The History of the Ginger Man

by J. P. Donleavy

  I did take some comfort, however, from the fact that Gainor said that if it were the last thing he ever did in life, it was to board the good ship Franconia and sail on the thirteenth. And that aboard such ship we could continue our chess games, in which Gainor said his concentration could be better directed than it could while he was under his present duress ashore. If I had any fond thoughts left for America, they were still of Boston. And I almost thought I could have survived there. Where the people at least on the surface seemed easier and so much more relaxed about life. The struggling slum of the West End, and just daily survival chasing away worry about the distant future. In which Ireland was now again a prospect. A newspaper clipping arrived from Ernest Gebler with Irish country properties for sale. T. J. told me that I must be as hard as nails not to have cracked under the strain. And that my silence was a psycho block and that I would not talk again until I was on my way.

  With tumbling gray-black, bleak thunderclouds, the forecast of snow struck in the form of a storm at noon the day following Gainor’s night departure back to Queens. Bringing, as blizzards did, a growing silence to the city as the drifts got deeper. And not having heard further again from Gainor, I assumed all had gone well and that he had got away soon enough to the promised quiet restfulness of Woodstock.

  Meanwhile, four days went by during which I further packed and, using some of my carpentry skills acquired in Kilcoole, completed making a box for my paints and brushes. I was informed too, that the time of departure of the Franconia had been delayed. From three P.M. to three-thirty P.M. And although sailing was still some many days away, it did add another full half hour, during which I was going to have to remain in the United States. I took the news on the chin. And decided thirty minutes was not a grievous amount of time to further wait, provided no sniper was across the Hudson River drawing a bead with telescopic sights on one from the Palisades as one stood on the Franconia deck. Upstairs at my desk in my dressing gown and socks, I was having pork chops and sauerkraut and listening to Boccherini’s Cello Concerto in G Major on station WQXR. When there came a knock and T.J. peeked his head in the door.

  “Mike, Gainor is on the phone and he doesn’t sound too good. Should I tell him you’re not available. But he seems pretty desperate to speak to you.”

  I nodded my head in assent that I would go downstairs to the telephone. The word “desperate” coming from a diplomatically sensitive T.J. in reference to Gainor most certainly did not sound good. And I knew it meant that something suitably catastrophic had happened. Anticipating the worst, I took my knife and fork, napkin and plate, with me. And as I went by the upstairs landing windows, I looked down into the garden lawn at the side of the house. The snow was more than a foot and a half deep, and it had begun to fall again. Juggling utensils, I nearly had a catastrophe myself down the stairs, a pork chop slipping off my plate. However, it tasted just as good as I picked it up and followed T.J. along the small hall and into the sitting room, where the telephone was in a corner by the fireplace. Talking to Crist here had always been like sitting in an electric chair, never knowing when the current would end one’s life in shock. And my heart now I could feel was beating more rapidly as I picked up the receiver into which T. J. spoke first.

  “Gainor, I am now putting Mike on the phone to you.”

  “Mike. I am most sorry to trouble you. But trust me when I tell you that, my God, this has been an unbelievable nightmare. And I do apologize for interrupting you in the middle of your dinner. But I have only now been able to get my hands on a telephone that works, as the snow had the lines down, and hope you can hear in all this static. Now if I don’t escape from up here alive, I at least want you to record for posterity my very last days. As Scott did in his diary in the Antarctic when he and his companions perished following their journey to the pole, which in fact this entire trip of mine has resembled and may yet end in similar grief. Also, you will see why it would not be sensible for me to further recommend for you to come up here. I am at this moment slipping down a large dram of bourbon to soothe my nerves. It has simply been the most terrifying ordeal to which I have ever yet been subjected. Do please grunt, Mike, when you’ve heard enough and don’t want to hear anymore. But I’ll be as brief as I can be. But first, Mike, let me ask, Have you ever as a little boy been taken into a chamber of horrors at a fun fair. Grunt two for yes and three for no.”

  “Ugh. Ugh.”

