“Jaysus lads, I had this fuckin’ great dream a while back.”
“Wet was it?”
“No, we were in a pub ...”
“For a change.”
“... watchin’ the world cup, and it was in Ireland, but instead of football it was a bands world cup, like a sing-off or somethin’, an’ I was all excited ‘cos U2 had beaten the Rolling Stones in the semi final.”
“Ah Ha Ha, that’s cool, eating cheese were we?”
“Yeah, and REM and Pink Floyd were in the other semi.”
“Why don’t I ever have dreams like that?”
We were in O’Grady’s. The place was black so we were lucky to get a space near a wall with a ledge for our pints. There were a few Dubs around for the match tomorrow so we were discussing football.
“Speaking of football, what was that sketch? There were football players playing snooker, right? and every time they potted a ball they’d pull their jerseys over their heads, like this gobshite the other week, and run around the table doing cartwheels and kissing the other players. Fuckin’ gas.”
“Heh Heh Heh, that’s gas.”
“It sounds pythonesque.”
“Yeah, in that case they should also have snooker players playing football, and ... Ah Ha Ha Ha ... every time the ball would come near them they’d stop, walk around it and look at it from every angle, y’know, wearing their waistcoats and shirts ...”
We were breaking our bollixes laughing at this stage, I was doing the actions for emphasis in the limited space I had.
“... then he’d put some chalk on the end of his boot and he’d gently tap it over to the other player.”
“Heh Heh Heh! That is a fuckin’ Monty Python sketch.”
“It wasn’t, I dreamt it.”
Brian came back with the pints and we set them on our ledge, then they were tasted and approved of. We looked around at each other, contented. Mmmmm, country pints.
Paul and Brian started giving us the low down on the Galway scene, sessions and pubs, the mainstay of our social lives. Galway sounded and felt like a smaller more compact and relaxed version of Dublin, which had outgrown itself in recent years. It was nice to be in a backwater city again. None of us were so old that we didn’t remember Dublin before the tiger and we’d all witnessed the glass cages spring up along the quay, so to speak. Tony, being in his early thirties felt fully justified in singing ‘Dublin in the Rare Oul’ Times’, if he sang that was.
“Any chance of finding a session tonight?” enquired Spud to immediate jeers of ‘no way’, ‘ah Jaysus’ and ‘fuck’s sake, we just finished playing’.
I think we felt a little odd at socialising together without instruments in our hands. I’d never had a drink with either Spud or Tony outside of a session, but it was alright, they were good drinking company and we were on a busman’s holiday.
Paul went for the second round. Tony as usual had some gear and had gotten a one-skinner together in the jax. Brian and Paul were having a conversation about city planning which Spud was trying to disrupt ‘cos it wasn’t interesting.
“I’ll tell you about city planning, if you land on Mayfair build a hotel and four houses,”
“Mono-Polly, hey Brian you know her, don’t you?”
“Oh yeah, Polly-phonic.”
“What about some gee?”
“Yes, a fine, though crude, suggestion. Some female vaginas.”
“We could head down to The Priory,” suggested Paul.
“Yeah, there’s fuck all happening here.”
We were between the majority of the pub and the jax, and with the bar still filling up and a constant traffic of full bladders brushing past us and empty ones coming back, we were getting increasingly uncomfortable. We agreed to finish up our bevs and head to the place where the chicks were at. Anyway, Tony had that bit of gear rolled up in his shirt pocket just waiting to be sparked up. My feet suddenly felt funny and when I looked down I noticed I was standing on my coat which had slipped off its perch.
“Ah, fuck this for a game of soldiers, let’s get outta here.”
“Yeah, c’mon lads, neck the fuckin’ things for Christ’s sake,” said Spud who was nursing an empty glass impatiently.
“Make not haste, master Spud, time is not, thankfully, of the essence.”
“C’mon the fuck, Shakespeare. Bring the bleedin’ thing with you if you can’t keep up with the pace. That’s the Jaysusin’ essence of the matter of fact.”
