Exit Unicorns (Exit Unicorns Series) (75 page)

In a moment however, they were all struck speechless for Father Joseph Jesus, a man of seemingly few words, became, without warning, a woman of many.

It started simply enough with a delicate and airy rendering of the song “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?” sung in a high and sweet soprano that a man of such size could not possibly possess. But seemingly did. He wove through each verse flawlessly, the ribbon of song coming off his tongue effortlessly, mincingly, causing Lutie to shed a tear or two into the great bush of his beard and shake his head as if to say he certainly needed no more convincing. At the end of the song, which had trilled up into a show-offy aria, he abruptly stopped and fixed his eyes upon Ben Hanrahan, who was looking a little green about the ears.

“Benjamin Louise Hanrahan, ye wee snivellin’ doubter, ‘tis yer Auntie Mary come to call an’ here ye stand blasphemin’ a man of God, it’s sore disappointed I am lad.” Father Bunrattey said still in the hugely disturbing, sweetly feminine voice.

“His Auntie Mary?”

“Benjamin Louise?” said Eamonn and Matty in querulous unison.

Benjamin Louise turned, scarlet of face and made a less than polite gesture in their direction.

“I was named after me Auntie Louise who died on the very day I was born, ‘twas me mother’s idea an’ sure I’ve never forgiven her for it.” He turned once more in Father Bunrattey’s direction his voice taking on a distinctly unpleasant edge. “How the hell did ye know, it’s been a dead secret for years.”

Father Bunrattey sighed and shook his head, “Are ye deaf then lad, I said it’s yer Auntie Mary. Have ye lost yer mind so soon, yerself it was took me to see ‘The Sound of Music’ fourteen times. Ah lads,” Father Bunrattey looked about with a melting smile, “an’ didn’t he weep like a babe each of those fourteen times.”

“I did no such thing,” said Ben Hanrahan rather weakly.

Father Bunrattey clucked his tongue several times in high disapproval.

“Here is me, scarce cold in me grave havin’ made the long an’ uncomfortable journey te see ye an’ ye stand here wid de lies pourin’ off yer tongue smooth as the crame on milk,” there was a pause filled with several more tsks, “tis’ a sad an’ sorry sight I see before me lads, a sad an’ sorry one indeed.”

“Sure an’ it’s not da Virgin but his own Auntie Mary, da Lord bless an’ preserve her,” breathed Lutie O’Toole in a stagey whisper.

“The Big Fellow had a sister Mary, thought she was a saint he did,” said Eamonn sadly to no one in particular.

“Yer not my Auntie Mary an’ I’ll thank ye not to defile her memory, ye whorin’ son of a—”

Father Bunrattey stepped forward swiftly and lightly took Ben Hanrahan by his shirtfront.

“Now I really wish ye hadna said that for I did not want to do this but ye’ve forced me to it lad truly ye have. Do ye be rememberin’ the time ye got sick on me shoes at the Dublin tea house, an’ me jist havin’ bought the things a fortnight before, or p’raps ye’d like for me to tell the story of yerself an’ yer Uncle Jimmy’s poor wee sheep or the time ye had to say a hundred an’ fifty Hail Mary’s for thievin’ from the collection plate or how ye got drunk on the communion wine an’ threw up on Father O’Neill’s white soutane right in the middle of mass, he did be after havin’ the weak stomach on ‘im lads,” said ‘Auntie Mary’ by way of explanation.

“Ah Michael Collins did be havin’ the same affliction wid his intestines,” Eamonn said nodding in grave understanding.

Ben Hanrahan sat in the nearest chair his florid face almost pitiful in its childlike confusion. He cocked his head as a dog might when it cannot comprehend something and said “Auntie Mary,” in a weak little boy’s voice.

Father Bunrattey patted his head comfortingly, “There now lad, I’d no desire to embarrass ye but I had to convince ye. I’ve come here for an altogether different purpose, an’ as long as I’m here I might as well tell ye that I’d always meant for ye te have me own bit of the shroud of Turin, but yer Auntie Rose did be sneakin’ in to me room before I was even finished wid this world an’ stole it, ‘twas sadly enough the last thing I was to see this side of the veil.”

“I knew ye’d meant for me to have it Auntie, I knew it,” Ben said his voice truculent as a child denied its sweets.

“Well tis’ of small matter now Benjamin, for I’ve come to tell ye somethin’ of much greater import—” ‘Auntie Mary’ stopped in mid-stream and Father Bunrattey looked around suddenly as if he’d no idea where he was or how he’d gotten there. “Lutie?” he said his voice deep and strong as it had been when he’d entered the premises.

