The Tivo was also one of Dublin’s dating arenas, a place where boys and girls met each other. The older boys would come in and look around for a girl who was sitting alone. When they spotted the girl they’d do everything they could to sit in the seat next to her. When a girl came to the Tivo alone it was accepted she was looking for a fella. It was never questioned. The ritual of sitting next to a stranger was part of the excitement of going to the Tivo. When the lights went down sex went up in the dark. Boys and girls felt each other up without taking their eyes off the screen. A girl and boy sitting next to each other would touch and feel everything they had between their legs and not even see each other’s face. Both parties let their hands roam without missing a moment of the film. When the film ended one or the other of them would just get up and leave. They would have sat through two films and felt every bodily part of each other without ever looking in each other’s eyes. Billy and I did our fair share of feeling-up.
Although Keogh Square was famous for its roughness and danger it was also well known as the best place in Dublin to swap comic books. Visiting Keogh Square took more guts than living in it. Billy Whelan had a different take on Keogh Square. He was able to put out of his mind any sense of danger in regard to the place. Billy was more than mad about comic books. He was a fanatic. Every penny he ever had he spent on going to a film or buying a comic book. He had collected stacks and stacks: Batman, Captain Marvel, Wonder Wo man, The Blackhawk, Mercury (the man of speed with wings on his tin helmet), The Green Hornet, Plastic Man, Super Boy, Batman meets Superman. Fantasy was to Billy Whelan’s blood as drink was to others. Billy Whelan was the comic-broker. He peddled and exchanged paper fantasies. I also had a passion for films and comic books but not nearly as intense. If Billy didn’t have the latest edition he’d walk around Dublin looking for somebody who had. Hail, rain or snow Billy would be searching anywhere and everywhere for the latest comic book. When he found an individual who had the comic book he wanted he’d barter and bargain and swap two old editions for the latest. I traipsed around Dublin at night with Billy. He knew who had what comic book through a whole network of other boys. He knew not only where they lived but also at what hour they’d be in at night. Having comic books to swap was the same as having a passport and safe passage in or out of Keogh Square. The boys in Keogh Square welcomed anybody in who came with comic books. And they admired the courage it took to go there.
The Tivo had more to offer than the fantasy on the screen. Getting the pennies for admission to the cinema was not always easy. When it couldn’t be had, we’d sneak in through the back toilet windows. There was always a crowd waiting to climb in the window. We waited for the film to start then we’d climb up the wall and drop through the window to the bathroom floor. When the men’s toilet was crowded, myself and others ran around to the other alley where the girls’ toilet was. It was even more crowded and the smell was just as bad. When the girls saw us climbing through the window they’d scream and yell and run out. The whiff of the place was enough to knock a horse down. Management had to leave the windows open to let the fresh air in. If they didn’t the entire movie house would be so smelly nobody would he able to watch the film. Often the toilet was so crowded some people didn’t bother getting up from their cinema seats to go to it. They pissed under the seat in front of them and the urine would flow down the slanted floor towards the screen and end up in a puddle. Nobody wanted to sit in the front row. When they did they ended up with wet shoes and stinky feet. My own trousers were stiff from the piss I had to let go of because I couldn’t get into the toilet and my mother would always know where I had been hiding all day.
Billy favoured certain movie stars. He loved Jeff Chandler but he also especially liked Tyrone Power, Cornel Wilde and Robert Taylor. Something about their black hair slicked back appealed to him. He’d argue with me over who was the best-looking and who made the best films. Billy said Errol Flynn was the best Robin Hood. I said John Derek was. The fight between John Wayne and Randolph Scott in the film The Spoilers was the best fight ever because John Wayne hated Randolph Scott in real life, according to Billy. How he knew that I don’t know. To Billy, Jeff Chandler was a real American Indian because of the way he played Cochise in the film Broken Arrow. He said Jeff Chandler’s grey hair was grey because he put white shoe polish in it to make it look grey. Apparently he did this because there were too many movie stars with black hair and moustaches. Another thing about Billy: he didn’t like wearing shirts or jackets and definitely not together. If he wore a jacket he wouldn’t wear a shirt. When he had to go to Mass or go outdoors he slung an old tweed jacket over his shoulder and stuck his chest out no matter what the weather was. This was probably something to do with Jeff Chandler’s bare-chested role as Cochise.
Singers didn’t escape Billy’s obsessive nature either. He spent a lot of his time listening to his neighbours’ wireless by sitting outside their door. On different days, Billy would comb his hair and make himself look like the singer he heard last. Each day of the week he was a different personality. On Mondays he was likely to be looking and sounding like Johnny Ray. By Sunday he’d be Frankie Laine. Billy walked around the streets of Inchicore imitating Mario Lanza, Billy Daniels and Al Jolson. Billy knew as much about the singers and the hit songs as he did about film stars.
