It Happens Between Stops

by Mattie Lennon

  Now we all travel by bus; and considering the vast number of travellers and the general rush and hurry, there are surprisingly few worries connected with this popular means of getting about. But there are one or two items which I would include in my bill. Which of us has not met the man who reads your evening paper over your shoulder? Before the smoking ban was introduced his presence often heralded an unusual warmth on the back of your neck, when lost in your paper he failed to notice that his lighted cigarette was in danger of giving you what your barber often advocates-a hair singe.

  However, we must not be too hard on this offender. I must plead guilty to having had an occasional slant at the headlines myself, and he is a mild offender compared to the man on the inside of the only vacant seat, who has peculiar notions as to what share of the seat the person on the outside should claim.

  There was a picture in my school book of King John signing the Magna Charta and I always think of that picture when I meet a man on the inside seat. Old John reclined at the table with pen in hand, his left leg sticking out at about the same angle as the sloping edge of a set square, and his general set-up displaying a total indifference to the Barons, who looked as if they would like to sit down.

  It is only a few evenings ago I boarded a number ten bus from the City, there was my man on the inside seat, and although the new bus seats could sit two John Hayes in comfort, he had left me for my share about six and a half inches on the outer edge. I sat down with a conciliatory cough which was wasted breath, and retained my bridge head by sticking out my left leg in the gangway as a strut. All went well until an Inspector came along checking tickets and very nearly came a cropper over my stretched leg.

  This got my back up against the “inside” and I shifted position with a definite bump; but I might as well have bumped into the Spire in the hope of getting the inside man to change his position.

  I had one villainous satisfaction, however; as I bumped in to him I felt rather than heard the ominous crack that indicated that his glasses had gone west. That will teach him I thought to myself with glee. However, I took the precaution of getting off at the stop before the end of my journey, just in case he should put his hand in his pocket for his glasses

  Those are only fleeting discomforts of the moment that go with the wind, not so the friend who button-holes you with the query; “What do you fancy for the three-thirty to-morrow.”

  On confessing that you haven’t given it much thought, he gives a quick look around, to see that he is not overheard and then unloads what he describes as “great information” which he has just received from a friend who knows someone in touch with the stables.

  It sounds convincing if you are a racing person, and more so if you are not; and while you are wobbling about having a plunge, he pushes you over with the warning (after another look around), “keep it under your hat, and be sure to spread the dough over a few offices so that we won’t shorten the price.” There is no need to mention the result of this financial transaction. I’d put him in the Bill.

  Have you ever got a joyful jolt around about New Years Day, when a postman’s double knock on the door requests your signature for a registered letter? Bolting from the breakfast-table or maybe from the bed, you rush to the hall door; perhaps old Uncle Mick has loosened up and has left you his entire estate.

  Sliding the lock of the old Yale you stretch out an expectant hand into which is trust a large envelope containing an Income tax demand note. Now tax inspectors are commendably careful in their correspondence, particularly if they are looking for money, but I’d make this stunt illegal under a smart penalty.

  These are only a few of the things which would be prohibited by law, if I had my way. No doubt you have a few pet headaches of your own, forward them to me and we will get them in as amendments when my Bill is introduced.

  Who cares about the state of the nation or the cost of living, it’s the little things which add years to you-as Malarkey said when young Seamus (aged five) and the finest child in the parish, plugged a stone through his kitchen window.

  LADY DAY

  Declan Gowran

  MUCH I KNEW ABOUT NOTHING

  Mattie Lennon

  Areader asked, Rod Amis, the editor of an On-line magazine, to; “Compliment Mattie Lennon on his ability to write about nothing”. I’m not sure if I have the ability to write about nothing (which is not the same thing as not having the ability to write about anything).

  When I was made aware of the readers comment I remembered that Pliny the Younger, more than two thousand years ago, said; “You say you have nothing to write about. Well you can at least write about that”.

