Irish Whiskey

by Andrew M. Greeley

  “Now just a minute,” one of the men said. “There’s no cause for acting that way.”

  I had not intended to lose my temper. However, the black rage within me exploded. The berserker within took over.

  “Are you Pedar?”

  “I’m Podraig.”

  I grabbed his shoulder and hurled him towards the doorway to the parlor.

  “There’s plenty of cause. It’s my house and I don’t want you in it. You too, Pedar,” I grabbed the other one. “Out!”

  “You can’t treat us this way,” he argued as I tossed him towards the door.

  “Who’s going to stop me?”

  I grabbed both of them and pushed them to the door of the house.

  “There’s no need to shove,” one of them said.

  I kicked open the door, which I had left unlocked when I had come in.

  “Out! Or I’ll throw you down the stairs on your fat asses.”

  They stumbled out the door.

  I turned to the parlor.

  “You too, bitch!” I yelled at the frightened young woman, doubtless Nessa.

  She scurried past me.

  “Now as for you, Larry. I hope you stay. Because I’d love to smash your front teeth down your throat, you useless gobshite of a gombeen man.”

  I would have done it, I really would have.

  He, too, scurried past me.

  I glanced at Nuala. She was grinning. Fair enough.

  “Now, listen to me, all of you,” I yelled at the disorganized group at the bottom of the stairs. “I don’t want to see any of you ever again as long as I live. Don’t you dare come to our wedding or ever show your ugly, stupid faces anyplace I can see them. If you do, you’ll need long-term medical care.”

  I walked down the front steps and faced them head to head.

  “Do I make myself clear, or do I have to crack some heads for emphasis?”

  They hurried back to their car and drove off.

  “How about that?” I asked the Adversary.

  YOU’LL TAKE THEM BACK INTO THE FAMILY WHEN THEY APOLOGIZE, he said nervously.

  So I had scared him, too.

  “Where are your ma and da?” I barked at Nuala.

  “Gone to the Bears game.” she said solemnly. “In a skybox.”

  I picked up the phone and punched in the guesthouse number.

  “Annie, Gerry, tis meself. I had a minor disagreement with some of Nunu’s siblings who were trying to talk her out of marrying me. They left the house in, ah, some haste. It will be all right in a day or two or three. Don’t worry about it. And don’t let them involve you in it. I hope you enjoyed the game.”

  “Och, Dermot Michael Coyne,” Nuala flew into my arms. “Aren’t you the terrible desperate man altogether!”

  “Do you think they’ll leave you alone for a while?” I held her close.

  “They won’t dare come near me.”

  “Grand. Now let’s gather up your loot and take you home.”

  “I have a nice new swimsuit.” She grabbed a few pieces of cloth from her pile of prizes. “Could we ever swim in your pool? I didn’t have time to do me run this morning.”

  She would have been only somewhat overdressed in it at Copacabana.

  “Tis a grand idea. You’ll raise the water temperature twenty degrees in that.”

  “Isn’t that what it’s for?”

  I didn’t care about the rain or the cold or even about Judge Crawford. I had rescued the maiden from the dragons and was very proud of meself. Myself.

  31

  AS WE might have expected, Judge Crawford kept us waiting till midafternoon. Cindy, sounding totally exhausted, called me at eight.

  “Court call put off till promptly at one.”

  “Which means?”

  “Which means she’ll probably show up at two.”

  Nuala had dragged me off to play tennis at the East Bank Club.

  “I’ll not be going to bed with a man who is out of condition,” she insisted.

  We played inside because the cold rain was still assaulting the city.

  Herself swept me off the court and then taunted me about being old and out of condition and probably a poor risk for any woman foolish enough to marry me.

  She was in an exceedingly upbeat mood under the circumstances.

  While we were waiting for the judge, Dale Quade, looking more like an angry Mother Superior than ever before, strode briskly into the courtroom and over to Cindy.

  Patently she knew that promptly at one didn’t mean promptly at one.

