Fishing the Sloe-Black River

by Colum McCann

  He stalls in the parking lot, wondering. But Fancypants couldn’t have a clue. Probably hasn’t even noticed the missing shirt. Have to get the cap back anyway. A man’s gotta do. Juanita will be hopping mad if I lose it. She adores that hat. He shuffles toward the door, keeping his eyes down. Hup two. On the seat nearest the door, he catches a glimpse of his gray tweed. Hallelujah and hail to the king. Grand job, Nora, as the saying goes. Nora being the girl that the bold Sean O’Casey left behind. He chuckles to himself. Here comes the Playboy of the Western World. Or was that Mr. Synge? Onward. Away. On yer bike. Quickly.

  He looks up and notices that Fancypants is watching him. Uh-oh. He smiles at her as he picks up the hat. “Fierce hot today isn’t it?” he says to her.

  “What?” She moves out from around the back of the machines. “Yes. Well. Excuse me, sir, did you happen, by any chance, to, like, see somebody in here?”

  “Not a soul. I just forgot my hat.”

  “I misplaced a blouse.”

  “Sorry to hear that. Well, I must be on my way. Juanita expects me home. She has the tea on.”

  “Excuse me?” says Fancypants.

  “My wife. She’ll be angry as all get-out if I lose my cap. I left my cap here.”

  “Oh,” says Fancypants.

  “Had to run all the way here. Still have it in my lungs, all the same. Used to run six miles a day. Way back when.”

  “I see. But you didn’t happen to see anyone in…”

  “Devil a soul. There were two women when I left. Now that you mention it.”

  “Did they go to that washing machine?” Fancypants points over toward number five.

  “Not that I know of.” With his back to the door he hears someone enter the laundromat. He doesn’t turn around, just stands, watching Fancypants. “I hear there’s been some thievery going on all the same,” he says. “It’s a terrible thing. Can’t trust a soul these days. All the young ones are into drugs. No wonder they call it the junior high.”

  “Sorry?”

  “The school and the drugs. No wonder they call it the junior high.”

  “My boyfriend gave it to me,” says Fancypants, scratching her head. “It’s no big deal really, I suppose. Just sentimental value.”

  A finger of guilt doing circles in his stomach. He touches his hat, pulls the flap down over his eyes. “Well, dear,” he says, “I must be on me way. Awful sorry about the blouse. But I must get on home. My wife’ll be fussing and fuming.”

  “Thank you,” she says. “Sorry for delaying you.” Oh, but she’s awful nice, this Fancypants with her twirly blond hair and her lipstick. Maybe he should run on home and retrieve it for her. Juanita wasn’t mad keen about it anyway. Didn’t like the blue frills.

  A thick gravelly voice comes from behind his shoulder. “Whose wife might that be, Mr. Flaherty?”

  He turns. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what the hell is Clarence LeBlanc doing in here? Standing by the door, the lanky drink-of-water has a vicious sneer on his face. “Flaherty, you don’t have a wife.”

  A buckle of knees, a heart thump. Where the hell did LeBlanc appear from?

  “Whose wife are we talking about?” LeBlanc says again.

  “I have to go home, dear,” he says to Fancypants. “Excuse me, now. The tea’s boiling. I hope you find the blouse.”

  “Whose wife, Mr. Flaherty?” LeBlanc stands with his arms stretched out, blocking the doorway. “You don’t have no wife.”

  “If you’ll kindly excuse me,” he says to LeBlanc. Behind him he can hear Fancypants stuttering something. “Are you missing something, ma’am?” says LeBlanc to Fancypants.

  “Just a blouse. I misplaced a blouse. It’s no big deal.”

  “You don’t happen to know anything about the young lady’s blouse, do you, Mr. Flaherty?”

  “Not a thing. Could you excuse me?” He puts his hand on LeBlanc’s shoulder to get beyond him. Christ, but it’s hot. LeBlanc pushes him in the chest. He stumbles backward.

  “Pervert,” hisses LeBlanc. “You a pervert, Flaherty. Stealing women’s clothes. I been knowing it all along.”

  * * *

  The day she left he stood in front of the door, just like this, except he was the one blocking. So many years ago. Another steaming New Orleans day. Her hair was ashy and ferocious that afternoon, her skin wallpapered with grief. I’ll sing to you, Juanita. You’ve sung enough, and I’ve heard them all before. I’ll make it anew. Get out of my way please, Danny. I’ll try harder. No. I’ll go with you. I’m going where you can’t find me. Why? I’ve had enough. Of what? Of everything. I don’t understand. And you never will. He tried to touch her hair. She pulled back. There were lines on her face now. They were both so much older than the moon they had sung to. When will you be back, Juanita? When the sun comes up in the west, Danny, and maybe even a few days after that. Then him leaning against the door, watching her go.

