Conversation Three: Rare Company
“Did you drunk-call me?” Stephanie’s voice, over my shoulder. It’s two hours I’ve been at The Green Briar, shining the bar with my sleeves. I turn around and there she is, still wearing her coat and scarf, her hair under a purple wool cap.
“Hey there,” I say. “Glad you could make it.”
“You drunk-called me.”
“I did not drunk-call you. I just wanted some company tonight.”
Stephanie eyes my drink with suspicion. Bushmills Black Bush, neat. “Since when do you ever want company?”
“A rare night, to be sure. Have a seat.”
Stephanie smiles at the guy sitting next to me. He smiles back and without a word relocates to another stool. She unbuttons her coat and sits down. I don’t know how she does it.
“I’m not sleeping with you,” she says.
“You’re a woman of impeccable moral character.” I raise my glass. “Here’s to you not sleeping with me. Nonetheless, despite this catastrophic news, I’ll try to enjoy myself tonight.”
“Buy me a drink. It’s the least you can do for drunk-calling me.”
“Done.” And indeed, I do.
“So,” she says.
“So.”
“How many have you had?”
“This is my first.”
“Bullshit.”
“Ok, so it’s my first whiskey. I stopped drinking Guinness when I got close to full.”
“Let’s find a table. I hate sitting at the bar.” The Briar is just filling up. In an hour or so we won’t be able to move.
We head over to a high-top close to the small stage where Finbar sits, stringing his guitar. He gives me a wave. Stephanie looks around. “So this is the place you talk about. Seems ok, I guess.”
I smile. “Wait until the music starts.”
“Don’t they have a pool table or something? I will totally kick your ass at pool.”
“It’s an Irish pub. Here, we play darts.”
“Well, let’s play darts, then.” I go get a set of darts from the barman while Stephanie covers her purse with her coat. She joins me at the board.
“Do you know how to play?” she asks.
“Not really.”
“Good.” She grabs the darts and steps up to the line. “Watch and learn.”
Her throw misses the board entirely. “Oops.”
“Nice job.” I take my turn and I’m no better.
“So, how’s the writing going?” she says.
“I needed inspiration.”
“I see. Hence the drunk-call.”
“No, hence the Guinness. I called you because I wanted you to see something.”
“What?”
“You’ll see.”
We play for a little while. We don’t impress anyone. When we’re done we return the darts and head back to the table.
“My drink’s gone,” I say, twirling the empty glass meaningfully.
“It’s my round, but I’m not buying you any more whiskey, drunk boy. We both have to work tomorrow.”
“I’ll take a pint of the black stuff, then.”
“Fine. I’ll be back in a few. I have to go powder my nose.”
“Why don’t you just say you have to take a leak?”
“Because I have more class than that.” Stephanie grins and gets up from the table. I watch her walk away. So do a lot of other guys.
She comes back with the pints a few minutes later. “So,” she says, “you were about to tell me why you’re out drinking when you should be writing. Make it good.”
“Did you ever see The Warriors?”
“Is that a movie?”
“Only the greatest gang movie ever made. Came out in the seventies.” She shakes her head. “Plot synopsis: New York City is overrun by gangs. There’s this one gang—The Warriors—and they control Coney Island. One night they go to a meeting of all the gangs in New York City, because there’s this guy, Cyrus, who’s trying to unite them all. Long story short, someone shoots Cyrus and blames The Warriors, and soon every gang in the city is trying to kill them. And there are a lot of gangs. The High-Hats, the Gramercy Riffs, the Turnbull ACs—all of them are gunning for The Warriors. And all The Warriors want to do is get back to Coney Island, to their home turf, but to do that they have to fight their way past all these other gangs.”
“The High Hats?”
“Yeah, they wear top hats and mime makeup.”
“A gang of mimes?”
“A gang of mimes.”
“And that’s the movie?”
“That’s pretty much it, yeah.”
Stephanie shrugs in confusion. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“Writing is kind of like that.”
“Oh, I can’t wait to hear this.”
“Sometimes, that’s how it feels. Like every man’s hand is raised against me. Like I’ve got to fight to get what’s in my head out onto the page.”
Stephanie laughs long and hard. When she’s done laughing, she laughs some more. “You’re an idiot.”
I hide my smile behind my drink. She looks around. “So this is where everybody knows your name?”
“Not really. See that guy over there? The one in the red ball cap?”
“Yeah. He was hitting on me at the bar.”
“Lucky you.”
“Not my type. Cute accent, though.”
“Every other person in here is from Ireland. Want to know how you can tell, without actually talking to them? Look for the guys drinking Bud Light. They’re from Ireland. Anyone drinking Guinness, like me, is from America. Know why? Because Bud Light is cheaper than Guinness over here. It’s a different story in Ireland. Of course, why anyone would drink Bud Light anywhere in the world is a mystery to me.”
“Your snobbery extends even to beer.”
“Especially to beer. Anyway, back to that guy. Whenever I drink, I have to piss fairly often. Apparently he’s the same way. The bathroom in here has two urinals. One night I’m at one and he’s at the other. No big deal. We’re guys; it’s not like we’re having a conversation or anything. He does his business and I do mine. Later, we both wind up in the bathroom at the same time again. Fancy meeting you here, he says. I chuckle. An hour or so later, I walk into the bathroom and he’s over at the urinal again. I knew you’d be back, he says, because it’s not really about the pissing for you anymore, is it?”
Stephanie smiles, raises her pint. “See? You can make new friends.” We clink glasses.
I look past her, over towards the stage, where Finbar pours a few drops of Guinness onto his bódhran and rubs the stout evenly into the drum’s skin. He gives it a few practice raps with his knuckles and starts up a rhythm, the bódhran held close to his chest. Finbar plays without stick or leather, his hand a blur of motion. He gets everyone’s attention with Some Say the Devil is Dead, adding his own verses when he runs out of the standards, then moves straight into Rocky Road to Dublin without so much as a stutter in the drum’s beat. Midway through the song and the entire Briar’s joining in on the chorus, one-two-three-four-five and whack-fa-la-di-da, conversations postponed and pints forgotten, and Stephanie watching us all, smiling in wonder like she’s suddenly found herself in the center of a cascade of bright balloons.
The Briar’s so loud with the chorus, it gets so the bódhran can barely be heard. All of us keep time with our hands on the tables, our feet on the floor or against the bar rail. At the next table a guy upends a stool, holding it shoulder height like a highland bagpipe, marching in circles until a bouncer gently removes it from him and steers him back toward his friends.
Finbar eventually trades his bódhran for his guitar, quickly tunes up and begins a new song.
I am just a poor boy, and my story’s seldom told
I have squandered my resistance for a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises
All lies and jest, still the man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest
His version of The Boxer slows things down a bit, and I take the opportunity, one ear still tuned to Finbar, to talk to Stephanie. “This is why I wanted you to meet me tonight.”
She says nothing, just smiles in return.
“Not too long ago,” I say, “you asked me what makes me happy.” I gesture around the room with my glass. “You’re looking at it. If heaven exists for me, this is it. A good pub. Endless pints of stout and jars of whiskey. Christy Moore calling the tunes, Paddy Keenan on the pipes, and Sean Keane on fiddle. Good friends, good stories, good tunes and good times.”
“I don’t know who any of those people are. I assume they’re famous.”
“They are.”
“I always figured your heaven would be a room full of books, shelved high to the ceiling, and all eternity to read them,” Stephanie says.
“That’s the other room. For me, heaven has two rooms.”
Stephanie stares at me over the rim of her glass. “Hidden depths,” she says, and winks.