malachy
McCOURT
A MONK SWIMMING
A MEMOIR
tIYPERION new york
Copyright © 1998 by Malachy McCourt.
Pages 127--128, lyrics from Scan South of Canyowen, by Sean Costelloe,
© Mary Costelloe and Wamer-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. All
Rights Reserved. Used by Permission. Wamer Bros. Publications U.S.
Inc., Miami, FL 33014.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced
in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the Publisher.
Printed in the United States of America. For information address
Hyperion, 114 Fifth Ave, New York, New York IOOII.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McCourt, Malachy.
A monk swimming / Malachy McCourt. -- 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 0786863986
I. McCourt, Malachy. 2. Irish Americans--New York
(State)--New York--Biography. 3. New York (N.Y.)--
Biography.
I. Title.
FI28.9.I6M376 1998
974.7'I043'092--dc2I
[B] 97-46720
CIP
Designed by Christine Weathersbee Paperback ISBN 0786884142
First Paperback Edition
10 987654321
For my beloved brilliant beautiful
Diana
Who gives the resounding yes to life, to love,
and to the song of the morning.
I cherish you.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With much gratitude to the brothers Frank--for opening the
golden door and leading the way--and to Mike and Alphie with my love
and thanks.
To my children--Siobhan, Malachy, Nina, Conor, and Cormac--
for raising me to maturity.
To my grandchildren--Fiona, Mark, and Adrianna--for the joy.
To Bernice and John for bringing Diana into the world.
To Charlie DeFanti for walking me through the golden door and
to John Weber for saying welcome. To David Chalfant,
my intrepid agent, no stranger to Midas.
To Helena Can-oil and the late Dermot McNamara for the first
acting job. To the late Tom O'Malley for catapulting me onto The Tonight
Show. To Marge Greene, who was and is always there. To Richard
Harris for the riotous times. To Ed Burns for leading the cheers.
To John and Tinka Finn for the house that spoke to me. To Terry
Moran and the mysterious First Friday Club. To my editor, Maureen
O'Brien, for her joyful trust in this, my first book. To Howard
Mittelmark, who took chaos and put it in order.
To the Costelloes of Limerick for the wit and the song.
To Robert Hayden Jones for he knows what. To Adrian Flannelly for the
friendship and the microphone.
To Paul O'Dwyer, hero, for his joy in standing for principle.
To Bob Cranny--a friend indeed! To Angela and Malachy, who
know not what they wrought. To Bill W. and all his friends.
To the English for stuffing their language down our throats
so that we could regurgitate it in glorious colors.
To New York, I love you!
CONTENTS
PART ONE
To the Manor Borne
3
PART TWO
Malachy Ascending
41
PART THREE
Dubious Luxuries
135
PART FOUR
Whirled Affairs
183
PART FIVE
Father to the Man
279
T
HERE WAS ALWAYS THE STORY IN ANY GATHERING IN limerick.
Be it boys, girls, the men, the women, bald facts were
considered cold and inhuman; therefore all storied events had to be
wrapped in words. Warm words, serried words, glittering, poetic,
harsh, and even blasphemous words.
So the cold evenings were made warm with myths and tales of dirty
doings and derring-do, and horrific yarns of the tortures of hell awaiting
the evildoer. We the children sat in darkness, shivering in horrored
delight, having been told we had two ears and unready tongue.
My father, Malachy, and his chums, Mr. Meehan, Mr. Looney, and
Mr. Moran, spun out the silver-gold yarns and, by sheer eloquence,
made our miserable surroundings disappear. And my father would
sing his patriotic odes to Ireland, like the one about Roddy McCorley
going to die on the bridge of Toome. My mother sang droopy love
songs like, "We Are in Love with You, My Heart and I."
Death brought a silence to our house. First Baby Margaret Mary
2 MALACHY McCOURT
and then the twins--Eugene at four, and Oliver, four-anda-half.
Poverty killed them. My father left, to go on a lifelong drinking
binge, never to come back, and I hated him for depriving me of
him. It was many years before my mother sang another droopy love
song, because she sank into a deep depression and love fled into the
damp, grey Limerick sky, never to return.
The poor will always be with us, it sez in the Bible, and having
had the strange privilege of being born into a not poor, but povertystricken,
family, it became my passionate intention to be always with
someone, but, by the living Jesus Christ, I would not be poor or
poverty stricken.
I did not like being damp all the time. I did not like being cold and
wet in the winter. I did not like looking in windows of shops filled
with meats sweets biscuits breads, and my eyes bulging, the mouth
aching for the chance to chew on something substantial. I did not like
being eaten by fleas, gorging themselves on my bitter blood. I did not
like having lice and nits in my hair my arse my armpits my eyebrows
and every seam of the trousers and gansey I wore. I didn't like the boils
and pimples on my small epidermis, not to mention the shame of scabies
and ringworm. I didn't like having badly patched clothes and broken
boots that Van Gogh would have sneered at. I didn't like having
caked shit in my trousers because they couldn't be washed for the want
of a replacement to wear while they were drying. I didn't like being
made fun of and sneered at by the upper classes, who had tea and buns
in the afternoon and electric light in every room.
I have never liked the smell of the newly made, newly varnished
coffins that were brought in to take away our dead forever.
I was a smiley little fella with a raging heart and murderous
instincts. One day I would show THEM--yes, you rotten fucking
arsehole counter-jumping stuck-up jumped-up whore's-melts noseholding
tuppence-ha'penny-looking-down-on-tuppence snobs. I'll go
back to America where I was born and I'll fart in yer faces.
And I did.
0 N E
i	TO THE MANOR BORNE
There is a story in our family that one day my mother was strolling along with my brother Frank and myself, and pushing our twins in a
pram. A huge black motorcar stopped at the kerb, and out hopped a
smartly dressed chauffeur, who opened the rear door for a bejeweled,
befurred grande-dame type of woman who, putting the well-shod feet on
the ground, commanded the mother to stop, which she did promptly. Then
the grande dame waxed lyrical on the subject of myself--how she had
never seen a more beautiful little boy: the blonde hair, the gleaming teeth,
the gorgeous skin, and the smile--and how she would pay any amount
of money to the mother to allow her to adopt me.
The mother, as the story is told, thought, and thought, and thought,
and said it was an attractive proposition, hut she couldn't think of a way to explain my disappearance to my father, who had not yet disappeared
himself, so she reluctantly declined the offer.
In later years, 'twas often thrown in my face by the mother and the brothers that a great mistake had been made by my retention in the
Jamily circle. Privately, I was always of the opinion that a grande dame
There is a story in our family that one day my mother was strolling along with my brother Frank and myself, and pushing our twins in a pram. A huge black motorcar stopped at the kerb, and out hopped a
smartly dressed chauffeur, who opened the rear door for a bejeweled,
befurred grande-dame type of woman who, putting the well^shod feet on
the ground, commanded the mother to stop, which she did promptly. Then
the grande dame waxed lyrical on the subject of myself--how she had
never seen a more beautiful little boy: the blonde hair, the gleaming teeth,
the gorgeous skin, and the smile----and how she would pay any amount
of money to the mother to allow her to adopt me.
The mother, as the story is told, thought, and thought, and thought,
and said it was an attractive proposition, but she couldn't think of a
way to explain my disappearance to my father, who had not yet dis" appeared himself, so she reluctantly declined the offer.
In later years, 'twas often thrown in my face by the mother and the
brothers that a great mistake had been made by my retention in the
family circle. Privately, I was always of the opinion that a grande dame
6 MALACHY McCOURT
had gotten herself in the family way outside of wedlock and had paid
my mother to take me. How else can it be explained, my easy and
effortless assimilation into the good life, life in America?
The brother Frank had somehow got to the U.S.A. in 1949, at the
age of nineteen, and then saved up enough money to send for me in
19-52, when I was twenty. Two hundred dollars paid my passage on
the good ship America. Talk about the good life: clean beds, clean sheets,
pillow, light to read by, and the food! As many meals and as much as
you wanted, and you could have sandwiches in the middle of the night
if you wanted. And there was a swimming pool. It was still embarrassing
to have patched clothes and mended shoes, and all of it too heavy for the
summer climate toward which we sped.
What was I going to do in the U.S. of A., they asked me, and how
in Cod's name was I to tell them that I'd left school at thirteen and
had no certificates to prove I'd been to school at all, as I had failed the
primary exams twice and was considered a dunce, doomed, doomed
(o mendicancy, criminality or, worse, manual labor to the end of my
natural days, that's what they'd said.
But the Americans were kind, so I'd tell them I was going to be a
doctor an engineer a surgeon a pilot a navigator——anything to bring a
smile to the lips of these kindly folks. Truth is, I knew I couldn't do
anything at all but tell stories and lies.
When I got here to the U.S., Frank was gone in the army to
Germany and a family named McManus met me and guided me around.
I had to register for the draft too, and found myself in the service for
a couple of years, and out I came discharged, still not knowing what to
do at the age of twenty-three.
I WENT TO THE DOCKS and, as I swore I wasn't a Communist or
a member of organized crime, I was allowed to register for work. I
England, you were called a "docker," but here in the U.S. you wer
A MONK SWIMMING 7
a "longshoreman," a romantic-sounding name for a laborer unloading the ships. There was a comforting monotony to the job, especially if you were fit, strong, and not too high in the I.Q. department.
New York was still a thriving port, the terminal point for a
greater variety of cargoes than the brother Frank and myself. Hell's
Kitchen, a hard and ragged neighborhood on the West Side of Manhattan,
next to the Hudson River, was dominated by the Irish, and
it was said there used to be signs on the piers there that read NO
WOPS; in Brooklyn the Italians were in charge, and they put up
signs on the piers there that said NO MICKS.
I'd wander from pier to pier, to the Jersey City, Bayonne, and
Hoboken hiring halls, echoey, smelly places, with green walls, dirty
floors, and the usual flickering fluorescent lights. We'd shape up
early in the morning, freezing in the winter, us garbed in the longshoreman's
uniform: heavy boots, heavy trousers, sweater, pea jacket,
woolen cap, work gloves, and the cargo hook unsteady from last
night's excesses. If there were a lot of ships, the greenhorns like me
worked; if not, it was another arse-scratching day.
This was in 1955, the days of the Waterfront Commission, established
to clean up unions. Any time a union endeavored to clean
up the horrendous, dangerous conditions under which workers were
mutilated and killed, the bosses set in motion the propaganda machine
to break the union under the guise of stamping out corruption.
Elia Kazan, who squealed on his friends to the House UnAmencan
Activities Committee, got the job of directing the movie On the Waterfront as a reward for his treachery. Between Hollywood,
the government, and the Church, they managed to practically destroy
the International Longshoreman's Association by kicking out the
great seekers for justice.
There was one dedicated little fellow with glasses who felt the ""ion should do better. He ran for office time and time again.
ey d shoot at him, beat him up, sabotage his car, and yet he lived to nght another day. The heart's a wonder, as Synge said.
6 MALACHY McCOURT
had gotten herself in the family way outside of wedlock and had paid
my mother to take me. How else can it be explained, my easy and
effortless assimilation into the good life, life in America?
The bother Frank had somehow got to the U.S.A. in 1949, at the
age of nineteen, and then saved up enough money to send for me in
1952, when I was twenty. Two hundred dollars paid my passage on
the good ship America. Talk about the good life: clean beds, clean sheets,
pillow, light to read by, and the food! As many meals and as much as
you wanted, and you could have sandwiches in the middk of the night
if you wanted. And there was a swimming pool. It was still embarrassing
to have patched clothes and mended shoes, and all of it too heavy for the
summer climate toward which we sped.
What was I going to do in the U.S. of A., they asked me, and how
in Cod's name was I to tell them that I'd left school at thirteen and
had no certificates to prove I'd been to school at all, as I had failed the
primary exams twice and was considered a dunce, doomed, doomed
to mendicancy, criminality or, worse, manual labor to the end of my
natural days, that's what they'd said.
But the Americans were kind, so I'd tell them I was going to be a
doctor an engineer a surgeon a pilot a navigator——anything to bring a
smile to the lips of these kindly folks. Truth is, I knew I couldn't do
anything at all but tell stories and lies.
When I got here to the U.S., Frank was gone in the army to
Germany and a family named McManus met me and guided me around.
I had to register for the draft too, and found myself in the service for
a couple of years, and out I came discharged, still not knowing what to
do at the age of twenty-three.
I WENT TO THE DOCKS and, as I swore I wasn't a Communist or
a member of organized crime, I was allowed to register for work. In
England, you were called a "docker," but here in the U.S. you were
A MONK SWIMMING 7
a "longshorenian," a romantic-sounding name for a laborer unloading
the ships. There was a comforting monotony to the job, especially
if you were fit, strong, and not too high in the I.Q. department.
New York ^yas still a thriving port, the terminal point for a
greater variety of cargoes than the brother Frank and myself. Hell's
Kitchen, a hard and ragged neighborhood on the West Side of Manhattan,
next to the Hudson River, was dominated by the Irish, and
it was said there used to be signs on the piers there that read NO
WOPS; in Brooklyn the Italians were in charge, and they put up
signs on the piers there that said NO MICKS.
I'd wander from pier to pier, to the Jersey City, Bayonne, and
Hoboken hiring halls, echoey, smelly places, with green walls, dirty
floors, and the usual flickering fluorescent lights. We'd shape up
early in the morning, freezing in the winter, us garbed in the longshoreman's
uniform: heavy boots, heavy trousers, sweater, pea jacket,
woolen cap, work gloves, and the cargo hook unsteady from last
night's excesses. If there were a lot of ships, the greenhorns like me
worked; if not, it was another arse-scratching day.
This was in 1955, the days of the Waterfront Commission, established
to clean up unions. Any time a union endeavored to clean
up the horrendous, dangerous conditions under which workers were
mutilated and killed, the bosses set in motion the propaganda machine
to break the union under the guise of stamping out corruption.
Elia Kazan, who squealed on his friends to the House UnAmerican
Activities Committee, got the job of directing the movie
On the Waterfront as a reward for his treachery. Between Hollywood,
the government, and the Church, they managed to practically destroy
the International Longshoreman's Association by kicking out the
great seekers for justice.
There was one dedicated little fellow with glasses who felt the
union should do better. He ran for office time and time again.
They'd shoot at him, beat him up, sabotage his car, and yet he lived
to fight another day. The heart's a wonder, as Synge said.
8 MALACHY McCOURT
I stayed out of the union doings, as I was not too keen on getting
beaten up and, being a fresh-faced young immigrant, I was still
reasonably ignorant of the issues in dispute.
Was there thievery on the docks? Hell, yes! We helped ourselves
to fine Italian shoes, and there were days we dropped our trousers
and wound yards of suit fabric around the torso, so that at quitting
time, you'd observe scores of portly males waddling off the pier.
When there was a shipment of alcohol of any sort, it was a day of
accidents involving fork lifts being drunkenly driven over the side
of the pier, men falling into holds, fisticuffs, arguments, and much
simple rejoicing.
There was a day I was working on a Brooklyn pier, and a cargo
of artificial flowers arrived, which were duly tithed among the toilers.
A thoroughly useless item it was, and I asked the other Irishman
working there that day, an older fellow named McCabe, why they
were stealing such a thing.
"Ah," sez he, "if they shipped shit over here in one-pound boxes,
they'd steal all of it."
"They," of course, were the Italians, who stole everything, as
distinct from the Irish, who only stole on principle--that according
to my elder.
My favorite cargo was rubber: huge, five-hundred-pound bales of
the stuff, imported from Malaysia. Sometimes the crane man would
let a bale fall out of the net from a great height, and the huge
projectile would come bounding and bouncing erratically along the
pier, sending even the most arthritic nonagenarian leaping for safety
with gay abandon.
Along with shifting cargo on my handcart, I was keeping fit by
playing with the New York Rugby Football Club. This was a polyglot
of expatriates from the U.K., New Zealand, Australia, and South
Africa, plus a sprinkling of anglophilic Yanks, some of whom hoped
they would be mistaken for English. For a while, I was the only
Irisher on the team, outside of a fellow named Brad Brady from
Cork, who was so Brit-oriented he could hardly speak.
A MONK SWIMMING 9
Many of those Brits lamented the coarseness of the Yanks, their
lack of sportsmanship. "They actually care more about winning than
playing the game, old boy." Perhaps one day they would see the
error of their ways, return to the Empire, learn good manners, and
become good subjects.
There was a lot of swilling of beer, chug-a-lug contests, and the
like. At our annual dinner, toasts were proposed to the President
and the Queen. When I proposed a toast to the President of Ireland,
I was ruled out of order, so I proposed we eliminate the Queen's
toast. Though I followed Robert's Rules, this counterproposal received
little support.
We played games against colleges, wherever we could get 'em,
from Princeton to Boston to Dartmouth. One of my first games was
against Harvard, and it was a rough one with a lot of dirty play and
fisticuffs. Several players were ordered off the field by the ref, including
one Boston boy named Kennedy, known to we lads as Ted.
I couldn't get over being accepted into what is called "civilized,
middle-class society." Jesus, here I was, a manual laborer, hobnobbing
with college-educated folk, doctors, engineers, and stockbrokers.
There was the occasional feeling that one day they would
find me out--that I was uneducated, a guttersnipe from the lanes
of Limerick, an upstart. My weapon, my defense, to ensure my
acceptance, was to drink more and drink faster than anyone on the
team, to sing more songs, to be the larger-than-life of the party. I
knew they would not have had anything to do with me in another
clime, but here we were all exiles with no choice but to play the
game, drink the drink, sing the song, and hide whatever need be
hidden.
These rugby piss-ups were almost always totally male gettogethers.
We men of the world would descend on a college, and
'ill the undergraduates would be impressed at our savoir faire. At
times, there'd be the leggy Aryan coed attached to an American Hero
type. I'd look, lust, and leave, knowing I could never have one of
them for myself.
10 MALACHY McCOURT
Women fascinated me: their aromas, budding, blooming, bustingout
breasts, the bottoms, the lips, the legs, the softness and roundness
of all the parts, the dulcetness of speech, and that mysterious
place guarded by thighs and downy hair. But what, in God's name,
was I to say to them?
Cursed with shyness, I continued letting it all out on the field of
battle, and during the off-season, continued the practice of shaking
hands with the unemployed. Wanking, the Irish called it, that is,
spilling the seed onto the ground, or anywhere else the trajectory
sped it.
Mother Church had had strong views on sins of the flesh, and I
never got over the feeling of being a sinner, of being unworthy, an
excrescence in the eyes of God. I thought about the biblical injunction
to Onan: Better to spill your seed in the belly of a whore than
waste it on the ground.
Why, I would like to ask at this late date, is it less of a sin to
stick the winkie into a paid lady than to wank? Theologians, please
note.
Anyway, these rugby affairs were. sexless, except for one pretentious
Brit with a game leg, who babbled in that plummy way they
have. Some of these Brits who are very class conscious speak as if
they are about to expire, and each breath is their very last. This
fellow, who was corpulent, to say the least, had a little boyfriend
named Johnny. He was the sort of lightweight lad who'd be nervous
using a feather duster, lest it fatally wound someone, and our man
Harold, whose playing days were long done, would insist on Johnny
playing the game.
Sheer terror guided Johnny on the field. He behaved like a gazelle
who knows there are hungry lions waiting for him in the veldt, and
he ran as if he had a ripe strawberry stuck 'tween the cheeks of his
arse, which he had been instructed not to crush.
Eventually, Johnny got weary of being one with the turf and fled
with a clothing designer to California, leaving Harold with a broken
heart, from which he died.
ITH A FEW QUID IN MY POCKET FROM MY LABORS ON
the docks, a proper place to lay the head was in order, and
I found one on West Eighty-first Street, in an apartment overlooking
the Museum of Natural History, which, being so close, I never set
foot in. The roommate who bid me share his bode was a tall, gaunt
fellow, a construction engineer by profession, and totally around the
bend. He staggered under the name of George Giles Green. George
had been a pilot in the Korean War, and whilst absent from home
during that forgotten conflict, fighting for America's honor, didn't
his spouse dump him? She strolled off with another lad, who happened
to be of the Hebraic persuasion, which led George to feel a
very strong empathy with the late A. Hitler. The Jews, said he, were
behind everything, including the voting machine. When he was exercising
his citizen's right to vote, I was thoroughly and repeatedly
informed, they manipulated the controls so that George voted for
Jewish candidates against his will.
An ardent craw-thumping follower of Gucci-shoed popes was old
11
12 MALACHY McCOURT
C C C who cast a cold "A upon me when I'd share with him my
nflated tales of fleshly pursuits, until I decided I'd show him, and
kept them to myself.
On the table in our living room there stood in eternal vigilance
a stone bird, beak up, wings folded, greenish grey--an ornithologist's
dilemma. George warned me to be careful what I said, as our friend rh hold had the habit of flying around to the other apartments
in the building after we went to bed and relating to all the Jews
living there every word we had spoken. And there was much to be
reported as our chats, such as they were, would by then have been
nuite brief were it not for the latest doings of the Jews (G.G.G.)
and the weather (me).
The end of this apartment share came after only a few months,
the nieht G.G.G. and myself were sitting digesting the evening's
recast and havingbeen filled in by my roommate on the daily doings
of Moses' henchmen. I was reading quietly. Suddenly my attention
was drawn to the floor. Eichmann's admirer was crawling toward
me eves ablaze, flecks of ye olde foam at the corners of the mouth.
"(pr down" he urged. "Get down on the floor. Quick! Quick!"
George was a veteran of the latest police action in Korea and,
although a pilot, knew ground warfare too. As my knowledge of
warfare partook of neither the sky nor the battlefield, but extended
i ,;q ^e occasional barroom set-to, I deferred to his greater exoerience
and assumed we were under attack, even though we were the seventh door. Fear accelerated my dive to the carpet, where
I found myself stretched out on the belly, face-to-face with my
foaming friend.
Having taken a!! possible precautions against being blown away
by sniper fire from the Museum of Natural History, I ventured a
query to George.
"What is going on, George?" sez I.
"Can't you hear them!"
"Who?" sez I.
A MONK SWIMMING 13
"The Jew cab drivers."
I tried to look thoughtful, and indeed I was, thinking how a
distinction could be made between the words "Jew" and "Jewish."
"What about them, George?"
"As if you don't know! They've been told to honk their horns
when they pass this building!"
"I see. And what are we doing on the floor?"
"They can see our shadows on the ceiling!"
It's embarrassing to realize you've been conned into entering the
province of a first-class, ocean-going lunatic, so up on the pins with
me, announcing, "You're talking through your arsehole!"
Thereupon, the slavering George said that I was a brainwashed
Jew-lover, no better than the Judas bird, and there was no place for
me in a decent Christian society, much less his apartment, so I'd
better get out. I left the following morning, after an alert and sleepless
night.
I didn't see old G.G.G. for some years, until I spotted him on
Third Avenue pacing up and down across the street from Malachy's
I, a saloon I owned at that time. With a bit of trepidation, I approached
the man. He seemed glad to see me, and when I invited
him to step across the boulevard to the saloon, he demurred, and
instead invited me to dine with him the following week at the New
York Athletic Club.
I was relieved to see the man had apparently achieved normalcy,
so I accepted. The New York Athletic Club at that time was a
bastion of Franco-loving, Mussolini-mourning, God-fearing Hitlereans,
but, not being too discriminating in those days, I hied myself
over there and presented myself for the free dinner. Got a warmish
greeting from George and, after a beaker of Irish whiskey (N.B.: No
other whiskey is entitled to be spelled with an "e"), he invited me
to inspect the new wrestling mats in the gym.
Myrmidonish sort of laddie that I was, I assented, and off we
c Polled to the gym to view said mats. On the way there, George
14 MALACHY McCOURT
said that he was living here now, as it was a very safe place from
Jews. Jesus, here we go again. But I hadn't had the dinner yet. Or
seen the new mats.
We stepped into the gym, which was bereft of human beings,
and George said, "There they are!" with a wave toward the pile of
mats.
I said something brilliant, like, "Very nice." A glance then at
good old George showed me that the face of the madman had
emerged again--the blazing eyes, the foam, etc.--and a choked voice
told me that I had fucked a Jew whore and told her I was George
Giles Green and now she was pregnant and demanding money from
him. I, of course, said I hadn't, a weak statement, I'll admit, but the
best I could muster at the mo*. George paid no attention to the
denial, which, I suppose, should not have come as a surprise.
Though not in the best of physical form, he was capable of
moving with celerity, in this case unleashing an uppercut that would
have pleased Mr. M. All of fisticuffs fame, had he dispatched it. It
landed a couple of degrees west of the chin, on the jawline. I found
myself inspecting the new wrestling mat more closely than I had
intended when George extended the invite to view them.
When the head cleared, I was alone, face down, Georgeless once
more. George had fled the premi. I departed the N.Y.A.C., dinnerless
and with a very sore jaw. The last I heard of George, he was in a
safe place, attended by white-garbed folk. He was most agreeable in
their company, as he thought they were off-duty members of the
K.K.K.
The lesson learned then, and revisited over the years, was that all
anti-Semites, and bigots as a general class, are either sick or stupid.
Ah, I thought, as this obvious bit of sociology dawned on me, aren't
I the clever little immigrant to have figured that out?
A
MONGST MY RUGBY-PLAYING PALS WAS A FELLOW NAMED
Bob Lichenstein, and amongst the uncertainties of his life was
the fact of his New Jersey origins. He eventually married a daughter
of Big Jim Folsom, the governor of Alabama, and the teammates
were subjected to a barrage of Big Jim this and Big Jim that forevermore.
A more unabashed social climber was never encountered,
and he could see that I was one too.
There was a hostelry named Michael II in the East Seventies,
where. Bob told me, the scions of wealthy American families forgathered
to gossip and tear each other apart. He also informed me
that there was so much inbreeding among them that the males were
rendered impotent, incapable of keeping a stiff upper anything, and ^us there were a myriad, give or take a thou, of upper-class maidens
panting to expose the inner thighs and hand over the honor to virile, ^gby-playing, balding New Jerseyans and newly arrived Irish im- ""grants.
I was still quite deficient in the social-grace department at the
age of twenty-three, but a couple of stiff drains of the waters of life,
86 proof, allowed me to feel comfortable in the company of the
aforesaid scions and to maintain the reputation of the Irish as the
golden-tongued charmers of the English-speaking world. Some said
I spoke bullshit, others said blarney, but the young women said I
was cute, and that was good enough for me.
When it came to dipping the wick, I ran across an acute shortage
of maidenheads to penetrate. If, as in earlier times, these young things
had had fans, they would have all sniggered behind them at my
attempts at seduction. All, with the exception of Anita Whitney.
Ah, Anita! Was she one of those Whitneys? Who doth know,
and who doth give a fiddler's fart, for she had the trim figure, the
lively leg, the long, graceful neck. And the face, the countenance,
guaranteed to launch a fleet of nuclear submarines. The wide, almond
eyes, dark and changing and laughing. The exquisite nose, and the
full-lipped mouth engorged with sensuality, glowing so ruby red that
I thought, "If ever I get to put my lips to hers, I shall not remove
them 'til I die."
Came the day when the New York Rugby Football Club British
secretary announced that Her Majesty QE2, and her bedmate, Prince
Phil, were arriving in New York and would be receiving loyal subjects
at the Sixty-sixth Street Armory. The club had a limited number
of tickets, and for a lark I took a couple of the ducats, with the
idea of inviting the subject of my dreams, Anita Whitney, to be my
date. She assented, and came the night, we arrived at the armory--
she, nervous, because it was the royal yahoos; me, aquiver, because
it was Anita on my arm. We moved easily through the not-so-strict
security of those years, and into the great hall of the Armory.
For some reason, I thought it was going to be a reasonable number
of bods shaking the hand and kissing the royal arses. But no,
there were about six thousand hysterical Brits and assorted Anglophiles
behaving like Margaret Thatcher soccer hooligans; respectable-
A MONK SWIMMING 17
looking old colonials and dames, pushing to get the best view and
screaming--yes, screaming--"The Queeeeen, Gawd Bless er!"
The heat, the glare, the sweat, and the odor of thousands of
unwashed Britons was too much for my beautiful Anita, who suddenly
got the vapors. We had to whack our way through a savage
horde to get out of the mess.
Hallelujah! There at the corner of the hall was a very large, oak
door, and guarding it was a cop I knew, named Jimmy Snow. I
appealed for help and he let us through.
It was one of those wood-paneled anterooms, cool and free of
babbling Brits, and there in the corner I spied a bar and a whitecoated,
bowtied barman. 'Twas the work of a mo' to secure two
large cognacs from this human St. Bernard and recovery was set in
motion for Anita, fair and faint. An offer to pay for the drinks was
declined by our rescuer, and so several more were ordered, which
followed the first down easily.
Then the doors opened wide, and in trooped Elizabeth II with
Governor Nelson Rockefeller, followed by Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh,
Mayor Robert Wagner, and assorted bods in very colorful
military uniforms. One of these generals came over to where Anita
and self were ensconced behind the cognacs and told us Her Majesty
was ready for the formal receiving line. He asked our names and
requested we stand in line. About ten of us fell into formation,
whereupon the major general presented all to Liz and Phil as they
walked down the line, shaking the hand and offering the greeting:
the Governor Rockefeller, the Mayor Wagner, Mrs. Rock, Mrs.
Wag, Mr. this and that, Miss Anita Whitney, Mr. Malachy ^IcCourt. When the presentation was done, Phil of Edinburgh
headed in my direction and struck up the small talk.
What do you do in New York?
"I work on the docks as a longshoreman. That's a 'docker' to
you."
You're Irish, are you not?" II
18 MALACHY McCOURT
"That I am."
"There was a demonstration against us at the pier yesterday. You
weren't there, were you?"
"No. The need to work was pressing, the rent being due."
"I see. How do you like America?"
"I love it here. George was foolish to let it go."
"We all make mistakes."
Our chat was interrupted when the tiny queen toddled over to
join us, and asked what I did in New York. My new pal Phil said,
"Don't question him too closely, my dear."
"Ah, shall we be going then?"
Phil said, "Indeed," shook my hand, and off they went. Phil
turned back to tell me that should I ever get to London, I should
look him up.
Of course.
I did have the chance, on this occasion, to resolve a long-standing
issue of interest to subjects both loyal and not: what the queen does
with her old clothes.
She wears them.
During this Peasant—Royalty dialogue, Anita was standing with
her gorgeous mouth agape at my temerity and chattiness. I explained
to her I was just getting used to dealing with my inferiors. We
departed the armory and took a small pub crawl, and not one soul
believed our brush with the House of Hanover that night.
A
S THE WINTER OF 1955 ASSERTED ITSELF, THE BROTHER
Frank secured living quarters on Downing Street in Da Village.
It was for some reason called a "cold water flat," though the aqua
was quite hot. The bathtub was in the kitchen, and the toilet was
down the tiled hallway on the left. Because I now needed a new
place to lay the head and, I was hoping, the odd bird, the brudder
allowed me to share these sumptuous accommodations, with their daggering rent of twenty-five dollars per month. Frank wasn't there roucri, for he was going to New York University, working on the
docks, and doing a bit of night labor at some bank, as well as trying to spend time with his wife-to-be, a female of uncertain temper,
"ereinafter known as The War Department. So, generally speaking, ^ had the premi to myself. Con Edison kept sending a bill for "ectricity, which was fair enough, but I objected to the gas bill, as were was a noticeable absence of a gas stove or anything else that ""ght use gas in this habitation.
19
20 MALACHY McCOURT
There were other annoying bills, too, for services rendered,
which I was not as a rule in a position to pay, due to the pressing need to pay for alcohol. A bright idea, and a swift trip to the local
stationery shop, brought a temporary cessation of the dunning mail.
A small investment of three dollars or so secured for me a rubber
stamp, which, when inked and pressed to the exterior of an envelope
containing a bill, proclaimed for anyone to plainly see: DECEASED.

Con Edison promptly disconnected the electricity, leaving me
with no light but that from the blinking sign outside the window,
advertising the bar on the ground floor. Fortunately, I found that
by coordinating my own blinking with that of the sign, I was able
to read well enough.
Most evenings, though, found me absent from the prerni, doing
my blinking in various nightspots. Clavin's, on East Fifty-eighth
Street, had become an alternative to Michael II with the lock) awed
set, with the occasional side trip to P.J. Clarke's, not far away on
Third Avenue, and I remained in their orbit, the large, loud, lad
from Limerick.
Behind the stick (that's the bar, for you latecomers to New York
jargon) at Clavin's reigned one Hugh Magill, a trim, six-foot, brisk
sort of lad, who had been expelled from various prep schools and
colleges and who on occasion guested at some of the more prestigious
loony bins on the East Coast. An extraordinarily well-read
man was he, with E. Hemingway leading the literary list. To my
utter delight and surprise, he belonged to that society of unregistered
maniacs devoted to the works of P.G. Wodehouse, so it was with
glad cries we fell on each other's necks, quoting the Gospel According
to Jeeves and the mewlings of Bertie Wooster.
It was there and then my drinking identity was established. The
denizens of Clavin's were famous for being the tax deductions or
successful burghers, and to give myself distinction amongst this assortment
of trust-fund recipients, I decided to drink only Powers
A MONK SWIMMING 21
Irish Whiskey, for which I rarely paid and, when I did, it was with
a line from P.G. Wodehouse.
My reputation as a trencherman in the booze department was
solidified with the help of Clavin's son, Stewart, the evening he was
born. "Drinks on the house!" bellowed the blocky fellow. Half in
jest, I ordered a bottle of Powers, expecting a laugh and a drink,
but, no, Clavin said, "Give it to the man!"
Expecting the bottle to be removed presently, I set to work to
lower the level as rapidly as possible. In the midst of the revelry, I
was tapped on the noggin by a thin, dark-visaged hanger-on-thefringe-type
laddie, who informed me that I had consumed a bottle
of whiskey in forty-five minutes and he was of the opinion that I
couldn't do it again. He was, in fact, willing to wager a hundred
dollars to make the point. "Bring me another bottle," sez I to Magill,
and it was then I learned the difference between convivial quaffing
and forcing the amber liquid past the tonsils.
Wagers issued forth galore, and the atmosphere turned from
rowdy celebration to the deathly silence of a chess tournament. With
no great story to divert me, and forty-five minutes disallowing the
singing of songs, there was nothing to do but pour the whiskey (no
ice), drink, swallow, and think, "Oh, God! The bottle is threequarters
full yet."
Most of the body was yielding to the importunings of the whiskey:
Yield, yield, close your eyes." But above the neck, life persisted: eyes
on the hundred, lips on the drink, and still swallowing. 'Twas willpower
alone that kept that acrid river from reversing direction and defying
gravity, rising up and spewing forth onto the betting crowd.
At last, about four ounces left, paralysis invading the head, lips,
and brain, I downed it, and somewhere away in an echo chamber were arose a cheer. In slow motion, people shook the hand and
slapped me on the back. It looked to me like a scene in one of those
boxing movies where the champ has been floored and is trying to
[ clear the head.
22 MALACHY McCOURT
'Twas there I handled a hundred dollars for the first time in my
life, 'twas there I got applauded for a stupid act of dare-deviltry that
has often been fatal, and 'twas there I earned the glowing approval
of a large number of people, most of whom are supine now under
the sod from failed livers and brains.
0
ine OF THE RESIDENT LUNATICS AT clavin's WAS ed
Wilcox, a sometime gossip columnist. One night, the irrepressible
Wilcox was listening intently to a chap who was yawing
about the wipeout of the family fortunes in the crash of '29, and
how his grandfather had done the leap out the high window to his
death. Wilcox spoke up to say that his family had suffered a similar
fate. Murmurs of sympathy went round the table at first, as Wilcox
explained that his grandfather was on Wall Street, too. He had a
pushcart from which he sold hot dogs and didn't some fucking,
high-diving, ruined broker come falling out of the sky and land on
the pushcart, totally destroying it and leaving the Wilcoxes destitute. ^ome of the lockjawed were amused, while others tut-tutted.
One night at P.J. Clarke's, Wilcox spotted the football players Kyle Rote and Frank Gifford heading back toward the pub's lava.
tory. Without a moment's hesitation, he shouted out for all to hear,
**c
°ee what the backs in the boys' room will have!"
23
There was another night at Clavin's, during a period when the
beautiful Anita Whitney had been keeping company with a masochistic
chap named Bill Gray, who had more scars and bone fractures
than your average pro football team. He was a nasty lad when in
his cups, and given to heavy sarcasm, which is what brought about
the ongoing damage. Taunted beyond endurance by Bill that night,
Anita picked up a beer bottle and smote him across the kisser,
opening a goodish wound, stitchable across his left cheekbone. As
the blood pumped forth, Wilcox shouted, "Put that beer on my
tab!"
In the end, the gods played a practical joke on Wilcox. Ed, a
man of the riposte, the quip, the speedy retort, a man of wondrous
and glorious malice, feared by the hypocrite, the arsehole, the bore,
was stricken by throat cancer, leaving him without the tools of his
trade. Ah, yes, he would try to keep up by croaking and writing fast
notes, but 'twasn't the same. They said it was cancer did him in,
but I believe it was the verbal coitus interruptus. He attempted to
launch the thousands of barbed words out of his mouth, but they
hit the NO GO cancer zone, and fell back, decomposing, poisoning
their creator. Ed never spoke ill of anyone except members of the
human race, and if he is now in the warmer part of creation, I know
the devil is beseeching his mercy.
N
IGHT AFTER NIGHT, THE SAME PEOPLE GATHERED IN THIS
hole in the wall, fearful of missing something, or of being
gossiped about in absentia. Same drunks, same talk, same place at the
bar, the alcohol convincing us all that we were active, vital people,
living life to the fullest degree. And while that conclusion might be
questioned, we did keep each other amused.
There was the fellow who insisted, in a desperate effort to belong
to the exalted crowd, that he was an Italian prince, although he was
of Bronx working-class origins, which are hard to conceal.
There was Ching Lung, a sometime Columbia student, who drove
a Mercedes and generally parked it on the sidewalk. His father, a
, general with Chiang Kai-shek, resided in Taiwan. His uncle was on
jUie opposite side, a general with Mao Tse-tung. A divided family,
|y°u might say. He was deported after being turned in by someone
mio would have a fair impact on my life, not long after.
Brigid Berlin, daughter of Richard Berlin of Hearst Publications,
26 MALACHY McCOURT
was a chunky sweet-faced girl with a generous nature. One night,
using Daddy's credit card, she took ten or so of the Clavin's inmates
on a flying jaunt to Puerto Rico. Upon her return, it was said that
she spent an enforced period of time at rest and recuperation as a
result of that little caper.
There were underage drinkers, too. One particularly lissome virgin
was in love with one of the older denizens. He did everything
he could think of to bed her down, without success, until he proposed
and convinced her to elope with him. He organized one of
his friends to pose as a clergyman in a New Jersey church for a fake
ceremony. He quickly got her to a motel, where the defloration took
place. She was a bit upset when he informed her of the deception
but continued to see him nonetheless, demonstrating something
about human nature, which now, as then, eludes me.
George Hamilton, even then white-toothed and tanned. Douglas
Fairbanks Jr., not averse to the bit of younger flesh. Walter Winchell
Jr., a violent young man, who would get teary-eyed with nostalgic
memories of Adolf Hitler. These were other strange saloon fellows
of those mad nights. Odd Wot!
I had many impromptu parties at the Downing Street digs, and
frequent overnight guests. One chap from Clavin's--Gordon Patterson
was his name--begged asylum, as his family had given him
the boot.
There was a bed in what we laughingly called the "living room,
positioned quite close to the window; our Man Gordon, having the
habit of going to bed with his shoes on, kicked out one of the
windowpanes. A piece of cardboard thereafter deflected most of
the incoming elements, and whilst not exactly "comfy, cozy, and
toasty," as the club ladies would say, it was better than an igloo.
One wintry night of high wind and driving snow, I fell asleep.
glad of a blanket or two and the ceiling over my head, and rny
seemingly permanent guest, Mr. G. Patterson, snuggled in t'othel
bed. Blissful slumber was interrupted by a wave of acrid smoke,
A MONK SWIMMING 27
which came uninvited into the room and penetrated the lungs. I
bounded outa the bed to seek ye olde source of smoke, and, lo and
behold, there was bould Gordon, completely fluthered, snoring away,
with the mattress smoldering right next to his arse. The cardboard
covering for the window had been kicked out, and the foot of the
bed was covered with snow: a man of extremes, Gordon was, with
his feet snowbound and his arse afire.
Hastily, I transferred the snow to the burning part of the mattress
and extinguished it, I thought, but an hour or so after I went back
to sleep, the smoke revisited me. Bounding out of the bed again, I
went for a jug of water and sloshed it all over the spifflicated Patterson.
The man hardly stirred, but my mission was complete: Fire
Out! and back to bed.
Sometime later I was awakened abruptly and rudely by a rough
hand shaking and thumping me. When I opened my eyes to see who
it was that had the temerity to behave thusly, I almost had the
cardiac seizure. I saw a head crowned with spikes of ice, icily protruding
eyebrows and eyelashes, icicles dripping from the nose. In a
very high, indignant voice, the arctic apparition informed me that
he was nearly frozen to death. Never in his life had he been subjected
to such a horrible place, and he was leaving, and there was no point in trying to stop him.
Closer examination revealed that the specter was Gordon P. He
didn't mention the broken window, the burnt mattress, or anything about throwing in a dollar or two to assist with the rent. No sir,
he dwelt on the deficiencies with nary a word of gratitude for unstinted
shelter. "Bye, bye," sez I, and he was gone, taking with him ^me of Frank's good shirts and his only tie.
