The Blindboy Podcast - Hugged Up Studded Blood Puppet

Episode Date: January 3, 2018

I have the flu, here's a short story. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello you scuttery bin gimlets. We are 11 weeks at number one on the podcast charts which I'm absolutely astounded by at this stage and it's all thanks to you liking and subscribing and leaving reviews. Please continue to do so. This week i'm a little bit under the weather i don't know if you can hear it in my voice but i've got swollen glands i've got a swollen throat and a little bit of a fever and i've been uh gargling salty water and taking paracetamol and shit for that but as a result of this i won't be doing a big long podcast that I intended to do, what I'm going to do instead is give you a big long short story from my book The Gospel According to Blind Boy, and I wasn't going to give any more of these stories, because I'm working on an

audiobook, but what can I do, I'm not going to give you no podcast this week because i've got a shitty sore throat that wouldn't be fair on you at all one weird thing though about being under the weather is this little sore throat that i have now like i know it's going to be gone tomorrow i've got a bit of a fever i've got whatever but i know i'm going to have my vitamin c do that and then when i get up in the morning I'm going to go for a very gentle jog and I'll just continue on as if I don't have it and it will cure itself very quickly and when I was younger when I was about 19 20 when I was at had very bad mental health issues when I had uh when I had anxiety and depression. If I got a sore throat it used to knock me for about three weeks. And I don't fully know why that is.

I don't want to have such a horrible hot take as to say that it was mind over matter. But I do find that when I'm mentally healthy I don't get knocked over by simple colds and flus, but I would do if I was in a shitty state of depression or anxiety. I think someone said to me before that it might have something to do with a hormone called cortisol, that when you're under extreme stress, your body releases a lot of cortisol and this can lower your immune system it's touchy territory it is touchy territory because it falls into that holistic shit you know

it's non-evidence based but me in my own experience that's all I'm saying as a mentally healthy person with a rational flexible attitude about life when I get sick now it only hits me for a day or two when i was in the throes of shit two weeks gone three weeks and it would keep recurring if i got a sore throat when i was experiencing anxiety that sore throat

would return i'd reinfect myself for about six months very very odd how the how the mind and body work together that way before I get on to the short story because I don't know how terrible my voice sounds you can probably hear a little bit of a nasal vibe I don't want to fuck up your podcast hug you know what I mean with my nasal voice but I might answer a couple of questions that you gave me this week

just a little bit Tal Talon asks, since it's a hot topic thanks to that dickhead Logan Paul, what are your thoughts on people posting pics of videos to social media live streaming when a death or an accident occurs

if you've been following the internet you'll know that if you've been following the internet that sounds like something that came from the mouth of an 80 year old man do you follow the internet? oh yes I follow the internet all day but if you're on

Twitter or Facebook or whatever YouTube, one of the most popular YouTubers in the world, Logan Paul who I don't understand at all I love YouTube vloggers I love Casey Neistat and H3H3, and I like food and travel vloggers like Mark Wiens and the Food Ranger, but I can't enjoy Logan Paul's videos. The man is a fucking moron. there is a forest in Japan at the base of Mount Fuji and people go there to to take their own lives this is a it's a strange little Japanese culture that's been going on for about 70 years so Logan Paul goes out into the forest doing a vlog and his audience are mostly children and he recorded a video they found a someone who had

hung themselves and logan paul recorded a video beside this person's hanging corpse and they'd broadcast that to an audience of children and that troubles me deeply. Because. It's. Jesus Christ. Where's his fucking empathy. That man has no. That's a very extreme thing to do. To first of all. To come across a body.

And to decide that you need to vlog it. That to me says. That that man has no connection. With his emotional self whatsoever and it's sociopathic in its extremity that behavior and it troubles me that he is a voice uh that a lot of children look up to that's very very troubling and i don't know YouTube YouTube didn't fucking flag it until a lot of other people

flagged it you know YouTube are demonetizing people to speak about politics but Logan Paul

makes a lot of money and they didn't act quick enough with that video em I think he needs to

he needs to go to counselling I genuinely believe that somebody who whose emotional gulf is that extreme um is somebody who probably needs some degree of help he mightn't know it right now he might think he's happy but being having that that lack of empathy that much is something that's going to come and bite him in the arse in a few years time

of empathy that much is something that's going to come and bite him in the arse in a few years time when things get tough so I would like to see Logan Paul truly learn and reflect on what he did and then genuinely try and make a video about it not the bullshit apology

that I gave this morning stupid goal John John asks a lovely interesting question. Why do you never see goths driving cars, cranes being erected or baby pigeons? Not all together obviously, thanks. That's very interesting. I've, I mean I know goths, I know a lot of goths.

And these people tend to walk, do you know? I know a lot of gots and these people tend to walk. Do you know? Not only do gots walk but there's gots in Limerick who have specific types of walk. I've never seen a got drive in a car. I don't know why. Now maybe gots do drive cars and you just don't notice them when they're in a car. But any gots that I know, they're out there walking. It probably has something to do with perception.

