A Family Tale

From The Grind, by Karl Parkinson

It started when I met Conker.

Fuckin Conker. I shoulda know better than teh even go

out with a fella named Conker. But I was young and

mad for a fella. And to be honest, at first he was grand.

Used teh send me love letters and all. Bring me teh

duh pictures, duh pub. He made is livin dippin. What,

yuh don’t know what dippin is? He was a pickpocket, a

bag snatcher. Mostly tourists in duh summer, big fat

Americans with big fat wallets in their back pocket,

Spanish ones putting their handbags down on duh grass

and takin photos of duh ducks in duh pond in duh park,

or dopy cultchies up for GAA matches in Croke Park,

locked and throwing money around. But he got more

and more into duh drink. Spending more and more

time in duh pub, coming home locked, looking for his

hole. I tell yuh duh more kids we had duh worse he got,

and duh more of an alco he became. I tried to poison

duh bastard about five times, put rat poison in his

dinner, bleach in his soup, crushed up a loada pills into

his burger. And what do yuh think happened, fuckin

nothin, Conker just goes to sleep and wakes up duh

next day with a bit off a sick belly. Bleeding Rasputin

I’m married to, I used teh say teh Mary, me sister. I

wanted to get duh insurance on um. A nice few bob

for me and duh kids. I got it in duh end anyway, after

all that he falls down duh stairs of duh flats drunk,

Jimmy Doyle found him at duh bottom, step blood

pouring outta his head, choked on his blood and vomit

they said.

So there I was left teh raise three boys and a

sick youngone, my Pamela, she has duh Autism. Duh

Three boys, all of them joined Conker before they were

thirty. Paul went on Duh hard drugs when he was

fifteen, in and out of prison, on and off duh gear, clean

and back on it, robbing everything in duh flat to sell,

he ended up robbing an old man, duh man was eighty-

five, lived on his own, Paul broke in, just teh rob duh

telly and DVD player that’s all, but duh auld fucker

was an old school Dub and tried to put up a fight,

swung at Paul with a hammer he had by duh side of

duh door, Paul grabbed it off him and whacked duh old

boy in duh head with it and duh poor aulfella had a

fuckin heart attack and died. Duh papers went teh

town, scumbag junkie kills pensioner, all that, vile

killer and so on. When he went teh Mountjoy, he got a

right hidin in there, they made his life hell, and he did

himself in one night, slit his wrists. Patrick was teh be

quite honest a thick bollix, he was more harm teh

himself than anyone else, he once got caught robbing

knickers off duh washin line uv Mandy Kenny. Well,

he never lived that down, Mary, me sister, one

Christmas she bought um a knicker set from Penny’s,

wrapped it up and put it under duh tree for um an all.

He caught duh virus and it killed um, my poor son,

there was nothing I could do for um, ah well. Peter

duh youngest was as mad as a fuckin brush, teh tell duh

truth. Was always wild, gettin up to mischief since he

was a child. Was no surprise to anyone that he ended

up getting into duh drug-dealing life. They say he shot

some fella, or was it two fellas? I can’t remember. In

duh end, they came for him, blew him away right

there in duh street, in his front garden. Duh C.A.B

took all his money. I was left with nothin. I had to bury

my third son, and me with only me windows pension,

and me sister’s dole tha I collect on duh side. Duh

cunts are after me for tha now. I’m up in court in two

weeks. Don’t ask me how I ended up collecting it for

fourteen years, they go by so quick duh years don’t

they? Well, they can’t lock me up, sure who’d look

after Pamela, her with duh autism and all like?