Gurriers (56 page)

They seemed to do a lot of mortgages because they sent a lot of documents to first active in Booterstown. Every time I was sent low road south I hoped to get to collect one for Booterstown from the lovely Regina - my dream girl for 1998; my next target.

It was just after eight o’clock and freezing cold when I left the warmth of their home. The conditions didn’t bother me though. I was warm to the core and only had one journey to make in the cold. No problem to a rough and vulgar courier.

“Wha’ kep’ ye?” Vinno asked.

“Bollicky balls sent me to Blanch late, so I dropped in to my old gaff in Lucan to see how they were doing.”

“Wha d’ye do?”

“Just caught up, heated up, drank lots of tea.”

“I mean, wha’ d’ya do on Bollicky Balls?”

“Ah, the fucker was annoyin’ me all day.”

“Wha d’ya do?”

“Dropped off a northside at ten past one.”

“Ye didn’t come in wi’ out callin’ him!”

“No…I called him twice and then started moving in of my own cognisance.”

“No wonder you ended up in-”

“Then-”

“Oh, Jaysus, g’won.”

“He asked me to get him two cans of Club Orange on my way to the base. Firstly-”

“Ye didn’t fuckin’ shake his cans on him, did ye?”

“Firstly I got them in the chipper instead of the shop.”

“You cost yer base controller money! You cost tha’ fuckin’ tight fisted mean bastard extra money by noh goin’ to the shop?”

“Twenty pence or something. And then I shook his cans.”

“For fuck’s sake! Did they explode?”

“Did they what! D’ye know the reinforced ring at the bottom of the can? A few taps there, man and ye’r in for a fountain!”

“Obviously ye weren’t fuckin’ lisnin’ when I was tellin’ ye how fuckin’ easy it is to get fired at this time of the fuckin’ year!”

“And I got caught actin’ the bollix on Channel Two.”

“I don’t be – fuckin’- lieve it. How did ye get caught?”

“Everybody else was in the base.”

“Well, it’s been nice workin’ with ye, man.”

“Ah, I’m sure I’ll be kept on because of personality and charisma.”

“Yeah, right! I’d advise you to pull yer socks up and behave if ye want to keep workin’ there. There’s a bit o’ stew in the pot if ye’re hungry.”

“You fuckin’ beauty! I’m leppin’!”

I did knuckle down and behave for the rest of the week. All of the crap work that was dispatched to me was bashed out without complaint or messing and I stood by when I was told and roughly where I was told.

I looked on the standing by as opportunities to refine my heat seeking abilities. It was actually fun to go into receptions with the ulterior motive of heat absorption instead of the usual serious business of collecting or delivering urgent consignments.
My scams to confuse receptionists became ever more creative and complex. I always had a rough idea of which wild goose chase I was going to attempt before I entered the building, but these were often altered, or indeed totally changed, between door and desk as I unzipped my cold jacket, depending on the receptionist’s reaction to my arrival at her workplace.

Needless to say, this behaviour was never done in any company that used Lightning or even any company that we were regularly sent to by our clients.

Despite having very little work, Aidan was adamant about keeping couriers standing by for cover, regardless of the many assurances from all of his couriers that we wouldn’t object to the dead mileage involved in going from the base to pick up from the outskirts.

“Yez will fuckin’ complain, yez always do, yez cunts. If gobshite one just arrives in the base from sou’ an’ gobshite two is next away an’ I have to send him to Sandyford for one goin’ to Bray, I’m goin’ to be fuckin’ whinged a’ for the rest of the fuckin’ month. Sure, it’s noh even properly cold yeh. And yez all have the best o’ gear thanks to the company gettin’ yez stuff on tick from Mountjoy. Yez are standin’ by where I fuckin’ tell yez or else yez can hand in yisser bags an’ fuckin’ radios an’ that’s fuckin’ tha’!”

