The 53rd Parallel

by Carl Nordgren

  “We all know who yer family used to be.”

  Lord Clarendon pulled his waders up over his chest.

  “You know who we used to be? Do you know that it used to be this land was productive and cared for a damn sight better than is happening now. How rude of you to force me to say these things in defense of my family name.”

  “I hope your family cared for it. You not only owned it, you owned nearly every bit of everythin' was around it. An' now I'm to understand when we have nothin' else to give, then you're declarin' our language is for your entertainment?”

  “So you tell me your dreams and expect that I will give you my money, what, out of pity for your plight?”

  The Lord delivered this line with his man blocking his view as he helped buckle the last shoulder strap on his waders, so he didn't see how his words brought Brian to his full height and red fierceness to his face.

  “Hear this clear, an' that is if I ever saw you lookin' at me with pity, I'd put a stop to that right away, so.”

  “Now you're going to become the radical Republican, are you?”

  Brian snorted his laugh of disdain. Behind his back the folks from his village and the neighboring ones referred to him and his quick and ferocious temper as the Red Bull Demon, and it was the Red Bull Brian was becoming even as he struggled against it.

  “Me a radical Republican? Never thought so, unless you're sayin' so's the whole world become Republican for believin' you had no right takin' our island from us in the first place, let alone keepin' it for… how would you say it? For so bloody long.”

  “Some important lines are being crossed here now. This is not what I expect from someone in your position, and it will be fully reported to the game steward.”

  “So the reason you're the man I must be askin' for the money I need for this dream is simple. When you take what's mine, at some point I'll be knockin' on yer door an' askin for it back.” He tried to control his anger for one more attempt. “You know how much my fee for services is, or how little is more like it, an' you can see how long it would take for me to save what I'd be needin'. But I'd be payin' you back in just three years, if ya'd rather lend it than be investin' it.”

  “You know the difference between a loan and selling shares, so I have to take you seriously? You have no right to continue haranguing me when I have explained I don't want to hear another word about this silly dream of yours. Now let's get back to the water.”

  The British Lord stepped forward boldly though with waders on there was just a bit of waddle to his walk. In any case, he expected the Irishman to retreat the half step that would clear the path down to the shore.

  Instead Brian leaned forward just enough, and there was even more size advantage than first expected, so their shoulders collided and his Lordship nearly fell, staggering two steps back. Brian's rapidly rising anger burned brighter than Lord Clarendon's frustrated indignation, but before his Lordship realized it, he had collected himself and turned to Brian.

  “I think you should re-examine this behavior immediately, or you'll find I am quite prepared to withhold your fee altogether.”

  Brian loaded up a hard right, and threw it. It was the sledgehammer punch he had thrown many times with devastating effect when the Red Bull Demon raged within. But it wasn't a pub brawl with nothing to lose, and so he continued to fight hard against it and he was able to stop the punch in the last instant, a foot short of Lord Clarendon's jaw. Lord Clarendon would have crumbled from the blow, he knew it, and he shrank from the threat.

  But Brian's rage kept building. He knew he must walk away.

  “Keep me fee money. Take it home an' put it back in the Bank of feckin' England with the rest of our patrimony. Ya feckin' Brit.”

  Brian turned to Lord Clarendon's manservant.

  “You were watchin', and I never laid a finger on 'im…”

  The man stepped back, and nodded yes without meaning to.

  “So you won't be tellin' falsehoods about what happened later.”

  The man looked away, and Brian walked up the bank to the road as his Lordship sputtered threats. Brian climbed into the fishing lodge's panel van, slammed the door behind him, started it, and pulled away, leaving his Lordship and his man stranded at the riverside.

  That same day, in County Tyrone, one of the Six Counties of British Northern Ireland, a dirty and dented Ford Talbot chugged down a quiet country road weaving a route through the moors, headed east and south towards the Dublin road. It was raining softly.

