The Orange Mocha-Chip Frappuccino Years

by Paul Howard

  All I can hear, roysh, is all this growling and grunting and yelping, and the Rottweiler’s either shagging her or eating her, and I’m basically praying it’s the first, otherwise this could be a serious test of me and Emily’s friendship. It’s a couple of minutes before I can, like, even bear to watch, but when I look over the fence again, roysh, the Rottweiler’s bet into her, tongue hanging out, eyes rolled into the back of his head and his orse doing ninety, and she doesn’t seem to be doing too much complaining either. The next thing, roysh, the trap is sprung. First I hear the back door opening and then I see the goy coming out, roysh, to investigate what all the grunting and groaning is about, and he obviously expects to find the dog doing whatever it is that Rottweiler’s do, eating a child or something, but then he sees his killing machine of a dog, roysh, getting his Nat King Cole off a big fluffy poodle and his reaction is basically just what I’d expected.

  He just goes, ‘TYSON! NOOOOO!’ and he runs towards them, roysh, and hits Tyson this almighty focking boot and the two dogs scatter in opposite directions. Then the goy’s bird – I think her name’s Cindy, roysh – she comes out and she’s like, ‘What’s the story, luv?’ and the goy just breaks down in tears and he’s like, ‘I caught Tyson … shagging a poodle. I mean, shagging a poodle, can you believe it? He’s … he’s bent. Our dog’s a bender.’ The bird, roysh, she’s like, ‘Gays is what dee call dem now. Are ye sure it wasn’t a female dog he was ridin’?’ and he goes, ‘It was a fookin poodle. They’re all bleedin’ transsexuals, them poodles. Even the men ones look like women.’ She’s like, ‘What’re we goin’ to do?’ and he’s there going, ‘Might as well ring its neck now. A gay dog’s no good to us. I told you, Cindy. What did I tell ye about moving to an area like this? I told ye we’d all go soft. I didn’t think Tyson would be the first, though. We should never have left Blanchardstown. A bleedin’ gay dog. They don’t tell you this kind of thing on the lorro ads, do they?’

  The next thing, roysh, the poodle comes leaping over the fence and I grab a hold of her and stick her in the front passenger seat – she deserves to travel in style after what she’s been through. Doesn’t seem to be much damage, except she’s walking a little bit crooked. A nice shampoo and set and no one will be any the wiser, unless of course there’s a nasty little shock on the way for her owner in nine months’ time, or however long it takes for dogs to have, like, babies and shit.

  It was a total mare of a weekend, and basically I mean TOTAL. This bouncer turned me away from AKA, roysh, not because I was elephants but because I was, in his words, acting the bollicks at a stag party a few weeks earlier. I’m like, ‘Hello? I don’t think so. Stag porties are, like, SO working class.’ Fionn goes, ‘Ross, you must have a dopplegänger.’ I’m like, ‘A dopplegänger, a Long Island iced tea, I’d drink anything at this stage, Fionn, but this goy won’t let me in.’

  I think what the problem is, roysh, is that a lot of bouncers are basically jealous of me. They see me in there, roysh, working groups of birds, giving them my lines, getting mobile numbers, basically breaking hearts. It must be a very frustrating job, roysh, fifty notes a night to stand around watching goys like me doing my stuff and going home with whatever bird I want. I’m a good-looking bloke. I’ve got the chat. I’ve got the confidence. What do these goys want me to do, sit at home in a coma all night?

  The rest of the lads try to persuade him to let me in, roysh, which is the worst thing you can do with bouncers. Christian waves his hand in front of the goy’s face and goes, ‘You will let my friend in,’ and the goy goes, ‘Listen, pal, any more of that crap and none of you is getting in.’ Christian turns around and looks at me, roysh, with this look of, like, disappointment on his face and he goes, ‘The goy’s a Toydarian. The Force is useless against him.’