One day after seeing a film at the Tivo Billy decided he didn’t like his nose. It was slightly fatter or broader than those of most other boys in the neighbourhood. For Billy, it was an unwanted reminder of a reality that he didn’t want to know or live in. His nose wasn’t a thing to smell with. It was something that made him look like he was poor and unattractive. No matter what way he combed his hair or what colour shirt he wore, his nose wouldn’t let him be fully free. It was the herald that reminded him of his perceived imperfection. Billy was always comparing his nose to that of some movie star. When he thought he looked like a certain actor he’d point to his nose and say that was the only part of him that was different to the leading man on the screen. Whenever I went to the pictures with him he wouldn’t stop pointing to the screen and describing the features of the film star and at the same time pointing to his nose. He’d continually ask me to tell him who he looked like. Every film I saw with him I had to tell him he was just like the movie star on the screen. If I saw four different films with him he was all of the actors. One day he was Rock Hudson, the next his favourite Jeff Chandler, another day he was Tony Curtis and John Derek. Because of his lifelong attendance at the movies, Billy could contort his face and manage to make himself look like all the movie stars he was mad about. The only thing he couldn’t twist was his nose. It was as if his nose was a trap he couldn’t escape from. It bothered him that there was no independent way of moving or reshaping his nose. He often resorted to using one of his hands to demonstrate how he wanted it to look. “If me nose wasn’t like this I’d be as good-lookin’ as Jeff Chandler, wouldn’t I?” Billy would press his fingers against his nose and made it flat; he’d then squeeze it with his two fingers and make it look thin. When he squeezed his nose I’d tell him he looked like Jeff Chandler. He’d pull his nose out a bit with his two fingers. “Who now? Who am I like?” I wouldn’t know who he looked like or what to say. When I’d hesitate Billy would let go of his nose. “I’m like Tony Curtis, amn’t I?” I’d quickly catch on and tell him what he wanted to hear. “Yeh, you’re as good-lookin’ as him.” After I agreed with Billy’s idea of himself he’d look very happy. He’d then begin to sing. Billy not only wanted to look like his favourite film star, he also wanted to sound like his favourite singer. Of all the singers Billy imitated, his true obsession and real idol was Frankie Laine. He knew every song Frankie Laine sang backwards. He was furious that Tex Ritter sang “Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darlin’” from High Noon. Billy fervently believed Frankie Laine’s rendition was the better one. When Billy passed a shop window he’d stop when he saw his reflection and break into a Frankie Laine number. “I Believe” was of course a favourite. Billy r
arely talked to anyone; he sang to them. Billy was trapped between thinking he looked like Jeff Chandler and sounded like Frankie Laine.
One week Frankie Laine was at the Royal Theatre in Dublin and Billy asked me to go with him. When I agreed he burst out into one song after another. Along with about a hundred other Frankie Laine fans, we stood outside the Theatre Royal for four hours to get a glimpse of the singer. After we spent about half a day calling up to a small window on a side street, Frankie Laine stuck his head out and began to sing “Danny Boy”. With all the cheers and calls from the crowd, and with Frankie having no microphone, we could hardly hear him. That night both of us walked back home singing and pretending we were Frankie Laine. When I tried to imitate Frankie, Billy drowned me out. I think he sensed that he would lose his audience of one if I persisted.
When Billy concentrated on being Jeff Chandler he’d walk about bare-chested with a white scarf around his neck. The look in his eyes caused by his twitching head made him look like an Apache Indian. When he sensed he was Tony Curtis he’d pour a bottle of hair oil on his head and his hair would become black and shiny.
One day I met Billy on the corner and he wasn’t singing and he wasn’t even happy-looking. I’d never seen him so sad.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He squeezed his nose with two fingers then let go. Then he pressed his nose with his thumb. He told me he needed my help. I said I’d help him. He made me swear on it and I did.
He then stuck his face directly in front of me.
“What d’ya see?” he asked impatiently and earnestly.
I didn’t know what he meant.
He kept staring at me. “What d’ya see?”
“I see Jeff Chandler,” I said quickly.
He yelled back at me, “No!”
I instantly said what I thought he wanted to hear. “I see Tony Curtis.”
“No! Take another look!”
“Frankie Laine? No? Billy Daniels? Johnny Ray? No? John Wayne? No?”
Billy was looking more and more outraged.
I then screamed at him. “Who am I lookin’ at, Billy?”
“You’re lookin’ at me!” He took his fingers away from his nose. He was almost in tears.
I was lost. I didn’t know what to say. I began to think that he had gone mad all the way. And that the fuckin’ foundry noise had finally got to him.
“Didn’t you see me two weeks ago?” he asked me.
I’d seen Billy every week for years. I spent every second day around him. He was always on the corner or at the pictures.
“You swore you’d help me out, didn’t ya?”
“I’ll do me best for you, Billy. What are ya askin’ me for?”
“I want ya t’come with me.”
“Where?”
“I’m goin’ to the hospital.”
“For what?”
“I’m goin’ to have an operation and I need your help.”
“You’re goin’ to have an operation and you want me to help ya? You’re nuts altogether, Billy. How can I do anythin’ about that? What kind of help could I be? What kind of operation are you thinkin’ of havin’?”
“On me nose.”
“Your nose?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s not shaped right. It’s growin’ wrong.”
“I don’t see anythin’ wrong with it, Billy.”
“You’re not lookin’. Take another look!”
