New Irish Short Stories

by Joseph O'Connor

  ‘I’m Walter Hobbes.’ Walter extended his hand to be shaken.

  ‘Jerry,’ the black man said and shook Walter’s hand with a not-at-all-firm grip. He was almost featurelessly, smoothly handsome, his tan face shiny in sweat. He had a small gold stud in his left earlobe, something he possibly wouldn’t wear to work. On his left bicep was a faded tattoo that said ‘Sheri’ in ornate cursive script. He wore a gold wedding ring.

  They both stood then in the unmoving heat and looked down the street of a few remaining ruined houses and emptied lots in the direction of the lake and the soaring opalescent sky. This was the girls’ visit now, and they were conducting it. Nothing need be said by the adults about what it was to be a UPS man, or to be a practitioner of the law, or to leave for Kenosha in the white heat of August.

  ‘What do you do?’ Jerry said, as if in any case he needed to find this out.

  ‘Oil and gas law,’ Walter said. It sounded quaint to say that out here, to be that.

  ‘I get that,’ Jerry said. ‘I’m UPS.’ It told its story. The ‘best’ company there was. Best benefits. Best working conditions. Best customers. Not like working at all.

  ‘Is that your house?’ Walter admired the bright-blue shotgun with the two women on the raised porch watching him as if he might be posing as someone he wasn’t. Louise suddenly laughed and said, ‘Oh you. You’re so funny.’ The skinny spotted dog that had been up the street now trotted past and turned out into what had become empty fields.

  Jerry waved at the women and smiled. ‘It’s my mother-in-law’s.’

  ‘It’s pretty,’ Walter said.

  ‘It’s where her old house was ’til the storm came in. Some people showed up from a church, some volunteers. Told her they were going to build it back. And they did. She didn’t even ask why. She just moved right in like nothing had happened. She’s from the country. Nothing really surprises her.’

  It was odd to live in a new house where everything had been blown away and scattered, Hobbes thought. It could be insulting to say that, of course, since it might not be true.

  Jerry regarded the house as if his thinking was along those same lines but found it acceptable. ‘We moved in with her when our house got ruint. But I took a transfer up north. I ain’t turning that down. My wife wants to stay on here. But …’ He didn’t finish.

  ‘How does Ginny feel?’

  Jerry ran a hand down his bare arm – the one with the ‘Sheri’ tattoo – to wipe off sweat. The sun was burning straight on them from behind clouds. Walter’s suit jacket was wetted through. ‘It’s just a game to them. A big adventure.’

  Walter looked at the girls together. It might be true.

  ‘Tell me something good about Wisconsin,’ Jerry said. His brows raveled as if he would take whatever was said seriously.

  ‘It’s on a lake,’ Walter said. ‘It gets cold. The Packers play there.’

  Jerry said, ‘I’m starting to be worried about that cold.’

  ‘They have seasons,’ Walter said. ‘That’s a plus. We don’t have those down here. You might learn to like it.’

  ‘Okay,’ Jerry said and paused to let this dimensionless idea cycle past. ‘I went through Chicago in the Navy,’ he said. ‘But. That was in the summer.’

  Then they were silent and motionless while their little girls conferred and walked a few yards farther down the street, arms gripping each other’s waist. They had their last little girl things to impart, more private than earlier.

  ‘So, how’re you doin’?’ Jerry said amiably. The two women on the scorching porch turned and passed back through the sliding door that closed with a sucking sound. One of them was laughing, saying, ‘You know how he goes …’ An air-conditioning unit behind the blue house hummed incessantly, a comforting noise Walter hadn’t heard until now. Jerry’s question meant, ‘… since the hurricane that happened … What’s been doing?’ But more generally, too.

  ‘How am I doing about what?’

  ‘Well.’ Jerry kept smiling. ‘Whatever you’re all about. Whatever’s up. You know? You hangin’ in there?’

  Walter looked down the street at Louise Hobbes, her kilt, her knee socks, her glasses. She was caressing a lock of Ginny’s black hair – just the spidery tips. Just touching.

