A cauldron of potatoes boiling on a cooking range. Rancid smells fuming variously in the fug of steam and smoke. Children’s eyes peeking in from behind a coal scuttle door. A fearful tiny auburn headed girl standing shrinking back under a water tank in the corner. Perhaps Crooks in his spare time might emulate Binky, the Black Widow’s butler. Binky his fist full of pound and ten shillings notes he collects, nakedly rushing back and forth with drinks for three terrified wide eyed American tourists.
‘Now my dears, the black mass presently in progress in the first wine cellar is being said by the Rev. MacNamara. Bishop of Kilburn. It’s all very cheap at the price my dears. You won’t see anything like it in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This additional admission price, not included at the front door does entitle you to entry into the back passage, no pun intended, nevertheless it is where you might do anything to anybody my dears and anybody may, if you are pretty enough, do something to you too. Then you can tell everyone back in Dayton, Ohio how excitingly devout you found holy Catholic Ireland to be.’
A bull like figure with long black cascades of hair, the hump of a broken nose jutting on his face, waddling out into the middle of the room. His shirt torn open over his belly and stumpy fingers clutching an overflowing pint glass. Tongues bent forward out his shoes, their worn sides turning over as he walked. Whites of his feet and ankles showing through the tatters of his trousers. Like some tiny king. He licks his lips smiling. Standing contentedly surveying his kingdom. Crouched by his elbow, a mild little man in a grey suit, with bottles in each hand replenishing his drink. Pouring port, and poteen every time he took a swallow. And nodding a smiling yes every time he throws back his head to sing.
Our father
Who art in bliss
Down here in hell
Hallowed be thine orgasm
Thy kingdom come
Like we have lately done
All over his
Or her fucking face
‘That’s disgusting the song he’s singing.’
‘Did I hear you say disgusting, madam. Sure your name must be Eeena. The female insult to humanity. Peeking out from behind the aspidistra. Deigning to come among us. To take your filthy gossip notes to flog to the British gutter press. Now Madam if you’ll keep your emotions to a minimum for a moment I’ll give you a taste of the low and scurrilous to fill your fucking column to the full. For a start report this. Bang. The most unfragrant fart laid this century.’
‘You’re a most dreadful person.’
‘And how Madam would you like to be sentenced to the horrible tragedy of marrying me. With me life an intoxicated celebration devoted to the constant and relentless protest against death. I sang for you the liturgical plain song of the catacombs. In order that you wouldn’t give up hope in your suburban desperation for catharsis. Did you know that by day right above me head is a chair screwed to the floor where a reputable dentist drills and yanks out rotted teeth. And the screams up there drown out the calls for help down here. Did you know that. Now Madam, the next time I make my annual speech to the members of the royal society of coprophagists anonymous, I’d like if you would demonstrate how you gamarouched the last bit of rusty old sperm out that bollocks of a husband you married for his few miserable quid.’
‘How dare you say such things to me. Hit him somebody.’
‘Madam, don’t please encourage unnecessary violence before the necessary violence commences. Instead now meet me at the pawn shop and kiss me under the balls. Sure I was baptized in a money lender’s. And remember that as a dirty filthy Catholic you’re among clean pure Orangemen down here. And may the beatific light sparkling from the pontiff’s ring shine upon the sins you’ve committed in your commodious and semi detached residence in Rathgar. With its one and a half water closets, where the gombeen likes of you and your mean bollocks of a husband are over your soufflé supper giving blessed thanks for your safe deliverance from socialism. While the noble illustrious likes of me is having to kip down in the Dublin shelter for men at thirty one Tara Street if I’m not over at me Iveagh House address in Bride Street, having to take me daily morning walks in fucking working class infamy up and down Grafton Street looking to quell me pangs of thirst and find a few bob for the few bottles of Mountjoy Nourishing Stout served over the north side in Madigan’s of Earl Street at a penny cheaper than the Guinness variety so that when I’d have six drunk you’d have the price of a seventh free. While the fucking likes of you bred in hypocrisy are on your rayon smooth arse on your imitation Louis the cat’s torts chaise longue drinking your Rathgar pink gin pinched delicately between your manicured fingers in front of your three bar electric fire. Fuck off then back there if you don’t want to listen to the likes of me rearing up out of the gutter in your face. Sure what would the sham cultured likes of you know of black shawled and bare foot women coming a wintry wet night shivering with death into shops to buy a pennyworth to eat, or a single rasher or egg or small pat of butter or a quarter a loaf of bread to take back to give the tiny crumbs to a dozen childer clutched together on the same rotted mattress up the fucking freezing stairs of some Georgian rat hole. Who the fuck are you to say I’m dreadful. Don’t I know as well as you do, that my redeemer liveth. And when he has a moment free from making his personal appearances, getting his pucks of publicity all over the kip, you may be sure that the first fucking thing he’ll tell you is that he fucking well loveth me. For the tiny bit of honesty that passes me lips once in a while, more than he fucking well loveth you, for your phony pose of Irish female sincerity. Here come kiss this. The pale priestly skin of my prick. Take thou a sip of this spit from this holy horn most high. And may the red star in the east, shine like the star of Bethlehem. Up the Republic. And may the good Lord bless me while defenceless I sleep.’
