FEATURING THE CREATIVE TALENTS OF Enda Boyle, Michael Lee Johnson, Ceinwen Haydon, Lawrence Welsh, Anita Gracey, Albi James, Simon Perchik, Diarmuid O Maolalai and Arthur Broomfield .and Lynn Brindell EDITED BY AMOS GREIG.
A NEW ULSTER ISSUE 95 September 2020
UPATREE PRESS A New Ulster
Copyright Š 2020 A New Ulster – All Rights Reserved.
The artists featured in this publication have reserved their right under Section 77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the authors of their work. ISSN 2053-6119 (Print) ISSN 2053-6127 (Online) Edited by Amos Greig Cover Design by Amos Greig Prepared for Publication by Amos Greig
CONTRIBUTORS
This edition features work by Enda Boyle, Michael Lee Johnson, Ceinwen Haydon, Lawrence Welsh, Anita Gracey, Ali James, Simon Perchik, Diarmuid O Maolalai, Arthur Broomfield and Lynn Brindell. edited by Amos Greig.
CONTENTS Poetry Poetry
Enda Boyle Michael Lee Johnson
Poetry
Ceinwen Haydon
Poetry
Lawrence Welsh
Poetry Poetry Poetry Poetry Poetry Prose
Anita Gracey James Thurgood Simon Perchik Diarmuid O Maolalai Arthur Broomfield Lynn Brindell
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Enda Boyle
Enda Boyle was Born in County Derry in 1994. He was Educated at The Univerity of Ulster and Queen’s University Belfast. Previous Work has appeared in Blowing Razzberries, Dodging The Rain , A New Ulster, Down in the Dirt and Crossroads, Hidden Channel Zine and Dawntreader
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Springtime in Derry Cautiously, by stealth the sunny days creep in The citizens are stirred by a palpable carpe diem They undertake a wildebeest migration seaward In nearby coastal towns columns of bare torsos lay on beaches, pale blistering into a lobster burn. Closer to home the streets burst into a calamity of noise, the tinkering jingles of ice cream vans battle with high decibel thuds coming from cars Buskers haul outdoor amps out to curb corners all the better to tunelessly comeallye till dusk The pubs arrange fading plastic picnic tables turning the smoking area into a beer garden Patrons sip hastily discounted pints of cider they raise their glasses up to toast the spring and sunlight skips over the top of their pints Me, always awkward I skulk under parasols sweating under an ill-fitting baseball cap sitting on my tricked-out deck-chair throne perfecting the look of an anti-seasonal imp carping on about how it is not summer yet And yet as I look at the sea’s sliver strands of sunlight there might yet be time to learn to play with these unasked-for days in April 2
or May. Seasonal grace-notes paly-out quickly The ice-lolly is melting even as we take a lick. Rooted Ten miles from nowhere, a short drive from the sticks you will find my village coiled round a basin of hills. Here in this a five-mile stretch you find my people. The provincials, not that we are in any way backwards we are modern, condoms in the chemist, wifi in the pub it’s just that we stick to what we know with goat like stubbornness. We know how we like things done Our accents could shatter Waterford Crystal from ten paces away. Let’s not even discuss our table manners. Fair warning outsiders condescend at their own peril. There is only room in this village for one ingrate. This perch is reserved for ungrateful local children. Those who walk the line between gadfly and gobshite Masters of the behind the back eye role and smirk. Older locals indulge our japes, tolerate our comments they know they are merely the grouses of youths for whom the town crossroads have the gravitational pull of Jupiter. They felt the same thirty years ago back when the buses ran irregularly over 3
bad roads. Charitably they don’t mention our better recourses. We can retreat online, buy a budget airline ticket, take out a student loan or get a work visa to Austria smugly fly away before the trap snaps shut forever little realizing we’ll be back with our own children.
The Art of Surprise Tucked away neatly and half-hidden on the end of the shelf. An anthology of the at the time upcoming new Irish poets. It’s cover a plain utilitarian cream it’s staples are falling out. The pages are stained with tea and the ink is starting to fade. On the dog-eared inside cover the price has been reduced. And yet like doubloons hidden in a chest the poems glitter. Neglect and the passage of time has not dulled their charms. They have been here waiting for someone to crack the spine of the book so they can share themselves with the reader A poem without a reader is powerless as a broken circuit. Placing the book back I think of this most marginal of arts how it creeps in unannounced from the margins of our lives. Whether it is horded in a diary or launched into cyberspace sent off to a literary journal or spoken during an open mic poems inhabit the nooks and crannies of our imaginations. 4
Most of us seek poetry out only during times of extremes. We match its intensity during moments of grief or triumph the graveside oration and the graduation day guest speech. For these occasions old anthologies are raided lyrics selected and the words no one knew we needed reach out to meet us (Enda Boyle)
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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Michael Lee Johnson Michael Lee Johnson lived 10 years in Canada during the Vietnam era and is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada. Today he is a poet, freelance writer, amateur photographer, and small business owner in Itasca, DuPage County, Illinois. Mr. Johnson published in more than 1072 new publications, his poems have appeared in 38 countries, he edits, publishes 10 poetry sites. Michael Lee Johnson, has been nominated for 2 Pushcart Prize awards poetry 2015/1 Best of the Net 2016/2 Best of the Net 2017, 2 Best of the Net 2018. 207 poetry videos are now on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/poetrymanusa/videos. Editor-in-chief poetry anthology, Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1530456762; editor-in-chief poetry anthology, Dandelion in a Vase of Roses available here https://www.amazon.com/dp/1545352089. Editor-in-chief Warriors with Wings: the Best in Contemporary Poetry, http://www.amazon.com/dp/1722130717. https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Lee-Johnson/e/B0055HTMBQ%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share https://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?keyWords=Michael+Lee+Johnson&type= Member Illinois State Poetry Society: http://www.illinoispoets.org/
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Flower Girl
(Tears in Your Eyes) By Michael Lee Johnson Poems are hard to create they live, then die, walk alone in tears, resurrect in mausoleums. They walk with you alone in ghostly patterns, memories they deliver feeling unexpectedly through the open windows of strangers. Artificial roses lie in a potted bowl memories seven days before Mother’s Day. Soak those tears, patience is the poetry of love. Plant your memories, your seeds, your passion, once a year, maybe twice. Jesus knows we all need more than plastic flowers, poems on paper from a poet sacred, the mystery, the love of a caretaker.
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Silent Moonlight (V2)
By Michael Lee Johnson Record, she’s a creeping spider. Hurt love dangles net from a silent moonlight hanger, tortures this damaged heart daggers twist in hints of the rising sun. Silence snores. Sometimes she’s a bitch. Sunlight scatters these shadows across my bare feet in this spotty rain. Sometimes we rewind, sometimes no recourse, numbness, no feeling at all.
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July 4th, 2020, Itasca, Illinois (V3) (Hamilton Lakes) By Michael Lee Johnson Stone caved dreams for men past and gone, freedom fighters blow past wind and storms. Patriotism scared, etched in the face of cave walls. There are no cemeteries here for the old, vacancies for the new. Americans incubate chunks of patriotism over the few centuries, a calling into the wild, a yell forked stab me. Today happiness is a holiday. Rest in peace warriors, freedom fighters, those simply made a mistake. I gaze out my window to Hamilton Lakes half-drunk with sparkling wine, seeing lightning strike ends, sparklers, buckets full of fire. Light up than dark sky, firecrackers. Filmmakers, old rock players, fume-filled skies, the butt of dragonflies. Patriotism shakes, rocks, jerks across my eye’s freedom locked in chains, stone-carved dreams.
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Fall Thunder (V2)
By Michael Lee Johnson There is power in the thunder tonight, kettledrums. There is thunder in this power, the powder blends white lightening flour sifters in masks toss it around. Rain plunges October night; dancers crisscross night sky in white gowns. Tumble, turning, swirl the night away, around, leaves tape-record over, over, then, pound, pound repeat falling to the ground. Halloween falls to the children's knees and imaginations. Kettledrums.
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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Ceinwen Haydon Ceinwen lives near Newcastle upon Tyne, UK and writes short stories and poetry. She is widely published in online magazines and in print anthologies. Her mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#333333;mso-fareast-language: EN-GB">first chapbook was published in July 2019: 'Cerddi Bach"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-fontfamily:"Times New Roman";color:#333333; mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">' [mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">Little Poems], Hedgehog Press. Her first pamphlet is due to be published in 2020. She is a Pushcart Prize and Forward Prize nominee (2019) and has an MA in Creative Writing from Newcastle University, UK (2017). She believes everyone's voices count.