I refuse to believe that gots don't drive cars uh cranes being erected that usually happens at night time i'd say i've i've definitely seen cranes being transported and they're big long objects and they usually do it at about three or four or five in the morning because the trucks that they have to bring cranes on are fucking massive. So we're all asleep when they're erecting cranes. Baby pigeons. That's a good one. I think I saw a baby pigeon once and it was one of the cutest things ever.

He was kind of white and fluffy. Not a baby like but he was we'll say a teenage pigeon you know. And I can't remember where I saw him but I do remember seeing one and thinking thinking that he was really beautiful um but I've never seen all three of those things white dog shit you know that's another one white dog shit um I remember when I was a kid I used to see loads and loads of white dog shit and I used to think this is because you know when I was a kid I spent more time in grass and more time on my hands and knees so I had more opportunity to seek out white dog shit white dog shit and then as I got older the white dog shit

disappeared and I did a little bit of research and quite interestingly the EU brought in laws about what certain foods that could be contained within dog food I think it was the percentage of rusk or something like that and when the EU brought these laws in it meant that dogs stopped doing white shits which is an interesting thing about Brexit. The good people of Britain will now have the supreme privilege of white dog shit being reintroduced onto their streets and gardens.

So, rule Britannia. Fair play to you. You made the right choice there. Someone asks, Alfie Snee asks, as as a podcaster what podcast do you listen to i don't really listen to that many podcasts to be honest um i'm just uh i don't know i don't use a hell of a lot of my free time enjoying other people's work in anything unless it's music i listen to music a lot but i don't really listen to a lot of podcasts um when i'm in the gym i like to turn on bill burr every so often i love bill burr i used to love this american life but there's this thing this way of delivering speech in this american life and other American podcasts have started to copy it

Ira Glass invented it it's a way of delivering which is, it's a very false sincerity I'll play you an example of what I mean now there's a YouTube channel called Vox and they do wonderful

videos about music, very, as you know I fucking, I'm obsessed with music they do amazing videos about music. As you know, I'm obsessed with music. They do amazing videos about shit that I'm heavily interested in and it is destroyed for me because they're using the This American Life style of false sincerity in the delivery. So listen to this little excerpt and you'll see what I'm talking about. This is Trout Mask Replica. On the album cover is Captain Beefheart, a fish on his face and a top hat on his head. The image is surreal, it's grotesque, and it's the perfect visual depiction of the music you're about to hear. That shit.

It's the perfect visual depiction of the music you're about to hear. That woman is reading a script, but she's reading the script as if the words are're about to hear. That woman is reading a script, but she's reading the script as if the words are flowing from her mind. And there's an insincerity to that that I find distrustful. And once it's pointed out, a lot of good American podcasts and American content is fucking ruined for me.

And it's Ira Glass' fault. He invented that. And I'm not talking about vocal fry. Vocal fry is when white middle class Americans talk like this and they put loads of different noises like that at the end of their words not that

which ironically I found out that people who don't like vocal fry it tends to be young women that do it, it's just another way to silence young women but I'm not talking about vocal fry i'm talking about a very insincere way of delivering something that is clearly scripted just fucking read it like a script love just read it like a script you'll be grand same to you ira glass read it like a script it's fine but I like Bill Barr's podcast because Bill Barr's podcast kind of half inspired this podcast because I was listening to him going, fucking hell, he's talking about nothing.

He is literally just talking about his day and it's brilliant. I love it. So that kind of inspired me to go, I'm just going to have a podcast and start talking. I'm just going to talk about whatever comes into my head. And if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. Who gives a fuck? I also like the Joe Rogan podcast.

Because, first, I like that it's three hours long. Meaning that I can listen to it over the course of a week. So I could listen to one half on the first day of the gym. Second half the next day. I like that. Revisiting it. And I don't agree with all of Joe Rogan's views. I think he's a very rational, intelligent man and he's well able to get a point across and I admire that. But I don't agree with all his views and I don't agree with all of the views of his guests. And I'm much more

excited by listening to views I don't agree with than I am by listening to views I agree with, which is a bit boring, you know? So I love it when he has people on like Jordan Peterson. Jordan Peterson's fucking a highly, highly interesting man with some views on politics that I don't agree with, but I love listening to him and I love being challenged by people like that and having my own views challenged i find that very enjoyable i've got a roaring fever at the moment and kind of just want to go to bed and not do loads of talking into a microphone but there's something i had planned for this week and i really want to do it i recommend an album every week you know and last week I recommended Swordfish Trombones by Tom Waits,

which I hope you went and listened to, and as I've said before, what I love about the likes of Tom Waits or Randy Newman is that they elevate songwriting to the level of the short story, and what I really wanted to do was to read out the lyrics of one of the songs on Swordfish Trombones. So I'm going to do that with a big huge lump in my throat and a roaring fever. Because it's one, do you know what? The song is like a fever dream. The lyrics are about a sailor who is spending all his time somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. And he gets to, I think it's Bangkok or somewhere for one night. Who is spending all his time somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.

