Gurriers (58 page)

The XBR had dropped handlebars and higher pegs than the CB, which made for a much sportier riding position. That was grand, combining with the louder, thumping single cylinder engine noise to make a pleasurable riding experience. The muffs, however, caused me real problems. Throttle, brake and clutch were manageable by touch but the switches were a non-runner from the start – especially with this being my first time ever driving an XBR. I had decided not to use them for the duration of the route by the time I reached the end of Cross Avenue, turning left onto Mount Merrion Avenue, heading for Blackrock village, without indicating.

The XBR is a great bike to drive and, having some clear road in front of me, I opened her up. Conditions got more condusive to fast driving as the light where Mount Merrion Avenue meets Rock Road at a T junction, went green in the distance.

There weren’t too many cars turning right for Blackrock Main Street, as I was, and I made an instant calculation that they would be through the junction by the time I got to it, even at this speed. This suited my cause because, with the Rock Road being such a major route, I knew that the green that I was speeding towards wasn’t going to be green for very long.

Sure enough, the light went orange when I was too far to make it through before it went red. Since all the cars had gone through and I would have to slam on the brakes to stop, I decided to keep going and break an early red light before the traffic on the Rock Road started to move.

Then I saw the Garda car. It was stopped about three cars back at the red light heading into Blackrock that would probably just have turned green by the time I would be nailing it across their path much too fast on Jimmy the Hoover’s XBR.

By the time I realised that it was the gards, it was way too late to attempt to stop in time. In a panic, I decided to turn the right indicator on to lessen the offences I was about to commit in front of them. Thanks to the muffs, combined with my lack of familiarity with this machine, I engaged every switch on the left handlebar except the indicators.

So there I was, speeding through a red light on a bike that I wasn’t insured on without indicating, beeping the horn and flashing the headlight at a Garda car, facing the direction that I was headed, in perfect position to give chase.

For once I was happy about the heavy traffic on Blackrock Main Street. I flung the XBR through every sniff of a gap that opened up in front of me, checking my mirrors for flashing lights pursuing me every chance I got. The lights never appeared, but I still drove past the drop off that I had for the main street as a precaution, opting to deliver it on the rebound on my own machine and risk the wrath of my base controller instead of that of the gardaí.

I went straight to Dun Laoghaire and gave Jimmy back his bike, advising him to bypass Blackrock on his way in. I vowed that there would never be handlebar muffs on my bike - ever!

“Four Sean.”

“Four Sean, good morning. You ready to go there?”

“I suppose so. I’ll be workin’ on Vinno’s Cary Grant today.”

“No bother. I have one in Prescon in Sandyford comin’ into Baggot Stree’.”

“Roger.”

“Steady as she goes today, Sean, let’s not have any tragedies.”

“Roger.”

Opening the front door was like opening the door of a deep freeze. Battling against the ever more palpable urge to wimp out of this day and end my career as a courier before having to drive on icy roads, I rolled the little 125 out of the hall and onto the icy path outside the front door, almost losing my footing in the process.

The adrenalin rush after nearly crashing but saving myself was the first of many such perverse thrills that I was going to experience that day. By the time I got to Prescon I had saved the bike from hitting the deck twice by stomping my feet, wrenching the bars and flinging my weight as much one way or the other as I deemed necessary.

The instant that you lose control of a motorbike is a particularly sickening one, all the more so once you have experienced a few crashes. Naturally, when you manage to save the machine after losing it, the contrasting buzz makes you feel ten feet tall. Having succeeded in keeping the little machine vertical, despite the best efforts of the ice, all the way to Prescon I was feeling strangely jubilant, as I stomped into the reception to face the narky old dragon of a receptionist whose lair it was.

The wizened old hag had never been anything other than a pressure inducing malcontent who couldn’t give an envelope to a courier without whinging about how long it had taken for him to get there or delivering stern warnings about how soon she wanted it delivered or both.

I had grown to truly loath the woman and to expect nothing but crap off her. I approached her desk with the usual trepidation, defensive retorts about the conditions on the tip of my tongue. She took me completely by surprise.

“Wow! I didn’t think any of you guys would be out on your bikes today. Such courage! You take your time with that delivery and all of your other ones. The most important thing in this weather is that you don’t get hurt. Good man!”

“Er…thank you.” All I could do was smile, as I made my stunned way outside, where fresh snow was now falling quite heavily.

My head had been so full of dread and woe about working in this weather that it hadn’t occurred to me that people in general were going to be quite sympathetic to the suffering of couriers in these conditions. If everybody’s attitude to me was to improve by as much as this receptionist’s, then today might not be so bad after all.

Men feel like men when they have something to endure, par
ticularly if it can be perceived to be out of duty. Men feel like real men when they endure without complaining. Men who endure without complaining and then get praised for it feel like heroes.

Bonnie Tyler was singing the first verse of “Holding Out For A Hero” inside my head as I kick started the Cary Grant, all manly and heroic and full of myself.

Fifty yards down the road, where Arena Road meets Burton Hall Road at a T, our hero went on his snot for the first time that day.

Arena Road - being one of the more exposed roads in Sandy-ford - was like a sheet of ice with no slushy bits or breaks in the slippery surface or thin bits that might offer some grip. I, being such a hero and all, attempted to drive on this surface as normal but much slower instead of crawling along with both feet on the ground. This worked out fine until the time came for deceleration. The gentle, stabilising touch of the back brake had no effect whatsoever. The brake did apply, but the wheel just locked and slid along at the same speed as before, helped by the downwards slope of Arena Road, towards the T junction with its stop sign and perpendicular traffic. I had no chance but to dump the bike, flinging it to my left, applying both brakes and kicking on both foot pegs as the bike went down to prevent myself from going under a car that was driving along Burton Hall Road, heading into the estate.