  ‘I’m hangin’ in,’ Walter said. ‘I guess that’s what I’m doing. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘There you go,’ Jerry said, still smiling. He also looked down toward the girls – lost now in each other’s past and present.

  Walter watched Jerry’s hand extend, ready to be shaken again with the same not-quite-firm grip.

  ‘Good to meet you,’ Walter said. Almost suddenly.

  ‘Okay, then. You be careful.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Walter said, taking the large, soft, unmeaning hand in his own. Behind him his other hand found the over-warm door handle of the Rover. He smiled at Jerry, whose last name he didn’t even know. Baxter might be another man. Someone no longer in evidence.

  ‘We’re leavin’, quick as I’m loadin’,’ Jerry said, walking back to his trailer, carrying on talking. ‘Make it to Memphis tonight. Be to Wisconsin tomorrow. Work the next day. You know how it is.’

  ‘Great,’ Walter said. ‘Have a safe trip.’

  ‘If it ain’t already snowin’.’

  ‘It won’t be.’ Walter said. This had been enough.

  ‘There it is,’ Jerry said, going leisurely on up the concrete drive toward the house.

  He merely needed something new to capture his attention now, to occupy him for the time he’d be here. Far down Delery, where the workers in yellow helmets were collected around the light pole, a police cruiser turned into the street and began slowly toward him. Get in the car now, he thought, turn up the air, wait for the children to finish their goodbyes. He had reasons to be here.

  *

  Louise sat in her seat with her legs crossed again, hands in her lap, very pleased with herself. She’d come away with the victory – ‘She’s lucky to be moving away’ – watching

  the hopeless demolished neighborhood glide past in the other direction. They were back to St Claude, where it was possible again to view the city center, far away, as if from a desert floor or an ocean – tall bank buildings in the gritty haze, new hotels, office towers that had not been ruined by the hurricane. The city – the middle, where Walter worked – always seemed to be where it shouldn’t be when seen from a distance. Once, flying in, from somewhere, the plane had banked to the west so he’d gazed straight down the river’s course to the old section – the Vieux Carré – the part all tourists knew about. What a laughable mistake to put a city down here, he’d thought. A man from Des Moines would tell you that. Nothing promised good from it.

  ‘Did you do okay without a card?’ Walter said. They were finally bound for their hilarious early dinner at Cyril’s. The Baxters were sorted out, sent on their hopeful, toilsome way. Bill Murray would come later. Louise’s mother was now inexplicably though comfortably across the lake on Mitch Daigle’s porch. He would, indeed, be at work tomorrow, himself.

  ‘I definitely did,’ Louise said. Vivid sunlight sparkled in through the windshield, the kind that could give you a headache.

  ‘It’s good to know you can put things best in your own words. It’s harder, but it’s better.’

  ‘Whatever,’ Louise said. ‘Or buy a better card, maybe. Or not go to Wal-Mart, which was my idea, which I’m sorry about. Or not have any friends at all.’

  ‘One at a time,’ Walter said. Her jaw was working, grinding.

  ‘Do you think possibly I could move?’ Louise said. ‘Before very long?’ The torn goose-card clutter lay under her shoes.

  ‘Well. You could move to Wisconsin, maybe live on a glacial lake surrounded by stately conifers, go to a country school and learn to canoe and memorize the legends of the Chippewa and have your classmates say “golly” and “Jeez Louise”.’ He looked at his daughter proprietarily, reached across and touched her shoulder to indicate he
wasn’t making fun of her, though he was. Many things would be possible for her in time. Not even much time. Some of them would surely be good.

  ‘No,’ Louise said. ‘I was thinking about going to Italy or maybe to China. Or Ireland. Alone. And never seeing anybody I know today ever again.’

  ‘Would you include me?’ Hobbes said.

  ‘And mother, too,’ Louise said, and gave him a look of sudden anguish. A look that saw another future.

  For that instant, then, Walter experienced the sensation of something being just about to happen. All around. A sensation of impendment – not necessarily bad or good, but something there in the offing. Though if he paused in his thinking at that very moment, as he’d recently learned to do, didn’t follow thoughts all the way to where they led – or even came from – then this sensation could develop into something not so bad. In a day he’d forget it so that when it offered itself again it would again surprise him. This was a smart child – Louise – though not smart beyond her years. She would be allowed to forget many things, too.