And he gets to, I think it's Bangkok or somewhere. For one night. And he's thinking about his girlfriend back home in Chicago. So here are the lyrics to Shore Leave by Tom Waits. Well with buckshot eyes and a purple heart. I roll down the national stroll. And with a big fat paycheck strapped to my hip sack and a shore leave wristwatch underneath my sleeve in a Hong Kong drizzle on Cuban heels I rolled down the gutter to the blood bank and I'd left all my papers on the taiko kondoroga and I was in bad

need of a shave and so I slopped at the corner on Cold Show Main, and shot billiards with a midget until the rain stopped, and I bought a long sheathed t-shirt, with horses on the front, and some gum, and a lighter, and a knife, and a new deck of cards with girls on the back,

and I sat down and wrote a letter to my wife, and I said baby, I'm so far away from home, and I miss down and wrote a letter to my wife. And I said, baby, I'm so far away from home, and I miss my baby so. I can't make it by myself, I love you so. Well, I was pacing myself, trying to make it all last, squeezing all the life out of a lousy two-day pass. And I had a cold one at the Dragon with some Filipino floor show. And talked baseball with a lieutenant over a Singapore sling.

And I wondered how that same moon outside over this Chinatown fair could look down on Illini and find you there. And you know I love you baby. Because I'm so far away from home and I miss my baby so. I can't make it by myself. I love you so. Sure leave. Sure leave. from home and I miss my baby so I can't make it by myself I love you so shore leave shore leave that was shore leave by Tom Waits from the album Swordfish Trombones which was last weeks recommendation

I actually don't have a fucking recommendation for this week I've completely fucking forgotten I'll give you a recommendation next week listen to Swordfish Trombones again it's that good so yeah my throat's about to swell

and I don't think I can talk anymore and I need to go to sleep so God bless I'm going to read you now a short story which I pre-recorded from the book

The Gospel According to Blind By thank you also to everyone who's contributing to the Patreon page this podcast has a Patreon page of which you can become a patron and donate a few quid every month if you like if you enjoy it, you don't have to

but it is patreon.com forward slash the blind by podcast But it is patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast. And we'll leave a little pause here for an advert from the sponsor. And then after the pause, you will hear the short story. Hugged up studded blood puppet. Please enjoy. It's all for you. No, no, don't. The first omen, I believe, girl, is to be the mother. Mother of what?

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Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com. He pinches his lip, sloppy on his fifth can of Galahad, sitting on a deck chair in front of the laptop in a mobile home with a neon blue glow spelling out his face in the dark. The haze of the wet can affronts the forward of his mind. The dribble off his chin stains his cauterising vest. A lurcher mix is barking with a hoarse yelp outside. He imagines cycling down by the pike canal,

mouldy drunk in search of 48 hours worth of fags. The bike going sideways and him falling inside the hard shoulder of the motorway. The puddles on the road marauding his chest with cold and cheating his breath, shocking the body enough to immobilise him. A red bread van speeding front ways and rolling over his leg, his calf muscle exploding and spitting out brittle shin fragments. Glass bits of his own bone shards getting flung deep into his eyeballs and asking to be plucked out individually. Isolated on the road like a dead cat. Hum of wet arse off the canal full of shopping trolleys and needles and razor cowries that

washed in from the river. Lad tugs his lip more so that it was pursed between his fingers and looked like the orange beak of a mallard. Smoking Marlborough Gold, starts rubbing his knees and face, which are clam and sweat, and his forehead, feeling like it's tingling. He's after smoking too many Chinese weed.

He's studying the front of the cardboard fag packet. With the crinkly shiny mylar, the fags illuminated by the warm orange of a hot halogen lightbulb over by the kitchenette. The packet has government warnings on the facade. Smoking causes cancer and early death, says the fag box. A photograph of a concerned woman with pain in her gaze, draping her face on the chest of a pale man who has tubes hanging out of his nose like scaffolding, and the forlorn child banging her head on the shoulder of the woman. Our lad feels his heart tremor all hot in his earlobes.

He peruses the photo and knows it isn't real. They are cancer actors, gowls who pretend to have cancer and agony as a pastiche to get paid cash for appearing on the front of fag boxes. How the fuck can fags give you cancer if the pricks in the box are actors, our lad thinks? Why can't they use real cancer buys? If there's a load of real fag cancer buys, then surely they'd be first up to volunteer themselves for the front of the box as a warning.

Fuck are you looking at, you go-lip spastic, says the fag box. He leaps back from the chair and wonders if the fag box had really spoken to him, or if he'd imagined it. That's the way your head whinnies like bothered horses after a few lungs of bad baldy. He spit licks a marlborough and spills out the baccy like the guts of a defeated foe onto a risla then backs it up with a fat bastard pinch of Chinese weed. That's what's causing the panic and the mad notions of getting his shin burst open by a bread van on the canal irrational thoughts fluttering like kites

with slippy strings in a gale uncontrollable and dragging him with them to the edge of heaven's bend it's giving him a whitener but he can't stop rolling it up into a giant that ennisweed grown above the golden lotus takeaway, a grand takeaway,

savage for a four-in-one or a chow mein. But everyone knew what was going on upstairs. On a warm day with wind, you'd smell it walking along a gust like nice silage. They're growing boldly upstairs. That sweet, spicy pineapple bang that you can't ignore, floating in the heat, warm hay, pine cones, black pudding, lime, the first sniff of an open beer bottle, that's that skunk stench of strong grass, grown under hot mercury vapour lights, wafted through a cooker hood and pumped up with madman's fertiliser. The takeaway tries to hide it with the odour of sesame oil and five spice out the vents but everyone knows the crack, they're growing weed upstairs and the chips and curry are only a front for the weed growing. The triad gangs make them do it. The people watering the plants above the Chinese are illegals. The triads bring them into Ireland in those big innocent looking containers that are piled on top of each other at the train yard.

