Blaming it all on Paul

When I came to class late and my homework was nowhere to be found you looked at me with viscous eyes from your serene teacher’s face.

My tired eyes spoke nothing to you. You only saw another student with an excuse waiting, the story of how no work was done when to much play was at stake. But I wanted to take you aside and tell you about Paul’s death. Then how would you react when I described how the fifteen-year-old boy took his father’s gun and blew his head off? The shocked look on your face would tell me all I needed to know. That it was all-right you understood, my work could come in at a later time, you hoped the families were coping well. Instead I am too ashamed to use Paul’s death, knowing it was never the reason for my tardiness. You scribble a comment down beside my name a little arrow to attack my grade-point-average all because I would not use Paul’s death.

Talking late at night and my mind is not there for you and we fight because these kinds of words come easier than pleasant words of love. You yell down the line how I don’t try, I never listen, I don’t make the effort. But how could I with the burden of Paul’s death. I can’t say this to you and blame it on the boy who said goodbye to my father and his mother then said goodbye to life. You would know this was not the reason, this devilish news sitting at the back of my mind. How the hell do I comprehend it or deal with it. I want to talk to you about it but the words are not there. The one’s that tell you I knew his pain, I understand his anger and confusion and how brave and foolish he was. But no it’s no good, well just fight more and I will tell you I am sorry and I truly am, please forgive me. I can’t blame it on Paul’s death.

The angry maintenance man, angry at the world for screwing him up the ass when he was trying to do the same to the world, comes to me in a fit of rage and reduces my manhood to boyish tears. Telling me it’s all my fault, that I am too blame. I want to scream into his face, it’s not my fault, it's Paul’s death. The fifteen year old boy who lies in the cold ground in St. Mary’s graveyard up Church road, dead long before he had ever lived not fair that one so young should have been so angry and have taken so much action. When I would say these words to you, you would soften and shake my hand and tell me you were sorry you had a bad day you didn’t mean it, it will O.K. No I can’t use Paul’s death, his is not for me to use, somebody else yes but not I. I had never met him, yet emotions are here with me and I know why. Poor Paul.

Girl on a Beach

Today is the 19th of January 2006, the third anniversary of Mum's passing and this is a little poem dedicated to her. We all miss her, but each year gets easier:

You were just a little girl
Sitting on the beach,
With a pen and scraps of paper;
While a storm raged on.

You could have run away,
Sought safer ground,
But you wanted to capture the fierce beauty
That lay within the winds.

Sand blasted your face,
Stinging your eyes; grit in your teeth,
But the words kept coming,
Your hand kept moving
And you stayed to catch them all.

All around you waves crashed off rocks,
Hurricane strength winds lifted sand-banks,
Changing your surroundings.
You clung to the edge of your towel,
Grasping to something familiar.

The tides rose higher and higher,
The waves crashed closer and closer:
Caught between the Moon and the Earth
In their giant game of tug-o’-war.

It was too late for anyone to save you;
No lifeguard on duty, nobody watching.
Swept away in a deafening roar
By an awesome natural force.

Your pen, clutched by a lifeless hand,
But the scraps of paper blew inland.
The ink was running, wet from sea-water and tears,
But the words, the beautiful words, could still be read:

You suffered, gave yourself as a poetic sacrifice,
So we could know the beauty that lay within a storm.

Sarah Came Home Today

Last year we had two roosters, Brian and Lady, and a chicken called Sarah. Lady is called Lady because we thought he was a lovely white chicken until he started to crow and fight with Brian.

Last year Daddy lived at home too. He and Mommy had been arguing a lot and Daddy didn’t come home until very late at night and Mommy would lock him outside. Then he had to get his own apartment and I can go there once a week.

Daddy is from Mexico and we all went to live there a few years ago, but now we live in Kansas City. My Mommy is from Oregon and I lived there too.

Daddy and Mommy were very young when I was born and even though they were married they didn’t do it right and I’ve heard Mommy call Daddy an “illegal immigrant.” I’m not sure what that means, but I know it has something to do with the Government and Daddy looks real worried when Mom says that.

Daddy can speak English and Spanish and so can I, but Mom only speaks English and when she speaks a little Spanish she sounds funny and is silly.

Without Daddy at home our electricity was turned off, then our phone and then our water. I showered over at the neighbor’s and we could use their phone too. Our neighbor grew up in Oregon too and she and my Mom used to be best friends. But now they shout at each other too.
Mommy said not to worry because I would be going to Oregon soon to stay with her aunt Rosie for my summer vacation.

I love staying with Rosie and her friend Phil, they are not really my aunts, but they tell me to call them Aunty. Last year when I stayed with them I got new clothes and dolls and got to eat all the time. They wanted me to eat the same food as them. At home, Mom let’s me eat whatever I want.

We also have a dog and three cats, so when we go on vacation they have to be looked after by our other neighbor Ann. She has three dogs, a cat and a baby of her own called Chris, he is two.
Oregon was beautiful, not nearly as hot as Kansas City. I stayed in Eugene with Rosie and Phil, but Mommy spent most of her time up in Portland with all her old friends. She didn’t come to see me much and when I did see her she looked very sad. I heard Rosie giving out to her and Mommy shouted back.

Mommy went home a week before me because she was going to climb mountains in Colorado. I know she’s going with her new boyfriend. The blond guy from the nice restaurant our neighbor Sandra works at. She won’t tell me about him, but it’s hard not to know.

Rosie came back to Kansas City with me. She paid all the bills, and got the roof fixed. I loved all my new clothes and shoes but Mommy didn’t like how they looked on me. When I went to bed I heard Rosie shouting and Mommy crying.

In the morning I got to see my dog and the cats and Sarah the chicken. I don’t know where the roosters went. Everyone was whispering and someone said they went to heaven.

I went back to school in August and hated it. Everyone can read and spell and count and even though I am the tallest in the class, I get stuck all the time. I wish I didn’t have to go to school at all, except to play with my friends.

Mommy is not friends with any of the neighbors and Daddy doesn’t even come to pick me up. I get to stay at home by myself, something none of my friends are allowed to do.

I’m going to be eight next week, but Mommy said I can’t have a party until next month when she gets paid. I really want to have a birthday party. Sandra and her husband said they would give me one and all the kids around the neighborhood can come. But Mommy says it can’t be called my birthday party, just a party and we can’t sing Happy Birthday either. Sandra’s husband said Mommy is being “ignorant as hell.” His mom died this year and he’s been grumpy all year. But I think he is right and I want to have a birthday party.

A few weeks later Mom threw me a birthday party and invited lots of adults. She let me make the cake and I didn’t like it. I felt like crying when they all sang “Happy Birthday.” It wasn’t very much fun, but I did get some nice presents.

The next day Sarah the chicken went missing and our dog ate my new toys. He had already eaten my shoes, the futon, the couch and did his business all over the house. Sandra and her husband had taken him for awhile, but he was too much for them with their own two dogs. They gave him back after he had eaten a hole in their wall. That’s why Mom fell out with them. Mommy wanted to send him to the animal shelter, but I cried so much that she didn’t.

All the chickens are gone, and the cats keep running away and Daddy is nowhere. I want Jose around, even if he was a stupid dog that eats everything.

Our phone was cut off again and so was the electricity. Mommy had a friend move into the spare room and he paid the bills and everything was turned on again.

He’s really nice, but he’s only Mommy’s friend. She is still seeing the blond guy, but she never lets me see him. Roger, the new roommate stays at home to look after me because he doesn’t have a job or a car. He just got out of the Marines. He said he had been in Iraq and many other places around the world. Jose got sick on his discharge papers and he was really mad and said he can’t get a job now.

He takes Jose for walks and when Daddy does come around he doesn’t shout at Mommy anymore. I like Roger, I hope he stays.

Christmas will be coming soon and I’ve been told to keep my letter to Santa very short. There are so many things I would like him to bring me (Brian and Lady count as one wish), but I can’t decide which ones to write down.

It snowed the week before Christmas and we went sledding over at the Korean Church. It was very cold, but baby Chris and the Puerto Rican’s kid went too. Roger was there and Sandra and her husband. Mommy came late and did a lot of complaining and wanted us to hurry up so she could go see her boyfriend. I wish she would stay with me more.

Christmas was really nice and Rosie sent me a whole new outfit. Sandra and her husband had us over for dinner and I ate two helpings. Her husband wasn’t too grumpy on Christmas and even gave me a nice present.

I spent Christmas Eve with Daddy, so I didn’t get to see him on Christmas day. The snow melted from the week before, so that was one wish I didn’t get from Santa.

The day after Christmas, which Sandra’s husband calls St. Stephen’s Day, was warm and I was allowed to play outside with no coat on. Jose was tied up to a tree, but he kept barking at the bushes. I went over to see what was wrong with him.

Santa had answered one of my wishes: There was Sarah. I picked her up and she clucked a few times. Just then Sandra and her husband came outside. They called across the road to me and I shouted back “Sarah came home today.” Everything was going to be all right.

Stephen Faherty

It’s never too cold in an Irish winter, no colder really than October or March, but late at night when there is not a cloud in the sky and God’s light show is in full display, a certain crispness creeps into the air and if you’ve forgotten your coat you’ll feel the nip as you stagger home from the pub.

It was on a night like this that forty-two year old Stephen Faherty fell into the side of a back road on Christmas Eve 2012. He’d been drinking in his favorite bar, The Holly Bush, and had been there since five in the evening. He didn’t go to midnight mass on Christmas Eve anymore. In fact he’d mostly given up on God and his Church and all his priests. Frankie the bartender had tried to tell him to go home around nine but he’d got loud and rowdy and it was better just to leave Stephen with his pint and whisky chaser and keep him quiet.

People whispered about him when they thought he was drunk enough not to listen. He was a legend in his own town. He’d grown up there when he was a wee lad and earned great fame at sixteen when he won the Ulster Irish dancing championship. Boys his own age made fun of him for being a dancer, but they were careful not to say it to his face, cause he could dance with his fists just as well as he could with his feet.

He kept up the dancing for years, all the while he finished secondary school and went to college in Dublin. He got first class honors from Trinity in a business commerce degree. That set him up nicely with his first job in a big office in Dublin managing accounts for multinational companies that came to Ireland, raped her for tax incentives for five years and then left. Even though he was becoming a successful young businessman, the dancing was still his real passion. He practiced all he could and in the summers he went to the USA and Australia to compete in the World finals. He’d won it once when he was eighteen and had placed well every year since.

Then the phenomenal success of River Dance broke onto the screen of millions during the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest half-time interval. It was suppose to fill a ten- minute void while the presenters and performers took a break. Instead it rocked Ireland and it shook the world. It made the rest of the amateur entertainers look like pure dog’s bollocks, it was fresh, it was electric it was what Stephen Faherty had been waiting for.

