Bling Of Truth
We was tough as teenagers, me and mah girlies. We was ruthless, sassy, cool – the Pink Ladies crossed with a collaboration of frustrated crocodiles. We paraded up and down the mean streets of South County Galway, clicking our fingers in serendipitous unison, throwing ourselves into a smooth sidestep every ten paces; it’s a wonder we didn’t end up in the Atlantic, really. Every so often we’d encounter the slappers from North County Clare, and put-downs, hair-pulling, and majestic dance routines would ensue. They were happier, more dangerous times. I still proudly wear my Honda-Civic-shaped scar (one I got in the great body-poppin’ scrap of 1998) on my right forearm, or sometimes on my left, depending on the orientation of the pub I’m drinking in.
My cousin Balls was also a fifteen-year-old girl at one stage, although one hundred miles away and in a slightly less rural sense. Body-poppin’ had fallen out of favour in her ‘hood, so she tended to settle her disputes by simply … I dunno, knifing people or whatever.
We took turns reminiscing about our teenage years as we wandered the streets of Cork the other day, less coordinated in our old age, both in movement and clobber.
“I remember how we would drink coffee in Supermacs,” I said. “Naturally, the boys were playing pool and vomiting into the gutter, but we were classy, unapproachable broads. Saved on nappies, in the long run.”
“We had a field,” said Balls, “which we would smoke in, and shout at passers-by whom we suspected to be paedophiles.”
“Fields were great,” I agreed, “for hiding one’s booze in. I had fifteen cans of Bulmers in the bottom of my wardrobe at one stage, and I never really felt comfortable about it.”
“Oh look” cooed Balls, swiftly turning on her heel in a manner redolent of the old days; I wiped away a tear. “Here’s the shop we used to get our sovereign rings from!”
“Your what?”
“Our sovereign rings!”
“What, for your boyfriends?”
“For our fucking selves, dickhead!”
I was horrified.
Sovereign rings on teenage girls? This is what passed for fashion statement in turn-of-the-millennium Cork? While we in Galway were marking our toughness with games of chicken played down boreens on souped-up Massey Fergusons, they were pimping out their fingers like common Greek businessmen? We were never tough enough to wear sovereign rings in Galway! Never! Not even the Traveller girls, who wore two bras for maximum Madonnishness and had more front than Salthill, wore sovereign rings.
I was gobsmacked, then cowed. I sulked as Balls pointed out which ring was sported by which of her homies, and only dragged her away with the promise of a goat’s cheese starter and a glass of Pinot Noir. Times change, you see, and bould teenage girls grow into urbane wits and liberals. But the tougher-than-thou competition in all Irish people, the compulsion to describe how poor your parents, how laborious your labour, how banjaxed your bank account, runs deep in all of us, and no Trinity College education or Jamie Oliver cookery course will truly knock that out of you. Sovereign fucking rings? What a bunch of scumbags!
The lucky, lucky bastards.
Madonna and body-popping was all the rage when I was 15, too. Of course that was in 1985. Quite sad, really.
Back then I was listening to Siouxsie, getting in to nightclubs with my fake ID, and doing totally legal Ecstasy while also doing lame wavy-armed goth girl dancing, so I was too busy to be fussed about either Madonna or body-popping.
Again, quite sad, really.
Right, I’m back off to God’s waiting room.
I don’t know what wavy-armed goth girl dancing is. I demand some sort of demonstration.
I doubt somehow that it would have smote your enemies, which was how the Run DMC-style dance-offs we had worked. Bloody glorious, they were. Y’all.
Pretty much like this, but with more overhead waving and with “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” playing in the background. And with feeling, because we were goth, dammit.
Run DMC dancing is more like an epileptic fit, goth dancing is like drowning in slow motion.
Yeah, that’s pretty much it.
I recall a bloody and lasting turf-war that played out in my ‘hood’ when I was a teen. My gang (Jets) felt that a fresh-off-the-boat immigrant gang (Sharks) were encroaching upon our territory. Coincidentally, all members of both gangs had at least 6 years tap, 8 years classical jazz, and a smidgen of ballet.
The ante was upped when my cousin Tony fell in love with the sister of the Shark’s leader. Maria, was her name. If memory serves, she had a face like a smacked arse and a mouth on her like a fishmonger’s oul’ one.
Things came to a head the night of our all-out rumble. I’ve never seen such an orgy of coordinated, balletic violence. Some stabbing ensued, a few deaths, a lot of pirouetting, and though we mourned our losses, I think the morality tale we carried into adulthood was worth the collateral damage.
Certainly, I know I learned a lesson that night: people whose skin is marginally different than yours, might stab you if you don’t stab them first.
Hah that was totally mu mum’s shop you were standing outside, yeah I remember ‘your’ type… skanger birds.
Indeed. I used to have a lovely Nike tracksuit and all. Still, I turned out alr… Hmm.
Flann, whichever morality tales you’ve carried into adulthood surely were written by Edgar Allen Poe and featured many crows and other such ominous omens. I’d bet my Argos hoopy earrings on it.
I see Sweary as more of a Kappa-kid masel. Chewing bubbly-gum, necking Lambrusco, and of course.. gobbing on the pavement.
Nothings changed..
Kappa? Inconceiveable!
When I was fifteen, they sponsored Man City. I was strictly United, me. Ryan Giggs – what a hotpot.
where on earth did 15yo’s get the dosh for huge lumps of gold and develop a taste for fermented fruit juice. Was that cousin tea total them days.
Hint: It wasn’t really gold. But other than that, I have always had expensive taste. No Linden Village shite for me!
And like all good Irish girleens, I nurtured my Bulmers habit with hefty babysitting contracts.
ha, back in them days the Bulmers was the bottom of the barrel.