Surviving Michael (7 page)

‘No.’

‘Too old?’ I ask, raisin’ me eyebrows at him. I stop sortin’ the letters for a few seconds. ‘I don’t do them.’

‘What? No. No, of course not.’

Blanchardstown, Dublin 15. Baldoyle, Dublin 13.

He shifts from one foot to another. I know what he wants. I get it abou’ once a month. They go for the regular porn for a while, but then sooner or later they have to ask for wha’ they really want. First it’s couples. Then it’s threesomes, two blokes and a girl. Moving on up to orgies, gangbangs, and all the time the female role dwindlin’ and the pussy to cock ratio decreasin’.

‘Too straight?’

‘What?’

‘Too straight,’ I repeat. ‘I’ve got some of them, but I don’t have them with me. I’ll bring them in next week. They’re harder to get though, so they’re a bit more expensive. Fifteen euro. Come see me on Monday.’

Phibsborough, Dublin 7. Rathborne. Rathborne?

‘Paddy,’ I call over.

‘What?’

‘What’s Rathborne?’

‘Dublin fifteen,’ Paddy shouts back.

‘That’s not what I meant, Liam.’

‘It’s alright. There’s no need to be embarrassed,’ I tell him. ‘I’m getting lots of requests for the gay stuff lately. No doubt somethin’ to do with the heat.’

‘I’m not gay,’ he insists. I turn to face him. He’s gone a bit red. ‘They’re not too straight. That’s not what I meant.’

‘Too wha’, then?’

He turns and looks around. ‘Too white,’ he finally confesses.

‘Too white?’ I repeat.

‘Yeah,’ he says and shoves his hands into his pockets and looks down at the ground. ‘I’d like them a bit more...’

‘Non-white?’

‘Yeah.’

‘That’s no problem,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve got loads of them.’

He smiles at me. I wish he didn’t.

‘So what is it?’ I ask. ‘Asian, black, interracial, Indian, Arab, Japanese schoolgirl, Latina...’

‘Just black,’ he blurts out.

‘Just black? Okay. No problem.’

He smiles again.

‘Black on white, white on black, or black on black?’

He thinks about this. ‘White on black.’

‘Lesbian, young, old, MILF, teen, BBW, bondage, DVDA..?’

‘Just regular stuff,’ he interrupts me again.

‘You sure?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Okay, then. I might have somethin’ in the car. I’ll put it in your locker later.’

He fumbles into his pocket and pulls out a tenner. Me hands are full of mail.

‘Just throw it there,’ I tell him.

He puts it on the bench and then stands there not sure what to say, when there is nothin’ to say. I turn back to me work.

Blackrock, County Dublin. Cabra, Dublin 7.

‘Thanks,’ he eventually says and shuffles off.

I look up at the wall clock. It’s just gone three pm. The last few hours on a Friday are always the slowest, and the seat gets the most uncomfortable. I’ve spoken to the union about it already. It’s not right that a man of my proportions has to use the same size chair as everyone else. You can’t even see the fuckin’ chair under me for fuck sake. It’s like I’m levitating in front of me bench like Jabba the Hutt in mid-air.

I reach into the cubby hole of Dublin thirteen, and pull out a Mars bar. I open it and shove half of it into me mouth, and then open a can of coke, just as Frank is walkin’ behind me.

‘No eatin’ on the floor,’ he declares, but doesn’t stop.

He doesn’t stop because every Monday I put a new DVD in his locker. He has to be seen to be in charge, but we both know that I could have a whole fuckin’ picnic on this bench and he wouldn’t do shit. Big breasted blonde secretaries. That’s what he’s into. He must have over a hundred of them by now.

I supply about half the men in here with porn. I used to download all the latest Hollywood blockbusters from pirate websites and print out a sheet with the titles. I’d always put a few hardcore titles at the end.

Anyways, one of the lads in here, his missus brought their computer in for repair after it picked up a virus. The repair bloke showed her all these websites and images that were on his hard drive. Some nasty stuff as well apparently.

Even though he’d always cleared the history, it’s still always there on the computer. She kicked him out of the house for a couple of weeks, and only let him back in after he agreed he’d go to a therapist to talk about his ‘problem’. Gobshite. It worked out great for me though, as ever since then I found that more and more, the lads just wanted the porn from me list, so I started addin’ more and more of them.

