by Paul Howard
I know what she means alroysh. We’re talking green light for go here and it comes not a minute too soon, because at this stage, roysh, the futon is seriously storting to hurt my orse, and I remember that Fionn told me that ‘futon’ is actually the Japanese word for torture, which might be bullshit because he’s always, like, taking the piss out of me for being, like, thick. I just go, ‘All I know, Joanne,’ – I actually call her Joanne and she doesn’t cop it! – ‘all I know is, if you were my girlfriend, I wouldn’t want to be away from you all summer. I wouldn’t want to be away from you for five minutes,’ and the next thing I know, roysh, she’s pulling my baseball cap off and we’re playing tonsil hockey, totally wearing the face off each other, roysh, when all of a sudden she jumps up and says she has to use the bathroom. Of course, I know what this is all about. Ten minutes of, like, agonising in front of the mirror, trying to decide whether this Ryan dickhead’s doing the dirt as well and whether she’d be a fool to pass up this opportunity to be with yours truly. Only one answer to that, of course.
I nip into Oisinn’s room, roysh, to see has he any of the old love zeppelins left, and he’s in bed watching SVU. He goes, ‘Can you two keep it down out there. You’re making me borf,’ and I go, ‘That girl is SO gagging for me,’ and he’s there, ‘Sounds like an edge-of-the-bed virgin to me. Twenty bucks says she just wants to talk tonight.’ I’m like, ‘Quit the shit, Oisinn. I need johnnies.’ He goes, ‘We don’t have any. We used them all last week. At the keg porty? The water fights?’ and I’m like, ‘Shit, yeah. Hey, some porty wasn’t it? Fock, but what the fock am I going to do?’ He’s like, ‘You’ll just have to get off at Sydney Parade, my man,’ and I’m like, ‘No focking way,’ but all of a sudden, roysh, Christian, who I presumed was asleep, he goes, ‘There’s a six-pack in my grey Diesel jeans, Skywalker. They’re hanging on the back of the chair,’ and I’m like, ‘Thank you SO much, Christian. Thank you SO focking much.’
To cut a long story short, roysh, I’m heading back into the hall when suddenly I hear all this, like, screaming and shit, and the next thing Jenni with an i comes pegging it out of the bathroom and she’s having a major knicker-fit – and we’re talking MAJOR – bawling her eyes out, the whole lot. I’m like, ‘Calm down, calm down. What’s wrong?’ and she goes, ‘The bath, OH! MY! GOD! it’s, it’s, it’s disgusting.’ I’m like, ‘It’s only Mad Mal’s home-brew. Didn’t have a container big enough for it so he just made it in the bath.’
But she’s not listening, roysh, she’s there, ‘I’m going. Get me a cab. Now.’ She’s totally losing the plot and I just want to basically get the hysterical bitch out of the gaff at this stage. Of course we can’t make outgoing calls, roysh, so I have to grab Fionn’s mobile to ring the local cab firm. She calms down a bit, but still doesn’t say a word to me while we’re waiting for the Jo to arrive.
I know enough not to bother asking if I can see her again. As I’m seeing her out, she goes, ‘Well, this was certainly a night to remember,’ and she gets into the back of the cab, winds down the window and she’s like, ‘Oh my God, just to think, I was actually going to let you be the first.’
I head back inside, open all the condoms and leave the silver wrappers on the floor beside the futon, basically for the goys to see in the morning, though I know that makes me a sad bastard. Then I go into the jacks to flush the unused johnnies down the pan, roysh, and I’m still wondering why she reacted the way she did, and that’s when I look down to my roysh and see this big fock-off rat swimming around in Mal’s home-brew. And that’s basically when I decided that we seriously needed to clean up the gaff.
The phone rings, roysh, and I’m actually in the middle of having a shave, but no one else is bothering to answer the thing, and of course I’m cacking it in case it’s Dick-features again, so I have to peg it to it before it switches onto answer-machine and half the house hears what a total knob he is. So I answer it, roysh, and I’m like, ‘Y’ello?’ and I hear the voice on the end of the line and – oh, fock it –– it’s, like, Christian’s old man.
I go, ‘How are you?’ and of course he’s there, ‘You don’t care how I am. Put Christian on the line.’ I’m like, ‘Look, I just wanted to explain–’ and he’s there, ‘I have nothing to say to you. Go and get my son.’ I go, ‘He’s, em, not in,’ and he’s there, ‘Do you want me to ring your parents with my news instead?’ and I’m there, ‘I’ll go and get him.’
