Early Warning Signs

I’m lounging in Ma’s tubular armchair in the kitchen, my socks, still wet from playing over in the Green, steaming against the fire’s red-hot coals.  It’s a Tuesday night, eight o’clock.  All the sixth-class homework is done, checked, and back in the schoolbag, leaving Scratchy no reason to send me to Brother Ailbe’s office for six slaps of his leather across the hand.  

Now I get to relax for an hour, leave Castlebar behind, and head off through the black and white tunnel to the rest of the world: The telly!

Rockford’s buzzing around LA – “LA” … just saying them letters together makes you sound cool – in his golden-brown sports car.  He spin-twists-turns the car, barely touching the steering wheel.  That’s not how Da drives, white knuckles grabbing the steering wheel as if we’re sinking with the car and us after skidding over a cliff, and really we’re only going up Bests for groceries.  No, Rockford shakes off the bad guys, with just the tips of his fingers on the steering wheel, a little kinda-sorta smile on his face, as he leaves them in his dust.  It’s weird how the roads are so dusty in LA. 

Then, Jim – that’s what I call Rockford – heads back to his caravan parked on the side of a “highway.”  He calls his caravan a “trailer;” in Mayo only Travellers live in “trailers.”  So you do be scratching your dandruff about Jim.  I mean he is a great PI, better than that ould fat Frank Cannon or that eejit above on a horse McCloud, but he is different how he makes a gobeshite outta everyone, even himself sometimes, the way he does win, but still kinda-sorta loses.

Problem is tonight, the black line is back on the telly. 

It comes every few months, across the bottom of the screen.  It’s thin first, like you’d only notice it ‘cause you knew it meant trouble was coming.  It goes away if you turn off the telly and let it cool down.  But back it comes, and thicker every day.

Da’ll pretend it’s not there until it’s about a quarter the way up the screen.  By then you miss bits of what’s happening in the story, especially if someone’s reaching for their gun or sneaking something under a table.  All them weird Russian subtitled films, that Da says RTE musta got for free, sure you can’t watch them at-all-at-all-at-all ‘cause you can’t read any of the words. 

Finally, when it gets fierce bad, Da’ll send for the telly repair man.  The telly repair man’s a bit like a telly himself, ‘cause he comes from another world.  I mean he only comes over from Claremorris, sixteen miles away, but he seems to live in a different world. 

First of all, he looks like Lou Grant from the Mary Tyler Moore Show; for real, he does.  I suppose he’s lucky he ended up looking like Lou and not like Ted Baxter – who’s a ferocious gobeshite altogether.  No, he’s just like Lou; short-stubby-bald, bulge-filling his yellowish shirt and grey pants, with a rake of creases in the pants where his short, thick legs meet his short thick body, and then more lines, but in his skin this time, where his thick neck meets his shoulders.  And he always has a cigarette in his hand, a Major; just like himself; short, thick and strong. 

He points at Da with the cigarette:

“So this beaut that’s threatening to drag me into court, he’s a small bit of a nuisance during the day, but he’s a creel full of trouble with drink on him,” he says, sitting at the edge of Ma’s tubular armchair. 

The Major moves like it’s a part of his talking, blue smoke rising off the grey-red ash. 

“He’s claimin’ the toilet floor washn’t cleaned.  Sure, a toilet floor’s made for to be wet an’ slippy, ishn’t it.  Sure that’s why they put down tiles in there.”

He waves the Major wildly.

“Where was he expectin’ ta end up an’ him goin’ for a piss?  The lobby of the Gresham Hotel!”

“Ooohhh, ye’re in choppy waters now my man,” Da twist-turns his head in warning-disgust.  “Fet’ then if that blackguard gets the right solicitor, he’ll be livin’ above in the Gresham, an’ you footin’ the bill!”

See the telly repair man owns a night club.

Yeah, imagine that. 

A nightclub. 

In Mayo. 