As soon as I hit the deck with an “oomph”, I began rolling myself to my left, just in case I still had the momentum to slide into the oncoming traffic. I didn’t, and as soon as the bars, levers, pegs and engine of the bike hit the surface, they slowed it down enough for the car it was aiming for to be able to swerve around it. The swerve led to a slide, which scared the shite out of the motorist but didn’t result in a collision.

When the car came to a halt, he got out shakily and started walking towards me. I was now on my feet and en route to bike. Despite taking a bit of a knock, I wasn’t at all shaken up. I was just fuming with myself for being such an idiot.

“Are you Okay? Do you want an ambulance?”

“I want my fuckin’ head examined, that’s what I want!”

“They say that you’re not supposed to be moved after an accident.’

“Ah, what do they know? I’ve got a job to do, don’t you be worrying about me.”

“But…but…”

But the bike was vertical and restarted. I was on it and sliding my way angrily towards the Centra, hoping to find couriers to share cigarettes and sympathy with.

I hit the deck two more times that day, each time a little more painful than the previous one. The respect and admiration that was lavished upon me by all for enduring the horrendous conditions was a great incentive to keep going - without it, I probably wouldn’t have lasted the whole day, but it wasn’t much of a painkiller.

Even getting into Faulkner-Turner and being all heroic as Regina praised me didn’t stop it from hurting.

Smoking joints helped with the pain but hugely increased the desire to give up and go home. By the time me and the bashed up little bike did get home, I had well and truly had enough of the day. Vinno was on the sofa in his dressing gown, obviously straight from the shower or bath. The dimplex heater was on full blast and a fire was blazing in the hearth. He had a can of beer on the coffee table beside his hash tin, the lid of which was on his lap, as he put the finishing touches to the joint that he was making.

I closed the door, limped over to the armchair and flopped heavily into it, an involuntary yelp betraying the fact that I was in no physical condition to be flopping heavily into anything.

“How many times?” Vinno enquired, taking a sip of his beer.

“Three, what about you?”

“Two, but one was a high side.”

“How the fuck do you high side on ice?”

“Painfully. It was goin’ down on the rie hand side when the back wheel hi’ sum’in’, maybe half a brick tha’ was frozen over,
then wallop – saddle in the balls, hard, and me flung up in the air. In the meantime, whatever the fuck the back wheel hit became dislodged, freein’ the bike to move in the same direction tha’ I was flyin’ in!”

“Oh, Jaysus no! Did ye land on the bike?”

“Sure fuckin’ did, man, an’ it fuckin’ hurt!”

“What damage did ye do?”

“Smacked me left elbow an’ knee off me engine, then fell backwards an’ landed on me exhaust while me left foot got caught an’ twisted in the fuckin’ crash bar.”

“Ouch! Did ye do much damage?”

“It hurt plenty, but the boots did their job. I should be ready for more in the mornin’.”

“D’ye want some ice for it?”

“Ah, I don’t know; think I’ve had enough fuckin’ ice for one day!”

“Could be the difference between your boot fitting on your foot in the morning or not. I’ll get it together for ye.”

“Cheers man. I burnt the fuck out of my good over jacket on the exhaust also.”

“The 100% waterproof one that ye like?”

“Yep. Big fuckin’ exhaust shaped hole goin’ rie across the back of it.”

“Bummer.”

“Maybe it’ll tape up.”

“I’ll have a look at it after I get your ice together.”

“Cheers Sean. Are you injured yourself?”

“Just a few bruises, nothing to write home about.”

“And the bike?”

“The bars are skinnier and higher than they were this morning, the indicators don’t work anymore and there’s a couple more dents in the tank. What about the RS?”

“The high side smashed the two left indicators and put a bastard of a dent in the tank but she’s runnin’ grand.”

“Ready for more tomorrow?”

“And Friday, accordin’ to the forecast.”

“Lovely.”

That Thursday I fell four times, quitting my job over the air after the last one, vowing that I was going to finish the run that I had on board and go home, never to return. Aidan told me to go home after the run – it was after five in the evening – and think about things when I had calmed down a bit. I did go back to work on the Friday, and crashed twice. A personal best in these conditions - an achievement!

Outside the pub that evening was like a scrap yard for small bikes and inside it was like a wartime hospital. There were two couriers on crutches, one plastered arm and an arm in a sling due to a shoulder injury. Everybody was limping and moving tenderly. No courier was uninjured, but everybody was in great form. We all knew that there was going to be a change in the weather that weekend. By Monday there would be little or no ice left on the roads. The worst of our winter was behind us and we were entitled to our celebration.

Until Three Michael from Letter Express arrived.

I was playing pool and happened to see him arrive. He was limping and cradling his right wrist in his left hand but, even across the crowded pub, I could see that there was something apart from the physical pain bothering him. Something worse.

Shay, one of the lesser injured among us who had only had four spills that week, was the first one over to greet Michael. He was the first to have the wind knocked out of him by Michael’s news, which moved through the crowd like a wave, affecting all of us.

Eight Gary from Letter Express - the one renowned for the powerful joints he made - was dead.

It had been a spill similar to the spills that we had all experienced plenty of that week, but with fate stacked against him. He hit the deck slowly on the left hand bend on Greenhills Road just past the turn for Ballymount at the petrol station, heading downhill towards Walkinstown. For some reason he failed to kick himself out from under his bike – a CB250. Most of us believe that his leggings must somehow have snagged on his
foot-pegs, condemning him to be dragged across the dividing line with his machine into oncoming traffic.