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FOR MY GRANDDAUGHTER IN HEAVY WEATHER these days words dive down drains washed through iron grids by deluge-storms as water drenches my glasses mist yet I see my girl sixteen I am swept away by love flounder in currents of remembrance recall my years of teenage torment – not much changes in decades yet everything is different I need to tell her what I once in faltering tones tried to tell her lovely mother don’t doubt yourself grow strong speak aloud let your limbs swim free and sure explore all echoes sung by pulses lapping in your heart (Ceinwen Haydon)
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DISPOSAL Make mine willow with papier-mâché shroud to welcome worms and beetles. Honour me in humour and in wine. Don’t pollute our memories with saccharin nor air with burnt-ashed fumes or ground with lead-lined caskets. (Ceinwen Haydon)
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ON THE DARK WEB perhaps I’ll find a course on how to lie, that skill’s always evaded me – or tuition on how to pass on by when someone needs to talk – like old folk at bus stops, when I was a child. My friends would say, you’ve got that sort of face – so maybe I could buy a beauty treatment to harden me off. But now I’m old, I hope someone speaks to me, I’d love that, I’ll not lie.
(Ceinwen Haydon)
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BAD GIRL A wet Tuesday, me in Marks and Sparks. aged five. Lost. I hid in skirted froths face tickled red by lemon organza – fun frocks forbidden for the likes of me. Kindly hands led me to a counter. I waited forever –- until I heard my mother. Her cross voice failed to smile in my direction. She raised her hand instead. My woollen kilt, navy plaid, hid deep bruises.
(Ceinwen Haydon)
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LOVE WITHELD I see you reach seek your mother’s cold hand you fret yearn for her love don’t you know she can’t or won’t you’re not mild mindless obedient you do not suit her are not a girl to warm her hands like soft kid gloves except when her slaps sting both your skins I see you reach seek your mother’s cold hand you an early reader to show off yet your questions she soon judged precocious you divided to meet her harsh demands flinched from punches landed from above still I see you reach seek your mother’s cold hand how much sour rejection can you withstand before rage breaks and you shove her away for good don’t you know she will never understand still I see you reach seek your mother’s cold hand days before she died coddled in her care home her heart unjammed she named you lovely daughter words undreamt came at her end I see you stroke your mother’s laid-out hand how much time was lost before she came to understand (Ceinwen Haydon) 16
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Lawrence Welsh Lawrence Welsh has published 12 books of poetry, including Begging for Vultures: New and Selected Poems (University of New Mexico Press). His books have won the Southwest Book Award, the New MexicoArizona Book Award, the Southwest Books of the Year Award and have been short listed for the PEN Southwest Book Award and the Writers’ League of Texas Book Award. His poetry, reviews, essays, as well as journalistic writings, have appeared in more than 300 national and regional magazines, journals, newspapers and anthologies.
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THE SUPPLICANTS
for if the view escapes grab hold of air mahogany tarnished silver the rusted benedictine crucifix. for what hope they know rests before walking waking again
(Lawrence Welsh)
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LAUNCHING THE CURRACH
if it dries it dies and floats by white sails white sand but if it swims it’s immortal as “job” or “catch” and relinquishes all that was here
(Lawrence Welsh)
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BLACK 47
unmarked like every lover's grave this field rises up in rain-soaked weeds with no invite to come but a toast in moss jasmine and sage the smoke a dead man's remembrance of flesh-rot days and nights of battered tongues and silent teeth
(Lawrence Welsh)
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THE DOOLIN DRAG
your drum (an awakening) or whiskey-drenched guitar sits cross legged and thirsty like a day canvassed in the still flecks of midnight
a crowd and one man smokeless w/ no teeth can beg afton or silk cut and get a bounty here
he’s paid a thousand dues by never leaving or not at all for commitments to stay
mcdermot’s says 1867 and clare’s day as much then as july’s now festival in lisdoonvarna
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there a rag weed stomp for the craic or the seagulls the crying composers of song
(Lawrence Welsh)
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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Anita Gracey Anita Gracey has been published in Poetry Ireland Review, Washing Windows – Irish Women Write Poetry (Ed. Eavan Boland), Abridged, The Honest Ulsterman, Poetry NI, The Poets’ Republic, The Blue Nib, Culture Matters, Sonder,‘Her Other Language’Anthology, ‘North Star’ Anthology, CAP Anthologies, Bangor Literary Review and Waterways Story-making Festival. Her work has featured in The Poetry Jukebox. She was shortlisted Over the Edge New Writer of the Year 2018, longlisted for the Hennessy New Irish Writing in 2019 and shortlisted Chultúrlann Poetry Competition 2020. Anita is supported by an iDA award, managed by the University of Atypical on behalf of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.
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Sketch of an Atheist Stars hung from night sky when he was castaway bones lost in pj top pallor dismal grey. No savage sweep eyes Kingfisher flash of blue no-one really knew you an enigma it’s true. He chose for Confirmed name the saintly ‘Spiderman’ the priest wouldn’t allow God mustn’t be a fan. At Emy holidays he’d tall tales of axemen earwigged chemical loos. I was gullible then He had to be street smart childhood barbed violence armed with parents’ love it taught him resilience. He done horticulture leaves shiver their neglect soil in need of a drink plastic plants scream rejection. Not living in a flat, he preferred Apartment a whole new backstory papered in gilt parchment. His beliefs right wing short words puffed into bile when I argued he took a benign smile. Photos of sunny trips anchoring girls to him long arms around shoulders adrift with his manic grin. He didn’t want a fuss no prayers nor handshakes
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no winged angels playing he thought it all fake. He’s not in the sunset or the morning birdsong or the clinging dewdrop for him that would be wrong. (Anita Gracey)
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Climate Change Take a bow, snowdrops, at the earth’s swansong cloudlets dissipate the new season yawn sunlight seems to stretch as days grow long expectantly we await each morning’s dawn. Earth’s heartbeat dims in the charming quicksand the warning-signs here, we opt to cheat blindly puddle along biting the hand mistimed splash conducting a wasteful beat. Your footprint goes on the world, nothing is free. The cry of new light in unblinking views ignore nature and wrath will engulf you. (Anita Gracey)
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Work (For the 39 Vietnamese men, women and children who were found dead in a lorry container in Grays, October 2019). Disappearing into the lorry across the roar of seas the rumble of roads paved with gold blinkered and trusting for thirty pieces of silver hustlers promised work futile scheme caress dead dreams. Across the world her father sits stooped by a cold fire willing it back. Smell, as if decay is in his blood breath from an empty place. he is on the road but the road goes nowhere. Thinking of her last moments gasping like a new-born. (Anita Gracey)
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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Albi James
Albi James was born in Nova Scotia, grew up in Windsor, Ontario, and now lives in Calgary, Alberta (Canada). He has been a general labourer, musician, and teacher – not necessarily in that order. His poems have appeared in various journals, anthologies, chapbooks, and collected in a trade book.
