Crushed - Part I

I’m dribbling the last of my rolling tobacco onto a Rizla paper that I’ve carefully located to avoid Guinness spills on the Humbert Inn’s bar.  It’s three o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon in the middle of our alleged-summer. 

Outside the skies are gainfully employed emptying the watery contents of the Atlantic Ocean on the West of Ireland.  Inside, amongst the students home from Uni and other associated wasters, there is neither hope nor consideration of gainful employment.

“Don’t ya see?” I posit, pursing my lips for full philoso-bullshitting effect.  “How the clouds do hide the blue sky from us, but the blue sky is only there to keep us from seeing the entire fucken universe!”

With the focus and intensity of a brain surgeon delving into someone’s sawdust, I pick up the Rizla with both hands and roll the world’s most perfect rollie-cigarette, sealing it with barely a touch of my tongue-tip.

“Sure, ‘tis no wonder fellas are in here pintin’ of a Wednesday afternoon, under the pressure of that sorta Catholic church, Irish guverment, CIA, KGB propaganda.  Ah, ‘tis terrible, really a lad has to somehow stay sober enough to know when they stop the clouds for one night, so he can see just how small a place we occupy in this universe.”

“Here Mick!” wan a the lads yells down to the barman.  “Grab that new cleaver ya got for cuttin’ lemons, we’ve another candidate here for your head transplant service.”

“No, no, I’m serious, I mean about quittin’ smokin’.  I’m serious about that,” I crack a match and light the rollie.

“Quittin’, quittin’!” Mick the barman scoffs, aiming his index finger at the yellow neon sign behind the bar that reads:

THE PUB IS A POOR MAN’S UNIVERSITY 

“I’ll tell ye what taday’s lecture is on: How ta fucken quit quittin!”

We were having a fairly typical Mayo summer: Nary a threat of work: A few heavy showers of rain breaking up the otherwise near-constant downpours: Gale force winds regularly tugging at roofs and hair follicles: The good citizenry of Mayo sitting in their kitchens, looking up from Wimbledon-golf-horseracing on the telly to glare out through the net curtains as the Atlantic kept up its deliveries of heaps upon heaps of wet-watery-grey clouds.

We stared at those same clouds out the oft-opening door of the Humbert Inn, philoso-bullshit-solving the problems of the world in increments of wan dirty-black pint at a time.

Then, much to our pintin’ chagrin the weather broke: Overnight, the sky went from an end-of-the-world-is-nigh, brooding-grey to a forget-what-I-said-yestarday, hopeful-blue.  We were not impressed with this sudden climatic, if not climactic, shift.  

But with youthful innovation, we retooled: First we discarded soupy-black Guinness in favour of Sally-O’Brien’s-crisp-yellow Harp: Then we shifted our philoso-bullshitting perches from stools at the bar to kegs in the Humbert-alley – thus availing of the good weather while avoiding heat stroke! 

One of those warm evenings, with the Humbert alley, as always, just a few pints shy of solving world hunger, we get approached by a fella in turned-down-green-wellies, crumpled white shirt, tweed vest with matching cap, cupping a glass of brandy in his left hand.  We’d seen this fella ‘round town in different pubs for a few weeks – doing a lot more drinking than your average gentleman farmer.  From somewhere up the country, now back from England with a heap a money, he’d bought a big farm out in Ballyheane.

“Howaye now lads, luvly-weather-luvly-weather,” he says too fast to be even half-genuine, looking up for the sky but all he sees is the stony top of the Humbert-alley.

“Ya-ya,” we all nod, not sure what to say.

“Usually, I on’y get weather like this at me place below in the south a France,” he says, eyes surveying to see if we’re impressed.

“Parlez vous Francais?” Pud, who speaks fluent French, asks.

“Je vous salue Marie …,” he starts too rapidly so when he stops everyone looks up.

“The Lord is with thee,” Pud laughs his deep laugh, rolls his eyes.

“Ahhh!” the Gentleman-Farmer forces out a dry laugh.  “Sure, I wuz on’y fucken with ye, I couldn’t speak two words of that shite.  I just yell at the bastards an’ wave me arms.  Sure, eventually even a Frog can be made to unnerstan’.”

We all half-laugh, but waiting to see what comes next, no one smiles.