  Kevin drove. He was a quiet man and a serious one. Though he had served the Irish Republican Army for years, and been a unit commander the past two, he had just turned thirty. While he drove he was intently questioning his passenger, Maureen O'Toole, his raven-haired, blue-eyed recruit—she appeared a lovely girl one moment, a beautiful woman the next.

  Maureen answered his questions but was distracted, watching to see if the car following them would finally pull off onto the upcoming side road. It had been following their route for some time now, staying well back at times, even disappearing in the road's turns, but always reappearing in the straight-aways. Theirs had been the only two cars on the road for some time.

  “Comin' a bit closer now, Kev, but I still can't make 'em out.”

  “Are you going to answer my question?”

  “Ask it again.”

  “Do you understand that you are as important as any one of them waiting for you?”

  “You're askin' do I think I am as important as the boys in London. I don't see myself that way, no. They're the heroes, yeah. But I am proud to be a servant to the heroes of our cause.”

  “That's what I'm saying. Russell wasn't eager to permit a young girl into this particular operation.”

  “I'm twenty my next birthday.”

  “And so that makes you just nineteen and he's after me to be sure you are looking at this full in the face. You need to acknowledge to me you understand that smuggling in the makings is no different than making them, and making them is the same as setting them off.”

  “You can tell Russell this girl'll place 'em too, if that be needed.” She turned to look straight at him. “And I prefer it when you call a thing what that thing is, Kevin. It's makings for bombs and the bombs are for killin' the enemy.”

  They drove in silence for a moment, the wipers flipping back and forth across the streaked windshield, before Kevin asked the next question.

  “And those who die in the blast of bombs you're making? It's enemy soldiers if we do our jobs with an exact effect. But that's hard to deliver and there will come a day when others will be too close and they'll be caught in the blast, civilians is what I mean, and they will be called 'The Innocents' in the headlines.”

  “And so you're tryin' to talk me out of it, Kev, is that it?”

  “That, or making sure you know what you are doing before you get all the way in it. We've never taken it to London like this before. There's some who are against it. I've told you my misgivings because I need to make sure you know what you are doing.”

  “Haven't I been beggin' you to get all the way in it? It's what I have to do, so.”

  “Lady Girl, what I'm trying to tell you is you don't have to. Right now you can tell me to turn around and I'll take you home and Russell will thank you for what you have done already and what your da—”

  The car didn't turn off on the side road.

  “The car's still back there.”

  “And you don't have to worry who might be following you. Unfortunately, there's lots of girls whose da's were murdered by Black n' Tans. But they sit home trying to forget it, permitting themselves a smile as they sit with their mums and wait for a lad to come calling for a River walk.”

  Maureen stared back at the car quietly for a few moments, watching it come closer, then fade back again before she could see any details of the driver, and her throat choked from fighting deep emotion.

  “There's time for walks… later… an' them who can forget is better
off than me, Kevin, I understan'… but this time is for mindin' me da's memory by gettin' 'im his due.”

  “No, Lady Girl, you have to be doing this thing we're setting off to do, not for revenge, but for true Fenian causes.”

  “Not for revenge? Not for revenge.” She stared forward now, and they drove along quietly for a mile. When she faced Kevin there was a tear falling across her cheek, but Kevin didn't hear it in her voice.

  “I want the Brits out of the Six Counties as much as you or Russell or anyone. It was Derry where they murdered me da, in front of us, Kevin. In the house he was born in, in Derry.” Her tears were falling now, but still her voice had held steady.

  “Your da was a brave man and I understand righteous anger. But your da always told me to keep personal feelings under control, that's what I'm saying. I'm saying anger clouds the mind, and what you are setting off to do requires full composure and great discipline.”

