Short Fiction of Flann O'Brien (Irish Literature)

by Flann O'Brien

  The Doctor beamed genuinely.

  “Ah, my dear Crawford, for me it has been a supreme pleasure and honour to welcome to these poor parts the wife of my dear friend Edward Hoolihan. I will ask Sarsfield Slattery to drive you home in my car.”

  “But thank you so much. We will meet again in a few days. I want to talk to you about another most important by-product. I mean sago furniture.”

  And thus a meeting, so strange in its sequel, came to an end that evening.

  7

  On reaching Poguemahone Hall, Tim Hartigan parted from the new chatelaine, picked up in the hall an airmail letter addressed to himself and made his way to his kitchen quarters. He was tired, and intestinally a bit irked by spent whiskey. He went to bed, rekindled his pipe and opened the letter.

  Dear Tim—It’s beginning to be the devil out here. More gushers are blowing their tops about every third day and I don’t believe I manage a total of more than 15 hours real sleep a week, quite alone and in perfect peace, peace that was possible only by reserving an entire floor of the Blue Water Gulf Hotel in Corpus Christi with a squad of my own private cops to keep Press and TV scruff away and to block all telephone assaults. It’s not that I’m short of assistance and offers of help. Those offers are so continuous and persistent and descending on me from every quarter in such a deluge that my nerves by now are pretty well in flitters. A Jesuit Father, Michael Peter Connors, managed to get himself invited up to breakfast with me on the pretext of getting a sub for a new convent of the Little Sisters of the Stainless Eucharist in Dallas (of course I’m still as much of a sucker for the old Church as ever I was as a simple farmer at Poguemahone) and when he pulled out some sort of an illuminated book for me to sign so that I would be remembered in 10,000 Masses that are to be offered in the convent chapel for benefactors over 25 years from the opening date, a little box of .357 Smith and Wesson slugs fell out into his damn plate of bacon. I knew them and the box because I have one of those rods myself. I pressed a secret buzzer at my foot under the table and when two cops bounced in and frisked my Jesuit he turned out to be a cousin of Congressman Joshua Hedge—a real friend of mine in Washington, I think. This silly bogman didn’t plan to shoot me, of course; he just wanted a cheque, no matter a bugger to whom payable, so as to have some notes to play with and maybe buy himself a vacation in Europe. I gave him fifty bucks in notes but warned him I’d give Hedge a prod about him. It looks to me like everybody in this Texas goes about fully armed and any man in the habit of carrying readies in his pocket has a quiet bodyguard about as near to him as his underwear—he wouldn’t go to the lavatory without a gunman on guard outside the door. I needn’t tell you I carry an old-fashioned Colt 45 myself and know how to use it—got lessons and half an hour’s practice every day for a fortnight from the Marshal at Fort Worth, a Clareman named O’Grady. I carry a couple of grut balls, too—little bombs about a thousand times worse than tear gas but with no effect on the thrower (yours truly) who takes just one grutomycin tablet every morning. Don’t write to me here in Corpus Christi as my GHQ is still Houston. I have moved from the Old Mexico mansion and now have 7 floors in the Houston Statler, and please make a note of that address. George Shagge, the Laredo steel-man, wants me to buy the whole damn hotel and settle in but I don’t know, I think I’ll wait a bit. Some of my oil tickles in Arizona have suggested that this State is sitting on a bed of uranium and maybe Texas won’t be my last home. But I like it here. This territory is so big and so bulging with treasure under the ground that a man feels he’s neglecting it just by being in any one place. Oil means hundreds of miles of big-bore pipeline, some to my refinery at Houston and others to new refineries I am putting up at Galveston and Sabine, and also at Pensacola in Alabama—we can’t move oil to the west and east coasts except by tanker. The railroads here are all in the hands of crooks. I’ve taken over a firm making drilling rigs in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for by jiminy I have options on 1,858 sq. miles of fresh territory here in Texas where the tests have been more than good. Total no. of H.P. derricks at work just now is 731. Two fellows I know here are running for Governor in the neighbouring State of New Mexico—Cactus Mike Broadfeet and Harry Poland—and I’m quietly backing both because that’s the way business goes here. This whole State is alive with hoodlums and politicians, and when was there any difference between those two classes? I’m as busy as buggery but I’m not slow—I play the Kennedy R.C. ticket and I’ll be just another brave U.S. Catholic as soon as my citizenship comes through—Cactus Mike says I’m perfectly right and that this great State of over 7 million souls is entitled to a Cardinal and if he is elected Governor in New Mexico he intends to park some fixers and use money (mine, I presume) in Rome. By God, if he wants to serve the Cross that way, why shouldn’t he since he serves or used to serve the fiery cross with the KKK outfit—and now with an election next door there’s no shortage of those gunboys in nightshirts putting the fear of Jesus into the niggers. You might think I’m now long enough in the U.S. to have a few friends here and there but honestly, Tim, I’m lonely as hell and have to keep fighting like a Trojan to keep away from the licker. Some of my buddies, as they call themselves, may be all right under the skin but I just don’t have the mental machinery to tell which of them are bums or hoods. They have all a profound, sincere, undisguised interest in money—MY money, I’d say—and I needn’t tell you they mostly want it to prop up poor prostitutes in homes, teach the alphabet to blind cripples, found new Orders of nigger and octaroon nuns and make absolutely certain that the Democrats will never lose this State. Cactus Mike Broadfeet has a button up certifying he has given 24 pints to the Our Lady of the Lake Blood Bank at San Antonio but maybe the button means he swallows 24 pints of corn licker a week for by God you’d swear his face was on fire. As I think you know, the only way to get about this territory which is bigger than all Germany is by air. I’ve two machines of my own, a jet and a turbo-prop, but I’m nervous as a kitten up there, even if every flyer and cop I have took an oath on the Douai to play straight. Four of my boys have been shot up in the last 10 months and a girl that types for me got so savagely mugged that the New York hospital that now has her says she’ll never walk or stand up again. The mobsters here have no respect whatsoever for womankind. With a State election coming up nearby the night riders have got mighty plentiful and Harry Poland has made the crack on TV that Cactus Mike Broadfeet would be the ideal man for Governor of Oklahoma except that he has trench mouth, his love for the Democrat Party is phoney, he has a bordello in the sacristy of his First American Church of the Plymouth Presbyterians and his expectation of life is short—that last a thing Poland has referred to the Attorney as a threat of assassination. Somehow I feel Cactus Mike will pull this thing off because he is a real prairie Texan, owns a big chain of shirt factories through the west coast and the word has been spread that Harry Poland is a Jew from Lithuania, though he wears a holy medal in gold he got from Cardinal Spellman and never touches meat on Friday. He has cotton scrubshops at Austin, Amarillo and El Paso but the boys say his real call is the drug business and that he was linked up with the Mafia outfit Cosa Nostra. He certainly takes snow himself for the good of his health and that’s about the colour of his face if not of his soul. Do you know, I’m nearly mad enough to run for the chair of Governor of one of the States here only I’m not a citizen yet. What I DO wish badly is that yourself could come out here and give me a hand at running this big booming oil mess-up but of course you can’t with all that important work on your hands back there at Poguemahone. By God though I need a real Irishman out here. Things will be easier later on though, when I get some sort of a real organisation working—that’s the big, true, business word, ORGANISATION. By the Lord, we have enough juice hereabouts to oil the wheels if only we had the wheels there and organised to turn.