We convinced Tony to bring his pint with him, then removed our coats from under our feet and threw them over our shoulders and prepared to hack our ways through the filling-bladdered masses.
“Galway United!!!! Galway United!!!!” sang Spud as we passed a group of green and white hooped Rovers supporters on the way out, but it didn’t quite ring through being sung in a thick Dublin accent. We got outside and everyone fumbled desperately for fags and our cravings were seen to fairly lively.
“Shall we adjourn to a more suitable location to partake of a bit of gear?”
“Yeah, good thinkin’, Batman. Let’s head down to the bridge, it’s just around the corner down there.”
We headed towards the bridge, giddy with the thought of our impending giddiness. We passed by a pub on the way and Paul suggested we pop our heads in to see what the craic was. As it happened, we had stumbled upon the Holy Grail. Chicks everywhere, seemingly in a big group.
“A gaggle of giggling girls!!!!”
“Oh my.”
Paul’s alliteration was spot on. I wasn’t sure how many giggling girls constituted a ‘gaggle’ but this was a fuckin’ gaggle and a half.
“Fuck me, it’s Blaithín’s birthday party!”
“Jaaaaayyyysssuuuussss.”
“An erroneous deduction, Mr Murphy, unless Galway tradition dictates that the birthday girl be obliged to wear a bridal veil and a strap-on dildo,” said Tony spotting the bride-to-be.
“A hen night, better again.”
“Gents, let us first take care of the question of the unsmoked gear and then we can return.”
“No bad, no bad.”
We headed back out in to the night air and tripped lightly along the ledge. Suddenly, Tony wasn’t with us. Looking back we saw he was hanging around outside the bar talking to some guy. A bouncer? Here? More likely a barman sneaking a quick fag. Me and Spud went back to escort him, by the oxters if necessary, but the problem was the pint he was still clutching.
“... I am aware of that fact, but the point of the matter is that I am not removing anything from your premises. This particular pint is from O’Grady’s and therefore not subject to the rules and regulations of this establishment.”
The barman looked confused for a second as he struggled to grasp Tony’s point and his official sounding delivery. “What? Do you work for the union or something?” He looked at us and at how Tony was grasping his pint and said “... ok ... fair enough ... go on,” and we went off to catch up with the lads.
The Galway streets were heaving with roaming mobs, couples, weirdos, buskers and jugglers taking advantage of the drunken Saturday night crowds, and us, with fanny on our minds.
“Oh yeah, I’m feeling lucky tonight, do you feel lucky, punk?”
“Yeah, go ahead make my week.”
“Make my year, more like.”
Suddenly Brian burst into song, “I’ll be cummin’ in some quare one when she cums.”
Tony roared, “WHEN SHE CUMS ...”
Spud took up the challenge, “... she’ll be wearing no pyjamas when she cums ...”
My turn, “... I’ll climb her like a mountain, me dick’ll be like a fountain ... AH HA HA HA.”
Altogether, HA HA HA HA HA.
Me and Spud couldn’t walk from laughing. We bent over double and had to be escorted along the road by Tony and Brian who weren’t much better themselves.
“She’ll be blowin’ two fat llamas when she cums.”
We made it to the bridge and lit up. We got some funny looks as people passed by. Some fuckin’ scanger came up and bummed a fag, which he got, then asked for a toke, for which he got only abuse from Spud and Paul.
“Hey Brian, don’t be fuckin’ greedy tonight. You got your hole last weekend. Leave the easy targets for those in need.”
“All’s fair in getting your hole and war.”
“Jaysus lads, that’s a grand toke, a few tunes now wouldn’t go amiss.”
“Holy Jaysus, you gotta be kidding me.”
“No, I love playin’ when I’m stoned, the dope takes over and plays for ye. I do be sittin’ there lookin’ at me fingers an’ wonderin’ how the fuck ...”
