Fishing the Sloe-Black River

by Colum McCann

  After Mrs. Jackson, there had been a welter of Juanita’s clothes hung out on doorknobs all over the complex. Juanita doesn’t mind. She doesn’t even know about it. Nobody knows. But people around here need them, by God. There are Maid Marians everywhere, though the forest is paved over and gray.

  “Good morning, Miss Jackson,” he says, nodding to the young girl with the bun—or the buns—in the oven. Both perhaps. She is suitably startled that he knows her name, and he smiles, then winks. “It’s a grand day.”

  “Yessir,” the girl fumbles.

  “Lovely flowers,” he says, pointing at the window.

  “Yessir, lovely flowers.”

  Ah, but he didn’t mean to embarrass her like that, winking at a young one who’s up the Swannee. He shuffles on past the shop. Flaherty, son, keep your tongue in your mouth, you damn fool. He was always the one for embarrassing women. When he did the cabarets with Juanita in the fifties, one night they were walking down by the Liffey and saw two men huddled in the shadows of Merchant’s Arch. Dublin wasn’t renowned for its homosexuals, and he’d sung, in a gorgeous voice: In Dublin’s fair city, where the boys are so pretty, I first set my eyes on sweet Michael Malone, where he wheels his wheelbarrow through the streets broad and narrow, crying muscle out your cockles alive-alive-o. The two men, furious at the ditty, made a move for him, their fists clenched tight. But when they saw his shoulders, and perhaps remembered his photographs in the newspapers—“the phonic pugilist” was what the Evening Mail dubbed him—the two men turned the other way. Juanita was embarrassed, as well she should have been. She said that no matter what sexual persuasion—sheep or shearers—they should be allowed to do what they want. Juanita is small and frail but has a mouth on her as sharp as a new blade of grass.

  Stopping at the traffic lights, he looks over his shoulder. The poor young girl back there by the flower shop, waiting for roses and proper pledged passions. Perhaps he’ll leave another one of Juanita’s blouses on her mother’s doorknob one of these days. One big enough for the baby, mind you. But, Jesus, aren’t wheelbarrows and roses—and even that awful thought, motherfuckers—coming up a fierce lot today? Must be the heat. Hotter than a jalapeño in hell. That’s Juanita’s phrase. She loves peppers. That it was too, hotter than a jalapeño in heaven or hell or anywhere else the night of the Caffola fight. September 9, 1938. Mustard oil.

  He can hear the roar of the traffic from the I-10 highway and the rumble of a trolley coming up Carrollton Avenue. He stands at the edge of the wide road, waiting to walk. To cross the road in this country a man needs a damn Ph.D. in civil engineering. And a body on you like a racehorse. Johnny X would do well here. He waits for the little green man—not the same one you find on a can of beans—to flash on. And remembers that he’s hungry. But onward we go. “We should go forth,” as an American poet once said, “on the shortest journey, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return.” But what would Thoreau know? He lived in a cabin by a lake all on his own. Flaherty, me boy, you’ve been reading too many books, and if you don’t get across the damn road quickly, the green man will be red and you’ll be dead. Good Christ. This rhyming. It must be the heat. An imaginative man would have said: wooden overcoat. And left the rhymes to reason.

  He crosses the road, stops, and surveys the traffic, then breathes deeply. Not as much in the lungs as there used to be. But it isn’t too far now to the laundromat, thank Jesus. Step we gaily, on we go, heel for heel and toe for toe, arm in arm and row in row, off for Marie’s wedding. His favorite song, no matter who the hell Marie is or was. Singing, he undoes the big brown belt of his overcoat. What will Juanita like? A flowery skirt? A pink blouse with tassels? Another flouncy blue number like Miss Jackson was wearing? No. What’s in order, he thinks, is something that will fit her like the sky fits the earth. That much at least she deserves. Today is a very special anniversary—July 9th, 1992. Juanita is still as beautiful as ever, and she deserves something special.

  He sees a young boy walking by the fried chicken shop, with his hair sticking up in little shafts of electrocuted pink. What in the world has become of hairstyles? When we were boys, in Lisdoonvarna, the hair gel came in two-penny bottles. We would part our hair down the middle and it would shine in the moonlight on the way home from the dancehall.