  I’m like, ‘Hey goys, come on, that place is SO focking last year anyway. Let’s hit Cocoon.’ But Fionn and Oisinn are like, ‘No, we’d, em, prefer to go in here. The problem is we’re supposed to be meeting people from, er, college in here.’ And I can see what’s happening, roysh. Basically they know that if I’m off the scene they’ve a much better chance of scoring. Cuts down the field for them. But what thrill is there in scoring when you know there’s no other competition? I’m like, ‘Oh, right, so it’s a Celtic League night, goys, yeah?’ Oisinn just shrugs. I’m like, ‘Come on, Christian, we’re European Cup players.’ But Christian, my so-called best mate, goes, ‘Sorry, Padwan, I’m, er, meeting people from college as well.’ I’m like, ‘You’re not even in college.’ He goes, ‘Nor … are they.’

  So they all head in, leaving me there like a Toblerone, out on my focking own. I think about heading for the Fightlink, roysh, but I end up hitting Cocoon on my focking sweeney. I sit up at the bor, lorrying back the pints, telling various people who come and stand beside me how, like, difficult it is to be good-looking these days, but most of them just move to the other end of the bor, which is when I realise I’m more trousered than I thought.

  Eventually, roysh, I leave and head up Grafton Street to get a Jo Maxi. Miracle of focking miracles, I flag one down on the Green, hop in the back and the goy asks me where I’m going. I’m like, ‘Back to my gaff. We’re talking Dalkey, roysh.’ He’s like, ‘Eh, sorry, bud. I’m stayin’ local.’ I’m like, ‘Local? Dalkey is ten miles away. How much more local can you get?’ He goes, ‘When I say local, I mean local.’ I’m like, ‘You’re not allowed to do that. You have to take me once I’m in the cor.’ He goes, ‘I’m not goin’ that direction. Look, if you don’t get out now, I’ll take you straight to the garda station.’

  I’m seriously pissed off at this stage, roysh. I’m like, ‘Take me to the gorda station. I’m going to make a complaint about you.’ So he screeches the focking wheels, roysh, and I must drift off into a drunken sleep or something for a few seconds because the next thing I know, roysh, we’re pulling into this cop shop, and there’s a cop outside, roysh, and the taxi driver calls him over. We both get out and before I get a chance to say anything, roysh, the driver goes, ‘He was being abusive and threatening.’

  The gorda, roysh, a focking bogger, you can tell he couldn’t give a fock, just wants to get back to his, I don’t know, bacon and cabbage or whatever. He’s like, ‘Do you want me to arrest you?’ I’m like, ‘Excuse me, I asked him to bring me here to make a complaint. I asked him to take me to Dalkey and he said he was staying local. That’s illegal.’

  The copper’s like, ‘Are you trying to tell me the law?’ I’m like, ‘That is the law.’ He goes, ‘Don’t you raise your voice to me.’ I’m like, ‘I didn’t.’ He goes, ‘You DID raise your voice. I could charge you with assaulting a garda for that.’ He winks at the driver, roysh, and the driver heads off back to his taxi, laughing to himself. I stort singing, ‘DE-REG-U-LATION. DE-REG-U-LATION. AND WE DON’T HAVE TO QUEUE FOR SIX HOURS TONIGHT,’ a song that Oisinn always sings at taxi ranks and which really wrecks the goy’s head.

  I turn around and the copper’s gone, roysh, so I head into the station and demand to see the duty sergeant, which I’d seen the old man do once when he got a ticket for having one wheel on the kerb in Sandycove. You have to give it to the cops in this town, they’re really on top of crime. The goy goes, ‘The duty sergeant’s on his break,’ and he slams the hatch shut. I tell him I’ll wait.

  I sit down beside some goy on this, like, hard chair. The goy’s off his face, roysh, and he’s got, like, a McGuigan moustache and DUBS tattooed across his knuckles. He smells of piss. I’m like, ‘Which Dorsh station do you work in?’ He goes, ‘I don’t work in a Dart station.’ I’m like, ‘Sorry, it’s just a private joke I have.’ He goes, ‘I used to. Got laid off last week.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, roysh. What are you waiting for now?’ He goes, ‘Making a complaint. Police brutality.’

  We sit there for, like, half-an-hour and no one comes near us. Eventually, roysh, the goy goes, ‘Good night, tonight?’ I’m there, ‘The worst ever. Don’t think just because I’m good-looking that I’ve no worr
ies.’ The goy’s too locked to even understand me. I’m there, ‘You know, I hate this town. I hate this focking town.’