Sure, nightclubs should only be in Dublin, like the add in the cinema, with all flashing disco lights, that says: “ZHIVAGOS …, where looovvve stories begin!”

Da somehow gets word to nightclub owning, telly repair man that our telly is sick again, and over he comes to pick it up.  Then he stays talking and smoking for hours, usually trying to figure out how to make the nightclub work better.  I don’t know how he thinks Da could help him.  Da doesn’t drink, he always wears a Pioneer Total Abstinence Association pin on his jacket, he for-sure-for-sure doesn’t dance, he doesn’t ever go out at night, and the only things he even watches on telly is boring stuff like the news and maybe Outlook, or Mart and Market. 

Outlook is religion, and it’s so borin’ I’d prefer to watch the RTE Test Card – that stupid circle full of black and white and grey squares that’s on before the programs start at four o’clock.  That’d be better than watching that priest, and him with a face on him the length of a fishing line, listing off all the things we can’t do, unless and we want to end up burning below in hell.

Mart and Market’s nearly worse.  It’s just farmers selling cattle. This ould bald fella sits at a desk, reading so fast you can’t hardly hear him, telling us how much “dry heifers an’ bullocks sold for a hundredweight” – whatever a hundredweight is.  Then the farmers come on the screen, their hands buried in anorak pockets, all stand-staring down at the cattle getting driven around the mart ring by this gobeshite in shite-splattered-wellingtons.  The cattle kinda-sorta jolt around in a nervous circle until they’re finally sold to some meat factory to get slaughtered. 

Every now and again one of them tries to turn on the gobeshite.  Then, just like Brother Ailbe does to us with his leather when we’re bad and sometimes even for no reason, the shite-splattered-gobeshite raises his arm high up over his shoulder and brings the stick down that hard it bounces back up off the cattle’s turning head.  Ailbe’s leather leaves a fair track of long-burning across the palm of your hand.  But God help you if he makes himself all red-faced mad and delivers a few lashes of it to your head. 

I’d say Jim Rockford wouldn’t put up with any of this at-all-at-all-at-all.

“Ya see, the punters pay their two pound fifty ta get inta the nightclub,” the stubby-fingers with the Major are going again, stabbing the air in Da’s direction.  “An’ for dat dey get a bowel of soup an’ a roll, … an’ a course the dancin’, with the late bar.  The problem is them two hours off a Sunday night that ya can’t open the bar.  For me that’s one hunderd an’ twenty long minutes of not makin’ a bleddy penny, and that gobe…,” he flicks his eyes toward my staring eyes, “fella above there in the discah booth barkin’ inta the microphone, ‘playin’ he’s toons.’  Ah, good Lord, deliver me!”

He sits back in Ma’s armchair, shakes his head, jams the Major between his lips, the red ash quiet-crackling its way down the cigarette’s white paper.

“Sure the licensing laws in dis country is pure cracked,” he’s off again, behind  clouds of smoke gushing outta his nostrils.  “Waitin’ until wan minute after midnight on t’Monday morning ta open the bar.  ‘Tis pure madness.  Lads an’ lassies lamping down my soup, with their tongues hanging out a them for a pint or a vodka an’ whatever.  The bleddy cash registers dead silent, with me payin’ the barmen, the doormen, yer wan in the coat check, an’ that ould fool above in de discah booth.  The lot a dem on damn good money!”

He tears into the Major again, reaches for the pack to light the next one off the one already in his mouth.

Hours later, he and Da, huff-huff-huffing with the importance of being careful, carry the telly out to the boot of his car, and off it goes to Claremorris: Not to be seen again for months.

That’s how things get fixed.

One time we had a clock that Da and Ma got for their wedding all them years ago, a fancy, shiny-wooden thing, and one day it just stopped ticking.  It took the clock-fixer fella above in Ballaghaderreen, thirty-three miles away, two years to get it to tick again.  After one year, we drove up for the Sunday spin to ask if it was ready: Only he was above at a Sligo Rovers match that day – the neighbour woman tol’ us.  A year later, we got a letter to come and pick it up; ‘twas finally fixed.