At a later date, I was approached by a sometime girlfriend of Gordon's, who holds the record for silencing me. She said, "I don't ^now how you can live the way you do! Gordon is not used to it!"
forty years it is since those words were flung at me, with all the
Fusion of Emile Zola fighting for Dreyfus, and as good as I am
^r. ^Bi
I OSH reynolds (R.J. Ill, OF TOBACCO FAME) WAS A FRE
quent popper-in at Downing Street. This was in 1956, and he
and Bill Galetly, his guru and personal philosopher, were the first
people I had encountered expanding the menu of intoxicants from
mere alcohol to the more exotic. They were doing considerable
amounts of research, it seems, on the effects of various chemicals on
an abstract region of the brain. It was not unusual for me to come
home to find the two of them bent over a basin, heads covered by
a towel, inhaling vapors rising to the nostrils. By the time they took
their leave after one of their research expeditions, fumes, smoke,
aromas, powders, pills, and weeds of all descriptions filled the otherwise
barren habitation, but the lads didn't seem to notice.
Galetly, a completely honest man who eschewed clothing indoors,
r>ad the gaunt look of Jesus after a few bad days with the Romans. "c was in constant fear of the telephone, as it represented the outside
world. Due to his principled probity, though, when there was
29
30 MALACHYMcCOURT
a call for him, we couldn't say he wasn't there until he had stepped
into the hallway--naked--to say he didn't reside at our address. I
had trouble comprehending why he continued to give out my number
as a place to reach him.
The Italian couple across the hall were outraged at the sight of
this naked bone heap lurking in the hallways of a respectable tenement.
The constabulary would be summoned, and just try to explain
that Galetly was in the hall because he was doing G. Washington
one better: He could not tell, nor even cause to be told, a lie. To
the New York cop, lying is normal, but nudity indicates a person
of perversion.
Galetly had also taken a vow of celibacy, and ate not the flesh
of the beast. Reynolds, on the other hand, had no such compunctions.
He smoked, drank screwdrivers for the vitamins, ingested
drugs, and had sexual relations, but only with the call girl. He was
following his father's dictum, "Pay now and you won't have to pay
later."
Josh later invited me to North Carolina with him to visit the
mother and the brothers, John, Zack, and Will. At WinstonSalem
Airport, I took a taxi to the "house," as Josh called it: a great, big,
bloody mansion it was, staffed with platoons of lovely folk who
tended to the every need. The general of this army was a large black
lady, who carried an upside-down watch attached to her monumental
bosom. Everything was geared to the time on that timepiece. She
ruled that place with all the benevolence of Margaret Thatcher.
There wasn't a member of the household, be they family, friend, or
employee, who wasn't terrified of her, including Josh Reynolds
mother, "Blitz," as she was called, an indication other temperament.
Josh hadn't told Blitz that he had invited me for a week or so
until the last minute, and she had dispatched a telegram informing me that she could not entertain me at this time. The telegram w^ 1 had apparently crossed paths whilst in transit. Josh was unwilli"?
to tell me of the mother's pissed-offedness, so I was a bit surprised
A MONK SWIMMING 31
at the frostiness of the welcome at the Reynolds' manse. But, the
family being very southern, and hospitality being a watchword, nothing
was said of the telegram. Indeed, I didn't find out about it 'til
I returned to New York and received it. After a day or so, though,
I had managed to overcome the wariness of the mother, and actually
charmed her, so the visit was quite pleasant.
Those born to wealth are quite conspicuous in their consumption,
in that they treat luxuries as necessities. The Reynoldses had three
habitations in the general area: the Winston-Salem house; what Josh
called "the farm," a mere thirty thousand acres about forty miles
distant; and what is called a "lodge" up in the mountains, a little
estate of a hundred or so acres.
Up in the mountain retreat, rustic externals, like log walls, flagstone
floors, hewn beams, and bearskins scattered casually about
concealed the luxury and plenitude of the well-stocked kitchen, the
unlimited alcoholic beverages, the quiet air-conditioning, and the
discreet servants: a life one could get used to.
Raised in poverty, in a place where there was no work, the brothers
and self consequently had nothing to do as we were growing up,
and there I was in a position to do nothing, proving chat there is
no difference between the rich and the poor, except poverty.
Distinctive among the farm's holdings was a veritable arsenal:
handguns, rifles, carbines, and even some kind of machine gun. One
day, as Josh and self were wending our way down the driveway in
the jeep, I remarked on the little spurts of dust that erupted at intervals in front of us. Josh informed me that it was probably his
brother John shooting at us from the roof, but not to worry, he was a poor marksman who was lucky enough to hit the driveway.
I tried to repel the image of a bullet entering the top portion of "^y cranium, but, try as I might, the feeling persisted. I urged Josh to > speed up, but he only laughed that grating, garbley, evil-sounding
laugh of his, whilst thoroughly enjoying my discomfiture. And lived to tell the tale.
32 MALACHYMcCOURT
They were a strange, tragic family. Brother ^ack was named after
the uncle who was found shot to death ori()<Te^v Year's Eve. His
new wife, Libby Holman, a--what eke?---sdy.v nightclub singer,
was supposedly in the general vicinity. She ^ into seclusion and
came out a year or so later, it is said, carrying ^ infant, whom she
introduced as Zack's son and, of course, net kpir to the Reynolds'
fortune. The boy, Chris, was killed at the ^gg of eighteen in a
mountain-climbing fall. Two of Josh's broths died young, one a
suicide, the other in a hunting accident. As fg,- Tosh, the product
that made the Reynoldses rich, Camels, killtj ^{ni in 1995.
N new york, THE SUMMER OF 1956 WAS APPROACHING
with little bursts of sunshine nurturing the brave clumps of weeds
'twixt the cracks in the sidewalk. Those were the good old days
people talk about now, when the subways were safe, but you had to
be careful when approaching the news, as you might be assaulted by
a new inanity from Elsenhower and his bewildering syntax. Nixon
was still learning to tuck his upper lip into his gum, in what he
mistook for a smile. Rockefeller hi fella'd all over town, and Mayor
Robert Wagner, with a face like an abandoned animal shelter, made
his deals with Mike Quill, the most missed labor leader in history.
Women still hung out in the kitchen then, and blacks were invisible.
Chinatown was an exotic venue for the tourists, with just a
whiff of danger. Greenwich Village was a draw for the wide-eyed, ^th its bohemians and Beats and the queers who shamelessly kissed ^d held hands out in the open.
Hoover had promised a chicken in every pot, but now Joe
33
34 MALACHY McCOURT
McCarthy guaranteed a Communist under every bed. The Church
was ruled by a pudgy little grocer's son, Frankie Cardinal Spellman,
a dubious celibate with a penchant for fresh-faced seminarians. 'Twas
said at a later date, when the bold little man went to bless the guns
with which the U.S. slaughtered the Vietnamese, that there was an
assassination attempt in Saigon: They sent him a poisoned altar boy.
The House Un-American Activities Committee was still in hot
pursuit of the Commies. Out in Hollywood, glad to lend a hand,
John Wayne, Adolphe Menjou, Ward Bond, and other assorted yahoos,
who had never donned the uniform of their country, drove
good people into exile, suicide, and abject poverty.
Did I know all this then? Not on your nellie. Politically naive, I
was, at the age of twenty-four. To me, all things American were still
noble and decent and good, and we never dropped bombs or killed
people unless they deserved it.
one OF THE RUGBY CROWD, Jerry Lyons, an M.I.T. engineer and
recently discharged navy lieutenant, told me about a place called Fire
Island. It could only be reached by ferry from Long Island, I was informed, and, during the summer, it was overflowing with beautiful
girls whose main purpose in life was to fuck all the men they could
fit. Essentially, he said, all you had to do was get off the boat, pick
any of the birds on the pier, and you were set for the weekend in
the flesh department.
I set about getting a house and roommates.
It was a ramshackle affair on the beach, with old discolored
spoons, old discolored sheets, and doors that didn't close--in even' respect, pretty awful, with all the charms of an Alabama sharecropper's
shack. In my sales presentation to prospective roomies, however,
it was only slightly less grand than Hearst's San Simeon. Three lads
bought the sales pitch. Tom McLaughlin, who was still in the navy.
Bob Plasto, a British banker with red hair and fair skin, who had at
A MONK SWIMMING 35
the time two goals in life, neither of which were reached: He never
got a tan and he never felt the thighs of a Vassar girl clasped tight
around his waist. The third roommate was Walter Marais, a tall,
lean South African, from whom no reflecting surface was safe, be it
a mirror, the sea, or a fraction of an old paint can. The women
adored him, because unlike most men, they'd tell you, he paid attention
to what they said. So they might have believed, but he was
just trying to catch a glimpse of himself in their eyes.
Six hundred dollars for the summer; a huge sum, but my sales
presentation did it. When the other three arrived to discover that
the hacienda was only an increment above squalor, there were displays
of dudgeon. Indignation was in the air, charges of deception
were flung at me, fraud and lies, too. McLaughlin, the navy officer,
muttered that he shouldn't be surprised if he couldn't make a charge
of high treason stick.
They stayed for the one weekend, and that was it for them. I
was left with this run-down manse for the summer. A friend, Steve
Epstein, had lent me a white convertible Cadillac, so I was able to
breeze into New York for my fix of carbon monoxide and other
doings. It was inconvenient to work on the docks in that hot
weather, but a living had to be made, so I answered an ad in a Long
Island paper for a salesman who, with hardly any work, would make
vast fortunes. The product was the Bible--leatherbound, with goldedged
pages for forty dollars--the King James version for the Prods,
the Douai version for the Papists, and the Old Testament for the
niohel's men.
The bossman, who had all the spirituality of Legs Diamond, told
us he'd been made a Knight of Malta by the Pope for his good
work. He then told us to get out there, ring bells, tell 'em you're ^ conducting a survey in the parish, and get in the door. If the targets i Were elderly, talk to the woman and imply that the man is mortal,
i and after he is gone she'd have this lovely book with its soft leather ^kin and gilt pages to comfort her in bed.
36 MALACHY McCOURT
I didn't do well in the Word of God arena. Doors were not
opened to me, and soon I was a defeated man whose sales pitch was
reduced to a negative proposition--"I don't suppose you'd want to
buy a Bible, would you?" In every case, this supposition was correct.
Wandering about Bayshore by day and ferrying back to Fire
Island at night became tedious, and the ferry cost a few dollars, so
it was expensive as well. I hit on the solution of selling the Four
Gospels to the decadents of Ocean Beach and Ocean Bay Park,
adjoining communities on Fire Island.
So there I would be, Saturdays and Sundays, on the beach, in
the bathing suit, vodka and grapefruit mice in one fist, a Bible in
the other. I'd stroll from group to group, who'd never let me want
for the cooling beverage. I'd exhort them to buy the book to save
their souls and my skin. 'Twas there I read Revelations and Genesis
with all the stuff about a time to live and a time to die and a time
to work and a time to go on the dole and all that grand stuff. I
found the juicy bits in the Song of Solomon and read them aloud,
and convulsed the crowd with all the carnality, but I think it only
aroused them for further fleshly pursuits, as no sales ensued.
Someone mentioned the term "unemployment insurance" to me.
"Wha' dat?" sez I, and it was explained to me. I quickly hied my
way to the local office, applied, and was awarded the princely sum
of thirty dollars per week.
Many of the generous folk on the Island had given me keys to
their houses and invited me to finish hams, roast beef, capons, chickens,
eggs, and all kinds of grub, as well as to drink whatever was
around. There being quite a number of young wives and girlfriends
present on the Island during the week, I, the only male not fulfilling
the American dream in the city, was frequently invited to share a
repast with a lonely young thing. Some of them confided how scary
it was to be alone in a strange house, with its creakings and sounds
of scurrying animals in the walls and ceilings. I never turned down
a plea for my overnight company and the physical comfort I could
A MONK SWIMMING 37
give to a scared girl, to keep her safe from the darkness and all the
things that woosh in the seaside night.
It was a heavenly, blissful time in life, with no shortage of the
morning egg, the glass of whiskey or the cup of tea, or the welcoming
limbs and breasts of a reasonable number of undemanding yet passionate
women. There was only one cloud on the rim of the earth,
a small one, but a cloud nevertheless, and that was the matter of the
unsold Bible.
The Pope's pal, Knight of Malt, came hunting for me one early
morning, and discovered me about to plunge into God's most
sought-after orifice, me on top, she on her back. Poised, trembling,
the limbs tensed in pure agonized ecstasy, lips full, eyes gleaming,
thighs wide apart, the blood pounding, the ears shutting out all
earthly sounds, but the blast-off was aborted by a voice saying insistently,
"Hey! I wanna talk to you."
My bedmate shrieked and somehow managed to hide her entire
body under a pillow. I got to my feet and told the Knight of Small
Talk to get the fuck out of my bedroom before I sent him to his
reward. I got into some garb and went out to confront this peeping
Pope's friend. He said he wanted to either get back the sample Bible
or give me one more chance. I said, "I quit!"
"Why?" sez he.
"Because you can't sell a product you don't believe in.'"
earlier THAT SUMMER, WHEN I first arrived on Fire Island, I'd
secured a nice, silken ascot and hit on a rather useful function for
it. I told all the bods in the immediate vicinity that when I wore
said ascot, it meant I was available for the evening and that the girls
should be aware that if they spent any time talking to me, I'd take
it to mean they were interested in sharing my bed. Wearing the ascot
meant, "The flag is upJ"
I spent many of those available evenings in Flynn's Bar and made
38 MALACHY McCOURT
the acquaintance of some wonderful folk, to be friends for life. Jim
Brady of Women's Wear Daily, and later Vogue and Parade, made sure I
was never short of a meal or a drink. And Tom Stern, even then,
at the age of twenty, a brilliant fellow, who talked incessantly yet
intelligently. He'd read widely and remembered it all, even page
numbers. Staggering home down the beach one night from Flynn's,
I literally ran into Tom, who was staggering toward Flynn's. Fortunately,
the terrain was sandy and soft, so we remained on the
ground, where we both had fallen, until daybreak. Another scion,
you might say. His father was the publisher of the the Philadelphia
Daily News, and his grandfather was publisher of the New York Post when it was a decent, liberal paper, long before its descent into
today's slime, with Mein Kampf required editorial reading under its
present Fuhrer.
Another lifelong friend I made that summer was Pat McCormick,
one of the funniest men in the world. In forty years, never has he
failed to make me laugh. He and Tom O'Malley would team up to
do comedy routines on the beach. Pat being six feet eight inches,
and Tom being five feet six inches, they looked like Goliath and his
walking stick.
Pat wrote for Johnny Carson, Jack Paar, Dick Cavett, Merv Griffin,
Danny Kaye, Red Skelton, and Lucille Ball. Bobby Kennedy,
with serious work to do, needed to get more humor into his
speeches, and Pat was the one who supplied it.
Tom O'Malley, a writer for TV Guide, exposed the scandalous
little fact that one Dorothy Kilgallen of What's My Line? could see
through her mask and thus had no difficulty in identifying the "mystery"
guests. He went on to become a talent booker for Jack Paar
and Carson, and, with Marge Green and Jimmy Desmond, made Candid Camera in its prime the funniest show on television.
When that summer ended, I was a sad fellow. For the first time
in my life, I had been free: free of clothes, free of church, free of
strictures and neighborly judgments. I could eat, drink, make love,
A MONK SWIMMING 39
swim, run, laugh, and talk at will. Hedonistic, you say? Well, having
been the victim of other people's idea of sin, original and otherwise,
from the time of birth, "Indulgence is mine," henceforth saith the
Malachy.
For the first and only time in my life, I got a tan, and there'd be times on the beach, in the midst of the color, the energy, the
bodies, the volleyball, the shouted, uproarious inanities, I'd put the
head down, close the eyes, and hark back to the fetid slum in Limerick,
with its stink and glowering darkness and the allover hopelessness.
Taunting myself with remembered misery, I'd remain in my
dark reverie, knowing full well all I had to do was lift my head,
open my eyes, and I was forward in time to the Heaven of America
again.
For the hundreds gathered there on Saturdays and Sundays, it
was merely a weekend in the sun; for me, it was the height of ecstasy.
It was license, liberty, freedom all rolled into one, and at times I'd
go running on the sand, leaping, jumping, punching the air, loosing
great shouts of |oy at a tolerant, smiling sun, and then dive into the
salt waters of the Atlantic and out again to resume my capers, not
caring if the other folk there thought I was a raving lunatic.
Ah, yes, that was the summer of my content. There was a summer
paper published on the island, the Fire Island Press, as I recall. One
of the columns, covering the lighter Island antics, generally included
one or the other of my doings, and on that last day, in the last
edition, the last lines of the column were, "The flag is down. Good night, Malachy, wherever you are."
T W 0
MALACHY ASCENDING
The mother loved love sorry, romantic novels, and the movies--in Limerick,
we called them the fillums, or the pictures. She could recount in
exquisite detail what had gone on in a fillum she had just sat through,
and she'll sigh and laugh as she did the reenactment for us that night at
home.
The brothers and the friends and myself all loved gangster fillums
and cowboy fillums, and we went whenever we could. AndJasus, didn't
Tarzan have the best of everything, with yer wan there, Jane, with
scarcely as much clothes on ler as would stuff a crutch. The priests
warned us away from Tarzan, for wasn't he living in sin with that
temptress, Jane? You'd never see them going to Communion--and they
couldn't, could they, in their unwed state--and Boy, not even baptized,
was headed straight for Limbo.
I stayed at the pictures for four showings of Tarzan once, because I
thought that eventually Jane's little bit of clothing would ride up on her
thigh and I'd get to see the holey land.
The father, on the other hand, thought that only patriotic songs should
43
44 MALACHY McCOURT
he sung, only histories of Ireland's struggles should be read, and if we
wanted to see pictures, he'd tell us, we could look at the holy pictures
on the wall.
back TO new york city, then, it was: the honk, the blare, the
decibels, the endemic hostility, all designed to keep people from
sitting on their arses and obstructing progress. There are a number
of things American that are never seen in New York City, front
porches with rocking chairs being two.
By day, I'd head out from Downing Street and trudge to the
docks, shape up, get hired or not hired, but, either way, it worked
out, as I wasn't afraid of either work or the looming day.
Once in a while, I'd sneak off and go to the theater, without
telling anyone, of course, for fear of being laughed at for being, as
the Brits say, a "poof." At that time, you could set fire to a succession
of crowded theaters, wiping out entire audiences, and win enormous
sums of money by wagering there would be no Irish lost, so I knew
I was safe from the dangers of mickery in the fifth row of any theater
in New York City.
One Friday, having gotten ye olde pay packet for a pretty good
week, almost a hundred dollars, I hied myself to the theater to see
three one-act plays by John Millington Synge at the Theatre East
on East Sixtieth Street. Never was I more entranced by language
than I was that night. The glorious flow, a silvery torrent of words,
yet human, yet humorous, yet tragic, the language of a people who
took a dull tongue, English, and made it roar. I left the theater,
giddy with the intoxicating effect of the speech, so that I was floating
rather than walking.
Reaching the end of the block, the blinding thought drilled its
way into my brain: Wouldn't it be grand to be an actor? Jesus! Ah,
Jesus, yes! Go back and talk to them.
A MONK SWIMMING 45
"All right, now. Don't push me," I sez to myself, and before the
argument could escalate, it was back to the lobby.
"Excuse me, sir, could I speak to the boss?"
"Do you mean the producer?"
"Whoever."
"That's me," sez he.
"Good. I saw the plays tonight, and I've decided I'd like to join
your group as an actor."
"What experience do you have?"
"None. Shure, I wouldn't need any fer the things ye are doing
there."
"Do you have any pictures?"
"A passport picture. Would that do?"
"Would you come on Sunday to read for us?"
I told him I could read and would prove it on the spot if he
wished, but he explained himself, so I assented.
"See you on Sunday," sez he, "at 1:30 p.m."
Fortified with a couple of beakers of the Marys Bloodied, I arrived,
read, and carried the day. Hired! An actor in an off-Broadway
show. I didn't give a fiddler's fart that the weekly stipend was only
thirty-five dollars per, that I would have to forego the docks and
my somewhat higher standard of living, and that rehearsals began at
once, as the actor I was replacing was leaving in a week.
The producers, Dermot McNamara and Helena Carroll, were
quite tolerant of my cockiness, knowing full well that the demanding
nature of acting brings the most arrogant of neophytes to heel. The
distaff director took me in hand, literally and metaphorically. I'd a
quick and good memory, she would give me the moves, and many
was the day we'd finish ahead of schedule. There being a bed on the
stage, she had no problem getting a rise out of me, and she would
take me in hand, mouth, and the place where all young men desire
to enter. Despite the lack of applause, our rehearsals always ended ^th a moving climax. What an introduction to the theater!
46 MALACHY McCOURT
Once I opened, there were applause and hugs both, and my mentors
told me they were getting laughs where there had been none
before. It was a good job, and I had to stop wearing a hat then, as
the head kept expanding. Accolades poured in, the press treated us
well, and more and more people came to see the plays.
As it happened, Clavin's bar was only two blocks away. There
I'd repair with assorted audiences afterwards for the revelry. One
eve, Clavin said, "If you are going to bring all these fookin' people
in here, you had better get behind the bar and serve them."
That was fine with Magill, as he didn't like to be hurried at any
time, he being a scion, and all of that. So began the bar career. What
a position of power has the man behind the bar! Equal to the C.E.O.
behind the big desk, the professor behind the podium, the judge on
the bench, the actor on the stage--but perhaps most equivalent to
the priest at the altar. The barman, like the priest, deals with wine
and water; he mutters incantations: $1.10 plus $1.10 = $2.20 +
tax = $2.30; his congregation are supplicants for grace, which he
dispenses upon proper and ample contributions. He hears confessions
of wrongdoing and absolves the sinner, and at the end of the
night, gives the old cry, Ita Missa Est--Go, Ye are Dismissed--and
closes up, going to his bed satisfied at having ministered well to his
congregation.
Within ten days, my life took a sharp flight from the ordinary
into a path that has been ever since hilarious and mad and sad. At
the theater, people had to watch me onstage, or else the show was
a money waster, and at Clavin's, they watched me to ensure my
attention to their drink needs. A cynosure was what I was: I was In.
To the rear of the enlarged shoebox that was Clavin's was a piano
bar, at which various habitues took turns. Sam Anderson, the regular
man, played the regulation cocktail stuff, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin,
and the popular, singable tunes from Broadway.
Alternating with Sam were Fulton (Buddy) Lewis III, whose father,
Fulton Lewis Jr., was a well-known right-wing commentator
-»l,
A MONK SWIMMING 47
yahoo, Roy Cohn. Buddy attracted many young blonde things. He
played rather badly, but overcame that by looking deeply into their
eyes.
We weren't too careful about checking the ages at the bar, so it's
likely that when Buddy bedded his pretty young things, he also had
to help them with their homework.
Another of the alternates was Peter Duchin, he of orchestra fame.
An orphan, he was being raised by the Harriman family. A good
lad, and a grand musician.
There was a young, aspiring actor named Warren Beatty, whose
sister, Shirley MacLaine, was in a Broadway show at the time, thus
opening the door for Warren into the acting world. Shirley and
myself have aged, but Warren, not a bit.
Lewis took a group of us to a public meeting of the Communist
Party one night. He was spotted as his father's son by the boss man,
Gus Hall, who ridiculed him from the podium until he got up and
left. He asked us to take notes on the goings-on in his absence, but
all I was interested in were the people. They might have been Communists,
but they looked and sounded perfectly American to me.
Later on that night, we caught up with good ole Buddy, who
launched into a violent tirade about the Commie Jew conspiracy,
with their plans to take away all private property and institute a
society devoted to promiscuity. This, mind you, from a lad who was
inserting the sausage into a different lubricious casing every night of
the week. Furthermore, if he had his way, by Christ, he would put
all the Jews in the middle of the Sahara and drop an atomic bomb
on them.
Being relatively new to this society, and unsure of the protocol--
and if I'd asked, Lewis would probably have referred me to The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion--I found myself wondering why I was
sitting and listening to this chump slavering on about killing people
in the millions, so I intimated to him that if he didn't shut the flow
of fucking excrescence, I'd perforce have to ram my fist down his
gob and flatten his fucking tonsils. He moved on to other subjects.
T
HE irish players, THE COMPANY BY WHOM I WAS EMployed
as a thespian, had a couple of good p.r. men, John
Bruder and Howard Attlee, and they were getting me around in great
style. One of the p.r. activities was an appearance on Dumont's
Channel 5, on a show called Nightbeat. In the course of the interview,
the host got me onto the subject of Clavin's and its roster of outpatients,
gadflies, and semifamous pianists. Mine host asked if Fulton,
the Turd, Lewis shared the view of his father, Fulton, the genius.
I said I presumed he did, and told about the plan to hecatomb the
entire Hebraic population.
It was live television, so nothing could be edited. Damage control
swept in, but too late. This is not my opinion, the station's opinion,
the sponsor's opinion, the receptionist's opinion, etc. The elder
Lewis--bosom buddy of Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn, the gay
homophobe who died of AIDS--lost several sponsors from his
blighted radio show and sued for a million American dollars. He ^ed me, the station, the sponsors, the host, and the receptionist.
49
50 MALACHY McCOURT
I had never been so flattered in all my living days. If they could
only see me now in the slums of Limerick, a big shot, sued for a
million. Bejesus, isn't America a great and wonderful country, when
a young guttersnipe, half a hooligan, hardly in the country for ten
minutes, is sued for a million? That is rising to the top.
Endless conferences and meetings were held on the matter, as
Lewis Sr. said he would drop the suit if I apologized. "Not on your
Nellie," sez I. "The son said what I said he said, and I'm not going
to apologize for telling the truth."
The whole affair, which got very boring after the first flush of
importance, was finally settled by me saying I was sorry for the
inconveniences and losses suffered by the Lewis family as a result of
my remarks, truthful though they were. I was sorry I'd caused the
station the loss of sponsors, and the receptionists such difficulties.
They were innocent bystanders when I launched my verbal broadside.
Thus ended my first million-dollar lawsuit.
A:
NOTHER NOISY NIGHT AT clavin's, THE PHONE RANG---- {it was for Malachy. The voice at the other end identified itself
as one Tom O'Malley. He'd met me on Fire Island whilst I was
purveying the Word of God on the beach and had heard me say
that I always sent back bills with the word "DECEASED" stamped
on them. He was now the talent coordinator of the Tonight show,
which was hosted by a lad named Jack Paar, and would I be interested
in appearing and telling some of my yarns and they would pay
me three hundred dollars.
Jesus! They're all mad in America; they sue you for talking, and
then they pay you for talking, but it was better than in Ireland, where they were always telling me to shut up without pay.
The day set for this momentous event was the first day of 1958,
New Year's Day. It being Hogmanay, the most important holiday
ror the Scots, involving the open door and the welcome stranger,
i and it being of total inconsequence to me, I borrowed some kilts
51
52 MALACHY McCOURT
and a sporran and a scianShu dagger and paraded all over the East
Side in same, going from party to party.
Everywhere in N.Y.C. the steady motion of elbow-bending held
sway, bringing to the lips bedazzling varieties of beverages: eggnogs
made from ostrich eggs, yak milk, and the juice of fermented maggots,
imported from the rain forest. Whiskey, whisky, wine, sherry,
port, mixed drinks, unmixed drinks, Irish coffee, non-Irish coffee
with whisky, rums, and there was even beer. What they call "open
houses" were ubiquitous, with no shortages of anything, and for a lad
like myself, with the sharp memory historical and otherwise, and just
a hundred years from the last famine in Ireland, this was the ticket.
I couldn't get over the plenitude and the extravagance, and how
out-of-reach luxuries in Ireland were commonplace, almost necessities,
here, and it wasn't just at Christmas or at death there was
whiskey in the house, but all year long, and if the supply got depleted,
they just rang what they call a "liquor store" and restocked.
The folks didn't measure out the drink or watch you drink it, but
with a careless wave of the hand, they'd tell you, "Help yourself!"
Chicago may be "The City of the Big Shoulders," as Sandburg called
it, but New York was the city of "The Big and Giving Hand."
After sampling the festivities in numerous apartments, I ended
up at Tom O'Malley's place in the East Fifties. The doings there
on that day were normal for him, but would be insane in any other
home. Pat McCormick, wearing a sheet in the form of a diaper,
holding forth as the Baby New Year and demanding they lower the
legal drinking age to one; Mona McCormick, Pat's sister, a young
woman who could infect a whole room with her laughter, egging
Pat on. Jonathan Winters popped in at one point, as did Dick
Cavett. The air was thick with quips, the ripostes, the sallies, the
jibes, the puns, like showers of arrows at the Battle of Little Big
Horn, and as always in the company of witty people, never was there
a joke attempted or told.
But then, work intervened, and 'twas time for O'Malley to grt
A MONK SWIMMING 53
me to the Tonight Show, which was televised from the Hudson Theater
on West Forty-fourth Street, and, believe me, it was live and spontaneous.
Paar was the kind of man who didn't want to clutter his
mind with what would become debris anyway: He had Hugh Downs,
one of the truly grand minds of television to pong in the intelligent inquiry
to a guest. Thus, the show was driven by the intelligence and
deliberate ignorance of one man, Jack Paar, and the intelligence and
knowledge of another, Hugh Downs.
We arrived at about 10:30 p.m. at the greenroom, where the
guests waited. There was a great rushing about to get coffee into
my system, people still thinking coffee sobers the drunk. But the old
dictum applied, then as always: Before coffee, you've got a drunk;
after coffee, you've got a wide-awake drunk.
I drank the coffee and was introduced to the other guests. Elsa
Maxwell was both a society gossip columnist and a decision-maker
regarding who was to be considered society. Handy, that.
For a fee, if you were an Anglophilic, nouveau riche arse-licker,
she would arrange for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to attend
your function. I believe the fees were as follows:
$5,000 to come to your cocktail party;
$10,000 to come to lunch;
$20,000 for cocktails and dinner.
Elsa M. played the piano as a young girl at one of the big hotels in
San Francisco, the same one Enrico Caruso was staying in when the
big earthquake of 1906 hit. The only thing Caruso grabbed was a photograph
of himself. Elsa grabbed Caruso, and off they ran for the hills.
She was a seventyish, stoutish lump of a lady, with more than
her share of chins. She had somewhere acquired a British diction,
and when she moved she looked like a Spanish galleon. I imagine
her gowns were more likely the work of a sailmaker than a seamstress.
Oh, how they fawned on her, the self-appointed arbiter of
society, fashion, and personality.
Moral of the story: If you are fat, unattractive, and frumpish,
54 MALACHY McCOU^
cultivate a British accent, study the Spanish Armada, sail into the
boudoir of social climbers, listen to their driver and you will have
arrived.
Jack Paar, the somewhat neurotic host, lov^ outsider-startingfromthe-bottom
types, and he loved eccentrics \[^ Alexander King,
a heroin addict before it was stylish or even acceptable. King had
contempt for everything popular and fashionable and he would sit
with Paar and let loose a voluble flow of rich contrary, cranky
intellectual diatribes against fools, brokers, academics and theologians,
not to mention the military. The more he insulted America's
mores, the more they loved him. He was another guest that night
of my debut, but I'm afraid Johann Barleycorn has dimmed recollection
of any others appearing, if indeed any others did.
When it was time for my entrance into fame I was guided from
the greenroom to a very dark backstage area am} ^[^ ^o wait. Then,
I heard Paar doing the introduction, the curtain was pulled back,
and I was pushed onto the stage. The orchestic was playing some
Irish reel, the audience was applauding wildly, and the lights were
not conducive to seeing anything at all, they y^g 53 bright. Paar,
in a very unusual move, I was told, moved two chairs to the front
of the desk where the interview, such as it was, was to take place.
Not a vestige of recorded material remains of ^,hat went on that
night, as there was no video yet, and the film {5 missing, but there
were continuous bursts of laughter from the au^gnce and Paar and
Downs seemed very amused, though I have no recollection of what
I said. Paar invited me to come back again, and off I went to
continue the imbibing on another whirl aroun^ ^hg town.
Y OLD, SHIRT-FILCHING HOUSE GUEST, G. patterson, [ decided, as a result of my newfbund fame, to speak to me
again. He was going out with a young thing whose pater had been
an officer in Tsar Nick's Russian army, and he was well in with this
down-at-the-heel mob of abandoned aristocrats, collectively known
as White Russians. There were counts, countesses, barons, princes,
and princesses working as doormen, seamstresses, housekeeps, and
nannies, but every so often, they would have a get-together in a Park
Avenue apartment (the owner being absent) to celebrate the death
of Stalin, or the ousting of Khrushchev, or Russian Easter, or something.
Gordon P. arranged to have me invited to the next.
One of their mob worked at a printer's, so he would use the
facilities to print the most elaborate gold-embossed invitations I ever
saw. Under the seal of the Tsar, it said, "Prince and Princess Karisovsky
and the Count and Countess Petrouchka request the presence
of Malachy McCourt to honor Princess Nicorder, who has just
55
56 MALACHY McCOURT
secured a position at Bloommgdale's." Then, this royal invite commanded,
at the bottom on the left, "B.Y.O.B.," and bottom right it
said, "Black Tie."
Of course, I went. Was I going to lose the opportunity to rub
shoulders with royal yahoos? I secured a small bottle of Powers Irish
Whiskey, about the size of an airline nip, and off with me to my
first Park Avenue hooley!
Here it should be mentioned that a swift trip a couple of years
prior to the Salvation Army had secured me a decent dinner jacket,
complete with shirt studs, winged collar, and black tie, so that I was
always prepared to take my place among the penguins of the world.
I had discovered that New York always made way for the man
garbed in the tuxedo. When I needed a good dinner in bad times, a
quick perusal of the daily papers would tell me what conventions were
in town, and many is the time I made my way to the WaldorfAstoria
and charmed my way into somebody's dinner. I'd attended steel manufacturers'
dinners, hardware dinners, fashion dinners, newspaper
publishers' dinners, and on one memorable occasion, a shipping-line
owner's dinner.
After getting past the checklist people, to whom you say, "I just
stepped out for a second," you find a table not fully occupied and
ask if you can join them for a while, as your friend has not yet
arrived. This one eve, on the menu was South African Rock Lobster,
and I announced authoritatively that this denizen of the lower depths
could not be consumed and digested unless properly accompanied
by chilled Heinekens. Most men are afraid to disagree with emphatic
assertions of this nature lest they be wrong, so they all nodded their
noggins to show that they, too, were in possession of this obvious
fact of epicurean propriety.
An inquiry to the waiter re securing the chilled amber beverage
elicited the reply that he was only authorized to serve wine. Slight
indignation flowed around the table like a mild current. A great
anticipatory thirst for the beer had parched all throats, and a rebellion
was in the offing unless it was forthcoming.
A MONK SWIMMING 57
I offered to go and seek out the proper authority to make sure
our drought would be ended. I was so delegated. I mentioned chat
some dollars might be needed, as I'd left my wallet at home, and
some fives and singles were tendered.
Across this crowded banquet hall, I wended my way to where
swinging doors were discharging waiters at a steady clip. Standing
there, in a seeming reverie, was a stumpy man with all the haughtiness
of a headwaiter. I produced two of the singles and waved them in
front of him. I just barely refrained from saying, "My good man,"
but I did trot out the yarn about Heinekens and South African
Rock Lobster.
His gaze shifted from the dollar bills to my face, and he asked
me who I was.
"My name is Malachy McCourt," I said.
"Who are you with?"
"Table 47."
"I mean, what shipping line are you with?"
"Farrell Shipping Line."
"How long?
"Five years, four-and-a-half months." (That sort of precise answer
always lends veracity to a tale.)
"Let me inform you of something, whoever you are. The host of
this dinner is Farrell Shipping Lines, My name is John Farrell, chairman
of Farrell Shipping, and if you don't get your lying ass outa
here pronto, I'll have it kicked out."
I left, but I still had my tuxedo, if not my dignity, as well as the
fourteen dollars from the collection at the table, which bought me
a fine dinner elsewhere.
But back to the White Russian carrion, who have been waiting
on Park Ave. At the door, there was a saturnine chap, togged out
in some very colorful livery, including the buckled shoes, who asked
my name, and then, pounding the floor with a heavy, ornate staff,
he announced, "Mr. Malachy McCourt." Since I had no title, they
paid no attention to me.
58 MALACHY McCOURT
Another liveried footman directed me to the bar, where I handed
over my precious two-ounce bottle of Irish. With a great nourish,
the bartender wrote my name on a label, which was much bigger
than my bottle, and another Tsarist general told me there was a fivedollar
corkage fee, which was much more than I'd paid for the
Powers. I forked over the five and requested a drink from my bottle,
which was duly poured into a crystal glass, and off with me to
circulate among the bemedaled men and bejeweled women with the
tin tiaras perched on top.
There was a good deal of bowing and curtsying, your royal
highness-ing, your excellency-ing, hand-kissing, and the odd bit of
heel-clicking. My shirt-filching friend, Gordon P., was there with his
popsy, smiling, exchanging drivel with all these off-duty doormen
and seamstresses.
I went back to the bar to get some more of my labeled drink,
and the barman told me that that was the end of it. I made the
accusation that Tsarist types stole everything in Russia, and now
they were stealing my whiskey. Just to quiet me, they let me have a
drink from somebody else's bottle.
I joined another group, where one pigeon-chested chap was holding
forth on how the world would have been a better place had the
U.S. and Britain formed an alliance with Hitler to defeat Stalin. I
said I thought Lenin had done a good job when he got rid of the
Tsar and all the other parasites who infested that benighted land, a
land of fops and dandies and painted women, where they had to
have a lot of Royal Balls because the men didn't have any. When
I'd pleasantly delivered myself of this little peroration, there was a
sort of silence and then gasps and grunts, and then it seemed the
whole costume-jeweled gang was fighting to get at me.
I backed up, fending off fists, fans, slippers, and other weapons,
managed to grab the staff from the fellow at the door, and a few
swings of that kept the irate mob from advancing.
I didn't wait for the elevator and, in a shortish time, I was dashing
A MONK SWIMMING 59
through the lobby at a fast rate of knottage, past some astonished
doormen, and out into the safety of the streets of my beloved New
York, where I have never been attacked by anybody. They are a
dangerous crowd, these Tsarists, and very touchy. It is my considered
opinion that an angry mob of geriatric, pseudo-royalists can do more
harm to a democracy than all the Maos and Staling put together.
The authorities should keep an eye on them. They bear watching.
Just in case you're wondering, I thrust the staff into the hands
of one of the astonished doormen as I fled my royal assailants. "It's
no wonder the Bolshies gave 'em the heave-ho with their glittering
uniforms and gowns," muttered I to self, as I trudged toward a
friendly hostelry. "Flaunting their wealth, flogging peasants, eating
and drinking too much, trying to be French. If they had only read
their own prophetic writers, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and good old
Nicky Gogol, they might have mended their ways and shared the
wealth, and then they wouldn't have wound up sneaking parties in
other people's apartments and violating the free-speech rights of a
truthful Irishman like myself."
They never asked me back. As far as I'm concerned, they can go
and Farouk themselves.
, AGILL OF clavin's, BETWEEN VISITS TO EXCLUSIVE ASY1
lums and time spent behind the bar, had bought a car that
was causing him great annoyance and inconvenience with parking
and the general responsibility for a large, helpless, inanimate object,
totally dependent on him for care, maintenance, fuel, registration,
and all that stuff. I offered to look after it for him so long as,
outside of petrol, I'd have no financial outlay. I had learned how to
operate a car from a southern lunatic named Robinson Carleton
Jones, when we were both concrete inspectors on the Jersey Turnpike.
So when Magill offered me the use of his car, it was like
another bit of the American Dream unveiled. I thought the whole
population of this New York metropolis was looking at me driving
this white Chevrolet with the tailfins, and saying, "Hasn't that
Malachy McCourt come a long way since he left the lanes of Limerick!
Look at him, actually driving a motorcar around the streets
of New York!"
61
62 MALACHY McCOURT
If only they could see me in Limerick now, they would be sorry
for all the things they did to me when I was younger! I, like every
resentful urchin, had visions of dying and lying in a coffin, with
hordes of stupid big people who had abused me queuing up to weep
and cry out their remorse, and, somehow or other, I would, though
dead, communicate to them that it was too feckin' late (I'd say
"feckin"' because you can't fuck in Heaven), and they would leave
my coffinside to live out their lives weeping and unforgiven and
vowing never to do it again to other urchins of the lane. But it
was better than that to be driving a motorcar through the romantic
street.
After five months of this useless possession of a car, Magill sent
word that the repossess lads were on the prowl, as he had overlooked
a small matter of monthly payments. He was going to spirit the
thing out of New York City to avoid seizure. Our rendezvous was
some pretentious little orifice in a wall on the East Side in the Fifties
at around 9:30 p.m. A series of visits to other joints in advance put
me in a jovial mood.
It was a wintry night with temperatures low, old snow on the
ground, and the stars frozen in place. I breezily entered the premi
and proceeded to the altar and, being a man of business, promptly
ordered the double Irish sans ice, with a fraction of aqua on the
side in case of sudden dehydration or any other aquatic emergency.
The presiding prelate did not return my warm greeting with any
enthusiasm, nor did he make any move toward the orderly array of
bottles behind him to fulfill my liquid request. "You have to check
your overcoat," sez he. "Why is dat? sez I.
