scarpa, Morgan and Nue Blue Eriu, and just, like, walks out of the place, leaving her lunch on the table and her Marlboro Lights.
Aoife says that girl has SUCH an attitude problem and Sorcha tells her not to worry, she’s sure Ross won’t mind paying for her Caesar wrap, seeing as he’s SO fond of her, and, to be honest, I’ve no problem with that at all. Emer says the new series of ‘Ally McBeal’ is SO not as good as the last one.
The traffic on the Stillorgan dualler is a mare, and we are talking total here. I open the glove comportment, roysh, to get out my Eminem CD and it’s, like, gone. So I ring the house, roysh, and the old man picks up the phone and he can tell from my voice that I’m seriously pissed off about something and he goes, ‘I take it you’ve read it then?’ Of course I’m like, ‘What are you focking talking about?’ but he goes, ‘To think I almost invited that man over here for New Year. I suppose he’s never been a friend of schools rugby. We knew that.’ I go, ‘I don’t even want to know what you are bullshitting on about. Just put the old dear on.’
So he gets her, roysh, and I’m like, ‘Answer me one question and do not bullshit me. What have you done with my Eminem CD?’ and she goes, ‘I took it back to the shop, Ross. It was disgusting, some of the things he was singing about. It was eff this and you’re an effing that, mother this and mother the other.’ I’m like, ‘It’s none of your focking business what I listen to,’ and she goes, ‘You left it in the CD player in the kitchen, Ross. I thought it was my Celine Dion album. Delma was here for coffee.’ And she’s there giving it, ‘I’m not the only one who brought it back, by the way. The young lady in the shop told me it’s the most returned record they’ve ever sold. I would worry about the influence that that kind of thing might have on you, Ross.’
I’m like, ‘Bitch, I’m a kill you,’ and I hang up, roysh, and punch the focking dashboard and and and … FOCK!
And to cap it all the traffic is actually getting focking worse, and how many focking gears does that cor in front of me have? I turn on the radio, roysh, but – again – I can’t get a decent song, it’s all Christina Aguilera and Ronan focking Keating and I’m flicking from channel to channel, but it’s like, ‘normal lending criteria and terms and conditions apply’, and ‘regular savings and higher returns with personal investment plans’, and ‘help bridge the recruitment gap by skilling up your existing workforce’. ‘And the slip light is out of action on the main streesh in Bray and there’s bad flooding around Baker’s Coyner and electrical cables are dain on the Belgord Raid and there’s the usual delays on all routes out of the city, including the Naas Raid, the Navan Raid and the South Circular Raid …’
Me, Christian and Oisinn, roysh, we’re bored off our tits in the bor, so we head over to the Orts block, roysh, see if Fionn’s around. Turns out he’s got no lectures this afternoon but – get this, roysh – he’s actually gone to a philosophy lecture, the dude’s not even doing the course, roysh, but you know who is? Exactly. That focking kipper from Galway. He’s giving her a rattle, no doubt about it. Me and the goy, roysh, we’re curious, so we head into the lecture hall ourselves, sit down the back and OH! MY! GOD! I have never seen so many amazing-looking birds in my life. They’re actually better looking than the birds on our course, which is saying something, roysh. I remember Fionn telling me before that all the, like, bimbos who do Orts always choose either philosophy or psychology because they think they pass for, like, depth, but I seriously didn’t think there’d be this many crackers.
I turn around to Christian to tell him that if I could have a fourth shot at t
he Leaving, maybe aim for points this time rather than just trying to pass the thing, I’d try to end up in here. I go to tell Oisinn the same thing, roysh, but he’s already talking to this bird beside him, Elinor I think her name is, I know her to see from Club Shoot Your Goo, looks a little bit like Maria Grazia Cucinotta, and I hear her asking Oisinn if he heard that Kelly is thinking of going to Australia for the year, and I wonder whether she’s talking about Kelly who was in the Institute with us last year – tall bird, amazing bod, always has, like, sunglasses in her hair. Then I hear Oisinn asking her if she’s wearing Fifth Avenue by Elizabeth Arden and it looks like he’s clicked.
