Gurriers (30 page)

“Don’t worry, I’ll be back in a second!” I said, silencing the distressed damsel before galloping down the stairs and around the corner on my mission to save the day. Two minutes later our slightly out of breath hero was back with some good news, a puffed out chest, and a voice that was just a tad louder, deeper and more dramatic than before.

“It’s Okay; I can do it for you! I found a way to take your box to Bray.”

I don’t know what I expected from the damsel that I was so heroically saving but an awkward silence was all that followed my dramatic spiel.

After an agonising couple of seconds she managed to get me to move by slapping her hand on the box and saying “thanks”. As I strapped the box onto the bike I grumbled to myself that the heroes in the films were never rewarded for their actions with such a “so what” attitude. It didn’t curb my enthusiasm
though, and I continued to go about my job with more than a little energetic drive.

The following day that same drive proved to be my own downfall. After lunch I had been sent west with four jobs going through Crumlin up into Tallaght, in a continuation of Aidan’s programme to get me accustomed to the whole of Dublin.

While in the base, sadly, I neglected to change my radio battery. By the time I got up to Crumlin, it was bip–bipping at regular intervals infuriatingly reminding me that it was running low on power. By the time I had dropped all jobs and collected one from Woodies coming back into Dublin 2, the bips had accelerated to an almost constant noise and I had to turn off my radio. The receptionist in Woodies kindly let me ring the base. When an irate Aidan barked at me to head straight down, drop my drop and then come in to get a new battery, I apologised for the inconvenience just as he rudely hung up on me.

I had the radio out of my holder and the dead battery off by the time I meekly arrived at the hatch.

“Sorry about that, Aidan. I just forgot.”

“Just ‘cause the bat’ries las’ nearly two days, doesn’t mean ye don’ have to change them ev’ry day!”

“It won’t happen again.”

“Rie. I have this one goin’ down to the chemist on Upper Baggot Street.” He handed me a small envelope with the address hand written on it.

“They’ll give ye a return comin’ back to the base. Giz a shou’ when ye have i’ on board.”

“No problem.” I took the envelope and the fresh battery, determined to make up for my mistake by following his instructions to the letter.

As soon as I had my radio back in its holder, I pulled my helmet down and marched to the door while shoving the envelope into the front pouch of my bag, pausing only for the briefest of moments to nod to Charlie and Darren at the table. Such was my intention to obey that I never for a second questioned to myself why he was sending me on a mini base job with a push-
bike courier sitting in the canteen, especially since I was only doing the occasional mini this week. Maybe I would have been suspicious if I hadn’t been so eager to comply after messing up with the radio, but I obediently nailed it down Lad Lane onto Baggot Street with only one thing on my mind – get this job done quickly.

I was scribbling the details into my book as I approached the young attractive blond behind the counter. In the absence of customers, she had been packing menthol lozenges into a display beside the cash register. She stopped this to take the envelope from me as soon as I got to the counter. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other as she opened the envelope and read the enclosed letter – a manner of conveying urgency that I had heard Five Alan mention in a conversation about minimising delays.

There was something about the way she stared at me after reading the letter that should have aroused my suspicions, but all that occupied my mind was a desire to get the return on board and get back to base with haste.

“I’ll be back in a moment,” she said and then was gone into a back room, leaving me cringing at the possibility of a delay. The assistant was, however, mercifully quick in returning and I could see that she had one of the chemist’s small bags containing a package in her hand when she did. I smiled at her as she handed me the package and the envelope that I had originally handed her.

“Thank you very much”

“Er, that’ll be three pounds fifty, please,” she said.

“Oh…I’ll be back in a second.”

Aidan had said nothing to me about having to pay any money. The right thing to do was to check with him to see if I should pay it here and be reimbursed in the base just in case it was an error – an account with the chemist or something.

“Four Sean.”

“Go ahead, Sean.” There was something about his voice that just wasn’t right. He sounded almost cheery, definitely unlike I had ever heard him sound before.

“They’re asking me for money for this return – should I pay it?”

“Yep.” This wasn’t right. It was as if he had sneezed or something and just caught himself to answer me before sneezing again. I wondered what the fuck was going on.

“Yeah, Sean, you pay the money an’ ye’ll ge’ i’ back in the base.” Again the voice sounded totally unlike it had since I had been listening to it. Even though that had scarcely been a week, I had been listening to him all day every day and knew that something wasn’t right. I paid the money and shoved the bag and envelope into my front pouch to be brought back to the base at speed.

Whatever fears of something being amiss that I had were realised fully when I walked into the base. Charlie and Darren were still at the table but now so were Six Dave and Nineteen Naoise.

All activity stopped and everybody’s attention turned to me as I opened the door – among the very same people that hadn’t batted an eyelid between them the first time through that door the previous week. It felt so unnatural to have them all look at me expectantly but even more so when I realised that Charlie was actually smiling. That was the first time I ever saw that particular spectacle and it chilled me to the bone.

I approached the hatch slowly and cautiously, like somebody out of a horror movie, and had placed the package and envelope onto the shelf of the hatch, really gently, before I noticed Aidan grinning from ear to ear. This was yet another particularly scary spectacle.

Something in my peripheral vision made me turn my head just enough to catch two of the office girls – who didn’t even know me – gawking at me through the big window at the back. I momentarily watched them scurry in the direction of their desks before finally speaking.

“All right, what’s going on?”

