The Ginger Man

  A cellar of the damned for sure. I cannot tolerate economic cripples and I do not like those who were once rich. In it all to get away from it all. Perhaps I cannot bear to ever finish waiting. Those few left in the center of the room. The others beaten in battle had retreated to the corners of the room and did not have any opinions, standing glassy eyed and drunk.

  Mary looking up out of her green eyes.

  "O the things that are happening here."

  "An awful bunch, Mary."

  "Where are you from in England?"

  "I'm not lime, Mary."

  "What are you then."

  "I'm American."

  "Are you. Really?"

  "And you're Irish."

  "Yes."

  "And do you like Ireland?"

  "I like it. I wouldn't live anywhere else."

  "Have you lived anywhere else?"

  "No."

  "And do you like your father?"

  "That's a funny question. Why do you ask me these funny questions?"

  "I like you. I want to know if you like your father."

  "No. I don't like him."

  "Why?"

  "Because he doesn't like me."

  "Why doesn't he like you?"

  "I don't know but he's never liked me"

  "How do you know he doesn't like you?"

  "Because he punches and beats me"

  "Good God, Mary. I say, he beats you?"

  "Yes, he beats me"

  "What for?"

  "For nothing"

  "Must be for something"

  "No. If I come home late he asks me why I'm late and no matter what I say he finds some excuse to start punching me and he gets me in the hall so I can't get away and just punches me. He hates me"

  "He does?"

  "Yes. And there's no reason for it. As soon as I come in the house, he's sitting listening to the wireless and I go to put my coat away and he calls me into the sitting room and then asks me where I've been and accuses me of seeing men in parks and going off with them. And I haven't seen any men. Then he calls me a liar and awful names and then if I say I'm telling the truth, he comes after me"

  "What about your mother?"

  "She's dead"

  "And you take care of your father and brothers?"

  "Yes"

  "Why don't you leave? Go to England and get a job."

  "I don't want to leave my little brothers. They are only small"

  "He can't beat you up now."

  "He tries to sometimes but I'm stronger than he is now."

  I can look at Mary. What's this thing? She's easy to look at. Are you easy to feel, too? Sleeves of her sweater stuffed up around her elbows, slender smooth wrists and a fine set of shoulders. Wouldn't want to come to grips, 'cept in mutual passion.

  There was suddenly a crash at the door, the center boards giving way and a huge head came through singing.

  Mary Maloney's beautiful arse

  Is a sweet apple of sin.

  Give me Mary's beautiful arse

  And a full bottle of gin.

  A man, his hair congealed by stout and human grease, a red chest blazing from his black coat, stumpy fists rotating around his rocky skull, plunged into the room of tortured souls with a flood of song.

  Did your mother come from Jesus

  With her hair as white as snow

  And the greatest pair of titties

  The world did ever know.

  Mary tugged at Sebastian,

  "Who's that? It's a shocking song he's singing"

  That's the son of the rightful Lord Mayor of Dublin. And his uncle wrote the national anthem"

  Mary appreciative, smiling.

  This man swept across the red tiles wildly greeting people on all sides, telling the room,

  "I loved the British prisons. And you lovely women. The fine builds of ye, I'd love to do you all and your young brothers,"

  He saw Sebastian,

  "For the love of our Holy Father, the Pope, may he get himself another gold typewriter. Give me your hand Sebastian before I beat you to death with bound copies of the Catholic Herald. How are you for Jesus' sake?"

  "Barney, I want you to meet Mary. Mary, this is Barney Berry."

  "Pleased to know you, Barney,"

  "Why you lovely woman, Mary, How are you? I'd love to do you. Don't let this whore touch or pluck your flower. How are you again, Mary?"

  "I'm fine."

  Barney leaped away and up on the table and did a quick goat dance.

  Mary turned to Sebastian.

  "He's good gas"

  "A fine build of a man, Mary."

