Saturday, November 18, 2017
Friday, November 17, 2017
Urban Myth 6. Black Tuesday
I sailed down the North Strand like a super yacht with the spinnaker up. A lovely northerly and a spit of rain. Hello November! There wasn't much going on on the radio. A latte and a chat later, things sparkled into life. I slipped a plastic, bank coin-bag down over the wee rubber aerial to protect my radio from the rain and we were off like freaks in a discombobulated Grand National.
Into the teeth of a storm.
Bad weather drives workers indoors to actually work. No skyvin' out for a fag/ coffee/ sandwich/ chat. When your umbrella has been blown inside out, your shoes are shippin' water and it's unpleasant... you become productive.
That's lovely in a centrally-heated office with the percolator on and Mr Muffin delivering to your desk at 10.30 but its going to be a bad day for the bike messenger.
Like God turning on the weather it had all changed by 10am. A wheelie bin came at me across Leeson Street. My satchel was flapping in every gust like a landed salmon on a riverbank. Rain was finding every tiny angle to meander into my jacket. My shins were numb from the rain-water and wind. I only had mitts, so a quick return to base had me rifling rubber gloves from the kitchenette and an old pair of woolly socks from a pile of discarded odds and ends in a corner. The socks went over the gloves and made me look like Fagan. I didn't care. Nobody did. Some Messengers went home and switched off their radios. My signature sheets were fast becoming a clump. My mouth was numb, I couldn't ask for basic things without sounding like a stroke-victim. I kept going because I figured the consequences of stopping even for a minute would be damaging. By God it was busy. I probably did close to sixty jobs what with people forced indoors and not all our boys willing to work. My fingers were sore, then numb-sore. My whole being was cold despite gallons of snatched coffees and enough Snickers to silence Mr T. Around three I took off my socks and shoes and semi-heated them under a hand-dryer in a toilet under O'Connell street. An hour later I had to pee in a stairwell for a lack of any other place to go. Six o'clock saw me spent. Finally back to the base, I didn't have the strength to face the gloom outside. But when I did the rain had stopped, the wind had died and when I looked up to the amber street-lit sky, a jet was flying low over the buildings towards the airport.
That's lovely in a centrally-heated office with the percolator on and Mr Muffin delivering to your desk at 10.30 but its going to be a bad day for the bike messenger.
Like God turning on the weather it had all changed by 10am. A wheelie bin came at me across Leeson Street. My satchel was flapping in every gust like a landed salmon on a riverbank. Rain was finding every tiny angle to meander into my jacket. My shins were numb from the rain-water and wind. I only had mitts, so a quick return to base had me rifling rubber gloves from the kitchenette and an old pair of woolly socks from a pile of discarded odds and ends in a corner. The socks went over the gloves and made me look like Fagan. I didn't care. Nobody did. Some Messengers went home and switched off their radios. My signature sheets were fast becoming a clump. My mouth was numb, I couldn't ask for basic things without sounding like a stroke-victim. I kept going because I figured the consequences of stopping even for a minute would be damaging. By God it was busy. I probably did close to sixty jobs what with people forced indoors and not all our boys willing to work. My fingers were sore, then numb-sore. My whole being was cold despite gallons of snatched coffees and enough Snickers to silence Mr T. Around three I took off my socks and shoes and semi-heated them under a hand-dryer in a toilet under O'Connell street. An hour later I had to pee in a stairwell for a lack of any other place to go. Six o'clock saw me spent. Finally back to the base, I didn't have the strength to face the gloom outside. But when I did the rain had stopped, the wind had died and when I looked up to the amber street-lit sky, a jet was flying low over the buildings towards the airport.
And I knew I would soon have to do the same.
Urban myth 5. Scalextric
The odd day you'd get it right. The wind would be at your back all the way from Ringsend to James's street. If you had a controller with robot-like spatial awareness they'd know more than your area, they'd know what door you were passing. A good day then would be the wind, the extra jobs along the way, surfing a bus to get to Trinity College. An exceptional day saw you racing another messenger across, along and through three lanes and laughing when you lost. Most days involved an altercation with a taxi-driver. Only a rare day saw you scratch their ride with the bike-lock key you wore on an elastic band around your wrist. Or better still, pulling the held-on-with-a-magnet radio-aerial off the back of their boot as they sped away.
You'd shimmy the pedestrian crossings on Dame street like a chess master, ache your way up to Christchurch and then have the beauty of a meander along Thomas Street passing the auld wans flogging industrial quantities of loo-roll and washing-powder to ghosts that lived in the Liberties.
