Dear Mammy
I am no longer staying at Mrs Lampbottom’s. I know her house came recommended to you by someone but I can only assume that they meant another Mrs Lampbottom. My Mrs Lampbottom tuned out to be a very strange woman. The things she didn’t try to do to me the night of my arrival are not worth mentioning and the things she did try are only worth mentioning while in the company of a trained psychologist. I shall add to this that I was not aware that one had to be made a man. I have always assumed one simple grew into one and besides if being made a man is what is required in this world then I certainly would have picked a less hirsute teacher.
I did not have time to collect my things as I dived out the first floor bedroom wind of Mrs Lampbottom’s house; in fact I was lucky that I escaped with my pyjamas and my life, if not my dignity.
You would think that walking the streets of a city like Dublin in only a pair of pyjamas might draw attention to one but it turns out a lot of people here wear their pyjamas out, well a lot of the women anyway. They congregate in small groups, normally outside of the local Spar shops, where they smoke cigarettes, smack small children about the head and generally look hard. It makes me feel good to think that someone seeing me in my pyjamas on the streets might think me hard, although I’m not so sure that my thin frame, glasses and Roy Keane Pyjamas pull it off.
The streets of Rathmines were very cold Mammy. As the night wore on I saw less and less people in their pyjamas and more and more young people in hoodies, drinking from cans. One particular group spotted me and came over. One of them asked me if I had any money on me and when I apologized and said that I didn’t he punched me in the face. He was going to punch me again when one of his equally hoodied friends stepped in and told his friend to “fucking cop himself on.” My attacker stopped then and looking at me I think he realized just how pathetic I was because he ruffled my hair and told me I was all right. Then he gave a cigarette and they all walked off. My face hurt but it wasn’t too bad; the Murphy brothers used to hit me much harder than that in school. I didn’t smoke the cigarette but I did puff on it a lot while cupping my hands around its end to extract whatever heat I could from it.
An hour or so later I met a tramp who was sleeping under a dirty old duvet next to some railings beside a city park. He started to speak to me and for a while I thought he was foreign and tried to get him to tell me where he was from but it turned out he wasn’t foreign at all he was just gummy and so addled by drink that his brain was effected by it. Any way, once I realised it was a sort of English he was speaking I realized he was offering me a place under the Duvet with him and what’s more he promised not to molest me; which I thought was very descent of him. When I asked him why he was being so generous, he said that the by sharing our body heat we both stood a much better chance of surviving the night, (these are my words of course. It would take far to long if I were to use the words the tramp, who’s name was Frank by the way, used, not to the mention the clicks and hoots he used to replace certain words and a couple of vowels with.)
I did not get much sleep that first night in Dublin with an old dirty trap as a water bottle. Frank snores a lot and you could skin a cat with his breath. Not that turning away was much better, the brown coverless duvet which enveloped me gave of an aura ever bit as potent as its master.
I woke up early the next morning to discover that as well as all his more obvious problems Frank also suffers from a weak bladder and that he does not like to be woken too early of a morning by some one jumping out of his bed making retching noises while dancing around him on the path. He made a violent symphony of sound and words which I took to be “**** off you ungrateful little shit.”
So did.
An hour or so later it started to rain so I sat on a bench beside a group of people waiting at a bus stop. If was freezing and I knew I needed to find somewhere dry but I just didn’t care anymore and I was half hoping the rain would wash the smell of Frank off me.
As I sat there wondering how I was going to, one, find my way back to Mrs Lampbottom’s house and two, get in to her house to get my stuff without being discovered, a young woman passing by threw a two Euro coin onto my lap. I stared at the coin for a moment and then remembering my manners I called a thanks after her. This caught the attention of a young man standing in the queue for the buss beside me.
“You don’t look like a druggie or an alco, “ he said. “Are ye’ all right.”
The effect of this sudden human kindness, first the coin and now the inquiry into my well being from someone who didn’t walk around all day soaked in his own pee, caused me to have something close to break down. Tears started to flood down my face as I explained to this young man what had happened to me. Then the most bizarre thing of all happened. The young man asked me if wanted a job. He told me his name was Jack and that he worked at a place called, The All American Grill House, and that his boss, Mr Sabatini was always looking for staff. What was even better what that Mr Sabatini was also a local land lord and most of his staff rented rooms from him.
Where but in Dublin could such a thing happen.
Jack took me back to his flat and throwing a spare set of clothes on the sofa for me he pointed me to the fridge, the shower and the television and told me to make myself at home. He said he would speak to Mr Sabatini but that he was pretty sure he could get me a job and that he would be back in a few hours.
So Mammy it seems I have been saved from the frying pan for the moment at least. I think I will ask Jack later if he would mind coming with to Mrs Lampbottom’s to get the rest of my things. When I set of on that train yesterday I never would have imagined my life could have got so interesting so fast. Sill I hope it settles, if only a little while so I can recover from the journey so far.
