Page 26 - The Woven Tale Press Vol. IV #2

17
He’d been stung too many times lately by
the likes of him. The last natterbean, well
he had to reef him back into the car through the front window by the scruff, so far gone, so wasted, so emaciated, he would’ve been able to do a runner through a cat flap if he’d had his jimminy bits about him. That particu- lar night he drove like a gazelle with a rocket up its hole, through the Port Tunnel and on up past the airport, out into the spuds and strawberries for sale countryside, with its vulgar houses and Breaded Chicken Breast With Pineapple pubs, dumping him in a field
Natterbean
He knew he smelt like a sardine but that’s “Where are we going to?’” he found himself what Polish beer does to a man on a low wage. saying, a man in staccato, in a sock of shock. With names like Tatra, Tyskie, and Zywiec, “Just tell me where we’re heading to.”
he may well have been downing fermented
donkey piss the night before. The smug knot- ty face on the bent cop who ran the offie on a privately paid for unflappable hip made him madder than an IKEA jacksaw, and to top it off he woke to Gina screaming blue shite cos he forgot the green lentils - she was on a whole- food buzz since her arse went all weather balloon - but it was the thoughts of the nat- terbeans that was pushing him pleasantly and comprehensively into the dark place.
‘“Well I tell ye what, I’m natterbean up at the clinic and they was fuckin’ me around cos they says I ain’t got a prescription or that I did have one in anyways but I don’t no more so I’ve to head to this other gaff up around Meath Street and talk to a Mr. Doody who’ll sort me out at another clinic till the Finglas one get word of where their prescription went to...a bunch of jokers’.
If he’d half a brain or a quarter of a heart he’d feel sorry for the fuckers, but the nat- terbeans were a type of celestial cabbage he just abhorred, and when he passed Fanagans funeral home with the overflowing bottle bins slumped at its gates and bits of torn brown tights flying from the tangled rail- ings of an aulone’s wet dream, one of them jumped in all lickety spit and said, “Al-
“Where are we going to?” He asked again,
but not so politely this time, adding that he wanted to see the cash, out with the spondoo- lies, pass the notes to the front for him to look at.
right bro, you and me are mates aren’t we, you nor gonna give me no jip cos I’m having a fuck of a day like...I’ll pay ye goodo, yeah, I’ll see ye alright when I get me glasses as me old Ma used to say, but I never really did know what she meant. Ma’s are fucking mad aren’t they, but you know what I’m gerrin’ at, don’t ye? Ah sure, I’ll shut me trap and we’ll probably get there quicker, isn’t that the way bud?
“Stall the ball there bud, don’t be going all Padraig Pearse on me...you think I’m just an- other trackie don’t ye, but here, c’mere, I can answer most of dem questions on Deal or No Deal, do ye watch dat, do ye?”
June CAldwell