  That was July 9, 1967. Twenty-five years ago to the day. The summer of love they called it. A bad name, and not true at all. The cabarets, the bells, the canvas, the movies, the sheer theater of it all, the wonder—gone. He had fallen to Caffola. She had fallen, not unlike a silver goddess. Their voices had fallen too. Down somewhere deep in the belly of memory. And the hope as well. The courtyard complex was gray as granite that day when she left. She slipped out the door and he thought of home, far away, far away. The garden of rock. The limestone that lets the water seep through. The turloughs with their disappearing water. The strangely colored flowers. She would be back. He would wait. Granite was impermeable. That he had learned. Granite doesn’t let water through.

  * * *

  It’s a slow punch, an old man’s roundhouse, and LeBlanc should have seen it coming. But it lands crisply on his jaw, sweetly, no fear, like old times. A good healthy crunch through his fingers. If only he could have hit Caffola like that before the bastard smeared mustard oil on his gloves. September 9, 1938. Falling sideways with a thud. Referee calling the count. Juanita up on the ropes. Shouting in Spanish. Danny get up. Get up. Looking like she had four eyes. Everything swirling. Stumbling on the ropes. Finished. Gone. A Chusla Mo Chroí, and it’s all over now, Danny boy.

  LeBlanc falls the same way, splayed across the plastic chairs, a pack of cigarettes tumbling from his shirt pocket. Fancypants lets out a little yelp. And it’s out the door, running.

  Over a pothole and far away. Far away, far away. And a glance behind. Though your steps be heavy, you’ll trot lightly along the way. Hup two, Flaherty. On home to Juanita. Tea’s ready. A dab of milk and a spoonful of sugar, dearest. He looks over his shoulder, breathing heavily. LeBlanc is behind him now, one hundred yards to the rear, blood streaming from his mouth. Oh, a great punch that one. Hit him good-oh. Yessir. Put me in the Hall of Fame. Hang my gloves beside those of the Brown Bomber. A fabulous punch indeed.

  LeBlanc is roaring something obscene behind him. Is nothing sacred at all? But he’s gaining awful fast. Past the bank. Alongside the chicken shop. If I can make the flashing green man, he thinks, I’ll be home free. Myself and Juanita can watch Tyrone on the TV, flinging his lovely fists at the sky. Then I’ll steal out tonight and leave Miss Jackson a blouse. White with blue frills. Awful nice that blouse, but Juanita just didn’t like it. Women. They’re so shagging finicky. Run, Flaherty, run. Run. Look at the trouble they get you into. He looks over his shoulder again. LeBlanc is only forty yards away. Christ, the boy is fast. Into the traffic he darts. Hup two three. LeBlanc is screaming awful loud. Well, fuck you too, my bonnie boy. A screech of tires. Thank jaysus that green man isn’t red. Onwards. Upwards. Away. Quick, quick, quick. He’ll never catch me. Along the sidewalk.

  Juanita, when I’m home make it two spoonfuls of sugar. To help the medicine go down. Then I’ll sing you the finest song you ever heard. Past the flower shop. He makes it to the steps of the complex, then turns around. LeBlanc is right there. He looks up the stairwell, toward the graffiti, then back at LeBlanc again. Gaining fast. Awful, awful fast. Fis
ts clenched. Sneer on his face. Eyes like scythes. Up the steps. One two three. Alongside the graffiti. One two. Panting. One. One. Two. Leaning against the wall. Gasping now. Looking backward. LeBlanc reaching out for him.

  Christ, he thinks, with a huge skip of the heart, buy that bastard a wheelbarrow.

  A WORD IN EDGEWISE

  Look at you and a smile on you like the cracked vase that Mammy kept in the kitchen cupboard. The flowery one. With the downward chink, like an upturned smile. Daisies, I think they were, with little yellow figurines leaping all the way through them. A poet one time wrote about a vase, or an urn, and something about beauty and truth. A damnsight we were away from truth those nights, hai? You jumping around the dancehall like a prayer in an air raid, your hair running wild and frothy all around your shoulders. Weren’t we a sight? You, sneaking off down to the town square with Francis Hogan, the only lad in town with a motorcar, done up to the nines, your mascara on, your ginger hair flying. Him with his elbow hung out the window, smoking, his curls all slicked back with oil. What a sight! Me sitting sidesaddle on Tommy Coyne’s red tractor, chugging our way out to the fields behind the elderberry forest, going to make hay, as we say. Wasn’t that the time of it? A tube of lipstick was a precious thing in those days.

