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Link Details for: | The Song Contest |
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| Link ID# | 11 |
| Link URL | http:// |
| Submited By | Jimmy Plenderleith |
| Added On | Tue_Sep_23__2003 |
Description:
The Song Contest Bread – bip. Milk – bip. Orange Juice – bip. Bananas. On scale off scale. Bip. Paul David Cahill, otherwise known as Peedee, monotonously exposed each product’s bar code to the whirling laser beam in repetitious mockery of his job title checkout assistant. He felt like Charlie Chaplin caught up in a gigantic and unforgiving machine on a production line that stopped for nothing. It was Friday evening at the Blanchardstown QuickSave. Peedee was one of eight teenagers lined up in rows that fed tons of foodstuffs and household merchandise past scanners for twelve hours each day except Sunday. This was his Transition Year in school. This was the year in which he matured, became aware of his life choices, made decisions about his future. But as he sat (or sometimes stood as his supervisor Rachel suggested he do at least once every hour) at his register and matured, his mind refused to stay on the job and wandered off to dwell on his dilemma. As a smaller than average fifteen year old he was not happy with the sobriquet Peedee which rhymed unfortunately well with ‘Weedy’ and this was the name nearly everyone in school, except teachers of course, called him. But although small, even diminutive, in stature he had a singular physical talent that surprised and delighted people on the rare occasions when he practised it. He had a marvellous natural baritone singing voice. Not only that but he also had an uncanny control of his larynx, mouth and lips and could mimic any artist that he listened to. On demand he could belt out My Way with Sinatra’s weird phrasing or Ave Maria as though Luciano Pavorotti himself was rattling the glasses. At school he didn’t excel at anything. In fact he mostly hated the place, its uniformity, its hidden menace. But he liked English and he liked Maths and he was okay at Science. And in the past year he’d started to write songs that he played skilfully on a guitar his mother had bought for him. Those who listened found in them a peculiar longing. One in particular he completed fully, words and music. It was called Gone and started off: My love is strong, But my lover is gone. Peedee didn’t know where these bittersweet sentiments had come from. His experience of girls and dating came from going to weekend dances with schoolmates and sometimes persuading a plain girl to go to the pictures with him on the following Wednesday. No love was spurned, no heart broken. Earlier this year he had decided that he would enter the Blanchardstown Song Contest. This was open to anyone who could sing their own composition either by themselves or in a group and was a very popular yearly event, broadcast live by the local radio station. He knew he could sing nearly anything and Gone was ready to be entered. But his heart sank at the thought of standing up at the microphone, on his own, his schoolmates in the audience, taunting. One night some weeks ago his brother Richey had come back from the pub with a few workmates. Their parents were gone to Galway for the weekend and so an impromptu party developed. Richey was three years older than Peedee and his one true love was pop music. He worked every Saturday in the town’s record shop more for the love of being around cd’s and tapes and charts and promotional posters than the money. Richey’s collection of music was enormous and as the night went on he dug out older records until he had the Beatles’ early songs playing. At one point, during She Loves You a near legless Tommo Neary joined in with John, Paul, George and Ringo and sang harmony, note perfect. Peedee, who’d been sitting down on the carpet nursing a beer his brother had given him, stared up at Tommo who was shaking his head, eyes closed, doing the ‘ooooohhh’ in a full throated alto. ‘Try singing that again and I’ll sing with you’ Peedee blurted out. Tommo looked at Peedee as he uncrossed his legs and stood up. ‘Go on!’ Richey and some others cried. ‘Yeah sing it again’.’ Give it loads!’ ‘He knows all the words - don’t you Paul?’ Richey shouted from the turntable without looking up. The music started again. Peedee and Tommo sang word and pitch perfect, their voices resonating powerfully in the room. They both sang harmonies that shocked the revellers into silence. Other songs followed All My Loving, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, If I Fell, each followed by roars of encouragement from the gob smacked audience. Peedee’s face was flushed when Tommo put both hands on his shoulders and said ‘Boy you’re good’. Next morning, amidst the stale cigarette smoke and empty beer cans, Peedee wheedled a promise from Richey to ask Tommo if he’d sing in the song contest with him. ‘Sure, if he’s drunk enough. He only sings when he’s jarred. But I’ll ask him on Monday’ Richey replied. This wasn’t very encouraging at all. Nevertheless he’d asked a favour of his brother, which had been granted, and he didn’t want to now churlishly reject it. But my god, he could just imagine Tommo having a few steadiers in the Black Horse on the morning of the heats and if he didn’t fall off the stage and if they did get into the final, they would have to go through it all again a few days later. He wondered if he could he ask his brother to mind Tommo, chaperone him to make sure he didn’t drink too early. Too early? What was he thinking about? No, it was impossible. He couldn’t do it. He’d have to say it to Richey tonight, ‘sorry for asking, good of you to offer, but no’. But there was someone he could