Electric Acorn 12 : Fiction : Michael O'Keeffe

Electric Acorn 12 : Short Stories:

Michael O'Keeffe

The Barring Order

I'd never have taken Lonnie Chambers for a wife beater but the word is that Colette has got a barring order so I suppose it must be true. Me, Lonnie and Derek Murtagh drink regularly in Crosby's. There's no formal arrangement, you understand, we just seem to bump into each other there all the time It's a nice place, the pint is good and there's never any trouble. A lot of the other places have a younger crowd drinking there now and there's usually trouble at the weekends. A few weeks ago some guy got stabbed in a fight outside McShanes. There was an argument over a girl or something and these two guys went at it outside the pub. One of them produces a knife and the other poor bloke ends up in the morgue. It's changed a lot around here I can tell you. The thing is, it used to be a quiet neighbourhood when I was growing up. Sure, there was the occasional bit of bother but that happens everywhere, right? There was a good community spirit too; people helped each other out when things went wrong. My Ma always looked after old Mrs. Stephenson after her husband was killed in an accident. The Stephensons were from the country and had no kids so people just rallied round when she had her troubles. That's the kind of place it used to be but now all that seems to be gone. There's a high crime rate here but you never see the cops that much. Isn't it the truth, you can never get a cop when you need one?

Anyway getting back to Lonnie, if you're wondering about his name I can explain all that. You see his old mans nickname was Lonnie; his real name was Sean just like the Lonnie I'm talking about. They say the old man once played double bass with Lonnie Donegan's skiffle band in London for a few weeks in the fifties when the regular player was sick or something. So after that his mates gave him the name as a bit of a joke. Sean junior sort of inherited the name as a kid and I've never known him as anything else. He's a real quiet bloke and that's why I can't understand the barring order. Dereck Murtagh said exactly the same thing as me when we were having a few pints here the other night. We both said that Lonnie was a quiet inoffensive sort of guy. And Colette is a real nice girl, she's pretty with an outgoing personality but she never messed around with other men, not as far as I know anyway. They have three lovely kids too, twin boys Ashley and Gordon and a little girl, Clodagh. I always thought they were a real happy family but you never know.

Me, I never got married. I've had a few girlfriends but they never lasted. To be honest I'm not that much interested in girls, well not since Maureen anyway, but that was a few years ago. You see, I'm forty-two now, I own my own gaff since the parents died and I've been on the sick for the last five years. I used to have a good job driving a forklift in a warehouse but one day a load of pallets fell on me and damaged my shoulder pretty bad so I can't work anymore. I live a quiet life, just the few pints and the horses. I can't stand football. I go home from the pub if there's a match on the telly; all these guys roaring for Arsenal or Leeds and getting all steamed up and arguing, no thanks. Sometimes I think I'd like to be married, it would be nice to come home and have someone to talk to and not have to do my own cooking all the time. But to be honest I like my own company and it's great when you have the telly to yourself. I like the soaps and I think Big Brother is a gas.

Lonnie has been staying in my place off and on since the barring order and much as I like him it's been a lot of trouble. He comes home drunk and starts talking about the kids and how much he loves them and starts crying. That part is really embarrassing. I hate to see a bloke crying, it's not natural. The other night he came home in bits, balling his eyes out and talking about the twin's birthday; it was more than I could take. He had presents for the boys and was all upset because he would not see them until the weekend. He gets supervised visits with the kids on a Saturday and Sunday. This was Wednesday night and he was in some state. After a while he said he was going over to the house to drop off the presents even though he's not allowed near the place under the rules of the barring order. I tried to talk sense to him but he was having none of it. If I tried to stop him he'd have got rough with me, he's one big bloke and I'm not exactly what you'd call Mike Tyson. He came back about an hour later in a worse state than he left and shortly after that the cops arrived. Well that was when all hell broke loose. First off I answered the door and this big cop asks for Lonnie so naturally I said he wasn't here. Next thing I know these two big country cops are kicking the shit out off me on the floor and two other cops are having a go at Lonnie. Lonnie put up a hell of a fight and eventually it took the four of them to subdue him. By this time I'm a nervous wreck and hurting all over where the two cops kicked me. Anyway, at the end of it all they dragged Lonnie off to the station and gave me a warning that I was in trouble too for trying to protect him. You try to do a bloke a good turn and you end up in the shit yourself, but that's life I suppose.

It now turns out that when Lonnie left my place earlier he called to give the kids their presents but Colette wouldn't let him in. He got all upset and ended up hitting her again in front of the kids. The neighbours called the cops, Lonnie does a runner back to my place and you know the rest. He got remanded in custody and is due in court next Monday. I have to go along as a witness for my troubles, me a bloody witness, and all I want is a quiet life. You know, I still don't understand it. When we're in the pub talking about horses and things he's the quietest bloke you could meet so I just can't understand him loosing the head like that. Maybe its women are the problem, I don't know. And don't ask me either, I'm just an ordinary bloke when all's said and done.

Biography

I am 53 years old and retired early from business (finance) a year ago. I am presently looking for a part time job. I have been writing on and off for about five years and I have had a story published in and earlier edition of EA. My other interests are sport (I play golf), music ( I sing in two choirs) and of course literature. I am considering applying for an Open University course in English lit later this year. Originally from Cork I am married with two teenage daughters and now live in Greystones Co Wicklow. The two short story writers I admire most are Frank O'Connor and Raymond Carver.