Pool_2

>> Dinner Out <<

The restaurant hadn't changed at all over the years. Ghosts were everywhere. They were, to Marcus, in those subtle details which tweak old memories. Why does an old light fixture conjure the penetrating gaze of an old man seated in the shadows? A menu with inexplicable entries produced momentary flights of concentration and period. Though mysterious and shaded, somehow positive and reassuring feelings emanated from this place. It felt old, but it felt like home. "The portions here are so large. Maybe I can get a child’s serving," Mina, Mac’s wife, was muttering while frowning at the convoluted menu, "Maybe the osso bucco…" to which John, Shannon and Marcus all moaned, "What?" Marcus had his eyebrows way up, "Child’s portion of Osso bucco? What is that, a finger?" John was offering "toe" and going on about the kiddy special of the day, "Kids really dig the marrow!" "Those were not related thoughts you wise guys. And you, John, getting a Jamison and potato float?" "They have that? Where?" He feigned a menu search, then shifted, "By the way, Mac, Shannon said you needed funding for some project." "Which one? We have a never ending stream.." "I forget, which was it Shannon?" as she just looked blankly with a shrug, "Well, one of our donors gives regularly to orphanages in Ireland.."

"Jeez, John. We have crack babies up to our asses. Most of them are abandoned. I can’t imagine any single citizen taking that on. Anyway, babies with checkered backgrounds are impossible to place. There isn’t anybody I know who could handle that kind of commitment." "Just a thought." "Fillet of sole. No butter, please," Mina gave her choice to the waiter. "And the mister?" "Do you have rat knee osso bucco?" "Oh yes. The children’s special. How would you like your vermin, sir?" Mac was crest fallen at being bettered by an obviously attentive waiter with his own edge. "Uhhhhhh, hold the rat, they’re better on ice anyway. The Pepper Creole.., no, wait, uh, give me the Suppa da Pesce." "With black noodles?" "Oooo. Mmmm, no, the regular," as John was muttering, "What’s a black noodle?" then, "This." John held his menu forward, pointing, unsure how to actually say what was spelled out there. "Good choice, sir! Good choice." "It’s good?" "No. Good choice, not trying to pronounce it." Dinner was the usual swirl of family oriented discussions, old jokes reframed, and political banter. Staring at an empty stool at the far end of the bar, a connection was made as Marcus broke a brief pause, "Hey, John," while waving a squid tentacle dangling from his fork. "Never touch’em."

"No, not the calamari. That McGuiness character was on the news today." John startled, "Gaffy? On the news?" His eyes were popped wide open.

"Well, he was not ON, I guess… IN the news. Over the news, under… whatever. They said that he was spotted at that immigration museum Irish statue dedication? You were there?" It isn't hard to tell when an Irishman gets flustered. Certain tropical fish can change complexion almost as much as John did to this comment. "Oh. You know? Tssuh. That’s bull. Every time we do something positive, somebody has to tack on this lurking killer story to distract from what we're doing." "Well, they made it sound like a horrendously dangerous serial killer was spotted in our neighborhood. Kind of scary. You know this guy. No?" Maybe it was the aura of the restaurant, but John now became animated with his hands and arms gyrating like a swimmer. "That’s such shit. I mean, oh, it’s, you know, those, they, if they ever, actually whenever, it’s, well they can’t resist, they can't .., that same, you know, always, same-ol same-ol. Bullshit. Every time." "Well, that sure cleared it up for me. How about you Shannon? You get all that?" Mina broke in politely trying to side track her husband’s needling of their dinner partner. "Well, I don’t know about the serial killer thing. He sounds more like a vigilante from what I heard at the ladies' club." John was again startled, this time by Mina’s comment, "They discuss Gaffy at the LADIES CLUB?"

"Oh John! He is a dark romantic hero. Think about it. A man who takes on intransigent abusers of power who think they can hurt anybody without regard for consequences? A man who avenges what a Gestapo did to his woman? Week by week, year by year, one by one - whack - with the old axe-aroo." Shannon flitted her eyelashes, "Would you avenge me, John?" "Why? When I’ve got all that insurance?" "Ohhh, you rat," pouting out her lip, "That’s mean!" Mina was already alternately wagging her index finger then pointing at Marcus with her thumb, "If anybody did that to me, watch out for this guy." Marcus began a series of growling noises. "Oh yeah. Right," John laughed, "Cuddly pussy cat baby doctor goes on pacifier bludgeon rampage!" Marcus just growled all the louder, as Mina, kept on. "You’ve only seen his children’s face. He’s got a demon living in that body, I’m telling you. That thing he does with his eyes! Scary!" Marcus was now thrashing his head around growling like a pit bull ripping at a leg, crossing his eyes. "For dessert, sir, could I interest you in some puppy chow?" the waiter interrupted. Marcus just dropped his head, suddenly stilled, then whispered loudly, "This guy’s good, John. Let’s kill him." John laughed, "Do we do it your people’s way or mine?" Mac bit. "What’s yours?" "Waiter!" he offered, "I would like to invite you over to my house for a nice Irish home cooked meal." John was quickly on the floor with Shannon bashing him with her purse. "Madam. Cook has a rolling pin that is not being used."

