Beach Reading

by Lorne Elliott

  I was helping the MacAkerns set up for their picnic. We’d opened the house and swung wide the front door, an ornate double-winged monstrosity with a great rusted brass twist-bell and beveled glass, one pane which had broken and which had been replaced with a stained slab of chip-board. Windows painted closed with coat after coat of thick paint had been jimmied and propped up, and the musty smell of moldering parlour wafted out across the lawn where it was baked away by the sun.

  Where the front porch wrapped around the western corner of the house we had created a stage. The corner of the porch was cut off at a forty-five degree angle with two pillars twelve feet apart, and the banister between them was obligingly half-falling down and easily removed, making for an open proscenium, which would work quite well if you avoided the great ugly rusted spikes sticking out from one side. Wallace had asked Brucie to hammer them out but had got him to stop when the pounding had threatened to bring down one of the pillars. Loudspeakers had been taken out of Bailey’s van along with his amplifier and mixer and set on the porch floor on either side. There were two microphones on stands in the centre.

  The table was set over by where we had moved the tractor on the first day I had come to their house. It was as though Wallace had somehow divined even then what would need to be done, but there was probably nothing magical about it. The way he worked was with a vague plan as to the direction he wanted to go, and then he’d arrange things in a way which might at the time seem pointless, but which insured that he was never out of opportunities. It meant that his life was full of uncompleted projects, but with always enough other options to follow.

  He was standing with Brucie on the front steps and he gave me a handbill announcing the time and date of the event: “MacAkern Potluck Picnic (and Antique Auto Show) with The Barely Boys!”

  “That’s ‘Barley Boys,’” I said. “You spelled it wrong.”

  “No I never. People will naturally think it’s the Barley Boys, but we may not be able to get them, and if we can’t, our ass is covered.”

  “So who are the Barely Boys then?”

  “You and Brucie,” said Wallace. “Robbie tells me you sound pretty good.”

  I turned to Brucie. “What songs do you know?”

  “‘D-d-deep In My Heart.’”

  “What else?”

  “Th-th-at’s it.”

  “We have kind of a limited repertoire,” I said to Wallace.

  “Don’t worry,” said Wallace. “You’ll come up with something.”

  Bailey came out of the house and approached.

  “Maybe you could sing ‘Speed Bonny Boat,’” I suggested to Wallace.

  “I suppose I could…” he said. “You know the chords?”

  “I can learn them.”

  “And you and Brucie could come in with the harmony,” said Wallace, and his eyes started dancing with the thought.

  “No you don’t,” said Bailey. “You’re not getting up on stage at all.”

  “Why not? I could also do ‘My Love Has To The Lowlands Gone.’”

  Bailey put one hand on his shoulder. “Wallace.”

  “Yes?”

  “You can’t sing worth shit.”

  “Ah, come on…”

  “You know that bagpipe thing you got on tape?”

  “‘As Softening Shades Of Evening Fall’? What about it?”

  “You’re worse.”

  “Really?” said Wallace, dismayed.

  “Don’t worry. We want you doing what you do best. One-on-one. ‘How you doing?’ ‘Lovely day today.’ And only talk politics if they bring up the subject. This whole shindig can’t look in any way self-interested. If they think you got them here just to get their votes, it will harm your reputation for generosity.”

  “I didn’t know I had one.”

  “Well you do. ‘He’s generous,’ they say. ‘I’ll give him that. If he’s got something, he’ll share it.’ I don’t understand it myself. I mean, when was the last time you actually bought a meal for somebody else.”

  “This party will make up for that.”

  “It’s a potluck. They’re bringing their own food.”

  “Which I will generously share with everybody.”

  “Nice.”

  “What about the scotch? Who’s bringing the scotch?”

  “Dunbar’s bringing the scotch.”

  “But I’ve arranged that he should.”

  “You are a river for your people,” said Bailey.

  “Are the Barley Boys actually g-g-gonna show up?” said Brucie.

  “I don’t know,” said Bailey. “I went down to see them and asked, ‘How’d you like to do a benefit concert?’ ‘We’d love to!’ said the leader, what’s-his-name, Niall. ’But it’ll cost you a thousand bucks.’ ‘How’s that a benefit?’ I ask, and Niall says, ‘It would benefit us.’ So, it looks like we put you two guys on stage and claim it’s some sort of community service. Go for the pity vote.”

  “H-hey!”

  “Ever worked on a stage before, Brucie?”

  “N-n-no.”

  “Christian?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it’s tougher than it looks. The very thought of being in front of the public can rip your soul out and hang its tattered remnants in the wind. Don’t worry about it, though, you’ll be fine. As long as you don’t get stage fright.”

  ***

  The first guest to arrive was Fergie. He came down the causeway in the park truck and Wallace poured him a scotch and talked to him about what had happened to Rattray, making it sound as if he was only piecing it together himself from what he’d heard, rather than mentioning his part in it. Soon after that, Toe and Gump showed up with a lady who turned out to be El’ner, their mother.

  “I want to pick your brains about your uncle,” she said to Wallace.

  “Well, we’re trying to soft-pedal that, what with the election and everything.”

