I’ll Try Not to Fart This Time

Listen to the story read by Joe Frank McClain

****

Over time,

The memories. They fade.

The impressions on the cerebral cortex. They soften.

The synapse gaps widen and wear away.

Memories become dreams; soon to be ghosts.

It’s been six weeks since my return home to the searing heat and stultifying humidity of Austin, the same length of time I’d just spent barnstorming the much cooler and often frigid climes of the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom.

****

I was ‘on holiday’

In the Free State

as they say,

After a little,

Lookout mate!

Anarchy in the UK

yet

Let it be told,

Much to a Texan’s dismay,

Those lands are quite cold.

Even in May.

****

In fact, Aberdeen, whose granite and despair snarl against the North Sea winds at latitude 57.15 degrees north, may be subject to permanent winter.

The Romans called Ireland, Hibernia, the land of winter.

They called Great Britain, Albion, the white land. Historians say it was for the white cliffs. I think it was for the snow.

****

The Romans tried to warn me.

****

Frigid or not.

I miss all those places.

Even you dearest Aberdeen. Your freakishness makes me love you even more, and your freakishness is not limited to the weather.

****

I miss vacation. I miss being “on holiday”. I miss the thrill of everything being so new, so different,

yet

somehow…

familiar.

*****
2

*****

But why

do these places

I’ve never been before

seem so familiar?

Maybe it’s something in the DNA.

*****

After all.

These are ‘my people’.

I can trace my ancestral branches back to several trunks rooted throughout the British Isles.

There is:

West Yorkshire in the North of England;

the Forth Valley of central Scotland;

the “Ulster Plantations” of Northern Ireland,

the culchielands of Connacht in what is now the Republic of Ireland.

Family lore says one of my great to the nth power grandmothers was a freckle-faced ginger papist born and raised in the glamorous city of Roscommon. At the tender age of sixteen she was scooped-up and taken to the New World by my great to the nth power Ulster-Scot Presbyterian grandfather

but

not before

he did a little farming

by planting her fresh and fertile fields with a son they would name Experience.

But familiar?

These old new places?

These new old places?

Perhaps it’s a cultural inheritance I’ve forgotten to collect.

Maybe it’s too much BBC, RTE, and Channel 4 pirated from afar via the miracle of VPN. Maybe it’s because God lives in Dublin, or Dun Laoghaire, or even Aberdeen, or on a house boat on the River Leven where it meets Loch Lomond. I guess God is in all those places. And everywhere. That’s what they told me in Sunday School long long ago.

*****

Anyway.

I miss all the places.

I miss,

Loch Lomond,

Balloch,

Glasgow, Edinburgh, Falkirk, Stirling,

York,

and

West Yorkshire.

I miss

Leeds and its train station’s giant black and white photograph murals of the glory days of the Damned United,

Brian Clough and all.

I miss

Keighley, Haworth,

Carlisle (Panic on the streets),

Aberdeen, Linlithgow, Camelon, Cruden Bay,

Aboyne, Ballatar, Arbroath,

Montrose, Tarland, Oxenholme,

Warrington.

I miss

Cymru (that’s Welsh for Wales),

I miss

Holyhead,

and

all those Welsh cities with consonant-riddled names I will never be able to pronounce.

I miss

walking along the Forth Canal and seeing tiny spring lambs bouncing circles around their lounging mother.

I miss

Dublin, Dun Laoghaire, Sandy Cove, Glasthule, the Gallops, Dalkey, Dalkey Island, Vico, Windy Arbor (Na Glaissan), Mt. Merrion, Kilmacud, Kilgobbin, Ranelagh, Sandyford, Stillorgan, Ballyogan, Clapperstown, Goatstown, Monkstown, Leopardstown Valley, Blackrock and on and on and on.

I miss all those places.

****

I miss all the things.

I miss everything.

The details. The scenes. The noise. The smells.

I miss the faded red and white stripes of the Poolbeg chimneys standing forlorn and stranded, yet somehow magnificent on a muddy Dublin beach.

I miss the sulking medieval granite of Aberdeen.

