4
Welcome Backwards to Ireland
Early August 1976, I followed Mom off a plane at Shannon Airport, Ireland, excited
from the long flight and eager to see Roger again. He’d flown over early to attend summer
school. I’d been poked and prodded and shot full of so many vaccines to protect against
diseases I didn’t even know Ireland had. Roger had told me it was to protect Ireland, not
me, and we both had chuckled.
Crossing the tarmac, I inhaled deeply, savoring the mixed aroma of burned jet fuel,
damp, grass, and cow manure. Welcome backwards to Ireland, son.
We went to the airport hotel a short distance away for a bite to eat. The dining room
was closed but the front desk lady said not to worry, find a place to sit and someone would
bring tea and sandwiches. Would ham be all right?
Ham sounded delicious.
We settled into a spot off from the main lobby. When the tea arrived, I was surprised
the sandwiches were little things with the crusts removed. No tomato or lettuce like at
home, just a thin slice of ham between what I expected to be mayonnaise but was cold,
greasy butter that made the whole thing slimy. My rumbling stomach did not immediately
reject it, so I continued eating.
I’d polished off four sandwiches and was reaching for another when the lady who had
served us hurried over and told us we had to clear the hotel immediately. “We’ve had a
threat.”
I continued munching away, waiting for Mom’s lead.
Mom pursed her lips. “I’ve never heard such rubbish,” she said.
“Please, ma’am, you have to go now.”
Annoyed, Mom motioned me to follow her.
“Why do we have to get out of the hotel?” I said, grabbing a handful of sandwiches.
“For no good reason, I’m sure.”
We were almost to the door leading to the parking lot where many others from the hotel
had gathered when I spotted a gray-haired woman in a stairwell pouring gin into a teacup
and knocking it back. She paused when she noticed me staring at her. “Hi,” she said, head
wobbling.
I looked to Mom who smiled at the lady. “Oh, hello,” she replied in her regal accent.
“You’re American. New York?”
“Goddamned right,” the woman replied. “Come on over and sit down.”
I didn’t know if Mom was pleased or relieved to find someone to talk to, but she went
over and sat down and lit a cigarette.
“So,” the woman said. “You think there’s a bomb?”
I looked at Mom, my face scrunched in puzzlement. This wasn’t where the Troubles were.
Why would there be a bomb?
“Oh, I doubt it,” Mom said. She turned to me. “Do you want to stay here with me or go
outside with the others?” She said a bomb could be inside or out, hidden almost anywhere,
and if it went off it wouldn’t matter much where we were: with all the glass in the
buildings, everyone would be cut to ribbons. “It’s your life, son, and your decision.”
I wasn’t scared. If I was with her, nothing bad would happen. I opted to stay with her
and the funny lady from New York who didn’t seem bothered by anything. I thought Oh boy,
will I have a story to tell my friends back home.
Policemen walked by this way and that, chatting more than looking for something. They
weren’t afraid either. Nor was anyone else as far as I could tell. The bomb scare was an
inconvenience. Unless there was a bomb and it detonated: then it would be something else.
An hour went by. Then two. Mom said enough of this rubbish.
We took a taxi to Killaloe, a small town about an hour away on the Shannon River. Mom
settled in with a pot of tea and her cigarettes while I scouted the town for airplane
models. I found none but came upon a boy about my age fishing. “Any luck?” I said.
The boy nodded. “Aye a wee bit.” He asked if I’d like a go.
I nodded. “What are you using for bait?”
The boy offered a paper cup with small white things wriggling around in what looked
like sawdust. These were not salmon eggs.
“We use maggots. They’re great.”
I didn’t know what a maggot was exactly or how to put it on the hook, but I managed
well enough, cast out, and almost immediately had a bite. I yanked hard, wanting to
impress, and eventually landed what my new friend said was a perch. “They’re good for
eatin’, you know.” I’d pass that along to Roger.
I thanked the boy, took my catch back to the hotel and presented it to the surprised
concierge. “Could you give this to the cook please,” I said. “For my dinner.”
The perch was delicious but didn’t compare with the feast of lamb shanks and potatoes
and carrots Granny cooked for us the next day. She and her cooking hadn’t changed.
