A Little Background on The Mick

Posted on 30. Sep, 2009 by Colin in colombia

The Mick and I have quickly become good friends. We have so much in common. If you could tweak my personality wiring to emphasize alcoholism and drug abuse over education and ambition, The Mick would be a spitting image of me in 20 years.

The Mick have the same taste in music. When we went to Anapoima with his Colombian friends, they tried to impress us with their gringo music, most of which sucked. When they asked about U2, The Mick and I simultaneously answered, “NO.” After a Stones album, they played Queen. The Mick’s pain was visible on his face as he said to me: “Poxy fuckin’ music.” He couldn’t take it after 2 or 3 songs and told them to change the “puta música.” We settled on Fleetwood Mac.

The Mick’s adventures make Jack Kerouac’s On The Road look tame. He was born and raised in 1960s working-class Dublin. After a stint in Irish prison, he moved to London as a full-time heroin addict. After a stint in British prison, he moved to Colombia to bring cocaine to Europe. After 4 years in La Modelo prison, he spent 20 years as an extreme alcoholic in Bogota.

The Mick’s took his alcoholism to the edge. Not only did he experience delirium tremens, he learned to manage delirium tremens. He kept a box of aguardiente next to the bed to help him sleep. He’d hit the liquor store first thing in the morning. He talks of waking up in the street, sometimes South Bogota streets, covered with blood, puke, piss, shit, or all of the above.

But The Mick always managed to keep wealthy English students. He worked among the highest Bogota estratos by day, and drank and drugged up with the underworld by night. The context of those twenty years makes his story even more interesting. When he left prison, Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel was challenging the Colombian state. Escobar, while bombed Bogota targets and assassinated government leaders, including presidential candidates. After Escobar the FARC rose in power to pose a serious threat to the Colombian government. Guerillas stormed government buildings, kidnapped politicians, controlled much of the country, and carried out bombings (list of FARC attacks). For-profit kidnappings thrived amid the chaos. This whole time, The Mick was a philandering, puking, pissing, stumbling drunk.

The Mick has four kids, none of whom he supports. He recently learned one had a child, making him a grandfather.

The day of his grandfather’s wake, all the Dublin Docks pubs closed for an hour. His grandfather “had 19 sons,” and every time one came to the pub, his father would treat him to a pint. He spent so much the pub owners held an hour of silence out of respect.

When The Mick told me his father had 18 siblings, I started thinking how difficult it’d be to throw a family party. His aunt had 10 children. I asked him if only one of his father’s 18 siblings had so many kids? No, that aunt was on his mother’s side. I asked how many cousins he had. “I don’t know, I’ve got loads of cousins.”

We’ve taken many biking journeys through the city. Colombians shout greetings to Christopher often. He’s well known. Sometimes he’ll say, “This guy’s a killer,” if it were someone he knew from prison.

The Mick loves fish and often takes me to the soul-food fish spots. When he saw me going at mine with a knife and fork, he asked where I learned to eat fish. You eat Colombian fish with your hands. Another time, after I was done, he asked if I was finished. I told him there’s nothing left. “The eyes!” he insisted, “That’s the best part.”

I picked up the fish head, still attached to the bare spine and bones. I sucked on the eyes and fatty gunk came out (the brains). A little hard ball came out and it softly crunched. I wouldn’t say it’s the best part. When The Mick got back from the bathroom, I asked him to look at the fish’s head to tell me if I got everything and he replied, “Just EAT IT, and you see what you can get!”

Since that day, I’ve noticed The Mick wastes nothing. I had my camera one day when we ate chicken. Look at The Mick’s chicken bones.

The Mick was on what AA members call “marijuana maintenance.” Marijuana is better than booze for guys like him. It helps him ween ween off. Every day I see him, he immediately “makes a joint.”

One day he made one before we went to an AA meeting. I protested, “We’re not really going to get stoned before an AA meeting?” Yes, we were. I didn’t want to stink up the meeting, but he didn’t care. That first time we went stoned, I had fun. I didn’t feel the pressure to bond with everybody there or to soak up every single speaker. If somebody was boring, I just ignored him and looked around at the serenity prayer, the steps, etc.

At the meeting, a new speaker’s name was announced and The Mick chuckled to me, “This guy’s a con man.” I had a hard time holding back my laughter when he took the stage.  He seemed embarrassed and ended his speech abruptly.

The Mick points out women in the street – usually underage girls. One time we were riding past a high school or junior high and he said, “There’s loads of dirty bitches around here.” We go to the corner to see pubescent girls in uniforms just getting out of Catholic school. When I mention they’re too young, he’ll say “When will you realize you’re in Latin America?” Once he pointed out a group of 14 and 15-year old boys and girls and said, “Look, you don’t think there’s any finger treatment going on there?”

I asked The Mick if he ever got into banging whores. He never did. Another time I asked him if he usually lived by himself or roommates. He said he “usually lived with chicks.” I later learned that he’d usually live in his girlfriend’s house, but he’d be the only one with a job. So he’d be supporting her. I pointed out this is basically the same thing as paying for sex. He replied that alcoholics often get into arrangements like that with fellow alcoholics.

In The Mick’s neighborhood every dog barks ferociously at us. I was scared one would get past the shoddy fence. I asked if he’d ever had a problem in his 20 years in Colombia. He said he’d “been attacked by dogs more than once,” and he’s “had to fight them.” He told me he carries his umbrella for Bogota’s high rainfall, but also for defending himself against dogs.

A quick guide to The Mick’s Dublin slang:

• “Bullocks” – balls – e.g., I got him by the bullocks.
• “Poxy” – whack, lame, stupid. This one’s so cool I’ve started using it (e.g., U2 and Queen is poxy fuckin’ music).
• “The nick” – prison. Also a verb – e.g. when asked why he never got cocaine into Europe he replied “I got nicked!”
• “A screw” – prison guard.
• “Bloodclot” – black people.
• “To have a pony” – to take a shit / poop / crap.
• “Charles” – cocaine. Similar to British slang “Charlie,” but more subtle.
• “Steamer” – a gay person.
• “The lieu” – the bathroom.
• “4B2’s” – Jews. On the east side of the pond, they refer to 2 x 4s (two-by-fours) backwards – 4 x 2s. If you want to refer to Jews without them realizing it, you say “4-by-2” or simply “4B2.”
• “Johnny Ross” – the boss.
  (Irish slang often uses rhymes or the true words they use)

See all of The Mick’s stories.

Related posts:

1. Introducing The Mick SUMMARY: Introducing a new character to this blog, The Mick, who moved to Colombia in the 80s to bring cocaine to Ireland. After four years in prison, he never went back. One day I was walking through Plaza Lourdes when an old man called to me in English. He asked...
2. The Mick’s Prison Murder SUMMARY: The Mick murdered a fellow inmate during his 4-year sentence in the Bogota, Colombia prison, La Modelo. WARNING: Story depicts graphic violence. Reader discretion advised. The Mick was busted with three kilos of cocaine soon after arriving in Colombia. He served four years in Colombian prison. His accomplices sent...

Tags: bogota, drugs, dublin, farc, history, ireland, narcos, the mick