  “Oh pooh!” she said. “Nobody gives a hoot about who you’re related to.”

  “Maybe not,” said Wallace, accommodating and genial. “And you know, he wasn’t that bad anyway…” And he told her a long and completely improvised story which stressed Smooth Lennie’s good points, chief among which being his total and utter loyalty to the Conservative party. She even took notes, so that looked like it was working out.

  Others started arriving until there were a good thirty people, then fifty, and growing. Some brought food, which was laid out on a table and picked at. Wallace served the scotch. Dunbar, a man with eyebrows like wooly caterpillars and the largest Adam’s apple I’d ever seen, followed around nervously and asked people their opinion on its taste, without drinking any himself.

  “Not too smokey?”

  “Not at all.”

  “How about the peatiness?”

  “Not too peaty, I think.”

  The fall of Rattray was discussed extensively. Apparently, somebody had filled El’ner in with what everybody else knew because I overheard a conversation between her and her sons.

  “But, he’s queer,” said Toe.

  “Well, that’s no reason to beat him up!” she said, tapping with suppressed anger a rolled newspaper against her forearm. “Now, I want to know. Is that the reason you attacked him?”

  I could see Toe watching her warily, hearing the accusatory tone which implied that if that had been the reason, it would be a bad thing.

  “No,” he said.

  Gump, catching on, supported his brother by shaking his head vigorously.

  “Why, then?” said El’ner.

  “Why then what?” Toe stalled.

  “Why did you beat him up?

  “Because….when we told him he was, he said he wasn’t,” said Gump.

  “Well, if he’d admitted it, you’d have beaten him up for that!” said E
l’ner.

  But by now Toe had assembled his argument. “No! I said we didn’t beat him up ‘cause he was gay.”

  “So why did you, then?”

  “Why did we what?”

  “Why Did You Beat Him Up?”

  “Because he’s gay?” said Gump, who’d lost track.

  “No, we didn’t. Shut up, Gump,” said Toe. “We beat him up because… I know! Because he stole stuff from our vegetable stand.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “Yeah.”

  She smacked Gump on the head with the rolled up paper, and then again to punctuate every word. “Don’t…Beat… People…Up!”

  “Come on, Mom! Stop! He’s a horse’s ass!”

  El’ner stopped hitting him. “Well, that’s true,” she said.

  “He deserved it.”

  “Yeah, Mom. I don’t give a shit if he’s gay or not,” said Gump

  “You wouldn’t,” said Toe.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re gay.”

  “You calling me gay?”

  “Yeah.”

  Toe punched Gump on the shoulder. ”You’re the gay one.”

  Gump punched back, harder, and they left, punching and accusing each other of homosexuality.

  El’ner sighed deeply. “Its not the sexuality. It’s pretending to yourself that you’re something you’re not. Life’s not complicated enough without that?” she said it to nobody in particular.

  Fergie was standing to one side. “One lie breeds another,” he said to his invisible friend.

  I didn’t have to be there at all. In fact, it was time that I should go tune up my banjolele.

  But right then, a large town-car rolled into the parking area and three familiar-looking men dressed in expensive clothing of the bell-bottoms and leather jacket variety stepped out: The Barley Boys.

  “Gentlemen, Gentlemen, Gentlemen!” greeted Wallace, moving toward them with his hand out in welcome. “So nice to see you! Caught your show at the Mall, when was it? Two weeks ago, and it was great! But here now, in the flesh! Live! In person! Well, I never. We’re your biggest fans. Come in! Don’t be shy! There’s food and scotch. Help yourselves.”

  All this was met by The Barley Boys with silence and a sullen scanning of the grounds, not even acknowledging Wallace, a buzzing noise in their ear. They stood like a pride of lions still too lazy from last night’s meal to move in quite yet for the kill. After a long pause the largest, most heavily-bearded head swiveled around. Niall didn’t even look at Wallace’s outstretched hand. “You’re Wallace MacAkern.”

  “I am! The very same! Independent Candidate for Barrisway riding in the upcoming election. Hope you vote for me!”

  “Your man came to see me.” A thick Belfast statement.

  “My man?”

  “Your man, what was his name? B- something.”

  “Bailey?”

  “Aye, that was it.” Though he seemed to get no joy from solving that puzzle. “He asked if we wanted to perform a benefit concert.”

  “Yes. He was telling me…”

  “And we said no.”

  “Yes.”

  “In no uncertain terms.”

  “I understand.”

  “There was no ambiguity in our refusal whatsoever that I remember, was there boys?

  “There was not,” said another Barley Boy.

  “None,” said the third.

  “So what I am saying is that by ‘No,’ if you catch my drift, we didn’t mean ‘Yes, we’d love to.’”

  “ I see of course…” Wallace started but was cut off.

  “…So you can imagine my surprise this morning when, upon opening The Guardian, I see an advert in the entertainment section that said we would be playing here this afternoon.”

  “Well,” said Wallace, as though it would be a bit of an imposition, but one he could perhaps work around, “I suppose…I mean…we have a band already, but, well, I don’t see why we couldn’t make room in the program for such a fine… Sure! Why not? The more the merrier!”