  The young ones nowadays, they don’t think we were up to it at all. Here we are, getting letters from the grandkids, all over the globe, and I’ll be bowled arse-over-backward if they think we ever misbehaved. Did I tell you about the letter I got a few days ago from young Fiachra in Amsterdam? Tells me the tulips look lovely in spring. I ask you, eighteen years old and he wants me to think he’s looking at the tulips! Not only making hay, but he’s probably threshing the damn stuff as well. They do that sort of thing in Amsterdam. It’s a long way from Tipperary. Or a long way to tip her hairy, as Tommy Coyne was once heard to sing, outside the dancehall, sitting on the back of his tractor. Holy God! I don’t mean to be rude, Moira, but I kid you not. Sitting on the back of his tractor with the blackberry juice on his teeth and his hair in a cowlick: It’s a long way to tip her hairy, it’s a long way to go, it’s a long way to tip the hairy of the sweetest gal I know, Godblessher. God bless us and save us! It’s the years, Moira. I’m wont to ramble, as you well know.

  Lipstick. Cleanser. Mascara. A touch of rouge. Eyeliner. The whole nine yards. We’ll have you smiling yet. Come off it now, of course we will. Anyway, didn’t Da get into awful conniptions over me knocking the kitchen teapot over the night we came in from the dancehall? Smashed on the kitchen tiles, it did, with an awful racket. Ricocheting through the house. Us standing there, the smell of drink on our breaths, in those blue dresses sent from Paris by Aunt Orla. Him as big as the Rath-cannon elk, roaring: “Weren’t you two supposed to be home by ten?” And both of us stealing out again and sitting in the vegetable patch near the barn, laughing our heads off until the sun was just about up. And us just smearing the makeup all over each other’s faces! We must have looked awful stupid—sitting in a straggle of turnips, wearing fancy blue dresses.

  Funny thing is, these days we’re always asleep by ten, let alone home. Time has a curious way. But that’s how it goes isn’t it? Da away and beyond, God rest his soul. Mammy too. And Aunt Orla with her. Sure, who knows where even Tommy Coyne is these days? Up and left for Australia long before it was the fashionable place to go. Remember all those jokes about Tommy Coyne and sheep! Me oh my. Hold on a minute now, Moira, and the first thing I’m going to do is put on a little cleanser. New stuff I got from Max Factor. Lovely clean smell to it, isn’t there?

  Good God Almighty! But haven’t we been doing this since the Lord knows when? Remember the times when we were toddlers and Mammy would be on the way out to the pub with Da? He’d be there, all big-boned, at the end of the stairs, in his blue suit, shouting at her to hurry on. And Mammy always so meticulous with the lipstick, wasn’t she? Forever licking her tongue over her teeth, head cocked sideways, staring at herself. I suppose that’s where we got it from. Us glued wide-eyed on either side of her. Then us sneaking out of bed when they were gone, to sit in front of the big oak mirror and smear it all over our lips, trying her hats on, and making curtseys in the middle of the room. Damn it, anyway, but weren’t we the holy terrors! Remember that night when we took what’s-her-name, the cat, you know, oh, whatsit? Luna! That’s it. Luna. Remember we took her and covered her with rouge, put mascara on the whiskers, perfumed behind the poor thing’s ears and dressed her in a rag of old satin? That little wag of a tail coming out the back. That poor cat hissing around the house, like something possessed. Hiding under the bed. The hat you made for her with Da’s cigarette packs. The things we remember.

  Anyway, talking of teapots, strange the way things change, isn’t it? Used to be a teapot was a teapot. Nothing more and nothing less. Just teapots. But I was up and beyond in Dublin last week, baby-sitting little Kieran, his mammy and daddy away in London for an advertising conference. So, anyway, I took him for a walk down by the canal—the water’s filthy these days, floating with Styrofoam cups, all that smog and neon along the banks, even a couple of condoms, floating on the water. I kid you not! Who would use those things anyway, Moira? Like your Sean says, it must be like washing your feet with your socks on! But, like I was saying, we were throwing some bread to the ducks, and all of a sudden little Kieran says to me, he says: “Look at those teapots over there, Granny.” And him pointing to a couple of boys wrapped together like slices of bread underneath the Leeson Street Bridge, kissing in broad daylight. Teapots. I ask you, Moira. Apparently something to do with the way the spout curves.

