RED-FACED in a GREEN CITY

“Fear Dubh! Fear Dubh! Four Buds anseo.”

Jesus! March 14th, the bar, JFK. We’ve just been hurtled through space at 500mph for seven sorry hours in a jumped-up sardine tin, and the marks of my knees are still on my jaws.

No bother to the lads at the bar though. These boys were flying before take-off, proceeded to drink John West airlines dry mid-Atlantic, and are now working up a bit of a thirst. The barman (an fear well pissed off), is completely ignoring their Wildean wit; this I suspect not being his first encounter with juvenile Irish racism. So embarrassed am I by their Neanderthal antics that I am now an fear dearg.

And then the ‘singing’ started. Again! Couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.

I am rescued from the jaws of hell that is ‘Smokie’s Greatest Hits’ by the 7th Cavalry-like arrival of mine host, who whisks me off to his place on the Lower East Side. (He has got a cosy flat-in what is known as ol’ Manhatt-in.)

That night, despite 28 sleepless hours, brew-tal jetlag and gallons of piss-poor lager, sleep will not come. I toss and turn, tormented by the unanswerable questions: where have all the chequered cabs gone? Do they give NY taxi-driver licences away in Lucky bags? And that nocturnal brainsucker, Alice? Alice? Who the fuck is Alice?

The next two days are a non-stop blur of over-indulgence; no sleep, meeting old friends and revisiting favourite haunts. In Washington Square Park I am accosted by some jowlster, who obviously having seen too many Oliver Stone films, tries to convince me that John Lennon was assassinated by Stephen King (aided by the US government of course). And he’s “got the documents to prove it.” Mine for just $5.00.

On Staten Island I am informed that Manhattan is “Mao Mao land”, full of “jungle bunnies”, and how “them shirt-lifters are going to take over OUR parade.” Back in the heart of the jungle, that is 42nd Street, I question my sanity as I appear to be the only person there not involved in a heavy conversation with himself.

The city is gearing up for the big day now, the Paddyfication of Manhattan is at hand. On telly there’s ads for Crazy O’Eddie’s – “You can’t BATE our prices.” I wonder should we go to MICHAEL’S to check out Woody O’Allen.

A million military snares rend the air, and the hairs stand to attention on the back of my neck. I know it’s corny, I know it’s uncool; but standing on the corner of 46th and Fifth Avenue I am strangely affected by all this overkill. It is mightily impressive. I am looking at what is surely every cop in the country, thinking; “What a day to pull of the big heist – The Great Saint Patrick’s Day Caper.

For hours they file past; New York’s finest, their shiny shields bearing the names Shaughnessy, McNamarra, O’Malley. I am brought back to a thousand old black and white Warner Bros. pictures “Top O de Mawrnin to ya Sgt. Mulroney.” “Top O de mawrnin me eye, it’s off to see Father Flannigan for you me Bucko.”

We follow the parade bound for 86th Street, stopping at the odd, very odd, pub. Having waded through a sea of nauseating green, I am now developing Clarke Kent/Superman-like allergies. In a Dizzy Factory on 86th, all talk is of the parade’s weaknesses and strengths. Everyone agrees it was a grand affair altogether, but a few dissenters thought it was “scandalous” ruined by “that shower who should be put up against a wall and shot.” Ah, the voice of reason.

During a hectic cab-ride back downtown, our Rastafarian driver, intrigued by our accents, enquires “Australians, right?” Close but. “Irish? No shit man.” This is a great cause for celebration altogether, prompting yer man to ask if it’s okay to fire up. It’s your car. A St. Patrick’s day spliff. This was not the greatest of ideas, our friend having obviously studied at the James Dean School of Driving.

So in Flight Of The Doves, Dana was right; you don’t have to be Irish to be Irish. Though tonight it does help as everybody wants to buy a drink for “you Irish guys”. Oh all right then. On our Joycean odyssey through the city’s Ale Houses we met a Japanese called O’Donohue (I saw his passport), a woman with seven dogs, a bagpipe-playing Canadian, twenty million people with an ancestry in the old country and a latchieco who insists that Martin Scorsese is not Italian at all, but in fact Polish!

And then that sound – it had to happen It’s them; the JFK gang in all their glory. And they’re still singing. Sore legs have been well and truly sucked. One of them is sporting a nice shiner’ must’ve met an off-duty Fear Dubh. I know where they’ve been; their t-shirts tell me. One of them bears the legend ‘I’ve been to Club Insane’, but I know he’s been to Club Fuckin’ Eejit. Shit! Maybe I should have bought that Mussolini T-shirt on Mullberry Street after all. The eejit wearing the cap with the bloody axe through its skull, is shaking hands with himself and singing “I wish I was in Carrickfergus.” For once we agree.

Tonight I have encountered every Irish person on the planet. I hope the last one out of Ireland remembered to turn out the lights.

What? G’wan outta that. It’s only 4.30. One more. C’mon it’s St. Patrick’s Day. When I find myself out on the street at 5am having a conversation with a man with a tree on his head, I decide it’s time to give up the ghost of old Saint Pat.

Some sixteen hours later, after an afternoon going-away session that’d made the JFK bunch look like a pack of big girls’ blouses, I’m leaving on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again.

Fear Gorm.