  “Well, have you thought about my offer?”

  “Offer?” Cindy, her face haggard from exhaustion, seemed surprised by the brazen attack.

  “Three years in minimum security.”

  “Minimum security is a concession,” I said with my most disarming smile.

  Next to me Nuala began to move her lips as if she were uttering an ancient incantation.

  “You’re not going to move to quash?” Cindy asked as if she couldn’t believe her ears.

  “Why should I?”

  “Your witness has been discredited.”

  “We don’t need him.”

  “But his evidence is all that is mentioned in the indictment.”

  La Quade shrugged indifferently. “We have a lot more.”

  “Then you should move to quash and indict him again with the new evidence.”

  “A waste of time.”

  “How can we defend against charges that are not specified in an indictment?”

  “Your problem.”

  Nuala’s murmuring grew louder. It sounded like an Asian chant.

  “This is most unprofessional conduct, Counselor.”

  “I’ll be the judge of what’s professional.”

  Joe Hurley, who had been quiet as the two women jousted, intervened. “Come on, Dale. Don’t get yourself into worse trouble than you’re already in.”

  “Don’t threaten me, Counselor, or I’ll have you up before the Ethical Practice Board.”

  “Have it your way.”

  Dale Quade finally noticed Nuala’s incantation and hypnotic eyes. Again she recoiled and sped off quickly.

  “Be careful, Nuala,” Joe warned. “She may charge you with contempt for cursing her.”

  “And meself merely reciting words from an Irish lullaby.”

  Nuala was wearing the leather suit again, this time with a green blouse with enough buttons open to hint at black lace. Again I had no idea what the theme meant but I ached with longing for her.

  Cindy’s prediction had been optimistic. Judge Crawford entered her courtroom at 3:05, swaying just a bit as she climbed to her seat behind the bench.

  Definitely on drugs this time.

  “Well,” she glared at us, as if we had been keeping her waiting, “have you agreed on a plea?”

  “Your Honor,” Cindy began, “I note that we have our own court reporter as well as the one appointed by the court. We exercise that right in order to have transcripts readily available.”

  “I don’t approve of that.”

  “With respect, Your Honor, we do not need the Court’s approval for that. Of course the transcript will not be the official one.”

  “It certainly won’t … Now what do you have to say for yourself.”

  “Your Honor, I was expecting the United States Attorney to move to quash the indictment. Since she declines to do so, I have presented a motion to dismiss. I believe you have the motion and the relevant affidavits.”

  “I have no such thing,” she replied. “If you’re going to submit a motion, you should give it to my bailiff the first thing in the morning.”

  “I did, Your Honor.”

  “I’m sure you did not … Bailiff, you have no such motion, do you?”

  “Uh, Your Honor, I believe that counsel did submit such a motion. I put it with your papers.”

  “Well, it’s not here!” she said, irritably brushing the poor bailiff away. “You’ll just have to submit it aga
in before the next court date.”

  “Your Honor, I believe it is in that envelope with our firm’s letterhead just beneath your left hand.”

  “What? … Oh, this? … Well, let me see.”

  She opened the envelope, glanced at the first page, and then threw it aside.

  “Well, I don’t need to read it. On what grounds do you want me to dismiss the case?”

  “Let the record show,” Cindy said, “that the Court refused to read the motion to dismiss.”

  “Expunge that from the record,” Judge Crawford shrieked. “Counselor, I am very close to citing you for contempt … Now summarize your argument for me. Briefly, and I mean briefly!”

  “Your Honor, the indictment which the United States Attorney has brought is based entirely on the testimony of an FBI informant. We have presented affidavits which demonstrate that the informant has been completely discredited, including one from the informant himself. Under the circumstances we believe that the Court should …”

  “I don’t care what you believe … Does the United States Attorney wish to reply?”

  “Your Honor, we propose to present evidence in a trial to prove the defendant guilty beyond any reasonable doubt, evidence which does not depend on the allegedly discredited testimony of the FBI informant. We do not, incidentally, grant that the testimony has in fact been discredited.”

