An American tale

A group of old aged pensioners set off one day on a three week trip to the USA. There was Seamus Doyle and his wife Winnie from Ballymun, Jarleth Ryan from Drumcondra, Mary Agnes O’Toole who was born in Palmerstown but now lived in Kimmage, Pat and Deirdre Hanlon from Rathfarnham, Anto and Ethel O’Leary from Castleknock and the Coleman twins, Raymond and Hubert who hailed from Rialto.

They were a mixed bunch but they figured that as they were all from the same city they’d have enough in common to keep them going throughout the holiday ahead. It was New York first and after they landed at JFK airport the first little disaster happened. Winnie Doyle was taken aside by customs officials and given a full body cavity search which turned up nothing useful but it put her in a very glum mood. Poor Seamus tried to cheer her up but it wasn’t until they got to the hotel bar and Anto O’Leary gave them a rendition of ‘Come back Paddy Reilly’ that her spirits lifted.

That night in the bar they drank beer from pitchers for the very first time, wandered around Times Square, ate cheese steak and soon they felt right at home. The second night they got talking to an American in another bar who gathered his friends around to listen to the authentic Irish stories his new friends were able to tell non-stop. They got on famously with this man, whose name was Clint Mayweather, and Hubert Coleman opined that the last time he’d seen a fellow as dark as that it had been Micky Cassidy who had been tarred by the Hughes brothers down in the Church Street tenements. As their trip was to start and finish in New York they made arrangements to meet with him again and he promised to bring them to the casinos of Atlantic City before they left.

The rest of their trip went without too much incident. They enjoyed the many splendours of the United States. They gasped at the maginificence of the Grand Canyon, although Pat Hanlon was dinstinctly unimpressed saying it looked a lot grander on the TV and suggested they change its name to the Adequate Canyon. Nobody agreed and Pat was a generally disagreeable man anyway. Jarleth Ryan found San Franciso much to his liking and would leave the group for hours at a time to follow his own path. Of course they all speculated as to his whereabouts and not a one of them would ever guess that he was standing at the top of Nob Hill throwing tennis balls down when nobody was looking.

Seattle rained a lot and reminded them of home and most of them enjoyed a fine meal in the space needle restaurant. Mary Agnes O’Toole was apparently very susceptible to gravity and while none of the others even noticed the rotation it made her most nauseous indeed and she barely made it to the bathroom to vomit copiously. Deirdre Hanlon went to help her as the pair had become fast friends.

Raymond Coleman enjoyed Chicago a great deal. Partial to smoking maraijuana, a habit he formed while serving with the French foreign legion, he found a local dealer who sold him bags of hydro which he would smoke while wandering the streets. He knew that if a policeman had stopped him he’d be in trouble but he figured he was too old for anyone to take too much notice of and so it was. He spent the happiest three days of his life in the summer sunshine strolling, smoking, stopping for a beer and a slice of pizza. His brother, being the straightlaced one, did not approve but kept his counsel.

All of them had a wonderful time in Florida. From shooting alligators in the Everglades to riding Space Mountain in Disneyworld (which made Mary Agnes O’Toole vomit so much when she got off she didn’t notice she had puked her false teeth into the rubbish bin) to cocktails and a bit of old time dancing on the Sunset Strip to getting caught up in a hispanic drug cartel shoot out in Miami they enjoyed everything the state had to offer. But soon the holiday was coming to a close and they made their way back to New York.

The night they returned they went back to the bar where they met Clint Mayweather again and the native New Yorker entertained his Irish guests, telling them stories of his childhood. Jarleth Ryan and Hubert Coleman got into a bit of an argument over the merits of Bohemians and St Patrick’s Athletic but soon they realised arguing about league of Ireland football was like getting worked up over who was going to be the next leader of the Progessive Democrats. Nobody really cared. Clint told them of his plans to bring them to Atlantic City. A good friend of his was going to drive them in a specially hired minibus which would cater for their every need. There would be a toilet, some bottles of Jameson and as many packets of Reeses Pieces peanut butter cups as they could possibly consume. He was to meet them there as he business to take care of beforehand so they continued their good night, drank beer and all looked forward to a good day’s gambling the next day.

And, as promised, after they’d finished breakfast there, outside the hotel, was Clint’s friend D’Lorean, who was to drive them all the way to the casinos. They all piled all the onto bus like happy children going to the beach and at first the journey was fine. But after a less than 25 miles, unknown to anyone, D’Lorean had a small stroke. Not enough to make him all dribbly and limp but it did funny things to his brain. He thought the other vehicles on the road were out to get him and as such he figured he’d better get them first. So he upped his speed and began to blast his horn and drivers who thought, quite rightly, that he had gone mad.

He swerved from lane to lane trying to ram cars off the road, he pulled in front of buses to make them brake suddenly, trucks and vans were in his sights too and all the while he cackled maniacally to himself. The poor old people in the back were terrified. Seamus Doyle staggered up to the top, grabbing the seats with all his strength to try and stay upright, but when he got to the top and bellowed at the driver to slow down D’Lorean merely turned his head, smiled like he was about to eat the heart of a small child, and sped up even more. Seamus made his way back to the seat beside his wife, held her hand and began to pray that they would make it out of this situation alive.

The other people on the bus did likewise, apart from Anto O’Leary who had long since given up on God. At this point the police had been alerted and soon they were following the minibus. There were squad cars and helicopters and TV crews following this crazy spectacle. All the while D’Lorean was driving like he was ridding the world of evil and, God bless him, he thought that’s what he was doing. He knew he had to get his passengers to Atlantic City and nothing was going to stop him. There were scrapes and smashes and at one stage the bus went on two wheels for a hundred yards, which made Mary Agnes vomit out of her arse, but eventually he got to his destination and stopped the bus, proudly beaming that he had accomplished his mission.

He couldn’t understand why the police dragged him off the bus at gunpoint. Clint Mayweather was there to greet them and clambered on board having been informed what had gone on. He found all the old people in hysterics. They were weeping and keening and making strange noises. No matter how much he tried to talk to them they just would not calm down. After an hour of this the police were most concerned and called in some pyschologists to see if they could help but they couldn’t make head nor tail of the bizarre shrieking and bawling that was going on. An hour later and they called in the FBI who couldn’t do a thing about it either.

All the while the pensioners lamented and whimpered and made odd grunts and snorts that nobody could understand. It did appear that some of them were trying to communicate but nobody could work out what it was they were trying to say. As they held an impromptu conference on the side of the road a passing gentleman who hailed from Clonsilla asked what was going on and if there were any way he could help. Figuring they had nothing to lose the officer in charge told them about the group of elderly people who had been on a trip from Ireland and were now in such a state of sorrow that they had been howling and making a worrying cacophony of sound. They were shocked when he told them he knew what it was.

“You have the answer?”, the CO asked.

“Yes”, said the man, “sure this is what it sounds like when Dubs cry.”

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