When the washing machine breaks, Da writes a letter to the repair man who lives in Tobercurry, thirty miles away.  The repairman writes back, says a day a few weeks out that he’ll come and fix it.  All the washing gets done by hand for them weeks, or not done at all.  The repair man shows up in a white Hi-Ace van, with “BENDIX” in blue letters on the side.  The key to the house is left hidden under one of the empty milk bottles outside the front door – the letter lets him know which bottle.  In he comes, fixes the washing machine.  A bunch more letters go over and back to get the bill paid by Postal Order.   

But that’s not how a telly gets fixed. 

Getting a telly fixed is a bit like one them subtitled Russian films, full of confusion, strange places, and disappointment.

The telly’s gone for so long we have ta find something to fill the evenings.  Da digs out a chess set from way in the back a the press under the stairs.  We don’t have a chessboard, so he makes one outta a few pieces of letter-writing paper Sellotaped together.  We don’t need letter writing paper anymore.  Only Ma used that to write to Granny and Auntie, and sometimes Uncle.  Da uses my ruler and black pen to draw the chessboard squares.  There’s hardly any ink left when I’m finished colouring all the squares black.  That’s all right, ‘cause Scratchy doesn’t hardly let me write in pen anyways; “‘cause ye’re always makin’ stoopid mistakes!”

Chess is a bit like the news, except it all happens in a quarter of an hour and not over weeks.  You use your pieces to attack the other player’s king, who’s just like a real king; lazy, good for nuthin’, an’ can’t even defend himself.  The other player tries to defend their king and attack yours.  But it’s hard goin’ to be defending and attacking.  So, I just defend, and wait for the other player to make a mistake. 

I use the French Defence. 

It’s very good. 

The French must be fierce scaredy-cats; probly ‘cause Hitler lived next door.

The other players – mostly my brothers or friends; girls don’t play chess – usually get impatient and make bad moves while I’m setting up my French Defence.  Then it’s easier for me to attack.

Maybe the French are scared-smart.

If we had a telly, we’d a been watching people scared-smart up in Belfast and Derry.  Every evening there’s news at six and again at nine.  If there’s good rioting on the six o’clock news – you know, fellas in balaclavas throwing petrol bombs exploding in a burst of flames at the British Army, and the soldiers standing behind Saracen armored cars, all ready for battle, helmets, gas masks, rifles aiming at the lads with the petrol bombs – then I’ll watch it all again at nine.  They always show it again, and maybe even show more, ‘cause nine o’clock is the main news.    

The only thing I like on the telly more than Rockford is rioting.

The weird thing is that the RTE reporters use the same voice when they’re talking about rioting or the body of some fella shot be the IRA or UVF, lying booby-trapped on the side of the road, as when they’re talking about a strike at some factory or a disease killing cattle abroad in Cork.  They don’t talk regular on the news.  It’s like every word is heavy and means more than if I was just talking with the lads or even Rockford talking to Angel, his awful gobeshite friend.  I suppose to get a job with RTE, you have to be fierce important and that’s the how your words do get so heavy.

With no telly, the house is just children moving around all evening; in and out of rooms searching for anything not boring to do that you mighta missed the last time you were in there – four minutes ago. 

Sauntering into the girls’ room and saying something stupid is a great way to start a fight.  Fighting makes the evenings go quicker, but in a small house with eight other children to fight, it can get bad fast.  The fights carry on for days, and you’d be worn out remembering which brothers and sisters need how much, and what kind, of meanness.

There’s always books.  Reading is better than the telly for getting out of Castlebar, ‘cause in a book you’re with them for so long that you really get to know the people: It’s like you’re living with them.  With the telly gone, I move in with the Jordache family from Rich Man, Poor Man first, and then I devour the second one, Beggarman, Thief. 