  “Well, then, you’ll know exactly what I am about to tell you was like. And grunt four if you feel any sympathy for me during the telling. My problems started on Wednesday evening when I first began to attempt to hitchhike up here in a howling blizzard. Starting at seven P.M. from the George Washington Bridge to where I had taken the subway and where April had at the same station memorably intervened and saved me from having a fight. Now, Mike, some of this story is going to sound like the same old refrain. But considering how they are not able to reproduce themselves, there would seem to be an astonishing population of homosexuals in this land. However, suffice to say that because of my outfit and especially my white socks and sandals and worn in the snowstorm raging at the time, my first lift was with a homosexual who assumed I was like-minded and amenable if not as desperate as he was to go with him somewhere and have the evening together and do what such gentlemen do with or to each other.”

  “Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.”

  “Mike, I know you’re not speaking, but please, for God’s sake don’t laugh, this was one of the most unfunny moments of my life. I was caught in the most appalling bloody damn dilemma, having in mind your remark of being on the horns of same and having one of the horns far up one’s hole, which was clearly the intent of this individual with whom I had the unfortunate luck to get a lift. But with not a sign of any refuge for miles except the very occasional light of a lamppost, I was not keen to have to return out into the blizzard, the snow having caught in my sandals had already melted and so my feet were wet and of course would freeze to ice once back out in the subzero air again. Equally, I wanted, of course, to get as much mileage as I could on the way to Woodstock, as he was going as far as New Paltz, more than half the way. But he took my reluctance to get out of the car as an invitation to fish his tumesced cock out and to ask me to go down on him. When I refused his request, he began pulling it himself.”

  “Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.”

  “Mike, he was already beginning to drive erratically enough and given that the roads were hard-packed with snow and more falling, the entire situation was clearly becoming dangerously suicidal. Especially when this homophile was undergoing some sort of frisson prior to having an orgasm and we’d veered off the road, just missing one telegraph pole by a hairsbreadth. Mike, please, for God’s sake, this was not in the least funny. We were going through a small village at the time, and he mounted somebody’s bloody front lawn, knocked over a flag pole, and then, just missing a tree, mowed down the entirety of this poor unfortunate’s hedge fronting of the whole of his house, and although it was obscured by snow, he then ripped off the fender of the poor bastard’s parked car as he came back again out on the road. And it’s simply too embarrassing to repeat what this madman was saying while all this was happening. But he did utter the word ‘whoopee’ several times. How we weren’t killed, I’ll never know.”

  “Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.”

  “Mike, can you imagine I got out of that rolling death trap with this imbecile shouting after me that I didn’t know how to have any fun. Well, he was damn right. For again, I found myself stranded on the bloody side of the road, the snow swirling down under an isolated lamppost I was standing beneath. Mike, I was only wearing the clothes you saw me in when I left Woodlawn and naturally my outfit did not encourage people to stop. But for fully fifteen minutes, with not another car coming, I was beginning to freeze to death. And then finally when one did and I stepped out to wave it down, it picked up speed and nearly ran over me in order to pass me as quickly as possible. Mike, you simply won’t believe my next bloody bit of
ill luck when finally a car did stop and I was offered a lift. In the most magnificent Hispano-Suiza. And into which I was most relievedly delighted to get. But the sniff of an overpowering perfume should have warned me the moment I got in the car. But certainly it temporarily felt like being rescued from being a member of a chain gang with both my feet now weighted down, solidly encased in ice. And my God, we hadn’t gone more than a few hundred yards further down the road when I knew what I most feared was about to go wrong and happen. We were talking about this marvelous vehicle when he suddenly interjected to say that my profile was like that of a Greek god and my accent like that of Orson Welles.”

  “Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.”

  “Mike, the first chance and money I get, I am going to have my face disfigured and my accent made as un-English as possible. It was bloody nearly an exact replica of my last ride. Only this time your man was reaching over and trying to open my fly as well. Mike, is that you grunting or is that more laughter. I tell you not a single moment of this journey was funny. Mike, are you still there, please grunt if you want me to hang up. But please don’t laugh if you want to hear more.”

  “Ugh. Ugh.”

  “Mike, I thought there must be some bloody upper New York State convention of homosexuals, whom for some inexplicably obtuse reason I seem to attract like a magnet. Anyway, rather than risk another four or five lifts with different homosexual propositions, I stayed in the car and let this guy continue masturbating until we finally reached Woodstock. He in fact was quite well mannered, handed me his engraved calling card and merely suggested that I should feel free to keep in touch. But, Mike, having at long last reached Woodstock half-frozen and psychologically worn out, it was only then that my real troubles started.”

