Goodbye to Jenni

Goodbye to Jenni

Good man Daithi, fancy some breakfast?
I looked up groggily from the couch. The T.V. was blaring daytime telly, the kitchen door was open and a fella was smiling at me. I guessed he was the one who had asked the question.
Yeh, cheers thanks. Cup of tea would be great, and a bit of toast.
How about a big dirty fry? It was said in a deep southern accent.
oh jesus no. cheers, thanks. god no, dont think my stomach could take it. anyway I’m a veggie.
Ah sure I know that! Just testing. Sure I know all you vegetarians yearn for a bit of bacon. You can you know I wont tell anyone.
Jesus if if I was going to I couldn't stomach it today. What did we get up to anyway?
You mean you dont remember? Ah you’re a good one! Oh there’s some craic ahead when Jennie finds that out. Hoo hoo you are the mutts nuts boy, that you are!
I looked around me at the dishevelled sitting room, table filled with tobacco, cigarette papers, mugs of half drunk tea, empty cans of beer. It looked like quite a night alright.
I tried to get my cold brain started, I remembered smoking with Rosie and Tom in the flat in Portrush, then Fyfe and Harry calling round. Harry saying something about Pete driving to Ballymena to see Charlie to score. I remember getting in the car.. then.. blank. Maybe we had crashed in Ballymena or at some friend of Harry’s.
I thought I’d start off easy I mean the guy obviously knew me so no point freaking him out.
What time of day is it?
About three, you’ve been sleeping away happy since about 9, the others crashed upstairs. I’ll give them a shout in a while and sure we can see what we are going to do with the rest of the day, and tonight.
Great, any idea what day is it then?
What day is it? Jesus you are the boy! oh that’s a good one! its tuesday, no thursday, no saturday, what day is it?! oh you’re funny man.
Right not getting any info there, oh remote control! Press the teletext, no teletext. Fuck.
Oh well, I pulled the cigarette papers towards me, and took out three. I put two to my lips and gently licked the end of them. I stuck them together and turned them flat on the table. I took the other skin, licked it along its length and stuck it to the back of the others, smoothed it down with my fingers.
I looked up, the tea arrived in a strong fist. The fella smiled behind it.
Start as you mean to go on boy, start as you mean to go on.
I nodded and slurped my tea, it hit an empty well of a stomach and the realisation bit that I hadn’t eaten anything for days. Panic tried to rise. I held the mug tightly until I calmed a bit.
I concentrated on rolling the joint, adding the tobacco, crumbling the hash in a fierce meditative manner. I added the roach, sat back and sparked it up. I inhaled deeply, right down into my tantien and felt the calm wave fill my body, out from my centre to my extremities.
Jaysus you’re loving that! Dont be moving in to it boy. Make sure it gets over here.
Time enough yourself boy, the first of the day cant be rushed.
True true, your wise enough Daithi lad. So you dont really remember anything of last night? He had a wry smile curling at the corner of his mouth.
No fuck all. And dont you be making up stories either. Jaysus you know I might have to be thinking of heading home soon...
Home? home? I thought you’d moved in here! He laughed. Jenni wont be happy to hear of you moving back up to the cold north. Anyway sure its not a journey to be starting this late in the day sure it’d be a good 8 hours or so on the bus. how would you get there anyway?
Guess the bus? maybe through Dublin? my heart started to pound in my chest.
Aye Dublin would be sensible. Have you folks you could stop off with?