  Easier said than done. This is my first attempt at it and perhaps I should have taken Francis L. Cornford’s advice: “Nothing should ever be done for the first time”. Writing at any length about nothing is not easy. I don’t believe I could pen a thousand words about the contents of my wallet.

  I walked myself into this a few weeks ago when I quoted the late John B. Keane who said that there was no subject under the sun about which an essay couldn’t be written. With all due respects to the memory of the great Listowel playwright, I don’t recall him ever writing anything about nothing.

  So, I may have to let you down. Perhaps after all it’s not possible to write about nothing. Although when I was marked in with the Mucker Graham he claimed that I could fill a Defect-docket about nothing. Yes, I know many authors and politician’s speechwriters have been accused of writing volumes about nothing.

  Why am I assuming I can do something when so many great men have failed? According to Samuel Johnson: “ George the First knew nothing, and desired to know nothing: did nothing and desired to do nothing”. Ah, yes, but did he WRITE about nothing?

  As kids in Lacken School we used to define nothing as; “A bottomless bucket with no sides”. But we weren’t, as far as I can remember, ever asked to write an essay about it. Philip Larkin said: “Nothing, like something, happens everywhere”. Well, I suppose if it does I’m surrounded by material, if I can find it. When a writer sets out to write about nothing (or in the case of a Dublin writer, “nuttin”) the first thing he, or she, needs is a firm knowledge of nothing.

  And since a person who knows more and more about less and less is a specialist, what is the term for an expert on nothing?

  But then even if I write about nothing will I be writing about nothing. Because Sydney Bernard Smith says; “There is no such thing as nothing after all even if sometimes we seem to be crawling along as a curve at an infinite distance from everything”. And Poet/philosopher Pat Ingoldsby pointed out to me that once you start writing about nothing it becomes something. So, maybe that’s why scribblers largely neglect nothing; because it doesn’t exist. (A bit like the Celtic Tiger).

  Yet, when I mentioned it to Eddie McCarthy he gave me great encouragement with: “Yes, one should always write about what one knows”.

  Mannix Flynn called his autographical work “Nothing To Say” but nowadays even the word nothing doesn’t crop up much in titles. In all respects nothing is a neglected subject and those who write about it at all tend to repeat themselves. And those who write about it at all tend to repeat themselves. If the powers-that-be could somehow make nothing a taboo subject only then would it come into its own.

  Female hacks in the Sunday Indo would be devoting column yards to it. Vincent Browne would be discussing it and Pat Kenny might even get to hear about it. And yes Eamon Dunphy would be talking about......nothing.

  Whew!Charles S. Pierce, the great logician, said in one of his works, in 1898, of nothing; “it is absolutely undefined”. He went on the say that the same nothing had; “....unlimited possibility........boundless possibility”. I wonder did the bold Charles S. ever sit, at three A.M., after finishing a late duty and try to beat a deadline. Speaking of which, there is a French-polish type product called “Knotting” and I thought I might stick in a few words about it but our Chairman Martin Kenny, said; “No. This has to be abo
ut the nothing of negation”.

  You see with other subjects one can plagiarize, research, redraft and modify. But there is very little source material on nothing. You’d get damn all on it even under the Freedom of Information Act from any Government Department. And that electronic genius, the Net, is great until you type “Nothing” into a search-engine. There’s something there about a “Buy Nothing Day” in the US of A and that’s about it. And there’s no mention at all of it in The World Book.

  A Summerhill driver told me in the canteen that John Cage gave a “Lecture on Nothing” in 1961 but I can’t find any record of it. “Nothing in Excess” is inscribed on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. It is variously ascribed to the Seven Wise Men. But (like some of the office Memos that you see) none of them put his name to it. And I hope to God our sponsors don’t insist on me putting my name to this.

  Staring at a flashing cursor it’s hard to agree with Horace that; “To marvel at nothing is just about the one and only thing......that can make a man happy and keep him that way”.

  I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have started this. I should have known that you can’t write about nothing. Look at the people who see nothing, hear nothing and apparently experience nothing.... even they can’t write about nothing.

