I’m zagging and zigging through Galway Friday afternoon early rush hour traffic, drawn inexorably by my navigation point of the red and black Guinness sign above the door to Cullen’s pub.  

The two lads, their elbows pumping as they bustled on ahead of me, have already disappeared through the vortex that is the operable leaf of Cullen’s half-glass doors.

Car headlights, already lit to bolster the gloomy-short December day, glare off Forster Street’s wet tarmac.  Christmas lights wrapping the door of the kinda-sorta supermarket next to Cullen’s throw a red and green hue across the cars’ wetness and the shiny pavement.   

Fantasizing that a cure for my throbbing hangover will be delivered by that first pint, I veer in front of the barely moving Galway-Derry Expressway Bus.  The driver, probably upset at experiencing such stupidity and him barely into his five-hour ordeal, not counting the waiting at the Border, stops the huge bus with a brake screech.

He gives the horn a loud blast.

“Gud man, gud man,” I turn and wave with fake recognition to the bus driver’s dashboard lighted face.

He twists that face into a snarl as he leans both hands on the centre of his steering wheel. 

“I hafta get back …,” I mouth through the cacophony of the bus’s booming horn, “… ta confusin’ drinkin’ for livin’!”

I dart in front a red-and-green-hued white Ford Escort as it rolls slowly towards Eyre Square.  The Escort’s sagging faced driver puffs clouds of smoke up in front of her shock of frozen-in-place grey hair as she lights a new cigarette off the one already jammed between her lips.

I scurry up to Cullen’s front door: The half-glass vortex which facilitates “me” getting banished by “pub-me:” A far more interesting edition of myself – one that can better fake happiness.

Through the doors’ frosted-glass, I can make out the billowy shapes of the lads already plonked on barstools with Josie the barman’s bulk looming behind them.  I barely push open the narrow door leaf, jam my head inside, and stare around the empty pub with a moidered face.

“God bless all here!” I declaim loudly.

Josie’s normally forbidding face softens into a smile as I walk in holding one hand to my stomach, with the other held up in mock-prayer to the god of hangovers. 

Josie responds with head-shaking mock despondency, his massive torso quivering.  He suddenly shifts his centre of gravity from leaning back against the till and in a few short-rapid steps grabs a third pint glass.

“Oh, de tree wise mens is all ‘ere now, fer deir hairs a de dog,” he lisps, thudding the pint glass under the black Guinness tap.

“Dat poor ould dog’ll be balds soon!”

“It’s a new fucken stomach I’m lookin’ fer, not dog hairs,” I groan, drag-clanging a stool back from the bar.

I climb aloft the stool’s cushioned seat, take a quick view of the world; which right then is the tan tiled floor and shite-brown seats of Cullen’s Pub.

I sit and stare silently, my sick-stomach pre-soothed by the sight of settling Guinness.

Behind the bar the counter is lined with sprightly labeled bottles of spirits.  On the wall, fading yellow and gold floral wallpaper is interrupted by two banks of optics, the inverted bottles of white and brown spirits reflecting the bar’s bare fluorescent tubes.

Raidió Na Gaeltachta gurgles from a tan and brown transistor sitting on the counter next to the till.

Josie plops one, two … and three pints of black porter topped with creamy heads onto the bar.

Sighing in unison, we embark on a cure that will surely end worse than the disease.

“Dere’s bad trouble abroad in Leetrom taday,” Josie says, nodding his head at the transistor.  “Prolly sumptin wid dat kidnappins.  D’Irish army is shootin’ deirs guns.”

He rolls his eyes back in his head and pumps both pudgy-fingered hands rapidly toward the ceiling like they’re six-guns.

“Ah, sure this is t’greatest little fuck up of an island in t’world,” I say, embellishing with an expletive something I’ve heard my father say many’s the time.

“‘Tish gittin’ vurry bad dese days,” Josie says.

He slowly shakes his big head. 

“Vurry bad.”

On we drink to “vurry bad,” emptying our glasses in quarter-pint slugs.

In line with my omniscient prediction, it does take more than the aforementioned dog hair, but about four pints into the session we return to something akin to normal humans.

