the happiest half hours of life

Afternoon in the Kylemore cafe at the Stephens Green Centre food court.
The Muslim waitress Privya is scowling prettily at me from across the room.
She is astonishingly beautiful.
Alright, alright, she is moderately good looking.
But that qualifies in my book.
Ah I'd convert to the peaceloving religion of Islam for her in a second.
No, a half second.
Oh right.
You know.
Presently one of the managers strolls between the tables and starts clattering around near my shoulder.
He is a Pakistani Muslim.
A close ally of Privya's.
He is a tremendously dedicated man.
Engaged in an endless battle to sell coffee to the Irish and then make sure they don't enjoy it.
This particular manager is also an associate of Dublin's favourite Muslim street gang, known as the Black Jackets.
Are the black jackets a subsidiary of Al Qaeda, I hear you ask.
Is the Supreme Moderator of the Presbyterian Church vaguely uncomfortable with Papal authority!
I normally refer to this particular manager as Mohammed Travolta on account of the incongruous leather jacket he wears when harassing members of the public on Grafton Street with his friends.
The Kylemore could do better.
I sit at my table meditating on the vicissitudes of life.
Mohammed Travolta tries to catch my eye.
The resentment flows out of him in waves.
I am thinking to myself about some of my foreign national friends and what they have told me about life in Ireland.
About the racism and resentment they experience.
Have I been guilty of this in my dealings with Arabs and Muslims?
I try to put myself in the mind of this abysmally rude manager at the Kylemore.
What can he be thinking?
Perhaps his thoughts go something like this:

"Who does Heelers think he is? Walking around his own country like he owns it? Where does he get off, respecting our women like that, and being civil to our sons as if they don't have to live a life of enforced Islamic psychosis. Nyah ha ha Gee Force. Just who the hell does he think he is..."

You know folks, I'd say we're not too far from the truth there.
I'd say that's exactly what he's thinking.
This calls for wisdom.
The evil that is racism doesn't just stem from whiteys and Irish.
Africans and Arabs are often guilty of it too.
Sometimes profoundly guilty of it.
The only people I've ever seen shoulder jostling Irish cops on the streets of Dublin, were fat Nigerians.
The cops walked away.
As for the Arabs.
I was writing lovey dovey articles about Dublin being the city of tribes until I encountered the black jackets.
A few bits of modest intimidation from those low life, and I more or less had to rethink my world view.
They reached the parts Nine Eleven seemed to miss.

Presently I weary of the Kylemore floor show.
Privya and Mohammed Travolta have outlasted me.
I get up to leave.
They will probably be working there still long after I'm dead.
Al Qaeda may have gotten its arse kicked by the Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But in the Kylemore Food Court it has at least gained one victory.

I wander outside and take a stroll around Stephens Green.
The city is disporting in the sun.
Some yobs on a park bunch set up a hue and cry.
They are shouting.
Well here's larks.
They appear to be shouting at me.
They are making a veritable cacophony of sound.
Their cries ring out in thick Dublin accents.
What are they saying?
The accent is difficult.
I frown.
Some insight into the nature of existence perhaps.
A new postulation on the origins of the universe to go with Creationism, The Big Bang, and Steady States.
I listen intently.
The shouting shows no sign of abating.
After a moment I can decipher their strange high mystic message.
They are saying: "Dildo, dildo, dildo, dildo, diiiiillllllddddddooooo."
Over and over.
Their chant reminds me of nothing so much as the chorus from Spaceman, the classic Jas Mann song that was used to advertise Levis jeans a few years ago.
Remember the manic tremolo pitch at the finish.
"Spaceman, Spaceman, Spaceman, Spaaaaaaaaacemannnnnn."
This is just like that.
The new refrain is very catchy.
Why, I'd almost record a charity record version of it.
We could donate the proceeds to a Fund in aid of buying a ticket home for Privya and Mohammed Travolta.
A ticket to their own home.
Whatever rat infested hole they crawled out of.
I've grown weary of worrying whether I'm a racist every time they're rude to me.
"Dildo, Dildo, I've always wanted you to go into Dildo. Intergalactic craft."
I think it could work.
And it's a worthy cause.
Anyhoo.
Unusual to be accosted in the centre of the city in broad daylight by native Irish thugs.
I find the experience extraordinarily refreshing.

Outside the park, Grafton street is thronged.
There is a pulse in the universe.
Two luminously pretty girls stroll towards me.
They are Arabs.
I recognise them.
We've bumped into each other around here for years without ever talking.
They are wearing traditional Baobabs.
Very exotic.
They look like supermodels with souls.
Today they give me the usual cheeky smiles.
One of them gets her courage up.
"Hello Daddy," she grins as they drift by.
I am not as flattered by this appellation as you might expect.
But yes, they are astonishingly beautiful both of them.
Really.
Unreservedly.
Absolutely.
Astonishingly beautiful.
A surge of optimism takes me.
The kids are great.
The kids will save the world.