Myteenage summer– pt2

THE dive was breathlessly perfect, we knew John could do it; the river was his playground, all summer long he was the lifeguard over in Ferrybank. Still no one had ever dived from there before, it added another feather to his already notable achievements, we ran across and cheered him along as he gracefully matched our pace, arm over arm, to the far side.

Rubbing the water offa himself and smiling with amusement at our excitement, he graciously thanked me for minding his stuff and absent-mindedly took the towel from an outstretched hand.

‘ That was gorgeous, it was great to go so deep where the water is dark and mysterious.’

We think of age as so important, so indicative of who we are, what we are, where we should be, how long we have lived, and left. But at that moment I looked at John and could not feel any contemporary sense of time.

He wasn’t that much older than me, but he was in a completely different category, he was nothing to do with time or fashion. Instead of being borne out of our time, he was fashion free, not a time-designed human. He had his own style, and beliefs; he was not fastened to the current fads, he lived outside of them.

Like the current pop stars we were all waifs dressed in Beatle boots and suits, with mops of hair and sideburns, carried transistor radios and listened to pirate ships. By looking at us, you could tell instantly that we were skeptical of whatever our idols were weary of, and in pursuit of their supposed wants. You could tell what age we were, and of course, what music we listened to.

But with John, you could do no such thing. I couldn’t feel his age, and had never thought about it. His ambiguous dress was unnoticeable, yet apt. His crew cut could’ve represented some kind of conservative leanings, but he was anything but. He was athletic and fit, at a time when it wasn’t the norm; no one even knew his history.

In a small town like Wexford, this was an anomaly. He could’ve fought in world war one if it wasn’t for the fact he was still alive, and he was there with us at the other side of our bridge, walking out of the river beneath a life-affirming sun. It felt like he could live forever, and that he already had, I couldn’t nail him down.

After drying his crew cut, he sat down on a deck chair, lit up a fag, and gripped it with his teeth. A half finished painting with rafts of thick acrylic clouds and sea, sat perched upon a professional easel. He picked up a palette knife and chafed a thick dollop of rich blue oil paint across the base. He was inspired now, he had just given the doldrums another kick in the stomach, everything appeared new and virginal in its wake.

John was our Hemingway, in a world of teenagers where the writer had yet to be known. But now, I know that there are many Hemingways, they aren’t an invention, he was one of a litter, the stubborn one, the one with an overtly romantic heart, searching for the bloodiest and most dangerous thrills so that he could be more alive in the wake of it, afraid of what is less, seeking to dance in the fire before he was forced to.

Small towns have big characters too, they are oxygen to the unusual, they can see what others ignore, they shake things up, bring the sediment to the surface.

“Like the current pop stars we were all waifs dressed in Beatle boots and suits, with mops of hair and sideburns, carried transistor radios and listened to pirate ships