That played for a while, with Shannon muttering, "..like I have time to cook." John was dodging pinches until desserts arrived. Mina resumed the earlier discussion. "John, seriously, you must know that Gaffy fellow. Your magazine publishes him regularly. He must.." "Mina, some things are safer to not know. If somebody asked you, right now, what you knew of McGuiness, what would you have to say? Zip. Nothing but ladies’s club gossip." Then, slipping on an unripened thought, " When the hell do you go to a ladies club? You work." Her look was a polite male crushing grimace conveying the obvious lapse which that represented. "They all work, John. They all also have workaholic husbands. It's that or fool around." "Shannon, you're not in the club.. uh, .." then he thought better as the waiter, standing behind his wife, was making bug eyed throat slit signals. John engaged Mina, again, "If I tell you that I know such a person as Gavin McGuiness, then you are compromised. No?" Yet there was something about the cozy dark seclusion of this place, like a womb, that allowed revelation. "No. I’m a helluva good liar. Ask Marcus. He actually thinks we won that Hawaii trip." "What??!" Marcus half stood up and nearly spilled the whole table. "What?? Whuh whuh what?" "See? He’s not sure if I’m lying now or that I tricked him into a vacation." "You have got to be shitting me!" Mac was just wide eyed and grasping at memory fragments, assorted details, that might confirm a hoax as Mina went on. "Well, his mental health is my job. The only way to get him to take a rest is to bamboozle him. Hey. If you gotta play a trick, might as well be a good one."

"But the brochure…" "Nancy Heath’s husband prints travel fliers. Cake," holding up a fork full of angel cake and stuffing it in Marcus’s rambling mouth. Mac sat there muttering. "whhheh wwwoof woo whobba.." with the fork protruding from his mouth. The waiter dashed in. "Sir. We still have one banana cream pie that you can thrust into your lady’s face! Shall I get it?" "Dwwosit hawooh ahny wwum ihnit?" but then waved him away, woofing something that sounded like tempted. After swallowing his cake of pride and wiping his mouth, his eyes suddenly sparked in a shaking blink then exploded a surprised open eyed gaze at Shannon. "You knew!" as she nearly swallowed her eye brows within a huge face dissolving grin. John was laughing way too hard to join in up to this point, but then burst out, "Jesus, Mac, EVERYBODY you know knew!" "The Table?" Mina clarified, "Nathan Ivory picked the hotel." As Mac gasped, "Tusk?" she went on about needing suggestions from people who actually did some traveling as he was moaning regrets about his spiel at The Table about his having an uncanny life long lucky streak, "Think about it. Whose rats actually die? How many people win trips to Hawaii?" He continued mumbling on about Tusk and Morgan not spilling.. After the eyes were all wiped and the laughs thinned to brief giggles between sips of coffee, Marcus engaged John. He first asked why the Irish were pissing on each other for the last century and, "Compromise me John. Who I S this McGuiness guy? Why didn't he show at that wedding?" "Actually, he did."

"Marcus was stunned again." "See? It's the drink. I didn't want to tell you that. Believe me, Marcus, we were sooo thrilled that you were able to get a world class personality when we thought that we had nobody. Shit, I would have settled for.. for.. mm.. one of those guys out on the street shouting biblical quotations. Damn. "Blessed be," Mac's hands were pressed on mock prayer, "the ball busters who make overworked physicians sell their souls to get a Pulitzer, .." but Mina thonked his skull with her soup spoon, "Ow!" Thonk! "Ow! Stop that!" Thonk! "Jesus, Mina!" and one more THONK just in case he wasn't convinced of her sincerity. John was trying not to laugh, but Marcus had this pitiful expression. "Sorry. We just didn't think Gaffy would come. Somehow, it leaked. There were all sorts of questions about his whereabouts. We told the feds that we had hired an actor to recite McGuiness, as we always do. They agreed to not give our theatrical methods away. Jake Green attending the wedding lent great plausibility to that. Jake and Gaffy hit it off rather well, by the way. "Well, I'm glad I could be of help to your cause." Marcus nodded as Mina was poising her spoon just in case he was setting up for another cheap zinger. He caught her posture. "No, I mean it." John was a bit quiet and thin faced then slowly let small factoids fall out. He actually didn't like the grandiose Mr. Price who was the party throwing the overly ostentatious wedding celebation for his daughter. Since when do you have entertainment other than music at weddings? Price, as John pulled observations from his poet friend, always has an angle. It seems Gaffy was not his usual all too supportive self, but was very concerned about having any contact with this particular man, claiming every angle has its Price. So why would John pressure a friend having all those reservations to get involved? Connections. Price had

legal connections and high level access, which he didn't explain. As the doctor's forward leaning posture sagged slowly back to a near slump, John O'Brien explained, "These ERISA things you keep bellyaching about, maybe somebody with the right strings can pull..." "I, I, uh.. Oh, gee John, don't get messed up in anything weird for us. We work on one child at a time. We're not .. not.. mmmm.. Mina, what's the name of that social revolutionary?" As she offered Julia Child with shrugs, he stammered on, "John, we really can't be.. taking on.. " But Shannon broke in grabbing Mina's spoon. Thonk. As he protected himself from that spoon, she blasted him with a tirade about social duty, fixing societal ills on a grander scale, civic obligations, inequities that demand intervention, and the forming of power alliances of the very kind which he had described as Italian. Interestingly, Mina who had laughingly supplied her spoon, was not jumping in on this. Instead, her attention was fixed on her husband's uncanny eyes which looked stressed even though he was trying to act silly. She knew why. It was about not setting your sails in somebody else's winds. Mina offered only an admiration Shannon's good intentions but avoided encouraging her proposals. Mina knew that Marcus was not comfortable with third person entanglements. These people. Who were they? Being placed in obligation to him? For what? Recitation at a wedding? How binding could that be? No. He didn't like it. Mina just knew what he was squirming about. She trusted his instincts. If only he could link with them more directly. Better wear flannels tonight. He'll be tossing all over the bed. A very long, but polite silence followed. Then, Marcus cleared his throat as Mina nearly died with dread that he would go off. Instead, he asked, "So John, who's this killer poet? Hmmm? How's a terrorist going to help us mend our legal system?" The waiter was frozen

