The Good Servants

by Johnny Brennan

  Ha Ha Ha Ha!!

  “Hey, that is very funny, Ha Ha Ha!! You Irish are always funny?”

  “Except when we sleep, yeah, I guess so.”

  “Hey Harvey, this is a fuckin’ savage place, Split.”

  “Yeah, bleedin’ deadly.”

  “Why do you say that? Did you have some trouble?”

  “Shit, no, savage, I mean ...”

  “Bleeding deadly and savage? ... you don’t like my town?”

  “Heh Heh Heh, sorry, Dublin slang, no we love your town, it’s lovely.”

  “Ah, I’m sure it is at the first, but it is very boring sometimes. No money here, nothing to do in winter, and it’s full of fucking nutcases ... I should know, I’m one of them, Ha Ha Ha!”

  We smoked another fag, drank up, paid up and headed down. Feeling a little pissed in the warm sun was a little disconcerting but it fit in nicely with my theory that we’d died and gone to heaven. Harvey led us downstairs to the peristil, then down some more steps to a huge cavern underneath the peristil. It was full of stalls selling trinkets, jewellery and souvenirs. It was positively cold and damp, a welcome change.

  “Jaysus, imagine all the wine you could keep down here.”

  “Hey, you wait here for two minutes,” said Harvey and disappeared around a corner.

  We browsed around until he returned with a twinkle in his eye.

  “Hey, I got something to smoke.”

  “NO SHIT!!”

  “You diamond!”

  “Loodilo.”

  “HA HA HA! Loodilo, you learn quick.” He gave me the kind of slap on the back usually reserved for someone choking on a fishbone, “let’s go for a walk eh?”

  The other end of the cavern led directly onto the reeva. When we stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the cavern we turned right towards the hill and stopped briefly to get some beers to keep us company on our stroll, and then a couple for the destination.

  Harvey regaled us with the heroic history of Split. The Italians, the Turks, the Austro-Hungarians, the Serbs, all came to fuck them over, but all were eventually beaten back.

  “Jaysus, our history sounds boring by comparison,” gushed Brian, “the English came, the English stayed.”

  “Ah, that is good that you were not imperialist country.”

  “Imperialist? The Irish? Shit, man, it’s the twenty-first century and we still haven’t conquered our own fuckin’ island.”

  “HA HA HA! Yes, this is true, Ha Ha Ha!!” Harvey slapped Brian on the back.

  As we talked and drank we walked along the shore away from the city. Harvey was pretty impressed that we’d been run out of Germany. After about half an hour we were in the middle of nowhere. We turned up a track towards a small church-type building with trees around it, it looked abandoned and forgotten.

  Suddenly, from a barren dirt track surrounded by brambles and old broken walls, we entered into a heavenly garden. Smooth, freshly trimmed dark green grass shaded by tall trees that had squirrels jumping around in them. A path with the occasional bench along it snaked hither and yon. We went and sat on a wall that looked down a small cliff to the sea and on out to the islands. A fishing boat chugged by, crickets cricked and birds cheeped. All in all a rather beautiful scene.

  “Now, this is the place to smoke a joint, no?”

  “Fuckin’ sure. Here, we still have some beer too, no?”

  “Ooh, baby, this is better than Heidelberg alright.”

  We were all tired, and after talking solidly for the last hour or two we were talked out. Brian watched Harvey skin up and filled him in on the history of the name Rizla.

  “Really? That is very interesting, I must remember that.”

  We smoked and soaked up the atmosphere in silence except for the occasional moan of pleasure, groan of pain and the sounds of nature. Then we all went to lie on the grass. Brian took off his shirt and used it as a pillow and Spud found a tree trunk that fit his shape and he nestled into it.

  I sat back and blissfully soaked it all in ...

  “Hey Harvey, what do you do actually?”

  “Do? Well, I work for local television.”

  “No shit! Wow! That’s pretty cool.”

  “Ah, not really, I only work sometimes and it sounds better than it is. I don’t do anything exciting. Local TV ... in Croatia ... I think you can imagine how interesting it is ... and you? You are professional musicians.”