  So, as William Cowper said;

  Defend me, therefore, common sense, say I

  From reveries so airy, from the toil

  Of dropping buckets into empty wells

  And growing old in drawing NOTHING up.

  So, I’ll stick to what I’ve been doing; writing FOR nothing.

  CHARLIE AND JOHNNY

  Declan Gowran

  Charlie and Johnny like Laurel and Hardy were the un-likeliest of folk heroes. From the Forties to the Sixties they crewed the Graiguenamanagh to Dublin provincial bus.

  Charlie the driver was the jolly fat fellow while Charlie the conductor was somewhat skinny and jumpy. Six days of the week, fair weather or foul, they chugged their route in their two-tone green country bus, usually P-type, through the rich pasturelands of Kildare, Kilkenny and Carlow.

  Those were the days of the famous Fighting Cocks of Carlow. Then as now cock-fighting was illegal and it went well with a budding Garda Sleuth to apprehend any of the organisers or competitors. The Fighting Cocks were always transported with the utmost secrecy between the various match venues. All except for Dinny Dangler’s fierce cockerel called Red Rascal: he had to be carted First Class by bus in his cat-box. And what’s more Dinny would do nothing more than brag about Red Rascal’s fighting prowess to any fool who cared to listen.

  On Champion’s day, Dinny caught the bus to attend the All-Ireland Cock Fight in Carlow. Trailing him in plain clothes, the G-Man followed. True to form Dinny began to extol the fighting qualities of Red Rascal with the G-Man drawing him out and spurring him on. By the time the bus reached Borris, Dinny had spilled the beans.

  “I’m arresting you!” The G-Man cried out as he whipped out his I.D. card. “And furthermore, I’m indicting you in the name of Cock-Fighting!”

  Charlie heard the commotion in the back of the bus. He deftly swerved, throwing the G-Man off balance. Johnny took his cue from this manoeuvre and shouted: “Run for it!” Dinny made a dash for the door with Red Rascal under his arm and he crying like the crack of dawn. The G-Man followed them and was in a hair’s breadth of catching him when Johnny stuck out his foot and tripped him up, sending him sprawling. With that Charlie gunned the engine and sped on, leaving the G-Man in a cloud of exhaust. Dinny escaped. No evidence, no prosecution!

  “Couldn’t afford to have Dinny incarcerated,” Johnny explained later, not when me and Charlie had a quid each on Red Rascal to retain the title!”

  They were all dead cute Hoors on the Graiguenamanagh bus. Jimmy Lennon, a local politico from the Borris area, being a prime example. Jimmy used to pay his fare with a note and ask for his change in copper. The 9 AM bus from Graigue would be packed with school kids and as it reached the local national schools, Jimmy would position himself by the door and give each child a coin as they alighted. Any time the kids spotted Jimmy on the bus, there would be a mad stampede for the door to be first off because the kids at the end of the herd couldn’t be sure if Jimmy was going to run out of coins before he ran out of eager palms to cross with copper. For some disappointed youngsters, it was a case of better luck next time. This was to teach them not to be doing their exercises on the bus. Their parents would receive positive reports regarding his generosity and he was buying votes for the future.

  Back in the old days the country bus was the hub of their universe for many people. It was an era of few cars, fewer trucks and fewer wirelesses. News was moved by word of mouth and if it didn’t come by train, it had to come by bus. This news might also be of the harder copy variety and include newspapers, catalogues, magazines and film cans of the latest John Wayne Western from the distributors in Dublin.

  The coming and going of the bus was noted with incisive interest by the denizens of the villages and townlands through which it ambled on its progress to and from the Capital. The inquisitive, the crafty farmer, the local gossip all watched diligently, recording the turnover of passengers. They could tell how successful a returning émigré had been by his bearing, by the way he dressed and the angle at his jaw. The Wild Geese they lamented: the poor cut of them with rushed bags and suitcases tied up with string.

  Gazing dormantly, these left Ireland with the memory of the final view of home and loved ones etched on their minds through the panorama of a provincial bus window.