The classics at first;
Romancing the Bone
,
Forrest Hump
,
Jurassic Pork
,
Shaving Ryan’s Privates, Sherlock Bones
. Then I started gettin’ a few specific requests. Just lesbian or just Asians or a hundred other fetishes, so now I scour the web and can please most tastes. I have a few grand’s worth of equipment at home and buy special software to download and convert the films. I’m actually pretty proud of me work.

I make more from the DVD sales now than I do from workin’ in here thirty seven and a half hours a week sortin’ mail. I’d like to pack in the day job but this is where most of me sales come from. Not just the guys that work in here, but their friends, and the friends of their friends. Like a pyramid effect with me at the top.

I don’t have any female customers, as far as I know, unless there’s one or two of them down the chain, which is strange as it’s mostly females that work in and run the porn industry. They even get paid a lot more than the men. Unless you’re someone like a Ron Jeremy, or a Steven St. Croix, or even a Randy Spears. Those guys get the big bucks. And yet even the fact that it’s mostly the women in charge, they have very little to do with the end product. It’s final use. It’s generally only the men who have need or want for the finished goods.

Less than an hour before I’m out of here. I think leavin’ here on a Friday is the only time in the whole week that I can honestly say that I feel good. That I’m... well, almost happy.

Churchtown, Dublin 14. Ballyfermot, Dublin 10. Tallaght, Dublin 24.

Christ, it’s fuckin’ roastin’ today. I’ve got twenty two sheets of DVD requests in me bag, so I’ve a busy weekend ahead. I’m supposed to be goin’ out with the mates later. I wouldn’t bother but me cousin Charlie’s goin’ to be there, and he hasn’t been out with us in ages, and besides we always go out on this date every year. I need to get out of that room for a while anyway. Lately whenever I close me eyes, all I can see are naked bodies ridin’ each other.

I once seen Charlie in this porno I was downloadin’. I never told him. He was goin’ at these two forty-year-old women to beat the band. Ridin’ them like the clappers. That’s the only one I ever seen him in, but I bet he’s done more. Besides that though, me bedroom’s going to be fuckin’ meltin’ with all the computers on full blast.

Me Ma’s been goin’ ape shit lately at the size of the electricity bills she’s been gettin’. I’d better throw her a few extra quid to keep her quiet. I should just get me own place, and I was goin’ to once because me mam... well, I don’t want to talk about it, but I didn’t in the end.

Now that me da is retired, he’s always hangin’ around the place too. He used to be a fireman in town. When I left school he tried to get me into the fire brigade, but the try-out was a bleedin’ disaster.

I was given this thirty foot length of hose and told to run across the yard, and then climb a fifty foot ladder. I was even a lot trimmer and fitter back then. Definitely under twenty stone anyway. I says to the fella, ‘what? Are you bleedin’ mad?’ But everyone had to do it. On top of that, it was a scorcher of a day like today.

As I was runnin’, the hose slipped over me shoulder and started wrappin’ round me neck, like some fuckin’ giant anaconda that was squeezin’ every last drop of sweat out of me. I fell flat on me face. When I managed to lift me head off the tarmac, I had all these tiny black pebbles indented into the side of me face, and I seen me dad walkin’ off in disgust.

That winter I finally got a job workin’ on this half-finished five-storey building down in the docklands. There weren’t even any bleedin’ windows in the thing. It was fuckin’ freezin’. Me hands were in pain and red raw all the time. Anyways, one day I was takin’ a crap on the third floor, when there’s all this bangin’ on the door.

‘Who the fuck’s in there?’ the foreman was screamin’.

It took a lot of effort to stand up and pull back on me jocks and trousers. When I opened the door, the foreman’s standin’ there and he grabs me by the scruff of the neck. I seen these three other lads behind him and they’re tryin’ not to break their shite laughin’. I didn’t know what the fuck was goin’ on.

‘What the fuck are you doin’ in there?’ he yells at me.

‘I was just...’ I started to say.

‘The toilet’s not connected, you moron,’ he spits into me face. ‘You’re shittin’ on my men down there.’

To be honest, I didn’t last much longer after that. It was only November, and I heard they weren’t fitting the windows till March. Besides that though, everyone was callin’ me by my new nickname, ‘Shitter’. It was a source of enormous embarrassment for me – ‘Pass me the trowel, Shitter.’ ‘Tell, Paddy he’s wanted on the phone, Shitter.’ ‘Hey, Shitter, ask them to put some extra brown sauce on mine.’ Stuff like that.

I started workin’ for An Post after that. First I was a postman, but it was takin’ me too long to deliver the mail, and I wasn’t gettin’ back till nearly five o’clock every day. Also, I couldn’t reach any of the letterboxes that were at the bottom of the doors.

