Africa Day

Submitted by Dan McKenna

​There are many in our line of play with a genuine and positive interest in people. Some exhibit these qualities until they get what they want, and there are more of those. Francis Cronin was the height of good nature, but hard work. We were very close but in these strange times we always found it best to revert to a two named basis. I have to get to Africa Day.

It has become clear that everyone here wishes to have sex with one another. In a summer of my youth, a particular concerned mother would regularly take a seat on a free arm of the couch to rub circles of lotion onto her meddling hands after tending to the garden. Poe's Tell Tale Heart in stone washed jeans, the tension and discomfort completely unbearable for everyone present. I’m not sure how Francis Cronin and I became the mother’s on the arms of this couch but it was time to go. We offered up a hollow farewell to no reply. The smell of imminent and lengthy regret hung heavy in the air.

Marauding through a recently fallen Rome, and fading fast, we glimpsed a small burst of activity in a faraway corner. A jester troupe. Their fire pois smoked on scorched dewy grass. We approached. Three women, two of which cackling hysterically, gathered near a Peugeot Boxer. Sirens laughing at the rocks.

One sleepy girl sat on the step of the open Peugeot Boxer, and bodies piled upon bodies slept deeply inside. The remaining two waxed lyrical nonsense in a cacophony of near wordless exchanges.

Francis Cronin and I took to the belief that these two were newlyweds. The better looking of the two wore a loosely fitted pork pie hat, a ruffled shirt and a dull paisley dickey-bow. The other, a summer dress, moccasins, a dark wiry beard and three rotten black teeth. A deeply rooted mole sat on top of her beard line. There was something unusual about the whole situation but it had escaped us completely. I have to get to Africa Day.

Our presence sharpened their focus and we made thoughtless automatic conversation. I think they’re from Tipperary, but that didn’t really matter right now.

They presented us with a duck-billed chamber pot of cheap and awful wine. We scanned their vicinity for signs of children, found none and obliged. The bearded bride demanded we leave the wine on the ground. She was truly wicked.
I needed to get to Africa Day and this may be my final chance. I dropped to all fours and crawled alongside Francis Cronin to lap great big sups of wine, to much amusement and applause.
The wine helped.

Francis Cronin stared curiously over at the fire pois. He loved anything flammable, except brandy. He began to fidget with the chained pois and he handed me a set. I’m no good and I immediately give up. I could never do playground tricks.

Francis Cronin thinks he’s doing very well.
He isn’t.

He spins pois on chains in clumsy alternating circles, with unfeigned concentration and residual playground confidence. It’s funny how these things are carried into adulthood.

‘Dya have yer lighter?’ Francis Cronin says.

I’m not too impressed with where this is going. The newlyweds were at this stage, completely bored of us and recoup the duck billed chamber pot of terrible wine for themselves. Francis Cronin’s eyes are barely open and he continues to call out to me,

‘Light her up Danny Boy.’
He has dipped the pois in the accelerant and is baselessly confident. I spark up my lighter but flick the steel cover over the wick as it leaves his eye line. This would-be Tibetan Monk begins to pump furious circles, each poi striking the opposite arm with all but every swing.

Imaginary circles of fire rage around him like planetary rings. He pumps sweat and pant’s loudly. He tenses his face and locks his stance and jaw as if working towards some sort of climax or conclusion.

Satisfied by a gallant effort, this jaded gas giant shakes off his orbital moons and comes back to Earth.

The sheer boredom of it all sobered me up. I remind Francis Cronin that I must be getting to Africa day.

We approached the Peugeot Boxer at the flank of their camp only to find sleeping bodies disturbed by a strange arrival. A double amputee in communion attire had pounded his fists along the mucky ground towards the Peugeot Boxer, clawed past the sleepy siren and wedged himself between two sleeping pyromancers, one being the owner of the van.

They attempt to grab the amputee by the scruff of the neck and by his leg husks, to no avail. The amputee pivots and swings two great big oval shaped punches, landing one right in the teeth of the malaised husk tugger. ‘You’re going to have to leave him there’, I said, ‘There’s no moving him when he’s like this’.

The amputee was an old friend of ours. We played football together in school. We always tell people that he was the goal post but he wasn’t always like this. He worked in a little student bar next to the shopping centre where we grew up.
We were all about twenty when his legs got crushed by a malfunctioning lift during a keg delivery before Patrick's day. They couldn’t save either of them. He got a fair few quid for it but that’s long gone now. When he’s at something like this, the communion shit is to break the tension when he meets new people. Something else to talk about besides the accident. He has a good sense of humour but he’s a terrible drunk.

Beardy demanded our legless friend be removed. You could tell she was agricultural. As she scolded out constant words of rebuke, something became very clear to me. I reached out and tugged her wiry beard, snapping the elastic string and removing it completely from her face.

Francis Cronin got sick and for a second I thought he was crying.

All but one black tooth had also fallen off as her front teeth bit down on her bottom lip to enunciate a series of plosive F sounds.

The mole was real.

