Concerning an Irishman

The resemblance was certain. It was the point of his life where he thought he was at the outlook looking towards a shambolic rusted train station. This was his escape. His vacation. His vulnerabilities all rolled in to one. He was the Messiah, Jesus, Buddha all encapsulated in one body.

He was a thin man with a pin moustache always dressed in chequered clothing. The first time I met him I didn’t think much of him. We were at the Sheesha Bar as we had often done back then. A haze of smoke clouded the large bar as if it was awaiting impending doom. He was also wearing a barrette.

We sat next to him since he was by himself and the rest of the bar was filled to the rim. He didn’t say much at first. Just puffed away on his hookah (water pipe) quite contently. It was a good half hour before he decided to say anything to us.

‘Hello’
‘Hi, how are you?’ we asked warmly, always interested in meeting new people, hearing new stories, learning things about someone and therefore learning something about your own self.
‘I’m great. Say, you people come here often?’ His accent seemed to be Irish.
‘Yeah of late. We dig the atmosphere. You?
‘Yeah I’m here every second day of the week of late’ and laughed nervously.

This man did seem odd but there was something curiously interesting about him. Firstly, as noted earlier, he was wearing a barrette so we knew that he thought much of himself and that we shouldn't take him too seriously. Anyone who wears a barrette is not worth the attention that they seek. You don’t wear a barrette to NOT get noticed, do you?

He was wearing a dark shirt with purple pants that clashed revoltingly, and then he began to talk about ‘substance’. I will explain.

Once he realised that we were enjoying his company he began to open up and open up he did. He couldn’t shut the hell up! He rambled and ranted, segwaying through four different subjects within the one dizzying sentence. Hair, Russian literature, football, hashish and then ‘substance’.

When he began his whirlwind tour of information that was ‘substance’ we knew we were in for a ride. He crept uncomfortably close to all of us and would rub his thumb and forefinger together, like someone does when they are talking about money and he would say that what he was doing, that very act, was something of substance and that was the only thing that mattered.

We asked him what substance was and he would then rub his two fingers again whilst glaring into our eyes like we should know the answer already. How could we not get it?!

It took four long months to find out.

SMS

Dear Ioju,

The doctor says that you will be making a full recovery over the next few days. I’m sorry I’m not there with you but I’m too scared to be involved in whatever you’re mixed up in. I hope your well when you’re reading this. Your luggage is still at the hotel.

Love,
Samantha


---------------


That was the note I found lying on my hospital bed side table when I woke up from my four day medically induced slumber. I threw up after reading it.

The doctor let me check out of the hospital after a week. I was heavily bruised and missing a few teeth but they were able to stop the internal bleeding which was the critical thing. The doctor advised me that I probably should go see a dentist right away. I waved goodbye and smiled at him showcasing my mangled mouth. He smiled back uncomfortably.

I walked over to the pharmacy to get my prescription of pain killers. The pharmacist, an elderly man with spectacles that were too big for his face, looked at me up and down apprehensively. He studied the prescription and eyed me up and down once more. I tried to appear that I didn’t mind what he was doing but it was starting to become uncomfortable. I smiled at him so he could hopefully relax. He looked back repulsively and then vanished to fix up my script. While I was waiting I observed the various brochures on the front desk with all the helpful hints you may need for whatever illness you may have. I started to think what the best one would be. The most manageable of the lot. I went with Tinea. Tinea would be my chronic illness of choice.

He came back five minutes later with my prescription ready in his little white tub. He didn’t say how many I should take, he just told me how much they would cost and he never smiled once.

I walked back to my hotel and tried to find my belongings. The concierge who was visibly agitated by the way I looked ran to find my stuff before ‘I shot a cap in his ass’ or whatever he thought I was going to do to him. Fair enough too. My suit was still stained with dry blood and dirt. I had missing teeth and my face was swollen to a pulp. I wouldn’t fuck with me either.

When he found my suitcase he handed it to me with another envelope. I thanked him for getting my belongings and hired another room for one more night. He asked me if I needed a double bed but I told him a single would be fine. I walked up three flights of stairs, found room 307, went in, swallowed three of the pain killers and went to sleep.

