Then all you can think is: It’s all systems go! It’s only a matter of days now before the movie starts shooting! It’s the most wonderful feeling and the only thing I regret is that Mona or my mother -Jamesy, even, the abandoning old fucker! — won’t be there to see it, talk about it, enjoy — whatever.
From the ‘Community College Ledger’:
‘Complaints, complaints, fucking complaints!’
(This is scored at least seven times across the middle of the page in bright red felt-tip marker and underlined quite heavily.
Then it reads:)
I had a really good time reading over the entry from a couple of weeks back about the pub and the misunderstandings and how the movie would be so good if everyone could be there Mona and the old man and everyone …
But there’s always something, isn’t there? There’s always fucking something!
(The remainder, however, as if written in a frenzy, is quite impossible to decipher. There are, though, some other pieces dealing with the subject, the most illuminating, perhaps, being this one from later on in the ledger.)
The Nature of ‘The Complaints’
I have never quite been able to manage to establish the source of the recent complaints for certain but I have my suspicions regarding the cleaning ladies, for there were no other people around the set that I could see. Anyway, whoever it was, it has got back to me that someone had observed one of the students ‘having sex’ while attired in an Apache headdress. Which shows you the level of absurdity that rumours can attain, with all kinds of half-truth stitched in along with what can only be described as utter fantasy. Sure there was someone wearing an Indian headdress — what do you expect when you’re making a pastiche Western? (The idea for which the students had come up with themselves, incidentally!)
It was short — a little sideline project, which was very good, actually — written by one of the fourth years. But having sex? Nonsense. Not that I’d have had anything against it, in principle; it’s just that it didn’t happen, that’s all.
There was also talk of spliffs being smoked. I don’t know for sure if there was — maybe one or two of them went out during break for a blast. I couldn’t say one way or another. It’s just that I had more to do with my time than breathe down their necks every second of the day God sends.
‘For Christ’s sake!’ I said. ‘I’ve a film to shoot here!’
Which I had. And the script was giving me trouble, real trouble! So I would have been able to do without the aggravation. ‘This shit I can do without!’ I said one day, really losing my temper. ‘So come on, let’s try that again! Hit it one more time!’
The kids, somewhat cowed now, set the scene up again. But we had a great laugh afterwards when we had a drink in Doc Oc’s, which was getting as bad as the Fuck Me with the amount of palmtops and organizers and fucking cellphone ringtones prr prr prr. ‘You really had us frightened,’ they said. ‘We never seen you like that before!’
‘Well, that’s the way it can be sometimes! It’s not gonna always run smoothly!’
‘Especially when people keep interfering! Sticking their stupid noses in!’
‘Exactly!’ I said. ‘You got it now, my man!’ and we all had ourselves a really good chortle.
I don’t know what time it was when at last I rolled home, with so many images just flying through my head like black-and-white playing cards going flip flip flip, as all these titles for the ‘psychobilly’ movie came swooping in my sleep: Death of a Salesman, Reservoir Death, Murder on the Irish Border. And the one which seemed most insistent — Stories from the Animal Pit, the animal pit meaning Scots-field or Ireland — being decided upon — eureka three! — the following morning as I sprang up in the bed.
(Piece ends here with, once again, heavily scored in bold black type:)
THE ANIMAL PIT
A film by Joey Tallon
Which, of course, never did see the light of day!
Error of Judgement
Even now, Bonehead maintains it was all my own fault and that if I hadn’t gone blabbing about it to Austie things might have turned out differently.
Which he’d be better off not saying, to tell you the truth, for it gets on my fucking nerves when he does it. And we only end up squabbling again.
‘Oh, what the fuck do you know, Bonehead!’ I said to him. ‘You know sweet fuck all about it! Anyway, it might just as well have happened that way as any other fucking way! It’s all the fucking same in the end!’
Whenever you talk like that, of late, it drives poor Bonehead crazy. Crazy! Especially when you remind him that he once thought along those lines himself. ‘But that was different! We had nathin’ then!’ he says. ‘Sweet eff-all is what we had! Things are so much better now! Look, Joesup, you’ve got a lot more going for you than most people! Once upon a time you had an excuse! But not now! Don’t be an eejit, Joesup! Don’t throw it all away! It’s here, Joesup! Ripe for the taking!’
