Ronan Boyle and the Swamp of Certain Death

by Thomas Lennon

  They had no idea how good I would be at this.

  It’s like I’d been training my whole life for this job. A big part my routine was falling through trap doors, of which the stage has three. There’d be a snap, and I would drop about a meter below the stage, where Ricky would shove me under the next trap door. Then I would pop up on stage for the subsequent humiliation.

  The musical numbers in Equasos’s show were on a set list taped to the side of the stage that read:

  Hoofin’ It off to Where We Can Kill a Leprechaun for Free

  Girl, Other Unicorns Don’t Want Us to Be in Love, but I Will Kill Them and We Will Be Together by the End

  Mister, Don’t You Poop on my Haypile, Please

  (Everybody) Get Funky

  Quit Hornin’ in, While I Eat this Leprechaun’s Face

  Let’s All Visit Equasos’s Merchandise Table

  Burn, Wee Man, Burn

  I Go Wowsers for Her Dowser

  You and Me and a Clurichaun Corpse Makes Three

  I Gots (the Giggles for Yer Withers)

  Back to the Buffet (Instrumental March)

  (Everybody) Get Funky (Reprise)

  Get out of My Dreams and into This Harness

  Curtain Call

  Mandatory Encore—I Gotta Be Free to Trample These Leprechauns

  After dress rehearsal, I was given a handful of damp walnuts and a cup of cloudy water, which was from the famous waterfall named Arthur and was the most refreshing glass of water I’ve ever had and made me feel alive for perhaps the first time ever?

  Ricky the far darrig directed me back into the Box of Death using the ice-cold hose, and after he locked me inside it, I asked him if we could skip the part about the hose next time. Apparently, no. Ricky seemed to thoroughly enjoy the hitting me with the hose part of his new job. I got a few extra blasts for posing the question. Thirteen years in the Box of Death had given Ricky a hard edge.

  “I’ve got a message from your mates,” said Ricky, shaking a folded-up note just out of my reach. “Captain Hili, the gray dog, the giant woman, and the incredibly handsome naked hedgehog with the hat. It’s in human, so I don’t know what it says.”

  “Thank heavens! My friends!” I exclaimed. “I’m certain they have a plan to bust me out of here!” I was overjoyed. I also had no idea that far darrigs would consider Figs Dromgool to be “incredibly handsome.”

  “Ha! Give me five hundred euros, and it’s all yours,” snickered Ricky, sinister, as he tucked the note into his fur. “Otherwise no touching!”

  “FIVE HUNDRED EUROS!?!” I shrieked like the teenage parrot I often sound like. I jumped against the bars of the cage, smacking my glasses into my face. “But I haven’t got five hundred euros. I have a shillelagh, three flasks of whiskey, an optional beret, A VALID BEEFCARD, a shenanogram, and a few other precious items on my belt, which was confiscated by the unicorns who look like the flavor of ice cream whose name escapes me!”

  “NEAPOLITAN, EEJIT!” cackled Ricky as he shuffled away, still snickering. “No euros, no notesies!”

  I was desperate to know what was in that note. I hoped that there was a plan in place to bust me out of this magnificent show cave with a buffet that is one of the great wonders of the world. I hoped the plan would happen quickly, or the trail of Lily and the captain would soon go cold.

  The first show of the day was an absolute disaster. I knew my part pretty well, and leaped and screamed at the proper moments, taking the poking like a champ, but Equasos was phoning it in. Nelson the stage manager put much more heart into his dress rehearsal performance than Equasos did in the real show. Equasos lazily trotted from bit to bit, and on many of the duets he did a sort of talking-singing that was designed to save his voice for the next show. This was a nine-show-day. (The good news—the show itself runs only thirty-two human minutes, as time is different to unicorns, and this to them feels like several hours. As the one getting poked and prodded and set briefly on fire—yes, thirty-two minutes is a long time, I assure you.) The second through seventh shows of the day were somehow even worse. Equasos seemed like he was on sleep medication and slurred most of the words to the songs.

  Then, astonishingly, show eight was terrific. I don’t know what happened. Equasos suddenly had a spring in his step, a glint in his eye. A whole new level of vim and verve. He must have had a bucket of espresso between sets. He had also fixed his makeup, which can get sloppy and ghoulish at times when he’s not keeping an eye on it.

