The tavern is covered in lichen from the moist and salty sea air. Gull droppings pepper it as well, and it appears the clapboards had never once seen a coat of paint. Again I can feel the eyes. You’re not there, I tell myself. You don’t exist. But I know that it does. He does. They do, and a gust of wind agrees when it whispers the words in my ear, “They let us starve.”
The old tavern is where I first listened to the man they call The Gas Drip Bard with Ma and my sisters just as we listened to the itinerant shanachie back home. I shake my head when I hear myself call Ireland “home.”
It can’t be home. We’re not going back. Brooklyn is our home. Remember that. Remember.
When the door opens an old woman stands in the doorway. She has a very large bosom, spindly legs and eyes as white as the churning clouds over the East River. “Liam,” says she.
“It is, how do you know my name?”
“Liam, bring yerself in, of course, of course, we’ve been waitin’ fer ye. I’ve just wet some tae, come in to here. Come here to us. The pookas an’ the ghouls’ll grab ye.”
“There’s no such thing as pookas,” I say to her.
“I know, I know.”
Inside it is dark and damp, just as I remember it. The long bar has old men who sit like statues lined along it with amber drinks in front of them amidst quivering candles that have collapsed into hardened, rippled streams of waxy waves that crest over the mahogany and reach for the floor like stalactites in an old cave. From wainscot to ceiling are old and yellowed newspaper clippings and broken-glassed, framed photos. I see Wolfe Tone and Emmet. O’Connell and Parnell and Mitchel and Owen Roe O’Neill as well as depictions of Dierdre and the Sons of Usna, Cuchulain and my favorite from childhood stories, Finn MacCool with Sadhbh and their son Oisín and of course the warriors known as the Fianna. A newer photo shows the profile of Patrick Pearse, a leader of the Easter Rebellion alongside an old sketch of a gaunt and shoeless mother and her two starved and scowling children at her hip; bedecked in rags, all.
In back, embers illuminate the parlor with a low amber glow. In front of the hearth is a ragged rug with moth-eaten holes plaguing it. Strange trinkets adorn the mantle that have collected inches of dust, almost doubling their size. In the darkest area, along the wall, Dinny sits upon an old divan with six children on his lap, over his shoulder and in his arms like a mother possum who carries her newborns on her back. The children, babies even, crawl across his neck, poke at his smiling face and pull the strings from his boots.
“Ya found me,” says he with a face lit only by fire.
“I did. Is the Bard here? The Gas Drip Bard?”
“He is, but he’s not feeling well. He’s upstairs, restin’.”
The woman with the cloudy eyes removes a pot from the hob inside the fireplace and comes up from behind and reaches out to touch my arm with shaky fingers. She hands me a saucer and cup with loose tea leaves inside.
“Don’t move,” she smiles a white-eyed smile.
I hold the cup but it shakes on the saucer. Her contorted, twisted fingers and boney wrist turn the pot slowly in the orange light that reaches up and out of the hearth. Before I can say “when,” she stops and searches the parlor for a sound.
“Good, good,” she laughs as she shuffles off into the darkness.
But what is darkness to the blind?
“I thank you,” says I, but I don’t know if she hears me.
“What can I do for ya?” Dinny smiles as a baby crawls up his torso to give him a hug and to rest her face on the nape of his neck.
“Who is that woman?”
“Brigid Hoolihan.”
“Oh,” I touch my chin. “Have I heard of her before?”
“She’s known as Biddy.”
I sit on a chair next to him, “Dinny, we don’t have a plan for tomorrow. I think we should—”
“Liam,” he interrupts. “Not long ago I said ya journey’s only begun, do ya believe it now?”
“If you are asking me if I’m back, then yes.”
“Ya’ve had a taste o’ what comes, but there are great struggles for ya yet. Barriers ya must overcome, thresholds to cross. In the eyes o’ men, ya’re proven now. Ya’re ready to fight. Ya will never be the same again, I know. But now ya will start seein’ it for what it is.”
“What is it?”
“It cannot be spoken of. There’s only one way to know, an’ that’s to see it. Not everyone can, but—”
“I just want to know what our plan is for tomorrow. We never truly considered cutting the head off the monster, which would solve a lot of our problems.”