I miss

The waves crashing onto the jagged cliffs next to New Slain’s Castle. AKA Dracula’s Castle. I miss the roar of the waves. The smell of the sea spray, its needles stinging my face.

I miss the trains and buses and being able to get around cities and entire countries without a car.

I miss the quiet of electric transportation.

I miss the rumble and stench of diesel engines.

I miss

The seals.

Playing close, but not too close to the shore. The better to keep an eye on the humans. Yes. I came eye to eye with one in Dun Laoghaire for several seconds before it became bored with me and plunged into the depths.

Maybe it was a Selkie.

I’ll never know.

Women. Man.

Even the mythological ones.

Are slippery little beasts.

****

I miss..

The fish n chips deep-fried with seaweed then tossed in a basket and doused with even more dried and pulverized seaweed.

The chips.

Those chips cut from fresh Irish potatoes, skin and all.

Ah yes. Black garlic and truffle sauce on the side, please. These are seaside tourist fish and chips. Not the neighborhood chippie. This basket of goodness sets you back 15 Euros, and it’s worth every single bronze harp I plunk down for it.

I hear

Deep fryers bubbling, squeaking, roaring.

The clerks, cooks, and prep staff bickering in Kurdish.

I miss

The Seagulls.

Their stuttering shrieks against the crashing waves.

I miss

The flocks of Seagulls.

No. Not the band. The real things.

The even nastier, even louder real things.

Swarming by the hundreds over the pitch at Pittodrie Stadium during an Aberdeen FC match.

I miss

Seagull poop on statues.

Seagull poop on passers by.

*****

I remember

the thrill of seeing the Phil Lynott statue in Swan’s Yard surrounded by dozens of adoring fans. One guy was even kneeling before it. He must’ve been a bass player.

I think of Phil, strung out and dying at the age of 36 in Kew, London.

I recall the giant mural of Phil Lynott on the side of the Unite the Union building on Middle Abbey Street emblazoned with the words “Black Irish and Proud”, as I hear “The Boys are Back in Town” rumble in my head.

I can never forget the peculiar ‘scent’ of the Liffey as you cross the Samuel Beckett Bridge. I walk up and down that bridge time and time again. Over and over.

Waiting, waiting, and waiting.

But Godot never shows.

*****

I miss.

Supermarkets.

Yes. Supermarkets.

Dunnes.

Tesco.

Aldi.

Centra.

Spar.

Morrisons

Iceland

Co-op Foods (Yes. Co-op Foods is a strange beast. Can you really trust a supermarket chain that also operates “funeral services” under the same name and logo? Imagine my shock to think I am walking up to a grocer only to see a coffin in the window. Only in the UK, my friends. Only in the UK.)

And yes.

There’s Asda.

Asda.

If you don’t make it in the music business Stephen, you can always get a job at Asda.

*****

I miss the Brit and Scotrail announcements urging you to report any suspicious activity to British Transport Police via text at 61016; and its summary catchphrase: “See it, say it, sorted.”

I remember the bus in the middle of an Aberdeen street, Kings Street I think, with alarms screeching and roaring, a recorded woman’s voice calmly announcing “this bus is under attack. Dial 999. This bus is under attack. Dial 999.” over and over again. But the bus driver waves off all the concerned passersby and gives them a ‘thumbs up’ saying ‘everything is okay’. It’s just a malfunction of the emergency alarm system.

I miss

Double Decker buses.

Single decker buses being the exception over there.

I miss drunks screaming along with the buskers in Aberdeen and Falkirk.

I remember the kid swimming in 9℃/48℉ Loch Lomond boasting.. “I’ve swam in much colder water than this..”

I remember drinking hot Green tea after my own bracing experience in that very same 9℃/48℉ water.

*****
9

*****

I recall the surreal experience of standing on stage in front of more than 100 people at the National Concert Hall Studio in Dublin reading a story I had written.. I’m thousands of miles away from home.. nervous beyond all belief, reading from my phone…….. shaking…thinking.. somewhere in the back of my mind..oh .. well.. if I fuck this up… I’ll be gone week after next.. then.. oddly.. after all that… not fucking it up.. or so it seemed… though I’m not sure since I think I was having some sort of out of body experience.