I still can’t see Fionn. I’m looking around for him, roysh, and the lecturer’s blabbing away, all I can basically hear is blah blah blah, but then I suddenly cop the fact, roysh, that everyone’s looking at me and the lecturer’s going, ‘Well?’ Of course I don’t know what the story is here. I’m like, ‘Sorry, what was the question again?’ and he goes, ‘I didn’t ask you a question. I asked you to expound, for the rest of the class, if you’d be so kind, your understanding of the term metaphysics.’
Of course, I should tell the goy to go fock himself, roysh, but obviously I don’t want to look stupid in front of the class, so I do what I always did at Castlerock, which is close my eyes, look as though I’m really in pain and keep going, ‘Oh my God, I SO know this. It’s on the tip of my tongue,’ but the focker lets me carry on doing this for, like, ten minutes before he finally throws the question to someone else.
He asks this bloke, roysh – he’s a total howiya – and the goy goes, ‘Well, metaphysics is one of de foyiv branches of philosophy. Dee udders are logic, ethics, aesthetics and epistemology. De term was coined by complete accident. It’s de title of a buke written by Aristotle after he completed wurk on his Physics, and dis was sort of put at dee end of dat body of wurk. Now dat particular buke, Physics, dealt wit what you’d call dee observable world and its laws, whereas metaphysics deals wit de principles, meanings and structures dat underlie all observable reality. It’s de investigation, by means of pew-er spekelation, of the nature of being, de cause, substance and de purpose of everyting.’
Of course I’m nodding through all of this, cracking on that that’s what I was going to say. The lecturer goy’s like, ‘So metaphysics might ask, what?’ and this cream cracker goes, ‘What are space and toyim? What is an actual ting and how is it diffordent from an idea? Are humans free to decide der own fate? Is der a God dat’s put everyting in motion?’ The lecturer goes, ‘And because the answers to such questions cannot be arrived at by observation, experience, or experiment …’ and the skanger goes, ‘… dee must be products of de reasoning moyind.’
Everyone’s impressed, you can basically tell. I turn around to this bird behind me – the image of Asia Argento – and I go, ‘Bit obvious when you’re given time to answer,’ then I turn around to Christian and I go, ‘They’re letting skobies into UCD now? When the fock did this happen?’ and Christian shakes his head and I go, ‘Let’s get on the Internet, check out the website. There must be something in the terms and conditions about this.’
Then up the front, roysh, we suddenly hear all this, like, sniggering and there’s these four Nure goys we know – they’re sound even though they’re, like, Gick – and they’re sitting behind this bird in a pink Hobo top. Anyway, they’ve slipped something into her hood, a photograph or something. Of course we find out later, roysh, that the goys had gone on a knacker holiday, we’re talking a real ‘Ibiza Uncovered’ job, after the Leaving, roysh, and the picture was of Kenny’s dick, which the rest of the goys took when he was locked. So this little item ends up in this bird’s hood, roysh, and of course she’s the last one in the whole focking lecture hall to cop it, but when she finally realises there’s something going on, she reaches back, pulls the picture out, jumps up and goes, ‘Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!’ and pegs it out of the place, basically in total shock.
Then it’s, like, high-fives all round.
To whom it may concern,
Many thanks for your recent letter and the small piece of masonry, which, a cursory inspection would suggest, is indeed a feather from one of Eros’s wings. Thanks also for the kind offer to cut your ransom demand by some fifty per cent.
Unfortunately, we still do not have the finance available to get involved with this project and this will remain the case until we contact you again. However, the summer is approaching and I am confident you will find casual work that will help alleviate whatever financial difficulties you are currently experiencing.
Apologies for the delay in replying, incidentally. I was off on paternity leave for four weeks. My wife gave birth to our third recently, a boy. He weighed eleven pounds at birth. Mother and baby are both well.
Love to Eros, if you’ll pardon the Classics Department in-joke.
Kind regards,
Francis Hird,
Classics Department, UCD
I’m on the 46A, roysh, trying to have a conversation with Fionn, when all of a sudden we’re going through Stillorgan, roysh, and all these knobs from Coláiste Iosagáin get on and stort, like, talking in Irish, or that’s what Fionn said it was anyway. It’s, like, SO head-wrecking. I’m there, ‘What the fock are they trying to say?’ and Fionn goes, ‘They’re talking about the teachers’ strike,’ and if that’s the case I can’t understand why they look so focking miserable. They actually seem disappointed that the Leaving might not be going ahead, the sad bastards.