Tell them they'll get them enrolled in a business college. They'll learn English and economic commerce. But the triads lie. They rob their passports in Shanghai, shove them all in a tin for three weeks at sea, herd them into the blacked out vans in Limerick docks and force the poor people to grow weed upstairs in Chinese takeaways up and down rural Ireland. They are slaves, hash growing slaves with no identities, lost people. They have to pay off their debt for being smuggled into Ireland, living like rats in rooms as bright as the sun and as hot as Carrefour, never leaving the growhouse, food delivered through hatches. It's happening all over Ireland since the recession.

The owners of the takeaways are victims too. They don't want grow houses above their businesses, hiking up the electricity bill, causing mould in the ceilings from leaky hydroponics. They just want to run a business. But if they refuse to allow the harvest, the triads will hurt their families back home in China. That's how the triads operate.

They've been around for hundreds of years, fucking over their own communities the world over, like any country with a large and poor diaspora. The Sun Yian Triad run the weed in Ennis. Now the Limerick gangs have all been jailed and killed. They spray it with all sorts of fiberglass crystals and push out the local dealers. had run the weed in Ennis. Now the Limerick gangs have all been jailed and killed. They spray it with all sorts of fibreglass crystals and push out the local dealers. There's no Libyan hash around

since the Rad decommissioned its bombs. Only Chinese weed. Sold by Polish lads. And the odd Ennis head. The Irish are being pushed out of their own territory. Silently and calmly and the Chinese ganja it drives you mad

they treat it with nonsense chemicals and jack up the THC to unreasonable levels it makes you paranoid and the hangover has other lads shouting inside your own head our lad has read about it in the Ennis Tribune triad gangs now control cannabis trade and when the Gardaí raid the grow houses it's the poor slaves who get locked up, not the bowsies who pull the strings. He crawls up from the deck chair and walks away from the

laptop with unreal munchie pangs and white fear. It's 11.23pm. On the phone so the Golden Lotus is still open. His red eyes oogle the mobile home for the wallet. Delicious flavour memories perambulate around his tongue as if they are real. Creamy peanut satay, the burny crunch of a salt and pepper piece of battered chicken thigh with spicy bell pepper, the scorched black taste of chow mein up your nose as you swallow, the salty mystery and soft mouthful of a bite of prawn curry and fried rice, green peas and onion crunching in the mouth with

velvet brown curry sauce, crispy quick fried chips, oily spring rolls, black bean sauce. Mouth watering, so much he's swallowing spit. He leaves the bike behind, lest he get slaps off a bread van. Lad saunters on down yonder, out the shaky resin door, past the GAA pitch, through the main street, until he can smell the golden lotus take away. There's a hot July rain, the kind you didn't mind drenching you, hitting your skin at the same temperature as your body. It's the only type of acceptable Irish precipitation. 12.15am. The pink and blue neon koi carp flickers above the false pagoda door arch of the Golden Lotus takeaway. Warm puddles emanate a wispy steam that you can only see when they catch the lavender rays of light from the koi carp fish.

The interior is cramped with tea-stained wooden panelling up the walls. Soft midi piano plays through a ceiling speaker. Parish community flyers hang in front of the cash register, beside which is a stout golden automaton cat that has a battery-powered waving paw. Leanne is positioned behind the counter. Her soft, friendly smile and clip-on bowtie are ready to take his order. She's seen our lad here before, several times a week for the past year. He orders the Singapore fried noodles, the sesame prawn toast and a tin of Club Orange, shyly avoiding Leanne's eyes, the

way he does when he meets women. Then exits to the car park to rest the brown paper bag on a wheelie bin. Opening the aluminium container, he is peacefully assaulted by oily, fragrant steam, clambering the plastic fork in his fist, gorging a mouthful of greasy rice noodles into his welcoming maw. Eyes closed and salivating, head back, the brackish mash of noodles satiates his munchies. Endorphins explode like fireworks in the brain. He feels it as a warm tingle on his forehead. The neon lights of the flickering kai illuminate his flapping jowls

against the honest backdrop of the black night. His large body feels at peace with itself as waves of electrical jolts filter through his skin with that one sparkly gulp of his club orange. His whiter has subsided and he's back at base level of stoned. He reaches for the half burnt joint in his arse pocket and grooves on over to the alleyway behind the golden lotus to fire it up. and grooves on over to the alleyway behind the golden lotus to fire it up. He flicks the flint of a shitty pound shop lighter and sparks the bifter,

leaning back against the masonry wall, exhaling blue smoke up above his head and watching it puff up and dissipate like milk into a dirty lake. Thinking about herself, gone from him, above in car law with the mother in the wheelchair thinking about the night of the accident if he'd have swerved the van the mother would have been fine it didn't work out like that

now herself has changed her Facebook photo from a photo of him and her to a photo of James Connolly as he gapes up at the cool blue smoke, he spies the upper echelon of the talkey flumes getting disturbed to the left by the exhaling hot air of a grated vent. It's the vent from the upstairs weed grow house.