"Because we have a dress code here, and dat's the rule."
I'd heard of the Morse code, secret codes, military codes, codes
of honor, codes of ethics, but the term "dress code" had to enter
the ear hole slowly, as it was a stranger in my lexicon. Flippantly, 1
told the Keeper of the Dress Code that I was not wearing a dress.
Like the dumpy dowager, Victoria, the chap was not amused. So,
A MONK SWIMMING 63
buckling down to the urgent matter at hand (i.e., securing the drink),
I explained to this dour curate that I was meeting a friend, did not
intend to stay the night in these inhospitable environs, and a drink
of whiskey was needed to keep me in good spirits.
I knew all was lost when the glum one informed me that they
didn't stock Irish Whiskey, and no matter how long I was staying,
the outer garment must hang on a hook in a little cubbyhole rather
than grace my back, or, as he expressed it more succinctly, "Ya gotta
check ya coat!"
At the time, I was still of a mind that the U.S.A. was a place
where reason, decency, and open intelligence were the normal modes
of thought and action. For God's sake, 'twas barely a decade since
II Duce and the Flihrer had been hung up and put down, respectively,
and were we going to behave like fucking fascists over overcoats? A
Socratic flow bubbled from my lips.
"My good fellow, since it is my overcoat, and I'm not of a mind
to give it into the custody of strangers, and it doth not do harm to
your furniture or equipment, aesthetically it is not displeasing, since
its texture is of the vale of Kashmir, and its hue doth not clash with
your somewhat hideous decor (which, coincidentally, ought to be
checked somewhere, preferably in a slurry pit on a pig farm, but I
digress), and furthermore," and, this being the unanswerable, triumphant
finale of my dialogue, I loudly and emphatically trumpeted,
"are you in the business of selling whiskey for dollars or checking
coats for quarters?"
I searched the vast bovine face of the niggling, obstructionist,
stick-to-the-rules arsehole facsimile of an American for dawning understanding
of my argument for coats at bars. His response: "I tol'
ya, ya gotta check ya coat!"
Dudgeon of a high nature lifted me off the stool and out into
the night, muttering, swearing, and loosing profanities about firstclass,
ocean-going arseholes. Plunking myself in the Magill hot rod,
I reviewed the events of the preceding fifteen minutes and cogitated
64 MALACHY McCOURT
on how life can turn from being cheerful, warm, and cozy to negative
in a sec, and all it takes is us handing the power of happiness over
to another human being. And here I had forked it over to a complete
stranger of dubious intellect, lacking in ability to comprehend simple
facts, and with all the sensitivities of an ass and/or a Republican.
"Action must be taken," sez I to myself, there being no other biped
in my immediate vicinity to address.
It is not easy to doff the garments in the front seat of a motor
car, but doff them I did. First the overcoat, then off came the shoes,
the odd socks of the bohemian, the trousers, the shorts of the jockey
(a.k.a. ball carriers), the short coat, the shirt, and the singlet. I replaced
the shoes and bohemian socks, donned the overcoat aris (that's
Irish for "again") and 'twas the work of a mo' to put the feet on
terra firma, stand up, and head back into the pretentious orifice,
with its exclusionary practices, for all its posture as a public restaurant.

I proceeded to the bar amidst the hub and the bub of satisfied
diners, who were happily inhaling the fumes of the cognac and the
satisfying smoke of the coffin nails. Others were eagerly awaiting the
slab of decomposing meat or the body of the deceased and battered
denizen of the sea, whose odoriferous fumes were doused by the judicious employment of sherry, shallots, and garlic. All said diners
without overcoats, of course, bullied into shedding them by the
imposition of a Dress Code. By God, sir, I'd show them a dress
code--or its opposite!
With as breezy a manner as I could muster, and behaving as if
I'd never set a trotter in the place afore, I cheerily addressed the
granite head with pebbles for brains still presiding over the bottles.
"Would you," sez I to him, "in the name of Jesus, Mary, and the
Holy St. Joseph, in the name of all the saints in Heaven and of
Cardinal Spellman, the man who loves to play leapfrog with acolytes,
lift the giving hand and pour out two measures of the
double-distilled fruits of the Emerald Isle so that my parched
A MONK SWIMMING 65
tonsils won't think I have abandoned them and run off with a
woman?"
The brainless one gazed at me and spake, informing me that he
didn't know what I was talking about, that there were no fruits in
this house, they didn't allow any kind of queer in the house, that
he tol' me before he wadn't goin' to serve me unless I checked my
coat, and that he didn't want no trouble from me or nobody else.
As my overcoat was buttoned up to the neck and he couldn't see
the bare legs protruding from the hem, I felt safe in assuring him I
was willing to now check this troublesome overcoat on condition
that the coat-check attendant be summoned to fetch same.
A diminutive, wrinkled-faced, heavily made-up female named
Myrtle reluctantly trudged toward me with ticket in hand and
"Check your coat" on her lips. I turned my back to allow her to
slide the coat off my nude bod. (Nude is when you choose to be
seen in the buff; naked is when you are caught by the irate cuckold
en flagrante. Textbooks please take note, as there is a good deal of
confusion on this issue.)
As the coat slid off the bod and I turned to give the masticating
congregation a full frontal view of the complete epidermis—chest,
belly button, the fur of the pube, a reasonable-sized dangler leaning
to the right (God forgive me!), a somewhat shriveled ball bearer (due
to the slight chill) thighs, knees, shins, odd socks, and footwear—a
silence descended upon the room, much the same, I imagine, as when
Jesus bade farewell to his Apostles and left the upper room forever
at the Last Supper.
People formed sitting tableaux, caught in the mundane actions of
dining. Some were caught with the fork halfway to the food hole,
others had fork in the hole, some were examining the bill for the
usual fraud, which is no doubt the standard at an establishment
requiring the checking of coats. There were nose scratchers, earpullers,
leaning-on-handers, about-to-leavers, half-stander-uppers, all
caught as though the bomb had hit and they had been petrified in
66 MALACHY McCOURT
place. All were different in act and deed except for the focus of the
peepers. Had I been arrested and put in a criminal lineup, not one
soul there could have identified my face; but had I dropped the
trousers and exhibited the three-piece set, fingering me would have
been no trouble. In the Western World, men possess a fierce curiosity
about each other's wee-wees.
The McCourt family motto is "Fierce When Roused," which
appears under a pseudo coat-of-arms with nary a penis in the artwork.
But the dangler was far from being roused this eve; indeed,
had it shrunk any further, it would have become a hemorrhoid.
Much fear enriched the lives of the munchers the night of my nude
lark. One moment there was a hushed silence, all breathing and respiratory
activity suspended, motion stopped, and then there was a communal
inhalation, followed by bellows, shrieks, and imprecations.
"Goddam!"
"Son-ofa-bitch."
"Dirty pervert!"
"Flasher!"
One distinguished English voice bleated, "Mopery, mopery!" and
a politically aware lad bellowed, "Commie! Commie!"
The hatcheck woman, Myrtle, was still standing transfixed, holding
the coat as if it were the garment just taken off the bod of Jesus
at Calvary. The nitwit behind the bar had now bounded over the
mahogany, but was nonplussed by never having handled a naked
man before. Out of the kitchen poured a phalanx of white-clad
defenders of America's purity. A high-hatted chef, a small-hatted
chef, assorted assistants, and some damp Hispanic dishwashers, some
bearing pots, others frying pans, and some with very sharp-looking
cutting instruments. I had a passing thought that it was my uncircumcised
state was the cause of the consternation, and I prayed that
there be no opportunistic mohel among my assailants, but the
thought soon passed as more troops joined in the assault on my
person, bringing larger concerns.
A MONK SWIMMING 67
All the male diners, egged on by shrieking females, leapt into the
fray. Waiters pummeled me, kitchen help bonged my head with
resounding pots. Fortunately for me, so many hands were intent on
doing me damage that they managed to whack each other as well.
A whirling, swirling mass of bods went typhooning toward the door,
knocking over tables, bar stools, hysterical women, dinners, pictures
on the walls, and all else in its path.
There wasn't a swinging door to that entrance, but it seemed as
if there were when this teeming mass exited onto the sidewalks of
New York. Suddenly, I was on the street, naked and alone, for all
my attackers, having done God's work and plunged me into Outer
Darkness, had now returned to the interior to congratulate each
other and to relive each one's heroic moment in the battle against Communistic Mopery.
Outside, I was bedeviled by a new and unforeseen problem.
Having locked the car and put the keys in the overcoat, there was
aught I could do but retrieve the bloody thing, and how was I going
to do that? Whilst cogitating this problem, still reasonably
flushed and warm from the blood sport just finished, there were
native New Yorkers making little detours around this large, naked,
red-bearded man standing in the middle of the sidewalk, who
seemed lost in thought on a frosty wintry eve. You could almost
hear them saying, "Oh, look, there's another large, naked, redbearded
man lost in thought in the middle of winter on the sidewalks
of New York."
Now my dilemma was, should I beseech and beg them for the
return of the outer garment, or should I get belligerent and threaten
resumption of hostilities? I was beginning to freeze and hadn't time
for the former, so hostilities seemed to be the course. 'Twas the
work of a mo' to open the door, duck the head in, and yell that if
my coat wasn't forthcoming, I would come in and wave my weewee
in their wives' faces. As it so happened, Myrtle was just inside
the door, still holding the coat, apparently reliving the horror of
68 MALACHY McCOURT
seeing a nude man and losing a tip. When I reappeared, she sank
slowly to the floor with a low moan; I nipped in and tried to liberate
the coat, but by the living Jesus, it appeared as if rigor mortis had
set in, her claws were clasped so tightly on the cloth. Pry and pray
as I might, she wasn't letting go, so I lifted her and the coat and
backed out into the street again. It now appeared as if a hostage
situation had developed, the assorted mob that had assembled for a
rapid deployment adopted a placatory demeanor.
"Don't hurt her! She's an innocent woman!" they called to me,
as if I were holding a gun to her noggin. All I wanted was my coat,
and fate, being kind, gave it back to me. The cold blast of air revived
Myrtle, who let go and, not wanting to be seen in public with
a man clad only in skin, fled back into the orifice in the wall posing
as a restaurant. I got the keys out, walked to car, opened door,
locked same, started car, and drove through and scattered the newly
revived lynch mob, off to the safety of the cold-water flat in the
village.
It should be known that in ancient times, the itinerant, warring,
mercenary Celts always went into battle sans hides, armor, or any
kind of covering, the theory being that the enemy would be totally
confused by thousands of swaying pent and balls, there being
nothing more invulnerable on the field of battle than a naked
madman.
The gnat Gaels of Ireland
Are men that Cod made mad,
For all their wars are merry, And all their songs are sad.
Some inquires re the absence of Magill on that night elicited the
news that he'd had another encounter with the little black demons
that gnaw at the soul of some of our more brilliant friends and cause
the electrical-emotional-spiritual short that extinguishes all light for
A MONK SWIMMING 69
a time, and sometimes life itself, forever. So he was, if you will
excuse the expression, in straitened circumstances in some upperclass
loony bin, hence his being amongst those not present at my
coming-out party. I held onto the hot rod until its registration
expired; not being the owner, I couldn't renew it, so I returned the
vehicle to the family.
There were quiet days occasionally, when I wouldn't quaff a lot. The
bit of celebrity that had descended on my shoulders was most pleasant,
but not a bit edible, nor could it be bartered for shoes, rent, or toilet
paper. Therefore, I still had to appear at the theater and turn up at
Clavin's for the money that was in it. As our old chum Buddha
remarked, as he was downing a pint of stout, "Before enlightenment, ye
will hew wood and carry water. And after enlightenment, ye will hew
wood and carry water," a not^too-cheery prospect for one in search of
constant excitement. But then, I didn't have to get into hard labor again,
so I shouldn't complain.
I was fit, healthy, and young, with a vast panorama of life and lust
ahead. Still, there were days when I was stuck with my own company,
and all the interior demons seized the opportunity to remind me I was
a loser, an idiot, lacking in decency and intelligence, and one day "they,"
the ubiquitous "they," would find out that I was from the slums of
Limerick, that I'd failed everything except reading and writing in our
school, Leamy's National School, known to us as the Leamy College of
71
72 MALACHY McCOURT
Surgeons because the masters cut us up so much. In reality, the school
was operating as a holding pen for potential convicts.
I failed the most basic examination, which was called the "Primary
Certificate," People who were borderline retarded passed this one, but
not I. Despite my omnivorous and avaricious reading of anything I
could get my hands on, this testing of my capabilities resulted in my
failing, and the resultant thumping I got from the master only caused
more brain damage.
Diminishing returns was school for me: The more I returned, the
more diminished I became. Yes, I was learning something, but no matter
where you go, there you are, and you are always learning. If you, for
example, drop your nether garments and hoist both cheeks of your arse
into a sitting position on the top of a red-hot wood-burning stove, you
will, I guarantee, become an instant expert on the subject of seared,
scorched arses.
So it was for me at Leamy's. I learned about fear, terror, and
foreboding. I learned what a useless lump of lard I was and how 1
would never amount to anything. "This is a vale of tears, you Kaffir,
and you are here to suffer the consequences of the dirty doings of Adam
and Jive, before you either head for Purgatory to suffer again, or, more
likely, to the eternal suffering of Hell, where ye will be poked and jabbed
with pitchforks, with your bollocks burning in an eternal, agonizing flame,
these bollocks being the organs causing all the sin, and if any of ye think
that the suffering Jesus would have the likes of ye in Heaven, put it out
of yeer stupid noggins, for Christ would only have to remember his time
on the Cross to know that looking at yeer dirty faces for a minute
would be like an eternity on Calvary."
These are the ruminations I was subject to between the stage, the bar,
and the bit of television. I have since found out that I was suffering
from what is known in the psychobabble circle as "Low Self-esteem."
Jesus! If only I'da known that at the time, I'da put a jack under it and
raised it up.
A MONK SWIMMING 73
there CAME A NIGHT WHEN a couple of chaps, Roland Martinez
and Hal Kemp Jr.--another scion of sorts, whose pater had been a
band leader in the thirties and forties--asked if I would meet them,
as they had a business proposition to discuss with me. My watchword
being "Si!" to everything, of course, I agreed.
Roland was an extremely nervous man, constantly on the move,
with tics and spasmodic gestures animating his entire corpus. Later,
he took to chomping on toothpicks, and the devastation wrought
on the rain forests by his consumption of wood cannot be measured.
Hal was a balding, chubby chap, concerned mainly with the chub,
the thinning hair, and dipping his wick. In all the time I knew him,
he searched for a remedy for the excess avoirdupois festooning his
frame. A very gentle, good-humored fellow was Hal, and much loved
by the ladies of all ages. "Ooooh," they would begin, as they hugged
the lad. "You are sooo cuddly." Hal would agree, and he was fairly
successful in persuading them that cuddling sans culottes was great fun,
too.
Women are always wary of the lounge lizard Lothario, he of
teeth and tan, but a roundish, pink, bespectacled chap could pose
no danger.
His other quest was for the restoration of the hair to the head,
and he rubbed everything into the scalp, from the urine of the pregnant
woman to the saliva of the black bear, but still the hair fell,
and more scalp showed, and no one loved him any the less because
he had too much flesh and too little hair.
Their business proposition was as follows: They wanted to open
a saloon on the East Side, and they wanted me to be a partner.
They would name it "Malachy's," my having become a bit of a
celebrity, and the money would flow in. For the huge sum of fifteen
hundred dollars invested on my part, I would own a twenty-five
percent share. Of course, I didn't have fifteen hundred dollars, nor
74	MALACHY McCOURT
, ^);f accumulating it, either. Hal Jr. said that would not present
_<ylem, as he would lend it to me, sans interest.
any pro»-
k(-- ,/^<d enough," sez I, so the search for a suitable premi began
i .j ff^\<e tedious process of securing clearances for the license. The
i -<lles in the way of uncorking a bottle and vending its spir^c?ntents
were the A.B.C. and the S.L.A. These were not
,, t long devoted to education and terrorism, they were the Alorgamzc*'
/
l, ]',- ^3-everage Commission and the State Liquor Authority. These
i.g- folk who demanded proof that you were of good character, ,-^riding citizen, and that your money source was clean and C f nr^1- any otg^zed-crime patina. One sign of good citizenship
»i-a flutter of crisp lettuce in the form of one-hundred-dollar
was the - r
,.„ l.ry'pcd 'twixt the pages of applications attesting to our honesty
i Cp^e- devotion to God and country, and to our promises never
n vodka to a dying Communist, even if he promised to convert
.i-ill5""1' should he recover.
to capita
-pi <_e offices were run by hacks, hypocrites, and whores who,
1.1 ^cepting bribes to do what they were being paid to do,
_ up their arseholes for the biggest pricks in the Mafia,
opening r && r
i A to pass judgment on innocent idiots like Martinez, Kemp,
and mys^
t ^n-^d the cleaner you were, the more trouble these agencies
^. All over the city, you'd see these little hoites springing up:
„ i c^i-mica bar, leather bar stools, spangled walls, fluorescent
1' lir aft^ men~on^'y staff--barmen and waiters logged out in white
,. i,la.c^ ^ow the> Te<^ form-ntting bellboy jackets, black hair, and
i c r^e^- These were places patronized by elderly men of sallow
Ipxi0"' m dark suits and wide-brimmed hats, with the flashy
. , ...rig, accompanied by sequined young blondes, who shrieked
, . laughter at every utterance, to show they were having a "wunnerful"
t^6T-Lp
^-nigencies of being a crime-free citizen has not yet been dealt
.1 ^cerature. At that time--the fifties and sixties--you had to
A MONK SWIMMING 75
serve food and prove you had a kitchen. You had to have a table
for every two feet of bar, or something like that. You could open
twenty hours a day, 8 /.m. 'til 4 a.m. the next morning, except early
Sunday morning, when you had to close at 3 a.m. and not reopen
until I p.m., to allow psople to attend church.
Surely.
You had to have soap in the lavatories, under penalty of law,
and any law enforcer could snaffle your soap and issue a ticket for
same, for which you actually had to go to court. Picture that. A
portion of the criminal justice system had to be given over to the
Case of the Missing Soap!
The lighting had to be of sufficient brightness to allow the reading
of newspaper print. Indeed, I once answered a summons relating
to this matter. In court I said I thought the light in the bar was
sufficient, as I often transacted my business paperwork there. The
surprisingly enlightened judge then called the cop, that paragon of
literacy, to the stand, and asked him the name of the newspaper he
had tried to read in the bar. The Daily Mirror was his reply. The
judge said (I) he disapproved of the choice of reading material, and
(2), if the man wanted to read, try the public library. Case dismissed.
Acquire enough of these violations, though they were nearly always
dismissed, and the S.L.A. would request your presence at a
hearing to determine your suitability as a licensee, operating on the
theory that, where there is smoke, there is a little glowing conflagration
lurking somewhere. Meanwhile, in the wide-open Mafia Formica
fiefdoms, people were shot, garroted, poisoned, and stabbed,
not to mention assaulted and robbed by the open-thighed ladies who
rented their various orifi for a living. Yes, sir, soap missing from a
lavatory in which you cannot read the Mirror is a serious criminal
matter.
Nonetheless, having crossed various palms with silver, we did
indeed secure a license to operate a premise between Sixty-third and
Sixty-fourth Streets on Third Avenue, previously known as
76 MALACHY McCOURT
"O'Rourke's." It had been a traditional New York Irish saloon, dark
and old, the walls mortared with depression and despond. A bit of
cream paint, a bit of red carpet on the floor, a bit of housecleaning,
and we were ready for biz.
Hal Kemp installed a brightly lit fish tank, which added a nice
touch to the place. On the floor waiting tables, in the kitchen cooking
burgers, was Earl Walker, a jack-of-all-doings, who came with
a pedigree as a hash slinger in a hamburger joint called "Rikers." I
liked his briskness and his easy way with all kinds of people, so he
became an important fixture at Malachy's.
I had neglected to mention to my then-current employer, Frank
Clavin, that I was opening a competing premises five blocks away. I
needed the continuing income and was a bit scared of the little man,
as well, for he had what is known as an uncertain temper. So, there
I was, caught between publicizing my new saloon to the congregation
each night, and trying to keep it secret from El Toro Clavin and
his largish Missus, Marylyn. The matter was resolved the day my
partners hoisted a canopy outside the new saloon proclaiming to the
world that this was to be Malachy's. It was seen and remarked on
by various bods, and when I arrived for the evening duties at Clavin's,
I was greeted with torrents of words, including "treachery," "robbery,"
"Judas," "Benedict and all the Arnolds," and something about
being stabbed in the back.
Now, I'd made a somewhat cursory study of various economic
systems, my reading encompassing John Locke, Adam Smith, and Das Kapital by K. Marx, and all of that stuff had given me an idea
of what constitutes capitalism, a system that seems to operate in the
U.S.A. I endeavored to explain to the Clavins that, operating on the
theory that competition is essential to economic progress and good
for it, I was doing them a favor by opening up next door. My point
was not well taken and I was told to shut the fuck up and get the
fuck out and forget about the fucking wages, as I couldn't ever hope
to make up what I'd cost them.
A MONK SWIMMING 77
I would miss the camaraderie of Clavin's, and my conscience was
bothered by the deceitful way I'd behaved--I'd had a free hand
there, with no restrictions on what I ate or drank, and Frank Clavin
was far from stingy with the money--but ambition must be served,
and Malachy's must be opened. As the soothsayers say, it came to
pass that on the I2th day of May in the Year of our Lord 1958,
the maidenhead of the first singles bar in the world was penetrated
by the vanguard of the horny hordes trooping in so that they could
say, "I was there in the beginning."
There may be some who will contradict me when I say that
Malachy's was the first singles bar in the United States of America,
if not in the world, but it was. It was a happy accident of luck and
location, abetted by the Irish historical memory of the Law of Hospitality.
Before St. Patrick came and ruined a perfectly decent society,
Ireland was governed by traditional laws, called the "Brehon Laws,"
which covered everything: property, education, medicine, death, succession,
inheritance, crime. These included the law of hospitality: not
tradition, not rule, but law of hospitality. You would disgrace yourself,
your family, and your tribe if perchance a stranger were strolling
in your part of the country and he were allowed to pass your portals
without being offered sustenance for the journey. And not just leavings
of the table, but the best of what you had.
So, when the doors of Malachy's opened, it was incumbent on
me to put up the Cead Mile Failte, pronounced "Kade Meela Fallchee,"--"a
hundred thousand welcomes to all."
And I meant to all. At that time, by tradition and by fear, females
were not allowed at the bar proper. In Ireland, they had little cubicles
known as "snugs," for ladies with a taste for the stuff, and in the
famous Alvino's in London, a hangout for the Fleet Street crowd,
women had to sit six feet from the bar. On Third Avenue in the
Fifties, any seat would do as long as it was not a bar stool. That
was tradition, and the fear part was that a fitted person at a bar was
there for one reason--to entice the poor, gullible males. This view
78 MALACHY McCOURT
of bar life was held by police, priests, and politicians, and it was so
widespread that there was a general impression that it was the law
of the land. Not so. I looked into the matter and found that man
or woman, of legal age and sober, and in possession of legal currency,
could plank the arse on the stool and order the refreshing nectar.
As it happened, around the corner at Lexington and Sixty-first
Street was the Barbizon Hotel for Women, a large building throbbing
with post-pubescent sexuality. We used to fantasize about being
let loose in there for a week, and it was proposed and seconded and
passed that every man among us would be willing to die at the end
of the week if the wish were granted. Second best, and as was the
case, the lovely young things learned that at Malachy's, the cute, new
place around the corner, there were lots of cute guys and you could
go there without a date or escort.
Among those guys were several young actors from Blighty who
found the plenitude of pulchritude very much to their liking. Peter
O'Toole, Richard Burton, and Alan Bates would stop by, as would
Richard Harris, who had grown up in Limerick, not that we associated
much there.
Dickie was from the part of Limerick where the gentry lived in
the big houses with lawns, trees, shrubbery, and private lavatories
within the house. The Harrises were well-to-do; they trooped off to
private schools, were well shod, went en masse to the seaside for the
yearly holiday season. They played tennis in gleaming whites, and
the boys were always togged out nicely for the rugby game.
I only played one game against R.H. in Limerick. It was an Under
Twenty final, the rule being that all players had to be under twenty
years old at the beginning of the season. Harris and several members
of his team were over twenty when we played--as a matter of fact,
he was twenty-one on the very day of the game, October First, 1951.
A Jesuit-trained team it was, so you'd expect diligence and honor
from these laddies.
When I ran into Harris again, he told me he remembered everyA MONK SWIMMING 79
one on my team except me. As a Limerick laner--that's slum kid
to you--I was used to people not remembering me, especially Limerick
aristocracy.
But now he, along with everyone else, would perform the only
civilized act they knew in a pub, which was to offer to buy me a
drink, and I, in turn, would reciprocate the civility by accepting.
There were times when I'd have a dozen whiskies lined up for attention.
All of a sudden, I was King of the Castle, with all kinds of
guys punching me lightly on the shoulder, saying, "How ya doin',"
and the dainty young things telling me I was cute and had a cute
Irish brogue. I misunderstood that "cute" business for a while, as in
Ireland "cute" retains its original meaning of sly, cunning, tricky,
slippery, but the light soon dawned, and that only helped swell the
head a little more.
One of the liveliest of those dainty young things was named
Grace Kelly, and well named she was. The only problem was that
she was generally accompanied by ugly, thuggish, beetle-browed
types. This was cause for wonder, and rumors grew that she had a
fondness for men sharing a certain overstated attribute, not immediately
apparent in a public place. And one wondered where Prince
Rainier was hanging his hat those nights.
A young would-be singer and actress named Barbra Streisand
would pop in, and Gig Young, a very talented light-comedy actor
of the day, with a huge capacity for alcohol, had a favorite table.
Like a lot of bods who do comedy for a living, there was a dark
side to Gig, but still, he was delightful company.
I was surrounded by the charming and the delightful. Michael
Thomas, a bright, friendly young chap, would discourse on anything
from the benefits of sea salt to the architecture of the Seagram
Building. He was married to Brooke Hayward, the scioness of Leiand
Hayward and that extraordinary actress, Margaret Sullavan; he would
go on to be a financier, novelist, and columnist.
Willie Louglin, an heir to the Mellon millions, became a regular,
80 MALACHY McCOURT
as he made his nightly rounds: '21,' the Stork Club, Clarke's,
Clavin's, and now Malachy's. I shared with him a story about the
patriarch of his clan. When Thomas Mellon made his vast fortune,
he returned to Ireland for a visit, bringing with him some of the
grandchildren. After a tour and a look at the old ruined cottage
from which he sprang, they repaired to a pub for a bit of lunch. At
the bar was an old man, William Toner, who greeted Mellon
warmly, saying they had been schoolmates. Mellon, teasing him for
the amusement of his brood, said, "I remember you very well! Indeed,
I remember your first pair of new boots,"
"Indeed," sez Toner. "I remember you asking what they were."
Willie Louglin was the most prodigious reader I'd ever met. He
brought in Lewis Lapham, now the editor of Harper's, then the first
published author I had ever met. In a novel he had written, he had
a fellow say to a girl, "I'll meet you at Malachy's." I was immortalized!
That had me treading softly on the clouds with exhilaration.
It didn't take much in those days.
A bit of history was made at a corner table where a talented
young writer-composer-rugby player named David Hess wrote the
songs "Speedy Gonzalez" and "All Shook Up." He wrote under the
pen name of David Hill.
T
HERE WAS LITTLE THEN TO DISTURB MY EQUANIMITY. no
matter what I did, it was a thousand-league leg-up from Limerick,
and wasn't I a grand fellow altogether, the object of attention,
approval, praise, and love: a winner for once in my life and loving
it.
Tom O'Malley booked me again several times for The Tonight Show, and again my modus operand! was to get fluthered on the sauce and
let the stream of consciousness take over. I never answered Jack
Paar's questions, just rambled on about anything that was in the
head.
A peculiar incident occurred during one of my appearances. I was
sitting on the couch, going on as per, when Jack Paar said, "There is a very famous actor in town to direct a play here, and he very
much wants to meet you and offer you a part. Would you like to
meet him?"
I gulped and nodded.
81
82 MALACHY McCOURT
Paar's intro of the famous actor was eloquent, even effusive, and
ended with, "Would you welcome an actor who has never given a
bad performance: Burgess Meredith."
Meredith said he'd been in every saloon in New York searching
for me and finally found out at P.J. Clarke's that I was on the show.
He was directing a stage adaptation of Joyce's Ulysses, called Ulysses
in Nighttown, and would I consider the part of stately, plump Buck
Mulligan. The production was to star Zero Mostel and feature a
big cast of the most illustrious theater names in the city. "Here's
the script, and let me know what you think."
What did I think? Flattened I was by the flattery of being offered
a part by a movie star, without a reading or an audition, but I had
already agreed to appear in another production. I thanked him, and
told him later of my previous engagement, as I didn't want to spoil
the moment.
the irish players company, IN the persons of Helena Carrol!
and Dermot McNamara, had decided to revive that great play by
John Millington Synge, The Playboy of the Western World. (If there are
some who think it was Hugh Hefner coined the word, may God
burn your bottom and send you back to school.) A lovely cast was
assembled, with Dermot as the playboy, Helena as Pegeen Mike, a
terrific English actress named Elspeth March as the Widow Quin,
and Ronnie Bishop, an enormous man with a preference for same
(men, that is) as Old Mahon. Liam Lenihan, an unyielding Marxist
who'd been blacklisted in his profession of newspaperman, would
play Michael James, and myself, the Sean Keogh of Kilakeen. A
brilliant director named Joe Gisterak pulled the whole thing together
despite my know-it-all arrogance and several artistic disputes and
differences mediated by Ned Faye, our energetic stage manager, a
man of wit, erudition, and savage humor.
There was a month or so of rehearsal at the Seven Arts Theater
A MONK SWIMMING 83
on Madison Avenue at Thirtieth Street, which later became the
American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Upstairs, rehearsing another
play, called The Making of Moo, was Carroll O'Connor, who was seething
over the fact that Burgess Meredith had offered me a part on
national T.V. that Carroll had already been cast in, and in which
he did in fact appear. I gathered he blamed me for the affront.
Days of rehearsal and nights of bartending at Malachy's. Home
to bed at about 6 in the morning, up again at 10:30 a.m., snoozing
in the theater and listening to the glorious words of Synge as spoken
by Dermot and Helena. Day after day, those soaring phrases were
repeated, worked on, shouted, whispered, thrown, caressed, mangled,
elevated, and never, never could damage be done, for the play is
actorproof.
Christy
Let you wait to hear me talking 'til we are astray in Erris
when Good Friday is by. Drinking a sup from a well and
making mighty kisses with our wetted mouths or gaming in
a gap of sunshine with yourself stretched back unto your
necklace in the flowers of the earth.
Pegeen
I'd be nice, so is it?
Christy
If the mitred bishops seen you that time, they'd be the likes
of the holy prophets. I'm thinking do be straining the bars
of Paradise to lay eyes on the Lady Helen of Troy and she
abroad, packing back and forth with a nosegay in her golden
shawl.
84 MALACHY McCOURT
Then came the big night, the opening, with the nerves, the trembling,
the overwhelming terror, as poised at the entrance to the stage
you say to yourself that you could have gotten yourself a nice cushy
job cleaning out the men's room, but here you are, terrorized, and
knowing that this audience has been imported specially for their
capacity to hate you. A swift return to the Faith of our Fathers
ensues, a desperate prayer flung Heavenward: "0, Lord, fill my empty
head with the lines of John Millington Synge and I will sin no more,
going or coming."
God, too busy having a pedicure, does not reply. Helena, Pegeen
Mike, is onstage first, reading a list of what she will wear on the day she is to marry my character, Seaneen Keogh, a man she despises,
and so he is sneered at all during, the play. Ned, the stage manager,
taps me on the shoulder and whispers, "Get set!" Thanks be to
Jesus, the entrance calls for me to be trembling and terrified, as
Seaneen has just heard a man moaning and it's possible there's a
murderer loose. You get the first lines out even though you are
blinded by the stage lights, and confidence returns, and you tell God,
"It's O.K., I don't need your help, I can do it myself." One after
another, the actors come on, in ones and clumps, and the play builds
to a great crescendo, with Pegeen Mike at the door lamenting, "I've
lost him, surely I've lost the only Playboy of the Western World!"
Lights out, silence, then tentative applause, then more applause.
We come out for our curtain calls, cheers, whistles, bow after bow
after bow, and then the curtain comes down, and we hug each other,
all differences gone, all angers diffused, and we go upstairs for the
opening-night party and wait for the reviews. Back then, the critics
came and wrote their reviews on opening night, and the papers came
out at 11:00, so the tension was fierce and the waiting almost heartstopping.
Not
to worry: the Times, the Herald Tribune, the Post, the Mirror, the News, the Journal American, and the World Telegram gave us the rave,
and we were set for a long run. Our diligent, perfectionist director
A MONK SWIMMING 85
wasn't altogether pleased with the performance though, no matter
what "the fucking reviews" said. There were loose ends to be woven
back into the tapestry of the play, so we were going to rehearse again
tomorrow. So much for theatrical triumphs. Rehearse we did.
One review in a tiny little Irish paper, the Irish World, which was
owned by the O'Connor family, was by none other than the bould
Carroll O'Connor, late of A. Bunker fame. C.O'C. blasted the production,
the acting, the accents, the lighting, the ushers, and anything
that needed to be blasted, with one exception. There is an Irish word
for home-brewed spirits, poitm, which is pronounced "po'cheen," or
"pot cheen," depending on which part of the Emerald Isle you are
from. Carroll, being an expert on all things Celtic, took us to task
because none of us knew, he said, how to pronounce this word, with
the exception of a voice offstage, which belonged to a scholar named
Peadar Noonan, who got effusive praise from C.O'C. for saying,
sight unseen, this poitin word correctly. It did smack of the rancid
grape, that review.
The pressures eased then after the opening, and all I had to do
was go to the theater at around 7:30, do the performance, and cab
it back to Malachy's, bringing in tow as many audience as would
come, have some grub and grog, and start performing again, this
time behind the bar.
Close up at four, at least lock the doors, huddle in the rear of
the premi, drinking in the dark, and then off for a huge breakfast
of fried eggs, bacon, home fries, muffins Anglaises slathered with
butter, and we all liked apple pie a la ye olde mode, and off to the
bed with that heavy load resting gently on a liquid foundation of
whiskey and other still and distilled waters.
T
HE DAYS BEING FREE, I NOW HAD TIME TO SLEEP, READ,
and have the late lunch with other ne'er-do-wells. One day,
talking with R.J. Ill, I mentioned the thought of moving out of the
brother Frank's Village digs to midtown, whereupon Josh suggested
sharing an apartment. A splendid idea, me thought, so a search for
suitable quarters began, and a studio apartment on East Fifty-third
Street was secured. Josh's father and mother supplied the furniture;
beds, chairs, and a table, two teaspoons, the odd fork here and there,
and a huge color television set, which, this being 1958, awed me no
end. A cranky thing it was, as the colors kept slipping, but still a
Aing of wonder.
had arrived as the East Side of Manhattan was beginning to
pu sate with new life. The airlines now quartered their stewardesses
e, the publishing houses had their share of prestigious-jobbed
e^ swes', and aspiring actors thronged the acting schools. Real
(•state developers were slavering at the face hole at the thoughts of
88 MALACHY McCOURT
the money to be made from the thousands of young things pouring
into the city, and other entrepreneurs saw the commercial prospects
of singles bars, which began to proliferate. The East Side was the
place to be. The ocean liners all left from the piers of the West
Side, and the silly old joke, "The only time I go to the West Side
is on my way to Europe" was repeated and guffawed at ad nauseam.
So, the East Side became an enlargement of the Barbizon Hotel
for Women, and all rules and home behaviors were abandoned.
Elsenhower was still in office, and Nixon was still hunting the Commies,
so on the surface, America was still "respectable." If only the
parents, who dwelt in suburban safety, knew what their daughters
were up to--or down to--in the sinful city of Gotham, the streets
would have been clogged with station wagons leaving town, filled
with said daughters and their belongings, to save them from perdition.

one OF THE THINGS I read during my leisurely afternoons was a
book of Josh's, The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley, containing
a lot of stuff about spiritual travels under the influence of mushrooms,
peyote, mescaline, and L.S.D. (which in the British Isles
meant pounds, shillings, and pence, a coincidence causing no end of
confusion to doddering old Brit judges who had been on the bench
so long they would have disintegrated had they been moved). A chat
with Joshua elicited the fact that he had ventured on one of these
journeys, aye, several of them. I expressed an interest and, a week
later, Josh produced some mescaline, a synthetic substance that had
all the properties of peyote, he said.
"Lay it on me," sez I.
It was Monday, my night off from the theater, so I had plenty
of time to go on a journey and return, or so I thought. After ingesting
the powder and washing it down with the good water of
New York, I lay back and closed the eyes. The first effect of this
AMONKSWiMWG 89
stuff was to sharpen all the senses to the point of the strangely
absurd. We lived on the fourth So11 of our building, yet I could
hear every person walking on the s;;eet- ^e sound of the automobiles
was almost unbearably lou^ especially if the drivers were
hitting the horn. I heard the taking of a small wall clock in the
kitchen, which was a goodish bit frotmy bed, and I smelt the bread
in the bread box in the kitchen.
I was hugely enjoying all the ?ensatons, which were not assaultive,
but revelatory. I'd a certain seni>e empower, that I was in charge of
the whole world, and could bend il to my will. The same way
Hitler felt, without the stuff, I gatha.
Josh said, "You look settled. so]11 leave 7°" for now' but ru be back to check on you." I b?de lm go, as if I were some high
priest in a temple in Burma, seeing off some junior monk on an
important mission.
Alone now, and retreating into thinner self, I had a look at my
heart, the lungs, the kidneys, and thtremains of the Chinese dinner
in the stomach. Turned inward, I explored for a while, then opened
the peepers and saw the room witlall things familiar. Then, my
attention was drawn to something Aat seemed to scuttle into the
apartment from under the front doa, Whatever it was, it skittered
into the large closet, of which one if the sliding doors was open
slightly. I was vaguely uneasy about fe little intrusion, as I thought
it might be a rat, but I concluded arat couldn't possibly fit under
a door, and attempted to forget a^'as- lt
Easier said than done. My atteilion kept going back to that
slightly open closet door and to wh might be in there. A tremor
of fear took root, and then it beg311'8"131^' ^most imperceptibly: a
pellucid tendril of greenish, slimy he reached out and explored a
sliver of floor, began to undulate, tin withdrew into the closet. It
came forth again with more tendril inhabited a fraction more of
the floor with the undulation, andnthdrew again. There accompanied
it a vague miasma, which seeted to infect all it touched, and
90 MALACHY McCOURT
got bolder the more it infected. I do not know what it was, but it
was between me and the door and there was no other way out, no
escape.
I was being driven mad by the terror of it. The only other exit
was a four-story drop from the window, there being no fire escape,
and I wasn't so far gone as to attempt that.
In a short time, one half of the apartment had been touched and
befouled by this evil, miasmatic demon. Immobilized on the bed
with my arms around my knees, whimpering, I knew this was the
devil and as I had abandoned my old Catholic God for the fleshpots,
I didn't have anyone to pray to for help. The undulating thing
reached the foot of my bed and I knew I was fodder, indeed the
main course in this banquet; it was only a matter of time ere I was
covered with slime and then ingested.
My ears picked up the sound of a key in the door, and in walked
Josh. I wanted to scream at him to get out before he was consumed,
but all I could manage was a grunt. He was unaware of the danger,
it seemed; indeed, he was quite cheery. I'd been going through my
hell for eight or so hours, and I couldn't understand how it was
that he was sitting there in the armchair, unslimed, with no pellucid
tendrils around his neck, chatting as if all were well with the world.
I finally blurted out what had happened, what was happening;
that he was in the middle of a hell, and its keeper was getting ready
to swallow him like a boa constrictor. He didn't believe me, for
some reason.
Josh then set about helping me get over the terror, by giving me
salted water to make me puke, and after a time I was convinced that
we were not in immediate danger of fates worse than death, but
aspects of that terrifying experience stayed with me for days. I could
taste every ingredient in my food, perceiving whether it had been
salted, peppered, or spiced by a chef or a cook. I could taste the bit
of earth that might be clinging to a carrot or potato. The ears were
sensitive to all the sounds of the earth, be they human, animal, or
mechanical.
A MONK SWIMMING 91
And the eyes, oh, yes, the eyes. Gradations of color, of light, of
movement. Little creatures seemed to be doing little disappearing
acts in my peripheral vision. I'd pretend not to see them and then
swiftly turn the head to look, and they'd be gone--poof!
I returned to the play after taking an extra night off, using the
pretext of a contaminated clam. (I don't particularly like clams, and
if there's anything I can do to malign the character of this malignant
mollusk, then 'tis done.) Onstage, the bright lights were as fascinating
to me as the mobile suspended over a wee baby's crib. Instead
of speaking my lines, I wanted to point out to my fellow actors the
wonderful colorful patterns beaming forth.
Our producer thought I was suddenly and severely infected with
that strange actorial syndrome known as The Method, which is
manifested in actors by much staring, the deliberate slow scratching
of the bollocks and the armpits, prefacing every utterance with the
words, "Um, y'know," and then taking an agonizingly long time to
get out the line.