  “Fuck no! I study, well ... ‘study’ ... music is more like a hobby I guess ... a good way to get free beer.”

  “Ha Ha Ha, yes, very nice. What is it that you study? Music?”

  “No, psychology.”

  “Ah yes? Psychology? I love psychology! That is very interesting thing to study. Do you like Freud?”

  “Freud? Sort of, but his ideas are not very popular anymore.”

  “He said that our instincts are all sex and aggression, no?”

  “Well, yeah, but I would say it differently. I’m only a student, but it seems to me that aggression is not an instinct, I think that it’s better to say that our base instincts are to survive and to procreate.”

  “to ... ?”

  “reproduce ... have kids ... these are the base instincts of all organisms, anything that is alive ... but to reproduce is primary.”

  He smiled and nodded, “so, you are a good student.”

  “Well, I’m not sure my profs would agree with you on that,” I said smiling back.

  “Hey, I too have one theory ...”

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “Well, my theory tells me that in Ireland there are very many big assholes.”

  I burst out laughing. “Really? I’d say that’s a theorem, not a theory. Ah Ha Ha, how do you know?”

  “Because my theory is balance. How do you call the part of a clock that goes like this?” He sat up and swung his arm.

  “A pendulum?”

  “Yes! It’s the same word. Everything is like a pendulum. I meet some veeery interesting Irish so I know the pendulum goes the other way very far too and you have veeery big assholes in Ireland too. You have a very wide pendulum with big extremes, very good and very bad people.”

  “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

  “But if you meet some people from ... I don’t know, Italy, or ... Denmark, then they are all nice, but not so extreme. The pendulum doesn’t go very wide. They have a small extreme, I don’t know how to say.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I get ye. Where you find the biggest assholes you will also find the nicest people.”

  “Well, nicest and most enlightened and creative, and with open-mind and friendly. Ah, you understand me. Like English people, they are either great people or totally assholes, always extreme.”

  “Yeah,” I laughed again, “I understand, that’s a good theory.”

  “Yes, everything is balanced … with money too, where you find richest people you can find the poorest, the balance is all around and so extreme of anything is bad, even extreme of good things, nature always makes balance.”

  “Yeah, nice one, Harvey. You’re a philosopher.”

  We remained silent for a while and I ran his theory through, ‘The Pendulum Theory’. The amount I drink is directly correlated to how hungover I feel.

  “Jesus Christ, we drank so much alcohol in the last week I can’t believe I can still stand up.”

  “But, you’re not standing up.”

  “Yeah, but I could ... in theory.”

  “Well, you are Irish so you have to drink too much, and I am a Dalmatian so I am lazy, Ha Ha Ha!!”

  “What do you mean? You’re a Dalmatian? ... like white with black spots?”

  “Well, not exactly. We are in Dalmatia, and I am from here, so I am a Dalmatian.”

  “This is Dalmatia? The dogs come from here?”

  “Yes, of course, you didn’t know that?”

  “No, why would I know that? How would I know where Dalmatians come from? Or Labradors ...”

 
“Labrador is in Canada.”

  “... or Alsatians.”

  “Alsace is in Germany.”

  “Oh yeah, German Shepherd ... Chihuahua?”

  “Mexican.”

  “Jack Russell?”

  “He sounds like an English ...”

  “Irish wolfhound?” I smiled.

  “Ha Ha Ha, that’s too easy.”

  “Fuck me, I never realised dogs had nationalities.”

  “So, why do you Irish drink too much?”

  “Because it rains a lot in Ireland and there’s fuck all else to do ... why are you Dalmatians so lazy?”

  “Because it’s too hot here, especially in summer. You really can’t do anything for nearly whole day ... so I suppose we can all blame the weather.” We both laughed.

  “Yeah, everybody complains about the weather but nobody does anything about it! Ah Ha Ha ... Actually, I have a theory about that too, drinking I mean.”

  “Great! I like theories, what is it?”

  “Well, my theory is that we haven’t learned to live with thinking ... people do everything they can not to think. Some people play sport, some watch TV, some meditate and some drink.”

  “But to think is good.”

