The Good Servants

by Johnny Brennan

  “What is wrong? Are you sick?”

  I couldn’t look him in the eye. I couldn’t look at him directly at all. If I looked him in the eye I would be consumed or paralysed or something. I couldn’t make that personal connection. I kept my eyes down at my feet and spoke sideways at him.

  “I don’t know, I think I’m dying. My whole body is sweating and shaking ... and I feel paranoid.”

  I continued to rub my forehead and face. I was curled up as much as I could be, groaning and leaning against the tree. I wanted to wrap myself up inside myself, like a hedgehog, cover my head, be under a rock.

  “Maybe I should get Brian? Eh? What do you think?”

  “No, don’t leave me alone. I’ll be OK in a minute ... I hope.”

  My clothes were all wet with sweat and I felt a chilly shiver all over. If I could survive the next few minutes I felt I’d be OK.

  Bootso was worried by now. He just stared at me and tried to put his hand on my shoulder in support, but I pulled away like a scared dog.

  “NO! Don’t touch me! I’ll be OK in a minute.”

  Minutes dragged themselves by at a snail’s pace.

  The horror!

  “Maybe you should go to a hospital?”

  I lit up another fag and took a deep drag. I could feel it passing. I got the fag to my lips without too much trouble.

  “No, no, I don’t need a hospital ... I think I just need a drink,” I smiled and looked up, relieved to be still alive.

  I looked Bootso in the eye and saw real fear.

  “It’s OK, I feel a bit better.” I breathed deeply a couple of times, in through the nose, out through the mouth.

  “Pitchku matrinu!! You make me afraid, you son of a bitch!!”

  “Shit, sorry ... I scared myself too … but I’m ok now. I think it was a panic attack or something.”

  We both sat on a patch of grass to calm down for a while.

  “Sorry, Bootso.”

  “Fuck you, you scared me too much.”

  “I’m OK now, let’s go up to the lads, eh?”

  “OK, can you walk?”

  “Yeah, I told you, I’m fine now.”

  I felt normal again but still a bit shaken. We went into the palace and around in some circles until we came out at the three Volta.

  It was a sight to behold. Spud and Brian were playing away like good things. Half the bar were clapping along and the other half totally ignoring them. They were playing ‘Sporting Paddy’, a pretty handy flute tune, so I knew that Brian was rat-arsed. If he’d been sober enough he’d be showing off with something more difficult.

  “The Glass o’ Beer, Glass o’ Beer!” I shouted.

  “Hup!” shouted Spud and they launched into ‘The Glass of Beer’.

  “I was talking to the barmaid!!” I laughed.

  They finished up after a couple of rounds of ‘The Glass of Beer’ and then launched into another round of glasses of beer, this time in a more literal sense.

  “Foy the fiddler boy! Where the fuck were you? We need the fiddle, get yer arse in gear. Ha haaaaaaa!”

  I sat down at the table when someone offered up their seat to me and I unpacked my fiddle. We beered up the table and I was introduced to lots of people with lots of funny names, all of which I forgot straight away.

  “No sign of Harvey?” I enquired.

  “Yeah, he was here all the time. He left about a half an hour ago to get his didge.”

  “Are yiz wrecked?”

  “Off me tits, man, off me tits ... so easy tunes only!”

  “Give us a sec to settle in, for fuck’s sake.” Then I called Brian in closer and told him I’d had a bit of a spell.

  “Jesus H, that’s ‘The Fear’ man, you got a dose of ‘The Fear’. SHIT!! How are you now?”

  “Fine, it just lasted ten minutes or so, now I’m grand. I scared the shit out of Bootso though.”

  “Yes, that is true,” said Bootso squeezing past to sit on the ledge of one of the arches.

  We drank and chatted for a bit. There were people all around to chat to, weirdoes, other musicians, pretty women, very pretty women and drunks. We played a few sets and we sounded great but chatting to Bootso and his mates was more fun. Besides, Spud was on the verge of not being able to play anymore. We were invited to go around a few corners to have a smoke with a couple of the guys and that was nice, most of these guys seemed really cool.