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grace
a restaurant deck, by the harbour in breezy sunshine – my cousin, a minister speaks of churches
brunch arrived, she bows her head silent in prayer
I feel left out, as if two friends are sharing a secret - one I’ve announced I don’t want to hear
(Albi James)
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field recording
this old tape recalls tunes from kitchen dances and farm festivals – suddenly, the early chirps of my children – the complaint of my then-wife whose head aches – in the background the sweet drone of bagpipes
cut to a shed backstage - I’m on fiddle, while another bangs breakneck piano with well-aimed but seized-up fingers that hit just off so you wish this five years back – even here his wild pounding, his downhome beat drive his plinking peers from the field
that’s all right, boy he says in half-strangled drawl
then that march we all played – its young maker not yet gone by heart attack – was hitching from Cape Breton when a driver stopped 30
to try the famous tune and ask if he had it and yes, he had it pretty good – no one said it had to be perfect
but a few minutes by the road before that march was forgotten before fingers bound up and hearts gave out came close enough
(Albi James)
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old Montreal
this poet she knew in the Montreal of Leonard Cohen and Dubois brothers and bôites à chansons – too young to care, poet and wife just old enough: if downtown late, she crept up the fire-escape, raised the window, and morning found her on their couch. I was wont to fancy more: late night intrusions not to mere living- but bedroom and passion fruit till first light blushed over Saint Somebody whose eyes peach-pink mornings absolved a city – and this how many heat-wave nights including the chanteuse she danced tiptoe up iron steps to love poet’s wife while he and my bride-to-be watched from twined tumbles of sheets and the beautiful waiter from the alley pleading keys lost who too was shushed through the window – bienvenue, Madame Landlady, entrez, downstairs ballerina, flustered, with two strapping policemen, next night escorting inmates giggling from St. Sappho’s Correctional who Sunday dragged gangster boyfriends to the boat ride. And so that summer of love spread its web by kiss, by lick, by nibble to enmesh the plump round ends of the earth till even poor, halt, and lame forgot their wretchedness, posed preening before mirrors in finery soon flung to the five winds and as St. Leonard sang fell to young and gorgeous arms. But come morning, summer’s girls shouldered backpacks, stuck out thumbs, hopped into sports-cars next to square-jawed strangers in dark shades and waved, or boarded planes blowing kisses – the boys, in parti-coloured helmets roared off on motorcycles, and the beggars went back a-begging, the starved a-starving – St. Leonard climbed his mountain, the Dubois fréres faced the music while the bôites à chansons went off-key – the poet promised obscurity 32
brides-to-be turned wives-that-were to Gallic shrugs with Parisian accordion yearning as credits rolled: names soon gone except Leonard Cohen as himself. And I missed that night – someone might have mentioned but no they pranced, minced and hobbled past my pedestal – next morning not even seeking the forgiveness in my stone eyes
Notes: 1) Dubois brothers: gangsters, active 1960s-1970s; 2) bôites à chansons: small nightclubs with live music and bohemian ambience, popular in Montreal, 1950s-1970s. (Albi James)
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years
what kind of fool works four hundred miles back in the bush to bankroll a bed he’s not welcome in – I turn with care on a flimsy cot and edge the radio-dial forward like a blind man stumbling past calls and whispers from Pop, Country, Sports – searching Classical, something to touch deep – but none this late, always too late but here’s a distant hit: sad comfort from an Oldies station then: Hello I Love You – it grabs me – won’t you tell me your name? a dance at the Y downtown I chanced on after judo: dark and flashing lights – the fierce electricity of that guitar – the Lizard King’s proclamation, its hard silly truth, the driving throbbing beat – I was what, thirteen? a girl in my arms – her perfume – how she couldn’t believe I had to go and held me 34
with brown-eyed longing following me out the back through the dark and flashing years to this cot four hundred miles back in the bush
(Albi James)
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4:19
glowed the clock-radio when I got up drank water came back and took you in my arms half-dreaming: if I remember just that I will have it all and sing it so the world will share this joy at 4:19 not much against the horror but some seconds more than nothing no doubt it’s a cheap trick making hay of 4:19 – not like it marked the first or last but still it was one time of only so many and I’d love to celebrate each with songs and statues, paintings and ballets operas and symphonies and public works say fountains libraries concert halls and parks to spread my private fortune far beyond this single mattress on cracked linoleum against a wall scrawled with the next generation’s graffiti with a cardboard box for a bedside table with a clock-radio that reads 4:19
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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Simon Perchik Simon’s poetry has appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, The New Yorker and elsewhere.
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* First on paper then the carpenters following the saws –in the end the house was divided with borders where each wall was scented by a song still playing when the hammers were silenced the way you grip this knob then leave a room that has no place to go though you turn the radio around, sing along till the static no longer comes from nails stiffening, beginning to foam as each board draws its wood tighter around your throat –it’s a small house, a kitchen that’s gaining weight, a sink where iron drips just for the flash when it touches the ground the way the dead weigh less when the last thing they saw was the darkness, drop by drop opening the corners, the water, louder and louder. (Simon Perchik)
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* You draw the map on her dress shade in each afternoon with a gentle stroking –here the storm will be, the chalk is already falling back breaking apart over the fixed point where the Earth was lowered the way all graves are calmed and though the dress is black you hold it up as a gesture guiding her with a night that now weighs nothing will circle over and over as the sleeve no longer whitened by moonlight taking so long to finish, become the path helping you stay on your feet once there’s no chalk left no sparks and the heaviness. (Simon Perchik)
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* You wash this shirt at night letting its buttons loosen though the sleeves harden when wet smell from salt then stone –you become a lighthouse –waves could save you now come with a sea as that darkness you need to embrace it, let the waters take in that afternoon as if you are still drowning, arm over arm in the sand left over from an old love song come back as lips to warm you and though this is a small sink it’s always August, deeper and deeper filled by an open wound. (Simon Perchik)
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* You close your eyes the way this toast blackens on its own –a second Spring explodes, starts its journey as crumbs and though nothing is moving outward once near your mouth the crust begins to swell soften, become those breasts you swallow all morning in the darkness between the coffee and this cracked cup catching fire making room for love to happen flood the Earth full steam ahead on time as if your skin had opened to warm her sip by sip gripped by oceans and teeth.
(Simon Perchik)
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* All that’s left is the rain tossed overboard as the silence now falling on her forehead –you are sailing too close to the ditch covered with dirt filling this harbor and night after night though there’s so little wind –nothing moves in this sea except as an armada :flowers that steady each ship with the rocks mourners leave as those voices you hear coming to an end. (Simon Perchik)
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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: D S MAOLALAI
DS Maolalai has been nominated four times for Best of the Net and three times for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been released in two collections, "Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden" (Encircle Press, 2016) and "Sad Havoc Among the Birds" (Turas Press, 2019)
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Night-time noises. emptying my pockets of crumpled dead papers which sit on the dresser in a lined-up rose-white. my wallet a bassdrum and my keys a sharp jingle, this treble of pennies, divesting my goods. the bed squeezes beneath me with the rattle of a halftuned accordion. night-time all noises, all peace and all normal. you roll over, sleepless and sleepy, knowing by now how my symphony goes. (D S Maolalai)
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Dislocation. arranging some cover for the electrical tech based out of ulster bank, central park west, while he's laid up in hospital with his bad heart and bad knees and (this one's new) a badly dislocated ankle. someone now necessary who can work the main HVAC and various boiler systems, the AHU, BMS, fire alarm and fall-safe. things go on. (inga, the supervisor says he did it to himself for the money – he slipped in a plantroom with no CCTV, and she was in later; no oil on the floor) I send him a message saying rest up, don't worry – I've pulled in a road tech off some PPMs. he can do most of it – he's pretty certain anyway – if he can't he'll call me in a pinch or call you (D S Maolalai)
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Eggshells. downline from the semiprecious gem stones of the neck, bought around christmas as a christmas present the body drips tumbling and colourful; eggyolks and eggwhites falling out of eggshells.
(D S Maolalai)
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Stitches. like pinning a patch on the sleeve of a jacket, the city bores down with its steel toward the sea. I drive out each morning, west on the M50 southbound, see as the grey and the endlessness tacks up to new ends. the mountains south of dublin; even there they have traffic sometimes now, and the radio doesn't lose station. I hammer my finger and push it to past jazz and to classicals. mean as a losing tobogganer I slide into fifth and slide forward, switching attentions and stitching past lorries which crowd up like mountains ahead.
(D S Maolalai)
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Topiary. walking the dog at night-time, all 10pm and empty topiary – empty streets with bodies spiralling every direction and loose, like emptied out coffee grounds making their way to the plughole. kids on bikes – five of them – stirred up and dangerous as bottles in long grass. a couple kissing by a wall in an alley, soaked with moisture and the brickish drip of rot. a police checkpoint. someone heavyset smoking. bicycles flying like bats in the traffic. something on a corner decomposing. something the dog smells. ground floor window boxes on the railings of apartment buildings; death with no sign of petals. topiary falling to bottle caps and cigarettes. to dry earth and paper and ash. (D S Maolalai)
. . .
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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: DR ARTHUR BROOMFIELD Dr Arthur Broomfield is a poet and Beckett scholar from County Laois.His poetry has been published in Irish, UK and US journals. He is the author of seven works of poetry and fiction
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A Stupid Decision I stayed away Thinking a handbag of excuses, lipstick, rotten tomatoes, some money, notes on receipts, lip balm and mouse traps. Rain might flood, block the gully traps, ruin my mohair dumpling. I hadn’t booked, even read or heard, or herded goats and sheep through the snoring streets, woodwinds startling the cow punched starlings; my Puritan hat, haute couture for a summer funeral, might agitate my parked people carrier or strike up the national anthem at an inappropriate pause in the Angelus bell.
I could have sung a song of sixpence to a pocket full of rye.
All the rhythms of rainwater and squelching galoshes, of clashing symbols and the air of falling skyscrapers, were music to the ears of Ruth robbing corn among the church-going public assembled in sinners’ file as the golden trolley careered through the Van Gogh sky and came to rest, alas, on the pinnacle of a rusted telegraph pole, dashing their hopes yet again.
A Robert De Niro street scene 50
flashed across the mushroom moon.
The many hair sprays, kinky boots, and sensible tights – stretched for protection – were eulogised by the bard of the swinging swong, the twisting hyena of the ghost of midnight watercress, adored though he was, as the Yanks adore Killarney.