Knocking back pints, we jawbone about the college term just poorly limped through and anticipate the craic before-during-and-after the Married vs. Singles rugby game on Saint Stephen’s Day.  We’re happily exaggerating exploits of old when the skinny door to the pub slams open with the timbre of rattled glass. 

No one enters. 

Cold air balloons in as traffic groans past the open door.

Groaning deeply at the inconvenience of instinctual curiousity, we labour around on our perches to see why the door remains open.

The squat body of the poetry reciting homeless fella from up in Eyre Square fills the narrow doorway.  Just last week, with it raining sideways, I walked-ran past him sitting on a park bench cradling a bottle of cheap sherry, drunkenly reciting Yeats.

Now his rotund shape, in a tattered, navy-blue suit and a white shirt, blackened at the collar, props open the skinny pub door as he glares at Josie from under tangled eyebrows.

Always attracted to conflict, I spin around to see Josie glaring back, his eyes narrowed to slits, a determined scowl on his face as his head moves from side to side threateningly.

“‘Twuz down be t’Sally Gardens, my luv an’ I did meet.”

“Gwan outta DAT!” Josie half-yells.  “GWAN!  Git outta my’s house!”  

“She past t’Salley Gardens wid little snow-white feet, she tolt me take luv azy ….”

Josie’s huge corpus skirts down the bar in short-rapid steps, his torso jiggling.  As he lifts the flap and rounds the column from the “Lounge” the pub door slams closed.

Josie stops in his tracks.

“Ah t’poor ould divil, we should let ‘im have wan drink, ‘tis nearly Christmas,” I say with costs-me-nothing charity.

“An’ will youse be t’wan dat cleans up when he pisses heself all over my’s cushions!” Josie glares at me, his eyes burning with anger.

“Fair point, fair point,” I immediately submit, retreating into the solace of my pint.

We drink on in silence.

The Friday evening traffic outside on Forster Street grinds to a sludge with the metal-on-metal squeal of double-deckers’ breaks and the occasional car horns tooting.

Josie leans back against the till; his ear cocked slightly towards the transistor; his eyes up on the ceiling; broad face expressionless.

Out the tan speaker Raidió Na Gaeltachta gurgles.

His lips purse; head shaking.

He snaps off the transistor.

“‘Tis on’y gittin’ worser up dere by de border,” he sighs loudly.  “I tink dat supermarked lad might not do too good, an’ him wid no gun!”

“Why, what’s happenin’ now?” Paul asks.  “They were just in our flat searchin’ for Tidey.”

“In yours flat?” Josie’s jowly cheeks tighten as his mouth opens.  “Sure dem bleddy Egl’ngton street foools couldn’t find ‘n elephant in a field a shnow!”

“Could we find a pint behind t’counter there?” Rory asks, tapping the base of his empty pint glass off the counter.

“Lets me see,” Josie holds his hand up perpendicular against his forehead scans the empty pub, finally lowering his eyes to the counter lined with clean pint glasses.

“AHA!  Dere’s dey is, de tree wise men’s gifts!” he laughs and grabs three pint glasses, “‘cept an’ its my’s Christmus gift to youse.”

He gives us three pints on the house for Christmas.  We swell with pride at this symbol of our Irish-manhood, and lorry down the free pints.

Josie reaches into a carboard box with “XMAS” scrawled on the side in purple crayon.

“I thinks dis Santa lad’s a bit offa chancer,” he mock complains, shaking his head as holds up a honey-combed-red-crepe paper Santa.

He stretches to pin the frozen-in-a-jolly-smile-faced Santa on the wall between the banks of optics. 

“Huh?  He on’y works de wan day a de year an’ all he does is slip down people’s chimbleys an’ ate christmus cake, but on’y d’icin’!  Why cannnit I git dat job?”

His smile dissolves into a frown as he pushes the thumbtack hard through Santa’s ruddy forehead, through a dulled-gold wallpaper flower and into the plaster.

The plaster resists the tiny brass stem of the thumbtack, but the force of Josie’s determination wins.

“Well,” he says with a self-satisfied grin on his face.  “Dat’s de dec’ratin’ done for dis year!”

Lubricated by pints, afternoon slips into early evening.

From the dimness outside I can see the sun has truly gone home and we’ve returned to the world of darkness pushed back only by electric light.