“Here re –hee – heed this.” Aidan, now actually laughing, pushed the envelope towards me. As I opened up the enclosed hand – written piece of paper, Charlie and Naoise both made
moves towards me from the table. A good stare over the lowered note stopped their grinning gargoyle motions in their tracks. They froze expectantly, still grinning, studying the variety of emotions that must have paraded across my face as I read,

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am very shy. Could you please wrap up a packet of twelve condoms in your stockroom and bring them out to me?

Thank you very much for your help.

P.S. Could you please give me back the note for the next time? Thanks again.

The bastards!

“I suppose these are mine?”

Grabbing the package from the shelf I then flung the note onto the table to be devoured by the pack of laughing hyenas, being regurgitated at will to fuel the raucous laughter.

Charlie was the first to turn from the pack to address me directly. His laughter induced friendliness didn’t prevent me from jumping slightly, as he clapped his hand heavily on my shoulder.

“Good idea, Shy Boy! You’re a clever little dude after all.”

Even before the laughter subsided I knew that this was the dreaded moment of reaction that was going to be the making or the breaking of me. I knew that I had to say something, and quick. During the short pause in my reply, the attention of the whole pack had focused itself on me, doing nothing to help me gain my composure. I could feel the fire of peer – induced awkwardness spread its bright red trail across my cheeks.

When my voice managed eventually to croak the best thing that came to my panicked head, its weakness caused my cheeks to burn more intensely and I barely managed to prevent my gaze
from going straight to the floor, with sheer willpower enabling me to keep eye contact with Charlie, as I tucked the condoms demonstratively into the uppermost pocket of my jacket.

“Happy days! Sure I needed to stock up anyway!”

“Nice one, Shy Boy! You tell ‘im!”

“Shy Boy Sean is now stocked up and ready to go!” Charlie was still grinning as he picked the note up off the table and held it out towards me. “Here you go, Shy Boy, you’ll need this next time.”

I was on a buzz now fuelled by the apparent support of the pack. Without thinking and in a much louder and more confident voice I replied, “Sure what do I need that for? There’s twelve in the box – that’s three years supply!”

It was encouraging that Charlie laughed as loud as the rest of the pack at my wit as he crumpled up the note and flung it towards the bin in the kitchen, missing by a mile – in fact, barely getting it into the target room. This time the laughter served its true purpose and I relaxed, feeling like one of the lads for a moment instead of just an outside observer.

“Nice one, Shy Boy!”

The incident was productive in another way also, however. Supportive or not, the pack had called me by the same name, and several times in a row; a name that happened to have the much sought after attraction of alliteration. Even as I laughed about the incident in the canteen that afternoon, the realisation that I was doomed – branded by a permanent nickname – slowly sunk in. I have been called Shy Boy Sean ever since. That wasn’t the end of the condom episode, though.

The next job I got was a pickup on Pembroke Road going to Heuston Station to “get me pointed in the right direction for home” as Aidan put it, which took me past the chemist that the jokers had sent me to.

I was still reeling from the effects of the prank with a range of seething emotions bubbling under the surface, from anger at being the brunt of a joke to exhilaration at being funny under the spotlight and feeling an element of acceptance into the bargain to the embarrassment of having the whole workplace laugh at me – and the girl in the chemist believing I was shy.

I had just made the lights after going over Baggot Street Bridge when I braked hard and pulled over, on impulse, just past the chemist. I got off the bike purposefully without really being sure what I was going to do. The helmet was up on my head by the time I got to the door, leaving my hands free to unzip my jacket and fish out the condoms – utilizing the time saving shoulder method for opening doors that I was rapidly mastering these days.

The counter assistant was serving somebody this time – a 60 something year-old lady with her purse in one hand and a box of something in the other with the back inquisitively pointed at the girl who had been given such a feeble impression of me by my workmates’ prank. The force of the door being opened courier style made them both look towards me, as I marched up to the counter.

I knew my mission was to right the wrong that had been done but my actions – and words – in the heat of the moment surprised me almost as much as them. I slammed the offending packet of condoms onto the counter and boldly declared

“I am not shy and I don’t need them! Can I have my money back, please?” Feeling purged for an instant by the outburst, just a fraction of a second before my brain caught up with my actions, I accentuated (inappropriately) on making eye contact with the shocked older lady. I pointed to the box on the counter while leaning over towards her and speaking loudly and clearly as if she was deaf

“Condoms.”

As I nodded my “so there” to the girl behind the counter, her frozen demeanour, complete with horrified expression, made me finally realise how crazy my actions appeared. My sense of purpose crumpled around me and my face was on fire once again as the chemist girl reached slowly for the cash register.

So much for undoing the damage, you plonker. You’ve made it worse, I found myself thinking.

“Well, er, maybe I do need them.”

The assistant froze again – looking even more frightened now, despite the total collapse of anything resembling dignity that was occurring in front of her, as I realised how ridiculously I was
behaving.

“I mean…”

Even if a hole had opened to swallow me and end my embarrassment, it wouldn’t have been enough. I would have wanted an upside down jetpack on my back to assist gravity in my acceleration downwards out of this situation.

“It’s not as if…”

Somewhere in my head there was a pile up of words that had been speeding towards my mouth from many different ill – developed ideas that all crashed into each other with the end result of the mouth gaping wordlessness, triggering off even more panic– alarm reactions.

I could feel beads of sweat begin to move downwards across the bottom half of my forehead and build up against the leather-ette inside surface of my chin piece across the top half. My face felt hot enough to defrost a piece of frozen food and every nerve in my body twitched longingly for some manner of action to occupy itself with. Some of the nerves got control of my hand and I shakily picked the condoms up off the counter.