I told my producer that I hadn't fallen victim to The Method
but that ptomaine from the clam had the same effect on actors,
hence my somnambulistic delivery. He told me to snap out of it
and get on with the performance.
after THE MATINEE AND EVENING performances on Sundays,
'twas our wont to repair to P.J. Clarke's for the repast between
shows. It is possible that none of the sustenance we sought was in
solid form, though on occasion a hamburger would appear and disappear.
As the folks employed there, Charlie Clarke, Jim Ennis, and
Frankie Ribondo, all knew we were engaged in entertaining the public,
an eye was kept on us so that we didn't stay too late for half
hour, which is the official time the actor must be at the theater in
advance of curtain call. The stage manager announces "half hour,"
then "fifteen minutes," "five minutes," and "places," then "lights"
and onstage you go.
92 MALACHY McCOURT
There were times when we were all just a trifle too fiddly to give
the sharp performance of the professional, not an honorable way to
behave. People work a bit to acquire their share of the coin of the
realm, and when they want to be entertained or engaged by the
theatrical doings of the playwright and the actor, they ought to be
given the best of what we entertainers can offer. Everyone has
laughed at the exploits of Errol Flynn, John Barrymore, Brendan
Behan, Dylan Thomas, Peter O'Toole, Richard Harris, and Richard
Burton under the influence of J. Barleycorn, Esq., and it all seems
to be glamorous and great fun. But, with the exceptions of Peter
O'Toole and Richard Harris, all the above capped their exploits
with interesting and delightful obituaries.
Anyway, we did our gargling on Sundays 'tween shows, and whilst
we may have amused ourselves mightily, 'tis unsure the effect on an
innocent and unsuspecting audience.
O
NE EVENING, AT malachy's, A STRANGELY ENERGETIC
fellow approached me, stating he wished to speak with me.
He had the hard, glittering eyes of that stranger to blinking, the
professional lunatic.
"Prattle on!" I told him.
"Not here. Outside," he sez.
"What's wrong with here?"
"Too dangerous."
I told Earl the factotum that I was going outside for a mo* and
should return shortly. Rule of thumb: Always, no matter what, get
glittering-eyed folks out of the saloon as quickly as possible and
without the use of force, which doesn't work, as they're usually
impregnable to pain.
He stepped outside, motioning for me to move further down the
street. A glance skyward elicited the presence of a full moon, and a
silent "aha" from me.
94 MALACHY McCOURT
My man, the unblinker, halted in the middle of the sidewalk and
said, "Stop," which I did; then he dropped to his knees and took a
piece of chalk out of his pocket and drew a circle around the size
twelves that shod my feet. Upon resuming the vertical, he put his
hands on my shoulders, grasped them firmly, fixed me with his
gleaming orbs, and told me I was in grave danger. I was not to (a)
stir out of the circle he had drawn, nor (b) reenter Malachy's under
any circumstances, and off he strolled downtown.
New York City is a place of constant action and movement, so,
with the exception of street dwellers, who sleep close to buildings,
or leaflet hander-outers, no aimless loitering takes place in the middle
of city sidewalks, I was struggling with two disparate feelings here,
one being the fear that something was going to happen to me, the
other that I was a complete ass for having listened to the madman
who had just vacated the sidewalk.
A few people came by, so I bent down to tie a shoelace that
didn't exist on my loafers. A couple of times, I took my longshoreman's
union card out and studied it very carefully.
After about twenty minutes of dithering, I stepped out of the
chalk circle and headed to Sixty-second Street, where there was a
public phone. I rang the saloon, got Earl, and asked him to look
around to see if there was a package or briefcase lurking in the
vicinity of the bar, as I'd come up with the idea that the unblinker
might have advertently left some kind of bomb. Earl did a swift
reconnoiter of the premi and reported that the place was bereft of
the unaccompanied package or briefcase.
The discreet man did not inquire the reason for my stepping
outside and then calling in from the street, and I returned safely,
limbs and toes intact.
Another jolly fellow, whose name was Ted, brought in a very
beautiful young thing one night when I had the occasion to tend
the bar and wait on tables. As does happen, a male does the peacock
act when greeted by name by the owner of the establishment, and
this case was no exception.
A MONK SWIMMING 95
The lad then informed me, in a private mo', that he was very
interested in bedding down this young thing, so would I do him a
favor by secretly adding a shot of vodka to her Southern Comfort
and ginger ale, and to gi^ him a very light vodka and grapefruit
juice, as he needed his wits about him for the seduction.
I agreed, of course, hut in theory alone. I put no vodka in her
drink--and very little Southern Comfort--and doubled the vodka
up for Ted, and as soon as I saw he was taste-bud dead, I tripled
it. In a few hours, Ted's head was falling to his chest, and his eyes
were closing, while the beautiful young thing chattered away to me,
finding my company congenial.
Ted went to sleep* and I put the B.Y.T. in a taxicab and sent
her to her home. I let Ted sleep the Sleep of the Lust until closing
time. Then I awakened nlm with the coffee, presented him with a
huge bill, and told him that the B.Y.T. had drunk everything in sight
and then left with a newspaper-seller. Fit was he to be shackled with
chains, but feeling too g^lty to question the inflated bill as I bundled
him off into the night-
I was more successful than Ted with a few of the fern denizens
of Malachy's, but they were brief encounters until one night a slim,
pretty, vivacious yo^fg model type said "Hi," to me, then made an
odd request: She shampooed her hair with beer to help thicken it, and could I give her a bottle for this purpose. If I had known the
consequences of acceding to that request, I would have a different
outlook on life's plain today. But, as I eventually found out, all my
troubles invariably involved alcohol, whether it's beer lathered into
the hair, or whiskey sucked into the system.
"I'll get an empty bottle for you from the kitchen," sez I, intending
to fill it from the tap at the bar, and off into that place I
went. I secured said got, and turned to exit the kitchen. There she
stood, smiling at rns-
"Come here to me," sez I, putting the bottle on the cutting table,
wrapping the rentals about her slim bod, and pulling her to me.
It was about as s^itt a coming-together of two bodies as ever I'd
96 MALACHY McCOURT
experienced, and was I enjoying it: all systems go, juices awakened,
and ready to flow!
An annoyed "Excuse me" came from the general direction of the
door, so we turned the orbs to observe a festering young man glaring
at us. She coolly said to me, "Oh, this is my date, Tony. Or Teddy.
Or something." Without looking his way, she added, "This is
Malachy."
Wow! She knew my name. He wanted to know what was going
on, and she said, "Nothing, really," except that he was free to leave,
as I was going to see her home.
The seeing-home biz was news to me, but I seconded the motion,
and off her date went, leaving us to resume the explorations. We
went back to the bar and filled up the beer bottle, finally, at no
charge. We chatted about that and about this; she told me her name
was Linda Claire and that she had just moved into the neighborhood.
She really liked Malachy's, and came here a lot. She was a fashion
model, but lacked the necessary inches to be "high fashion."
"This is the first time I've understood you have to be tall to be
high," sez I.
She seemed to think that silly remark was quite funny, and
laughed a trifle too heartily.
Another few gargles, and I said, "Time to drop you off at your
apartment." At her door, I asked if I could come up, she said O.K.,
so I stayed until the morning.
The place was sparsely furnished, and we slept on a mattress
securely flattened on the floor. It was pleasant, in the mom. Fall it
was, and the odd bird could be heard chirping as we sipped the
caffeined draught of life, she puffing on the Pall Mall as we got to
know less and less about each other, and chatted inanely about buggerall.
Here
were two people who, just a few hours previous, were performing
the old biblical cleaving act, flesh to flesh, and here we were
now, fencing nervously in fear of getting to know each other.
But we got dressed and perambulated out into the September
A MONK SWIMMING 97
sunshine, and indeed. God was in His Heaven, and all was right
with the world.
Other days were like that, as were the nights. She told me she
had made enough money to live on for now, and, in any case, her
parents would always help her out. Inquiries about the parents were
turned away. "I don't get along too well with them, and I don't
particularly like them, so I don't want to talk about them."
It's a relatively free society in the right-of-association department,
so that was fine with me.
I, on the other hand, harboring a full vat of shame, on account
of the poverty and the low class of family I came from, generally
concealed my background. With Linda, I was still not too forthcoming.
I just let out the odd hint of well-to-do-ness and of learning
that ran in the family. I wasn't about to let on about the retarded
uncle on my mother's side who sold newspapers for a living, or
divulge that the only job my mother had ever had was as a scullery
maid in various locations, or that my father shagged off and left us
to the height we grew.
I seized on some minor accomplishments of the members of the
paternal side, though they lived far away from Limerick in the North
of Ireland and barely knew my family except for the certainty that
my mother was low-class.
My father's brother was in government service: I told her that
but kept to myself that he was a bus driver and that, as a Catholic
in that reformation-ridden part of Hibemia, he was damned lucky
to have a job at all. One of the aunts had a small hotel, a B & B
really, and two more of them were teachers, so I thought this might
impress her.
Another aunt was a nun, and not only a nun, but a Mother
Superior, Mother Mary Comgall of the Sisters of Mercy. Linda, not
being of the Romish persuasion, did not seem impressed, and said,
'That's nice."
We didn't dwell on the backgrounds, as the foreground needed
attending.
A
LL AROUND THE WORLD, THE BARDS AND THE POETS HERald
the coming of spring. They wax rhapsodic about birds
building nests and readying their little orifices for cock and all the
robins. They yammer about lambs gamboling in the green swards,
the crocus bullying its way through the snow, the buds popping out
on the branches of bushes and trees, young lovers skipping hand-inhand
beside the babbling brook, just freed from the icy grip of
winter, and a whole lot of old rubbish like that.
On the other hand, the New York poet has the muse of autumn.
'Tis then the city comes to life: The princes of commerce return to
enliven the restaurants again, taxi drivers no longer have to murder
each other for the fare, and the social season begins for the well-todo:
symphonies to be seen at, incomprehensible operas to yawn at,
fashion shows to attend, hats to be bought, museums and exhibits
to yelp over.
Then there is the United Nations, the opening of which fills
99
100 MALACHY McCOURT
New York City with every class of people from all over this globe.
You see robes that dazzle you, topped by turbans, burneese (plural
of bumoose), kepis, sombreros, tarns, fezzes, and so many other exotic
head coverings that you wonder why we were given hair on the top
of our heads at all.
The streets are clogged with kings, queens, ministers (prime and
otherwise), jumped-up dictators, papal observers, and presidents, all
on their way to somewhere, or coming from somewhere, but always
getting in the natives' way.
Still, it's energetic and vital, and that year, 1958, was the year
that the Irish Ambassador to the U.N, was elected president of the
General Assembly. How proud were we Irish at this event! The
exalted one was Freddie Boland, a genial and diplomatic man, with
a great sense of humor and of the absurd. Ireland, this tiny nation,
one-tenth the size of Texas, with one-sixth the population of California,
was now the arbiter of disputes amongst first-, second-, and
third-world countries.
Indeed, it was not that long ago that Ireland held the most humble
third-world status, with the stinking arse of the British Lion
sitting on her head. Ireland was the first oppressed nation to tweak
the lion's tail and boot its eructating arse out, thereby leading the
way for India, Africa, Palestine, and all the Arab nations to arise
and rid themselves of the plague of chinless wonders who were sent
out from England to make a bollocks of running their countries.
During the day, the Irish delegation were much sought after for
conferences and consultations, but at night they came to Malachy's
to play, and play they did. This playful crowd--comprised of Conor
Cruise O'Brien, Eamon Kennedy, Maire McEntee (future wife of
Conor Cruise O'B., back then an item not-too-public, as O'B. was
then espoused to another lady, and how MM and O'B. did it, I do
not know), Bob McDonagh, Sean Ronan, and Robin Fogarty--were
the unstuffiest bunch you could ever hope to meet. They knew songs,
epic poems, and bawdy stories, and weren't a bit shy of performing.
A MONK SWIMMING 101
I took up with them, and was at U.N. headquarters s;
the security crowd thought I belonged to the delegation
Nikita Khrushchev had then ascended to power i»i .
Union, and, rambunctious man that he was, caused grea(^ by denouncing his predecessor, Jose Stalin, for brutalit»},. '
sion. There was a wave of hope that the Commies 1 , '
error of their ways and were about to present the natio^ .. '
anus to Messrs. Nixon, McCarthy, and the self-loathing for a capitalist fucking. Not on your nellie! Good o , ^ thought the Commie system was workable, and all tha^ \ was the kindly, encouraging tap on the shoulder, rafl^ , ^ unfriendly squeeze of the garrote. \
On one occasion--which to this day I regret having .
' ° ^"g
which I received a full accounting of later that night a0^ .
during someone's speech, Nikita K. interrupted and F:^ ^ promptly informed him that he was Out of Order. "'\ «tT^\ mean, 'Out of Order'?" sez Nicky K. "Like a stuffed c;>, \'
Freddie the B. "I know not 'Out of Order,'" sez Nil,,. , \
,. . . ^^Vi
bit repetitious. ^,'
"According to Robert's Rules, the speaker who has^ ,
the mike is the man of the mo'." ^
Nicky the Krush then averred that this Roberts^, _ ^
. . . . ^s fe^ Running Dog of Capitalism and that his rules stemme'^, -. V
directive promulgated at hidden rendezvous in the Sv^ . V'l,
. . . 'Wi.s^.'i
cabal of fat-lipped, cigar-smoking oppressors of the V\,r \\
World. ""X <,
"it
"Quite so," sez Freddie the Go, "but you are stillJ , V
^-1 01.1^ \
and gave the carved teak gavel, used to call together") , i throngs of thugs, thieves, and other heads of states ^ \n whack, to emphasize the point, j,
Nikita wished with all his heart for that historic -\ „ «, \ tvt^ "
emphasizer, the knout of the Cossack, but there b.(-> . 4
eln^"
about, he removed one of his shoes (the left one, .- ^ \
or <^, ,';,
102 MALACHY McCOURT
rapped smartly on the top of the escritoire in front of him, in
rhythmic response to Freddie the B.'s challenge.
Freddie rat-tat-tatted with the gavel, and Nikita, at a slight disadvantage
in trying to match the decibel level with the rubber heel
on the shoe, acquitted himself quite well. Musical interludes of this
nature are rare at U.N. sessions, especially drumming that utilizes
everyday furnishings of the workplace. Freddie tapped, and Nikita
whacked, and pretty soon the two disparate modes of drumming
merged into a hypnotic rhythm that had the whole General Assembly
swaying back and forth, shoulder to shoulder, at the point of clapping
and giving thanks to God, Allah, Buddha, and Madalyn Murray
O'Hair.
But lo and behold, in a tremendous, overwhelming victory for
Atheistic Communism, Freddie's gavel broke, thereby ceding control
of the rhythm to Nicky the K. and the Soviet Union. Seeing that
he had triumphed, Nicky gave his trusty escritoire a few more hearty
whacks, waved the victorious in locum sabot at the cheering masses,
and put it back on his foot (left, that is), Freddie waved the splintered
handle of the dead gavel, bowed to Nicky, and asked the
mouth-agape speaker (who had been interrupted) to proceed with
the speech on making the sands of the sea frugiferous.
Questions were asked why a Capitalist-made gavel gave out before
a silly old, factory-made Commie shoe, but the results of the commission's
investigation have never been published. Another Capitalist
Conspiracy coverup.
(Nicky K., having unearthed his previously unsuspected tympanic
talents, later put them to use in a funereal dirge with lyrics in memoriam
to the West, when he proclaimed, "We will bury you.")
That night we had a grand time at Malachy's in celebration of
Nikita's shoe-in. All the usual Irish crew were there, getting boisterously
fluthered. Linda was there at the bar, looking on, and a
friend of mine, Sam Jaffe, a reporter for CBS, brought over the U.N.
TASS Agency correspondent, an ebullient Muscovite by the name
A MONK SWIMMING 103
of Vladimir Bogachev, about as Irish a Russian as ever did the
chochski. Fond of the neutral-grain spirits, Vladimir was also fond
of the song, the story, and the freestyle, primitive dance, and we had
more than our share of all.
Kenneth Tynan once said that the only people who can do Russian
drama, outside of the Russians themselves, are the Irish. I presume
that's because we are somewhat manic in the mood department.
It's no bother to soar from the darkest depths to the mountaintop
of delight, with the heart borne by all of that which is alive and
singing. It's even less bother to swan-dive into the pits of despair
and total hopelessness, with the realization, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan
once sagely observed, that it's no use being Irish unless you
know the world is eventually going to break your heart. Maybe it's
the same with the citizens of the Steppes.
That night in the saloon, Irish and Russian spirits merged as they
were consumed, in honor of the duel of the shoe and gavel.
HAT HAD BEEN A REGULAR SEEING OF linda HAD NOW
developed into a steady kind of thing that was rapidly approaching
involvement. The current was taking me along, although,
of course, I could have abandoned ship and swum for shore, but I
was very scared of hurting her feelings, so I pretended I was enjoying
this hurtling toward the falls.
I had planned to go to Ireland for Christmas to see the mother
and the younger brother Alphie, and to renew acquaintance with all
the old pals and do a little boasting and showing-off of my newfound
fame and bit of affluence after six years in America.
A mention of this proposed familial venture to the current object
of my fleshly desires caused an eruption of Vesuvian proportions,
to wit:
"You're WHAT?"
"Um, going to Ireland."
"At Christmas, leaving me here by myself, with nothing to do,
106 MALACHY McCOURT
and nowhere to go? You are a selfish, inconsiderate bastard, with no
thought for anyone but yourself at any time or any place."
I tried to interject that I was being considerate by going to see
the mother and the bro, and she being of the Hebraic persuasion, I
didn't think the celebration of Jesus' anniversary on this plane was
of great, or indeed any, interest to her.
But the flow of verbal lava was too hot and too heavy for me to
stem the tide of, so I let it flow 'til there was an exhausted stoppage.
I then expounded on the strict moral climate then suffocating the
Emerald Isle: how, if we went to the mother's house, it would be
separate rooms and thin walls; how we would be watched for any
attempt at the old slap and tickle, and any kind of fleshly contact
would be nipped in the minute; and that, as a result, I would go
starkers knowing she was in the next room and not being able to
get at her.
"We could solve all that," sez she, "by getting married."
It hadn't occurred to me at all to entertain that bit of a notion,
as I was only twenty-six, and I'd always looked on matrimony as an
activity for fully grown and mentally developed adults, which far
from was I. However, when presented with the "I do" unilateral
demand, I said, "I will," and set in motion a matrimonial Juggernaut,
which proceeded to flatten me and whose terrible consequences took
many a year to recover from.
When affianced to another human, it's astonishing what comes
to light. I learned the name of this young thing to whom I was
about to pledge the lifelong troth was actually Louise Clara Wachsman.
Her mother and father were divorced; the mother was remarried
to Carl Friedlander, and the father, Bill Wachsman, domiciled
in L.A., had had six or seven more ladies pledge their troth to him.
An astounding little fellow he was, the father, a designer of some
sort of interiors, restaurants, I think, a fringe of white hair around
the shining pate, a gap-toothed smile, and Chaplinesque feet, which
only by sheer force of will operated in tandem with each other. Yet
A MONK SWIMMING 107
he nonetheless charmed a fair sampling of elderly, well-to-do widows.

I also learned that my soon-to-be life's companion had been wed
before, to someone named Lance, in a Presbyterian ceremony; that
she had converted to Christianity; and that, as a result, she still had
a valid marriage in the eyes of a good many churches. Consequently,
"they," the ubiquitous "they," would not allow us to many in any
of their more orthodox churches, so plans were made for the old
civil ceremony at City Hall,
The mother had to be informed of the acquisition of a daughterin-law
and instructed that the bed be prepared for two bods for the
hols, and the welcome mat laid out for the new bride. Making the
decision to travel by ship, as the Cunard Lines were doing good
business in the transatlantic passenger trade, I booked two one-way,
first-class tickets, the port of Cobh to be the actual disembarkation
spot, the place from which I left on June 12, 1952, tearfully, with
a sense of desolation in my heart, feeling I would never see Ireland
again.
Birth certificates, some finery, an engagement ring, a wedding ring,
and a bit of a reception had to be organized, plus a place to live
upon return from the honeymoon. There was no time, it seemed,
for anything.
Josh Reynolds was to be the best man, and a young woman friend
of Linda's, Ellen White, maid of honor, a function she had filled at
Linda's previous marriage, a fact of which I was not aware.
Came the day, the City Clerk said, in a very high-pitched voice,
"Do you, Louise... ?" and she said, "I do."
"Do you, Malachi... ?"
I said, "It's Malachy, and I also do," and dat was dat.
A small reception, then off to some hotel--kept secret for no
good reason--dinner at some French restaurant, and desultory talk
about who was and who was not at the reception. None of the
parents were there: Her father was still charming old ladies in L.A.,
108 MALACHY McCOURT
and her mother and stepfather were not invited due to Linda's lack
of filial affection. My mother was in Limerick, and my father was
probably still rising up in wrath and getting put in prison in Coventry
for another cycle of thirty days for drunk and disorderly conduct
and assaulting constables. The brother Frank did not attend
the wedding on account of hostile salvos launched and threatened
by his then fiancee, The War Department.
The conversation dried up, and the rather obvious thought struck
me: "I've naught in common with this young woman. I like her
enough, but, lo, the pitty-pat and the thumpety-thump of the heart
is noticeably absent, and what were we going to talk about for the
rest of our lives?"
T
HE NEXT MORNING, A TAXI TOOK US TO THE cunard
Lines on the West Side Piers to board the Saxonia for the
voyage. To my delight, I discovered the Irish U.N. delegation was
traveling home for the Christmas holidays on the Saxonia, too.
There is a great sense of excitement and wonder at the seeing off
of folks embarking on a sea voyage: the band playing, luggage and
cargo being loaded, champagne parties all over the place, the little
tugs tootling about, getting ready to push the behemoth liner into
the Atlantic, emitting ship-shaking blasts from its horn. The huge
hawsers are unloosed and hauled aboard, whistles, commands, and
shouts go up, and the ship inches away from the pier. We wave to
the folks on shore who've come to see us off, and we are away.
Then, the exploration of the interior: a roomy cabin with a view
or the sea, library, dining rooms, cinema, and, of course, innumerable
bars. It was a luxurious life then, with every need attended to, except,
as we got out of sight of the land, a bit of a gale blew up and sent
a lot of greenish-hued faces skittering to the ship's rails.
sl 1 no
110 MALACHY McCOURT
A swift stop at Halifax, Nova Scoria, and off we went again into
the tumultuous seas. Yes, the Atlantic was stormy on my honeymoon,
but, being a fairly good sailor, I wasn't stopped from the
drinking with the Irish crowd. Though we didn't know it, Linda
was pregnant, and between morning sickness and sea sickness, the
poor thing knew no peace. I parried on, regardless.
There were some British naval types aboard--an admiral and
some captains and commanders--and it was not long before they
dropped their naval reserve and decided to join our jolly group.
First-class tradition called for the dinner garb for the evening
meal: black tie, or, as P.G. Wodehouse described it, "the soup and
fish." I'd wander with abandon to second class, to the crew's quarters,
or wherever there was the sauce. The supply of beer was depleted
on the third day out--or so we were told; I later found
out that the crew had their own stores--so everyone perforce had
to drink spirits, aperitifs, and wines. It didn't bother me: There
wasn't one night I arrived at our cabin sober, with the new missus
looking at me with those why-are-you-doing-this-to-me eyes. My
response was, "There is, first, no sense or benefit to the world if
both of us are miserable. Further, I grew up midst disease and
death, with three siblings snatched to premature heavenly rest, and
a dozen or so classmates and playmates coffined and slid 'neath
the verdant sward, so mild indisposition, like sea sickness, suffered
by the well-brought-up well-to-do evokes no sympathy from me.
'Smatter of fact, I have no toleration for illness in myself or others,
unless it's fatal, but that hasn't happened to me yet, as far as I
know. When you've grown up in a community where the hawking
up of bloody tubercular phlegm, scabby, pus-filled eyes with warts
and bursting boils decorating the skin is the daily norm, it's hard
to pay attention to whining about coughs, colds, flus, and sea
sickness."
Then, having dealt, I felt, with my responsibilities to the new
wife by explaining myself, I would grandly concede, as I drifted off
A MONK SWIMMING 111
to sleep, "I suppose I could do with a bit more compassion for the
other bod's pseudo-suffering."
on THE LAST NIGHT OF the voyage, the Saxonia pulled into Cobh
Harbor and dropped anchor a couple of miles from the town, as
the water was not deep enough to dock there. The tender was scheduled
to come out in the morning and ferry the Irish passengers to
shore, then the ship would continue on to Southampton.
Conviviality and jollity were the order of the night. The drink
flowed, the songs were sung once again, and the recitations were
delivered as if never uttered before.
Bonds of eternal friendship were forged, and addresses exchanged,
and promises to look each other up were made. It was loud and
merry until, at II p.m., the barman's voice crested over the noise
with the dread words of last call: "Time, Gentlemen, Please," We,
of course, had a good laugh at this barman's whimsical humor. We
soon found out that the man did not speak in jest. He refused all
further orders of the sauce, because we were in Irish waters, proclaimed
he, and local licensing laws must be obeyed.
An appeal was made. "In the name of the suffering Jesus, man,
is it the way you think that the local Garda are going to commandeer
a cutter and speed stealthily the two miles, board this craft, come
in here, and arrest you for serving and us for drinking after hours?"
There was no stirring this stoic Brit. It was pointed out to this
obdurate guardian of morality that, for eight hundred long and dark
years, the Brits had slaughtered the Irish, ravished their women, and ^Id their children into slavery. They starved us during the potato
failure in the 1840s, deprived us of due process of law and of
government representation, and now you, great yahoo you, are going
through a hypocritical motion of pretending to observe Irish law,
depriving returning exiles of the welcoming drop. As well is that,
you benighted eejit, Irish law has it that if you are a bona ride traveler
112 MALACHY McCOURT
that is more than three miles from home, you are entitled to refreshments
for your journey.
The man said he didn't know about that, and his orders were to
close down the pub.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse either for breaking it or observing
it. This Thomistic appeal to the brain-scarred barman produced
an uncomprehending stare and a repeat of the old refrain,
"Time, Gentlemen, Please."
Conor O'Brien and Maire McEntee departed a bit too willingly,
thought I, as did everyone else. Then I, seeing the battle was lost,
decided to leave too.
But wait! The keys have gone missing! The liquor cabinets cannot
be secured, the doors cannot be locked, the cash registers cannot be
safely shut: a first-class emergency!
The Chief Purser was summoned, who proffered the opinion that
one of the Irish crowd had snaffled the keys. I nosed around a bit
on deck and approached Conor Cruise O'Brien, future special deputy
to U.N. Secretary Dag Hammarskjold, future Chancellor of the University
of Ghana, future Minister of Posts and Telegraphs of Ireland,
future occupant of the Albert Schweitzer Chair at N.Y.U., and
obliquely asked if he knew anything about the whereabouts of the
keys.
As is the wont of the Irishmen, who don't look at each other
when speaking, he gazed intently into the dark waters of the harbor
of Cobh and said he might perhaps know the location of said keys.
I thereupon ventured the query that if I could negotiate a reasonable
supply of stuff from the Chief Purser to continue the night's
celebrations, did he think the keys would be returned?
Still not looking at me, he nodded in what I took to be an
affirmative.
Back to the purser went I, to impart the info that I had met
someone who knew someone who had heard that the keys could be
found if a sale of liquid refreshments could be negotiated.
A MONK SWIMMING 113
"Oh, no," sez your man. "They must be returned, or else I'm
going for THE PADRE," a threat that is supposed to strike terror
into the heart of the priest-ridden Irish.
I informed him he was backing the wrong jockey in this ride, as
the shower of shites that I represented was a collection of agnostics,
apostates, lapsed Catholics, retired Catholics, and (as Brendan Gill
termed himself) collapsed Catholics, "and, I Sir," sez I, "am an
atheist, thank God. So there is no point in getting the man with the
collar on backwards out of his celibate bed. But if you could see
your way to selling me a few jars of the jar, then all our problems
will be solved."
He reluctantly agreed, and pulled out the cardboard box for the
dozen or so bottles needed for the night ahead. "And throw in a
couple of cases of beer, too, while you're at it. And don't tell me
you don't have any, because there's plenty down in the crew's quarters,
ye cute hoor."
He glared at me, but complied, totting up the bill, which had all
the appearances of Great Britain's national debt. "What's this?" sez
I.
"The bill," sez he. He had charged me the regular old shore prices
instead of the duty-free, to which we were accustomed on the high
seas.
"Stuff this up your armpit," sez I.
"It's the law," he bleated.
"No duty-free, no keys. That's it," sez I.
He relented, and I said I'd return with news of the keys. O'Brien
told me he had heard they were in the First Aid box on A Deck,
and I passed that news on to the Chief Purser, who found them and
finally got his beloved bar shut and locked for the night.
Away we went for a high party in the low sea.
112 MALACHY McCOURT
that is more than three miles from home, you are entitled to refreshments
for your journey.
The man said he didn't know about that, and his orders were to
close down the pub.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse either for breaking it or observing
it. This Thomistic appeal to the brain-scarred barman produced
an uncomprehending stare and a repeat of the old refrain,
"Time, Gentlemen, Please."
Conor O'Brien and Maire McEntee departed a bit too willingly,
thought I, as did everyone else. Then I, seeing the battle was lost,
decided to leave too.
But wait! The keys have gone missing! The liquor cabinets cannot
be secured, the doors cannot be locked, the cash registers cannot be
safely shut: a first-class emergency!
The Chief Purser was summoned, who proffered the opinion that
Is l| one of the Irish crowd had snaffled the keys. I nosed around a bit
S on deck and approached Conor Cruise O'Brien, future special deputy
to U.N. Secretary Dag Hammarskjold, future Chancellor of the University
of Ghana, future Minister of Posts and Telegraphs of Ireland,
future occupant of the Albeit Schweitzer Chair at N.Y.U., and
obliquely asked if he knew anything about the whereabouts of the
keys.
As is the wont of the Irishmen, who don't look at each other
when speaking, he gazed intently into the dark waters of the harbor
of Cobh and said he might perhaps know the location of said keys.
I thereupon ventured the query that if I could negotiate a reasonable
supply of stuff from the Chief Purser to continue the night's
celebrations, did he think the keys would be returned?
Still not looking at me, he nodded in what I took to be an
affirmative.
Back to the purser went I, to impart the info that I had met
someone who knew someone who had heard that the keys could be
found if a sale of liquid refreshments could be negotiated.
A MONK SWIMMING 113
"Oh, no," sez your man. "They must be returned, or else I'm
going for THE PADRE," a threat that is supposed to strike terror
into the heart of the priest-ridden Irish.
I informed him he was backing the wrong jockey in this ride, as
the shower of shites that I represented was a collection of agnostics,
apostates, lapsed Catholics, retired Catholics, and (as Brendan Gill
termed himself) collapsed Catholics, "and, I Sir," sez I, "am an
atheist, thank God. So there is no point in getting the man with the
collar on backwards out of his celibate bed. But if you could see
your way to selling me a few jars of the jar, then all our problems
will be solved."
He reluctantly agreed, and pulled out the cardboard box for the
dozen or so bottles needed for the night ahead. "And throw in a
couple of cases of beer, too, while you're at it. And don't tell me
you don't have any, because there's plenty down in the crew's quarters,
ye cute hoor."
He glared at me, but- complied, lotting up the bill, which had all
the appearances of Great Britain's national debt. "What's this?" sez
I.
"The bill," sez he. He had charged me the regular old shore prices
instead of the duty-free, to which we were accustomed on the high
seas.
"Stuff this up your armpit," sez I.
"It's the law," he bleated.
"No duty-free, no keys. That's it," sez I.
He relented, and I said I'd return with news of the keys. O'Brien
told me he had heard they were in the First Aid box on A Deck,
and I passed that news on to the Chief Purser, who found them and
finally got his beloved bar shut and locked for the night.
Away we went for a high party in the low sea.
It was as a boy of eleven in Limerick, Ireland, that I had my first
serious drink, with my pal Jackie Adame, a man of the cloth these days.
Jackie had pilfered some pounds from a little cache his brother had in a
wee hole in the wall. Off with us to local pub, Bowles's, into a part
reserved for women, a discreet spot with a door and a sliding panel,
through which clawed hands could be seen taking whiskies and beers into
the darkish confines, commonly called "the snug."
'Twas early in the day, so there were no women in the snug. Our
eyes were barely at bar level, but if you were in possession of the coin
of the realm, and were not armed with a howitzer, 'twas no trouble to
order a couple of half pints of an akoholic beverage known as "Sulmer's
Cider," a potent brew that, if the memory has not been saddened by the
sauce, was crushed out of the apples in County Tipperary. A crisp, tart
sort of beverage, this cider was causing a John Wayne—like wince as it
trickled past our taste buds, warming the tonsils, and easing its way
into the bloodstream.
We finished the one, and rapped on the sliding panel for the refill.
115
116 MALACHY McCOURT
We sat there acting like men, pretending to ourselves that this was
something we did all the time, and all we needed was a couple of
Meerschaum pipes emitting clouds of smoke to complete the picture of two
wise men engaged in deep discussion on the condition of the world and
things beyond. Of course, the impartial observer would have seen two
small boys in short pants, snotty-nosed and scabby-kneed, with hair that
might have been cut with a knife and fork, a bit on the dirty side, and
wearing shoes with unsaved soles.
A great feeling of peace and contentment floated out of the heavens
and wrapped itself around my being, softly and lovingly clothing me in
spiritual finery and the understanding that I was the best boy in the
whole wide world, and there wasn't anything I couldn't he or do in this
life.
Adams cleared his throat and said that a half a pint of porter
would go down well on top of the cider. I couldn't get over the sheer
brilliance of Adams for this idea. I was struck silent by it, and all
I could do was nod assent. He rapped on the sliding panel again,
which now looked to me like the one in a confessional, and when the
barman slid it back, I thought Jackie was going to say, "Bless me,
Father, for I have sinned," and I had a fierce time stifling the cider
giggles rising to the lips.
When we secured the two half pints, or "glasses," as they are known
in Ireland, I told Jackie my thoughts on the confession deal, and we both
nearly expired trying to contain our laughter. Then peace reigned again,
and my euphoria began its spectral climb once more. What great stuff
this was, and if a half pint could induce such power in a boy, wouldn't
a pint do twice as much?
Adams agreed, and once more the benign barman/priest was called
on, to serve us two pints of porter. More reverie, and no more talk.
And when the two pints were mere foam in the bottom of the imperial
pint glass, I rapped on the panel for our man's attention. I'd read
somewhere in some English book of etiquette that it was all right to
A MONK SWIMMING 117
address the serving class, and, indeed, all one's social inferiors, with the
sobriquet "My good man." So, when our friendly padre slid open the
panel once more, I addressed him expansively, with as much superiority
as I could muster.
"My good man," sez I, "would you kindly refill our tankards with
more of this refreshing brew?"
He looked at me as if he had just been bitten in the penis by a king
cobra, I remembered and added a phrase I'd once heard a chinless wonder
of an English officer use on a slow-witted enlisted man. "And hop to
it, fellow," sez I.
Yer man turned the color of a Trinidad sunset, and I wasn't sure
whether it was his gurgling or death rattles I was hearing, hut the words
were unmistakable: "Jasus Christ Almighty in Heaven above! 'My good
man,' is it? If the two of ye don't hop out of this fecking pub, 'tis the
way I'll be coming around to the door of that snug, and if I find it
still being contaminated by the presence 'of'two poxy, scabby-eyed, guttersniped
Kaffirs from the dirtiest lanes of Limerick, I will drive the
toes of my shoes so far up each of yeer arseholes, that I will be forced
to wear ye as shoes until Cod calls me to account on the Judgment Day.
Fuck off out of here!"
I worked to explain to this hostile chappie that he ought to know his
place, and ought not to be speaking to his betters in that fashion. Adams,
sensing the imminence of instant death for both of us, dragged me out
the door and into the bright, sunlit St. Joseph's Street, and there we went
into an hysterical, incoherent fit of laughter, staggering, falling, and clutching
each other, to the amusement of passersby who were not aware that
we were fluthered.
Jackie said we'd never give that pub our business again, a remark
that caused more eruptions. We composed ourselves, and off with us to
another pub on Henry Street, and again we did the cider routine, followed
by the porter routine, and then we ordered a Baby Powers, a little bottle
containing about three ounces of Irish whiskey, which we took carefully
118 MALACHY McCOURT
down by the river Shannon, and as the gulls swooped and squeaked, and
the sun began its trek to Australia, we sampled the whiskey.
We fairly passed the bottle back and forth, as do the most practiced
of street drinkers, and then new spiritual vistas were opened up for me.
I was hypnotized by the flow of the water, and the gentle, insistent
lapping sound against the dock wall. Then, as I closed my eyes, I felt
myself being assumed into a higher place. Slowly, gently, exhilaratingly
gently, I was being held up by some soft but powerful force as I moved
among the clouds. The feeling of exhilaration grew 'til I was nearly
exploding with joy, with the rapture of freedom from the poverty of the
world.
I was singing from my heart, from my lungs, from every pore of
my body, and my song became a paean for everything beautiful in the
world of Cod's creation, and my song was an offering to the Most
High, and, as He kept Himself invisible, I knew my offering had been
accepted, so I soared again through the heavens, higher and higher, feeling
finally that, should I go any further, I could not come back. With the
greatest of reluctance, I returned to earth to find myself alone in the
darkness on the dockside.
Once more, I was just a scabby-kneed, snotty-nosed Limerick laner,
and still poor.
On the way home, I was thinking that whoever they are might erect
a shrine where I had had my vision, like they did for the kids at Fatima
and Lourdes.
In all my years of drinking, I never achieved the same euphoria
again. The peak was always missing: It was either ahead of me, or
behind me, but never quite there again.
when WE TOOK THE TENDER to shore, Maire McEntee's father,
who was a minister of something in De Valera's government, was
harborside with several cars and drivers. I got my first taxpayer-paid
A MONK SWIMMING 119
ride in Ireland up to Limerick, the blighted city of my childhood.
Lapsing into the wandering thought during that ride, I lazily asked
myself what in Christ's name was I doing here in Ireland with a wife
I hardly knew, going to visit a mother I didn't particularly like, in
a city that filled me with alternate bouts of rage and nostalgia. I
know I wanted to show off what an important man I'd become: a
television talk-show guest star, an off-Broadway luminary, owner of
the most popular saloon in New York, married to a beautiful girl
from Park Avenue. In my opinion, there wasn't a party in New York
City that was complete without my wit, my erudition, and my exuberance,
not to mention my presence.
We arrived in Limerick and were dropped at the mother's council
house, as public housing is called in Ireland. A bit of foresight on
my part had secured the place for the mother and the two bros, I'd
done a merit badge in the boy scouts on public health, and I knew
the examiner was the doctor in charge of the whole public health
biz in Limerick. Subsequently,. I wrote to him from New York and
told him that the mother and the two brothers, Mike and Alphie,
were living in squalid conditions. A wave of his pen got her a very
comfortable house with three bedrooms, a parlor, and kitchen cum
dining room, and a bit of a garden in front and a bigger bit in the
back, plus, wonder of wonders, a lavatory with bathtub inside the
house itself.
The mother was glad to see me, but the set of her lips indicated
a certain disapproval of the new daughter-in-law. A too-casual, rather
obvious attempt to elicit information about Linda's religion, where
we got married, and the name of the priest was met with my evasions.

Then came the poor old, shure, begorrah, close-to-the-grave, Irish
mother act. She was about fifty-one then, but decided to act eighty.
She pitched her voice into the high register of the ancient ritual of
keening, as practiced by the women of Ireland mourning the dead:
"Will ye not. in my declining years, ease the tortured mind of an
120 MALACHY McCOURT
old woman, tottering on the edge of the abyss of eternity, by getting
yeerselves wed in the embracing arms of the Holy Mother Church?
There's many a priest in this town would be glad to rescue ye from
the furnaces of Hell that ye are condemned to fer living in sin, for
a marriage not blessed by the Church is not blessed by God, and ye
will have no luck, and every seed and breed of ye will wander in the
darkness until yeer return to Rome!"
This, mind you, from a woman who had never heard of, not to
mind read, the plays of John Millington Synge. My beak was agape
at this flow of eloquence from the mother, and I almost acceded to
the plea to seek out a priest and have the marriage religionized, but,
of course, I couldn't. If Linda had remained Jewish, her previous
marriage wouldn't have been considered valid by the One Holy Roman
Catholic and Apostolic Church, to give it its full, self-bestowed
tide. But, no, she had to tear off and get herself baptized a
Presbyterian ere she married the bedmate before me, and that baptism
was valid, according to the Holy Mammy, the Church, as was,
therefore, her marriage.
Odd how Jews, Hottentots, Muslims, and Tutsis didn't count in
the lexicon of the to-be-saved, on account of not having had water
dumped on the cranium, accompanied by the words, "I baptize thee,
in the name of the Dad, the Son, and the Spock, etc." However,
Linda, having chosen Presbyterianism over Limbo, had queered our
chances for eternal bliss, at least in the eyes of my earthly mother.
Now, there was a woman who had railed all her days against the
Church for favoring the rich and ignoring the poor and for being
interested only in power and money. Now, suddenly, the Church
was the Way, the Life, the Truth, because I had chosen to marry
outside its power base.
Memo to Thomas Wolfe: You can go home again, but don't be
bringing Jewish Presbyterian wives with you, especially at Christmas.
