Hoppy
As People walked their dogs through the park they usually overlooked the four redbrick buildings between the trees. There were many buildings hidden within the park, like the place where the guards’ boss sat in his office and the President’s house. The buildings were home to men who didn’t quite fit in. Every collection of people needs rules so there was a house manager paid by the HSE. Arthur was the house manager, though he didn’t advertise the fact. He was a tall man with grey hairline that had long since retreated under fire. He looked after the men, handed out their money and prepared client reports. The reports were mostly gibberish but someone must have read them because if they were late there was a fuss. The clients were free to go to town when they pleased, they got fed there and most were happy.Hoppy went to the shop every morning for twenty Carrolls, a bag of Emerald sweets and The Irish Independent that was kept for Arthur’s house. Hoppy liked to collect the paper before the staff got it so he could check the headlines. Where The Irish Times would lead with ‘Revenue Commissioners to investigate politicians funding’, The Irish Independent could be relied on to come up with something catchier: ‘Mystery leak reveals Tánaiste’s finances.’
As Hoppy didn’t read anything but the headlines his world view was slightly askew. He read the banner type in the knowledge that all the stories were centred on himself. He believed in everything. Catholicism, Buddhism, Horoscopes and Chaos theory; all were valid in his world view. He used to read books that suggested a butterfly beating its wings in New Hampshire could initiate a typhoon in China. These theories were all attractive and Hoppy picked from them at will, he was the ultimate á-la-carte practitioner. The fact that a lot of his beliefs contradicted each other did not bother him. The theories co-existed in his mind like parallel lines that never collided. He believed in reincarnation, the fundamental interconnectedness of all things and he believed in pretty much everything he heard on the radio. He was distrustful of television, as he was sure it broadcast messages designed to disturb people like him.
He sometimes walked into the TV room across from the nurses’ station where Arthur worked and sat watching the screen with his Walkman turned up loud, just to prove he could. He never stayed long. The rolling news showed famine and pestilence, war and genocide while he existed in his musical bubble. Sometimes the radio played songs like ‘I’m a believer’ by the Monkees. He hated the jangling guitars and honeyed vocals but the chorus made sense to him. Everyone nowadays was cynically rejecting organised religion and civic engagement while Hoppy embraced every belief he could cram into his disturbed but broad mind.
Hoppy had read a lot as he grew up; he had preferred the world of books to that of reality. As the messages came to him, the lines separating the two worlds started to blur. When his mother died Hoppy threw the television in the back garden and survived on a diet of beans and toast and the Marion Finnucane Show. This continued until a social worker came and told him he would be better off moving into the houses near the park.
Arthur liked his work; he managed the houses for the Health Board and had been doing the job for 10 years. He saw all sorts of clients come in but he didn’t like the look of McHugh. Arthur’s clients usually functioned well and he minded their money for them. They could go out for a pint or go shopping whenever it suited them. In his experience the houses functioned like a reality TV show; all the residents had their own agenda and this could lead to conflicts. McHugh was affable enough when he came in. His dark eyes darted from side to side as he gave his details. On instinct Arthur placed him in a room with three tough men who barely acknowledged his arrival. Arthur was off that night but heard that McHugh had tried to start with one of the men in his room. He had been put down and he stayed down. Arthur nodded the next morning when he heard the reports, these things had a habit of levelling themselves out.
Hoppy lived in one of the small houses and was having difficulty isolating himself from the world. One day he went to Arthur and asked for 100 Euro of his allowance. Hoppy didn’t go to the pub and cigarettes were his main expense so the manager handed him the money without question. Hoppy got the bus into town and went into an electronics shop on the quays. The shop assistant wore a cheap polyester suit and a loud tie. He looked Hoppy up and down taking in the unfashionable jumper and shoes.
“Can I help you there?”
“I want to buy a pair of headphones.”
“Well they start at €8.99 for the in-the-ear ones.”
“No I want ones that block out the noise like the DJs have. To block out the…ye know..”
“Background noise. We have Sennheiser pro headphones but they are a bit dearer.”
Hoppy asked the question with his eyes. How much?
“€99.50”
“Can I try them out?”
The shop assistant was surprised that Hoppy would even consider the price and shrugged as he picked out a demo model. After all, it was more commission for him if the strange little man made a purchase. Hoppy gave him a disc and he placed it in a player. Before he had a chance to plug in the headphones the shop was filled with the sounds of Chumbawumba singing that “I get knocked down and I get up again”. The assistant plugged in the correct lead and Hoppy put on the headphones. He was transfixed as people walked around him in the shop without a sound. He paid for the oversized headphones and walked all the way back to the houses marvelling at them. That was before McHugh found him.
McHugh had spent some time homeless but was too belligerent to be an effective beggar. He soon came up with an alternative strategy. He would call around on the younger lads on the street and take from them. He would get a few fags and some money to buy cans in the Spar shop. He operated by isolating one beggar at a time, looking for addicts. He would lean in over their huddled figures.
“Have you seen the gear man?”
