Gurriers (33 page)

“I knew it was a prank as well, ye gobshite ye. A security guard wouldn’t call a helmet a lid!”

As if on cue, a security guard came from a door behind him and approached without him realising. I knew that this would be good!

“You’ll be sorry you did this you little prick.” I said with a prophetic smirk straining to get control of my mouth as the security guard’s hand was about to grab the gyrating baboon’s shoulder. The moment was sweet for me as he leapt with surprise when the hand achieved its target. I made a triumphant face at him through the glass just before he turned – and proceeded to have a friendly chat with the guard, with both of them laughing at whatever his first sentence – spoken low enough for me not to hear it – had been.

“Oi!” This time my outburst was aimed at the security guard. When he looked at me I pointed angrily at the radio blocking
the door and then at my watch. He nudged Darren who complied cautiously, gradually watching me as I burst into the reception area.

Seeing this as another important reaction to a prank I forced myself to smile at what just happened, but I was still angry enough for venom to creep into my retort.

“Scared the shite out of me there, Woolly Willy and I nearly dropped my helmet! You can expect some revenge for that!”

“I’ll get you, Penelope Pitstop!” The voice he put on was hilarious, but I managed to turn towards the reception desk before sniggering.

As it happened revenge came exactly a week later. It was twenty past eleven and it was busy. I was delivering to the first floor of Russell House in Stokes Place and he was delivering to the fifth. He had just pushed the button for the fifth floor when I leapt into the lift, having seen him step into it from the door, and pushed one.

“Ah for fuck’s sake, man, would ye noh take the bleedin’ stairs for one floor, ye lazy bastard?”

You little shit, I thought. I hope someone gets on at every floor up to five.

“These boots weren’t made for walkin’, Woollie Willy.” This was something I had heard Vinno say during a tale of avoiding delivering a package all the way up to somebody’s desk.

There was a bing as the lift stopped. My brainwave struck as the lift came to a brief halt and my plan was formulated by the time the doors opened. I stepped out of the lift, turned – making sure to make eye contact with him, and pushed buttons two, three and four on the panel. He stared in horror at the fully lit panel, as I stepped back to make sure the doors closed. The doors had begun to slowly slide by the time he looked up. I grinned while presenting him the middle finger salute.

I noticed that there were lots of chosen spots around Dublin 2 that couriers ‘stood by’, presumably waiting for work. I wondered how come there were so many on the streets, and asked
Seven Mick about it during a slightly awkward silence one afternoon when there was just the two of us in the canteen. I felt like a gobshite for not figuring it out for myself. Mick was the wrong man to ask such a stupid question because of being prone to such verbal abuse and all.

“Wha’? D’ya think ev’ry courier company has a base in town, ye fuckin’ eejit ye! Ev’ry bleedin’ industrial esta’e has a courier company in i’, an’ they’re noh goin’ to ge’ their couriers te come back empty, are they? D’ya know wha’ tha’ means, new kid?”

“Of course, I do. I just didn’t think there’d be so many.”

“An’ they don’ all have i’ as good as you do either, kiddo; fuckin’ landin’ on yer fee’ wi’ a cosy base in the heart of D2 an’ noh a fuckin’ sniff of experience!”

“Yeah well, that means I’ll be takin’ less of your fucking work so you should be glad!”

“Don’ geh fuckin’ lippy wi’ me, kiddo. Ye’ll end up wi’ a fat fuckin’ lip!”

“Yeah, an’ I’ll just stand there an’ let ye fatten my lip, will I?”

“You’ll be busy lyin’ on the ground screamin’ blue murder an’ bleedin’.”

“I was only askin’ a fuckin’ question.”

“A fuckin’ stupi’ question.”

“Screw you.”

“I know ye’d love to, gay boy.”

“Only in your wettest dreams, fatso.”

I was getting used to this type of communication all the same!

