Gurriers (101 page)

If a Garda car ever followed a bike down this lane the bike could make it up the steps, through the bollards, onto the Dun-drum Road and away with a considerable head start, because it would take a car ages to turn around, retrace its steps back to get onto the Dundrum Road and get after him.

My intention was to head straight there via Ranelagh, turn off my engine and sit for a while to be sure that the gards weren’t on my case, hide the helmet and jacket and then walk home, a mere couple of hundred yards towards Dundrum along the main road.

I flung my machine super aggressively through the chicane onto Sussex Road Upper and past the Burlington at ferocious speed, beeping and throwing boots and bashing off the vehicles of many startled motorists, most of whom reacted instinctively by braking and doing me the favour of slowing things up for my pursuers.

I wanted to get off this stretch at the first opportunity because there was a big Garda station – Donnybrook – a bit further up. My chosen route was right onto Appian Way, staying left onto Sallymount Avenue to bring me to Ranelagh. The problem was the three inward bound lanes that I would have to get across if the feeder light for right wasn’t green.

The light wasn’t green, but as I approached the junction I picked out a gap that I should make, provided the airbus in the bus lane braked. Without having time to think about it I went for it. The two cars in the lanes closest to me slammed on their brakes and beeped their horns. The bus flashed his lights and beeped his horn, but didn’t brake.

Wanker! I was sure that he was going to collide with me and smash me up, but somehow I made it through.

After my experience with the two buses during the chase I will always wonder whenever I hear about fatal crashes involving buses whether the life lost might have been saved had the bastard driving the bus not had such a horrible attitude towards other road users.

The traffic along Appian Way was light, so I accelerated close to top speed along the straight stretch towards the next traffic
lights, at the Sallymount Avenue junction, which were red. I slammed on the brakes and bashed down through two gears, but didn’t decelerate enough to be able to stop in time due to the lesser road that I was swinging left onto.

A Range Rover shot across the junction coming from Leeson Park leading onto Sallymont Avenue at the worst possible moment for me. I beeped and dragged the bike as far down to my left as I could while I shot into the path of the speeding monster. As with most adrenalin-fuelled moments, this one is engraved forever in my memory and I swear to God that the driver of the Range Rover – in my opinion – considered crashing into me before deciding to take evasive action, which he did just in time not to T-bone me, barely clipping the back of my machine instead before gaining enough control of his vehicle to deliver the first of many long indignant beeps on his horn, as I sped along Sallymount away from him.

His beeps were joined by those of a Mercedes that I cut in front of into the traffic where Sallymount met Ranelagh, but I was away from both on the outside of the southbound traffic in no time, frantically scanning the traffic on both sides for those dreaded rooftop lights. There were none visible and I tore along the outside of traffic at little more than normal speed all the way up to Milltown Road junction, where the lights were green, but heavy inbound traffic made my right turn impossible.

I stopped this time instead of bullying my way across the two lanes, confident that my escape was in the bag. As it happens, I only had to wait a few seconds before getting my feeder light and I proceeded, checking all around me for flashing lights as prey might check for signs of a predator.

The road was clear along the Milltown Road, through Mill-town Village and down to turn left onto the start of Dundrum Road. I was still aflame with adrenalin, relief of success flooding my system with giddy feel good endorphins.

After turning left onto Dundrum Road I eased down a notch in my driving manner, driving along a well-driven road in pretty much a normal fashion. I was tempted to drive straight home as normal, but something in my head incorporating Vinno’s
memory convinced me to carry out the manoeuvre.

I turned right into Millmount Grove just after where Bird Avenue met the Dundrum Road on my left and followed the sign for LME Motorcycles before swinging left through the little cottages down into the dead end for a well earned rest from the rigors of being hunted by the gards.

I came to a halt right beside the escape steps and let myself flomp against a high wall, reminding myself in the process that I had had a knock on my left side.

As I relaxed my nerve ravaged system, a strange flood of feelings flowed through me.

I was feeling pretty damn good, despite admonishing myself so much for the stupidly dangerous behaviour that had me feeling so giddy with after–adrenalin and the ever increasing pain along my left side after the collision on Baggot Street. Foremost in my mind was Vinno and the buzz he would have gotten hearing about this episode. He would have loved to have heard about me out-driving and outsmarting the gards. I could picture him smiling proudly down at me.

“What the fuck!!”

