It’s time once again to dig to the back of your closet to find something green, so you can avoid harassment from suddenly festive friends, coworkers, and random bar partiers. Around this time of year I rediscover that, while I find the colour very soothing and love Kermit the Frog, I own very little green. I naturally gravitate towards strong primary colours like red and blue–my shirts resemble flags of nonexistent countries.
But I am planning on going out Sunday, so to protect me from a mob of Guinness-fueled leprechauns I’ll wear a green-and-grey striped polo shirt I’ve had for years. I bought the shirt before going to Ireland for the first time with my family. I meant it as a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the Emerald Isle. Not long after driving from the airport I learned that the stereotype was actually true–Ireland is covered in rolling hills that glean brighter than Oz. Ireland was the first place I experienced that actually looked like the postcards.
A few years later I returned, this time to live in Dublin. I had never lived on my own before. I was ‘green’ in another way. I found a basement apartment in a neighbourhood called Ranelagh. (With cafes and alternative DVD shops, it was kind of like Dublin’s Annex.) I got a job at Starbucks in a posh mall where half my coworkers were from other countries. The Eastern European girls would mock me for chatting too much with customers. Putting on a broad North American accent they’d say, “Hi, my name’s Max. I’m from Can-Na-Da. Where are you from?” It was right at the time the bottom was falling out of the Irish economy, and right before the expat workers started leaving in droves.
Although I’m sure it wasn’t enough to buoy their economy, I really liked shopping in Dublin. Even though it’s the far West backwater of Central European capitals, it has a lot of the continent’s stylish chains. Men’s clothing was sleeker and unabashedly trendy compared to Toronto’s sea of plaid flannel.
But not all the men in Dublin looked sophisticated. I quickly noticed a subset of young men who always wore hoodies, zip up sports jackets, or football (soccer) shirts. For bottoms, they’d pull on black track pants or grey sweatpants, sometimes without underwear. (Sorry, but I noticed.) At the time I lived there, a very distinctive hairstyle was fashionable–gelled down and forward in the front, spiked up in back. The locals called them “doleys,” a reference to being ‘on the dole’ or on welfare. They’re the equivalent of England’s “chavs” and Toronto’s “hood rats.” Local people spoke about them derisively, but also seemed a bit scared of them. The mall where I worked actually forbade you from entering with your hoodie up. I saw the security guys gruffly instructing 13-year-old girls to pull down their pink hoodies.
From what I’ve gathered, Saint Patrick’s Day is not a big deal in Ireland. It’s the perfect diaspora holiday–it caricaturizes a cultural legacy that enough people have a distant claim to, even if many North Americans’ Celtic heritage is as fictitious as Saint Patrick’s banishing snakes from Ireland. I wasn’t in Dublin for Saint Patrick’s Day, but I was there for Halloween, which is kind of like Saint Patrick’s Day for gay people.
I couldn’t decide what to dress up as until I was in a charity shop and found a second hand football shirt. It was green and had a shamrock logo. It had a cool, form-fitting construction, almost like a super hero’s uniform. I was curious about what it would look like on. I thought it was interesting how I looked like a different person in it and decided then and there to dress up like a “doley” for Halloween. The top had a bit of a smell but I thought, “No worries. I’ll give it a wash beforehand.”
I paired it with sweatpants (with underwear), an Adidas-style zip up jacket. I gelled my hair in the bizarre spikey manner. I realize in hindsight that this wasn’t the most politically correct costume. Dressing up like someone else’s subculture that isn’t very high on the social hierarchy is something you should avoid. It’s interesting to consider that the whiteness of “doleys” probably made the difference in my mind. Were they a different ethnicity, I would have never attempted the costume. I also wouldn’t have done it now, what with being older and a bit more sensitive to the delicate intricacies of identity.
But don’t worry–the fates got back at me for the costume, that very night.