One of the most popular locations to stand by is the kiosk at Lesson Street Bridge. This is a small newsagent on a big triangular island where two very major roads meet just after the humpback bridge on the way in. There’s a large concrete and tarmac area which is ideal for bikes. Several courier companies have their couriers stand by there and lots more pull in to socialise. The shop is a favourite among couriers, with its friendly proprietor and awning for bad weather shelter over one of the windows. The location is right in the heart of Dublin 2 and literally at the junction of Lesson Street and Fitzwilliam where one can easily read the lights and depart on whichever side was just about to go green.

I came over Leeson Street Bridge at about twenty past four on the Thursday that Darren had caught me in the revolving doors. It was a dry bright summer’s day but I had been thinking about Saoirse a lot and was feeling quite down. I noticed Vinno get off his bike outside the kiosk and walk in. There were five couriers standing at the side of the shop with the motley collection of accompanying motorbikes strewn haphazardly around the island.

What the hell, I thought to myself, I need to get cigarettes anyway.

I pulled over and parked by the kerb, instead of mounting the island, on the double yellow line behind Vinno’s bike. Vinno was coming out of the shop opening a pack of cigarettes, as I was about to go in.

“Cheers Ned! Ah, Sean, or should I say Shy Boy?”

“Oh, please don’t.”

“You busy?”

“Nah. Just come in from south with two on board. You?”

“I’ve got six on board goin’ west.”

“Six?”

“They’re all kinda fresh as well so I can afford to give i’ ten. Let’s see wha’ the boys have to say. Smoke?”

“Cheers.” After taking a cigarette I fell in behind him as he approached the other couriers like a dog would follow its master into unfamiliar territory.

“Alrie, boys. What’s happenin’?”

“Vinno! What’s the story, man? Don’t bother lie’in tha’. Here, have a real smoke.”

A particularly dangerous looking older courier passed Vinno a joint, which he accepted. I couldn’t help myself craning my neck around Vinno’s left shoulder to gawk at the transfer. I was
surprised to be approached by the closest courier to me. He was younger than the other but not as scary and his demeanour was friendly.

He was bringing me a joint.

“Here ye go, man, there’s one here for you as well, thanks to these two non-smokers here.”

I froze. I had my lighter in my hand and the cigarette in my mouth. The last joint I had smoked was in college. During my four years there I had smoked hash maybe 20 times in total, swearing at my graduation party never to smoke it again.

Things were different now, though. One of the self-proclaimed finest brains of the time was now driving a motorbike for a living, where it appeared to be acceptable to get stoned at work.

I was so down this afternoon it could only make things better. The pause while I sold myself the idea of smoking some of the hash, had been a long one and Vinno took it upon himself to interject just as I was about to take it.

“Sean’s bran’ new, Leo. I don’ think he’d be bothered wi’ tha’.”

Leo’s hand had started to move away from me when I snatched the joint from it. He looked a little startled, as I took the cigarette away from my mouth and handed that to him.

“This is what he’s talking about, Leo.” I said with a wink. There were smiles all round. I took my first drag of a joint in almost three years.

Couriers know where it’s at in Dublin; from sandwiches, to petrol, to building supplies. Anything you needed, some courier – and in some cases all couriers – know where to get the best, the cheapest, the friendliest of all commodities.

The same, of course, applies to drugs.

Also, some couriers smoke a lot of hash.

People who smoke a lot of hash tend to load the bejaysus into their joints when making them. If you are being passed a joint you haven’t witnessed being made in a group of couriers, it would be wise to anticipate a particularly strong smoke. Com
bine these two facts with a big eyed beginner who only ever smoked the crap that filters down the cannabis chain to the students taking his first smoke in three years, who kept smoking because he was too shy to enquire which of the three couriers who hadn’t passed a joint was the last remaining smoker, and the result is, predictably, a masher.