  “Yes, but for how long? If you are in prison or somewhere, or left alone with your thoughts long enough then you will go nuts eventually.”

  “Well, yes, this is true.”

  “Evolutionarily speaking, our frontal lobes are fairly recent and we haven’t learned to just sit and think without freaking out yet, we are still doers, not thinkers.”

  “That is interesting idea. A lot of philosophers go crazy, it’s true, Nietzsche, for example.”

  “Yeah, well, the syphilis didn’t exactly help either … Look at people, they spend all their lives trying to escape thinking and fill their lives with ways to escape themselves. The happiest people are the ones who never stop to think about anything ... maybe that’s why I drink, and that’s why I play music, they both stop me thinking. Drinking is like being in flow.”

  “Hmmm, yes, I think your professors are wrong about you, you must be a good student, but maybe you think too much,” he said and smiled.

  “You know what? this is really good grass, man,” I said and we both chuckled lazily.

  We lay on the grass for a long while and listened to the birds fighting the squirrels for real estate in the tree, and Spud snoring under it.

  “Shit man, I seriously need to dry out for a while.”

  “You need to ...?”

  “Stop drinking for a few days.”

  “Listen, eh, what’s your name again?”

  “Foy.”

  “Foy? What a strange name … Listen, you are a young man Foy, young men drink … One day soon you will discover that the only answer you can find in a bottle is ‘where was the beer made?’ ... you have to think long enough to find answers in some other place.”

  “Answers? What answers? I don’t even know the questions! What the fuck am I supposed to be asking? I don’t even know that, Ah Ha Ha!”

  “Well, that is one question. I have one more theory. Yes, today is a day for theorys. My theory is that everybody live in existential vacuum, you say ‘vacuum’? ... We don’t know for what to struggle, everybody feel depression, aggression and addiction. Look around, you can see it everywhere. This is the modern disease ... maybe you must to think, you must find something to live for, something that is bigger than you, a meaning to life ... you can’t live just for you. That is capitalism, fuck the other guy before he fucks you!”

  “Are you a commie?” I asked smiling.

  “Not really, I am ... how to say, a naturalist … like you say, evolutionly, people lived in Africa for some hundreds thousand years living in small groups, and everybody had something to do and something to say. They know what they have to do, and yes, with no time or reason to think ... now we live in big concrete cities, everybody a stranger, everybody doing job they hate, to buy things they don’t want, all trying to fuck the other guy and everyone trying to fuck you. Is this how you want to live? Everybody depressed, everybody angry, everybody addicted to drugs, TV ... sex, alcohol ... money, video games ... and yes, it is true, all trying not to think about anything. Maybe thinking is the punishment for Eva eating the apple in the Garden of Eden.”

  “Alright alright, Ah Ha Ha.” Harvey was getting excited, but he was making sense to me. “I agree with you totally, we’re like a blind man in a dark room looking for the light switch ... even if we find it, it won’t do us any good.”

  “HA HA HA!!! This I like, yes, we have to cure our blindness first, yes. Ha Ha Ha ... but if you have ‘why to live’ then ‘how to live’ is not a problem.”

  “Shit, man, that’s profound! So, where are the answers?”

  “Well, I can tell you where they are not ... they are not in local Croatian TV, Ha Ha Ha, or in the army, or in Italy, or in marriage, Ha Ha Ha, at least not in my marriage.”

  “You’re married?”

  “Well, I was married, Ha Ha Ha.”

  “No family?”

  “I have one brother and he is here,” he stopped laughing.

  “Here in Split?”

  “No, here in this garden.”

  ?

  “He died in the war, we burned him and threw him around here.”

  I could see a look of pain and loss on his face. Suddenly the garden felt like a memorial or a graveyard instead of just a park.

  “Shit, the Serbs got him? I’m very sorry.”

  “No, the Serbs didn’t get him ... the war got him, then heroin got him, and in the end he got himself.”

  “How do you mean?” I didn’t know whether to ask or not but I had the feeling he wanted to tell me.