  Those were the days. Indeed. He left for America on the Washington cruiser, swearing to Ireland that he would come home Heavyweight Champion of the World. Days of cowlicks and curls. It was the Great Depression, he remembers, and unemployed men hung around, warming their hands over hot barrels on the dockside in Cobh, eating pigeon sandwiches. Some among them had mouths festered from eating nettles. Hard times, and even back then, America was the place to go. Lachrymose young girls sold daffodils so they could buy tickets. Boys stood up high on the backs of dung carts, looking out to sea, dreaming. Bilious crowds watched the white of the waves while the ships foghorned a song of exile. Getting on the boat, standing on the deck, he sang Ireland, I love you, a Chusla Mo Chroí, love of my heart. As the boat pulled away he remembered his parents, who died when he was just fifteen. His mother, a hard woman, a disarray of beauty, maps of the west wrinkled on her skin. His father, an American who had come to Ireland after the agonies of the Great War, a man who learned how to farm and make soil among the barren rocks, a hard-working man, honest and doomed.

  He stands at the side of Carrollton Avenue, feeling the heat hammer down from the southern sky. He wipes his overcoat sleeve across his wet brow.

  They had given their son thick hands, hands that won fights all over Ireland, even illegal bouts in the grassy wild meadows. That day, when he stood on the ship’s bow in Cobh, the world stretched out in front of him. In his first eight months, in dingy little New York halls, he put away three journeymen heavyweights. Always sang a song after each of the bouts. Fell in love with Juanita when she came with a movie director to one of the fights. She sat there in the third row, her hair as wild and as long as kelp. That night he took her to the fanciest restaurant in town, and she kissed the top of his eye where he’d been cut.

  One victory flew into another. In the dressing room Juanita took to massaging his shoulders like some women take to kneading bread. Reporters in wide hats began to take notice. A photo appeared in the papers of him and Juanita swapping wedding bands. Him decked out in a white tuxedo jacket, her in the finest taffeta, a bouquet of white flowers in her dark hair. That was the week before the big fight. September 9, 1938. If he could beat Caffola he would go on to the big time. Mustard oil. Blinded him good-oh. Juanita in the ring, smoothing back his hair, saying it’ll be all right, Danny, it’ll be all right, there’ll be another chance. His hair falling back again, down over his eyes.

  And now it has fallen away in furrows, though he has his little flat cap on to cover up the bald spots. But onward to the washing machines. Hup, two, three. Enough of years gone by. Put it behind you, make it anew, put it behind you, and things’ll come true. There was a comeback after Caffola, and he was swearing to reporters that if he got the chance, he would take on Buddy Baer and the Brown Bomber in the same ring. But he had fallen easily to a no-hoper from the bowels of Brooklyn. A Chusla Mo Chroí. Love of my heart and, sweet Jesus, would you ever get a move on? Step we gaily, on we go. The sun’ll be down before I get home to Juanita.

  She brought him to Hollywood where she was making some movies. But there wasn’t enough call for a Mexican girl. Beautiful as she was, and a voice so gorgeous she sounded like she had a wren in her throat, they terminated her contract. The couple stood on the deck of another boat, combing the waves in an easterly way. They sang together in the smoky cabarets of Ireland and Britain where men in zoot suits wet the tip ends of cigars with lascivious tongues and stared. But the cabarets closed, eyelids on an era. Then it was back to America, where their bodies gave way, but the social welfare checks dropped regularly enough to keep them happy. And a million years lived in between all that. Things he’s forgotten. In the meantime, in between tim
e, ain’t we got fun? Put it behind you. Make it anew. But how the hell can you put it behind you, how in God’s name can you make it anew? Christ but the heat is doing strange things to my head. Onward. Away.

  “Something chasing you, Mr. Flaherty?” It’s Clarence LeBlanc, that sly-eyed bastard in trousers too tight even for his thin legs, thirty years old maybe, who works as the rent collector in the complex. He’s coming out of the 7-Eleven with a packet of cigarettes in his long thin black hands. LeBlanc is often seen scrubbing the graffiti from the walls. A Philistine if ever there was one. And always that nasty upturned lip when he knocks on the door to collect the rent.

  “Chasing me?” said Flaherty.

  “Seems like you in a hurry.”

  “Off to the laundromat.”

  “Doing you some washing?”

  “I am.”

  “Funny, I don’t see no clothes.” LeBlanc has that glint in his eye.

  “I left them yonder this morning.”

  “You best watch out.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Somebody been stealing clothes down there. Believe it must be one of the young guys from our complex.”

  “It’s a terrible thing these days, the thievery,” says Flaherty. “Are ya going to watch the fight on TV tonight?”