  “Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.”

  “Mike, I’ve recently read that the gray matter of the hippocampus in the brain, if it could be somehow paralyzed, could completely wipe out the memory. Or indeed, I understand that with the whole bloody brain sufficiently cooled down, one could also avoid remembering one’s previous life by being in a sort of cryonic suspension, which in one then being reanimated and reversing clinical death, can make a new start in life. And I tell you, it is dearly what I should like to do. For having arrived in Woodstock, I was to find that my would-be host, Justin, was in my hostess Sally’s house, having, so to speak, commandeered it dead drunk, and that she, Sally, his once-upon-a-time lady love, had escaped a mile away, seeking safety in another house. The difficulty being that the house to which Sally had retreated, belonging to a friend, and this friend temporarily putting us both up, was expecting a house full of people the next night, so both Sally and I had to vacate, and Sally wanted Justin out of her house, and immediately. Thus, in the middle of the night, I was delegated to accomplish this. But at least my feet had thawed and I was in dry socks and woodsman’s boots. When I reached Sally’s house, where Justin was, he had it totally barricaded. Mike, this is about two in the morning after an already harrowing day, and I had to break in and then get Justin out of his drunken sleep. For fully ten minutes, he was repeating lines from Macbeth and thought I was somebody else who was a character in another of Shakespeare’s plays. But after a tumbler of whiskey mixed with grapefruit juice he collected his wits and listened to Sally’s various ultimata. It did not help matters of course that the last time I was in Woodstock he tripped over Sally and I wrapped around each other on the bathroom floor, albeit in a totally spiritual and nonsexual manner, when he came to use it. But he was sufficiently drunk of course and in such a stupor that holding our breaths and awaiting his wrath, he completely ignored us and as he sat on the crapper we continued our spiritually renewing antics practically between his legs.”

  “Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.”

  “Now I left about three to wade through the drifts to a bar to call Sally to say that Justin refused to budge out of her house but that I was on my way back to her having in the bar met a lesbian who offered me a lift. Mike, just to digress and say there are so many bloody people in the world and I’m not in my short life going to get to know them all but what I should most dearly like to know now is how the fuck do I avoid now forever the few utterly impossible people I have unfortunately got to know without becoming a mute hermit in a monastery. Anyway, the cold night was bright and moonlit and full of stars and the snow stopped falling. Mike, I should have been forewarned of my bad luck with lesbians. Not to mention all manner of homosexual persons. But this particularly attractive lady was charm itself and kindly offered to drive me back to where Sally was staying and where I could at least get a bed for the night and have a desperately needed sleep. By the way, not once did the howling blizzard let up throughout my entire hitchhike up here. Mike, are you still there. Do grunt twice if you’ve heard enough. And three if you haven’t. Because now we are coming to the utterly catastrophic part.”

  “Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.”

  “Straight off, the lesbian, who by the way was called Gertie, having told me she knew the roads, took the wrong turning and got us lost and miles away in the wrong direction. In an effort to turn the car around we got stuck and stalled in a snowdrift. My God. I thought that that was it. That it was in fact to actually be like Scott in the Antarctic. And Gertie and I were to become in the course of the rest of the night, pillars of ice. I took over the wheel of the car to try to get us out and only got us deeper in. But then and only by an utter miracle, a lorry came along with snow chains on the tires and was able to pull us back out on the road again. I retained the wheel after the lorry left and I also thought I better knew the way back to Sally’s, although frankly, we could have been in Timbuktu. But with the night clear, I was, by the vestiges remembered of my celestial navigation, able to guess the way. I drove up the road and found space to turn around and headed back to the village. A car approached. And as it got closer and I instinctively went to the left side of the road, I thought what is this bloody idiot doing over on the wrong side. Of course at such an ungodly hour of the morning, I thought, this son of a bitch is obviously drunk and out of his mind. I kept cursing, ‘Get out of the way, you stupid bastard,’ while at the same time Gertie the lesbian couldn’t be aware of what was happening to tell me that it was me who was on the wrong side of the road.”

  “Why?”

  “Mike, you’ve spoken.”

  “Ugh. Ugh.”

  “And, Mike, I know why you want to know why the lesbian couldn’t hear.”