Nancy Griffith, in rural Shinrone, gives a shout out to Maura O’Connell and Mary Black, generous as goose eggs at high tide.
Arthur Broomfield
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I’ve got a little list
When these are being numbered and listed by some auctioneer’s assistant, a heart that’s been bypassed on a moth-infested Piazza in the holy city will emerge from the coal scuttle under the master’s cuckoo clock. The murals, delicate to excess, Hitler in pyjamas, Stalin inspecting the latest arrivals at Christchurch Cathedral, and the frescos, bearing down on the sub-conscious like oregano tea in swaddling clothes. The motor bike hero criss-crossing donut buns, his mouth fuming with TVO. All these and more or less everything that falls apart, an angelus bell on his desk that rings Auld Lang Syne, a mirror that reflects little green woodlice, a cat that recites the Te Deum, they’ll sell or give, to the overfed fans of the fattest gravedigger. Arthur Broomfield
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A Rainy Night in George’s Street
I am Hecate the diamond flashing in the star crashing across the purple sky.
I speak to the laundered trio of the punctured bike tube in the rain bound subterranean homesick blues, to the illiterate glitter of the smiling bus stop, the cobblestones in stocks, to the gurgling cauldron of gargoyles on the bell table of the peppered wellington.
I am the Goddess of love thyself, of packed shelves and railway sleepers. I dance with the clashed symbols of the Bubonic plague that sing the songs of Moses on the mount. I visit eternal damnation on the paper clipped bard of curried chips.
Conaire of Tara, the foreseeing foreskin, revels in the mag of revelations. So, swim with me, trio of the storm-tossed yacht, soar in your sore words as you walk the streets of rails and pigtails, 53
firing your fusillade of ping pongs from a diseased water cannon. Arthur Broomfield
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EDITOR’S NOTE It is incredible to think that this year has been so stagnant, businesses, economies and communities teetering on the very brink and our political classes appear unable or unwilling to tackle the situation properly. In many ways it feels like we have all stopped and held our breath but no one has said for how long and now we are all staring anxiously waiting for permission. Thankfully there is still outlets for creativity and many smaller areas have shown a great deal of community spirit. We can only hope that 2021 proves to be a more energized year for everyone and that we find a closeness that seems to be dripping ever so slowly at the rock of bigotry. Happy reading, good health, and keep creating, Amos Greig (Editor) BA Hons Ancient History and English recipient of the Artists Emergency Grant provided by the Arts Council Northern Ireland.
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Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-1 Lynn Brindell
7229 words
LLBrindell@comcast.net (845)-661-2380
TEENY SULLIVAN By L.L. Brindell
Mack Breen bolts awake, sweat-slicked and panting, not knowing how he fell into bed or exactly when, just that the fit took him down, will throttle him again. Sunday. Have to do it now. He rushes to the grit-caked window, shoves the heavy thing up an inch, throws his lips to the crack at the sill, sucking and gulping the sooty air as if the smoke-choked streets of 1927 Pittsburgh could yield relief. Outside, over grim, gray storefronts and sidewalks, there’s no hint that it’s dawn, the sun clawing through metallic haze. It’s all thick and shrouded, a tentative snow falling like white lace over ashes. Mack gulps repeatedly, swallowing the cold and with it, the gonging church bells, the clang of the street car coming around the curve, feels the damn fit coming on. Not now. Not now. Then the stuck shards of panic go lit, twinkling, as the rushing sound fills his ears like a train in a tunnel and the trembling takes over. Got to get to the boy.
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-2 He squints at the bed, confirms the moneybags are still there; touches his chest, his bloody shirt; registers the locks, slapped tight across the thin, wooden hotel room door as the memory descends. It kicks at first, then smothers like a black bag thrown over his head. Mack drops to the chilly floor, curled and grimacing, that day seven years ago replaying. Each moment is keen and fresh, like the bright whiffs of mint coming from the muddy little herb gardens they rushed past on their way to the stadium. -xThey were late for the match, the sky above Croke Park oddly clear, cobblestones and tidy houses newly damp from rain. His younger brother Philip walked fast next to him, steps determined, freckled face a scowl. “Jaysus, out of that damn apartment,” Philip said. “Away from the baby cryin’, Nora bein’ miserable.” He inhaled, tilting his head back, curly red hair stark against the wide blue sky. “It’s like my first breath of fresh air, yeah?” “Never thought she’d be worse,” Mack frowned. “I thought havin’ the baby would change her,” Philip said. “But she’s even more skittish. Cries constantly. Drinks in the mornin’. Goes off, sittin’ at the window, starin’. I have to remind her to feed him. I’m workin’ hard as I can; it’s never enough for her.” They were headed towards the man selling tickets near the gate; beyond him the pocked green field and crowded stands unfurled. “I even worry about bein’ here, for God’s sake,” Philip said. “You know, leavin’ her alone with my boy.” “Game’s just started,” the ticket seller said when they reached him. “You haven’t missed anything.” Mack glanced down at the chit pressed into his hand, the date November 20, 1920- forever tattooed.
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-3 “C’mon, let’s get a pint.” Mack hoped beer would smooth what he wanted to say, Philip barely eighteen, so young to be a father, tied down. They stood sipping near the gate, watching the players running back and forth in herds, chasing the ball. “Do you have to stay with her?” Mack asked. “What the hell else can I do?” Philip cried, blue eyes bright with anguish. “It’s the craziest love in the world, lookin’ down, seein’ my baby boy.” There was a kick to the goal; the cheering crowd drowned the first popping shots. Then a player stumbled, crumpled on the grass, his stillness so strange. More popping came, faster, from every direction, the sheer inconceivability giving way to horror. Mud splattered their cheeks, sucked their shoes, slowing them; screams rose with the malty scent of spilled beer. The stampede was a human wave, engulfing. “Philip!” Mack lunged, voice lost in the roar, the pop-pop-popping cracking and dancing, so random, so close. They were barreling towards the thin-sheeted steel wall, trampling over it, crushing the thing to the ground, when Mack actually heard a bullet whiz past his ear. Philip’s head snapped back, his body arching up, arms thrown out in that old brown woolen coat like a scarecrow, like Christ on the cross. He seemed to float, suspended for an instant, form sharp against the blue sky. Then he dropped, dragged under. Boots smashed Mack’s shoulder as he dove, grabbing Philip, rolling to a gutter. Face to face, blood angrily seeping, Mack watched his brother’s gaze lock, riveted on something astounding, distant. The last whisper was urgent, gurgled, the request a curse for years to come. Take care of my boy for me. -x-
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-4 “Sorry, Philip,” Mack groans aloud in the Pittsburgh hotel room, as the clanging street car breaks the spell. “Gonna be another Bloody Sunday.” In the bathroom mirror, Mack notes his swelling eye, the blooming red marks at his neck, turns on the shower’s cold metal taps. Water stings his new cuts and bruises; blood slides away, over his toes at the tub’s drain. He gruffly dries off, pulls on good pants, the clean, pressed white shirt. Boots laced, hair combed, he grabs the satchels from the closet, shoves a moneybag in each, closes the satchel flaps and heaves them up, one over his right shoulder, the other over his left. He tests, steadying, practices moving under the weight. In the mirror, the satchel straps are braced, crossed, a stark X over his white shirt. Like a target, a bullseye. Scowling, Mack throws on his long, gray tweed coat, pulls his black hat low, grabs the brown paper bag with the gift inside and slips out the door. He’d been planning it for weeks. -xHe didn’t expect the snow, the slushy sidewalks, wet flakes dotting his hat, his shoulders, sticking to his cheeks like regret. When the church bells gong he flinches, glancing around like a furtive rat. The familiar glass storefronts -Stein’s Pharmacy, Boggs Tailor, Grimaldi’s Bakery, City Fish and Poultry- are lifeless, mere shells. Yet as he passes by the shops seem to spurt and echo, briefly coming alive with rollicking days of jokes and laughter. Then the damn church bells start again, clogging his brain. He remembers the baptism, Father McBride’s blue-veined hand dribbling water over the baby’s head. The sacrament, the flowing water, those blue veins pulsing like the city’s rivers, seemed to sanction their leap from Croke Park to the promise and protection of Pittsburgh’s Irish Mob.