Ballygawley hadn’t changed, either. Still had the sweet, creamy Ninety-nines up the
town, the trout in the river, and the friendly local kids who pelted me once more with
questions about America. I even had them help dam the river to make a swimming hole to cool
off in the sweltering heat. I’d do just fine in Sligo. Just down the road a bit.
With Roger’s summer school finished, I learned a lesson on what just down the road a
bit meant. By car, the journey to Sligo might have been an hour and a half. The bus was
another matter entirely especially once I’d finished the large bottle of Orange Quosh I
brought with me. If we hadn’t had to change busses across the border two hours later, I’d
have burst.
We reached Sligo after four-and-a-half grueling hours, and all that time Roger didn’t
talk about his experience at summer school or say much of anything to me. He seemed about
the same as when I’d last seen him, so Irish school hadn’t changed him. I took that as a
good sign.
Mom checked into the Silver Swan hotel and drank tea and started on her second pack of
Winstons. Roger and I headed to check out the river. “They use maggots here,” I said,
beaming as if I’d divulged a great secret.
Roger’s eyes lit up when a man pulled a large silvery fish from the water. “Might be
like Alaska,” he said, taking a long drag from a cigarette.
Moving closer, Roger harrumphed and flicked his cigarette away. “Fuckin’ mullet.”
With Mom having had her fill of tea, we faced the inevitable. A taxi took us to the
school. As we pulled in through the gates, Sligo Grammar towered over me, gray and dark and
immeasurably old as far as I could tell. For the first time, I felt a ripple of fear. Not
the scary like Dracula’s Castle kind, something more profound-this wasn’t home.
Mr. Blackmore, the Headmaster, offered Mom more tea. He seemed a likable fellow,
rather agreeable, nodding his head at every few words as Mom spoke. He didn’t stare or
glare or otherwise seem threatening. When he talked about Roger, he remained soft-spoken,
telling it like it was as if guiltily still deciding whether to accept him.
“Well, you see, Mrs. Nixon, by Roger’s age - he’s now fifteen, nearly sixteen. Most
schools would consider him too old to mold properly.”
Mom replied with her posh accent. “Yes, but we’re sure he’ll be fine.”
Roger fidgeted.
“Well, he did have the summer school. That’s a plus,” he said. “We’ll certainly do our
very best, Mrs. Nixon. Don’t you worry about a t’ing.”
Blackmore led us next door from his house to the dorms. Mine looked out over the
dining hall. Rickety metal beds, each identically made up with a cream-colored blanket and
white sheets and adorned at the foot end with a colorful rug belonging to its occupant
providing the illusion of individualism, lined both long walls. Beside each bed was a small
wooden cabinet for valuables and personal items. They could not be locked. I wondered if
everything was a throwaway from the hospital across the street.
Uneven wooden planks worn with age served as the floor. Fluorescent tubes hung from
bare fixtures overhead. Here and there, the plaster walls had pockmarks left uncared for.
At the far end of the dorm was a closet for hanging coats. A doorway led into the
washroom. There were no showers or even a bath, just some sinks and a single toilet stall.
The bathroom window looked out on the rugby pitch that rose sharply at the far corner, and
the river I’d seen the mullet come out of.
I shivered even though the temperature was not much different from what I’d left
behind, and for a moment, I thought back to Alaska, to the night Roger and I had snuck out
to the trailer and helped ourselves to a Guinness and a smoke each to celebrate. “A wee
taste of Ireland,” he’d said. I’d sniffed the bottle, taken a sip, and grimaced hoping
Ireland would be less dark, bitter, and harsh.
Blackmore broke the uneasy silence saying, “showers are downstairs, in the changing
rooms.” I later discovered what the washroom lacked in showers the changing rooms lacked in
heat.
We walked back towards the head end of the dorm. Blackmore smiled at me and pointed to
the bed by the door. “This one,” he said, “is yours.”
Mom nodded and smiled. Before following the headmaster, she pulled me aside and said,
“Don’t worry, son. You’ll do fine. And don’t be afraid to tell if someone touches you.”
“Huh?” I said.
“You know, down there,” she whispered, motioning with her eyes.
