Had this dream that we were on a plane somewhere, Sudan, Yemen, Sahara vibe. Brown boxes across the floor like we were doing some kind of food airdrop. Engines going, a good height up, scorching blue sky. Pilots in army gear, all that craic. The door opens and a fella walks in. Mid-air like, rocks up, opens the door, no wind, this how we were rolling. He had a leather jacket, brown flairs, fuzzy hair. He said how’s things and I said not too bad. He had a voice like caramel over gravel. It went on like that for a while. Nothing explained, everything surreal and yet normal. A smell like seaweed and clay, the engines humming their aeronautic tune. Then he got conspiratorial and said he was after getting a loan from the Credit Union. I asked him how much and he said 300 thousand. We let that settle, then he took a big thick envelope out of his pocket. It was like a sod of turf wrapped in brown paper, and he said: This is it, here.
I said: ‘What are you goin to do with that?’
And he shrugged, looked around. He was wearing sunglasses now. Where’d they come from? Next thing there was turbulence, and the door flew open and there was a big gust of wind, and screaming jet propellers, like on the films, and he was hanging off the frame, screaming for help.
I ran over and he caught my hand, soapy and warm, and screamed at me to pull him in, but the force was too strong and he was gone. Good luck. No parachute, getting airdropped. I turned back to the pilots, but they didn’t seem to notice and after a while we were in a town like Nova Scotia, standing in some road with wooden houses either side, and your man was in bits all over the ground. Looked a bit like a sheep dog I hit with an Avensis one time around the back roads of Claregalway. Made an awful job of my front caliper.
Here now. People gathered in stupefied awe, looked, gasped, talked and gawked. They all had that odd numb gum accent of the East coast Canadian Irish. A priest landed, pompous authority, fat as a fool, reckoned we ought to have some kind of service so he organized a big band with lads in kilts playing bagpipes and we all stood around, surrounded by trees and grass and the out of tune noise. Then. There was a fella standing beside me with glasses and a long trench coat and he said how sad it all was and did I know him well? I said no, I only met on the plane before he got fucked out the door, and did you know him well yourself? He raised his eyebrows, yellow gapped teeth, bloodshot eyes, hairy ears, and said he works for the Credit Union and was only after giving him a loan for 300 thousand the day before and how about that for irony?
And what happens with it now, I asked him. Doesn’t matter, he said. Life insurance will cover it. He blew his nose, black fingernails, tobacco stained fingers, blotched red nose, a distang dog whistle wheeze from his tar tuned lungs. Now the service was over and we all walked into town. Fairly sure we were in St. John’s at this stage, or Halifax or somewhere. Definitely not Montreal, or Quebec or even Toronto. It was the place where the rescue boats went out to try and save the Titanic that time. Big shtuff.
Mick Donnellan 