Up high on the wall, burping out that sweet shitty pineapple bang of happy grass. Off above, into the hills of Clare, his mind fizzles, adrenal, with all sorts of possibilities. Him, bare-chested and steaming, climbing up the vent and squeezing through ducts, landing in the middle of the illegal hash-ten like Steven Seagal. A family of Chinese weed slaves cowering in the corner as he performs

a roundhouse kick on the electrical ballast box from the glow lights sparks flying high and bouncing off his veiny pumped arms kicking the door of the grow house and ushering the family to safety outside like a real white saviour

police lights dancing an applauding sergeant with a big smile awaits the hero the attractive daughter of the Chinese slave family leaning in and shifting him on the mouth as the camera pans out and up with the golden lotus in a blaze

behind them fade to rolling credits directed by John Woo with Give Me Shelter by the Stones as the end track. He's seen all the fucking Hong Kong gangster films. Shinjuku Triad Society, Year of the Dragon, The Killer, Bullet in the Head and Hard Boiled. Watched them religiously. He knows how this would play out. He knows how the triads behave. There'd be 10 of them upstairs in that growhouse with meat cleavers and banana clip black Uzis with their tattoos and sweaty vests. But he doesn't care. He's had enough of them polluting Ennis with mad weed and turning innocents into slaves.

And he's ready to kick through the back door with fists presented to protect the vulnerable inside and give them liberty. He will be their justice. If his end is to be at the hands of ten triad machetes hacking his neck then he is ready to die. His body rushes with the passion and he fucks the bones of that giant onto the wet tarmac launches a shoulder at the side door of the golden lotus and dents it off its hinges. He kicks it and kicks it until he can't feel his shoe. The door

batters sideways from its top hinge. He grabs the available side of the metal panel and bends it towards him, screaming and spitting and roaring. With door half open, he squeezes his way through as rough shades of broken metal score bloody hashtags all over his right arm and chest, like Bruce Lee in the mirror scene of Enter the Dragon. Sad Chinese fiddle music plays in his head as he moves in slow motion, stomping up the concrete stairs to the blinding white and the ever-growing stench of strong skunk weed. He arrives at the top of the stairs. Through the mercury vapour lighting, with mouth open and fists out, he leaps towards a hazy figure. His leg snares a cable from a grow light and his body descends to the floor, dragging two light fixtures and a few hash plants with him as his skull cracks on the harsh grey mortar. When he wakes up it's black, real black. The ground underneath him heaves diagonally and he can't get his feet up from under his shins.

The weight of the room pulls him to the ground. There's a large force at play. He crawls into a ball and is hurled towards a wall where he stays until the light returns. He can't tell how long he's been in the dark. Memories of shouts and screams, chains and whips, lights in the eyes and water down the mouth haunt his mind like the waking seconds of a hangover after a mad wedding and the air smells salty like the periwinkles they sell in Kilkee. He hears lads roaring Chinese or Cantonese, he can't differ. Metal corrugate slides with a harsh hiss and a new light blinds him. A hand grabs the scarf of his neck, while another set of hands wrap cable ties around his wrists.

The light is giving him a fierce headache. The air is hot and damp, much hotter than the ennis outside the golden lotus. Waves crash around his ears. New accents chatter. Distant traffic hums and honks. Seagulls squawk and flap. He feels the imposing presence of gigantic towers leering down on him.

Our lad soon realises he must be somewhere in China, kidnapped from Ennis. He's done two weeks, drugged up on sleepers in a shipping container. When he knocked himself out in the growhouse, the triads must have used the slave quaaludes to put him in a shipping container. When he knocked himself out in the grow house the triads must have used the slave quaaludes to put him in a deep sleep. He landed into their hands, into the spider's nest. He feels a right fool.

No doubt his wallet and any form of identity are gone too. His head is pounding and his mouth is dry. Before his eyes accustomed to the white of the gigantic megalopolis at the docks. He's fucked into the back of a Toyota Transit. Pitch dark again. Battering around against aluminium panels.

Chickens clucking outside. Roasting his bones inside. Smell of foreign diesel up his nose from the loud engine. He can't think straight at all. Two weeks of sleeping tablets and being fed vitamin liquid through a water pistol will do that to you. But sure there's no one back in Ennis to notice he's gone anyway. Just the cats, waiting outside the mobile home for a tin of mackerel. Herself with the crippled mother won't inquire.

tin of mackerel. Herself with the crippled mother won't inquire. The van stops and it's clear that he's far from the tall buildings and the docks. It's evening now and it's warehouses for miles with dogs howling a few streets over.