  Now Tim I’ve left to the last the big question never out of the back of my distracted mind these times—how is my dear wife Crawford? I’m sure you were pretty shook and maybe annoyed with me for
the abrupt way I unloaded her on you without any right warning but Tim, you could say that girl saved my life when this sudden oil strike unbalanced me and drove me straight to the bottle. In three months I was halfway down the river on a tide of bourbon, not even the decent potstill drop you have at home, giving orders in the oil fields, signing options and cheques and hiring and firing without any proper notion of what I was about. God in his mercy saw to it that Crawford was lurking somewhere on my office staff and He inspired her to come to my side, guide my silly hand, save me from myself and get me the best doctors to be had across the whole U.S. and a first-class specialist named Dr Feodor Unterholtz from Austria. She never took her eyes off me nor let anybody else mess me up, and one night even had the nerve to order Cactus Mike out of the house. An angel in disguise if you like but still an angel. And she did not pull back when a direct sacrifice by herself was called for. As you probably know by now she is of stern Presbyterian stock but knew I would never be permanently safe, safe for keeps, unless she married me. You can well imagine the awful struggle that was there in the middle of her soul for of course she knew I was an Irish Catholic and knew the view our sort of people take of the sacrament of marriage. See the hobble she was in? I think she saw Cardinal Spellman or Cardinal Cushing or somebody on the Q.T. but I can tell you this—when the awful choice was put in front of her on a plate, Crawford didn’t flinch. No, sirreee! She took instruction from a local P.P., learned her prayers like a Castlebar schoolgirl and behind my back was received into the Church. Another soul for God, Tim—aren’t they wonderful, the ways of Providence? I was on tegretol and morphine and benzedrine and the devil knows what but I nearly fell through the middle of the bed when she told me one night everything was fixed. It made a new man of me, invalid and all as I was. I made a novena of thanksgiving to Our Lord and His Blessed Mother, and I don’t give a damn how much cynical people will jeer at all the oil and money I have, there was no trouble at all to getting Cardinal Cushing to agree to give us a Solemn Pontifical Nuptial High Mass with Gregorian Choir for the wedding. I arranged a sort of a double-take by having the Mass, wedding ceremony and the reception at the Houston Statler brought live on closed-circuit TV to the New York Hilton where a second simultaneous reception was held, with Senator Hovis Oxter and his wife Bella deputising for myself and bride, and I think you can take it from me that a good time was had by all—or by about 7,500 guests. Our honeymoon at Miami was very brief, of course, and very careful indeed with myself on antabus if you know what that drug is for, sweet God the smell of a cork and the poor reformed drinking man is down the Swanee.

