A Long Line of Dead Men

"We talked of West Cork," he said, "and Paddy Meehan's pub and its improvements. Eamonn Dougherty is from Skibbereen in West Cork. During the Troubles he was with Tom Barry's flying column." He sang: " 'Oh, but isn't it great to see / The Auxies and the RIC / The Black and Tans turn tail and flee / Away from Barry's coll-yum.' Do you know that song?"

"I don't even know what the words mean."

"The Auxies were the Auxiliaries, the RIC was the Royal Irish Constabulary, and you know who the Black and Tans were. Here's a song you'd understand without a glossary.

On the eighteenth day of November

Outside of the town of Macroom

The Tans in their great Crossley tender

Came hurryin' on to their doom

But the boys of the collyum were waiting

With rifle and powder and shot

And the Irish Republican Army

Made shit of the whole fuckin' lot.

"It was a bloody massacre, and trust the fucking Irish to write a song about it. Eamonn Dougherty was in the middle of it. Oh, he did his share of killing, that one. The British had a price on his head, and then the Free State government put a price on his head, and he came here. A relative got him a job unloading trucks in a warehouse, though you wouldn't think he had the size for it. Then he was a taxi dispatcher for many years, and he's long since retired. And drinks his two pints of beer a day, and says not a word, and God alone knows what goes on in his head."

"When you first started talking about him," I said, "I found myself thinking of another little old man. His name was Homer Champney."

"I don't know him."

"I never knew him myself," I said, "but he started something. Or continued something, it's hard to know for sure. It makes a hell of a story."

"Ah," he said. "Let's hear it."

23

And so I told the story of the club of thirty-one. I talked for a long time. When I was done Mick didn't say anything at first. He filled his glass and held it to the light.

"I remember Cunningham's," he said. "They served good beef and the bar would pour you a decent drink. When I think of all the places that are gone, all the people who are gone. I don't understand time. I don't understand it at all."

"No."

"Sand through an hourglass. You hold something- anything- for a moment in your hand. And then it's gone." He sighed. "When did they have their first meeting? Thirty years ago?"

"Thirty-two."

"I was twenty-five, and a loutish piece of work I was. They'd never have had me in their club, or any other decent association of men. But that's a club I'd have joined if asked."

"So would I."

"And never missed a meeting," he said. "Standing together. Bearing witness. Waiting for the man with the broad ax."

"The man with-?"

"Death," he said. "That's how I envision him. A man with his arms and shoulders bare, wearing a black hood and carrying a broad ax."

"Elaine would say you were put to death in a past life, and the man you just described was the executioner."

"And who's to say she's wrong?" He shook his big head. "Sand through an hourglass. Eamonn Dougherty, the fucking Scourge of Skibbereen, sitting on his barstool watching the years slip past him. He outlived the Galway Rose, the murderous little bastard. He'll outlive us all, with his wee cap and his two pints of beer." He drank. "A long line of dead men," he said.

"How's that?"

"Ah, it's a story. Do you know Barney O'Day? He used to come to Morrissey's."

"I never met him there," I said, "but I knew him when I was at the Sixth. He managed a bar on West Thirteenth Street. They had live music, and sometimes he'd get up and sing a song."

"Had he any sort of a voice?"

"I don't think he was any worse than the paid entertainment. I used to run into him at the Lion's Head, too. What about him?"

"Well, it's a story I heard another man tell at a wake," he said. "It seems Barney's old mother was in hospital, and he was at her bedside, and the dear told him that she was ready to die. I had a good life, says she, and wrung all the joy I could out of it, and I'm not after havin' machines keepin' me alive, an' tubes stickin' out of me. So give us a kiss, Barney me lad, says she, as you were always as foine a son as a mother could ask for, an' then tell the doctor to pull the plug an' let me go.

"So your man gives her a kiss and goes off to find the doctor, and tells him straight out what the old woman wants him to do. And the doctor's scarcely more than a boy himself. He hasn't been at it long, and Barney can see he's got no stomach for this sort of thing. He wants to be prolonging life, not cutting it short. He's troubled, and Barney's a gentle soul himself, for all the bluster he puts on, and wants to spare the man some agony.

" 'Doctor,' says he, 'put your mind at ease. It's not such a terrible thing you have to be doin'. Doctor, let me tell you somethin'. We O'Days come from a long line of dead people.' "

Outside, the wind blew up and drove rain against the windows. I looked out and saw cars passing, their lights reflected in the wet pavement. "That's a wonderful story," I said.