The Orange Mocha-Chip Frappuccino Years (6 page)

I get up really early on Monday, roysh, grab a bowl of cornflakes, catch the end of ‘Neighbours’ and then go looking for the old man, who’s, like, in the study, bullshitting away to one of his asshole mates on the phone. He’s there going, ‘A levy, Hennessy. On plastic bags. Never mind your Lawlors and your whatnots, this is a scandal and you won’t be reading about it in your
Irish Times
.’

I’ve been standing in the doorway for, like, five minutes, basically trying to catch the knobhead’s attention, so eventually I just go, ‘Are you focking deaf?’ and he’s like, ‘Just a second, Hennessy,’ and he turns around to me and he’s like, ‘Hey, Kicker. What’s up?’ I’m like, ‘Deaf
and
stupid.
Hello
? I’m doing my driving test again today.’ He goes, ‘That came around quickly. Doesn’t seem like two years since you applied. Well, best of luck,’ and he goes back to talking again. He’s there going, ‘The shop girl, she said it had nothing to do with Superquinn. No point getting angry with her, she said. Something to do with the environment. It’s like that bloody National Car Test business, Hennessy. Using people’s concern for the planet to extort more
money out of them. Well, I told her. For every bag that these
so-called
Department of the Environment people ask me to pay for, I’m going to buy a can of deodorant, step outside the shop and spray it into the air. My wife is right behind me on this, so are the chaps from the club and I need you on board, Hennessy. I need you, that’s absolutely mandatory with a capital M. Great big CFC parties in the car park of the Frascati Centre. And we’ll see Bertie’s face when there’s a bloody great hole in the ozone layer over Dun Laoghaire. How do you like that, Mister Stadium?’

I’m like, ‘Will you shut the fock up and listen to me?’ He puts his hand over the mouthpiece and goes, ‘Ross, please, I’m talking politics here.’ I’m like, ‘And I’m late for my driving test. I need a hundred bills.’ He’s there, ‘But didn’t I pay for the test when you applied? What do you need a hundred euros for?’ I’m like, ‘To focking celebrate. What do you think?’ He hands me the shekels like it’s a big focking struggle for him, roysh, then he goes back to talking shite and I head off, making sure this time to switch off my mobile because I think that may have had something to do with me failing last time. I’m actually not that orsed about sitting it again, roysh. The old man pays my insurance, so it’s no skin off my nose whether it’s four grand a year or forty. But the fockers won’t give me a third provisional unless I, like, sit it again, so this time I didn’t make the mistake of applying to do it in Wicklow. Everyone says it’s a piece of piss to pass it in a bogger test centre, roysh, but actually it’s not, so this time I lashed my application in for Rathgar. And basically, roysh, I was pretty well prepared. Drove the test route a couple of times with Christian the night before and did a serious amount of cramming for the whole, like, quiz part of the test. And I’m pretty confident I’m going to pass, roysh. That is until the examiner walks out.

I don’t know the goy’s name, roysh, but I went out with his daughter a couple of years ago. Didn’t end well. Never really does with me. She was pretty alroysh looking, I have to say, went out three or four times and got on fine, until this one particular day, roysh, when we were driving back to her gaff after being at the cinema and she said those dreaded words: ‘I don’t believe in sex before marriage.’ I basically told her to get the fock out of the cor. Don’t get me wrong, roysh, I pulled over first. She was there, ‘Ross, I live miles from here.’ And I was like, ‘There’s a bus stop over there. Use it.’

I admit it was a pretty shitty thing to do – I hope I’ve grown up a bit since then – and it probably explains why her old man is so, like, hostile to me when he’s asking me the questions. It’s like, ‘What’s the speed limit on a national road?’ I’m like, ‘Ninety?’ He goes, ‘In a built-up area?’ I’m like, ‘You’d want to be dropping down to about sixty, sixty-five.’ Then he goes, ‘How do you approach a yellow box?’ This focker would give Anne Robinson a run for her money.

We go out and basically I ace the test, roysh, except for this one T-junction where I make the mistake of pulling out
without
, like, looking both ways and this stupid bitch in a red Ford Mondeo hits her brakes and then storts, like, beeping me. But it doesn’t matter, roysh, because the goy’s already made up his mind to fail me. And then I go and make my second mistake. We’re pulled up at the lights on Kimmage Road and I’m there, ‘How’s Elmarie?’ letting him know that I know his daughter in the hope that it’ll give me, like, an advantage, then realising that if she told him the full story, I’m focked. He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even look at me, and I
SO
regret saying it.

He goes, ‘Turn right here, then take the first right and show
me your three-point turn,’ like he’s trying his best not to lose his cool with me. I’m so flustered, roysh, that I miss the turn and he storts, like, going apeshit. He’s there, ‘I TOLD YOU TO TURN! CAN YOU NOT FOLLOW BASIC INSTRUCTIONS?’ I’m like, ‘Hey, chill out.’ He goes, ‘Take the next left onto Whitehall Road!’ I take it perfectly, roysh, but not perfectly enough for him. He’s like, ‘DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR INDICATORS ARE FOR?’ I’m like, ‘There wasn’t anyone behind me.’ He goes, ‘YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO INDICATE AT ALL TIMES!’ I’m like, ‘Hey, I’m just about focking sick of the negative vibes you’ve been giving me.’ He goes, ‘Return to the test centre,’ like a
focking
robot. I’m like, ‘No, you listen to me. You had it in for me the second you laid eyes on me.’ He goes, ‘Return to the test centre. Now.’ I’m like, ‘What, so you can tell me I’ve failed? Fock that. Get out of the cor.’ He goes, ‘
What
?’ I’m like, ‘Get the fock out of my cor. Now!’ I reach across him, roysh, pull the handle on the passenger door and push it open. I’m like, ‘Get the fock out.’ And that’s when I realise, roysh, that it’s only, like, around the corner from where I threw Elmarie out, which is, like, such a coincidence it’s not funny. He goes, ‘The test centre is miles away.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, you know what I told your daughter.’

