21 Jun 1985, Posted by Scott An Chora in Travelogue, No Comments.

06/21 Northern Ireland

It was raining a bit and we had a couple of open containers.  The roads were narrow with no extra space to speak about.   I knew if we got stuck behind another logging truck we could be here for weeks.  Once we managed to pass a couple of these trucks we began to make up for some lost time.  Jim began complaining that his bladder couldn’t take much more of this abuse but before I was willing to pull over, I wanted to put enough distance between ourselves and the logging trucks.  The last thing I wanted was to be back in the position of trying to pass them again and lose the ground we had gained.

We came to a long stretch of highway currently under construction.  They were in the process of converting the highway from two lanes to four lanes for about four hundred yards or so.  Most likely so that traffic like us could get by the logging trucks without having to risk their life.  The outer most two lanes had cones placed every five to six car lengths.  I pulled over across traffic to the left side of the road between cones.  This gave me good visibility of both lanes of traffic.  Jim got out, did his thing and we proceeded back onto the road.

I recall looking in both directions but apparently that was only in my imagination.  I heard Jim yell, “Look Out” and our car began spinning like a top.  After a second of disorientation, I realized that there was another car involved and perhaps there were injuries.  I ran toward the sound of screaming children, who were drowning in a sea of stuffed animals.  Yes, stuffed animals.  There must have been at least two hundred in the back seat alone and until I separated them I had no idea how many children were screaming.  I made sure there were no broken bones and all teeth were accounted for.  I then embraced the woman who was driving, elated that there were no injuries.  She also returned the hug but then took a couple of steps back and began yelling at me.  I walked back over to our car to inspect the damage and noticed a small dead bird lying on the hood of our car, apparently struck in the collision.  The bird also underestimated my stupidity.  I noticed that my bare feet were covered in tar from the new highway.  The Dullahan must have held up his head but did not know my name and kept riding through the countryside.  I was standing there in a bathing suit with no shirt, under the canopy of rain clouds.  The emergency crews arrived on the scene a lot faster than I expected.  “Oh fuck, thank God nobody was hurt” screamed within my head.  We were then patrolled down to the local police station.  While I sat for about thirty minutes on the windowsill in the men restroom, hanging my feet in the sink trying to scrape off the tar, Jim was being interviewed.

Eventually it was my turn to be interrogated.  I had no intention of defending myself and had decided to place myself on the mercy of the court.  There was large desk that separated me from the Chief of Police.  He sat back in his chair, allowed a period of silence to hang in the air.  “Let’s start at the beginning”, he requested.  Nervously I began.  “We were parked in-between cones.  I looked one way down the highway, turned back checking the way we came and then pulled out into traffic.  I didn’t see her until she hit me.  It was all my fault”.  I explained how it all happened so fast and how I remember each frame as if presented to me in slow motion.  I’m just thankful nobody was hurt.  After each statement the officer would vocalize every other word as he wrote down my statement, “Looked carefully in both directions”, “Proceeded cautiously into traffic”.  The officer then looked up at me from the sheet he was writing, “Now don’t let this ruin your holiday.  Would you like us to get you another car?” “Oh no” I said.  Please just give me a ride to the nearest train station.  Inside I felt an undertow, telling me to get out of this country as soon as possible.  If asked for money, any travel plans I might have been considering could be in jeopardy.

It felt good to back on a train.  Once I relaxed I realized how sore my body actually was.  As we were approaching Dublin, Jim threw me a curve and I wasn’t even going to try swing at it.  Jim mentioned that the fifty-dollar check he had left behind as a deposit for the rental car was not signed and kept repeating how nice the guy was.  Who in their right mind would let us leave without signing the deposit?  Jim was insistent on going back but I had reservations.  Why not just sent him another check through the post? My body definitely wasn’t up for doing any walking and I felt I wasn’t getting the whole story from Jim, so when we arrived in Dublin, I waited stationary.  Jim returned from his little excursion with a story of how nice the guy was, how he felt so bad and how I owed him fifty dollars because he gave the guy another hundred.  “Will split it” he said.  Now I have a headache.  I never really did get an acceptable explanation why but it didn’t matter.  Jim posted the original deposit and I picked up the cost for gas along the way, so I knew the cost of full tank of gas and it wasn’t anywhere close to fifty dollars. I wasn’t sporting any extra cash to be giving away, even if he was so nice.  It pisses me off that Jim makes me consider the price I willing to pay to avoid confrontation.  I wasn’t going to give him any extra money and he wasn’t going to give me the complete story.

We planned on leaving the island and reviewed both the train schedules and ship departure times for France.  They aligned into an overnight voyage.  When we arrived in Rossiare there was a small waiting room adjacent to a parking lot.  The room was already overfilled with a bunch of schoolgirls laced with the excitement of going on a trip and here I was thinking this cloud had no silver lining.  We mingled into a game of cards, when an older woman interrupted our concentration.  She was spreading the news that no boats would be leaving that night and perhaps we would be in need of a room.  I’m normally cautious accepting news from someone soliciting but it was apparent that if she was correct availability was limited.  I wanted a bed and had no desire for walking or searching.  We followed her up the hill to a small house overlooking the harbor that she had converted for just these occasions.  She had two young boys starving for attention and an older sister spending most of her time bossing the two of them around.  They had learned to tune her out, so they created a lot of noise.  We got stuck between an elderly couple from Wisconsin, who continued talking about how their children no longer want to work the farm and the younger of the two boys who was starving for attention.  “Play with me, play with me, play with me”.  Around every turn, like a small puppy, this little boy followed us for attention.  It was apparent that his older brother could not fill the void of his missing father.

Each of us needs to compare themselves against a father figure in order to define one’s own strength and to establish a position.  But I needed to escape, so wandered off into the darkness and sat out on the bluff with a cigarette, thinking about all the little steps that lead up to this point, thankful an accident was just an accident and not an ending.  I reflected all night and saw a light.  It showed me what is truly precious.  I’m grateful I had the opportunity to meet genuine loving people, who open up and shared a bit of their lives, even if just for a day.  Their songs and stories are ingrained in my memories.  The stony fields that were cluttering my thoughts have been cleared and through the trees the sky appeared.  Where the green earth melts in the grey of the sea and sparkling waters fill the spaces between.  I have laid down my weary tune, laid it down, for I have found, that time moves in more than one direction.  I am alive.

To carelessly drink from the river of silence, casting life’s opportunities into that sea
I stand naked here with no defense, guilty

So easily I disappoint all that surround me, casting my memories into that abyss
In one single heartbeat an unrecognized beauty, pissed

Apparently we needed to obtain boarding passes and without them we were forced back to the rear of the line.  We were surrounded by kids overly excited about the duty-free beer and couldn’t wait to get on board and start drinking.  I assumed that the age required to drink must be lower while crossing the channel.  We reassembled the card game from the night before and our group grew into quite a little party.  Little dancing and a lot of drinking and as the night rolled on so did the waves, which began to put damper on the excitement.  Once I started noticing the toilets becoming a desirable hangout I crawled off into one of the closed restaurants where I could lay down and stretch out my legs.  The roughness of the night was painted across all those morning faces.  The girls were kind enough to let us in their room and take advantage of their shower before they checked out.  It’s good to be clean.  It will be good to get these feet of mine back on stable ground.