  These might have been accompanied by chickens and various other miniscule farm animals; for country folk took the bus to market. The saloon was often stacked with boxes of hens, geese and ducklings. While bonhams were the slippiest customers to catch when they escaped from their owner’s clutches. At every cross and boreen the intended passengers were found patiently waiting the arrival of the bus. Big Bogmen came down from the mountains with their bicycles in tow. They’d throw them up on the roof with one hand, there to be stowed for the journey to distant relations.

  The roof of the bus was Johnny’s business. He was the one who had to climb the ladder at the back of the bus and see that all chests, cartons and pushchairs were safely in place. On wet days there was a great tarpaulin supplied to protect the goods from the incessant driving rain and mud of the roads.

  When Charlie and Johnny disembarked their passengers at Busarus, they took the bus to Broadstone for a feed of diesel and water and a wash and cleaning. Lunch followed in the canteen or on special occasions like Christmas or birthdays, lunch was taken in the Midland Hotel.

  At 5pm on the nose, from Aston Quay, and after 1955 from Bay 13 at Busarus, the bus left for Graiguenamanagh again. How beautiful that name must have sounded to any lost soul going back.

  Johnny loved to chat up the passengers. He would often pose them a teaser: “Ye see those pair of ould ewes, sitting yonder,” he’d say to some disorientated lad: “If you can tell me their ages, I’ll give you back your bus fare as a prize”

  All the baffled lad would know was that the women were stout, well girdled in tweeds, sun baked in the face and eating spring onions. “Well if you haven’t guessed yet, I’ll tell ye: The one sitting on the inside is farty and the other is farty too.... or maybe it’s the other way around. Get it? It’s the onions ye see!”

  First scheduled halt for the bus was Kilcullen. A pit stop in the Hideout where they could see Dan Donnelly’s huge skeleton arm in the glass case behind the bar. Dan was the man who beat George Cooper in a bare-knuckles scrap down in Donnelly’s Hollow in the Curragh nearby in the year 1815, and he took the unofficial Commonwealth, Empire and World Heavy Weight title as a result of his historic win. Dan was supposed to have the longest reach on record because his arms stretched down to his knees.

  So it went on down the line through Moone, Castledermot and Carlow. Borris-in-Ossory was the last scheduled stop before Graigue. The bus always made it in one piece. I
t was maybe not the swiftest way in the world to do it but it was the safest. When the bus was empty, it was bedded for the night. Johnny swept it, cleaned it and polished it ready for the morning. Charlie checked the engine, that was his department for the oil and the water and he would also check the tyres. All major overhauls were undertaken by Broadstone or Inchicore. Breakdowns, when they occurred, were handled by local depots.

  It was traditional for Charlie and Johnny to have a night cap on their way home; “To kill the dust of the road.” There was however an obscure rule in the company rule book that prohibited employees from taking intoxicating liquor while in uniform, and sometimes the company sent spies into pubs to catch workers in the act.

  In their favourite watering hole, their standing orders were always placed on the bar at the behest of the bar room clock. On this particular night as they arrived in, Johnny approached the bar while Charlie went to the outhouse. For some unknown reason, Johnny froze and held back. He waited for Charlie to come out.

  “Don’t touch the drink!” Johnny warned Charlie as he reappeared. They left the bar immediately. “How did you cop the company spy” Charlie asked as they were safely outside.

  “Twas the bicycle clips!” Johnny explained. “The blessed clips gave him away. No self-respecting, serious drinking countryman would wear his clips to the bar. Not in a church and certainly not in the boozer. He must have been a checker sent over in disguise to catch us. But we copped him!”

  Charlie and Johnny were two of nature’s gentlemen. They had worth in their community. They provided a vital link with the outside world. Their job was largely routine but they made it entertaining. Theirs was a hum-drum world geared to the changes in the seasons. They cared and took a pride in what they were doing. Perhaps they had more time then and there was less pressure on a body. It was an infinitely slower world then, more evenly paced.