When he saw the dancers fly across the stage, he knew in that instant it was what he wanted to do with his life. It didn’t take long for him to contact RTE and find out where he could meet the right people and learn more about the River Dance. As such there was no word of another show like the one during the Eurovision. However, in the weeks and months following the enthusiasm grew so much that the producers had no choice but to create a full-length version of the River Dance.

Stephen got the call from the organizers, they wanted him to try out as one of the back up dancers. He dreamed of being the man in front of everyone, but that position was filled and there was no chance he was going to give it up. The only problem now facing Stephen was he had to quit his office job in Dublin. The River Dance was going to be full time for at least a year and the pay was nearly half what he was making in Dublin. He thought hard, but not long and took the audition.

He passed with flying colors and three months later he was on stage at the Point Depot dancing before five thousand people. He felt his life come alive for the first time, his stale outer shell crumbled and he could see the look on the faces of people that wanted to be him. He was earning respect for his dancing and that meant more to him than all the money in the world.

He followed the River Dance troop all over Ireland and the UK. The success grew every day and it wasn’t long before a fully-fledged tour of the USA and Australia was in the works. The River Dance became an entity beyond its humble beginnings and no one could keep up with the success of it: not its producers or its main dancers.

Rifts began to tear the original crew apart and there was arguing about money and by the end of the second year the female star of the show was replaced by a nobody and even though she was out there dancing her heart out to thousands of people every night, she didn’t catch the audience like the first girl had. It was then that they knew they had to be careful. Placing the wrong person in the leading role could send the whole magic of the River Dance faltering back to earth and back to the small halls and classrooms of Ireland.

It was because of this thinking that so much energy was spent trying to retain the male star. He wanted more money, wanted half of what the show was earning or he was going to leave and start his own production company. By the end of another year he did leave and Lord of the Dance was competing with River Dance.

Stephen had been asked to join the Lord of the Dance but he wanted to stay with the original troop. The new male lead was an amazing failure. He had about as much charisma as a wet paper bag. Looks he had, but nothing electric, nothing that made him become superhuman when the lights came on and the music started.

A year had passed and The River Dance was loosing ticket sales to the Lord of the Dance, they had to get it right or it would be the end of them. Wherever they went they trailed behind their rivals and the reason for this was that the defector knew their tour schedule and made all his own tour dates a month or two before the River Dance was to perform in any city. This infuriated the River Dance Company, especially since their lead man was nothing compared to the magician of the Lord of the Dance.

They were booked for six nights in Sidney and the first night came out to terrible reviews. People who had already bought tickets for the second show didn’t even turn up and the venue was half-empty. On that night, just before the intermission, the lead miss-timed a jump and caught the back heel of his lady lead square in the face. The sharp heel cut a gash in his face and sent him off balance, he fell hard to the stage floor and the cracking of his knee could be heard for about twenty rows back. All the dancers on the stage froze, the music stopped. Nobody knew what to do. The dancer tried to get up, but his leg was like a useless appendage making him sprawl around the place and the blood gushing out of his face made him quite a sight.

Two men from back stage ran out and grabbed the fallen man and carried him behind the curtain. In a panic the producers were about to get on the microphone and announce they’d have to cancel the performance when Stephen Faherty leapt up in the air, stood beside the leading lady, did a little clip-clip with his heels and raised his hand to signal the orchestra to continue the music.

The magic was back in the River Dance and the reviews of “the man that Saved the River Dance” were so overwhelming that they were forced to add three extra nights to their Sidney shows. They had found what they were missing. Stephen was the most famous man in the world for a week. He was on the cover of nearly every magazine in over eighty countries and the hype for the US tour just took a huge jump and ticket sale soared there too.

The American tour started on the West Coast and slowly made its way east, stopping off in Denver, Kansas City, Chicago, Philadelphia and eventually the highlight of the performing world; Broadway in New York City.

Stephen Faherty stole Broadway, the papers said they hadn’t seen a human move like he did since Fred Astaire was prancing around with Gene Kelly. He signed a contract with the River Dance Company for two more years with an option to extend, increased salary and stock options, to become part owner.

This was the high point of Stephen’s life and that summer when he went home to rest for a month before another nine months of touring he was treated like royalty and his home town threw a huge street ceremony in his honor and allowed all the bars in town to stay open all night without closing.

He bought airline tickets for his parents to go to Jamaica for two weeks, partly for them and partly so he could have some peace and quiet at home without them in his face every five minutes seeing if he wanted something or could they do something for him.

While they were gone he got up around six every morning and went for a five mile run, picking up the paper on the way and after a short work-out he’d have his breakfast and read the paper.
On the sixth day of such luxury he opened the Irish Times and read the headline: Four Irish Slain in Jamaica. His heart jumped in his mouth and his eyes scanned down to the names on the page. He crumpled the paper up into a ball and threw it away.

He was their only son and spoke some very brave words at the funeral. Everything was left to him: the house, the lands, the cars, everything. The River Dance Company tried to make him come back to them, but he refused to even talk. As suddenly as his life began, so too did it end.
This is why it was such a tragedy on Christmas morning 2012 when they found the frozen body of Michael Faherty lying in a ditch on the side of a back road, with more alcohol than blood in him.

Every human has a story to tell; some are of fame, some of riches, love or death. Whatever it be, we should all take a minute to listen and learn from the lives of others.

Short Story of Love

After loading the last of the vines and brush into the back of the Ford pickup, he looked across to her, where she stood gazing into the cleared brush. Her long brown hair lay to her shoulders, the profile of her face, in view, showing off one blue eye, her thin shoulders hung erect, upright posture, T-shirt clinging to her small breasts, he craved to taste one between his lips. Her torn jeans hung about her waist like the finest fashion elegantly on display.

As he called to her she turned her gaze from the brush toward the sound of his voice. She’d worked hard all day with him, cutting vines of poison ivy and unwanted bushes from her grandmother’s backyard. She looked at him now, as if for the first time that day. From the heat of the work, even though it was only April, he had peeled of his sweater and bore only a white under shirt. He still held the chain saw and the veins rippled in his arms from the weight of it. Effortlessly he had wielded it all day. His eyes, she just couldn’t figure out; they were blue as hers, yet they now seemed fathomless, she found herself unable to discern what story they told.
Warmly a sensation arose deep inside her. Her face began to blush and she adverted her eyes from his face. He approached her, all the time keeping his eyes fixed on her face, he stretched his hand out to her proffering the keys.

“You wanna drive?”

“Yeah, sure,” she replied.

They bundled into the cab of the Ford. He couldn’t keep his mind of her, how she had labored all day with the capacity of many a stronger man. This was no prissy girl and he liked that.

She stared through the windshield, at the road ahead, as she gunned the truck’s ignition. She could feel his eyes burning at the side of her face, but she dared not meet his.

“That’s about the last of it” he started.

“Yeah, Grandma will be pleased” she returned.

The truck drove off and the noise of the old engine was the only sound in the cab as the truck moved slowly along the gravel road. Both were keenly aware how far away they were from another single soul and the tension of the isolation and the possibilities it brought seemed to thicken the very air inside the truck.

He too could feel warmth spreading through his body, centering in the groin and radiating out. Rather than let her see him blush, he cracked the window letting in some welcome fresh, cool air. All the while she kept her eyes solidly fixed on the road.

After a while he spoke again. “It’ll be good to finally get this over with.”

“Yeah, sure, wonder what else Grandma might have us do?”

“Dunno” he replied.

The silence crept in again. He knew they were approaching the fork in the road where it turned back towards the camp area and dining hall, where she would take her leave. He lacked the courage to throw his arm around her, make her stop the truck, embrace her and make love to her like wild animals out among the wilderness. If only he could have read her thoughts, that would have become the reality. Instead it lay dormant inside each of the other’s fantasies.

As they reached the fire pit, where they were to discard the vines and brush, he felt a pang of regret inside at the loss of the moment not seized. He helped her up into the back of the truck and began tossing out the debris of their labor.

She pulled a vine causing him to slip, falling towards her. She caught his arm, felt the tense muscle underneath her hand, held it for a mere sensuous second and propped him upright.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

With the truck now cleared she drove it back up to the shop and parked. She carried the gas can and he the chain saw to the concrete pad, where he began taking off the case to clean the innards of the tool. She watched his small, strong, delicate hands working over the chain and body of the saw and imagined what else they were capable of.

A few minutes later he was done and she drove them in her car back to the dining hall. Her Grandma greeted then smiling asking how the chopping and clearing went.

“Fine” they both replied.

She smiled at him, a smile that seemed to belay to him she felt as he did and perhaps this was not the time, but that another would come and they would not lie again to themselves.

“I better be getting back to the city, I’ll see you later Grandma, give me a call,” she said to her Grandma all the time looking at him, smiling.

“See you later Erin, it was nice seeing you again,” he said returning her smile.

“Yeah it was fun, see you again.” She said as she reached out a hand towards his face, and with the gentle touch of someone who has loved another for years, put her finger to his eye and cleaned a little saw dust from the corner of his eye.

His eyes at this moment met hers is a distinct fusion of the soul for a few moments and somehow he managed to get out the word “Thanks” across his lips.

“Sure” she replied and walked towards the door, waving goodbye without looking back.

He walked to the sink and began to wash his hands. Her Grandma started to talk to him and he nodded and said “Aigh” in all the right places, not really listening, but watching her car disappear down the road and out of his life ‘till the next time they met.

Days later her skin and his began to burn from poison ivy, but this physical irritation was nothing compared to the emotional burning hidden deep inside these two estranged souls that had sought and found, but not taken the love that was offered.

Garry: The Lone Donegal Cowboy

This is a little bit of humor and piss-take dedicated to Garry Anderson and the time he liked to wear jodhpurs.


The last few drops of rain splattered off the tent’s canvas cover and rattled off the empty cider cans lying on the ground outside, from the drinking the night before. Garry stretched his arms up out of his sleeping bag embracing the new day and upon feeling the cold quickly reclined his arms and planted them deep inside his bag to scratch and revive his dead nads.

So was the life of Donegal’s only cowboy. He began the solitary life 10 years ago now, after the tragic incident between him and the local Td’s daughter. Her name was Bridge, well it was until they sent her away to the convent after the ordeal. Now she is only known as Sister, Sister Gobnit. Oh what a beauty she was, the finest maiden between Glen Head all the way to Dessie’s and up beyond Ardara as far as the Moss road. Her face was a legend in it’s own time. Some say she was daughter of the Swan, but recent DNA testing has proved this to be incorrect and she was in fact the illegitimate child of Aggie, the old town prostitute! Anyway, regardless of her birthright Garry had fallen in love with her. Many a man before him had too and lived to rue the day, for her father Old Man Gallagher was a man to be reckoned with.