by this with his eyes going back and forth over his poised coffee pot. Something good was coming. John first corrected a fact that nagged at him. It wasn't a century they were talking about. "It's been eight centuries that we - that is - that the Irish have been dominated. It isn’t a pleasant story," John was warning looking a bit thick in the collar. He eased the moment by musing about time. Eight hundred years was celestial time, the stuff of acrcheologists. Epochs. That's time enough to breed traits into dogs. "Christ! They're breeding docility and submission into the Celts!" he bolted upright surprising himself with this unexpected blurted analysis. But Mac just made ‘out with it’ hand gestures, flinching in case Mina thonked him again. In fact, Mina was making the same gestures. So John went on, "Actually , Gavin's story and the eight hundred years of Ulster English domination and killing are one and the same. And before I get into this, I really have to thank you, before it leaves my mind, for landing Jake Green. He was wonderful. If it wasn't for my eyes, I'd swear the guy was Irish. What a gift. He brings an intense reality to his story tellin, yet takes you away. We have him slated to read at our big famine symposium. He throws a whole new slant... Where was I?"

The waiter quickly pulled up a seat, backward, against the table and sat leaning forward with arms crossed around the back rest, handing a long serving spoon to Mina with a grin. The place was nearly empty except for these chronic late comers. "I guess it boils down to what happens when one group of people, not just government, has unbalanced unanswerable power - any people, any organization - religious, philosophical, ethnic... what else, .. " Marcus threw in corporate, " uh, yeah, corporate especially, hmmm, any group capable of cleaving together. Or the reverse, If any group is singled out for lesser treatment, watch out. Rules which disenfranchise are gunpowder." Marcus' mind flashed to Dr. Farr's concept of devils diminishing other devils, balance of power. "No peace without justice," the waiter spoke up. But John refined that to no peace without a mechanism for justice. In his mind, the laws of the select are laws designed to keep themselves select and out of the reach of law. Inequality is not mere unequal treatment within law. Watch for laws of personal exception." "ERISA," Shannon whispered to herself. Macaluso's narrowed eyes agreed. "Zambuca. Espresso? Anybody?", the waiter mouthed. "I'll pass." "No." "Pass." "Law which cuts off redress seeds revolution," John upgraded his prior assertion in a nearly direct quote from Jake Green. "We all need to become who we are. All of us. It is a pressure that, if contained, explodes." Marcus didn't let on that he recognized Jake Green's Steam essay being paraphrased. The waiter, though, leaned to the ladies and whispered, "Green," nodding. John acknowledged, "Yeah. The guy gets to you. It isn't an Irish issue nor a black issue. It is a human issue.

John suddenly stopped and turned straight at Macaluso, " How, exactly, did a great thinker and writer come to befriend a bone doctor?" "Steamed puke." "Marcus!", Mina broke in with her spoon wavering in the air. "Jesus. Watch that thing. Shannon, sometime when John has his meal is safely digested, tell him of my acquaintence with Jake Green." She agreed. John went on, "In 1916 when the Easter massacre took place, Gavin’s father was just fourteen years old. That's an impressionable and unsettled age for a boy." "Wait," the waiter fetched the coffee pot, refilling all the cups. "OK, go on," propping himself forward on his backward seat, "Can’t get this stuff on TV." John looked at the waiter. "For the record, everything I am saying is just gossip and hear-say. OK?" A group nod and affirmative echoes of hear-say, oh yeses, and absolutelys served as introductory music for an unfolding drama, although Macaluso was muttering, "What record? Anybody see a record?" Blowing into the salt shaker, "pfffff fffff, testing. This thing on?" Marcus knew that nobody would dare bug this place. Dare? Or, live long enough. The old man still frequented this place. His place. Mac kept that to himself.

>> Hear Say <<

The old mid twenties Italian ethnic decor slowly faded by way of story teller's art. Mahogany wood work, engraved beveled glass mirrors, lamp covers with their knitted tassels, starkly posed sepia photo portraits of once youthful elders twirled into fog from which emerged conjured stone streets with dispersing curiosity seekers who had been drawn by the commotion. The mere handful of vocal agitators were mostly agitated out. Through the artful spin of an Irish story teller this rabble of the mostly curious was revisited. Some uprising. A few boisterous young men who sought the attention of a foreign government of occupation and the support of the local fearful citizens by locking themselves up in a public building is all it was. This was not the fall of the Russian Tsar. Christmas window decorations at Macy's draw bigger than this. It was a failure at the onset, poorly communicated and disorganized by near spontaneity. With only locals curious onlookers, they had about the impact of any campus student demonstration. But the spectators had other things in their lives and were now mostly wandering off. Thus the crowd was already thinned with folks heading home, when the stragglers were suddenly overcome from behind and murdered by gunfire. British surgical forensics confirmed that virtually all the wounds were by Royal troopers rifles fired from a distance into people's backs and agreed with the eye witnesses that there was no confrontation but a willful massacre. This was a teach'em a lesson. The Easter Rebellion was a study in amateurish idealism to just demonstrate that you really want freedom. Is that what George Washington did? Symbolic demonstrations? Well as we know," he continued, "the English don’t build pyramids.