I shuddered. Up to then I’d convinced myself sleeping in the same room with so many
other boys would be like summer camp. Mom’s warning shattered that idea.
“He’ll be okay, Mom. I’ll take care of him,” Roger said confidently. “No one will mess
with him while I’m around.”
Yeah. If anyone even says the wrong thing, my big brother will pound him. I smiled at
Roger, but he didn’t notice.
At the end of the tour, Mom asked Blackmore if she could take us out for the evening.
Blackmore nodded vigorously and smiled. “Of course! Of course! Just so they’re back by
nine.”
We ate, went to see, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” and returned to the school
with time to spare.
After Mom left, it hit me just how far from home I was. The fluorescent lights buzzed,
casting a cold, white light that somehow highlighted the peeling paint while making the
room feel darker than it was. As most kids around me busily readied for bed, chattering
away and laughing here and there and paying me no attention, I debated whether I should
take off my underwear before putting on my pajamas. I decided not to. I slipped on my
pajamas and joined the line for the washroom, wash kit in hand.
When I’d finished brushing my teeth and washing up, I went back to my bed, slid
between the starched, clammy white sheets, and pulled my rug up tight against the chill.
The wool itched against my cheek.
Soon Blackmore came in, said, “Right lads, good night,” and flipped off the switch.
At first, the dorm was quiet and dark, but as my eyes adjusted, helped by light
leaking in through the uncurtained windows, hushed chatter rose. The fellow in the bed next
to mine said, “Who’re you, then?”
I took a moment to realize he was talking to me. “My…” I began. “I’m Paul. Paul
Nixon,” I said.
“Well then, Paul. Good to know you. I’m Raymond Kerr from Balena. So, where are you
from then?”
I hesitated, unsure whether to say Libya, Ireland, or America. “I came here from
Alaska,” I said proudly.
“Alaska? So, you’re Canadian then?”
I chuckled.
As I relaxed, the door burst open, and the lights went on. Three older boys rushed to
the bed opposite mine, laughing, and stripped the covers. “No, no!” said the young fellow
in it. While two of the older boys held him, squirming and pleading, the third pulled the
boy’s pajamas down, said get ready, and smeared his balls with toothpaste squeezed from a
tube in his hand.
The boy fled to the washroom holding his crotch while his attackers laughed and moved
to the next boy and did the same.
I sank lower into my bed, trembling, breathing in shallow gasps, my eyes darting to
the door. Roger? Where are you? I need you!
Another older boy, not Roger, rushed in and demanded to know what was going on.
“Just having a wee bit of fun.”
I fell asleep that first night at Sligo Grammar School to the sounds of sniffling and
muffled whingeing.
“Wake up, you little bastards. Wake up!”
My eyes shot open. Daylight outside.
“Get your lazy arses out of bed before I beat you out of them.”
It was one of the toothpaste boys from the night before, barking the same orders as he
marched to the far end of the dorm and back. As my feet touched the ground, he lifted the
end of my bed with a twisting motion and sent me flying to the ground.
I’d survived the night.
I followed the others to breakfast and lit up when I saw Tony the Tiger.
The older boy at the head of the table gave the word to begin, and two loaves of white
bread, one at each end of the table, disappeared in a frenzy of reaching hands. I managed
to grab a slice without injury. Knives disassembled the two blocks of butter on the table,
too, carving away great chunks at a time. I was lucky to get any. But it smelled funny and
tasted like oil I used on my bike chain. I scraped it off as best I could and reached for
the orange marmalade. Too late. Some of the almost untouched reddish-purple goo from the
other plate instead would have to do. I hoped it to be strawberry but it was raspberry and
full of hard seeds.
While the other boys filled their cups from the large teapot on the table, I went over
to Roger and asked if I could have some coffee from his tin percolator. He ruffled my hair
and said sure, why not. Plenty of sugar and milk made the precious black, fresh-brewed
goodness taste almost like home.
Blackmore came up and told me Mom would pick me up after church.
Church?
After breakfast, I headed back to the dorm to get ready. I washed, put on a crisp
white shirt, and polished my shoes following the others’ lead. After the first one, I
wondered if I should have waited to put on my white shirt but seeing as I got most of the
polish onto the shoe and only a little on myself, I decided I was all right and continued.
