The Foulness of Thee – Part II

I’m trying to inject excitement into an ebbing the-rugby-crowd-gone-home-Saturday-evening as I lounge in the fatigued luxury of the Kerryman’s twenty-year-old Cadillac respirating Rizla wrapped South American herbs.

“Put on yer satebelt dere, or ‘ou’ll be floating up an’ hittin’ de roof a me luvly Caddy,” the Kerryman says, squealing his piggish-laugh.

“‘Ere,” he adds, “we better let a bit a dis smoke out in case de ‘Merican Gards do stop us.”

His window electric-whines down, letting in a rush of cold spring air.

“Ah bollix,” he slaps the sheepskin steering wheel cover.  “I tot…tally forgot dat cuntawa winda dushn’t go back up.  Now I’ll hafta spend tomorrow balow with Red Sean, pourin’ drink inta him ferta git it fixed afore work on Mondah.”

He clicks the Caddy into drive; we lurch into the darkened side-street.

A string of red lights run, two hard-on-brakepads stops, and three door slams later we’re back perched on Nash’s barstools watching three of Guinness settle. 

Rivulets of creamy-brown bubbles stream out of the darkness as the stout resolves.

The pub starts to bustle with dark-pants-and-suit-jacketed ould Irish fellas; smiling eyes; tongues hanging out for a traditional “Saturdah night fayst a pints!”

“Come on,” I say, tugging at Tom and the Kerryman’s sleeves.  “We’ll go up ta Cú Chulainn’s.  Up there’ll be a bit more craic.” 

“Yeragh, I doe…n’t like … dat place,” the Kerryman says stoned-slowly.

He shakes his head too much.  The back of his hand rises and languidly wipes the Guinness from his upper lip. 

“‘Tish too fucken fancah.”

Cú Chulainn’s isn’t “too fancah” for anyone to pass comment on Tom and I walk-stumbling in wearing our faded-by-too-many-washes Irish rugby shirts and grass stained white shorts, legs smeared with muck and blood. 

We order pints from Fintan, the barman; a friend from back in Ireland. 

“What in the fucken fuck were ye gobeshites up ta taday?” asks Fintan, setting down two pints of Guinness.  “Did ye get de start balow on that big new tunnel downtown, huh?”

He laughs a barman’s-who-gives-a-fuck laugh, grabs a white cloth from beneath the counter and executes a few rapid-circular wipes. 

“Pat Murphy as works balow in City Hall says they’re goin’ ta call it the Big Dig!” he polishes the counter with more rapid circular swipes.  “Sure, all ’tis goin’ ta be is a big dig into our fucken wallets!”

He sets the elbows of his white shirt on the damp counter.

“Sure, what do I care?” a mischievous smile cracks his face.  “‘Tis gobeshites like ye, workin’ for big companies that’ll do all de payin’!”

“Welllll …,” I say, before picking up one of the new pints, “I tink ye barman should stay here haf the night countin’ yer tips ferta make sure the taxman gets ag…xactly he’s share.”

I deliberately lean too far forward and pour some of the Guinness down inside the cuff  of Fintan’s white shirt sleeve.

“What the FUCK!” Fintan yells jumping backwards.  “Ya’re some fucken bollix with drink on ya, so ya are!  A right fucken bollix.”

He flicks his bar-cloth, the tip of the white cotton fabric spitting water and spilt-beer into my face.

Slowly, Dorchester’s three-deckers empty into Cú Chulainn’s; one old Caddy full a Paddies at time.

The bar’s bright lights dim lower and lower; red, yellow, and green beams of light flash from behind the stage through the smoke-choked air; the band’s bearded guitarist tortures his red electric guitar through a warbling tune; a cacophonous drum solo snaps back drunken heads, before the singer, head down, microphone cradled in his fist like an ice-cream cone, screeches:

“AAYYE … REMEMBER … that summer in Dublin ….”

On we pint … and pint … and pint. 

The coloured light glances through the smoke into the fissured ceiling tiles, resolving the rectangles into satisfyingly smooth shapes as viewed through the bottom of a pint glass.

The bands rattles through:

“Don’t Forget Your Shovel;”

“Ordinary Man;”

“Dirty Ould Town.”

More pints.

More Caddies full a Paddies jostle into the pub, beaming thirsty smiles.

The Aran Islanders arrive, already wild-eyed-drunk from pinting their way down Dorchester Ave.  They started at noon in the Lower Mills Pub, then stormed the Ashmont Grill for a “fade a steak n’ potatoes,” before repairing to Fields Corner “fer a real drink!”

We chat with Round-Rory and his cousin whose name he never provides.

“Watch dat fooken bollix offa cushion a mine,” Rory screams over the music.  “He’s an awfell man altagether; he’d fight with he’s fooken toenails he wud!”

 On what passes for a stage, the singer mortally wounds “Song for Ireland;” rasping through the interminably long verses, bottoming out badly on the high notes.  He quickly covers his tracks with two-in-a-row rabble rousing renditions of “The Fields of Athenry,” at the end of which we’re all primed to go dig up muskets and start a rebellion.

“Look at who’s over dere,” Round-Rory nods across the bar to a short, powerfully built man, with a shock of black hair, his face dominated by a broad, purpling blackeye.