He had a heart of gold, but a fist of steel. He brought Bridge out of the orphanage at the tender age of 3 and reared her as one of his own. Treated her like a princess. But when the local scally-wags started calling around asking her out he grew mightily protective of her.

Garry took no heed of his friend’s advice, when first he set his eyes upon her lush bosom. As I recall his words to me that night were, “Jaysus would you look at the kegs on that doll.” I think I responded in the positive “yup!” But I was wise and knew not to cross the path of Old Man Gallagher.

However Garry was not to be deterred and after a heavy days drinking in the Sail Inn, took it on himself to march right up to Gallagher’s house and ask the man for his daughter. When he came rolling down the hill 20 mins later with one open eye, a few teeth missing and not looking the best for health in general, I concluded the brave fellow had significantly failed in glorious style.

I thought the matter dead and buried after that, till one night after a few down the local. Stopped by a parked car along a quite country road, relieving myself, I discovered the wheel, against which I was urinating, was firmly attached to the rear axle of Garry’s car. I only recognized it when his faced appeared pressed against a steamed-up window mouthing the words “ What the fuck are you doing?”
I had to answer honestly, “Taking a piss?”

I don’t think he was in the least impressed with my honesty. In the half-hour that followed, I learned that Garry was not alone in the car and was carrying out a secret affair with none other than Bridge Gallagher. Well, if I hadn’t been so inebriated, I would have been speechless, but due to my state I became quite the opposite and blabbered all the way home in the back seat of Garry’s car.

(Don’t think I wasn’t aware of the seat’s role earlier that night. I sat on my rolled up jacket just in case!)

Well, soon as I knew about the affair, so did the rest of the town. Funny thing that? Old Man Gallagher was not the last to hear either, ironically it was Garry and Bridge. Too busy secretly courting out in the wilds of Donegal to notice the town gossip. Needless to say, a showdown ensued between Garry and Old Man Gallagher.

Gallagher came to the conclusion that any man who wanted his girl, would have to be more of a man than he was and that would mean beating him in a man to man fight. Garry jumped at this chance to prove himself, being quite the thug. But, he knew nothing of Old Man Gallagher’s reputation as the “Flying Fist of Fife Fannan,” in his younger days. When he could squat 7 bags of turf and cut ridges faster than any Massey Ferguson tractor of the day.

So, the time and place were set: out side fast foods, after Hugies. The crowd that night was huge, some people say if you were to have counted them all you would have had to have at least 17 and half people join all fingers and toes together to keep score. More rational observers report the crowd size to be roughly about the same size as the regular bingo group in the Foresters Hall.

The two men met. Eyed each other for a few moments till Garry finished his snack box. After wiping his mouth and dislodging an annoying piece of chicken form between his teeth, the battle of the century ensued.

Garry swung first with a heavy right, Gallagher ducked, catching Garry on the jaw with a sucker right upper cut, stunning Garry for all of two seconds as he caught his senses and launched a flurry of punches into the midriff and head of Gallagher. Garry backed Gallagher all the way across the road with these punches. Then, Garry coiled back, to finish Gallagher with a Big Right, which he is well known for. But Gallagher, the wily old fart, got a boost of adrenaline and came flying at Garry with a high kick squaring him between the eyes and followed up with a 3 quarter round house and dragon punch. If only he had launched a fireball he would have gotten triple score combination bonus points, however, he knew nothing of Street Fighter 2 and failed to avail of this excellent opportunity. Garry keeled over with absolutely no grace at all, falling into a steaming pile of dog shit, laid there by Friel's dog just for the occasion.

Where was I during all this? Right there of course with the best seat in town, inside a Twin Cam with Duncam and Declan, drinking Bud and boy was it a good fight.

We cleaned Garry up and brought him home. Gallagher however was very pissed off at the whole situation and flung curses at all the town’s people and swore never to run in an election again. This was bad news for the town for they knew nothing of voting except for ticking off Gallagher’s name on the ballad form. Shit, they were going to have to learn about the outside world again. It had happened once before, way back in ‘39 when somebody addressed an envelope incorrectly and it came back from America no less, with American postal marks indicating no such address existed and people wanted to know what was the “US Postal Service.”

Several brave young people emigrated to find the knowledge but the epidemic was curtailed, luckily. Some old folks in town came up with an ingenious plan. They told the remaining young people, “those who had left made it only as far as St. John’s point and drowned, only to be transformed into sea stacks, and had to stay for all of eternity in the sea, a penance for their desertion of Killybegs.”

This had the affect of scaring the shit out of the town’s young people and they vowed to never to go beyond the Abbey or Glenties on a Saturday night.
Thus, we have some of the story that led to Garry the lone rider, the lone Donegal cowboy. We had left our hero cold in his sleeping bag.

Garry unzipped the tent door and spat some sheep’s wool from between his teeth swearing never to drink Vervier again. That stuff caused you to get in touch with your feral side and do all kinds of weird shit usually associated with Welsh farmers. Then Garry eyed his trusty steed, Dusty.

Dusty was a fine horse, bought for half a bottle of whiskey from eddy Friel and worth twice that much. Garry had got quite the bargain back in them days. But old Dusty had aged poorly in the last 10 years of riding and was hardly up to half a night of the sport, as for carrying his master he was fine. Dusty looked back to Garry as if to say, “Morning ya drunk bollox. Where to today?”

Garry walked around the campsite, kicking the Jew of the grass. Lazy bollox had fallen asleep there after their game of cards the night before.
The Jew was Garry’s sole mate. Nothing kinky or anything like that, but a kindred sole who like himself no longer fitted into the society he once roamed as a proud citizen.

Garry and the Jew spoke little, which both appreciated especially, since Garry had developed this terribly annoying speech stammer after the fight with Old man Gallagher. Most of all, both like to be alone, liked to play “kerds” and drink by the lake load.

Often, the two would not see each other for weeks on end. Then some drunken Friday night, meet up in some obscure Pub in the back ass of no where, order a round without saying a word, sit down and begin playing kerds. Some who knew of their symbiotic existence thought it strange, but they just thought it damn handy since you could only play solitaire for so long before it got tedious.

The Jew looked up at Garry and laconically said, “ I’m fucked!”

Garry knew what this meant. He would find himself alone on today’s travels. The Jew got awful travel sick, especially on the back of a horse. This relived Garry, somewhat, as he didn’t fancy having sick all down his back this morning.

With a nod of his riding hat and a click to the side of Dusty with his cute little ridding boots, the lone cowboy was off, leaving the Jew to his hangover.

Today’s ride took Garry into the sprawling metropolis of Kilcar. This once sleepy town was absolutely changed the day Brian O’Donnell bought himself a pair of fashionable trousers and opened a clothes shop the day after!

Brian could wear his trousers to work in Mennairy Fish Factory and then go home on the tractor and head out to Glenties the same night on the bus, without having to change his trousers. Other lads saw the advantage of this:
It took about 15 minutes to shower, 2 minutes to dry and about 2 hours for their Mother’s to wash and iron their clothes for the night. Now, the lads could see all the drinking time they could save waiting on their slow mothers (God bless them they could go no faster) to get their act together.

But now, with the fashionable trousers they could get rotten quicker, stagger in home with snack box under arm and fall asleep on the floor with a towel over themselves and wake in the morning knowing they would have freshly ironed trousers to wear to mass in the morning since their mother’s had nothing better to do on Saturday nights but to iron and wash their clothes. Well needless to say when the word came out that all this could be achieved with fashionable trousers from Brian’s in Kilcar, people began flocking to the town in great numbers. It is said that one day the whole Kilcar GAA team came into Brian’s looking for the fashionable trousers and Brian had to drive all the way to McElinney’s in Ballybofey just to fit out the whole team and a few dedicated fans too.

Garry trotted Dusty slowly onto the main street, dismounted outside the Mace shop and tied dusty to a pole. Garry went into the shop to inquire as to what day it was. He found out it was Thursday. Dole Day! This meant trouble as far as Garry was concerned. He knew every useless unemployable bollox this side of Largy mhor would be in town to spend their well earned government benefits. No chance of a quiet drink then. But drink would have to be taken all the same.

After a bacon baguette in a small restaurant at the back of the Mace store and a bizarre conversation with a young chef about the “impact dynamics of the ‘98 Renault Clio” and the “merits of not wearing underwear while working in a kitchen,” Garry rolled lazily across the road to Kilcar House for a few short ones. It was only 3 o’clock and the pub was relatively empty apart from few well oiled Alco’s nursing their black pints and sorting out the world’s political, health and economic situations simultaneously from the respectable confines of their barstools.

Garry took up a table in the corner and began to deal the cards for solitaire. Next time he looked up their was 8 empty glasses on his table and the pub had filled up, with about 47 bony arsed bog men all wearing fashionable trousers from Brian’s.

Garry’s riding jodhpurs stood out in stark contrast to these fashionable trousers and it was not long before one of the ignorant boggers noticed this fact and rudely pointed it out.

“Seamus, would you look at the trousers on that fella”
“Fwhere Paddy?”
“Over there, playing cards by himself, wonder fwhat’s his problem.”
“Think you should go over and ask him Paddy.”

The scene that followed was terrible. I don’t think words can quite capture the expressions upon the faces of the boggers after Garry ripped off Paddy’s arm and proceeded to pound his bony arsed bogman of a head in to the ground.
If only Paddy had said nothing to Garry about his jodhpurs he would have been a much healthier and alive person today. Needless to say the local law heard about the dangerous stranger in town and came to check out all the commotion. Garda Bradley arrived just as Garry was mounting his steed.

Bradley asked Garry if he had done the deed to Paddy. He nodded in the affirmative and just stared at Bradley, cold as steel. Bradley could tell this jodhpur wearing individual was outside of the law and there was nothing he could do. Garry tucked his carry-out a little further under his arm and bade Kilcar goodnight and made his way to Bavin to rest for the night under a fir tree on a bed of soft pine needles.

That night as Garry lay in Bavin polishing off his drink, it suddenly dawned on him, he had not enjoyed the touch of a woman in 5 years. That was the night he and the Jew came into a bit off money in Glen and used their profit to sample the local women only too willing to offer themselves at any decent price. Since then, sheep were the only outlet for his sexual frustration.

He realized he was only a days ride from Killybegs, his old town where the wanderings began, unless he were to head over Conerad and come down the far side of Ardara. Dusty in his younger days would have made this journey with no more than a swish of his tail, but now he was lucky if he could swish his tail to avoid excreting on himself. So Garry decided to face up to his fears and enter the town of the Little Cells. When in Killybegs, he would see to it to find Old Man Gallagher and learn the whereabouts of Bridge. Where her convent was and if she still loved him.