  "Did his uncle write the song?"

  "Mary, when I say something, it's the truth. I speak nothing but the truth. And tell me, Mary, what are you going to do with yourself?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "In life."

  "You mean what am I going to be? I don't know. I don't know what I want to be. When I was little I wanted to be a dancer. I wouldn't mind going to the art school. I like to draw."

  "What do you draw?"

  "All sorts of things. I like to draw women."

  "Why not men?"

  "I like women better. I like men too."

  "But women most?"

  "Yes. No one has ever asked me these questions before. I've never met a nice man."

  "None?"

  "I don't mean you. I don't know you. Perhaps you're all right. Women are kind."

  "Do you like women's bodies ? "

  "These are funny questions. Why do you want to know these things anyway?"

  "Because you have a nice build."

  "How do you know ? "

  "By your teeth."

  "How?"

  "Good teeth a good body. God's teeth are great teeth. Mary you must come with me for a drink."

  "Everything is closed."

  "O there are places."

  The room thick with smoke. Bobbing skulls. Those beaten into silence, glued to the white peeling walls and the beaters, a great bunch. Barney singing, swaying on the tiles. Sweating. Clocklan had left the blonde to drag the little jeweler to the black rear of the catacombs for further discipline. Busting him in the head with the bottom of his fist. I tell you, the place is writhing, simply writhing. Malarkey shouting he was high bloody king and if they all didn't cheer up he would break their faces. Clocklan's woman got up on the table to dance. Wiggling wang, she called it. And Percy came back with a grand grin which he wiped when he saw his woman on the table and he said she was a disgusting tramp and didn't she have any pride at all to be dancing like that in front of a whole bunch of people.

  I think Mary's father an uncouth, constipated boor. Things in the North of Dublin have nothing to recommend them. But I think Mary has great charm and sensibility. Take her with me into my personal garden of sunshine which I do not call Eden for obvious reasons. Madam, may I touch your nipples with my eyes. I think these people here are mostly against each other. They think nothing of living between dirty sheets and carrying on indiscriminately. With nary a thought of the consequences stored up with God.

  Malarkey grabbed Dangerfield by the arm.

  "Sebastian, do you want to see the most amazing thing in your life?"

  "I do."

  "Come back into the wine cellar."

  Sebastian and Mary following Tony.

  "Now for the love of Jesus, don't make a sound or old Clocklan will have a fit. Just take a look inside."

  At the end of the long black hall, they paused before a half-open window. Leaning over the sill, peering into the black hole. In the center of the room, two figures on a narrow canvas camp bed, reeling on four twisted legs. Writhing. There was a great squeak. And then a squeal. The camp bed collapsing, bare bums slapping the stone. A naked Clocklan clinging desperately to the smooth nude. She said O my God what's happened and groaned. Clocklan grunting, ignoring the laughs in the hall, glued to the bleating blonde.

  "Have you ever seen anything like it in your life before,
Sebastian?"

  Tony, I must say that Clocklan is full of spirit"

  "Ould dirty whore. He'd get up on his mother in her coffin"

  Mary had run back to the kitchen. A jammed place. Floor covered with broken bottles. A girl standing in the corner, drunk, pissing down her nylon leg. A nice pool. A voice declaring.

  "Say what you want about me, but by God, don't insult my King"

  "Hump your old King."

  "Who said that?"

  "Hump your old King."

  "I say, I say there, out with it. Who said that?"

  "The King is a shit."

  "Look here, I won't stand for it."

  "Up Ireland."

  "God save the King."

  "Bollocks the King."

  "God save all here. And the others as well."

  O thread my way back into this Catholic blood. And there's something about slaughter. Fists in the smoke and smell. What a tiresome scene. A decibel of this is enough. Moral decadence. And an agreeable lack of fibre. But decency, not a bit of it anywhere. I must put a stop to it.