ask. Once he thought about it he knew how well it could work. Darren Mooney, a schoolmate who not only didn’t use his awful nickname but actually called him Paul. Fresh-faced Darren, voice-of-an-angel Darren, best-in-the-school-choir Darren. Gay Darren! Thus the dilemma. Being seen even talking to Darren could get your head shoved down a toilet at school. But to appear on a stage with him. Singing harmony? Peedee involuntarily shuddered and let a tin slip from his hands. He smiled up at the customer as she nodded and looked away. On the other hand there could be big benefits - a Blanch Simon and Garfunkle wowing the crowds. It would be just the beginning. There were plenty of bands out there looking for a singer/songwriter. If they won they would certainly be interviewed. ‘What are your musical influences? What do you hope to do next? Will this make a difference to your life?’ A grin spread across his face as he dreamt on. The following day, Saturday, he called around to Darren’s house. Mrs. Mooney, a good-looking blonde woman who got whistled at in the street and was therefore somewhat housebound, fussily ushered him into the front room. Darren, when he came in, looked pale and tired. ‘Hi Paul, you’re looking good. What’s up?’ They both sat down on armchairs at opposite sides of the fireplace. ‘I’d hoped you might help me out with a, ahm, project’. ‘A project? Tell me about it’. Peedee explained about the song contest, which was three weeks away, but left out Tommo and the powers of harmony and alcohol. As he spoke Darren became more animated, eyes wide, head nodding, fingers splaying and contracting on the chair’s curved arm. Mrs. Mooney came in with a tray packed with a china teapot, cups, saucers, spoons, milk jug, sugar bowl, plates of biscuits and wrapped chocolate bars. She set them down carefully on a small table between them. ‘Well Paul you haven’t been in this house since you were in Junior School. You used come around every Saturday with your comics and you and Darren would read them at the table there.’ The room felt hot even though there was a spring snap in the air outside. ‘Paul wants me to sing with him at the Blanchardstown Song Contest next month. He wrote a song. He thinks it would sound better with harmony. I think it’s a great idea.’ And so it was settled. Each evening Peedee would take his guitar around to Darren’s house where a tape recorder was set up in the dining room. They tried the song in various keys and at different rhythms until it sounded right. Although Darren was musically more skilled he deferred in most instances to the earthiness and originality of his singing partner. Finally the day of the heats came. They had decided to wear black crew-neck jumpers, pants and shoes, which would, they thought, give them something of a professional look. But when they arrived at the church hall, where stalls and tents and caravans around the grounds created a carnival atmosphere, they both felt they looked plain ordinary. Dressed to kill boy-bands, girl-bands, and famous name look-alikes and other wannabees all bustled around the organisers’ desks. They would be performing in the church hall proper so they found a table in the cafeteria area and waited their turn. When it came they were hurried on stage, asked their band name (Paul and Darren), their song name (Gone), and if they understood the rules (they did). The three judges then smiled and nodded for them to start. Peedee strummed a C chord and they began. At the end of the first verse the chairman of the judges, having talked to his colleagues, shouted ‘That’s enough!’ then laughed when he saw the look on their faces. ‘It’s okay you’re fine. You’re through.’ Later that evening Peedee and Richey bought some beer and went around to the garage where Richey had his DJ gear. ‘Do you know Darren well?’ Richey asked. ‘I know he’s supposed to be gay if that’s what you’re asking.’ ‘Do you trust him?’ ‘What do you mean?’ Peedee asked testily. ‘He might drop the hand, you know’. Richey winked. ‘ And if you do win he’ll probably start kissing you. He wont be able to help it. That’s the way they are, all emotional.’ Richey stretched and sighed. ‘In front of the whole of Blanch. There’ll be a big picture in the papers. God you’ve a lot of guts kiddo’. Peedee threw an empty can at him. On the night of the final they were the third act on after a girl band and a Celine Dion look-alike. The compere, a small man in a white tuxedo and cowboy boots, announced them as ‘Paul and Darren - Blanchardstown’s answer to Brian and Michael’ that caused a bemused murmur in the packed hall. ‘Match stalk Cats and Dogs – in the Seventies’ he added with a big smile and gestured to them to begin. ‘Tough audience’ he whispered as he passed. It was mid-way through the song when the beer bottle smashed into Darren’s face followed by a shout of ‘POOFTER’. Blood gushed from his nose and he fell to his knees. The crowd erupted. A bouncer chased a skinny youth in a baseball cap out into the lane as Peedee led Darren off the stage. In the wings a nurse pressed cotton wool into the bloody face. ‘Go out and finish the song’, Darren’s muffled voice pleaded, ‘it’s your song’. Orla, the broadcasting assistant from the radio station whom they’d met earlier added ‘He’s right, that’s you they’re all calling out for. Get back on’ Peedee retraced his steps and, alone in the centre of the stage, sang loud and clear. He came first. The judges said he would walk tall from there that evening. The radio station interviewed him. What a story. When the summer came Weedy went off somewhere and never came back. PeeDee soon followed him leaving Paul David Cahill singer/songwriter to bask in the sun. |
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