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-5 “You’re the boy’s father then?” the priest asked in the sacristy, Nora blushing. “No, but I’m bound,” Mack solemnly replied. “She’s my brother’s widow.” The lush life of speakeasies and gambling, of Nora’s thick, silk dresses and soft fur coats; of buttered steaks cut with gleaming knives in back rooms, felt deserved, their rewards for grief. Mack hurries out of the business district, past the row houses, wiping snowflakes from his cheeks, wishing he could wipe it all away. But the brown paper bag thwacks against his knee, reminding him of the night before, of his tommy gun thwacked against their sunken faces. He’d gripped the gun, spraying, the thing vomiting its rat-atat-tat, then winged it like a baseball bat across their dead eyes, just to be sure. He wishes he had his tommy gun; wishes the brown paper bag, the gift inside, didn’t feel murderous, too. Another kind of killing. Mack darts down alleys separated by high wooden fences, past back stoops and cellar doors, pivots onto Cedar Avenue. The houses grow big, bigger yet, sprawling with turrets and balconies, their arched windows and warm, glowing lights never his own. Past those fancy curlicues topping the wrought iron fence, into the alley, up the back stairs, he stops short on the porch stoop, huffing at the door, his breath -and something else- caught in his throat. Setting down the brown paper bag, his nephew’s face -stark blue eyes, curly red hair so like Philip’s- springs to mind. All Mack’s days as an uncle, the little boy bobbing along at his side; the grubby warmth of those little fingers in his hand; the simple trust in that sweet face, looking up at him, throbs and blurs, pulling. Mack grits his teeth, raises his hand. God forgive me. He knocks. -xKnockknockknock.
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-6 The boy is not supposed to open the door. He’s at the kitchen table, happily chewing his strawberry jam-slathered toast, listening to the Horn and Hardart Children’s Hour on the radio, paging through Sunday comics. His stepsiblings are all off at Mass, his mother Nora and stepfather Finn, asleep up on the third floor. They work late, drink later, are bootleggers, racketeers. Never get up before noon. Knockknockknock. The boy gulps. Nobody comes to the back door on Sundays. He looks at his cat, asks its opinion, those feline eyes lit, green, affirming. KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK. The boy drags his chair to the door, climbs up, peers out the peephole, gasps at Uncle Mack’s face, distorted in the fisheye lens. “Teeny. Open up.” Something about his uncle’s low voice makes Teeny lay his little hand against the heavy, wooden door, fingers pulsing as if he could feel warmth oozing through. He knows the pain if he gets caught. Just the night before, his bedroom door burst open, a mean shaft of light piercing his eyes as Finn and his mother approached the bed, hulking silhouettes. “Where is he, you little shit?” Finn growled, throttling Teeny’s shoulders. “Dunno!” Teeny cried. “You see your sonofabitch uncle you tell me right away! You hear?” Finn cracked Teeny’s head and stormed out, dragging his mother. Alone in the dark, Teeny wept, quivering. Peering out the peephole, the quivering starts again. But Teeny slaps open the latches, jumps down, pushes away the chair, yanks open the door. Soft, cool snowflakes rush, mixing with that oily, metallic smell from the mills, down by the
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-7 rivers. Teeny caves into Uncle Mack’s nubby tweed coat and stocky chest, inhaling his familiar, comforting limey aftershave. -xThey hurry into the kitchen; Mack checks the clock, hanging above the iron stove. Forty minutes till the train. “Where you been?” Teeny whispers. “You on the lam? From the shoot’em up?” The boy nods towards the kitchen table, the newspaper headline: THREE DEAD IN SPEAKEASY SHOOTOUT. His uncle frowns. “Who’s teachin’ you to read?” “Mum. When she’s not hung.” In what hell am I leavin’ him? Mack kneels down, eye to eye with that stark blue stare, wants to give his nephew so much more than the gift in the brown paper bag. Teeny can’t stop looking at the red marks, ripening to black and blue around his uncle’s neck. “Do you know what your dad named you?” Mack starts. “He named you Tierney. Means lord and chief, in Irish. You were a tiny baby. But just ‘cause you’re small, doesn’t mean you’re weak.” A glow rises on Teeny’s freckled cheeks. He knows so little about his dad. “Your nickname, Teeny, stuck to you like tar. But you’ll always be lord and chief.” Teeny nods, feeling honored, anointed. Mack stands abruptly, glances out the tall windows, doesn’t want Teeny to see his filling eyes. He checks the steadily falling gray snow, smudging, blurring every line. They live in a kind of grimy twilight, billowing clouds of grit and smoke belched nonstop from the mills. The curlicues along the fence, Mack’s footprints on the back
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-8 stairs, the white collar on his shirt, are all going to ashy gray, even though he was only outside, hurrying along for ten minutes. Mack opens his coat; Teeny recognizes the crossed X. Mack bends, pulls the moneybags from the satchels, sets them side by side on the kitchen floor. “Take’em far back. To the ledge. Fast,” Mack says quietly. “Somethin’ for you when you’re done.” He nods towards the brown paper bag, pulls a chair, watches. Teeny knows what to do with moneybags. He loops their drawstrings over his shoulders, hurries to the bottom of the staircase in the hall, slides a finger under the ridge in the paneling, pushes the lever, hard. A square panel slides open, gaping like a dark, waiting mouth. Teeny takes a deep breath, climbs inside. His Uncle Mack is short too; he’s been inside the wall. They share this, of many secrets: it’s vast in there, with guts as complicated as intestines. Three dumbwaiter shafts run in columns from the cellar to the third floor. Other secret panels -in the dining room, for silverware; in his mother’s bedroom, for jewelry- slide open to smaller ledges. There are beams, wide as Teeny’s bed; corners so high he can stand. One part -from the kitchen to the dining room- is a low tunnel, almost twenty feet long. And the crawl is always hell. Rough wood gouges, leaving splinters in his palms. Leaky pipes drip sewage water on his curls. If someone turns on a light inside the house, blue flashes spark and crackle from loopy wiring. Cockroaches skitter; cobwebs stick. And always: mouse droppings, crunching as he crawls on his hands and knees. Inside the wall Teeny holds his breath, only gulping a quick, new mouthful of dust when his lungs feel like they’ll burst. He crawls past the roulette wheel, the green felt tablecloth with numbers on the squares, the betting books, Finn’s moneybags- all the things his stepfather made him hide the night before.
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-9 Scared, tensed, listening- if for some reason, Finn has to puke or piss and wakes up, they’re dead meat- Teeny wriggles fast to the far, widest beam, sits up, pulls Uncle Mack’s moneybags from his shoulders, sets them on the ledge. Careful not to bump his head, Teeny turns and clambers back, rushing out onto the stairs dizzied, gulping clear, new air. He pushes the lever. The panel slides closed. A new record: he took just one breath. “Good job, Teeny,” Mack whispers, motioning him near. “You know you can’t tell anybody, right?” “Think I’m dumb?” Mack leans to the paper bag on the floor, withdraws the wooden box. Teeny’s eyes grow wide, roving the exquisitely painted label, noting the strong, stern faces, the red lips and gold-buttoned uniforms, so full of promise: SOLDIERS OF THE WORLD. Mack ceremoniously places the box in Teeny’s hands. “For you.” Though he lives under thwapping brass ceiling fans and watches a maid, a cook, a houseman, taking orders from his Mum; though there are turkeys for dinner and cakes for dessert; though he has a special pair of fur-lined boots just for the snow, Teeny’s life is cheap. He wants to open the box, touch the soldiers, run his finger along their painted helmets and hats, place the ones shooting from horseback on his shelf, aimed at his bedroom door. He makes out some of the words: 20 HAND PAINTED TIN PIECES. McCABE TOYS. CINCINNATI, OHIO. “These are your men,” Uncle Mack says. “Take out just one, each day-“ “One? A day? How’m I gonna have an army, with just one?” Teeny slides the wooden box onto the table. “Twenty soldiers, twenty days. You’ll have your army. And I’ll be back-“
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-10 “You leavin’?” The boy’s face puckers, eyes shooting up. “Please,” he pleads. “Don’t-“ “I gotta get out, Teeny-“ “Finn said you’re startin’ a war, buyin’ booze from the Italians-“ “I didn’t start it.“ “Mum said you gone crazy-“ “She’s one to talk.“ “They’re gonna send me to school-“ “That’s not so bad.“ “But you always told Father McBride I knew more than even third graders.“ Teeny’s freckled face goes splotchy, his little chest heaving up and down. Uncle Mack stands. Teeny grips his coat. “Twenty days, I’ll be back-“ “But what’s -the plan?” “You’ll know.” Mack checks the clock: Twenty minutes till the train. “You keep our secret, in the wall.” “You sure you’re comin’ back?“ Teeny’s clenched face demands the truth. “I am. Now, what are you gonna say when they ask you where you got those soldiers?” The boy thinks for a second. “They were left in a bag on the porch.“ “Good. What else?” “Nothin’.” His uncle stares down, holds out a hand to seal their deal. The boy lunges, slaps the hand away, snarls. “You mean it? You’re comin’ back?!”