‘You are the most filthy disgusting person.’
‘Ah with me hands in prayer, close me eyes now, and I will seek the intercession of the Blessed Gainor Stephen Crist, who one day soon will be canonized as the patron saint of those driven to drink when the bedevilment of the fucking significance of life makes them think it has no meaning better than that found in another jar of stout.’
‘Can’t someone stop him blaspheming.’
‘Of course I am Madam all those things you mention. But as to what I do in my diabolism, is me own fucking business. Sure, the letter E beginning as it does your name, would give you a bad start in life. Being as it is the first letter of such words as evil not to mention ebb, eczema, edema and electrocution. But eftsoons, egad, if you give us the velocity of your viscosity of your bifurcation, madam and get out your big pair of bosoms. I’d get out my cock. And during my premature ejaculation spattering your purity you could beat me to death with your bound copies of the Catholic Herald.’
‘Why doesn’t someone kick him flying.’
‘Madam, I’m flying already. Wait while I take a read of me altimeter. Meanwhile did you hear what the toilet bowl said to the arse. Thank you for dropping that in. Give me Vat Sixty Nine now. And it’s not the Pope’s telephone number I’m after. And while I put my yarmulka on give the woman in bed more petroleum. And would someone ever divulge to me this instant the fucking melting point of tungsten.’
‘Three thousand degrees centigrade.’
‘Give the Phi Beta Kappa man who knew that a bottle of stout. And Madam that’s about the likes of the heat that it would take to melt you into a decent piece of arse.’
‘Someone please take me home out of here.’
Eeena in her big black hat, hands up to her face, rushing for the door. Two men in attendance upon her turning to look back. A bottle smashing on the wall next to one of their heads as they hasten their departure. Buster the Beastly putting his pint glass to his lips, his Adam’s apple going up and down in his throat gulping down the contents in one long swallow. Murmurs of disapproval. Growls of objection. A man, arms folded across his chest, grey weatherbeaten hat clamped down on his skull, looks round as he shouts.
‘Now th
e evil likes of you is nothing but a treacherous gurrier only fit to be a rat down in the likes of this vile place.’
Buster the Beastly rocking back on his heels, face contorted in a snarl and jutting his head towards the man in the battered grey hat.
‘With your phony quaint innocent verse dotted with primroses, go back and piss on the soil from which your refreshingly natural rhymes grow. You fucking bog peasant. Sure aren’t you cricking your neck kissing the arse of the visiting London intelligentsia, and still up to your bollocks in nettles and wiping your own arse with dock leaves.’
The man tearing off his grey battered hat throwing it to the stone floor and jumping up and down on it. Wagging his fists around his balding skull.
‘I won’t be insulted by the likes of worthless trash. Scum you are. Nothing but the worst slandering vicious wickedness, a poison so foul it would kill an oak tree standing a mile away from you.’
‘So long as you drop dead with it, you cunt, I’d be content.’
Rashers coming to the side of Darcy Dancer. His hand gently on his shoulder and smiling into his face. The sound of a fist socking flesh. And of a skull thumping and cracking on the floor.
‘I do apologize my dear Darcy for the unseemly unfeeling sentiments you’re hearing expressed. The world of art. Nothing but a nest of vipers of course. But soon a better class of café society will be arriving. But I see you’re just quietly here watching and listening. And even a little bemused. Ah but I see our big bellied champion whistler is joining us who’s long been a fellow tenant of mine down here. Ah my dear Valentine allow me to introduce you to Marquis of Delgany and Kilquade. I was just explaining to his Lordship how you and I, products of good schools and families, have had to be incarcerated here in this malevolent homespun condition.’