No point in telling him it’s not. Or elucidating any details I might consider relevant regarding my little ‘error of judgement’ that particular day in Austie’s.
I’d had a dream the night before in which I’d seen every detail of the ‘forthcoming’ movie so crystal clear it had gotten me all fired up, all … consumed by a desire just to share the experience …
‘Do you understand what I’m saying, Austie?’ I kept repeating. ‘What it is that I’m trying to do? Yeah? What I’m about here is sharing the idea! No more misunderstandings! Let’s lay it on the line! Are you hearing me here, Austie?’
‘I’m hearing you,’ he said. ‘It’s not as if you’re not shouting loud enough!’
I remember laughing at that. I shouldn’t have, maybe, but I did.
I tapped the bar counter with my pencil and tried to articulate further, inwardly, it seems to me now, being just that tiny bit amused as I caught a glimpse of Austie’s ‘intelligent’ look, with his chin on resting on his hand and his brow so tightly knitted, as though he were thinking: Ladies and gentlemen: Tonight on the South Bank Show — ‘Cinema!’, with Austie Hogan!
At any rate, I proceeded. ‘The idea originally was for a hard-hitting, extremely realistic film set in the Ireland of the 1970s, a dirty, uncompromising, high-octane narrative called ‘Psychobilly’ about the life that was lived here at that time. Using our own very town here as a sort of … example. A microcosm, I think, is the word.’
‘Yes, it is!’ agreed Austie as if he knew, sagaciously adding: ‘That’s what it would be now, Joey!’
‘But now I think I’ll go less for realism than a wild experimental approach. Just turn the camera loose and see what it comes up with! When you’ve a good tight script you can afford to operate like that. You getting my drift here, Austie?’
‘Uh-huh,’ he replied.
‘A sort of Cronenberg/Cassavetes style, with some Andy Warhol influence. Maybe with a dash of Buñuel.’
‘Bunwell,’ nodded Austie.
‘With original music by Boo Boo, I hope.’
‘The fellow whose arm went west!’
‘Exactly!’ I continued. ‘And which is one of the central events which we will be dealing with in the movie. There will be others, of course, which I’ve decided to approach maybe more in the Cassavetes mould. Yes! For those sections I’m more inclined to retain the idea of black and white. Sharp, crisp realism. Hard-edged monochrome. Documentary style. Like it happened then but it’s also happening now — you still following me? You see, Austie, there’s something really immediate about monochrome even though it’s not used much, not now, obviously. The effect I hope to achieve is that, while we’ll know it’s the past, it will still hit us hard. We’ll allude to each and every single tragedy. Within reason, of course! The band being blown up, the Peace Rally atrocity and, of course, the senseless slaying of Detective Tuite by Sandy and Boyle Henry. Subject matter which is obviously sensitive but will be treated in an appropriate manner.’
It was at this point that Austie stood
back from the counter and gasped: ‘What?’
This, of course, was the moment of the error of judgement, for up until that moment he’d already lost interest. He wiped the counter, then looked quite stunned as he stared at me again and said: ‘What did you just say, Tallon?’
To relieve him a bit, I laughed just a little and tossed my head back: ‘Oh, no real names of course! I mean, I’m not that stupid! No, we’ll fictionalize all the names and ensure there’s no problem like that. I mean, it’s not about compromising people in that way. What it’s about is the truth. Isn’t that what they mean when they use the term “cinema verité”?’
Austie frowned just a little then sucked his teeth as he flicked the dishcloth across his shoulder and spread both palms on the counter. Then he fixed me with his gaze as he frowned and said: ‘I couldn’t tell you what they mean, Joey.’
