CC15: The Blue Suede Shoes Nobody Wrote A Song About

The music that came out of the speakers in the beer garden turned really bad. I'll probably turn into a real prick now, I thought to myself. I usually did when the music turned bad. Well, my type of bad. It was a type of good for some of them. But if my type of bad was their type of good, our types should probably not have been rubbing up against each other in a social way. But there's the rub. I caught Emer interrupting her talk with Paidi to glare over at me as I stood with an honest expression of disgust on my face.

What was the music that was playing, you might ask, that was such a type of bad as to elicit such an expression from me?

Ferocious shite, all I can say.

Emer knew this. She knew my type of bad and threw her dirty look over as soon as she heard that shite playing. Good for her. At least she was still paying attention.

Geary and Carol meanwhile had started talking to an extremely drunk fella who I thought had appeared with the peripatetics, but it now looked as though he was just some random single-filer with a head of drink on him. He was wearing a Thin Lizzy T-shirt from a bygone day and a mug from a bygone crime. He was wobbling almost upright two or so metres away from me, but even at that distance I could just about feel the beery spittle hitting my face as he spoke. He seemed like a friendly sort, but out of place amongst these people, like he'd fallen out of a passing plane on its way to the 1980's. He was plastered. He kept stepping on Geary's blue suede shoes. Sorry, mucker, sorry, I heard him grunt repeatedly.

'I'd better head off now,' said John Carroll. 'I've got some sausage rolls cooking in the oven.'
'You're not serious?' I said.
'Deadly serious. What's wrong with sausage rolls? They're delicious!'
'I mean, did you leave them there baking before you came here?'
'Yeah, I'd say they're nearly done now.'
'But you live in Ardee, for Jesus sake.'

Ardee was about 20 kilometres away.

'I know, I better get moving,' he said. I'll catch you later.'
'Okay, good luck. Enjoy your sausage rolls.'
'I will surely. Yum.'