Story #162
R. Linda:
Since me life be dull and boring of late and you crave an exciting Sully story to occupy your free time, I be going back in the infamous annals of Sully history to give you a story for sure. I don't know when I wrote these up, or if I even did (there was a lot of drinking going on), but here it goes.
As everyone in Ireland knows, when one moves a distance from the town of their birth to a new place to live, it is not easy fitting in. Networking is what it is about, who you might know, when you knew them, and where you knew them from to begin with, is what counts in Ireland, otherwise you are a foreigner, even if you were born on the old sod. Well, thereabout the 18th year of me sordid existence, I moved from me birth city of Newry to a suburb of Belfast called Bangor (no, not Maine, Northern Eire). More infamously known as the place "Satan spends his summer bloody holidays!"
I had no networking there. None. I knew notta soul if it be known, so I was a foreigner the entire time I lived there. This is hard, and it is not an uncommon anomaly in Ireland. You can move from one town to another, and if you know no one, you will likely stay that way unless you are acquainted with someone who used to live there or is related to someone. Retarded it is, yes, indeed.
The reason I moved there? Well, first, I was of age to be on me own, and second, I was attending college in Belfast. Bangor to Belfast be 12 miles by train, and you'd think, given the way the trains run in the UK, I'd be there in minutes. But no, it took me 2 hours to travel 12 miles by train, and sometimes, because the mist was like pea soup, I missed the bloody train, or so I thought, only afterwards to find it was delayed for weeks until the fog lifts. December be infamous for this.
I spent a good deal of me before dawn hours having missed me train, or not missed it as the case might be, by standing under the roof of the bandstand in the park sheltering from the rain that pissed down like God was angry. I'd stay there watching the green damp begin to creep over the rails, the floor, and onto me shoes and coat. Such is Ireland in the winter months. I'd get hassled by the local police for seeking safe harbour in there, and once was actually taken to the nick for questioning. I was asked if I was some kind of pervert for always being inside the bandstand. What was I waiting for, or more like who? Was a drug deal the thing? They noticed this from the RUC station (through see-through-the-rain binoculars is my guess). I had to reckon they were used to being out in the pissing rain and I, not being used to it, was a novelty, therefore, something must be wrong with me character and so I must be a pervert, or a drug dealer for sure.
Next to the train station is next to the RUC barracks. Oh, yes, it is. Next to the train station is a parking lot, located adjacent to the park, which features a sheltered bandstand. So when I was cut loose it was back to one or the other to wait out the pissing rain. I opted for the train station this time, instead of the bandstand, for obvious reasons. I wasn't there 15 minutes before two SS RUCs showed up to ask me if I was a terrorist, intent on blowing up the train tracks. I did move along after that completely drenched, for me home to miss yet another day of classes.
Once I got as far as McKee Clock and what was waiting there, the town ho's. Yes, lots of them, and because I was standing in the doorway with, unfortunately, a bevvy of these ladies, all of us trying to stay out of the pissing rain, I was picked up again, this time as a Johnny Boy. Me complaints about the fact it always rains in Bangor held no weight with the RUCs. They told me to buy a brolly and be done with it.
This I did. With me brolly open at the train station for about 45 minutes, looking quite ridiculous under the roof of the outdoor platform, the rain pounding the roof and what pavement it could, when the same to SS RUCs appeared and asked me what I thought I be doing. I explained I had taken their advice, gotten meself an umbrella, and was using it as directed while awaiting my train to Belfast.
"Oh, Belfast, is it now? You a Taig by the look of your sorry arse. What you plannin' on boyo?"
Now, what does one say to that? I had told them the truth of the matter, and still, they were quite certain I was up to no good. This took me another trip to the RUC station as me train pulled in and left with me not on it. Another day of missed classes.
How'd I do at college? I know you are wondering about that. When I was able to attend, I did bloody well indeed, but most of me marks were low for poor attendance, or no attendance. Woe was I in me first year. That was bad enough, but I came to find that my new town was a dormitory town, filled with the likes of college students like meself. I had found a place to live by proxy, which means me auntie who used to holiday in Bangor (oh, did I mention it is also a seaside resort?), knew of a youth shelter that rented to students on the cheap, and so she had offered sight unseen to rent an abode for yours truly. They didn't call it Filthy Towers for nought.