  I must be sobering up because I’m storting to wonder what the fock I’m doing still sitting there. I get up and go outside. It’s already storting to get bright. I put my hands in the pockets of my chinos and stort walking in the direction of Dalkey.

  It’s half-past five in the morning, roysh, when I pull up outside the old pair’s next-door neighbours’ gaff and I take out a can of, like, blue spray paint and I write Glasgow Rangers Football Club across the front gate. JP’s idea. A nice touch.

  I did a shitty thing. A really shitty thing. For the last two weeks, all anyone has been talking about is, like, Sophie’s liposculpture operation, or I should say rumours about Sophie having a liposculpture operation because basically nobody knew the truth. She told us she was going in to hospital to have, like, an ingrown toenail removed, then said she didn’t want any visitors, and the girls were all like, ‘Hello?’ and it was actually Aoife who came up with the liposculpture theory on account of the fact that Sophie was always going on about still having a fat chin and fat thighs no matter how much weight she lost.

  Chloe goes, ‘Why can’t she just admit it then? She’s spent the last, like, I don’t know how many years talking about rhytidectomies and laser skin-resurfacing – the girl is, like, TOTALLY obsessed – and then I asked her what she got for her twenty-first and she couldn’t give me a straight answer.’ Aoife goes, ‘You think it’s a rhytidectomy?’ I’m like, ‘I’m lost. What the fock is a rhytidectomy?’ Aoife goes, ‘An operation to get rid of, like, sagging skin around your eyes and your lips.’ Chloe goes, ‘And frown lines. Oh my God, she is going to be such a bitch when she gets out of hospital. She’s going to think she’s SO beautiful.’ And Aoife goes, ‘She SO will. I bet she makes a move on Simon at Críosa’s going-away-to-Australia porty.’ Oisinn arrives over with the drinks and he’s like, ‘Who are you talking about?’ and Aoife’s like, ‘Sophie,’ and he goes, ‘Did you hear she’s having a breast job?’ Chloe says she heard it was liposculpture, but Oisinn says it’s definitely a breast job because he heard it from Gavin, who’s been seeing her sister on and off, say nothing to Katie, we’re talking BT2 Katie, because she’d go ballistic. Oisinn goes, ‘Definitely boobs. God knows she could do with them.’ Aoife’s there, ‘And a tummy-tuck.’ And I tell them I’m going to the bor in a minute if anyone wants a saucer of milk.

  All of this is basically background. What happened was, roysh, this particular night, about three days later, I was sitting in the gaff, chilling out, watching the Geri Halliwell yoga video that the goys got me for my birthday, when Oisinn calls over, roysh, and the two of us get talking and somehow we come up with this, like, plan to drive out to the hospital where Sophie’s staying, sort of, like, doorstep her, to basically see what she’s getting done for ourselves.

  I don’t want to sound like I’m getting deep here, but you shouldn’t, like, judge me, or if you do, roysh, you need to know where I’m, like, coming from. You’re talking about a goy whose old dear wrote to the National Gallery to tell them she thought the idea of charging people in to see those new paintings was – and I quote – “splendid, because it deters undesirables from hanging around the place”. We’re talking about a goy whose old man believes that pound shops are immoral because they – his words now – “exploit the fallen in our society, the unfortunates, the wretched poor”. None of this is an excuse for what happened, roysh, but I’m an asshole only because my old pair were assholes before me and it’s all to do with, like, genes and shit. So before I tell you the story, you shouldn’t judge me.

  The cor pulls up outside the hospital and the two of us get out, still breaking our shites laughing, but trying to hold it together long enough to ask the porter what ward she’s in. He says St Ann’s and we take the stairs two at a time, the adrenaline really going through us now. Oisinn goes, ‘This is going to be a laugh,’ and I’m like, ‘Totally.’ This nurse, roysh – black hair, glasses, pretty do-able – she asks us who we’re looking for and we tell her and she tells us there’s a Sophie in, like, the second last ward on the left. So we head down, roysh, and the room is empty. There’s magazines – we’re talking Cosmopolitan, Celebrity Spy, In Style – scattered all over the bed, but nothing to show that it’s, like, Sophie’s ward. I turn around to Oisinn and I go, ‘Is that her dressing-gown?’ And Oisinn goes, ‘How the fock would I know?’ I’m like, ‘I thought you said you were with her before?’ And Oisinn’s like, ‘Yeah, but she wasn’t wearing anything obviously.’