The distant city rumbles and hums the way Ennis doesn't. Strong armed lads in goal attackies and Adidas pants, big fuckers, take him from the van and into the warehouse where he's stripped down, untied and pointed towards an area

where was once clearly a little warehouse side office with a shower and the jacks. There's an open safe and a yellow calendar with photos of Kylie Minogue when she had curly hair. Whatever this warehouse once was, it hasn't been run as a business for donkey's years. One of the big fuckers with the Adidas trackies lobs a bar of soap at him and roars a few bits of Chinese into his direction. Our lad showers.

He's fucking stinking. his direction, our lad showers, he's fucking stinking, the shower makes him feel like Christ climbing out of the tomb on Easter Sunday, gorgeous warm water and lavender soap washing off the journey, giving him back a bit of life, clearing up his head, he dries off with a towel and finds there's a nice soft dressing gown laid out for him. Lad sits down in an old armchair and a feed of noodles and dim sum is lobbed in front of him by one of the big fuckers. The shock and trauma was such that he hadn't even realised the hunger on him as he leapt into a soft pork dumpling. The big fuckers take out a pack of fags and offer one to himself. He relishes the drag.

Things are chilling out a bit, he thinks. The two boys don't seem too bad, all things considered. He imagines that if they were back in Ennis, they'd nearly have a game of five aside, going after a few jars and helping's loaned. He can't understand a word they're saying

but they're grand old lads, probably United fans he'd say he has a squint around the warehouse normally he'd be thinking of an escape, throwing a few flying kicks, rappelling through a window like Steven Seagal but no he was grand, fuck it

he'd been kidnapped and taken to China but sure there's bollock all back in Ennis. Free holiday he says. The two big fuckers get a bit jumpy after one of them pints at the time on his phone. They take a military posture and start putting out the fags on the concrete. An orange light is flashing in the corner

of the large roller door on the concrete. An orange light is flashing in the corner of the large roller door of the warehouse. It opens up, pure like in the cinema. Blue steam from outside crawls in the door, lit up by headlights, followed by a black BMW 8 Series, a white Mercedes, AMG R50 and another black 8 Series behind it. That's nearly a million quids worth of cars. and another black 8 Series behind it. That's nearly a million quids worth of cars. He can't fathom it. Judging by the servile posture on the two hard fuckers, our lad reckons their bosses are sauntering in.

About eight lads in suits get out of the beamers first. Then a fucking suave-looking cunt jumps out of the merc. Flashy pants, silk shirt, aviator shades on his head. Cool looking prick. Lad knows from the John Woo films that these boys are a snakehead. The head cell of a triad gang specialising in people smuggling. These must be the cunts calling the shots over the grow houses in Ennis, above the Golden Lotus takeaway. Flashy boy walks over, not a word of English but a gorgeous smile on him. He shakes our lad's hand in a most cordial fashion.

One of the fiends in the suits comes over with a very pricey looking bottle of brandy and glasses are presented. The brandy was unreal, like hot plums. He'd never tasted the likes of it. Flashy boy is alright. He even takes out his phone and starts showing our lad photos of himself at home with his wife and two children. Cooking a barbecue, swimming, a family man. Not a hint of English though. But whatever he's saying sounds pure friendly. Our boy is starting to feel very

comfortable. He knows he's been kidnapped, but all of these fellas are more or less treating him like a celebrity. He starts thinking that maybe they've heard about his action back in Ennis. Maybe they found out about the hen party in the pool hall, where he took out Christy Bennis and Suntan Dunham with the carryman's end of a bike lock. Or the night he shattered Reptile Canavan's pelvis outside Supermax in Kill Rush. What if news travelled through the Golden Lotus, all the way to China, that he was out to get them? And that maybe they'd be better

off with him on their side as an enforcer rather than one of their enemies. He doesn't have all the facts at hand, but that's the game he's going to play along with. Because there's no fucking way he's siding with these evil pricks. They'd made a big mistake letting him into their lair. The rest of that night is a blurred montage of fast cars, nightclubs, women and shots. Crowds parting when the gang walks into the parlour. Flashy Boy introduces himself as Shu Shan and makes it very public by his proximity to him that our lad from Ennis is his new best friend. Shu Shan Huang is the leader of the Sun Yian Triad Snakehead,

wanted the world over for people smuggling, organ smuggling, weapon smuggling, the grow houses back in Ennis, the lot. He's far too high up to be prosecuted. He has derped on every member of government in Beijing. His only danger is the rival 14K triad. But even they wouldn't risk war by taking him out. He hasn't touched anything directly contraband in years.

His day-to-day work involves producing accent films and blackmailing wealthy businessmen. The night ends as the rubbish trucks and road sweepers groom the city. Shushan accompanies our lad to a tower on the docks and upstairs to a fuck-off apartment and leaves him the keys. Our lad can't believe it. White marble floors, full kitchen, giant LCDs on the wall, a bathroom bigger than the mobile home in Ennis and a 15 foot window overlooking the Hong Kong harbour below. He reaches into the pocket of the Estee Lauder suit they'd decked him up in and pulls out a crumpled packet of Shung Wah brand fags. He examines the bright red box. No photographs of cancer actors pretending to die, just an inviting yellow building with

a pagoda roof. He sparks up and cheers, like a slither just crossed the bar at the final. Jumping up and down on his voluminous magnolia leather couch, with the fag pursed between his lips, ashes flaking all over the gaff. With an introspective solemnity he stares out over the Hong Kong skyline onto the docks. Millions of flickering lights rise up and pison the clouds with a pale green that you'd normally see on the torso of a sick toddler. Miles Davis style jazz brass plays in his head as he scans the skyline. Innumerable lives beneath him. Behind little windows, the quality of those lives rising with the size of the windows and how high up they are in the towers and he's at the top.