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-11 It’s a quick street move, practiced like a few others Mack taught him, to rattle people, get them off guard. “Good one, Teeny,” Mack nods, looking down. Kid’ll be okay. He’s a son of a bitch, like the rest of us. “Promise,” Teeny whispers, throwing his arms around Mack, tightening his grip. All their days together, of matinees and ice creams; of stick ball games in the alley and whispered secrets; of strolling the sidewalks buoyed by his uncle’s love, start seeping away. Teeny shudders, slobbering, his tears wetting Mack’s white shirt. “Sh. Sh.” Mack rustles the boy’s curls, notes his own trembling hand, wants to grab Teeny and bolt. He grits his teeth, checks the clock, steps away. “Lock it behind me, Teeny. Twenty soldiers, twenty days.” “No. Don’t leave-” Teeny reaches out, his little face trembling in anguish. Mack rips away. Out the door, down the stairs, along the alley, fast, faster, lighter without the moneybags, Mack races, choked, trying to breathe, the boy’s agonized face just like Philip’s. The train’s first whistle bursts in warning; loss slices his soul. -xTeeny stands stunned at the open door, Uncle Mack’s gray tweed coat blurring, disappearing into the cobblestones’ ashy furrows, the snow-softened, gabled roofs. It’s so still, he can hear the very grit falling through the snow. A steady mechanical thudding echoes from the mills, down by the rivers. The thudding hits Teeny’s chest, drumming in hollow loneliness, driving out his small, taut warmth. Someone clonks around upstairs. Alarmed, Teeny quickly shuts the door, grabs the chair, climbs up, shuts the latches, jumps down. He pushes the chair to the table,
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-12 grabs the wooden box and hurtles up the back stairs, his cat padding behind. Would he leave me? Leave the money? Behind his locked bedroom door, Teeny drops to the floor clutching the box, rocking, crying, shoving his face into his cat’s soft fur. As the train’s mournful whistle winds away, he feels something deep within, extracted, pulled away, too. Only one thought redeems his misery: Twenty soldiers. Twenty days. Teeny sits up, pulling his face to a grim expression, just like his soldiers. He reaches for the box, slides open the top, stares down, picks one. Peering closely, he touches the gold buttons, the tip of a gun, the fringed epaulettes and pointed hat. He holds the soldier to his hot cheek, the cool tin soothing. When the church bells gong, he feels summoned, remembers words he heard -or thinks he heard- during one of Father McBride’s sermons. Wound unto others as they have wounded unto you. Teeny nods, affirming, returns the soldier to the box, closes the lid and slides the box way back, underneath to the wall. Then he sits on the floor, stroking his cat’s soft fur, planning. He’ll wage his own war for twenty days. He’ll show Finn, his mother, his five cruel stepsiblings, just how powerful he, the boy named Lord and Chief, can be. And if his uncle doesn’t come back, doesn’t keep his promise? He’ll rat on him. Hell with’im. Teeny creeps out of his room, steals through the house, gathering what he’ll need. -xOn Monday morning Teeny chooses a blue-uniformed soldier with a bayonet, opens his bottom bureau drawer, sets the soldier inside, salutes. At breakfast, he
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-13 quarrels over the last biscuit with Snotty Bridget, his youngest stepsister, grabs her wrist, chomps, breaks the skin, surprised by the quick flood of satisfaction. “You little shit!” Bridget yells. “You’re stupid!” he sneers. While they’re all off at school, he sneaks into Lucy’s closet, wields the paring knife from the kitchen drawer, shreds the back of her favorite ruffled blouse. He slips downstairs, opens the panel in the wall, scoops up crispy dead bugs and mouse droppings, runs to Maggie’s room, strews them through her underwear drawer. On Thursday, while Walter and Teddy greedily gobble second helpings of dessert, Teeny sneaks textbooks from their schoolbags and draws crude penises and hairy testicles over Isosceles triangles and solar system diagrams. He slips the books back into their bags. The next day, after their teachers discover the disgusting artwork, both boys are dragged to Father McBride, who smacks them repeatedly and escorts them home to Finn. “You bastards,” Finn declares after the priest leaves, whacking the boys’ faces. “The little shit did it!” Walter points at Teeny. “Did not!” Teeny cries. “You’re not a real Sullivan!” Teddy yells. “Wouldn’t wanna be!” Teeny sticks out his tongue. “Get the hell upstairs! All of you!” Finn kicks their back sides. Teeny gloats, fueled by triumph, wants more. In the cellar, his cat watching, he punctures all their bicycle tires, even though they won’t ride them till spring. He parries a chisel, hacks, whacks and dulls their sled runners and ice skate blades. After his cat vigorously bats a mouse till it’s dead, Teeny grabs the cold, little ball of fur -mouth
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-14 stuck open, tiny teeth visible- and skitters upstairs, stuffing it beneath his mother’s pillow. Around dawn, when her drunken screams wake the entire household, Teeny giggles in his bed. Each morning he places another soldier in his bottom drawer, plans more attacks. He tosses kitty poop through Finn’s car; clogs his sister’s hairbrushes with cooking grease; delightedly watches the powder room toilet -stuffed with potato peelsoverflowing onto the pretty hall rug. He reigns silently, menacing and victorious till one afternoon when Finn, boozed-up and growling, charges into the kitchen, yanks him from a chair. “Get up. We’re makin’ the rounds.” It’s a violation, squelching all the shiny memories of days spent with Uncle Mack, collecting bets for their racket, the Northside Night Number. Teeny clenches, determined to resist. -xMonday through Saturday for almost two years, Teeny bounced like a lucky leprechaun at Uncle Mack’s side, strolling sidewalks, delighting shopkeepers with visits. “Would you look at that boy!” the shopkeepers would say, grinning, patting Teeny’s head for good luck, the butcher, fishmonger, printer and baker always leaving traces -sticky, smelly, inky, floury- on his curls. “Ready to play?” Uncle Mack grinned. “Teeny, give’im the book.” The shopkeepers would sniff and ponder, squinching their lips to one side, pulling a pencil from behind an ear, scribbling a name, lucky number, the amount of their bet, on a page in the book. While Uncle Mack collected the money, Teeny would carefully rip the copy page from beneath the carbon paper, hand it over. Then they’d
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-15 gossip and laugh, ply Teeny with Hershey bars, Fireballs and lemonade, trying to sweeten up Lady Luck. “We’re pullin’ at eight tonight,” Uncle Mack would say. “I’ll come by if you win.” All day they roamed the streets collecting bets, till a sugary giddiness fizzed in Teeny’s brain and the gritty sky grew even darker. When the shift-change whistles honked and groaned, and thirsty workers scurried to speakeasies, they’d return to Cedar Avenue. Uncle Mack would take off his jacket, shake it upside down, dollars and coins floating, dropping, winking and rolling into crevices along the wooden floor. Teeny would dance a jig over the money, then bend, fishing coins from the cracks. They’d go to the kitchen, close and lock the hall door; Teeny would fetch the gear. Together, they’d set up, spreading the green felt tablecloth with white numbers and squares over the kitchen table, pulling scribbled bets from the book, stacking bets on the numbers. They’d count the money, roll up cash with rubber bands, fill little envelopes with coins, then carefully push tiny metal weights into slots on the back of the roulette wheel, so it would spin away from the highest bets. After dinner, knocks started at the back door, promptly at eight. The regulars streamed in, drinking and smoking, clustering around the table, joining the drunks who’d been pulled from the street as witnesses. With all eyes on Teeny -bleary and bloodshot, squinting and greedy- he’d hop from a chair onto the table, stand next to the roulette wheel and raise his hand as if summoning the heavens, calling it out like a carnival barker. “Lady Luck, she’s comin’ tonight!” The crowd would erupt, clapping and hollering as Teeny spun the wheel, till that mesmerizing ticktickticking sound slowed -Tick. Tick. Tick- and finally stopped to shared groans, occasionally a holler.