“Auntie come back, auntie ye said ye had something to tell me?” Ben Hanrahan leaned towards Father Bunrattey, his face shiny with eager rapture, “Auntie ye musn’t go now.”

“Tis no good now man e’s lost ‘er, it ‘appens sometimes, could be de first time she’s channeled, it’s not like that she’ll come back,” Lutie said placing himself between Father Bunrattey and Ben Hanrahan’s beseeching, outstretched hands.

“Tis alright Lutie, she’s left a bit runnin’ about in me head, she said yer to look behind the picture of Joseph Plunkett that hangs in the hall of her house. Now will someone be standin’ me to a pint, for I’ve a large thirst upon me.”

“I will,” said Eamonn unexpectedly, for in all his years as a resident of the Sniffy Liffey he had not been known to open his wallet for any man. “Michael did always be standin’ a pint to many a man less fortunate than he an’ I’d be a spot on his memory if I did any less.”

“Shut up would ye,” Turkey Wattles bellowed unexpectedly, “torty-four years ye’ve been comin’ te dis same bar an’ sittin’ on the same goddamn stool an’ tellin’ de same goddamn lies. Ye no more knew Michael Collins than I did be dancin’ wid Finn Mac Cool at the crownin’ of the high kings at Tara. Jaysus but I am sick of it. Lies and feckin’ fairytales, ‘tis all this country can manufacture, ‘tis what we live on, ‘tis what we eat, breathe an’ shit an’ it all comes an’ goes on de wind leavin’ nothing behind but a bunch of dried up old liars like yerself,” he pointed a palsied and spindly old finger in Eamonn’s direction.

Even Ben Hanrahan’s attention had turned away from summoning back his Auntie Mary and was fixed silently as was everyone’s on Eamonn.

Eamonn sat there for a moment, a shrunken old man; who suddenly looked very tired and frail, his hand poised over his wallet, his pale blue eyes looking down at his hand as if he could not remember what he’d been in the process of doing. After two interminable minutes, he stood and shuffled his way over to the bar and quietly bid Mike to pour the Father a pint and not too much froth mind you. Then he shuffled back and placed the dark liquid quietly in front of Father Bunrattey.

“Thank ye man, ‘tis kind of ye,” said the Father nodding to Eamonn and offering him a near-sighted smile. Eamonn merely nodded in reply and silently made his way back to his stool.

“Coward,” muttered Turkey Wattles, hunching like a greedy buzzard over his Guinness. Eamonn remained with his back to the crowd though there was a visible shake in his shoulders as he sat staring down into his drink. Men slowly turned back to their own drinks and looked to Lutie and Father Bunrattey for further entertainment. Lutie had just embarked on a rather titillating tale about a young and buxom South American lady who’d abandoned her wicked ways to become a devout follower of Father Bunrattey’s when a sharp crack filled and split the air above his head.

“Beggin’ yer pardon Mister O’Toole, ye’ve a fine way with a tale but if ye don’t mind I’ll be takin’ possession of the floor fer a moment,” said Eamonn who stood now on the shiny oak of the bar a large and ancient pistol swaying uncertainly in his hand.

“Even if oy wuz inclined ta disagree wid ye sir I’m not so much a fool as ta fight wid de autority of a bullet,” Lutie replied.

Eamonn took a second to wipe his nose on the sleeve of his coat, a garment that from the looks of it had seen many such disreputable acts.

“I know that most of yez think I’m a daft old bugger that tells lies to be able to live with the unimportance of his own life but I did know Michael Collins, an’ I loved the man like he was father and brother to me an’ there were days that I hated him. I niver had a wife nor children because I served Mick an’ there was no room for anything outside of him. Every day for ten years I got up an’ took my orders from the Big Fellow, I did as I was told, without question. ‘Eamonn,’ he’d say, ‘there’s a fellow that’s talkin’ we’ll be needin’ to silence, ye’ll know the house, tis yellow wid red trim three doors down from yer old mother.’ An’ I would go widout question an’ shoot the poor bugger in his own bed. Eamonn, Mick would say to me the next day, I’ve a hankering for a roast beef sandwich go find me one, an’ I’d go, such was my way. ‘Eamonn’ he says to me on the last day of his life, ‘someday people will not believe ye ever knew me, because then my name will be bigger an’ more filled with smoke an’ illusion than I ever was, for such is the Irish way but ye’ll remember me Eamonn, ye’ll remember me true just flesh wid bones like any other man, ye’ll know the truth Eamonn an’ it will be enough.’” Tears ran and caught in the rivulets of his face, sunk and seeped away into his parchment fine skin. “But the sad thing is, tisn’t enough in the end, is it?” The pistol wobbled uncertainly and then rose, alarmingly, to a level even with his head. “Because in the end it all comes to ashes, doesn’t it? All the people we loved and the ideals we thought we were fightin’ for an’ the men who seemed like giants are after all just as dead as any other man is when the breath leaves him.” His mouth quivered visibly now and his frame, frail to begin with, seemed to shrink in tighter upon the brittle bones of old age with each word he spoke. “An’ his blood when it pours into yer hands as red an’ warm as any other,” his voice cracked and he pushed the pistol in tight to his ear, cocking back the ancient and rusty hammer with a creak that reverberated throughout the low ceilinged room.

