Reckless

It was early 1985. Ireland was in the depths of a prolonged depression with the political leaders more worried about the reach of the IRA than they were about the length of the dole queues. I was fortunate to have a full time steady job in Dublin, (albeit not well paid), as a trainee retail store manager. Now in my fourth year I was living in Tallaght with other trainees in a semi detached house that was about two grades up from a Portakabin. A good sneeze would have collapsed the furniture. Sunday trading was prohibited then so we all chilled out and acquired a fondness for MT-USA on RTE 2 TV presented by Fab Vinnie Hanley on our rented TV set. This programme visually introduced us to many American performers. But it was Bryan Adams the Canadian crooner that we all embraced with his smash hit album Reckless. It was a apposite title for my emotions at that time.

I had been offered a big promotion to move north, to Belfast that was in the depths of The Troubles, (a complete misnomer) as it was the second Irish Civil War. I was nervous but it was a huge opportunity. Would it be reckless to pass on this career move?
Adams had a similarity to a guy Jonno who worked in the stockroom. In fact I withdraw the appellation similar, replacing it with doppelgänger, in that they both had multifarious identical characteristics. Dirty brown gingery unwashed hair, unusual vocals, Adams for the high notes and Jonno for his lisp. The pair foamed at the mouth when they got excited, had skin disorders that required a moon buggy for shaving rather than a razor. There were however, some subtle differences, in that one looked like a thug in his black leather jacket, the other was a thug in a counterfeit black leather jacket. One Run To You and you ran away from the other. One could change a guitar string in two minutes, the other could steal two cars in one minute. In order to get some work out of Jonno I had to endure his anecdotal stories about car thefts or how he could hotwire a Volvo 780 before I could make a cup of tea.

Whilst Reckless was Adam’s greatest achievement to date, Jonno’s was when the General
Manager locked his keys in his car which left him in a state of high dudgeon as he had a very important meeting in head office. Jonno acting as a deus ex machina, moved commando like over to the sports department and with his left hand lifted a tennis ball into the air, a veritable Boris Becker.

With his other hand the Dublin d’Artagnan waved his flick knife splitting the rubber orb in two pieces. He dramatically waved them in the air like Lloyd George threatening the plenipotentiaries at the Treaty negotiations with his envelope, stating to his audience, which included the now despondent General Manager, ‘dish wilsh save you fra smashing da winda tah get da keish’ He swaggered out to the car placing one half of the ball over the lock pounding it with his fist. The car clicked immediately. He swung the door open, stood beside it proud as a matador, then scooped up the keys twirling them in the air as if a Soho stripper’s garter, before throwing them playfully at the General Manager.

A short time later with all the sincerity of Mother Teresa he informed me that ‘daresh no carsh inda cuntwee dat I can’t stale, but I won’t stale doctors’ carsh or ambulanceseses, I do have principleseses. I heard you gotta big pramooooution, yur gowing ta da nort, sur dathhs whir yur from innat?’ As I wiped a gossamer cloak of his saliva of my cheek I told him I was from Monaghan which is in fact in the Republic of Ireland. ‘Naa Monaghansesses inda nort I did dath in jographeee in school’. He spent more time in Garda stations than he ever did at school. I explained that the occupied north or Northern Ireland contained the six counties of Antrim, Armagh, Derry, Down, Fermanagh and Tyrone. All six counties are legally part of the UK trading in the currency of sterling. Unionists recognise this as the Province of Ulster. The other three counties of Cavan,
Donegal and Monaghan are geographically in Ulster but legally in Republic of Ireland trading in the currency of the Punt. He stared at me like I handed him a Rubik’s cube exclaiming ‘sur derwush bombsis in Monaghan wusinndare?’ ‘Yes Jonno but on that same day bombs exploded in Dublin so that doesn’t mean Dublin is in the north. ‘Jaysuuuuuus I wouldn’t wanna be part of the nort, sure dere all troublemakers or gangsterers up dere. Sur wornt dey burning each udder ou’ in 69?

This epiphany purged me of any doubts I had on leaving Dublin with it’s concomitant gurriers, vagabonds and misfits. I wasn’t being reckless. I had made the right decision to leave with my Waltzing Matilda, to take the pilgrimage toward west Belfast to work in what was then the biggest food store in Ulster/Northern Ireland, Just down the road from Leeson Street where my father was reared. As I travelled on the bus, on my Sony Walkman Bryan Adams told me I was in Heaven.