They build jails. Kill'em or jail'em. Intimidate. Rule by terror. Above all else, divide. Play on factions, Indian Mughals, Sikhs, Jats, Hindus, Marathas.. uh.. New Zealand Maori, Hongi, Waikatos, Taranaki.. uh .. play Arabs and Jews for an easy hand on the Suez Canal. Stoke the Greek and Cypriot fires. Who the hell else? There are so many. Divide. Divide and conquer. So, Catholics, Protestants warring against each other, that works. Both were mulling about there in the curious rabble. Irish are Irish, shoot them all. Rebels, onlookers, all fair game. Intimidation. Terrorism. It comes down to where lines are drawn. Where does civility end? At what distance does a living breathing entity lose empathy and become prey? Is it just a short span of water? Language? An accent?" "Marcus muttered, "We are biologically driven to heterogeneity but socially driven to homogeneity." Thonk "Owww! What the hell..." "You said homo," Mina made bug eyes. She was just looking for an excuse to thonk him. Homogeneity would have to do. "Gimmee that thing." But she kept it out of reach as John went on. " Dogs can be dear family or served roasted. Time, place, culture, and context matter.Do we embrace variety or massacre it?" With this, John paused, to an unchallenged silence, then continued. "So you have a so called rebellion crushed with rapid follow up executions on one hand - pass me that sugar - thanks - offset by huge pressure to produce soldiers for World War I. Promises were made to that end. By the way, did you know that James Conolly was from around here? Lived down near the tracks. Spoke fluent Italian." "Italian?" was a group surprise even shared by Shannon. "Yeah. Think about it, an

Irish American labor organizer who organized the silk workers - all Italians," he chuckled. "With Italians, organizing worked. Cultural trait, maybe. That's what made Conolly think that his Irish cousins could be helped if they were shown how to act collectively." "He could teach them," Marcus blurted, "to talk with their hands." Thonk. "Damn!" Smiling, John persisted, "That delusion got him a British execution. British don't like bargaining, collective or otherwise. Maybe not Italians either. Mmmm. Try this. This is good. Where was I?" "Doggie dinners - context matters," Mina prompted to a blank stare, then, "Promises made?" "Oh! Yeah, yeah. One more bite, mmm. OK. Promises. Promises of peace and freedom were dangled as potential reward for a cooperative war effort. But, as you might have expected, by 1923, with Michael Collins dead, the Great War's military pressure off, there were, again, pogroms against the northern Irish. Same formula as always, if you disarm first, they will then - and only then - do some concession thing in return. Yeah, when hell freezes over. How many times can one people fall for the same trick?" "You have a piece cannoli on your left upper lip," Shannon whispered flipping it off. "Oh. Anyway, the Irish have been consistently unable to be ruthless enough to secure their own freedom, nor develop organizations of sufficient size that would allow acquisition and transmission of power." Mina interrupted, "But John, the IRA isn't exactly a group of boy scouts." "They were not then an effective large organization, Mina. At one point, at their most notorious, they had, maybe, 100 guns total, all stolen, catch as catch can. The

hardest job they had was figuring ways to get the few guns they did possess to the actions that they planned, and then securing the right caliber ammunition. The best they could do was highly selective reprisals. Tit for tat. What was I talking about? Excuse me, Mina, that's off the track. OK?" "Sorry." Marcus mused, "I'm not so big on tats, but tits.." Mina shoved him right off his chair, "Watch it, buster!" A chastened doctor with mock shamefacedness skulked back into his seat, "Sorry, I like your tats too.." He was on the floor again. "I'm warning you!" "Yes my beloved." "Would you care for a seat belt?" the waiter offered, "Duct tape, perhaps?" Marcus considered the offer as John went on. "Can you imagine the state of mind, when, in 1919, the twenty six southern counties succeeded in leaving the commonwealth. That left Catholics, where the McGuinnesses lived, outnumbered two to one - which wouldn't have mattered if there had been a thirty three percent minority representation, or a Bill of Rights. Something. Almost anything. Some form of minority consideration. Or.. or.. even an historic sense of public fairness. But, democracy? Don't confuse that with what we have here. Anything the majority approved was OK and enforceable. Majority was and is not counted in bodies but rather in votes, more like earned credits. Only persons of certain categories get to vote. Once eligible, that one voter could have many votes, a vote representing work, one for educational status, some for property, children, whatever. Entire districts are disenfranchised. Thousands have no votes. Some democracy.

That singular demand for one man one vote is at the heart of all the warfare. It is spit upon and screamed at by Ulster drummers in the streets, as antidemocratic. Ulster Loyalists were and still are armed to the teeth in more militias with three letter names than you can find in a Chinese phone book. Nearly every Ulster Orangeman was armed, and nearly no Catholics were. The police, their spies, and relentless warrantless house searches saw to that. Advocating one man one vote went beyond undemocratic to antidemocratic and quickly became treasonous. Mere discussion of home rule got people jailed. Jailed and tortured were synonymous. Hey. You gonna sit there and not offer any more pastries? What's your deal?" John teased the waiter who sprang to the tart tray and was back attentive as soon as all the gathered had their pickings from the mini pastry tray. "What are these again?" Shannon asked, to Mina's whispered, "Sfoglitelle." The telling continued. "Ten percent of entire counties were in jails. The so called H- blocks, were filled with prisoners with no charges, no trials, no hearings. This lack of process was premised on emergency, never ending continuous emergency, and a need for law and order. Extralegal jailing to promote law. Got that? Laws of facilitated incarceration without process were scratched into being as fast as dandruff from a scrubby head. The press was, and still is, highly censured under an entire array of laws - dictums. Law and order did not, does not, consider equality, access, nor justice. Irish have always been mindful of their huge missing populace, displaced, especially to America. Even back in George Washington's day, the Irish delighted in the very concept of America." At this point, John went off on an historic curiosity near and dear to him. The listeners, except for the waiter, were all well aware having attended the yearly