I remember

The rush of the host telling me he liked my story and that I was always welcomed in Dublin.

Hell yeah!

I recall the raucous applause. Especially for the sections taking the piss out of the English.

I recall

The unabashed and kind Irish people who came up to me in the lobby of the NCH afterward to compliment the story and my bravery in reading it.

and

I remember

The unabashed and kind Irish people who came up to me at the Harcourt LUAS Stop to compliment the story and my bravery in reading it.

*****

I see

Rachael Lavelle’s bright red jammies as she stands at stage right in the big hall at NCH, a choir to her left carrying a vocalized version of her songs’ instrumentation.

I remember the sadness arising when I hear that Clarissa Connelly cannot play on the bill due to circumstances beyond everyone’s control.

Still.

The bill goes on with Lavelle.

And.

I hear

The vocal harmonies of Saint Sister.

The amazing and intricate performance of Hatis Noit.

I hear

The incredible Lisa Lambe performing at the Sugar Club with Harpist Cormac de Barra.

I remember comedian Emily Catalano at Whelan’s Upstairs saying “In the end. We are all butt dust.”

I laughed so hard, I farted.

*****

I recall. Much to my embarrassment.

Holding back tears at a screening of Power Ballad at the Lighthouse Cinema in the Smithfield District.

I remember being a bit perplexed before the movie,

Having never seen nor been in a co-ed toilet before.

I thought it weird to take a piss in a toilet stall then come out and wash my hands next to a woman, an incredibly attractive Kailin, red hair and all, no less. It made me think of good ol’ Ulster-Scot grandpa plowing the fields long, long ago.

Call me old-fashioned. Tell me I’m raging at the death of biology and the onslaught of Machine culture. Tell me I’ve been reading too much Paul Kingsnorth and Rod Dreher…

But…

Then

I recall

Coming back to Austin and discovering the Alamo Drafthouse just down the street from my little home has a co-ed toilet, too. AND… Realizing we live in a brave new world.

It may be new. This world.

But is it brave?

Yeah. I’m old.

*****

I remember

Walking back to the LUAS after seeing Power Ballad and seeing three locations that were in the film.

I remember

going to the Dundrum Cinema

and

Seeing Finding Emily, a somewhat cute little film shot in Manchester that takes a velvet hammer to ‘over the top feminism‘ and puppy dog young men. I see it months before anyone in the U.S. will get a chance to see it. By the way, Dundrum Cinema has separate men’s and women’s toilets.

I remember

going to the Dundrum Cinema

and

Seeing 500 Miles, with Maisie Williams, Bill Nighy, and a whiplash-inducing narrative, months before anyone in the U.S. will get a chance to see it. And yes. I used that wonderful segregated men’s toilet on the way out.

I remember pre-film ads for

BYD of West Dublin on the Belgard Road,

and thinking

‘Why can’t we get BYD cars in the U.S.?’

Oh. I know why. Don’t get me started.

*****

I still have my green TFI (Transport for Ireland) leap card. It has a happy hopping frog on it. You use it to tap on and off the DART, LUAS, and TFI buses. You need a card because TFI won’t implement phone tap and pay until 2028.

A bit behind?

That card still has 14 euros on it.

I need to get back to Ireland and use it.

*****

Yet these memories…

such good memories…

fade.

It’s why I’m writing them down while I still remember.

What seemed to be ongoing then seemed an hour ago. Then what seemed an hour ago now seems like yesterday. Yesterdays will become last weeks and last weeks last months. Then time will stretch and twist on and on.. to years, and if I’m lucky, even greater units.

dare I say.

but only if I’m lucky.

Very lucky.

and

sigh….

soon..

I’ll barely remember anything. If at all. I’ll only have vague memories and lots of photographs. Hundreds of them. Hundreds of them that can never in a million years do the experience justice. They’re nothing but faint impressions. But impressions nonetheless. They’re something to clutch until I crumble, finally, into dust.

And.

Perhaps.

Finally.

Thank you Emily Catalano.

I crumble into Butt dust.

I’ll try not to fart this time.

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