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-16 “And that’s the luck of the Irish, folks!” Teeny would cry, as the small winner’s pot was counted out. It was rigged, but one big winner a week brought steady money to the Irish Mob. On that first morning, collecting bets at Finn’s side, Teeny skulks, dragged like a prisoner in chains. The shopkeepers shrink, go behind their counters, brace themselves, seeing Finn. “Can I help you?” they warily ask. “Here for the Northside Night Number.” Finn says it like a tax collector; Teeny glares. Shopkeepers shake their heads, stop betting; the money turns off like a spigot. At the end of the week, Johnny Connelly, head of the Irish Mob, parks at Cedar Avenue in his black, shiny car, its fat white tires always reminding Teeny of round, screaming mouths. Johnny’s grand arrival -sauntering up the front steps in his striped suit and swinging raccoon coat, gray hair slicked back, diamond rings glinting- usually brought the cook, maid and houseman to the front hall, smiling in greeting, waiting for silver dollar tips. Teeny’s mother would offer her hand, Johnny kissing her fingers. Then he’d swoop Teeny, wriggling into the air and slip him a silver dollar, too. “Teeny!” Johnny would yell. “Put that money somewhere your mother can’t get to it!” Everyone would laugh, though Finn snarled. But on that Saturday night, Johnny stomps to the kitchen, grabs a chair, lights his cigar and frowns, watching every move. Teeny goes in the wall. They set the table, spin the wheel. But it’s the saddest spin ever, not a single laugh or clap. Only two drunks hunch, waiting, the pot a mere ten bucks. “It’s gone cold,” Johnny gruffs when it’s over, while Teeny sits, ripping up bets. “No point in payin’ off the police. No decent take.“ “What’d I tell you?” Finn says.
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-17 “Yeah, yeah,” Johnny grumps. “You hear anything? About Mack?” Teeny goes breathless, feels pierced, keeps his head down, ripping bets. “Not shit,” Finn says. “Six cities lookin’ for that sonofabitch,” Johnny grumbles. “Gonna kill that motherfucker-“ “Hey Teeny-” Finn says, reminding Johnny the kid can hear. Teeny waits, puts on his soldier’s face before looking up. “Yeah?” He matches Finn’s cold, glassy stare. “Put the shit in the wall.” -xEight soldiers stare up from the bottom of Teeny’s drawer on Monday, November 14th, 1927, when the world’s largest gas tank rises over Pittsburgh’s riverbanks, hovers, then explodes into an earth-shaking fireball. Buildings collapse; steel girders rain down. Children run screaming from classrooms. Shopkeepers are buried by fallen wares. Workers stampede from mills, as a line of molten steel runs like lava through town. Even more black smoke chokes the skies. From his bedroom window, Teeny peers out in disbelief, fallen walls revealing tidy rooms, a well-made bed, dangling at the edge of a second story. Bleeding people limp like zombies along sidewalks. Sirens endlessly wail. All the Sullivans survive, a rueful irony, when later that evening Teeny’s Mum unsteadily barrels through the front door. She pulls Teeny from the dining room table, plops him in a chair in the kitchen, stumbles when she shuts the hall door. He wishes his mother didn’t smell like gin all the time, wishes her red lips weren’t always smudged, her short coppery hair mussed, the powder worn away from her cheeks, black and blue marks plain. She’s jittery, glancing between Teeny and his
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-18 cat, sitting at the kitchen window, looks like she might heave. “Got bad news, Teeny.” Tick tock. The grandfather clock in the front hallway marks her stinking words. “Uncle Mack.” Tick tock. “Found him…” Tick tock. “Shot up in a car...” Tick tock. She sits frozen, staring, doesn’t touch Teeny when he falls into her smoky, velvet dress. -xAt the wake, Teeny shuffles among the baggy suits and long dresses, hides in corner behind a curtain, can’t take the pitying, towering faces looking down. He sips from stolen, discarded drinks; feels bold, yet maudlin; hears snippets. “By the side of the road… Riddled with bullets…Outside Cincinnati.” Father McBride, gray eyes under bushy white eyebrows the stare of doom, confronts him in the front hall. “Isn’t it time for you to be in school then, Teeny?” he asks. Teeny halts, looks up, is in no mood for a holy harangue. “Time for your education,” Father McBride goes on, “and some discipline.” Teeny wants to crawl inside the closed casket, lie with his head on Uncle Mack’s chest. He’s sick of his lughead, drunken family and the hell on Cedar Avenue. Glaring, he mutters, defiant. “Fuck school.” “What did you say?” the priest asks, incredulous. “I said,” Teeny declares louder this time, “Fuck. School.” The priest cracks his curls. “You got a filthy little mouth, Teeny Sullivan!” Teeny reels, the murmuring room going silent. “What’d he do, Father?” Finn asks, coming to the priest’s side. Teeny scrams up the front stairs, stands on the wide landing overlooking the hall. A bit drunk, cheeks burning with crazy pain and fury, he blares. “Fuck School! Fuck all a ya!”
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-19 He flails down the hallway, cowers behind his locked bedroom door while Finn and his mother pound it and holler in the hallway. He drags the box from beneath his bed, kicks it, kicks it again, wooden pieces flying, then drops to his knees in a convulsion of lament. Moaning, he reaches, pulling the cracked pieces back, holding them and the mangled box in his lap, rocking. 20 Hand Painted Tin Pieces. McCabe Toys. Cincinnati, Ohio. He hates Cincinnati, damn place that took his uncle; hates Father McBride, sure to imprison him; hates the Northside Night Number, the crawl in the wall, his stupid mother, even his cat who, purring on the bed, senses the loathing and mews with pitying green eyes. Exhausted, stripped of hope, he slides the wooden shards and box under his bed, dives beneath his mounded quilt and lies still, growing chilled, feeling emptied. “Christ, is he breathin’?” Finn asks, looking down hours later. They used a key to open the lock. Teeny stares blankly, his cat nestled in the crook of his knees. “Think so,” says his mother. “Shit,” says Finn. They douse him in hot baths strewn with peppermint oil, dress him in flannel pajamas, wool socks and a knitted hat. He still shivers. He won’t eat, grows woozy, imagines the soldiers muttering, ready to attack him from the drawer. The clock’s tick is the thunder of advancing troops; the same nightmare replays in his sleep, Uncle Mack screaming, blood spurting from that crossed-strap X over his white shirt. Day and night, lying in bed, Teeny hears scratching, skittering, coming from the wall; imagines rats, squirrels, a rabid raccoon, biting him when next he makes the crawl. He rises only to use the bathroom or to sneak another soldier in the drawer, opening and shutting it quickly, hoping the robust chorus, singing Uncle Mack’s favorite song -
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-20 Oh how I hate to get up in the morning! Oh how I love to remain in bed!- isn’t heard by anyone else. -xSeventeen soldiers stare up from the drawer on the night Finn yells, waking Teeny. “Get your ass up! Gotta go in the wall!” Teeny rolls over. “Now,” Finn growls, ripping Teeny from bed by the ear, a little tear bleeding, stinging at his lobe. “Now!” Teeny groans, curled on the floor at eye level with Finn’s leg. He considers biting, holding on like a terrier, but knows Finn might punt him to the ceiling. In his pajamas, wool socks and the knitted hat, he shambles to the kitchen, where his mother and Johnny Connelly sit at the table, glowering, smoking, drinking gin. “Get the stuff,” Finn says. “Hurry, you little shit.” “And what if I don’t?” Finn cracks his cheek, sending him thudding into the hall, slumped at the wall. Teeny barely feels it. He sits, considering the sound his neck made, the crackling quick and pointed, as unforgettable as the crunch of mouse droppings beneath his knees. Head pounding, neck throbbing, he stares at his mother, her silence hurting more. He knows he’ll get splinters in his hands and knees, crawling in his pajamas; wonders about the scrambling he’s heard in the wall. “For Christ’s sake, get in!” Finn yells. Teeny limply pushes the lever, wishing he would suddenly grow to giant size, too big to ever go back in the wall. He gulps a deep breath, creeps inside, every move hurting. Sparks burst -Bzzt! Bzzt!- from the loopy electric wires. A fetid rat stink fills
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-21 the air. Teeny reaches Finn’s pile, thinks he might puke, stops, gasps, taking in too many filthy breaths. He glances down to the fat beam, Uncle Mack’s ledge. What? Teeny peers harder, squinting, disbelieving. Who? Who knew? He crawls madly then, splinters ravaging his palms and knees, breathing too much, too fast, till he reaches the ledge, touches, pats the wood. Moneybags. Gone. His fingers close on something small, solid. He picks it up, holds it close to his eyes, his heart pounding so hard he thinks it might explode like that gas tank. A tin soldier, wrapped in paper, stares back. Wild hope surges, filling him. Uncle Mack? Alive?! Teeny shoves the soldier into his pajama pocket, gulps too much dust again, quickly crawls back. He pulls out the gear, sets it on the stairs, pushes the lever. After the panel slides shut, he sits at the bottom of the stairs, head against the wall, catching his breath, staring long and hard at his mother. Just once, she seems to glance at him in a new way. “Go,” Finn says. Teeny silently drags himself upstairs, locks his bedroom door, gets under his covers, pulls out the soldier. Fingers trembling, he unwraps the paper, finds a ticket and a fifty-dollar bill. He stares, can’t read all the words. PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD. CRESCENT EXPRESS. PITTSBURGH. Sunday, November 27, 1927. DEPART 8:17AM First Class. Private Cabin. Not Good for Transfer 8922