Oh aye, relief flooded in again, oh aye good mates in Phibsboro.
A girl? he looked intently at me now.
No God no, just mates, the lads. They all play in bands dont know if you’ve heard of any? In Motion, Pet Lamb, The Jubilee Allstars, Dogday?
Ah sure Pet Lamb are great sure they play down here all the time! Oh man they rock! which one do you know?
Dave, the drummer.
Oh jaysus he’s brilliant! Fair play lad. Think I’ve heard of the Jubilee Allstars too, any good?
Great, kind of lo- fi you know?
He nodded. blankly, then stood up.
Right time to wake the posse, you sure you dont remember anything?
If you keep that slagging up I’m fucking off, right?
Fair enough boy, fair enough. He laughed again. A nice laugh in fairness.
So here was the rub, I was bolloxed in the deep south somewhere, no idea where, no idea when and no idea who with, and it looked like I had hooked up with a girl and God above only knew what she looked like but I was about to find out....
A clatter of footsteps on the stairs and one, two, three, four fellas half fell, half ran down the stairs, all in Doc Martens boots, a horrible thought crossed my brain, Jesus no, I couldn't have .. no Jennie couldn't be .. a fella could she?
Your out of luck boy, the beautiful Jennie has already taken herself off to the leisure centre for a swim. Must be keeping herself fit for you like.
Now I had four grinning faces to contend with.
You already smoking boy jesus youre an animal, or so Jennie told us.
Much laughter.
Any breakfast going? the lad at the back spoke.
Get it your fucking self.
Jesus Sean no need to be like that.
Good one name, Sean the fella I’d had breakfast with. I locked it away in my brain.
I fancy a walk lads, get some air in these lungs, anyone up for a stroll.
Jesus no its freezing out there Daithi.
Well sure maybe i’ll walk to the shop, anyone need anything?
We could do with more fags, and skins, and milk at least.
Grand sure I’ll be back in ten. I better take a joint 4 the road.
Good man, good man, one of the other fellas was laughing, no change in you then Daithi boy!
I sat rolled two joints, handed one to Sean.
Here Sean spark that up, see ye in a bit.
Good man Daithi.
I lit my joint, pulled my coat from under a chair and wrapped myself up. I grabbed my hat from under a foot and stuck it on my head.
I opened the door.
I walked down the drive.
Now to find out where I was. An estate, concrete jungle, kids playing on bikes, throwing eggs at each other. Classy. Hey kid. Ignored. Hey kid. The kid stops his bike, lofts his arm with the egg in it. Looks at me, sizes me up, holds fire.
What’s this place called?
He fires the egg. It misses by about an inch. He laughs and rides off.
I stand there for a minute and watch the playing cards attached to his wheel spokes go round clacking. It’s like they are repeating, what a fucking idiot over and over again. I agree.
I head towards what looks like the exit. fortunately after a few hundred yards I see the main road. There’s a bus stop. Cool. I check my pockets. No money. Ah fuck.
There’s a woman at the bus stop.
Excuse me could you tell me the road to Dublin.
Your on it son, she gives me a gentle smile. Go that way.
I look up the long road and see a sign Dublin 96 miles.
Cheers, thanks.
I cross the road, and hold out my thumb and watch cars whizz by in a hazy drug stupor.
After a time a car stopped. I run to catch it and hop in the driver seat.
Thanks very much, are you heading to Dublin?
I am son.
Ah great.
Where you from?
Donegal, Letterkenny.
You’re a long way from home lad, what brought you to Waterford?
Waterford? I wish I knew. I really wish i knew.