Around five-ish, the office crowd swagger in wearing shabby-dandruffy suits.  Tommy-the-Talker from the insurance company gulps down two pints, sucks in four cigarettes, all the while head-shake-complaining about “t’stoopid fucken boss an’ his cunt owa secr’tary.” 

Then fake-hurrying to get home and change for a night on the town, he makes time to swallow a third pint in two slugs.

By now the afternoon’s pints have washed away the dark-hangover thoughts and replaced them with the false hope of an evening of yet more pints.

Around six-ish the professional drinkers, led by the Sean Nos singing lorry-driver, dock one by one at the bar.  They silent-sullenly order shorts and pints with hand gestures that Josie decodes.  Walloping down their first drinks in record time, they settle into the arduous work of getting Friday-night drunk. 

We try to synch with the professional’s pinting, but are quickly left behind.

An hour later a fiddle case pokes in the door, followed by Mickey Finn’s bearded to the point of inscrutability face.

“‘Til be gud here tanite,” the lorry-driver says in a low voice.  “Dat ladeen has it.”

“Has whot?” I whisper half-drunk-conspiratorially.

“Ah, ya know, ‘tis within in him, the, … the mu…sic, ‘r the … t’sphirit.”

He moves his thick fingered hand through the air that’s already hazy with cigarette smoke. 

“He jus’ has it!  Whatever ‘tis, it makes he’s fiddle sing t’ways as if an’ it ‘twuz a hu…man vice singin’.  I can on’y sing wid me troat.  Mickey can make he’s elbow sing.”

“An’ where did you learn ta sing?” I ask with genuine curiousity.

“Ah, sure ya don’t be learnt ta sing atallatall.  No, no, no, ya jus’ start singin’…,” he purses his lips, shakes his head a lot.

“… ya know, within in t’kitchen owa winter’s night an’ yer fadder’s friend or a uncle’d tell whot ye’re doin’ wrong an’ how ferta make it better.  Then when ye’re older, ya know when ya’re doin’ it right when t’eyes of everywan in t’pub is drinkin’ in every word a t’song.”

“T’eyes!” I scoff a scoff that would wither another student.  “Ya mean t’ears?”

He purses his lips tight and again shakes his head slowly.

“Ahhhh, ‘tis not as simple as ya think.  Ladeens taday tink ‘cause they see all sorts of killin’ an’ bombin’ goin’ on above in t’six counties that they know ever’thin’.”

He shakes head a bunch, stopping only to gulp down the last of his pint.

“Sure that supermarked fella’s prolly in bog hole as full a bullet holes as t’spud strainer hangin’ above t’sink in my kitchen.  But watchin’ that sorta vilence on the telly’s not t’same as when ya get pulled inta it yoursell.”

 The lorry-driver waves his empty glass in Josie’s direction, who’s looking the other way.  He plonks the empty vessel loudly onto the counter and turns his stare to me.

“Don’t ya see wan time, I wuz above in Dublin ta pick up a load an’ it turnt out this day, didn’t I hafta stay t’night.  An’ as long as I ben drivin’ me lurry round t’roads a Connemara, I never didn’t git home ta me own bed.  But this Plastic Paddy from witout in Bearna.”

He waves his hand in no particular direction; his eyes roaming for Josie’s eyes to get a new pint.

“Ahh, he’s fadder made a bleddy fortune o’er in Blighty, an’ he wuz doin’ up t’ould place, there on a bad corner out in Bearna.  Anywayz, he hired me ferta go ta t’ferry in Dublin an’ pick up a load a buildin’ materials he wuz bringin’ over from England.  An’ like any rich man he knew howta take care of he’s money.  Oh, doors an’ windaws, an’ luvly marble tiles, if ya seen them.  ‘Ttwoulda cost a bleddy fortune ta buy t’same fancy stuff witout in Coens.”

He slaps his thick hand off the counter, making Josie turn his head, to which the lorry-driver frowns, nodding at his empty pint glass.

“But wuzn’t t’bleddy ferry from England delayed be a storm witout t’Irish sea.  Don’t ya know, t’Irish sea is wanna t’worstest, most dangerous sea a sailor ever wants to drive he’s ship in.  Sure, apart from t’ferocious storms, didn’t ya see where t’Ruskies, or wuz it t’Sasanachs’ themsell, had wan a their submarines drag a trawler outta Waterford or Wexford down under t’water.”

