by Edward Toman
He couldn’t rest till he got them. He left his pint unfinished and returned hot-foot to Armagh. He summoned Magee. The butcher, as luck would have it, knew of a Brother in Christ who worked weekends in Bellview Zoo. He was despatched to the city, the bargain was struck and he struggled back to the Shambles carrying a dozen assorted serpents in a big wicker basket.
McCoy was delighted. Night after night he would sit in the van admiring the slithering coils and trying to pluck up the courage to touch them. The God-fearing zookeeper had assured him they were the real thing; one bite and you’d be a goner within the half hour. If you were charged with righteousness you had nothing to fear (hadn’t he got the word of the Bible on it?), but in some dark recess of his soul McCoy questioned his own worthiness to stand before the Throne just yet. He left the handling of them to his wife and daughter. La mejicana could barely disguise her loathing of them, and threatened darkly to prepare them for the pot till Magee got through to her; but Chastity had a natural affinity for them, spending hours stroking them and poking them into action with a stick.
There was no shortage of rats round the Shambles. Every night Magee would set out with a sack and lurk around the latrine in the dark till they started crawling out. He would return with the bag filled with plump, grey vermin which Chastity would feed to the snakes, watching transfixed as they digested them whole. After a fortnight McCoy was confident that they wouldn’t let him down. He and Magee retreated to the Temperance Tea Rooms to plan the campaign while the wife was set to work cleaning the chapel. Magee disclosed that he had written a hymn especially for the occasion, a country and western number called: ‘Hold the critter by the tail, but doubt the Lord and you’ll go to hell’. After he had listened to it a couple of times, McCoy pronounced himself well enough pleased with it, and let Magee croon it through the loudspeaker on the van for passersby in the Shambles.
Curiosity soon began to spread. Rumours got up that the Reverend McCoy had a great new revival mission planned that would really make them sit up. Even across the square there was amused interest. Peadar the greengrocer had heard a whisper about wild animals. He imparted this information from behind his dusty cabbages to Eugene one afternoon. ‘Did ever you hear the beat of it? It’ll be a three-ring circus next, am I right?’ Eugene, who could be as taciturn as the Patriot when it suited him, said nothing. ‘Mind you I was half thinking of going along myself, just for the crack of it. After all, it isn’t every day you get a free show like that on the Shambles. Do you think I’d be safe enough? If I wore an old pair of glasses they’d never know me.’ To his credit Eugene didn’t think much of it. It was the sort of behaviour that could get you killed, he suggested. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ sighed the greengrocer, retreating to his scallions, ‘best to let the hare sit.’ Eugene walked back into the pub to fill the Patriot in as best he could.
The Patriot himself, walking across the square in the cool of the morning for an early piss, was the first to see the banner. It flew from the roof of the Martyrs Memorial, announcing in letters three feet high the cryptic message:
MY FATHER HATH CHASTISED YE WITH WHIPS
BUT I WILL CHASTISE YE WITH SCORPIONS!
He stared at it for a few moments, trying to decipher the words and turn them into his adopted language. But their sense evaded him. By mid-morning the whole town had seen it, and the people of Scotch Street, looking up at the flapping canvas and Magee’s erratic lettering, understood well enough that the Reverend McCoy had prepared a proper treat for them this time.
During the next week, posters started to appear all over town. At first they were enigmatic, showing Chastity holding to her childish bosom a boa constrictor above the message: AND THE SUCKING CHILD SHALL PLAY ON THE HOLE OF THE ASP, AND THE WEANED CHILD SHALL PUT HIS HAND ON THE COCKATRICE DEN. Later in the week a new one appeared, this time displaying McCoy at his most magisterial, head held erect, clean new dog collar, and, draped round his shoulders, a thin, darting viper. Those who cared to look closely at the portrait would have noticed the beads of perspiration forming on the Reverend’s brow, and may have detected that the look in his eyes was less assurance than terror. But the message printed below was clear enough: KNOWING THAT A MAN IS NOT JUSTIFIED BY THE WORKS OF THE LAW, BUT THE FAITH OF JESUS CHRIST.