  He went on then with his dutiful driving, the center of the city still a remarkable feature in the evening’s steamy distance. He needn’t make the effort to answer a childish question about Italy and China. In her life she would definitely go to these places. It was best, he felt, to let things just pass away from the moment.

  Somewhere in Minnesota

  Órfhlaith Foyle

  I WAS SITTING IN A DINER in God knows where in Duluth, Minnesota, during wintertime and the waitress was concerned for me. She liked my accent and noticed my bruised face.

  She said, ‘Who’s been hurting you, sweetheart?’

  I don’t like it when people use sweet language on strangers. Sweet language belongs to lovers. But she was kind. A little bit old with worn blonde hair, the sort that was dying before she was, and the fat had fallen in her face. I wanted to draw her so I ripped a napkin from the dispenser and took my pencil from my pocket. My phone buzzed against my hip twice then switched to message mode.

  The diner door opened, and the waitress called out, ‘Hey John.’

  John raised a salute. ‘How are you these days, Hetty? The kids?’

  Hetty laughed. She said her husband had come over with the kids yesterday. She said they were all grown up now and one of them wanted to be an archaeologist. He always did like finding dead useless things, she said.

  I tried to ignore her voice but it had a good rhythm to it and it helped me move my pencil.

  Hetty called over, ‘You okay there girl?’

  I don’t know if she wanted John to see me or maybe she just didn’t want to talk about her kids and husband anymore, but she made John look.

  Now some men you just know they like to see hurt women. John stared right at me, and the muscles jumped across his jaw and his eyes lit before his head went back down over the menu.

  I glanced to where Hetty was pouring coffee for some other customer. Her arms bulged from beneath her little-girl waitress uniform. Her earrings chimed, and she was singing along to the radio. A few minutes later, she served John his coffee and his ‘usual’.

  The diner was big and bright and the voices were loud. My phone buzzed again. I had lost the count by now. I finished drawing and watched an old man talk into his chicken dinner. Bits of chicken fell from his beard and his knee was jiggling hard under his table.

  ‘How are you getting on?’ Hetty called over to me. I curled my hand over my napkin and on she came, high heels clicking fast, and I saw John raise his expression from his coffee to my face.

  I gave him a smile. He fit a potato from his fork to his mouth.

  When I was a little girl, my mother said that I watched people too much. I made them scared and angry, she said. But it was just the way my mind turned when it saw something it liked.

  Hetty was humming ‘You Are My Sunshine’ as she reached me. She stopped humming as soon as she saw what I had done.

  I had made her younger with darker hair similar to what I had seen growing from her roots, and I had fluffed it about her head because it made her neck longer that way. I had corralled the fat from under her chin and replanted it in her cheeks. I had widened her eyes so that she looked as innocent as she might have been once.

  ‘Do you like it?’ I asked.

  Hetty snatched it and held it aloft. ‘Hey John, we’ve an artist here.’

  John stuck his head out from his neck and focused on the napkin.

  ‘Looks just like you did this morning, Hetty.’

  Hetty laughed and folded the napkin into her apron pocket. Then she tried to touch my face, and my insides crept to my backbone. I stood up fast and nearly fell into her.

  She took hold of me. ‘Take it easy, sweetheart.’ She clucked her tongue. ‘Who did this to you?’

  I said, ‘The Ladies, please?’

  Hetty started to bring me towards the back of the diner but I stopped her.

  ‘Just show me please.’

  Hetty dropped her arms from me. Her voice went sharp. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Frankie,’ I told her.

  She held her hands just beneath my chin but not touching me. ‘You go in there and take as long as you please, Frankie. Food is on me.’

  The ladies room smelled of synthetic cherries. It had pale green walls, and there were false blue and pink flowers stuck in a yellow vase on a shelf beside the sink’s mirror. I locked the door and stripped to my slip. I filled the sink with cold, cold water. I just wanted to freeze the pain inside me. I dampened the corner of my blouse and patted at the blood on my forehead.