  I sat in the Box of Death awaiting the ninth and last show of the day, or the martini, as Nelson the stage manager called it. I was down to one damp walnut. My sequin leprechaun outfit was so itchy. Perhaps I should have washed it, as Equasos had said. I thought all of the ice-cold hosings would have helped with that, but they did not. When the outfit dried between shows, it got even crunchier. The fake beard was even worse, as Nancy (who is one of the nicer unicorns you’ll ever meet) had helped apply it to my face with some sort of theatrical spirit gum that stung my cheeks badly.

  There was a solid chance that this fake leprechaun beard would never come off. Ever.

  I shivered in the box and drifted off, my nose pressed against the Box of Death.

  “Ronan. Psst. Wake up, Ronan,” said a familiar voice that I couldn’t quite place.

  I fluttered my eyes and found my glasses. The person who came into view was just about the last person I was ever expecting to see because he’s no longer a living person at all.

  “Oh, hello Brian,” I said to the ghost of Brian Bean. I had always thought that Brian Bean was a poltergeist, trapped in Collins House. Now it seemed he was a regular ghost who could follow me anywhere.

  Ugh. Brilliant.

  It’s not that I have anything against Brian, it’s just the nonstop bits, impressions, and jokes he’s always trying out. He would be such a lovely ghost if he could DIAL IT DOWN sometimes. And often the bits are pop culture–related—which are the kind of jokes that don’t stand the test of time. (Will a spot-on Cardi B. impression be of use in the distant future? For her sake, I hope so, but as of this writing we cannot know.)

  “I’ve got something to tell you, Ronan!” said Brian, in his vaporous ghost form, checking over his ghost shoulder. “Something quite important.”

  “Neat, but I’m currently trapped in both a beard and a box, Brian, so hopefully I’ll escape, and we’ll catch up soon, yes!” I said. “We’ll get something on the books!”

  “No bits today, Ronan, although I have a nearly perfect David Beckham.”

  “Okay, fine. Let’s hear David Beckham, and just a thought—how about David Beckham working at a McDonald’s drive-through? I wonder what that would sound like,” I said, indulging the ghost of Brian because he is a lovely ghost.

  “No, Ronan. There’s no time. I have a message for you, and then I have to get back. It’s important. They needed you to know before you get there,” said Brian, his face taking on a more serious tone than I had ever seen.

  “Who? Who needs me to know?”

  “The dead. I go back and forth between our world and theirs,” said Brian, a haunted look on his vapor face. “That’s where I go when you don’t see me.”

  “The . . . world of the dead?” I asked, suddenly frightened.

  “Aye,” said Brian. “They actually say I need to think of the world of the dead as my world, too, and that’s why I keep coming back and forth, because I can’t accept it.”

  “Oh. Well, I for one always enjoy seeing you in the world of the living, Brian. I was saying that to Log the other day,” I bluffed.

  “This is important. I’ve never had something like this from the world of the dead. A message. A specific message for you, Ronan, from some of the old souls.”

  “For me? A message from the long dead? That seems unlikely.”

  “They told me, ‘You must tell Ronan. Go to Ronan and tell him: Beware of Crom Cruach,’ they said.”

  “Be what of what-what?” I stammered.

  �
�Beware of Crom Cruach,” said Brian as his ghost started to fade away.

  “BRIAN WAIT! Please stay! I don’t know what that means and I’d love to spend more time with you! HOW ABOUT THAT BECKHAM IMPRESSION!”

  But he was gone. No beatboxing, no bits. A genuinely mysterious message from the ghost of Brian Bean. I was rattled—and caged.

  I awoke shrieking.

  Had I just dreamed of Brian Bean, or had he, in fact, visited me? It was impossible to say. Regular ghost Brian Bean would have done a bit for sure. This one was so serious and foreboding. Not like him at all.

  I convinced myself that it must have been a bad dream. When you are living in a nightmare and then also have a nightmare, things get a bit blurry.

  Ricky the far darrig had dozed off in a folding chair next to the levers that raise and lower the show curtains, about two short meters away from me. He had a half-eaten dinner roll balanced precariously on his furry chest while his snores shook the stacks of old props.

  Nelson and Nancy were far across the theater, flirting at the merchandise table, which sells absolutely nothing anyone would want. The show cave was mostly empty, other than a few audience stragglers who were staying to try to get a dowser-graph from Equasos. (They would not. He never signs anything, as he says it “devalues” his dowser-graphs.)