“I only get that if I’ve been playin’ already, y’know, a halftime toke and I’m flying, but if I smoke and THEN start playin’ then I’m fucked.”
“Not that that stops ye.”
“Does it fuck.”
“C’mon, let’s head back.”
We headed back to the hen party passing back and forth the remains of the day. Brian was in campfire mood and burst into song, again.
“Mná Mná.”
Me, “du duuu du du du.”
“Mná Mná.”
“du du du du.”
“Mná Mná.”
“du duuu du du du, du du du, du du du, du du du du du.”
Everyone together, “DU DU D-DUU DU.”
“Would you be cognisant of the fact that that particular piece of music was originally composed for a Swedish soft-porn production?”
“No it wasn’t, that’s from The Muppets.”
“Believe what you will.”
“Ah, Mná na hÉireann.”
“If I could find you …” sang Paul.
“That’s bleedin’ ‘Carrickfergus’ ye gobshite.”
“Your fuckin’ oul’ one.”
We got back to the pub and took up our positions somewhere in between the bar and the chicks. Whose-ever round it was went to the bar and the rest of us checked out the targets. They were all suitably pissed, and squawking like a hen-house with a fox in it, appropriately enough I suppose. They took up a couple of tables. There were veils, rubber presents and cocktails everywhere.
The pints came down and were gotten stuck into. I realised I was bloody pissed about half way down, and I LIKED IT!!
Spud identified a weakened member of the herd and made his move.
“Who’s getting married?” was his opener.
The girl looked at him sarcastically, “... the girl ... with the veil.”
“Does her husband know she has a dick?”
“No, do you know that you are one?”
“Ha Ha! very good, here, what are you drinking?”
Suddenly she was interested, “a cocktail.”
“Well, if you’ve got the tail then I’ve got the cock,” came back Spud, the old charmer.
Touché. Spud turned back to us as nonchalantly as he could and joined in the conversation.
I use the term ‘conversation’ in its loosest possible sense. We were all stoned and pissed at this stage, and standing in the middle of a heaving crowd didn’t help matters one little bit. Plus it was my round and I had to elbow my way close enough to the bar to shout our order to the barman and then collect it when it came.
“I’m not sure we’re goin’ to have too much luck with this lot.”
“Fuck it.”
“The bride-to-be would be a nice prize.”
“You wouldn’t do that, would ye? Shag a girl the night before her wedding?”
“Fuckin’ sure, an’ anyway, she’s not getting married tomorrow. Look at the fuckin’ state of her.”
Spud was right, she was leading a chorus of ‘Eternal Flame’ by the Bangles, trying to stand up and in the process knocking over a lethal looking cocktail with her strap-on. Which was probably a good thing, the cocktail was a sickly greeny-blue and was only short of having smoke come out of the top of it.
I’ve no idea why, but I bummed a bit of dope and a couple of skins off Tony and went to the jax to skin it up. This was a bad move. I ended up spending, I don’t know, at least twenty minutes sitting in a stinky cubicle fumbling with all the shit, trying desperately and mostly unsuccessfully to put dope to flame, tobacco to knee, tongue to paper and all I had at the end was a filter-less abomination of a joint that looked more like a small snake that had just eaten a large rabbit.
I went back out to the lads and there they were, exactly where I left them ... gone. At least my pint was where I’d left it, but by now it was warm and had a yellow concaved head. I sank it back and felt the ends of it dribble down my chin. I went outside to see if they were having a smoke. They weren’t, so I had one. I sparked up the spliff, well, I lit it half way down and managed to get a couple of drags out of it before it became pretty much unsmokeable then I went back inside.
I surveyed the shop with one eye closed to aid focusing and limit double-vision, then I staggered around through the merrying throng. My situation was looking pretty fuckin’ desperate until I spied Spud sitting behind a pillar chatting to some quare one.
“There ye are! For fuck’s sake, where are the lads?”
“Eh, dunno. They said they were goin’ somewhere.”
“WHA? Goin’ where?”
