Kevin Barry - City of Bohane

See the dream-fed twist of the ’bino’s crooked smile.

… and tiny yellow flags were cut out from great screeds of fabric choo-chooed in specifically for the purpose, and the flags were initialled ‘SBJ’ in an ornate hand soon mastered by lads henceforth to be known as flag-stylers, and the flags were tied onto lengths of rope at measured intervals and were strung from rooftop to rooftop of the flatblocks – dozens of them, then hundreds, then the sky was filled – and the effect was at once festive and pious.

Swearing all but disappeared. Beards were trimmed. Fornication – previously on the Northside an activity as common as sucking air and to be found, at all angles of the clock, on stairwells, in turf-bunkers, behind avenue wind-shelters, generally everywhere, and in broad daylight – was confined now to marital beds, and was soberly practised, missionary-style, and swiftly, wordlessly concluded. It became the habit of the Norrie gentleman to bite the pillow at the end-moment so as not to embarrass the air with expressions of bodily joy.

The yellow flags spun, the yellow flags turned, the yellow flags shimmered.

And though they were tied securely enough to withstand even the harshest assaults of Big Nothin’ hardwind, the flags were found when the wind got up to create a many-voiced cacophony – they rattled and groaned and sang in the wind, and if one listened to the flags for long enough, the effect was mesmeric, haunting, and it became the common understanding this spring that messages were being transmitted by Sweet Baba Jay through the medium of the flags.

Oh indeed.

And there were those on the Northside this particular spring we’re talking about who became acknowledged experts in flag-listening. These were generally older gents who had known a share of life. You would see them crouched on their haunches, there on the avenues, in the hot April afternoons, beneath the flags, listening, and betimes approaching each other to compare notes. Quiet, interested faces on them. Faces full of… Significance. And it became the practice that by teatime each day the listeners (as they were quickly named) would convene in the shebeen basement of a Croppy Boy Heights flatblock and come to agreement about the gist of the day’s message. The message would then be written in block letters a foot tall upon banners that were carried along the Northside avenues, for a period of one hour precisely, by local sluts. The sluts were given the punishment of banner-bearing for their attempted seductions of decent Baba-devoted young Norrie men. At holler-meetings nightly, it was argued that banner-bearing was hardly punishment enough for these Baba-denying harlot bitches, and that their private parts should by force be rendered useless, with the aid of knitting needles and hot knives, but this was controversial. An editorial comment in the Vindicator , while acknowledging and declaring joy at what it called ‘The Miracle of the Flags’ – a souvenir supplement was issued – had quietly suggested that genital mutilation might, at this stage, be a step too far, even by the standards of the Bohane uptown. And so for now the sluts merely marched with their heavy banners, and they wept under the strain of the weight, and upon the banners were such flag-whispered messages from the Sweet Baba Jay as:

Sweet Baba Jay was telling them which side was buttered, sure enough, and the people of the Northside were eternally grateful for His Direction. Each night, devout Norrie families would line the avenues for the slut parade. They would kneel and babble in tongues and they gave lusty voice to their Baba-love as the banners were carried past. If the sluts were treated cruelly and occasionally bottled as they stumbled along, it was felt that it was no more than those painted-up little trollops deserved. Certain sluts could take it no more, however, and they banded together, and they fled the Northside Rises under cover of dark.

Yes and so it was this springtime we are talking about that near-feral Norrie sluts hit the downtown, and began to roam the Back Trace, and they took up with the bands of wilding girls who had lately come together there in devotion to the killer-bint Ching, and their shrieks of solidarity were heard across the city – the Northside and the Trace united – and most surely these would mark the summer to come.

I could hear them from the back room of the Ancient & Historical Bohane Film Society as I sat late and drank exquisite Portuguese wine direct from the neck of the bottle, and you may trust, as ever, that I made careful notes.

Beyond the shrieks, the river carried as ever from Big Nothin’ its black throbbing.

Oh and heed this, my fiends, my tushies, my gullible children:

There was nothing good coming in off that river.

Macu, I miss you so badly. Especially at night. I lie there half raving without you beside me. It’s as though you’ve been years gone from me. I can’t even hear your voice. I close my eyes and I picture you but I can’t hear you. I tell you, Macu, I feel barely human without you. I can’t be on Beauvista without you. I think about you all the time. I am ashamed of how jealous I’ve been. All I can say is my love for you has maddened me. I see that clearly now I’m alone. I asked the Gant to do his worst. I asked him to test you and I knew he would try. Please don’t blame him, Macu. The game was mine, he saw it only as a chance to win you back. And I pity the man now his lonely years. I would not have had the strength for them. I’m sorry, Macu. And it’s hideous, I know, but my game has proven your faithfulness. I want you back so badly. Remember once when we were young and we walked in the Trace one night and we found a bottle of moscato, perfectly chilled, just waiting for us on a stoop? With nobody anywhere to be seen. Just you and me in the Back Trace, Macu, and we drank the wine. I ask you to forgive me. I know you will need time. You’ll need these months to understand the pain that was in me. But I know your love is there still. If you want me to pull back from the Fancy, I will. Mr Mannion will deliver this – where are you, Macu? I think maybe I sense you in the Trace. I expect no letter in return. All I ask is that you think about the years ahead. Apart we are nothing. If you choose to come back to me and give me life, Macu, you will meet me at the Café Aliados. At 12 midnight. On the night of August Fair.

It was the eve of May at the Supper Room, and Tommie the Keep had the ceiling fans set to their highest ratchet, and they whirred noirishly against the night, and were stoical, somehow, like the old uncles of the place, all raspy and emphysemic. Tommie’s eyes scanned the room and read a hard scare in each and every one of the Bohane merchants, the Bohane faces. Everybody’s nerves were shot, and the sweet, seductive voice of the girl singer as it wafted from the corner stage seemed only to amplify the tension.

‘ As looooong as dat yella moon riiiise …’

She sang a slow, blue-beat calypso – old love songs of the lost-time – and she clicked her fingers lazily with the melody born into her, the tips of her fingers opening and coming to rest between beats against the gleaming length of her silver, sequinned dress. She had for percussion a lone, sleepy-eyed drummer seated at an ancient snare, his hair quiffed high with pomade. She sang in the proper, carefully modulated Bohane calypso style – we are stern about such things – and she had a good charge of huskiness in the delivery, and certainly she was beautiful.