Colum McCann - Songdogs

I got used to the skip in the bicycle pedals — a bit like learning to dance with a limp — and I began counting the number of rotations my feet made. Still, it was an effort getting up the hill by O’Leary’s pub. Stopped in to see Mrs O’Leary, but there was only a young boy behind the counter, sipping a glass of red lemonade behind the brand-new mahogany bar, lots of plush red seats roaming around the room, not at all like it used to be when Mam came here in the afternoons and chatted with her about chickens and the like. The bartender told me that Mrs O’Leary had passed away three years before, went in her sleep. Felt my stomach sink, had a quick pint of watery Harp, toasted her vast memory, pedalled on.

I came back to the house, a vision of Mrs O’Leary rolling in my head. I had once seen her dance across her bar-room floor with a chair clutched lovingly to her breast, feet sliding in beerstains and her hair thrown back in red ribbons — she was one of the few people around who made Mam laugh.

All of them going, I thought, all of that wild and leaping world on its way out.

The old man still had that Victrola of Mam’s in the living room, but it must have conked out years ago. I tried to crank it up and play some mariachi music of hers in honour of Mrs O’Leary, but he just laid his head back in the armchair and shook his head, no. He rose up and went to the kitchen, all lopsided with the pain again. He didn’t notice the bags of groceries at the front door. He was going to make himself a cup of instant soup, but, when he lifted the pan off the stove, the boiling water slipped a little. The pan fell down into the sink, toppled over. I heard it gurgling down the drain. He looked at the pan for the longest time, spat down on to it, turned around, saw me.

‘I’ll put on some soup,’ I said.

He ran a hand across his mouth: ‘I can put on the fucken water myself, all right?’ But he didn’t. He brushed past me, back to his armchair. He smelled terrible. This body of his is an effigy, he carts it around on the stick of himself.

I put on the pan — had to wash the spit from the bottom — and made the soup, along with a slice of bread and some butter. He nodded his head, slurped, coughed: ‘I could have done it myself, you know.’ He finished off his soup, left the mug on the floor, and went to wipe his lips with his hanky — it was caked in snot, with a little bit of blood speckled in it. He tucked the hanky away in his trousers pocket and washed his dish.

I took out the packet of Major and threw it on his lap.

‘That’s the last of those,’ I said.

‘Ah, you’re a star, Conor, thanks a million.’

‘I heard Mrs O’Leary’s not around anymore.’

‘Oh, she kicked the bucket a long time ago. Chock-full of whiskey, of course.’

‘Of course.’

‘A grand way to go, I suppose,’ he said.

‘I suppose.’

‘Took four bottles down with her.’

‘Took what?’

‘Took four bottles down into the ground with her.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘Bushmills.’ He smacked his lips together. ‘Someone went along to the graveyard one night and dug up the fucken coffin.’

‘You’re not serious.’

‘Some thirsty bastard,’ he said.

He ran his fist across his mouth. ‘Talking of — is that tea ready yet?’

He sat back and slowly, ritually, banged the bottom end of the packet against his palm, took the plastic wrapper off, turned one of the cigarettes upside-down. ‘For good luck,’ he said. I went upstairs and took a shower, got dressed. Came down and asked him if he was interested in going for a pint in O’Leary’s, but he just sort of laughed at me.

‘What would ya want to hang out with an old fella for?’

I wasn’t about to start arguing. Enough of his self-pity. Before I left I went over to the fire, put on some peat, and ruffled it with the poker. He had some of his fishing flies placed on the stonework, to dry them out. He sat up and said that fishing flies were like good women — they should never be stored away while moist — and laughed away as if it was the funniest thing in the world.

I left him sitting in the chair and went back out on the bike again into the boneblack night.

When I came back from O’Leary’s, he’d collapsed in the chair. His fly was open like a wound and his hands were down by his crotch. His handkerchief was tucked into the nape of his neck. It was as if he’d been about to serve himself, then forgot. In the kitchen I could tell that he’d been pissing in the sink — he hadn’t rinsed it out and there were still two saucers there, one of them with little splotches of yellow on the side. Disgusting. The least he could have done was take out the saucers.

Watched him as he dozed. He raised a hand to wipe something from his eye, maybe some sort of vision, a dream, an absurdity. But I can’t imagine him having dreams anymore. What would he summon up? Maybe something slow and soporific, moving itself into blackness, a slow waltz towards oblivion. Or might it be some secret of technicolour? Who knows? Perhaps life goes out as it once came in — down to the secular brilliance of a single hydrogen atom, imploding back on to itself, the emergence of a songdog on the rim of nothing. A fatuous idea really. Too many pints of Harp in me. Didn’t recognise anyone in O’Leary’s pub, not a single soul, maybe everyone has emigrated. Sat in the corner and flipped a few bar coasters up and down on the table. Plenty of old men in there though, moving their dentures up and down in their mouths, the oval dawns of yellow nicotine stains on their hands.

Woke up late, feeling a bit nasty. All that Harp. Nectar of the dogs. He gave a laugh when he saw me, went to the cupboard and got out the whiskey.

‘For what ails ya,’ he said.

I took a quick shot and drank a few glasses of water. He upped himself from the table, said he was going to go down to catch his fish. But he must have run out of good flies, because he got out some bait from the very back of the freezer shelf — old shrimp of some sort in a plastic container. Boiled water in a saucepan and placed the tub in the hot water, stood over it, inhaling some of the steam, said it was good for cleaning out his head, that I should try it myself. Every now and then he pushed the container down in the water with his fingers, submerging it, licked at his fingers. They must have been burnt from the hot water, but it didn’t seem to faze him any. He plucked the plastic tub out, said he didn’t have time to wait for the shrimp to thaw, put some of it in his overcoat pocket. Stale shrimp won’t help the smell of him any, I thought, once it unfreezes in his pocket it’ll really stink him to high heaven. Illegal bait, too, but he said he didn’t care, a fish is a fish is a fish, especially if he catches that giant salmon of his.

Took myself off into town on the bike for a bit of breakfast in Gaffney’s hotel. Same old place, yellowing table doilies, ducks in flight on the wall, carpet curling up at the edges, the waft of brewing tea, farmers smoking cigarettes in the corners. Sat at the table nearest the door and read the back page of the Connaught Telegraph. Ordered up a big feed with extra sausages. The waitress knew me. Took me a while to remember, but I finally did — Maria from the convent school, cheekbones you could abseil, hair to the waist. I used to blow kisses at her when she walked past the handball alley.

She kept coming over to my table with bits and pieces — butter, marmalade, an extra spoon — until she finally asked me. I wasn’t in the mood for talking, pretended it wasn’t me, put on my best-dressed Wyoming drawl.

Still, nothing better than a few sausages and rashers for a hangover, and I felt like ninety afterwards. Left a pound coin for a tip and she came out running after me, hair flying, said we don’t accept tips in this part of the world. She said she knew it was me all along — the dark skin, I suppose — and smiled.