  “You misunderstand me, Mr. MacAkern.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. We didn’t come here to ask to play at your ‘picnic.’” He managed to make both syllables of the word sound independently distasteful and collectively foul.

  “Then…why?”

  “We came here to see who has been using our name to draw a crowd without our consent.”

  Wallace played it for innocence. “I don’t follow…”

  Niall snapped the wad of newspaper he was carrying under Wallace’s nose. “Read,” he commanded.

  “‘This afternoon,” read Wallace, “at MacAkerns’ farm in Barrisway off Route 3. The first annual MacAkern Family Picnic. Come one, come all. Free food and refreshments.’ Yes, but I don’t see…”

  “Read!”

  “‘Entertainment provided by the B….” Wallace stopped, shocked. “But this is terrible!” he said, all concern for having become somehow involved, no matter how remotely, in any annoyance of people he so clearly admired. He looked at the advertisement again, confirmed that his eyes were not playing tricks on him and took charge and demanded, “Who’s the copy writer?” He looked around as though before another minute passed one of his staff would get to the bottom of this. In the full force of this performance, Niall’s lidded eyes looked deeper into Wallace’s, his lips turned from sneer to question.

  “Barely Boys,” said Wallace. “Barely. I won’t say that we didn’t have you in mind when we named them, but I had no idea…” He leant in and explained how this awful mistake must have happened. “Brucie and his friend here had a few songs they wanted to do, and a couple of us were sitting around trying to think of what we’d call them, and they were boasting about some great feat they had performed that day, like you would, you know, at their age, and somebody said, ‘Yes, there’s no doubt about it. You’re both Real Men’ and Robbie (was it?) said ‘Barely that!’ and Melissa said, ‘Mere boys is all.’ Then I said, “Barely Boys! There’s your name!’ So we went with that. I won’t say we weren’t thinking about you, I mean with the greatest respect of course, as a tribute really…but…Oh! My God! Trust The Guardian to get it wrong! Well, that’s the last time I leave it up to them to edit the final copy. Melissa! I want the money back for that advertisement. We could probably sue them for damages as well.” He turned back to Niall. “I’m so sorry. What can we do to make it up to you?” Robbie handed Wallace the handbill. “There!” said Wallace looking at it. “See, The Barely Boys.”

  “Where’s the scotch?” said the Terrorist Gnome.

  “Scotch!” said Wallace. “The Barley Boys want scotch! Here, take a few bottles. There. Perfect. Try some of El’ner’s lasagna, too. Relax. Enjoy yourselves. Could I perhaps get you a ‘Vote MacAkern’ sign for your lawn?”

  “No.”

  “Of course not. Still. Enjoy yourselves. And my deepest most heartfelt apologies.” And Wallace walked away, shaking his head in sorrow at the number of details that can go awry in this world.

  It was time for me to get ready to go on stage. I don’t know quite how I felt about that, because I had been furiously avoiding thinking about it since I had first agreed to it, but it was taking a lot of nervous energy not to think about, and it was soon time to actually do it. You couldn’t die from stage fright, but what about this mounting anxious stressful heart-pounding extreme discomfort? I looked around at the crowd of people in the sun, talking and drinking and eating. What right had I to demand their attention? Though maybe they would pay as little notice to me as to the tape of fiddle music now playing over the speakers. That would be a blessing. We could just get up and do the one song we knew, and then slip back into lovely anonymity.

  “Are you r-ready?” said Brucie, quite at ease with it all.

 
; “I have to get my banjolele.” I walked up onto the porch and around behind the house.

  Under the roof of the porch and in the shade of the dune creeping close on this side, it was cool, dark, and quiet. Melissa was there with Robbie, smoking a joint.

  “Want some?” said Melissa.

  “It doesn’t work with me.”

  “Then you might as well,” she said, although I didn’t quite follow the logic. But I was about to go on stage, and the photo on the front of The Mighty Voice of Jah tape showed three very relaxed people getting ready to do just that while smoking up, and right now I could do with some of their apparent self-possession. So, if only to get into character, as it were, I took the joint and inhaled, held it in my mouth to cool it as I’d been taught, and sucked the smoke into my lungs without coughing. It was so successfully executed that I took another, held my breath like a pearl diver, then exhaled. Just taking charge of my breath like that calmed me somewhat. I tuned up the banjolele for a minute or two, until it sounded quite perfect.

  “What are you going to play?” asked Robbie.

  “‘Deep, Deep in my Heart,’” I said. “It’s the only song we know. We haven’t rehearsed, really. It probably won’t be very good. I hope Brucie doesn’t freeze up.”

  “Naw,” said Robbie. “He’s a natural.”

  I paused for quite a long time. “Yeah,” I said, gradually more amazed that I hadn’t seen the connection before. “A natural, that’s it…

  “You’re stoned,” said Melissa.

  I looked at her. No, not stoned. It’s just that I’d figured out Life. The key was that you had to be natural…

  If necessary, by artificial means. “Give me another toke,” I said, and she did. “But how do you do that, just be natural? I mean, it’s easy to say, but there’s gonna be people out there looking at me…”