  All of a sudden, roysh, we turn around and we see her, down the far end of the corridor. She’s got her back to us and it’s actually her old dear we recognise first. She’s standing chatting to her, roysh, so we hang around for, like, a couple of minutes, trying not to look too suspicious, waiting for the old dear to go. After about ten minutes, roysh, she gives Sophie a hug and tells her she’ll ring her tonight and then she’s, like, gone. Sophie turns around, roysh, and storts, like, walking towards us, holding onto the wall as she does, which is when we notice for the first time, roysh, that her whole face is wrapped in bandages. She’s got them, like, around her mouth and over her nose and across her eyes, so she can’t see a thing. And as she gets closer, roysh, it’s like she’s aware of the fact that there’s someone standing in front of her because she stops feeling her way down the wall and just stands there. And the look on my face, roysh, it just sets Oisinn off into hysterics. He storts breaking his shite laughing, and Sophie drops this bunch of grapes she’s holding. I turn around, roysh, and I go, ‘Focking hell, Sophie. You look like the Elephant Man.’

  But she doesn’t laugh, roysh. She’s just there, like, frozen to the spot. And me and Oisinn, roysh, we suddenly hear the sound of, like, water splashing onto the floor. And we look down, and Sophie’s, like, pissed herself. Must have been the fright she got. We get the fock out of there before she storts screaming and the nurses call for security. And on the way home not a single word passes between us, between Oisinn and his asshole friend.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The One Where Ross Grows A Heart

  Erika says she is not putting up with it, she is SO not putting up with it, and she calls over the waitress, roysh, and she goes, ‘This soup is cold,’ and the waitress, a total focking howiya, she’s like, ‘I’ll change it,’ and as she’s heading back to the kitchen, Erika goes, ‘Hey you.’ The chick’s like, ‘Sorry?’ and Erika goes, ‘Tell the chef that my sister’s a microbiologist. If he spits in that soup, snots in it or anything like that, I’ll sue your focking orses. Now go and get me a hot one.’ When she’s gone, roysh, Erika turns around to Keelin and goes, ‘That girl has a serious attitude problem. I told you we should have gone to Wagamamma.’ Keelin, who’s working in, like, human resources, roysh, she tells me that I look SO well in a suit and out of the corner of my eye, roysh, I can see Erika giving her daggers. I wolf down the rest of my tuna and cheese melt and tell them I have to, like, head back to the office, busy afternoon ahead, shitload of paperwork to get through on that house I’m selling, blah blah blah.

  I sold this house, roysh – I say house, I mean kennel – we’re talking one room downstairs that’s, like, big enough for a sofa, a TV, a fridge and a cooker, one bedroom upstairs and a box room big enough to fit a futon. Middle of Drimnagh, called it Crumlin, two hundred grand and the next thing the phone’s ringing off the focking hook. Had something like eight offers for the kip. So there’s me upping the price all the time. I’m like, ‘I’m sorry, we’ve had a bid of two hundred and ten. You’re going to have to upsize your offer if you want to stay in the game.’

  And JP’s old man, roysh, he’s practically frothing at the mouth listening to this, feet up on the desk opposite me, rubbing his big sweaty armpits, going, ‘Go on, Ross. Take ’em. Take ’em for five more grand. They’ve got things they can sell.’ So eventually I agree to sell it to this couple, roysh, this real IT wanker and h
is bird, who said she was, like, a travel agent or some shite, as if I give a fock, they were just making bullshit small talk to try to butter me up when I was showing them around. It was all like, ‘It’s everything we’ve ever dreamed of,’ and, ‘Oh, Tadhg and Arran are SO going to love this room.’ I’m just there thinking they’ll need a focking shoehorn to get two kids into that room.