I’m just wishing there was a focking lecturers’ strike. I am SO going to have to repeat at this stage it’s not funny, which is why I’m going out on the lash tonight, to try to forget about it. I’m telling Fionn that I’m SO not cancelling the States, roysh, I’m going on a J1er one way or the other and I’m not coming back to sit repeats, no focking way, I’ll probably end up repeating the whole year instead, maybe actually going to a few lectures next year.
I’m trying to get my head around all of this, roysh, but all around me it’s all, Tá me, tá me, conas atá tú, blah blah blah, and I turn around to these two knobs behind me and I go, ‘There’s no focking Leaving Cert this year. Get over it,’ and one of them, roysh, she goes, ‘Sorry, would you mind your own business, please?’ And quick as a flash, roysh, I turn around and go, ‘Only if you get a life,’ which I’m pretty happy with. I’m like, ‘Talking in that stupid focking language on the bus. School’s over. Hello?’
I turn around, roysh, expecting Fionn to, like, back me up, but instead he’s chatting away to these other two birds in front of us, telling them that it’s the students he feels sorry for and that he’s thinking of applying to become an exam supervisor and the birds think this is ‘SO cool’, and the goy thinks he’s a stud.
I don’t know which of the two he’s trying to be with, roysh, but I can’t watch and I decide to get off in, like, Donnybrook and see are any of the goys in Kiely’s. As I’m heading down the stairs, roysh, I can hear him arranging to meet the girls in some bor in town after the Institute. The focker hasn’t even noticed I’ve gone.
Sophie phones me up, bawling her eyes out, roysh, telling me she failed philosophy and her parents are going to go ballistic and OH! MY! GOD! her old man is SO not going to give her the money to go skiing now, and it’s all because of that complete dickhead of a lecturer who set such a hord paper, everyone said so, even Wendy, whoever the fock she is, and he was such an orsehole to her when she went to him to try to get her grade changed. And I can just picture her going in to see him in a little titty-top, trying to sweet-talk the goy. She tells me she SO needs someone to talk to and can I call over, roysh, and I’m pretty much certain I’m going to get my bit here, so I go, ‘Is the bear a Catholic?’
I’m actually on the way back from Christian’s gaff, roysh, and I’m pretty much home, but I turn the cor around and head for Glenageary. Oh my God, she goes, it wasn’t like she was looking for a 2.1, or even a 2.2, all she wanted was a scabby pass and he was too much of a
focking orsehole to give her that and – OH! MY! GOD! – now her points have, like, totally gone out the window because she’s eaten, like, three bars of Dairy Milk, which is eighteen points in itself and that’s all she’s supposed to have in an entire, like, day and that’s not even counting the Weight Watchers’ lasagne, we’re talking the beef one, not the vegetarian, which is, like, five-and-a-half, the four pieces of Ryvita, which is, like, two, and the bowl of Fruit and Fibre, which is, like, one-and-a-half, or five-and-a-half if you have it with full milk, which she did.
She goes, OH! MY! GOD! It was bad enough failing without going into that dickhead and making a complete tit of herself. She tells me she asked the goy what he would suggest she do, roysh, and he told her to, like, set her sights lower, maybe get a job with FM104 or one of the other radio stations, driving one of those big four-wheel drives around town. He said he was sure that a girl with her talent would be snapped up quickly.
I give her the old Ross O’Carroll-Kelly Hug, one hand stroking her hair, sort of, like, consoling her, and the other hand on her orse. Not blowing my own trumpet or anything, but I don’t think I need to spell out what happened next.
CHAPTER SIX
‘Ross has, like, SUCH commitment problems.’
Discuss.
‘Ross, I cannot believe you’re wearing a polo-neck in this weather. And a black polo-neck at that.’ The old dear says this to me at the dinner table, roysh, and I’m just there, you know, yeah whatever, but the stupid bitch won’t let it go, roysh, it’s like she knows the focking reason I’m wearing it and she’s trying to, like, embarrass the shit out of me. She’s giving it, ‘The hottest day of the year and you decide to wear something like that. In the middle of May. Charles, say something to Ross, will you?’ The old man is just, like, staring at the back page of the Sunday Indo, going, ‘Kerrigan … what’s he after?’
