My Fifteen Minutes

If Andy Warhol’s saying is true, and we’re all entitled to at least fifteen minutes of fame, then I reckon I’ve got about eleven minutes to go. Because a few weeks ago, in an entirely unexpected situation, Ethan Jon Hollander enjoyed his first four minutes in the limelight. I guess that’s what happens when an American goes against the better advice of his friends and family by hitchhiking to a veritable war zone. What follows is the story of my first full day in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

I first met Brendan, the guy who unwittingly made this story possible, in Dundalk — a small town on the main road from Dublin to Belfast. Though I was advised against the idea of hitchhiking to ‘violent’ places such as Northern Ireland, I figured the experience would be worth the small risk involved. Oh, how right I was! ’Cause if thumbing a lift with Brendan isn’t an experience, I can’t imagine what is.

Brendan was a yuppie businessman on his way back to Belfast from a business trip in Dublin. When I climbed into his small, sporty car, of course, I had no idea that he was from the North. Indeed, of all the silly advice I’d been given, refusing lifts from men with distinctively Northern accents was one warning I was prepared to heed. But it wasn’t until we were already driving off that I asked the fateful question:

“Thanks a milyen fer the lift,” I said. “D’ya spoze yew kin tayke me awl the waey ta Bellfaast?”

“Euah, sher. Eye’um goonuwp dare nie!”, he told me — a Northern Irish phrase that roughly translates to “Oh, sure. I’m going up there now.”

The accent was a heavy one. Almost unintelligible, and unmistakably Northern. Pangs of fear ran through my body as a cold sweat broke upon my forehead. What if this guy’s with the IRA? What if this guy’s with the UVF? Or, worst of all, what if this guy doesn’t tell me who he’s with and asks me how I feel about the whole mess? My answer was prepared: I’m American. I’m Jewish. And I don’t know a whole heck of a lot about the situation in the North. (Who knows how I’d answer if asked whether I was a Protestant Jew or a Catholic one?!).

But lucky for me, we only had to drive a few minutes before I could venture a guess as to his political leanings. When bumper-to-bumper traffic in the distance signalled a queue at the checkpoint, Brendan rammed into a U-turn and made his way to a small side road. An iffy crossing, it was. But heck! It got us from one side to the other.

“Breedish bahssters…!” he exclaimed, “treat dis countree as ifits dear owen!”

So all of the sudden, things began to make more sense. The side road. The accent. The British bastards. Brendan was a nationalist. And I told him that I studied in Maynooth.

Just a bit more into the drive, I began to understand the true construction of Brendan’s sentiment. Not only was Brendan a nationalist, he had actually suffered for the cause. He was surprisingly candid (so much so, that to this very day, I still wonder if all he said was true…) as he told me of the seven years he spent in Long Kesh Prison. Illegal possession of firearms. He was only in his late 20’s now. Gosh, he was young! But he assured me that he was no longer involved, and offered me a fag as he explained the new type of explosive used by the IRA.

As we drove into the city, Brendan pointed out the “notorious” Divis Flats. And just as I asked what it was that made them so ‘notorious’, he tooted his horn and waved to a group of friends on the street.

He left me on the Falls Road, in the shadow of a giant mural of the Virgin Mary, and pointed my way to the city centre. And with a quick shake of hands, and an even quicker exchange of first names, he disappeared into the skyline of Belfast’s West Side.

Unbeknownst to him, Brendan carried away with him two things of great value to me. One, were my hopes and desires of finding out just a wee bit more about this true cowboy of sorts. My childhood imagination still running wild, I simply couldn’t believe I met a real IRA man. With him, went any hopes I had of ever satisfying my curiosity about his life as a terrorist. With him also, went my camera.

Oh shux! Oh fudge! Oh shux! Oh fudge! Shux!!! What kind of putz was I to leave my camera in his car!?! You schmuck! You schmuck! Schmuck! Schmuck! How dumb! How stupid! I’m such a putz! I am such a putz! Putz.

I wasn’t happy. Life wasn’t good. I was a pathetic and lonely schmuck, stranded on the Falls Road near the Divis Flats with an oversized back-pack, and an undersized ego. It was cold. It was getting dark. And (of course) it started to rain.

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I sat on the kerb in this unwelcoming part of town, without a care as to the danger involved. I hoped and wished that, by some miracle, Brendan might catch a glimpse of my camera sitting on the passenger’s seat beside him. The chances were slim, but I had some time. Time was just about all I had. And besides, if anything were to happen, the natural course of events would simply put me out of my misery. The eyes of the Blessed Virgin gazed tenderly upon me from the mural above. She didn’t seem to give two bits either way.

In my dejected state, I turned around to find a little old lady approaching me from behind.

“Er yee last?” she inquired, wondering if I was lost.

I told her my story as if she should be concerned.

The woman responded by telling me to say “Jesus was lost, and then found” three times. If I did that, she said with the most resolute confidence, I’d be sure to get my camera back.

It didn’t work.

