Wellington Memorial, Phoenix Park, Dublin (world second tallest man-made obelisk!)

An extract from Peril. Ger's in a mess, still reeling from the beating...

In the morning, still a little spaced out, I make it to the 8:37 train in one piece. For a change I take a seat facing the back of another and, Jo’s borrowed MP3 player connected, close my eyes to the sound of Norah Jones. When I next open them, I’m the only one on the train except for a Chinese guy who is collecting rubbish left behind by the now departed passengers.

 It feels like I’ve been away from Dublin for a long time. The Liffey is swollen and charging seaward, like a huge artery full of brown blood. No sign of all the usual debris that clutters the river bed at low flow: shopping trolleys, traffic cones, children’s bicycles, dead Romanians.

There’s a breeze crossways over Heuston bridge, an earthy smell leaps over the Luas tracks. I don’t hear the music until I’m across the other side and then I stop short, both captivated and cautious.

Ilie’s face is serene as he coaxes the melodies from his guitar’s strings. He sees my shoes and lifts his gaze to mine. I hesitantly smile at him. This is real, he’s here playing guitar. It’s how things were before. I only have two Euros in cash so I bend and place it in his cup. He says nothing and there’s no change to his expression. This can’t be the man who attacked me behind the station, if it ever even happened. His crippled leg is intact, the crooked knee cradling the round swell of his guitar.

I straighten and step forward but then two things happen at once. The music stops and I let out a shout. Something hard has struck me painfully in the shin. Stepping back, I stoop to rub my shin and see a plastic carrier bag. Ilie is holding it to block my path. He drops the bag to the ground with a clank and parts the plastic to show something metal and heavy inside, bent and stained dark brown in several places. It looks very much like a murder weapon.

Self preservation tells me I should grab the bag from Ilie and hurl it into the Liffey, but my body is not responding to the instinct. Instead I start to back away, only to find a hand on each of my arms. Two youths flank me, clad in sports gear. They’re both taller than Ilie but the family resemblance is unmistakable.

I look around the street, hoping for some authority figure to rescue me from my predicament. Ilie barks a little laugh and rises surprisingly easily from the ground with the aid of his crutch. He holds up the evidence bag and says “Follow me.”

We move in the direction of Phoenix Park and I have to hurry to keep up with his surprising pace. Heavy traffic forces us to wait in a gaggle at the Coyningham Road pedestrian crossing. I’m hemmed in by the three of them. On a good day I would fancy my chances in a fair fight with any one of them, maybe even two, but it’s not a good day. My brain is floating in a bowl of soup and the old bones feel detached from their muscles.

The man turns green and we shuffle forward across the junction. Now we are immediately outside the new Criminal Courts of Justice and there’s no shortage of authority figures to appeal to. Garda Síochána cars are everywhere, as are TV news vans, reporter crews setting up cameras and testing microphones. There must be a high profile criminal case in the offing. That could be me. Two officers on the top step of the entrance gaze curiously over us from the saddles of their mountain bikes. Ilie looks gives me a narrow-eyed look over his shoulder. Make your choice. Us or the law. I don’t break my stride.

Once in the Park, I let Ilie walk ahead and develop a distance between us. There’s a steady flow of cars down the middle of Chesterfield Avenue, the thoroughfare that transects these 1750 acres of parkland. It’s quarter past ten in the morning and I wonder where all the traffic is going at this hour. The kerb is lined with parked cars of every size, shape, age and colour. A car thieves’ paradise if it weren’t for the ever-present law officers, two of whom are slowing up the traffic as their huge horses clop steadily along the tarmac. Once the horses pass by a shove on my shoulder brings me back to reality. The two lads are right behind.

Ilie weaves slightly along the footpath, avoiding the drooping branches of trees heavy with fresh growth. Beech trees at a guess, I’m no horticulturist. As I endeavour to follow the scampering Romanian musician, Wellington’s Monument rises hugely up on our left. Several degenerates are sunning themselves on the giant, sparkling granite steps whilst drinking cans of beer. More Gards on foot are heading towards the morning drunks. I consider again the choice between incarceration and Romanian revenge, but Ilie has second guessed my hesitation. He stops, turns and holds the bag aloft. I’m firmly in his grip.

We move on apace. A warm breeze helps the sweat to form on my forehead and I get a whiff of something earthy. Can it be me? Or is it my escorts? A burst of resonant snorts and trumpeting explains it: we’re about to pass the African residents of Dublin Zoo. Like them, I’m enclosed in a yard of my own shite.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Get yer free sample of Ger Mayes, only a few left and when all these free samples of The Rise and Fall of Ger Mayes are gone, they're gone.

What's a Kindle? Why can't you read a sample without having to register on amazon and buy a kindle or download Kindle for PC?

Well, you can get a sample of Ger Mayes and his misdeeds here, straight onto your screen: Ruby Barnes webpage .
Enjoy (if that's the right word).

Ger Mayes is born.

This is where it all started, the whole Ger Mayes / Ruby Barnes / Turnip carry-on. Heuston Bridge over the River Liffey in Dublin, 2007. First week of a new job in the capital. The ideas for a novel that had been swirling around in my head were catalysed by an Eastern European beggar with one shoe and a crutch. The other foot, in a big woolly sock, displayed as a lure for alms. On the next day he had swapped over feet. I wanted to laugh out loud, this was the worst beggar I'd ever seen. But I gave him five euro. Everyone else walked in a big arc around him and I soon learned that was what you did. Eyes straight, step aside, don't get run down by the tram.

Then there was an argument between the socked beggar and a drug addict beggar who wanted the pitch. Guards appeared to calm the fray (Garda Síochána  = police). The Irish addict prevailed.

On the next day the Irishman appeared with a badly beaten face and the day after he didn't appear at all.

People wash up, down river, or disappear never to be seen again. Beggars step into a big old Mercedes after a day pleading for coins at the traffic lights. There's an underworld in the cities.

The novel came gushing out, like the urgent flow of the Liffey after a rainstorm. Gerard Mayes (Ger, pronounced Jer, common name in Ireland). A man like any other. No, an anti-hero. Self-serving, a slacker like the Big Lebowski but with a day job. Then he kills a street dweller and life falls apart.

Why did I write this novel as Ruby Barnes instead of Mark G Turner?

Because:

• Mark Turner is a world famous jazz saxophonist Mark Turner (jazz saxophonist) 
• Mark Turner is an academically renowned cognitive scientist, linguist and author Mark Turner (cognitive scientist)
• Mark Turner is a very common name that means hammer woodcraftsman
• I'm one, only one, of the three above. Ball pein, my wife says. Her puns always hit the nail on the head
• as a tribute to my late grandfather, Robert 'Ruby' Barnes
• to throw folks off my scent!

You may be right, I may be crazy. But I just might be the lunatic you're looking for (thanks BJ for that immortal line).

~~~~~~~~~~

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