The evening of Halloween, I took my football shirt from the dryer and put it on. As I assembled the rest of my costume I thought, “That’s funny. I can still smell some B.O. on the shirt. But perhaps it’s just because I know what it used to smell like…”
My coworkers Eduardo and Daria arrived, both dressed as chalky-skinned vampires, both with vodka for pre-drinking. Eduardo was Brazilian. When he started at Starbucks he quickly became like my little gay brother. I took him to the queer pubs I knew about, while he taught me what the younger generation was into (that year, a lot of Lady Gaga). Daria was the first person from Mongolia I ever met. Petite and pretty, she was blunt with customers and friends a like.
“At first, I didn’t like you,” she told me once. “But now I do!”
“Thanks, Daria.”
The two had barely made themselves at home in my cramped little room when Eduardo asked what smelled bad.
“It smells like someone didn’t take a shower,” Daria said, fanning the air in front of her nose for affect.
The smell of the shirt had only become more potent in the clothes washer. Now it wasn’t only stinking up the other clothes I was wearing, but infecting the whole apartment. It was like having a big burly football fan, hot and sweaty after a four hour game, there in the room with us…and not in the fun way.
Humiliated, I tore off the shirt and stashed it in my closet, throwing on a t-shirt instead. Later I caught it trying to spread its heinous stench to all my other clothes. Its final resting place was the bottom of a garbage bag.
I came to the conclusion that it couldn’t hurt to start drinking. Perhaps out of nerves or embarrassment, I drank a lot of vodka quickly. It was getting late and we knew everywhere would be crowded, so we headed out. The Luas Line, Dublin’s modern light rail tram, was packed with drunken costumed partiers. Normally, I’m not the type to drink on public transit. In fact, throughout our friendship, Eduardo would ask why I was always concerned about getting in trouble.
“I’m sorry,” I’d whine. “I’m from Toronto. We have a lot of rules.” I’m also the type of person who inevitably gets in trouble whenever he does something wrong.
This night, however, I downed the disposable cup of vodka we sneaked on like somebody would take it away from us. Even before we arrived in the city centre I started to feel that slightly dizzy, walking-through-a-dream feeling of having drunk too much.
We went to The George, Dublin’s oldest gay bar. I went there frequently on weekends to watch drag shows. As we expected, it was already pretty full, but we got there just before they started charging cover. I remember stumbling around in the darkness as my friends lined up for yet more drinks.
“I have to pee!” I yelled. Drinking is a good excuse to make the kind of declarations that only kids make.
Coming back from the upstairs restroom I decided to go back to the dance floor via the original pub. I knew you could do that from past visits. I walked down the stairs past a bouncer, but then discovered the door to the pub was locked. So I turned around to go back the way I came but the bouncer stopped me.
“I think you’ve had a bit too much to drink,” he said. “Step outside for a bit.”
“But…what? No, I just got here.” Convincing a bouncer you’re not that drunk when you are actually that drunk is one of the scariest things that can happen.
“Yeah, and I saw you bouncing off the walls as you were coming down. Outside!”
What I wanted to say was, “Sir, I am a naturally clumsy person!” What I actually said was something like,
“I don’t even have my mobile to call my friends…”
The bouncer looked me up and down. “I’m not going to ask you again.”
I exited the building and stood in the alleyway, filled with intoxicated rage. I was the good Canadian boy! The responsible one! I had never done so much as take my pint glass on the dance floor out of fears of dropping it. Then I remembered what I was wearing. Perhaps my costume was too convincing–maybe the bouncer really thought I was a “doley” who was going to cause trouble, despite the CBC accent that came out of my mouth. The costume had worked, but not in the way I intended. If so, that was discrimination!
I had half a mind to go over and tell him off…but instead I waited meekly outside until Eduardo and Daria came and found me. We went to a second bar that I only have the haziest memories of. I remember Daria putting me in a cab and making sure I had enough money to get home. My head began to spin part way along the journey.
Let’s just say the third revenge for that evening happened after I exited the cab, all over my front lawn.
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Max Mosher writes about style for Toronto Standard. You can follow him on Twitter at @max_mosher_.
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