Your Son
Daniel
I am no longer staying at Mrs Lampbottom’s. I know her house came recommended to you by someone but I can only assume that they meant another Mrs Lampbottom. My Mrs Lampbottom tuned out to be a very strange woman. The things she didn’t try to do to me the night of my arrival are not worth mentioning and the things she did try are only worth mentioning while in the company of a trained psychologist. I shall add to this that I was not aware that one had to be made a man. I have always assumed one simple grew into one and besides if being made a man is what is required in this world then I certainly would have picked a less hirsute teacher.
I did not have time to collect my things as I dived out the first floor bedroom wind of Mrs Lampbottom’s house; in fact I was lucky that I escaped with my pyjamas and my life, if not my dignity.
You would think that walking the streets of a city like Dublin in only a pair of pyjamas might draw attention to one but it turns out a lot of people here wear their pyjamas out, well a lot of the women anyway. They congregate in small groups, normally outside of the local Spar shops, where they smoke cigarettes, smack small children about the head and generally look hard. It makes me feel good to think that someone seeing me in my pyjamas on the streets might think me hard, although I’m not so sure that my thin frame, glasses and Roy Keane Pyjamas pull it off.
The streets of Rathmines were very cold Mammy. As the night wore on I saw less and less people in their pyjamas and more and more young people in hoodies, drinking from cans. One particular group spotted me and came over. One of them asked me if I had any money on me and when I apologized and said that I didn’t he punched me in the face. He was going to punch me again when one of his equally hoodied friends stepped in and told his friend to “fucking cop himself on.” My attacker stopped then and looking at me I think he realized just how pathetic I was because he ruffled my hair and told me I was all right. Then he gave a cigarette and they all walked off. My face hurt but it wasn’t too bad; the Murphy brothers used to hit me much harder than that in school. I didn’t smoke the cigarette but I did puff on it a lot while cupping my hands around its end to extract whatever heat I could from it.
An hour or so later I met a tramp who was sleeping under a dirty old duvet next to some railings beside a city park. He started to speak to me and for a while I thought he was foreign and tried to get him to tell me where he was from but it turned out he wasn’t foreign at all he was just gummy and so addled by drink that his brain was effected by it. Any way, once I realised it was a sort of English he was speaking I realized he was offering me a place under the Duvet with him and what’s more he promised not to molest me; which I thought was very descent of him. When I asked him why he was being so generous, he said that the by sharing our body heat we both stood a much better chance of surviving the night, (these are my words of course. It would take far to long if I were to use the words the tramp, who’s name was Frank by the way, used, not to the mention the clicks and hoots he used to replace certain words and a couple of vowels with.)
I did not get much sleep that first night in Dublin with an old dirty trap as a water bottle. Frank snores a lot and you could skin a cat with his breath. Not that turning away was much better, the brown coverless duvet which enveloped me gave of an aura ever bit as potent as its master.
I woke up early the next morning to discover that as well as all his more obvious problems Frank also suffers from a weak bladder and that he does not like to be woken too early of a morning by some one jumping out of his bed making retching noises while dancing around him on the path. He made a violent symphony of sound and words which I took to be “**** off you ungrateful little shit.”
So did.
An hour or so later it started to rain so I sat on a bench beside a group of people waiting at a bus stop. If was freezing and I knew I needed to find somewhere dry but I just didn’t care anymore and I was half hoping the rain would wash the smell of Frank off me.
As I sat there wondering how I was going to, one, find my way back to Mrs Lampbottom’s house and two, get in to her house to get my stuff without being discovered, a young woman passing by threw a two Euro coin onto my lap. I stared at the coin for a moment and then remembering my manners I called a thanks after her. This caught the attention of a young man standing in the queue for the buss beside me.
“You don’t look like a druggie or an alco, “ he said. “Are ye’ all right.”
The effect of this sudden human kindness, first the coin and now the inquiry into my well being from someone who didn’t walk around all day soaked in his own pee, caused me to have something close to break down. Tears started to flood down my face as I explained to this young man what had happened to me. Then the most bizarre thing of all happened. The young man asked me if wanted a job. He told me his name was Jack and that he worked at a place called, The All American Grill House, and that his boss, Mr Sabatini was always looking for staff. What was even better what that Mr Sabatini was also a local land lord and most of his staff rented rooms from him.
Where but in Dublin could such a thing happen.
Jack took me back to his flat and throwing a spare set of clothes on the sofa for me he pointed me to the fridge, the shower and the television and told me to make myself at home. He said he would speak to Mr Sabatini but that he was pretty sure he could get me a job and that he would be back in a few hours.
So Mammy it seems I have been saved from the frying pan for the moment at least. I think I will ask Jack later if he would mind coming with to Mrs Lampbottom’s to get the rest of my things. When I set of on that train yesterday I never would have imagined my life could have got so interesting so fast. Sill I hope it settles, if only a little while so I can recover from the journey so far.
Your Son
Daniel