It was down by the seawall it was, and the human garbage that frequented the place was enough to make the skin on a rat crawl. The noise from boom boxes and the like would be enough to wake even the dead, and the enterprising youth factor of good old Bangor mounted these boxes on huge speakers on wheels! That meant they could move them blasting noise as they went, anywhere they went, anytime they wanted. That also meant yours truly got not sleep!
The worst of this was when I'd have an unusual day where I actually made it to Belfast and back, and was rolling into me new home, outside would be all manner of boom boxes and tuppenny nudgers. On the ground was all manner of greasy chip wrappers, Scumpy Jack cider cans, empty and crushed fag cartons, crisp bags, repulsive flattened hamburgers, all oozing grease in the wet, making the walks slippery and messy. One would enter their abode smelling of hamburgers, chippers, and God knew what else, forget the bottom of your shoes, already covered in the green slime from the cold mould.
It was horrible, it was, and yes, Satan must reside there because I can't think of Bangor as ever being eligible for the tidy award. Nor was it a safe place to reside, but this you must have picked up on. I'd make it past the nudgers and boomers, to a gang of six or seven who always stood just inside and outside the doorway to the hall inside. This bunch felt it their God-given duty to antagonise anyone who tried to get by them. Everyone but them was considered a 'milly' and treated like one.
Across the parking lot was God's Army and these suicidal idiots let Satan's Lot across the way beat the piss out of them at every opportunity. You'd think they'd move with their WORD and find someplace else to loiter. But no, while a few of the Lot were beating the crap out of Jesus arses, and taking wagers, egging their side on, they also found the time to make sure someone like me was blocked out of me flat all at the same time. Once, they terrorised me into standing in the middle of the parking lot singing Kumbaya at God's Army. This so incited the Jesus freaks that they began pelting me with Jesus leaflets. I was damned either way. I just remember I stood there in the pelting rain and leaflets, dreaming of death.
This awful display inspired someone who was safe somewhere else to call the RUC. When they saw me, they picked me up this time for instigating riot. Yes, I was on me way to a criminal record, I was. Everyone else was directed to "go the hell home," but I was taken to the station.
When I came back from me short interrogation by the RUC, I was madder than Rasputin on a good day. I somehow got the courage to confront Satan's Lot and mouthed off. To me astonishment, there was silence, BUT testosterone hung in the air. This is discomforting because the Irish art of vigilante score-settling runs deep. It was a dangerous scene. I wanted to start back-stepping away from them, but I was too frozen in fear to move. This somehow translated to their sodden brains as one brave bastard. I have to tell you when the leader, one Ray, the bearded brother of Beelzebub, walked straight up to me and I didn't budge from fright, he placed a greasy paw on me shoulder, turned to the rest of his minions and announced, "This stupid steeker is a bit of all right he is, yeah?"
After that, this "stupid steeker" became an honorary member and by the very next Friday, was treated to the glaring face that the town is full of ugly women. They took me to all their hangouts (an enlightenment that floored me, since I thought me house was their only hangout). We went to the Play Boom Room (don't ask), which is a building full of the worst kind of women you have ever imagined. Not one is a looker, they are all ugly and the Lot introduced several with the name "Biatch" which -- for some stupid amount of time, I was actually of the mind this was their last name. They were all related, and then it hit me that incest makes for ugly children, before I realised they were using the American slang for the word "bitch." These women strut around the halls of the building selling themselves, but they all ooze attitude, bad attitude. It was like you were the lowlife and they were all above you. Days later, when I went to the local McDonald's, I found it to be a horror that they all worked behind the counter!
When I left Bangor, I realised nothing about it was fun or engaging. One trip back and you remember instantly why you left in the first place. Bangor is the only place I know where the local RUC decided to crack down on motorcyclists during Bangor Cycle Week, and I mean, what's up with that? They also have a peculiar fondness for following restricted drivers around for no reason, but to take pleasure in the fact that it unnerves those they are following.
There you are, a minuscule portrait of me sad college life.
