·
THE HARD CHAIR ( a poetic short story)
written in 1989.
The
house fell into the night’s silence, the grieving
family
slept like innocent children with
the aid of
the
day's alcohol and fatigue from
the stream of friends
calling
throughout the day.
Peter
Patrick was the only one awake, he abstained from
Alcohol not because he was teetotal but because
he
was a sensitive young man who wanted to feel
the
true emotion of his father’s death.
He
sat on the hard chair beside his coffin. Light drifted
from
the blessed candles like life itself drifting away, on
either
side of the crucifix, the smell of burning wax
And
the unreal odor of death lingered.
In
a low whispered voice, he said, as if to a priest
In
a confessional box, you’re at peace now
Enclosed
in solitude, beneath the drapes of your peace-
ful
home. More elegant than I ever saw you in life
In
the grey suit you wore at my wedding.
Only
now too smart for a wedding cleanly shaven
And
made up like an actor playing his greatest role.
Within
the brass handled casket, religion all around him
Sympathy
cards lay with beautiful icons of the Virgin Mary
And
Christ, rosary beads entwined in his clean fresh hands
At
peace with the world everything seemed perfect still.
He
looked hard at his face as if it reflected some wisdom
The
imperfection began to show. Below his right eye
The
blemish appeared like the pain and suffering of his past.
Showing
through the make-up the bruise he made on impact
on
the road when he fell during the arrest
that
stopped his weak broken heart.
The
blemish stood with a great intensity, and it seemed
To
grow darker like a gap between life and death
A
doorway into the dark. His mind turned into a vast
film
projector showing archive footage like a Pathe
news
reel revolving behind his eyes, the first scenes
staggered
Into focus as if still memories like looking
at
a family album and filing in narration of where and when.
The
scenes reeled to him like an old silent movie
Showing
the bleak streets of north Belfast.
Gas
lights lined the street and made it more depressing
locked
in a dim haze like a Jackal and Hyde movie of black
and
white London.
An
ice cold rain fell from winter skies. The street was
Deserted
cobble stones stood like a giant’s causeway
as
if created by the harsh elements or risen from
the
bowels of the earth by some evil force.
The
darkened figure of a woman entered the street
Pushing
an old black pram. He couldn’t make out
her
features, she heaved the pram across
the
cobblestones and joined the pavement, passing
the
unlit window of the two up two down terraced houses.
She
wore a long black coat and dark scarf tied under her chin.
The
dim light penetrated through the closed curtain of one
of
the houses, he noticed her complexion was pale but she was
featureless.
She
trudged along like a lost soul in the night, stopped outside
one
of the houses with a blood red door and pondered like
someone
unsure of their bearings. Leaning over the pram, she
disappeared
under its canopy and reappeared with an envelope
in
her hand.
She
raised her hand and hesitated, placed the envelope in
the
letter box and raised her hand to the door knocker
and
knocked the door with such a force it thundered through
the
empty street, echoing with her footsteps like some wild horse
being
released into the wild, she disappeared into the night
Of
unknown freedom.
A
woman with bedraggled hair appeared from behind the door
she
stood with a bewildered look eyeing the note and the pram
she
read the note and her face creased with confusion looking up
and
down the cobbled empty street for someone or something
For
an explanation, then she and the pram disappeared
behind
the blood red door.
The
unknown memory of his secretive fathers past lingered like
a
blunt saw through the delicate tissue of his mind.
He
seen him then as a scruffy boy in a school playground.
Heard
the cruel chants of other boys who taunted and laughed
at
him. Johnny lost his ma and da and doesn’t know where to
find
them, leave the bastard alone and he will come home wagging
his
tail behind him!
Then
it was a damp day the blanket of grey and black cloud hung like
a
barricade against the sun. A gang of boys with a mischievous air
about
them throwing stones into a large pond an oil like substance
lingered
on the dense stagnant water.
Its
shoreline was a thick black murky mud, bicycle wheels and old
discarded
frames emerged like the devils unwanted playthings, an
old
mangled clothes mangle stood on the bank like a statue or memorial.
The
stones they threw into the pond slopped and slurped then disappeared into its depth. Johnny looked so familiar he
related the scenes as his own memories. He remembered being bullied and beat until he learned
to kick back, at the same school his father went to,
a
lost and lonely look came across. The
gang huddled into a tight group like a gang discussing tactics, when they broke away their mischievous look more evil
than before.
The
boy edged slowly toward them, wanting so much to be their friend suddenly he stopped dead, the boys formed a line
and marched like a regimental troop out of sync,
chanting like a choir filled with cruelty and hate. By the left, by the left Johnny has no ma
or da, by the right, by the
right, they fucked off on a Saturday night.