I put the receiver down on the table, roysh, and head down to the basement. Christian’s lying on his bed with his Walkman on and it’s ‘Stuck In A Moment’, I can hear it, and when he sees me he takes off his headphones and goes, ‘Hello there, young Skywalker,’ and I tell him that his old man’s on the phone. I’m, like, totally crapping it. I’m just surprised he can’t, like, hear it in my voice.
He just goes, ‘I’m not in,’ and I’m like, ‘I think I might have already told him you were here,’ and he goes, ‘Well just tell him I don’t want to focking speak to him then.’ I’m like, ‘Okay, man. Take a chill pill,’ and I go back upstairs to the hall, roysh, and pick up the phone and I go, ‘Em, he says he doesn’t want to talk to you.’
His old man doesn’t answer for ages, roysh, and eventually I go, ‘You’re not going to tell him about–’ but suddenly the line goes dead.
Me and Christian, roysh, there was no way we were going to carry on working in the steamhouse after Fionn and Oisinn left, so we jacked it in, roysh, and basically ended up getting jobs in Ascelpis Healthcare, this, like, pharmaceutical factory, roysh, we’re talking, like, twenty bills an hour for doing basically fock-all, just letting them use us as sort of, like, guinea pigs to test out all these vaccines they’re developing for malaria and shit. The goys said we were off our whacks, but they were bulling because they know we’re going to be earning serious sponds. There’s really fock-all to worry about, although we did have to sign this, like, waiver, basically saying that if we suddenly grow, I don’t know, horns and a focking beak, we’ve no comeback against the company. But it’s only, like, malaria tablets, so me and Christian are there, ‘Twenty bucks an hour? Where do we sign?’
We spotted the ad in the Ocean City Advertiser. It was like:
Fionn’s giving it the usual routine, calling us Frankenstein’s monsters, trying to get up my nose. But fock him, we phone the freephone number anyway and the next thing we know, roysh, the two of us are sitting in this goy’s office, we’re talking the Head of Research. The first thing he asks us is, ‘Do you guys drink?’ and of course me and Christian look at each other and we’re thinking, Happy Days, and Christian goes, ‘Pint of Ken, if it’s going.’ And the goy, something McPhee his name was, big fat bastard with a red face and Bobby Charlton combover, he looks a bit embarrassed, roysh, and he’s like, ‘Em, I’m just taking your personal details. I’m not asking whether you want … Look, I’ll level with you guys and you can decide right now whether we’re wasting one another’s time. One of the requirements of the medical research programme is that you abstain from alcohol.’
I stand up immediately of course, getting ready to leave, basically too honest for my own good, but suddenly Christian goes, ‘Neither of us drinks. Which makes me believe that we’re ideal candidates for the job.’ I don’t know where this comes from, roysh, but he manages to say it with a straight face. The goy looks at us, roysh – we were out on the lash last night and I’m sure he can focking smell the drink off us – but he just goes, ‘Alriiiight,’ as though he can’t make up his mind whether to, like, hire us or call security, but then all of a sudden he just goes, ‘Okay, boys. Welcome to the firm. Come on, I’ll show you where you’ll be working.’
So there we are, roysh, wandering down all these corridors and he’s telling us all this shite about how long the company has been established, the products they make, blah blah blah, and I turn around and go, ‘Give us the lowdown on these malaria pills we’re going to be checking out for you,’ and the goy suddenly stops walking, roysh, and he goes, ‘Excuse
me?’ I’m like, ‘We were told on the phone that it was malaria pills?’ And the goy goes, ‘It is. But we don’t talk about products that haven’t yet been passed by the FDA. That’s ground rule number one. It’s best that you know nothing about these pills. In fact, it’d be better all round if you forgot my name. And what I look like.’
He brings us into this, like, lounge area and Christian pulls me to one side and goes, ‘Suddenly, I have a baaaad feeling about this.’ I go, ‘So do I, Christian, but we need the shekels.’ He goes, ‘There must be another way.’ This goy McPhee, roysh, he hears us whispering and he goes, ‘Problem?’ and I’m like, ‘Just give us a minute to talk,’ and he sort of, like, makes himself scarce.
