youâll be dead. Good Christ. This rhyming. It must be the heat. An imaginative man would have said: wooden overcoat. And left the rhymes to reason.
He crosses the road, stops, and surveys the traffic, then breathes deeply. Not as much in the lungs as there used to be. But it isnât too far now to the laundromat, thank Jesus. Step we gaily, on we go, heel for heel and toe for toe, arm in arm and row in row, off for Marieâs wedding. His favorite song, no matter who the hell Marie is or was. Singing, he undoes the big brown belt of his overcoat. What will Juanita like? A flowery skirt? A pink blouse with tassels? Another flouncy blue number like Miss Jackson was wearing? No. Whatâs in order, he thinks, is something that will fit her like the sky fits the earth. That much at least she deserves. Today is a very special anniversaryâJuly 9th, 1992. Juanita is still as beautiful as ever, and she deserves something special.
He sees a young boy walking by the fried chicken shop, with his hair sticking up in little shafts of electrocuted pink. What in the world has become of hairstyles? When we were boys, in Lisdoonvarna, the hair gel came in two-penny bottles. We would part our hair down the middle and it would shine in the moonlight on the way home from the dancehall.
Those were the days. Indeed. He left for America on the Washington cruiser, swearing to Ireland that he would come home Heavyweight Champion of the World. Days of cowlicks and curls. It was the Great Depression, he remembers, and unemployed men hung around, warming their hands over hot barrels on the dockside in Cobh, eating pigeon sandwiches. Some among them had mouths festered from eating nettles. Hard times, and even back then, America was the place to go. Lachrymose young girls sold daffodils so they could buy tickets. Boys stood up high on the backs of dung carts, looking out to sea, dreaming. Bilious crowds watched the white of the waves while the ships foghorned a song of exile. Getting on the boat, standing on the deck, he sang Ireland, I love you, a Chusla Mo ChroÃ, love of my heart. As the boat pulled away he remembered his parents, who died when he was just fifteen. His mother, a hard woman, a disarray of beauty, maps of the west wrinkled on her skin. His father, an American who had come to Ireland after the agonies of the Great War, a man who learned how to farm and make soil among the barren rocks, a hard-working man, honest and doomed.
He stands at the side of Carrollton Avenue, feeling the heat hammer down from the southern sky. He wipes his overcoat sleeve across his wet brow.
They had given their son thick hands, hands that won fights all over Ireland, even illegal bouts in the grassy wild meadows. That day, when he stood on the shipâs bow in Cobh, the world stretched out in front of him. In his first eight months, in dingy little New York halls, he put away three journeymen heavyweights. Always sang a song after each of the bouts. Fell in love with Juanita when she came with a movie director to one of the fights. She sat there in the third row, her hair as wild and as long as kelp. That night he took her to the fanciest restaurant in town, and she kissed the top of his eye where heâd been cut.
One victory flew into another. In the dressing room Juanita took to massaging his shoulders like some women take to kneading bread. Reporters in wide hats began to take notice. A photo appeared in the papers of him and Juanita swapping wedding bands. Him decked out in a white tuxedo jacket, her in the finest taffeta, a bouquet of white flowers in her dark hair. That was the week before the big fight. September 9, 1938. If he could beat Caffola he would go on to the big time. Mustard oil. Blinded him good-oh. Juanita in the ring, smoothing back his hair, saying itâll be all right, Danny, itâll be all right, thereâll be another chance. His hair falling back again, down over his eyes.
And now it has fallen
He crosses the road, stops, and surveys the traffic, then breathes deeply. Not as much in the lungs as there used to be. But it isnât too far now to the laundromat, thank Jesus. Step we gaily, on we go, heel for heel and toe for toe, arm in arm and row in row, off for Marieâs wedding. His favorite song, no matter who the hell Marie is or was. Singing, he undoes the big brown belt of his overcoat. What will Juanita like? A flowery skirt? A pink blouse with tassels? Another flouncy blue number like Miss Jackson was wearing? No. Whatâs in order, he thinks, is something that will fit her like the sky fits the earth. That much at least she deserves. Today is a very special anniversaryâJuly 9th, 1992. Juanita is still as beautiful as ever, and she deserves something special.
He sees a young boy walking by the fried chicken shop, with his hair sticking up in little shafts of electrocuted pink. What in the world has become of hairstyles? When we were boys, in Lisdoonvarna, the hair gel came in two-penny bottles. We would part our hair down the middle and it would shine in the moonlight on the way home from the dancehall.
Those were the days. Indeed. He left for America on the Washington cruiser, swearing to Ireland that he would come home Heavyweight Champion of the World. Days of cowlicks and curls. It was the Great Depression, he remembers, and unemployed men hung around, warming their hands over hot barrels on the dockside in Cobh, eating pigeon sandwiches. Some among them had mouths festered from eating nettles. Hard times, and even back then, America was the place to go. Lachrymose young girls sold daffodils so they could buy tickets. Boys stood up high on the backs of dung carts, looking out to sea, dreaming. Bilious crowds watched the white of the waves while the ships foghorned a song of exile. Getting on the boat, standing on the deck, he sang Ireland, I love you, a Chusla Mo ChroÃ, love of my heart. As the boat pulled away he remembered his parents, who died when he was just fifteen. His mother, a hard woman, a disarray of beauty, maps of the west wrinkled on her skin. His father, an American who had come to Ireland after the agonies of the Great War, a man who learned how to farm and make soil among the barren rocks, a hard-working man, honest and doomed.
He stands at the side of Carrollton Avenue, feeling the heat hammer down from the southern sky. He wipes his overcoat sleeve across his wet brow.
They had given their son thick hands, hands that won fights all over Ireland, even illegal bouts in the grassy wild meadows. That day, when he stood on the shipâs bow in Cobh, the world stretched out in front of him. In his first eight months, in dingy little New York halls, he put away three journeymen heavyweights. Always sang a song after each of the bouts. Fell in love with Juanita when she came with a movie director to one of the fights. She sat there in the third row, her hair as wild and as long as kelp. That night he took her to the fanciest restaurant in town, and she kissed the top of his eye where heâd been cut.
One victory flew into another. In the dressing room Juanita took to massaging his shoulders like some women take to kneading bread. Reporters in wide hats began to take notice. A photo appeared in the papers of him and Juanita swapping wedding bands. Him decked out in a white tuxedo jacket, her in the finest taffeta, a bouquet of white flowers in her dark hair. That was the week before the big fight. September 9, 1938. If he could beat Caffola he would go on to the big time. Mustard oil. Blinded him good-oh. Juanita in the ring, smoothing back his hair, saying itâll be all right, Danny, itâll be all right, thereâll be another chance. His hair falling back again, down over his eyes.
And now it has fallen
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