Trip to Ireland 2008

Part III

Sunday, August 17th

After eating, I settled the bill with Antoinette.  My plan was to now drive three hours east to Bray, a coastal town that was just south of Dublin.  My purpose was to visit a friend of mine I had not seen 12 years.  Chris Kane is a gent that, even though we went to Boston College together, I did not meet until we were both studying in Galway in 1995.

Before I left my B&B, I brought my map out so Antoinette’s husband John could take a look at my potential route.  As this happened, I realized a funny thing.  It’s interesting how comfortable many people feel drawing on your map as they give directions.  John started to fire away his thoughts, “Well, you want to take the N7 to Kildare…” and as he did, he carpet-bombed my poor little map with all kinds of lines, circles and X’s that gave my once pristine document the look of a four-year old’s treasure map. 

I didn’t care that much, especially because I got this map from Hertz…So Good! but what if I really didn’t want him drawing on my map?  What if I was going to add this map to the “maps I’ve gotten from car rental companies” quilt I was assembling back home?  Where would I be then?  I never understood why people assume it’s okay to start scribbling like someone in mid-seizure on your map.  John’s intentions were pure and for the best so I was not even the least bit annoyed but I feel the occurrence of this event obligates me to reflect on this remarkable phenomenon with you.

Once in Bray, I drove along a beach front road with all kinds of shops restaurants, some fast food spots and amusement-based joints.  At the end of this road was my hotel for the night, the Crofton Bray Head Inn and Bray Head itself (a very large hill).  The road was busy and cars fought to find parking.  The Bray Head Inn capitalized on this congestion by charging non-guests to park in their lot.  The gatekeeper guarding this precious resource was an old man in a bright neon green vest that ominously waved all passing traffic into the lot.  Although I didn’t know it at the time, this ancient creature with his rhythmic, comatose, beckoning wave perfectly foreshadowed my time at the Bray Head Inn.

I pulled up and told him I was a guest.  A small trace of disappointment flashed on his face as he realized no toll would be collected from me.  A slightly awkward silence followed as he tried to compute my immediate parking destiny.  Finally, his human circuitry reactivated and he was able to supply me with instruction on where to place my Barbie Doll car.  I thanked him for his help and he ambled back to his parking post.

I walked inside to a very large, dark and musty lobby.  I could tell that this 130-year old building was originally well-built and boasted of fine craftsmanship but years of neglect, tasteless modifications and poor management left a very creepy and eerie feel to the place.  The odor throughout the building smelled like the locker room of Team Puberty.  To be more precise, if Team Puberty had a really big game, went back into their locker room, left all their dirty laundry everywhere, and then had someone professionally seal of the room, and then opened it up 40 years later, that’s what the Crofton Bray Head Inn smelled like.

I approached the front desk and noticed that A) no one was there and B) there seemed to be no way to get behind the desk (the desk area was in a little cubby that was surrounded by a counter, two walls and a stair railing).  Finally, a young German man walked over to the desk and with excitement, I watched and wondered how the hell he was going to get behind the desk.  He headed for the side where the stair railing was, grabbed the upper handrail and flung his body through a small opening created my two removed posts like the Duke Boys whipping themselves through the windows of the General Lee. 

He popped up from behind the desk and asked, “Do you have a reservation?” 

I laughed to myself thinking I wouldn’t need one since I felt to be the only guest stupid enough to risk their life in this massive old structure.  I was asked to pay right there (also weird) so I gave him my card.

He grabbed my card and stared at it as if he were a gay man that only played checkers and had just been handed a deck of playing cards with naked ladies on them.

“Ohh…you pay with card?  I have never done this before.  I’m not sure what to do.  Let’s see here…”

I bit my tongue and avoided saying anything that would make him feel worse than the situation already had done on its own.  Besides, I was still so impressed that he was even able to get behind the desk.  That step alone probably took weeks of training.