A few seconds later, another concerned person approached. He was a middle-aged man with thick glasses and a hair cut that went out of style sometime during the Mesozoic Era. In this way, he sort of resembled my dad — only this man’s hair was long and grey, and my father’s is well on its way to becoming invisible.

The man, James was his name (I think), waited with me at the corner for a while and offered to walk me to the BBC station in town. Of course, I assured my new friend that he needn’t walk me all the way to the station if he hadn’t the time. But James was persistent, ‘comforting’ me by saying: “Mie tiime iz Gud’z tim nie.”

As we walked, James took me through “a shirt kit” [I think he meant a ‘short cut’] through an area that even he said was dodgy. Of course, I knew following a strange man through shirt kits on the west side of Belfast just as night began to fall was a bit dodgy in itself. But hey, lately a lot of good had come my way by doing things that others might consider unwise…

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The BBC station, that is, the BBC Temple, was quite a sight for sore eyes. It was the Promised Land, and I, a tired and lonesome traveller lugging the Ark of the Covenant that was my rucksack. Everything would have been honkey doorey if I were Moses, but this was 1993, so I suppose I looked a bit strange.

Seated at the reception desk was Elizabeth. I tentatively approached, and received a strange look from the security guard. Explaining that my story might seem a bit strange, I begged her, nevertheless, to take it seriously. Then, I nervously made my request:

“So … ah … er … ah, d’ya spoze thare … ah … mite bee eni waye … err … fer ya’ll ta … umm … broawdkist mie storie … ah … jist in kayce Brendin mite bee lissenin?”

Unorthodox, it was. But impossible, it was not. Elizabeth answered as if this kind of request was a daily experience: “Ye lissen hair, aahm shir we kid werk sumthin’ att.”

With that, Elizabeth made a quick phone call and motioned me past the front desk. She told me to put down my Ark, and placed a telephone on the table in front of me. “Nie lissen,” she said with great confidence, “da fun hear’z gunna’ ring en jist a minnit. End whin eet dahz, yie pek et up!”

“Whaat’s goin’ ewn?”

“Yuz gonna’ b’ lav on de Jeery Ayndersin shie.”

“Liiive? on raydio!?!” Thoughts rushed through my head. Just like that? Weren’t they going to tell me what to say? Wasn’t there anything I’d have to do? Didn’t I have to put on make up, or something? I found myself brushing my hair with my hands, never realizing that such things don’t matter very much on radio. And then it occurrs to me:

“Whoze Jeery Ayndersin!?!”

With that, the phone rings. And I begin the journey through my first four minutes of fame.

Before I know it, I’m having a conversation with Gerry Anderson — a radio and TV talk show host who, I later learn, has one of the most popular shows around. Not just in Belfast. Not just in Northern Ireland. But in Scotland, too — and many places in the Republic.

I spoke with Gerry for quite some time. After telling my story and appealing to Brendan to leave my camera at the station, Gerry even started asking me about myself. When I told him that I was from Miami, he said that lately, people in Belfast have received terrible reports about how dangerous it might be to visit Florida. When asked for my opinion on the issue, I simply told him that I had heard similar things about coming to Belfast.

“Wheel konterd!”, Jerry exclaimed, meaning that he liked my response.

And then, in a moment, it was over. The interview. The appeal for the camera. The first four minutes of my life, excluding my bar mitzvah, when I was truly in the spotlight. Just as soon as it had come, it was gone — snuffed away in radio waves to homes all around a country that wasn’t even my own. My fifteen minutes of fame were gone.

I bid good-bye to Elizabeth and the security guard, slung the Ark upon my shoulders, and escaped to the familiar anonymity of the city streets. Indeed, even though the streets and the city were foreign, they seemed as familiar to me as the approach to my own home.

And when I boarded the #64 bus, just in front of the City Hall, I looked around and wondered just how many people had been listening. As I gazed across the aisle of the bus, I wondered where that guy was, just fifteen minutes before. I had just been on the radio. I had just been talking to Gerry Anderson. I had just had one of the most incredible experiences of my life. And no one seemed to give two bits either way. I was ordinary, once again. And I was at home.

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The day is Anyday, but about a week later. Having overcome my paranoia that the average Joe on the Streets will recognize my voice, I walk, just as any tourist would, into a small pub, in a small village, in a small country, in a small world. It is McBride’s Pub in Cushendun — reputed to be the smallest pub in Europe.

I gaze across the smoke filled room to see the quintessence of a small-town local. She is an ancient and dusty woman, part of the pub’s decor, who calmly drags the smoke of a cigarette deep into her lungs. Her voice is raspy. She is raspy.

Knowing no one else at the pub, and being fully aware that such people always seem to have the best stories, I sit beside this living fragment of history and we begin to talk. It is only a matter of time before this immovable object leaps from her seat in amazement.

“Wet eh minnit! Yee wuz on Jeery Ayndersin’s pragrim, wernt yuz!?!”

I was honestly and pleasantly surprised. I guess my fifteen minutes of fame weren’t over after all.

Éthan in Éire, April ’93.

©1993 by Ethan Hollander.