News spread fast that Garry was back in town. Not many people recognized him and only for his legend as the Lone Donegal Cowboy nobody would have known this bedraggled stranger was the same Garry George Anderson who once courted and drank like there was no tomorrow in the town of Killybegs.

Garry set up camp in his favorite haunt, the Sail Inn with Peggy and Vernon the proprietors of the fine establishment. And after a ham and cheese toasty swallowed down with a nice pint of Bulmers Garry lay back in his seat to watch the telly, when the inevitable happened; Vernon sat down to talk.

Some people had no time for this eccentric old man, but Garry always enjoyed the anecdotes on his life, most of which, came straight out of his arse. The story he related to Garry today was about when he was in WWII and fighting in the Dardenels. He claimed to be in charge of a British destroyer with a mission to clear the straight of all mines. They were having problems locating the German mines and after a dangerous week of sweeping and nearly sinking the ship twice he came up with the brilliant idea of swimming in front of the ship. Garry goaded Vernon on with gasps of encouragement and words of praise.

Vernon described how great shape he was in, way back then, and he just ripped off his shirt and dived straight in to the sea, with no cares for himself. Not only did Vernon locate the mines himself, but he would grab them with his bare arms and dive to the bottom of the sea and with his pocket knife, he would set them off under water. For his act of bravery he was awarded the Victoria Cross and knighted. Then to celebrate, he reckons he and some of the other lads from the ship swam into Istanbul and got themselves ten women a piece.

Garry was really enjoying the narrative when Peggy, his wife, walked by and casually said, “Fer fucks sake Vernon, you deserted the fecking army and ended up in this shit-hole of a town and the only sex you ever had was with me and that was out of sympathy!”

Vernon’s face fell and he sucked on his pipe a little, then looked up at Peggy and said, “ Ya see Peggy, you just don’t understand. I was just relating a story here to, a, Garry and he doesn’t give a feck if it’s true or not, a, ya see, he just likes to hear me talk and make a great big horse’s ass out of myself.

“You’re a fool Vernon,” replied Peggy and walked off behind the bar.

Vernon looked back to Garry with a sad little face, but brightened up as he began to relate the time when he was in California and prevented the San Andreas Fault from splitting in two, by wedging a pocketknife between his belt and a lamppost, saving the lives of over 5 million people in the process.

Garry enjoyed his talks with Vernon even if it was all horse shit. But time had come for him to seek out old man Gallagher, and get Bridge, the only woman he ever truly loved, “like the man in the blue Chagall suspended high, high above him, she was and always will be, the only woman he ever really, truly loved.”

The trot up Stoney Batter on Dusty was long and hard, especially with the dangerous natives of St. Cummins hill, lead by Mike Cannon, ready to pounce on you at any moment with peg-guns and spit! Garry thought he had escaped the little feckers when out of no where a pellet hit Dusty on the arse, bucking Garry to the ground. He ripped his jodhpurs in the fall; this made him really pissed. He eyed all around him to find the assailant. He caught a shimmer of peg-gun steel in the bushes, 50 yards to his left. Garry unholstered his gun and fired at his target. Direct hit, a twelve-year-old fell out of the bush, just as his mother was waking past. You should have seen the expression of shock on her face. Garry noted it with grave satisfaction, he thought he would tell the grief striking women it was only a stun gun, but decided not to, thinking she would find the situation really comical afterwards.

Old Man Gallagher’s house was No. 27 and was around the Circle. Even though it had been years since Garry lay eyes on that same house he recognized it instantly. Probably from the rather distinctive display of “Ford Cortina’s” lying in the front yard, but then again it could have been the color of the door.

Garry tied Dusty to a lamp and walked up to the door. He only needed to knock once and a very gray old man opened the door. The old man’s jaw dropped in surprise.
“Where’s Bridge?” Demanded Garry.

“Jaysus Boy, I should kick your ass.”

“ Gallagher, if I have to take off my riding hat, it will be a day you’ll rue forever!” Replied Garry confidently, toughened by the ten long years on the saddle.

A smile rose on Old Man Gallagher’s face. At the same time, a dark shadow fell on Garry from behind. Garry slowly turned around to face the biggest fecking Mongo he had ever seen. This guy made Mark Donnelan look like Pewee Herman on a diet, actually that is what Mark Donnelan looked like. Anyway he was fecking huge.
“Garry, meet Young Man Gallagher, my son!”

Garry began to quake in his riding boots. He had never faced an opponent of such colossal dimension. He would have to jump just to head butt his knees! Before Garry had time to take the situation in, the be-ast of a young fella grabbed Garry and started to pound him with death like blows. Only for the protection offered by his riding hat, Garry would have snuffed it there and then. He hadn’t even time to pull out his gun.

Some how he managed to escape the blows and rolled to the side quickly. The giant lunged at Garry, but he saw him and moved too fast for the big oaf. Young Man Gallagher lay winded on the ground, Garry took this opportunity to tie his shoe laces together. So when Gallagher stood up again he tripped forward falling full weight on his face. He fell so hard he sank 6 feet into the ground digging his own grave.
Garry turned to see one frightened Old Man Gallagher standing in the doorway.

“She’s in Galway Garry, but I don’t recommend finding her. The Nuns who keep her, The Sisters of No Mercy, guard her tight. Once we were having a problem with the dishwasher and the WhirlPool guy wouldn’t come to our house and we tried to get Bridge home to clean our dishes for us. The confrontation with the Sister Superior was hellish and I would wish it on no man.”

“I’ll take my chance, and if I return alive with her, you can buy me a drink.”
“Ta hell I will, you’ll be buying me one!”
“Thought you needed a dish washer, old man?”
“Well why didn’t you say so, I’ll but you a grand drink.”

With peace made between Old Man Gallagher and himself, Garry headed back to the Sail Inn to rest for the night.

In the morning he brought Dusty up to Fintra and took his bridle off.

“Go on Dusty make your way back to Tir na N’og. Back to all the old places and I’ll see ya there soon.”

Dusty looked sadly to Garry and said, “Garry I think you have just quoted the wrong film script this is Garry the Lone Donegal Cowboy not “Into the West” and your not Gabrial fucking Byrne, all the same though best o’v luck in Galway, I’ll see ya when you get back.”

Garry had never heard Dusty talk before and was desperately disappointed in that he talked with a real bogger accent, but ah well, not bad for an animal without a fully developed voice box.

That afternoon, after grabbing a huge carry-out from Hughies, Garry caught Feda’s Bus to Galway.

He proudly stood up the steps on to the bus and handed the driver 10 pounds for his ticket. The driver just stared at the stranger stepping onto his bus, wearing cream colored jodhpurs, riding boots and matching hat, of all the people he seen get on his bus over the years this guy was the freakiest he ever seen and hoped he be no trouble.

Only for the cards the ride to Galway would have been trés boring. The cards Garry had were Christmas cards and he had a ten-year backlog to catch up on. First there was uncle Jim in Monaghan, Young Aunty Vie, his adopted aunt in Athlone, who was only twelve and his cousin Anthony who was 18 pushing on 49 and his mothers neighbor Jimmy Mac Mickey, who had a triple hista-cone-a-rectomie in his third triangular piece!
Even though hours passed, it felt like minutes. Soon he was in Tuam on the outside of Galway and it was time for a piss stop and the bus was 55 mph over stopping. Garry stood up and announced to the driver,
“Y’er a fecking wanker and I want to Piss please!”

Immediately the driver pulled over and fecked Garry off the bus out into the cold of the Galway night.

Tuam, may I add is not the worst place in the world to be fecked out into in the middle of the night. I once knew a fellow who having no warm bed to sleep in found a girl from Tuam and spent a most pleasant time in sex heaven with a few pints of beer to add good measure. But woke the next morning to find his head split in two from a severe hangover and 30 miles from his house with no chance of a lift from the sleeping ex-virgin in the bed next to him.

So Garry ambled up to the local in his jodhpurs and ordered a beer. To be sure, within about 19 minutes, five local fellows came up to him looking for a fight and severely regretted the same decision nine and a half minutes later!

Garry hitched himself a ride into Galway City, where he entered the Skeffington Arms Hotel, slammed a fiver on the table and announced to the bar “This money is for any man, or woman to be p.c., and fuck that p.c. shit anyway, this is for any man in the biblical sense, which is inclusive of men and women in the term “men,” this is for any man who can give me information on the whereabouts of The Sisters of No Mercy?”

The bar fell silent at the mention of this name, apart from one voice that shouted “Ya sexist Bastard.” It was a woman’s voice coming from a shadowy corner.

“I thought I made myself clear on the male-female issue and that I was just using a phrase common to us all and that I did imply that women were free to answer, to be eligible for the five pounds here on the counter.”

“Fucking Cunt” came the voice again.

“That’s it, gimme a bottle of Bulmers” shouted Garry to the bartender and made his way over to the corner. Where a shriveled up old hag was sitting nursing a pint of the black stuff.

“Are you the cunt jarring me?”

“I not be jarring you, I be warning you. If it’s The Sister’s of No Mercy seek you do?”

“What do you know about them?”

“Wasn’t I twenty five years one of them, before corruption I saw and in their hearts evil that lurks. Left them I did and turned to this I do, mmh.” She held up her glass, it was filled with coke and ice and a lemon wedge on the side. “Take this to forget I do, woken it up you did, from the dreary depths of my soul, mmh.”

“Can you take me to them?”

“Why would you want to go to them, you want to be going away from them, fast as you can. They have no mercy!”

“They’ve got the woman I love and I like you have been hiding away for too long. Help me and I’ll help you!”

“You’d help an old woman like me? Well, I haven’t had it in a while?”

“Not like that ya dirty old scank. I mean I’ll help you get your life back.”

“Oh, say so why didn’t ya.”

After a feed of drinks and a lock of dinner, the pair slept it off in Sullivan’s B&B on Eyre Square. Woke first thing in morning and caught the bus out to Rosaveal and from there boarded the Aran Flyer to The Aran Islands, the Gaelic speaking Islands off Galway.

As they approached the old woman pointed up to Dun Aengus, Garry followed her finger and could only see sheer cliff face. “Up there lurk evil.”

“I don’t see a thing.”

“Look not with your eyes, with your heart Master Garry. Sight blocks vision, vision blocks the mind, the mind sees all.” Remembering some of his meditation training from drinking with a Buddhist Monk one night in Glen, he quickly achieved Brahman and there before his eyes appeared the Convent of No Mercy.

“You must take it from the water, other way there is not.”

“I can’t swim.”

“Take this life jacket and doggy paddle your way to the rocks, then climb you must with bare hands, and enter through the sewage system. Only the true of heart achieve this deed. Love this woman of yours you do?”