“Ya mean kill Lovett, I see,” Dinny sits back grimly. “That’s unfortunate. I thought ya had learned more by now.”
“About what?”
“Remember ya vow?”
“Oh, well—”
“A vow is for life. Ya said that after—”
“After what I did to my uncle Joseph, I know.”
“That is a threshold ya cannot cross.”
“All I know is that we can’t lose this fight. If we lose because Bill cheats, what will we do? All the families we feed? Including my own? We’ll all be homeless. He’ll starve and banish us. Kill us.”
“Listen to me, Liam,” his voice lowers and a disheartened look comes over him. “No matter who wins the fight tomorrow, we all lose.”
“See, I don’t know what you’re talking about again.”
“Ya need somethin’ more than what I can offer ya, I know, I know. An’ ya’re worried about what’ll happen, I understand. But if he pulls some prank like showin’ up wit’ weapons, he’ll never command honor. Honor makes us craftsmen, artificers o’ our own material world. Dishonor enslaves us in the will o’ other men’s manufactured reality.”
“What does any of that matter if he wins?”
“It means a lot. . . in Irishtown.”
“It means nothing, Dinny. If I’ve learned anything. If I’ve grown eyes from the things I’ve witnessed, it’s that people go to strength like moths to light. That’s how people are.”
“Then we must explain to them that that light will burn them.”
“They won’t listen. Already men are leaving us for Bill. Needles Ferry, James Hart and others. They see strength in Bill, so they go to him.”
“Ya’re right, they won’t listen. It won’t do much good. It will do some though. But to fight wit’ dishonor is an affront to all that we have been an’ all that we are t’day.”
“That’s a nice theory. But in the real world it doesn’t apply.”
“Is this the real world?” His palms go up and he turns round. He walks over and peels off some wallpaper, and let’s it drop.
“As real as I know it to be.”
“Ya’ve been havin’ nightmares o’ late. Seein’ things too, I know.”
“So?”
“Many o’ our people suffer this. They turn to the drink to quell the ghosts an’ the melancholia. That feelin’ o’ inferiority,” Dinny sits on the edge of the sofa as children scramble for a place in his lap. “But ya’ve been sufferin’ more than others, haven’t ya?”
That’s not for me to say, I think.
Dinny’s face slowly shifts into a slight smile, “This fight is not just against Bill, is it? No, this fight is not in the real world. It’s inward-facin’. So the question becomes; how do ya defeat somethin’ that exists inside ya’self?”
I haven’t a response for that.
“Wit’ honesty,” he answers.
“But. . . But there’s too much to lose. My mother and sisters. Where will they go if—”
“If ya die? Ya mean, if ya kill ya’self?”
“No, what about everyone else? Are you ready to risk everyone’s family for your honor?”
Dinny sits back again, “Say I have someone kill Bill Lovett before the fight tomorrow, then what? I’ll tell ya; then I become Christie Maroney, the larrikin I took down to become—”
“King?”
&nbs
p; “Leader,” he corrects. “Is that what ya want if it means ya will survive? Say it now an’ it’ll be done. Is this what ya want?”
“I don’t know what I want. But I do know the world is moving further and further away from honor and leaning more and more toward dishonor.”
“That’s where ya wrong, Liam. They have always fought. That is why dishonor has always defeated us in battles, yet still we stand, ready to fight again. An’ even if we lose? Still they cannot defeat us. No one gets outta here alive, ultimately. It’s a big fix isn’t it?” Dinny raises his hands. “So why not fight for what is good in humanity, rather than cheat to live a little while longer?”
“So what are we fighting then, dishonor?”
“Wit’ Bill, begrudgery.”
“And how do I fight that? Too many people with lofty ideas die young. I don’t want that for myself. All I’ve ever wanted was to feed my family.”
“That’s ya desire, Liam. What is it that drives ya?”
“I don’t know, does it matter? Do I have to know what that is? Who cares?”
“It sounds to me like ya’re fightin’ ya’self too, Liam. Ya just have to believe that there’s so much more to know.”
