For a play called The Big Fella at the Gaiety.

VO bloke goes on about the play, how intense it is, full of caustic black humour. Comes to the end.

“It will leave you … stunned”

The … = a pause in the voice over. Which for some reason they fill with canned laughter. Maybe it’s just me but I’m very rarely stunned into laughter.

“Hahahaha”, he wept.

Every day I see him. In one part of the hood or another. Sometimes the top end. Sometimes the bottom end. Often right in the middle.

He goes along with his arms and his legs, his face and his hands, and the bandage on his head. Some days the bandage is shining and white, freshly applied. Others it is yellow and crusted with odd stuff, like dried up horse cum on a mummy.

Yet the bandage is always on. I like to imagine he’s got a weird hole in his head that can’t be closed up so he needs the bandage to stop the inside of his head leaking out. If he took it off, or if some young scamps grabbed one end of it and ran off, leaving him spinning like a baddy in Scooby Doo and then un-bandaged, there would be a small pause before brains and goo and pink bits would start to gush steadily onto the pavement.

He would look around, put his hand to where the bandage was, his knees would buckle, and people would pass by and say ‘Oh, there’s the man who always has the bandage on his head. You know I’ve always wondered why he always has a bandage on. Now I know’.

And the man without a bandage on his head would slump to the ground and the woman who always touches the cars when she walks past would step over him, into Boyle Sports, for a quick bet on the 3.15 at Beverley.

I love Asia Market on Drury St, not sure I’d try these noodles though.

Off to Ron’s shortly. Gotta get there before Dave. I want to hear him wail.

And for the day that’s in it, the best song ever about a snake.

“So that’s two knocks, followed by three knocks, make a cry like a plaintive camel, four knocks, two scratches and the first two lines of ‘Half a person’?”

“Yeah”.

“And the password is ‘Crumbleplop’?”

“That’s it. Get any of it wrong and you don’t get in”.

“Even if you know if it’s me?”

“No exceptions”.

“Seems fair”.

“Got to keep them out, Twenty, you know yourself”.

“I’m with you 100%, Ron”.

“After what happened last year with the Italians Lucky told about the place … well … I don’t need anything like that again”.

“Jesus, yeah. The blood”.

“The teeth”.

“The bits of skin”.

“To be fair to Dave he recovered quick enough but still”.

“No, you’re absolutely right. I’ll tell the rest of them later”.

*later*

“Wow, that’s complex”, said Dirty Dave.

“Yeah, but needs must. We can’t have any repeat of last Paddy’s day. Repeat it back to me then”.

“Ok, it’s – two knocks, followed by three knocks, make a cry like a plaintive camel, four knocks, three scratches and the first two lines of ‘Half a person’?”

“No, two scratches”.

“Gotcha. Two knocks, followed by three knocks, make a cry like a plaintive camel, four knocks, two scratches and the first two lines of ‘Half a person’?”

“Spot on. And the password?”

“Bumbleslop!”

“See you tomorrow so, Dave”.