With so few of us in and Bollicky Balls so adamant about cover, it was a real treat to get to stand by in the comfort of the base. There were rarely more than three of us there at any given time, but spirits were always high among the privileged few and we always had great craic amongst ourselves, even when Spunky – who calmed down considerably amongst his workmates since the acid spiking episode – was one of the lucky ones.

Vinno decided to have a New Year’s party in the flat. I had already committed myself to attend a family get together in my sister’s house that I so rarely visited. Much as I wanted to, I couldn’t just decide to go mental with the lads instead of fulfilling my family obligations.

The mad bunch had already started arriving when I reluctantly left, plenty stoned with three readymade joints in my
cigarette box, with Vinno’s repeated promise that he wouldn’t use his keys to unlock my room no matter what happened ringing in my ears.

I had a pleasant enough family occasion, despite being tormented by “this time last year” demons. I drank lots and smoked a lot more than the three joints that I had brought with me.

My sister threw a wobbly at me after waiting to use the downstairs bathroom for five minutes to have me exit the room (eventually) followed by the tell-tale cannabis aroma of the skinner upper. She was told to go fuck herself in no uncertain terms but the bad feeling between us was washed away by the big moment at midnight.

Thank God she caught me in the act at quarter to twelve; had it happened at quarter past it could well have been a case of enduring hostilities between us.

My father caught me sparking a joint in the garden towards the end of the proceedings. Not a word passed between us. He was resigned to the fact that I had steered my life along a wild route and I would be a disappointment to the man as long as I continued to earn a living at speed on two wheels.

I stayed in my sister’s house that night and dutifully helped with the cleaning up the next morning. I even kept silent during the tedium of her “you need to take control of your life this year” speech.

Despite bitter cold rain falling from a dark cloud that was isolated in the otherwise clear sky, I made my escape as soon as her house was pristine again. I was just as aware as my sibling that the rain would not last much longer but that didn’t stop her droning on about it, as I geared up for my journey home.

Twenty sobering cold and wet minutes crawling along at barely 10 mph over the speed limit had me and my diminished hangover back in Windy Arbour. The drive had cleared my head plenty but I was so thirsty that my mouth felt like the bottom of a budgie cage. I was also gumming for a joint.

The flat was destroyed. There were bodies everywhere in varying stages of consciousness. Two of the fully conscious ones, one of whom was my landlord, were skinning up.

Ray, emerging from behind the open fridge door with a can of lager in his hand, was the first to address me. “Shy Boy, how’s i’ goin’, man. Listen, I’m really sorry abou’ pissin’ in’ yer bed las’ nie. I’m goin’ to clean i’ all up as soon as I drink some breakfast. Don’ blame Vinno either, man, I robbed the keys owa’ his pocke’ withou’ him realisin’.”

Despite having cat’s whiskers, a totally black nose and ridiculously huge eyebrows painted on his face in quick drying black marker, his expression was undeniably one of earnest repentance.

I stared at him intensely for a number of seconds before replying. “Why don’t we have a game of poker, pussycat? I could really do with takin’ a few weeks wages off ye!”

“Nah – hah! Nice one, man, how’d ye know tha’ I was spoofin’?”

“If ye made it to my room ye wouldn’t look like as well as smell like Pepe le Pew. Also, those grubby little fat fingers of yours couldn’t pick the pocket of anybody without getting caught – no matter how drunk they were. If you had pissed in my bed you wouldn’t still be here either. You woulda been gone like a hot snot as soon as you woke up, leaving me to clean up your mess after ye. Finally, you have too much respect for our Number One to pull a stunt like that in his gaff.”

“Well said, brother Sean!” Vinno, sporting a Hitler moustache and drawn on John Lennon glasses, looked up from the joint that he had been putting a roach in.

“Thank you, my favourite landlord ever. I’d just like to say that, since I have been in a drug free zone all morning, I would hugely appreciate it if you would pass that joint to me after you.”

“You got it, man!”

“Fuck’s sake.”

