Authors: Patrick O'Keeffe
—I’m not sure where this is going, my dear—
—Neither am I, my dear. Okay, I had insomnia that winter. And when my shifts ended I never wanted to go back to my flat, and so after work I drank whiskey, smoked pot, and played cards with the people who worked in the kitchen. I had a great time with them, although
more than a few were dicey characters, but I didn’t really know anyone else then, and my friend Brendan had gone back, and anything is better than tossing and turning in the dark, but when I did eventually walk home buzzed to the gills past the unlit houses I would think how different my life was compared to the past life, and that difference made me feel like I was living this fantastic life. Delusion kept me going, because what I never wanted was to go back home, and so I knew that wherever I ended up, I had to imagine it might fucking work.
—It was fantastic, I think it was, my dear.
—Well, thank you, my dear, but when I was on my way over here this young black man I worked with in the kitchen back then came into my head. He was barely twenty-one. I’d tell him about the books I was reading in my lit class at the community college. I loved that class so much, maybe because it was so new to me then, or the professor was so passionate, but I gave this man
Black Boy
by Richard Wright, and I gave him books by James Baldwin and Toni Morrison. I’d never read any of those writers before then, never even heard of them, and neither had he. And we had these long conversations about those books on cigarette breaks in the basement of the restaurant. Then he got into some serious trouble. He shot someone who fucked with his girlfriend. He didn’t kill him, but he nearly did. Some row on a porch. The gun was there. And the fucking gun goes off. And you could never imagine this young man shooting anyone, I still can’t—but the people at the restaurant went to his trial every day. I didn’t go because of classes, but at the trial he told them his mother cleaned houses for white people. Someone in the restaurant told me that. And the law planted him in the belly of the beast for a very long time.
—I’m not sure what you want me to say, my dear.
—And I don’t know why I’m telling it to you, my dear.
—This young man’s death in London is bothering you, my dear, and you’re going to visit his brother. Also, you’re stoned—
—It’s wearing off, my dear, but the gin has kicked in nicely.
—I wish you had brought me some, my dear. I could use some.
—Next time, I will, my dear, but the young black man used to call me from prison on Sunday nights. He rang at exactly eight minutes after eight. We’d talk again about those writers, and I’d tell him about new books I was reading. I wrote him letters, but I forget what I wrote in them. I suppose small talk about goings-on in the restaurant, and that I hoped he was doing all right, that one day it would be behind him. He could start again. He was young. Shit like that. Then I stopped picking up the phone on Sunday night. I’d stare at it and let it ring. I didn’t want to think about him or about how difficult his life was. I couldn’t manage it. And I started to leave the flat at eight. I’d wander around town for hours and wander along the railway tracks and the river.
—But what became of the man from Nicaragua, my dear?
—We want to think we can imagine people’s lives, but that’s utter nonsense, my dear.
—It might be all we can do, my dear.
—Well, the man from Nicaragua was illegal. In his fifties. He worked at least sixty hours a week in the restaurant, and he worked in the French restaurant on Main Street. I don’t know how many hours he could have possibly put in there. He might have gone back by now or they might have kicked him out. He had a wife and too many kids back home, and he sent his money back to them—
—Like your granduncle once did, my dear—
—Exactly, my dear. It was a Nicaraguan busboy who spoke English told me the man sent the money back—but the man did the work Americans would never do, like scrubbing the greasy kitchen floors on his hands and knees, dragging the greasy kitchen mats that weighed a ton into the alley and hosing them down with boiling water, schlepping out the trash bins, there’s nothing uglier than restaurant trash bins crammed with food at the end of the day, and dumping out the hot grease from the fryers. He finished work long after everyone else did. But at Christmas we dropped names in a hat. And I picked his name, my dear, and I wanted to get him something good. He always
smiled at me. I smiled at him, though we could never talk because of the language. And that was one dreadful winter. Hard heaps of snow on the ground for months. And I was broke. I drank cheap beer and went to classes hungover, and I spent most nights with a waitress who dressed funky and lit scented candles around her bed. She bought sex toys and we fucked each other blindfolded to the Piano Concerto Number Five. Then I hooked up with darling Sarah—
—Please, my dear, finish your story about the guy from Nicaragua.
