Hot in the City

I love the hum of the city as it slowly shakes itself awake to whatever lies in store. It’s another morning. The night before swept away with a rattle of broken glass and the scuff marks left by the street cleaners’ shoes as the main streets filled with the anxiety-ridden worker bees. People worry about just anything these days. I love everything about the city. It could be Dublin. London. New York. Berlin or Riyadh. It doesn’t matter where. All of these people are thrown together with different clothes, ideas, opinions, ethnicities, genders, and religions, the non-believers blending in with the faithful, the converted, and the luckiest of all, the damned.

There is no beginning or end in the city, just an endless loop of possibility. Night turns to day. Day turns tonight. There is no in-between. The crucifix swings from side to side in the rearview mirror. The police sit in their conspicuous white vans on a sidestreet and pray for heavy rain to fall. The kind that washes the city clean of its sin. Only bad weather will dampen the rioters’ ardor now. The trouble is into its third night. The devil in the detail. Bottles, stones, petrol bombs, and whatever the discontented can find to throw in anger, shopping trollies, nuts, and bolts rain down on the exhausted police lines. Welcome to hell, the result of a young man being gunned by police after the sun went down on Saturday. He was running away when the shots rang out. Three cracks followed by a temporary silent intake of incredulity as a community held its breath, followed by the mayhem that now ensues. Just like before it will end when everyone gets tired and they go back to ordinary everyday living. The underbelly content for another little while. Until the next time when something else pulls the city asunder.

A quiet man lights a cigarette on a street corner and scans the kaleidoscopic canvas before him. He’s a poet watching people, looking for and finding inspiration in the little things. The quirks. The vanity. The egos that live within. Big men. Little men. He waits for time to pass and builds a story out of rhyme. He’s so long in the tooth that he’s been out of the frying pan and into the fire more times than Number 10’s staff during the lockdown. Like so many, he has nothing left to give. No money because he’s been taxed up to the hilt by the gangsters in government. Not even the rattle of loose change to give him a shortcut thrill. No hope because they’ve taken it away. No laughter because he’s forgotten what it is to smile. No time because everyone’s too busy desperately trying to survive. No action because we’re all too tired and broken to raise even a tiny finger in protest. He knows the time has come for change but he doesn’t know how. The revolution will have to wait until we work it out. A shift in consciousness. A hop, a skip, and a jump into a totally different way of doing things. He can feel it bubbling up. The people who are restless, forgotten, ignored, and angry. They speak in morse code. They’re ready to explode. He waits. Patiently.

I walk the streets of shame. Looking first left and then right. Taking it in. Being cautious. Being careful. It pays to be suspicious these days. Nevertheless, this city is my home, my natural habitat. The place to be for me. It is here that I feel safest among its nooks and crannies. I choose the side streets to avoid the human flow before I collide with the inevitable stream of cautious humanity. Over time you learn to surrender yourself to the city’s peculiar little intricacies. I am at ease in its ebb and flow. The chatter of innumerable voices colliding with history. I yearn for its energy. It’s a mystery. Another day begins with the empty space of early morning slowly picking up a jaded momentum. Desperate for something different. Some excitement. I wonder what today will bring. I like it when it’s gentle. A tidal wave of love swept across the Liffey. Northside. Southside. I treasure its madness too. Its rough interior extending outwards to the suburbs carried on the thoughts of the transport veins filled with bicycles, cars, trains, and buses.

This city is everyone who walks its streets and lives its delicious delicacies. Jackeen. Culchie. Immigrant. Emigrant returned. The junkie in us is addicted to its relentless pace. The shopkeeper winds down the shutter at the end of the day. The homeless man rolls out his sleeping bag in a piss-stained doorway. The pretty ones dolled up for a night on the town. Tattoos and tights shine under the light of the moon. Docs meet the pavements to the rhythm of your heartbeat. Tired dock workers leave the night shift behind in the callous comfort of an early house. The busker counts up the coins that have fallen her way to see if she has enough to chill. The little fuckers causing trouble for the cops along the quays. It’s the young one getting a crew cut and sniffing glue, his face covered in the blotches of early addiction. The older addict wakes early to get his fix. It’s Molly Malone waiting for a tourist to take the first picture of the day. It’s the lonely divorcee sitting with his loneliness in a one-bedroom flat wondering what’s left of life to live.

They hate us down the country. They hate us because we’re not like them. They hate us because we’re different. They hate us because we don’t give a fuck. But we wouldn’t have it any other way. We’re the rare auld times sung by Luke Kelly and we’re the mischief lurking in Ronnie Drew’s beard. We’re a pint of Guinness settling in on itself before it rattled down the chute. It’s Heffo’s Army on Hill 16 watching Hanahoe and Keaveney weave their magic on the field of dreams below. It’s Jim Gavin reaching for the stars and hitting gold. It’s six in a row and the jealousy it brings. Just ask Bono. He’ll put you straight. It’s the coffee shops. The chippers. The lonely dead ends. The empty streets when another day ends. The cut-off points. The launderettes. The pubs. The brothels. The drug dens. The cheeky conversations. Two strangers’ eyes lock in a desire that neither will ever know. The secrets we possess. The progress we regret. The cinemas. The Abbey and the Gate. The Olympia and the Gaiety. The 3 Arena. It’s too many fucking hotels and car parks replacing who we really are. It’s Croker. Dalymount. The Aviva. The Stadium. It’s the lesson of how they scattered us to the outskirts in our motor cars. The once green fields filled with grey. In doing so they’ve cleared the inner city of its heart and soul. High rise, low rise, we’ve been left behind by the fucking Dart. It’s Connolly, Heuston, Busarus, and the road to the airport from where the young depart.

They’re talking about a new kind of mayor. Chosen by the people for the people. It sounds kind of quaint. I think they call it democracy. Well, it better not be another politician because at this stage we’ve had our fill of their philandering ways. We’ve nothing left to lose. We want our city back. We want the right to choose. The other day I heard a man on the radio calling it a kip. He might be right. It’s tired-looking right now. Battered and broken. But it’s still a beautiful kip all the same.

There’ll always be wise words to be found in its ways. At the bottom of a pint. In the music. The poetry. The literature. The crack of Dublin wit that puts you in your place, but makes you laugh anyway. It can be felt when Hill 16 is packed to the brim with breathing room only. Up here there’s no room for shadows. For two glorious hours, we get to be ourselves. We get to leave the past behind. We forget about everything except the match until eventually, we re-emerge singing songs and telling each other about what we’ve just seen or on the bad days what might have been. The beauty of this legendary team that represents our city. They have stood shoulder to shoulder, side by side with us. They have changed the way we see ourselves. Made us proud. The collective joins together to become one. Afterward, high on the electric buzz of it all we squeeze our way out of ourselves and go back to what we need to do to survive. Maybe that’s why when I go to the Hill I always feel like I’m coming home. I imagine heaven to be a bit like that. Surrounded by people you feel comfortable with. The shouts. The roars. The curses. Only blue sky above, even when it’s raining. The Hill is full of characters giving out about the referee. Fucking this and fucking that. Whoever. Whatever. Whenever. The moans. The groans. It’s where we go to let off steam. Here strangers hug when the ball hits the back of the opposition net, met with an explosion of joy is the very essence of now. At this moment nothing else matters. All our worries evaporate. We are free of our demons. Free to be exactly who we are meant to be. It’s here that I feel Dublin City at it’s restless best.

It’s here that I get to feel my spirit intact.