  Dangerfield taking a chair, and stepping on to the table, wound his fingers around the electric light and yanked it from the ceiling. There was a blue roar of flame. Layers of plaster crashing to the floor. Screams all over the black room.

  "Mary and Joseph we're being murdered"

  "Get your filthy hands off me"

  "Who did that?"

  "I've been robbed"

  "I've been goosed Wow."

  Through the dark Sebastian led Mary and together they pounded up the iron steps to the street A horse cab was passing.

  "I say, my good man."

  The cab stopped.

  "Tell me where can the lady and I get a drink?"

  "Certainly sir, certainly."

  They climbed into the mouldy interior. Sitting on a mass of torn upholstery and damp rugs.

  "Isn't this great, Mary?"

  "What did you pull the light out of the ceiling for? You could have killed somebody."

  "I was appalled by the depravity and the general slump in morals. Does your father ever hit you in the chest, Mary?"

  "He hits me everywhere. But I can defend myself."

  "I'm going to take you to The Head. Mary. Where we can drink with a better class of people."

  "I think I better go home."

  "Why?"

  "I have to. You go to Trinity."

  "How do you know?"

  "One of the girls told me. All these Trinity students are the same. The only nice ones are the black ones. They're gentlemen. They don't get personal or fresh."

  "Mary, I may not be black but I'm not bad."

  "You just laughed at those people in the back room without any clothes."

  "They were having congress."

  "Fancy names."

  Under the train trestle went the horse cab. Past the monument makers. And a shop where I used to keep my rations. A milky, cold smell. I often bought two eggs and one slice of bacon. From a bowl-breasted girl. She eyed me. And once I bought oatmeal and went out and got dreadfully drunk across the street. Invited the pensioners in for a pint. They all came in adjusting scarves, coughing graciously. They all told me stories. About men and their daughters. I heard them before but once is never enough—got to have them more often. Later I spilled my bag of oatmeal all over.

  Sebastian kissed Mary. She put her elbows over her breasts. But she's opening her mouth. And she's got a hard little back and thick thighs but I can't get my hand to her bosom. Can't squeeze it in under here. Not an inch. Say, Mary, how about you and me going where the olives grow? Or at least where it isn't so goddamn damp. Boy. your lips are narrow.

  Now that we are going along the quays, it reminds me of how much I would like to see a bit of largess. This grabbing Mary is a little embarrassing because she's as hard as a rock and is almost trying to fight me. I get that impression. She had hold of my hand then and without question gave it a twist. I'll twist it right back and take it off altogether.

  "Mary, I've got something to show you."

  Sebastion took a match box out of his pocket. Pulled it open and showed Mary a replica of the Blessed Oliver Plunket.

  "Are you a Catholic? Sure you're not?"

  "Mary, I'm everything. Especially a Catholic."

  "You can't be Catholic and something else as well."

  "Mary, I'm a big wind from East Jesus, a geek from Gaul."

  "You're just trying to kid me. And I have to go home. I live over the Capel Street Bridge."

  "Now, Mary, I want you to see this fine old inn. Finest of its type in Europe. And I'll sing you a song."

  O the Winetavern Street is the silliest

  Of the streets full of fury,

  O the very, very best

  For this moo from Missouri

  "Like it?"

  "You're a gas man."

  "When all the world is funt, Mary. That's the time"

  "You're crazy"

  Sebastian whipped his head out of the window and had a polite word with the driven

  "Mary, we are going into a nice warm room with a fire. And I'll buy you a few nice drinks and we can sit and talk. I'd like to talk with you about Papish things. We would never get along without the Pope. He keeps a little dignity on this earth. If we had a few more like him there wouldn't be all this lechery and deceit. Mary, there are a lot of bad people in this world."

  Mary rolled her head on his shoulder and whispered:

  "I want you to kiss me again."

  Sebastian bolted, eyebrows raised.

  "I say, Mary, really!"

  "Don't embarrass me."