He eventually pulled out some sort of card machine and figured out what to do.  I then ask him how I could make a phone call.

“Do you have phones in the bedrooms?” I asked.

“Uh, I am not very sure…”

“Well, do you have a pay phone somewhere in the lobby?”

“Uh, I am not very sure…”

He finally told me of a phone he knew of down the road and showed me to my room.  We walked up a large staircase that lead not just to another floor but more odor.  We then walked down a hallway, bumping into old furniture since no lights were on, traveled up a somewhat scary elevator, down another hallway and finally into my room. 

My room was a tad creepy but not too bad.  The bathroom was actually presentable and what really amazed me about it was the haunted soap.  On the bath tub and sink was your average small, thin hotel soap but it was unwrapped and standing upright on its very thin edge.  I didn’t tell the Bray Head Inn this but I would have paid double for my room had I known this haunted soap awaited me.

I unpacked a few things, didn’t see any phone in my quarters so I headed outside to call my friend Chris on a pay phone.  I called up the fella and he told me he’d be down in 10 minutes.  While I waited, I walked the strip looking for a simple little convenience store and with much frustration, found nothing. 

I eventually went up to an ice cream stand and the woman working there told me there was something of a convenience store a couple blocks away called “The Ideal Store”.   What an obscene misnomer that turned out to be.  The Ideal Store was literally a small, hot closet with nothing but chocolate milk, soda, packaged ham, heartache and a huge step-like display of candy bars that was as big as and resembled a section of bleachers from a stadium.  What the heck do people in this beachside Bray community eat?!  Sand?  Hopes of a someday supermarket?

I walked back to the hotel and waited for Chris in the lobby.  As I walked in, I looked to my left and saw a pay phone, almost visible from the front desk.  Should I have gotten upset with the German hombre for not knowing of this phone when I asked for it earlier?  No.  With all the lights constantly off in the building, he probably had no idea it was there. 

Chris eventually appeared and I told him I had not seen him in what felt like a lad’s age.  Along with his dog, we decided to walk up Bray Head.  This turned out to be a dodgy experience since all the rain placed a waterfall on the path we were climbing up.  Undaunted, our journey and our conversation pressed on.  This journey, by the way, installed some attractive ocean views for us. 

When we reached bottom, we walked along the beach and Chris told me a story of how he was walking his dog along the same beach several months ago, early in the morning, when a pack of young terds started throwing rocks at him.  Amazing, I thought.  Some people’s desire to harm others is so primitive and innate that they will see someone they don’t even know and think, “I have to hurt a complete stranger who’s out walking his dog” and then literally grab the first object they find nearby and start hurling it at you.

I then showed Chris the inside of the Bray Head Inn.  He actually heard rumors of the hotel’s grotesqueness and advised me to cancel my reservation when I told him where I was staying the day before.  I told him I needed this experience to evolve as a man in the world.  He was laughing his guy-arse off as he walked through this creepy experiment.  He also was so moved by the haunted soap he took pictures of it.

We then got in his car and went back to his place so I could say hello to his wife Jen and their new baby boy Milo.  After some effective chatting, Jen dropped the two of us off at a restaurant where Chris and I ate and discussed hilarious stories not fit for public consumption.  Jen picked us up later and dropped me off at my hotel.  Jen, who grew up in Bray, looked in through the windows at the breakfast area.  She commented on how that room used to double as a nightclub back in the nineties.  She always marveled at how she used to see people throw up all over the place and then the next day see people eating their breakfast in the same room. 

I laughed but now the reality of me having to sleep in this place started to set in. 

“I sure hope this place isn’t haunted.  I don’t feel like dealing with that tonight.”

They told me to call them if I got scared and then laughed as they drove off.  Tender.

I headed back to my room and watched “Brokedown Palace” with Clair Danes and Bill Pullman, a movie so potent and moving you can buy it on Amazon for 1 cent (the last I checked).  Good nocturnal tidings.

PART IV