“Yes I love her as the roses love the rain, as a poet loves thinking, as a wrestler loves pain, as a man loves drinking.”

When the old woman heard this declaration of love, she knew that this brave Cowboy was the chosen one, that it was he who was to liberate the Sisters of No Mercy from the tyrannical rule of Sister Mary Martha, who had ruled with an unnatural iron fist for too many damn years. In turn restoring the Sisters to their divine life that they had once known when she first donned the habit and took up her rosary beads.

Garry managed the cliff with little ease but the doggy paddle from the boat left him quite weak and had to rest for sometime in the sewers before looking for Bridge. When he thought he had rested long enough he let himself out into a hallway. On the wall were pictures of the Pope, J.F.K and Jack Charlton, the place was decorated like a Christy Moore Song, not what one would expect for a convent. A little further up he found a small room, inside was a Nun with a pair of headphones on singing “good bye to the port and the brandy, the vodka and the harp, but what I’ll never figure out is how yer man stayed up on the surfboard after 40 pints of stout…” It all began to make perfect sense to Garry now. The sisters had come under the influence of Christy and they had forsaken their vows for popular Irish drinking music and folk songs. This was bad, far worse than he had imagined.

“Fuck” he thought and hoped Bridge was not too far gone, to be able to turn back from Christy. In rage and anger Garry Flew at the Nun with the headphones and ripped them off her head. She wailed like a Banshee, and hissed in his face.

“Infidel, how dare you stop the music…the music must go on.”

“You’ve been deceived. This is not real life, there is more to life than Christy. Open your eyes woman.” His words were in vain, it was going to take a lot more to convince these people of the truth after living so long in a lie. “Where can I find a sister called Bridge, she’s a Donegal woman about yeah high and answers to the name ‘hey, where’s my tea?’"

“I’ll show you nothing you monster” spat the Nun.

“If you want these head phones back you’ll do as I say.”

“Oh really Mister Anderson” Garry turned around to see the horror of all horrors. It was Smelly Brown his English teacher from St. Catherine’s, the woman that made him read the book I am David till his eyes bleed when he was fourteen. “You really thought I was a teacher. I fooled you all, ha, ha, ha, ha.”

“I should have known nothing with breath like yours could have been anything but evil incarnate. You tried to brain wash us with I am David, and seeing how that didn’t work you turned to Christy! Why didn’t I see it before.”

“Yes, you are weak like all the rest, you must turn to the Christy side and join me, become the first male member of my order.”

“I’ll never join you, never. I am going to take you down and take my Bridge home…” before Garry had his sentence finished Smelly Brown flew at Garry. She caught him on the chin with her crucifix, cutting him open, leaving a holy scar. Garry was quick to counter and stuck his foot straight to her face, closing her smelly mouth. She reeled back and ordered her Nuns to attack. “No, don’t listen to her she is turning you into machines to do her bidding…trust me there is more to life than Christy.”

This had no effect on the advancing army of Nuns, he was strongly outnumbered and for every Nun he knocked down there was another to take its place. Wave upon wave the Nuns came, his fists were bloody and the knuckles were wearing to the bone, in a few minutes he would be overpowered and taken into the Christy Cult of The Sister’s of No Mercy. Things looked pretty gloomy for our hero.

Then a voice screamed “No! Stop!” It was Bridge. Everyone froze. Garry looked to her, never had he seen her look so lovely, lovely as an entrant of the Creggy Island Lovely Girls Contest. Smelly Brown turned to face her. “Leave him alone, he speaks the truth, you must believe him…there is more to life than Christy,” as she said this her eyes gleamed with love towards Garry.

“How dare you defile the name of Christy in this Sanctuary.”

“Smelly Brown you’ve played your last song, it’s time to face the music and dance mutherfucker.”

The two women went at it and in their struggle fell backwards into a paddling pool of mud. They began to tear each other’s clothes off and within a minute they were in their underwear and throwing mud all over each other.

“What a show,” thought Garry to himself “wish I had come out here a long time ago,” he pulled a chair up and watched the rest of the fight. The other Nuns were confused and didn’t know who to cheer for. So they took off their clothes too and began throwing mud at each other.

In the end, Bridge overpowered Smelly Brown and with the aid of Garry liberated all The Sister’s of No Mercy. As they walked down to the ferryboat, hand in hand, the old woman was waiting for them.

“Done well you have young ones, the Universe is at peace for now, order restored it is” and with that the old woman’s appearance changed into the most beautiful woman Garry had ever gazed upon, she made Bridge look like a dog beside her. “ I was under a curse and now that it is broken I can go back to the convent and live my peaceful life in solitude again.”

“What a waste of a fine bit of stuff” thought Garry.

On their return to Killybegs Garry was welcomed back to the town he was once an exile from. Bridge and Garry were married in the chapel and he and Old Man Gallagher went on a two-week drinking binge together all over the place. When that was finished they had Bridge cook them a lovely big dinner and it didn’t matter that the dishwasher was broke anymore, because Bridge was home, yes, Bridge was home.

Leaving

Characters

Mother, a worn out writer with drinking and marital problems
John, son to the writer
Kelly, an American and fiancée to John


Act I, Scene I

Son: What are you doing out?

Mother: I’m cured; Sure I could tell that doctor what was wrong with him (laughs).

Ach, I’m all right, good rest did the world of good.

Son: Good rest? For God’s sake Mam, You should not be out. When I talked to you, you said you’d stay the whole month, no matter what.

Mother: Yeah, but I’m O.K. now, I’ll never drink again.

Son: (angrily) Course you will, just like you smoke!

Mom: Don’t be cheeky, don’t talk to your mother like that.

Son: Mam! Will you just think about someone else but yourself, for once?

Mom: I do! All the time…(trails off)

Son: No, you won’t face up to the reality of it. So, what are you going to do now?

Mother: There’s that arts position, but I’ll just wait ‘till Bruce and Alan are at school more.

Son: See, you’re still in denial. You need to get sorted out before you can do anything. You’ll have those two boys destroyed. You need to do this. I want to help, but you have to want to help yourself first. If you don’t want to give up drinking, then there is no point.

Mother: (eagerly) But I do.

Son: (frustrated) Then why the hell did you not stay?

Mother: They can’t help me. If you’d stay, be here all the time, I know I could do it. Gerard thinks so too.

Son: Don’t get me started on him.

Mother: Come on now. Gerard ’s going to be working in the summer, he doesn’t have much money, but he gets by.

Son: Jesus, if he would work, maybe he would have a bit.

Mother: Everyone can’t be like your father. I made your father, raised all you kids, answered the phones, cleaned fish in my kitchen sink.

Son: Yes I know. That was over 15 years ago. Time moves on; You both have. But you’ve never had a real job since.

Mother: I’m a writer that’s a real job.

Son: Yeah, when’d you last write? You just don’t care anymore, look at you, your talent’s wasting away.

Mother: If you were here, you could get me going. Boy, with you as my manager and promoter. I’d be flying to America for readings all the time. I’d get a job in Trinity and get my masters.

Son: Is the manuscript ready?

Mother: No, the printer won’t work. I can’t get anything done with Bruce and Alan in my hair all the time.

Son: Look! Just type it up, save it on disk and I’ll get it printed.

Mother: Yeah…(trails off).

Son: Seriously Mam, if you want to make changes, you’re going to have to work at the root of the problem and start from there. You could do so much Mam. Please just try (begging).

Mother: I will, honest to God, I will. If I can just get some from your father.

Son: Why don’t you get your solicitor to sort that out? You are entitled to something at least.

Mother: Yeah…(trails off).

Son: (aggravated) Mam, you have to start doing something yourself.

Mother: Please, just stay around a while and help me.

Son: (sarcastically) Can’t Gerard so that?

Mother: He’ll be busy in the summer, with work and everything.

Son: No. I’ve to go back soon. I’ve my own life and I’m trying to keep it together. Christ, it’s been hard coming from this tragedy. Promise me when I go, you’ll try. Promise (pleading).

Mother: I will, I will. I’m going to quit smoking, give up the drink, start walking every day.

Son: Finish your manuscript?

Mother: Yeah, that too.

Son: Come on, it’s due in the spring. How many are you short?

Mother: A few…

Son: (sternly) How many?

Mother: About 40 or so good ones. I just haven’t been able to think. Some are really good. The BBC have taken some and Trinity want some more.

Son: Good. Then why don’t you get on to it and start writing?

Mother: But, the printer?

Son: Jesus, Mam. The printer is nothing. You can write on fecking paper with a pen can’t you? What did you do before you had a computer? You scribbled on cigarette boxes, grocery lists, magazine covers. Now get that edge back and do something.

Mother: If only you were here all the time to encourage me like this….

Son: But I’m not. I’ve to go soon. Duncan ’s waiting, I’m going to stay there tonight and he’s taking me to the airport.

Mother: I’ll write to ya’, and this time keep in touch.

Son: Yeah…(trails off, followed by a long silence).

Mother: I’ve to go see Dad before I head. I better be off.

Mother: (Crying) I’ll miss you, take care. Sure you won’t stay.

Son: (Hugging his mother) I’ll be O.K., Shannon looks after me good. She’s got real good folks, I’ve been blessed with them.

Mother: You deserve it son. God you’re great.

(They break apart.)

Son: Well I’ll be seeing you Mam. Remember what I said. If you have to, post me the disk or rough draft and I’ll go through it.

Mother: That’d be great son, I’ll do that. I love you…

Son: Love you too Mam.

Scene II

(The next day, back in Kansas City.)

Kelly: How’s your Mom?

John: I don’t know Kelly. I wish I could help her.

Kelly: She needs to get her head out of her ass and stop being so self-centered.

John: I know, I know. It’s just so hard.

Kelly: (he bursts into tears, Kelly holds him.) Ah God, I hate your parents.

John: (sobs…no reply)

The Short Obituary of Angela O’Hara Coyle

“Mum, where’s my bag, I can’t find my bag, where’d you put it, can’t find it anywhere?”
“Ar-rah, Davey, it’s where you threw it when you came back from college a month a go! Do I have to go and get it for you? I’m trying to get all the ironing done before we go, your Dad will be home soon with Frankie from the bus, can’t you find it yourself?”
“I’ve looked, it’s nowhere.”

Angela put down her iron, lifted herself out of the corner she’d worked her way into and laboriously shuffled her forty-five-year-old body up stairs, to one of the back bedrooms, bent down, until she was on her hands and knees and blindly shoved her hand under the bed Davey had been sleeping in for a month now and when she pulled her hand out the bag he’d been looking for was in it.

“There you go Davey, there’s your bag.”
“You’re the best Mum” he gives her a kiss on the cheek, “football’s about to start, would ya get me a cup of tea?” And before she could answer he was off down the stair “cheers, thanks.”