celebration in historic costume many times. But John was too enthusiastic to pop his bubble with heard thats. It was about Saint Patrick's day being the very first American called celebration of Americans for Americans. It was called by Washington himself, in the middle of battle. That year, not even Christmas was celebrated and yet Saint Patrick's Day was. John sprinkled in a wealth of curious detail. He knew what was required to retell an old tale, new spice. It was indeed curious. Similar people tossing off foreign rule and inequality in one place and yet not in the other. To what degree did the newness of place allow old habits, customs, respects, reservations, and fears to be shed. Was it place? Distance? Was it just that a hero had emerged in the one place and not the other? A hero for the times? One with the will to do real damage, to draw lines that must not be crossed? A willingness to destroy leaving no prize worth winning? Marcus slumped back, licking at a miniature cannoli. There were little flecks of chocolate in the creme. Curious how we draw pleasure from variety yet war for purity. Whose dumb ass idea is that anyway? Are children born with this narcissistic self destruct? Whose echo do they hear? Is it nature? Or does the ill tempered babbling nurture of a gone mad society suckle a poet and rear a killer? Macaluso had half tuned out John's history, feeling grateful to have been born here, free of that sort of gravity. He had no idea that the impulsive hatred of repression crushed into a young Irish poet's mind would bring mayhem into the lives of nearly everyone in this room. Instead Marcus thought, "When do they turn, the young ones?"

>> Anocht << "Tonight" (Belfast, 1964)

You have to go back, back to innocence. We get to where we are from there. "Gavin! Glory! What are you doing here? Da will kill me. Off with you! Go away. Jesus, go, before anyone sees you!" Katharine was emphatic enough, but there was no dismissing this love starved puppy. Her father would be furious if he knew that Gavin was here on this street. Da, William MacCullah, raised in Scotland, had been impressed here - his own term for working in Belfast - by his employer Host~Continent Hotels. Katharine had good reason to be alarmed. Da's concern was realistic no matter how bigoted it seemed. The MacCullah name, though long Anglicized, had considerable respectability here because of its ancient Ulster origins. In a sense this family had returned to its roots. Yet, the longer his professional stay in Belfast, the more Da felt alien and the thicker his Scottish burr became. He found himself continually trying to insulate his children from the cultural iciness of these arctic people. So why does a young boy's infatuation raise such anxiety? There is something off in these surrounds. Something basic. You lose it in the details. But he, a born writer, had captured it, exactly, in one of his notorious essays which found their way into print in a progressive college daily. You wouldn't know that he was too young to attend, as he wrote:

Chill suits this place. Drink up. Thirsting men suckle on her inviting foamy breasts, for nurturing Leann offers the only real warmth to be found here. Her amber brown puckering nipples will warm to your lips too, as she kisses back. Suck another pint from her, she won't run dry. Besides, you need that magic which is in her milk to endure. Hers is the last enchantment. All others have long faded. Magic indeed! Was there ever any other magic here? If so, it's too removed. Salty stray from off the Irish Sea will never pierce this smaze. Smell her, instead. Press in close to her navel. Breathing, savoring her. Wrap yourself in her perfume. Draw her in and roll her in your lips. And listen. Past her fermenting crackle, ships in the harbor - steel talking to steel - bellowing deep, somber, occasionally strident - groaning and trailing off, all somehow subdued from within her lap. Listen hard. Shhhhh. There are no sounds of nature in this dominion of industry. So, console yourself with her effervescence away from the distant shrill commotion - at least for a while. You know you can't stay here. If you do you will soon enough lack her price. Then, just go home. Go, back into your pallor. Let the rich beery tincture of muddled tipsy bleach away, slipping you back into the dim drab of what you really are and never had hope enough to go beyond. In release - rejoice to an empty bladder. What else is there? Endure me, friend. She is only glorious until she owns you. Stay the last raise and abide. You will ache in her absence, but free your mind. Besides, the yellowed slut will merely consume your seed and never bear you children. Soak yourself in that reality. And one other. There, carved in flesh, traced upon that killer map which lies at your feet, lined in blood, the boundary scars of Ulster cut as deep as hell through stone and

sod, but not of art by hand of God. Barriers, as these, mock celestial consciousness. And - THAT - is why this place is so grey. God refuses to color within these lines. Behold - Belfast - where men shun His likeness with daily blasphemies hurled at self. Christ, use your eyes! Harbor? Harbor? That implies safety, tranquility, sanctuary. Where in God's name do you find any of that? Are we content only by low expectation, frenzied only to political masturbation? Go home. Climax to your own contingencies until you go blind to the bleakness of this shit hole called Belfast. - Gavin McGuinness

