|
------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- “Joan asked if we’d like to go to a poetry open mic at O’Malley’s with her and Steve. She’s the girl who makes chocolates for the shop. She’s nice.” ------- “You mean she’d like you to go with her,” Morris said. ------- “No, Morrie, she meant us. I told her about you, that you were this...distinguished older man.” She grinned. “She wants to meet you.” ------- “Values experience,” Morris said. “Smart girl. You ever notice that people always say ‘older.’ No one’s ever ‘old’?” ------- “You’re not old either, Morris. Take my word for it. Would you go?” ------- “Sure,” Morris said. “It’ll be different.” He didn’t want to go to a poetry open mic, but since he’d known Terry they’d done a lot of things he hadn’t wanted to do, and most the time he’d enjoyed them. Christ, she’d given him his life. ------- They went in Steve’s car. It was a beat up Land Rover with tubes for fishing rods on the front bumper. Steve was a life guard in the summer and worked in construction the rest of the year. He was a big man, rough looking. He asked Morris what he did. ------- “Trouble shooter,” Morris said. “But I’m retired.” It was a good story, just enough detail not to sound canned and so convincing he half believed it himself. He judged people’s intelligence by how well they bought it. Steve was smarter than he looked. ------- “You write poetry,” Morris said. It wasn’t a question. Terry had told him that’s why they were going. ------- “Just since last year,” Steve said. “I was drinking at O’Malley’s with a buddy. We sat in at the open mic, and I got hooked. You’ll see, Morris. Or maybe you won’t. It’s a personal thing.” ------- “Fair enough,” Morris said. ------- O’Malley’s was a roadhouse, a shabbily comfortable Irish restaurant and bar. Shillelaghies and shamrocks on the walls, framed pictures of Irish poets and rugby teams. Brendan Behan smiled down blearily at them. Morris had met Behan. The borstal boy, IRA soldier, playwright and drunk. ------- “Whatcha drinking, folks?” ------- The waiter, if that’s what he was, looked and sounded like an old IRA fighter himself. Their beers came, along with a tattered menu. Fish and chips, Irish stew, and burgers. Morris and Terry ordered the fish. Joan had a burger, and Steve said he’d try the stew. The waiter seemed preoccupied. Morris thought it was a probably a good thing there were only three items on the menu. ------- “Lot of atmosphere,” he said. ------- “Place has been here a while,” Steve said. “Plenty of Irish on the Cape. Second homes, that’s my bread and butter.” ------- “I like it here, Morrie,” Terry said. ------- “Me too,” Morris agreed. ------- The fish was good. Better than good, and the fries were the best Morris had ever eaten. He asked the waiter how they were made. ------- “Don’t know how he does anything,” the waiter said. “He doesn’t speak English.” -------The waiter was the bartender too, and he answered the phone the two times it rang while they were eating. There was a big noisy group in the next room. Cops, the waiter said. They met once a month. Cops, the IRA, dead poets, he ought to feel at home, Morris thought. There didn’t seem to be any staff beside the punchy waiter and the invisible cook. All bit actors, no director, no plot. Behan would have liked it. ------- The open mic was held in a back room where two dozen creaky chairs were squeezed together in a rough semi-circle. It was dark except for the light over a music stand. Most of the audience had brought their beers. -------A tall young man said hello and plunged immediately into a long poem. His hands and body rocked, and his words seemed to splash all over the room, words and phrases that Morris had never heard before. Was this guy for real? Was it doubletalk, some kind of trick? He didn’t think so. He wasn’t sure what he’d just heard, but he clapped as hard as everybody else. ------- They weren’t all that good, but some were even better. There was a small man with a beard whose poems sounded simple but weren’t and funny but not really. Morris felt challenged, drained. ------- When it was Steve’s turn he read a poem about building houses. Write about what you know Morris had heard. Wood and steel, the smell and feel of the tools, the materials, the beauty and the waste. There was more to Steve than he could have guessed. It was a sad poem, too, about frustration and emptiness. There was more to all of them than anyone could know. The poetry gave you a quick glimpse of what was inside, and it wasn’t always that nice. -------A big woman stood up. She was beautiful, he realized, and hugely pregnant. Talk about full of life! She was a performer, a performance artist. Her’s was an act, but one you had to believe. This stuff was dangerous, You could spill your guts, and then what? Could he write poetry, he wondered? A scary thought. ------- There was no featured poet this time, Steve told them. Sometimes there was but not tonight. The last to read was an older man who Morris hadn’t noticed. A big Irish face with broken veins. Morris thought of Behan. A face.... Christ, Morris knew him! It was obvious that he remembered Morris, too. He got a lot of applause for his short poem, but Morris hadn’t listened. When the applause died down they all stood up. The man came over to him. ------- “Good to see you, um...” ------- “Morris.” ------- “Sure, that’s it. Morris. Good to see you, son. Thought you were pushing the daisies, and here you are doing swell. And who are you, darlin’? You got yourself a good man here.” ------- “Terry,” Morris said, “this is... an old friend of mine.” ------- “Harrigan,” the man said, “Bobby Harrigan. We go back a ways, your hubby and me. But the past is past, I say. What do you say, Morris? ------- “Another time,” Morris said, “another place.” ------- “Ain’t it the truth. Got to go,” the man said. “The old lady’s gonna think I’m playin’ around. Be good, Morris. Stay well. Nice to meet you, Terry.” He raised his right hand, a large gold signet ring on his fourth finger. The Ring of the Fisherman.. Morris couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Bobby Harrigan moved his arm, just a fraction, and made the sign of the cross over them. He nodded and turned away. And Morris suddenly remembered what they used to call big Bobby Harrigan, at another time, in another place. ------- ------- |