Long After Midnight (31 page)

 
          
"It
seems," he said, "the place is absolutely blowing apart with fine
artistic talent. You turned your hand to nothing like this, in
Dublin
."

 
          
"You
learn a lot, away from home," said Tom, un-_ easily.

 
          
The
old man shut his eyes and drank his drink.

 
          
"Is
anything wrong, Grandfather?"

 
          
"It
will hit me in the middle of the night," said the old man. "I will
probably stand up in bed with a hell of a yell. But right now it is just a
thing in the pit of my stomach and the back of my head. Let's talk, boy, let's
talk."

 
          
And
they talked and drank until
midnight
and then the old man got put to bed and Tom
went to bed himself and after a long while both slept.

 
          
About
two in the morning, the old man woke suddenly.

 
          
He
peered around in the dark, wondering where he was, then saw the paintings, the
upholstered chairs, and the lamp and rugs Frank had made, and sat up. He
clenched his fists. Then, rising, he threw on his clothes, and staggered toward
the door as if fearful that he might not make it before something terrible
happened.

 
          
When
the door slammed, Tom jerked his eyes wide.

 
          
Somewhere
off in the dark there was a sound of someone calling, shouting, defying the
elements, someone at the top of his lungs crying blasphemies, saying God and
Jesus and Jesus and God, and finally blows struck, wild blows, as if someone
were hitting a wall or a person.

 
          
After
a long while, his grandfather shuffled back into the room, soaked to the skin.

 
          
Weaving,
muttering, whispering, the old man peeled off his wet clothes before the
fireless fire, then threw a newspaper on the coals, which blazed up briefly to
show a face relaxing out of fury into numbness. The old man found and put on
Tom's discarded robe. Tom kept his eyes tight as the old man held his hands out
toward the dwindling blaze, streaked with blood.

 
          
"Damn,
damn, damn.
There!"
He poured
whiskey and gulped it down. He blinked at Tom and the paintings on the wall and
looked at Tom and the flowers in the vases and then drank again. After a long
while, Tom pretended to wake up.

 
          
"It's
after two. You need your rest, Grand-
da
."

 
          
"I'll
rest when I'm done drinking. And
thinking!"

 
          
"Thinking
what, Grandpa?"

 
          
"Right
now," said the old man, seated in the dim room with the tumbler in his two
hands, and the fire gone to ghost on the hearth, "remembering your dear
grandmother in June of the year 1902. And there is the thought of your father
born, which is fine, and you born after him, which is fine. And there is the thought
of your father dying when you were young and the hard life of your mother and
her holding you too close, maybe, in the cold beggar life of flinty
Dublin
. And me out in the meadows with my working
life, and us together only once a month. The being born of people and the going
away of people. These turn round in an old man's night. I think of you born,
Tom, a happy day. Then I see you here now. That’s it."

 
          
The
old man grew silent and drank his drink.

 
          
"Grand-
da
," said Tom, at last, almost like a child crept in
for penalties and forgiveness of a sin as yet unnamed, "do I
worry
you?"

 
          
"No."
Then the old man added, "But what life will
do
with you, how you may be treated, good or ill—I sit up late with
that."

 
          
The
old man sat The young man lay wide-eyed watching him and later said, as if
reading thoughts:

 
          
"Grandfather,
I
am
happy."

 
          
The
old man leaned forward.

 
          
"Are
you, boy?"

 
          
"I
have never been so happy in my life, sir."

 
          
"Yes?"
The old man looked through the dim air of the room, at the young face. "I
see that. But will you
stay
happy,
Tom?"

 
          
"Does
anyone ever
stay
happy, Grandfather?
Nothing lasts,
does
it?"

 
          
"Shut
up! Your grandma and me,
that
lasted!"

 
          
"No.
It wasn't
all
the same, was it? The
first years were one thing, the last years another."

 
          
The
old man put his hand over his own mouth and then massaged his face, closing his
eyes.

 
          
"God,
yes, you're right. There are two, no, three, no, four lives, for each of us.
Not one of them lasts, it's sure. But the
thought
of them does. And out of the four or five or a dozen lives you live, one is
special. I remember, once .. ."

 
          
The
old man's voice faltered.

 
          
The
young man said,
"Once,
Grandpa?"
The old man's eyes fixed somewhere to a horizon of the Past. He did not speak
to the room or to Tom or to anyone. He didn't even seem to be speaking to
himself.

 
          
"Oh,
it was a long time ago. When I first came in this room tonight, for no reason,
strange, the memory was there. I ran back down along the shoreline of
Galway
to that week .. ." "What week,
when?''

 
          
"My
twelfth birthday fell that week in summer, think of it!
Victoria
still queen and me in a turf-hut out by
Galway
strolling the shore for food to be picked
up from the tides, and the weather so sweet you almost turned sad with the
taste of it, for you knew it would soon go away.

 
          
"And
in the middle of the great fair weather along the road by the shore one
noon
came this tinker's caravan carrying their
dark gypsy people to set up camp by the sea.

 
          
"There
was a mother, a father, and a girl in that caravan, and this boy who came
running down by the sea alone, perhaps in need of company, for there I was with
nothing to do, and in need of strangers myself.

 
          
"Here
he came running. And I shall not forget my first sight of him from that day
till they drop me in the earth. He—

 
          
"Ah
God, I'm a failure with words! Stop everything. I must go further back.