I looked closer at his nose and couldn’t tell anything. It looked the same to me as it always did. “You’re imaginin’ things, Billy.”
“Are ya me friend or not? Am I not your best pal?”
“You are.”
“Look at me nose again.”
“I’m lookin’ and I don’t see anythin’ that’s different.”
“You’re the one who sees me every day and you’d be able to tell the doctor what you saw.”
“What I saw? I didn’t see anything.”
“You saw me nose, didn’t ya?”
“I see your nose all the fuckin’ time, Billy! What can I do about that?”
“Can’t you tell the doctor it was smaller two weeks ago?”
“Your nose hasn’t got bigger.”
“It fuckin’ has! Take a closer look at it.” Billy stuck his nose in front of my face. He then turned to show his profile. He pinched it with his two fingers. “I know it’s bigger than it should be and I’m goin’ to the hospital to get a job done on it.”
“It hasn’t grown, Billy. I’m not coddin’ you. I don’t see any change. It’s the same nose you always had. It isn’t any bigger, Billy. I swear to you.”
“Can’t ya tell the doctor you noticed it gettin’ bigger? If I don’t have a witness he’ll think I’m out of the madhouse.”
I was beginning to think I was goin’ nuts myself. Billy begged and I finally agreed. We took the bus to College Green then went up Grafton Street and walked in the doors of Dublin Hospital near the College of Surgeons. A doctor came out and called Billy into the examining room.
After about ten minutes the doctor stuck his head out the door and called me in. Billy was sitting quietly in a chair. He was wearing his jacket but no shirt and his chest was sticking out like a rooster at sunrise.
“How long have you known Billy?” the doctor asked me.
“More than ten years,” I said. I wasn’t sure how long.
“Billy said his nose had grown considerably. Have you noticed that?”
I’d sworn I’d tell the doctor that it had grown in the past few weeks. “His nose is a bit bigger than it was.”
“A bit longer? A bit fatter?” the doctor asked me.
I looked at Billy. I didn’t know whether he wanted me to say it was longer or fatter or both. I hesitated with my answer. The doctor then looked at Billy and then at me.
“Why don’t you wait a month or two, Billy, and we’ll take another look at it?” he said.
Billy got up from the chair and walked out the door. When I got outside the hospital Billy was gone. He didn’t wait for me. I had to walk home on my own and I felt that I had let Billy down.
For the next week or so Billy stayed home. When I knocked on his door looking for him, his mother answered. She said he couldn’t come out because he had stepped on a nail and his foot was infected. The next day I came by and looked through the window of his house. Billy was sitting on the stairs inside and looking out through the curtains. He looked very sad. I asked him to come out and go to the films or to Keogh Square to exchange comic books but he didn’t move. He wouldn’t talk to me. I told him I would go back and tell the doctor his nose had grown but Billy wasn’t interested. Having to accept his own nose had crushed part of Billy’s fantasy. After that I had to get used to walking around the city on my own.
* * *
A few weeks later, while walking past Jury’s Hotel in the city centre, I came across a group of American tourists getting off a tour bus and going into the hotel. They were talking out loud and sounded like some of the actors I had seen in the films. Their clothes and hats were as colourful as any I had seen in a Technicolor movie. The group looked like a little bit of sunshine. The men in the group had big hats and blue suits and wore black cowboy boots. I was tempted to ask them where they had all come from and maybe even ask for an autograph. I was sure I saw John Wayne walk right into Jury’s Hotel right in front of me.
This was one day that my wanderings about this part of Dublin paid off. If Billy was with me he would have forgotten about his nose. I stood and watched the Americans go into the hotel, then I followed them into the lobby.
Within an instant I heard a loud voice. I thought it was one of the American tourists. It wasn’t. The hotel hall porter was calling me. When I turned in his direction he looked at me as if I was a worm on the floor.
“What are you doin’ there?” he asked me.
At first I didn’t know what to say to him. I then quickly told hi
m I was looking for work. He nearly fell over.
An American man in the group then handed me a dollar bill. I was about to faint when the hall porter grabbed my hand.
“Give that back!” he said.
I held on to the dollar with a clenched fist.
The American with the cowboy boots and cowboy hat laughed and said, “Leave him be!”
When I heard that I knew I had always done the right thing by going to the American films.
The hall porter was flustered and embarrassed. He turned his head around a half dozen times to see if anyone was watching. He then stuck his nose so close to my face I thought he was going to spit all over me. “How’d you get in here?”
“I followed them people who got off the bus.”
“Where do you live?”
“Up in Inchicore.”
“Inchicore is not up,” he said.
“It’s not?”
“No! Are you daft?”
“Inchicore is not up?”
“Don’t you know that?”
“It’s up past Kilmainham Gaol. Where all the fellas from 1916 were shot.”
“Who told ya that?”
“Somebody said it was.”
“Who?”
“I think it was my brother.”
“How much do you know?”
“About what?”
“Stop askin’ me fuckin’ questions when I’m askin’ you them!”
“I didn’t know what you meant.”
“I meant to find out if you’re any good at payin’ attention to orders and instructions.”
Maggie's Breakfast Page 9