He bends at the knees, dropping his whole torso a few inches, slowly shaking his head.

“Young fella, ya cannit believe haf t’stuff as goes on this wurlt.  Anyhoo, with t’ferry not there, an’ not ta be there ‘til t’morning,” he arches his back and nods his furrowed brow at the floor.  “I hadta find a place to stay an’ me poor lurry parked balow on t’North Wall all by hersell.”

He picks up his empty glass, looks wistfully into yellowing Guinness foam.

“I wuda slept witin in t’lurry, but some lad in a pub, a Jackeen, but an awright fella, ya can tell how a fella is be how he takes his drink an’ talks ta ya.  Jus’ an ordinary fella like you or me.”

He taps my chest lightly with his knuckle, initiating me into his group of ordinary people.

“He said t’polis wud arrest a lad fer sleepin’ in his lurry.  Now, I don’t know why they’d do that,” he puckers up his narrow lips, shakes his head slowly, “prolly, they’re gettin’ free pints off t’hotel managers ferta be forcin’ lurry men ta rent their hotel rooms at a ferocious prices.”

He taps his empty pint glass off the counter and frowns at Josie, who frown-nods at the row of pints still settling for their second fill.

“I went on down t’street an’ inta a church, not that I’m no holy roller.  No, no, no, but in there I seed a fella, an’ him pushin’ a pair a near wored out black rosary beads betwixt he’s fingers.  So, I axed him, ‘where wud I get a chape room fer t’night?’”

He takes a deep breath, nodding a lot. 

“Don’t ya know that sort owa holy fella’d be honest wit ya, an’ our Lort God above in Heaven starin’ down at him!”

He twists his head and sets his jaw.  

“Anwayz, t’holy fella says go ta such an’ such street, an’ ya get there be turnin’ this way an’ that way.  An’ than I’m ta look fer a green door; on’y he calls it ‘a Hibur…nian green door.’  Sure, what sort owa carry on is that?”

He furrows his brow, shakes his head.

“Who’s ta be sayin’ what name green should be calt?  Grass is green; t’canal goes green of a hot summer; a sick cow skitters green.  Thems t’on’y greens I know. Hiburn….”

He shakes his head rapidly, raises his arm, brings his hand down hard onto the counter.

“In my opinion ‘tis all a pile a shite, God fergive me, an’ him a holy man, but sure, green is green is green, who says they can be makin’ other names for green?”

Josie sets his pint on the counter with a dull thud.

“Anwayz, I got ta t’roomin’ house wid t’green door, an’ paid fer a room.  T’landlady wuz a Northern wan …,” he closes his eyes, “wid a face on her that sharp that it coulda sliced ham.  An’ a vice that wuz sharper.  But her room wuz chape, chape-ish compared to what the skinny-tashed Jackeen above in t’East Wall Inn wanted ta charge me.  Well, I thought it ‘twuz cheap, but little did I know what it would cost me.  Anwayz, I go out fer a pint, like I do ever’night, just two or three, ‘cause I had the big drive home the next day.”

He lifts his pint in honour of pints drank and miles driven.

“An’ I get back ta t’roomin’ house, but see t’Northern wan hadn’t said nathin about t’other fella she was rentin’ t’room ta too!  Oh yeah, nary a word said she, ‘cept writin’ in the ledger I seen she put a ‘2’ in wan a t’columns.  I mane, I seen t’second bed, but I never thunk there’d be another man sittin’ on it when I got back.  But there he wuz.”

The back of his hand wipes Guinness foam from his lips.

“A Cork fella, sittin’ there on the bed, windin’ his watch, ya know, ta be lookin’ like he had no heed a me.  Oh, a skinny-miserable-bastaard owa Cork fucker, God fergive me.  I knew he wuz good fer nathin, but I couldn’t tell yet how bad he wuz.”

He nods a few fast-nods; his eyes losing their focus as he stares out over his pint at nothing.

Behind us Mickey Finn’s bow liberates sound from taut fiddle strings.  

