Authors: Kevin Brennan
The traffic on the nearby main road stopped, partly out of curiosity at the commotion, partly out of fear that the smoke bellowing across the road represented some danger ahead.
Vinno’s passing was saluted the best way we knew how to as the world watched on in wonder. By the time we finished there were tears streaming down a lot of people’s faces, despite the fact that the visors of the helmets had done their job and protected the faces from the smoke.
I was, naturally, bawling. A lot of people might not realise it, but noise, smoke, tortured tyres, wide open throttles, adrenalin and tomfoolery of this type is the perfect salute to the passing of one of our own.
Every time I remember this scene I imagine Vinno’s spirit witnessing it, wearing one of his grins and saying with feeling, “Go on, the boys!” Maybe with such a feeling, if these things are possible, that the carcass in the box might also grin with pride and keep the grin in place for all eternity. I don’t care how ridiculous it seems to people – that’s how I want to remember him, and that’s how I will remember him.
I heard one of the Letter Express couriers – Little Noel, it was – commenting later in the pub that the driver of the hearse had a puss on him while he was scrapping the little globules of rubber from Gizzard’s tyre off the windscreen of the hearse and I had to contradict him.
It was true that a lot of flying rubber had hit the hearse during Gizzard’s doughnut and some of it had stuck to the windscreen and the hearse driver had scraped that off, using the peak of his official hat, before commencing, but there was definitely no bad
feeling of any kind from him. I know because I asked them after the funeral if they were upset about the state of the hearse after the doughnut. Both the driver and his helper assured me that there was no problem, that the rubber would come off easily because of the highly waxed condition of the hearse’s bodywork and that Vinno’s salute had been one of the best that they had ever seen in many years of undertaking.
Whatever “puss” Little Noel had seen on the driver must have been just the natural expression on his face caused by the exertion involved, nothing more. So, when the smoke had cleared and the windscreen of the hearse was rubber free, the Gizzard moved his bike forward and to the left and waited until the two lead cars had passed him before rejoining us as the procession moved onwards towards Shanganagh cemetery, leaving the gathered masses in our wake to brag about how well they had known the man who had passed away, or how well acquainted they were with his family.
Many people would discuss Vinno and many more would think of him, for a long time to come on that road – their memories jogged by the magnificent display of rubber that I am proud to have assisted in laying onto the tarmac.
When we left the Sheelin estate, it was main road all the way to Shanganagh Cemetery. All of the other roads that met this one had to yield to us, so the only remaining traffic control spots were the two roundabouts either side of Shankill: one at the church and one at the top of Quinn’s Road.
After doing traffic control at the first roundabout I beeped at Ray and Shay and mimed my intentions to them. They both agreed with emphatic nodding gestures.
We nailed it along the outside of the funeral procession as before, but just after reaching the top we veered right, crossed the road and screeched to a halt outside the entrance to the Shanganagh Lounge. We were in dire need to use the toilets, as were Gerry and Naoise and the Gizzard who followed suit.
The beauty about the side entrance to this particular pub was that the stairs down to the toilets were immediately inside the door, so there was no need for any cajoling of bar staff to
let us use them. This was the pub we would be coming to after the funeral anyway, so the whole “toilets are only for customers use” rule wasn’t being broken.
It was a lightning fast pit stop and the five of us stampeded out of the pub pretty much in the same order that we had stampeded into it moments earlier. We nailed it full throttle the half mile or so to the graveyard and got there just as our comrades were letting the dead there know that they were about to be joined by a legend. We joined in with our own revs, beeps and wheelspins for the final mechanical goodbye to our Number One.
This was very emotional, although we got scowled at by a group of old fogies on their way out of the graveyard who just didn’t get the poignancy of this manner of final farewell. They were our own bikes that we were risking damage to, it wasn’t as if we were disturbing the residents of the graveyard, the smoke cleared itself after a short while, the marks on the road were much more pleasing than the boring tarmac alone and the rubber that is beat into the tarmac makes it much more grippy – and therefore safer!
Shanganagh Cemetery is a modern one, and therefore well laid out.
Instead of having the entrance on the main road, as with other cemeteries, they built a road along the side of the cemetery, leading to a tarmacked area large enough for 100 cars and placed the entrance to the graveyard halfway along that road, long enough so that the followers of several funerals could park along it without having to use the car park at the end.
Thus, the hearse and chief mourners’ car could stop at the entrance to the graveyard and wait, without causing traffic congestion, while the cars parked and the rest of the mourners positioned themselves behind the chief mourners’ car to proceed into the graveyard and up to the grave on foot.
Sometimes, the chief mourners would also follow the hearse on foot, sometimes the coffin would be carried from the entrance to the grave, all depending on the family. In Vinno’s
case the hearse and chief mourners car waited at the entrance while the other cars parked and the bikes went bananas, then proceeded towards the grave while the bikes were parked – or dumped, as was the case with a lot of the working machines, with the car bound mourners on foot behind the hearse, arriving at the graveside to find that most of the bikers were there already, with them being all too familiar with the layout of the graveyard and being of such a nature as never to be able to resist a short cut.
A lot of the couriers amongst us knew exactly where row E was and instead of following the procession along the main path led the rest of us on a diagonal route to Vinno’s final resting place. Even though a lot of us got to the graveside before the hearse, with the rest of us en route, spaced out almost as far back as the main entrance in such a way as to betray the path we had taken, we stayed well back from the graveside, as is customary with couriers at funerals, to leave plenty of space for the other mourners. They returned the compliment by not occupying the space between the grave and us.
The graveside ceremony was as tragically sad as can only be the case when young people get killed suddenly. The priest did his job as best as he could of assuring the bereaved that the lost one was in a better place looking down in peace at the rest of us.