  We’ll give that cleanser a moment to settle now, Moira, then we’ll get started with the foundation. Sad to say, anyway, Larry and Paula look like they’re emigrating too. Paula got offered a job with that crowd, Saatchi and Saatchi. They’re going to enroll little Kieran in some private school on the outskirts of London. There’s another one will grow up with an English accent. Dropping h’s all over the place. A terrible shame. And he’ll see more than his fair share of teapots over there, I’ll tell you. That sort of thing goes on all the time in London. It’s as bad as Amsterdam. Before you know it there’ll be none of us McAllisters left in Ireland at all. Sure, don’t you remember the time we almost went ourselves? 1947, wasn’t it? Anniversary of D-Day, if I’m not mistaken.

  Don’t you remember us walking down the main street and those two Yankee soldiers sauntering by O’Connor’s butcher shop with the big red awning? Decked out in the full regalia, handsome as Sunday. Recovering from the war, of course. The lads in town didn’t like them at all. Overpaid, oversexed, and over here. A wee bit of jealousy, I’d say, because aren’t those Americans awful good-looking people? Great teeth and all. Anyway. Remember? You in your ochre blouse and your linen skirt and me myself in my favorite green cardigan, the one with the flowers crocheted on the side. Both of us after making our faces up lovely. And up come the two Yankee boys, asking us what was it a fella could do of an evening in a town like this? And, before you know it, we’re out there driving down the Cork road with the windows open and them singing all sorts of curious songs. Heidy-deighty, Christ Almighty, who the hell are we? Wham bam thank you ma’am we’re the infantry! And us covering our ears, pretending like we were shocked. Out into the countryside, under those huge stars, and them saying that the car was broken down so they could walk us back to town in the dark. Talk about conniving. And us pretending like we were scared, so we could lean into them. A summer night, wasn’t it?

  But we were tempted. Let it be said, here and now, we were tempted. Now, of course, my Eoin and your Sean wouldn’t need to hear that, but we were tempted to be sure. Oh yes. On we go now, anyway. A bit of foundation. Just a dab here. I brought my finest, of course. We’ll just get in there under your chin a little bit. Skim off the surplus here now, with my old camel’s hair brush. You’re looking really great now. Ah, it’s a sad world sometimes, but it gives you such funny stories.

  Who knows, but we could ha
ve been married to some Yanks! Funny thing that, when you think about it. At least for you it was love at first sight with Sean, and isn’t that what makes the world go around? Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage, ladeedadeedada, ladeedadeedadee, you can’t have one without the other. Me oh my. Can hardly remember the words now. Between yourself and myself and the walls, sometimes I almost regret putting the cart before the horse, so to speak, marrying Eoin like I did. He was never exactly—well, he was a quiet man. But, well, damn it all anyway, there’s enough badmouthing done in this world without me adding to it. Isn’t that right? Too many bickerers and begrudgers all over the place. My Eoin gave me a good home, God bless his soul, treated me right, even if now and then I got a little uppity with him. Enough said now. He was always very fond of you as well Moira. Always said nice things about you. Loved your pot roast, and I’m not just saying that. He was heard to say, more than once, that he’d run to Dublin and back if he knew one of your pot roasts was waiting for him.

  And talking of men who are quick on their feet now, Moira! That time you met your Sean. That was so funny, wasn’t it? At that dance in Greenore, you wearing that red velvet dress just a little bit off the shoulder. Daring for the times. 1951. October, if I’m not mistaken. Or was it November? Getting a bit on the cold side, if I remember correctly, and you wouldn’t wear a cardigan over your dress. Partial to showing off, you were, and why not? You have a body on you that the rest of us have always envied, that’s for sure. Anyway, remember that night? That drafty old hall with the grimy windows? Us sitting there, me with my Eoin, newly married and cuddling, and you beside us, the gooseberry just waiting for a man. Indeed you were! Don’t be codding me now. Hackling for a man you were. But you were beautiful that night. You were too. With the red dress, face all done, and those fancy new stockings. And up he comes, your Sean, skipping over the floor, from the other side of the hall, his hat sideways, smelling of Brylcreem, that chip in his teeth showing, over to you, saying, “Excuse me, any chance of a dance before I get carpet burns on me tongue?” I almost wet myself laughing! Carpet burns on his tongue! And then both of you out there, dancing and laughing. You always said it was love at first sight, and why not? He’s the nicest man. Him always talking you up a storm. Anyway, here I am, rambling away as usual. He gave me your note today, your Sean did. Said to me: “Do her face up good now, Eileen. It’s a big journey.”