Welcome Backwards to Ireland - an excerpt from The Troubles
(please keep in mind this is still in editing)
Mom looked annoyed. “I’ve never heard such rubbish in my life,” she said.
“Please ma’am, you have to go now.”
Mom hesitated a moment before getting up and motioning me to follow her.
“Why do we have to get out of the hotel?” I said, grabbing a handful of sandwiches to bring with me.
“For no good reason, I’m sure,” she replied.
In a stairwell, a gray-haired woman poured gin into a tea cup and knocked it back. When she noticed me staring at her she paused, her head wobbling. “Hi,” she said with a strong New York accent.
“Oh, hello,” Mom replied in her regal English accent. “You’re American.”
“Goddamned right,” the woman replied. “Come on over and sit down.”
Mom seemed pleased to find someone to talk to, so I left them to chat and went off to do some exploring. After wandering around for a bit, I found a couple of police officers to follow and overheard them talking about a device. Why do you call it that? I asked. Because, wee lad, if there is a device it will be an explosive device or an
incendiary device, so either way it would be a device. I supposed that didn’t sound as frightening as a bomb.
After what seemed like a couple of hours, Mom found me and told me she was tired of this rubbish and that she’d called for a taxi.
We ended up in a place called Killaloe, on the River Shannon just outside Limerick. I scouted the town for airplane models, having found none in the airport gift shop except a weird looking British thing. I didn’t find any models at all. I did, however, find a couple of boys fishing from the bridge across the river and asked if they’d had any luck. “Aye, a wee bit,” said one of the boys. “Would you like a go?”
Of course, I did. “What are you using for bait?”
They offered me a paper cup with small whitish-looking things squiggling around in what looked like sawdust. These were definitely not salmon eggs. “We use maggots - they’re great,” said one of the boys.