‘And a worse place for barbarians you couldn’t find. And you whore you, don’t know your old friends now, over there in the Shelbourne stretching your legs out over an entire floor.’
‘Ah now Val, that may be temporarily true. But you see what I’ve brought for you. Sheena, over there. Price is usually a tenner. But as she’s a little laggards tonight there is a fifty per cent reduction. For you of course there is a further discount of a quid making four pounds and only requiring two pounds and ten shillings in advance if you please.’
‘You’d sell the pubic hairs off your mother in her coffin, you whore you. I’ll pay you two and a half thumps in the gob. And have the lady for nothing.’
‘Please Valentine, I can see you’ve already shocked his Lordship here. That’s the type of uncalled for vulgar intransigence that really does try one’s patience. Don’t please fuck up my little enterprise now, which has been such a long time organizing. Sheena needs some sprucing up, one admits, but you’ll find beneath her rags an awfully curvaceous creature. And there’s more where she came from. Her mother who presides over an assorted vegetable barrow in Henry Street is from a long line of genuine Mecklenburg Street whores, her poor dear father, a Guinness barrel having fallen upon his toe, is now an incorrigible invalid drinking to excess the very thing that crippled him in the first place.’
‘OK you awful whore you, here’s thirty bob and even that’s too much. Goodbye now, you bloody awful chancer.’
‘Ah Darcy, see what a brilliant ponce I am. I’ve sold Sheena not only to the whistling champ, but to four other insanely sexually frustrated chaps who I hope will all have the patient decency to peacefully wait in a row.’
‘That’s absolutely disgraceful.’
‘Ah I knew dear boy you’d disapprove. But you know, strange fact of life, the least expense is often involved in the making of the most profit. You do, don’t you, find this place unfitting. O dear. So do I. But take heart. There in the dark suits the far side of the room, stand gentlemen members of the Legion of Decency. Who are also on the government censorship board. Indeed I think I also spy militant members of the Legion of Mary. Dear me. I actually do. They are, bless their hearts, a most deadly serious intentioned people dedicated to stamping out Dublin vice. And although you may not believe it, these catacombs have produced more than their share of candidates for sainthood. In fact the Legion are here in such force, to investigate an apparition. Seen by four of the children. Yes. Happened one morning. I was the other side of that wall. Playing as it would unseemly happen, with my very lonely prick. While a miraculous and beautiful vision took place right in that corner where the water tank stands, and where you now see the statue of the Blessed Virgin in front of which burn those votive lights and candles. It appears that she said she had come to dispense hope to those most without hope. Indeed my dear boy, this hellish hole of Calcutta is now the Lourdes of Dublin. And take no notice of that gesticulating chap in front of the statue of Our Lady. He is, from the end of his foreskinless prick to the top of his red curly head, entirely Hebrew. From a good Jewish Clanbrassil Street family. Those are merely his traffic signals which he frequently employs directing Dublin traffic in the evening rush. Without him the whole city would be a nightmare of entangled bicycles and horsecarts not to mention motor vehicles. You don’t believe a single word I’m saying, do you Darcy. Think I’m spinning a fantastic yarn, don’t you.’
‘No, not actually.’
‘Ah I worship you dear boy. For your tolerant understanding. May I interject then the merest bit of fantasy. One of my former professors in Senior Freshman physics is actually over there, incognito of course, among that strange lot discussing astro nuclear quirks and quarks. He maintains that the atmosphere of this dungeon of despair allows them to reach the very heights of their theoretical explorations.’
‘And who is that next to them, talking to himself in the mirror.’
‘Ah dear boy, I’m entirely glad you noticed a lost soul. He is Horatio Macbeth. Sundays past, when both he and I were often low and lonely he visited for tea in my college rooms. Poor devil, banished to Dublin by his rich mill owning family, albeit with a very nice little private income. Fellow couldn’t restrain himself pinching ladies’ bottoms all over the better parts of Manchester. His great ambition, like us all, to be an actor. You will see him just before pub closing time mouthing his lines into any nearby mirror. Most impressively too. Frequently an entire jammed pub has ended up shouting bravo. He rehearses late at night at his reflection in the better shop windows up and down Grafton Street. Dear boy. I must but I must leave you here a moment. Do have another bottle of stout. While I slip away to see if Sheena is earning her keep. And also to collect for you the pawn ticket and my cufflinks. Despite this being the new Lourdes, arguments do appear to continue to rage in a blaze of insult and blame. And dear me, neither souls, morals, principles and especially chattels, are safe.’