A few days later the final poster appeared. It showed McCoy and family inside the Martyrs Memorial with the open basket of serpents at their feet, above the legend: FOR WITHOUT ARE DOGS AND SORCERERS AND WHOREMONGERS AND MURDERERS AND IDOLATORS AND WHOSOEVER LOVETH AND MAKETH A LIE. It was the text that the Reverend McCoy would preach (DV) on the coming Sunday, when one and all would be invited to test their faith by handling the serpents, assured by the promise of the Lord Himself that no harm would come to them. By now word had spread outside Armagh, and from the surrounding villages and townlands they gathered into the city to see what was up. Magee had sewn another banner for the great day, and he ran it up over the roof after dark, so that it greeted the faithful first thing on the Sabbath: A NEW CHALLENGE FOR ULSTER, it ran. ARE YOU PROTESTANT ENOUGH TO HANDLE IT??
They were. All morning and all afternoon they poured into the Shambles eager to get to grips with the snakes and show their love for the living Jesus. Long before six o’clock the hall was filled to overflowing and spare seating was brought across from the Somme Memorial Lounge and arranged in the street outside the chapel. By seven o’clock the Shambles itself was packed, and the feverish hymn-singing from within was filling the square over the Tannoy. The crowd was thick up through Scotch Street; they spilled over into English Street; even Irish Street, haughtily disdainful of the whole carry-on, was alive with curiosity and expectation.
‘Give me a pint for fuck’s sake,’ Joe said, coming in through the door. He had perched Frank high on the windowsill outside with a bag of crisps, to act as lookout, under orders to report to the bar at the first hint of action.
‘What’s eating us tonight?’ Eugene inquired.
There’s fuck all eating me that a bullet up McCoy’s arse wouldn’t cure!’
‘Do you know your trouble, Mister Feely?’ Eugene said, leaning across the bar confidentially. ‘It gets on your goat to see the other crowd having a bit of crack.’
‘Crack! You call that crack, bringing bloody reptiles round the place. Aren’t we the only country in the world free from them? And here’s McCoy threatening to set them loose! If those lads ever get out there won’t be a chicken house safe from here to Crossmaglen.’
‘You’d have to watch out for them right enough, and you walking home in the dark,’ Eugene agreed. The Tyrone man slipped his hand up the leg of Joe’s trousers and sank his nails into the flesh of his calf. Joe squealed and leapt the height of himself, spilling his drink over the bar to the general amusement of the company.
‘Frig off the pair of you!’ he shouted. ‘If you would do something about it instead of play-acting it would fit you better.’
‘Give McCoy enough rope and he’ll hang himself,’ Eugene said. ‘There’ll be no need to call in the professionals.’
At eight o’clock Señora McCoy, seated at the harmonium, pulled out all the stops and led them in a thunderous rendition of ‘The Old Rugged Cross’ and the show was under way. The crowd outside took up the hymn, a bar or so behind; it spread down Scotch Street losing tempo as it travelled; along English Street till the crowd thinned out round the Mall on the edge of town.
When the music had wound them up as tight as a mainspring, McCoy made his entrance. He walked, head erect, eyes closed in silent meditation, into the centre of the chapel. He was wearing for the occasion his doctor’s robes. The brochure from Kentucky had spoken of them as an invaluable investment at one hundred dollars (money refunded if not completely satisfied). Standing now in the centre of his own chapel, with all the lights extinguished except for a shaky spotlight above him, he could see why. The robes were of every colour, reds and greens and deepest academic blue; the hood was of scarlet, trimmed in lookalike ermine; everywh
ere there were tassels and pockets and billowing sleeves. He stood before his congregation looking like they had rarely seen him before, and already they were shouting ‘Hallelujah’ and ‘Praise Jesus!’ before he had opened his mouth. He raised one arm melodramatically to the heavens, interceding with the Almighty to look kindly on their fellowship, and the congregation, taking their cue from him, lifted their arms in sympathetic supplication.
From the shadows at the back of the chapel, Magee appeared struggling under the weight of the hamper.