‘Well,’ I sighed and stretched my limbs, ‘I think I’d best be going!’ Then I thought for a minute as I waited for that final crystallization. I moulded some shapes in the air with my hands and said: ‘I’m thinking Faces, Austie, and I’m thinking Hands! I’m thinking Killing of a Chinese Bookie! But most of all, I’m thinking truth! The Peace Rally! Tuite! The Animal Pit! The very heart of the seventies at last laid bare so we can know the truth about ourselves! Am I making sense? Why, I might even call it The Animal Pit! What do you think?’
‘The Animal Pit,’ repeated Austie in a monotone.
It was only when I got out on to the street that I realized what it was I’d forgotten to say. When I went back in, Austie was talking on the phone. I heard him using the words ‘Animal Pit’ and ‘Tuite’.
‘Austie!’ I said as he slammed the receiver down abruptly and swung on his heel, grey-faced.
‘What do you want?’ he snapped as he turned sharply like he was trying to hide the telephone. I was a bit wrong-footed by this abrupt and unexpected change of mood. I had intended to tell him about the Big Fellow but now there didn’t seem any point.
‘If you’ve got something to say, just say it!’ he said, then realized what he’d said. And the way it must have sounded.
‘Do you hear me, Joey?’ he laughed then, wiping his hands. ‘I think I must be working too hard!’
It was only just then that I thought of the pies and felt the blood coursing up towards my face, in that way that always happens when you know you’ve been talking too much.
‘Well? Well?’ I kept hearing him say, like he was standing at the far end of the bar. Except that he was standing right in front of me.
‘Well? Well?’ was all I could hear.
Someone came in then, and he turned and walked away. I stood there looking as he chatted to them behind his hand. Then the two of them turned and looked in my direction. They gave me the very same look Boyle Henry had done. That first time. I didn’t know what to think then. I was almost on the verge of calling for a pie, managing to pull back just at the very last second.
My head was buzzing as I fell out into the street. To make matters worse, I caught a glimpse of Jacy coming out of the Fuck Me and had to duck into the bookies in order to avoid her. My heart was pounding as I heard her going past. She was dressed in a cheap imitation leather raincoat, carrying a bag that was swinging all right, but it wasn’t the patchwork shoulder one you saw her with in the seventies. It was the type you might see your mother with.
Or anyone. Just then I saw Boyle Henry pull up and the door of his car swing open. It was a new one, with smoked-glass windows. When I looked again she had already climbed in and, indistinctly, through the smoked glass I could see him leaning forward to give her a kiss. I winced.
‘Do you want to place a bet or not?’ the bookie kept saying to me. I didn’t know how long he’d been saying it. I couldn’t stop thinking: Where did she go, that Californian girl who surfed in the sun? Where could she possibly have —?
‘Do you hear me, Tallon?’ he said again, and just to keep him quiet I put a bet on some fucking horse.
‘There you are!’ he said as he handed me the slip, then smiled as if all was well.
If only he knew, I thought to myself as I opened the door on to the blinding street.
I didn’t sleep very much that night, tossing and turning and thinking of the bar, with Austie standing wiping a glass before looking up and saying: ‘That’s him!’ as he pointed at me sitting there, reading Hermann Hesse. Except it was a Hermann Hesse novel without any words. The pages were completely empty. When I heard Austie saying that, I started flicking frantically through it in the hope that some print might magically appear. But it didn’t. The pages remained obstinately blank. Then Austie wiped the glass again and looked up. Now his face was blank. With just a slit for a mouth, which piercingly but insouciantly remarked: ‘Oh, it’s him all right. It’s Joey Tallon. He used to work here, a long time ago. Ah yes. But that’s what it was — a long, long time ago.’ He left down the glass and looked up again. But this time he was different. He looked like Charles Manson. But not the good one, the gentle gardener. The other one. There was only one thing for it, I realized, as I shifted about in the sodden, tossed bed.
And that was to do some writing. That will keep me busy, I thought. But I couldn’t manage to get the pen to stay steady on the page, so I put on my clothes and went off out to the reservoir. I was on the verge of tears when I heard Charles Manson’s voice — the sinister one — ever so gently stirring among the leaves. It said: ‘I’m way up here, Joey! How are you doing? Are you OK? You don’t look too good! You don’t look so fucking good, man! You look like shit! You look like hell!’