“So, listen lads, let me tell ye,” he ploughs on, “I’m in the market for a bit a labour, help like, ya know, out at the farm.  I done a stoopid thing ta be honest.  I let meself get harangued inta buying a farm offa hersell’s uncle.  Ah he’s a nice enough ould divil, but sure he’s that ould he barely driv past them fields for years, let alone took care of nathin.  The place is in fierce fettle altagether.  But no better man ta fix it up, don’t ya know.  On’y see, I need someone else ta actually do the work!”

He laughs a bit too hard at his own joke.

“Course I’m payin’.  London wages too.  Well, ya know, normalized for local conditions,” he circles his hand, nods, purses his lips.  “Ya know, an’ whatnot.”

The next morning at nine, a damnably civilized starting time for lads with hangovers, three of us are standing at JB’s corner waiting for the Gentleman Farmer.  Around half an hour, and a lot of hangover-sigh-groans, later a battered, army-green Land Rover jams to a stop. 

Behind him, a cranky ould bollix in a purple Fiesta grimaces and shakes his fist.

“Get in there ta fuck lads wud ye,” he says, eyes all bloodshot.  “I nearly didn’t bother.  I rang the weather station in Claremorris.  Rain again taday, so they say.  But sure they say that every-fucken-day.  Cum-on-cum-on, we’ve a day’s work ta do.”

We pile in, all eyes on him as the words keep flowing.

“Where do we get a cup a tea in this town?  I’m as dry as a Hal Roache joke.”

He laughs way too loud at his own joke.

“In me kitchen,” one a the lads says, which was the onliest place we knew for tea.

“Is there no greasy spoon at-all-at-all-at-all in this town?”

We give him a what-the-fuck-is-that look, so he gives up on his greasy cup a tea.

He guns the Land Rover’s engine, but it just splutters and lurches forward.  Out the Ballyheane Road we head, then all of shot he takes a left up a sideroad, jostling us around in our seats.  A few twisty-turny miles up the narrow sideroad, he jams to a stop by a newish block wall.

“See, this bollix has a great cattle-crush altogether,” he slides the gearstick into neutral, nearly yanks the handbrake outta the floor and jumps out.

He walks over to the wall that’s up to the height of his eyes.

We all get out, presuming we’re at work.

“Ya can’t really see it from here,” he says, staring at the block wall.  “But if we went in over the gate down t’end, then ya’d see it.  It’s fierce perfessional altagether.  I don’t need nuthin’ like this, just something ta grab a hoult a them big fuckers a bullocks an’ get the gud stuff inta them.  Ya know, swell them up before ….”

He raises his eyebrows, runs the nail of his right index finger across his throat.

“It’s a cattle-crush.  Course townies like ye wudn’t know what that is.”

He was right.  I had seen these curious constructions in the corners of fields; a solidly fenced narrow little chute that ran off the side of a pen.  It was only with him that I eventually learned that farmers use the narrow chute to trap cattle, so they can hold them still enough to administer medicine or whatever.   

“But see this bollix won’t let me use his,” he rolls his eyes.  “I even offered to pay him.  See, that’d be what smart people do – right?”

He whacks the back of his hand lightly off my shoulder, inculcating me with the “smart people.”

“Share a resource for joint economic benefit, think like a businessman, right?” he shakes his head. 

“But this fucker’s only a farmer ‘cause his father wuz a farmer and his father’s father’s father wuz a farmer.  Right back ta t’ones that got down on their fucken knees an’ ate grass during the famine.  That’s the sort he is, don’ ya see.  He’s so blinded by all a them fucken sad stories that he doesn’t realize that a farmer is simply a businessman who, by manipulating crops and livestock, extracts value from the soil – huh?”

He gives me another back-of-hand whack.

“I mean that’s why God gave us the soil and brains.  Weren’t them two buckeens of Adam’s out extracting value from the soil when the wimpy wan got kilt – right?”

I look for the two lads, but they’re back at the Land Rover grabbing a smoke. 

I shoulda listened to Mick and never quit smoking!

We load back into the Land Rover and on we go to his farmyard which is for sure “in fierce fettle altogether.”  It musta been a nice place once upon a British-colonial time: Tidy cut-stone sheds with heavy wooden half-doors, a few areas of cobblestones left in the corners of the yard.  But now half the red-oxide shed roofs are collapsing in on themselves.  The yard is half flooded with an ankle-deep puddle: A big empty hay barn is home to a couple of ancient looking Zetor tractors, one with the engine next to it, both with tires so flat they looked like they’ve melted into the ground: The only sign of life is a massive, Alsatian lying sleepily outside one of the sheds, a blue nylon rope running, comfortingly, off his collar back in the shed’s open half-door.