  When we got back, Harvey was there with his didgeridon’t getting stuck into a bottle.

  “Hey, you fucking drug addicts!! Ha Ha Ha,” he said slapping each of us on the back.

  “Harveeeeeeyyyyyyy.”

  “Didgeridon’t!!”

  “Didgerifuckyoutoo!! Ha Ha Ha Haaaaa.” He went to backslap me again but I managed to dodge this one.

  We sat and drank some more but I wasn’t getting any drunker. Actually, I felt totally sober, as if my body was saying ‘not tonight Foy, no way! Not tonight’. It felt that the more I drank the more sober I got.

  “Hey, you guys, listen, this place will close soon ...”

  “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”

  “... so I was thinking, maybe we should go to play in the vestibule. The sound is better and I have a surprise for you. Anyway, we can get some beers from here and bring them with us.”

  “What? We’re going to play in a vegetable?”

  The vegetable was apparently very near and we were promised that drink and smoke wouldn’t be a problem so we agreed to shift ourselves.

  The vegetable was actually just around the corner. We’d passed through it a few times earlier. It was a large Roman dome-shaped room just behind the peristil that opened to the stars at the top and had incredible acoustics. It was about twenty metres high and with a diameter of about ten. It was like being in a giant empty boiled egg with the top cut off and the insides eaten out. There were two entrances, one arch led to the peristil and the other led back to the bar. It was totally empty except for the smell of piss around the edges, so we sat on the ground in the centre and got our instruments out.

  All the lads from the bar clubbed money together, got a crate of beer and stuck it in the centre.

  We each grabbed a beer and started off a few tunes while we were still able.

  I had to carry Brian and Spud. They could both hardly play at all. Harvey joined in with his didge and the circular echoes of the vegetable were pretty incredible. It was certainly a pretty unique acoustic experience, playing in an open-topped dome sitting on a crate of beer. At least I would remember it.

  We played a couple of sets, some jigs, some reels and I did the ‘Belfast Hornpipe’. The eight or ten strong crowd fuckin’ loved it. They clapped wildly as they danced around us in an imagined approximation of Irish dancing. As soon as we reached what we felt was the required minimum we rested our instruments and spread out to drink and socialise.

  Brian came over to me and dragged me to where Harvey was.

  “Harvey has a surprise for you Foy, Heh Heh Heh.”

  “What is it?”

  He pulled a bottle of greenish liquid from a bag, held it aloft and shouted “RACKYAAAA!!” The whole vegetable erupted in echoey cheers.

  “Oh shit!” I groaned, but this stuff looked different. For starters it had a twig in the bottle with leaves and some fruit on it.

  “I’m not drinking that shit ... it’s green ... it has stuff growing in it ... and it comes in an unmarked bottle!! Doesn’t that tell you anything?”

  “Yes, this is home made ‘chravaritsa’. You don’t have home made drinks in Ireland?”

  “No, not really.”

  “What about the time we tried to make Bailey’s with Nesquick and whiskey?”

  “I’m sure that doesn’t count.”

  “Here, try it.”

  I was still totally sober so I tried a taste. It was pretty nice actually, smooth and drinkable with a taste of herbs and a pleasant after-kick to the gut. “Mmmm, not bad at all.”

  “Here, I’ll have some of
that,” said Spud grabbing the bottle and glug glugging it back.

  Some guy borrowed Spud’s guitar and sang a few songs with didge accompaniment and someone else dragged us over for another smoke. Brian and Spud were properly shit-faced and were stumbling around the place laughing like rooks. I had another beer or two and some more rackya but there was an inverse correlation between the amount I drank and how drunk I got, the more I drank the clearer my head became. It was cruel!

  “This is fuckin’ great! Wha? Ha Ha!”

  “Yeah, great guys.”

  “Some bleedin’ nice chicks as well.”