They only copped the long hours when some heads from the GPO turned up to find out how the inspector was earnin’ two grand a week. He had to wait for me to come back to the depot every day before he was able to go home, and he was puttin’ in for all this mad overtime. It was costin’ them a bleddin’ fortune so they moved me to the Dublin Mail Centre on the Nangor Road, even though technically it’s a promotion to Grade Two. I was glad to get out of that delivery office anyway. It was only one step away from a fully licensed mental institution. And a very short step at that.

It’s only in the last couple of years that me DVD sales have been goin’ so well. I have a good few bob in the bank, but there’s not a lot that I need to buy. I have a little motor, but I’m not into cars. At the end of this year, though, I’m plannin’ on a three week holiday to Thailand. I’m goin’ on me own, but I might see if Nick wants to come. I’ll buy him his ticket and all, but I don’t see why I should as the fucker wouldn’t let me move in with him last year, the prick.

He’s been a bit depressin’ ever since Aoife hasn’t been on the scene. She was a nice girl. It’s a pity, but a couple of weeks of Asian poontang might sort him out. I might ask Charlie instead, or even Hopalong Cassidy, although he doesn’t like me callin’ him that. I’ll tell you what though, I’d ride the arse off that American bird of his. On second thoughts, Danny wouldn’t go anywhere without that chick. Don’t blame him either.

I was a bit put out at first when I heard that a lot of people at work were callin’ me ‘The Porno King’. But to be honest, I don’t mind it all that much now. I am a bit of an expert anyway. There’s very little in porn that I haven’t seen, although I can watch it now for six hours non-stop, downloadin’ and editin’ it, and I wouldn’t even get a hard-on. And besides, there aren’t too many people out there that can be called the king of somethin’. Beats ‘Shitter’ anyway.

Charlie and Nick are already in Broderick’s when I arrive. The skirt in this place is unreal tonight. I don’t remember chicks lookin’ this good when I was their age. Charlie’s fucked off already to chat up a bird. No sign of Nick yet. Hope he comes soon so I’m not stuck with Danny on me own. He’s in his flowers tonight. He can be a cantankerous fucker when he wants to be. I seen that in a lot of blokes that go out with girls that are much better lookin’ than them. Not that Danny’s an ugly fucker or anything, it’s just that you’d expect to see Ruby with someone more like Charlie, or even Ricky.

It’s like this film I seen once about this couple on a cruise ship, and he’s paranoid that she’s cheatin’ on him behind his back ’cause every bloke fancies her, even though he’s ridin’ the gym instructor and a waitress and the Latina nurse. Eventually she gets sick of his jealousy and she starts screwin’ everyone; the pool lifeguard, the captain and even the nurse as well. She called it his self-fulfillin’ prophecy. You can learn a lot from pornos. I think they all ended up havin’ a massive orgy on the captain’s deck but the couple stayed together, which was nice.

Ruby brings us over our drinks. There’s somethin’ different about her tonight. Like something’s happened. I’m not sure what it is exactly.

‘Thanks, babe,’ Danny says. ‘When can we talk?’

‘I’m swamped, Danny,’ she says. ‘I’ll try and take a break later, okay?’

Danny doesn’t say anythin’ as she goes back to work.

‘They’re a good couple, aren’t they?’ I say to him.

‘What?’

‘Ruby and Ricky.’

‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean?’ he says, and looks royally pissed off.

‘I mean they work well together for all intensive purposes,’ I tell him, ‘Jesus, chill out, man. You’re like a poisonous snake tonight.’

He takes a sip from his pint, but he looks in the height of it. Whenever someone’s in a bad mood, it’s hard to say anythin’ to them without pissin’ them off.

‘It’s for all intents and purposes, you gobshite. And snakes aren’t poisonous,’ he mumbles.

‘What?’

‘Snakes. They’re not poisonous.’

‘Yeah, not all of them but some are,’ I tell him. What the fuck is he talkin’ about?

‘No, they’re venomous. Somethin’ is only poisonous if you eat it. Snakes inject their venom.’

‘So if I eat one and it has poison in it, will I not get sick?’

‘I suppose so,’ he says.

‘So there.’

‘So there what? What are you talkin’ about?’

‘What are you fuckin’ talkin’ about?’

I see Nick comin’ in and he spots me and nods over and starts walkin’ over to us but Charlie spots him too and calls over to him. He turns and sees Charlie and then turns back to me and raises a finger in the air to me as if to say ‘I’ll be with you in a minute’, and then walks over to Charlie.