  “He was a soldier in the war. He saw some things he didn’t like, so he shoot some heroin for some time, and then he pull a pin from his grenade ... He wrote on his wall... how you say in English? ... ‘Not to Be, That is the Answer’ like from Shakespeare, but that was his answer, not my answer.”

  I could see tears in his eyes as he turned to get up, and I suddenly felt tears well up in my own eyes too.

  Harvey looked out to the sea for a couple of minutes and then he turned back to me, all smiles again.

  “Let’s go eat something, eh? Do you know what burek is?”

  “Nope, but it sounds good ... SPUD! BRIAN! Let’s go.”

  The dozing pair roused themselves painstakingly and we headed back towards town.

  We chit-chatted all the way but I had other things on my mind.

  Was ‘not to be’ really the answer? I was pretty sure it wasn’t but for now I couldn’t think of a reason why not.

  We went and got burek, which is a cheesy, or meaty, triangle of some greasy pastry pie and it was delicious. We ate on the reeva, sitting on the edge of a little jetty called the muleech, with the oily waves lapping gently just inches beneath the soles of our shoes. It was still only six o’clock or thereabouts and still warm and bright.

  “We’d better get more drink. I can feel the makings of a hangover coming on and it’s not even dark yet,” said Spud desperately with a mouthful of pastry.

  “Wait a while. Bootso will be here soon, then we’ll see what to do.”

  Bootso arrived a few minutes later and we made arrangements to play a few tunes later with Harvey and his didgeridon’t, but first, a couple of hours rest so as not to fall down drunk before the sun set.

  As we headed back along the docks towards Bootso’s gaff Spud made it known that he wasn’t in favour of going anywhere but another bar. Brian agreed with him so we stopped along the way for a sit down and a think. I went and got chetri peeveh as the lads settled around a table. She gave me little poofy beers ....

  “Ah Jaysus Foy, what the fuckin’ hell is this? Call that a drink? What did you ask for? Four thimblefuls?”

  “This is an affront to my alcoholic sensibilities.”

  “Ok, you get the next ones.”

  “Don�
�t worry.”

  “Listen,” I said, “I need an hour or two to rest, you two go into town if you want and we’ll meet you later.”

  “Great! We have a plan.”

  “But you have to come now and get your instruments ‘cos I’m not carrying them all over for you later.”

  “Okaaaay.”

  The beers disappeared like a Cavan man getting out of a taxi and then we headed to Bootso’s. The lads grabbed the guitar and flute and I grabbed a bed to stretch out on.

  “Ok, muleech at nine o’clock, don’t be late.”

  Me and Bootso arrived at the muleech at about half nine and there was no-one there. We didn’t know if they’d been and gone or if they were later than we were. Bootso decided to run up to three Volta, the hidden terrace bar we went to earlier, and see if they were there. I sat down and waited in case they arrived.

  I lit up and looked out at Bratch floating on the horizon. I wasn’t feeling too good at all. I started to feel a bit strange, exposed and a bit paranoid. I tucked my legs up, with my knees under my chin and kinda rolled myself into a ball. I felt like hiding under something. My heartbeat started to quicken and my palms started to sweat like a cat in Chinatown. Fuck’s sakes. I started shivering violently. I wished someone would come soon. I started to feel like I was going to drop dead any second and I was all alone in a wide open space. I went to take a drag and found it difficult to get the fag to my lips with my hand now shaking so much. I started to rub my forehead in the hope that it would ease some of the pressure, but it didn’t. I started to breath heavily and rub my oily forehead harder.

  I was having some sort of heart attack. I rocked back and forth a little and wiped my palms dry. Shit! Where the fuck were the lads? I flushed cold and then hot again, my forehead oozed sweat that tricked around my eyes and down my face. My breathing quickened further and my heart thumped visibly in my chest. I was terrified.

  “Hey, they’re up there, drunk like Irish, Ha Ha Ha ... hey, are you ok?”

  Bootso was back, thank fuck.

  “No ... I feel funny Bootso, let’s go over to the trees there, please.”

  I needed some cover. I was too exposed where I was. I wanted company and something to hide or shelter me, at least a little.

  Bootso helped me up and got my fiddle, and I went and sat under a short fat palm tree.