I was snapped out of my reverie when I suddenly noticed Saoirse. The bitch, with no lights or sirens on now, was almost on top of me. Thank God I hadn’t yet killed the engine. I tapped the bike into gear and swung to the left, accelerating to the max and slipping the clutch as I did so to get the front wheel to come up over the first few steps and give me some momentum up the steps and towards the bollards. My feel good endorphins disappeared, replaced by a combination of adrenalin and despair.

It was totally despairing to have the chase on again after being convinced that it was over and I truly had to battle against the urge to just give up in the face of such tenacity. How the hell had she found me? She must have come onto Leeson Street via Wilton Terrace, wrong way against the one way system and joined Leeson Street in time to see what direction I had taken; seen me turn onto Appian Way, got onto that straight road in time to see me take Sallymount Avenue, decided where I was
going and saw me turning right onto Milltown Road from a distance and onto the Dundrum Road. She must have been just far enough behind me on Dundrum Road so that I didn’t notice her but she had seen which way I had turned. All those long, straight stretches that I had chosen! Dumbass! No doubt that this fucking Terminator was going to nail her ST1100 road bike up the steps after me – despite the amount of damage she would inevitably do to it in the process.

At the top of the steps, between the pedestrian entrances to the two cottages, I saw an opportunity to slow down my pursuer in the form of a wheelie bin. It stood about two feet out from the wall on my right and I could tell by the slightly open lid that it was full. As I was driving past it, heading between the bollards, I kicked the top of it as hard as I could with my right foot, leaning my bike to the right to compensate for the force. It worked perfectly. The wheelie bin catapulted backwards, spewing rubbish from under the lid in the process, bounced off the wall and then fell forwards just as my back wheel got out of its way. It landed face down between the bollards blocking the only gap she could possibly fit her bike through.

She would have to stop her bike, dismount, get the bin out of her way, get back onto her bike and proceed after me. This would be time consuming enough on a flat surface, but going up steps much more so. She wouldn’t be able to use her side stand without dropping the bike and she might have serious trouble getting the machine off the centre stand if she used that. Her only option was to stop the bike in gear (to prevent it rolling back down the steps), kill the engine, lean the handlebar against the wall and then remove the obstacle, all the while with me accelerating away from her.

I’m not sure whether or not to let myself believe that forces from beyond the grave had any influence in the way that wheelie bin landed so well for me; belief in a guardian angel could easily lead a man to cockily make some very stupid decisions, but I can’t help smile at the notion of Vinno giving me a dig out at a crucial point in time.

While she was tackling that obstacle, however she did it, I
caned it up the road and turned left onto Arbourfield Terrace where I lived. I was taking no chances with the time I had at my disposal. I drove straight towards the front door in second gear, aiming the front wheel at the lock side of the centre, accelerated and slipped the clutch simultaneously to get the front wheel just a few inches into the air and bashed the door in.

It gave way so easily that the handlebars were in the hall by the time the door rebounded off the wall and it just bounced off the right side of the bars while the bike continued into the hall.

I killed the ignition, jumped off the machine and limped back to the door on my now very sore left leg. I closed the door, taking off my jacket and putting it on the floor as a stopper to keep the door closed. Then I removed the helmet, which would henceforth be an ornament for the sitting room – not to be worn in Dublin for many years, and placed it on the right hand mirror, as I hobbled past the bike on my way up to my bedroom to look out at whatever was going to happen out front.

She came smoking up from Milltown direction, again no lights and sirens this time, and stopped right outside the flat as I looked out at her from behind the blinds, awash with loads of emotions, thinking about Vinno above all else.

I was bloody glad that we had painted the front door black because of all the tyre marks. I was glad that I had become sloppy with the mortice lock, in too much of a hurry most mornings to lock it.

I was glad that wheelie bin had fallen the way it had

I was glad that I had finished a winner against Saoirse.

I was glad that I had been a courier and accumulated the skill and knowledge necessary to beat her.

Lastly, I was glad that I had gotten to know a man like Vinno, a man truly worthy of emulation.

After agonising seconds looking around her, she tapped her bike into gear and moved slowly away, still scouring all around her for any sort of clue.

As I watched her drive towards Dundrum I was surprised to feel a tear escape from my right eye and roll down my cheek past my quivering, emotionally charged mouth. I was trembling
all over as I spoke my feelings out loud.

“That was dedicated to you bro, wherever you might be smiling down at me from.”

THE END