Colum McCann - Fishing the Sloe-Black River

“Sorry?”

“The school and the drugs. No wonder they call it the junior high.”

“My boyfriend gave it to me,” says Fancypants, scratching her head. “It’s no big deal really, I suppose. Just sentimental value.”

A finger of guilt doing circles in his stomach. He touches his hat, pulls the flap down over his eyes. “Well, dear,” he says, “I must be on me way. Awful sorry about the blouse. But I must get on home. My wife’ll be fussing and fuming.”

“Thank you,” she says. “Sorry for delaying you.” Oh, but she’s awful nice, this Fancypants with her twirly blond hair and her lipstick. Maybe he should run on home and retrieve it for her. Juanita wasn’t mad keen about it anyway. Didn’t like the blue frills.

A thick gravelly voice comes from behind his shoulder. “Whose wife might that be, Mr. Flaherty?”

He turns. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what the hell is Clarence LeBlanc doing in here? Standing by the door, the lanky drink-of-water has a vicious sneer on his face. “Flaherty, you don’t have a wife.”

A buckle of knees, a heart thump. Where the hell did LeBlanc appear from?

“Whose wife are we talking about?” LeBlanc says again.

“I have to go home, dear,” he says to Fancypants. “Excuse me, now. The tea’s boiling. I hope you find the blouse.”

“Whose wife, Mr. Flaherty?” LeBlanc stands with his arms stretched out, blocking the doorway. “You don’t have no wife.”

“If you’ll kindly excuse me,” he says to LeBlanc. Behind him he can hear Fancypants stuttering something. “Are you missing something, ma’am?” says LeBlanc to Fancypants.

“Just a blouse. I misplaced a blouse. It’s no big deal.”

“You don’t happen to know anything about the young lady’s blouse, do you, Mr. Flaherty?”

“Not a thing. Could you excuse me?” He puts his hand on LeBlanc’s shoulder to get beyond him. Christ, but it’s hot. LeBlanc pushes him in the chest. He stumbles backward.

“Pervert,” hisses LeBlanc. “You a pervert, Flaherty. Stealing women’s clothes. I been knowing it all along.”

* * *

The day she left he stood in front of the door, just like this, except he was the one blocking. So many years ago. Another steaming New Orleans day. Her hair was ashy and ferocious that afternoon, her skin wallpapered with grief. I’ll sing to you, Juanita. You’ve sung enough, and I’ve heard them all before. I’ll make it anew. Get out of my way please, Danny. I’ll try harder. No. I’ll go with you. I’m going where you can’t find me. Why? I’ve had enough. Of what? Of everything. I don’t understand. And you never will. He tried to touch her hair. She pulled back. There were lines on her face now. They were both so much older than the moon they had sung to. When will you be back, Juanita? When the sun comes up in the west, Danny, and maybe even a few days after that. Then him leaning against the door, watching her go.

That was July 9, 1967. Twenty-five years ago to the day. The summer of love they called it. A bad name, and not true at all. The cabarets, the bells, the canvas, the movies, the sheer theater of it all, the wonder — gone. He had fallen to Caffola. She had fallen, not unlike a silver goddess. Their voices had fallen too. Down somewhere deep in the belly of memory. And the hope as well. The courtyard complex was gray as granite that day when she left. She slipped out the door and he thought of home, far away, far away. The garden of rock. The limestone that lets the water seep through. The turloughs with their disappearing water. The strangely colored flowers. She would be back. He would wait. Granite was impermeable. That he had learned. Granite doesn’t let water through.

* * *

It’s a slow punch, an old man’s roundhouse, and LeBlanc should have seen it coming. But it lands crisply on his jaw, sweetly, no fear, like old times. A good healthy crunch through his fingers. If only he could have hit Caffola like that before the bastard smeared mustard oil on his gloves. September 9, 1938. Falling sideways with a thud. Referee calling the count. Juanita up on the ropes. Shouting in Spanish. Danny get up. Get up. Looking like she had four eyes. Everything swirling. Stumbling on the ropes. Finished. Gone. A Chusla Mo Chroí, and it’s all over now, Danny boy.