What we didn't know then was that Linda was preggers with our
firstborn, Siobhan. She thought she was having a residual seasickness
A MONK SWIMMING 121
hangover. We argued all the time, with the righteous me roaring at
her: "Don't blame me! You knew what you were doing when you
married me! You were the one who insisted on coming to Ireland
with me, and now you are spoiling my fun and fucking up my
holiday."
I booked tickets for us for a New Year's Eve dance thrown by
the Young Munsters Rugby Football Club, a black-tie do. But come
the night, she was too sick to go out, so I suggested I'd go by myself
to the festivities.
Whereupon the portals of Hell blasted open, and roaring torrents
of hellfire lava poured over me, leaving not a screed of my body,
soul, mind, or my antecedents unscorched. If there was anything left
unsaid by my honeymooning beloved, I do not recall it.
I still, however, attempted to don the soup and fish, but a swift
grab by the weak and ailing wife, and I was left holding less than
half a dress shirt with a cufflink in the sleeve, whilst Linda held
slightly more than half, as she had the part with the studs and one
cufflink.
At this point, the mother entered the bedroom in a great state
of agitation, announcing she was firmly on my side in this war,
always had been, and would be forever. Apparently, nobody had ever
taken the trouble to inform her that, statistically, more police officers
are killed intervening in domestic disputes than in any other arena
of law enforcement.
Linda and self promptly became allies and told the woman who
bore me to mind her own bloody business and not be interfering in
ours. She beat the hasty retreat, leaving us like two collapsed balloons.
Shirtless now, I conceded defeat and skipped the festivities.
grumpily staying home.
Linda was well enough to go out the next night though, and we
arrived home around midnight to find one of the martyred mothers
of Ireland on her knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor, January First
being her birthday, and I'd forgotten all about it.
122 MALACHY McCOURT
There was the mother, lower lip quivering with self-pity, on a
floor which had not welcomed a knee since my brother Mike did
his imitation of Al Jolson singing "Mammy." It was so absurd and
cliched, and having had more than a few beakers of the spirits that
cheer, I could only laugh, thereby ruining the tableau of Mater Dolorosa
with Bucket, Brush, and Cloth.
The wife was shocked at my insensitivity, and the martyr was
furious and flung a scrubbing brush at me, followed by a big bar of
Lifebuoy soap, and a wet, soapy cloth, which hit me in the gob,
shut off the laughter, and sent me scampering up the stairs, fleeing
the wrath of an uncorked Joan of Arc.
'Twas time to move on. In winter, Limerick had all the charm
of Siberia, and none of the winter sports, so it was to Dublin we
hied: pubs, theaters, actors, merchants, barristers, conversation, and,
most of all, the most savage gossip in all of Europe. Be a person
deceased, or 'twixt life and death, the more elevated the personage--
be it Joyce, St. Francis of Assist, the President, Jesus, or a government
minister; be they archbishops, nuns, or the bogtrotters who came
from Cork and made a living by fleecing good Christian Dubliners--
the more ferocious the flaying of the skin, the more satisfying the
destruction of the character.
The woebegone missus sipped the beer while I downed the bottles
and, as she liked her cigarettes, she wasn't too unhappy puffing
and sipping.
Then it was off to London. More of the same, except that Linda
ended up in Charing Cross Hospital, threatening a miscarriage. She
was in one of those huge, old-fashioned workhouse-type wards, with
about forty other people in beds around her. She'd been passing
some blood, but the Brits saved the day, the wife, and my to-be
daughter.
By now, the business partners in New York had decided I was
away too long, and that it was time to stop the funding of my
holiday honeymoon. I had cashed a number of checks in Limerick,
A MONK SWIMMING 123
Dublin, and London, thinking that my partners were depositing the
money in my account. They weren't, and there was a fluttering of
bounced checks across the Atlantic, causing yelps of anguish from
assorted friends and acquaintances who had vouched for my fiscal
integrity with various banks. One furious fellow from Dublin tracked
me down in London, howling about treachery, trust, and so forth,
which is how I found out about the partners' decision to cut off
the funds.
We had some pounds, but when it came time to check out of
the hotel, there weren't enough to cover the tabulation, and no more
readies being available, 'twas over with us to the U.S. Embassy,
assuming they would be glad to fork out goodish quantities of quids
so we could continue our honeymoon.
We were referred to some society for the Relief of Indigent
Americans, where we were interviewed by two granite-visaged daughters
of the British Empire, who clearly disapproved of the existence
of Americans and Irishers,
After a lengthy interrogation, the ladies decided we were worthy
of the sum of five pounds, which at that time might cover a dinner
for two, with a goblet of vino, which is what the money was spent
on.
I explained to the hotel that my funds were blocked in New
York, but I would see to it that the bill would be paid in full after
my return to the U.S.A. and consultation with my attorneys. Being,
then, more innocent times, I was taken at my word.
Next was to get back to Ireland. It should be noted that I had
booked only one way on the ship, not having the money for the
return then on hand, but having instead great faith that it would
miraculously appear. But that miracle was slow in coming, and we
had now not even enough for return passage to Ireland. We hied
ourselves to the railway station and got into a first-class carriage on
a train bound for Holyhead, where the overnight ferry departs for
Ireland.
124 MALACHY McCOURT
I proceeded to convince the train conductor that our tickets had
been mislaid. I had taken the precaution of ascertaining the firstclass
fare—of course, we always traveled first class when we couldn't
afford steerage—so I was able to pop that piece of info when the
canny conductor laid that query on me. (As noted before, specificity
will often pass for veracity.) I gave him my name and address and
told him, as I had the hotel, that the bill would be paid in full on
our return to the U.S. He let us stay on the train.
The next hurdle was the ferry. We were referred to a clump of
officials seated at a table off to the side. Ahead of us were three
people, males all, claiming to have lost their tickets. They allowed
one fellow to get on the ship and told the other two to come back
when they had tickets.
My turn: "Gentlemen," said I, "I am aware that you have heard
all the stories about lost tickets, stolen tickets, and torn tickets, and
I do not have any unusual story, except my pregnant wife and myself
seem to be without our tickets, and we are traveling first class, and
you may be sure that when I get to Ireland, naturally all will be
taken care of, as my funds are there, rather than in London."
It was high-fallutin' horseshite, but it worked, and we were not
only ushered onboard, but were given a cabin, so there was no mixing
with the peasantry and the laborers in lowly third class.
SO, IT WAS BACK TO Dublin and to borrowing the pounds to
get the grub and the pint and what they so eloquently term in
Dublin, "the ball of malt" ("whiskey" to you, sir or madam).
In the City of New York, among the Irish Catholic crowd, family
members are defined and noted by their parish. For example: "Do
you know Terry Moran?" "Ah, yes. He lives in Holy Name parish."
But in Ireland: "D'ye know Terry Moran?" "Ah, yes. He drinks
in Eric Lynch's public house."
Every pub in Ireland has its fixtures, both human and crafted.
..^'"a
A MONK SWIMMING 125
Indeed, the humans were more of a fixture. Like a lot of outsiders,
which I had become, I was looking for colorful and brilliant characters
in the dark recesses of the pubs, and if you stayed long enough
in one of them, you'd find lonely, unwashed men, dark-clothed, darkvisaged,
repeating age-old cliches with vehemence and passion, giving
them the sheen of newly minted oral brilliance.
The- wife was fascinated by the pub life, the low decibel level,
the ritual of pulling the pint, the subtle nods with which Irish men
communicate: the wee forward nod, to indicate another pint; the
very little nod over the shoulder, to show what man ("yer man")
they're talking about, who could be Pope, President, or Prime Minister,
or, if recently in the news, Haile Selassie.
Irishmen don't look at each other when they speak--they are
usually squinting at an imaginary ocean--and they do not like
touching. One of the rarest sights in Irish communities is a glimpse
of the palms of anybody's hands. It is likelier you will see a bared
penis or a breast than a palm. The swiftest motion in Ireland is a
handshake, because of its being a fleshly endeavor, and according to
Jansenist dicta, it could be an occasion of sin.
Of course, there were also the elite joints: the Shelbourne Hotel,
the Gresham Hotel, Nearys, and Davy Bymes, which were lighter
and brighter, a trifle noisier, and more expensive than the pubs we
spent our days in. For after hours, there was Grooms Rooms, near
the Gate Theatre, a hangout for judges, actors, writers, I.R.A. men,
and the detectives who were paid to shadow them by government
ministers. A grand place entirely.
The main product of Dublin at the time was talk. You met the
friends for the drink and the chat, and then you'd make another
appointment to meet them later for the drink and the chat, and
groups would move from pub to pub, seeking each other out, absorbing
the news and newness, ending up at Grooms after all the
other places had tolled the sonorous "Time, Gentlemen, Please. If
yez don't have homes to go to, yez can't stay here."
126 MALACHY McCOURT
Drink, cigarettes, and talk, never ending. Did anyone work there?
Bits of it for survival, if it couldn't be avoided. Underlying Irish insouciance is the knowledge that when Adam and Eve got turfed
out of Eden, it was for sinning, and the punishment was, for Eve
and all of womanhood, pain in childbirth and having to put up with
dopey males sticking their wee-wees into them. For Adam and malekind,
it was tending the land, with thorns and thistles sticking in
their hands, and pulling up frightful boulders to make the land
arable. In other words, "work," earning your bread by the sweat of
your brow.
The Irish said, "We didn't do it, for Christ's sake. We don't
even know God, not to mind piss him off, so why should we work,
when all our sins are before us?" So, as a general rule, you will find
Irish workers leaning on shovels, facing the same way as the cows,
or they will be on strike or in the pub. Being at work means confessing
to having sinned. Lucky for the vacationing prodigal, the
Irish are always ready to down tools or pens and enjoy a jorum.
Peremptory summonses were arriving and being forwarded to me,
to essentially get my arse back to the job at Malachy's, as they had
no intention of paying me until I returned. The classic rock-andhard-place
dilemma faced me: no money until I got back, no money
to get back to get money. I'd run out of personal checks, so I was
now creating my own out of oblong pieces of brown paper, which
when vouched for were accepted and cashed. The sight of the fragile,
pregnant Audrey Hepburn-like person that was Linda often helped
soften the heart of a steely-eyed bank manager, as well.
At that time, it took two or three weeks for a check to clear,
and I prayed I might get back ere the brown paper checks fluttered
to the earth, especially as good friends were doing the vouching.
So I big-shotted my way around Dublin, begging, borrowing, and
bouncing checks, a successful "big deal" from New York, buying
drinks all 'round, and sweating whether I'd ever be able to get spouse
and self out of Ireland. Then it was back to Limerick, to the martyred
mudder, who'd no idea of my dire financial condition.
A MONK SWIMMING 127
I threw parties in my mother's little council house, with good
food and booze "on tick," as they say. The old pals rallied 'round:
Mickey Kenihan, Jackie O'Brien, Tony Gaffer O'Brien, Eamonn
"Smacky" Tobin, Paddy and Alice Egan, and Ger South, whose
brother Sean had just been killed in a raid on a police barracks in
the North and who had had possibly the biggest funeral ever seen
in Ireland. Sean Costelloe, our next-door neighbor, had written a
lament for him.
Most Irish songs are paeans to defeat. Always outnumbered, always
heroic, noble, and brave, our lads fought undaunted against the
savage Sassenach, the Saxons, who, by treachery and weight of numbers
did us in and crushed us. But then, had we been victorious early
in our history, we would have produced masses of bookkeepers,
brokers, and bankers, instead of poets, bards, writers, singers, and
musicians, not to mention warriors of the field.
To make the good wine, it is necessary to crush the grapes, and
the English crushed us Irish, hence the 'vintage wine of words:
'Twas on a dreary New Year's Day,
As the shades of night came down
A lorry load of volunteers
Approached a border town.
There were men from Dublin, and from Cork,
Fermanagh and Tyrone,
But the leader was a Limerick man,
Sean South of Carryowen.
As they moved along the street,
Up to the barrack door,
They scorned the danger they would meet
The fate that lay in store.
They were fightin'fer old Ireland's cause,
To claim their very own,
128 MALACHY McCOURT
And the foremost of that gallant hand,
Was South of Carryowen.
But the sergeant foiled their daring plan,
He spied them through the door,
Then the Sten guns and the rifles,
A hail of death did pour,
And when that awful night was o'er,
Two men lay cold as stone.
There was one from near the Border,
And one from Carryowen.
No more he'll hear the seagull cry,
O'er the murmuring Shannon tide,
For he fell beneath the Northern sky,
Brave Hanlon at his side.
He has gone to join that gallant band,
Of Plunkett, Pearse, and Tone,
A martyr for old Ireland,
Sean South of Carryowen.
'Twas odd having a childhood friend who was now a national
hero. It was like being on good terms with Patrick Henry.
it WAS ger south WHO one night shared with me a half pint of
poteen, a great illegal spirit, whose pronunciation had been an issue
for one Carroll O'C., but whose consumption was currently not as
easy to swallow as kissing the soft lips of the beloved. Though a
highly intoxicating drink, it is slow to induce drunkenness. It seemed
to awaken all the senses slowly, a spiritual stretching, if you will, the
eyes gently orbing to the light, the lips parting in the kissing smile,
the nose receiving the delicate aromas of life, the ears opening for
A MONK SWIMMING 129
the music of the air, the mind filled with great thoughts of breathtaking
scope.
With that inside me, I couldn't sleep, so out with me into the
fields near the house, where the Traveling People (tinkers to you)
were grazing the donkeys, jennets, and horses. I selected one of the
steeds to ride. However, he didn't select me, so a chase ensued, until
I finally cornered him. But the silly equine thought he could escape
by running at me.
There are moments during total inebriation when great clarity
descends on a person, as it did then me, and the world moves in
perfect slow motion, as did this charging horse. Remembering my
rugby days, and the instructions for tackling--"Get your man
around the forward leg, wrapping your arms tightly, and fall back,
thus bringing him down"--I brought down my mount. (American
footballers crash tackle, a fine technique if you're getting paid.)
I managed to soothe him with soft words, and got him to his
feet. I rode him home,- and parked, him in my mother's kitchen,
which did startle her somewhat when she came down in the morning.
She ran to the neighbors next door and said there was a horse in
the kitchen. Having gotten used to my presence and its consequences,
their reaction was roughly the equivalent of, "Oh. And will it rain
today, do'ya think?"
The horse was led out quietly and returned to freedom, and with
a shovel the mudder took care of the evidence of the horse's kitchen
reign. I awakened at noonish, bruised and sore, very muddied and
bloodied, and more than a bit thirsty.
I kept very active on outside activities during the honeymoon,
such as going to rugby games, drinking, going to dances, drinking,
going to parties, drinking, going to pubs, and drinking, all with
money I didn't have; but in Ireland, like the miracle of the loaves
and fishes, where there is no money for food or rent, there are always
the necessary funds for the gargle. As Brendan Behan said, to eat
was an accomplishment; to get drunk was a victory.
130 MALACHY McCOURT
Of course, the whirl of social activity kept me from communing
with the missus, as she was apt to complain a bit about the lack of
amenities, the perennial shortage of money, and question the how
and when of getting back to the United States and hot showers.
The partners in New York, Roland and Hal, finally relented and
booked the airline passage for us on Aer Lingus, on a propeller
plane. There followed a bumpy twelve-hour journey, but it was one
of relief to be returning home.
iACK IN new york, IT WAS march, AND IT WAS BRIGHT
and sunny, and it was green ghetto time again: St. Patrick's
Day, with its "Shure and Begorrah Brigades," and the beer and bagels
dyed disgusting shades of green.
The whole affair is run by a "comishee," composed of members
of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, or "Hibernates," as I prefer to
call them. Paul O'Dwyer, the great unabashed liberal, sez they are
guided solely by the question, "Who can we keep out of this parade?"
Consequently, my brother Frank remarked, "If you threw a
bomb at this ghastly assemblage, you would wipe out the cream of
Irish mediocrity."
The poor, benighted narrowbacks don't know the difference between
a parade and a procession. There are no floats, no evidence
of Irish culture, just militaristic kids with guns trying to act like
soldiers, horrible, ersatz Irish music, and thousands of ma-faced
micks, grimly plodding up the avenue in search of sin and wrong131
132 MALACHY McCOURT
doing in others, to the doting looks of yer Man, who, having condemned
transvestites, homo-, and bi-sexuality, stands there on the
steps of St. Patrick's Cathedral, in full ecclesiastic hypocrisy, clad in
gorgeous red and basic black, with sashes, rings, jewelry, and Gucci
slippers, all of which causes envy to surge in the everyday crossdresser,
who hasn't the readies for such finery.
Joy is forbidden on that day, as it's an occasion of sin, but
hypocrisy is the order of the day, as the sheep shaggers, pious
adulterers, fornicators, swindlers, thieves, wife-whackers, pudpullers,
and the divorced pound their righteous way north, practicing
Catholics all, else you can't belong. No fags, queers, pansies,
poofs, or fruits allowed--not even Gay Licks can get into the act.
Yet, there I was, on that return from Ireland, hoping that it all
would have changed, which, of course, it hadn't, and once more I
got caught up in the green flow of bile honoring the foreigner
who fucked Ireland up.
As a lark, the brother Frank and self and Tony Hendra, an exBenedictine
monk of total Brit extraction--later an editor of the National Lampoon, actor, comedian, and wine critic for New York magazine--decided
to march with the Limerick Men's Association. The
bossman of this assemblage was a malevolent martinet named Geary,
armed with a blackthorn stick, who had obviously studied the training
manuals of the S.S. in detail.
Hendra's Brit accent was noted at once, and several burly chaps
moved up close to him, in case he might read a proclamation of
fealty to the Queen while en route.
As we marched, Geary came up behind Frank and ordered him
to take his hands out of his pockets. Frank said, "I can't."
"Why not?" sez Fiihrer Geary.
"I have pneumonia," sez Frank.
"Aha," sez Geary triumphantly, "ye shouldn't be marching if you
have pneumonia," and switched his attention to me.
Due to the television appearances, I had garnered some attention
A MONK SWIMMING 133
from the spectators, who did the bit of waving and shouting to me.
Naturally, I waved and shouted back.
"Stop that waving and shouting," sez Geary. "You are on parade!
Keep your eyes front!"
It struck me that there was a certain negativity about that man.
There came out of his thin-lipped face hole a series of "no's,"
"don'ts," "stops," "can'ts," "not-alloweds," "no-goes," "notpermitteds,"
"forbiddens," "prohibiteds," and "verbotens" in such a
flow as to make one think that they could form their own procession
up Fifth Avenue, without any help from we reprobates
atall.
"In the name of the crucified Christ," sez I to him, "it is
supposed to be a joyous day of celebration, and here you are,
shillelagh in your hand, casting gloom on the day." This Unterfuhrer
called over a panoply of police to fling us from the procession
for disorderly. conduct, a charge that couldn't be proven
there and then, so they refused to 'remove us, and I continued on
the hoof.
Had we been ejected, we would have joined an illustrious bunch
of other rejects: Mike Quill, the greatest and most honest labor
leader ever, who got the heave-ho in the 1950s, and then the gregarious,
wildly funny Brendan Behan, a diabetic alcoholic (or was it
the other way round?), was thought to be a potential disgrace, and
thus was not admitted.
And, of course, years later I.L.G.O., the Irish Lesbian and Gay
Organization, tried to march, but after one year, when they marched
under the protective banner of Div. 9 of the Ancient Order of
Hibernates, they weren't allowed to march again.
The year they did, a group of us decided to march with them
in support. When our mob got in front of the reviewing stand,
didn't the top-hatted, morning-coated Grand Viziers of the assemblage,
as one person, turn their backs on a bunch of gay
men.
134 MALACHY McCOURT
"By God, sir," sez I to myself. "If yer man Freud was about the
premises, wouldn't he have a word or two to say about turning the
old arses toward the alleged perverts?"
But that was yet to happen, and it is with a certain sadness that
I have to relate that I was never turfed out of the doleful do up the
avenue.
THREE
DUBIOUS LUXURIES
I never thought of my mother ana father.. as. married, a thing that only
happened to people in tie newspaper or in tie jillums. They were just
the mam ana the dad and nothing more. Of course they behaved as a
typical Irish couple. There were no words of love ever exchanged in my
hearing, nor did they ever hug, kiss, or let out any hint that they might
like each other, not to mention have a flicker of passion. When the mother
was angry at the man she referred to him as "your Pop," he on the
other hand always said "your Mother this, your Mother that." They
never went out together/or a walk, nor did we get out anywhere as a
family.
My mother loved the company of anyone, he it man, woman, dog,
devil, or child, whilst the pater was a loner who disdained idle talk and
gossip. I'd heard him say once that a married woman should never he
seen in public without her children and that no working man should be
observed carrying parcels or packages on the street.
They were polite enough to each other, and indeed they often shared
a laugh at the doings of the neighbors. When he got the temporary job
137
138 MALACHY McCOURT
and drank the pay, she'd call him a mad cruel bastard, and he'd say in
his Northern Ireland accent, "Ooh now, Ange, don't use such language
in front of the children," and for days there'd he silence between them,
until finally she would declare the truce by offering him a cup of tea.
It was no example for the growing lad, as it appeared that for them,
as for many other Irish Catholics, marriage was an occasion of sin, so
all outward appearances of it must he avoided.
'twas THE SPRING OF 1959, and I was twenty-eight, and life was
very peculiar for me as a married man. Every morning, I'd return to
this tiny apartment on First Avenue and Sixty-sixth Street, over an
old saloon, to find the same pregnant young thing in my bed. Sometimes
fluthered, sometimes sober and weary, I'd push into bed beside
Linda, mutter "Good night," and sink into something akin to a
blackout. I do believe I was quite dotty in those days, as one night
I came home and found the spouse asleep, with the light still on.
She seemed to be smiling in her sleep, and I, in my sozzled state,
was convinced she was dreaming of some ex-lover, and worked myself
into a huge tidal wave of rage, waking her up to my vicious
tirade of accusations because of her morphiatic infidelities.
The poor girl didn't know what in God's name I was yowling
about, and couldn't even remember her dream. I'm inclined to think
that this was the first rock to scrape the bow of our little ship of
marriage.
The brudder Frank was then engaged to the woman we knew as
The War Department. The outbreaks of hostilities were frequent,
so one night he came to stay at our apartment. Later, at around 2
a.m., there was an insistent banging on the door, which I opened to
find two gents in wide-brimmed hats, flashing F.B.I, badges. They
informed me they were looking for a naval deserter, and was he here?
"No, he is not."
A MONK SWIMMING 139
"Who is here?"
"My brother Frank."
"We'd like to talk to him."
I awakened Frank so that the Hoover boys could have a look at
him, bugger off and let us sleep.
"Aha," sez one of these agents, "Jesus Femandez! Come with us!"
"I'm not Jesus Femandez. I'm Frank McCourt."
"It's O.K.," sez the lad of the F.B.I. "We have you, and there is
no getting out of it." They produced a blurred picture of Jesus and
tried to make out that my mick brother had turned into a Hispanic
naval deserter overnight.
As it happened, I recognized the picture as one of the many
visitors to the gay chap next door. Being Irish, from a fifty-fifty
tradition of heroism and treachery, I wasn't inclined to inform on
the neighbor. I came close, but only to save the bro from the hold
of a ship's dungeon. Fortunately, Frank had enough I.D. to prove
his farness from naval desertion and to send the lads on their way.
Soon thereafter, to teach him a lesson, his War Department fiancee
decided to marry someone else, rather rapidly, much to Frank's
consternation. But she divorced the guy after about ten minutes and returned to wed Frank, a marriage that made the Thirty Years War
seem like a mere squabble between friends.
In the meantime, brother Mike, who had been brung over by
Frank and hied himself off to service in the U.S. Air Force, was now
suitably discharged and in the market for gainful employment, so
we trained him at Malachy's both as a barman and a drinker. A
wonderful, insightful observer is Mike, of the eccentricities and peccadilloes
of the human species, and the best storyteller you'd ever
want to meet. But he is a moody man, too, and when the mood
descended upon him, he was given to glowering at "assholes," as he
would describe anyone of ambition, wealth, and social position.
One night around tennish, I was strolling from my apartment
after dinner with the wife Linda, who had persuaded me to stay a
140	MALACHY McCOURT
bit late and have the dinner with her. 'Twas a clear night, with a
splendid full moon stuck to the sky, smiling that inane smile betokening
no understanding of the chaos and lunacy erupting all over
this mad orb.
"Oh, oh," sez I to myself. "That accounts for my staying home
for dinner, and now I wonder what the rest of the night will bring."
There was no need to prolong the wonder. As I turned onto Third
Avenue from Sixty-fourth Street, I perceived two figures locked in
combat outside the portals of Malachy's. A more specific and detailed
inspection revealed that both of the combatants were blood
relatives of mine. In fact, they were my brothers, Frank and Michael.
Mike was roaring drunk and in a towering rage, and upon my intervention,
Mike turned not one but two bloodshot eyes on me, and,
in his inimitable and most eloquent manner, proceeded to loose the
full force of his inner rage on me.
Beginning with Adam and Eve, he verbally leapt through the ages,
like a balletomaniacal mountain goat, holding me responsible for the
Fall, the Plagues, the Wars, and all genetic defects, ending with the
statement that I was the closest thing to an Englishman he had ever
met.
Other upstanding Irishmen, like George Bernard Shaw, Oscar
Wilde, and Samuel Beckett have been accused of being English, but
it is still the vilest insult that can be offered a Hibernian, and coming
from a brother made the cut immeasurably unkinder.
Needless to say, Mike soon resigned from Malachy's under pressure,
and my partner Roland gave him a job at another venue. The
Minute Tavern, where he attracted a coterie of the brilliantly demented,
like Montgomery Clift, Sidney Chaplin, Orson Bean, and
others. But that's another yarn, and Mike's, at that.
T"
I ir
HE YEAR OF 1959 SLOWLY DRIFTED BY, WITH linda TRYing
to conceal the bulging evidence of an approaching new
citizen, vainly and in vain, and having to put up with the devil-maycare
me, a man who felt shackled by husbandhood and terrified at
the prospect of fatherhood.
Summer in New York City, with the high heat and humidity and
yellow-tinged miasma befogging the streets and building tops is not
a fit climate for any living thing, and there was something about
then-mayor Robert Wagner's face and demeanor that seemed to
indicate he was presiding over a morgue rather than a vibrant city.
The opposite was the governor of the state, Nelson Rockefeller,
an irritatingly, indefatigably cheery kind of fucker, who behaved as
if he were presiding over a nursery school and all that was needed
to run the joint were cheerful songs and diaper changes.
So we endured the city during a hellish summer. I did get a
television job that year, my first, and it was live--an adaptation of
142 MALACHY McCOURT
Billy Budd, starring Don Murray and, originally, Jason Robards, but
he left over artistic differences with the director, Robert Mulligan,
and was replaced by Alfred Ryder. Joe Papp was the stage manager,
or the equivalent thereof, and he got upset at my utter lack of
professionalism. He complained angrily to my agent, Joan Scott,
who, in turn, upbraided me for not being ready for call, not being
made up, not being dressed, not being on time, and not being an
actor.
What they didn't know was that I wasn't being unprofessional;
I was suffering from the ravages of the twin demons, arrogance and
ignorance. I was under the impression that the rules of the trade did
not apply to me.
Nonetheless, it was exciting doing "live," as any thespian will tell
you. At the wrap party, bods from other shows appeared, Roddy
McDowall was there, and so was Kirn Stanley, who was feuding with
Eric Portman; they were all appearing in O'Neill's Touch of the Poet. Stanley and Portman despised each other, and the night of the wrap
party, Portman, one of the most viciously funny gay men I'd ever
encountered, insulted Ms. Stanley at a curtain call, and she whacked
him across the beak just as the curtain rose for another bow. There
is nothing like a feud on Broadway to get wonderfully vicious gossip
going, and tickets selling, too.
The great Helen Hayes was in that cast, and blithely went about
her business, ignoring the battles around her and quietly upstaging
them all; while the others delivered their lines, she pretended to be
dusting the furniture with an eye-catching snow-white cloth, which
the audience couldn't help watching. This proves my contention that
great acting is attributed to many people who have done nothing
more than grow old, remain ambulatory, get vertical on a daily basis,
remember a line or two.
Sardi's was the center for the Broadway stars, with its walls covered
with cartoons, and the illustrious Vincent presiding over his
empire, always remembering the names of the elite. Jackets and ties,
A MONK SWIMMING 143
the old dress-code bogey, were required for the men in those days,
so I rarely went there.
The rank and file of the biz hung out in Jim Downey's. Downey
was very generous to the starving actor, and you could get a steak
dinner with the baked spud and the veg for $2.65, and a grand piece
of meat it was, too. 'Twas in Downey's I met Edward Mulhare, a
man from the city of Cork, who replaced Rex Harrison in My Fair
Lady, and went on to do The Ghost and Mrs. Muir on television. Begod,
Sir, you'd never think the man was from Cork, atall, atall, with his
impeccable manners and his Oxonian accent. But then, we have to
recall that it was another Irishman who wrote Pygmalion, from which
came My Fair Lady, so why not have an Irishman in the lead after
all? Look what we've done for that leaden language!
The opening night party for Brendan Behan's play, The Hostage, his first on Broadway, was at Downey's, and what a triumphant night
that was for the Irish. We awaited the reviews, as was the custom,
but there was nary a bad one. Behan was not drinking that night,
as his lovely wife, Beatrice, was with, him, as well as his various
relatives, and he was on best behavior.
Jackie Gleason was uproariously sozzled and trying to get Bren- clan to start on the sauce. People kept telling Gleason to lay off, but
he persisted until he got so out of hand we had to eject The Great
One onto the sidewalks of New York and lock the door behind
him. It was a bizarre sight, watching him leaping and hopping like
one of those balloons in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, shaking
his pudgy fists, the face contorted with what we presumed were
curses and imprecations flowing out of his face hole, as we could
hear nothing with the door being closed.
He eventually faded away, and a very proper party simply wound
down in a quietly joyful, sober way. 'Twas not long, though, before Brendan was on the piss again, leaping on the stage to the consternation
of the actors and the delight of audiences and news reporters. 'Twas great fodder for the papers, and great business for the play,
144 MALACHY McCOURT
because people hoped to be there when Brendan did his bit. As it
is, people who would have been around two and a half years old at
the time tell me they were there once when the bould Brendan
harangued the actors for mucking up his play.
There always seemed to be small, flashing demons darting around
Brendan's head. When sober, he had a lovely, modulated, workingclass
Dubliner's manner of speech, and a not-quite-shy way with
him—"uncertain," I think, would be the way to describe it. The
Yahoos and the drink were omnipresent in his life, and it was hard
for him to resist the adoration of the one and the taste of the other.
He was a diabetic, subject to blackouts from lack of insulin and too
much whiskey: a lovely man with a small body of work. When he
died in 1964 at the age of forty-one, he was reputed to have said
to the kindly nun who was mopping his fevered brow in the hospital:
"May all your sons be bishops!"
A
FTER MY ADVENTURES "ABROAD,-! HAD BEEN RECEIVED A
trifle frostily by the partners upon my return to Malachy's.
But being my charming and repentant self, and scared I'd be turfed
out of a job with a wife and a new life on the way, I buckled down
to the tedious life of the ersatz Irish saloonkeeper.
The most successful saloonkeepers in New York rarely drink.
They turn up on time, can be counted on to stay the night, and are
as unctuous as a full barrel of grease, the Irish ones, particularly.
They compliment the women, remember men's names, and do a fair
imitation of Pontius Pilate in the hand-mangling department. That's
what I did for a while, until I got fed up with being hemmed in by
places, people, sobriety, and propriety, and my demons invited me
out again.
From my occasional contacts with the spouse, I perceived she
seemed to be expanding in the belly area, and resigned to the fact
of being married to a bachelor. There was many the night I wouldn't
146 MALACHY McCOURT
return to the marital bed, as there would be the bed of a nubile,
adoring young thing to be tried for the resiliency of its springs, and
whose walls needed acoustical testing.
I didn't feel deeply about these fleshly contacts, and it was understood
there would be no commitment, due to my being a married
man with a need for the outlets, or the inlets, for the Lust. And I
would explain to anyone inclined to listen that, while I had engaged
in infidelity, I had never been unfaithful, as I still loved Linda.
back IN ireland, THE MOTHER, Angela, was living in a new council
house with the brother Alphie, and having a hard struggle because we
three in the U.S. were neglectful about sending her money. Alphie, a
very intelligent, well-read, and talented lad, was doing well in secondary
school, the first one of the family to make it that far. Indeed,
it is noted that the brother Frank was the only high school teacher
in the New York school system not to have a high school diploma;
But Alphie made it, thus honoring himself and all the family,
though he still lacked the necessities of life.
Frank had married his War Department and so was busy trying
to keep from being slaughtered on the battlefield. Mike's black
moods kept me at bay, his whole demeanor having become that of
my father, which brought back the horrors, the loudness, and the
embarrassment of the child at the lunatic antics of the out-of-control
parent.
My father could skulk for days after an episode, but we had to
face the world, schoolmates, playmates, and put up with the taunts,
insults, and vicious jibes that children have patent rights to. Of
course, I didn't make the connection at the time. All I knew was
that I didn't like Mike's behavior when we were drinking.
Linda decided she was going to have the baby without anesthesia,
but under hypnosis, a vogue of the time, so she found an obstetrician
of Indian origin for this bit of a lark. The man sounded like a roadA MONK SWIMMING 147
show Svengali, with the earnest singsong intonations, and the certainty
that the hypnosis was working well. After he thought he had
brought the trance to fruition, he would leave the room to tend
another "trancee." Thereupon, my mischievous spouse would open
one of her eyes and inform me 'twasn't working, but she didn't want
to make him feel bad.
"Look here," sez the suddenly responsible me, at one point in
the proceedings, "this is no joke. Having a baby can be painful,"
but Linda laughed and said, "I can always get a shot."
"Righto," sez I.
Then came the day, September I, 1959. The labor pains, the
swift bundling together of clothing and toiletries down the stairs to
the taxi on First Avenue, and off to the French Hospital, on Thirtieth
Street and Eighth Avenue.
Hustle-bustle into the hospital bed, settling in, then the pains,
and settle again. As anticipated, the hypnosis didn't work, and Linda
got the painkiller.
I had hoped to be present at the birth, but in those unenlightened
times, was absolutely not allowed, and if I had thoughts of storming
the delivery room, they had some security folks standing by who
would remove my bod from the premi, so I stayed out.
Then came the word that the baby had arrived--a girl, six and
a half pounds, everything in place: ten fingers, ten toes, eyes in their
sockets, one ear on either side of her head, a mouth directly under
her nose, and the nose centered in the middle of the most beautiful
face ever to meet the light of day.
As for all first-time daddies, it was a time of joyful tears, and a
reassessment of the past life and a firm resolve to mend my ways
and be a great father, a loving husband, and an upstanding citizen.
After all, I was almost twenty-eight, and had, in my view, accomplished
buggerall in that long life stretching behind me, and all I
could think then was I had a great past ahead of me if I continued
on my present road. So the resolutions were made, sworn to, and
148 MALACHY McCOURT
made sacred by the birth of my daughter, Siobhan (pronounced
"Sheevawn") Elizabeth McCourt.
The first order of business was to leave Siobhan, the fragile little
being of the lovely little lips, the wondrous eyes, the tiny waggily
hands and feet, and the pale, wan Linda, who was in post-birth
trauma and severe withdrawal from cigarettes and coffee, and head
north to gather the chums for the celebratory grog. I handed out
cigars, of course, and accepted every congratulatory drink proffered;
of course, I got wildly sozzled, weaving my way around town from
watering hole to watering hole, rising to new heights of intoxication
at every stop, then slumping and beginning the quest again.
I never knew the object of my quest, but Linda and the little one
did not see my face again for days.
HEN linda ARRIVED HOME WITH LITTLE SlOBHAN, TO
<
our tiny papier mache apartment, I felt joy and irritation
in equal proportions. The odor of the used diaper hung in the air,
and there was the need to feed a yowling infant every few hours,
regardless of our need for sleep. We slept in the tiny living room,
whilst Siobhan commanded the whole bedroom.
I think I put another nail in the marriage coffin when Linda told
me she felt depressed and trapped in this domestic role. My brilliant
response was to say I couldn't help her—it was something she'd
have to handle herself, and off I'd go to the bars, leaving her to face
the long nights by herself.
And, to keep the old pot boiling, I decided to invite my mother,
Angela, and the brother Alphie over for the holidays. "Where will
they stay?" sez Linda.
"Here, of course," sez I.
"It's too small," sez Linda,
149
150 MALACHY McCOURT
"Are you making my family unwelcome? Besides, it's only for a
few weeks. Surely, we can put up with that."
it WAS ALL VERY FESTIVE when the mother and the brother Alphie
arrived, just before Christmas, and we were prepared to suffer the
overcrowding in our one-bedroom apartment. Linda and myself slept
on a pull-out couch in the living room, and the mother slept on a
small bed in the bedroom, with Alphie on the floor, whilst Siobhan
slept in the crib.
But I neglected to inform the mother of the time limits on the
stay, so she stayed and stayed and stayed, until birds were returning
from their winter sojourns, while my mother still was not. My gentle
hints about going back to Ireland were met with how lonely it was
over there and how 'twas more pleasant here.
The woman who bore me had this romantic fantasy that America
was a permanent party land, a fairyland, a place where work was
incidental to the business of having a good time. The fact that I
was in the saloon biz hobbing and nobbing with the gentry and the
quality only illuminated her fantasies to the point of the absurd.
Nothing would do her, only to park her not-insubstantial body in
the confines of Malachy's and have her highballs--whiskey and ginger
ale--and chat with all and sundered. The erudite sophisticated
polished witty me was a bit embarrassed at the presence of the
peasant mother, who wouldn't know a fish knife from a scimitar,
but then people began to say how charming she was and how wise
she was, and she was never averse to singing a song after a few
jorums, to the delight of all, so my bit of shame abated somewhat.
But still she stayed too long; like a barnacle on the hull, she was
hard to dislodge.
Conjugal relations with Linda had ceased as, between tending to
a young baby and the constant presence of the other bods, there
was no time for such goings-on. Tensions rose and angers flared,
A MONK SWIMMING 151
but still the mother remained, and I took to coming home later and
later until I was staying out altogether.
Finally, leaving the country seemed like a good idea, so I took
Alphie on a rugby trip to Canada. On the way back, the immigration
crowd told him his visa was good for only one entry, so they put
him off our bus. He was returned to Montreal, where he had to
stay for a year before being allowed back into the U.S.
The mother, though, had overstayed both her visa and her welcome,
as any semblance of family life in our tiny apartment had
disappeared, so upon my return I practically had to deport her myself,
which I did, with the promise that I would bring her back for
the following Christmas.
Then Linda announced she was again with child.
I, a grown man, said "How did that happen?" but larger quarters
still had to be sought.
Linda's small trust fund, about ten thousand dollars, had finally
been turned over to her with the birth of Siobhan; her mother and
stepfather had refused to release it till then on the assumption that
I was a fortune hunter. We moved to the West Side of Manhattan,
Broadway and Ninety-third Street, a big, spacious place with a maid's
room, so we got a maid and, with the last of the money, made a
down payment on an eighty-five-acre farm, with two houses and a
trout stream, and never stayed there once. I also bought a used
Cadillac, which I proceeded to wreck while driving home drunk that
same night, smashing into a Lincoln Continental going in the opposite
direction, nearly killing the occupants.
now WE HAD A SAFE and secure apartment, with doormen and
help, and I felt free to roam without remorse, guilt, or regrets, all
duties as husband and father discharged. The trouble was that Linda
did not see it that way, nor did she take to the life of a wife on
deposit.
152 MALACHY McCOURT
Show biz had ground largely to a halt, though I did get one job,
a television drama, which, I believe, involved the first use of videotape
on location. We shot it on a ship in Bayonne, New Jersey. 'Twas
there I met Peter Falk for the first time, and Val Avery, a wonderful
character actor.
I distinguished myself on this production by turning up too late
to take the company bus, and having to get a very expensive taxi to
Bayonne, arriving to the cheers and hoots of the assembled company.
I thought I was being eccentric and colorful, but when you are
costing a corporation money, you'd better watch out, 'cos the little
blacklist cometh out, and you get on it.
It's an odd country, this U.S. of A. Corporations have exactly
the same rights as a human being, but let the average punter assert
that his body, the only equipment he has to live with and by, is
becoming aged and less sharp, and the I.R.S. will say, "Come off it,
Mac! No depreciation allowed for the body of man, even if it leaks
the soul."
T WAS THE END OF THE ElSENHOWER ERA, AND vietnam
was still a "Where's that?" to most people, even though Spellman,
the Cardinal of Vaseline, Lord Dick of Trick Nixon, and that crowd
of thugs in Saigon were trying to get Ike to drop "the Bomb" on
Hanoi. The French had gotten their comeuppance at Dien Bien Phu
in '54, and yet the U.S. blundered in, trying to make up for lost
time in the colonialism department.
I knew this stuff vaguely, but it wasn't as important as the hedonistic
pursuits of my daily life.
Linda trudged on, having to endure the heat of another summer
pregnant again, and take care of the infant Siobhan as well. I only
wanted to be around when the baby was smiling.
The 24th of August, I960, was the day of Malachy William
McCourt's arrival on this planet, again at the French Hospital. Also
again, they wouldn't let me in to witness the birth of my firstborn
son. There was no hypnosis this time, just regular old knockoutthe-pain
stuff.