Angela went down the stairs, not so sprightly as her son, and went back into her kitchen. The ironing was in two piles; finished and unfinished. The finished pile was dwarfed by the unfinished, she just sighed at the sight of it. Anyway she needed a cup of tea herself.

By ten o’clock that night the last of the clothes were ironed and bags had begun to be packed. Frank had come home with wee Frankie, her eldest boy, and Jack her youngest was in the kitchen helping her carry the clothes up to the various bedrooms. The packing was going to take at least another four hours and they had to be up at five to hit the road early and to be at the airport in good time to make the flight.

Frankie and Davey were watching the highlights of the football game and Frank had gone back down town to get the car filled and the oil checked for the trip.

“Boys, will you start packing your things, we’re never going to be ready in time, come on.”
“Just five more minutes Mum, this is nearly over, just five minutes, all right” replied Davey.
The night was a struggle, she ended up packing nearly all the bags herself and she knew when they arrived at the hotel and something was not there that she would be to blame for it; she’d forgotten another pair of shorts for Davey, forgotten Frank’s shaving gear, Jack’s snorkel and Frankie’s glasses. Yes, it’d be her fault, after all it was her who was packing the bags.

Sleep didn’t come to Angela when it did to all the rest in the house. She was too anxious about going to the airport. She’d grown up on one of the islands off Donegal until she was fifteen, then she’d gone to Scotland with the other young ones from the island, to find work or at least an escape from her father’s overbearing, alcoholic eye. It was there in Edinburgh that’s she’d meet Frank Coyle. They’d worked in the same hotel, he was a cook, and it was not long until they fell in love marrying at a young age. They returned to Ireland within a few years. But other than that Angela had never travelled outside of the British Isles.

The four-hour plane journey to Tenerife was the cause of the knot in her stomach. Once they’d taken the plane from Belfast to Edinburgh to see Frank’s mother when the ferries couldn’t go in the bad weather. That journey, all fifty minutes of it, had nearly killed her, she had to go have a drink to put her to sleep and Angela never drank. How was she going to survive four hours, she did not know.

Around four in the morning light was beginning to illuminate the curtains from the outside, the room filled with a bluish hue that was only known to Angela, many times she’d lain awake in this room when her husband Frank was out fishing, her not knowing if he was safe or the boat doing alright. In those times the boys use to get into the bed beside her and curl up. They did this well into their teens, now they either lived away or had a girl of their own to go to bed with. She missed them, them growing up and needing her less. But this night, Frank lay soundlessly asleep beside her and that made her feel secure. Then it occurred to her and she nudged him awake.

“We forgot about the dog, who’s gonna look after Sam?”
Frank woke with a fright, he’d been off in some dream, he could see his wife but her words were muffled, he shook his head and they became coherent.
“The dog? Don’t worry, Paul called his friend Bill from out the road, he’s going to come in everyday and look after him, now go back to sleep woman.” And she did for almost a full half hour before the alarms starting going off and she was up making tea and breakfast for everyone.

Every bag and contents were double checked by Angela as the men ate their full breakfast of sausage, bacon, egg (each with their own preference) toast and pudding. She just had tea and toast herself, that was enough.

Standing over by the kitchen sink she could see them all at the table. Davey was getting taller than Frankie now, his blond hair was up to Frankie’s ears, even though there was a five year difference in age. Jack would probably be just a tall, but he had brown hair like Paul. Paul wasn’t sitting at the table, he’d meet them at the airport in Dublin, his job had him up there all the time and he never came home and when he did he always took his uniforms home to be cleaned and ironed just the way only Angela could do. Christ, she mothered those boys, she did her best and her life was for them and Frank. Five men and just her, a daughter would have been nice, but she didn’t think she would know what to do with one of those. Men were easier, just keep them fed and well looked after and they were fine, babies that got bigger, but never grew up.

All her boys enjoyed a drink and she would go out with them to the pub and have the craic, but never took any herself. It scared her and so far none of her boys were mad on it yet, she wished it would stay that way, cause when men go mad on drink they are not babies anymore, they are something else and that is not good.

By a quarter to seven, the car was loaded and the house locked, everything had been checked twice and now the Coyles were good to go. Frank drove and the boys squashed into the back of the car, Frank had been doing good at the fishing and they had a new car, that was why they were taking a foreign holiday too; times were good for the Coyles. Angela was comfortable in the front passenger seat and as the car pulled out of their drive she let her eyelids fall. She could tell where they were from the sounds the car made on the road and moved with the corners. They had to get through the town before they got on the road that would take them all the way to Dublin and when they were all the way through Angela let herself drift off to sleep.
She woke dry mouthed and hot. The radio was on too loud to keep sleeping and the boys and their father were arguing about who was the best in last night’s game.

“Where are we now Frank?”
“Just outside Navan, be at the airport in about an hour or so. Go on back to sleep, I’ll wake you there.”
“Can we stop, for a cup of tea?”
“Ah, Mum” came Jack’s voice “we’re nearly there.”
“Yeah, come on you’ll be alright” chimed in Frankie.
Out voted, she sat up in her seat and stared out the window at all the fields and houses flashing by as they sped along. After moving back to Ireland and before settling in Donegal, Angela and Frank had lived in Dublin for a few years. They were happy, carefree times and she remembered them fondly now. She looked behind her at the three boys in the back seat. Davey was sleeping but the other two were wide-awake like it was eight in the evening and not eight in the morning. They were still talking to Frank about what was important to them.

They’d moved back to Donegal when she became pregnant with wee Frankie. He was a hard child to deliver and raise, but the rest came easier, it is true, she often thought, you do get better with practice.

She hadn’t seen Paul in over a month and she was looking forward to seeing him, he was the second eldest and the most independent. If she had to pick a favourite it would have to be him, but that is only if she had to. She nurtured them equally as much, Frank included, they were all her babies and she did what she could for them.

In the airport Paul was waiting at the check-in desk. He had already checked in his bags and was waiting on the rest. When Angela saw him she rushed over to him and gave him a hug.

“Come on Paul, I’m dying for a cup.”
“Same as meself. Dad, we’ll be up there in the Café,” he pointed as he said this.
“Right we’ll join you when we’ve these all checked in.”
“So, how’ve ya been Mum? Sorry I haven’t come home in ages, but work is so busy and Catriona doesn’t get much time off, you know.”
“No need to apologise, I understand, it’s just great to see you Paul. Can you believe this our first family holiday, away somewhere hot?”
“Yeah, it’s gonna be great. Have to get a good tan or Catriona will kill me. She doesn’t want me in the pub with the boys drinking all the time.”
“And you won’t be either” she gave him a little punch on the arm.
They had another hour before they were to board and the time was spent in the Café. The whole family was together and Angela could see the pride in Frank’s face of having four fine sons around him. Paul and Jack looked a lot like their father with the brown hair, the other two were a mix of her side and his, but those two, they were all Coyle.

The tea had settled her nerves a little and made her feel awake, but when the flight was called the knot appeared in her stomach again. If only she could sleep and wake when they touched down, like the drive to the airport.

On the walkway out to the plane, she clutched her purse tight. The ground under her didn’t feel safe, the hollow sound of all the footsteps unnerved her. Maybe the boys could go without her, maybe she’d take the car home and pick them up in twdo weeks time. No, she had to go, she had to be there for her boys.

“Good morning, welcome to flight 3456 non-stop to Tenerife” said the air-hostess as they boarded. Another showed them to row 23, seats A through F. Davey and Jack fought over A, to see who would get the window seat and Frankie intervened and took the seat himself to stop them from embarrassing the family. Paul and Frank took the seats either side of Angela to make her feel secure. They knew she was afraid to fly and initially months ago when Frank had suggested they take the trip she had protested. It took a lot to make her agree and they were glad to have her on the plane and in her seat without too much fuss.

“There now love, once we’re up in the air you’ll be grand. Millions of people fly all the time, I just read the other day, that it is more dangerous to drive your car to work than it is to fly.” Frank was trying his best to comfort her.

“Oh, don’t mind me, I’ll be fine, just let me be, I’ve said a prayer to St. Christopher and he’s never failed me yet.”

The jet engines began to vibrate the plane as it taxied out for take-off. The airhostesses did their routine and checked everybody was buckled in, the captain announced they were clear for take off and as the plane hurled itself down the runway, everybody, including Angela, were sucked into their seats with the G-force. Angela held Frank’s hand, squeezing it tight. Frank never let on either, but he hated to fly too, but no need to add to her worries.

By the time the plane began to level, Angela was asleep again. The boys were talking their football and cajoling each other about what they would do once they landed and all the drink they’d have and all the craic. Paul motioned to his father to lean forward and whispered:
“How’s she been?”
“Ah, fine, just very nervous. She slept most of the way down in the car, I don’t think she got much sleep last night, best just to leave her sleep as much of the flight as possible.”
“Grand, I know she’ll love it once we touch down and she gets her feet back on solid ground. She’ll be out looking at all those plants, ones she’d never see at home, probably have to stop her from trying to take them all back with her.”
“Suppose you’re right Paul.”
“Hey Paul” shouted Frankie “what do ya say, to a few pints once we get there?”
“Keep your voice down will ya. No bother, can’t wait.”

Angela began to dream, the gentle hum of the engines had put her to sleep shortly after they took off, it was a deep sleep and the dreams were vivid. She could see white clouds drifting in a blue sky, she was in her garden back home and Sam was sniffing about the flowerbed she was tending. The image she saw of herself was a content one, this was her paradise, she kept her family, her house and her garden, when they were all doing good, she was doing good. The sky seemed to come down upon her, not in a frightening way, but a gentle, calming way. She could feel the warmth of the sun on her face and felt her body let go and let the wisps of white cloud wrap around and carry her, higher and higher she went, towards the blue. She knew if she looked down, she’d see her house and garden far below, but she didn’t want to, it felt too good just letting go and looking up into the sun, a golden sphere, that didn’t make her squint, amongst a sky of the purest azure, she let go, let herself be carried off higher and higher, further from her garden, far, far below.

When they landed in Tenerife Frank tugged Angela’s arm gently to wake her, at the same time softly saying “We’re here, rise and shine, come on sleepy-head.”
She didn’t move, her breathing had stopped, her face bore an expression of serenity and bliss, a small smile upon her lips.
“Oh, God” gasped Frank.
“Mum…”
“Mum…”
“Mum…”
“Mum…”

The Coyles returned later that night with Angela’s body, the wake and burial were all over in a few days and about a week later, in the local newspaper there was a short obituary:

Angela O’Hara Coyle
12th May 1945-June 16th 1990
Survived by her husband Frank Coyle
And her four sons Frankie, Paul, Davey
And Jack.
“We are lost without you”

The Teddy Bear Coalman Buys a Twin Cam

The Teddy Bear Coalman woke at seven in the morning, climbed out of his cot, dressed all by himself and went downstairs. He ate a soft boiled egg with toast cut into soldiers and all washed down with a warm cup of Tetley’s tea, two sugars and a nice slap of milk.