“Eamonn man don’t be daft,’ said Mike the bartender, “sure an’ wouldn’t that stool be sore lonely without yer bony old arse to keep it warm.”

Lutie, unnoticed, had slowly risen to his feet and sidled his way around the crowd until he stood now an arm’s length away from Eamonn, unmoving but poised as a snake about to strike. The pistol swung in his direction and was pointed right between his eyes.

“We’ll have no heroics here this evenin’, Mr. O’Toole, ‘tis me own life, an’ should I wish to end it I will,” Eamonn’s voice was calmer now but somehow this only sent a chill throughout the room that was felt by all.

“’Twas very dark on the road that night, we couldna see a goddamn inch in front of our faces, but Mike insisted that we make Bael na mBlath,” he shook his head and drew in a long and trembling breath, “an’ we were drunk, I am here to tell you. We had the safekeeping an’ life of the Big Fellow in our hands an’ we were drunk to a man. ’Twas a fine day, folks turnin’ out to wave an’ cheer him on an’ I felt like I was in a feckin’ parade. But he felt somethin’ different in the air, I knew ‘cause he picked up his rifle before we got to Bael na mBlath an’ I said to him, ‘Mike we should stop fer the night, sleep off the drink, resume our course in the mornin’, said I.” Eamonn paused in his story and rubbed futilely at the tears that still fell and wobbled at the end of his chin and thin-bladed nose, never once taking the bead off Lutie’s forehead. “An’ Mike he turns to me an’ he says, ‘Eamonn a man must go where the road takes him,’ jist like that he says it calm as if he were discussin’ the weather or the wee flowers at the side of the road, ‘a man must go where the road takes him.” Eamonn had begun to sway slightly to and fro in his agony and Lutie edged an imperceptible bit closer to him. “An’ then the light faded an’ the sky fell in on us. The road was narrow, no moren’ the span of a large man’s arms an’ there was a donkey jist grazin’ there at the side of it, we had to skid into a ditch to avoid killin’ the damn thing. ‘Twas then the shootin’ started. Mike was never one fer keepin’ his head down an’ some of the finest shots in the country were out there tryin’ to kill him, stupid bastard. There we were takin’ cover behind the car an’ there’s a wee lull in the firin’ an’ he gets out to see what’s happenin’. His last words to me were ‘keep yer stupid feckin’ head down Eamonn,’ an’ then he walks out fer all the world to see, right into the middle of the road an’ they get him, right through his skull.” Eamonn looked round about at the faces frozen below him, his old eyes burning with all they had seen and could never forget. “An’ the giant was felled, gone like some ancient oak that has withstood the tests of time an’ weather until someday someone feels ‘tis their right to chop it down. ‘Twas all a bit blurry after that, draggin’ him to cover an’ the race to make it somewhere that he could get medical attention. But I knew it was too late. I laid his head against me, an’ I could feel the blood seeping an’ the life that drained away wid it. ‘Twas much later that night when he’d been taken away to Shanakiel hospital that I looked at me own hands, frightful stiff they were, caked wid his blood an’ some gray stuff that I knew was his brains. There are nights I still wake an’ can feel the blood dryin’ in me hands an’ the gray matter like it was that day, knowin’ that I was holdin’ the death of Ireland’s hope in this,” he held up one hand, a shriveled claw bent harshly by the rheumatism that plagued it. “There are no giants anymore, not a single one.” The arm that held the gun slumped in defeat and he said in a weary voice, “Ye may have my pistol now Mr. O’Toole, fer I’ve done with the wars.”

Lutie took the pistol and handed it carefully to Mike who tucked it behind the bar and then did something he had not done in twenty years of owning the establishment; he poured two fingers of whiskey and neatly shot it down. Eamonn stood still rocking back and forth, a broken and tragic old figure. Lutie helped him down and to his chair where he slumped.

“I lights a candle fer his soul an’ me own each Sunday,” he said looking at Lutie as though for absolution, “may God forgive us both fer all the wrongs we committed in the name of freedom, though I am inclined to believe,” he smiled weakly and without humor, “that God does not so much pay attention to the troubles of man.”

Matty laid his hand on his old friends shoulder.