Chemical and me

[R. Broath]

I was sitting on a cold, stone step whispering puerile commiserations to my good friend, Chemical O'Reilly.
He'd called unexpectedly to our door about five o'clock that November night. The angry, red imprint of an adult hand pulsed along the left side of his dirt streaked face. Yet another wound in the guerilla war between him and his Dad.

"He was trying to strangle Mum, again. So I jumped on his back and bit his fat ear," he rubbed his glowing fizzer and smiled unconvincingly as he recounted the latest skirmish.

The sage advice I tendered was that he and his Mum should move the fifty yards from his end of the street to ours. Up here, I assured him. domestic violence was reserved for the occasional Saturday night reminder- and sure where was the harm in that?


When Chemical and I were a-rearing, domestic plumbing had not progressed much beyond the convenience of a single indoor tap. Consequently, the logistics of bathing were formidable. Forward planning was essential if the rudiments of personal hygiene were to be observed. Every Saturday, summer and winter, the range fire was banked up, and water was boiled in a bewildering, and dangerous, array of cauldrons, kettles and pots. If the weather was bad the tin bath lodged on its back yard hook was trundled indoors - otherwise, it was al fresco. Open air arrangements didn't bother me, but forced my sisters into straits of misery. So much so that I doubt if bathing has ever been a pleasure for them since.

As the only boy I argued that the uniqueness of my position should accord me the privilege of first use. I was a walking repository of scabs and stains; a glowing kaleidoscope of mysterious seepages, flaky bits and raw scratchings. I'm sure that my youngest sister emerged less clean, definitely less healthy, than when she entered the scummy mixture. The remainder of the week saw us perform perfunctory ablutions in a jawbox in the draughty scullery. By midweek I always seemed to have acquired a faint, but distinct, hum.

Chemical’s Mum was less assiduous than mine, and, with six kids, I suspect even our level of hygiene was beyond them. It is no slight on Patrick (Chemical’s given name) to say that, throughout our boyhood, he emanated a ripe odour which preceded him into any room, and left a ghostly echo of his presence when he exited.

******* ********* ************ ************** ************* **************

Mincing between the rows of silent boys, a black robed Brother reads the gory tale of some martyred saint. He halts the story to sniff the air above the pungent Patrick, then considers it his Christian duty to bring to the attention of the class Patrick's relaxed attitude to soap and water. A waste of time. None amongst us was the epitome of cleanliness but all were aware that Patrick stank.

" It is no good," declaimed the perfumed Brother, "to imply cleanliness by plastering dirty hair with corporation hair oil."(That's H2O to the uninitiated.)

"Smothering your garments in your mother's cheap perfume only succeeds in disguising one vile odour with another, thereby creating a third, which combines with its' begetters to create a veritable river of stink, an olfactory assault to rival that of my childhood neighbour, Mr Wreakin, whose nasal capabilities were annulled by the proximity of the fifty pigs which infested the hovel he referred to as home. While I doubt, boy, if you share your abode with swine, I aver that there is consanguinity."
He paused. Then added, "Probably on your father's side."

At this point he forced Patrick to rise from his uncomfortable seat to an uncomfortable standing position by his preferred method; pulling upwards on the small hairs at the side of Patrick's temple.

"No. Something more......chemical, O'Reilly, would be necessary to eliminate the miasma of putrescence emanating from your vicinity. Take a seat by the window, if you please, and if our cretinous caretaker wakes from his stupor and follows his bulbous nose to investigate the stench, you may tell him you are awaiting a thuriferous angel to deliver you from the valley of graveolence to some fragrant meadows whose existence you believe in but have yet to find. The poor fool will understand not a word, but the mention of angels and valleys will at least populate his inebrious hallucinations with less gruesome denizens than the hideous creatures I suspect are his usual companions."

And how, you may ask, do I recall the conversation of this Christian educator so long after the event? I'll tell you. We rehearsed it - word for word. For, God help us, we loved his raving. We collected them like others collected matchboxes or marbles. At least once a week some trifling incident would provoke a tumult of words. Usually, this prolixity was occasioned by a negative event; a forgotten homework, a tiny spark of rebellion in any of us, some spilled ink. Whatever the cause he would find some excuse to soliloquize and a flow of eloquence would cascade over us, leaving us breathless in wonder. In these verbal raptures he sailed, adrift on adjectival swells with only a ration of language to sustain him. The fluency of his tirades was a joy to us. We loved to practice his delivery, his histrionics, but especially the words.

All the way home, as we dilly-dallied, we recited this latest addition to the canon. We rolled them in our mouths, tasting them, delivering them as precisely as actors, carving each sharp syllable into the granite of memory. The cutting tenor of his ramblings was lost on us, but by the time we parted Chemical was Chemical, and would be from that day on.

So, there we were on our front step. I was mightily impressed that my friend had shed not a single tear, despite the testament to fatherly love throbbing on his small face. We were discussing possible punishments for his Dad; like making him stand next to Brother Joseph during prayers, (for his breath would stop a train), when a sorrowful shriek smote the misty night air.

My boyish guilt was unleashed. Had my mother discovered the rigor-mortised frog I'd been saving in my school trousers, or the uncomplimentary words scored in vivid red across my Maths homework.
From the far end of the street we spied Chemical's Mum haring up at full speed. Poor Chemical. He paled, expecting to see his Dad in hot pursuit, enraged afresh at some imagined insult to his manly virtues. Instead, my Mum came tearing out of our house. The two women met in the middle of the road and commenced a woeful caterwauling. Our mutual embarrassment quickly subsided, to be replaced by curiosity. What had happened?

For what seemed an age the two women hugged one another in an ecstasy of grief. Slowly their fierce tears gave way to huge, sighing sobs. Then, to our chagrin, they turned their tear streaked faces to us. Instinctively, we rose in preparation for flight. Too late. The two women clawed their respective sons to them in a smothering embrace of warm, soft arms. From somewhere within her ample cleavage I heard Chemical's muffled plea for his Mum to, "give over."

By now it seemed the whole neighbourhood was outdoors, and we learned that a man called Kennedy had been shot.

Chemical and I sneaked into our house during all the confusion. We knew this was a momentous night.
To mark the occasion I gave him the withered frog I'd been saving.

[Ros]

Brilliant, Jimmy. That must be where you got your love of words from. The only bit I thought a bit clumsy was

Bearing in mind Patrick's aromatic demeanour, we move now to the stuffy confines of a schoolroom, - the language didn't quite fit with the rest.

Rosemary

[R. Broath]

Thank you Ros. I have taken your sound advice and excised that sentence. It was rather clumsily inserted and I had meant (honest) to remove or re-write it. Good of you to read this and I appreciate the comments.

Jimmy

[BenJohnson]

Deeply impressed as always.

[R. Broath]

Thanks Ben. I sometimes wish that old cleric had had the gift of succinctness, but realise that we were there as audience as much as pupils and he WAS entertaining when he got going.

Jimmy

[mesmie]

Thoroughly enjoyed this..