I was stoned out of my head immediately. I turned grey-white as beads of scary cold sweat formed all across my forehead. My knees were weak, my mouth appeared to realise that it was actually totally dehydrated and in need of liquid refreshment as a matter of urgency and a signal was sent from somewhere in my brain to my eyelids instructing them to close as much as they could without totally blocking out all light. My hand dropped as my motor functions wound down but I felt assured that if I could think of something to do, my body would comply. If only I could think!

My brain seemed totally occupied doing nothing at all and quite happy to remain that way.

The little voice spoke in my mind again, telling me what to do. “You’re mouth’s dry, you’re surrounded by strangers, overly stoned, should do something. There we go! Have another smoke.”

I managed to get the joint to my mouth and take another drag but I dropped it when I took it from my mouth due to extreme lack of coordination between my arm and fingers.

I clumsily stumbled backwards one step and leaned slightly forwards to examine if there was enough left on the joint to merit picking it up but somehow my right hand got the wrong message and dived towards the joint as if in a panic the moment I laid eyes on it, sending me off balance to my right. I bent my knees to avoid falling over but in my stoned state, bent them way too much, sending me stumbling backwards once more, towards the road and the moving traffic, with my outstretched hand making grabbing motions on a par with a fish’s gills grabbing for water as it lies dying on a beach.

That arm and the other were grabbed simultaneously by two strong arms in front of my eyes, which weren’t closed so much
as not to notice that the arms didn’t match.

“Ye’re all right, man. It’s only a buh, steady yerself.”

“Here, geh ‘im over against the wall.”

I offered no resistance as the arms relocated me, but my feet were slow to follow and inadvertently dragged a little. The support of the wall felt like sheer bliss as I was leaned back against it. My jelly-like knees did a bit of a wibble wobble before finding themselves the new adjusted amount of support required.

“Wo’ a fuckin’ greener, man! Here, le’ me get your lid off ye.”

Having the helmet lifted off the top of my head was like being released from a prison that I didn’t realise I was in. My head automatically raised a little and my eyes widened slightly, just enough for me to see five rough, dirty strangers leering at me.

I was embarrassed and knew that I had to compose myself straight away.

“You alrie, man? Ye took a bi’ of a turn there.”

“It’s jus’ smoke, man. Don’ be worryin’. Yer noh bein spiked or an’in.”

They all laughed. I hadn’t suspected that I had been spiked, until I heard that!

“Nah, ‘s’jus’ been a while.”

As I looked around me, Vinno was missing and I wondered the fuck had he gone to? The hiss of a can of soft drink being opened took my attention to my left and there was Vinno holding out a can of ice cold 7 UP.

“Nice one.” I said. Being so overwhelmingly thirsty all of a sudden, I gulped too much of the fizzy liquid and ended up splurting a load of it out of my mouth and nose in a convulsion.

The couriers, including Vinno, roared with laughter but this time I joined in, hunched over with a sticky mixture of snot and 7 UP hanging from my nose in a globule that must have been seven inches long.

Being stoned, I decided to remove the dangler by swinging my head from side to side instead of just taking it off with my gloved left hand. Of course, it took several over cautious swings
before it eventually broke off which had the entire company in convulsions of high volume laughter. Then somebody pointed to the front mudguard of the bike that the globule had attached itself to and was now dangling perilously over somebody’s break calliper and that was that.

One of the couriers dropped to his knees, Vinno was bent over, slapping his thigh with one hand while pointing at the snot with the other. The scary courier grabbed me by the shoulder to point with the other hand at the blob and then to slap himself comically on the forehead. It must have taken me a full two minutes to regain my composure.

Still giggling, I leaned myself back against the wall, wiped tears from my eyes with my bare right hand and snot from my nose with my gloved left. When I felt I could talk through the giggles, I managed to feign nonchalance just long enough to declare solemnly.

“I suppose it’s not too bad. I think I got a bit of a kick off it.”

This elicited more roars of laughter from my new friends. It only dawned on me then that two of these people falling about with laughter at the sticky snot episode weren’t even stoned. Yes, this cemented my feeling towards my fellow couriers; they were just the best!