  The torture hose was lying uncoiled near Ricky’s foot-paws, which is what far darrigs have instead of regular feet. The nozzle at the end of the hose was held loosely in his claw.

  This gave me an idea—a mad idea, but it seemed possible.

  With my foot, I could just touch the hose. I kicked off my glittery shoe and managed to get my big toe around it. I gave a little slide, and sure enough—the hose inched forward a few centimeters!

  The hose ran right along the floor toward Ricky’s foot-nub. I tried again and was able to nudge it a bit farther. The note from my friends was buried somewhere up in his dense red chest fur—if I could get the nozzle to slide up Ricky’s body, I could maybe hook the note with the hose handle and pull it to me. It was worth a shot.

  The trickiest part would be spinning the hose, ever so slightly, to get the nozzle handle in the right direction so that I might be able to rake through Ricky’s fur. I tried to spin the hose with my toes when suddenly . . .

  CRAMP. OW OW OW. FOOT CRAMP. OMYGOD IT HURTS SO BAD. CRAMP CRAMP CRAMP OW. CRAMPS ARE THE WORST.

  My foot had seized up. Somehow my foot looked like a face that had just taken a bite out of a lemon.

  When the cramp subsided, I readjusted my toes on the hose and started to nudge it again. The nozzle crept up ever so slowly and bumped against Ricky’s tusk. He stirred briefly, then fell back asleep. I twisted the hose and managed to hook the handle of the sprayer directly . . . onto Ricky’s lower lip. A serious mistake. If I were to tug on it now, he would surely wake up.

  Across the room, Nelson and Nancy looked over, but then quickly went back to giggling at the merch table, where some poor straggler was buying an overpriced Equasos Live! facebag.*

  Nelson and Nancy were in love, and I honestly wished them the best.

  I pushed the hose again and extricated the nozzle from Ricky’s lip. I gave a hard wiggle to the hose, and the nozzle plopped down into the fur of his chest, not far from where I’d seen him slip the note!

  I tugged at the hose as gently as possible. The nozzle started to rake through his fur, the half-eaten dinner roll tumbled to the ground, then POP . . . a set of keys fell out of Ricky’s fur and clattered across the floor.

  Ricky muttered, but did not wake up. I gave another little tug, and to my great joy, I could see the corner edge of the note hooked around the nozzle. I held my breath and tugged, gently . . . so gently. The note inched its way down his chest in the nozzle. The note popped free and fell to the floor! After a few tries I was able to drag it toward me.

  Just then, Ricky fell out of his chair, crashing to the floor with a snort that scared the daylights out of me. My hand grabbed for the note and I snatched it, tucking it into my sequined leprechaun shorts. Ricky was disoriented and annoyed. He shot me a dirty look, and briefly puzzled over the placement of the hose handle so close to the Box of Death. Lucky for me, he was more interested in finding his dinner roll. He dusted it off and ate it in one bite.

  He had not seen me swipe the note.

  “Fifteen human minutes ’til showtime, beefie,” spat Ricky at me as he wandered away, mouth full of dinner roll.

  When the coast was clear, I yanked out the note and read it. Here’s what it said:

  This was amazing news. My friends had not forsaken me. As instructed, I ate the note. This took longer than I expected. Have you ever eaten paper? If you have, it was likely by accident, like the small sticker on an apple. No biggie. This was a rather large note. As I was chewing, I wondered—why did my friends write such a short note on such a large piece of paper? Ricky waddled back in and saw me chewing ferociously.

  “Oi, did someone give you more walnuts, beefie?” he snorted as he picked up the hose and blasted me with it, and just as my outfit was about to be dry for the first time all day.

  I choked down the paper. As horrible as it was, I had to fight a smile, as I had such joy in my heart at the idea of seeing my friends soon.

  Then something bizarre happened; Equasos trotted over to me in the Box of Death. I averted my eyes as I had been instructed by Nelson, but the great unicorn himself looked directly at me! His speech was slurrier than normal. It seemed he had been celebrating the last show of the night before it even started. His breath reeked of schnapps.

  “Hey beefie, I gotta tell ya—I’ve been at this schtick for a leprechaun lifetime and you, kid—you are the single best sidekick I’ve ever had,” said Equasos, tapping my head with his dowser through the bars.

