The Gospel According to Blindboy in 15 Short Stories by Blindboy Boatclub

Author:Blindboy Boatclub
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gill Books

MALAGA

Do you ever look off into the distance at the trail left by a jumbo jet? When they’re really high up? They look like they’re crashing downwards in a furious droop. Like they’re careering towards the ground, somewhere far off, where you wouldn’t be at risk of the wreckage. My da used to tell me that’s how we know for sure that the world was round. That the plane, from where it’s flying, is actually going in a straight line, but gravity curves around the earth like the fuzz on a tennis ball, so the plane is really bending with the earth. That’s why, from the ground, where we see it, it looks like it’s dropping hard. Perspective, he called it. He said perspective is what we gain in life, and my lack of it was why I wasn’t old enough to take a shit on Daniel O’Connell’s head.

I was born up in Gardiner Street, behind the flats. My da had shat on Daniel O’Connell’s head, my ma did it, my uncles, my brothers, everyone did it. It’s a rite of passage. You do that, you can get a partner, get your hole. That’s the rule. We spent our childhoods practising outside the GPO on Jim Larkin. You’d hop onto a stop sign. Poise yourself on the edge. Eye up Jim with his brown arms wide open, pounce down, and leave a trail of shite that he’d catch in his massive hands. If you weren’t cautious, you’d get a slap of the number 30 bus to Finglas. A fair few of the lads went to early graves that way. My da would laugh and say they deserved it, it was never meant for them to progress on to O’Connell. On Saturdays, we’d head up Westmoreland Street past Trinity College and Dawson Street. Settle down in Merrion Square and take extravagant shits all over Oscar Wilde’s chest. That wasn’t even difficult, he was secluded in a quare corner behind hedges and protected by a railing. The park was quiet too, usually full of civil servants eating sandwiches. Hot glints of sun snaking through the leaves and warming our backs. We’d just sit on his head, and all of us would take turns on his chest and lap. Extra points if you got the book of poems in his hand. Up to Grafton Street then, at around 7 o’clock. The shops’d be closed and the crowds not out for pints yet. We’d go mental and get a fine feed out of the Burger King bins. Back up to the top of Gardiner Street then, before it got dark, to give each other hugs under the bridge.

Tonight is my last night as a young lad, because tomorrow I’m due to take my first scutter on O’Connell’s head. The uncles, the aunts, they were all talking about their first time doing it. My family were the only ones to chance it in the middle of the 1916 Rising, no other family this side of the river went near the place during that week.

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