I turn away from him, frustrated.
“What are victims?” He continues. “What are victors when. . . Creation is all that matters. We are not animals, but we have not unwound the roots that hold us back. The systems we choose still mimic the animal kingdom as it capitalizes on other peoples’ weakness. Like when lions attack a herd o’ impala, they do not go for the fastest or the strongest impala. No, the lions chase after the weakest first. The babies or the aged an’ butcher them. In the future we want people to choose. To create, because—”
“Because that’s honorable. But how is anyone ever going to know what we did here? The newspapers that tell the stories all lie about everything—”
Dinny laughs and picks up a baby from the sofa. He rubs his nose against the baby’s nose and kisses a chubby cheek.
“Can we play now? Play horsey? Horsey!” A little girl with hay-colored hair jumps up and down on the old rug.
Dinny climbs off the sofa and goes down to his elbows and knees as the children pile onto his back, screaming. He canters across the parlor and in front of the glowing hearth as they hold on by his hair and his coat. He laughs and laughs, and as children fall off, he helps them back on.
Biddy Hoolihan reappears and is holding the cup of tea I had drained. She tosses the remaining liquid and brings the cup close to her face. Close to her white eyes.
Maybe there is room for everyone, I wonder.
“Seandream, seandream,” Dinny sings in Irish as buxom Biddy howls in laughter along with him and the pile of children that ride his back.
“Seandream, seandream,” she shrieks and screams. “Nuair a théarnaigh an seandream.”
Dinny speaks in whisper from the floor, yet I can hear him plainly as Biddy’s keening song reaches terrible climaxes, “Liam, why do they want to kill us?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why do they want us outta the way?”
“It’s their world. They own it. They own the property, the language, the culture, the money, the power. We only pay rent. They let life to us, but when we become too
strong—”
“They divide us,” Biddy stops her lamenting croon and rummages through her darkness for me with eyes wide open.
“They may own the future. But we have the past. This?” Dinny stands while holding all six children on his back and arms. “These are the days o’ our last stand. . . Again.”
Her eyes search blindly, like clouds watch the earth. She has found both of my wrists and holds them gently, “Ye were born fer this, Liam. The child becomes a man. He transcends the dawn and steps through. Behind him the bridge falls away an’ bursts into flames. Ahead is the light o’ day an’ it is known, well known! that there is no goin’ back now. No goin’ back at all, at all.”
“Tell me,” says I, my eyes wet with despair. “Tell me I’ll survive. Tell me my family will not suffer and I will join you, here and now. I can’t tell my mother that I love her. I want to, but I can’t. Instead I must show her. Tell me she won’t suffer. Tell me I won’t leave her to this wretched future.”
A smile flickers in the old woman’s face. Her eyes widen again, “Yer mammy will have many days. The gentlelife. She’ll revel in the gentlelife until a soft and painless passin’ comes to her at a great age.”
“Will I be there? Will I be there to comfort her?”
“Yes, Liam. Yes ye are there with her as ye saw yerself in the window. Ye have the gift, Liam. The gift!”
“Gift? Are you referring to the ability to see myself as an old man? To see into the future?”
The blind woman laughs, “No, child. Quite the opposite. Yer gift is to see the past. To look back into the now. To witness an’ to write an’ to revive like a god this story for to tell. The story what was thought to’ve died. Now, yer journey is hindered only by the mountains o’ yer own makin’. An’ ye’ll make many, many more still. Tomorrow only begins the journey to yesterday.”
“The gift,” Dinny stands behind the old woman, then comes closer with the blond-haired girl clinging tightly to him. “Ya have ya mother’s pragmatic mind. An’ ya father’s soldierin’ heart. Our home is threatened. Our people are under attack. Our ways are on the verge o’ extinction. It’s time, Liam.”
The little girl stares upon me from his arms. She opens and closes her fists and reaches out for me. Gently she settles into my own arms and wipes hay-colored hair from her eyes before she plugs a thumb into her mouth and cuddles deep into my chest. Her back is so small in my hands. Then the other children appear at my ankles and claw at my trouser legs to be picked up too.