We’re in college, roysh – in theory I’m still repeating first year sports management in UCD, though I’ve only been to, like, four lectures since last September – and we’re knocking back a few beers in the bor and Críosa, this bird who’s, like, second year commerce, she asks me to go and get her smokes. So I head down to the shop, roysh, and I’m like, ‘Twenty Marlboro Lights.’ And the bird behind the counter, roysh, she’s there, ‘Excuse me?’ I’m like, ‘Marl-bor-o Lights. Twen-ty.’ And I know what her
game is, roysh. Basically, she wants me to say please. She gets them, roysh, puts them down on the counter and she tells me it’s, like, eight euros or nine euros or whatever the fock they cost and I hand her a ten euro bill, roysh, and when she, like, gives me my change she goes, at the top of her voice, ‘THANK YOU.’ I’m just like, ‘Thanks,’ and as I’m walking out of the shop I can hear her going, ‘That didn’t hurt, did it?’ Wench.

This chick calls to the door, roysh, and I can see through the glass that she’s actually pretty fit, so when I open the door, I’m like, ‘Well, hello there.’ Probably a bit sleazy, but fock it. I have to say I’m looking pretty well at the moment and I can actually see her checking me out. I’m there, ‘If it’s about that catalogue that came through the letterbox during the week, I’m still making my mind up on which purchases to make. Perhaps you’d like to come in for a coffee to discuss it?’ She looks at me like I’ve got ten focking heads. She’s very cute. She goes, ‘I’m calling about the election.’ I’m there, ‘What election?’ She goes, ‘The general election. At the end of May. Have you decided which way you’re going to vote?’

What
a focking turn-off. I’m just like, ‘I don’t vote,’ and she looks at me real, like, disappointed. She looks a little bit like Kirsten Dunst actually. She goes, ‘Apathy is a terrible thing.’ I’m like, ‘You’re wasting your breath. I don’t even know what that word means and I don’t care either.’ She goes, ‘What if everybody took your attitude?’ I’m like, ‘Everyone does. Voting’s for old dears. I don’t know anyone my age who votes.’ She goes, ‘Oh right, so you don’t care about the kind of country you live in?’ I’m like, ‘The only thing I care about right now is how I’m going to get the vodka and cranberry juice stain off my beige chinos and how I’m going to get your phone number without having to
listen to any more of your boring politics shit.’ I was pretty pleased with that. She wasn’t. Off she storms up the path, roysh. Her loss.

I shut the door, roysh, and the old man’s standing right behind me and he gives me the focking fright of my life. He goes, ‘Well said, Kicker. Well said.’ I’m like, ‘Shut up,
Dickhead
.’ He ignores this. He goes, ‘I can feel it, Ross. I can feel it.’ I’m there, ‘What are you bullshitting on about?’ He goes, ‘The elbow in my ribs. Hint, hint. You wanted me to run in this
election
, didn’t you?’ I’m like, ‘You are
such
a knob.’ He goes, ‘Oh, I considered it alright. Considered it for the sake of people like you. You and all these other non-voters who are disillusioned with politics. Disillusioned with a capital D. Hennessy thinks I’m the one to capture the youth vote.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, roysh. Get real,’ and I head into the kitchen. He follows me and he’s there going, ‘I had policies, make no mistake about that. I had policies coming out of my ears. I’d have had no problem
propping
up a minority Fianna Fáil administration either, but it would have cost Bertie. An end to all this nonsense about rugby at Knacker Park for starters, a
clear
statement from the
Government
that Funderland is an eyesore and an evil that is eating away at the fabric of society in Ballsbridge and Sandymount, as well as a total ban on the sale of batch bread on the southside of Dublin.’ I’m like, ‘What the fock is batch bread?’ He goes, ‘Something that poor people eat.’ I’m like, ‘Well, I’ve never heard of it.’ He goes, ‘Of course you haven’t. That’s why I’ve been working so hard all these years, Ross. To keep you from it. How do you think all this bloody tribunal nonsense started?’ I’m like, ‘Look, you’re totally boring me now. I’m going out.’

I bump into Amy coming out of French Connection. She air-kisses me and asks me if I heard that her old man got her membership for Riverview for her twenty-first and I resist the temptation to go, ‘And this affects me how?’ and instead I just go, ‘Cool.’ And she goes, ‘
OH! MY! GOD!
Faye is, like,
TOTALLY
jealous.’ I ask her if she’s, like, coming to my twenty-first next week, roysh, and she goes, ‘Definitely.’ Then she says she has to go because she has a sunbed session booked for, like, three o’clock.