The Teddy Bear Coalman went out the back to the stables to wake up Horse and saddle him up for the day’s coal deliveries.

Knock, knock, knock, went the Teddy Bear Coalman on the stable door.
“Come on Horse it’s 7:30, coal to be delivered.”

Horse’s big weary head stirred to life after a heavy night’s sleep on damp straw.
“Ah Teddy Bear Coalman I don’t feel too well, maybe I’ll give today a miss,” groaned Horse.
“What do you mean ‘give today a miss’? How will I deliver all that bitumus coal to housewives in need of a banging in their lonely sheds? It’s called a Horse and Cart not a Teddy Bear Coalman and Cart! Now come on you lazy bollox, saddle up and let’s go!” Lectured the Teddy Bear Coalman.

So with great effort Horse got saddled up and made the car ready for delivery.
“There you go Horse old man, that wasn’t so hard now was it?” Inquired the furry fellow.
“Feck off ya fuzzy fucker, I’m in agony, I’ll do myself an injury and then you’ll be sorry, ” moaned Horse.
Teddy Bear Coalman thought to himself ‘Horse is not in good shape’ and decided to take the deliveries easy.
“Gee up Horse” said the Teddy Bear Coalman and off they went.
“Ah, wait a minute to get myself motivated, I’d like to see you pull 2 tons of coal” grumbled Horse.

Clipty-clop, Clipty-clop…clop…clop…pause.
Clitpy-clop, Clipty-clop…clop…clop…pause.
Clitpy-clop, Clipty-clop…clop…clop…pause.
Went Horse down the cobbled road. Despite Horse’s suffering, the daily deliveries had begun.


After banging his third housewife and delivering feck all coal, the Teddy Bear Coalman looked through the window of the house at his sick friend waiting in the cold driveway, head hung low, while he fumbled with his warm fur suit inside the house. The Teddy Bear Coalman came over all-sympathetic and really felt sorry for the poor old fellow. Even the flushed housewife at the door commented on the state of poor old Horse.

“All right Horse, two more houses to bang and we’ll call it a day.”
Horse sighed happily, swished his tail in delight, unable to speak from his pains.


Knock, knock, knock…went the Teddy Bear Coalman on No. 69 Easy Place. A tall blond wearing suspenders and an excuse for a black negligee opened the door.

“I’ll have three bags full please Teddy Bear Coalman,” said the blond in a deep, husky voice.
“That’ll be three pennies,” replied the Teddy Bear Coalman from Hard-On-City with a wink and a nod. “Where would you like the coal put love, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, know what I mean, know what I mean?” Giggled the Teddy Bear Coalman.
“Oh, in the shed outback and come back into the kitchen for your payment,” suggestively replied the blond.
The Teddy Bear Coalman could hardly control himself, he wanted this blond soooo bad. He fecked the coal into the shed hastily, bang, bang, bang. He waddled his way back up the garden path, not very aerodynamically, to the Love Kitchen for his payment. Wink, wink, wink…nudge, nudge, nudge…know what I mean, know what I mean?

When the Teddy Bear Coalman entered the blond was bent over, reaching into a cupboard for something. The Teddy Bear Coalman was beyond control, he ripped off his furry bear suit and rushed over at her. Just as he was about to slam her, she turned around with a bottle of Parazone in her hand and a look of disgust on her face.

“What do you think you are doing, you furry fiend? Screamed the blond.
“I deliver madam, bang, bang, bang, in your shed…Bob’s your uncle, fanny’s your aunt, what’s the problem?” Squirmed the Teddy Bear Coalman embarrassingly in his birthday suit.
“Well I never, of all the warped sex crazed beings I’ve ever met, and mind you I’ve met my fair share from when I lived in Amsterdam, you take the biscuit!”
“Actually I prefer crisps, if you have any?” Interjected the little teddy.
“Never mind that you freak, I was speaking metaphorically, get out before I phone the police and take your three pennies with you, you furry freak!”
The Teddy Bear Coalman pulled his bear suit back on, grabbed his three pennies and dashed out the front door, leaped up on the coal cart, grabbed the whip—Whoppa—went the whip.
“Gee up Horse, let’s get the fuck out of here, before that demented housewife phones the pigs.”


Horse sped down the cobbled street, his ailments quickly forgotten. Broke speed records going down Main Street and broke a red light on Kingsley Street. The mad dash was going fine, until they hit a patch of oil on the Super’s Turn just before their own house. The cart went one way, Horse went the other and the Teddy Bear Coalman was thrown high up into the air. Luckily he landed on a bundle of feathers left there by old Mrs. Watson, who in her senile years began to collect feathers from shabby quilts and pillows. She was loaded up and sent off to a home with soft padded walls and given a real comfy jacket in stylish white with funny sleeves that she could never figure out. But the feathers were never moved in memory of the great work she performed during WWII. She had saved over 300 RAF pilots from certain death by warming their cockles at night in the wards of St. Jude’s Hostpital of the Desperate Cases during the entire siege of Hitler on jolly old Britania that some people came to call the Blitz. This was fine jingoism at its best, boy had Winston a tough time writing speeches for the BBC to beat her from stealing his glory at the Treaty of Potsdam!

The Teddy Bear Coalman popped his head up to survey the carnage. He saw coal bags burst, lying everywhere. Coal scattered from one end of the street to the other. Beggers and Tramps were already scurrying and about knicking some of Teddy Bear Coalman’s coal, stuffing it in their pockets and shopping trolley’s knackered from Tesco’s down the road. But what he saw last totally shocked him, made his fur stand on end, his stuffing squelched inside and if he had a digestive system he would have puked all over poor old dead Mrs. Watson’s feathers.

Horse lay spewed across the footpath. Blood dripped from his big Horse’s head, his left hind leg seemed to come out from where his knee should have been. His leg was broken, fucked as far as coal delivering went.

The Teddy Bear Coalman registered his loss in earnings immediately, no Horse, nor cart pulled, no coal delivered, no housewives banged…Feck! This really was a pain in the teddy bear butt. He strolled lazily over to his broken equestrian friend and summoned up all the sincerity he could muster.

“Are you all right Horse? Choked the Teddy Bear Coalman.
“Feck off ya furry bollox, you’re thinking about loss in earnings and sex, I know you, feck you Teddy Bear Coalman. For a moment I thought I meant more to you than just a big lug to pull your cart!” Cried out Horse in agony.
“No, no, no, Horse I really am worried about you, I’ll help you back to the house. Make you a nice cup of tea and a bucket of Horny Oats (registered trade mark #897®©) and I’ll phone Mr. Warner that lovely vet you like so much from Hollybank clinic,” said the Teddy Bear Coalman and actually meant what he said.


Mr. Warner the vet took a good luck at Horse, then took the Teddy Bear Coalman out to the kitchen to discuss the prognosis.
“I won’t lie to you Teddy Bear Coalman, God knows you’ve been delivering coal long enough to our house and the Misses just loves you for some reason, so I’ll have it out straight with ya. His leg is broken, fecked all together, he’ll never race again, I think we’ll have to put him down, I can do it, no extra charge.”
“But Mr. Warner, he’s not a race horse, he just pulls my coal cart in the morning,” replied the confused little bear.
“Oh? In that case we’ll just put him down anyway, still no extra charge. Not very valuable animal, one that draws a cart.”
“But…but…but…” stuttered the Teddy Bear Coalman. He was lost for words, totally distressed. Horse might be a prick sometimes but he was his horse, he was his friend! Mr. Warner pulled out a huge hypodermic needle from his black veterinarian’s bag. Tapped it once, squirted a little of it’s deadly venom out the top and let it trickle down the side of the syringe and approached Horse.
“What’s dat for?” Asked Horse innocently.
“Well Horse, your leg is broken, so I’m going to put you down, make it feel all better, don’t feel bad old fella, it happens to the best of us, and you’re years past your prime,” congenially explained Mr. Warner.
“Feck off! You’re not gonna kill me just because I broke my fecking leg. Are you crazy?” Yelled Horse.
“Now, now, Horse don’t be such a big baby, just let me inject you and you’ll be dead in say ten minutes or so, you’ll hardly even know the difference, that right Teddy Bear Coalman!”
“Of course I’ll notice the difference I’ll be fecking dead won’t I? There is quite a difference between being not dead and being dead.”
“Technically speaking yes, but come on Horse it’s not like you have much of a life anyway. Like seriously what have you to live for?”
The Teddy Bear Coalman joined in “Ah, Horse if the good Mr. Warner says it’s best, maybe you should listen to him, he has a college you know, very educated, very smart man, ah go on Horse listen to him and you’ll be better in know time, “ said the Teddy Bear Coalman with hope.
“What, are you stupid, demented, too much stuffing and no brains. If he puts me down, I don’t get better, I get dead!” Said Horse very angrily.
“Oh sorry Horse old chap, I totally misunderstood” he feigned ignorance “Hold on till I speak to the good doctor, just one second.”

Both went out again to the kitchen and left Horse petrified in his armchair. His tea had gone cold and he had lost his appetite for the jam covered scones and oats in front of him. The Teddy Bear Coalman returned to the sitting room looking very cheerful altogether.

“Mr. Warner says to take two Paracetemol three times a day and rest that leg for about 3-4 weeks and you’ll be pulling my cart in no time. Also he says sorry about the whole near death thing, it’s all just procedure you know, no hard feelings, all right Horse?” Explained the Teddy Bear Coalman.

Horse just sighed out of relief and fell asleep in his armchair dreaming of wild stallions on the range running freely through great grassy plains. A happy horse was he.


The Teddy Bear Coalman just didn’t know how he was going to get his coal delivered with Horse’s leg all messed up. He walked down to Mrs. Browner’s corner shop, which wasn’t on a corner at all, but right in the middle of Main Street. Mrs. Browner might sound like an old English woman, but was in actual fact a first generation Indian and raised in the gutters of New Dehli till she was ten years old. Her Indian name was Kaki which translated directly to Browner. So she had it legally changed when she opened her corner shop on Main Street, thought the anglicized version sounded more appetizing than Kaki.