After a few games of chess, and maybe a small fight in the girls’ room, I race into bed, the soles of me feet still cold from the lino floor in our bedroom, pull the blankets up tight and read a rake more chapters about the Jordaches: They’re fierce crack altogether!

The fighting they do with one another makes our evening fights look like two hens wing-shoving one another over who can scratch what bit a dirt.  I mean, the Jordaches are not actually fighting like they do up the North; no one’s getting shot dead or burned outta their houses, but they fairly make things bad for one another.  It’s all great stuff, and they do be having sex!

  In and outta bed with one another.  There’s none of that sex carry on in Ireland.  Father Blake and the other priests make sure that only happens in America and England.  But maybe Irish people that emigrated to them places do get to be doing sex?

One rainy Saturday afternoon, with the boredom meter ticking up towards a Jordache-sized fight, Da announces we’ll go for a swim in Claremorris.  As well as having a nightclub, that’s the other weird thing about Claremorris: They have an indoor, heated swimming pool. 

We have a swimming in Castlebar, over in the Green, but it’s outdoor, not heated, and it’s only open in the summer.  The “duck pond” everyone calls it.  Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are for boys swimming; Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays are for girls; and everyone can swim of a Sunday.  It’s only open from two to five on Sundays, so everyone can get mass and have their Sunday dinner.  It’s great crack in the pool, swimming under water, fighting with the lads, but when you get out your eyes are all red from chlorine and you’re blue-purple with the cold.

In Claremorris, you have to pay 10p to go in, but everyone gets to go, and it’s hot.  Not as hot as a bath, but close.  When you walk into the kinda-sorta warehouse where the Claremorris people keep their pool – a big blue tub sitting on the floor, with wooden ladders you climb up to get into it – the smell of chlorine hits you, along a watery-hotness that immediately makes you start sweating all over your body.  You don’t get to stop sweating until you splash inta the made-blue-by-the-blue-tub, lukewarm water.

We have a great time, and come out after an hour, exhausted and with our skin cleaner than our souls would be coming outta Father Blake’s confession box.  ‘Cause you know how you might on accident not tell him about the Jordaches doing all that sex, so the next time you see him on the street, he doesn’t be lookin’ at ya like you’re on the divil’s team.

“We’ll run down an’ see if the telly is fixed,” Da says.

I’m for sure happy about the telly, but I was hoping instead, we’d go to the chipper in Claremorris for our tea.  

Da opens the door beneath a small sign that says: “EXPE T TELEVISION REPAIR.” 

The bell tinkles as we walk into the repair shop’s dim darkness. 

“Hello Tom, HELLO!” Da says too loud.

‘Cause of the dimness and the chlorine it takes a minute for my eyes to be able to see.

“The next time we come we’ll have to bring our own lightbulb,” Da says, sighing, shaking his head.  “Hello, … HELLO!”

By now I realize the reason for the dimness is shelves full of broken televisions towering all around me.  There’s ones with their screens gone, and only the wiry guts dangling inside the plastic-wooden box.  Other ones with dead screens stare blankly at me.  Some of the shelves are just the screens pulled outta the box.  Them ones are weird looking, with this kinda-sorta triangular shape ballooning out behind them – I suppose, if I was still little, I’d a thunk that was where the small-people lived inside the telly and acted out all the parts.

“HELLO, HELLO!” Da says, fierce loud this time. 

He waits and then says softly:

“Are ya there at-all Tom?”

Tom wasn’t there. 

Neither was our telly. 

Or at least we couldn’t see it amongst what seemed like hundreds of other sick and dying televisions. 

We’re walking back to the car when the tinkle of the bell makes us stop and turn around.

“Aragh Joe, I didn’t know ya were in town,” the telly repairman, looking like Lou Grant coming out his office to yell at Mary Tyler Moore, his shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbows, a pair of glasses wedged up against the top of his bald-round skull.