“Ah, dat oul’ bleddy schrapper from Cunnumara,” the ‘cushion’ throws his head back in disgust.  “I tell ‘ou, if he’s reelly a perfessional boxer then he’d be better off doin’ his thumpin’ in t’ring, an’ not in t’pubs a Dhorchester! He’s a ….”

The ‘cushion’ lapses into rapid-fire-Irish, that I have no chance of decoding.

“Do not, do not, stad anois!” Rory yells, rolling his eyes, tossing his head way back, curving his whole spine.

That I can decode, and my body tightens.

The ‘cushion’ takes a huge swig of his pint and pushes off through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd.  

The kitchen at the back of the bar fires up: The smell of the deep-fried flesh of any animal that walks, flies or swims wafts out the too-bright opening in the wall under a large hand painted “BIA” sign.  What passes for a queue forms around the window.  Drunks clamber over one another’s shoulders, waving beer-sodden cash in the window hoping for bags of blisteringly hot food.

With Tom lapsed into a too-many-pints silence, I try to talk to Rory over a soulful rendition of “I Don’t Want to See Another Town.”   

Rory’s too drunk to talk. He slur-yells over the music, lapsing in and out from mangled-English to too-rapid-Irish, confusing my already-confused-by-seven-hours-drinking brain. 

I give up and gawk around the pub searching for familiar faces through the haze of smoke illuminated by shafts of green-yellow-red light.  Mostly it’s young men in their mid-twenties, just like me, crowding out the bar, laughing, reaching for drinks, wolfing down pints of Guinness or hoisting bottles of Bud over their open mouths. 

One tall, bone-thin woman, probably more like mid-thirties, scowling face thick with makeup, stands by herself at the bar.  Cradling a vodka and coke, she glares up into nowhere in front of her eyes, pulling so hard on her cigarette her cheeks dimple. 

As my gaze consumes the length of the bar, I see the ‘cushion’ on the other side of the bar, a half-finished pint of Guinness in one hand, in the other a cigarette jammed hard between thick fingers.  He leans forward to say something to a round-faced, heavily made-up woman perched on a barstool, a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth.  Whatever he says makes them both throw their heads back, laughing wildly.  His teeth show as his mouth opens wide: Her hand shoots up to yank the falling cigarette from her guffawing mouth. 

The ‘cushion’ emerges from his laugh with a strangely sour face. 

He arches far backwards and downs his pint, streams of Guinness running from the sides of his mouth.  His cigarette hand rises to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand. 

The woman’s big eyes flick toward him.  She takes a drink from her tall glass, smoke snakes up from the cigarettes in the overflowing ashtray.  

The ‘cushion’s’ shoulders rise as he takes a deep breath, then he lurch-leans in over the counter trying to order more drink, his cigarette hand flapping impatiently.

I turn around and stare at the band. 

The singer’s face glistens with sweat as, closed-eyed, he works through a gritty-impassioned version of “I Wish I was Back Home in Derry.”  The guitarist and drummer both focus intently on their instruments, paying no attention to the crowd in the bar drinking, smoking, guffawing, occasionally slapping hands and stomping feet to the music.  There’s not one person on the tiny dancefloor in front of the band.

When I spin back around the ‘cushion’s’ nose is inches away from the ‘perfessional’ boxer’s face.  He stabs a forefinger into the boxer’s barrel-chest.  The boxer’s shock of black hair angles backwards making me squint as I anticipate his thick head lunging forward, butting the ‘cushion’ unconscious. 

But no, the boxer’s broad face just breaks into open mouthed guffaw, increasing the rapidity of the ‘cushion’s’ finger stabbing.

With an afternoon behind me spent kinda-sorta fighting with a Canadian rugby team, in the much safer environment of a rugby pitch – with nary a pint glass within a hundred yards of our scuffles – I take this as my cue to hit for the jax. 

As I’m edging my way through the throng of drinkers, the bright-white lights flash three times to note last call.  Those sober enough to register the ominous warning launch a frenzied attack on the bar. 

I push open the toilet door; too-bright light spills into the bar’s smokey dimness, blanching already pale faces, overpowering the hue of the coloured lights, exposing the night’s underbelly of fatigue.

The toilet floor is a half-inch flood of water, beer and piss, littered with a few broken pint glasses, one soggy, half-eaten chicken box and a massive wad of blood-stained toilet paper. 

I walk toes upright, soft rubber heels pushing hard against the tiles to keep my runners from soaking up anything from lake piss-and-beer.  The sink counter is littered with empty Bud bottles, the jagged butt end of a broken, Guinness-stained pint glass, a chicken box empty but for a few gnawed wing-bones. 

I splash past two fellas in tar-blackened workbooks standing in the middle of lake piss-and-beer staring into an open toilet stall.  I stop and look to see why they’re staring.

Inside the stall there’s a half-naked man face down in the nasty flood; his blue jumper soaking up the floor; Wranglers tangled around his ankles. 

On the narrow rim of the white toilet bowl clings an enormous brown shite.

“Jaysys fucken Christ!” laments one of the starers, sighing loudly.  “If on’y he had ta shite on t’floor itself, sure it twoulda ben sumptin.”

Hands on hips, they both slowly shake their heads at a job poorly done.

To be continued….