  “Hanging them on doorknobs,” says LeBlanc.

  “Young whippersnappers. Can’t trust a soul these days.” He shuffles his feet and balls up his fists. “Tyrone is fighting in the Garden.” A slow roundhouse comes from the shoulders, hitting air, and he smiles.

  “I don’t follow boxing, Mr. Flaherty,” says LeBlanc, lighting up a cigarette. “You see anything strange, you let me know.”

  “Indeed I will.”

  He curses softly to himself as LeBlanc moves away. The cat’s out of the bag and meowing at the man in the moon. He hunkers into his coat, feeling the sweat roll down his armpits. The traffic thunders on in his ears as he negotiates a couple of potholes. He squints and feels almost dizzy. For a moment he sees his mother bent over the sink, scrubbing some blood from the collar of a white shirt. His father outside, hanging a sandbag from a chestnut tree, shouting at him to get ready for practice. Juanita leaning into the microphone, hair thrown back, eyes brown and deep. Tyrone dancing in the middle of a ring.

  He skirts in past a couple of cars, negotiates the curb, tongues a bead of sweat off his lip, stands for a moment and watches the clouds scud along over the city, then opens the laundromat door. He hears the whirl of washing machines. The pink neon throws patches of light down on his brown overcoat. A plane on a video game crash lands in the corner. The Coke machine is taped with a huge OUT OF ORDER sign. He sits down on the plastic chair, wheezing softly, takes off his flat cap, places it on the seat beside him, and looks around some more.

  It’s the wealthy women who come to this place. Well, not exactly wealthy, but better off than those in the complex. A dollar a load here. The machines are shiny-new and the hands that open them are mostly white. Kids from the university come here, in cherry-red convertibles. Spoiled rotten, the whole lot of them. Always throw in their laundry and come back half an hour later. At the other laundromat, east of the complex, it’s only fifty cents a load and everyone stays, watching their clothes like nervous birds over crumbs.

  There are only three women in the laundromat now, two at the far end, heads deep in magazines, and one—a real fancy-pants with blond hair and pink lipstick—loading a huge blue bag of clothes into washers number three, four, and five. Each time she lifts something out of her laundry bag she holds it up to the light and examines it very carefully. A set of sheets. Towels. Socks. T-shirts. Some underwear tucked into machine number four very quickly. A nightshirt. Washcloth. Then Fancypants takes out a pair of ragged Levis, followed by a couple of skirts.

  Juanita, unfortunately, wouldn’t look good in any of them. She has always been the one for great style, something a little modest but show-offy all the same. When she went to the fights it was always a magenta dress. In the cabarets it was often that glittery sequined number, grassy green. On the boats, back and forth across oceans, it was always something the color of the sea. He shuffles his feet. Juanita. My Juanita. Love of my heart and oh, would you look at that!

  Fancypants is lifting up a white shirt with lacy see-through sleeves. Blue frills on the collar. A gorgeous piece of work. She frowns, perhaps considering whether she should get it dry-cleaned or not. It’s the perfect size. A fan whirls above his head. He sweats and watches Fancypants. She fidgets for a moment, then puts the white blouse in machine number five. His heart skips a tune. He watches Fancypants take out a bottle of expensive detergent. The way she pours, you can tell she’s rich. She probably won’t even notice that the damn thing’s gone. And on her way out the door she doesn’t even smile at him.

  He looks around. Rubs his hands together. Smacks his lips. Now’s my chance. The other two still have their heads in their magazines. The place smells like a hospital. Too clean altogether. Not a bit of graffiti on the walls. No soul whatsoever. He starts to hum: Ol’ buttermilk sky, I’m a telling you why, now you know, keep it in mind tonight, are you going to be mellow tonight? As Fancypants’s car moves away, he walks toward machine number five. He lifts the lid quickly. Fingers shaking. Rummages. Finds it. Water spurting down onto his thick hands. He takes the white blouse and tucks it under his overcoat. Can’t you see my little donkey and me, we’re as happy as a Christmas tree, heading for the one I love, the one I love. Whistles softly to himself. It will be a little wet, a small spot of blue detergent on the sleeve, but who cares? Juanita will love it. Gonna poppa the question, that question, do you darling, do you do? It’ll be easy so easy if I can only bank on you. He feels the wetness of the blouse beginning to seep against his own shirt. He lets a little smile fly from his lips and shuffles out the laundromat door. Christ, he thinks, but it sure is a hot one today.

