the cat and the bee: My Timeline: Purgatory 1, Summerhill, Dublin, and Trainspotting Character in Edinburgh

The first level of Purgatory was somewhat akin to being trapped in Das Boot. The sound of metal creaking in the bowels of a submarine. Metal gates echoing for what seems like eternity. Steel everywhere, no color, no sunlight to speak of, and a bed made out of rough blankets which would fit right in the barracks on either side in World War II.
I thought of the joyous scene when they are drinking and feasting and break into "It's a long long way to Tipperary and Tipperary is our home . . . "

So, let's all travel back through my timeline to when I was a very, very young 20 year old living in Dublin, Ireland.

ASDA Bus Station, Bournemouth, England, Age 20

It was the darkest and most depressing winter of my life. I worked off Grafton Street with lots of young people from places other than Ireland. We had to dress in turn of the last century (1900) servant uniforms.

I had a pleasant conversation one morning with a man who used to tour with T. Rex about songs about Deborahs.

The Bedroom I Let, Summer St. North, Dublin

I lived in Summerhill in North Dublin adjacent to the Council Estates. I would walk to work in the dark down O'Connell Street with a solo garda on the beat.
At work, there wasn't a window letting in the misty grey daylight, and by the time my shift was done, there was absolutely no light. To get to the women's locker room, I would go through a door from the bakeshop near the entrance and go down stairs then upstairs like I was inside a German Expressionist movie.

I once cleared Thom Yorke's breakfast plate and watched him read and drink his tea in my empty section. All of the Irish girls acted like I was special, but we all know I was just a freak.
I would go sit in Saint Stephen's Green somedays to enjoy the only green I could really find in the dreary city center. One day, I was sitting on a rock reading a newspaper, and I was approached by a cute, Irish guy. He asked me if I wanted some drugs. I laughed and wasn't sure he was serious. I mean as a child of the '80s, Nancy Reagan had prepared me for this precise moment: "I'm just saying 'No' to drugs. That means, 'No, thank you.'"

Broken Window Pane

The children in Summerhill didn't know how to play. They would just fight and make each other scream. One day, they threw a rock through my bedroom window. I had to sleep in all of the clothes I owned that night; the landlord couldn't fix the window until the next day. The Frenchmen with Polish last names who I lived with convinced me to report the crime to the Garda station because I spoke the best English.

Now, let's go ahead and take a commuter flight to beautiful Scotland. I hadn't seen sunshine all winter, but when the plane approached Edinboro golden sun glistened through the clouds.

Edinburgh Castle, Scotland

I called my friend from a telephone booth right in the shadow of the castle (too expensive for me to tour). And, what do you know a character right out of Trainspotting starts yelling at me to get off of the phone. So, holding the phone in my hand, I turn to face him and I yell and scream back at him: I'm paying to use the telephone and he can wait his turn or go run around the corner to another payphone. He's Scottish; he should know where the hell to find another phone in his own country.