16 June 2012
“It’s an acorn” Francie mumbles, slipping it carefully inside flapped jacket pocket. “Are we going in or what?” Mona’s bar of stout draped mahogany, stretches in open view of mirror straddled wall, reflecting shelved half and full bottle and long suffering lines of glass upturned. Smokes of Afton sweet, stacked in bricked nicotine pillars of yellow and Players blue soon to be inhaled. Men of flat capped tweed, propped in one end, smoke ale and puff soft talk of sheep and rain while straw basketed women of silken scarf wait patiently in elbowed chat at the other. Mona serving, list by list from scattered queue. Cornered in dusted speckled half light, Francie and John F. sit in silent conversation, staring, warming. Damp outside odours linger long and mingle on turfed heavy air fleeing the sucking open chimney on each and every door close. “A wee half one, John” “Ah, sure why not Francie, I’m foundered with the cold, standing about up there” “Aye, you’re dead right John, it’s a cold day with a heart that needs warming.” Silent, raised eyebrows beckon whisky and porter in hushed familiar gesture. Mona shuffles over, slipper soft on slab of stone. Deftly poured Guinness in glassed measure, straddle Jameson halved and served in exchange for a few hours of hard earned dole. “Good man Francie, go raibh maith agat” John mumbles with glass tipped gratitude. “For Jimmy”, Francie sighs quietly, “..for Jimmy”.
Clam shelled ash of cigarette butt tip out as Mona wipes crop circled beer spill from under empty glass with dripping head. “Were there many up above ?” Mona asks, adjusting her now wildly whistling hearing aid. “Aah, he got a good send off alright, considering” John F. replied, smiling a gapped toothed smile while sliding his flat cap down over lifeless thinning grey, scratching a blushed neck. “What time is it “ ? With cuffed fumble, Francie slowly remembers, “Sorry, John, I left my watch at home”.
Palms cupping over both weary eyes avoiding conversation, Francie smoothes browed worries with wizened nail black hand. Through eyelid and finger gap, he is caught, reflected between bottle necks and glass stemmed memories of Jimmy.
They had been inseparable. Sunlit youth flooded dreamlike, careless running free by banked river, slipping on grassed fern, skimming flattened stone, once, twice skipping, silver reflected on seven to win. Bare footed dangle meeting cold on rolled jean. Sun shaded palm, observing streaking jets on blue, diagonal condensate repeated. Off to America or the moon. Hanging branched on fairy oak of old, in boy’s world upturned, bare knee hooked with scrapes of joy, ignored. Green cloud over blue earth in inverted bliss. Charging at climbed wall of worn memorised step and balanced grip. Elbow stretched chin ups and slinging overs, commandos, landing, rolling, running. Football gloried four a side with jumpered goalpost and goalies fly. Best and Law resurrected on lawless hilly mound. Laid back summers on roofed bitumen of flat warm sun soaked black, smoking cigs and mouthing circled rings of white on blue breeze. Swim of naked splash on slippy stoned meander. Writing Rizzla poems of love, smoked quietly in rhyme. A first kiss, at last. Hands of softened dark, yield captive caress. Warmed heavy internal breath, shared in life dependant gasps, couple in poetic rhythm. Skin on warm skin in secret conversation. They had been inseparable. They had been until the day Francie’s father became an unwelcomed witness leaving them separate and alone.
Swirling grey Guinnessed glass, Francie finishes before motioning for another. The rain stopped briefly. Sharp rayed streaks chasing the last drops meandering south. Sashed mahogany frames catch passersby in wet portrait. Dusted web of long gone spider, span panelled grime. Each cold gust draws attention. Large ladies leave, groceried up to bag full. Small smiling bald men of dripping hat, sweep in, in anticipation. Francie sensed his father’s presence. Plug piped smoke and short stepped walking stick confirmed. He stayed backed up, face and rough hand ignored. “Well I hope you’re happy with yourself” Frank Senior grunts at his back. Standing long seconds in damp mohaired layer of black. He prods his blackened ash stick in his son’s shrugging back. With creased stained linen handkerchief shaken, he aimed deftly at his brandy-red nose and blew loudly before wiping his sodden brow. He snorted, moving slowly toward the bar. Francie’s fists had been tighter and closer, before this day, to acting out thoughts of madness inflamed, but today, on Jimmy’s day, he silently, slowly, unclenched all anger and thoughts of revenge. Reaching inside his drying jacket, he half removed a crumpled, brown envelope, just enough to rub, Braille like, with heavy thumb, the simple word “Fran” scrawled in red biro on the front.