My dream revolved around a small pigeon. I was sitting in front of it asking him where my shopping was. The pigeon said that it was behind me. I would turn around and then find my groceries a metre behind my back. The pigeon smiled. I smiled. We both smiled. He then got onboard a gold carriage that was parked nearby and rode off into the sunset. It was a weird dream.

I woke up feeling pretty groggy but at least I wasn’t in any pain. I lit the last of my stale Dunhill Reds and tried to recount what had happened to me. Although my memory was blurry I could remember that Samantha and I did go to the funeral together. We then went to a restaurant for some lacklustre Thai food and then went back to the hotel. That’s it. I couldn’t remember how they were able to take me, where I was or when exactly it happened.

I was also upset with Samantha although I understood why she left. I would have as well.

All this didn’t leave me in the greatest of moods so I put on the TV to entertain myself for a little while. It was about two thirty in the morning so my viewing consisted of infomercials for the latest thigh fat burning blaster, phone sex adds, SMS sex adds, horoscope SMS adds and any other advertisement that you can think of that included the acronym SMS in it. Oh and something about Jesus loving me for who I was if I donated fifty dollars to the church. I would burn in hell if I didn’t, obviously.

I suddenly remembered the other envelope that was handed to me by the concierge earlier. Another note from Samantha? Maybe! I opened it in a rush but realised that it wasn’t from Samantha and no, it wasn’t from Catherine because I know that that’s what you were thinking. It was from someone that I hadn’t spoken to in five years. It was someone that I had shared the best of times and the worst. It was someone I didn’t want to hear from ever again. That moment five years ago was now coming back to haunt me. I must admit, I haven’t been telling you the whole story.

Stevie Nicks

‘What the fuck are you here for?!’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about???’
‘Bullshit!’
And then he punched me again, this time breaking my nose.


Samantha and I tipped the taxi driver for getting us to our motel in a relative short amount of time. He amused us with his blatantly racist remarks towards his fellow taxi driver comrades. He thought we were laughing with him. It was a nice way to forget about what we had to attend to later in the afternoon.


‘PLEASE STOP. I don’t know anything!’
‘Where is the fucking money!’
‘What?!’
This time his punch opened a cut to the top of my eyebrow, my face now a palette of bright red under a black and blue canvas.


We put our bags down next to the bed and lay down. We set the alarm clock to wake us in a couple of hours. It was siesta time for Samantha and I. It was what we liked to do when we were together in the mid afternoon. You might call it boring. We called it nice.


‘So are you going to tell us where the money is you filthy fucking cunt.’
I had lost the ability to speak by this stage. His last hit was with the blunt end of his revolver breaking most of my teeth on the left side of my mouth.


When the alarm went off we woke up face to face, only centremetres apart. We gazed into each other’s eyes for a long, long time.


They had tied me back up onto the chair. How many of them were there? Three, maybe four. No, there was a fifth person to the side watching but not moving. I couldn’t make him or anyone out. Only silhouettes to my eyes.


We had an hour before we had to attend the evening funeral. The will stated that his funeral was to be held just as the sun had set. It was approaching five pm so we still had another hour before we had to head off. I kissed Samantha as I started to cry.


What could I hear? A radio? Stevie Nicks? I’m going to die whilst listening to Stevie Nicks? Where the fuck am I?!


Samantha told me that it was going to be OK. I told her that I wasn’t crying because of my friend. Something had changed in me during my nap. Is there such a thing as The One? Your perfect soulmate after all? Is this the feeling that they always talk about? I lost my friend. I couldn’t lose Samantha. Never. Knowing this brought meaning back into my life. I smiled and told her that I loved her. She started crying. She didn’t have to say anything back. She didn’t have to.


I started spitting blood from my mouth. That blood wasn’t from my mouth. Internal?? Oh fuck!


We made love. It was the first time it meant anything. It was the first time it meant everything.


The last thing I heard before blacking out was a female voice telling the statue figure in the corner that I was unquestionably the guy with my friend at the bar that night.