We crawled along the dewy ground and snuck one last fistful of duck billed chamber pot wine. Then we left. After a tender embrace, I bid Francis Cronin adieu, made vague arrangements for my personal effects and strolled through a thorny parting in the brambles, over a ditch and out into an indifferent world.
A thousand dramas dulled in the distance as I walked briskly through an onion field. Onions rested upon furrowed brows of mounted earth from where I stood until the main road. I filled my pockets. These were devious hours.

A recently fly-tipped Beko fridge, crushed the bramble of a soon-to-be blackberry bearing bush. I passed through the clearing in a waft of leaky CFC’s and I walked until a sign confirmed I was on the Dublin road and Dublin bound. I stuck out my thumb.

A few cars passed but I feared I may look completely insane. The coconut aroma of the flowering gorse had awoken my digestive system. I was very hungry and I ate three of the onions, partly out of hunger, and partly out of humour.

I walked all the way to the Enfield Service Station.

Careening across the service’s forecourt, I tapped an ancient dance past the trash eating amphibians and hoped to be recognised as a human man. The doors swung open to reveal an Enfield Service Station in a state of pure chaos. There were more balloons than not balloons. Waxy clowns sponged white makeup onto sallow skin with clenched nicotine stained fingernails. A heavily built Eastern European man battered pineapples on to thick screws, torqued into a makeshift Tiki Bar. Bunting and banners strung asymmetrically read; Today Enfield services turns 10.

It’s the garage's birthday and me with my arms swinging.

Everything about this is inherently embarrassing. I retreat to the quiet grace of the forecourt. I have to get to Africa Day.

A Toyota Starlet pulls up off of the ramp and turns right into the services forecourt. It’s an automatic, Japanese import. The bonnet and skirting are decaled with tribal lower back tattoos from the early noughties. The window staggers down, hand cranked and reveals the stringy figure of a young man about nineteen years of age.

‘Are yee well’? he said, as midlands as can be.

This fella didn't have a bad bone in his body. He had kind eyes. He still looked like he sold dodgy hash and wouldn’t eat a vegetable, but I bet he’s nice to his granny. I bet his aunties think he’s just fine.

‘Are you heading to Dublin’? I asked him. ‘If I can take your place’, he coldly suggests. I nod and with that, we tear down the M4.

A lock on the Royal Canal was being opened off in the distance, by two bargees. I laughed to myself at the varied nature of human existence, but kept the thought to myself. We had no desire to understand each other. We wanted something from one another and there's mutual respect in that, but it’s not friendly respect. We drove straight to Herbert Park. I did not for a single second remember his name.

Africa day was in full swing. My performance would last only twenty-five minutes. A family crowd watched as I performed through a truly broken smile.
An astral projection of my woe filled soul writhed above my automatic joyless body until a brace of tiny clapping hands relieved me for the day.
I walked a circle of the event. Performers like myself occupied every corner. There were drumming troupes, gospel choirs and dancers.
Food stalls with decorative animal print sold generous portions of jollof rice and mungbean for reasonable prices.
Children ran rings around each other in fancy dress with relentless energy drawn from both sugar and a break in routine. Parents sipped coffee and proudly clapped along to the antics and games of the day.

A street performer had attracted a large cohort of children to his grassy arena. He wore a sleeveless ringmaster jacket, with the top two straps unfastened and light linen trousers with vertical zebra stripes. He also had a bowler hat, but it was sitting on the ground. He was clean shaven and looked as unoffensive as a man in circus attire could. He had a clip-on microphone on his lapel and spoke through a speaker on his belt.

By the time I joined the ranks of his captive audience, he was already juggling five pins, while making slapstick jokes for the children. They watched his every move in pure adoration and admiration, never breaking their stunned gaze for a second.

The juggler decided that now was the time to cash in on the children's teeming excitement and he announced his finale. The first finale of a dozen that he will perform today, and the most genuine.
The pins returned to their satchel with the balls and a quintet of polished steel knives were brandished to the crowd. The children gasped. Some cried. Some buried their factless heads into the torso of their dogs or siblings. They looked up through cracks in their hands as the juggler chimed the cold steel blades off one another, ramping up tension and a sense of reverence.

All five knives are in the air. The juggler makes nervous faces and pretends to almost drop one, playing with their emotions. They’re with him every step of the way. He throws every 4th knife higher in the air than the other’s and teases that he may not catch it, but he knows exactly what he’s doing. He screams out to the children,

‘Are you ready’?????????

‘YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS’,

A chorus of pure joy and further applause sees him throw all 5 knives, 20 feet into the air. There is a gasp and a pregnant pause.

As the juggler catches each knife he throws them down into the ground until all five knives are handle-side up, forming a straight line in front of him. He threads along the handles in his bare feet, flips forward and completes several somersaults along the ground before rising to his feet, clapping a single clap and throwing both arms into the air.
The children let out a joyful scream and clap their tiny hands. The smaller children get up off the grass to give a standing ovation. The juggler takes a bow and promptly passes the bowler from parent to parent before the rapture of applause relents.

I was weeping uncontrollably.



By Dan McKenna

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