Ah the beauty of it. And if it was a sublime, once in a season day, up at James's hospital the consultant's Secretary would be polite and actually look you in the eye.
A bagful of envelopes to keep you busy back into town and you'd smile all day.
You'd shimmy the pedestrian crossings on Dame street like a chess master, ache your way up to Christchurch and then have the beauty of a meander along Thomas Street passing the auld wans flogging industrial quantities of loo-roll and washing-powder to ghosts that lived in the Liberties.
Ah the beauty of it. And if it was a sublime, once in a season day, up at James's hospital the consultant's Secretary would be polite and actually look you in the eye.
A bagful of envelopes to keep you busy back into town and you'd smile all day.
The bad days would be pushed further back into your hard drive allowing you to enjoy the moment.
Funny; you saw everything and everyone at breakneck speed yet could remember the slightest details, dangers, daft moves and detours in ridiculous detail despite it being a split second in duration.
It was mind blowing.
And the track lasted a couple of years. Survive the week, drink to your survival on Friday. Regain your strength over the weekend and rock up on Monday for another show; a combination of Mad Max, Gladiator, Ben Hur and Apocalypse Now. Then do it again and again and again.
And as long as you didn't think about what you were doing too much, it became routine, almost banal, certainly normal.
It was just an awesome time.
For me, the green country boy, it could not have been more removed from where I'd come from. I'd always been getting away from something but now I was being given a wage for it. Everyone I worked with was doing it for the buzz. There were easier jobs that summer, better paying too. Yet the 'freedom', speed, risks and energy was unbeatable. We were ghosts in an endless summer of excitement; unseen yet glaringly obvious, invaluable yet outsiders, part of the electrical current running under the city.
Thursday, November 16, 2017
Urban myth 4. Truth.
I don't know what it was. I think it was one of the bad days. It was the end of a tough year at Quickstream. A courier company that extracted the last drop from us. That day I'd hauled a postal franking machine to and from a post office, delivered a human stool sample (suitably sealed in a transparent test tube) from a hospital to a solicitor and around lunchtime I'd done the wages run from the bank to Pearse Street and watched as the Teller in Donnybrook had counted out 11,000 pounds in front of me. I kinda had a small meltdown. Now I'd blame the heat but back then I had stared at the cash before putting it in my satchel thinking how broke I was in night college, how much of a bloody Clydesdale horse I was for Quickstream and how tired I was.
Yes I delivered the cash but I'll admit a lot of scenarios ran through my head along the way.
My next job took me to a pick up in a nice office in Holles street. The Receptionist said I'd have to wait fifteen minutes. I radioed in the delay and asked to use the bathroom. The Receptionist was manic trying to get the delivery ready and told me the bathroom was on the next floor.
She didn't tell me it was super plush! Wall to wall tiles, showers, towels and infinite gels and shampoo....
Door now bolted, I stripped and had an unbelievable shower. In those few minutes I washed the dirt of the previous year's work as well as that day's carbon grime from my skin. The Receptionist noticed nada. But her urgency to get the package across town didn't stop me from a detour I'd planned in the shower. I rode around to a rival courier company and asked for a job. Quickstream was then behind me and I moved faster than ever in the city.
Yes I delivered the cash but I'll admit a lot of scenarios ran through my head along the way.
My next job took me to a pick up in a nice office in Holles street. The Receptionist said I'd have to wait fifteen minutes. I radioed in the delay and asked to use the bathroom. The Receptionist was manic trying to get the delivery ready and told me the bathroom was on the next floor.
She didn't tell me it was super plush! Wall to wall tiles, showers, towels and infinite gels and shampoo....
Door now bolted, I stripped and had an unbelievable shower. In those few minutes I washed the dirt of the previous year's work as well as that day's carbon grime from my skin. The Receptionist noticed nada. But her urgency to get the package across town didn't stop me from a detour I'd planned in the shower. I rode around to a rival courier company and asked for a job. Quickstream was then behind me and I moved faster than ever in the city.
Urban myth 3. Skeletons
Scotty walked up to the 'Green and said hallo to us. It was quiet and there was a good bunch about. It was Autumn. No more idle lunches sitting on the grass or sunning ourselves in the park whilst watching the slowly basting office talent.
Scotty was agitated. His tanned and skint head bobbed with what he had to share. A big and pulsing vein popped on his forehead. He stood into our circle and swore us to secrecy.
"Noot a menshun rye?" It was alright with us. Sure we'd wait til he'd gone before spreading whatever it was like wildfire.