  * * *

  He sits in the leather chair that the good folks down at Saint Vincent de Paul’s gave him for a dollar. The room is small and cluttered and full of silence. On the mantelpiece there is a picture of him as a young man in red gloves. His skin is drawn tightly over muscles. Those were the days. A cowlick hanging happily over green eyes. A pair of silk shorts hangs beside the photo. A couple of trophies nearby. Sheets on the bed are crumpled. Above the bed is a picture of Juanita, her hair threaded down her back, like the girl in the song with her hair hung over her shoulder. Beautiful. My Juanita. Books of poetry talk to one another on the floor. A TV spits gray. A kettle boils. The cupboard at the end of the room is full of women’s clothes. Blouses. Dresses. Skirts. Scarves. It’s getting choc-a-bloc in there. He must get busy with the doorknobs. He smiles to himself.

  Right in front of him, on a coat hanger dangling from the lampshade, is the white blouse with the blue frills. He gets up slowly from the leather chair, wheezes, reaches out, and touches the sleeves that dangle in the air. Runs his arms along the collar. Then presses his face against the blouse, holding it, breathing in deeply, smiling.

  “Juanita,” he says softly. “Juanita, my love, you look absolutely gorgeous.”

  * * *

  On down past the graffiti again, hurrying this time. He has remembered that he left his tweed cap on one of the plastic chairs back in the laundromat. Hope to Christ that Fancypants isn’t still there. It’s been an hour and a half, and surely the tumble dryer has finished now and she’s off and away, oblivious. Get a move on now, Flaherty. Step we quickly on we go. No gaiety now. And sure isn’t gaiety something altogether unfashionable these days, unless you live in the French Quarter? There’s some graffiti on the walls about homosexuals, but nothing as good as the cocking out of muscles, alive-alive-o. Hup two.

  Juanita will be hopping mad if he isn’t home in time for the tea that she has boiling on the stove. And even madder if she finds out that he’s lost his hat. She bought it for him in Clery’s in Dublin back in the fifties, when money was round and made to roll. They walked
out onto O’Connell Street in the drizzling rain, and she pulled it delicately over his black curls. Said it made him look like a leprechaun. Leprecorny perhaps. She laughed. People stared as they walked. A tall brick of a man and a tiny Mexican girl, fitting together like a hand in a glove. Sauntering down the quays, stopping in bookshops. The Liffey tossing down to the sea, barges bound from the brewery, pigeons quarelling over bread, motor cars beeping at tinkers in horse carts. Kissing Juanita under the blue awning of an antique store. Ah, she looked so sweet from her two bare feet to the sheen of her lush brown hair. Hup two. On you go, with a song in your heart. Gotta get the damn hat back.

  He almost falls on the steps near his favorite piece of graffiti, grazing his hand as he uses it to prevent a fall. Rise up out of the bed of your oppressors, he mutters to himself. Quickly now. Hup two three four.

  He negotiates the steps, wheezes out onto Carrollton Avenue, and looks up the street. Damnblast and bugger it. There’s Clarence LeBlanc leaning his skinny legs up against the wall, chatting with Miss Jackson. Maybe he’s the one who got her up the Swannee. Howiloveya, howiloveya, my dear ol’ Swannee. He hopes not. LeBlanc couldn’t squire anything but a long lanky drink of bogwater. Perhaps, however, when Juanita decides that she’s worn the white blouse with the blue frills long enough, he’ll give it to the pregnant girl, though it might be a little tight around her belly. He moves to tip his hat to them, then remembers that it isn’t there. A man without his hat is like a pig with a gold ring in its nose. Down the road, alongside the clutter and clang of cars. LeBlanc is shouting something behind him, but he pretends he doesn’t hear. Quickly now, Flaherty. On your toes. No time for graffiti.

  Down past the flower shop, the little green man flashing, cars beeping, the clammy roar of a hot New Orleans afternoon. Thirty damn years of living in this town and never once was I able to cross the damn road in time. Past the chicken shop, past the bank. The neon sign flickers. 4:31 P.M. 94 degrees. Jalapeño time. Upwards, Flaherty. Away. May your ways be merry and your paths be few. Hup two. Christ. Still rhyming. Hot. Hot. Hot. He takes off his overcoat as he shuffles and tucks it under his arm when he gets to the parking lot of the laundromat. Negotiates a couple of potholes. Give me a ring with ropes and I still could dance. And, sweet Jesus, there in all her glory, a little bit bemused, by washing machine number six, is Fancypants.