  I suppose you wonder what I think of Crawford’s brainstorm about putting an end for good and all to potato-eating in Ireland. Well, this America is a great country with nothing beyond the boundless horizon only another enormous horizon beckoning on but I still remember very affectionately the land that gave me birth but I may say that the disgraceful way the native peasants treated my Earthquake Wonder still rankles bitterly in my nose. If the Irish don’t recognise a sound, decent, bug-free potato when they are offered one, then they don’t deserve any potato at all—those are my feelings—and they have thoroughly merited the decision to have sago made the national mainstay. Poor Crawford tried to interest myself in sago but nothing in that line has ever agreed with me, though who can say what I would think at my present age if I had had sago from the cradle as the new generation of Irish people probably now will have. My own conviction and my money are totally behind Crawford’s scheme because (one) the extremely delicate and complicated business of handling oil men, geological and mineral technicians, banker and financial panjandrums, to say nothing of State and Federal politicians, are no proper concern for a decent young married woman: and (two) my dear wife is finding happiness in the fulfillment of philanthropic yearnings far from home. It is a great pleasure and consolation to me that she should decide to see the bigger world from the resolve, God willing, to improve it and in doing so help me to discharge honourably the burdens of the great wealth which has flowed to me, and that keeps flowing in an ever-rising tide, from the Texas soil. There are not many dedicated persons in this shabby old world, and Crawford Hoolihan is one of them. Ireland may yet salute her, with holy Saint Brigid and Queen Maeve and the other great ladies of our storied past, not forgetting Graunya Wayl. I thank God humbly that she is far away from the hurly-burly and prairie stink of Texas oil, for nobody can pretend that gasoline is a pretty thing. And listen, Tim—don’t be fooled if it seems for the present that she doesn’t care a damn about you and takes you just for a gobshite of a caretaker. I marked her card and made it plump and plain that in my book you were the decentest and ablest young Irishman who ever wore a hat. I told her you were a sort of son of mine, though I didn’t labour that point. Crawford doesn’t wear her heart on her sleeve but she is far too shrewd to make any mistake about a man like you or even our mutual friend Sarsfield Slattery. Ah, how is Sarsfield? There is one little point I would like you to look to with your special care. Crawford has all the charity, humility and simplicity of a Saint Francis of Assisi or a Saint Teresa of Avila in her little finger but there is one thing she has yet to learn something about: I mean TACT. God help us but her honest direct attitude and methods might give offence to some of the over-sensitive slobs who still abound in Ireland’s green and pleasant land. There is, if you like, something of the Saint Joan about her. Give her some help and guidance there, Tim! Never tire telling her that the Irish are easy-going (you and I know that they are just bone-lazy) and that it is far easier to lead them gently than to push them. I need hardly tell you that she has plenty of the proper contacts in high places, and I had Senator Hovis Oxter introduce her to old Mrs. Scheisemacher, mother of the American Ambassador in Dublin, Charlie Bendix Scheisemacher. I might tell you under the hat that Charlie is a stockholder and not a tiny one either in my H.P. Petroleum outfit and I can pull his whiskers any time I want to. You will find that Crawford will move fast as soon as she gets her bearings and if she has told you that she has already arranged to ship sago to Ireland in tankers as a stop-gap measure, it is perfectly true because she arranged it all through my own tanker subsidiary. I’m telling you, she’ll wake Ireland up—and about time!