“No, he comes around at eleven.”
“Are you buying off him?”
“No, I told you I’m skint.”
“You are a dirty little junkie, you will be buying. Give it to me or I’ll slit you wide open.”
The beggar would protest but paralysed with fear would hand over the balled up notes and Euro coins. McHugh usually threw the coppers in the river, it meant nothing to him but it broke the beggars; from then on he owned them. He strutted around town collecting from the homeless and drinking the proceeds by the canal or in the park. It wasn’t a bad life but he was barred from his home and as the weather became colder he needed to find a new gaf.
He went to the social and got himself assessed. The psychologist reported that he was a sociopath and as such was entitled to housing. He worked his way through a number of Health Board buildings until he came to Arthur’s. He didn’t like the look that Arthur gave him the first day as if he could see through him. He was put in a room with three violent bastards. The first night he was knocked to the floor by a big docker from the inner city and he decided to bide his time for a while. He drank his allowance in a pub near the train station but it was never enough. He needed to cultivate an additional source of income and he was smart enough to know he couldn’t do it under Arthur’s nose.
The new headphones gave Hoppy total immunity from the noise of the world. He glanced through the headlines in the tabloids outside the newsagents:
“Man slain by wolf boy.” No problem.
“Posh Totty beds Footballer.” Fine.
“Police seek source of racial slur leak.” This one made him a little uncomfortable but he was safe in his musical cocoon. The shopkeeper placed the Carrolls and Emeralds sweets on the counter.
“Howiya Hoppy, how are you today?”
Hoppy nodded in time to the music and gave him a thumbs up as he handed over the money. He picked up The Independent with ‘St. Ita’s’ written over the masthead and headed back towards the houses. A helicopter flew overhead but Hoppy was miles away. He headed for Arthur’s building and dropped off the newspaper at the nurse’s station. He never saw McHugh approach from behind and never heard his footsteps in the gravel. The first thing he felt was the headphones being ripped off his ears as a powerful figure pinned him against the brick wall.
“Fags!” hissed McHugh as he rummaged in Hoppy’s jacket. He took the cigarettes and placed his finger to his lips as Hoppy slid down the wall. Hoppy limped to his room and spent the day curled up under the blankets. The ruined stereo lay on the ground beside the bed and every time a door opened he flinched. McHugh was waiting for him each day and Hoppy tried to buy him off with extra cigarettes but McHugh still took everything he had.
Hoppy became so paralysed that he even endured the nicotine withdrawal pangs to try and avoid going outside. For that he received a beating that put him in hospital for a few days. Arthur visited him and tried to get him to tell the story.
“You can tell me, we can deal with…this.”
Hoppy just stared at his feet in the bed.
“It is noisy here, I can’t stand the racket of all those people chattering,” he said, indicating the near-deserted ward. Arthur went out and bought him a Walkman from his own money as Hoppy had been eating into his allowance. He told himself that he should have spotted it earlier. Hoppy’s injuries were not serious, cracked ribs and a broken nose but he refused to go back to the unit.
Arthur went back to work and quizzed the nurses and the more reliable clients. One patient nervously mentioned McHugh and a junior nurse confirmed his suspicions. Arthur called a meeting, which McHugh refused to attend. Arthur was careful to go through the correct procedures; a lifetime filling forms had taught him that. McHugh was thrown out of the building. He showed up around the gates for a couple of days but security moved him on.
After much coaxing Hoppy came back to his room. The hardened docker accompanied him to the shop each day until his confidence returned and one day he went to town on the bus. The summer passed and life got back to normal in the unit.
One day a woman came to see Arthur. She said she was McHugh’s sister. He had been found dead in the park with an empty whiskey bottle beside him. She said she understood why Arthur had kicked him out and they could only guess how her brother had died. The guards were not pushing for a post-mortem in this case. It looked like he had drank himself to death. The next day Arthur and two nurses were to represent the unit at the funeral. On a whim Arthur told Hoppy the news. Hoppy just nodded then he spoke.
“I want to go to the funeral.”
“Are you sure?”
Hoppy nodded again. He changed into his Sunday best and sat in the back of Arthur’s car. This was the first time he had left the grounds without music soothing him. Arthur turned the radio up for him and he stared out the window all the way to the church. There was only the sister, a social worker and the four men from the unit watching the priest perform the ceremony. They watched the coffin being laid in the ground; there were no tears. There was no meal afterwards, no talk of the past or the dead man, just the marking of an event.
The director of the facility was not convinced that Hoppy should have attended the service, something to do with admitting liability. He often talked about things like that. Arthur reckoned the director spent even more time filling bigger forms than he did himself. Arthur didn’t like forms much, he preferred talking to people. Anyway he was happy that he had made the right decision. Hoppy walked a little taller afterwards, not much, but even a slight improvement was considered a victory. Arthur went back to filling out rosters and attending union meetings. This was his little territory in between the trees and he was happy to stay here. He liked most of his charges, he supposed he just wanted to see them as happy as possible.
posted by Colm Brady @ 8:27 PM
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