The Blindboy Podcast - Christmas bonus episode "Malaga"

Episode Date: December 25, 2017

Happy Christmas. Have a short story. Full Podcast on Wednesday Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello you gorgeous boys and girls, and a very merry Christmas morning or Christmas day to you. I'm recording this on Christmas Eve, after I've had a few beautiful jars with some of my accomplices and acquaintances. I'm giving you a Christmas present on this Christmas day. I'm giving you a short story, and I said I wouldn't release any more short stories because I'm recording an audiobook for 2018. But it's Christmas Day and I want to give you a fucking surprise. So, the following will be a beautiful short story. It's from my book of short stories, The Gospel According to Blind By,

which you may or may not have received this Christmas morning. Christmas is a beautiful time. It's when we celebrate the birth of a 2000 year old carpenter from the Iron Age. Who grew up to be a magician. This short story is called Malaga. And it's wholesome. That is family friendly. To an extent.

There's no adult themes. But I don't curse in it I do a little bit it'll be grand so please listen to this short story leave a review of the podcast subscribe to the podcast and if you're feeling

especially generous please donate to this podcast's Patreon account www.patreon.com forward slash please donate to this podcast's Patreon account, www.patreon.com forward slash The Blind Boy Podcast. Please have a delicious, gorgeous, sensual and delicate Christmas Day, you cunts. Do you ever look off into the distance at the trail left by a jumbo jet, when they're really high up?

They look like they're crashing downwards in a furious droop. Like they're careering towards the ground, somewhere far off, where you wouldn't be at risk of the wreckage. My dad used to tell me that's how we knew for sure that the world was round, that the plane, from where it's flying, is actually going in a straight line. But gravity curves around the earth like the fuzz on a tennis ball, so the plane is really bending with the earth. That's why from the ground where we see it, it looks like it's dropping hard. Perspective he called it. He said perspective is what we gain in life, and my lack of it was why I wasn't old enough to take a shit on Daniel O'Connell's head. I was born up in Gardiner Street, behind the flats. My dad had shot on Daniel O'Connell's head. My ma did it, my uncles, my brothers,

everyone did it. It's a rite of passage. You do that, you can get a partner, get your hole, that's the rule. We spent our childhoods practising outside the GPO on Jim Larkin. You'd hop up onto a stop sign, poise yourself on the edge, eye up Jim with his big brown arms open wide, pounce down, and leave a trail of shite that he'd catch in his massive hands. If you weren't cautious, you'd get a slap at the number 30 bus to Finglas.

A fair few of the lads went to early graves that way. My dad would laugh and say that they deserved it. It was never meant for them to progress onto O'Connell. On Saturdays we'd head up Westmoreland Street past Trinity College and Dawson Street. Settle down in Merrion Square and take extravagant shits all over Oscar Wiles' chest. That wasn't even difficult. He was secluded in a queer corner behind hedges and protected by a railing. The park was quiet too, usually full of civil servants eating sandwiches. Hot glints of sun snaking through the leaves and warming our backs we'd just sit on his head

and all of us would take turns on his chest and lap extra pints if you got the book of poems in his hand up to Grafton Street then at around 7 o'clock the shops would be closed and the crowds not out for pints yet we'd go a mental and get a fine feed out of the Burger King bins. Back up to the top of Gardiner Street then, before it got dark, to give each other hugs under the bridge. Tonight is my last night as a young lad, because tomorrow I'm due to take my first scutter on O'Connell's head. The uncles, the aunts, they were all

talking about their first time doing it. My family were the only ones to chance it in the middle of the 1916 Rising. No other family this side of the river went near the place during that week. But we did. My ancestors braving the bullets and bombs, the smoke, the fire. Straight down from Nelson's pillar and then let fly, cascades of bright shit all over O'Connell's shoulders. I stay quiet while my mother tells me about her first time during a harsh fall of sleep. Everyone under the bridge listens to her, pure solemn and reverent. It'll break her heart if she discovers that I have no intention whatsoever of taking a shit on Daniel O'Connell tomorrow. That I never want to do

it. That I want to get the fuck away from this. I want to be like that jumbo jet. I want to fly so high that people think I'm falling to my death, but I'm not. I'm flying straight, and they're just watching me ride the earth's curve. I want them to think my windows are stars. My best friend Dara is a wren from Mountjoy Square, tiny hazelnut lad with a big chest. There's no more wrens apart from him left in Mountjoy due to all the hipsters keeping stoats. He's the last wren. His parents never came back one day so he climbed out of the nest and walked the whole way down to the bottom of Gardiner Street. He was tiny when he did that, not much bigger than those lumps of chewing gum you pick off when looking up