“Dunno. Tony told me they were headin’ somewhere … hey, this is Annie Ryan, she’s from Dublin ...”
But when he turned around again Annie Ryan from Dublin had already done likewise and was tentatively embroiled in a semi recognizable version of ‘I-I-I Will Always Love You-oooo-oo-oo’.
“C’mon let’s go look for them.”
Spud turned to Annie Ryan from Dublin and shouted “I’ll be back.”
“OK ... see ye later, terminator ... ye fuckin’ gobshite!”
Yep, she was from Dublin alright.
Now, hindsight can be a wonderful thing, but given that, by this stage, we had both imbibed the bones of two gallons and a few shorts each and were in possession of neither hindsight nor foresight, any discussion on the matter would be purely academic.
We headed outside, took deep breaths of fresh Galway air and reached for our fags.
“Where did they say they were going?”
“I dunno! Tony came over to me and said they were headin’ somewhere but I was tryin’ to get busy with yer one ... (suppresses stomach action and indicates with head) ...”
“ ... Annie Ryan,” I suggested.
“Yeah, Annie Ryan, an’ ... I dunno.”
Spud was hardly a fountain of useful information at the best of times but right now it was like trying to extract teeth from hungry bear with a headache. Suddenly I remembered what century I was in and reached for my mobile. I pressed some buttons and called Brian. The connection made, the phone started ringing.
“C’mon Brian, feel the vibrations,” I mumbled to myself knowing bloody well he was in a pub somewhere and wouldn’t be able to hear it. Then I heard Brian’s voice.
“HELLO?”
“BRIAN? FOY! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YIS?”
“WHA’? WHO’S THIS?”
“FOY! FOY!!!! WHERE ARE YIS?”
“FOY? IT’S BRIAN, WHERE ARE YIZ?”
“I KNOW IT’S YOU, I JUST CALLED YE! Ye fuckin’ eejit.”
“WE’RE IN THE PUB! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YIZ?”
“WE’RE LOOKIN’ FOR YE. WHICH PUB? WHERE ARE YIZ?”
“HELLO? FOY? WHERE ARE YE? DID YOU FIND SPUD? WE TOLD HIM ... beep beep.”
My phone had been on for about thirty six hours. Another ten seconds was all it needed to fulfil its purpose, but the screen had gone blank.
“SHIT!! ... Here, give us your phone,” I said to Spud.
“Wha’ phone?”
“What phone? Your mobile phone, I hope you have credit and batteries for a call.”
“I ... I haven’t got a mobile phone, Ha Ha!”
“Oh, COCK!!” Who the fuck doesn’t have a mobile phone? We were supposed to be crashing in Paul’s gaff for the night, shit! ... We could ... effectively ... be homeless in a strange city, with none of our wits about us.
The only thing we could think of was to continue on our original trail. This place was a dead loss so they probably headed on up to the ... the ... emm ... what the fuck was it called? ... the ... the PRIORY, that was it, but where the fuck was ‘The Priory’?
We tried to approach a girl walking down the road but we must’ve looked like fuckin’ zombies ‘cos she crossed the street and half walked, half ran away from us. The next guy we approached was a little more accommodating, actually, a lot more accommodating. He didn’t know where ‘The Priory’ was but he stopped a couple walking nearby. The other guy didn’t know either but his girlfriend did, she told him, who in turn told our guy who relayed the information to us. This was no time to be playing Chinese whispers but it sounded close enough and seemed fairly straightforward.
The next thing I know, we’re in a pub and I’m hoping it’s ‘The Priory’. We shuffle through the crowds, back and forth, to and froing, heaving and ho-ing, but no sign of the lads. It felt like it was approaching closing time so we had only one option left.
“Fuck it, I’ll have a short as well. There are sorrows to be drowned.
Here, wait, actually, you stay here, there’s no fuckin’ way you’ll get served. Look at the fuckin’ state o’ ye,” said the pot to the kettle.