IF THE CHURCH wants to re-establish itself at the heart of the Irish community, they should consider starting a taxi service. Seriously, what better way to get in among the muck and bullets of modern life and make a difference?
It's the only way they'll find the ear of the damned Irish hedonist. Those sheep queueing up at the rank at 4am on a Saturday night will not be joining the rest of the flock to celebrate Mass the next morning. They will either be sleeping it off, or taking the edge off it with the help of "Bloody Mary".
Sunday morning is not the time for sermonising. Anyone who is capable of getting up at 9am on Sunday does not need to be saved, but they're queueing up for it on Saturday night and as it stands, taxi drivers provide a similar service to the one that was once offered in confession. In fact, I've got it the wrong way round. Considering how badly they drive, forget what I was saying about priests driving cabs.
What we should really consider is ordaining all taxi drivers. Passengers share their secrets, drivers bear witness to a multitude of sins and they set them on the path to righteousness - or at least get them home safely, for a fee. And never again will we hear the one about the loaves and the fishes, because thanks to their loose-lipped clientele in the back seat, taxi drivers have a wealth of new material.
Recently, a cab driver told me that it's common for him to be dispatched to the suburban mansion of a famous playboy, in the wee hours of a Sunday morning. It's nearly a weekly booking, and when he rolls up in the first light of the cold dawn, invariably, he finds a glamourous model or starlet huddled on the roadside.
Apparently they can come over, but the ladies cannot spend the night at his place, and the gentleman himself places the call to the dispatcher. So, after a big scene inside, she is waiting for the cab outside in the drizzle, while one storey above, in the comfort of his centrally heated bathroom with the directional shower jets and 15-bulb vanity mirror, the man applies his moisturiser, selects his jim-jams, then pads down to the kitchen to eat peanut butter with a knife. I'd like to think that afterwards, he falls down and beats on the Italian floor tiles with balled, tiny fists; a pendulum of saliva swinging from his lower lip as he begs for his life to be given some meaning. But I'm pretty sure he sleeps like a log.
Apparently, there's a depressing frequency to these call-outs and an equally depressing regularity to the conversation in the taxi. Usually, the woman is inconsolable. The driver tells her not to worry, that he's not worth it, and she's better off out of there. And in a final, desperate attempt to quell her tears, he will unearth a real nugget - it's not about her.
He'll tell her that she's not the first beautiful girl to be dumped on the kerb by this guy, nor will she be the last, so she shouldn't take it personally. Looking into the mirror, the starlet will meet his eyes for the first time, and he will know that this has made it worse and not better.
On another occasion, a Nigerian taxi driver picked me up in town and we got to talking. He told me about his life in Dublin. He owns both his car and his taxi plate, and in addition to driving a cab, he is studying for an MBA in a business school. He is married with kids and lives in west Dublin. He doesn't like it there because there are some kids who hang around outside the house and give his wife and his kids a hard time. He'd much rather live in Phibsboro where friends of his live, but he's happy not to be in Lagos.
The money he makes here goes a lot further than the money he used to earn. Last year, he sent an Irish-registered Ford Mondeo over to his mum. I like to think of her driving around Lagos in a car with a Carlow reg plate.
For the past four years, this cab driver has picked up an Irish guy in his early 50s regularly, a man who works in security. The Irish guy now has the driver's mobile number and calls him at all hours, and the driver picks him up. The Irish guy used to ask him what Lagos was like for a European, and the taxi driver told him that Lagos was dangerous.
The man asked him if someone with euro in his back pocket could have a good time there, and the driver said yes he could have a good time, he could have a very good time indeed. Now, when the driver goes back to see his mum in Lagos, the Irish guy goes with him every time, with a pocket full of euro.
What does he do, I asked? Isn't downtown Lagos dangerous for a white Irish guy in his 50s throwing around euro? He laughed for a while, and when he stopped laughing, he broke it down for me. Normally it would be, but this Irish guy gets a hotel room, gets a few buckets of champagne from room service, gets a lot of pretty ladies, and he doesn't leave his hotel for 10 days. Apparently the man has now been to Lagos five times, and never once has he stepped outside the downtown Hilton or Holiday Inn. And when he's finished, he and the taxi driver sit in the back of a cab of their own on the way to the airport, and they tell their taxi driver all about it. Why not? They'll never see him again.
John Butler blogs at http://lozenge.wordpress.com