The Ginger Man - J. P. Donleavy [60]
"The expense, Percy, is dreadful. And must keep my dignity."
"Ould whore's dignity. Do you want to come to a party?"
"Not tonight."
"Have you gone mad, Sebastian? It's in Tony's house, the Catacombs. Tony wants to see you. I hear O'Keefe's gone to Paris and went queer as well."
"True. He's in a little town after anything that moves."
"Jesus, come to the party."
"Can't."
"Have a drink then."
"Percy, I've been put down a great deal since I saw you last. A Mr. Skully, a former landlord, is after me for money. Then there are a few business houses."
"You ought to go in for betting, Sebastian. That's what your trouble is. A bet changes my whole day. Jesus, let's go for some red biddy."
Red biddy is sweet and thick, dried dead blood. All running through the streets. I can only imagine that I would like to be between thighs. I knew a girl who wore an orange sweater. I put my hands on her naked waist of slim belly. She was a milkmaid. I was a gentleman. We stood in an erotic embrace.
They were gone down the street through the kids and granite gutters talking about the money made in raising sheep.
"Sebastian, did you ever get up on one?"
"I say, realty, Percy."
In
Algeria
There is a town.
Called
Tit.
16
Sebastian sat hunched over his belly, transfused with joy. A night of a party. They were sitting in the Scotch House between two big barrels. Outside the Guinness boats going chug chug. Clocklan bellowing laughter.
I think I will see a great night of it All manner of men invited. Sick and infirm, the bogus and bitchy. Those unclean and disgraced. Daily communicants and members in good standing of the Legion of Mary. The failed and about to fail. Dublin is great for minor clerks and officials. Nine in the office till six o'clock at home. The wracked and choked bodies. The wife will not put her hand on it or have a painful pump. A party of the anguished and underling. Mr. Danger-field, alias Danger, Bullion, Balfe, Boom and Beast, will tell you how to get out of it. But well to remember it's hard but it's fair. These little buggerings showed people you could take it The pain as well as the pleasure.
And I think there ought to be a table in the middle of the floor for a demonstration of the animal. Penny notebooks for notes, please. Tell you anything you want to know. I might not look like much now, but in five years. Wow. And don't forget that I'm at Trinity either. No end to where I am. To dose the evening I'll do a Spanish dance and catch olives in the mouth and a few other things as well. And songs of course, led by Mr. Dangerfield and the tea and cakes served by genuine North of Dublin whores for those of you who are repressed.
"Clocklan, I'm suffering from a woeful case of blackdog."
"Get the bloody stout and never mind the blackdog. This is going to be a great party."
"I ought to go home, Percy."
"Go on out of that Can't miss this bash."
They were walking up Grafton Street carrying gray parcels of stout Dangerfield singing:
My heart is like
A squeezed grape
Only the pip
Is left
Only the pip.
"I'll be thrown out of the house"
"Jesus, what kind of a house do you keep. Give your woman a good boot in the hole. Throw you out? Nonsense. This is Ireland"
They pushed through an iron gate and down the black, steep steps. Tony Malarkey, host, grinning, a pleased bull smelling the hot rump of a cow in heat, counting the parcels of stout Eyes on the corks. Through a scullery there was a huge kitchen. Drink was put on the table. Clocklan brought his to a corner of the room, hiding the bottles under some rags. Malarkey watching him.
"Where are you going with that drink, Clocklan, you stingy ould whore ? "
"Not wasting it on your ould guts"
The air filled with the popping of corks. A smell of damp walls and cavities. A feeling of long corridors and hidden rooms, tunnels in the earth, black pits and wine cellars filled with mouldy mattresses. A bulb burning in the center of the kitchen. The floor, stained, red tiles. Whitewashed walls and scabby buttresses crossing the ceiling.