Svarte Vidder

I was just in the office chatting to Berny. The conversation went like this: Me 'What you doing this weekend Bern?' Him 'Decorating, I think.' Me 'What you decorating?' Him 'The living room.' Me 'you want some help?' Him 'No.' I told him I used to be a P&D (painter and decorator) back in the day in Dublin. But even this failed to sway him. It's true though, for a short while I worked with Mad Tommy, aka, T the P (Tommy the Painter). How did this come about? Well, sit back, relax and I'll tell you. As I was saving up to drive across America with four other idiots, I needed a bit of extra cash so I turned to my landlord, Micko, to see what he could do for me. I knew he had properties all over Dublin that were ever on the mend so there wasn't a shortage of work. He told me there was a block of flats in Temple Bar that he had Tommy painting at weekends and said I could get involved in that if I wanted. I would be working free in order to pay for the rent. I agreed and went off to meet Tommy one bright sunny Saturday morning. Tommy was a stout man, a little taller than me, looked to be in his late 50's though was actually probably early 40's. He'd had that outside battering only a life in the countryside of Ireland can bring. Now, to call Tommy mad would be a disservice to mad people everywhere. He was a fucking fruit loop. Doolally and deranged, that was our Tommy. He had a heart of gold, but a mind like a box of frogs on angel dust. He didn't seem it at first, except he looked at you that way that bulls do when they are about to charge, nothing unusual about, I thought, plenty of Irish people have a similar look. Especially culchies. It's something to do with the breeding I think. But as I got to know the man I got to know the madness. He was from Galway and told me he used to be an alcoholic, but in order to drive himself away from the demon drink he'd taken up as a self employed painter. That way he could spend every hour God sent to work rather than have to take the weekends off as if he was in a regular job. Now, I'm not sure if Micko was taking advantage of this affliction or it was a care in the community type of situation. I never worked it out. Maybe Tommy was taking advantage of Micko? Who knows. The point is he also collected every single receipt for any item he ever bought. Most people who are self employed collect their receipts in order to get something back from the tax returns, a lot can be gained from self employed work if you play your tax cards right. Free lunches (business meetings), new computers/cars (business essentials), etc. But Tommy wasn't collecting his receipts for that, oh no, he was far too honest for that, he was doing it in case the government audited him and his accounts couldn't demonstrate that he had spent 178.45 Euro a year on coffee but in fact the books showed it was 179.21 Euro. He thought an Irish government tax official would drag him off to a lock up in an undisclosed location on the outskirts of Offaly and torture him to find out just what had happened to that seventy six cents:

Where's the fucking money, Tommy? Where is it?

So you can imagine his disappointment when he sent me off for coffee one time and I returned with the coffee but NO RECEIPTS! This wasn't the only eccentricity in Tommy's life. Again, as I got to know him he told about his life long dream for Galway. He'd had his eye on a patch of waste ground for years that he was saving up to buy. He was wanting to build a children's roller coaster type ride which he'd proudly called the Beetle Bug. He'd been working on this idea for years and it was what he did in the little time he had outside of work. He'd drawn up all the designs, unfortunately I never got to see them, and worked out all the costs, and submitted countless applications to Galway Council to get the project off the ground. Every single one had been roundly rejected. He couldn't understand this continual veto of his life's work and kept throwing himself against a wall of silence. Maybe it was something to do with the fact that he was a painter and decorator and not a FUCKING ROLLER COASTER DESIGNER! Yeah, maybe that was something to do with it.

Oh Tommy!

He was also naive to a point of childishness. This is not a problem at all and certainly not a personality flaw, but it did fill my days working with him with endless amusement. as I said, we were painting the interior of this massive block of flats in Dubbers and would be working along the corridors (I would do the large block areas in the centre of the walls and he would 'cut in' the edges, a P&D term for you there... Don't say you never learn owt from this blog...). Obviously we would see people come and go throughout the day and get to know some of our temporary neighbours. One day I was stunned to see two beautiful women walking down the corridor. Both were heavily made up and Eastern European looking. Both were wearing what could be best described as 'slutty' clothing. Now, I am far beyond casting dispersions upon other people's way of making a living, but I would bet ten pound to one that these girls were ladies of the night. The kind of girls that would make Jack the Ripper's whoredar go off the scale. Anyway, these girls smiled at me and disappeared into one of the flats leaving me all discombobulated. Throughout the rest of the day of us working on that corridor level several gentlemen would pass us and enter the flat, leaving about an hour or so afterwards. They wouldn't make eye contact with either myself of Tommy and had a certain shambolic shameful gait. Punters. They were all punters. But Tommy thought he had the answers. He took me into his confidence and one tea break opened up his concerns. 'Alex, I tink dem girls in that flat might be dealing drugs in dere. People keep coming and going all day long. It's the only ting I can tink of that might be going on in dere. It's shameful that such young lovely girls should be drawn into such a dark world.' I didn't have the heart to break his deeply held Country Catholic view that no one has sex before marriage and drugs would be the only possible answer as to why men kept visiting the girls.

'I'm looking for some Bolivian marching powder...'

In the end I saved up enough to be able to go to America, had the time of my life and eventually moved away from the Green Isle. I think of Tommy from time to time and wonder if he's still cutting those walls in and if he ever got the Beetle Bug built. Maybe he did. Maybe some child was decapitated by a loose iron bar and Tommy was languishing in jail for failing to comply to building regulations. Who knows?