  “Ugh. Ugh.”

  “Because, Mike, and God help me, despite her being a lesbian, she had my fly open and was in the process of attempting to be heterosexually otherwise engaged. But any pleasure that emanated from that fact, however, was to be forthwith terminated. Mike, we smashed head-on in a collision. Gertie was concussed, her head hitting the bottom of the dashboard. And I know this is an awfully selfish thing to admit, but my God, I was lucky not to have had her incisors guillotine my private part. She also injured her knees, God only knows how. I injured both my knees as well, and on top of my previous injuries can now barely walk at all. One of my knees is as big as a football. Thank God no one in the other car was hurt, but both cars were more than somewhat cracked up. Of course, standing out in the bloody moonlight, I was in fact about to attempt to put on a feeble act of being indignant but suddenly the chill air made me look down to see that my fly was still open and my prick hanging mournfully out. I was arrested of course for dangerous driving but luckily not for indecent exposure. The state troopers taking me before a justice of the peace, and I stood my trial down in his cellar at four A.M. The justice attired in his pajamas. While his Pekingese dog tied to the bannister of the cellar stairs was growling at me the whole time. I was fined thirty dollars for reckless driving and ten dollars for possessing no license. These were the minimum fines he could impose. Since I hadn’t the money with me to meet the fines, I was taken to the Kingston jail, thence to hospital for examination of my injuries and antitetanus shots. I had been in jail eight hours when Sally came to fish me out. Mike,
that’s just another forty dollars I shall have to do without. This banjaxes me a bit more. I will of course be sued by the insurance company of the man whose car I struck. The police have my New York address from which I am going to finish vacating and then hide out until I can, with blessed Oliver Plunket interceding, escape the bloody hell out of here before I end up in an asylum for the insane. Justin, my male friend, has been hauled away in a psycho coma. Gertie is still under observation in the hospital. And I am living in dread that they will come for me. There is an atmosphere of real horror up here and I cannot recommend you to come to experience any of it during your last few days in the United States. Because, Mike, that wasn’t all that happened. With Justin gone and nothing in the house to eat, Sally and I got drunk and went to bed together to keep warm.”

  “Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.”

  “When we woke up, I struggled out of bed and hobbled down to the sitting room, where I found a bottle of bourbon miraculously full. Mike, Sally’s house is most attractive, with this one very large, restful room with a ceiling, which goes up two floors high. Putting a blanket over my knees, I sat in a chair and put the whiskey bottle on the table beside me. I thought, My God almighty, this is about to be the first few peaceful minutes I am about to have in God knows how many hours or days. Or I even suppose, months. Then Sally dressed, came down and I told her the good news of the full bottle of whiskey. Sally, who has been most wondrously kind to me in every way, said she would go to the kitchen to see if she could find me some soda water, which I much wanted, not least because it had been invented in Ireland. Under the blanket I had placed a pillow across my two injured knees so that they could come to no further harm. Mike, right at this moment that I am speaking, I am here in Sally’s house utterly alone, which will be explained when I tell you what happened. Now, as I’ve mentioned, this is a rather very large and attractive room built in the manner of a studio. The sort of place that you and I perhaps could find our way to comfortably living in were we sentenced to remain indefinitely in the United States, which God forbid. It has in fact a most impressive collection of modern art on the walls, which I fear only produces in me a very jumpy feeling which may not have been intended by the artists. Well, I thought to myself sitting there, I’ve got this far in life and through sexual molestations, a recent bloody blizzard and car crash and am still alive. And the afternoon is pleasantly fading. As only American afternoons on the northeastern seaboard can. The sun sinking a red, red blazing ball beyond the horizon of the nearby mountain. It’s what I most pleasantly remember about Dartmouth when I was briefly at college there and we would build a massive snowman in the quad. And I’m contemplating being able to have a drink of what by its name purports to be a splendid sour mash southern bourbon, called, of all marvelous things, Rebel Yell. My hand resting gently around the base of the bottle, from which I had taken the cork. I heard a blue jay squawking in the snow. Mike, right at that moment, I thought, and it may make you also think that, my God, I am and we are, indelibly Americans and always shall be no matter where we shall ever go or be. Nothing ever to erase that indefinable feeling deeply bred in both of us and making us what we are.”