I lined up with the others for inspection when told to. The prefect did a quick check,
telling one boy to comb his hair, another to straighten his tie. The boy next to me rubbed
the tops of his shoes on the calves of his trousers. I thought what a great idea and did
the same. The prefect didn’t even look at me.
The church was next to the school, beyond the girls’ dorm, so we didn’t have far to
walk. The younger boys were in front while the older boys hung back. The natural order of
things. I dragged my feet waiting for Roger until a prefect yelled for me to get a move on.
I entered the church to organ grinding and mustiness, sat on a wooden bench with other
boys from my dorm, and kept quiet. The preacher looked down at us from his perch like a
withered crow, smiled and said good to see so many here this beautiful Sunday morning, and
thanked us for coming as if we’d had a choice.
For an hour, we stood up, sang, sat down, and knelt for prayer. At one point, the
preacher told a story and worked himself up with a flurry of fire and brimstone, and just
when he held everyone deathly silent with a dramatic pause, the dumpy lad behind me grunted
like someone trying to hack up a chicken bone. Preacher threw down a caustic glare.
When the collection plate came, the preacher narrowed his eyes on us and said, “I
don’t want to see just copper from you lot.” I put in a half-penny.
I blew the rest of my pocket money afterward on a can of soda, a candy bar, and a
comic book in the little shop beyond the church.
Mom arrived before lunch and strained to smile. “Hello, wee son,” she said.
I ran over and hugged her. I knew she had been crying by the puffiness around her
eyes, and I couldn’t help but think this was not the woman who’d confronted the murderous
mob of Arabs not ten years before.
“Why don’t you get some of your new friends together, and we’ll go out and do
something nice?” she said, “Since you’ll not get a proper birthday.”
Mom took two boys and me from my dorm to the beach not far from the school by taxi and
then to a café where I celebrated with a piece of cake. Not the usual double-decked moist,
sweet cake encased in gobs of sugary icing but a modest, dry, and less sweet plain yellow
cake with a thin layer of lemon icing. There were no presents, no candles, no singing happy
birthday, but it was something. And once Mom left us back at the school, she was gone.
The following day, I went to breakfast longing for home and Mom, and there was a loaf
of bread at each end of the table as before, but we had porridge instead of Frosted Flakes.
I liked the porridge Dad made. The added milk gave it an odd, sweet tang.
One of the other boys screwed up his face and said, “The milk’s off!”
I was about to spit out a mouthful like it was poison until I saw other boys shrug it
off, add in a generous spoon of jam, and wolf it down. So, I did too.
As I headed to my first class, I saw none of the teachers with blackthorn sticks to
beat the children with, and as the day progressed, I realized the teachers weren’t like Dad
had described. They wore black robes like judges that flowed behind them as they cleared a
path through the halls, silencing everyone as they passed. And their funny nicknames made
them a little less scary, like “Gorilla,” “Dum Dum,” “Aye Now,” and “Scrag.”
I had Art, History, English, Maths, Science, Geography, and French, and Irish. I knew
something was off when Teacher made guttural sounds to the class, and everyone except me
and the dumpy church grunting fellow next to me took out their orange workbooks and wrote
on them. Teacher tried to ahem us into compliance before turning to a paper on her desk.
“Ah, right,” he said. “You’re the foreigners.” she said.
The other foreigner was Michael Shaw, and he sounded American when he answered the
teacher.
“Right. Yous are excused from participating,” Teacher said. “But use the time wisely.
Understood?”
I thought the same would happen in French class. The only word I knew was “Oui,” and
only then because I saw it on the cover of a girlie magazine a friend in Anchorage showed
me. Teacher called the roll in English, and when I answered, I said I was from Alaska and
added it was part of America. Teacher gave me a curt look and moved on. Michael said he was
from Ottawa. Teacher lit up and rattled off a string of foreign words nothing like the
guttural sounds of Irish. Michael nodded and responded in kind without missing a beat.
I looked at him, astonished. He smiled and said not to worry; he’d help me if I got
stuck. I nodded and thanked him. I didn’t know precisely what part of the States Ottawa
was, and when I asked him, he gave me a funny look and said it was in Canada. Not that it
mattered. Like me, Michael was far from home, and that gave us something in common.