R. Linda:
Since me life be dull and boring of late and you crave an exciting Sully story to occupy your free time, I be going back in the infamous annals of Sully history to give you a story for sure. I don't know when I wrote these up, or if I even did (there was a lot of drinking going on), but here it goes.
As everyone in Ireland knows, when one moves a distance from the town of their birth to a new place to live, it is not easy fitting in. Networking is what it is about, who you might know, when you knew them, and where you knew them from to begin with, is what counts in Ireland, otherwise you are a foreigner, even if you were born on the old sod. Well, thereabout the 18th year of me sordid existence, I moved from me birth city of Newry to a suburb of Belfast called Bangor (no, not Maine, Northern Eire). More infamously known as the place "Satan spends his summer bloody holidays!"
I had no networking there. None. I knew notta soul if it be known, so I was a foreigner the entire time I lived there. This is hard, and it is not an uncommon anomaly in Ireland. You can move from one town to another, and if you know no one, you will likely stay that way unless you are acquainted with someone who used to live there or is related to someone. Retarded it is, yes, indeed.
The reason I moved there? Well, first, I was of age to be on me own, and second, I was attending college in Belfast. Bangor to Belfast be 12 miles by train, and you'd think, given the way the trains run in the UK, I'd be there in minutes. But no, it took me 2 hours to travel 12 miles by train, and sometimes, because the mist was like pea soup, I missed the bloody train, or so I thought, only afterwards to find it was delayed for weeks until the fog lifts. December be infamous for this.
I spent a good deal of me before dawn hours having missed me train, or not missed it as the case might be, by standing under the roof of the bandstand in the park sheltering from the rain that pissed down like God was angry. I'd stay there watching the green damp begin to creep over the rails, the floor, and onto me shoes and coat. Such is Ireland in the winter months. I'd get hassled by the local police for seeking safe harbour in there, and once was actually taken to the nick for questioning. I was asked if I was some kind of pervert for always being inside the bandstand. What was I waiting for, or more like who? Was a drug deal the thing? They noticed this from the RUC station (through see-through-the-rain binoculars is my guess). I had to reckon they were used to being out in the pissing rain and I, not being used to it, was a novelty, therefore, something must be wrong with me character and so I must be a pervert, or a drug dealer for sure.
Next to the train station is next to the RUC barracks. Oh, yes, it is. Next to the train station is a parking lot, located adjacent to the park, which features a sheltered bandstand. So when I was cut loose it was back to one or the other to wait out the pissing rain. I opted for the train station this time, instead of the bandstand, for obvious reasons. I wasn't there 15 minutes before two SS RUCs showed up to ask me if I was a terrorist, intent on blowing up the train tracks. I did move along after that completely drenched, for me home to miss yet another day of classes.
Once I got as far as McKee Clock and what was waiting there, the town ho's. Yes, lots of them, and because I was standing in the doorway with, unfortunately, a bevvy of these ladies, all of us trying to stay out of the pissing rain, I was picked up again, this time as a Johnny Boy. Me complaints about the fact it always rains in Bangor held no weight with the RUCs. They told me to buy a brolly and be done with it.
This I did. With me brolly open at the train station for about 45 minutes, looking quite ridiculous under the roof of the outdoor platform, the rain pounding the roof and what pavement it could, when the same to SS RUCs appeared and asked me what I thought I be doing. I explained I had taken their advice, gotten meself an umbrella, and was using it as directed while awaiting my train to Belfast.
"Oh, Belfast, is it now? You a Taig by the look of your sorry arse. What you plannin' on boyo?"
Now, what does one say to that? I had told them the truth of the matter, and still, they were quite certain I was up to no good. This took me another trip to the RUC station as me train pulled in and left with me not on it. Another day of missed classes.
How'd I do at college? I know you are wondering about that. When I was able to attend, I did bloody well indeed, but most of me marks were low for poor attendance, or no attendance. Woe was I in me first year. That was bad enough, but I came to find that my new town was a dormitory town, filled with the likes of college students like meself. I had found a place to live by proxy, which means me auntie who used to holiday in Bangor (oh, did I mention it is also a seaside resort?), knew of a youth shelter that rented to students on the cheap, and so she had offered sight unseen to rent an abode for yours truly. They didn't call it Filthy Towers for nought.
