Joe's Wedding. Gareth O'Callaghan

       CHAPTER ONE

      Today is the day I get married.

      It was the only message that flashed across Joe Mooney’s mind as he opened his eyes. The deep blue sky and the bright sun blinded him. The fresh westerly wind made his teeth chatter. The coldness and force of the wind against his face seemed strange. It’s a dream, he kept telling himself. You’re nervous so you’re dreaming.

      Someone must have left his bedroom window wide open all night. The sunlight was everywhere. There was nothing covering him. There were no blankets at his feet. He tried to open his eyes again. The insides of his eyelids felt rough and gritty. Where the hell had the roof gone? “I’m freezing!” he roared. He popped his head up to check the bedside clock. He reached over to close the window. There was no clock. There was no window. All Joe could see was miles and miles of blue sky. He felt below him. Grass. Lots of it. Long grass and weeds.

      It dawned on him that he wasn’t in his own bed. His eyes stung. His head throbbed and his neck hurt. His brain didn’t want to obey the order to think. He raised his head to survey his location.

      Then he looked down towards his feet. “Sweet Jesus!” he screamed.

      His clothes shocked him wide awake. He was wearing red nylon tights, shiny black plastic shoes, and a blue polo neck with a huge crest on the front and a yellow cape.

      Panic set in. He sat up and looked around. He had been sleeping on a park bench. It was cold and damp. He could see blue, choppy water. In front of him was a lake. He squinted and made out two small fishing boats. “That’s not a lake,” he said to himself. “I’ve never seen fishing boats on a lake.” He watched them, bobbing about in a rough sea. What sea?

      “Where am I?” he asked. He looked around slowly in an effort to get his bearings. Surely there was a shop he would recognise, he thought, or a car, or a hotel since this was a seafront. No cars. No hotels. No shops. He was sitting on a rusty park bench, dressed as Superman.

      Worse again, he was lost.

      He checked for money. There were no pockets in the tights, which were almost ripped to shreds by now. Where did I put these clothes on? Who gave them to me? What did I do while I was wearing this outfit? he wondered. The last question made him feel sick. The night before started off as an unofficial “few drinks” with his mates. He refused to call it a stag, because stags always got out of hand.

      “No tying me up to lampposts, you hear me?” he’d warned the lads. “No polish, I’m warning you.” He checked his outfit again. He would have opted for the polish any day, compared to this. “Wait till I get you. Just wait until your big days come around,” he said angrily, trying to imagine the fun they all must have had. He tried to remember. He quickly gave up. From about ten the night before until ten minutes ago, he could recall nothing. It just didn’t exist.

      He searched under the bench. “What did I do with my money?” he shouted. Don’t panic, Joe! he told himself. There’s got to be a perfectly good reason why you’re sitting here on a park bench. He waited, expecting an answer. He closed his eyes and cursed.

       CHAPTER TWO

      It was all slowly coming back to him now. The pub crawl, the Tequila slammers, the kissogram girl … the boat. “Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” he whispered. Five of his mates had bought him a present and asked Linda, the kissogram, to present it to him. It was a ticket to Holyhead. He quickly searched himself. “There must be a return voucher,” he muttered, running his hands through his cape and down the insides of his red tights. There was nothing. Nothing.

      He sat back on the bench and took three deep breaths. He had no watch so he had no idea what time it was. For all he knew it could well be three o’clock, the time he was due to marry Liz Gunner in the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows.

      He thought about the word “sorrows” for a moment. It had become his nickname for Liz: Mother of Sorrows. She was such a serious person. Everything had to be a crisis. Even when Joe brought her out for a drink with the lads, she would end up giving them all advice. Joe used to say, “Liz, will you shut up, please! Or I’ll lose all my friends.”

      He tried to remember to whom he had been chatting. Had he made a show of himself in front of anybody? To hell with them, he thought. If they didn’t like the party they should have gone home. Joe Mooney was boss. He was his own man, free to do whatever he wanted, and to hell with the begrudgers.

      His mind was totally confused, apart from the brain damage caused by gallons of beer, washed down with countless slammers. He lay back down on the seat and willed himself to die. “Oh God, please don’t do this to me. Please, help meee!” he kept crying out until he felt his voice going hoarse. He lay still for a while and worked on a number of solutions. One: he could go back to the ferry ticket office and pretend he had been booked to entertain the passengers on the return crossing. Two: he could ring the local television station and tell them he had been dragged into a car the night before. He was leaving a pub in Dublin at the time. His kidnappers dropped him off in Holyhead after robbing him of everything. Or three: he could phone Liz and tell her the truth. With a bit of luck she might call off the wedding.

      Joe knew there would be no such luck.

      There was only one problem: he had no money to make the phone call. He lay there, staring up at the blue sky. He was getting dizzy again. Three seagulls flew in circles above his head.

      “Excuse me, are you Superman?” a slow deep voice asked.

      Joe Mooney sat up and looked behind him. An elderly man wearing waders stood looking at him. He wore a tatty jacket tied at the waist with baling twine and a black cap. He was standing directly behind Joe now, blocking out the sun.

      “No, I’m not Superman,” Joe said anxiously. “Can you tell me what time it is?”

      The old man shook his arm. He waited for his watch to slide down to his wrist. “It’s twenty-past nine. That’s my bench you’re sitting on.”