His gaze switches from the city to the reflection of his apartment's interior on the window pane. He sees a white envelope on the glass coffee table. He opens it. It's written in English. The letterhead reads Hwang Films, Great Eagle Centre, Fleming Road, Hong Kong. He reads the note.

Dear Sir, We were highly impressed with your attempts to infiltrate our operation in Ennis. I oversee a film production company. We specialise in action movies. We believe you have the potential to become a great leading hero in Hong Kong action movies. Please enjoy your apartment. For your safety and convenience,

we have placed personal security outside your door, who will also tend to your apartment. For your safety and convenience, we have placed personal security outside your door, who will also tend to your needs. We will be in contact. Yours sincerely, Shu Shan Huang. Fuck me, he thinks. These lads have reckoned him to be a new Steven

Seagal. He wasn't expecting that. But he can definitely see their angle. On the walls hang posters in glass frames of Hong Kong films produced by Huang's company. Bullet Cops, Trade Wind Dragon Boys, Hero Fight, Dog Eagles, Triad Banquet, Lucky Dagger. Each looking more class than the next, with explosions and bures and guns and lads with machetes. These bowsies are the real deal. Our boy's moral position begins to shift.

Yeah, they're the same lads who trafficked those poor slaves to Ennis and forced them to grow crazy weed. But this action film arm that they have seems fairly harmless. Maybe they'd even do a film about him and Ennis rescuing the weed slaves and it could raise awareness for the hundreds of innocent Chinese migrants who get jailed every year back in Ireland. Maybe herself and the mother in the wheelchair would see it. Fuck it. If that happened, he could still maintain a sound moral position, but also get to be a big massive movie hero too. Win-win.

That night, as he sleeps on his gigantic waterbed in silk sheets, he finally feels a sense of purpose and meaning that is alien to him, but comfortable. The next morning, the Hong Kong sun creeps through the room. Its warmth across his chest wakes him up. He reaches out with both arms as if to hug the rays of light on the sheet like they're God's flashlight, finally finding him in the abyss and picking him out of for salvation.

The door of the apartment is opened by security and a team of caterers rush in with a selection of pastries, followed by some very trendy looking lads with spiky hairdos. They sit him down, start cutting his hair, measuring up his body for some tailored suits, washing his teeth, taking his photograph from every angle and shaving his face. He could get used to this. They leave another note. Dear sir, I hope you enjoyed the services provided by Hoang Films team of personal stylists. Before we find you a leading role and begin filming, it is important that you look appropriate for the big screen. We advise some work to be done on your teeth

and some minor alterations made to your physique. This has all been taken care of and we will be in contact with details soon. Yours sincerely, Shushan Huang. He isn't insulted by the note. Sure, he was 38 in October and action movies are a young man's game. An old tummy tuck would be no harm and in fairness his teeth looked like they'd been shot into his mouth with a musket

from 40 yards. Across the harbour is Fao Yuen near the Mong Kok markets where you buy fake handbags and electric eel wallets that fuck up your credit cards. Xu Shan Huang is screaming and roaring in the back office. He's owed several million in Bitcoin from a director of the Sumitomo Mitsui Bank. Japanese lad by the name of Masatoshi Bushujima. Mr. Bushujima has been ignoring demands for the money for Yonks. Filthy, dirty lad into all sorts of sordid depravity. He has everything and anything trafficked into Japan for his increasingly bizarre sexual urges.

One of those creeps who's so rich that every conventional desire a person could have is at his fingertips. So he must continually test his own boundaries to get the horn and feel alive. Hwang is his procurer. Whatever Busajima wants Hwang sources. It started off with Estonian amputees, moved on to famine victims with inflated stomachs from South Sudan. By last March it was disabled children who had wealthy western parents. Hwang wouldn't ask questions, he'd sort it out for the right price. But Mr Busajima is rich and powerful enough to tell the Sun Yian Triad to get fucked and not pay his bills.

He's too high profile to be threatened by any sort of violence. But what Mr Busajima is unaware of is that the triad has purposefully purchased enough shares in Sumitomo Mitsui Bank that they are entitled to attend Friday's annual general meeting, which is to be a very big international affair. The triads have a taste for revenge and Mr Busajima has just sent detailed photoshops and instructions to Hwang of his next sexual request.

It's to be delivered via a deep web live stream tomorrow night. Back in the massive apartment, our lad from Ennis is drinking a Heineken on the couch in his Estee Lauder suit. He's flicking through two potential scripts for upcoming films that he could be the lead in. One is about a jazz trombone playing New York Cop dispatched to Singapore to take out the 14K triad heroin ring who ends up addicted to heroin himself.

