It's 2:54 a.m. and I'm standing outside one of Cork City's monuments to the architecture of post-war Eastern bloc public housing (a new trendy apartment complex). Jerome is jumping up and down and holding a burning broadsheet, looking a bit like a defrocked KKK Grandmaster. He's unashamedly crying like a baby. "You're nothing but a spineless worm, Bruce!" he wails. "Give me back my Fatal Attraction this instant or I'll burn the place to the ground!" How the hell did I get mixed up in this . . .

Briefly: Jerome's Australian special friend Bruce has clicked with a guy who works in a financial institution down the South Mall and they have moved in together. In the ensuing chaos of Bruce's exodus he inadvertently took some of Jerome's belongings, including the copy of Fatal Attraction which I discussed some weeks ago. The crux of the matter is that the video does not belong to Jerome, but in fact is a rented copy, and at this stage Jerome owes a mini-mortgage to the video store through mounting fines and penalties.

I arranged to meet Bruce during the week to sort out this matter, but he denied having the "bloody" video. I explained this to Jerome but he feels betrayed and refuses to discuss the matter with Bruce. Jerome is effectively cut off from the video shop due to spiralling debts, so over the past few weeks I've been picking up videos for him on my card - it's a nightmare.

I suffer from Video Shop Anxiety Phobia. It's like I walk in full of confidence, but by the time I've done the rounds twice I realise that the film I want to see, has yet to be made. That's when I automatically reach out for something familiar like The Magnificent Seven, but if I dip into that genre again, the third time in a week, the shop assistant will think I'm some class of a moron and the word might get back to my boss.

So, Plan C, the foreign section; there are always a few interesting titles there, but every dust cover carries an image of nuns or nudity, and I'm no pervert. The panic is building inside me. Yer man behind the counter is glaring. "Hi!" says I, as I pass by for the fourth time. Invariably, I leave the shop demoralised and empty-handed.

But now that I'm picking up videos for Jerome, not only must I confront my phobia and actually select a film, but guaranteed, when I get back to his place, he'll ridicule my unsophisticated choice - after all, what do I know about film?

So there I was heading down past the sci-fi for the fifth time, when out of the corner of my eye I noticed a flash of colour under Action/Adventure: the full collection of Death Wish movies, one to five. I bundled them up, paid the man and headed for Jerome's - if the producers made five of them, they must be good.

Jerome hit the roof. "I can understand how some imbecile might pick up Death Wish," he conceded, " . . . but five of them, what sort of an . . . " I explained I was only doing him a favour but he was on a rant, and in retrospect, maybe justifiably so.

In a nutshell, the Death Wish series is about a nutcase, or should I say, a basket of nutcases. And although Charles Bronson has made over 80 films, he will probably be remembered for his role as Paul Kersey in this series of retribution movies. With little attempt made to reshuffle the formula, basically, the baddies are a gang, who either destroyed Paul Kersey's family, neighbourhood or apartment block, and once the depravity of the evil gang is established early in the plot, it gives licence to G.I. Joe Citizen, aka Paul Kersey, to lose the plot totally, in what must be the classic case of miscasting of all time. How any director could envisage Charles Bronson as the personification of victimhood is beyond me; in truth, he's got a face like Barrack Street. Death Wish is a BWestern minus the birth scene, but if anything is to be learned from this series, it's this - humanity is a bit like a sapling in that, if pushed far enough it will either snap or spring back in your face . . .

. . . And that's why I'm standing outside this stark testament to the Cold War - Jerome has snapped. He sends another mud ball splatting against the window - the wrong window.

"Hoi! What do you think you're doin' down there!" comes a voice from a tattooed head behind the mud-smeared glass.

"S-s-sorry!" says Jerome.

" 'Bout time you apologised." echoes Bruce from the floor above.

"I'm not talkin' to you, ya fickle fiend!" snarls Jerome.

"What did you just call me?" from the tattoo skull one floor down.

"If I go down to you!" Bruce threatens.

"If I go up to you, I'll break your neck!" a counter threat from Jerome, and he throws another misguided skud of a mud ball, causing a shaved head to duck, a window to shatter and a baby to cry.

"Ooops!" says Jerome.

Realising the potential ugliness of the situation, we are buzzed into the apartment.

Once there, Bruce's special friend, who works in the financial institution, popped a bottle of Cava and attempted to unravel the situation.

"Now where did you last have Fatal Attraction?" he asked.

"His place!" Bruce and Jerome reply in unison, and pointed at me.

"It's probably still there." he concluded. And he was right. Jerome and Bruce came over to my place and found Fatal Attraction exactly where they left it, tucked neatly away inside in my spare room. I believe they were still in there when I was going to work the next morning.

And so, with Jerome's video collection intact again and all outstanding debts paid, life should get back to normal, whatever normal is. But love and fury have one thing in common - they are both blind. Methinks this may be but the beginning.