“Ya’ve been called to fight,” Dinny’s voice is now full of resignation and certainty. “To defend ya people an’ to save their memory. Save their memory, Liam. That is your gift. Now fight for us.”
I will. I will fight.
Trustworthy
“Celia!” Sadie calls over her shoulder into the house with the East London cockney she never could shake.
A muffled voice responds, “Yes?”
“Is L’il Dinny eatin’ ‘is grapefruit?”
She hears her son’s voice in response, “Yes he is. An’ my name’s John, remember? Just John, not John Carter.”
Sadie smiles and looks back toward her cousin Frank, who is sprawled out in a lawn chair next to her. “Do yu think I’ll ever be able to pry that boy ‘way from ‘er?”
“Maybe not,” Frank faces the sun that washes him in a golden mid-morning light. “Eventually the boy will believe yu’re ‘is aunt, not Celia. The thing I can’t get over is what a voracious reader ‘e is. Never seen it before in all me life. The three detective pulps we got ‘im yesterday? ‘E read two already. Two issues o’ Detective Story in one day. The child is a pro’igy, Sadie. I never knew anyone this smart an’ ‘ungry to learn.”
“Could be yu’re a bit partial to ‘im, though,” Sadie smiles.
The sun shines more often in the suburbs, Sadie tells herself. Out here, they worship the sun god. And the god of the gentlelife.
She reaches down from her reclined lawn chair and brushes her palm along the green blades of grass beneath her. Beyond the back of the house, toward the tree line, is an untouched wood. A wilderness of new things for L’il Dinny to learn about and explore. One day Frank had shown them deer droppings on the lawn.
“Deer?” John had repeated, as if the word had described some fictional animal. “In them woods?”
“Those woods,” Sadie corrected.
“That’s right,” Frank had kneeled down to the boy's level. “If yu wake up early enough wif’ me, we'll come out to the back porch an’ while I read the newspaper, yu can read the pulps. An’ if we sit still, the muva will wander out first, an’ if it’s safe, if we’ve proven to ‘er that we are trustworvy, she'll show us ‘er fawn
s.”
“Fawns? What are fawns?”
“‘Er children,” Frank stands with his arms on his hips. “Baby deer are called fawns. The muva is called the doe.”
“I wanna see the fawns.”
Frank leans his weight on his knees and looks John in the eye, “Are yu trustworvy?”
“I am.”
“Well yu ‘ave to prove it to the doe first,” Frank finds Sadie’s eyes, then turns back to John. “Just sayin’ it don’t mean nuffink.”
“Anythin’,” Sadie corrects.
“I will, tomorrow mornin’,” John promises. “I’ll prove it to her, that I’m trustworthy.”
Sadie smiles and looks away in thought, Celia is a very lucky woman to have Frank. He is soft spoken, consistently conservative in his decisions and true to his word, Frank Leighton is a man that can be trusted; a great value in this world. He just needs help knowing what decisions to make, Sadie sneaks a look at him from the side of her face.
Before moving to Connecticut, Frank got a job managing the production of roller skates and refrigerators, a new department at the local Winchester Repeating Arms Company after it struggled when production died off at the tail end of the Great War.
Roller skates and refrigerators, Sadie smiles again. Music to my ears.
New Haven is not a new city, but Frank had put a down payment on a home in a brand new development outside the city limits. The woods behind the home would eventually be cleared away to make room for more homes.
She turns to her cousin Frank, “I eh. . . I just want yu to know ‘ow much I appreciate Celia an’ yu’self for takin’ us in.”
“Well,” Frank looks away. “I didn’t ‘ave much of a choice, did I?”
“It must be a funny thing to be a man,” Sadie answers him, her voice thinly veiled by anger. “Men don’t really take a woman’s word as much as they do anuva man’s word. So then, yu were surprised when I showed up at yu door. I told yu in me letter, cousin, that I ‘ad made a decision. I chose me son over me ‘usband, yu think that’s easy, do yu? Yu don’t think I’m torn up inside about it? But it all comes down to one thing. I won’t ‘ave me son endangered by ‘is fava’s wars. But yu didn’t take me for me word, did yu?”
Divide the Dawn- Fight Page 59