Da had not only read this, but had it shoved into his face, as it had been copied by many people and passed around as a contentious point of argument in the community. "So, young man, you seem rather attracted to my daughter." "Yes, sir." "You also seem to be curiously conversant about nipples. Know all about them, do you?" maintaining an icy Scottish big eyebrowed stare as the youngster groped on about artistic insights. "It's about perception, sir. It is about, uh, beer." "You're a beer drinker, then?" "Well not, uh.. mmm.. No! No, no, not me. I am way too young at this point in my life." "So, then, how do you know all about puckering nipples?" "I imagine them, sir. They're nipples of the mind," which was all that panic allowed him at that moment. "Brain knockers? Folks around here are suggesting that you are making remarks of public indecency based on my daughter's teats..." "NO! Not so! And her nipples wouldn't be amber brown, now would they?" "You KNOW THAT?" "Ohhh my. I, uh, I, I'mmmm, uh, I,m only assuming, given her fair complexion and chastity..." but the bug eyed glare of his audience stoped that line of pleading stone cold. "I just love your daughter, sir. And I like to write. I swear, nothing indelicate was meant.." This wilting confession limped over his listener's unrelenting low growl. But that was another day. Now, the street was empty and the young interloper was oblivious to

all this. En route he shuffled to the rhythm of his heart along the road edge whistling The Flower of Sweet Strabane. He didn't feel the cold or see the gray. He didn't choke on the air. His was a mind of bouquet, and her name was Katharine, Katharine MacCullah. To her shooing he began to sing, "Says my aul' one to your aul' one, come to the Waxies Dargle. Says my aul' one to your aul' one, I have not got a farthing. I've just been down to Monto Town to see young Kill McArdle.." at which point she punched him spitting breathless in the gut. "Gavin I'm telling you, go away!" Her fists were clenched on her hips. Her face was emphatic. "Caitlin, you are the air I breathe. You are flesh of my being. I've only come for your promise." Katharine blushed when he addressed her poetically as Caitlin. Caitlin ne' Houlihan was, as popularized by Yeats, the womanly essence of Ireland, an endearment which reliably brought the flush of rose that he sought to her cheeks. Caitlin was a name bowing to a heroic past, romantic and elegant, yet an identity embracing the very conflict he rejected. The cleave was already within him. He had written of the Sunless grim of irritability, Belfast, whose only cast of color is that reflected of myth. Raging Cuchulainn! Slaughterer. Vainglorious warrior of self serving narrow murderous purpose. Icon of two cultures. Hero to both ever at each other's throats. Appropriate exemplar blind in cause, terrible in moment. But you have to wonder about manhood clinging to this ideal - man as monster. For centuries Lillith has spread her legs here, welcoming all, generous in her spawn. Gavin rejected the Belfast present which he foolishly, youthfully, misread as the past. After all, this was the modern world. Old antagonisms were - well - old. Who the

hell was William of Orange anyway? Just one more unopened jacket among many of unread history? Irrelevant. Just so much more dust to blow away. People were evolving. Equality and tolerance were flourishing. There was a new world order. Yet, his endearment, was an egg of romantic poetry dipped in the tint of cultural warfare. Da enjoyed Gavin's company at the hotel he managed, made him welcome - but not here, not at his home. This concern went beyond the youngster. Da was not a bigot. He was just a realist living among bigots tattooed all over with bad history. That bad history bore this kid's last name and likeness as a canker. To the locals, In and of itself proof of IRA connection, Gavin was a Catholic. But not just that. He was a McGuinness! His name was a name of carnage! A call to war! For three generations Ulster consumed itself in hell fires fanned by McGuinnesses. His was a lineage of republicans of wild audacity, a birth line of genetic savagery. Heroes in the slums where they belonged, the McGuinnesses were terrorists here. Papists! Killers! All of them! To make it worse, McGuinness men were devilishly personable, outwardly appealing and engaging. Conversationalists. Talk you right out of your better judgement. And they want rights? Killers? Papists? And he, of the lot of the worst of them? What was he doing, trying to seduce one of our very own girleens? Pity that Gavin's mother died when he was two. Her artistic nature might, arguably, have won out. She was survived also by her sister, one year her younger but so like her that the girls enjoyed all the mischief for which twins are known. But this aunt who had taken vows had little contact and thus little tempering influence on the boy. Even for such lovely sisters judgement came hard. The younger sister married God. The older married the devil. McGuinness men, devils. Gavin was a McGuinness. Just another face on Old Scratch, Satan. He'll want to vote, next! Those people! The lot of them,

wanting the vote to bring down a democracy of - of - some of the people - the good people. Equality? To them? Hell. What do they think this is, America? God save the Queen! And Christ, they breed like flies! Equality? Not while we have our guns! Not while we have British rule! Kill'em, jail'em, deport'em, push'em out, its all the same. They may have been here first, but we beat'em and they just don't belong! Anyway, there's not enough of anything to go around. Somebody has to leave. But outsiders have different perspectives. MacCullah felt more and more distanced each year. His tolerance could be interpreted as worse than Catholicism, easier to sell, more infectious, and much more dangerous to the youth. At the hotel, tolerance was simply formality, business. Even there, beneath the roles imposed by employment, factions distrusted each other. But tolerance in his house in a population armed to their orange sashes and all too willing to preempt any deviation from their accepted order of things - that was dangerous. They could not see what he could not miss seeing, the root cause of their depressed regional economy, foreign rejection. Clearly. It was rejection of the very mentality of this place, to say nothing of the insecurity brought about by repetitious retaliative violence. The world disapproved Northern Irish partisan violent orthodoxy. Seething elitism was obviously bad for hotels. It must be similarly bad for exports, bad for investments, bad for local development - just bad. To not see that required a deep abiding faith in hatred. There was plenty of that kind of faith to go around, especially at the marches. Da remarked, "Good for nobody. Bad for us all." Marches communicated: We are thoroughly unified. We are armed to the teeth. We are irretrievably stupid, short sighted if sighted at all, and we enjoy inciting hungry beasts pent up in flimsy cages.