Sunglasses

Jesus you fucking prick do you get the point here? He wants the glasses, they are going to pay for them, it’s nothing to do with you. Jesus.

Daithi, maybe you’d like to take a few minutes and calm down? Outside.

I looked around the table, 12 or 13 stony faces stared back at me. White coats, white uniforms, some suits and then me, 22 years old and wearing jeans. Okay I’ve always had problems with authority and in particular Doctors. I mean how the hell are they supposed to become normal human beings? They study each evening from the time they go home from school to the day they leave secondary schools just to get the 9 A1s they need to get to college and then in college they have to study all the hours God sends and then in the hospitals they make them work 90 hours a week until they graduate. and people say their bedside manner has deteriorated! Mother of Gods they have the emotional development of an 11 year old so what do you expect?

I held my breath in my mouth. Fuming. Wanting to lash out. Desperately getting control of myself, focusing on a point against the wall. I stood up and slowly put one foot in front of each other until I reached the door. I didn’t look back at all.

I stood outside,heart pounding in my chest, breath shallow. All around me people went on with their busy work. Fuck I’m in trouble now. The door opened, it was Irene, the head Social Worker. She pulled out a packet of fags and nodded outside. We walked and nothing was said. My heart beat faster, I could feel bile rising in the back of my mouth.

Listen you are right, but the way you are going about it is going to get everyone’s backs up, I’m going to be called in to see the Head Consultant now. I’ll smooth it but in the meantime I want you to apologise and while it’s nice to see you getting so passionate you need to calm down and channel it better.
Now go sort out those glasses.

The relief flooded over me, I almost tripped over I ran so fast back to the office. I picked up the phone and rang the Body Positive number
hi Sean? Daithi here from James’ Hospital? yeh let’s go with the raybans, can we get them today, not sure if he’s going to last many more days... cool, I’ll meet you in town.

I’ve never been shopping for Raybans with a gay fella before, its quite a buzz, and of course I was paranoid that all the shop assistants would think we were a couple, and of course they did! but it was a laugh and over a few hours and many shops Sean told me about how he became HIV positive and how he hooked up with the support agency he now worked for, and lurid tales of Catholic bishops in massage parlours and saunas. Of hte priest who collapsed in a notorious ‘gym’ and another priest gave him the last rites before legging it! We did lunch, drank coffee and made friends and discussed Daniel O’ Donnell’s sexual orientation. I laughed so hard latte exited my nose.

Heading back on the bus and staring into the Dublin drizzle I couldn't help feeling that maybe I’d pitched myself in too deep here, I was only a student after all, 22 years old and working in the GUM clinic of St James Hospital. Sadly this has nothing to do with mouths and everything to do with Genito- Urinary Medicine. The clap clinic, ladies and gentlemen. And really I wasn’t handling it oh so well. My head was being blown apart by what I was hearing from people about their lives, their sexual behaviour and the impending death of some of my clients, add to that my pathological fear of hospitals and my complete and utter phobia of hypodermic needles and really my natural arrogance and over confidence had pitched me in the shit again. At least Irene was on my side maybe I’d get out of this with a decent mark after all, maybe one day I would really graduate. Maybe. An maybe I was way way out of my depth, but today wasn’t about me, today I had something important to do, a dying wish to fulfill.

Colin was sitting up in bed, he looked so pale, the karposa’s syndrome covered most of his face with a glaring red rash so he had one fragile hand placed protectively in fornt of his proud face. Vane to the last, fair play to him. His long black hair still shone and his eyes lit up.
Good news?
Good news.
The Scooter?
Not the Scooter.
The Sunglasses?
I grinned as I revealed the raybans from behind my back, he screamed in delight, and threw his arms around me, I could feel his bones beneath his silk pyjamas, I could feel his heart pounding. He felt so fragile, so weak, it reminded me of other people I had known who had died, of my cousin Wendy who died when we were ten, who wasted away with cancer and how we used to push her around in a kiddies buggy near the end. She didn’t take any shit though. Right up until the end she took no shit. He let me go and swung his legs over the side of the bed, I took his forearn and led him onto the floor, stopping only to put on his slippers. He took the glasses reverently and slid them on. A perfect fit.
How do I look?
a million dollars Col, a million dollars.
The whole ward had stopped and were looking.He spoke clear and loud.
Well how do i look?
A big nurse was smiling.
You look great ya eejit.
I could hear people murmuring in agreement.
A mirror, a mirror, get me a mirror.
He hadn’t looked in a mirror for quite some time now.
Oh I look fabulous, thank you, thank you, thank you.
I hugged him again and said I’d see him later. I never did. When I came back on Monday he was dead. As per his last will they buried him in his raybans.

Rosie, I owe you one

Rosie, I owe you one.