“Do you fuckin’ have any idea how long he was makin’ tha’?”

“Here, giz the skins.”

“Fuckin favouritism.”

“Make yer own joints, yez lazy bastards. Yez don’t appreciate just bein’ able to skin up and smoke whenever or wherever yez feel like it. I’m goin’ to make one myself as soon as I pass that one on - something I have been longin’ to do all fuckin’ morning!”

That New Year’s Day developed into a cracker of a session. Nobody left the flat except to go to the off licence across the road and several more that couldn’t make it to the original party joined us. Cannabis and class A’s were phoned for and delivered, as was one huge order from the local Chinese later on that evening.

There was even more messing with people who crashed out. This time the razors were brought into play. When I eventually dragged my stoned, drunken carcass to bed I made damned sure to lock the door behind me and leave the key in the lock to avoid sneak attacks while I slept. I had grown quite attached to my hair the way it was – longer than ever before in my life – and I didn’t trust this bunch of drunken, drug addled jokers to spare me from their razor frenzy. No way did I want to end up like Naoise with a bullseye shaved into the back of my head.

To be fair, the Predator from Cheetah Couriers was spared the razor when he fell asleep, but he was a unique case. He was called the “Predator” for two reasons: the voracious way that he worked and his extremely long dreadlocks that had taken him years to grow. It would have been too cruel to chop off any of these precious locks, even for this bunch of messers, but there’s no guarantee that my unstyled mop – merely months old – would also have been spared. The Predator didn’t get away scot free either. When he crashed out, the staple gun was produced from the workshop and, one by one, each of his precious dreads were stapled to the wall beside him to result in a quite artistic halo of hair holding his head immobile.

Most of the others that crashed out in the living room were woken the next morning by the screams, but nobody helped him until he had calmed down and appreciated the fact that his hair had not been harmed. He was a big bloke, and would have
been capable of a lot of damage had he been released too soon.

January 2nd was a recovery day for all. Those who still lingered around the flat just had a couple of cans of beer and a few joints before heading back to their own homes to rest in preparation for their return to work the following day. January 3rd was the day that most people returned to work, the day that Dublin city came back from the slumber that was the holiday season.

Lightning was now only four couriers short of a full crew. Gizzard and Charlie had joined ten other couriers from various companies on their annual trip to Thailand. Apparently an old comrade of theirs had won a huge claim back in ’92 and had emigrated to Thailand and bought a bar. Since then, some couriers had gone over to him every January to avoid the coldest weather during the quietest month of the year.

This was not only permitted, but actually encouraged by most companies, ”top heavy” at this time of the year.

Dolores had decided to take a few weeks extra family time with the additional objective of getting her house decorated whilst avoiding the snow and ice.

Eighteen Gerry had landed himself a contract as the stills photographer on a film that was being shot in Ardmore Studios. This was the first such contract he had won and was a major step forward for him in his efforts to make a full time living out of photography. We were all delighted for him, particularly with his good fortune that the movie was being shot in January and not December.

There was a real buzz about the job in comparison to the previous week. There was more work being despatched to more couriers, albeit still only a fraction of the volume of Christmas, more queries, comments, more smart arsing and wit. It was even refreshing to have more traffic flowing around the city – up to a point.

The problem, however, was that our basics were gone. Had I been on dockets the previous week I would have made less than half a normal week’s wages. This week I roughly calculated that there were three times as many couriers doing approximately
four times the amount of dockets. I should therefore get more dockets under my belt this week, though still a good stretch short of a full week’s worth. Also, I was still in Bollicky Balls’ bad books.

Going to Blanchardstown with two on board instead of Dun Laoghaire with four on board cost nothing on the basic, but this week crap like that would have very real negative consequences on my take home pay.

I could count on my workmates to capitalise on this also. Everybody felt the same pressure to earn as I did, even more for the couriers that hadn’t earned any wages for the bulk of two weeks, and competition for juicy runs was fiercer than I had ever known it to be.