  Do write to me, Tim, and tell me what is going on and how things are shaping. What impression has Crawford made on my native sod? How many local people has she met? What does Sarsfield Slattery think of her? And my old sparring partner Baggeley, how is he behaving and has he yet heard any tidings of my wife? My hope is that they won’t meet, because the Doctor’s health habits make him rather unreliable. The enclosed little extra cheque, which you need not mention to Crawford, is for yourself. Write, write, WRITE, Tim, and give me all the news.

  Yours ever—Ned.

  [The original typescript ends here.]

  Appendices

  Appendix I

  [For] Ireland Home & Beauty (1940)

  by Brian O’Nolan / Flann O’Brien [both names are listed in the original typescript] 1

  In my many walks with Mr. Cullen I had become accustomed to his habit of saluting the most unlikely people and explaining to me afterwards that they were in “the movement” and had been “mainly” responsible[”] for such and such a piece of work when the fight against the British was at its hottest. He had never dwelt at any length on his own part in “the movement” beyond an occasional mention in passing that he had been present at the Howth Gun-running. For many years I had regarded this simple claim as [a delicate and not unmoving piece of modesty, clearly proving] [clear proof] that that daring bid to land the guns under the very noses of the British had been conceived by him alone and carried out practically single-handed. Later, when I learnt that he had been living in Howth during these eventful times and for many years before, I found several rather shabby thoughts [crowding] [coming] into my [brain] [head] every time [the burly form of my friend appeared on my horizon] [I met the good-natured burly patriot].

  On the day I wan
t to write about we were moving down the quays in the direction of Murtagh’s back-parlour. Mr. Cullen had been speaking when he suddenly stopped, nudged me and nodded ahead. Approaching us was a slender young man of twenty-two or so, dressed with great correctness in a dark suit. [His head was high.] He carried a cane and walked gracefully [carrying a high head.] [, and seemed to infect the whole street with his own distinction].

  Mr. Cullen spoke when we were about to pass.

  “How is Mr. Hogan?” he called.

  Instead of answering, the young man looked at Mr. Cullen [for the briefest possible interval of time with the most supercilious eye I have ever seen]. [It was a very brief look and his eye seemed supercilious]. It was not a look of scorn or derision or hatred. It seemed to say merely that Mr. Cullen was an unfamiliar thing and that his salutation was incomprehensible.

  Mr. Cullen glanced at me and shook his head sadly.

  “What does that mean?” I asked [him].

  “I will tell you [all about it],” he said. “His mother was in the movement.”

  We had reached Murtagh’s. Mr. Cullen led the way in with quiet efficiency and ordered two schooners. Mr. Murtagh himself was present and bade us the time of day. He was a massive bald man with a serious face and leaned far across the counter sideways on the pivot of his left arm, gesturing with his right and swiping idly at the flies.

  “Well, Martin,” he said.

  “It is very close,” said Mr. Cullen.

  He drank deeply [from his pint]. The two of them gazed abstractedly at the counter [but I could see that their minds were completely blank] [as if nestling contentedly in each other’s friendship]. [Idly] [The [???] had dragged] Mr. Murtagh[’s] [trousers tight about the crotch. He adjusted himself carefully. I drank quietly for a while until I thought it would not be sacrilegious to break the silence. Then I said:]