Colum McCann - Fishing the Sloe-Black River

Better be careful, but she asked me to take her along towards the caboose tomorrow night. I told her that maybe it wasn’t a good idea. She says why. I’m not into telling her about the churners and all, but I tell her a little about how I didn’t get the bulldozer job. She says she knew about the dozers and that’s all right she just wants to see it. Goes on about the homesick lark again, and something weird about her driving the caboose through the universe with her old man. That’s madness if you ask me. Seeing how it’s propped up on cement blocks, I don’t think it’s going anywhere soon. But I said alright, maybe we’ll take a wander up there one night but we better not get caught or it’s my arse on a string. Then she winks at me and asks me not to tell a soul, those flowers bobbing away. She’s not too pally with Georgie anymore for some reason and says she doesn’t like Barney at all. Was awful happy when I told her he was quitting, but I didn’t tell her what job he was taking. She’s had enough shite thrown at her these last few weeks.

By all accounts they’re going looney trying to get her to go to the dentist. She opened up her gob and showed me a huge hole in the back of her mouth where the molars should be. That’s from eating too much sugar I says, and she starts laughing like a bloody hyena. Says she tucks the yellow boys in there with her tongue when the doctors give them to her. Hides them away. She’ll be fucked if they’re going to dope her up to the gills. She’s not thick, Ofeelia. Bet she saw that in a movie somewhere. Tom bloody Cruise in the stars again maybe.

* * *

Fucking Dolores and her hawk eyes. Out we were in the corridors talking about taking our stroll and along she comes, in her whites, and reams me out for talking with the patients. Ofeelia goes slinking back to the dorm, a look as long as the Shannon on her mush. Dolores says she’s going to tell the big boys if I ever do something like that again. Every day she’s Miss Up-your-Arse about every fucking thing, clean the floors, wash the sinks, the storeroom needs bloody cleaning. Sometimes I have the urge to tell her about Barney wanking in there but what’s the point. The fucker’s leaving in a few days to work on that road for the mining boys and before you know it he’ll be wearing a Louis Copeland and driving a Beemer. Phoned them myself again today but they said employment’s on hold for now. Some fucking good that does me.

Sometimes I think about Ofeelia and maybe getting a kiss or two one night. If she doesn’t mind the teeth and all. I’ve been thinking about getting braces one of these days. I’ll tell the dentist that story about Ofeelia and the yellow boys. That’ll crack the bastard up. Maybe he’ll give me a discount.

* * *

Trial run, she called it. Thank God Dolores had a day off. And Barney is finished, a couple of days off to get ready for the job he says. I said no at first. It’s getting a bit dicey. But she hands me one of those flowers again and a man can’t refuse that, can he.

Out we slipped at half past two and it’s one hell of a fucking hike up to the caboose, around and down by Martin’s place, then up the road where Barney’s JCB will be doing the trick. Wind blowing in from the sea and all. Had to give her my coat and up she comes and pecks me on the cheek, telling me I’m awful sweet. Like sugar, I say, and she laughs. We scooted around the side of the barbed wire and there was a light in the window behind the curtains. Sat ourselves down in the heather on the hillside. Security man probably doing the same thing Barney gets up to.

Got a bit of a tear in her eye even when she looked at the place, Ofeelia did. Talking about the flower beds and all. Used to be there wasn’t a piece of machinery in sight, only that telescope poking out of the roof. Sometimes she’d play hide-and-seek with her mother under the caboose. Got very fucking strange at one point, though, and started saying things from the Bible, all messed around. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil for I have the biggest fucking JCBs in the valley. Just like that, her lip twitching. But then she says sorry, I’m just upset, and started talking normal again, reaching up for the flowers going berserk on her head.

Found out about the driving through the universe. Seems her Da used to play a game or two where they’d sit on the bloody roof and pretend they were driving the carriage through the stars. Weird that. They’d pretend they were train drivers just scooting around the sky.

Awful clever about the names of things though, she is. Told her all I knew was the Plough but she had a list as long as your bloody arm. There’s one called Betelgeuse and I knew that from the film. But there’s others you couldn’t pronounce even if you went to university. Seems her old dear would get a bit upset when her father got rude, parked the caboose in O’Ryan’s groin or through the legs of the Gemini sisters. But most of all they just had fun, she said, pretending they were driving, blowing the horn as they drove past Mars. Had me cracking up, she did, all that talk about stars. O’Ryan’s the bloke with the big sword. And Venus is the one for love, she said. And it’s a grand old bright one too.

We were going to do a bit of the driving game ourselves there on the hillside, but I looked at my bloody watch and it was almost four and we had to run back to the bin like the clappers. Was hankering for a bit of slap bang wallop but there was no time at all. She bummed a cigarette off me before she went back to the dorm, but I’m going to have to give those fucking things up because I was wheezing like a horse after running and then scrubbing the place down. Strange that, the way she said it was a trial run. I’ll be fucked if I’m going back there. Simple as that. And I’m not getting any more syrup either, even though she asked for four bottles and gave me a tenner. Seems she’s back in with Georgie because she said she’d be coming for the stroll too. I said no fucking way, count me out of this lark, I’ll be scrubbing the floors, no ifs, ands, or buts, Georgie girl’s as mad as a fucking hatter.

* * *

Johnnie Logan’s on about the miners again. There he is, his photo plastered all over the newspapers. Says the land belonged to others before it was ours, now we’re giving it away again. Can’t see much sense in that since there’s no Brits running around these parts these days. Still and all he’s talking like the clappers about the empire and multi-something companies and all that stuff. Johnnie Boy should have a go at Hollywood.

I was sitting in the town square listening to him run his mouth off and thinking about old Ofeelia and the way she’d take a flying trip on the damn thing. That must have been a sight. Then I got to thinking that maybe Logan is right. Maybe they should fuck off back to Ballyfermot and leave our mountains alone. Then again if they gave me a job I’d kick the living daylights out of Logan and never vote for the pillock again. Told Ofeelia that I’d make one more trip up there with her if Georgie didn’t come along. She says ah go on, but I said no way José. She was biting away at her lip for a while, but then just gave me a goozer and said okay, no Georgie. This time she gave me one quick smack on the lips. Boys oh boys talk about the rise of the empire. Johnnie Logan would have said a thing or two if he’d seen my trousers.

* * *

All settled so. Ofeelia wants me to take a wire cutters, a hammer, and a screwdriver from the storeroom. Says she just wants to go up and touch the caboose again. Just get through the barbed wire and touch the damn thing with her fingers. I’ll go along. I don’t give a shite. Barney was in the Humbert today telling people I’d become a fucking patient. He was quoting something about to be or not to be. That smart arse is looking for his comeuppance. Him up there on the dozers making money hand over fist. It was pissing rain tonight so we didn’t go outside, me and Ofeelia. Found a flower down behind the toilet bowl though.