  The diner music piped into the air above me. I stared at my face. My phone buzzed. Peter’s name was flashing so I answered.

  ‘Hey,’ I said.

  ‘Whereabouts are you?’ he said.

  ‘Somewhere in Minnesota,’ I answered.

  ‘Christ Frankie, just tell me you are still in Duluth.’

  I stared at my reflection as I dabbed at my face with one hand while I held my phone in the other. Peter’s voice babbled on. He mentioned ‘crisis’ more than once. He mentioned money a little bit more. He took a breath, and I waited. I put my left hand into the freezing water and felt the cold wet on my wrist.

  ‘Frankie, just come back.’

  I heard the background noise of music and glasses and people’s voices. I almost saw the tall white walls holding my paintings and the shiny clean skin of everyone there.

  ‘Frankie, just come back now.’

  I said nothing and waited. Peter breathed in and out.

  ‘Fuck your father Frankie,’ he said.

  I waited some more seconds then I switched off the phone.

  The piped music stopped then sputtered on. My face was beginning to swell. I ran my tongue over my lips to feel the sting. I knew I’d have to go outside, finish whatever had been cooked for me and make some kind of conversation that Minnesota Americans would appreciate. I’d ease on into their lineage, find an Irish link and marvel it big. They liked it big here.

  ‘Hey Frankie … you still in there … ?’

  A man’s voice came through the wall.

  So I answered, ‘Yes?’

  ‘You okay?’ said his voice.

  ‘I’m fine, yes.’

  ‘I’m going to piss,’ he continued. ‘And the acoustics in here are astronomical.’

  I rested against the sink as the sound of piss rivered through the wall.

  Hetty knocked on the door. ‘You okay in there, honey?’

  I heard her giggle and say, ‘Hey John, watch where you put your hands.’

  I looked at the mirror and whispered, ‘Hey John, watch where you put your hands.’

  I smoothed down my hair then went back out into the diner. John watched me sit and Hetty came over with the food.

  The chicken on the plate seemed alive. It glistened up from under slow-moving brown gravy. Boiled greens hung on its thighs, and there was some potato, mashed into the shape of a deflated ball, burnt on the edges, s
meared in yellow cheese. I willed the chicken to stop moving. I counted to ten with my eyes closed and felt something move in front of me. When I opened them, John was seated opposite. He had his coffee and apricot pie.

  He said, ‘Eat the chicken. It’s good.’

  I peeled off some thigh meat with my knife then covered it in mash.

  ‘Hetty does the best gravy,’ John said.

  He cut a chunk from his pie and stuck it in his mouth. He had a nice mouth. Thin but well curved. I decided not to talk just yet, and maybe he appreciated the tension because he smiled and hummed a little then glanced over to Hetty who winked at us both.

  ‘She’s been married five times,’ John mentioned. ‘Only one of her husbands gave her kids. She loves those kids but she can’t stand having them for more than three days.’

  I nodded and continued to peel meat and mash together.

  ‘That’s the thing about Hetty,’ John said. ‘She can act the love just as long as she’s not near it too often.’

  He smiled and pointed his fork at my face. ‘So you coming in here looking like that gets her mother instincts all in a tizzy.’

  ‘You and Hetty,’ I stated.

  He shrugged. ‘We’re friends.’ He smiled. ‘We like meeting people.’

  I nodded and chewed on chicken. John smiled at my bruises and cut an apricot in two with the side of his spoon.

  ‘Hetty likes to help people.’ He smiled. ‘So do I.’

  I said nothing while I scraped a square of cheese from my mash.

  ‘I’m just here to eat,’ I told him.

  John smiled and shook his head. ‘With a face like yours you should be in hospital but you’re not. Makes me and Hetty wonder.’

  I glanced around the perimeter of the café. I noted how far I was from the main entrance, and a thin delight of fear ran from my throat to my guts. I breathed in and kept smiling. The old man caught my smile and raised his hand in greeting. A group of silent kids were reading comics in another booth. I had picked the café because I had thought it seemed the sort of place people got lost in for a while.