I turn around to Christian and I’m like, ‘What did you have for dinner yesterday?’ and he looks away from me and goes, ‘You know what I had for dinner yesterday.’ I’m there, ‘Just focking tell me. What did you have?’ and he’s like, ‘A bowl of Cinnamon Grahams. The same as the night before.’ I’m like, ‘And the night before that. Well tonight, Christian, you’re having a change. There’s no milk left. So it’s Cinnamon Grahams with water. That’s until the Cinnamon Grahams run out. And then …’
He just nods his head, like he’s resigned to it. I go, ‘Look, we’ll get this fat focker to sub us a hundred bucks each out of our wages. Think what that’ll mean. A hot meal tonight. Think about it. We won’t have to hide under the stairs again when Peasey comes around for the rent. We can sort out that misunderstanding with AT&T. Make outgoing calls again. Just think of it. You could maybe ring that Lauren bird back home.’ He goes, ‘I haven’t stopped thinking about her for the last week. Do you think I could?’ and I’m there, ‘Of course. Although she might not want to know you when she sees you’ve storted growing hair on the palms of your hands.’We both crack our holes laughing.
The bossman comes back. He’s like, ‘All sorted out, boys?’ and we’re like, ‘Yeah,’ and he brings us into this other room, roysh, this, like, adult playroom, with a big fock-off television and DVD player, computer games, the whole lot. And food. Tables and tables of nosebag. I’m like, ‘This is where we’re going to be, like, working?’ and the goy goes, ‘Sure. There’s nothing to the job, like I told you. You take a couple of pills in the morning. We hook you up to a heart monitor and you spend the rest of the day in here, watching the television, playing computer games, whatever you want. End of the day, we take a blood and urine test from you and then you go home. Look, I’ll leave you guys to get acquainted with the place.’
He focks off, roysh, and me and Christian just look at each other and break our holes laughing. I go, ‘A hundred and sixty bucks a day to watch ‘Jenny Jones’ and play Grand Theft Auto II. We’ve struck gold, dude.
And about half-an-hour later, roysh, this McPhee dude comes back into the room and he goes, ‘I have your waivers here for you to sign. Oh and tuck into the food. Eat as much as you can. I didn’t mention it before, but we pay an extra forty bucks for any stool samples you can give us.’
Christian goes, ‘And we shall provide. We SHALL provide.’
MTV’s on, roysh, but no one’s really watching it, we’re all just spacing, focked after the weekend, when all of a sudden Peasey comes in and asks what happened to the bag of green shit that was in the attic. He goes, ‘You guys snort that stuff?’ looking me and Fionn up and down, like he’s looking for side-effects or some shit. I’m like, ‘We never touched it,’ and I’m giving Oisinn daggers, roysh, basically telling him to make up something fast because it was him who took it. But then, all of a sudden, roysh, I notice that the front door’s off its hinges – another keg porty at the weekend, don’t ask – and quick as a flash I go, ‘The place was, em … raided. The Feds.’
Peasey throws his hands up, roysh, and he’s like, ‘Hooooly shit,’ and I’m like, ‘You probably noticed the door on your way in.’ He doesn’t seem to mind about the door, just goes, ‘You tell ’em anything?’ and I’m there, ‘No.’ He goes, ‘You mention my name?’ I don’t even know the mad bastard’s name. I’m like, ‘Course I didn’t.’ He goes, ‘And they took the shit with them?’ Fionn goes, ‘They didn’t charge us or anything. They just said they had to take the stuff away for analysis,’ and he pushes his glasses up on his nose, like the nerd that he is.
Peasey sort of, like, nods, roysh, really slowly, as though he’s trying to, like, take this in. Then he goes, ‘Don’t worry, guys. You’re safe. Ain’t no scientist even heard of that shit yet.’ Then he’s like, ‘They, em, mention anything about that robbery on Hudson and Atlantic? Jewellery store?’
My blood just runs cold. I look at Fionn. He was the one who said the photo-fit on ‘America’s Most Wanted’ last night was him. Fionn goes, ‘No … em … they don’t seem to be on to you,’ and Peasey’s like, ‘Let’s keep it that way. Now I’m going down the beach. Fly my kite. Still got these goddamn headaches. Could be meningitis. But that doesn’t explain the goddamn voices.’
On his way out, he bumps into Christian, roysh, and he puts on this, like, leprechaun voice and he goes, ‘Top o’ da morning, to ya,’ even though it’s, like, midnight.
