Two Walls and a Roof (18 page)

Pad sees my per
fect explanation of the theorem
without any drawing at all
:
the most vital part, and knows of the third cogger. He holds up my copybook for the whole class to see.  “Here we have the genius Cahill…. Cahill’s such a genius that he’s even better than the great Pythag
o
r
a
s, because our Cahill needs no drawing at all, isn’t that so boys”. The class confirms my skills with one voice. “Yes sir”.

“Yes Cahill, you’re the boyo alright.
Y
ou can prove this teoragan without any drawing at all, isn’t that so
,
you Dunk
?” T
he word Dunk was his shortened version of donkey. I was trying to remain out of reach of his fist when suddenly I saw stars appear inside my brain. He had given me such a box across the head that I actually did literally see white stars flashing around inside my head. The force of the clatter was so strong that it also knocked one of the lenses out of my glasses, and that lens flew across the floor rolling under a desk. Pad then laid into me too, and I never forgot it. While he was beating me with his fist and his stick, I had just one lens in my glasses. These glasses were being held together by a
‘band aid’ across the nose,
one of the legs was soldered permanently to the frame, and now a lens wa
s gone too. I felt so poor, so vulnerable
as the whole
class looked on, glad it was me
and not them. After the eternity of pain and humiliation, he threw my copybook at me and says
,
“Get out of my sight you Foolah, you’ll only ever have a shovel boy, a shovel I tell you”. Then I h
ad to try and find my lost lens.
I clearly remember going down on my knees in front of the class and creeping along the floor searching under the nearby desks, while Pad looked on.  Typical of Hurley, who was by then sitting do
wn at his desk in the front row
and game for a laugh, he had put his foot over my lens
hiding it from me. My friend De
nis the Menace told me of this and I angrily jerked Hurley’s leg from over it. The whole class
,
including Pad
,
laughed and my temper boiled up inside me. Then I needed to
get my lens back in the glasses
while Pad moved on to his next victim
,
giving me the odd sidelong look as he did so. As I struggled with the lens, the burning rage inside me grew more and more, and without warning I caught my copybook
,
held it up in front of me, and tore out the blank drawing page from it. This act of defiance I did right in front of Pad and the whole class. Then I balled it up and stuffed it into my bag. Pad stopped his examination of the latest victim and glared down at me. Standing defiantly, I glared back at him, as if taunting him to do his worst. He looked puzzled and then said sternly, “Cahill, sit down you Foolah, you’ll have a shovel yet boy, I’m telling you so”
.
I sat down and swore I would have revenge on him for that day.

It was not all black at that school though, but I could count on one hand the good days. One such time happened when Pad decided we should go on a school trip to beautiful Connemara. Connemara was the
home of James Joyce and Padraig
P
earse
. These were people we learned about at school and Pad figured th
at it would be very educational
if we went to their homeland and also had a day out for a change. The journey was by train to Galway and then on by bus to Salthill where we stopped to look around and have a walk by the sea. I have no idea how Nannie got the money for this trip and I can’t remember Kyrle being there either, but Joe Hurley was for sure. Me and Hurley snuck off around the little town and in a lane we found a shop selling water pistols. I do know that I had some money because I suppose I had been collecting from all as usual
, so Joe
and I bought a gun each and headed back to the meeting place and the bus. We filled the guns somehow and began to squirt all the lads. Pretty soon these pistols became all the rage and we told them where to get them
,
which was not far up the street. Even though the bus was about to leave, there was an immediate exodus back to the shop and soon almost the whole class had these guns, all loaded and ready for action. We had delayed the bus and Pad was raging. No sooner were we in the bus than the war began. Joe and I were near the back and squirted the rows up ahead. Pad and Ma and another teacher I believe sat at the very front of the bus. To their credit they ignored the usual shouting and laughing that went on during such a trip, but this was getting out of hand. Pad came back and of course all the pistols vanished. He gav
e the usual orders in Gaelic, “Ci
uin
eas buachailli
c
i
uin
ea
s
,
”
m
eaning
‘
quiet now boys
’
. After a time the shooting began again
,
though somewhat reduced to sniggering and the odd outburst, as each boy fired then ducked and weaved behind the seats. Within a short time we had run out of water and I suppose Pad guessed that would happen
,
so he was ignoring the laughter again. True to form, Hurley says to me, “I’m gonna piss in mine, you up for it Cahill
?” O
f course I was, as we were being drowned by the Knockbarry gang at that point. We uns
crewed the corks in the guns, go
t out our
mickey
s and trie
d to piss into the small hole:
a very difficult job on a moving bus, and on the bad roads of Connemara. I think we lost as much on the floor and over our hands as we got into the guns. As we are both pissing and hiding down behind the seats, we both looked across at each other and burst out laughing at the badness of what we were at. Then loaded and ready again, we see two of the boys
’
heads cautiously peer over the seat in front of us, both gawking in amazement as we try to stuff our
m
ickeys back inside our pants. Joe fired immediately straight into the nearest boy’s mouth and I missed my man
. T
he stream of piss arched up
over his head, drowning the guy
s farther up the bus. Someone shouts out loud, “Hey hey they’re pissin in the guns lads
,
” and he shouted this out so loud that Pad heard it and came tearing down the bus.