  Spud was right, there were three or four very nice young ladies around. There was a short, skinny blonde, a wired gothic head-the-ball with metal things all over her face and a tall dark cutie with big tits who was constantly laughing.

  “Which one are ye going for Foy?”

  “Ah, I’m not sure I’ll bother, I’m not feeling too good, and you? The blonde?”

  “No chance, man, ... I want a girl whose legs go all the way up to her arse ... not some short-arse whose legs barely reach the ground.”

  I forced a laugh. “Nice one Spud, if you had a style, I’d like it ...”

  Everybody was in a little group, talking, laughing, drinking, smoking. I circled the group a few times and then strolled away a little to absorb the effects of that last spliff. I really didn’t feel like being in company anymore. I crossed the empty peristil, turned a corner, then another corner and then one more. Suddenly I came out on the reeva and, happy to know where I was, went over and sat on the muleech. I sat down on the edge very carefully, making sure not to fall in, and let my feet sway above the water. I watched their reflections. I let them click together three times and I thought ‘there’s no place like home’, though I wasn’t exactly sure where home was anymore. Then a shadow came up behind me that turned into a figure that sat beside me, it was the smiley big-titted girl.

  “Hey, are you ok?” she said and put her hand on my shoulder.

  I burst into tears.

  I don’t know if it was the gentle hand on my shoulder or the concoction of stimulants in my blood but a dam burst somewhere and flooded out through my eyes. I hadn’t been touched tenderly for over six months and I felt a retrospective wave of isolation tear through me. I could hardly remember the last time I was sober for forty-eight straight hours. I was lost in a strange land and I didn’t know what the hell I was supposed to be doing. Something just snapped.

  The girl put her arm around me and said “Hey, what’s wrong? Hey, don’t worry, it’s ok.” I rested my head on her shoulder and sobbed into her shirt.

  I continued crying for what seemed like ages. There was a deep dark reservoir inside me that kept up a solid supply of sorrow for something I couldn’t quite put my finger on, it just kept coming.

  “Hey, maybe I can put my finger in your eyes to stop the dam bursting.”

  “I was just thinking that,” I said, momentarily laughing and crying at the same time.

  I smiled through reddened eyes and pulled myself together a little.

  I sniffled and wiped my face. I felt a great release. A weight had gone from my shoulders, like an old skin had been cast off. I looked around me with some new sense of clarity, everything looked and felt just a little bit different. I looked around at the girl and into her big green eyes. I was immediately captivated. I stared at her, shocked, caught fast in her enchanting Medusa gaze. I wondered if she was going to turn me to stone, but she just smiled back and tilted her head a little. I felt as if I could right see into her soul, and that she could see mine. It was both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. A very pleasant shiver ran up and down my body over and over again as we poured ourselves into each other ... and it was beautiful. I felt tears well up again, but this time tears of relief and of happiness. She smiled at me.

  “Do you feel better?”

  “I do actually.”

  A special thanks to Edvard Ćulap for the cover design,

  (edvard.culap@gmail.com)

  and the good people at ‘ Original Writing’ for their help in

  putting it all together. (info@originalwriting.ie)

  Thanks also to the following for lines, songs, jokes or stories

  that they either came up with or passed on to me.

  Paul O’Grady, Jimmy Behan, Séan Óg McKenna, Donnacha

  Dwyer, Denise Keoghan, Joe Brennan, Anthony Ward, Locho

  Cullen, Kevin McAleer, Ceolachaun, Martin Speight, Luis

  Andril and Anthony Bools.

  And finally, great respects also to the unknown originator of

  the monumental achievement that is

  Chantelle de Champignon.

  Johnny Brennan is a flute and tin whistle player from Dublin. He has recorded and released two solo CDs and two more with his current part-time band, Flogiston. He spent fifteen years living in southern Europe playing music, writing and teaching English. He is currently studying psychology, doing voluntary work and is an active member of Mensa. This is his first and last book.