"Soo aye wer dune n da fookin sella agin en aye wer diggin lye a JCB, ri?" "Right", we chorused although to be fair only two of us spoke pidgin scots.
"Wha deed aye deeg oot de wull oonly a fookin skull! A hool skeleton aye til ya! A hool fookin ole vikin! Sword n all! Am no kiddin ya!"
Scotty was doing a nixer while scratching the welfare so he landed a labouring job digging a basement in a Dame street pub. Digging up a Viking skeleton wasn't the problem. Sure Temple Bar was Viking central. The problem lay in declaring the find. If the builder rang the authorities the show would shut down 'til the Archaeological boys had sifted the site. Months. No work for Scotty, no finished pub, no builder paid.
We were all curious. Scotty looked happy. We should have guessed. "What did you do Scotty man, don't keep us in suspense!"
He sucked a centimetre off his badly constructed roll-Up.
"Ye min da skeleton?" He was some boyo for building tension. "Ooh aye....Ach wee fooked et inda skip!"
Scotty was agitated. His tanned and skint head bobbed with what he had to share. A big and pulsing vein popped on his forehead. He stood into our circle and swore us to secrecy.
"Noot a menshun rye?" It was alright with us. Sure we'd wait til he'd gone before spreading whatever it was like wildfire.
"Soo aye wer dune n da fookin sella agin en aye wer diggin lye a JCB, ri?" "Right", we chorused although to be fair only two of us spoke pidgin scots.
"Wha deed aye deeg oot de wull oonly a fookin skull! A hool skeleton aye til ya! A hool fookin ole vikin! Sword n all! Am no kiddin ya!"
Scotty was doing a nixer while scratching the welfare so he landed a labouring job digging a basement in a Dame street pub. Digging up a Viking skeleton wasn't the problem. Sure Temple Bar was Viking central. The problem lay in declaring the find. If the builder rang the authorities the show would shut down 'til the Archaeological boys had sifted the site. Months. No work for Scotty, no finished pub, no builder paid.
We were all curious. Scotty looked happy. We should have guessed. "What did you do Scotty man, don't keep us in suspense!"
He sucked a centimetre off his badly constructed roll-Up.
"Ye min da skeleton?" He was some boyo for building tension. "Ooh aye....Ach wee fooked et inda skip!"
Urban myth 2. Lunch break
Marks Brothers was ahead of it's time. Really healthy food and a cheap and cheerful young crowd without even a whiff of the Hipster era to come decades later. Sitting in at the back with Kiki, one of only a handful of female bike-messengers for company, I was enjoying my Friday. I was planning beers and hours in the arms of Morpheus. Kiki had other ideas. We had a josh about other bikies and plans for the new place she was moving into. One of the lads had joked that he'd have loved the contents of the hoover when Kiki was cleaning her old place up. She was planning to buy a motorbike to do bigger jobs and earn real money. We wolfed down our food and as I had just got paid I stumped up for lunch. It was good to have her rapier-wit and Scottish put-downs for company. She had just got back from the GPO after posting a cassette tape to one of her friends back home, filled with fifty quid's worth of cannabis and a whole lot of curry powder to throw the sniffer dogs off at the sorting office.
Fridays were always flat-to-the-mat. As if every firm in the city felt they had to show something for their salaries by sending documents post haste. Messengers could do savage numbers on that one day, saving a quiet week. Kiki was flat out too. After wolfing down her healthy grub she reached into her satchel and brought out a wrap of speed and unceremoniously emptied it into her orange juice, stirring it with a dessert spoon until it dispersed enough to swallow.
"Something to get me through...." And that was that. Kiki liked to party. A lick of amphetamine would get her through a manic working day and into Friday night where the real stuff started. Out Friday and Saturday and back to work Monday it was a vicious, candy-consuming circle. I was having lunch with her at the point when a little whizz got her through Friday, followed by a savage weekend with Bacchus as company. And Mondays needed a little pick-me-up to jump start the working week.
I was never into tarot card readings but that day I could have predicted the future like a clairvoyant.
Fridays were always flat-to-the-mat. As if every firm in the city felt they had to show something for their salaries by sending documents post haste. Messengers could do savage numbers on that one day, saving a quiet week. Kiki was flat out too. After wolfing down her healthy grub she reached into her satchel and brought out a wrap of speed and unceremoniously emptied it into her orange juice, stirring it with a dessert spoon until it dispersed enough to swallow.