The family and other chief mourners huddled together supportively throughout this ceremony, knowing that the worst was yet to come – the part when the gravediggers would put their straps under the coffin, raise it up off the two supporting pieces of wood that spanned the grave, which would be removed by another gravedigger to facilitate the lowering of the coffin into the grave.
I am sorry to say that I have been at enough funerals to know that this is, without exception, the hardest part for the loved ones. Vinno’s poor mother had to be caught and supported by her son and husband, one on either side, to prevent her from falling in on top of the coffin. Natalie and Sarah, Vinno’s sister, clung to each other weeping loudly. Jackie held onto Aoife’s shoulders tightly with both hands while tears streamed down
her face as her boyfriend held his awkwardly placed comforting arm across her shoulders.
Aoife’s expression remained as it had been in the church, but with the slightest tremor of some muscles around her mouth betraying the fact that now she was really battling hard to hold in her feelings. The poor, brave, suffering child. The sight of her brought a fresh tear to my eye, which escaped and flowed unhindered along the path of its predecessors.
Among the bikers there were many bowed heads, sniffles, coughs through broken voices and silent streams of tears. We seemed to huddle closer together too, as though to be of comfort to each other and to draw comfort from the group at the same time. Hardened men wept openly and unashamedly, such was the measure of the loss felt by us all.
The chief mourners, and some of the other mourners also due to the number available, were all given a rose each to drop onto the coffin as a final farewell gesture, while the rest of us grabbed the customary handful of dirt from the mound adjacent to the grave and threw that onto the coffin containing our dear friend in our own final farewell gesture.
This was the end of the funeral. The priest left the immediate family with his final few words of condolences before going. This began the migration of mourners from the graveyard, roughly in reverse order of closeness to Vinno or his family, who remained at his graveside, rooted by reluctance to release Vinno’s remains to the grave diggers who were now wielding shovels.
My first reaction was one of outrage at the vulture–like insensitivity of the gravediggers’ eagerness to get at the carcass, but obviously loved ones needed a little push to get them to leave the grave side. Maybe the gravediggers’ presence was also beneficial in terms of acceptance. Still, if I was burying one of my family I think I’d pay them to fuck off for an hour and come back to do their work when the mourners were gone.
I think I needed a little push myself to get me to leave my friend’s grave also and it came in the form of Ray’s left hand slapped between my shoulder blades.
“Brother Sean, there’s nothing else to be done here. To the pub!”
“Sure, Ray.”
On looking around I was a little startled to see that the only couriers who weren’t en route back along the short cut were myself, Ray and the Gizzard, who was wiping a tear from his eye with his gloved right hand.
“Pub, Gizz’?” I asked tentatively.
“See yiz up there.”
The Shanganagh Lounge was a big pub, but the funeral party managed to fill it.
Not that every seat in the place was occupied, just that people who didn’t know each other tended to position themselves at different tables, despite the common cause for them being there, until every table in the place had somebody at it: in the same fashion as a gas placed in a container fills it, no matter how thin the gas ends up.
Then there were the joint smokers. It was common practice at functions like this to keep hash smoke away from the older generations, well camouflaged by cigar smoke and well hidden from unfamiliar barmen.
At funerals our lot tended to sit as far away as possible from the family as a logical measure of respect. By the time Ray and I had locked our bikes with the others around the back of the pub – no sense in having every gard that passed by on the main road being informed that there were people in the pub who would be driving motorbikes after drinking – the session was well under way.
The management had been informed that a large funeral would be stopping by today and had supplied enough barmen to cater for the crowds, as well as platters of assorted sandwiches to be enjoyed with their drinks.
We headed straight over to where the couriers were busy about safely positioning helmets on every surface that wouldn’t be loaded with pints. The windowsills were just barely wide enough for a carefully placed helmet to balance on, albeit pre
cariously. I could tell by his demeanour in the wheelchair that Paddy was skinning up, a conclusion endorsed by Al, as he sparked up a cigar with a grimace.
“Pint Sean?”
“Cheers Ray…all right, lads?”
“Shy Boy! Sit down there man.”
After I had taken my jacket off and placed it on the back of a free chair, with my lid on the floor underneath it and had a look around at my compatriots while greeting them with nods and gestures, I was really glad that I had worn the t-shirt that I had selected that morning. It was my black Le Mans Honda t-shirt that I had bought while in France with Vinno and the lads. I had put it on that morning because, of all of my t-shirts, it reminded me of Vinno the most. There had been no agreement, nobody had mentioned any intent or reason to anybody else, but every single one of us was wearing a t-shirt from an adventure we had shared with our departed buddy.
There were t-shirts of all styles and colours, going back as far as 1992, from Le Mans, the Isle of Man, The North West 200, Kells, Tandragee, Cookstown, Fomhair and Donnington. It was truly a moving tribute.
When Ray arrived with the pints, his jacket still on, I couldn’t help myself.
“Ray, what t-shirt are you wearing?”
“Kells ‘94 – the first year tha’ they had a road race there. Fuckin’ grea’ i’ was!”
“Was Vinno there?”
“Sure was, an’ in flyin’ form as ye’d expect. Instead a’ payin’ to camp in the campsite on the Friday nie we found a field in the dark, four of us in two tents. Nex’ mornin’ we were woken up by two bulls; not one bu’ fuckin’ two, yeah, goin’ bananas at the invasion of their territory. We barely managed to grab our gear an’ fuckin’ scatter. Damn lucky to ger ou’ in one piece while the fuckin’ bulls trampled the fuck out of the tents! Great fuckin’ racin’ though!”
“Everyone’s t-shirts are from adventures shared with Vinno, Ray.”