Rashers disappearing under the arch of the passageway. The stench of bodies, smoke and fumes thickening. A cold swirl of air around the ankles as the doors to ante room and the street open and shut. Corks popping, songs singing, and one stands here a sore thumb. In this conflagration of discontent. The cold country night would have long settled now on Andromeda Park. My head on my pillow. Frost white over the fields. Beasts lonely mooing. And O my god, as I stand here deceived and thieved from, I’ve also stood up Miss von B. A girl grins from across the room. And Leila. Could she have once been someone like Sheena. Women must do anything, anything at all, for money. And now who’s this slipping up next to me. Leaning in close to one’s ear to whisper.
‘Excuse me now. I’m a bit of a nut. Been nineteen years in Grangegorman. Let out an odd weekend now and again to be enjoying a pint of stout among normal people like yourself. But I was once meself a gas meter reader. And a devout Catholic. And if you don’t mind me saying it’s a disgrace that the likes of that Buster and a worse friend of his, Danno, should be allowed down here in the vicinity of the holy happening of the apparition. I’m reformed now. And haven’t made an impure suggestion to any mother superiors on the doorsteps of their convents when I’d come a calling in me guise as a monk. And that’s a fact. And hear that ro
aring and drum pounding now. That’s Danno. And he’s coming in here by the sound. And I can tell you sir, I’m going. Goodbye to you. And thanks for your kindness to me.’
Emerging from the dark passage, a massive figure, sweat pouring from his brow. Yellow and black rotted teeth in his yawning open jaws. As he grins and holds up a half full whisky bottle in one hand and beats his other in a fist on a great drum strapped to his shoulders. Lurching in to stand next to Buster the Beastly.
‘Me name is Danno, when I’m not abroad under me nom de plume of the Reverend Felix de Gascoigne Dilettante, blessing nuns up the bifurcation with me genuine beeswax candles. Shut up now. The bunch of youse. I am here waiting for your emotional attention. And youse now, with a belch out his arse, just heard me friend here in the shoes too short for him give you a fucking valuable piece of his mind. Give us your wet kiss of fealty youse whore British debutantes. While I’d be playing football with the preserved head of Cromwell youse would be playing football with the head of the Blessed Oliver Plunkett off his altar in Drogheda and kicking the last dry old tooth hanging from his cheek out of him. Dehumanized now he may be. But by god he’ll be canonized yet. And if any of youse don’t have faith in me predictions or so much as mildly offend me friend Buster here doing his fucking utmost to entertain you, I’ll stuff the lot of your heads in the fucking Wicklow gap. Listen now while I beat me Lambeg drum I took off an Orangeman. I’m a mental and physical demolitionist. To the animate and inanimate. Pull the fucking lead pipes out of houses. And before pawning them would wrap them around youse necks who don’t pay attention and listen to me while I’m telling you. I have just come from singing Ave Maria up there at the top of Nelson’s Pillar. With a pint of stout in one hand, me prick in the other. Pissing down one hundred and thirty eight feet on top of the populace waiting for the tram to Dalkey and them all thinking it was a spot of rain. That will give you just an introduction to the fact that I am the most evil scoundrel that any of youse ever met. I am an itinerant. And betimes I am a hospital porter. Humping the female corpses. The breath out of some of them would kill you. When I don’t like the look of someone dying in the bed, I give the undertaker measurements six inches too short for the coffin so’s the legs have to be broken to get the dead bugger in. When it comes to living and breathing women I am mad on them graduates of the higher institutions of learning. When I am not fucking a woman in peace then I am at war and am given to violence of a violent nature. I am an unreformed informer. Sentenced to death in the absence of my presence, by the high command of the Irish Republican Army. I would beat an old defenceless lady out of two pence. Ah, you’d ask, what is there good about me, I’ll tell you. As a true example of the native treachery and viciousness I could be a great tourist attraction. And a living warning of the villain that you’d do well to keep well away from.’