  I can see the Courts of Justice across the river. O the pleas of trespass against the peace of the King in the kingdom of England, made with force and arms, ought not, by the law and custom of England, to be pleaded without the King's writ. O these little things of law. I know them all. And a river is a natural stream of water of greater volume than a creek or rivulet. And the Liffey is a river. And the dome of the four courts is like a prostrate bub. But never mind. This Mary, her spatulate rump, twisting on her tough, tight body. Sit on my knee, now while I learn off the laws of sewers. A lot of strange things happen to one, of an uncanny nature. Perhaps if I had a fish, dead and slime and if I kept Miss Frost's window open and the curtains closed and wait for nosy Skully to stick his head in and give him a violent lash in the face. Splosh. Right in the eyes, too. Slish. Take that, cad.

  There was a bump as the cab passed over the sidewalk making the turn into Winetavern Street. The scruffy vehicle pulled up to a closed iron gate. Horse snorting nervously. Case of fleas. Sebastian stepped out gingerly and the man asked him for a pound.

  Two of them waiting in the silence. This was to be a case of slight misunderstanding. A time for measuring one's words. Sebastian began quietly.

  "I say, old boy, how would you like to spend Christmas in the 'Joy,' with your teeth dropping out of your Catholic arse?"

  "It's a pound this time of night"

  The man looking through lethargic eyes full of shillings. Looking down into the wild, bloody eyes, all gray round the red globes,

  "Perhaps you'd rather that I kick this rolling rat trap to pieces and give you a Celtic baptizing in the Liffey, you vulgar thug"

  "I'll call the Guards."

  "What?"

  "I'll call the Guards."

  "What? God damn it"

  Sebastian's hand shot out and caught the man by the coat until his face was plunging towards the street and his feet were caught in his seat

  "God damn it, another bit of insolence out of you and I'll ram this horse and casket up your hole. Do you understand me?"

  "I'll call the Guards."

  "You won't be able to call your god damned mother when I'm finished with you. Lout. Hear me? Lout. A pound you bastard. Festering sneak. No decency in you. No love. Do you know what love is? Where's your love, you bastard? Why I'll throttle you to death if you don't show some love. Show me som
e love or I'll strangle you."

  A vague smile came to the man's mouth. His eyes, two holes of terror. Little scene on the Winetavern Street. Mary came out, tugging at his fingers around the silent man's throat

  "Leave him alone. What did he do to you? Why don't you pay the man his money and leave him alone."

  "Shut up."

  "You're a terrible person"

  "Shut up. We're all going for a drink"

  A glimmer of hope in the man's eyes, and guilt Sebastian, still holding him by the throat

  "Will you come in for a drink ? "

  "All right, I'll come in for a drink."

  "I want to go home"

  "It's all over now, Mary. This gentleman will come and have a drink. You'll come and have a drink too"

  "I want to go home. You're an awful person"

  "Not at all. This gentleman knows he was taking advantage of me. I know how much it is to Winetavern Street"

  Man's evasive eyes.

  Sebastian went to the iron gate and reached in and pressed a bell behind the wall. Waiting. Sebastian rattling the gate. A suspicious whisper came up out of the black alley.

  "Who's up there? Stop that racket Go home to bed— there's nothing down here."

  Sebastian put his face between the bars.

  "Travelers from the West Just ten minutes. We're friends of the man with the beard."

  "Go on with you. Get out of here. What do you think this is?"

  "We're sent by the man with the beard. Friend of the corpse."

  The voice came nearer.

  "Let me look at you in the light and stop the noise. A man couldn't be dead down here with the likes of you carrying on. Let me see the faces. Who's the woman? No women allowed here. What do you think this is?"

  "Now, now—she's a Dawn Beauty."

  "Dawn Beauty, my virgin bub. I can't have this sort of going on—you've been here before—what's all this racket? —you ought to know better. Don't make any noise coming in and get out fast"