Why did he come? He had no telephone and thought that love was exempt from contempt. "Tickets! I got me hands on two! Caitriona, me very own Caitlin ne Houlihan, they're putting together a dance at the university! Would you be going? Would'ya be liking my company? We could practice all the new ..." Gavin not only borrowed the name of Ireland incarnate in femininity, he toyed with the spelling as Katharine, Kate, Ca'it, to draw it closer and closer to its historic root, Catherine the Martyr of Alexandria as brought west by the crusaders. She was no mere infatuation. She was Celtic womanhood and history, together, seeking its pinnacle. Somehow he was born to help in that elevation. But pinnacles can be sharp, "GAVIN! Get! Now! We'll be flayed! An' besides, we're not old enough to be prancing about the university, not by ourselves. I think you've been in the yeast. Git! Git git git. I'll meet you at the hotel tonight. OK? Go on now!" She wouldn't allow him even a peck on her cheek as she arms and finger lengthed him, quickly scanning her eyes up and down the hopefully empty street. "I have to go to the bakery for Da. Now git. I'm telling you!" She granted him one linguistic concession, "Anocht." as he liked her to practice Gaelic. He was always testing his poetic ancient tongue on her discriminating ear. Campus was another world. There, young men and women were demonstrating a new intellectuality, singing songs of peace and equality. They were not like the songs from America, they were the very same songs from America. The times they were a changing, right? Well, actually, no. Not really, although campus had become more open. The more people of like mind gravitating there, the more there were to assert change in air. Change in the air is not a change in the gut. The gut still told you that many folks, hereabouts, were just plain mean.

Anyway, air is inspiration. Gut is augury. And heart? Mmmm. Possibility? And that includes danger. So, tickets - well, flyers- to a dance, in fact a peace rally with music, were to be had and he had them. "Tonight!", he affirmed in a backstep, giving her the space she needed for her fears, but beaming as he left. He floated her a kiss and eased away on a breeze of fancy that was shaping up to become a typhoon. A radio, somewhere down the block, was playing I Want to Hold Your Hand. It must have been turned up quite loud, as it penetrated closed windows. This newest cultural import, would local musicians even know it yet? Culture was being crossed in so many ways. Barriers were falling. Surely, change, in the air, carried from afar. Heart said yes but gut said no. Given the choice, always listen to your gut. Winds of time are always blowing. This place was directly down wind of ignorance and hate. Houses flaunted the same shut up windows of a half century ago. Garrison windows framed curtains not much different from those of the last six generations. Old habits, old curtains pulled an inch or so, as they might have been for decades, all along the street, in observance of intrusion. The youngster's presence was more than noted. Some change in the air! Plague had come to this community.

>> Letters << (the past 1964 - 1967)

H. Dolson R/Constable Royal Ulster Constabulary

Brooklyn 65 Knock Road Belfast, BT5 6LE December 12, 1964 Dear Sir,

I beg of you in this time of holiday to consider this letter in a spirit of both humanity and humility before the Almighty. The forgiveness of God toward us is not just a religious historical footnote, but rather a lesson for us all, an example. My prior letters have gone unanswered. I beg at least a line of communication so that difficult issues, any issues, can be resolved. With the death of my wife, my daughter Katharine, far before her due years, has taken on the mantle of lady of our household. With premature responsibility came carriage that might seem precocious. Meeting persons at the door (never inside) otherwise unattended is what a housekeeper does. What else could she do? She is a lovely child and a frail child. I am certain that despite her high spirit, she will not hold up physically in jail. There is no reason for her to be there. There are no accounts of any activities on her part to warrant any penalty, let alone incarceration.

I have retained counsel, but his probes have been thwarted by verbal claims of national security and subsequent need for secrecy, which is just preposterous. If you have children, you know that they have infatuations. The McGuinness boy is only one of, I would guess, ten lads who have been drawn to my daughter. Those youthful attractions are as fleeting as sunshine in our city. The best thing, if one disapproves, is silence. Forbidding and reprimand fixes such passing activities the way a photograph freezes a dropping stone. Let me, though, not be hypocritical and also say a positive word about the young man this is really all about. He is NOT like his father. There is no trace of anger, irreverence, nor sullied character in him. His "notorious" essays, natural poet that he is, have all been about love, fair play, mutual respect of all citizens for each other. He recites Milton, Goldsmith, Wilde, and Joyce verbatim. Such leanings are not seditious, but marvelous and, if anything, healing. You, we all, have to see past our own hatreds to be free.As to the facts of the matter, my daughter Katharine was given a simple request, by me, to purchase some baked goods from Drinn's. As you can easily determine, that bakery is near our home. She was grabbed by two men as she left with her packages. One shook her severely causing her to drop her purchase which the other deliberately trampled. She was bruised and had lacerations from her beating.

She did nothing, said nothing (but cry, I'm told, terrified she was going to be killed by thugs) and did not, frail thing she is, resist. When she learned that the men who beat her were on duty out of uniform officers, she went to the near by neighborhood constabulary office to set straight any misinformation which might have led to this and which might also, somehow, harm me in the security of my job. She demonstrated her wounds and bruises with a verbal complaint of unnecessary force. She was taken away, her accompanying friend thought, for closer physical exam and documentation of her injuries. We have not seen her since, but word has it that she is under lock in an isolation cell somewhere on the outskirts of the city. There have been no charges nor even communications. I understand that the McGuinness lad has also been locked up. At this time of universal spirituality and good will, I pray that you will, on behalf of God, release these children from their bondage.