154 MALACHY McCOURT
He was a lively lad, this Malachy William. He arrived with a
great yell, I was told, and I know he didn't stop yelling for quite a
long time again, clearly his father's son. Off I went for another
celebration, sentimental and weepy about the new life that had come
into mine, and I envisaged great prospects for my children. Drunken
dreams of glory rampaged through the mind, as I strode from saloon
to saloon, roaring through the walls--Frank has noted that I never
seemed to use the doors--frightening bar owners, and delighting
bartenders, because of the munificence of the tips.
'Twas about then the partners in Malachy's decided this laborer
was not worthy of his hire, and the business could do very well
without him. The partners offered me seven thousand dollars for
my twenty percent of the biz, and they would pay me at the rate of
a hundred dollars a week for seventy weeks, not much for a piece
of the flourishing enterprise that bore my name. Even worse, I accepted
these payments in post-dated checks and without interest.
I had swaggered around New York City, the bigshot owner of
one of the most successful saloons in town, an actor and television
personality, and now here I was, with a wife and two small children,
despairing and despondent of ever working again, as I approached
the ancient age of thirty.
Humiliating as it was, I got a job bartending at the behest of Joe
Alien and John Cobb, at their popular spot at Seventy-third and
Third. I had by now taken an intense dislike to the job of barman.
I felt trapped, and subject to the beck and call of any and all idiots,
fools, imbeciles, defectives, deviates, arseholes, and inferiors; the fatuous,
the stupid, the moronic; all of whom seemed to seek me out
and torment me with the aridness of their talk and the emptiness
of their lives.
Day in and day out, I was raging within, and when someone gave
me some pills, ostensibly to lose weight, that cloaked the rage with
a kind of jittery euphoria. I took to them like a baby to the breast.
I was on the day shift, so I'd start with coffee, cream, honey, a
A MONK SWIMMING 155
dram of Hine cognac, and one of those little pills, and during the
passing of the day, I'd keep the euphoric fire going with more drams
of Hine.
I shifted to another John Cobb enterprise up the road on Third
Avenue, but a small matter of neglecting to pay the rent led to an
eviction. The marshals pulled everything out into the street, and
when they crowbarred the bar itself off the floor, all the beer taps
sent geysers of the amber stuff up to the ceiling, where it foamed
and sudsed for a mo', ere returning to drench the bar wrenchers,
leaving them smelling like an abandoned saloon.
A whirl around town to celebrate the loss of income was indicated.
I staggered home the next morning at 3 or 4 a.m., and announced
to the worried partner in matrimony that I had figured it
all out. Due to my national prominence and great talents as an actor,
I would hie my way to Hollywood and see which one of the studios
or networks would meet my requirements. "Yeah," sez this doubting
lady, "but, in the meantime, what are we going to do for money?"
"For God's sake, woman! Stop this negativity! Expunge it from
your mind! Toss it into any of the four winds! Boot it out the door,
for as soon as I land in Hollywood, vast fortunes will come tumbling
in so quickly that we will be in need of professional bank tellers to
count and keep track of it! Now, let us to bed."
I could see she didn't share my enthusiasm for this venture, but
the ingestion of the pills and the alcohol had imbued me with certitude
and a vision of the righteousness of my new economic and
artistic crusade, which would ensure the well-being forevermore.
T
WE PHONE CALLS--TO THE FATHER-IN-LAW, bill wachsman,
the flat-footed, diminutive* Lothario of seven wives, to
arrange to sleep on his couch, and to the airline, to arrange the cheap flight on the propeller plane, with donut and coffee--and off I went.
After F.I.L. Bill picked me up at the airport, I called Peter Falk,
who put me in touch with Sandy Lieberson at William Morris, who
in turn told me friend Richard Harris was in town, doing a remake
of Mutiny on the Bounty, with Marion Brando and Trevor Howard. A
call to Harris brought an invitation to his home.
Harris was then married to the former Elizabeth Reese Williams,
whose father was Lord Ogmore. She was preggers with their son
Damien then, and very beautiful. 'Twas a lively household, with
bodies coming and going all night and all day, and parties coupling
at the drop of a cork. A very handy heated swimming pool helped
the sobering-up process, and there was a nice little pool house complete
with bed, where I often laid the head when the night got too
advanced to be thinking of getting back to F.I.L.'s.
157
158 MALACHY McCOURT
Despite hanging out with established bods in the biz, I still
couldn't get an agent to represent me. I had no pictures, no resumes,
no car--and not having a car in L.A. leaves you helpless as a baby,
but between shanks mare and the laughable bus system, I managed
to get around if I began my journey prior to the dawning of the
day. Yet somehow I convinced myself I was nothing like your average,
ordinary actor seeking work in Hollywood.
I finally got a job for a week on some silly series--I think it was
called Surfside Six--a reprieve from total penury.
While I was off doing this show, Harris had to relinquish the
rented house in Beverly Hills to the owners, two spinsters named
Crumby, since their other house had been damaged in one of those
California brush fires.
I didn't know Harris was out of there and now ensconced in the
Bel-Air Hotel. So, on my return, I meandered up to the old house
after the water holes had closed at 2 a.m., doffed the entire bodyinhibiting
clothing, donned a pair of water wings in case of sinkage,
and in full, glorious nudity, hurled myself into the soothing, warm
waters of the welcoming pool. A desultory attempt to swim was
soon abandoned, and I just floated about in a semi-somnambulistic
state.'
My reverie was gratingly interrupted by the sound of a harsh
voice, bellowing in Wehrmacht tones, "Outa da pool! Now!" I opened
my eyes to see the pool ringed with what seemed to be a division
of Hitler's troops in the highly polished jackboots. As my eyes traveled
upward, I observed belts festooned with handcuffs, pouches,
guns, and bullets, and the other mysterious items police lug around.
Further up the shiny button line, I saw grim, sunglassed, Aryan
faces, fixed on me with fierce intensity. "Why?" sez I, tentatively,
but when I saw some hands move in the direction of the bolstered
firearms, I decided I could wait for an answer to my query.
No longer nude, I was now naked, and I could see the contempt
in the Uplines of the assembled constabulary, as they viewed my
A MONK SWIMMING 159
shriveled three-piece set. They ordered me to put my hands up,
which struck me as rather funny, so I tried a little whimsicality:
"Would you like to search me?" sez I, thinking they would collapse
laughing at the thought of searching a naked man.
"Shut the fuck up, you filthy flasher pervert," sez one of the grim
jaws, in what struck me as a fine use of alliteration. I was going to
compliment him on his language skills, when I was roughly grabbed
and pushed toward the gate of the house.
I managed to grab a towel as we swept out of the pool confines,
and off I was taken to durance vile, protesting I was a guest of
Harris, etc.
At the stationhouse, I was booked for indecent exposure. It seems
the Misses Crumby had been awakened in the middle of the night
by the sound of a loud splash, and, upon looking out the window,
observed a large, naked, bearded man floating in their pool. After a
decent interval, they called the gendarmes.
I was also charged with criminal trespass and theft of the water
wings. I was exasperated beyond endurance at this point, because
every time I tried to explain my presence in that location, I was told
to "Shudafuckup." I was roughly shoved into a cell. The mattress
on the cot was covered with abstract stains, and had an aroma that
did not involve Estee Lauder, and there were neither blankets nor
sheets nor pillows for the weary felon to lay the pulsating cranium.
When a new shift came on, around 6 a.m., I finally got the ear
of one of my captors, who got on the blower and ascertained that
I was telling the truth about Richard Harris having rented the house
and then moving out. This compassionate cop thereupon rang up
Harris at the Bel Air Hotel and told him they had in custody a
"Malarky McCord," who claimed to be a friend.
My chum Harris told the cop he had never heard of me and
hung up, leaving my newly found champion livid with me for lying
to him. That afternoon, Harris did swing by to bail me out, and he
was very amused at the sight of me, lepping up and down outside
160	MALACHY McCOURT
the police station in the bright sunlight, clad only in a minuscule
towel and still wearing the water wings.
I liked hanging out with Harris. He had an enormous capacity
for whiskey, and sublime taste in wine and food, so he always set
a gourmet table, complete with tastefully arranged flowers, candles,
and service. He was a wild man in many ways, and if the facts of
his many stories were fictitious, he nevertheless always wove a good
tale.
I NEXT LANDED A JOB as a combination Brendan Behan and Dylan Thomas, in a film with Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine.
Harris was an old chum of Mitchum's, and told me to make myself
known to him as a friend. A bit reluctant to approach the star,
nevertheless, up with me to him, and I stuck out the paw and announced
I was one Malachy McCourt, friend of Dickie Harris from
Limerick.
A hearty greeting was extended by this Hollywood legend of
sauce, pot, and evil, with an invitation to come and have a jar in his
star's dressing quarters, as he had been holding a special brew for a
special time and a special guest. "All is in conjunction now," sez he.
"Right," sez I, following along, as ordered.
In the quarters, the suave Robert unearthed a cache of quart
bottles of Guinness--there seemed no end to them. Then he opened
a bottle of Powers (Three Swallows brand), and poured two large
beakers of same, and then expertly poured two pints of the wine of
Ireland, and set them in front of us.
I averred it was a sight to gladden the eyes, the heart, and the
internal organs of any decent man walking the earth this day.
"Stop the yap," sez the bould Mitchum, "and get it inside of
you." He had done a few movies in Ireland, and therefore knew the
lingo and how it could interfere with the quaffing.
It took very little time to mollify the tonsils with the water of
A MONK SWIMMING 161
life and the black-brew chaser. A few more gargles, and the surroundings
got comfy and friendly, and we chatted about that and
this, and he didn't seem to mind me repeating a yarn that one
R. Harris had laid on us.
In the city of Dublin, within the confines of the actor's outpatient
clinic, otherwise known as a pub, this long-gone, hallowed place
named Groom's, there came an evening when the cast of the movie
Harris and Mitchum were doing assembled at said haunt. Mitchum was a man able to hold his own in the talk department, even with
the fierce competition yer likely to run into in Dublin. (Jasus! Wasn't
it a well-known fact that Shaw left because of the competition?)
Anyway, in the course of the evening, a butty little Dublin jackeen
arrives under Mitchum's elbow, tugs it, and announces that his wife
wants an autograph.
"Not now," says R. M.
"Why not," sez the little man.
"'Cos I said 'not now,'" sez Mitchum.
"Is it the way you tink you can come over here and act like Lord
Muck, and refuse to sign your shagging name for a decent, hardworking
little woman who is too shy to ask you herself? Who in
the name of the suffering Jasus d'you tink you are?"
Mitchum sez, "Give it to me," signs the bit of paper, and resumes
his yarn. The butty man takes it without a word of thanks and
brings it back to his wife and friends at a table. When she looks at
it, she lets out a strangled shriek, and faints. Her butty husband
then takes a geek at the autograph and, in a flash, bounds toward
Mitchum, whirls him with a classic uppercut, and knocks our movie
hero unconscious.
What he had written on the grubby piece of paper was, "Fuck
you. Kirk Douglas."
Mitchum did not affirm or deny the yarn, but he smiled.
There was a tap on the door. "Come in," sez the host. It was
Frank Sinatra, who was on a break from filming The Manchurian Can162 MALACHY McCOURT
didate next door. A quietish kind of fellow was the Hoboken lad,
and a bit reluctant to tackle overflowing glasses of Powers and Guinness.
It was hard to see him behind the pint, him being so bereft of
flesh. They talked about things I knew nothing about, and I listened
noddingly, trying to look as if I comprehended.
Sinatra left, and then came a series of knocks.
"Mr. Mitchum, you are needed on the set."
"Fuck off."
"Mr. Mitchum, the first assistant director here, Mr. Wise, says
you are due on the set now."
"Fuck off"
"But Mr. Mitchum..."
"FUCK OFF!"
Some more drinks, and he decided 'twas time to return to the
vineyards and do the labor. We left his dressing room and headed
toward the set. Almost there, he stopped. "Sing 'The Bold Fenian
Men* for me," saith this grand actor, and together we sang:
As down by the glenside, I met an old woman,
A plucking young nettles, she ne'er saw me coming,
I listened awhile to the song she was humming,
Glory, 0 Glory, 0, to the bold Fenian Men.
As I passed on my way, Cod be praised that I met her,
Be life long or short, sure I'll never forget her,
We may have great men, but we'll never have greater,
Glory, 0 Glory, 0, to the Bold Fenian Men!
Some died in the glenside, some died midst the stranger,
And wise men have said that their cause was a failure,
But they loved dear old Ireland, and never feared danger,
Glory, 0 Glory, 0, to the bold Fenian Men!
A MONK SWIMMING 163
"QUIET ON THE SET, GODDAM IT!" came a very annoyed,
stentorian voice. It was the first assistant director. He came over and
told Mitchum to get to the set, and informed me that I was fired.
"Hold it! Hold it!" sez Mitchum. "If he's fired, so am I. Come," sez he to me, "let us get back and resume where we left off."
My ticker felt as if a large, mailed fist had grabbed it and was
squeezing hard. "Fired from my first movie," was all I could think.
"That's it for me in the fillums!"
Concealing the fear, the disappointment, the feeling of having
made a first-class, ocean-going ass of myself, was difficult but necessary
in the face of R. Mitchum's insouciance. He didn't care: 'twas
just another job to him. He told me not to worry, as worry spoils
drinking, and, sure enough, a summons came for me to go see the
director, Robert Wise, "the giant of helmers," as Variety would say.
He talked to me sternly about booze, hanging out with stars who
had nothing to lose, about professionalism and punctuality, and he
told me to get back on the set and behave myself. Mitchum then
rehired himself and that was. how Two for the Seesaw got made, and
why it disappeared from view forever.
richard harris WAS FINISHING HIS tempestuous sojourn on the
Bounty. He used to infuriate Brando by doing savage imitations of
him and deriding his acting techniques. In one scene, Brando was
supposed to strike him for his insubordination, but only gave him
an effete little slap. Harris said, "Would you give me a good whack,
for Christ's sake!"
Brando said he didn't think Harris could take it, and, besides, no
one was going to tell him how to act. Or whack.
The encounter ended with Harris asking Brando for a kiss and
stalking off the set. Some years later, Brando got his revenge by
doing a superb imitation of Harris and his Limerick accent in Missouri
Breaks.
164 MALACHY McCOURT
In the end, Harris's part in Mutiny on the Bounty was cut to practically
a walk-on. The night the film premiered, with the names
Brando, Howard, and Harris above the title with star billings,
Mitchum rang Harris in London to tell him his name was on everyone's
lips.
"Oh gosh, golly, gee, wow," said the suddenly modest Harris. "I
didn't know I was that good that everyone would be talking about
me.'"
"It's true," sez Mitchum. "They're all saying, 'Who the fuck is
Richard Harris?'"
But, I leap ahead. To say good-bye to Hollywood, Harris was
throwing a party in the Montecito Hotel, a somewhat tawdry place,
patronized mostly by New York actors. Harris had moved in there
after his wife Elizabeth had gone back to Blighty. He decreed that
the theme of the party would be sadomasochism--he was a bit ahead
of his time. A visit to the property shop at the studio, and a judicious
handing over of quantities of dollars, secured a supply of whips,
manacles, handcuffs, straitjackets, and executioners' masks, as well as
some skulls and assorted body parts, and a supply of fake blood.
Harris spent an afternoon directing some bemused hotel staff on
how to decorate a hotel suite to resemble a torture chamber and on
how, precisely, to smear the walls with fake blood. The effect was
completed by using big heavy candles as the only illumination.
The guests were not informed of the theme, so it was interesting
enough to watch their faces as their eyes lit on the paraphernalia on
the walls and chairs. Most tried to behave as if it were normal to
stroll into a room that looked as if it were leased to the Spanish
Inquisition, but try as they might, they couldn't resist staring at the
stuff.
The average stay at this party seemed to be as long as a finger
stays in a flame. Many, many people suddenly had emergencies at
home, or other unforeseen appointments, so it was necessary for
them to leave. Some diehards--and some possible potential S & M
A MONK SWIMMING 165
fans--stayed, and as the drinks relaxed them, the questions began.
Harris regaled them with stories of orgies and other frightful goingson,
which, like a lot of his stories, bore no resemblance to the truth,
but a good story well told is a good story well told.
Most of the parties I attended weren't quite so extreme. At one
of these, I plunked myself down beside an elderly, somewhat
dissolute-looking woman puffing away on a small cheroot. Thinking
I was being kind to an old woman, I complimented her on being
alluring and sexy. "I am having a most difficult time," I told her,
"restraining myself from carrying you off in my arms to a gondola.
If only such a craft could be found in L.A."
She fixed me with a rapt gaze, and appeared to be absorbing all
I was babbling forth. When I had exhausted the flowery speech, I
stopped, waiting for her to give vent to her gratitude that such a
charming young man had taken the time to flatter her. Generous lad
that I was, I added that a night in bed with her would satisfy my
desire for eternal happiness.
If her tongue had been made of sandpaper, it couldn't have done
me more damage. She-ripped into me for being patronizing, insincere,
and idiotic. She said that throughout her life, she had been
complimented truthfully by the best, and, though my compliments
were adequate, they were hurtful, as older women have enough trouble
accepting aging, without some nitwit telling them they weren't.
Suitably chastened, I complimented her on her tongue-lashing
abilities, which made her laugh, and we proceeded to have a great
chat. That is, she asked me questions, and I responded at length.
She did tell me that her name was Dorothy, and that she had "written
some little things," We parted on the best of terms, and later I
found out my new chum was Dorothy Parker. I regret we never met
or talked again--until after she died.
The executor of the Parker estate was Paul O'Dwyer, a great,
indomitable man of decency, compassion, and civil rights. The unclaimed
urn of Dorothy's ashes ended up in his office in downtown
166	MALACHY McCOURT
Manhattan, and one day, while visiting pal Paul, I asked to see it.
There, for the first time in my life, I spoke to an urn full of ashes.
I apologized for not knowing who she was, and for not having read
the "little things" she had written, and then I bid her au revoir.
the MISSUS WAS GETTING RESTIVE in N.Y.C., due to my prolonged
absence and no funds in sight; the F.I.L. was getting restive
at my prolonged occupation of his couch, as it was interfering with
his dipping of the wick into wealthy widows.
The loving calls to the wife were not being fielded with any great
enthusiasm or energy. Beyond the "How are yez?" and "How are
the children?" there was a definite chill in the air.
Though I'd gotten a few jobs, I was mostly not working, and of
the little money I earned, much less flew back to Linda. She was
forced to drop the pride and ask the parents. They, in cum, battered
her into insensibility with a barrage of "I told you so's."
Despite the financial exigencies, I was having a good time at
parties, and the missus resented that. Here she was, up to her nostrils
in the acrid stink of the dirty diaper and up to her knees in small
children, and it was not at all surprising that my ill-advised recounting
of my social leaping and divings were not great news to her,
Finally, after a long spell of no work, I reserved a seat once again
on one of the donut-and-coffee twelve-hour specials for ninety-nine
dollars, cadged from various friends and acquaintances.
T
HE AERIAL DONKEY CART ARRIVED AT idlewild airport
an hour late, and when I got to my door at Ninety-third and
Broadway, it was after five. There was a perfunctory greeting from
the beloved, who offered me her cheek instead of the lips for the
welcoming kiss and slipped rapidly away from the all-too-fervid embrace.

Siobhan and Malachy, after a bit of getting used to me again,
clambered all over me as if I were a great oak. There was a great
fatigue upon me after that rickety flight, so I said to the cool spouse
that I'd take a nap and then have a bite of food, and then, sez I,
"You never know what might happen after the children are asleep."
When I awakened and came out to the living room, my brother Alphie was present with Linda. She said he had been staying there,
as he had need of temporary quarters. I said that was fine. Then,
she said we were going out for dinner, and she had invited Alphie
along.
167
168 MALACHY McCOURT
I tried to be amusing at the repast, but no success attended me
there. Linda's ermined lips and plucked eyebrows looked like angry
slashes in a carved mask. The brother was polite, and not realizing
he was being used as a pawn in her fend-off-Malachy game. Finally,
I said I'd collapse on the floor if I didn't get home to bed, but the
woman said she thought we should go out on the town to celebrate
my return.
I replied I was too weary, and, anyway, I thought the best way
to celebrate was to get to bed.
No takers, so I rose and said, "I'm off to bed." I fell into it and
into a deathlike sleep, from which I didn't awaken until the a.m.
around nineish. Refreshed and in a good mood, I sought out my
wife and, once again, she evaded the embrace, saying she was busy
when I suggested a return to the bedroom.
"Is there a bite of food in the house?" sez I.
"What's here has been paid for by my parents," sez my former
bedmate, frostily.
Fighting the rising fear in the heart of an approaching wreck, I
said, "Could I have some?"
"Get it yourself,"
"I see," sez I, not seeing, because I didn't want to see, and off I
went to get dressed and think. I hadn't yet unpacked, so, in a simple
action that changed my life, I picked up the suitcase and walked
down the hall to the entrance door.
Linda came out and said, "I hope you know what you're doing."
"I don't," I said, and off I went into the day, not realizing that
that was the last civilized exchange of words we would have for
many a year.
I dawdled at the elevator, hoping she would come after me, then
left.
The rest of that day was spent going through rage, remorse,
contrition, sorrow, grief, questioning, soft sentimentality, nostalgia
for what never was, belated paternal emotions, desire for revenge
and, above all, self-pity.
A MONK SWIMMING 169
The internal monologue ensued: "Who the fuck does she think
she is anyway? I married her and gave her two children, an exciting
life, the chance to meet all sorts of people. I took her to parties,
and she basked in the glory of my fame, and that's the end of it for
her: no social life, no more parties, no more fun, no more trips!
She's stuck, and no one will ever have anything to do with her, as
they'd be too afraid of me. How dare she leave me.' Does she realize
who I am? Everybody loves me except her, and she doesn't have any
judgment anyway.. She knew what she was getting into when she
married me! She knew how I live and act, and that my life is unshackled
and unfettered, and it was her insisted on getting married,
all because of one fucking trip to Ireland. She'll see! There are
thoughtful loving women who understand me, and who won't begrudge
me having a bit of fun and a drink or two!"
A friend, John Cobb, always man of the moment for a huge
coterie of needy lunatics, said I could stay at his pad, and not alone
that: He gave me a job bartending in his place in the financial
district. .
I brooded all the subsequent days at my dismayed departure from
the unwelcoming hearth and heart, talking to myself, sending telepathic
messages to make it right, and drinking--petrol to the flames.
A conflagration was inevitable, and one night, after ordering people
to stay out of my way in various saloons, and being refused service
in several others, I found myself on the street at about 2 a.m., bereft.
I stood for a while, and then a peace descended on me. I suddenly
knew what to do. I would call her up, explain the whole thing, and
straighten it all out. I found a phone and called.
"What do you want?" she sez.
"I'd like for us to work this thing out."
"There's no point. I don't love you anymore."
"What!"
"And I want a divorce."
I felt like I'd been plonked on the noggin with a halberd.
Through my daze I heard her say, "I've talked to my parents' lawyers,
170 MALACHY McCOURT
and the separation is drawn up. All you have to do is sign, and we
can begin the divorce." Every word she spoke was like another blow
with the halberd, alternately smashing my skull and piercing my
heart.
"You've been talking to lawyers'" I screamed. "Behind my back.'
You didn't even have the decency to tell me.'"
"You knew our marriage was over," she said, and then my dime
ran out, and we were cut off, as I'd no more change.
Roaring and whimpering like a wounded, blundering buffalo, I
charged an off-duty taxi, whose driver tried to wave me off, but I
succeeded in getting in and threatened his life if he didn't take me
to Ninety-third and Broadway. The poor, terrified man begged me
not to hurt him, and said he would take me anywhere, for free, if
I'd leave when we got there.
We arrived at the building and I breezed past the doorman--I
was a good enough actor to appear to be normal--got our spare
key from over the door, and let myself in. I burst into the bedroom,
switching on the lights, bellowing at the frightened woman, "No
divorces, no separations'" and demanding she do her duty as a wife
under Napoleonic Law.
I rampaged from there into the living room, where the brother
was groggily getting up from the couch. I accused him of conspiring
with my enemy. I went and got the maid, and informed the assembled
group that anyone who wouldn't obey my laws was to get out,
and get out now. They gathered up the petrified children, and fled
over to the parents' place on Park Avenue, never to return, except
to pick up cribs, clothes, and ties, and for the rest of that mad night,
I wandered from room to room, speeching and orating to the furniture.

Of course, I'd gone totally bonkers. I'd reclaimed the home, but
driven out the family that made it one. As the dawn came, I lay
down, fully clothed, and wept myself to sleep.
} MONK SWIMMING 171
there WAS MY DESCENT INTO slow, calculating lunacy then. I'd
bartend during the day and, at night, fearful of going to the apartment
that echoed emptily without human beings, I went on mad
rounds of pubs, parties, and brawling. Barmen feared my coming,
and I got the reputation of being a foul-mouthed lout and a danger
to all. On the inside I was a mass of gray granite pain at all times,
and I responded by lashing out to hurt anyone I could.
Immune to any physical pain, I fought with savagery, and bloodied
all my opponents. I hopped from bed to bed with a variety of
women, lying and deceiving, not knowing who they were, and certainly
not caring if I ever saw them again.
Going into bars became an adventure again. I'd sit beside the
biggest guy in the place, and no matter what he ordered, I'd remark,
"Only fags drink that." Minutes later, the man would be on the
floor, and I'd announce to the room that the guy had no sense of
humor.
There was one night when I met up with the brother Frank, who
was always the man of the big heart. He'd quietly comfort me and
counsel me, but I wasn't about to hear him. That night, I happened
to encounter him on my way to a party at someone's East Side
apartment, and invited him to join me. After a few drinks, we took
a cab there, and the elevator up. In the hallway outside the apartment
was a group sitting in a circle, for what reason I do not know. I
kicked over one of their drinks on the way in the door, threw a
perfunctory "Sorry" over my shoulder, and joined the party, in full
swing.
"Greetings," "Helios," and "Good to see ya's" all floated my way,
but there came the nagging feeling of something missing, and indeed
there was: the brother Frank. Out to the hallway with me: no sign
of him or the sitting circle. I went thundering down the four flights
to the lobby, where a circle of yahoos was pummeling the bro, on
his knees but still getting off a good punch or two.
I was in my element: A swift appraisal of the battlefield showed
a ratio of five yahoos to one McCourt, who was battling bravely,
172 MALACHY McCOURT
dodging fists and shoes and boots, and unleashing the odd punch
as best he could.
I dived in, and they turned to deal with a howling lunatic. Renewed
by the reinforcement, Frank got to his feet and inflicted a
fierce amount of damage on several of his cowardly attackers, and I
did likewise, enough so that four of them fled, leaving only one of
their number behind. Trapped he was, in a corner.
I fixed him with a look, as he cowered against the wall, whinging
and mewling, with lips and limbs all trembling at the prospect of
what was about to happen. I icily eyed him, and with all the cold
malice in my heart, I plotted in slow motion what I was going to
do to him. First, with my left hand, I would grasp his old school
tie and collar. I would then kick him in the shin, and as his head
jerked forward in pain, I would hit him in the right eye and smash
him against the wall. I would then give him a knee in the area of
the family jewels, then jerk him forward again, to smash him in the
left eye, and after that I would slowly smash his nose, his teeth, and,
of course, his lips, which seemed ideal for splitting.
All my thoughts were methodical and easy, but, as Robbie Burns
says, "the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley." My plan
to lay this thug out went badly agley. I grasped the tie, and delivered
the kick, but instead of jerking forward, according to my plan, he
jerked to the right, and instead of my fist connecting with his right
peeper, it smashed into the wall, sending a surge of pain up the arm,
so that I dropped the yahoo, who fled his place of execution.
Frank and I ended up at the emergency room, with no injury
except my broken arm, which was put in a cast and made grist for
another fanciful tale for Siobhan and Malachy.
I'd regularly arrive at Linda's new apartment on Fifth Avenue to
pick them up for the Sunday visit with black eyes and a swollen
nose, and regale these two little tykes with stones of my battles.
After I'd taken them home in the evening, the terrible loneliness
would descend and I'd hie myself to a bar and start the whole savage
business again.
A MONK SWIMMING 173
SO IT WENT--ME SURGING about New York City at night, brawling,
roaring, bellowing, raging, and tipping hugely, so that barmen
were becoming schizophrenic. "Oh, Christ! Here comes McCourt!
Trouble in the offing! But he does tip well, so fuck it, we will put
up with him for a bit."
I'd go to P.J. Clarke's at first, but that stolid place put up with
no nonsense. The Blarney Stone, a chain of Irish bars noted for a
uniformly bleak decor, was for serious drinkers, and any rowdiness
quickly ended with me being ejected. There were a couple of places
that put up with me because of the bit of fame, but gradually the
welcome mats were being pulled from the door.
I would on occasion contact Linda, and crawl and squirm and beg
and plead for her to give me another chance, but all she would say
was, "I don't love you anymore." From my mouth, then, would pour,
"I will always love you, no matter what," and off I would go to the
nearest drinking hole to prove my love by getting completely pieeyed
and having another fistfight.
One night I was holding forth at a bar, decanting a story of some
dimension, complete with the necessary lurid language. Absolute rubbish,
of course, as bar stories of sexual conquest usually are, but
nevertheless the tale amused myself, as I couldn't wait to hear what
I had to say. A tap on shoulder from behind interrupted the ribald
tale. I swiveled on the bar stool, and came nose-to-nose with a laddie
who saith, "My woman don't like the way you're talking."
"Tell her not to listen, then," sez I.
"Look, asshole," sez he, "The lady don't like the way you're
talkin', so cuditout!"
I said, "If your woman was a lady, she wouldn't be listening to
other people's conversations, and she would not be going out with
an idiot like you!"
After a suitable pause, he invited me to join him outside.
"Be back in a tic," sez I to the chums. "Don't bother to get up,
174 MALACHY McCOURT
as this will be the work of a mo'." My opponent-to-be went ahead
and, as I stepped through the front door, musing on my tactics, the
night abruptly went completely and utterly dark. Sometime later, I
was awakened by an ache in my jaw and, when I tried to open my
eyes, all I could see was a reddish haze through the left one, and
pinpricks of light coming through the gauze covering the right.
I was in New York Hospital, and a Peruvian surgeon was trying
to correct severe damage resulting from a well-aimed Italian shoe,
which I gather had popped the unsmiling Irish eye. It took nine
stitches under the lower lid. The surgeon told me the tear duct had
been damaged beyond repair and in later years I would have trouble
with tearing.
I wouldn't have to wait to have trouble with tears. I'd get to bed
many a night crying in drunken self-pity, and I'd talk to God and
tell him, "Listen, You. Can You get Your arse up to Fifth Avenue
and tell that woman she has to love me again? If You do that, I'll
return to the Church and become a shining example to all. I'll raise
the children as Catholics, and I'll get Linda to convert. Now what
do You say to that?"
No answer.
Then a mad bellow, "Did you hear me, God? I'm talking to you,
you old Fucker, and why don't you answer me? At least give me a
sign that my request is on the calendar!"
Nothing. Silence.
When I was growing up in Limerick, my ambition was to come to
America and become a convict, because in prison I'd have shoes, a bed
to myself, with sheets that no little brothers had pissed on. There'll be no
lice or fleas, and there'll be showers all the year round, and I wouldn't
have to wait for the summer to wash the whole body. They would give
me food several times a day, and a tin cup to bang on the bars, and
we would talk out of the sides of our mouths, plotting escapes and beating
up brutal wardens, and I'd have a number all to myself, and there
would he a prison library, where I could read to my heart's content,
and if all went well, I'd get to die bravely in the electric chair after the
grandest last meal a dying man could hope for. Maybe I'd meet James
Cagney, Spencer Tracy, George Raft, Humphrey Bogart, and Brian
Donleavy, and we'd all riot together and the governor would come and
see how rotten we were being treated, and he'd reform the whole system,
and I'd get to marry his beautiful daughter and be put in charge of the
whole works.
It's different from the movies, real life is.
175
176	MALACHY McCOURT
came THE friday EVENING I took the visit to Fifth Avenue into
my own hands, after a night of drinking at the Men's Bar at the
Biltmore. I was drinking gin martinis that eve and, in a spirit of
childish rebellion, and against all the rules of the house, I bellowed
every dirty ditty I could think of, and if I couldn't think of them,
I composed them on the spot. After several hours of raucous concert,
it occurred to me to phone the wife.
The maid answered the phone and said that Mrs. McCourt was
out.
"Out where?" I roared. She said she didn't know.
I accused the poor woman of lying, and of neglecting my children,
and of things she'd probably never heard of, let alone done. I then
returned to the bar to continue my rantings. After another couple
of hours, as the clock showed the approaching hour of midnight, I
phoned the spouse again, and again she was amongst those not
present, which led to another wave of verbal abuse from my mouth.
All sense departed me, and I left the Biltmore, leapt into a taxi, and
headed for the bode of the estranged spouse on Fifth Avenue.
I have no memory of how I got past the uniformed major domos
at the portals of this building, but get past them I did. I rang the
apartment bell, and the maid asked from the other side of the door
who it was. I roared at her that it was me and to open up the
rucking door. Of course, the poor, terrified thing refused, and I
found myself gently tapping on the door with a handy oak chair
from the lobby.
After the chair was smashed to smithereens, leaving the door still
intact, I sat down on the floor to plot my next move. In a fit of
drunken cunning, I figured out that the maid would have rung the
spouse's parents, and that perhaps the stepfather was on his way up,
so I kept quiet for the decent interval and then rang the doorbell.
When the maid asked, "Who is it?" I said I was Mr. Friedlander.
A MONK SWIMMING 177
"Thank the Lord," sez she, as she unbolted the door and admitted
one raving madman. I pushed the little woman out the door
and locked same. Siobhan and Malachy were in their respective cribs,
and I made sure they were asleep before I started on my search for
evidence of the wife's involvements with other men. I went through
drawers, cupboards, and closets, but found nothing but some old
photographs of happier days, which I proceeded to tear in two whenever
there was the picture of us together. I went on a systematic
rampage in the bedroom. I removed all the drawers, and dumped
out the clothing. I emptied essences, perfumes, creams, and lotions
all over the floor. I removed anything on the wall, tore anything I
could to shreds, jumped up and down on a guitar, and tore off the
Venetian blinds.
After I'd done the job on the bedroom, I decided to do the living
room. The children seemed to sleep through all this high-decibel
mayhem, and I kept checking to make sure, as I didn't want them
to think I would do them any harm.
I was surveying the living room, preparatory to kicking in the
television set, when the door was suddenly opened, and I was buried
under the charge of a heavy blue brigade, an assortment of N.Y.P.D.
lads, followed by a distraught wife, a determined stepfather, and a
very angry maid, shouting "Check the children! Check the children!"
In very little time, I was handcuffed and ordered to keep lying
face down on the floor. When it was ascertained the children were unharmed, I was pushed out the door into the elevator, and out into
ye olde paddy wagon, and off we went to the Twenty-third Precinct,
where I was lodged in a cell with a transvestite, arrested for trying
to sell his bod to an undercover cop. The transvestite lad complained
bitterly about not being allowed to dress as he liked, and the unfairness
of a system where you can sell everything but yourself.
I sympathized with him, and thought it a perfect demonstration
of how hypocritical is the capitalistic system. That set me off on a
178 MALACHY McCOURT
filibuster, wherein lust about every thought I ever had was mentioned
and every speech I knew was summoned. Lincoln at Gettysburg?
Too short for my purposes. Songs, poems, speeches, orations, bits
of drama, quotations, demands for justice for transvestites and the
working class, an end to the right of women to walk out on marriages,
no more immediate custody for mothers, even if the father
had no place to live of his own and was an alcoholic, and other
such demands and declamations flowed from my cell in a mad ginfueled
rant, with no sign of the gauge pointing to empty.
Our Laddie of the Cross-Dressing, bludgeoned by my heavy
speech, put the cups of his brassiere over his ears and shrank into a
corner, whimpering. Shifts of the boys in blue came to the cell to
be entertained and have a bit of a giggle at my expense.
Finally, myself and the cellmate were shackled together and transported
downtown for the arraignment. I was charged with attempted
murder, attempted kidnapping, burglary, malicious mischief, resisting
arrest, verbal abuse, breaking and entering, criminal trespass, and
disorderly conduct. The missus told the judge she was terrified of
me, and His Honor gave a long lecture on people who create disturbances
in Fifth Avenue apartments, and how they shouldn't be
allowed on the streets of civilized cities, but reduced the charges to
one of disorderly conduct, with bail set at $ 1,000.
I was tossed into the infamous Tombs of New York, and sent
word to Tom O'Malley to come bail me out. I lingered all day
Saturday and Saturday night, with a cellmate on his way to twentyfive
years at Sing Sing for murdering someone who informed on his
drug-dealer pal. He was quite proud of himself, and didn't seem too
perturbed about his looming quarter-of-a-century stay upstate. However,
when morning arrived, with slivers of sunshine descending on
us from high slits in the walls, he became a trifle irate at the inequity
of life. One of the guards brought in the Sunday papers, and the News and the Mirror had accounts of my doings. Here he had committed
a perfectly good murder in Prospect Park and got barely a
A MONK SWIMMING 179
mention in some Brooklyn throwaway paper, yet I, a drunk in for
a disorderly charge, was practically hogging the headlines. I think he
muttered something about writing to his congressman about unfair
press coverage.
The day brought bravado to my various incarcerated colleagues,
who shadow-boxed, deep-breathed, did push-ups, walked about
briskly, cursed, swore, and threatened each other. They were almost
all awaiting transportation to upstate penitentiaries for murder, robbery,
rape, and other such offenses, and when they asked what it
was that was holding me in the Tombs, I was quite diffident about
saying it was disorderly conduct, so I added that there was a chance
of having the "attempted murder" reduced.
Days in prison are lengthy, and toward evening I was informed
that bail-held prisoners were to be shipped to Rikers Island at dawn.
The heart plummeted into the footwear at this bit of news. Where
in the name of the Almighty God, his Son Jesus, and the Blessed
Mother, was the old chum, T. O'Malley? Here I'd spent an eternity
of penal servitude awaiting the springing, but no savior in sight! I
began the prayers for succor to St. Anthony, St. Jude, St. Blaze
(though he specialized in curing sore throats), St. Alphonsus Liguori,
St. Gerard Majella, St. Therese of Lisieux, and any other of the vast
multitudes of sainted and beatified bods that popped into the quivering
cranium.
O'Malley arrived with a bail bondsman at about sunset. He had
forgotten all about me, as he'd had a few drinks and was only
reminded of my status when he turned on the television and the
word "bail" was mentioned. He was more amused at his memory
lapse than I was, but I wasn't giving vent to any tirades against my
bailer, lest he find it ungrateful of me and bugger off,
Back to court the following month for the trial. Fierce testimony
from the spouse, the maid, the stepfather, a neighbor or two, the
doorman, and the arresting officer, all alleging some rather serious
criminal activity by me. I'd secured the services of a lawyer, who
180 MALACHY McCOURT
told me to plead guilty but say I was riddled with remorse at the
moment, which was true.
His (dubious) Honor also knew people who lived in that Fifth
Avenue building, and said it was unconscionable that a ruffian like
me would be allowed to run wild in respectable habitations in the
middle of the night, creating fear and havoc among the denizens of
this high-rent joint, so he was going to sentence me to six months.
"Six months!" gasped I, a man defeated, as I collapsed on my
barrister. I felt like Dreyfus upon being sent to Devil's Island. "Six
months," repeated the judge, and then he reopened the doors, with,
"Sentence suspended!"
The calcium returned to my bones, and I heaved myself off my
defender, vowing there and then to devote the rest of my life to
charity, chastity, good works, and abstention from strong drink.
The estranged spouse squeaked her objections, and the assistant
D.A. said something that sounded like a demand for the death penalty,
but I did not linger for a change of His Honor's mind. I fled
the court like a shot off a shovel, and in no time I was seated in a
warm hostelry, bending the elbow, regaling all who would listen with
fearsome tales of my brush with capital punishment.
Despite my vows to sacrifice the self in the cause of humanity,
'twas not long ere I was leaping in and out of the fleshpots again.
after THE BRUSH WITH THE law, it was into the flaming hell of
family court with me. My transgressions were laid out by the wife's
barrister, to much head shaking and tsk-tsking by the judge. I didn't
have a chance to respond before I was given about as lacerating a
tongue-lashing as one could get. Eloquent as she was in her description
of ruffianism, spouse-abusers and property-wreckers, she was
particularly vehement because, like every judge in America, she knew
someone who lived at the wife's Fifth Avenue address. I'd read about
rowdy lads in the poorer areas doing more damage than I, but the
A MONK SWIMMING 181
judges never seemed to comment on the inviolability of those premises.

She wound up her peroration by ordering me to undergo a psychiatric
evaluation. "In the meantime, you will not come within one
mile of complainant, her children, or her residence."
It took six months for the psychiatric evaluation to be arranged
and the results to be presented to the court, and I was in agony at
not being able to see Siobhan and Malachy. If I had so much as
picked up the phone to call them, I would have been arrested, so I
chose instead to spend my time immersed in the pain-dousing spirits,
the bed-hopping, and the fisticuffs.