“This is it lads!” the Gentleman Farmer waves his hand slowly around at the sheds.  “Hersell says I might find Heathcliff in wan a them sheds some day.  Who’s that bollix anyway?  Is that lazy cat in the stoopid cartoon in the Times - huh?”

He gives me another backhand whack.

“Sure, Tito there, … ya know he’s a purebred German Shepherd, right?” he whacks me again with the back of his hand. 

“But he’d ate a cat alive if an’ he came across wan.  When he’s off the sleepin’ tablets that is.  Hersell does pump him full a sleepin’ tablets she gets from a crazy ould aunt out in the States.  See, for ta keep him from barkin’ all day, he’s in the house day at night an’ he’s fine.  She wraps the sleepin’ tablets in yer world famous Barcastle rashers.”

We get to work. 

In the one of the sheds, thankfully nowhere near bleary-eyed Tito, there’s a few suspiciously clean shovels, picks, even a post hole digger.  In the flooded corner of the yard, sticking up like an island, is a pile of old pipe scaffolding and wood planks.

“I had to confis…cate this from that fucken thievin’ bollix of a contractor who did, or rather didn’t do the roof n’ windaws fer me,” the Gentleman Farmer shakes his head and sighs, his wellingtons sloshing around in the water.

We pluck thirty-foot lengths of rusty scaffolding pipes out of the puddle and slosh over to the Land Rover.  He’s left a red checkered blanket on the roof to protect it. 

“Here, here, we better move along, if hersell sees the granny’s Foxford rug on the roof a the car, she’ll go baa… fucken…listic on me altagether.”

He heads over to Tito, unties the rope, pulls the half-drugged, purebred guard dog into the shed and emerges with the blue nylon rope.

“I mhust have two fucken miles of rope within in wan a them sheds, but can I ever put me hand on it when I need it?  No fucken way!” he shakes his head violently, the tweed cap wagging.

From inside the shed, Tito barks, sounding pissed off, but muffled.

“See, that’s how life goes in Ireland, yer always a quarter-inch off success!”

We lash the rope around the scaffolding and through the open front doors of the Land Rover.  Leaning back, the blue-nylon burning my hands, I yank the rope as tight as possible, only to have it loosen when I go to tie the knot.  With everything either in or half-arsed tied to the Land Rover, we motor out of the yard.

“I’d say this was built be good, hard-arsed Protestant farmers,” he says, his wrists resting loosely on the steering wheel, his eyes, scarily, looking all around at the sheds.

“See, now in England, this’d be a kinda-sorta history or museumy place.  Ya know, ya’d have some ould fat red-faced bollix sellin’ oldee ale with fucken branches stickin’ outta it.  An’ some big-titted wench floggin’ plates a roast beef an’ Yorkshire puddin’ for a fiver.  See, that’s how ya make a country: By lettin’ people make money!”

He sighs loudly, and, thankfully, grabs the steering.

“But not in Mother Ireland.  Oh, no-no-no-no-no.  Here I have fucken Department a Agriculture gobshites in ancient tweed jackets with elbow patches, tellin’ me what I can an’ can’t plant, grow, kill, breed.  Oh, next they’ll be tellin’ when I can ride hersell! Chewsdays an T’ursdays for a fuck; blowjobs on the weekend, but only if you’re takin’ her to Reynards for the Sundah dinner.  Jaysys, what did I let meself in for?  What time is it at-all-at-all-at-all?  Would the Punchbowl ever be open yet?”

We inch slowly out of the yard, but even that’s too fast for the longest scaffolding pipes which slap off the Land Rover’s roof every bump we hit in his bumpy road.

A quarter mile down the road, as slow as we’re going, he manages to come to a sudden stop, shifting the long pipes just enough that they slide forward and whack the Land Rover’s bonnet and onto the ground. 

The red Foxford rug blankets the windshield.

“Awright lads,” he kills the engine, spits into the palm on his right hand and turns to me in the front seat.

“Here’s how this works,” he rubs both hands together.  “I’ll pay ye twelve pound a day.  Ye work hard an’ if we get if finished today, I’ll throw in a fiver bonus.  Deal?”

He offers his spitty hand.

I nod but decline the handshake.

No five-pound bonus gets earned.  Instead, it’s three days of hot-handed hacksawing; bitter complaints about the rurality of rural Ireland; pitched personal-battles against rocks that were placed in the soil thirty thousand years previously by guilefully anti-townie glaciers; all lubricated each late afternoon by pint bottles of warm Guinness.  By the end of the third day, despite our best efforts, we appear to have created something that the farming gods might, in a pinch, consider a cattle-crush.

