It Happens Between Stops

by Mattie Lennon

  “That would be a mistake I might never live to regret,” Kevin said staring into O’Regan’s black pupils. In those milliseconds Kevin’s mind replayed the incidents which led to his partner Miles Murphy’s death. The awful figure of O’Regan loomed ever closer; his big shovel-like hands clutching the Kalashnikov machine gun. He rounded a corner in Bratislava Street close to the bullet-riddencar where Miles Murphy lay dead. O’ Regan’s men had already seen to Murphy’s demise. Kevin continued to run ahead of the big man conscious of the closing gap . Now in this very moment big, warm drops of sweat formed on Kevin’s forehead; the gun feeling slippery in his hand, he had to persist. Pressing the gun harder into O’ Regan’s chest Kevin knew he could win this battle. He might not win the war but he might just terminate O’Regan and vindicate Miles Murphy’s death.

  “Do you think I care? You are nothing but a loser. You have traded the food of the gods for a mess of pottage”, the big man just smirked.“Go ahead and pull the trigger; bet you haven’t the balls to do it?”

  Just then the door of the room burst open, it was Ray Sullivan and three other members of the SAS swat team. They stormed into the room and surrounded Kevin and O’Regan.

  “He’s dangerous Ray he’s a cold blooded killer,” Kevin said still pressing his gun into O’Regan. ‘I should’ve blown the bastard away while I had a chance’. “Easy Kevin; we want this fish alive; that way he’s more useful to us. He’s got more information about the plot to smuggle nuclear warheads than any person alive on the planet,” Ray said slightly angling his automatic at Kevin. It was then that Kevin realised that he was being double crossed by his own SAS regiment.

  Kevin got off of O’Regan’s chest. His gun still pointed at the big man on the floor.

  “Why are you doing this,” asked Kevin. “Not alone are you lot betraying your country you’re betraying everything the SAS stands for.”

  “It’s complicated Kevin. The plot’s pretty involved. I think we should go somewhere, the two of us, and I could explain it to you.”

  “I just bet you could.”

  “Huh?”

  There was a loud scream as O’Regan lunged head first at Ray. The force of the attack knocked Ray to the floor. His gun went off, bullets striking two of the swat team who fell to the floor like mown down weeds. Kevin dived behind a large leather sofa as O’Regan grabbed the fallen weapon and sprayed the room with automatic gun fire. One of the remaining SAS swat team managed to return fire before being shot to bits. Kevin carefully aimed his final two shots at the hulking figure of O’Regan who now had his back to the large window.

  “See you in hell!” shouted O’ Regan as he prepared to unleash copious amounts of lead into the leather sofa.

  Kevin pressed the trigger, the bullet caught O’Regan right in the forehead, the force of which blew him out the window and the second shot drove him somersaulting over the small balcony wall.

  Kevin raced to the shattered window and looking out over the tiny balcony he saw O’Regan lying dead on the pavement below; a crowd of shocked people already gathering. Night had fallen, the torrential rain had ceased; a silver and white full moon illuminated the starry night sky.

  Kevin walked into the wrecked room and having ascertained that all three of the SAS swat team were dead made sure to administer first aid to Ray who was more injured by O’Regan’s head butting than anything else. Kevin then handcuffed Ray. As the police arrived and Ray Sullivan was led away Kevin realized with relief that he had at last accomplished his mission.

  Kevin settled into his seat on the airplane and for the first time in his life he felt really relaxed and promptly fell asleep. A few hours later having arrived back in Washington Kevin entered the top level security of the Pentagon to brief Major Malone on the whole messy business. When he had finished he looked the major in the eye and said ‘This is one repair job I want to forget!’

  “You can take it from me captain that all the gory details will be carefully concealed. The details of sensitive missions are never revealed to the media. What is said in this room is strictly between you and me,” the major said, his decorated uniform sparkling in the spring sunlight which shone through the large bay windows. Kevin noticed that the major’s uniform showed he had been decorated at least twelve times which meant that he must have been a damned good agent in his day.

  “And by the way you deserve a holiday. Here is a return ticket to the Bahamas. Enjoy your vacation,” the major said. “I intend to,” said a delighted and smiling Kevin as he took the tickets from the major.

  “Oh just one last thing Major I never again want an assignment that involves posing as a repair man. After all I and many of your field agents are not trained as plumbers or mechanics; a repair job has the potential to become a complete mess. We are however trained as professional soldiers and mercenaries.”

  “Point taken; see you in six weeks time,” Major Malone said, his lips thin and his face impassive. When Kevin had left the room Major Malone put a hand underneath his desk and switched off the digital recording device. The soundtrack of their conversation would be stored away in a high security vault deep within the chasms of the Pentagon and if Major Malone ever thought that an agent would be corrupted in any way he wouldn’t hesitate to make use of these recordings. Major Malone smiling leaned back in his high leather chair and thought to himself I am the main man in this outfit and I always win in any repair job.

