Sean Cullen - The Prince of Neither Here Nor There

70 As if weird things weren’t happening all the time.

71 There have been many short overachievers: Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Billy Joel are just three examples.

The first thing that struck Brendan was the overwhelming noise. A palpable wave of sound assaulted him, a mixture of music, shouted conversation, braying laughter, and the drone of television commentary.

The next thing that registered was the smell: a combination of flowers, heavy spice, and wood smoke. The mixture was unlike anything he’d ever smelled. The closest comparison would have been what his house smelled like on Christmas Eve when the fresh scent of pine mixed with the spicy cinnamon and cloves his mother used when she made mulled wine. Add to that the warm earthy smell of gingerbread, and you were getting close.

His eyes adjusted last. After the darkness outside, the brightness of the pub was blinding. Yes, pub, for indeed, the Swan seemed to be a pub.

The decor was typical of the pubs he had been in on his family trip to Ireland a couple of summers ago. Framed ads for Guinness stout were displayed on the walls. The ceiling maze of rafters were hung with a bewildering array of ornaments, dried flowers, glowing crystals, candelabra, and strange antique tools whose purpose Brendan could only guess at. The room before him was jammed with small round wooden tables ringed with little three-legged stools, and these tables were in turn jammed with people enjoying a variety of beverages. Around the walls, large booths were also crammed with patrons. A massive stone fireplace dominated the wall to his left, a fire burning merrily. Little insects chased each other in and out of the flames, catching the updraft of warm air and tumbling out into the room only to dart in again. Brendan’s mouth dropped open when he realized the creatures weren’t insects: they were Lesser Faeries! Diminutives, he corrected himself. They darted in and out of the flames like moths, chattering and laughing.

Brendan tore his eyes away from the fire. A wooden stairway led up into the smoky rafters on the right. On the far wall, a long mahogany bar glowed under the light of torches jammed into sconces on the wall. The rustic atmosphere was slightly marred by the TVs hanging over the bar and the giant flat screen in the centre of the wall to his left. He looked closer and saw that the frames of the TVs were all ornately carved out of wood. The screens flickered with sporting events, news broadcasts, and infomercials largely ignored by the patrons. He was about to turn away from the screens when a familiar face flashed on the news channel.

Chester Dallaire’s face sneered from the screen. The picture was taken from a class photo. A caption underneath the photo read LOCAL BOY MISSING! HAVE YOU SEEN HIM?

Brendan groaned, “Oh, no! What have I done to Chester?” A sudden burst of music distracted him from his misery.

A small band occupied a booth in the corner. Crammed elbow to elbow into the tiny space, they managed to strike up a lilting reel. There was a fiddler, a man playing a harp, and another beating on a flat drum with a two-headed stick he held in the three middle fingers of his left hand. They were in mid-song, banging out a lively reel. The people at the surrounding tables and booths were clapping along, and one person was on top of a table doing a complicated dance that seemed to involve only his feet. The clapping and shouts of encouragement were almost drowned out by a DJ standing in the opposite corner of the room at a table on a raised platform. She was mixing heavy beats and tribal rhythms that wouldn’t have been out of place in any of the clubs downtown. Her ears and nose were pierced with studs, and her hair stood up on end as if it were frightened of her scalp. Some people had cleared away a few tables, and they were gyrating to that music. The two musical sources and styles were totally at odds, but as Brendan listened, they seemed to resolve into a complementary counterpoint that was a melding of the old and the new. He wished his father could hear this music. He would love the beautiful chaos.

The most startling thing about the Swan was the clientele. Everyone was a Faerie. Every table was taken up by Faeries of every description, crammed into tables, leaning at the bar, staring up at the TV, where a hockey game was underway. The air was full of tiny Faeries, flitting in swarms through clouds of wood smoke, sitting on the rafters, their wings drawn up against their tiny backs.

Brendan shook his head in wonder. He thought the scene couldn’t get any weirder and then… a cellphone rang. A Faerie with hair an unnatural shade of green fumbled in her handbag while everyone pointed at her and jeered.

The bartender shouted, “No cellphones in here! House rule!” And rang a bell. The crowd began chanting and pounding on the tables.

“No cells! No cells! No tweet, twitting, bleeting bells. No cells! No cells! Curse them to the seven hells!”

“One more time, Edie, and you owe us all a round!”

“Turn it off!”

“Sorry!” She pulled out a slim piece of wood that was glowing and pulsing. She keyed the power off. When she was done, she held it up to jeering applause.

Brendan looked around at these faces and realized they weren’t so completely removed from his world. He might have a kinship with these people. Then Leonard’s deep voice bellowed, cutting off all conversation and bringing the music to a sudden halt.

“People, he is here! The Misplaced Prince has arrived!”

There was a sudden hush. After the initial din, the silence was deafening. All eyes shifted to Brendan as he stood just inside the door of the pub. He didn’t know how to react. He shifted from foot to foot, tried to lean Kim’s stick against the wall but only managed to drop it with a clatter to the polished hardwood floor. He swallowed hard and finally raised his hand and waved lamely to the throng. “Hey?”

A rich, jovial voice boomed out, “Sure it is himself, the Prince of Neither Here Nor There! In the flesh!”

A great barrel-chested man dressed in a three-piece suit about two sizes too small for him burst through the crowd, his arms spread wide in greeting. His face was florid, cheeks red, and eyes bright blue. “There he is and isn’t he just a picture.”

Brendan was lifted off his feet and crushed in an embrace that smelled of whisky, pine, and some muskier scent he couldn’t identify. When Brendan thought his ribs would finally break, the man released him from the bear hug. The man’s grimy, calloused hands clasped Brendan’s upper arms as the watery blue eyes looked him up and down.

“And isn’t he just a fine figure of a man, I ask you? Could he be any better?”

“Sir…” Brendan started to speak but the man cut him off.

“Sir! Did you hear it? ‘Sir’ he calls me? Me being his very own uncle? Sir indeed!” The man laughed and smacked Brendan so hard on the shoulder that he staggered against the wall.

Brendan recovered his balance and looked at the man. “You… you’re my uncle?”

“I surely am! On your mother’s side. Say hello to your uncle Og.”

Brendan didn’t know what to say. He studied the man’s face. Could there be any resemblance? The eyes maybe? The shape of the face? “I don’t know what to say. This has all been a bit crazy.”

Og bent over double laughing at that. “Crazy? Yes indeed, it is crazy! Mad! Mad as a bag of otters! Ah you’re one of us, through and through, me old son! Come now! You’ll have a drink!” He began hauling Brendan by the arm toward the bar. Brendan didn’t resist. He couldn’t have if he wanted to. Uncle Og’s grip was powerful and his calloused fingers were begrimed with oil. “Whisky fer the lad!”