  “If you don't want me angry then don't talk to me about sittin' at home an' smilin' with me mum, Kevin, because when I sit with her… When I share a smile with me mum it carries the memory of that last moment Da was alive. When she had to look away. I knew she wouldn't be able to look him in the eye, so I did it for her, I held him in my eyes so he could see his family loved him and we were proud of him but she couldn't watch… So I did… She was lookin' at me as that bastard put the pistol right there an' shot me da… An' Kevin, what she tells me now is she doesn't know what was more frightful to see, me da's murder, or me fillin' up with hatred as I watched it happenin'. So you see, Kevin, I can't smile at me mum when she cries til mornin'… I will find the men who did this to him, and I will kill them. In the meantime, I will carry on his work.”

  They drove in silence. The car followed them. Maureen saw another side road ahead. Kevin checked the rear-view mirror.

  “Then I'll let Russell know there's no doubt. You're all the way in.”

  “I have lots of reasons to deliver the bomb makings to the boys in London. Assure Russell I'm all the way in.”

  Maureen saw the car behind them finally take a southward fork in the road and she turned back to Kevin.

  “An' God bless the innocents, so.”

  The fishing lodge's van was parked in front of the main street dry goods store in the village of Cong. It was parked in the exact spot Barry Fitzgerald's horse and cart would stop twelve years later in the filming of The Quiet Man, when the shop would be turned into Cohan's Pub for the movie. This night Brian stood at the bar in the pub across the street.

  As the story of Red Bull Brian and the British Lord spread, men from town had joined earlier drinkers and paid for his drinks all afternoon and into the early evening.

  “Any closer I'd felt his mustaches. As me demons was pullin' my right arm back and loadin' it with all their might, I was sure they was intendin' I'd be throwin' it full square to his jaw.”

  “Ah me Bri, I'm quiverin' each time I hear it. Here, let me get you anodder.”

  “An' his grandfather bein' the very landlord who failed at the Big House. Dat's feckin' perfect, feckin' beautiful.”

  The pub door opened and Brian looked up with a smile to see who'd be buying the next round. It was his cousin Eamon who'd come looking for Brian. Eamon Burke was a couple of years older than Brian, perhaps an inch taller and nearly two stones heavier. They were easily the largest men in the pub and celebrated by their village as the two biggest men for miles around. Eamon joined them, shaking his head at their high spirits.

  “No singin' at the lodge tonight, lads. Just fury over Jimmy's van gone missin' an' a British lord spittin' threats at your man here.”

  “Eamon, join us, we've just moved to the whiskey.”

  “I'm here fetchin' the van, Cos, an' they're callin' for you as well. Finish that an' let's go see what we're facin'.”

  Brian sipped but didn't finish, then wiped his mouth and smiled to the crowd.

  “You can fetch the van, Cos, but you hain't fetchin' me. Not to go apologize to no feckin' Brit.”

  “Right, so. But if I'm to take care you need to do me a favor, Cos, an' tell me your version of the story. A moment with Brian, lads, he'll be right back. I'll just be askin' himself for some advice on how to proceed.”

  Eamon led Brian outside behind the van. Brian leaned on the back door, his arms folded across his chest. Eamon stood facing him.

  “He was laughin' at my dream, Cos, an' it all starts with how one man respects another man's dream.”

  “No, it all starts with a man earnin' a livin' for his family. I set you up at the only fishin' lodge in all the West with anythin' like a steady business an—”

  “Innish Cove is a grand business opportunity. You've said so yourself many times.”

  “You've named it.”

  “I'm still thinkin' of a name for the camp, but the cove I've been dreamin' of, that's Innish Cove.”

  “I've said it's a grand dream, yes I have, but if the choice you'll be offerin' guests is bein' your London bankers or your punchin' bag, well then I start to feel a little different about it. There's no song in what happened today, Cos, but I did see Gardai arrivin' at the lodge as I was leavin'.”

  “What will they arrest me for? Abandonin' a man in the middle of the best trout fishin' he's ever seen? He said so a dozen times. He caught two trout over six pounds and one a' them was nearly eight.”

  “He says you swung at him, an' if he hadn't ducked at the last instant, you'd a broke his jaw. He's declarin' an assault.”

