Gurriers (98 page)

I found them and painfully wiggled my feet into them (still better than having to bend to tie laces) by the time I had finished my smoke. I really didn’t want to go to the pub at this stage. I
longed to park my aching carcass in front of the TV and drink some beer and smoke some joints, which is exactly what I would have done had Vinno still been there. But Vinno was dead. The realisation hurt so much more than any of my injuries. I eased myself into a jacket and set off for the pub.

The mezzanine level of the local was packed - mostly with my work mates - by the time I limped up the stairs at ten to nine. The place erupted. I was swamped by well wishers, ushered to a seat, handed a joint, had a pint put in front of me, was offered a pill which I declined and bombarded by questions. I have never in my life felt as cared for as I did that evening. The well wishes of my comrades cheered me up and carried me through the pain and sorrow that had me so battered that day. To quote that a friend in need is a friend indeed is a gross understatement of the friendship that I am privileged to enjoy with my fellow couriers.

I must have recounted events of the day six times in the course of the night to a variety of audiences as I got more drunk, stoned and stiffer. I attempted to play pool once. I was easily beaten by Ray and didn’t put my name down again; it was just too painful for me. I played “Lucky Man” by The Verve no less than seven times on the juke box. To this day - and probably for the rest of my life - that song reminds me of Two Crash Day.

In all my recantations about my two crashes I credited the decision to look behind me to my own sense of emergency, despite being absolutely sure that this wasn’t the case. I intended to keep what really happened to myself until I had had time to examine my recollection thoroughly from every possible angle (as if that was going to make a difference!).

I intended to, but that’s not the way things panned out. It was 25 minutes past closing time and the pub was thinning out. The juke box was turned off, some of the locals had gone home, to waiting wives and girlfriends, the E-monsters had left for their first club of the night and some over indulgers had been booted out. Jimmy had called last games on the pool tables and conversations were being conducted at normal volume between small scattered groups of drunken friends.

John, Al, Ray and I sat in a moment’s drunken lull in conversations.

It was a short, comfortable silence with no pressure of any kind on anybody to say anything. I had been fully absorbed in studying my remaining half pint for no particular reason and was just as surprised as the others at what I suddenly blurted out without warning.

“Vinno saved my life today.”

The silence that descended on the table after that remark was so different than the previous one had been, with every one of my friends now totally focussed, as much as the imbibed alcohol would permit, on processing the information that had just been imposed on them. After several seconds, Ray was the first one to vocalise a reaction.

“Em…whash tha’, Shy Boy?”

“I had no left mirror, I was sure tha’ no one was behind me, I was goin to just keep movin’ left until a guardian angel screamed ah me to look behind me.”

“Brother Sean, the mind plays tricks on itself in these situations.”

“I know, John, but this happened a fraction before the shock. For the tiniest millisecond before the adrenalin kicked in, I remember a thought forming inside my head tha’ warned me to look behind me.”

“An’ you shay tha’ it was Vinno?”

“Couldn’t a been anyone else, Al. Nobody close to me ever died before, an’ what erupted into my head could only have come from the other side.”

The silence that followed that statement was a different one again. It was one of those mournful, reflective silences where all involved share a common loss. It was the silence for fallen comrades that used to make me feel alienated when it was caused by the memory of deceased couriers that I hadn’t known. Tears welled up in my eyes as I longed so much for that alienation in lieu of having my comrade fallen.

This silence lasted longer than the others, between the emotional content and the respectful reluctance of my friends not to voice any doubts that they felt about my belief. I broke the silence by asking the lads, in a tone that sounded so much needier than intended, if they wanted to grab some cans and come back to the gaff with me.

They all complied and my spirits picked up instantly at the prospect of an impending session.

Ray went down to organise the beers, John set about recalling the rest of the troops together and Al skinned up, simultaneously launching into a complaining but entertaining rhetoric about what a shite week’s work he had just put in.

I was so delighted to have my buddies with me at the end of this day. Apart from needing them so much because of all that had happened, I wanted them around me because of a sneaking realisation that had begun in the back of my mind and had been growing constantly.

Deep down I knew that Two Crash Day was my last day as a motorbike courier.

September 1999

So much has changed in my world. Some would say that I have copped on and taken control of my life, but at times I feel more as if I have copped out and taken an easier option.

The seed of the idea was sown while helping my workmates with the various functions on their mobile phones. The seed was germinated when Dave asked me to go with him to buy a new one after dropping his down a toilet in the local. Some spotty teenager, as part of his sales rap, assured Dave that the most expensive phone he had was part of the next generation of phones that everybody would be upgrading to. The words “everybody” and “upgrade” remained planted in my head as a potential for business.

Three weeks later, a week after Two Crash Day, when my bruises had healed and I wasn’t limping anymore, my father and I, well groomed and suited, went to see his bank manager. And so Shy Boy Communications was born. The business was a roaring success from the start.

I leased premises on Upper Baggot Street. The rent was bloody
high but with masses of office working pedestrian traffic, technophiles who had to have the very latest mobiles available, I was well able to afford it. It is so easy to sell the highest margin phones to these people that I sometimes almost felt guilty.

The shop is handy for passing couriers also and I get a huge amount of business from them, between being the only phone shop to give a courier discount, being either known or kinda familiar to them, being able to buzz with or sympathise with them, giving them – as well as my other customers – free tea and coffee and generally treating them properly. Of course, the free tea meant a lot of my buddies standing by there, but they were more than welcome.