"Something to get me through...." And that was that. Kiki liked to party. A lick of amphetamine would get her through a manic working day and into Friday night where the real stuff started. Out Friday and Saturday and back to work Monday it was a vicious, candy-consuming circle. I was having lunch with her at the point when a little whizz got her through Friday, followed by a savage weekend with Bacchus as company. And Mondays needed a little pick-me-up to jump start the working week.
I was never into tarot card readings but that day I could have predicted the future like a clairvoyant.
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Urban myth number 1
Pickles was as skinny as a lat and white as a ghost. His welfare glasses and baggy trousers made him look worse in every way. He was always pale, even in that three months of heat-wave we had in '95. On those blue-sky mornings he was the white, fluffy cloud. Joint in hand, slowly circling Stephen's green to where his mates hung out. I'd watch him from my perch on a stool outside Bendini and Shaw at the top of Grafton Street. He cycled like treacle. On Moroccan black.
I didn't see Pickles very often as his company gave a lot of motorcycle jobs to the push-bikes. They could be anywhere...out in the docks, Chapelizod... mindlessly boring runs for a pittance. I felt very lucky jobbing between the canals by comparison.
And then all changed. In Bruxelles our gang heard the news over a pint. Pickles...was still alive!!
I didn't see Pickles very often as his company gave a lot of motorcycle jobs to the push-bikes. They could be anywhere...out in the docks, Chapelizod... mindlessly boring runs for a pittance. I felt very lucky jobbing between the canals by comparison.
And then all changed. In Bruxelles our gang heard the news over a pint. Pickles...was still alive!!
Let me explain! Pickle's company had the blood run. Pelican House up on the canal was where the Blood Transfusion Service Board had a ready supply of blood. And the quickest way to get emergency bags to city hospitals was by bicycle. Think about it! No traffic lights, no jams, no waiting.
Pickles was halfway through his run, two bags of A-negative buried in the satchel over his shoulder when, even at his snail pace, the worst happened. A Daisy. Daisy , a derogatory term given to the old dears on high-heels tottering out of office blocks all over the city, ramped up on Prozac or valium or whatever it took them to get through their grey lives; Daisy happened. She stepped out off a kerb at Busarus (pronounced Bus R'Us by yank tourists) and Pickles was knocked onto the broad of his back in the middle of the road.
So far,so good. But there was a perfect storm brewing. A newbie cop from around the corner in Store street station kept the crowd and traffic away. Pickles was alert. Life was about to go on. Blood. A pensioner saw blood. Blood flowing from Pickle's head. A lot of crimson blood forming a fan shape around a very pale and disoriented accident victim. Some old dear screamed. An ambulance was called. Pickles tried to sit up but was forcibly held down lest he parted with a wee bit of his brain.
Pickles protested. His glasses were out of reach causing him to squirm and search like a desperate man. His radio, attached to the satchel underneath him crackled and barked orders looking for 16. "Sixteen where are you?","Come in sixteen!". The Guard wouldn't let Pickles budge. The newly arrived ambulance crew tried to comfort the obviously brain-damaged kid who was fighting,fighting with all his might and shouting that it wasn't his blood! Not his blood at all!
We all sat in Bruxelles that evening, heaving with laughter, celebrating Pickles finest moment.
Pickles was halfway through his run, two bags of A-negative buried in the satchel over his shoulder when, even at his snail pace, the worst happened. A Daisy. Daisy , a derogatory term given to the old dears on high-heels tottering out of office blocks all over the city, ramped up on Prozac or valium or whatever it took them to get through their grey lives; Daisy happened. She stepped out off a kerb at Busarus (pronounced Bus R'Us by yank tourists) and Pickles was knocked onto the broad of his back in the middle of the road.
So far,so good. But there was a perfect storm brewing. A newbie cop from around the corner in Store street station kept the crowd and traffic away. Pickles was alert. Life was about to go on. Blood. A pensioner saw blood. Blood flowing from Pickle's head. A lot of crimson blood forming a fan shape around a very pale and disoriented accident victim. Some old dear screamed. An ambulance was called. Pickles tried to sit up but was forcibly held down lest he parted with a wee bit of his brain.
Pickles protested. His glasses were out of reach causing him to squirm and search like a desperate man. His radio, attached to the satchel underneath him crackled and barked orders looking for 16. "Sixteen where are you?","Come in sixteen!". The Guard wouldn't let Pickles budge. The newly arrived ambulance crew tried to comfort the obviously brain-damaged kid who was fighting,fighting with all his might and shouting that it wasn't his blood! Not his blood at all!
We all sat in Bruxelles that evening, heaving with laughter, celebrating Pickles finest moment.
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