That was as much as I could take. ‘You may think so,’ I said as I tried to locate where I thought he might be, far beyond the massive bank of cloud, ‘but that is where you’d be wrong, my friend! You see, I’m feeling just fine! Because today’s the day!’
And it was. It was the day of days and nothing would stop me making it special. So I fought with myself far down deep inside and said: ‘Now don’t be dumb! Don’t go screwing it up!’
Except that I wouldn’t be because, after an invigorating draught of the fresh clean air, I was already starting to feel OK. I listened acutely to the leaves as they rustled, and who did I hear coming through on the breeze? Was it Manson, he of the wild hairy mane and the crazed, glass eyes? No. It wasn’t. It wasn’t Charlie Manson the ruthless psychotic hippy killer. It was The Seeker. My old pal Eamon Byrne. And he sounded so peaceful. More content than ever I’d remembered him. Up there in the precious harbour, I thought as I found myself smiling.
Then I went off to get me some breakfast. All the better to fortify myself for the long day’s shooting ahead. It was going to be great. I could feel it now in my bones. What sleep did I need, I asked myself. Being up all night imbued you with a kind of alertness, the kind of nervous energy that could only improve one’s work, ensuring that you missed not a single detail.
It was a tremendous feeling when you realized that. Aware now as you pulled on your ‘shooting gear’ — the waistcoat and black polo neck, plus the eyepiece strung around your neck, of course! — that everything in the end had come good, regardless of whatever sweats or revisitings of old anxieties there might have been. Not to mention ridiculous dreams about Austie No-Face.
‘I must tell him about it sometime,’ I laughed as I strode towards the college, thinking of him laughing whenever he heard about it, tossing back his head as he wiped another glass, going: ‘Oh now! Me flogging whiskey without a fucking face! Can you imagine it, Joey? Can you just imagine it now?’
Which indeed I could, no problem at all. For right at that moment I could imagine almost anything. But not in a bad way. Absolutely not. In a really terrific way, in fact, that made everything once again seem possible. Yes, we were back on track, I thought to myself, and as I strolled through the gates I just could not stop myself indulging, for that minute or so before it was time to start working, in the idea of a certain Joseph, now a celebrated film-maker, fêted internationally, with
his name in lights over the cinema facades of the world. His movies written up in all the trade papers, waving to fans from some balcony or other.
‘I’m going to put Scotsfield on the map!’ I told the kids in my pre-shoot pep talk. ‘You wait and see if I don’t! Yes, kids, this is gonna be the one! And every one of us is part of it! The Animal Pit! A major motion picture, produced and directed by Joseph Tallon, and distributed by Wonderful Pictures!’
The Big Fellow scenes, once we’d begun in earnest — there’d been a few technical hitches — started rolling like clockwork. The student who played him — a different one this time, a stouter chap — looked really good. I got him to dress up in his grandfather’s hat and suit — a fabulous, wide-lapelled brown chalkstripe. ‘Give me a smile!’ I barked through the loudhailer, and started the camera rolling. He looked absolutely great in the viewfinder, tipping back his fedora and waving, with this fiercely hideous grin on his face.
‘Look out, you fuckers!’ he shouts out suddenly. ‘He’s the buddy you don’t wanna see!’ then he goes and strangles one of his classmates, shaking him like a puppet.
‘Louder! Louder! Gurgle louder!’ I cried at the top of my voice until I was practically blue in the face, at one point jumping up and down. The student he ‘killed’ was kind of blue as well, but what a performance!
‘Jesus Christ!’ he says as he tumbled away. ‘I thought for a minute you were really going to do it.’
‘Excellent,’ I said, ‘really excellent,’ nodding to myself as I swung the loudhailer.
The scene after that also went very well. It was the part of the movie where the Peace Rally’s just started and the Big Fellow is making his way through the crowd, in those final few seconds before the bomb goes off.
(The situation here — now! With erstwhile archivist and general Man Friday Bonehead, right here in Dunroamin’, this fabulous, rambling country retreat of ours!)