When the results of the psychiatric exam were presented to the
judge, she wasn't a bit pleased. The doctor said I was a sane lad,
disappointed in love, missing his children, with a bit of a problem
with alcohol. So, thence forward, I was to be allowed to visit the
offspring for three hours every Sunday.
^
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My father came and went throughout my early years. I was ten or
eleven the last time I saw him in Limerick, and I wasn't to see him
again until I was a big man.
He had been gone and we had been evicted from our rotten old house
for nonpayment of rent. Afterward we had moved in with a drunken
sot, a cousin of my mother's, and wasn't long before she was sharing
his bed despite his cruelty to her and to us. Part of the deal, I suppose,
for giving us shelter.
One night the disappeared father arrived home, only to discover there
was no home anymore, I was at my retarded uncle's rundown abode, a little
place lit by a gas lamp, and my father happened to find me there.
The drunken sot of a cousin heard he was back, and came looking
for him. When he came in the cousin gave me a whack that sent me
flying, and then punched my father----who made no attempt to defend
himself or me--practically unconscious. After he was done with us, the
swine left, like the king lion having downed his adversary, stolen his
mate, and whacked his cub for good measure.
185
188 MALACHY McCOURT
He sputtered and fumed, but he couldn't alter the fact that my
dockets were not available to me or him. A mad dash to the ticket
counter secured the necessary, and after I was admonished about
drinking and carelessness, we separated and boarded, to journey to
the land of yodeling cuckoo clocks, secret bank accounts, and neutrality.

Having forsaken booze at that point for close to an hour, and
now that we were airborne and outside the three-mile morality limit, 'twas time for another drink. I ordered four of the wee airline bottles,
which I estimated to approximate a single real drink. At fifty cents
each, they were still a bit of a bargain.
A tendency prevailed among the Swiss plane staff to press food
on me, but I expostulated in strong terms that I never ate on an
empty stomach. After the dinner was served, the cabin lights were
doused, and the skimpy blankets and doll's pillows were distributed,
in observance of what seemed to be a general desire to sleep. This
would not do at all! I ordered another cluster of the wee bottles
and, now fully oiled up, I decided to become an impresario and get
an onboard concert going.
To start matters off, I roared out a couple of the more bawdy
songs I knew. It being .singer's choice, I tried to pick the next
entertainer. I studiously avoided the boss--who was studiously
avoiding me--but every single person onboard, man and woman,
declined to stand up and do their bit. This was long before hijackings
had terrified the traveling public, but these bods all had
that petrified look. To make matters worse, the stewardess now refused
to serve me any more clusters of bottles, and the captain
soon forsook control of the aircraft to come back to have a word
with me.
He might have been a good pilot, but as a conciliator he could
have brought the Swiss out of neutrality and to the brink of war. Threatening the man was! With talk of restraints and premature landings
to have me arrested! Here we were, high above the Atlantic,
A MONK SWIMMING 189
and all I could imagine was plopping down on the waves, and them
hailing a passing police boat to take me in.
"Will you stop talking shagging rubbish," sez I, "and get me the
gargle?"
"Nein," sez he.
"Fuck thee," sez I, and fled to the lavatory, from where I announced
I would thump the walls and sing all night if they didn't
serve me. The olive branch was stuck under the door, and an agreement
was reached that on condition I shut up and sit down, they
would let me have one cluster of bottles every hour. I asked for
them to be served sans charge, which they refused, but at fifty cents
each I wasn't going broke.
In Zurich, it was a drizzly morning as we got off the plane to
board a bus for the terminal. The other passengers avoided me, and
who would blame them, as I reeked of used whiskey and unchanged
socks. I retrieved the bit of baggage, went through customs, got into
the taxi, and off to the hotel.
The noggin was pounding a trifle as I tried to focus the peepers
on the passing scene. Everything was neat and symmetrical and
orderly, and not a thing in sight to disturb the color scheme.
Flowers, shrubs, and plants all clipped and leaning in unison to
the direction of the unseen hand. There were people washing
and hosing pavements, cleaning windows, polishing bells, painting
walls, and generally doing violence to the natural order of things.
A weed poking its cheery little head up through a crack in a footpath
would be cause for mobilization of the Swiss Army and their
knives.
After checking in at the hotel, I plonked myself down on the
bed, where I stayed until I was awakened by someone whacking
the door. It was the irate Paul Brown, lugging a largish case. He
plunked it on my bed and opened it up, to reveal layers of gleaming
gold bars, twenty of them, a kilogram each. They were all
stamped with the name of a bank, the weight, and some indication
190 MALACHY McCOURT
of the purity. Also in the case were a length of canvas, scissors,
thread, and what appeared to be sail needles. My goldman--Mr.
Brown had been transformed to Gold, and would henceforth be
known as the goldman--told me to get my shirt off, and when I
raised the querying eyebrow, he said he had to measure me for the
gold-carrying corset.
Not alone was the man a financial wizard, but an expert seamster
as well. He measured me and began cutting and sewing, nipping and
tucking, threading the needle, shaping shoulder straps, and attaching
hooks and eyes. Amazing what you can learn reading the Wall Street
Journal!
Then he had to make kilo-shaped pockets to nest the gold bars
in. He hummed and whistled whilst doing all this sartorial service,
and once in a while, dropped a pearl of wisdom about Indian people,
such as that they are very curious about your business. There were
four public phones in Bombay, he said, and two of them would be
out of order at any given time. Upon arrival, I was to find one that
worked, telephone the Laimeck Trading Company and announce I
was Haaji Khan, and they would tell me what to do.
"What if someone answers the phone and doesn't know Haaji
Khan?" sez I.
"Stop creating difficulty where there is none. Small company
owners in India do not allow the menials to answer the phone," he
huffed. He then pulled out two little ball-peen hammers and a newspaper,
which he spread on the floor, and the two of us squatted
there, flattening all identification on the bars.
My financier seamster slipped the bars into the pockets, and
hoisted the whole load onto my bod, over a T-shirt. I donned another
T-shirt, then a dress shirt, jacket, and tie, and being a hefty
class of lad anyway, it didn't seem to make a whit of difference in
my girth. But Jesus, it made a difference in my gait! Tentatively, I strolled about the room, a newly enfeebled person.
I bid an unfond farewell to my goldman. hopped onto the handy
A MONK SWIMMING 191
bus to the airport, and off with me to the stopover in Rome. There
I checked into the little pensions, blithely slipped the gold under the
mattress, and got on the blower to Sandy Lieberson, an old chum
who was agenting in the Eternal City. He introduced me to various
fleshpots and traveling actors, like Gordon MacRae, and we generally
did the old doice vita bit.
I also ran into Russ Rooks, an old Clavin's denizen, who wanted
to know what I was up to. I responded that I was in the exportimport business, a catch-all phrase that I didn't understand but that
seemed to cover my situation. "Ah," sez Russ. "You're into that
gold-smuggling scam." Speechless, he left me.
A couple of days cavorting in the Pope's town, where I went to
confession in St. Peter's Basilica, to a non-English-speaking priest. I
thumped the sternum and proclaimed a vigorous mea culpa, mea culpa,
men maxima culpal Like my father before me, I was observing the
outward form of the religion and having a bit of fun jabbering all
kinds of sins to a bewildered Portuguese priest. I think my penance
was one Hail Mary, which I duly said:
Hail Mary, full of grace, The Lord is with Thee. Blessed art thou
amongst women—or, as I misheard it as a child, and still say to
this day on occasion, Blessed art thou, a monk swimming—Holy
Mary, Mother of Cod, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our
death. Amen.
Of course, it was slightly sacrilegious, if not blasphemous, to be
participating in a sacrament for the fun of it.
Rome was such a cheerful city, where Catholicism, Communism,
and Hedonism were an accommodating trinity for the most morally
frail; unlike Limerick, where the rains and the sermons brought
gloom and despair to the quivering victims ofjansenist tyranny. That
took all the fun out of sin!
The current prisoner of the Vatican then was Angelo Giuseppe
Roncali, a.k.a John XXIII, as decent a man as ever wore a satin
slipper, who was promulgating the novel theory that you could have
192 MALACHY McCOURT
a reasonable relationship with your God. You could even be joyful
in the knowledge that your Higher Power loved you, without lacerating
your spine bones with a steel-tipped cat-o'-nine-tails to prove
that you loved him. Angelo's dance card was a bit full whilst I was
sojourning in Rome, so he never did get to meet me.
A good amount of the vino was taken aboard the day of my
leaving for Bombay. The plane was due out at 7 p.m., and I arrived
at the airport to find the bloody flight had left without me. I was
quite indignant, as I was only forty-five minutes late! I had assumed
that Italians had the same philosophy about time as the Irish: When
God made time, he made plenty of it, so wherein is the hurry?
So, back to the fleshpots of Rome again, until Wednesday. I was
relieved that I missed that plane, as it crashed in the Bay of Bombay
with the loss of all on board. That was Monday; Wednesday saw
me head out again for the airport for the seven o'clock flight. Fortunately,
this one left at eight o'clock, which was more in keeping
with my ideas of life and time.
Now encumbered with the gold bars, I had a vague notion of
how a pregnant woman feels awaiting delivery. I groaned at the
prospect of being trapped on a droning craft for an eternity of hours,
weighed down with the stuff that supposedly drives people mad. It
indeed does, if you don't own it and you have to carry the fucking
stuff all over the world.
Sitting down was a problem, and getting up was a problem, as
you can't remove the stuff. I had a vision of the plane crashing, and
my skeleton found years later still wearing the canvas vest with the
gold intact, making me one of the richest corpses in the world.
I was saved from going completely bonkers by a stop in Beirut,
where I discovered, to my delight, a copy ofJ.P. Donleavy's The Ginger
Man, a book as dear to my beating heart as anything by P.G. Wodehouse.
To make it better, it was being sold as pornography in a plain
brown wrapper, from under the counter. At an airport shop, mind you.
I had decided, in the interests of clarity and safe smuggling, 'twere
better I remain sober and, back in the air again, I was thrilled to be
going to this exotic country about which I'd read so much. Without
the drink to divert its wanderings, the mind would travel back to
New York City, and the broken marriage, and the children, and the
blasted tears would start again. Then, back to the present and the
fear of being caught, and the anticipation of the great adventure.
It was a smoothish landing on Indian ground, but the ticker was
doing a fandango as I approached the immigration booth. My goldman
had instructed me to be precise and specific in my answers, as
doing so reassures the authorities and produces less paperwork,
though Indians love rubber stamps, so you could never tell. The
country resounds with the sounds of things being stamped. I
shouldn't be surprised if they didn't stamp their wives' bottoms to
show the time of the last entry.
"Purpose of your visit to India?" The singsong cadence of the
Maharashtra native velveted my. ears.
"I am a tourist and I want to sea the Elephant Caves in Bombay
and the Taj Mahal in Agra," sez I, confidently, having prepared.
"How long will you stay?"
"Ten days,"
"Where will you be staying?"
"At the Taj Mahal Hotel."
"Thank you."
"Indeed. Thank you."
Done with immigration, retrieve the battered portmanteau, face
the last obstacle to my freedom: Customs. Now the heart begins a
sprint, toward what, I don't know, but sure as shite, I thought I
radiated guilt in every direction, which in my case causes an eruption
of hubristic horseshite. Quelling my tendency toward the furor loquindi, I just answered the questions simply.
"Do you have enyding to declare?"
To my astonishment, I didn't parrot Oscar Wilde, and the olde
"Nothing but my genius" response. I simply said "No."
194	MALACHY McCOURT
"Do you have foreign currency?"
tt-}r '*
Yes.
"How much?"
"Three hundred dollars."
"Please open your bag."
A perfunctory shuffle though the bag, and a "thank you," and I
was safely done. But as I attempted to close the bag, a shoe fell out
onto the floor. I wasn't sure if I could bend down and retrieve it
without toppling over from the cargo I was carrying, so I ignored
the shoe and pretended to smooth out items of clothing, hoping
that some polite person would chance by, pick up the shoe and hand
it to me, which is precisely what happened. A bearded man in the
raiment of the Mohammedan did just that, saving me the possible
embarrassment of landing on my nose, not to mention any subsequent
quizzical looks, impromptu investigations, and subsequent arrests.
I thanked him profusely for his kind act. I made a mental note
to begin an intensive study of the teachings of Mohammed and seek
a discreet bookshop where the Koran could be purchased for my
perusal and possible conversion.
Of course, I had to reconsider that course of action, as it would
mean a lot of ablutions during Ramadan, plus the fasting and the
task of remembering where the East lies for the morning and evening
prayers, and at the time my sense of direction was on a par with
my moral compass.
Then there would be the sad farewell to the sausage and the
rasher, and also the prospect of never raising the high-proofed beverage
to the puckered lips again, and the nipping over to Mecca
every hour on the hour, and once there explaining how a Mick
became a Mohammedan, lest I get the infidel treatment, i.e.. Scimitar
+ Infidel = No Head.
Gratitude does lead one to thoughts of great intention, but action
is another matter, so I never did become a follower of Allah, and,
being no muladi, I remained an atheist. Thank God!
A MONK SWIMMING 195
I closed up the old bag, and with a charming smile to the assembled
Hindu custom lads, strolled in the general direction of public
transportation. In short order, the bag was taken from me, and a
horde of smallish people began pushing me toward a specific taxi,
rather like a fleet of tugs pushing an aircraft carrier into safe harbor.
I began swatting at these midges wildly, as it belatedly occurred to
me that their little paws were coming in contact with the bars of
precious metal festooning my person. Little did they know the craft
they were propelling carried such a cargo.'
The things you have to think about when you are a low-level
gold smuggler! You can't patronize water fountains in public, where
they are generally situated. The options for picking up the shoe have
already been related. You can't allow diminutive strangers to place
their paws on your person. Sitting down is a matter of struggling
against gravity, and standing up is a foretaste of the infirmities of
advanced years. Assuredly, spontaneous sex is almost always out of
the question, unless with a golden calf, or yourself, or ye old India
aurea, if that's your predilection.
The fury of my counterattack chased off my little helpers, and I
managed to get in the taxi and sink back and relax. I issued the
instructions to the driver, and off we chugged toward Bombay. But
not so fast! A bit down the road, one of those red and white barricade
bars dropped across our path, and from a little hut there
emerged three khaki-clad lads. One looked at me through the left
window, and the other peeked in the right, and number three stood
in front, to make sure of no movement.
"This is it," sez I to myself. "I'm rucked. The little fuckers back
at the terminal copped to my cargo and reported it. Jesus Christ
Almighty! You can't be up to them Indians! They lull you into the
arms of false security, playing with you, and letting you through,
while meanwhile outside they have hordes of ill-clad midget detectives,
frisking you and patting you down for contraband under the
guise of getting the taxi!
196 MALACHY McCOURT
I made a mental note to bung off a letter to the Times of India
on the unsporting nature of their law enforcement procedures. India
being a cricket-playing nation, you would expect more than lip service
paid to sportsmanship. But what can you expect from a nation
that learned everything from the Brits?
Anyway, one of the about-to-be-captors made the circular motion
for me to crank my window down.
"Would you kindly step outside, Sir," sez he.
"Right," sez I.
The taximan opened the trunk and my khaki-clad lad sez, "Do
you have any alcohol, gin, viskey, wodka, or vine?"
"Whaa?" sez I? He repeated the question.
"No." I almost turned that word into a Te Deum, a paean of
praise to the Almighty. "No," I sang again, and launched into an
attack on drink, drinking, and drunkenness, and how it had ruined
so many lives and countries and cultures. I had never touched it,
and never would, let alone bring such poison into the pristine purity
of a sober India.
The khaki-clad one put up a hand to try and stem the flow of
verbiage, and wearily told me I could proceed. I shook hands with
all of them; in my exuberance, I shook hands with my taxi driver as
well. I felt so relieved, I forgot the gold, and sat down too quickly
and heavily into my seat--fortunately not observed by the law
lads--and off we trundled.
B
OMBAY, THAT ANCIENT CITY-STATE, IS SPECTACULAR,
teeming with life and squalor and thoroughly polluted by industry,
The American Civil War helped bring it to the fore, when
it became the main supplier of cotton for the world; before that,
Bombay was H.Q. for the British East India Company, a mob of
Brit thugs, who polluted and perverted India with drugs and terrorism,
with the blessings of the reigning monarch and House of Lords.
To this day, many Indians are afflicted with Anglophilia, thinking
they are worthless because of a dark skin, eternally damned to be
W.O.G., and wishing to emulate that squealing, betraying scum,
Gunga Din.
My driver, a loquacious man, still bemused by my hearty handshake,
dropped me at the Taj Mahal Hotel. He tried to charge me
triple the fare on the meter, but I was having none of that rip-offthe-sahib
stuff, so I robbed myself and gave him a mere double the
fare.
197
198 MALACHY McCOURT
The hotel, a pile of architecture built a hundred or so years ago,
was designed so that the front part would face the Gateway to India,
a huge archway, and the Bay of Bombay itself. The architect, 'tis
said, was very happy with his design, and betook himself back to
Europe ere construction began. The contractor, 'tis said, turned the
blueprints upside down, and proceeded from there, with the result
that the magnificent frontage faced the slums of Bombay, and the
servants' quarters and kitchens all had the magnificent view that was
to be the reward of the rich who stayed there. At the grand opening,
the architect returned and, aghast at the incredible blueprint blunder,
he checked into his suite and caused a housekeeping crisis by blowing
his brains out with a revolver. Or so I am told.
Inside the place was a cool marble marvel with huge fans doing
the air-wafting duty, and a most-anxious-to-please staff in uniforms
and turbans of the Raj period. The daily rate was fifty rupees, which
came to ten dollars at the exchange rate of that period, and that
included three full meals. The place was not awash in Michelm haute
cuisine plaques, but the fodder was sufficient unto the needs of an
adventurous eater like myself, who wasn't used to much anyway. I
had been warned to avoid the water, but having grown up in the
lanes of Limerick, Ireland, was I not immune to all the tropical
diseases known to medicine? Besides, when you ordered any bottled
drink, the brilliant servers used ice of local vintage, thinking, no
doubt, that ice killeth all bacteria, germs, and viruses.
However, that was not the immediate problem confronting me.
I had perforce to get on the blower and call the contact firm to let
them know that Haaji Khan was in town with the metal. Keeping
said metal on the body, I ventured out to the railway station to use
one of the four known public phones in Bombay. There must have
been more, but that was the dish on it for the nonce.
My progress was impeded by a festive group, marching in some
kind of parade, complete with drums, cymbals, and anything else
that could be whacked noisily, with lots of leaping and burbling and
A MONK SWIMMING 199
singing, and all the participants dressed in the most astonishingly
beautiful garb: a joyous occasion indeed for 11 A.M. of a Bombay
mom. I got to the phone, followed by a vast array of brown Lilliputians,
displaying an extraordinary wealth of disabilities: armless,
legless, lacking in the standard quota of orbs.
Burdened as I was with that fucking gold, I was still adept at the
two-step of avoiding entanglements with the suffering underclasses,
God help them. Dropping a few nai paesa coins into the ancient coin
box of the telephone booth, I dialed the number, and to my satisfaction,
it did ring, and it did ring, and ring, and ring.
Soon, the scene was this: a large, red-headed, fully-bearded hulk
of a man, a perturbed, not to mention pissed-off look on his Irish
visage, standing up in a glass booth, a strange-looking black yoke
stuck to his ear, the booth surrounded by brown faces, pleading eyes,
and upturned light-colored palms for as far as the eye could see.
There was no answer at the Laimeck Trading Company, so I
hung up and retrieved my nai paesa, which I flung in the direction I
was not going, and took off at a briskish pace for the safety of the
hotel. There, a survey of the huge bathroom showed the tub was
encased in marblelike paneling, and with the screwdriver on my
trusty Swiss Army knife, I got a panel unscrewed and the gold safely
deposited in a trifle longer than a jiffy.
I never did get gold fever in the usual way; instead, I became sick
of it, weary of it, and tired of it, and if it had been human, I would
have strangled it. Of course the thought had come to me to decamp
with the stuff, but the process of disposing of it and facing my
goldman in Zurich seemed more wearying than delivering it to good
Abdulla Laimeck and his company.
When it came time to call again, I was tempted to use the hotel
phone, but the goldman's huffed warning came back to me: "Don't
use the hotel phones. Indians are very curious, and they eavesdrop
all the time." So I hied myself off to the railway station, followed
by my now-familiar retinue of God's blasted children, hobbling,
200 MALACHY McCOURT
scrambling, limping blindly, groping, crawling, hopping, fingertips (if
they had any) fluttering like hummingbirds, on and off the lips,
whimpering for baksheesh! baksheesh!
'Twas the same old routine at the phone booth: nai paesa in old
coin box, dial, hear ringing, survey the brown sea of visages, some
sloe-eyed, some no-eyed. The inexorable, nonanswered ringing, and
the nonbusinesslike inattention to the job almost provoked me to a
phone-booth-destroying act, which would have drawn unwelcome
interest from the khaki-clad lads with the badge of office.
Again, hung up, withdrew coins, flung them in the direction I
was not proceeding, and hoofed it off toward the hotel. But not so
fast! The more hobbled of my retinue, being incapable of the mad
dash for the pence, surrounded me beseechingly. This was the legless,
totally crippled-below-the-waist brigade, and they grasped everything
that could be grasped of me: shoelaces, socks, trouser legs, and the
occasional wandering paw exploring the possibility of a grip on the
three-piece set dangling 'twixt the thighs, a move I firmly discouraged
at all times.
Stuck I was, unable to take a step, disabled by the disabled. The
usual defense I employ against immense and emotional compassion
is to get ferociously angry and to berate the victims for coming to
me with their troubles: "I didn't have anything to do with your
mothers, so I'm not responsible for your plight. Find your fucking
fathers and make them pay up and look after you."
The nai paesa chasers had now returned, so the ranks around my
Gulliverian frame were legion once more. As I realized I had a bit
of time to spare—indeed, going by my absent partners in the goldsmuggling
biz, Indians seem to have the same attitude toward time
as the Irish—I decided to make the most of this chance situation.
One bright-looking, one-legged lad of indeterminate age seemed to
have the English language in hand, so I asked him if he or any of
the gang knew any songs. He did, they all did, and that started our
mini-concert in the railway station in Bombay.
A MONK SWIMMING 201
' I sat on a bench, and my gang of beauties sang for me. What
they were singing, I don't know, and maybe they didn't know either,
but, Jesus, it was lively. I gave each of them a rupee, a lot at that
time (the head barman at the hotel got sixty rupees, about five dollars
a month, and considered himself fairly well compensated), and we
were quite pleased all around.
One of the khaki-clad lads with badge had strolled over at one
point to disperse the chanteurs, but a few rupees suddenly endowed
him with a profound appreciation for the street songs of Bombay.
I was still in a dilemma re the fucking gold and disposal of same
and what to do next. Once back at the hotel, lying on my half acre
of bed and staring at the ceiling, doing a splendid job of waiting, I
hit on the solution. I had solemnly vowed to my goldman in Zurich
I would not do any quaffing of spirituous liquors until the job was
done. But, reasoned I, by now the job is done in theory, 'cos it's
not my fault those fuckers at Laimeck Trading Company weren't
answering the phone, so now I can have one or two drinks. I consulted
myself in the mirror, and got an affirmative nod: "Go to it,
lad! You deserve it!"
Donning the appropriate apparel was a small and joyful task, and
off I went, down the huge staircase at the Taj Hotel, doing an inept
imitation of James Cagney tap-dancing down the stairs of the White
House in Yankee Doodle Dandy, the movie about that chauvinistic,
union-busting old Fascist, George M. Cohan.
I repaired to Brown's Hotel next door, one of those more sedate
old Brit places, reeking of colonialism, with the heads of butchered
wildlife stuck on walls--tigers, and elephant tusks, and wild boars,
with tame bores harrumphing in their leather chairs. They never
leave, these old colonials; they form clubs, drink pink gins, and die
of liver disease and attacks of painful gout,
I asked a turbaned nabob, who turned out to be a waiter, how
to get a drink. He directed me to the bar, which was crowded with
well-to-do tourist types as well as a large number of obviously
202 MALACHY McCOURT
wealthy but ailing-looking Indians and resident businessmen. This
was explained by the fact that all of India was under some form of
Prohibition, and in Maharashtra province, wherein lies Bombay, in
order to drink one had to possess either a tourist permit; a resident
permit, for Europeans and other permanent outsiders; or, for Indians,
a medical permit from a physician, attesting to the fact there would
be dire results if these well-to-do Hindus were suddenly deprived of
the squeezings of Bacchus.
Seated behind a desk at the end of the elaborately carved fiftyfoot-long
bar was one of the khaki-clad lads of the Customs branch
of government. The three legacies the Brits leave to any colony are
Bloodshed, Snobocracy, and Bureaucracy. They pretend they are pulling
out, as if it is a Colonial Coitus Interruptus, but the reality is
that they are giving every country a royal fucking, leaving behind
the seeds of their particular perversions. Here was a customs man
in a saloon, for God's sake!
And what was he doing, sitting on duty with rubber stamps by
the dozen lined up neatly in front of him? He was there to ensure
that the procedures for buying a drink were properly observed, and
all the necessary papers were stamped and verified.
PROCEDURES:
1. Go to bar; order drink (Vodka gimlet, this time)
2. Barman requests passport and tourist card
3. Barman proceeds to customs man and ceremoniously
hands over documents
4. Customs man peruses passport and whacks the tourist
card a few resounding thumps with one of his rubber
stamps
5. He hands passport, tourist card, and a long form he
produces from the desk to the barman
6. Barman sails in my direction, tacking in the wind of
others' alcoholic pleas for more drink, and hands me
documents
A MONK SWIMMING 203
7. He instructs me to sign the long form, which sez I'm
entitled to 27/27ths of spirits, or nine quarts of Indian
beer, per week. I'm allowed to order one drink at a
time, which equals 3/27ths. I sign, and off he is, gone
again
8. More frantic stamp thumping, and the barman sails
back to me again and hands me the thumped form
9. He proceeds to mix the vodka gimlet (a handy drink if
one is in imminent danger of coming down with scurvy)
I resisted the urge to down it at one gulp. I just sipped and told
my friend, "I'm ordering the next drink now, so please begin the
procedures." To ensure good service, I slipped him the equivalent
of one week's wages, and off he went to get me the next 3/27ths,
and indeed, much more.
As the evening progressed, I did my sociable bit with some of
the denizens, who, in turn, wanted to invite me to various homes,
but I said pressure of business kept me from making any future
engagements.
At last, fatigue and jet lag and I5/27ths of a vodka bottle caused
the lowering of the lids, the closing of the ears, and the spaghettiizing
of the limbs, so that I had to be assisted to my suite next
door. So ended my first day in Bombay.
N
EXT MORNING, I WAS AWAKENED BY THE TAPPING ON
the door. A "Come in" brought a turbaned laddie with the
brass buttons and the white tunic and the golden sash, bearing a
tray with toast, butter, marmalade, and tea. Great stuff, as I realized
I had not allowed any solids past the teeth the previous day. But,
wouldn't you know, in deference to another dopey Brit tradition,
hadn't they denuded the bread of its crust, the best part of the bread.
Brits were fifteen years out of India, and they were still decrusting
the bread, a practice almost as heinous as peeling a potato.
A stern lecture to the turban, tempered by a generous tip, and I
was assured that never again would I be served uncrusted bread.
One problem I had with alcohol was the fact that, beyond a mild
feeling of debilitation, 'twas a rare time I'd experience "hangovers,"
as they are called. If you are going to ingest the toxin, then 'tis well
after having extracted the benefits of inebriation to dispose of that
lethal leftover waste. So, before retiring, I would find a convenient
205
206 MALACHY McCOURT
porcelain altar, bend the knees to the floor, and do the reverse of
Communion, in that it is better to regurgitate than to receive.
Having cleared the bod of toxicity, 'twas nothing at all to resume
the imbibing the next day, and again after that and so on. There
wasn't much of a problem eating food in the a.m., either, so all in
all, I was on pretty good terms with myself in the mom and, by the
eve, under or over the influence.
So after ingesting the proffered comestibles, it was up and out
with me again, to my favorite telephone: same crowd, same routine,
same singing, and still no answer.
I casually mentioned to the khaki-clad lad with badge that I had
difficulty in contacting a businessman whose name had been given
me. The cop smiled benignly and said it would be impossible to
contact anyone, as most businesses were closed to celebrate Krishna's
birthday: a popular lad, Krishna, raised by cowherds as opposed to
cowboys, particularly kind to gopis (milkmaids), having, 'tis said,
slipped the divine flute into several hundred of them, simultaneously
causing hundreds of orgasms and a tumult of shrieking on the subject
of spilt milk.
'Twas no wonder he had a great reputation as a deity, adept at
the use of the flute in all its aspects. Whatever Krishna, avatar and
eighth incarnation of Vishnu, did with his flute and the gopis and
the cowherds, he wasn't doing me much good in my business. There
was one more day to go of the Krishna hooley, and myself filled
with anxiety about the golden burden hidden beneath the bathtub.
Some wandering about Bombay, a bit of desultory sightseeing,
interspersed with swift and frequent returns to the hotel to check
on the booty, did not make for the serene and carefree tourist.
The ferocious heat was getting to me, so I couldn't stay on the
streets, and I was making an attempt to stay reasonably sober, so
that I'd have my wits about me and not be depleting my weekly
27/27ths too abruptly. So, no drinking 'til after dinner.
Back at the bar, the usual mob had assembled: head barman @
A MONK SWIMMING 207
sixty rupees a month; customs khaki-clad lad with badge; pinkginned
Brits; some too-loud Yanks; a goodly number of very ill
Indians with prescriptions; and assembled Arabs and others. A swift
exchange of documents, the thunk of the customs man's stamp, the
proffering of the five rupees per drink, and, lo, I had my vodka
gimlet in front of me in five minutes this time instead of ten.
As the stuff trickled into the parched crevasses of my soul, the
peace that passeth all customs barriers took over, so 'twas time to
order another. I got to chatting with some business types--a
German, a couple of Walloons, and two very sick, sari-clad Indian
ladies, with prescriptions and the red dots over the hidden oculi.
Charming they were, and very amused when I offered to buy them
a drink. It could not be done, according to the law. One of the
Walloons absented himself with one of the sari-clads, and I suggested
to the remaining one that she accompany me to the adjacent
cabaret-type room, whence the tapping sound of the tabia and the
enhanced sitar sound crept around corners, demanding attention.
Pots of tea were ordered, as we listened and watched the crosslegged
musicians bend and sway and nod and smile. Very delicate
stuff, this Indian music, structured, but highly improvisational, using
bansuns (the ancient bamboo flutes), kantals, cymbals, and the
stringed sarangis and tambouras, all of which was explained to me
by my new companion, whose name was Yoni.
She told me these music sessions sometimes go on for up to ten
hours, and, indeed, the music-hungry populace will rise up in wrath
if the performers get weary too soon. I suspect the public admiration
for these minstrels was as much for their ability to sit cross-legged tor hours, without getting a cramp, as it was for their musicianship.
After a lulling few hours of music, I hinted to Yoni that a trip
to my quarters should be undertaken. "Oh no, no," she said. There
would be terrible things said about her if she were seen accompanying
a man to his room. "I will give you my key," sez I, "and you
can let yourself in, then I will follow, and you can let me in."
208 MALACHY McCOURT
She approved of the plan and off she went.
After a suitable and proper period, I signed for the tea, tipped
the tabia three, and forced myself not to leap up the staircase. I
tapped on my door, which was opened by Yoni, who was now clad
only in what Vishnu and the other gods had given her, a lovely
brown skin. No false modesty here, no downcast eyes, just a gentle,
lovely girl, who proceeded to undress me and get me into the huge
bathtub, where she washed every part of my epidermis, with special
attention being paid to the upstanding part.
Just an inch of porcelain separated us from the Mammon beneath,
and I almost blurted out that little fact, but through the vodka
mists arising from the marshes of my brain, came the warning voice
of my goldman in Zurich: The Indians are a very inquisitive people,
and many of them are paid for information. Do not trust anyone.
So I stifled that idiotic impluse.
We dried each other with huge, soft, white towels, and ambled
our way toward the half-acre bed, and clambered aboard, where
Irish--Indian relations were cemented forever.
A deep sleep was enjoyed, and when I was awakened by the
turbaned tea bearer tapping at the portals in the a.m., there was no
sign of the saried one. I never knew what she did, who she was, and
why a seeming Brahmin would share the bed with a wandering,
pixilated Mick.
Anyway, she was gone forever, leaving me facing another day of
Krishna lepping, dancing, and fluting, and my 27/27ths were nearly
exhausted. So, I stayed in bed, and when the eyes opened again, it
was tiffin' time. The poor Indian upper crust liked lunching at the
Taj, even though the food was the height of Brit cuisine, i.e., vegetables
burnt to the cinder, chops rancid, and beef boiled to anonymity,
accompanied by oil-soaked chips. On the other hand, there were
the meals of India: the curries, the chutneys, the dahls, the breads,
and the yogurts, but diffidently offered to the Caucasian.
Another stroll around Bombay in the heat of the day, walking
N^mi^jlll^^^^WW
I
A MONK SWIMMING 209
off the effects of tiffin', followed by my legion of the legless, who
had now taken to singing loudly and heartily whenever they saw me
approach- Back at the hotel, one of the turbaned staff, upon my request,
took out my "soiled linen," as the Brits would say, to be laundered.
That laundering took place across the way, where the washerwomen
dipped dirty shirts into the dirtier water of the bay, and then would
go on a shirtocidal rampage, whacking the inoffensive clothing into
insensibility with rocks; not an inch was spared. It only cost a couple
of rupee? to have my shirts ruined by professionals. Fortunately, I'm
not the fastidious lad in the french-cuff department.
The Next a.m., fortified by the morning oolong and toast with
crust and marmalade, I bounded out of the bed and into the shower,
agog with the prospect of getting the gold to its destination.
What could the goldman have done if I absconded with the stuff?
Nothing really, as he didn't seem to have access to thugs and kneecappers,
so again I cogitated on the possibility of stealing the booty
and sayilig I had to bribe the entire government of India just to be
allowed ;o take off in peace.
The inner voice said, "Don't be a fucking eejit and thief. The
man trusted you, so do your rucking job and be straight about it."
"All fight.' All right.' I'll do it--just shut up," sez I to the clamoring
voices in the head.
I dor-ned the lightweight haberdashery and, with all the insouciance
of the man about to be relieved of a burden, I stepped out
in the direction of the phone booth in the railway station--a wee
spot nov' familiar to me as the bed. Dropped coins in box, dialed
number, and. Glory Be to Jesus, Vishnu, Buddha, Allah, and Mary Magdalene, the phone was answered and a voice, a soothing, friendly
Indian vpice, said. "Good morning. Laimeck Trading Company. Can I assist you?"
'Beja'us, you can, dear man, for this is Haaji Khan." I, "Yes, sir. How may I help you?"
208 MALACHY McCOURT
She approved of the plan and off she went.
After a suitable and proper period, I signed for the tea, tipped
the tabia three, and forced myself not to leap up the staircase. I
tapped on my door, which was opened by Yoni, who was now clad
only in what Vishnu and the other gods had given her, a lovely
brown skin. No false modesty here, no downcast eyes, just a gentle,
lovely girl, who proceeded to undress me and get me into the huge
bathtub, where she washed every part of my epidermis, with special
attention being paid to the upstanding part.
Just an inch of porcelain separated us from the Mammon beneath,
and I almost blurted out that little fact, but through the vodka
mists arising from the marshes of my brain, came the warning voice
of my goldman in Zurich: The Indians are a very inquisitive people,
and many of them are paid for information. Do not trust anyone.
So I stifled that idiotic impluse.
We dried each other with huge, soft, white towels, and ambled
our way toward the half-acre bed, and clambered aboard, where
Irish--Indian relations were cemented forever.
A deep sleep was enjoyed, and when I was awakened by the
turbaned tea bearer tapping at the portals in the a.m., there was no
sign of the saried one. I never knew what she did, who she was, and
why a seeming Brahmin would share the bed with a wandering,
pixilated Mick.
Anyway, she was gone forever, leaving me facing another day of
Krishna lepping, dancing, and fluting, and my 27/27ths were nearly
exhausted. So, I stayed in bed, and when the eyes opened again, it
was tiffin' time. The poor Indian upper crust liked lunching at the
Taj, even though the food was the height of Brit cuisine, i.e., vegetables
burnt to the cinder, chops rancid, and beef boiled to anonymity,
accompanied by oil-soaked chips. On the other hand, there were
the meals of India: the curries, the chutneys, the dahls, the breads,
and the yogurts, but diffidently offered to the Caucasian.
Another stroll around Bombay in the heat of the day, walking
A MONK SWIMMING 209
off the effects of tiffin', followed by my legion of the legless, who
had now taken to singing loudly and heartily whenever they saw me
approach.
Back at the hotel, one of the turbaned staff, upon my request,
took out my "soiled linen," as the Brits would say, to be laundered.
That laundering took place across the way, where the washerwomen
dipped dirty shirts into the dirtier water of the bay, and then would
go on a shirtocidal rampage, whacking the inoffensive clothing into
insensibility with rocks; not an inch was spared. It only cost a couple
of rupees to have my shirts ruined by professionals. Fortunately, I'm
not the fastidious lad in the french-cuff department.
The next a.m., fortified by the morning oolong and toast with
crust and marmalade, I bounded out of the bed and into the shower,
agog with the prospect of getting the gold to its destination.
What could the goldman have done if I absconded with the stuff?
Nothing, really, as he didn't seem to have access to thugs and kneecappers,
so again I cogitated on the possibility of stealing the booty
and saying I had to bribe the entire government of India just to be
allowed to take off in peace.
The inner voice said, "Don't be a fucking eejit and thief. The
man trusted you, so do your tucking job and be straight about it."
"All right! All right! I'll do it--just shut up," sez I to the clamoring
voices in the head.
I donned the lightweight haberdashery and, with all the insouciance
of the man about to be relieved of a burden, I stepped out
in the direction of the phone booth in the railway station--a wee
spot now familiar to me as the bed. Dropped coins in box, dialed
number, and, Glory Be to Jesus, Vishnu, Buddha, Allah, and Mary
Magdalene, the phone was answered and a voice, a soothing, friendly
Indian voice, said. "Good morning. Laimeck Trading Company. Can
I assist you?"
"Bejasus, you can, dear man, for this is Haaji Khan."
'Yes, sir. How may I help you?"
210 MALACHY McCOURT
"My name is Haaji Khan."
"I heard you sir, and now would you state the nature of your
business so that I may assist you?"
Desperation seized me and--along with being confined to an
airless booth in stifling heat--caused me to spurt rivulets of sweat
in every direction, making the hands so slippery I could hardly hold
the telephone.
"Let us begin again," I said, holding down the savage urge to
scream and rant at this brainless fool, who should be on the streets
seeking baksheesh instead of rucking up the lives of honest, diligent
gold smugglers.
"I was told simply to ring you up and tell you my name and you
would give me further instructions as to my next step. Do you
understand?"
"No, I do not, sir, but if you would be so kind as to tell me
your name and business, perhaps I could assist you."
I inhaled as much of the fetid air as I could and, suddenly inspired,
I imitated the Goldman of Zurich's speech pattern. Speaking
in his tortured inflections, I snuffed:
"Dis is Hawji Cong."
A delighted voice rose into the treble range at the other end.
"Why did you not say so, Mr. Khan? Here's what you must do this
evening. A man will meet you at the Gateway to India at nine
o'clock, and he will tell you what to do."
"How will he know me?"
"You have been observed going from the Taj Hotel and endeavoring
to contact us on the telephone, so we know your appearance."
"Why in Christ's name did you allow me to wander around for
three days like a lost sheep?" I sputtered.
"Dat is a good one," said the voice. "A lost sheep in Bombay.
Very amusing. I hope I may use it. But, you see, we do not transact
business during the celebrations, as we are not Hindu and it would
draw unnecessary attention to us. You will be met tonight. Good
day, Mr. Lost Sheep. Ha ha ha," and he was gone.
A MONK SWIMMING 211
A few minuces prior to the appointed hour, I unscrewed the panel
on the side of the bathtub and took up my golden burden once
more. I'd forgotten how weighty it was! Donned same, slipped on
the shirt and jacket, looked in the mirror, a pat here, a pat there,
and Bob's your uncle.
The Gateway to India is a huge Arc de Triomphe, erected to their
majesties by grateful, slavering slaves, to thank them for the privilege
of being robbed by the Empire. An eerie stillness falls over certain
parts of Bombay at night, where people just lie and sleep on mats,
wherever they'll not be stepped on. In the dark, you hear quiet
talking, and ghostly figures clad in white float past, making no sound,
except sometimes the whispered word, "Baksheesh," but never as
insistent as during the sunlit hours.
I was wondering how my man was going to find me in this
Stygian darkness, when a young fellow accosted me. He was leading
an older man, whose hand was on his shoulder. He shone a torch
on the face of the older man, who promptly pulled down his lower
eyelids to show me he was bereft of eyeballs, retinas, pupils, and all
the other stuff that goes with them. "My father," sez the younger
fellow. "He cannot see, he cannot see."
I assayed the opinion that he could hardly see without eyes and
laughed at my own tasteless jape, as did the two baksheeshers. I
immediately felt bad about laughing at the eyeless one, and overcompensated
with the baksheesh, handing over ten rupees. Instantly, I
was almost buried under a torrential wave of beseechers. I was saved
by a voice, an insistent voice, saying "Haaji Khan? Haaji Khan?"