“Gimme
,
gimme those guns now….”
N
o Gaelic this time. We surrender our weapons and he drew a swipe at Hurley who ducked and he missed him. Then Pad went to a vacant window and threw our guns right out into beautiful Connemara
. N
o worries about littering in those days.  The day went on and we saw an incredible seascape as the bus drove the coast road. An Spiddal
was awesome and I
tried to cheer Hurley up. All he would say was
,
“Fuck the scenery
,
I want my gun
.
Fucking Keely is a right ould bo
llix”
.
Poor Joe just wasted the whole day sulking. We went on to the Gaeltacht and spoke Irish in the little village of Carraroe, then on to Maam Cross and the area of the ‘Quiet Man’ and my cowboy hero John Wayne. Huck Finn had by then almost disappeared from my mind, as the Wild West and Monument Valley had overtaken him.  Later s
till we ended up back in Galway
city where I bought my first and only chemistry set with the remainder of my money. It is as clear as day to me still how it looked. The box was red and had a great picture of glass tubes
,
a Bunsen burner with a flask, and some glass pipes with steam coming out of them. The box was sealed and when I got home it did not have any Bunsen burner or a flask either, but it did have a line of little glass t
ubes full of chemicals. Copper sulphate, i
ron
filings, and some kind of red c
obalt stuff which I never used because it looked like it would be too expensive to waste. I took this box around with me for the rest of the journey and Pad sees it and asks me
“
Cad e
t
hu a Shean
?
” meaning
‘
what’s that John
’
. I told him “It’s a chemistry set sir”, knowing no Irish for that stuff. He took the box and studied it carefully and seemed genuinely interested
, giving
it back to me with a look of disbelief. I think he felt it was wasted on a donkey or road worker with only a shovel, but he didn’t say any more. That chemistry set began a love of science that remains with me to this day.

Pad too took up s
cience a little while later. He built a science room in a shed at the back of the school. I believe my little chemistry set sowed the seed in his mind. This was my favourite place in the whole school
. H
e had all kinds of gear in his lab and
I loved it. Pad was more into p
hysic
s than c
hemistry though, which was bad for me, as despite Pad
’
s hi
dings, I was still poor at the physics
math’s
but brilliant at c
hemistry. I loved the way mixing two dangerous substan
ces such as chlorine and sodium
could give you a bit of harmless table salt. I loved making hydrogen using a battery and some water and watching it pop as it burned. Everything about the subject fascinated me and I knew it was not Pad
’s strong point, so he taught p
hysics more often than
c
hemistry. He gave me a great hiding one day for getting the
math’s
wrong on a ‘latent heat’ experiment. I almost developed a fear for physics after that carry
on, but that fear is now long gone, replaced by a love for all things scientific.

Joe Hurley
,
as usual
,
got up to devilment in this science room.  He managed to set fire to the lab and almost gassed us all in the process.

