The doors of the crazy Donnybrook pub burst open, letting in at least twenty ravaging guys, coming from the rugby game. I stand beside one of them at the bar, waiting for the harassed bartender to take notice of us. This guy’s hand is bleeding, wrapped up in a handkerchief. He has an enormous devilish smile on his face and a cracked tooth. Others have black eyes. Cut lips. They pour liquor down their throats. They smash their mugs onto the bar. They make out with random girls, who laugh, and shove them away. They light each other’s cigarettes, and laugh uproariously. Some of them have the colors of the Irish flag painted on their faces.
My sisters and I watch the spectacle of testosterone, huddled in our corner.
A manic conga line forms and cuts a path through the pub.
Jean turns to the little elfish guy named Brian who has become our new best friend. “So I guess Ireland won, huh?” she says as the conga line rages by.
Brian replies casually, “Oh no, we lost.”
We gape at him, turning wordlessly to stare at the unmistakably nationalistic ecstasy, ricocheting down the whiskey-soaked conga line. We scan the fanatical expressions on the green, white, and orange faces. We then glance back at Brian, our questions clear on our faces.
He shrugs. “It was a moral victory.”
I love your writing! This was perfect, piquant, and so vivid I can smell the Guiness slopped on the floor.
Awesome.
Sheila,
Once again I use the comments section not to discuss your post, but to let you know aboout a program on Book TV on C-SPAN2 that you may want to watch. I by the way hope that you have something better to do. But if not, Charlene Bickford and Kenneth Bowling will be on at 4:30 pm Eastern time today discussing Birth of the Nation: The First Federal Congress, 1789-1791 and Creating the Bill of Rights: the Documentary Record From the First Federal Congress. Well, no focus on your dead boyfriend, but this still seems like something that you might relish.
Hope all is well and take care.
Oh shit! I won’t be home!!! I hope it plays again. Dammit.
RTG – thank you, girl. Yes, there was much spilled alcohol.
One of my favorite memories of that night (well, it was a marathon night – with many different elements) – but I loved going into the ladies room at the pub, and it is packed with women – all chattering, peeing, washing hands, smoking, drinking … and 90% of them were on their cell phones. Sitting in the stalls, peeing, and talking on their cell phones. One girl shouting into her phone from behind the stall: “I’m in fuckin’ Donnybrook!”
Much fun because we were the only Americans there. The rest were all locals. We had a blast.
Jay – oops. My plans just canceled. I will be home for it. Thank you SO much for the heads up. I will be watching!
Vaguely Regular Roundup
I keep spamming myself. I have a running email thread with myself, you see, full of links to things I want to put up here, but I have a bit of an issue with just posting a link with Heh.
Ok, when are you going to have someone illustrate that and submit it to the New Yorker? Or the Irish equivalent?
illustrate it?? i love that idea!