I never thought it would happen with me and a girl from Sixmiletown, out on the windy beachfront that night I ain’t forgotten. That summer with no passion, she dealt out the rations, I said you are a farmer, perhaps she said I maybe....(apologies to Difford and Tilbrook)

We drove out towards Culmore, she pulled over. I told her that was it, it was all over, there was no-one else (lies) and that it had just reached a natural conclusion. She cried. The only emotions I’d ever seen her express were through anger and sulking so this was quite a turn.
But I was going to ask you home for Easter to meet my family.
The concept of meeting the family that turned out someone this emotionally stunted was not at all enticing and quickened my resolve.
I thought it was going so well.
How? I asked, stunned.
It’s the best relationship I’ve ever been in.
It may well have been but... well let’s recap. I met her ten days after my girlfriend of three and a half years had dumped me for another fella. I was still crying. She asked me to slow dance and then didn’t want to kiss me. Said she wouldn’t come home with me but did and shagged me, then moved into the other bed in my room for the rest of the night. During the year’s courtship she had slept with two of my friends (no loss, gobshites anyway) and I slept with her best friend. Granted she didn’t know of this rebetrayal and I had only done it for revenge purposes but still.
You said you loved me.
True I had but...
The most I was ever in love with Maggie was when she wasn’t there. She was in America for the summer and in those three long months I fell in love with her, Absence indeed does make the heart grow fonder, that and the fact that I was apparently the most unattractive man in the whole of Donegal. Misery is not attractive and I was certainly miserable. So I wrote jolly letters and longed for her return. It was a disaster.
This is the first time I’ve ever thought I had a future with someone...
I knew we didn’t when I asked her to get me a Simpsons T Shirt and she asked what kind of band they were. Really, even in 1990 that was out of whack. Our long planned reunion became a night of no passion and during the following week she slept with the two (ex) friends. The fact that it didn’t bother me should have been a sign that I didn’t care much about her, or me, but hey all lust is blind. And sure skin up there man, it’ll be fine.
How have things changed, why don’t you want me now?
There were three things that drew me to her: one I was seriously on the rebound after my girlfriend of three and a half years had just left me for another man. Two, I was taking a lot of drugs which numb the critical faculties while enhancing other areas. Three, nice breasts. It’s recently come to my attention that all through my life I have lived with the unconscious belief that nice breasts equals nice person. You would think i would have worked out how erroneous this was earlier but like I say it was unconscious so how could I? Anyway, she was offering sex,, I was taking it. She was emotionally stunted, I was emotionally stunted, at least temporarily. How could it go wrong? How could it have gone right?
And yet I had led her to believe there was a future with us. I’d transferred over all the feelings and intimacies from my previous relationship to this one. And I’d been determined, for a while at least, to make this one work. What I’d overlooked is that she was a very unhappy person well on her way to having a serious alcohol problem. Nice breasts you see. They cloud everything.
What had changed? I met someone else, someone who didn’t want me to share their misery, somone who wanted a laugh, a bit of fun, someone who rescued me. Life is serious which is why we should laugh. I’d forgotten that, Jenny reminded me. It all ended in tears, happily Maggie’s not mine, and a disastrous intervention attempt by her when she landed in Portrush to win me back- I bolted leaving her sitting up all night with my flatmate Rosie while I stayed with Jenny. Rosie fed her whiskey and tissues and told her what a terrible person I was and why she would be better off without me. When I came back the next afternoon she was gone and Rosie was fit to kill me, I talked her down with whiskey and cannabis. Don’t think I ever did enough to repay that debt. Rosie if you are out there, I still owe you one.

1 Milion tiny plays about dj'ing No.2

1 million Tiny Plays About dj’ing..... number 2.