 
          
"A
circus came to
Dublin
. I visited the sideshows of pinheads and dwarfs and terrible small
midgets and fat women
dnd
skeleton men. Seeing a
crowd about one last exhibit, I thought this must be the most horrible of all.
I edged over to look at this final terror! And what did I see? The crowd was
drawn to nothing more nor less than: a little girl of some six years, so fair,
so beautiful, so cream-white of cheek, so blue of eye, so golden of hair, so
quiet in her manner that in the midst of this fleshy holocaust she called
attention. By saying nothing her shout of beauty stopped the show. All
had
to come to her to get well again.
For it was a sick menagerie and she the only sweet lovely Doc about to give us
back life.

 
          
"Well,
that girl in the sideshow was as wonderful a surprise as this boy come running
down the beach like a young horse.

 
          
"He
was not dark like his parents.

 
          
"His
hair was all gold curls and bits of sun. He was cut out of bronze by the light,
and what wasn't bronze was copper. Impossible, but it seemed that this boy of
twelve, like myself, had been born on that very day, he looked that new and
fresh. And in his face were these bright brown eyes, the eyes of an animal that
has run a long way, pursued, along the shorelines of the world.

 
          
"He
pulled up and the first thing he said to me was laughter. He was glad to be
alive, and announced that by the sound he made. I must have laughed in turn,
for his spirit was catching. He shoved out his brown hand. I hesitated. He
gestured impatiently and grabbed my hand.

 
          
"My
God, after all these years I remembered what we said: 'Isn't it funny?' he
said.

 
          
"I
didn't ask
what
was funny. I
knew.
He said his name was Jo. I said my
name was Tim, And there we were, two boys on the beach and the universe a good
rare joke between us.

 
          
"He
looked at me with his great round full copper eyes, and laughed out his breath
and I thought: He has chewed hay! his breath smells of grass; and suddenly I
was giddy. The smell stunned me. Jesus God, I thought, reeling, I'm drunk, and
why?
I've nipped Dad's booze, but God,
what's
this?
Drunk by
noon
, hit by the sun, giddy from what? the sweet
mash caught in a strange boy's teeth? No, no!

 
          
"Then
Jo looked straight at me and said, "There isn't much time.'

 
          
"
'Much time?'” I asked.

 
          
"'Why,'
said Jo, 'for us to be friends. We are,
aren't
we?'

 
          
"He
breathed the smell of mown fields upon me.

 
          
"Jesus
God, I wanted to cry, Yes! And almost fell down, but staggered back as if he
had hit me a friend's hit And my mouth opened and shut and I said, 'Why is
there so little time?'

 
          
"
'Because,' said Jo, 'we'll only be here six days, seven at the most, then on
down and around
Eire
. I'll never see you again in my life. So
we'll just have to pack a lot of things in a few days, won't we, Tim?'

 
          
"
'Six days? That's no time at all!' I protested, and wondered why I found myself
suddenly destroyed, left destitute on the shore. A thing had not begun, but
already I sorrowed after its death.

 
          
"
'A day here, a week there, a month somewhere else,' said Jo. 'I must live very
quickly, Tim. I have no friends that last. Only what I remember. So, wherever I
go, I say to my new friends, quick, do this, do that, let us make many
happenings, a long list, so you will remember me when I am gone, and I you, and
say: that was a friend. So, let's begin. There!'

 
          
"And
Jo tagged me and ran.

 
          
"I
ran after him, laughing, for wasn't it silly, me headlong after a stranger boy
unknown five minutes before? We must've run a mile down that long summer beach
before he let me catch him. I thought I might pummel him for making me run so
far for nothing, for something, for God knew what! But when we tumbled to earth
and I pinned him down, all he did was spring his breath in one gasp up at me,
one breath, and I leaped back and shook my head and sat staring at him, as if
I'd plunged wet hands in an open electric socket He laughed to see me fall
away, to see me scurry and sit in wonder. 'O, Tim,' he said, 'we
shall
be friends.'

 
          
"You
know the dread long cold weather, most months, of
Ireland
? Well, this week of my twelfth birthday, it
was summer each day and every day for the seven days named by Jo as the limit
which would be no more days. We walked the shore, and that's all there was, the
simple thing of us upon the shore, and building castles or climbing hills to
fight wars among the mounds. We found an old round tower and yelled up and down
from it. But mostly it was walking, our arms around each other like twins born
in a triangle, never cut free by knife or lightning. I inhaled, he exhaled.
Then he breathed and I was the sweet chorus. We talked, far through the nights
on the sand, until our parents came seeking the lost who had found they knew
not what. Lured home, I slept beside him, or him me, and talked and laughed,
Jesus, laughed, till dawn. Then out again we roared until the earth swung up to
hit our backs. We found ourselves laid out with sweet hilarity, eyes tight,
gripped to each other's shaking, and the laugh jumped free like one silver
trout following another. God, I bathed in his laughter as he bathed in mine,
until we were weak as if love had put us to the slaughter and exhaustions. We
panted then like pups in hot summer, empty of laughing, and sleepy with
friendship. And the weather for that week was blue and gold, no clouds, no
rain, and a wind that smelled of apples, but no, only that boy's wild breath.