  “R-really?” I stammered, my voice dry and raspy from all the note eating I had recently been doing. The note was now wedged securely in the deepest part of my throat, just above my heart.

  “Hooves down, the best ever,” he said. “You’re crushing it. Ricky was a disaster. And the thing before him—didn’t even look like a leprechaun. It was some kind of goblin. Yech. Gave everybody the willies.”

  He made a clicking sound to Nelson, who rolled his googly eyes, then trotted over with a fresh bucket of schnapps. Equasos gulped down the bucket as he rambled on at me, nostalgic.

  “When I was your age, I was the stage manager here, just like goofy eyes over there,” he slurred, pointing his dowser toward Nelson. “I wanted to throw myself off the waterfall every single night. But I had something special, I had joie de vivre.* That’s French for chutzpah.†

  “For a while I had a real leprechaun sidekick,” sloshed Equasos, his dowser wobbling in the air as he pontificated. “That was an absolute muck-fest. Little pickletooter tried to kill me every show. And of course—I’m trying to ‘kill’ him on stage, too, but that’s schtick, honey. It’s all rigged. The flames, the trap doors. That real wee man—the worst. Legit trying to kill me. Stabbed me in the withers during the curtain call. One time he bit me right on the knee so hard I had to stop the show, and honey—you know Equasos—I don’t stop this train ever, not for nobody, you feel me? Who bites somebody on the knee, especially during ‘Everybody Get Funky,’ which is my signature number?”

  “Leprechauns do!” I thought to myself, as thinking things to myself is eighty-five percent of what Ronan Boyle does. “Leprechauns bite on the knee, during any kind of number!” But I didn’t need to respond, as Equasos was on a schnapps-fueled roll. I nodded. Even if I had wanted to speak, I could not. The note was stuck in the bottom of my throat. Also, I couldn’t breathe. I was choking on my own rescue note—the irony? I thought, with the vaguest recollection of what irony was. Tears simmered in my eyes. I gasped, but no air reached my lungs. I was dying, and yet I could not let Equasos see that I was dying, as he would kill me.

  “Anyhoo, so when I was the stage manager here, a millennia ago, my mentor, the Magnificent Fyodor—he
straight-up dies on stage. And I don’t mean he ‘had a bad show’—I mean literally, he fell off the stage and died. LOL. Gross, right? He face-plants into the buffet of miracles. Right in the macaroni, and then he drowned. Drowned in macaroni. Can you imagine? Yech. I mean, the macaroni here is to die for, but not like that, honey!”

  And then I died.

  No kidding, according to Nelson the stage manager I was legally dead for the better part of two minutes. Then he revived me with several good hoof kicks to the midsection and a bucket of room-temperature schnapps in my face.

  I’m sure you are wondering: “Ronan Boyle, what happens when you die?” Well, I can’t say that this is the case for everybody, but for me, when I died, I saw a very bright light. I thought about that time that I tried to high-five Yogi Hansra. Then a figure came to me from the light. He took my arm and we sat back onto a comfortable four-person ski lift.

  “Hello, Ronan. I’m Pierce Brosnan,” said Pierce Brosnan, the handsome actor of fame, originally of County Louth, Ireland, later of the world stage and screen. The ski lift zipped us up through the clouds on a perfect winter day.

  “You’re here for Dame Judi’s mixer, of course,” continued Pierce Brosnan, making a few notes on a clipboard he carried and affixing a green wristband around my wrist.

  “I am?” I asked, unaware that I was dead, and this was the next dimension I had entered.

  “Indeed you are, so young, and yet—we’re glad to have you, Ronan Janet. Don’t lose that wristband, as you will need it for the room full of complimentary berets.”

  “But,” I protested, “I don’t understand why I’m here with you, specifically, Mr. Brosnan?”

  “Ah, of course. You forget my relationship to Dame Judi,” explained Pierce Brosnan in the loveliest accent you’ve ever heard. “I was James Bond when Dame Judi reinvented the role of ‘M’ and the Bond movies still had a sense of fun to them. Before we all started to take ourselves too seriously.”

  “Of course!” I cheered in this other dimension, literally smacking my own face. “This makes perfect sense. Wonderful. What a treat! I’m so glad to meet you,” I rambled on, shaking his hand with too much enthusiasm.