—Well, I bought him a pair of gloves. I wrapped them up nicely in Christmas paper and gave them to him, but when he opened the package, he lifted his hands up to me. Palms out, fingers spread, and he had six fingers on each hand. I’d never noticed that about him, but on each hand, next to his small finger was another bigger finger sticking far out. And when I saw those extra fingers I thought about when a planet skips out of orbit. I was reading about retrograding planets in Astronomy 101, and I thought that was such a natural thing to happen, like here you are but you’re someplace else, and then here you are back in place again.
—And how did the man react, my dear?
—Oh, he smiled and handed the gloves back to me, my dear. I told him I would exchange them for something else, but I never did. I forgot about it. I just didn’t bother. School was back in session. Time went forward.
—Do good, my dear.
—Indeed, my dear. But remember I told you about the houseful of men from El Salvador I lived next door to in Boston?
—The Reagan years, my dear.
—Well, one of those men needed a job for a few weeks, and he asked if I could get him a job on this Irish painting crew I was working on. He needed the cash. He was trying to get to San Antonio. He’d family there.
—More gin, my dear?
—Fine with me, my dear.
I crossed the porch. Zoë poured for both of us. I went back to the railing.
—I said I would do my best to get him the job, my dear. But there was this Irish guy I knew, who like the Salvadoran was illegal, and who’d asked would I try and get him this job on the crew. There was only one going. And I got the job for the Irish guy. I told the guy from El Salvador I tried but they were not taking anyone on. I didn’t even like the Irish guy. He was a racist and a dumbass. And the guy from El Salvador got picked up soon after. Someone else who lived in that house told me that. The guy had tried to get a job in the wrong place and some fucker grassed on him.
—None of us live without regret, my dear.
—That’s true, my dear, but since I got the message from Kevin Lyons a few days ago, I’m opening these doors that I thought were all in the same house, a house I thought I knew every corner of, because I built it myself, but the doors open into all these weird fucking places, like in nightmares and children’s stories.
—It might then be good for you to see this Lyons guy, my dear.
—So my sister and brother say. I went out with Lyons’s sister, my dear. When I lived in Dublin years ago, I did, and he never knew anything about it, though he was living there then. None of my family knew about it, but they suspected, and I come from people who never forget, but I kept my mouth shut. I always did and I still do. I never even told my beloved sister, Tess, who was once madly in love with Kevin Lyons.
—The tangled web, my dear.
—Indeed, my dear, but Lyons’s sister and I loved the idea of having a secret. A secret kept the others at bay. She taught me it was fine to have your own life. She gave me the ugly shirts that I gave away to mysterious Walter or Jeremy, or whatever the fuck his name is—
—The woman who gave you no horse, my dear.
—How selfish of her, my dear.
—You loved this one, my dear.
—Never marry a fucking Celt, my dear.
—I’ll keep it in mind, my dear.
—All immigrants are conniving assholes, my dear.
—I’ll also keep that in mind. Thank you, my dear.
—You’re more than welcome, my dear.
—Can I tell you something, my dear?
—It’s high time you did, my dear.
—When Dad and I made up later in the summer he left my mom, I would go to his apartment. Luke had his own room there, I had one, and my dad had parties every weekend that summer. He was enjoying his freedom.
—Maybe he was just lonely, my dear. He needed people around.
—Whatever, my dear, but he invited me to every party. He said he wanted me there more than anyone else, and he invited his work friends. I knew most of them. I had since I was a kid. They were very kind to me. They knew what was going on. But there was this one guy, who attended every party, a guy who was close to our age now, but if he didn’t have the good fortune to be a nephew of one of my dad’s colleagues, who knows, my dear, this guy was a dumbass.
—Accident of birth. Gifts from the gods.
—He flirted with me, my dear. And I liked his attention. I was miserable and so angry with my dad, and I was fighting with the guy I was dating. We were fine in North Carolina, but things changed for us at the end of the summer. Like unexpectedly he became someone else. Or I was the one who became someone else.