  “Motion denied … I expect to see you both back here, bright and early next Monday morning with a progress report.”

  “Just a minute, Your Honor,” Cindy said firmly.

  “I’m afraid that I am going to have to ask you to recuse yourself from this case.”

  “What!” the judge shouted. “How dare you ask that?”

  “Your Honor, with respect, we have the right to ask that.”

  “You must have grounds!”

  “We believe we have grounds, Your Honor.”

  “What are they?” she demanded, hoarse with rage.

  “That you have shown yourself to be consistently biased against the defendant and careless of his rights.”

  “You’re in contempt, Counselor. I’ve warned you before. A thousand dollars or twenty-four hours in jail. Next time it will be a week in jail. Bailiff, remove counsel from my courtroom!”

  “Your Honor, I ask that you defer the sentence, pending appeal!”

  “I will do no such thing! Bailiff, get her out of here!”

  We followed Cindy out of the courtroom. She made out a check in the bailiff’s room with a broad grin.

  “Joe,” she said to her husband as the media swarmed towards her in the corridor, “call the bank and tell them to stop payment.”

  Joe was grinning, too.

  “She really surpassed herself that time.”

  “Dead meat,” Cindy said as she glanced at her watch. “Only four o’clock. My friend in the Seventh Circuit is waiting for me.”

  “Cindy, what are you going to do?” a breathless woman said, jabbing a mike at her.

  “Do? Appeal. What else? Now if you’ll excuse me …”

  She pushed her way through the crowd of vultures towards the elevators.

  “Dermot, what do you think of Judge Crawford?”

  “She reminds me of Paul Newman playing Judge Roy Bean.”

  General laughter.

  Joe and I restrained the vultures while Cindy and Nuala slipped into an elevator. We found Nuala waiting outside a judge’s chamber on one of the floors occupied by the Seventh Circuit, a place as solemn high as the Pope’s chambers in the Vatican, if not more so.

  “Isn’t she inside talking to your man?”

  “She’s asking for a suspension of the fine,” Joe explained, “the appointment of an emergency panel to review the conduct of the trial, and an order for the appointment of another judge who will consider the motion to dismiss. Every judge in town is upset by Evil Elvira. This is their chance to do her in.”

  Cindy emerged from the chambers a moment later, her eyes shining with triumph.

  “Got it all,” she said. “Contempt sentence suspended and a panel to convene tomorrow at 11:00. They’ve informally set up the panel already. We’ll have to get our transcripts to them by 9:00.”

  “They’ll rule in our favor?” I asked.

  “Minimally, we’ll get a new judge. No question about that.”

  “Who?” Nuala asked. “Not another crazy one?”

  “We won’t know till late tomorrow afternoon, I’m afraid. We’ll probably have a hearing Wednesday morning.”

  “And the wedding is Friday.”

  “I’ll be there anyway,” Nuala announced. “And you’d better be there, too, young fella, or I’ll sue you right and proper.”

  We all indulged in a much-needed laugh.

  Mine, I fear, was hollow.

  32

  EDITORIAL

  We are increasingly troubled by the behavior of Federal Judge Elvira Crawford. It should be clear to everyone that the indictment of Dermot Coyne as a result of the now moribund Operation Full Platter sting was a serious violation of Mr. Coyne’s rights. The indictment should have been quashed and the shameful attack on his reputation ended. Full Platter ought to be put mercifully to rest. Since the United States Attorney is unaccountably unwilling to admit a serious mistake, the Court should have dismissed the charges against Mr. Coyne. Judge Crawford’s courtroom behavior when presented with a motion to dismiss the charges can only be called bizarre. In effect she refused to hear the motion or to read its documentation. Moreover she slapped a contempt of court fine on Mr. Coyne’s attorney who exercised a defendant’s right to seek a new judge. We are confident that the appellate court will reverse her rulings. Nonetheless, serious questions must be asked not only about the Full Platter fiasco, but also about Judge Crawford’s behavior. We question whether she belongs on the Federal bench.

