'The motor stops, then the bouncy castle storts to collapse'

You’d need a hord hort in the repossession business, but I’d swear JP’s actually enjoying making these little kids cry.

I ASK JP if he saw that dude on the news last night – he staged, like, hundreds of fake cor accidents on this roundabout as part of, like, an insurance scam? Of course I’d Ronan immediately on the phone, banging on about leaving school again: “There’s opportunities out there, Rosser, and Ine missen dem.” The J-Dog doesn’t even smile, just keeps both hands on the wheel and stares straight ahead. He’s all business today – the business of Last Resort Asset Reclaim.

I ask him what he's even repossessing and he says a bouncy castle, and I'm suddenly sat there thinking, what the fock does a bouncy castle cost? Is this how badthings have gone? Then all of a sudden we're pulling up outside a redbrick gaff in the middle of some random housing estate in Shankill. JP kills the engine. "It's a bigbouncy castle," he goes, reading my actual mind. "Three grand's worth."

We hop out of the old Gloria Este. We've barely put a foot in the front gorden when this woman – if anything, you'd say she was an older version of Jordana Brewster – comes running out of the gaff, going, "No, please! Not today!" It has to be said, roysh, it takes me kind of unawares? JP, unbelievably, blanks her, roysh, and it's meshe ends up telling that it's Lila and Giovanna's joint birthday porty, then she asks me how anyone could be so cruel as to do something like this on a day like today.

"This has literally nothing to do with me," I end up going. "I'm only here – and it's mad because I never thought I'd hear myself say these words – to help with the heavy lifting." I follow JP around the back of the gaff, while shechases after me, telling me that I'm this, that and the other – though nothing I haven't heard before.

I’ve been around some corners in my time.

JP wasn't shitting me when he described it as a bigbouncy castle. It's literally the biggest one I've ever seen – we're talking two storeys high – and it's modelled on Princess Fiona's one in, like, the firstShrek movie? See, I've watched all that shit with Honor, so I know. There must be, like, 50 or 60 kids – we're talking half the actual neighbourhood – playing on the thing, jumping up and down, hanging out of the windows, and blahdy blahdy blah-blah.

Kids basically being kids.

There's, like, 10, maybe 11 other parents there and they're looking at us as if to say, who are these two J Okers? The mother – it was pretty obvious from the second we arrived – has a bit of a thing for me, which is why she suddenly decides to concentrate her anger on JP again. He'swalking around the castle, checking it out, while she's giving him a serious ear-bashing, asking him was he ever young himself and does he have any Christian compassion in him.

I'm just, like, hanging back, wondering how he's going to clear all the kids out before he deflates the thing – then I suddenly realise, roysh, that he's not? With herstill in his ear, he walks over to the air pump and just, like, kicks the switch. The sound of the motor stops, then the castle storts to collapse.

There’s all of a sudden kids screaming, but the adults are just, like, frozen, too in shock to even move? And I’m included in that.

It only takes, like, 10 seconds for all the air to go out of it. Two or three kids manage to, like, jump clear in time, but the rest are suddenly trapped inside this, I don’t know, latex landslide. The parents suddenly react. They’re like the focking Red Cross after one of those, I suppose, tragedies that Sorcha’s always contributing money to, sifting through the folds, pulling out crying children missing their shoes.

I'm suddenly thinking about Ronan and Honor – as in, what if theywere trapped in there? For a few seconds, I contemplate even helping with the rescue effort.

“You animal!” I suddenly hear someone shout. I look at JP, roysh, and he’s just standing there with, like, his orms folded, not even moved by this scene of – I suppose you’d have to call it – devastation? In his head, he’s already working out the best way to fold the thing up and get it into the van.

Now, I haven’t managed to keep this face as pretty as it is without being able to sense when the mood of a crowd is turning ugly. I morch straight over to the dude and tell him we need to make like shepherds and get the flock out of here.

He shakes his head. “My instructions are to take the castle,” he goes.

I'm there, "Who the fock are you, Lord Farquaad all of a sudden?" and I grab him by the sleeve of his jacket, just as three or four parents stort making their way over to us. He must all of a sudden get the way the vibe is going, roysh, because he suddenly breaks into a run before Ieven do.

“I’m going to kill you!” someone shouts.

Five seconds later, we’re back in the van, with the engine humming, and all these angry rents banging on the windows and banging on the bonnet, threatening us with all sorts of tortures. JP puts his foot down like Jenson Button and soon we’re looking at Shankill in his mirrors – always the best view of the focking place, if you want my opinion.

Neither of us says anything for ages, roysh – it might be just, I don't know, relief at being alive. But when we get back on the dualler and reach Cabinteely, our breathing returns to normal and I decide I haveto say something?

"Dude," I go, "don't take this the wrong way, but I didn't recognise you back there." He just shrugs, roysh, like he doesn't actually care? I'm there, "They were kids, JP!" See, being a father changes you – hewouldn't know that.

“It wasn’t like I was taking the roof from over their heads,” he goes. “It was a bouncy castle, Ross!” I tell him that’s not the point. Someone could have been hurt.

Then I’m suddenly staring at his hand, all bandaged up, from where he supposedly put in the window of an A6 last week with his actual fist. It suddenly hits me that he’s no longer the same happy-go-lucky goy who, three years ago, was selling people into a lifetime of debt they couldn’t afford.

I go, “This whole current economic thing is making you hord,” and he smiles like it’s an actual compliment.

rossocarrollkelly.ie