—These things happen, my dear.
—But this guy at my dad’s parties was cute, my dear. A mover. All gung ho. At one of the parties we sneaked up to my room. We were drinking gin and tonics. The windows were open, and I could hear the voices of the men on my dad’s patio below, their loud, self-satisfied voices. This guy took my t-shirt off. I yanked off his polo shirt. And the men on the deck were laughing and talking about the fine quality of the meat being grilled. The ice clinked in my dad’s heavy
glasses. And this guy wanted to be one of those men. He could not wait to be them, and he thought he was giving me something special, and I was charmed by his attention, like he was exactly what I needed. He didn’t know that when we were making out I could only think of the thick hamburgers and steaks dripping bloody fat on my dad’s new patio grill.
—Probably none of it was easy for your dad, my dear.
—Why are you so forgiving of him?
—Because it might make it easier for you. You love him. He loves you. Because I never liked my own father.
—You regret that, my dear?
—I got to live more than once, my dear. You won’t like them all and they won’t like you.
—Remembrance of things that are of no use, my dear.
—He was right there, my dear. That’s all I do fucking remember.
—But you are worried about meeting your old neighbor, my dear. You’re upset over his brother’s death. And we should go inside. I’m chilly. I must finish the proposal. You have to be at the bakery in the morning.
—These things must be done, my dear.
I came away from the railing and blew out the candles then picked up the plates and the glasses. Zoë held the door open and I put the things down next to the sink, wrapped the cheese, stored it in the fridge, screwed the cork back on the gin, and flung the dregs in the glasses into the trash. Then I began to wash the glasses and the plates. Zoë stole up behind me and wrapped her arms around me, pressed her face between my shoulder blades, tightened her hold, pressed her face harder. I kept washing and saw her riding on the back of her father’s motorbike along the strand at night. Water pounded the sand and stars shone in the heavens. And I recalled the carefree sound my feet made when Brendan and I rushed laughing up the quivering gangway at Dublin Airport the day we left. Then I turned off the tap. Zoë sniffled.
I held her hand to my mouth and kissed her fingers. They tasted of lemons.
—Are your allergies acting up, my dear?
—Stop it, my dear.
—Sorry, my dear.
—I’m sorry, too, my dear.
And we stayed that way for a long time before we released each other’s fingers.
• • •
A thing like a dream woke me. My watch on Zoë’s bedside table said 6:30. She was soundly sleeping. In the thing like a dream I walked down the blue corridor. It was pitch dark but my fingertips knew the damp and bumpy walls. I stood for a while outside my parents’ door before I pressed down the wonky handle and slowly pushed the door in and stood at that threshold I hated to cross. Aunt Tess’s red curtains were open and the room was lit with evening summer light. July or August light. Everything in the room was the same. The small holy pictures, the bigger picture of Saint Francis and his animals, their bedside rug and shoes. But the room was maybe three times its size. My father and mother were sitting on the edge of their bed. They were wearing their Mass clothes and talking to Auntie Tess, who sat on a chair beside them. She wore a fine tweed coat buttoned to the neck. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but their faces looked agreeable. To the right of Aunt Tess, the others sat next to each other on chairs that had been brought down from the kitchen. My sister Tess was talking to my sister Hannah. Tess was playing with one of the buttons on her purple coat. Stephen was chatting with Anthony and Seamus and Tommy Lyons. Seamus was the way I recalled him. Smiling. Stocky. Hair like Ray Davies in the mid-sixties. Una was talking to her father. She wore those long earrings fashionable young women wore in the eighties. That’s all I saw of her. And Michael was laughing. The hat rested on his knee. The little feather flashed from purple to blue like
traffic lights slipping from yellow to red. Nora sat silently beside her husband. She wore a black dress. Her face looked solemn and her raw red hands were joined on her lap. Hands of mothers I grew up around. Uncle Roger sat next to her. His belly was huge. He was naked from the waist up and his suspenders hung down. And I was slowly backing out of the room when my mother looked at me and smiled. I smiled back at her and called her what I once called her. But this was a thing like a dream. And you understood that.