‘“They shall handle serpents and they will not sting them, neither shall they fear any poison …”’ McCoy suddenly shouted.
‘Amen,’ Magee roared back. ‘Praise Him.’
‘“The wolf shall also dwell with the lamb …”’
‘“And the calf and the young lion and the fading together.”’
‘“… and the little child shall lead them.”’
At this signal, Chastity broke away from her mother and toddled towards the basket. There was a gasp from the congregation. ‘Praise Jesus!’ shouted a lone voice.
‘Hallelujah,’ answered McCoy, great beads of sweat glistening on his brow.
‘“My father hath chastised ye with whips …”’ another called out.
‘“… but I shall chastise ye with scorpions.”’
The child reached out and lifted the lid of the basket. A woman at the back fainted and was helped to the ground by eager hands. Someone in the front began to wail in voices, ancient Semitic in a Keady accent. There was a scream as the child stretched out her hand and lowered it into the basket, a scream that changed to a wail of ecstasy for this was no venue for the weak in spirit.
Chastity plucked from the basket a writhing serpent. A sharp cry of praise rose up from the onlookers. It was taken up outside, echoing round the square. She held it above her head and brought it slowly towards her until the snake’s tongue was licking her face. There was a frenzy of shouting and testifying, with rival hymns clashing from inside and out. Above the pandemonium came McCoy’s voice confidently reciting the Psalms:
‘Hear, O my people, and I will speak:
I am God, even thy God.
I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds.
For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.
I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine.
Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats …’
‘Amen, Lord, A-men,’ came the answering chorus, punctuating this animal litany. By now they were standing on their seats to get a better view, and the infant Chastity was slowly and tantalizingly winding the snake round her neck and giggling to herself.
Magee reckoned the moment was ripe for the collection. Normally the form would be to let them have a good time for as long as they wanted before sending round the plastic buckets, but instinct told him to strike while the iron was hot. It was true that everyone was having fun, but McCoy was beginning to stumble over the texts he had learned for the occasion – anything about animals that the pair of them could find. In a moment he might be departing from the prepared brief, proclaiming how sharper than a serpent’s tooth it was to have a thankless child.
He had barely canvassed half of them when McCoy held up his arms and shouted for silence. They slowly began to simmer down. The harmonium sighed to a halt. Magee froze, collection bucket in hand. Dear Jesus, don’t let him balls it up, he prayed. He watched the sweating preacher hesitate over the basket. He saw him roll up dramatically the sleeve of the Harvey Wallbanger gown and then pause to stare heavenward as if to re-affirm his faith. It was the way they had rehearsed a dozen times. McCoy stood over the basket of snakes and stared into them. He is going to balls it up, Magee swore under his breath. He knew it! He could sense the tension in the crowd. They would take their lead from McCoy. He would be the first to show his faith; where he led they would follow.
McCoy was still hesitating. His face was purple and the veins stood out blue on his neck. His eyes had a look of terror. They scanned the hall, looking for some escape. He saw Magee. The Portadown man slowly held up the plastic bucket, ripe with the fruits of the silent collection. He turned the bucket upside down and let the notes flutter to the floor. ‘Praise the Lord,’ he exclaimed, pointedly. McCoy dipped his hand into the basket and withdrew a cobra. He handed it hastily to a Loughall woman in the front row. He reached in again and found an asp. He threw it towards the back of the tabernacle. Again and again he plunged his arm into the snakes and passed them out among the hysterical crowd.
Their faith had made them bold. They held them aloft and were not afraid, they draped them round their shoulders and were not afflicted. They opened their mouths and then placed the heads of the vipers into them and were not sore smitten. The euphoria rose. So did the temperature in the tin tabernacle. So too did the agitation of the reptiles. As the heat and the noise increased they wriggled more furiously to escape the clutches of the faithful, writhing up into the rafters and darting under the floorboards. Then one of them struck.