Jimmy’s limp silhouette swung slowly turning in the rising sun, roped tightly to the large oaked fairy tree, standing guard as red eyed Pookas go hunting. The morning breeze cooled in contour, swirling around his cold frame. All warmth drained where shadowed horizon scanned downwards. Fate’s shivered hand led Jimmy, in anxious silence, along this tunnelled path of darkness. In trial runs during sleepless nights, perfected. Doubted doubts no longer held, prepared hemp of measured rope warmly wrapped an old milking stool. Below, a lettered poem for Francie to find.
“Still, unmoving with knotted depth, waiting to exhale. allow me leave to breathe, my friend, my captor. Your hold on me undying.”
Squawks of a lone magpie dragged Francie from drunken dreams. Slowly, as memories of the fractioned slurred night returned, a sense of foreboding flooded his numbed mind. They hadn’t fought but he had sensed Jimmy’s despair. Teresa was only nineteen and young. Dutiful Francie knew he would choose the worn road. The rattled ring of the hall phone erupting so early was always bad news. Jimmy had returned to the playground of their youth for the last time.
Francie approached the brooding hanging oak, head down in humble gesture, falling awkwardly on weak knee beyond tears or prayer. In bowed reverence he confessed a secret to the great tree which no harp carved would ever reveal. For the first time, he spoke in unbroken truth throughout the evening until the tree’s mottled shadow blended into dark.
“What the hell is this ?” Francie’s father roared at him as he crept in, firing the half torn crumpled letter in disgust. Leaning head forward over balanced shaking stick in suspended rage, he watched Francie’s frozen silent response. “You’re no bloody son of mine” he shouts. “I blame her” pointing towards the memoriam card edged into the frame of the fading sacred heart. “Get out of my sight” his voice now breaking in yielding despair as he reaches for the half finished bottle. Francie picks up the damaged letter glancing at his mother as her eyes track him across the stark room.
Behind dark door, bare bulb, flicked, casts shadows of sharp black in all directions. Francie sitting edged on wrought comfort, carefully unravels Jimmy’s damaged letter.
“My body aches silently. With forgiveness. I hold my heart low, below sorrow. No soulful regrets, linger”
Lying back in sombre slumber with a depth of darkness pushing heavy on his fragile frame, Francie inhales the last of Jimmy’s soft fading words. He loved Jimmy’s poetry but he could never admit to him that he hadn’t understood much of it. He did understand the impossibility of the love he had held close which his father had destroyed with the witness of their embrace. Time’s fluorescent arms pointed to dark and very late. Pillowed back on dribbled feather, Francie slept in and out in fades of grey. “Sorry” a weak voice cries in whispered circle. Francie, bolts upright in fright, and slips off the bed with scraped back to the floor. Climbing to shaking feet, knocking elderly dust from broken shade, “Jimmy ?” he calls quietly, scanning each corner of the cold boxed room, now lit in swinging dark vignette. “Is that you ? “, he whispers as he scours the room. Behind drawn winter curtain, only darkness shines through. Beneath rusted sprung mattress, old unmatched shoes wait anxiously to step out. In dusted wardrobe, un-fashioned jackets hold cuffed clothed hand to comfort one another. Francie is alone. Turning the bed quilt back, a small acorn falls in tilted roll across the bare floor. Wiry, worn men cluster outside the wake house, shouldered on uneven white snowcemed wall, sucking on pinched cupped cigarette. “How’s Francie ?” one raised head asks with lowered gaze. Francie nods and tuts before entering. The opened half door of painted gloss red casts a shadowed shard of light among the dark mourners inside. On walled borrowed seat, neighbours sit in quiet conversation. Ladies aproned and tray laden, glide in cheery circulation, topping off white saucered china cups with dark tea and side biscuit swaying in reflected story.
In the bedroom a flickering neon crucifixed Sacred Heart kept watch on Jimmy. Francie, unnoticed by himself, slid a soft hand slowly along the polished mahogany side until it rests gripped tightly to a cold brass handle. A row of dark linked rosary prayer of silver cross, hand cuffed the thin boned hands of his friend, boxed in silk frame. He gazes nervously into Jimmy’s dark rimmed closed eyes. The ferryman would soon collect his fee. His thin white face had settled now, forever stuck in blue lipped smile. “Jimmy” Francie whispered, fingering the cards of mass and priest signature strewn about. A gold framed portrait of a younger Jimmy propped awkwardly in memory, mirrored his boxed frame. “In the name of the Father….” Francie caught sight of Teresa on teapot duty and briefly forgot how to bless himself. He prayed a silent decade then sat and drifted.
“Ah you’ll be lost now without the Sundance Kid to keep you right” the soft voice of one of the tea ladies brought him back. “Don’t worry, su
Oak • Opuss № I