Another is about a simple Irish man called Blobby Sands who sets up a potato shop in Shanghai and finds himself fighting the local 14k triad as they try to extort his spud shop. The hero character's special abilities are making car bombs, being drunk, singing songs about Englishmen and fighting with a shillelagh. The character wears a potato sack and a famine-type hat from the 1840s, but also has platform shoes and flares from the 1970s, topped off with an iron jumper. He wasn't too keen on that script. He felt the Asian writer, though well-intentioned, had a very limited knowledge of Irish culture

and had penned a story that relied upon tired stereotype tropes that represent only the negative aspects of Irishness as portrayed through the colonial lens of media and film. Swirling the final sups of Heineken around the bottom of the Emerald Bottle he's troubled over which role would be the best to start his career. He has a very strong preference for Singapore Junkie Cop rather than Black 47 Triad Paddy. They're both something he'd stream online if he came across them, subtitles or no subtitles. There's a sharp rap on the door and he's ushered down to a car that is taking him for his cosmetic surgery in a private hospital. to a car that is taking him for his cosmetic surgery in a private hospital. The journey is pleasant and the limousine has sparkling water and Pringles. No queues or nothing for the hospital.

He doesn't even have to sign in at reception. He's brought directly to the operating theatre like Mariah Carey off for a tit job. Gowned out and ready to go under anaesthetic, he lies on the table with lights above him and the smell of antiseptic up his nostrils, thinking about the hunk he'd meet at the other side of the surgery. The doctors are incredibly friendly and he's receiving high-quality medical attention. Our lad is scared of needles,

so they give him the gas and he goes under. The room wobbles and ripples like he's peacefully descending beneath the surface of a swimming pool and looking up at the ceiling. He comes around from the anaesthetic in agonising pain. The darkened room is surrounded by computer monitors. The surgery feels extensive around his frame. His mouth moves like it's full of cotton and nettles, and when he asks for water, his own voice sounds unfamiliar and high-pitched,

which very much frightens him. He senses confusion, like when he first woke up in the shipping container. As he looks down at his body, he notices that his shins have been entirely removed and his feet are now attached to his thighs. Same with his arms. His hands are now where his elbows were. He tries to shout, to tell someone that a mistake has been made.

Again, no words come from his throat, only high-pitched warbles like those of a child. On his chest are several moving tentacles that have been fused with his skin. An injured heart kicks shock to his head, which becomes light. He moves an eye left and is confronted with his full reflection in the screen of a darkened computer monitor. The entire back rib cage has been removed and is hooked up to a large mechanical apparatus that pumps his blood from wrist valves into large canisters which is fed back into his limbs with tubes. To his right he peruses some badly photoshopped blueprints on the

wall, sketches with Japanese, Chinese and English lettering depicting the rough predictions of what he now appears to be one drawing he can read as it's labelled Western Octopus Sex Child Man standing beside the sketches is

Shu Shan Huang whose usually cordial disposition is now a nonchalant black stare smoking a fag. Our lad is livid with betrayal, anger and disappointment. If he could speak or move his body, he'd lob

a headbutt straight at Hwang's nose. He realises that the triads have double-crossed him in the name of some sick prank. The promise of a career in action movies was a ruse to get him to agree to surgery and be transformed into a Western octopus sex-child man. Huang ignores the emotions in our lad's eyes

and gives a thumbs-up to his cronies in the background by quipping something in Cantonese. The computer monitors are turned on. In the centre is a webcam that has a red LED, which switches to green. On the central monitor, Mr Busajima sits naked. Our lad stares at the nude, middle-aged Japanese man on the screen in bemused terror. stares at the nude, middle-aged Japanese man on the screen in bemused terror. He watches his washed-out stomach, flashing blue and shadowed by pasty bitch tits,

his receding hair and shiny scalp, his savage jowls. Busajima's voice distorts over the tiny speaker as he howls repeatedly, Watashi wa sekushi ni kanjiro, anata wa sekushi ni miro. The triads in the room all laugh when they hear this. Lad's stomach rumbles with nerves when the loud machinery revs up and blood is pumped as his skin flushes from pink to pale with every circulatory transfusion from his body to the machine. Hoang orchestrates a control panel on an iPad. The tubes and wires in the back of our lad from Ennis tense up,

which is excruciatingly painful to the fresh stitches all over his skin. His body begins to jerk autonomously. He has no command over his limbs. Hwang controls him via the hydraulic blood pumps bluetoothed to the iPad. Our lad, now four foot tall and howling high pitched like a bai, performs involuntary sexual maneuvers on his body using his octopus tentacles. Mr Busajima screams, Sekoshi, Sekoshi, Sekoshi, and masturbates on the other end of the live stream. What Mr Busajima doesn't know

is that Hwang is video recording the whole session. Tomorrow night, at the Sumitomo Mitsui Bank AGM in Tokyo, Hwang will broadcast the video of Mr Busujima masturbating to the four-foot remote-controlled octopus child man to all the other shareholders. By

that evening, it will be international news. Our lad from Ennis will be world-famous Hong Kong film star, alright. Just not the type he had imagined 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 host 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.