Colum McCann - Fishing the Sloe-Black River

Waking from his nap he sees Orla at the stove, cooking lunch. He comes up behind her, puts his arms around her waist, as she watches the soup boil on the old stove.

“I really don’t want to go,” he whispers again.

She leans her head back on his shoulder.

“He’s a freak, for crying out loud.”

“Maybe she loves him.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Listen, love,” says Orla. “I graduate in six months. We can leave then. Go back to Ireland. Or you can get that job in Oregon.”

“Ah, Jesus,” he says, turning away from her. He shuffles over to the wall and stares at a print that hangs in a crooked frame. “I’m really tired of it, hon.”

“Have a bowl of soup. You’ll feel better at the wedding.”

“I will in me arse.”

“There too,” she laughs.

“To hell with the soup.…”

“We already rented your suit.”

“The place’ll be full of freaks.”

“You and your freaks,” says Orla. “Would ya give it a break, for crying out loud?”

* * *

Dana met Will in the park. He sat in his wheelchair, wearing a long roll of gray beard that went down to his stomach, as if growing it in order to cover the place where he had no legs. He was more than twice her age. Paperback books about Vietnam curled dog-eared in his overcoat pockets. When he was eighteen his country had given him a haircut, a set of camos, a survival pack, and a machine gun and sent him off to the war. While he was in Saigon, Will’s mother sent him a postcard saying that he was safe because he came from a good Christian family and he was “washed in the Blood of the Lamb.” When he came home, in an airplane full of cripples and body bags, he wrote a note to his mother on the inside of a matchbox. He told her that, yeah, she was right but she spelled it wrong, although “Nam” just happened to rhyme.

Dana didn’t tell Padraic about the man she met in the park. She began to get free rein and was allowed to walk down to the park on her own in the afternoons. She came back to the home, her face flushed. He wrote florid reports about her in the bottom of her file. She had begun to learn braille. He ordered books full of folklore from Ireland and read the stories. Under a special government program she learned how to walk with a guide dog. She drew more pictures of her own mythical Dana. They gained a more singular form, the colors vibrant and wild, the edges sharper, the lines less violent. Padraic began to wonder what might happen if she went to art college, and late in the evenings, he searched through brochures, flicking along through the photos of colleges smothered in autumn leaves, small New England spires rising in a background of hills, handsome men in overcoats and young women with healthy flushes in their cheeks. When he told her that he might be able to get her a scholarship, she just smiled and nodded her head.

He was in his office when another counselor told him that Dana was going to get married. He laughed at first. He had seen Will before, recognized him from the subway cars, where he regularly rattled a tin can, negotiating his chair through the crowd. There was a ferocious sadness in the veteran’s eyes that made everyone on the carriage turn the other way while he spun along, clanging the tin can back and forth, held in gloves that had no fingers. He lived in a small hovel just down the road from the children’s home, a black hole of other refugees and veterans, a place that seemed to invite a peculiar brand of bitterness.

When Padraic asked Dana about the wedding, she just raised her head, flung her fingers through her hair, and said that Will loved her, that nothing could stop her. They sat there, silent for a long time, the young girl fidgeting at her blouse, tears collecting at the edge of her cheeks. He went to the window, saying nothing as Dana shuffled out of the office. Later she asked him if he would give her away at the ceremony. He agreed but went for a long walk in the park and noticed for the first time how many eyes, blue and brown and green, were watching him as he threw small birch branches into the pond.

* * *

When Padraic and Orla arrive at the church, the pews are quite empty. Some of Will’s friends are gathered up near the altar, leaning in over the wheelchair and fixing the groom’s narrow, pale blue tie. Will is taking a furtive sip from a small bottle, wiping the sweat from his palms up and down his artificial legs. He has bought a new pair of fingerless gloves for the day. The priest seems drunk, stumbling out of the sacristy with a red stain on the front of his vestments. Vietnam vets with long hair and NO NUKE badges are running around with video cameras perched on their shoulders like rocket launchers.

A crowd of about thirty is gathered, including six of the blind kids from the home, brought along by two of the counselors. There are four guide dogs in the aisles, and one of them is barking loudly. Somebody must have changed their mind about the rule, but Padraic notices that neither Jimi nor Marcia nor Chocolate Charlie is there — they must have been put on room restriction after last night’s fracas.

Orla kisses Padraic gently on the cheek and takes her seat near the front. He stands at the back of the church, waiting. He nods to a few people, shoves his hands deep into his pockets, mutters under his breath, then cranes his neck around to the parking lot. Dana eventually arrives in a battered Oldsmobile, long white ribbons in a frenzy on the hood. Her wedding dress is long and drawn tightly around her waist. Makeup is smudged around her eyes. Her hair is pulled into a bun at the back of her head. She holds a small bouquet of flowers. Padraic walks to the car and guides her by the elbow toward the church steps while a few guests snap their cameras.

“Padraic,” she says. “Do I look okay?”

“You look great.”

“Really?”

“Fabulous.”

“Thanks.”

“There’s always time to change your mind, you know.”

“You’re like my father now,” says Dana, leaning close to him. “You’re not supposed to say things like that.”

He draws her arm tightly to his. Someone plays the wedding song on a guitar, the tune high and twangy. For a moment he tries to describe the church to her, the stained-glass windows, the rows of shoulders, the guide dogs at the side of the pews, the priest swaying slightly in the center of the altar, but he knows she’s not listening. He walks slowly with Dana up the center of the aisle as heads swivel. When the priest comes to take Dana up toward the altar, the smell of alcohol wafts through the air. She moves away easily, and Padraic sits down with a hefty thump beside Orla.

“Here we go with the show,” he says.

He holds his wife’s hand as the ceremony begins, but it’s a twisted affair — the priest stumbling over the vows, the video cameras with their little red dots arranged like measles around the church, a dog wagging its tail gently in the aisle. The sermon is brief, the priest making a comparison to the wedding at Canaan. Will and Dana fumble with the rings, and Padraic watches as Will leans his bearded face upward toward the bride to kiss her. The guitar clangs out an old sixties hit.

“Let’s get home,” Padraic whispers as lightbulbs flash near the altar.

“What about the party?” whispers Orla.

“Thunderbird and dog biscuits.”

“Jesus Christ, have some heart, will you?”

“Yeah, well.”

“Get off your yeah-well arse and follow her down the aisle,” she whispers, pushing at his ribcage.

He watches Will negotiate his wheelchair along the altar ramp. The veteran’s beard has been groomed for the day. He catches Padraic’s eye and winks for some reason. Padraic nods back. Dana’s face is creased into a tremendous smile. She shuffles down the steps of the aisle with the help of the priest, then moves toward Will’s wheelchair, where he’s waiting. Instinctively she reaches out for the handles, finds them, and begins to push the chair along. The heels of Dana’s shoes catch in her dress, but she regains her footing and begins to strut along the aisle, pushing the chair. A big laugh erupts around the church as she does a strange little skip in the air while pushing the chair.