Two girls approach the d.j box as everyone else is walking away after the last song. They have probably had a few drinks...
Go’on play ....
Can’t, I’m sorry it’s over.
Ah just one more tune ...
I adopt a jocular manner.
I was thinking that we should change the National Anthem to ‘One More Tune’ ‘cos it’s always the last thing I hear ...
Girl Number One attempts a disapproving look. I ignore it and give her the false broad smile. This throws her, she looks to her friend for support who pipes up...
Have you got MGMT?
Yes I played it earlier.
Go’on play it now.
I can’t the lights are on, the music has stopped and it’s time to go. The Gardai are very strict these days. And if I play tunes twice the other tunes get jealous, (I'm getting into my stride now, they have no chance interrupting me). I mean think of all the tunes that don’t get played at all and then to play one twice! Sure there’d be murder in the car on the way home, they’d be fighting their way out of the box.
She looks at me as if I’m a mentalist.
Ah go’on.
I can’t.
You can.
It’s over, if you want a song you should request it early on and we can try and get it in.
But I wasn’t here when you played it.
Well maybe you should come earlier and then you’d get your one more song, lots more songs, I’ve been here for over two hours....
They consult, I pack things away but they aren’t finished. The other friend comes back flashing big doe eyes,
Are you going to play it then?
No.
Well I’m not coming back again you know.
Ok.
What?
Ok. I put out my hand over the partition. She puts out hers, looking a little confused, I shake her hand, smiling.
It was good to meet you this once anyway, take care of yourself.
Oh charming, that’s bloody charming that is, oh you’re very funny.
She takes her friend by the arm,
Come on we’re off....

Fast forward to the next Friday ....
Hi remember me?
MGMT is it?
YES! you remembered
How could I forget? ... I’ve already played it .....

1,9,7,3.

‘What’s ya name?’ said Vaughan from across the room.

‘Daithi’ I said.

‘What he said? I canny say that. What footba team di ya support?’

‘Leeds’ I said.

‘I’ll call ya Leeds’.

And from then on he did.

‘Come here Leeds, look at that what do you think?’ He showed me a campaign for Converse he was working on.

‘Nice’ I said getting a bit excited, ‘do you get free runners too?’

‘Not a bit of it, Leeds, with the many thousands of dollars they’re paying me, I’ll be able to buy me own, don't ya think?’ 
 

Back in the mid 90s I was knocking around with a band who signed to the legendary 4AD, I was kind of their Bez, without the dancing. We were brought to London for a couple of weeks and generally wined and dined. After being introduced to everyone at 4AD and V23, the design arm of the enterprise run by the legendary Vaughan Oliver, the band were shuffled into a room to have serious discussions about contracts and such like. I wandered off around the building, blagging t-shirts and chatting to anyone who would chat with me for a while and it wasn’t long before I found myself back in the v23 basement.

Far from being the fey pale ex art student I had expected Vaughan was a charismatic, funny, intelligent and loud Mackem, and at the time, huge physically. I liked him instantly.

‘If you see Vaughan lying around naked’ one of the media pluggers had said to me earlier, ‘just tell him to put his fucking clothes back on, it’s getting boring’. 

We chatted art and music, his passion shone through and as passion does the excitement carried over to me. I tried to soak up as much as I could from a man whose work had adorned my student walls, and has often been lauded with changing the face of British design.

‘I like ya band Leeds. You’ve got the girl out front, she’s a right looker. Then you’ve got the big bastard on bass and he’s rocking the fuck out of it. So I’m thinking it’s like Beauty and the Beast. What I’m looking for is beautiful images of ugly things. What do you think of these?’

‘Wow they’re beautiful images, what are they?’

‘Rat’s abortions’

‘Umm well yeh, wow’ 

And indeed they were the cover of the band’s first full single release on 4AD. Septic wounds adorned the album cover, intestinal worms also made an appearance along with rusted fusbal men. All beautifully photographed and laid out. 

‘Do ya know the Pale Saints Leeds?' said Vaughan one afternoon after his design team had, so the tale went, spent their lunch hour doing research in a 'gentleman's club' nearby. 
 They’re Leeds fans too, Leeds, big Leeds fans’.

4AD being an artist focused label liked to have the band choose some of the ways in which they'd be promoted. The Pale Saints had asked could they have an advert in a Leeds United matchday programme. 4AD had happily agreed and Vaughan had spent quite a time beautifully designing up the ad. 

'But what they didn't notice was that I put a number in each corner. 1,9,7,3.’ Bob Stokoe, Leeds, Ian Porterfield! They never noticed!'

And he collapsed into fits of laughter.