  “He may be a lord in England, but he's a lyin' coward in Ireland.” Brian stood. “So I will go with you, yeah, an' I'll tell him to repeat his story with his man who saw it all standin' there in front of me.”

  Eamon knew that would be a mistake.

  “You're right. No need in you joinin' me. I believe this will be handled best with you sittin' in your cottage awaitin' the outcome.”

  “I'm tellin' ya' his man saw it all, an' if you can find anyone who ever knew me to throw a punch an' miss I want to meet 'im. I stopped.” Brian stood. “You can fetch for 'em all ya want, but I'm makin' plans for a new life now, Cos, an' he was laughin' at 'em.”

  “Hangin' out at the pub tellin' the lads all about yer dreams hain't the same as makin' plans.”

  “Don't talk like this is just idle fantasy, Cos. I'm doin' this for my family an' for yours. Not a one of us is meant to be just another generation of famine survivors.”

  “Your family needs your wages more than your dreams, more than ever now since there hain't many around these days, Bri.”

  “So I got to get us out of here.”

  “You need guests who trust you an' you need to be takin' your money home an' not leavin' it in there—”

  “I've not paid for a drink today.”

  “An' ya need to be takin' care of your woman again so she don't get so run down as the last time.”

  Brian looked for further signs of what Eamon meant by the last time, and as he seemed confused, Eamon shook his head.

  “So you didn't know.”

  “What are you sayin'?”

  “About your poor Deirdre.”

  “What about her?”

  “You didn't know your wife's with child again.”

  “What? Sure. Of course I know.”

  “Did you know before I just told you now?”

  “Whatta you sayin'? I'm a great da.”

  “No one questions Tommy and little Katie love their da, but Deirdre is always tellin' me missus that you're never home attendin' to her.”

  “If that's her contention how is it she's with child again?”

  “When she came by last night to tell me missus, she said she hadn't told you yet.”

  “She shouldn't be tellin' none our business.”

  “She don't need anger, Cos, she needs you lookin' after her. She didn't appear tip top last night when she came 'round for a cup. She told my Marie she's scared she's carryin' again so soon.”

  “That's the way women
talk. She's stronger than you think. I'm the one was lookin' after her after we lost the last baby, an' she never was as bad off as the midwife was sayin'.”

  “I'll talk to Jimmy for you an' see if I can settle things with him. Maybe he'll make a big show out of sackin' you an' then he can hire you back after Clarendon leaves. Jimmy don't like the man neither, his father was struck more than once by them when they was the landlords at the Big House.”

  “Jimmy knows I find his guests more brown trout than anybody else he's got.”

  “Give me the keys, and no more sellin' shares to guests, Bri. Promise me that.”

  “But who else do I have?”

  “You need the wages, Cos.”

  Late that night Brian sat at the table in his cottage in the light of an oil lamp, close to the small peat fire. He leaned over a piece of paper, a thick stub of pencil in his hands. On top of the page he had written the words “Plans for the Canadian fishing operation to be named the Great Lodge at Innish Cove, Brian Burke Proprietor and Host,” and below that he wrote “Ojibway Indians as ghillies” and “trees for log cabin construction” and “Chicago business men many Irish” but the rest of the page was blank.

  Their bedroom door opened and Deirdre stepped from darkness into the glow at the light's edge, her bare feet sounding soft, her voice hard.

  “When did you come in?”

  “A while ago.”

  “Why didn't you come home for supper?”

  “I'm home now.”

  “You were at the pub all night.”

  “An' all afternoon.”

  “Your guest left off fishin' early?”

  “The day he had, I'm guessin' he's still shakin' with excitement.”

  “He paid you the full wage?”

  “Not yet.”

  “We need wages, Brian.”

  “You'll wake little Katie if you keep huffin' at me.”

  “Oh, no, don't you tell me how to be carin' for these children.”

  “An' I'm carin' for these children and theirs to come with what I have in front of me here, so leave off an' get yourself back in bed.”