  SUNDRIVE PARK

  Ronnie Hickey

  THE GREEN MACHINE

  Jimmy Curran

  If I said, Giovanni Riccardi, you might think of an Italian restaurant owner or, a first cousin to the Sopranos. Well he is none of the above and he doesn’t own a chipper in Ballyfermot. Giovanni Riccardi or “Gio” as he known is an Italian bus driver in Phibsboro bus garage in Dublin. He is married with one son and lives in Clondalkin, Dublin. He came from Naples fifteen years ago and worked at many jobs from driving to trying his hands doing what Italians do best frying chips in a mobile chip van. The mobile chip van was made and fitted by “Gio”.

  A big task to make something like that, this is where his skills as a fitter went into action. He made a living out of this for some time until he discovered that two of his employees were ripping him off and sharing his profits. Gio served his time as a fitter back home in Italy. Times were hard and he worked for nothing at times for the experience. He also gained a very wide knowledge of motor mechanics and body work on cars and never gives up when he starts a project.

  Gio has restored many cars from what was a piece of junk to be a pristine showroom work of art. I have seen film footage of his work and with his skill, he has no fear of a job and hard work is the order of the day. So when I first noticed his 1992 Nissan Sunny before I knew the person who owned this car it got my attention. The body work is totally unblemished and looking into the interior you soon know the person that owns this car has pride in it.

  This is how I got to talk to “Gio” about this car. One day he was standing in the yard in Phibsboro bus garage the car engine was running as we chatted.

  I could not help notice the smell coming from the exhaust of his car as it ticked over, it was a smell of chips cooking. So being a cheeky Irish man I asked the Italian what was the smell. He laughed a little before telling me his 1.8 diesel engine was running on used cooking oil. At this point he had me laughing with him. As I have a big interest in cars it was time for “Gio” to do a little explaining.

  He makes a weekly trip to a well known chipper in Dublin where he picks up 10 maybe 20 litres of used cooking oil from the owner. Normally the owner has to pay a company to come and collect and dispose of this oil in the interest of the environment. When the oil arrives in “Gio’s” garage it is placed into a tank which contains a filter where it passes through this filter and into another filter before entering a drum under the bench.

  The oil is removed via a tap and it is put into a container and then into his fuel tank in his car. This refining system requires n
o power and is run on gravity another contribution to the environment.

  So far this story is not Arab friendly.

  From the time this oil left the chipper it has been filtered twice and as an added security “Gio” has put an additional fuel filter within the car as the Kerry man says, to be sure to be sure, the oil is filtered twice under the bonnet before being injected into the engine.

  In the early days of this venture he was going into the unknown so he started by mixing the cooking oil with diesel on a 50/50 basis. He reduced it over a 14 day period getting it down to pure unused cooking oil. In another experiment “Gio” decided to get himself down to his local Chinese wholesaler and purchase 20litres of pure unused cooking oil thinking the car would run even better. To his disappointment the car would not run at all, reason being this oil was rice oil and not sunflower oil, he now knows that his engine dos not run on Chinese rice oil.

  All went well for some time until driving home one evening the car began to slow down to a crawl. After getting home he stripped down the fuel pump to discover it was totally seized.

  It was his opinion because of the density of pure undiluted oil the pump was working twice as hard as it normally would to pump this oil. This did not deter this determent Italian who got himself off to the breaker’s yard and got himself another pump fitted it, and away again.

  At this point not wanting to use any chemicals he decided to step back again and mix 50/50 with diesel and decrease the density of the fuel and take the pressure of the fuel pump.

  The original pump, having being taken from the car, was immersed in a container of paraffin and low and behold yes its spanking brand new again and is on standby.

  On a recent visit to the N.C.T.Centre “Gio” watched as the mechanic took his car off one fuel emissions machine and try it on another as he could not understand the reading he was getting. The reading was 0.02/m almost nil emissions. This was much to Gio’s amusement.

  The staff at the testing centre were quite amazed to find that the car was running on used cooking oil. This experiment has not been easy from the beginning it was a risk that Gio took with confidence. It involved his expertise to be put to the ultimate test. It meant getting dirty a lot of the time.

  As he spends a lot of time collecting this oil and refining it through his system he feels that out there somebody in the science field has the answer to his home refining. But it is in the interest of the environment, that this whole project started from. For that reason, he feels that introducing chemicals would forego the whole idea, and not contribute to the environment.

  It is his opinion that the motor industry is not really interested in bio fuels and fails to make a positive effort to come up with the answers for a simple project like Gio’s.

  He has run experiments with a central heating burner with this fuel, and has run the unit on used cooking oil. He has also run his car on used engine oil that had come from his car after an oil change. Once a fuel is combustible he believes that it has a purpose and can be used if the right adjustments are made.

  On the down side of the experiment because of the homemade refining the car will use oil filters a lot quicker than the ordinary car, this is something that Gio is working on at present and is conducting daily experiments on the car on his journeys from Clondalkin to Phibsboro garage.

  Finally Gio is prepared to offer to let any person take his car without notice to be tested or examined in any way to prove all the above. At the end of the day Gio is making a very big saving over his yearly fuel bill, with this car, and he makes this car work for him like a horse drawing a trailer at times carrying a lot of weight for his metal skills in making gates and railings. This car is running better now than it did six years ago when he first got it. It has paid for itself in more ways than one.

