Tales Of The Gurrier

The Dublin street bin. Harbinger of decay, reliquary of unholy debris. Other countries may have trash cans, litter receptacles, garbage chutes, cleansing units. Dublin has caliginous black bins. Black as the darkest night of the soul, repositories of taint and corruption. Bursting through the uneven streetscape like the broken rotten tooth stumps of ancient giants. Waypoints for the unwary. Approach with caution traveler, if you dare to place your hand within this municipal Bocca della Verità you may lose more than a limb. For within their stygian darkness beats the black filthy heart of Dublin town, and it bites.

‘Hand us them gloves.’

‘No way, I’m not touchin’ them yokes!’

‘Jaysus will ye ever just givvus the bleedin’ gloves.’

‘No. No way I’m not touching that yoke or them gloves.’

‘Listen here you. I’ve been scrapin’ shite and puke and God knows what off these streets for twenty five years and I’ll not have some chiseller giving me the lip. So pick up them gloves and give us a hand with George here.”

‘George?’

‘Yeah this is George, he’s a mark II model 1983. You’ll get used to them. George and Matilda over there are both mark II’s. They have a good capacity but tend to jam up on bank holidays. Ye need to jig around the lock a bit and they have a bit of an infestation problem too.”

‘A what?’

‘You’ll see’

The older man produced a worn key, more a lump of metal from the chain on his belt and approached George. He wrestled with the lock for a moment muttering under his breath and stepped back. There was a creaking sound, George seemed to shudder slightly and then with a slow creaking groan of relief like a man loosening his constipated bowels the front section burst open and vomited its overstuffed contents into the street.

‘Oh I’m going to puke. Jaysus the smell. Is something dead in there?’

‘Dead? No not dead’ said Jamesy taking an exploratory poke at the rubbish with the tip of his shovel. ‘Not yet anyway’ he said smashing the flat of it into a sluggishly mobile pile of rubbish. ‘Rats’ he said grinning. ‘Have to be careful of them. Little bollixes will bite right through them gloves there. Right lets get this lot loaded up.’

‘Ah janey mister I only after startin’ yesterday. Give us a break will ya. Look it I’ll clean up all them dead birds and broken bottles there beside Clerys. I just don’t want to touch that, that stuff.’

‘Don’t want to touch it? Don’t want to touch it! What are you afraid of then. Sure aren’t ye out here with me, Jamesy O’Donnell a fella who’s been sweeping the streets o’Dublin be the last twenty five years.’

‘Jaysus what’s that black stuff leaking out the bottom?’

“Deadly!’ said Jamesy producing a battered plastic petrol can from his cart. ‘That,” he said “is ‘Dublin Relish’ a substance both greatly feared and much sought after around these parts’

‘But what is it though?”

‘Well not being a man of science I wouldn’t expect you to comprehend but I am given to understand that the said substance is created by a form of compaction and reduction and the application of generous amounts of heat and water. ‘

The young fella stared at him perplexed.

‘It’s made from burgers. Layer after layer of burgers, chips, kebabs, ketchup, cheese, milkshakes, sweet wrappers, big macs, coke bottles, broken pint glasses, cans of budweiser cigarette ash, dead pigeons and lard mostly. The kind of stuff a Dublin bin is full of. The weather does a spot of watering, let it sit for about a week and you get around half a gallon of the lovely black stuff. Phwooar get a whiff of that!’

“Oh God help me.’

“No, no, givvus a hand here this stuff is worth a few quid”

The younger man looked on in abject horror as Jamesy began to tip the foul liquid contents of the bin into the petrol container. It slid from the metal bin in a slow black ooze. It smelled of very bad things.

“Christ who do you sell it too?”

“Oh you’d be surprised. Loads of fellas want a bit o’ the Dublin Relish. There’s a little Chinese lad up on Parnell street. He buys buckets of it from me so he does. Rubs it onto the arses of the rich ladies who visit him for the Shiatsu massage. Says it does wonders for the sciatica. Another fella out beyant in Finglas he’s a plumber. Sez the stuff’ll shift blockages faster than caustic soda. Then there’s another young chiseller in Raheny, big load of brains on him. He bottles it up and sells it to the Yanks over the computer. Heh, calls it ‘Jamesy’s Special Relish. A Taste of Dublin’. Fierce clever so he is.’

‘People eat this?’ the young fella’s mouth hung open and his eyes were wide as headlamps.

‘Yeah. Whats wrong with that. Sure I’ve seen worse’ The auld fellas eyes lit with a dark glee. “I’ve seen tings so I have. Terrible, terrible tings”

“What kind of things?” said the young fella gripping the handle of his shovel and twisting it in his greasy hands.

“Turrible tings” said Jamesy blinking his rhuemy eyes and grinning, revealing rows of yellowing teeth punctuated by the occasional gap.

“I’ve seen tings in bins that it make your average fella go mad so I have.”

“Tell us,’ said the young fella now gripped with a terrible need to know what awful things the ancient caretaker had seen.

“Ah no, ah no. Arra shure yer only a chiseller. It ‘ud not be for me to be telling ye tings that yer mammy wouldn’t want you to be hearin’.’

“Ah go on mister. Go on. I won’t tell me Ma I swear.”

Jamesy looked up O’Connell street at the crowds of shoppers and tourists milling about and leaning forward on his corporation shovel whispered “C’mere, do ye go to mass?”

“Wha?”

“I said do ye go to mass, do ye say your prayers?”

“Yeah when me Ma makes me.”

“Right so, well don’t be tellin’ the priest any of this in confession do ye hear”

“Confession?”

“Shurrup, do yeh want to hear the story or not?”

“Yeah, yeah go on.”

‘Hand us them gloves there and I’ll get started’

—————————————————————–

Better late than never. This weeks Flickr Fiction was inspired by this photo from Flickr user Donina and Dublin’s bins which really do leak that hideous substance known as Dublin Relish. Participants this week are Teaandcakes, Elimare, Tadmack and Aquafortis. Click on the links to read their versions.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 12th, 2006 at 2:52 pm and is filed under Dublin, Flickr Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.