I sat next to Michael in as many classes as we had together, and I sat next to him in
prep-the official homework time. Prefects oversaw us, making sure we didn’t talk. They
didn’t carry blackthorn sticks either, but most seemed to want to. They doled out
punishments for even the slightest infraction, and I infracted often. Sometimes I’d have to
write hundreds of times, “I must not do,” whatever I did. Some prefects realized writing
lines was too simple, and they’d have me copy a paragraph, or a page, or even a whole
chapter from a book and usually left me little time to do my actual homework.
Some prefects could be fun, giving out essays on the sex life of a ping pong ball or
snail or ball-point pen. The subject didn’t matter nearly as much as creativity.
One asked, “Who knows what screwing is?”
Silence.
“Come on, anyone?”
I raised my hand nervously. “That’s when you stick your thing in and grind around and
around,” I said.
The prefect chuckled. “Ach, bejesus, that would make you dizzy for sure,” he said.
The room filled with quiet, nervous laughter.
Fun prefects didn’t make up for the assholes-cruel, crude, brutal, and vicious
toothpaste-on-the-balls types who would make little kids hold heavy textbooks at arm’s
length knowing the kid would eventually tire and drop the book. Then it was grab the kid,
force him over a desk, and whip the poor sod with a wire coat hanger.
Worse, one didn’t even have to do anything to become a target, like the poor fellow
minding his own business watching a rugby match one Saturday when a prefect pushed him down
the embankment for a wee bit of fun resulting in a sickening crack of an arm breaking.
Rumor had it the boy claimed he fell during rugby.
I went out for rugby because the school required boys to go out for a sport, and in
winter, that was rugby. The game was as foreign as Irish, but on my first time out I wanted
to show I wasn’t a dweeb and said it looked like American football without padding. Some
boys teased only poofs wore padding. I didn’t know what a poof was, but by the sound of
things, I didn’t want to be one. The ball resembled an American football at least, and even
though I’d never thrown one before, I’d seen it done on television and thought somehow the
ball would cut a spiral through the air to Michael who’d had the good sense to say nothing
and do nothing until told otherwise. Everyone would be impressed. The ball tumbled out of
my hand and bellyflopped harmlessly along the ground a few yards.
Over time, I picked up the rules. Some at least. Practice started with a two or three
laps of the field to warm up followed by sprint drills, catch drills, tackle drills,
pushing drills. To get us in shape, Coach said. Had to be fit.
After maybe an hour, Coach divided us into two teams, and we’d play against each
other, and Coach would yell at us to keep our heads behind the legs. Right after, I brought
down a meaty brute on my head.
“Bejesus Nixon! Are you t’ick?” Coach bellowed “Keep your head BEHIND the legs, so he
doesn’t break your neck!”
I was the first to admit I wasn’t very good at rugby. I didn’t mind getting caked in
mud or taking a tumble or even freezing in the biting wind and rain when the weather
turned. The running quickly drove out the cold or at least took my mind off it. But
sometimes, out of nowhere, I couldn’t catch my breath.
A shower would wash away the sweat, the mud, the blood, but the lack of breath often
hung on until tea.
By then, I was so hungry I wasn’t thinking of anything but eating. Sligo food was
aptly described as chronic, but rugby made it possible to eat.
Every day we had fried or gloppy items for lunch or tea, and always loads of potatoes
that some days were better than others. There were two kinds of peas, olive-green and gray,
and always mushy. We also had cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and turnips all boiled
until one couldn’t tell which was which. They tasted the same and filled the dining hall
and surrounding valley with a terrible stench.
Sunday roast beef with roast potatoes was decent, as were the ham hocks with boiled
potatoes and mystery white sauce with green flecks that had no flavor and yet seemed to add
the final touch.
Roger woke me one night and asked if I wanted anything from the chippy downtown.
“Get me a burger,” I said. “And chips.”
“I’ll bring you a beer, too” he said.
I waited for ages for him to return with the delicious bounty that never came, not
even a drink of water. I realized then he’d gone to the pub.