  “Hmpf,” Nuala snorted. “Last week they were praising her. Doesn’t anyone keep track of what editorial writers say?”

  “Nope,” I said, digging into my second helping of pancakes.

  “You’ll have to swim another half hour to make up for that second helping.”

  “I look forward to a life of nutritional terrorism,” I said, as I soaked the pancakes with maple syrup.

  “I won’t go to bed with a slob.”

  “I haven’t put on a pound since I met you.”

  “You know what happens to men when they get married. I won’t tolerate it.”

  She was talking half fun, and full earnest.

  “Well, I’ll not tolerate an overweight wife either.”

  “You’ve seen me ma?”

  “Woman, I have.”

  “Same genes.”

  “Different diets.”

  “Fair play to you, Dermot Michael … Would you ever pass some more of that maple syrup?”

  “We’ll have to rely on each other’s self-respect.”

  “You’ll have to rely on mine. I’ll rely on my own close supervision.”

  We both laughed again.

  For a couple of reasons we were both in excellent spirits as we ate in the coffee shop of the Ritz Carlton in the lobby on the twelfth floor. Nearby the fountain spun water into the air and then dropped it in a pool.

  Earlier in the year herself had characterized it as the sound of a herd of cows pissing on a rock—a metaphor around which I wanted to write a whole novel.

  The news on our artistic ventures was better than we had expected. Both Nuala Anne and Irish Love were prospering, even though there was some negative criticism that there were too many Irish singers and too many Irish writers. One reviewer wondered how there could possibly be a market for a novel about such a small group as Irish-Americans.

  Another reason for our cautious optimism was that the media, without so much as a look backward or an acknowledgment that they had changed their song, were now definitely on our side.

  Finally, both Cindy and Joe were confident that Judge Crawford would be summarily dumped before the day was over.


  After breakfast we were to conclude our shopping expedition for “proper” clothes for me, that is to say clothes of which herself approved. Then we were to have lunch with Cindy at the Bar Association. Finally we were to spend the evening with the little bishop, who proposed to give us “premarriage instruction.”

  “Me siblings are embarrassed altogether,” Nuala said, after pouring my tea.

  “They should be … You hear from them?”

  “Not to say hear from them exactly. Hasn’t Fionna come to town and didn’t she chew the asses off them and hasn’t she called me?”

  “She’s the second oldest?”

  “Big sister.”

  “Tough?”

  “Not as tough as I am, but tough enough … And hasn’t me da had words with Larry?”

  “In which he said?”

  “He told him that he should go back to his wife and kids in Pacific Palisades and leave this wedding alone.”

  “In so many words?”

  “I’ve censored out some of the words that might offend you.”

  “That’s pretty direct for your man, isn’t it now?”

  “Tis … I think herself put him up to it. When me da lays down the law, he lays it down … ’course he’s never had to do it with me.”

  “And what did he say to the others?”

  “Didn’t he tell them that he was ashamed of them and yourself being such a nice boy from such a wonderful family?”

  “So they’re trying to find a way to apologize?”

  “They are … They’re terrified of you and yourself being such a desperate man altogether.”

  “A terrible dangerous man when the anger is upon him.”

  “So you’re telling them that I’m not like that at all, at all.”

  “I am NOT … I’m hinting that it might take years for you to calm down. Let them be proper afraid of you.”

  “Like you are?”

  “Just like I am … Now finish your tea. Don’t we have work to do?”

  Joe and Cindy were both grinning happily when we caught up with them at the Bar Association. They hardly noticed us coming in because they were so busy accepting congratulations.

  “Just what we expected,” Cindy said, hugging first herself and then me. “Contempt charge reversed, new judge to be appointed before the day is out, strong reprimand of Evil Elvira. New judge to hear motions to free you on your own recognizance, permit you to leave the jurisdiction, and dismiss the charges.”