  Gio is also self sufficient in home-heating fuel; heating his home entirely from wood, which he collects with his car and trailer, and nothing else through a back boiler system heating the radiators in his home. Not bad for an Italian living in Ireland who looks about the same height as Frankie Detorri and would not look out of place in Fairy House on Grand National day in cap and colours.

  So the next time you are in the chipper getting your “one and one” remember Gio could be waiting out the back with his barrel doing his bit for the environment and saving money.

  ANTHROPAMORPHIZE

  Mark Bolger

  Dave reached across the table, “Listen you’re going to make me a cup of tea whether you want to or not!” His comment was answered with a hiss. Sibilant and throaty.

  He watched as a bead of wet ran down her sleek figure, and caught himself from extending his hand to stop its progress. The silence in the room stretched time until it seemed it could snap, a thousand ticks suddenly in search of finding their elusive counterpart; the tock. Sending the world into the chaos of boulders rolling up hills and the sun rising at night and setting in the morning. He shook off the mental image of a world of fractured time, knowing that unless he stopped now, he would pursue it obsessively.

  He also knew better than to touch her at times like this, knowing full well that she would more likely than not, do damage to his digits.

  He sighed; the need for that cup of tea had left him, along with his masculinity. Shoulders slumped he made his way into the living room. Looking back once he could see that she hadn’t moved, not that he really expected her too. He couldn’t help but focus on her lip, stuck out in an almost perpetual pout. He knew that any warmth passing that pout now would be bitter and caustic, untrue.

  Or maybe that is how he would perceive it. The end result is the same regardless; Perception is in the eye of the beholder he thought, smiling to himself, knowing she would never get the subtleties that that comment was laden with.

  Secretly pleased with his own wit and cleverness he left the room, his inner comment boosting his ego back up to its normal sybaritic levels.

  “Who needs tea anyway?” he said just loud enough for it to carry back into the kitchen.

  “I know I don’t. Sure I can always have a glass of coke if I’m thirsty.”

  Dave knew that that last jibe was beneath him, but he was also aware that the human spirit needed a little regress back to juvenility if only to make it appreciate more when it was forced to be all adult and serious. “So looks like it’s just me and you tonight,” Dave said across the room to his friend.

  His friend started singing a well-known ditty about sanitary pads. Dave wondered if she would be able to hear if body form was for her from the kitchen. Laughing, he picked up the remote and TV guide and flopped back into one of the sofas directly across from his friend.

  “Nail on the head good buddy. You called that right.”

  His friend was already rambling on about what was on a particular channel that night, it was the usual mix of reality shows and celebrities struggling to claw back their heyday fame.

  “They should do a show, where Z-list celebrities are all locked up in a house together on a deserted island, with old animals that they perform surgery on and then train to fix up and decorate a living room. Using only tat that the animals themselves have bought at a car boot sale under the advisement of an effeminate expert on all things naff. The trainers of the two winning animals then have to go on a blind date together and that segment can be peppered with idiotic monologues of them both trying out their pop psychology on what makes the other tick and how in their opinion the other would be doing themselves a favour if only they could learn to play down that annoying habit that has obviously surfaced due to some Freudian episode from the annals of their childhood and if they were a more self aware person like the more enlightened of us are, they would see it and take steps to remedy these particular character flaws. That would free up the schedule listings so they can go back to basics and actually have some decent programming.”

  He looked up from the TV guide to see how well received his imagined show montage might be. His friend was talking about what the weath
er was going to be like over the next three days. Jees, all that effort for nothing, he thought, but still a bit pleased with himself for his little caustic rhetoric.

  “It’ll be sunny, with patches of rain throughout the day tomorrow...”

  Dave loved his friend, but his attention span left a lot to be desired. He had an awful tendency to chatter on about the most inane things. However at the same time he could make Dave laugh or cry. No mean feat. He didn’t know anyone else who could have that dichotomy of effects on him. In a few short sentences he could instil in Dave such a sense of wonder about the world, and then ten minutes later a crushing sense of guilt.

  Still, it’s nice to have a friend you can always rely on, he thought. Someone who didn’t judge, and always lent a kind ear. Settling back he flicked through the channels until he found the one he wanted. A movie about someone good-looking kicking a lot of baddies butts was just starting. Just what the night called for, chewing gum for the mind. He needed something to help him switch off; the broken time idea kept jumping back into his head. An unwelcome visitor; the person you meet on holidays and insincerely offer to put up if they are ever in your neck of the woods, knowing and hoping a little that they will never take you up on your offer.

  It had, despite actively trying to avoid it, quickly gotten to the point that he kept imagining that everything he did was backwards or out of sequence. His inner child had even pictured him wiping the back of his jeans with toilet paper before pulling his pants down and experiencing a sudden bloated feeling as a rather large faeces jumped from the bowl into his colon, or other equally strange versions. Then he would find himself outside the door of the bathroom wearing a grimace and wondering why he felt the need to undress to go to work.