He
stood by the pond with a look of defeat and fear, built up emotional confusion as if he would burst into tears as the
boys laughed a sick horrid laugh. The gang dispersed and
searched the wasteland for stones he
thought they would pelt him and thought
of running but stood his ground.
They
threw the stones into the mud at his feet, the thick black rancid stuff splashed about him and stank like hell their voices
echoed as he ran, Johnny is
a bastard, Johnny is a bastard. Another scene came blurred at first, then focused, he was now a young man walking the dismal
streets, hurt written in
his eye, as if everyone he passed uttered the word bastard.
He
stood on the docklands, the cold sea spray drizzled on him like a new friend carried by the winds of change from the dream lands
of England where no one knew
of him or his past, a land of reinvention.
He
stood at the bottom of a garden path, now in his thirties, beside
a
gleaming polished car, a bright summer sun shone through the thicket of trees his hands delved in his pockets he posed
in a clean white shirt smiling
look on his face leaning on the blooming garden fence watching his wife and children play.
Peter
searched into the still memory and seen himself wearing the white shirt then without effort it changed back and again until
the image stood like both. Peter
never realized or wanted to be like his father although relatives always said he was the spit of him. Sitting there on the
hard chair trying to figure out both
his and his father’s life and death. Peter and his father never spoke too much alike, this was the closest they ever came
to each other.
Sitting
there on the hard chair like a film maker watching the first showing of our film and also the critic reading deep into
the images as they reeled through
his mind. He sat there questioning those images and where
they were coming from his
father was a deep secretive man, maybe I didn’t need to know?
His
father was the most secretive man he had ever met but who can blame him having
to reinvent himself to hide his troubled past.
It
seemed now he was dead there was nothing to hide from any more, like a dream, a story related in silence. Maybe this was
just his sensitivity, a look in
the eye, the brush of a hand open to our feelings, the very reason why we clashed in life or physically fought that brought
us here to death, the doorway into the dark.
Maybe
I loved to hate and vice versa, it takes the death of a parent before you can sit back and reflect on the part of life
that just passed to ease into the
next chapter. As Saul Bellow said, deathis the dark backing a mirror needs to see anything? the poetic beauty of unknowing.
ROSE IN ME
I began to write on the day my father died.
Something rose in me sitting there on
The hard chair something flickered in me
By the flickering candles. I sat with him
Alone at night. I abstained from alcohol
Not because I’m teetotal but because
I wanted to feel the real grief of mourning.
On the day he was buried I cried a bottle
of whiskey. Some might say it morbid but
I would call It poetic and inquisitive. Me
and my Dad never got along for that very
reason opposites that death attracts like
A moth to a flame.
From day one my father didn’t like my attitude
He wanted me to be a hard I.R.A. cold stone
Killer a lying conman like him but I had mothers
Humanity he didn’t like my poetic sensitivity.
We never spoke for sixteen years under
His regimental way being an ex British
Soldier, how do you go from that too
A killer of brit soldiers, the British army
Gave him a trade panel beater/sprayer
I could never get my head around this.
I ran away from home four times, at six-
Teen I ran away to London never too
Return only to see my mother, why she stayed
With that ignorant bastard I’ll never know.
He had another family that we never knew off
two daughters and a wife who died of cancer
we never knew for thirty-one-years, I can’t com-
prehend that suppose you have to be
a bastard left on a doorstep but even that’s
beyond my active nihilism why didn’t he turn it
around I had to find worth in humanity.
A policeman called said daughters were
Searching for years my mother dropped
The knitting needles a week before I was
to be married. The miserable fucker never
even give me pocket money, he gave to me
brother and laughed in my face so I learned
To steal from his pocket while he slept.
Every Saturday I would find a fiver, my mates
Knew one squealed my father beat me I laughed
In his face when he beat me sent me to bed
for three days I climbed out the window down
onto the outhouse, away.
I would have done anything for him but I was
Myself forever he couldn’t take that from me.
He tried the bastard age sixteen I told my mum
I had to leave, when we were in the same room
You could feel the tension mum arranged for
My aunt Peggy in London, I had to go or kill
That man. I blew smoke in his face when he
asked me to put out punched him down and ran.
Mum packed me a lunch a change of clothes
And thirty-five pounds, my time in London
Only lasted 3-4 months. Arrested deported
Back to Ireland for robbing a shoe factory.
Didn’t know what else to do to get away
Signed up for military training but mum
Sent me to Dublin, she saved my neck she
Knew the peace in me even before me.
This is an echo for him in me, you were
A right ole bastard, you can’t fuck up my life
I’m fucked beyond you.