at the underside of a bench. The tourists are always taking photographs of Darragh when they see him, throwing us bits of Romanian pizza from Talbot Street, laughing at the sight of a little wren hanging around with pigeons. Neither me nor Darragh fit in around here. That's why we're best pals and if anyone ever touched Dara, I'd peck that fucker up and down Dublin. That's why tomorrow, we're both leaving together, getting the fuck out. When my family and cousins under the bridge aren't talking out of their halls about shitting on statues, they love filling us young ones with fears. People say chickens are always frightened, but fuck that, it's us pigeons, we're the chickens. Under the bridge it's non-stop talking about our

weak wings. Only flying short bursts. Never go so high that you can't still smell the liffy. When the air has no smell you've gone too high a pigeon's brain conks out when you get that air up there the wind up there will buckle your tail and you'll bomb to the ground in a spin all that shite that if you fly too far from the city you'll starve that there's no food in the country that there's foxes that will cut you down when you rest. Blah, blah. Non-stop terror and rules and limitations. We never leave.

We just stay until we die. I'm not having it. I've flown high with sparrows over the tall chimneys off Clontarf Bay. I'd watch the way they pull their wings back. Make them flat behind their necks in a V, shoulders up, head down, tail straight, and soar, then bob, then soar, then bob. None of this fluttering shite like a moth. I've done it. I've trained. It's morning. We leave. Still dark, but with a beige promise peeking over the east horizon. Fat dry smoky cold that makes your eyes blink. Us flying among the taxi drivers that leave half eaten breakfast rolls on the Talbot slabs. No cars around to stop you munching them. The family are still tucked up in the rafters under the butt bridge.

Pure asleep, puffed up and huddled, with the odd little coo from my Aunt Bridget when the dart rumbles above. An old red-battered chimney with chalk hanging off it is where myself and Dara meet, up above below on Belvedere Road. He's been training with me, training with the Clontarf Sparrows. Tough bastard. If you think pigeons aren't the best at flying, wrens have it worse, but Darragh was having none of that either. We look at each other and say, Fuck Daniel O'Connell and his big brass balls.

We jump with vigour, whipping our wings so fast that you'd hear the cracks from Parnell Street. Our feathers shaking the dawn like distant gunfire, each thrust pushing us up. We keep an eye on each other. We had words about it. Crack as hard as you can until the air has no smell. That's the difficult bit. The climb. I gape down and watch it all disappear beneath me. Daniel O'Connell is in there, a small dot, and from here I can see that he's only a pisser's distance from Gardiner Street.

I can see it all, all of Dublin below. I can see the peaks of Wicklow. The city is tiny from up here. When I was very young, there was this old man outside a cafe on Abbey Street, eating brown bread. I was only small and I perched on the table next to him, pure giving him a side eye. He put the brown bread in his mouth. I love brown bread, it's gorgeous. I hopped up closer to him, then onto his shoulder and he let me eat the bread out of his teeth. When I'd picked most of it away, he opened his jaws wide and

put my entire head inside his mouth. I started flapping my wings hard, scratching his cheek with my feet. I could feel the pressure of him biting down on my neck. I hid his face with my wings, then he let go and I flew off. I never told Norman because I felt fear and shame that he'd done that. I couldn't understand why it had happened. Why would a human do that? When my head was in his mouth, I could see his teeth all cracked and lined up in a row, a mixture of white with black, grey and brown stains, uneven and jagged. That's what Dublin looks like from up here. That's what the buildings below looked like, the inside of that man's mouth. We climb as high as the clean air, heading north, myself and Dara starting to sparrow

bob like we'd practiced. Soar, bob, soar, bob. It's not even that hard up here, there's no wind in the way, you cut through the air like weapons. Dara looks like a king. His little fat proud chest out. Wings back in a V. The soft feathers on his face flopping up with the speed. A determination too. Gaze fixed north. A rare joy behind his eyes. He's been through so much. A rare joy behind his eyes. He's been through so much. No rain has flown this high. Legend.