It looks great for the business to have so many couriers coming and going. One customer who worked across the road told me that he came into the shop because, having seen the amount of couriers coming and going, he had deduced that we must have been a great phone shop. I stayed in front of the “courier discount” sign until he took the cash out of his pocket to pay for the phone selected.

I started off with just one member of staff with me - a pretty young girl called Linda - fresh out of school who intended to take a year to decide what she wanted to do with her life. At the beginning I had her coming in at noon to cover the busy lunch-time period, intending to have her leave at three o’clock. Right from the start she ended up staying until closing time almost every day. I made her full time after two weeks.

On the third week I hired Jenny, another pretty young girl. She was not quite as smart as Linda though. She had left school after her Junior Cert., happy with that level of education for herself – which I believe shouldn’t be enough for anybody. I kept her part–time on a twelve to three shift from Monday to Friday and all day Saturday.

Then I hired Paddy. This was risky for several reasons, but I knew that a job would have a huge positive effect on Paddy’s life and couldn’t but give the man the opportunity. The risk paid off and then some! It only took a little bit of reshuffling of the fixtures for Paddy to be totally manoeuvrable around the shop
floor; after over a year in the wheelchair, he was quite adept at flinging it around.

The inaccessibility of our bathroom facilities (they were down a spiral staircase in the basement) was overcome by the nice people in Burger King across the road letting him use their wheelchair-accessible toilets. I rewarded them by giving everybody that worked there the same ten per cent discount that the couriers got off us, which generated a substantial amount of sales for the shop. It developed into one of those situations where everybody was a winner.

Paddy was clean-shaven, fresh and punctual all the time. He had been drinking too much and doing lots of drugs and I had my concerns about his demons getting the better of him and me having to let him go, but the job was just the catalyst he needed to take control of things and he did.

The only time he was ever hungover at work was the occasional Saturday after Friday night in the local with the lads and I can’t complain about that because I was always there also!

Saturday is the busiest day for most retailers, but not for us. The vast majority of our business comes from office workers and Baggot Street is off the beaten track for the throngs of Saturday shoppers, so Saturday most weeks was actually our quietest day. We developed a routine for Saturdays, with the two girls opening up at nine, myself and Paddy arriving about eleven. The girls would go early (provided we weren’t too busy) and we would lock up. Since everybody was paid for the full day, everybody was a winner and happy with the arrangement.

Paddy became very knowledgeable very quickly. I suggested, well, actually more like insisted, that all of the staff read the manual of every model of phone that we sold to help them understand our stock and be better equipped to give our customers exactly what they were looking for, or as close to it as we had, thus maximising sales.

Paddy attacked this task voraciously. He always had at least one manual with him, he used to take them home with him to study and he used to pester me with questions continuously. It wasn’t long before the girls were able to ask Paddy questions
relating to our stock as well as me.

His knowledge combined very well with his personability and his eagerness to develop Paddy into a valuable member of our team and even an integral part of my plans for the future. I have my eye on a premises over on Talbot Street in Dublin one as a second outlet and it will either be Paddy or Linda that will be the manager. It’s all good, one way or the other!

I’m still living in Windy Arbour alone in the flat that I used to share with Vinno. I told the landlady – little Aoife – that if she wanted more rent I could clear out her daddy’s old room for her. She got quite upset thinking about it, so I suggested we leave it for now, but that when the time came, I would give all of his gear to his old workmates and sell off his bikes and assorted projects and give her the money.

I paid Stef for his Simpson lid and wear it in his memory. He never did see the end product, but he would have been proud if he ever had. Stef did a superb job of the paintwork. The snarl is terrifying, the dark visor is topped by a realistic beastly brow, the flesh looks so life-like that it is a surprise to touch it and feel a smooth surface. All in all it’s the scariest looking helmet that I have ever seen.

I added the price of the helmet in with the second month’s rent that I banked for Aoife.

I got a car van for the shop, applied for and passed my B-class driving test first time, as you’d expect somebody with two years of the most dangerous full-on hardcore motoring under his belt to do.

Driving a cage within the speed limit, it would have been a hugely disappointing surprise to me had it been otherwise. I talked my way through the test, commenting to myself about everything that I was doing and why and verbalising every decision I made as if the instructor wasn’t there. This behaviour might make you feel like some sort of nutter, but it is advised and can be beneficial.

I also have a new bike. It’s a Honda XR 650 single cylinder monster trial bike that has been souped up and super moto’ed. Super motoing a trial bike means putting race bike wheels and
brakes on it. This means it handles and stops like a race bike, despite the rider being upright on it hanging onto wide handle-bars. The souped up part of it entails a KNN race carburettor and air filter combined with a full Akrapovic exhaust system.

This baby goes like a hot snot and sounds like the gates of Hades have burst open and every demon therein is on the way – fast! Stef has taken photos of it and is working on designing a paint job to match, or even to compliment the helmet. As it is, I can’t think of a more appropriate machine for the Simpson beast to be astride than this animal.

My new girlfriend hasn’t been on it yet though, being so afraid of bikes in general and this monster in particular. Her fear of bikes is one of the reasons that she refused my advances the first time I asked her out, said refusal being the reason that I wore my suit the second time and approached her desk business card first pretending that I was there canvassing to supply the whole company with top of the range phones. The company was Faulkner-Turner solicitors on Hatch Street and the receptionist was Regina.

I suppose I never really got over her refusal to go out with me the first time I asked her out. How could she say no to somebody in full macho courier splendour?