Ride of the Scumbag Bogeyman

I'm throwing my leg over Rosie when the Crackberry chirps. Communiqué from Common Law demanding beer. A reasonable request considering that it was her turn this Hallowe'en and she's been the loser Yummy Mummy (and she sure is yummy, folks) standing at the end of the path as her children demand party food payment from complete strangers, while the most strenuous thing I've attempted over the course of the evening is the triangle pose.

That's about to change, folks. That's all about to change.

A glance at the watch shows 9.07. Our local off license inexplicably shuts at 10. No fucking problem. Not on Rosie, not with the wind at my back and a complete disregard for the rules of the road or my own personal safety. I fly through the Lebanon-like night past an army of Garda Siochána on Pearse Street who appear to be doing little to guard the fucking peace. That's where they'll be when I need them, standing on Pearse Street discussing which bonfire to ignore next.

It's a quick, quick 10k and I'm pulling up to the offy at 9.35, plenty of time to spare. Except there fucking isn't because it's fucking closed. Qué? Must be a Hallowe'en thing. Lazy fuckers, any fucking excuse.

So. What to do? On any other night I would have gone 'Fuck it', and gone home to the week old glass of leftover cooking wine and a smoke that did not fear to joke. But a demand is a demand and the garage is just an extra five minute Rosie rampage away. And so I go.

I'm almost there when I realise that I am lucklessly lockless. Rosie resides indoors at work and I can almost bring her in to the local place, but this beer dispensing Statoil is a whole different kettle of fish. The only place where I could reasonably rest Rosie is completely invisible from inside the shop area. Do I risk it? As I pull up I take glance around for suspicious, shady types who might want to make off with my new bike babe.

This quick look tells me that I'm going to have to go home and get a fucking lock if Common Law is to get her well deserved beer boost. There are two scumbag types loitering, littering, being scumbags, with their scumbag haircuts and their scumbag tracksuits. They both have bikes, but that makes fuck all difference really. I could brave it out and actually drag Rosie into the shop. They both have bikes. What to do, what to do? The scumbags are moving slowly out of the forecourt. They both have bikes. I'm just going to have to go home. They both have bikes. One of them, a tall skinny fuck has what looks like a Specialized Hardrock. I look more closely. Gimme and his paranoid delusions. Gimme and his lingering grief.

It's a Specialized Hardrock, alright. It has mountain bike clip-on pedals, but non-knobbly slick tyres. The back tyre is bigger than the front tyre. Folks. Oh folks, it is. It's Hardcore Motherfucker.

I am instantly, bestially aware that consideration means hesitation and that hesitation means, I don't give myself time to think what hesitation means, I just fucking go for it, folks, I let the red mist descend and I fucking go for it.

I open with a cunt. A screaming, snarling, spitting 'YOU FUCKING CUNT. GET OFF MY FUCKING BIKE YOU CUNT, GET OFF MY FUCKING BIKE!' Almost instantly he's off it. 'That's my fucking bike you fucking cunt, you fucking stole my bike' I'm growling now 'from the side of my house you fucking CUNT' This big kid even as he backs away attempts 'It's me mates bike...' 'It's my fucking bike, you little fuck! (cunt is losing its impact I primally feel) Look at the pedals. Look at the tyres. You fucking thief.'

They could have beaten the shit out of me and taken both bikes, folks. It would have cost them little and nobody would have stopped them here and now in our modern Ireland.

But my eyes, folks. My weirdo bikie clothes, sure, my fucked up patchy homeless person beard, yes, but mostly my eyes. My eyes are crazed, maniacal. I have no memory of ever being so enraged, so completely out of control. I keep screaming, unhingedly shrieking for much longer than is necessary. They keep backing away. And then quickly, before these superhuman powers of insanity leave me, I get up on Rosie, pull Hardcore Motherfucker close and we all ride off into the night.

And you better believe that I was back there twenty minutes later to get those beers. I brought a lock.