The Heelers Diaries

the fantasy world of ireland's greatest living poet

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Location: Kilcullen (Phone 087 7790766), County Kildare, Ireland

Friday, June 09, 2006

The cops, the mob, the broads... They're all out to get Heelers

Glorious sunshine over Dublin.
Strolling into the Stephen's Green Centre.
Girl in white tee shirt prattling on her mobile makes eye contact.
"You fumm eight fuff," she says.
I am non plussed.
Nobody calls me a fumm eight fuff and gets away with it.
What the hell is she on about?
Did she think I was staring at her breasts?
(Ah yes. My speculations say more about me than about her. Freudian, what!)
Anyhoo. The moment passes. She is gone.
Too late for any of my snappy comebacks.
I enter the cafe.
A young lad with a straggly teenage goatee approaches.
"Sorry," he says, "are you the 98 FM fugitive?"
I shake my head and turn to Marta the astonishingly pretty Polish girl who sells me coffee here.
Before I ask, she answers.
"There is a Radio Station promotion on. If people can identify the 98 FM fugitive they will get €10,000. All they have to do is find the right person. It was announced over the air that the fugitive would be somewhere in the Centre until 5.30."
So that explained it.
Clearly I have a certain dashing renegade look that makes people instantly think of a fugitive.
I take my coffee and head for a table.
Another gangly teenager steps towards me with an apologetic smile.
I shake my head and he departs.
You have to hand it to the listeners of 98 FM. At least they're polite.
I take a sip of coffee.
A pretty slip of a girl with long dark hair and a low cut blouse is standing beside my table eying me shyly.
Although I am an optimist something tells me she doesn't really love me. In my heart of hearts I know she's looking for ten G's.
"Are you the 98 FM fugitive? quoth she.
A sudden impulse seizes me.
What if I said: "I know I'm supposed to just give you the money when you identify me but that's not going to happen."
And then she'd say: "You're not going to run are you?"
And I'd reply grim as death: "Everybody runs."
I'd say it in an actorly dramatic Tom Cruise voice because the line is in fact the only good bit in an abysmal Tom Cruise film called Minority Report.
Then I'd run for the door with half the polite stylish gangly teenagers in Dublin on my heels.
You know bold readers, as soon as I thought of this scenario, I was three quarters of the way there to doing it.
But my caffe latte beckoned.
I told Miss Shylocks I wasn't him.
And there our story ends.