Me and the goys are in Hooters, roysh, two o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, slowly getting shit-faced, watching the ice hockey on the television in the corner of the bor, when I hear this laugh that, like, sends a serious shiver down my spine. It couldn’t possibly be … No, it couldn’t, so I carry on chatting to the goys. Christian says that another of his toenails has fallen out, which makes four, and I go, ‘There’s no proof that it’s the drugs,’ and Fionn goes, ‘It’ll be a beak and webbed feet next,’ the shit-stirring focker.
Then I hear the laugh again. It can’t be. It focking is! Sat over the far side of the bor, cigar clamped between his teeth, a bird either side of him, hookers by the looks of them, is … Hennessy. Oisinn cops him at the same time as me. He goes, ‘Isn’t that your old man’s solicitor?’ and I’m there, ‘Unless he’s got a focking double.’ He hasn’t. He twigs me and goes, ‘Hey, young Ross. How the hell are you?’ I’m like, ‘What the fock are you doing here? My old man sent you to spy on me, didn’t he?’
He staggers over to the other side of the bor where we’re sitting, totally off his tits he is, and he goes, ‘Ssshhh! Ssshhh! My name’s Edward. Edward Horlock. And I’m in real estate. Got it?’ I’m there, ‘What are you focking talking about, orsehole?’ and he offers to buy us all a drink. Wanker or not, none of us is gonna turn that down. He goes, ‘Skipped out of Ireland a week ago, chaps. Suppose you could call me a fugitive.’ I’m there, ‘Why?’ He goes, ‘They’re trying to put me in prison for something I didn’t do.’ Fionn goes, ‘Yeah, pay your taxes. My old man told me, it was on ‘Primetime’.’
Hennessy goes, ‘Oh, let’s not worry about the what-nots and the who-nots. Let’s – what is it you young people say? – party on,’ and he shouts over to the birds, ‘Ladies, come and meet the chaps. A splendid bunch.’ The birds come around. None of your gap-toothed, Bulgarian lap-dancers these two, roysh, these are, like, high-class prossies, probably five hundred bucks a night and way out of our league. One of them – a blondey one, real innocent-looking in a, like, Britney Spears kind of way – she turns around to me and goes, ‘So, how do you know Edward?’ and for a second I’m totally thrown and then I remember she’s talking about Hennessy and I go, ‘He used to be my dealer,’ totally ripping the piss. She goes, ‘Coke?’ and I’m like, ‘Everything,’ and suddenly, roysh, she obviously gets the smell of serious money off the dude because she storts, like, rubbing the back of his neck and playing with the little bit of hair he has left over his ears.
The bird behind the bor goes, ‘You boys want more drinks?’ and Hennessy goes, ‘Oh good Lord, yes. Same again. Keep them coming. Tonight’s on me.’ The other hooker, roysh, a black one, not that unlike Beyoncé Knowles, she says why don’t her and the first hooker – Sugar, she said her name was – go and score some coke, ‘like last night,’ and Hennessy goes, ‘Okay, but don’t let me
get up on that balcony again,’ and he peels about four hundred dollars off a wad of bills, hands it to them and slaps both of their orses on the way out. He lorries another brandy into him, then goes, ‘Decided to go to America to lie low for a bit. I remembered your father telling me you were in a place called Ocean City, so I thought, why not? Place sounds as good as any.’
Free drink or not, roysh, the goys are getting pretty focking bored with the twat at this stage and we’re about to, like, make our excuses and leave when all of a sudden he goes, ‘You know what those fools think I’m worth?’ I drain off the last of my pint and I’m there, ‘Who?’ He’s like, ‘The cops back in Ireland. They’ve put a reward out for me. Ten measly grand. Surely I’m worth more than that. I mean, who’d turn me in for that kind of money?’ I look at the goys in the mirror behind the bor and I’m thinking, Well, there’s four of us here would.
Oisinn’s first up off his seat. He goes, ‘Must go to the toilet.’ I’m there, ‘Yeah, I’ve got to go get cigarettes.’ Hennessy’s like, ‘I didn’t know you smoked, Ross.’ Christian goes, ‘I need some … em, air.’ Fionn doesn’t even bother his orse trying to think of something. The four of us are out of there and straight across the road where there’s this, like, bank of payphones. We all get there at the same time, bang in 911 and then it’s a matter of who’s the lucky bastard who gets an answer first.