“Ah, sure this crowd needed baths, an’ I said I’ll throw them in the car an’ take them over for a swim …,” Da tosses his head back, rolls his eyes.  “You know, an’ I thought while we’re in Claremorris, sure why don’t we grab the telly.”

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no.  ‘Tis not ready at-all-at-all-at-all yet.  There’s a few ahead a ye, an’ I have parts ordered from above in Dublin.  Sure, the Dublin crowd do on’y be laughin’ at us down the country looking for parts. ‘Buy a new one,’ they’ll say.  An’ sure that bleddy nightclub has me heart broken.  Now the priest is after me.”
            His stubby hand comes up fast, and he rubs it down slow-hard over his face – just like Lou does!

“‘Are they sellin’ French Letters within in the toilets?’ says Father Quigley to me.  Sure, how would I know?  Amn’t I beyond at the door taking in me few measly quid?  French Letters, good Lord deliver me.”

“Run on over there to the car,” Da flashes us a don’t-you-dare-bother-me-now look.

Half an hour later he’s back.

“Good God,” he sighs loudly, dropping into his seat behind the wheel.  “Ye’ll be fit to bate Bobby Fischer by the time our telly gets fixed!”

“What’s a French Letter?” I ask.  “Is it anything to do with the French Defence.”

“Never mind you an’ your bleddy questions.  We’ll go an’ get the tea below in the chipper.”

I smile. 

Another French Defence win.

The television did get fixed, … eventually.

By the time the telly made it back, RTE had sold some cattle or inherited money, ‘cause now they had money to get better programs, including a miniseries from America of Rich Man, Poor Man.

Excitedly, I raced through my homework and plonked myself into Ma’s tubular armchair before anyone else could get there ahead of me.  The fire’s burning in the hearth, the telly working with no sign of a growing-black-line across the bottom.  I couldn’t believe I’d be seeing the Jordaches for real, not just imagining them in my head.  Maybe they’d even be doing sex. 

The boring old here-comes-the-program music starts, with these stupid pencil drawings of all the characters.  Everyone in the house arrives to watch.  There’s just enough chairs, plus one, and a fight breaks out over me, the nearly littlest, hogging Ma’s armchair.  By time that’s over, I’m on a reg’lar hard chair and the Jordaches are for real on the telly.

But wait a minute! 

Lou Grant is there pretending he’s the Jordache’s father. 

Sure, this is total rubbish.  No one could believe Lou’s a vicious ould baker, when he’s really a cranky-kind television station manager. 

I’m furious, it’s all rubbish.  Plus they don’t do sex, not really anyway, just stupid ould kissin’. 

At the end, pretending I’m still mad over losing my place in Ma’s armchair, I burst outta the kitchen and up the stairs.  Lying on my bed, I thumb through the pages of the big thick books of Rich Man, Poor Man and Beggarman, Thief, remembering how all the Jordaches and Falconetti came to real pretend-life behind my eyes.    

I suppose everything on the telly is made up.  

Rockford’s not really Rockford.  When he drives his own car, he probably drives like Da, hands stuck to the steering wheel.

They’re all just actors. 

Probly the shite-splattered-gobeshite is paid to act the fool, walking round in a circle, with his head nearly boppin’ the cattle’s arses. 

Maybe the cattle are stunt cattle like they do have in John Wayne films, and that one that tries to run away is taught when to turn, so the gobeshite knows exactly when to do Brother Ailbe with his stick.   

I drop the books off the side of the bed and turn over sleepy-tired.  The heavy blankets, warmness and sleepiness are like the French Defence, keeping me safe.

The British soldiers and the rioters, do they know they’re on the telly and so they act it up a bit more?  Maybe the RTE reporter tells the rioting lads when to throw the petrol bomb.  The soldiers never shoot anyone when the camera is goin’, but they do often shoot people. 

It’s all just acting. 

Everything is acting.

I suppose the only real people on television not acting are the dead bodies lying at the side of the road, booby-trapped!