It was the moment where I saw my mate with his trousers down his ankles and a police car in a slow, but hot, pursuit behind him that I knew we'd been caught. It was a subtle sign all right, but clear enough to get through to my drink addled mind that I was royally screwed.
Two weeks before going to Irish college we had decided to go drinking, at night, by staging a sleepover at my house and breaking out over my back wall. It had been about a year since we had started hanging around outside off-licences trying to get people to get us eighteen Dutch Gold and three Bulmer's (Archie, you have a lot to answer for) to go drinking up Killiney Hill and the time felt right to move it up a gear.
With no ID or a facial hair between us, the bright lights of the city were outside our puny reach so the only real option was to go to our usual haunt. We did plan a detour to the slightly more out of the way Mullin's Hill, a rocky outcrop with a panoramic view of the whole of Dublin. Cast of characters?
Me
Kev, friend
John, friend and Kev's older brother
Tucker, friend
Marcus, lucky friend
Dan, trouser dodger
We stashed the beer in the field at the back of my garden and settled down in preparation. Looking back, our parents must have thought we were being slightly weird at the time; we weren't exactly at the age for sleeping bags and sleepovers anymore. It was the perfect house for the plan though. My parents slept upstairs and the double doors to my back garden could be opened quietly so at around 1am all six of us snuck out into the night without any excitement.
The thing I always noticed at night from then on was the dew on the grass; the cold feeling it gave you even through your shoes. I made that escapade from my room to the outside world many times over the next few years, and it was always that cold, chilly feeling of the dew on the grass that told me it was the dead of night.
Don't worry by the way, I know I'm wandering dangerously into The Wonder Years territory here, but no Kevin Arnold and co were we. We weren't on a voyage of self-discovery where we would find out what friendship truly means; we were looking for a piss up that we could tell our mates about the next day. It's a sad truth that most of the best (and worst) things in life happen while trying to impress other people; on our own we just don't have the motivation.
For ease of movement we had chosen a flagon of cider each, which was a fairly new type of drink to us. My previous memory of it had ended by watching a friend, Tucker actually, being chased around by a girl trying to hit him with a stick. I wish I could say this little adventure had a similarly amusing ending for me, or that I was the type of person that liked being hit by a stick (Archie, again, looking your way here).
We had chosen a route carefully, one that brought us through secluded laneways, with only one main intersection crossing over a small bridge. On the way up we moved as a group and without much talk, spying around corners before making our way onto the intersection. After a brief scout we hurried across the bridge and into relative safety. From there it was a matter of walking over Killiney Hill, something we had done countless times before.
The session itself is pretty much gone from my memory now, what went on after obliterated it. It's strange to think how little you actually remember from your childhood, even your teenage years. So many conversations, so many actions, so many ups, so many downs, so many funny fucking moments, forgotten to the past. I used to feel glad that we could forget things, now it just seems cruel.
When we arrived we set-up a makeshift camp and began knocking back the cider. The glamour of the occasion was distinctly lacking, with gloves being shared so we’d have at least one warm hand while drinking. Everything was wet. I think we felt isolated - we were out on our own while the rest of the world seemed to be sleeping. Overall though, it was just bloody cold.
This is a general theme of all Irish teenager drinking sessions. When you think about it, there aren't many colder nations in the world to drink outside in. I can't see Swedish teenagers standing in a gale, a scarf wrapped around their heads, sipping cider just quickly enough so that their lips don't freeze to the can. No, they'd be drinking beside a big fire in their 32-year-old buxom blonde mothers house, listening to how they were conceived. And born. In great detail.
We decided to leave at first light and there was a definite air of ‘cider menace’ amongst us all. Marcus and Dan were particularly drunk, stumbling along the empty streets in howls of laughter, and meaning we had to stop in a local schools’ playground to re-draft our plans. A military style strategy was agreed upon and we decided to go two-by-two back to my house with Kev and myself going first.
The two of us made it to the intersection, badmouthing the other idiots that were following behind. We waited out of sight but there was no sign of the others. Deciding to go back for a look, the image and noise all teenagers abhor in their very bones whooshed by. Blue, white and all things flashing; a police car.
We ran to the corner, the other two on the far side of the road looking the same way, signalling for us to stay still.
Risking it, I stole a look. Down the road I saw Dan, trousers down to his ankles, desperately shuffling into a cul-de-sac. Marcus was standing behind him, pointing and laughing, despite obviously knowing what was coming towards them. They both fell out of view as the police car closed in.
We Ran.
Quite Fast.