During one of these rare chemistry classes, Pad was showing us a jar of
p
hosphorus or
p
otassium
,
I am not sure which now. It was either kept under water or oil
,
but I know it would burn fiercely in air. Pad took a tiny piece of it out of its jar with a metal tongs and showed it to us
. I
t suddenly burst into flame, creating an acrid choking white smoke. Pad railed on about how dangerous this chemical was. Of course the word danger was an automatic ‘file to be used later’ signal in Joe’s head. Joe
,
who was sitting near me
,
says, “Hey l
ad that’s some stuff isn’t it
”
.
  Pad is glaring at us and shouts out
, “Shut up ye Foolahs. L
ook below at the two Dunks, knowing it all”. Hurley puts his head down and pretends to be writing, but gives me this sidelong look which he knew would make me laugh
;
it always did. I had to look away quickly or we would both get killed. Pad then left the room for some reason and seemed gone for a long time. Hurley decided he would teach the class in Pad’s absence and mock Pad at the same time. Up he goes to the front of the class where he starts calling us all ‘Foolahs’ and
‘
Dunks
’
and
‘
Street Urchins
’
. “Get down off the tree boy, and get a shovel you Dunk”
.
All were well used phrases of Pad Keely. Joe soon began marching up and down in front of the class
,
imitating the great man so well that I hoped he would never stop. The whole class collapsed laughing as his imitation was so good. He shouts out
,
“Cahill, come up here y
ou Dunk, and show us this p
hosphorus stuff”
.
I say
, “No way,
I’m not going near it
,
no way
”
. “Get up here you stupid Foolah or I’ll tan your arse so bad you won’t shit for a week.” This was Joe’s original saying, and he’s then playing the part of our teacher to perfection. It was hilarious
. H
e had the face of Pad, the glare of Pad, the correct wording of Pad and then he made a drive down to my seat, and pulled me out by the ear. We could see if Pad was coming back as he had to cross a yard
,
and I saw Joe give a cursory glance out the window as he was dragging me up to the front. I’m shouting
,
“No sir
,
no sir
,
you’re hurting my ear sir”. “Stand there you half eegit
.
I
’ll get the p
hosphorus and you’ll demonstrate it to the class, isn’t that right boys”.  “Yes sir
,
” they all shout out. I had a b
ad feeling about all of this as
Joe was by then laughing
,
and he had his ‘evil’ look on his face
. W
hen he got that ‘evil’ look I knew it always meant trouble. In a big show of ‘Padism’ he grabs the
p
hosphorus jar from the shelf
,
but just as he did so he spotted Pad returning across the yard. He shouts out
,
“Pad’s back
,
” and tries t
o put the jar back on the shelf
as I make a run for our desk
. I
n so doing I knocked Hurley aside. The inevitable happened and the bloody jar fell on the floor and exploded. It’s then like the Fourth of July in the science room just as Pad comes in the door. We are all choking and coughing and trying to get out
,
and he starts shouting, “Out, out, get out
,
get out”. He pushed his way in towards the fire, and just as fast he rushed back out again. The smoke or the fire beat him back. He is shouting for us to get water, but we don’t lift a finger
. Everyone just looked
at each other
. W
e didn’t give a damn if the whole lab burned down, with all of us quite happy at Pad
’
s misery. Total confusion reigns, as by then the whole room has filled with the acrid white smoke which began pouring out the door. The room was either on fire or filling with gas. We always felt it was on fire, but I suppose in
truth
it was not so bad, an
d just looked worse than it was. I
n any case we were quite happy with the events that were transpiring before us.  While all thi
s was going on and the class was
standing around in the yard
(
or hiding in the sheds like me and Hurley
)
, Hurley sees a big mound of potatoes over to one side. He says to me
,
“Hey lad, look at Pad
’s spuds.
I’d love to piss on em
. C
an
’
t do it now though, he’d see me for sure, but I’ll do it tomorrow”. This was Joe at his very best. Not alone had he almost burned down the lab, but he saw yet another opportunity for fun, and was already planning it. I think he was still out for revenge for his water pistol on the Galway trip. The excitement was soon over in about twenty minutes, and Pad then began the inevitable post mortem. He lined us all up in the yard and marched up and
down the line. “Who did this?” h
e shouted. No one made a sound. Hurley began fidgeting and looking around and Pad spotted him. He made a drive for Joe, who then felt it was all over, and he took off running straight out the main gate with Pad on his heels. He never returned to Pad’s school. It was the talk of the school for ages and Joe became everyone’s hero
;
fame at last. Expulsion was automatic
.
Nannie was right once again and I was warned to stay away from Joe Hurley as the Devil was stuck inside of him.