Chastity’s mother, busy on the harmonium, had her back to most of the crowd, but the excitement of the occasion had begun to pulsate through her voluptuous body and express itself in the music. Imperceptibly the plodding common time of the hymnal had shifted to the rhythms of her native land, the syncopations of the mariachi, the lambada, the paso doble, rhythms of Carnival once distantly heard beyond the convent walls. Something else heard them too. The Mexican mamba, most feared of all the vipers in the New World! It crawled from the basket, quickening as the music stirred some dormant memory in its reptilian brain.
She didn’t see it slithering over the floor towards her, didn’t notice as it purposefully climbed the back of her chair, as it hesitated for a quivering moment and prepared to plunge its venomous fangs into her neck. But the scream she emitted when the fangs sank home and the poison began to course through her was heard in the streets beyond. It was a cry not heard since the betrayal of Montezuma. It was a cry for mercy, a cry for forgiveness. But it stopped abruptly, choked at its climax. The venom paralysed her and she slumped over the keyboard in a rictus of pain. O woe to the unrighteous! The bite of the Mexican mamba is fatal within minutes. Before the snake had slid off into the wainscoting, she had gone to meet her Maker and the prayer meeting was in uproar.
In their panic they tore at the tin walls till the gable buckled in. They climbed over one another, trampling the weakest underfoot. In desperation to escape they broke through the locked doors and brought part of the roof crashing down. Their screams drowned all McCoy’s attempts to rescue the situation. The believers outside, ringed round the perimeter of the Shambles, rushed forward in horror towards the struggling mass of hysteria trapped inside the collapsing chapel.
The snakes dispersed slowly. Some slithered east towards the sea, others headed west into the hills. Few of them would survive the Ulster winter. But some would, and in time their numbers would begin to grow. The fields and ditches were alive with vermin and the land held no natural enemies for them. Fifteen hundred years ago, or so the story went, Saint Patrick had rid the island of them. Now they had returned. They would continue to multiply in dark places, waiting to recolonize the entire country.
Six
‘He’ll be limping the rest of his days,’ Eugene told them. ‘It’s a blessing he wasn’t killed.’
‘He had that coming to him,’ the Tyrone man said. ‘Fooling around with vermin. It couldn’t be natural.’ For Peadar, despite the warnings, had been foolhardy enough to venture across the square after all and was now numbered among the casualties.
‘McCoy got his come-uppance at any rate,’ said the Tyrone man. ‘He’ll not put his snout out for a while.’
‘He’s left that young one of his motherless with his carry-on,’ Eugene said. ‘God knows what will become of her now.’
‘I’ve enough to worry about, worrying about m
y own,’ said the Tyrone man.
‘It’s a wonder you aren’t at home then, reading them Enid Blyton, instead of hanging round here, night after night,’ Joe said. Though he would never admit it, he was going to miss the sight of the señora from round the Shambles. He was uneasy too about Schnozzle. Though there hadn’t been any word from that quarter, what guarantee had he that Schnozzle hadn’t been following these events with interest and wouldn’t be back, looking to him for a full report in writing? Frank would be of little use to him there, for the poor lad had come tearing into the bar screaming noiselessly when the balloon went up, and he hadn’t had the heart to allude to it since in his boy’s company.
Father Schnozzle knew about the debacle on the Shambles all right, for the Irish News had devoted half a page to McCoy’s tragedy. He read the details with satisfaction, offered up a silent prayer that God might be merciful to the soul of the late señora, and with hardly a thought for Joe Feely, turned his attention to more pressing matters on the home front. Father Schnozzle now had bigger fish to fry.
When he had taken the bus back to the Belfast ghetto after his audience with Cardinal Mac an idea started growing in his mind. He had cocked it up over the Cornelius affair, he freely acknowledged. Somehow he needed to redeem himself in Big Mac’s eyes. Show him that he could turn Saint Matthew’s into a model parish that would be the envy of every curate in the country. Maybe, with God’s help, realize the old man’s dream of one true convert. He knew he would never get a second chance. He had to make a reputation for himself or languish in obscurity for the rest of his days. The Cardinal had told him what he wanted. Saint Matthew’s needed a firm hand. He couldn’t do it single-handed. But he knew where he could turn.