“Mrs. Browner,” said the Teddy Bear Coalman “ I would like to place an advert in your window please. Just looking for some horse to pull my cart for awhile, nothing permanent.”
“Ohhh, dut, dut, dut Teddy Bear Coalman we will have no profanity like that in my corner shop, ohh, dut, dut, dut,” scolded Mrs. Browner totally misconstruing the situation altogether.
“No, Mrs. Browner, my coal cart, the one I deliver coal to you on” said the Teddy Bear Coalman very embarrassed because this cart she knew well and all the banging that came with it!
“Sorry, very sorry, a thousand pardons Teddy Bear Coalman. Why don’t you look in the Auto-Trader, you’ll find anything in that motor magazine” advised Mrs. Browner.
“Very well, here’s three pennies.”
“And the rest you stingy, furry, bollox, ohh, dut, dut, dut,” Shouted the packie.

The Teddy Bear Coalman went into Joe’s Good Coffee House, which was owned by a man named Brian and sold the worst coffee this side of a Styrofoam cup. He flicked through the pages of the Auto-Trader and it jumped straight out at him off the page, nearly taking his eye out:

Half-price Twin Cam for Sale, 130 Horsepower, Best Cart Around. No Tire Kickers or Test Pilots.

Announced the king-sized advert. The Teddy Bear Coalman didn’t know what a Twin Cam was, but if it had 130 horsepower he could deliver loads of coal and after all it was half-price, oooowhhaaaa. He phoned the number and arranged a meeting in the car park at the back of Tesco’s.

When the Teddy Bear Coalman arrived on foot with the Auto-Trader rolled up under his arm the entire car park were empty, cause it were a Sunday, apart from the most beautiful, divine sight he had ever beheld. A 16 valve, back wheel drive, double over head cam, Toyota Corolla Twin Cam sat low and fat like his momma’s ass in the center of the car park. She was two-toned, silver over black. He staggered over to it, salivating at the mouth. It had electric blue trim on the outside highlighting the lettering 16V DOHC. Inside the blue continued on the steering wheel, gear knob and stereo. All seats had four point racing harnesses in the same electric blue fashion. Even around the back the chrome exhaust pipe was shinned to perfection. Teddy Bear Coalman caught his reflection in this and saw a happy bear about to buy a Twin Cam.

“All right soir, ya wanna by ma Twin Cam,” said the heavenly chariot’s owner! The Teddy Bear Coalman couldn’t speak, he just nodded and pissed himself a little, unable to control his bladder. “All right soir, take her for a wee test drive ‘bout the car perk and no test pilot stuff, ye don’t look much like no Colin McCrae to me soir.”

The Teddy Bear Coalman slipped behind the wheel. The whole car hugged around his body and then as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do he reclined his seat all the way back, turned the key and listened to the distinctive growl of the Twin Cam and out of his little Teddy Bear Coalman mouth came the words “Aigh, Twin Cam 16 Valve soir.” With that he slammed his foot to the floor and sent the back wheel drive Twin Cam side ways through the car park. The owner of the car blessed himself and prayed to St. Margo in a Rickshaw.

The Teddy Bear Coalman pulled up and said “Good man, I’ll take her at half-price.”
To this the man replied “Aigh, soir, ya boyo!”

Horse was in the middle of Coronation Street and another cup of tea when he heard the really strange noise like somebody with a real bad nasal problem going WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! He drew the orange shabby curtains back and saw her for the first time. The Twin Cam, thee Twin Cam in her all her majesty, Horse always held a mighty respect for this Prince of the road. But what the hell was the Teddy Bear Coalman doing behind the wheel of such a vehicle, the sole preserve of bogmen and plonkers alike?

“Nice motor Teddy Bear Coalman,” offered Horse.
“Aigh man, thanks man. This is ma new Twin Cam 16 Valve, back wheel drive, not front wheel drive, carburetted, not injected, wild power, some job.”
“What the fuck did you just say?” Said Horse absolutely astounded at the change in his fluffy friend’s accent.
“Horse, I’m off ta cruise the Main Street for the evening, do some doughnuts, might even grab meself a snack box ta ate.” With a slip of the clutch, a dab of the accelerator and one hell of a roar, the Teddy Bear Coalman went sideways down the street. MWHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Horse hobbled back to his comfy chair to catch the end of Coronation Street, shaking his big horse’s head in pure bewilderment with his coal companion.
“Fecking edgit,” said Horse to himself.

The Teddy Bear Coalman pulled up to Queens Cross Station traffic lights and saw P.C. Perkins stroll down Paisley Lane and out of sight. Then he floored it, double clutched her and hit about seventy going past the take-away, before putting the arse out and tailing her into a complete 180. Then slid perfectly into a parking space between a camper van and a BMW. The Teddy Bear Coalman was well chuffed with himself. The little bear walked as cool as he could up to the take-away. He concentrated on the feel of having something up his arse, that’s always gives a complete hardass look and for good measure spat on the ground and licked his lips. (Hey, give the bloke a chance, it’s hard to look tough when you’re 4ft 3ins tall with button eyes, cute little ears, covered in the fuzziest, softest fur around!)

“Aigh, Snack Box, two breasts please.” Teddy Bear Coalman tittered at his own little joke.
“Cheeky bastard” replied the girl behind the counter. “Another word out of you like that and you can get your Southern Fried chicken somewhere else shorty!”

The Teddy Bear Coalman shit himself on the spot, his hugely inflate ego let some air hiss out. He needed to recover quickly with a good come back and only one thing came to mind “Do you know ya tart, ya geebag, saggy breasted wench that I’ve a Twin Cam 16 Valve Corolla, back wheel drive, aigh?” That got her. She just melted on the spot, she had never experienced desire for a teddy bear before, but right now she felt it and felt it badly. Twin Cam, Twin Cam reverberated through out her whole body.

“Take me Teddy Bear Coalman, take me and your Snack Box, have my breasts!”
“Aigh, naw thanks I’ll just have a can of coke as well thanks” and gave the girls a few pennies for her troubles. On the way out the door he bumped into the blond from earlier who had booted him out of her house. Neither made eye contact, excused themselves and walked on by. For some reason the Teddy Bear Coalman didn’t drive his car away, when he started it up, it felt more natural to sit their eating his Snack Box with the radio on mad loud, engine running away and dabbing at the accelerator every once in awhile. He couldn’t understand his own behavior, but hell he liked it. He thought to himself as he pushed fried chicken into his mouth ‘You’re brilliant Teddy Bear Coalman, not brilliant baby, just British!’ A tap on his door brought him out of his daydream and into a complete fantasy. There, only mm’s away on the other side of his tinted window was the blond. He put the window down and spoke in a deep voice:

“Aigh, what do you want?” Play it cool Teddy Bear Coalman, play it cool.
“Is this your car? Would you like to show me what this baby can do?” She winked. “Say we make up for a little misunderstanding this morning?”
“Now let me get this straight. When you winked this time and spoke with sexual innuendo is it leading to sex or are you taking the piss like you did earlier?”
“I’m for real this time you little furry fuck monster!”
“Get in ma Twin Cam doll, I’m taking you for a wee ride!” Shit he thought, this totally beats the crap out of the old coal cart for picking up the chicks and getting some banging done. The Teddy Bear Coalman slipped her into first and mmmwwwhaaaaaaaa off they went sideways down the road. The Teddy Bear Coalman drove his Twin Cam flat out to the hills and beyond. Jaysus he couldn’t wait to get a piece of this blond. Mind you he ate the rest of his Snack Box as he controlled the back wheel beast of the road with one hand, no bother. They pulled to a quiet spot, turned off the engine and turned to face her for desert.

“Leave the engine on little bear, I love to hear it growl…” The engine wasn’t the only thing that was turned on and growling in that instant. The next three hours were spent in pure Teddy Bear Coalman heavenly bliss.


The Twin Cam was the best thing ever. Eating Snack Boxes and tailing her out in his Twin Cam and picking up babes, that was the way to live. No more coal bag banging for this little bear, no sir. Horse could stay fecked for all he cared, he was King, King of the Twin Cams!


5,000 revs, 6,000 revs, drop the clutch, shift the gear, sideways around a corner, flat out on the straight. After his time with the hot blond the Teddy Bear Coalman was running on pure adrenaline…125mph…130mph…135mph…140mph…flat out, up to the limit on O’Grady’s Straight. But the bear forgot that when straight ends it usually signifies a corner, a bend in the road. Feck!!!!!

His four point harness held him tightly as he tailed her sideways round the corner, he thought he had made it when the nose of her tipped the ditch, the arse snapped around, he tried some reverse lock, pulled the hand brake to rescue her, but no good, the hedge line was coming right at him. Over the ditch she went, down a slope, rolled once, rolled twice…four times in all and landed in a slurry infested stream in the middle of the field.

“Feck, feck, feck!!” Roared the Teddy Bear Coalman. He climbed out into the pig shit and examined his Twin Cam. His 16V, back wheel drive Corolla, fucked she was, bent and busted, feck!

A large dose of reality hit the Teddy Bear Coalman at that moment as he sunk his furry little padded knees into the slurry, grabbed his cute wee Teddy Bear Coalman head between his little paws and roared in a deep animalistic guttural roar “AAHHHHH FECK! Aigh!”

Horse sniffed the air, slurry he mused, definitely pig shit. He turned around to see his bedraggled friend standing in the kitchen doorway, dripping from ear to ear. With the most stupid ‘I’ve been a silly bollox’ grin on his face.
“Where’s the Twin Cam and why do you smell like shit?” Inquired Horse.
“Wrote her off,” replied the Teddy Bear Coalman.
“Did she raul?”
“Aigh, she rauled.”
“She raaauuullllled,” screamed Horse.
“Aigh, she fecking did…”
“I’ll put the kettle on, you go grab a shower ‘cause you smell.” Ordered Horse. He was happy to be about the kitchen making tea for his friend and master, as much as he love Twin Cams himself he was even more happy to have the Teddy Bear Coalman back and the prospect of pulling the old cart in about, say 2-3 weeks give or take a Bank Holiday Monday. Yeah, life was cruel sometimes, but it had to be cruel to be kind. Horse hummed some silly happy song to himself. The Teddy Bear Coalman came into the sitting room.
“Bad news for you horse.”
“What’s that Teddy Bear Coalman my buddy.”
“To pay for the Twin Cam and insurance I kind of used the coal delivery business as collateral.”
“What’s this mean?” Asked Horse terrified.
“It means we’re fucked, broke, out of business, no more clipty-clop, nor more bang-bang thank you mam in yer shed. We’re finished Horse, kapish, kaput! The Teddy Bear Coalman broke down to his knees for the second time that evening and begged God for forgiveness. Just then there was knock at the door, then a ring on the bell and a letter through the door! Was this the answer from God, so soon? Horse hobbled over and picked it up.
“It’s a summons for you Teddy Bear Coalman, a court appearance next week for reckless driving, speeding and destruction to private property.”
This was the end of the Teddy Bear Coalman’s coal and banging empire, but with one last resilient, defiant effort to show the world he was down but not out he said “Feck it anyway, I’ll be back!”

The End.