I start to think, regretfully, that the melody may have finished the lorry-driver’s story, but no, he speaks loudly over the music:

“Anwayz, I went ta bed an’ I musta ben vury tired ‘cause I slep deep, an’ I never thunk I woulda.  An’ thinkin’ t’whole thing through later, I couldn’t remember t’last time I didn’t sleep in me own house.  It musta ben as a gasúr goin’ belaw ta granny’s in Mount Belloo fer a few days in t’bog.  Even fer granny’s fun’ral, I drove t’lurry home that evening, an’ hersell bullin’ ta miss t’party!”

He nods again, smiles, lifts his pint and takes a huge draft.

The lush sound of fiddle, guitar and bodhran music fills the air.  Cigarette haze wafts across the pub.  The roars of fellas ordering drink peaks above the music.

The lorry-driver gives his Guinness-creamed lips a back of hand wipe and wags a thick finger at me, continuing louder again:

“Let me tell ya young fella, I woke in t’middle a t’night an’ the Cork fella wuz stuck ta t’door tryin’ ta open it.  See, he didn’t reelize I had locked t’door an’ me wit t’key under t’pillow.  An’ didn’t t’fucken tievin’ bast…aard, God fergive me, have me wallet in he’s hand, an’ him pulling an’ twistin’ t’door handle.”

He gives his dry lips a hurried back-of-hand wipe.

“I turned on t’light, an’ it took me a minute awright ta unnerstan what wuz happenin’, … but then ….”

He grits his teeth, raises a clenched fist of thick fingers. 

“I battered t’livin’… shite … outta that Cork fucker!”

His fist shakes from the intensity of his clenching.  He stares silently at his fist, sadness coming over his eyes.

I draw in a fast breath, wondering if I want to know what happened next.

After what feels like too long, he breathes out so heavily I can feel the air around my face moving.

 “I’ll tell ya t’God’s honest truth,” his unclenched hand wipes down slowly across his face, “but I took me wallet from him, an’ blood on it, he’s blood.  I went down an’ pulled t’lurry around in front a t’green door, waitin’ fer t’Gards ta cum an’ arrest me for murder.  I thought I’d killed the bas….”

He’s shaking his head with a faraway look in his eyes when Cullen’s front door slams open in a surprisingly familiar manner.

I spin around and before I can see, I hear above the music and the thrum of pub talk:

“‘Twuz down be t’Sally Gardens me luv an’ I did meet, she past ….”

The squat, dark-suited figure of the poetry reciter fills the doorway; his lips moving rapidly but succinctly as he enunciates the words through the fog visible in his eyes.

I turn my head to see if Josie is onto him, but the corpulent barkeep is too busy distributing pints along the counter.

“… t’sally gardens wid little snow white feet, she toult me take luv azy, as the leaf grows on the tree, but me, bein’ young an’ stoopid, ….
“GIT OUT!” Josie bellows from down the bar.

The pub-thrum dissipates.

Fiddle-guitar-bodhran notes drop from the air.

“Who is it, who is it?” I hear Mickey Finn’s gravelly voice ask urgently.

The crowd parts.

“Gwan, git outta ‘ere!  Lave dese peoples alone,” Josie snaps, his eyes narrowed to slits as he glares at the poetry spouting face.

 “… wid her would not ah…gree,” the poetry stops as the reciter’s shoulders rise under a deep breath, his eyes clamped on Josie’s.  “In a field balow be t’river, me luv an’ I did stand, an’  ….”

“I SAID GET OUT!” Josie bellows, turning fast and starting down the bar towards the flap.

“Lave ‘im, lave ‘im,” Mickey Finn shouts, “he’s near done.”

The Guinness wants me to say something to help the poetry reciter, but I know Josie’ll get fierce thick.

The bar flap thuds up and Josie fast-fills the opening.

“Aragh cum on, lave ‘im alone Josie,” Mickey Finn drawls.  “Gwan on boss, let her out t’gap!”

“…leanin’ on me shoulder she put her snow-white hand, she bid take life azy, like t’grass grows on t’weirs.”

“GET OUT!”

Josie barrels through the crowd.

“LAVE ‘IM!” Mickey yells.

I slide off my stool and walk slowly towards the toilets, blocking Josie’s path to the front door.

His girth brushes me aside.

“… but I wuz young an’ stoopid an’ now am full a tears!”