LeBlanc falls the same way, splayed across the plastic chairs, a pack of cigarettes tumbling from his shirt pocket. Fancypants lets out a little yelp. And it’s out the door, running.

Over a pothole and far away. Far away, far away. And a glance behind. Though your steps be heavy, you’ll trot lightly along the way. Hup two, Flaherty. On home to Juanita. Tea’s ready. A dab of milk and a spoonful of sugar, dearest. He looks over his shoulder, breathing heavily. LeBlanc is behind him now, one hundred yards to the rear, blood streaming from his mouth. Oh, a great punch that one. Hit him good-oh. Yessir. Put me in the Hall of Fame. Hang my gloves beside those of the Brown Bomber. A fabulous punch indeed.

LeBlanc is roaring something obscene behind him. Is nothing sacred at all? But he’s gaining awful fast. Past the bank. Alongside the chicken shop. If I can make the flashing green man, he thinks, I’ll be home free. Myself and Juanita can watch Tyrone on the TV, flinging his lovely fists at the sky. Then I’ll steal out tonight and leave Miss Jackson a blouse. White with blue frills. Awful nice that blouse, but Juanita just didn’t like it. Women. They’re so shagging finicky. Run, Flaherty, run. Run. Look at the trouble they get you into. He looks over his shoulder again. LeBlanc is only forty yards away. Christ, the boy is fast. Into the traffic he darts. Hup two three. LeBlanc is screaming awful loud. Well, fuck you too, my bonnie boy. A screech of tires. Thank jaysus that green man isn’t red. Onwards. Upwards. Away. Quick, quick, quick. He’ll never catch me. Along the sidewalk.

Juanita, when I’m home make it two spoonfuls of sugar. To help the medicine go down. Then I’ll sing you the finest song you ever heard. Past the flower shop. He makes it to the steps of the complex, then turns around. LeBlanc is right there. He looks up the stairwell, toward the graffiti, then back at LeBlanc again. Gaining fast. Awful, awful fast. Fists clenched. Sneer on his face. Eyes like scythes. Up the steps. One two three. Alongside the graffiti. One two. Panting. One. One. Two. Leaning against the wall. Gasping now. Looking backward. LeBlanc reaching out for him.

Christ, he thinks, with a huge skip of the heart, buy that bastard a wheelbarrow.

Look at you and a smile on you like the cracked vase that Mammy kept in the kitchen cupboard. The flowery one. With the downward chink, like an upturned smile. Daisies, I think they were, with little yellow figurines leaping all the way through them. A poet one time wrote about a vase, or an urn, and something about beauty and truth. A damnsight we were away from truth those nights, hai? You jumping around the dancehall like a prayer in an air raid, your hair running wild and frothy all around your shoulders. Weren’t we a sight? You, sneaking off down to the town square with Francis Hogan, the only lad in town with a motorcar, done up to the nines, your mascara on, your ginger hair flying. Him with his elbow hung out the window, smoking, his curls all slicked back with oil. What a sight! Me sitting sidesaddle on Tommy Coyne’s red tractor, chugging our way out to the fields behind the elderberry forest, going to make hay, as we say. Wasn’t that the time of it? A tube of lipstick was a precious thing in those days.

The young ones nowadays, they don’t think we were up to it at all. Here we are, getting letters from the grandkids, all over the globe, and I’ll be bowled arse-over-backward if they think we ever misbehaved. Did I tell you about the letter I got a few days ago from young Fiachra in Amsterdam? Tells me the tulips look lovely in spring. I ask you, eighteen years old and he wants me to think he’s looking at the tulips! Not only making hay, but he’s probably threshing the damn stuff as well. They do that sort of thing in Amsterdam. It’s a long way from Tipperary. Or a long way to tip her hairy, as Tommy Coyne was once heard to sing, outside the dancehall, sitting on the back of his tractor. Holy God! I don’t mean to be rude, Moira, but I kid you not. Sitting on the back of his tractor with the blackberry juice on his teeth and his hair in a cowlick: It’s a long way to tip her hairy, it’s a long way to go, it’s a long way to tip the hairy of the sweetest gal I know, Godblessher. God bless us and save us! It’s the years, Moira. I’m wont to ramble, as you well know.