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-22 He touches Ulysses Grant’s face on the money, runs his finger along the ticket, tries to sound out the words. He understands only that in four days, on a Sunday, very early, he must take a train. He clutches the little bundle in his hand, pulls the cat to his chest, sobs tears of joy. -xTick tock. Tick tock. All Saturday night Teeny lies in bed, listening to the grandfather clock, trying not to scratch the scab at his ear or touch his sore face. He thinks the mark on his jaw looks like the framed map of Italy, on the wall in Grimaldi’s Bakery; wonders if Finn tattooed him with the mark of a traitor. When the clock strikes five, Finn’s car growls to the curb and Teeny counts the steps, dragging up the staircase. When it’s quiet again, Teeny scurries out of bed, opens the bottom bureau drawer, scans the determined faces, counts one last time: Twenty soldiers. Twenty days. He salutes, shuts the drawer. Already dressed, he pulls on the new long black coat he wore to Uncle Mack’s funeral, buries the soldier, ticket and money deep inside the breast pocket. His hand closes around his cheese sandwich, wrapped in brown paper, waiting in the other pocket. He leans to his bed, piles pajamas in a heap under his quilt, so it looks like he’s sleeping. He pulls on a cap to hide his red hair, wraps a scarf around his bruised neck, picks up his cat, rubs his face against its fur, stares at those gleaming green eyes. “Just ‘cause you’re small,” Teeny whispers, “doesn’t mean you’re weak.” He kisses the cat, glances around his room one last time, carefully opens the bedroom door, releasing the animal into the shadowy hallway. Listening to the grandfather clock, smelling the banister’s lemon wax, the kitchen stove’s oily tinge, he tiptoes down the stairs, remembering the days of jumping on the table, spinning the wheel, hollering to the crowd, Uncle Mack smiling and laughing, dollars and coins
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-23 strewn through the air. At the bottom, he glances into the kitchen, wanting to hold on to what was good. Then he dashes into the cellar, opens the alley door, slips out. The cold air and gritty, falling snow awaken a thousand nagging questions as Teeny scampers along the slush-puddled alleys in the dark. Who took the moneybags? Who put the soldier in the wall? Fifty dollars!? Who’s got fifty bucks to throw around? He hurries to the corner at the edge of town, huddles in with smudge-faced workers waiting for the street car. Moving with the group, he cheats the fare, slinks to a window, likes the sound of nickels, jingling into the fare box. The streetcar clacks and rocks, rising up onto a bridge crossing the river. Just tall enough to see over the window’s edge, Teeny stares out. Smokestacks clustered at the banks belch like coughing soldiers. Tiny lights along the bridge blink like stubborn fireflies. Scudding barges remind him of Uncle Mack’s casket. What if he took the money, put the soldier in the wall before he died? Over the bridge, the streetcar glides to the train station and Teeny hops off, steals inside. He slips from pillar to pillar across the vast, empty marble concourse, glancing at the words on the big board: CRESCENT EXPRESS PLATFORM 12. He darts down the stairs to the shadowy platforms, trains hissing expectantly, a conductor strolling at one end. Teeny bolts under the platform, swings down to the girders and dirt below, crouches near a metal grate, staring up, catching his breath. Down below, Teeny knows, is where the jackrollers live, delinquent gangs who knife, rob travelers, beat up drunks, do things with men. Tin cans and glass bottles, clumped newspapers and rags litter the ground, the smells of piss and shit so strong he gags. He wonders if the stink will stick to his coat; shivers when a rat rustles by. How could there be a funeral, if Uncle Mack’s not dead?
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-24 Looking up through the metal grate, Teeny watches the conductor’s shoes passing back and forth. The glass waiting room doors swing open; a newsboy scurries back and forth onto the platform, stacking newspapers. What if Walter and Teddy planted the ticket? What if it’s a phony? Teeny begins to understand how difficult, even impossible it will be, to sneak up and steal into a train car. A pair of boots stops toe to toe with the conductor’s shoes, above. Teeny holds his breath, afraid to exhale, releasing a puff of steam. “You see a kid?” “A kid?” “Kid alone. Little boy. Curly red hair.” “What, Teeny?” “Yeah. Teeny Sullivan. You know, Northside Night Number. His mother just called. He’s missin’-“ “Missin’?” “Not in his house.“ “His mother’s a crackpot. Maybe the kid’s outside. Playin’. He’s a boy, ain't he?” “Keep an eye out.” The boots strut away; the conductor’s first cries pierce the air. “All aboard! Pennsylvania Railroad! Crescent Express! Pittsburgh! Philadelphia! Washington D.C.! Atlanta! New Orleans! Fifteen minutes!” Crescent Express. Now he knows the words. Teeny tries to see all the passengers’ faces: a worker in overalls; a priest; a man with a black mustache and black derby hat. Would Uncle Mack be in disguise? Then the smell, pungent and sweaty, hits him, and the jackroller swings down, crouching too close.
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-25 “Boltin’ the Crescent?” the jackroller asks with a tinge of Irish. He’s bigger, has that mean look; Teeny wonders if he knows Finn, has been sent to find him. “On the lam.” Teeny jerks down his scarf, shows off his bruised jaw, wishing his coat and scarf weren’t so new, so nice. He knows more jackrollers will come. “Number two car,” the jackroller says. Teeny’s chest pounds. What if it’s a set-up? What if Finn paid the jackroller to kill him? The Northside Night Number, Johnny Connelly, all the speakeasies; Teeny knows too much. He could be knifed, left to rot; tossed from the train. The platform grows crowded, thick with passengers and baggage carts. “Carts line up, ya run between ‘em,” the jackroller says. Gripping the iron girder, breathing shallow and slow, Teeny gulps, doubting. Can he really bolt the Crescent? What if he bolts home, instead? What if he runs out, takes the streetcar back to Cedar Avenue, sneaks through the alley into the cellar, shows up in the kitchen, wet from sliding in the snow? The warm house, his soft bed, Sunday biscuits, his mother’s sloshed face, even Finn: was it really so bad? The dark, gaping baggage cars remind him of going in the wall, back home. “Move up before the train gets goin’,” the jackroller growls. Teeny eyes the narrow metal coupling between train cars, the space so small, even for him. Just one porter stands on the platform, head down, checking his clipboard before an open baggage car. “Mussolini! Man of Italy! Get it here!” the newsboy cries. What if they lock the baggage cars? He could freeze, a dead bundle in there. Where’s Uncle Mack? The shadows swoop in, swinging rung over rung like huffing, practiced monkeys, one, then another, another, hunching around him, filling the air with warm
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-26 stink. The switchblade clicks, its harsh tip pressed at Teeny’s jaw; he jolts, remembering the soldier in his pocket, the time he held the cool tin toy cool to his cheek. “Do what I say or I’ll slice the shit outta ya,” the jackroller snarls. Teeny feels choked; a roaring fills his ears. “I push ya,” the jackroller says. “Now!” They shove him up by his hips, over the concrete edge, but Teeny fumbles, lies shocked while the jackrollers scurry away. The porter, staring at his clipboard, walks towards the front of the train. There’s a steamy hiss, that lonely whistle, and Teeny bolts up, running behind the baggage cart, diving into the first waiting black hole. He rolls onto the floor, wincing, sits up, surrounded by steamer trunks. “Close’em up!” the porter calls. From the back of the train, the clanks come forward, one by one, baggage car doors sliding closed. Clank. Clank. Clank. “All aboard!” The door rumbles shut, sealing Teeny in shadows. The train lurches, lumbering like an old man. Teeny wobbles to the connecting door, stares out the dirty window, judges the narrow, rattling metal coupling. He’ll have to jump. How far? The train starts chugging; he feels the swiftness and force, remembers Uncle Mack’s face in the kitchen. Just ‘cause you’re small, doesn’t mean you’re weak. Teeny tightens every muscle, slips out the car door, leans flat, holding on with one hand, hit by the rushing cold air. Though it’s smoky and steamy and gritty, it fills him, more refreshing than any he’s ever known. The train rocks and clacks, gaining speed; Teeny aims, crouching. He lets go, springs, soaring, fueled by yearning, hoping the hard metal door, the crushing steel wheels, his dreamed-of life ahead, will somehow be soft and yielding.
Brindell/TEENY SULLIVAN-27
THE END