Humbly, William MacCullah William MacCullah

cc: Percival Stanley Chief Inspector, R.U.C. cc: Dennis Grace Chief Superintendent, R.U.C.

Central Security Memo

___________________________________________ The Royal Ulster Constabulary - policing Northern Ireland ___________________________________________

From : The Office of Operational Support, R.U.C., Belfast Distribution: Crime Prevention, Security, Ops Planning & Performance This is not to be disseminated beyond level 1-2 officers. Destroy this note after it is read. 1) Due to increasing radius of damage of explosives recently confiscated, all security officers in secured areas ought not station themselves within twenty feet of any outside door or window regardless of its assumed strength pending inspection and site changes. 2) A special work detail will be dispatched by the Architecture Liaison Officer to your facility shortly (at the earliest possible availability, without further notice) for inspection of site architectural integrity and implementation of required security structural reinforcements. ___ Bogside Holding Facility, Custody Sergeant Notice Only. Do not respond. Note and shred.

>> Dungeon <<

(somewhere outside Belfast) Whispers were floating low, over cold stone. Foreign, strange sounding words. Oddly compelling, emotional in rhythm. A sad ancient tongue, almost Hebraic to the ear, was being methodically chanted before a bloodied wall starburst stained in streaks of blackened red. But spattered blood was not visible, not now, in the dark. Even so, illumination is relative. On the brightest summer day, in this bleak place, daylight could barely pass through the solitary crack provided by failed grout. This grudging benefit, a grant relinquished by two large granite blocks, marked time in the real world, the one outside. It was time, God's time, slow hopeless time, that impelled itself as light through the far corner of the stonework walls. Light. Time. One and the same. Just enough to know that both were lost. Not enough to grasp. This was, must be, night, save for the subtleties, it was otherwise hard to tell. At least darkness was kind to dream as it washed the walls of their red infected reality. Solar time was harsh and punitive. Mental time had to be constructed from wits alone. Sanity could survive no other way. In his cell, ritual shukling recitations in native Galeage were his timepiece, and his only journal, the ayd. Each evening, as a call to the faithful in the Holy City a solemn call to God for deliverance of his beloved, a rhythmic chant long into the late hours. He sought the ancient ways as only they had ever seen God face to face. In ancient dialects, he knew them, cornerstones of his art, he asked - God, are you there? Night after night to breathless silence. Nothing. Then the whispers. This night as on so many before, his chanting stopped abruptly, of self inflicted distraction. Painfully heaved breathing worked its way down the granite wall, hand by

hand, toward the floor. Stiff kneeled shuffling interrupted the death-like echoic sub sounds that just seem to live in raw stone cells, as if they were the dark side of sounds in a sea shell, coldly unsympathetic and unnerving. Stilted breathing approached the floor. You could tell by a subtle quality of sound change in this sensory vacuum. One's own heartbeat was the only competition to the rhythm of sighs. "Katharine... my Caitlin, ..." the young man's lips were pressed upon the floor at an angle against abrasive cement below the dense solid oak door. Opening the ever closed oaken portal was impossible from this side. Just as well. Food was passed by a slot. Door opening meant flogging. "Pssst. Katharine." Two years had passed in this way. Two more would still. His ear strained to silence below the heavy wood, as he assumed she did so in kind. Lips pressed sideways against cold concrete. That hardness was welcomed, though it pained the knees, as it aided the flight of his soft bidding, spiritual words of bonding from bondage, prayers between two children. Only the late hour and the privacy of their language secured them. Their jailers most likely welcomed these whisperings as self torture - and, besides, it was a good excuse for regular whippings. Whips were a part of the hollow black draped landscape. What does a poet do with this world? A world of torture. Scansion, finding meter in his lashings. Gavin preferred dactyl. The numb parts of his back provided the unaccentuated beats. "Your breasts are lovely," he floated to her. "Gavin!" as if embarrassment were possible in a dark dungeon, hers no different from his. Her propriety was not then nor ever compromised. Yet coyly, "That's naughty. You have never seen my breasts, anyhow."

"Oh, I have. I see them now. They are embellished with virginal pale pink nipples as blessed and pure as goddess Diana's. Pointing and proud, I see them casting shadows. I see each nipple beaming as radiantly as the chariot of Phoebus. From them I throw two long shadows. I set in the west of your slumber. In their warmth, I deny my precipice and embrace the wolf." She was silent. She felt embarrassed that she could not pick bouquets of such words, although any phrase from her lips was, to him, "a field of lilies". Lilies, symbolic of purity but also of pallid death, Gavin paused, sniffled a bit, then in a lost reverie droned straight down into the floor, "Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi retrovai per una selva oscura che' la dritta via era smarrita," as Katharine was trying to get him back by whispering his name in the breathing pauses of his drone. He briefly acquiesced with an aside, "You are my strain as I your burdon," the latter referring to the drone of a bag pipe. Katharine again whispered his name as he regressed, "Di sotto al capo moi son li altri tratti che precedetter me simoneggiando per la fessure de la pietra piatti." Here he paused and she embraced him with, "That's Dante. Right?" "Yes. We are in his nightmare. It seems fitting." She was now getting rather desperate to pull him back from the 'precipice', the plunging depression of which he was capable. She had passed this way before only to lose the night whispering "Gavin!" over echoes of Dante and undampened sobbing that cleansed the concrete of his blood spattered beneath the door. "Gavin! Tell me about my nipples!" That got him. " My Caitlin," as pronounced in his Gaelige there was scant difference between Caitlin and Katharine which only a trained ear could distinguish.