Over the course of the three days, we get to understand the Gentleman Farmer:  Say nathin to him in the morning ‘cause he’s as cranky as fuck; just sit back and listen to him ranting about how “fucken fucked up this fucken country is.  Sure, ‘tisn’t a country at-all-at-all-at-all, there’s countries balow in darkest Africa run better than this gaff. Them shower a wasters above Dublin should be shot with balls of their own shite – I wouldn’t waste good bullets on them.  An’ then the whole gaff handed back to t’Queen, with a smallish apology for fuckin’ it up so bad.  Oh, that’s what Father Scully above in Clongowes useta say.  The oniest ting he didn’t think of is that them bastards in Westminster are even worser.  They’ll rob us blind for their own wallets.  What we need to figure out lads is how to become the ones whose wallets get stuffed no matter what!’”

By about noon, he’s calmed down enough that you could ask him a legit question.  By mid-afternoon, already planning his escape, he’s hand up to the head scratching, eyebrows knit together, trying to think up today’s excuse.

“Eh lads, I have ta run inta town ta get some more roof cement within in Chadwicks,” he starts all serious, but can’t keep it up.  “Hersell is furious, the leak is right over the bed now.  I wonder how that happened?

He grins a mischievous grin that takes years off his face.

“I have ta pretend I’m doin’ sumptin about it.  Don’t ya know.  The fucken mice keep dying with all the poison she’s put down.  Poor ould Tito ate a heap of it t’other day; pukin’ all night he was.  She didn’t like that either, so it’s all addin’ up, but slow, ya know.  She’s very slow ta move when she gets an idea inta that beautiful head a hers.”

He’s gone then for an hour or so and comes back with a new case of pint bottles and that grin that says now there’s a fifteen-year-old running the gaff.

With the sun starting to threaten to quit on the third day, we hang the gates, sort of, and stand back, blistered hands on hips, to survey our wondrous creation.

The Gentleman Farmer celebrates with a deep draught of his pint bottle of Guinness, creamy stout dribbling from the edges of his mouth.

“Let’s test drive this bitch,” he scrunches up his lips.

Turning to look up the field, he furrows a brow that despite all, we have not yet seen furrowed. 

“There’s a dozen buffalo-sized bullocks up the field, run up there an’ get them,” he waves his hand toward the field and starts walking back to the Land Rover.

I look at the lads nervously.

Cattle? 

We don’t know nathin about wrangling cattle.

“Fuck it, how hard can it be to move a few cattle?” I hear my voice say.  “Sure, they’re only like big dogs.”

Thinking of Tito, who since he lost his rope now spends his day snarling and scratching the shed door, I regret my three pint-bottles of Guinness fueled analogy.

Turns out it’s fairly hard to move cattle that don’t want to be moved.

Cattle, probly ‘cause we kill them, literally by the millions, are suspicious animals.  Plus, this bunch had not come into contact with humans for a while, so they’re extra-suspicious.  Come to find out afterwards in the Punchbowl that the Gentleman Farmer was afraid of animals – not a great thing for a prospective farmer.  A few brandies into the Cattle-Crush Ribbon Cutting Celebration, he divulged this fact, immediately negating it by adding; “sure I’ll be back in London in three months.  Just need ta wear hersell down a bit more with the mice, the roof leaks, fuses blowing day and night!”

It took quite a while, but we did get the cattle down to the cattle-crush, mostly by having them chase us.  Then with the aid of that most subtle of all farming implements, the shovel, we get them inside the newly created pen that opened onto the cattle-crush.

“There’s no chapter in the Department of Agriculture’s Manual of Modern European Farming on herding cattle with shovels!” the Gentleman Farmer yell-laughed at us, the stout sloshing around inside a newly opened brown bottle.

Finally, I shot the bolt on the pen’s gate.

“Howdaya get them into the crush part?” I asked, breathless, sweating, and displaying true townie-farming-cluelessness.  “They must fucken hate goin’ in a narraw passage like that altagether!”

“Well ya …,” the Gentleman Farmer scratches his scalp at the line of his tweed cap, reddening the pink skin. 

“Eh, ya just … ya know, they eh….”

He gives the pen a long stare, his eyes darting from the spindly pipe scaffolding to the massive bullocks. 

Issuing a determined sigh, he sticks his pint bottle in the muck.

“Give me wan a them fucken shovels!”