It was down by the seawall it was, and the human garbage that frequented the place was enough to make the skin on a rat crawl. The noise from boom boxes and the like would be enough to wake even the dead, and the enterprising youth factor of good old Bangor mounted these boxes on huge speakers on wheels! That meant they could move them blasting noise as they went, anywhere they went, anytime they wanted. That also meant yours truly got not sleep!
The worst of this was when I'd have an unusual day where I actually made it to Belfast and back, and was rolling into me new home, outside would be all manner of boom boxes and tuppenny nudgers. On the ground was all manner of greasy chip wrappers, Scumpy Jack cider cans, empty and crushed fag cartons, crisp bags, repulsive flattened hamburgers, all oozing grease in the wet, making the walks slippery and messy. One would enter their abode smelling of hamburgers, chippers, and God knew what else, forget the bottom of your shoes, already covered in the green slime from the cold mould.
It was horrible, it was, and yes, Satan must reside there because I can't think of Bangor as ever being eligible for the tidy award. Nor was it a safe place to reside, but this you must have picked up on. I'd make it past the nudgers and boomers, to a gang of six or seven who always stood just inside and outside the doorway to the hall inside. This bunch felt it their God-given duty to antagonise anyone who tried to get by them. Everyone but them was considered a 'milly' and treated like one.
Across the parking lot was God's Army and these suicidal idiots let Satan's Lot across the way beat the piss out of them at every opportunity. You'd think they'd move with their WORD and find someplace else to loiter. But no, while a few of the Lot were beating the crap out of Jesus arses, and taking wagers, egging their side on, they also found the time to make sure someone like me was blocked out of me flat all at the same time. Once, they terrorised me into standing in the middle of the parking lot singing Kumbaya at God's Army. This so incited the Jesus freaks that they began pelting me with Jesus leaflets. I was damned either way. I just remember I stood there in the pelting rain and leaflets, dreaming of death.
This awful display inspired someone who was safe somewhere else to call the RUC. When they saw me, they picked me up this time for instigating riot. Yes, I was on me way to a criminal record, I was. Everyone else was directed to "go the hell home," but I was taken to the station.
When I came back from me short interrogation by the RUC, I was madder than Rasputin on a good day. I somehow got the courage to confront Satan's Lot and mouthed off. To me astonishment, there was silence, BUT testosterone hung in the air. This is discomforting because the Irish art of vigilante score-settling runs deep. It was a dangerous scene. I wanted to start back-stepping away from them, but I was too frozen in fear to move. This somehow translated to their sodden brains as one brave bastard. I have to tell you when the leader, one Ray, the bearded brother of Beelzebub, walked straight up to me and I didn't budge from fright, he placed a greasy paw on me shoulder, turned to the rest of his minions and announced, "This stupid steeker is a bit of all right he is, yeah?"
After that, this "stupid steeker" became an honorary member and by the very next Friday, was treated to the glaring face that the town is full of ugly women. They took me to all their hangouts (an enlightenment that floored me, since I thought me house was their only hangout). We went to the Play Boom Room (don't ask), which is a building full of the worst kind of women you have ever imagined. Not one is a looker, they are all ugly and the Lot introduced several with the name "Biatch" which -- for some stupid amount of time, I was actually of the mind this was their last name. They were all related, and then it hit me that incest makes for ugly children, before I realised they were using the American slang for the word "bitch." These women strut around the halls of the building selling themselves, but they all ooze attitude, bad attitude. It was like you were the lowlife and they were all above you. Days later, when I went to the local McDonald's, I found it to be a horror that they all worked behind the counter!
When I left Bangor, I realised nothing about it was fun or engaging. One trip back and you remember instantly why you left in the first place. Bangor is the only place I know where the local RUC decided to crack down on motorcyclists during Bangor Cycle Week, and I mean, what's up with that? They also have a peculiar fondness for following restricted drivers around for no reason, but to take pleasure in the fact that it unnerves those they are following.
There you are, a minuscule portrait of me sad college life.
Gabe
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