This is fucking difficult, don't get me wrong. And it's terrifying too. My belly isn't settled at all. I feel like puking. But anger has a way of keeping all that down. We've flown beyond East Wall. Over our town. It's getting greener below. Dara is struggling so I slow a bit. His wings are tiny. We'd anticipated this. If he gets tired, we have

our plan. I lower myself underneath him and he takes a hold of the back of my neck with his beak. Then he rests on me as we fly. I feel his breath move across my ears. He's panting hard, the poor fucker. Have an old rest for a bit, Darrow. We'll be grand. We're halfway there, and we'll fly down and chill out in a hedge if we have to, I tell him. I use the coast to gauge an idea of where we're at. We're at about Port Ryan or Malahide at this stage I'd say. I can tell by the size of the beach. Once I reach Donabate I'm pulling sharp lefts. The city is gone. We're out above the countryside. Very odd to see all this grass and trees. And then, there in the distance it is. A little grey oasis. Dublin airport

distance it is, a little grey oasis, Dublin airport with the jumbo jets. That's when I grab the hard left and Darragh gets his second wings. The finish line is in sight, I howl. I take formation ahead of Darragh so that he can ride in my slipstream and keep up. We're going faster than either of us have ever been. The wind with us too, propping us up. Two legends we are. I cast looks on my grey-blue destination and hear a most unmerciful wallop beyond my rear flank. I throw the eye back.

Dara is gone. I panic and lose my sparrow bob, start fluttering again. This throws me off and I lose a lot of attitude. Below me, I can see a little dark spot, spinning down. It's Dara. Fuck, and he's being chased by a massive buzzard. I thought those lads were gone forever, but I heard a rumour that they'd been deliberately reintroduced to North County Dublin. Nasty fuckers. Big, fast, strong bastards.

A bit like eagles who want the likes of me and Dara for dinner. I drop down to get to Dara. The buzzard batters into him again. I see feathers flying off Dara but he isn't giving up. The buzzard is coming for him for a final slap and Dara, instead of flying away, turns and goes straight for him. Mad bastard. I watched a huge buzzard and this tiny dot collide with force, then both of them locked together and falling. Dara is wrapped inside his talons and tearing chunks out of his face with the small beak on him.

Go on Dara, get the cunt. By the time I reached the ground, the buzzard had Dara's guts ripped out all over the meadow with his foot down on his head. His little back wing is still twitching with nerves and his tongue is out. The buzzard has that dickhead stare that they have with their snake eyes and Dara's blood all over his beak. I flip. I lose all control or sense. The look on that prick's face when he sees a pigeon coming for him. I draw down hard on his back and bait my wings off his head, knock him over and jump on his chest. Up close, standing over him, he's twice my size. I see the little face wounds that Dara has given him, they're hardly

worth talking about, the poor lad. He fighting for his life with everything he had and he'd barely injured this buzzard. I fuck my beak straight into the buzzard's eye and rip it out. Bite down on it. Scream into his face. I've poured Dara's guts all over my feet. The buzzard throws me off, wailing with his last eye. I leg it. I fly as hard and as fast as I can. Not like a sparrow, like a pigeon. I make good ground, I've crossed that

Dublin airport fence and I'm flying low above the tarmac. Buzzard catches up, he's not letting me away with taking his eye. This is me done for. Ahead of me is a jumbo jet, just after landing, driving along the runway. It looks unreal, this big giant white bird. I can't believe I'm seeing it up close. If I'm dying by that buzzard then let that mighty plane be the last thing I see. I fly straight for the aircraft. I hear the screams of that buzzard behind me. Baying for my blood. Getting closer. I'm twenty feet from the plane. I fly for the space under the wing. I go underneath and then... No more screams. The buzzard has gotten sucked into the engine with a mighty noise. The engine's spitting out blood and feathers at the back.

I can't believe my luck. I fly straight down into an open luggage compartment of a Ryanair Airbus that's getting ready to leave for Malaga. Settle myself in a nice soft suitcase at the rear and just flop. Everything has been taken out of me. I can't even hold myself up. Across the tarmac I watch the fire engines expecting the jumbo jet to see what had caused the left engine to stop, hosing the buzzard off the runway they were. As the door of the luggage compartment closes, I puff up my feathers and think about Darragh

and how I wish he was coming with me to Malaga. Rock City, you're the best fans in the league, bar none. Tickets are on sale now for Fan Appreciation Night on Saturday, April 13th when the Toronto Rock hosts the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats

for every postseason game and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com.