"Oh, Jasus, yes! I'm yer man! Get me out of here before they
find out I'm made of gold!"
Whatever he said to the Baksheesh Brigade, they melted into the
darkness. "Follow me," I was told, and into the dark I followed him,
and where I was that night is still a mystery to this day.
"Wait here," and he was gone. I couple of swift whiskeys would
have stilled the leaping nerves, as I stood there with strange rustlings snd movements about me. Then a strange monster loomed over me,
212 MALACHY McCOURT
nearly stopping the heart. Thinking I was about to be attacked, I
cowered against the wall, covering up the visage as boxers do. The
beast lumbered by and, to my utter relief, 'twas only a sacred cow.
My guide reappeared and walked me into a building and up a
flight of stairs. A little white-haired Caucasian woman, clad in the
basic black dress, with a white lace collar, a cameo brooch and pince
nez, stepped into the room and shook hands with me.
"Do come in," sez she, "and make your choice." She had the
perfect Brit accent. I was a bit bemused by this until it dawned on
her that I was there on a mission.
"Oh, deah! I'm so sorry! You must be the courier."
"Right," sez I.
"When you have completed your business, perhaps you will pop
in and examine our wares."
"What wares?" sez I.
"Beautiful girls," sez she.
"Right!" sez I again.
I followed my guide into another room, where I divested myself
of that rucking gold, which had weighed me down, literally and
metaphorically, for a seeming eternity. I skipped down the stairs and
found the grande-dame brothel keeper, and asked for my private
preview. She seated me, poured me a vodka and lime on the house,
and paraded the beauties in front of me. Lovely they were--slim,
demure, the red dots and all, clad in the sari.
Not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings, and really not knowing
what kind of inspection one should conduct, all I did was give a
little squeeze to the passing breasts, a fraction of a fondle on the
buttock, and a run of the hand up the thigh to the promised land.
This procedure was going well until, running the hand up the
velvety thigh of a particularly beautiful young thing, I was jolted
into an upright position by contact with a three-piece set. I pulled
my hand away as if I'd just been hit with electricity, and, not believing
what my hand was telling me, I touched the things again,
and then I yelled for the grande dame.
A MONK SWIMMING 213
"What do you think I am, sending this whatever-it-is to me?"
"Oh deah me," sez she. "Sometimes people are a bit bashful about
stating their preferences, so we like to give them a choice without
being too obvious. And so many of our fellow Britons do prefer
boys, as they are more used to them than girls, as it were, don't you
see?"
see;
"I'm not a 'fellow Briton,' madam, and I'm not much used to
boys," sez I, and then I made my choice and off we adjourned to
the playpen. Milady took off my shoes and socks, the nether garments,
and the rest of the garb, and put me down on a comfy bed,
where she proceeded to wash me with water, laced with Lysol, and
then caressed the whole bod with a scented sponge.
I was enjoying her feathery-fingered ministrations, 'til I opened
my peepers, and there, high up on the wall, was a large painted
reproduction of that famous Sacred Heart of Jesus, with yer Man
pointing to the thumper encircled by thorns, and erupting with the
flames and the blood dripping.
The upstanding member fell over on the thigh like a shot giraffe,
and all thoughts of mounting my lady of the gentle sponge evaporated.
The dusky maiden eyed the collapsed member, and made a
unilateral decision to apply mouth-to-head resuscitation. I waved her
off and told her to fetch the madam, who came in and, not at all
fazed by my nakedness, listened to my problem. Of course. Many
of her Catholic clientele--both clergy and lay people--had the same
problem, so she would transfer me to another room.
"Why don't you remove that picture altogether, and not be giving
practicing and collapsed Catholics palpitations in their sacred
hearts?" sez I.
"Several of our girls are Catholics, and they have a peculiar devotion
to the Sacred Heart, as they are from Goa, where St. Francis
Xavier converted their ancestors. He was a Jesuit," said this learned
brothel keeper, as if that were sufficient explanation for all the obstacles
I was encountering on my way to the holey land.
The transfer to the other room was effected, and there, under a
214 MALACHY McCOURT
picture of a Lord Krishna avatar and eight incarnations of Vishnu,
the wick was dipped, and more good work for Irish--Indian relations
was intercoursed.
my GUIDE WAS AWAITING ME, and 'twas a lighter journey back to
the Taj and into the bed, where I slept the sleep of the uncaught
criminal.
As my association with Bombay was with hot days and anxietyridden
nights, my inclination now was to get out of India rather
than continue the tourist farce. Anyway, there were too many impediments
to procuring the drink, unlike the young Indian maiden.
I sent the coded telegram to my goldman in Zurich, to the effect
that my sister had just delivered a fine, healthy boy, and all were
doing well, the sort of innocuous messages that must immediately
arouse the suspicions of the authorities.
My airline ticket at that time allowed for extra cities, so side
journeys were in order. I opted for Nairobi, for no particular reason,
except that I'd been reading and admiring the doings ofjomo Kenyatta,
a Kenyan of the Kikuyu tribe.
Jomo led a band of lads called the Mau Mau, who were not a
gentle crowd. They went after the wealthy white settlers in the highlands,
the robbers and pillagers who had seized the lands of the
Kikuyu and the Masai and caused frightful privation, starvation, and
death among these native folks. So when the Mau Mau took their
revenge and tried to get the lands back, it was called "savagery,"
which, of course, is different from colonization.
Jomo had studied in England, and when the Brits reproached him
for ingratitude, he is said to have replied: "I thank you for helping
me learn how to think, but I reserve the right to determine what I
think."
I, of course, admired Jomo and thought there would have been
a chance to meet him if I popped into Nairobi--much the same
A MONK SWIMMING 215
chance as one would have to meet Her Majesty by popping into
London.
Once the Kenyans found I was Irish and from America, rather
than a Brit, it became a longish running party. I drank strange concoctions
out of gourds, and 'twas well not to peer in at the contents,
as there were strange, reptilian creatures floating about, but the effect
was glorious.
There's not much I remember about Nairobi, but I knew I'd
been there, because it said so on my passport.
Of course, if I were not passed'out with the drink, the little black demons
that come just before dawn would begin gnawing at the soul, reminding
me of the family wrecked by my insanity, and two small children saying, without prompting, "I love you, Daddy." Ha! Me loved. Me daddy.
Impossible, and if it weren't, I made it so.
I'd cover the head again, and whimper like an abused puppy. Curse
Cod again for the bad hand dealt me. What did I know about family
life, the duties, the responsibilities, the love, the honor, the fidelity? Didn't
any idiot know that it's not a good thing to say wounding, hurtful
words to the loved ones? Didn't I know that no amount of good intentions
can make up for a father's absence?
But it wasn't my fault; it was her, it was circumstances, no, it was
Cod Himself.
"Now look, Cod, here's the deal: You tell her to reconcile with me,
and I will he a great husband and father. I'll settle down and reduce
the drinking to a tolerable level, and I'll stay home more. All right,
Cod," I said, "All right! Did You hear me, or are You ignoring me?
217
218 MALACHY McCOURT
Well, if You are not listening, up Your bucket and get stuffed, You mangy of' fucker! It's all a goddamn myth that You exist and an allpowerful,
for if You did exist, You wouldn't deprive children of a loving
father and a united family."
Silence.
onto THE JET TO frankfurt, change to a local for Zurich, and
report to my goldman all the details of the trip. He handed over
my money, three thousand dollars, and asked if I would like to go
again. "Yer on," sez I.
He told me to get some passport pics taken again, and meet him
in my hotel room. He had another American passport in the name
of Mark Silverstein, from which he expertly removed the picture and
replaced it with mine, hit it with the seal, and lo and behold, I was
now Mark Silverstein. There was no end to the talents of this man!
Off to the Indian Consulate for the visa, which was ready in two
days. My goldman appeared with the kilos, and once more we were
tapping out the seal on the bars to disguise the bank's name and
city. The routine was to be different now, as I was to fly to Bombay
via Calcutta, another city I wanted to see, as it was the home of the
scientist, J.B.S. Haldane, a redder-than-red Communist, who had
fought against Franco, Mussolini, and Adolf. He had decided to
devote the last years of his life to helping the destitute of Calcutta.
He had written about that wondrous city with love and compassion,
as well as anger at the horrors, such as the mutilation of infants so
they could be rented out to professional mendicants.
The purpose of coming via Calcutta? Simple--the off-chance
that a sharpish customs officer or immigration lad would remember
my last entry into Bombay a month or so ago.
Another short hop to Milan by train, and then on to Roma for
another swift dip in the fleshpots of that holey city. Then I was
A MONK SWIMMING 219
gone again on Air India to Calcutta, with a stop in Baghdad, which
brought up memories of all those Technicolor Arabian Night tales
from Hollywood, with flying carpets, elephants, magic lamps, genies,
beautiful princesses, All Baba, and so on. As none of that stuff was
present at Baghdad Airport, I wasn't tempted to stay.
Same old routine at Calcutta Airport: Whack the shite out of
your passport with the ubiquitous stamps. Purpose of visit. How
long are you staying. Where are you staying. And, finally, do you
have anything to declare.
There were no bathtub panels in the hotel where I was spending
the night, so I had to lug the gold everywhere, and let me tell you,
it was unpleasant. But in comparison to the grisly suffering on the
streets, 'twas nothing. Deformed people, holding even more deformed
wee babies, with eyes scooped out, huge infected sores oozing
pus and slime, tiny legs broken so that they bent the wrong way,
amputated ears and hands--you'd wonder how anyone could live
for even five minutes with such pain. Giving the alms only encourages
them to mutilate more babies, while if you withhold alms, then
the suffering ones have hunger added to their woes. If you're like
Haldane, you do what you can; the rest of us leave it in the hands
of whatever deity looks after those born directly into suffering.
I did ring up Haldane's house, as he was listed, but found out
he was absent from the city, so I simply left a message that I was
an admirer and hoped to meet him one day. I never did, for he died
shortly thereafter.
The plane to Bombay was a local, making stops wherever there
was a bit of flat ground, it seemed. It was an old Constellation prop
plane, which looked as if it had been around for quite a long time.
The seats were narrow and, as there was no first class, I was among
folks carrying all sorts of small animals and reptiles, not to mention
bulky items like commodes and such like. Great arguments ensued,
about luggage, rack rights, seats, and where to put babies and bird
cages. It was a rickety take-off, with frightful vibrations and engines
220 MALACHY McCOURT
roaring, so that I was convinced we would lose the wings and go
bulletlike for a mile or two, ere we crashed. The old saw about
pilots wanting to live did not strike me as pertinent here, as Hindus
and Moslems had a more sanguine approach to death than we: Were
the pilot Hindu, he would expect to return presently; were he Moslem,
he was headed into the arms of the houris awaiting him in
Paradise.
But, of course, one survives, and after a five-hour journey, hedgehopping
and popping into various villages, the journey was completed,
and, once again I was back in Bombay. This time, I checked
into the faded, elegant Brown's so as not to arouse the suspicions
of the Taj Mahal staff.
The phone call this time was answered promptly. For some reason,
the rendezvous was in a cinema lobby, with those glaring red
posters showing anguished-looking Indians clutching each other.
Bombay was then a thriving film center and the cinemas were always
crowded. Of course, there was puzzlement at the sight of a Westerner
attending an Indian film, wherein the characters spoke only
enraptured Hindi, but I was saved from any direct enquiries by the
advent of a voice close to the earhole.
"Haaji Khan?
«-V ,f
Yes.
"Follow me."
We went down a stairway, across a lobby with broken marble
flooring and bumt-out, decorative lamps: a shabby place of ancient
gentility. He pushed open a door, and we stepped into the foulestsmelling
lavatory I had ever entered, except for the one in Leamy's
School in Limerick. He tried the doors of a few stalls, afore finding
one that swung open to his touch, and motioned me to step inside,
and he pulled the door shut behind us. We were about as close
together as two humans can be without getting conjugal. These
spaces were designed for slivers of men to park their slim arses, not
for two men trying to pass contraband from one to the other, whilst
getting off coats, shirts, and undershirts.
A MONK SWIMMING 221
On either side of this aromatic, fly-buzzing hole, I could hear
squeaks and groans and sounds of sexual activity, with stifled little
screams.
"Wha's going on here?" sez I, softly.
"Men put tings in boy's bottoms here," he sez, very quietly.
"Why are they doing it here?" sez I, sotto voce.
"Because the boys are here, awaiting the men," and then he
squealed a little, groaned loudly, and gave the stall walls a couple of
thumps with his fist. "They must tink we do the same ting here,"
he explained.
It was a hellish moment: two men struggling, in a tiny enclosure,
to get out of clothes, and back into clothes, passing the gold, pretending
they are fucking, whilst standing in puke, piss, blood, shit
and pus, the air solid with stink and buzzing insects; penetrating the
walls, the sounds of pain and pleasure, from those seeking fleeting
moments of ecstasy amidst the fetor.
When our transaction was completed, the small man opened the
door and stepped out. My shoes gave a sucking sound as I lifted
my feet to exit. On the street outside the cinema, there stood a
policeman surveying us. He smiled a tight smile and asked if the
little man was annoying me. I said, "Not at all--he's giving me
directions." The policeman smiled again, as if to indicate he knew
where we'd been, and as the stink from my shoes was filling the air
around us, he obviously did. I wanted to explain that I was a gold
smuggler, not a bugger, but I had to just smile and allow the cop
his speculations. I waved "adios" to the little gold carrier, and he
sped off into the hot night as if he were carrying no more than a
flea on his back.
Much as I thought I hated that gold, there were times I'd get a
bit of a letdown after deliveries. There were always the tension, the
anxiety, and the weight, but I at least had a mission, a task, an
objective, nefarious though it may be.
I hied my way back to Calcutta and the old Grand Hotel. It was a bit monsoony then, and, more often than not, if the city wasn't
222	MALACHY McCOURT
drenched with humidity, it was awash in rain, which flushed everything
and everybody clean. The old Brit Raj buildings had about as
much grandeur as the remains of the Third Reich, towering above
the street life and death, decaying, but still sneering at the labors of
the poor folks eking out the existence on the footpaths of that
polluted and unmanageable city.
Despite teeth blackened from chewing betel and lime paste, the
street folk seemed obsessive about personal cleanliness. A bit of an
odd moiety exists here, very clean persons side by side with very
unclean streets. The inevitable sacred cows wander about, pissing
and dumping on them at will; but having lived under Brit rule all
that time, the people have been trained to it.
'Twas here, of course, was coined the term "Black Hole of Calcutta,"
to memorialize the spot where the Nawab of Bengal deposited
the Brit garrison of the city in a smallish space, and a good
many of them suffocated during a warmish night in 1756. After a
hundred years of Brit misrule and monarchical terrorism, the Indian
soldiers had mutinied. The sensitive British officials preserved their
bullets in cow fat (sacred to Hindus) and pig fat (anathema to
Moslems); thus each religious soldier was required to perform sacrilegious
acts; hence, mutiny. Brutal were the acts of the Sepoys,
though they were simply retaliating for colonial savagery.
I'd find myself wandering up a street and down a street, going
into dark alleys, and I'd see suffering beyond reason. So I'd go back
to my palatial hotel quarters and drink some more, because I'd want
to fix up the world, especially its children and, more particularly,
mine.
Again, my airline ticket would have allowed me to visit other
cities, but I became paralyzed with drinking and despair, so I had
no desire to do so. I did chat occasionally with some pukka types
and other passing bodies, but mostly I sat and stared and moped in
my hotel.
On the street one day, I was snared by a young fakir, a guruA MONK SWIMMING 223
type of lad, with the flowing robes and the beard and the talk. He
suggested to me that I was troubled by some personal problem, and
told me to write down the name of the person who troubled me,
which I did. He said to fold up the bit of paper and give it to him
without letting him see the name. He then handed it back to me
with a piece of string, which he told me to tie round the paper. He
was a deft chap, as he then told me I was pining for a lady name
Linda. That astounded me, as I couldn't imagine he could see the
writing. An offering of twenty rupees, he then said, would assist him
in revealing more.
He described her in general terms--pretty slim, dark hair, tall--
and then he told me another twenty-five rupees would help him tell
of my future with her. Clever lad. He had extracted enough information
from me to be able to feed obvious inferences back to me,
and I fell for this rubbish. This seer informed me that the lady was
very much in love with me; all she needed was a bit of encouragement
and she'd be back in bed with me.
"When will this consummation take place?" sez I.
That answer cost me twenty-five more rupees: She was awaiting
my return to fall into my arms. Cheered up no end, I went back to
retrieve the old portmanteau and trek my way back to the U.S.A.
via Zurich.
the GOLDMAN WAS AWAITING ME in Zurich with my money, my
own passport, and my various personal belongings. He wanted me
to set off immediately with another illicit shipment, but, agog with
the prospect of reconciliation, I told him the mission would have to
be postponed. He snuffled something about never trusting women,
but he agreed to meet me again in ten days, at the same hotel.
,, I was in good spirits on the Swissair flight to Idlewild. Rang up pne of the chums on arrival, got a bed for the nonce, showered the
224 MALACHYMcCOURT
body, and got on the blower to Linda. No answer. Every half hour
I called, but all I got was that echoing, eerie, ringing tone that
betokens an empty apartment.
I rang her parents, who weren't handing out any information, and
after a few choice vulgarities on my part, the mother ended the
conversation. As usual, I sought the solace of the sauce, and before
I knew it, it was I a.m., and I was once again on the phone, abusing
her parents. They threatened me with the cops; they would make
sure I served the six months that had been suspended previously.
My efforts to contact Linda remained futile, so I decided to skip
town and go to England, where I had not been for many a year.
While in England in the service, I decided to seek out the man who had
seeded me. The last rumor had it that he was laboring in Coventry.
Some inquiries in the Irish pubs were met with the shuffling of the feet,
the averted gaze, and the scratching of the noggin and vague statements
that he'd been seen in various other jobs and places. One man finally
blurted out the truth. "Yer father's in prison for drunk and disorderly
conduct again."
Off to the jail was I. A couple of quick lies to the warden about
being on my way to Russia or something gained me admittance outside
of regular visiting hours.
The man who had fathered me was led into the dreary visiting area,
which swelled of damp and decay and old body odor. An ill-lit place
with broken benches and a sad saggy little table to sit at face-to-face.
He was unshaven and the teeth were out. The old tweed suit would
have been loose on a man twice his size, and the shoes had no laces, so
he dragged them as he shuffled in.
I eyed the suit and raised an eyebrow. "Savile Row?" 1 asked, and
225
226 MALACHY McCOURT
he pave me a gummy smile. He told me this was his twenty-third or
twenty-fourth conviction for drunk and disorderly—that he had to serve
a full thirty days for each one, which meant he'd served almost two
years off and on.
He said the warden and the siaff didn't like the Irish, but they
treated him well enough, and the food was regular, hut he couldn't afford
cigarettes. I gave him a couple of quid—which the guard pretended not
to see—and then there was silence.
I couldn't think of anything to say hut the unsay able: Why did you
leave, you worthless old sot?
But I couldn't say it, and didn't have to ask. He would only say
what he'd always said, that it was the fault of the Brits, and he'd ask
me if I was ready to die for Ireland.
Then the guard announced 'twas time to go.
He shuffled off and I was hoping he'd look back and say I'm sorry,
hut he didn't and I left, blinking back the angry tears.
I HAD LIVED IN england when I was a teenager, working as a
laborer in Coventry. I was a welder of bicycle wheels in Dunlops,
shoveled coal in the Coventry Gas Works, and worked in Courtaulds
as a sweeper. There were signs in the windows of various houses on
Cope Street where I lodged: to wit, room to let. No irish please.
They're very polite, the English, annoyingly polite, using courtesy
the same way New Yorkers do hostility. They say "please," and they
call you "Paddy," even if it's not your name, but it is more polite
than saying, "Hey, you," isn't it?
But, it's all different now. Here I am, traveled and moneyed and,
in London, I met up with Richard Harris, now son-in-law of Lord
Ogmore, a Welsh coal miner, 'tis said, but a lord nevertheless.
When I arrived at the Harris door, I was greeted by his wife,
Elizabeth, with, "Hello, Malachy. When are you leaving?" She knew
A MONK SWIMMING 227
my arrival portended trouble, as now Richard could always say I led
him astray--as if anyone could lead that headstrong lad anywhere!
Harris and I rendezvoused with sundry old rugby chums--a
grand drinking crowd. We'd spend the day in the pubs, talking
rugby, the horses, neutral politics, a bit of soccer, and the do-youknowwhojust-died
game, and when the pubs closed for the afternoon
siesta, we'd adjourn to the private clubs, lest the great discourse
be interrupted. Then, a scattering for dinner and a reassembling
around eightish, with everyone yelping greetings as each newcomer have into sight--typical male greetings of high jocularity, as if the
person had not been seen for lo these many years.
Some bods nipped off to work for the odd ten minutes or so,
but, generally speaking, we were a solid cadre of subjects moving in
formation from pub to club and back again.
After a good bit of this, it was time to get back to what I
laughingly called work, so I bid farewell and hopped over to Zurich.
My employer was spluttering with rage. I was about three days tardy,
my corpus was preceded into the room by the aura of alcohol, and,
as I had for the nonce adopted the English tradition of the once-ayear
bath, the goldman reeled back as if he had been slapped in the
phiz with a decomposing conger eel. He was a religious man, having
been educated by Benedictine monks, so he never used any kind of
profanity. But I could state without being charged with perjury that
he said, "Good Christ!" on this occasion.
He implored me to take a shower while he went and got the
gold and the new documents. He then returned with canvas, thread,
needles, and scissors, and muy rapidamente I was fitted for another vest.
I'd had to shred the other vests in India, as there are exit customs
officers who could be curious about such pocket-filled garments.
My passport said I was John Taylor, and this time my instructions
were to pop into Pakistan via Karachi, leg it up to Lahore,
cross over by rail to Amritsar, and south to Delhi and Bombay. After a day spent securing the visas, back with me to the holey city
I
228 MALACHY McCOURT
of Roma, where I sampled a fleshpot or two, and off again to the
airport to catch the flying toothpaste tube to Karachi. In keeping
with the Moslem faith, my new code name was "Alt Jinnah," the
founder of Pakistan.
The first and only stop was Bahrain, an oil-rich sheikdom on the
Persian Gulf. The journey from the plane to the terminal was blisteringly
hot and scaldingly humid, a combination I'd not experienced
before. I was barely able to cover the fifty yards, gasping for air and
hydration. This being a Moslem joint, I knew there would be a
plenitude of plain old aqua. Spying the water fountain, the terminal
oasis, I made rapid steps toward the thirst-slaking water. It was a
very low fountain, more fit for a child and, being desperate, I heedlessly
forgot I was top-heavy with bullion, so I toppled over, straight
into the wall, whacking the cranium and sliding to the floor.
Right opposite where I fell was a row of seats, on which sat as
stoic a bunch of Arabian Knights as I have ever seen. Bumoosed
Bedouins and veiled hawk-faced Tuaregs, and one cherubic chap with
turban, whose eyes gave indication of amusement. Nothing for it
but to grimace as if in pain (I was only embarrassed) and claw my
way to biped posish number one. Sixteen dark eyes followed my
upward climb. If it hadn't been Ramadan, or some other sacred time,
I'm sure they would have applauded, particularly as I did bow to
them.
There wasn't much to the rest of the trip to Karachi, the former
capital of Pakistan. I went to see the tomb of Mohammed All Jinnah,
my namesake, the founder of the country, and a wander about the
city in the evening found me gaping again at British architecture and
wondering at the looniness of a people trying to re-create the home
country.
My hotel room was not private, in that it had a curtained window
looking into the hallway. I was not sure that the curtains totally
concealed my doings in the room, so I did all my doings in the
bathroom, thank you.
A MONK SWIMMING 229
The streets were packed with the usual tidal wave of humankind,
different from that in India in that many of the women wore that
black garb which envelopes the head and body totally. Some had
netting over the eye openings, lest their eyeballs arouse lust. In the
minarets, the muezzins called the followers of Mohammed to prayer;
in the evenings particularly, they emitted sounds that floated quaveringly
eerie over the suddenly quiet thoroughfares.
From Karachi it was on to Lahore, and from there I took the
train to Amritsar. My first-class compartment on the train assured
me of complete privacy as long as the train was in motion; it could
only be entered by clambering up the steps and entering doors from
the outside.
It was a relief once more to doff the shirt, coat, and undershirt,
remove the gold, and take a cooling breath. It was supposed to be
a nonstop journey of about I hour, as I recall, but to be on the safe
side, and having had no drink to encourage bravado, I put the gold
in the portmanteau, put the shirts back on the bod, and read the Times of India. The main news was that China was doing a bit of
wok-banging to scare India into ceding some territories. I was a trifle
nervous about being in closer proximity to the northern borders than
heretofore, but my fears in foreign-war areas were replaced by another
little fear, caused by a slight change in the train's rhythms,
which indicated a slowing down, and then a rattling, chunting, lurching,
stop.
A swift return to my Catholic religion, complete with prayers of
my youth. "Oh Jasus, Mary, and Holy Saint Joseph, have mercy on
my body and my soul, as there's something going on here!" I didn't
know whether to dive for the gold, put on my coat jacket, look out
the window, gibber, or continue my idiotic directives to God.
A quick dekko out the window did nothing to clear up matters,
because the train was halted at a curve. Just as I was about to open
the bag to get at the contraband, the left door was opened, and a
very tall, turbaned, khaki-clad Sikh swung himself into my once230 MALACHY McCOURT
private compartment. He pulled the door shut and, leaning out, he
waved to someone, and the train began moving. He said, "Good
day," and I said, "Good day."
He eyed my bit of luggage--suspiciously, I thought--partially
opened on the seat beside. I promptly zipped it shut, and with a
prayer for help, I hoisted the blasted thing on the luggage shelf o'er
the head. My Sikh traveling companion made an attempt to assist
in heaving the bag up, but a bit of old rugby tactic "accidentally"
knocked him back on his Punjabi arse, with profuse apologies from
me about my clumsiness.
We sat facing each other silently for a while, him with a smile
on his phiz, and me with a smile that didn't involve my eyes. He is
on to me, thought I.
My employer in Zurich had instructed me that if the corner was
too tight, I was to offer one kilo of the metal for extrication from
said corner. I was about to do that, when the Sikh spoke.
"May I ask the purpose of your visit to India, Sir?"
"Don't you know?" I blurted.
"Oh, no, sir. We are not seers, contrary to popular belief. I am
asking this question in my official capacity."
"I am visiting as a tourist."
"Where will you stay?"
"In Amritsar. I want to see the Golden Temple, and learn a little
more about Ram Das."
I knew that would get to him, as the Golden Temple is sacred
to all Sikhs, and Ram Das, its founder, is one of their ten great
teachers. I had also learned that red-bearded laddies get a special
nod in the Sikh religion. Being red-bearded put me a couple of
hectares ahead of your average smuggler, who wouldn't know Ram
Das from a ram's arse. I'd a bit of knowledge from the reading I'd
done, and my newfound friend nodded patemalistically as I trotted
out the half-baked ideas I had on the man's religion and culture. He
did ask to see my passport, and gave me a card to fill out.
A MONK SWIMMING 231
My passport remained in his possession, which made me uneasy,
but I couldn't demand it back, so there we sat smiling and chatting.
An enquiry here and there elicited the information that he was married
and had several children; government work did not pay well,
but it was secure; he had a good deal of respect for Gandhi, but he
was a bit afraid of Nehru's socialistic tendencies; and so on.
A compliment on his English set the man positively beaming.
Had I asked for a night with his wife, I was sure of no objection,
so pleased was he.
At last, the train pulled into Amritsar and stopped amid a great
cacophony of shouts, doors banging open and shut, great luggage
carts being wheeled up to be loaded, and people jumping off the
train. With a deft move, I managed to get the bag off the overhead
rack and acted as if it were a feathery lightweight thing. My friend,
Mr. Singh (all Sikhs take the name Singh), accompanied me as I
strolled up the platform, blithely swinging the bag, though it nearly
tore the arm out of the socket. There, stretched across the exit were
a line of the khaki-clads, seated behind a table, going gaga in orgiastic
rubber-stamp frenzies, and to one side there stood a queue of people
whose luggage was being inspected.
Brazenly, I headed for the customs table to heave the bag onto
it, but my friend said to follow him. He laid my passport down,
pounded the table, and said something to the man behind the
stamps, who stared at me with still brown eyes while he spoke.
Slowly, a smile spread over his phiz, and he reached for his beloved
stamp, quietly pressed it to my passport, and spoke the grand words,
"Welcome to India, Mr. Taylor."
A
TAXI TOOK ME TO THE HOTEL RECOMMENDED BY MY
traveling companion, where I collapsed on the bed under the
best fan in the whole world and slept the sleep of the once-againuncaught
gold smuggler.
Amritsar seemed a prosperous place, with a paucity of paupers,
though a sufficient number existed to get on my coattail. There was
no shortage of restaurants and I had a goodish evening repast. After
dining I set out for the Golden Temple, but could not enter that
evening, as there was a bit of a gathering that didn't include the
Westerner.
I asked my rickshaw driver to take me over to the Jallianwalla
Bagh Park so that I could pay an atheistic homage to the dead. This
sacred spot--quiet enough now, with markers and small monuments to remind people of slaughter for peace--was the site of a great
public meeting in April of 1919, where Indian freedom fighters,
politicians, and professors, along with the peasants and the prosper234 MALACHY McCOURT
ous, the clean and the unclean, gathered to yell out loud that worldechoing
cry: "England, get out of my country!"
The British army, having just finished up World War I, in which
there was an abundance of human slaughter for the freedom of small
nations--and only incidentally, of course, corporate profit--was
now bereft of small nations to free, and, having gotten used to
shooting bullets at will, the Brit commanders thought it a jolly good
idea to turn their attention to freedom seekers. So they turned their
guns on thousands of defenseless, independence-minded folk, who
asked nothing more than the right to help plan the destiny of their
own nation. The thundering guns, directed by murderous thugs with
cultured accents, put paid to many a peaceful Indian's dream.
The bullets thudded into the heads and hearts and bodies of
these gentle people, shot down by the King's Own Assassins, whilst
overhead circled the vultures, chatting amongst themselves about how
delightful the Brits are at providing daily repasts, just when you think
you might have to go hungry.
It was somewhat over a year later that a bunch of ebullient Brits,
in the garb of Black and Tans, swept into Croke Park, a sports field
in Dublin, on their Crossley tenders, turned the guns on the spectators
at the football match, and let fly, blowing scores of innocent
civilians out of their seats into early graves and hospitals for the
permanently crippled. And off they went, where they toasted each
other on a gallant action well executed, and drank the health of
George, formerly Saxe-Coburg Gotha, formerly Wettin, now Windsor,
Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Assassins.
It's hard not to take massacres personally. One minute you are
in Andersonville, Georgia, or Croke Park in Dublin, or Jallianwalla
Bagh Garden, and the next thing you are queuing up with thousands
of fellow massacre-ees for admission to Paradise, Shangri-la, Nirvana,
Heaven, or Valhalla, wondering why the swift, premature summons
to eternity. "It's nothing, old sport. Just the Brits superseding God."
But 'twas time to abandon the pain of history, and return to the
A MONK SWIMMING 235
pain of the present, and get on with the problems of smuggling the
ill-got ingots past stamp-mad officialdom.
I booked a sleeping accommodation on the train to New Delhi,
thinking I'd have a cubicle to myself. Imagine my wonder, when I
was ushered in, to find an American female on her way to New Delhi
to work with some U.S. Embassy trade office. There were two bunks,
and in a fit of overzealous gallantry, I offered the lady the lower, forgetting
I'd then have to heave self and ingots to the one above. How
then, of course, to divest myself of same, and even more importantly,
how to reinvest myself once New Delhi was reached?
The other dilemma was to divest myself of thoughts of bunking
down with the trade lady, friendly as she was. I managed to say
goodnight, clamber up a rickety little ladder, fall onto a slablike
mattress, and wiggle out of the garb, the gold, and the footwear.
The relief of it all was enough to put me into a sound sleep.
Routine getting-off-the-train stuff once there: heading for a good
hotel; checking in; tipping the portmanteaux lugger; ushering him
out, since he was a bit garrulous. It was so oppressively hot in New
Delhi that the short ride to the hotel had me rivuleting perspiration
all the way down to the socks. Tearing off the garments and gold,
dumping the lot on the bed, I gamboled nudely into the bathroom
and placed the bod under the healing shower, which was surprisingly
strong.
After using up nearly all the ablutional waters of that city, I
secured a large fluffy towel and, stepping out into the room, I was
greeted by a sight that nearly stopped my heart. Seated in an armchair
by my door, there reposed a khaki-clad Sikh. He smiled the
enigmatic smile of the cat who has blocked up the mouse hole.
"Jasus," sez I, "you startled me. How did you get in here?"
"I have a key," sez the Sikh.
"Oh," sez I. "I see."
He smiled. I smiled. He had me at a bit of a disadvantage, as I
was clad only in the towel. On the bed, the gold-carrying vest was
236 MALACHY McCOURT
almost entirely covered by my shirt and undershirt, but there remained
an inch or two of the canvas showing. I sat on the bed and
managed to cover it with the shirt. We smiled at each other again.
Is he on to me, and is he just playing a game? I couldn't make out
from his sparse insignia whether he was cop, customs, or immigration.
Not wanting to leave the room to get dressed, which would
allow him to poke about, I finally said, "What can I do for you?"
"Nothing at all, sir. I am employed by the hotel to make sure all
our guests are happy and secure in their rooms, and it's part of my
|ob to welcome you and make you feel that there is nothing to fear
whilst you are staying here. As well as that, it is beastly hot out
there, and I thought I could combine my welcome with getting cool
in this, your room."
"Gotcha," sez I, "and I hope these twenty rupees will purchase a
cooling beverage for you."
"Thank you, sir. I thought you would understand," and he was
gone, leaving me with a full load of ingots, instead of a load lessened
by one for bribery or by a sentence of five years in prison.
There was an ancient wardrobe in the room wherein one could
hang the garments and deposit the footwear. It was about seven feet
high, and had a flat surface on top, behind a fancy carved facade. A
climb on the chair, and a check for the dust, of which there was a
surfeit, assured me the housekeeping staff were not, thank Krishna,
a diligent lot. That's where I deposited the booty, then I lay down
for a bit of slumber prior to venturing down for the tiffin'.
The evening was a bit cooler, so I decided on some sightseeing
and ventured over to the place where Gandhi was assassinated. At
one point in my walk, I stopped to look at a squatting snake
charmer, doing the old flute routine with the deadly king cobra. The
charmer's family, a wife and about a half dozen children, appeared
to be encamped behind him. Suddenly a little girl of about three or
four years detached herself from her mother's sari, ran around her
father the charmer and grabbed the cobra. We, the spectators, all
A MONK SWIMMING 237
gasped, thinking, of course, this cobra would do her in, but it must
have been a defanged chap, because it retreated in defeat into its
basket amid whoops of laughter from us breath-holding onlookers.
To keep the man from belting the child, I gave him some rupees,
and said it was a good joke; he smiled with his blackened teeth and
thanked me, while a few others threw some rupees into his basket,
so all was well.
Anxiety about the gold atop the wardrobe impelled the return to
the overnight quarters, despite the offer of the driver to secure for
me the services of a young virgin who was so adept at pleasing men
that I would have no hesitation in paying double the two hundred
rupees he would charge. I was intrigued by the apparent contradiction
of how a virgin becomes expert at pleasing men without experiencing
the dipping of the wick, but it didn't matter, as I couldn't
avail myself of the joys of storming the barricades of a maidenhead
on that particular evening.
The next morning I was off again, on another rickety prop plane.
All this traveling, a day here and a day there, was wearying, but I
was obeying the instructions from Zurich. "Jumping about makes
your movements hard to trace," he said, "and always give a false
forwarding address and every other kind of false information, and
they will never catch up to you."
That's what he thought. I can tell you that a red-bearded, redvisaged
Caucasian dawdling from Amritsar to Delhi to Bombay is
never exactly invisible, but chances must be taken when nefarious
work has to be done.
More hedgehopping, and the eventual arrival in Bombay. Another
hotel, this one for Indian businessmen. Conceal or carry the gold--I
pondered the alternative and then made off for the phone call.
"Hello. Bombay Trading Company. Good morning. May I assist
you?"
'Yes, this is All Jinnah."
Throwing caution to the storms, I simply said I was in from
238 MALACHY McCOURT
Europe and had business to discuss. The voice on the other end said
that the gentleman I wanted to reach had been contacted by the
authorities on another matter and had gone to Hyderabad to avoid
farther contact. He was, therefore, unavailable for any business transactions
for the foreseeable future.
I queried what to do with the consignment of metal now in the
immediate vicinity, and was told it would be inadvisable to bring it
to their premises, as their inventory was now being assessed. I took
that to mean they were being watched. Did he have any suggestions
as to what I should do then?
"None, sir," and he wished me divine blessings on all my future
business dealings, then hung up.
I did have the goldman of Zurich's mailbox address for the confirmation
cable about having delivered the booty, so I decided to
use it for a nondelivery message. "Unable to deliver your gift, as the
guest of honor was unexpectedly called away. Any suggestions?"
Risky biz, that, what with having to deal with the prying eyes of
the post office folk.
Cursing that facking idiot who had gotten himself embroiled with
the authorities, and all other fools who were holding up commerce,
I simply parked the vest under the mattress and went off to seek
diversion. A likely looking lad in white, barefooted, of course, approached
me with the ingratiating grin on his quite-dark phiz. He
told me that his name was Francis Joseph and that he was a Roman
Catholic--a bit of news that cheered me up, as I knew the man
would understand the necessity of gargling the grape.
I explained to the lad that he was probably named after Franz
Josef, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, whose grandnephew,
Francis Ferdinand, got himself assassinated at Sarajevo, thus
sparking off the Great War. Sez I to him, "You think you got
troubles!"
The poor fellow gaped at me uncomprehendingly as I rambled
on with my impromptu history lesson. His face, however, took on
.riSw.a
A MONK SWIMMING 239
a glow when I asked if it were all right to address him as "Emperor,"
which I proceeded to do. The next order of biz: Did he know a
drinking establishment where documents were not required. By God,
sir, he did! So--lead on, Emperor!
it WAS A DARK AND odoriferous place, with a paraffin lamp or
two, which only enhanced the gloom. The Emperor said he would
fetch the drink for me if I would please give him the rupees. I asked
for a vodka and lime, to which he replied, "They have only one
drink here, sir."
"Then get one for me, with a chaser of lime juice," and he was
gone into the darkness.
A furtive look around showed me that there were khaki-clads,
white-clads, Western-dads--all quietly sipping and murmuring, in
the serene cadence of Indian murmuring. Some of the lads looked
as if they were law enforcement types who should be raiding the
joint instead of drinking there.
The Emperor returned, bearing the beverages. The drink he
handed me had such a vile taste that I could only surmise it was
made from used diesel oil. I was caught between gasping and
coughing, with the Emperor gleefully thumping 'twixt the shoulder
blades.
A couple of dollops of lime juice eased the pain, and I resumed
the quaffing. I must have murdered my taste buds, because after a
bit, the stuff Seemed quite potable, and, indeed, the world seemed
quite potable as I leaned back and surveyed the underbelly of Bornbay.
I have no idea how long I stayed, but when I went to rise from
the chair, the nether limbs went on a wildcat strike, and I had to
be assisted by the Emperor.
"Well, Emperor, what have you in mind to satisfy the urgings of ,the flesh?"
I do not understand you, sir."
240 MALACHY McCOURT
I explained that I had a pressing need to share a bed with a
willing partner.
"Oh, I see," sez he. "Would you prefer a good clean boy or a
good clean girl?"
"A girl will be just grand," sez I.
"I will bring you to the home of two sisters from Punditry, who
are very nice and who are both Roman Catholic, and who are saving
up for their marriage dowry, which is why they are sharing their
bodies at this time."
It was midnight outside and, of course, it was darkish, but the
Emperor guided me on my unsteady way. He propped me against a
thick wall, instructed me to wait, and he was gone again. Up ahead,
a door opened, and I saw him engage in conversation with somebody
in the light streaming out. He turned toward me, gesturing for me
to join him.
There was nothing meretricious about the little habitation I now
entered. An old man sat in a corner, and at the table sat a younger
man with what appeared to be his wife and two other women, both
young and quite attractive, with the saris and the oculi red on the
forehead.
We agreed on a price, and I was told to choose one of the
younger women, and a devil of a job it was, too, as I was afraid of
offending the nonpickee. After making my selection and suggesting
we adjourn to more private quarters, they all smiled. The woman
I'd chosen picked up a clothesline, looped it to a nail in the wall,
drew it across the room to another nail, and then threw some tattered
sheets and saris over it to give at least visual privacy.
She brought me inside our makeshift boudoir and helped me
shed the interfering garb, then washed the privates with a cloth and
a dish of warm water, into which she had poured the good old
Lysol. Sex, particularly sex for hire, ought to be private in my opinion,
an impossible desire in the situation I was in. The folks on the
other side of the curtain murmured, and continued eating and slurping
the tea.
A MONK SWIMMING 241
I was still in a sozzled state from the tractor fuel at the speakeasy,
and I was sleepy. When she began the feathery ministrations to the
most sensitive part of the bod, so soothing was she that I drifted
off into a grand and deep sleep. I awoke in complete darkness, not
knowing where I was. An exploratory grope indicated the presence
of another body, while inside the confines of the head, the Nuremberg
rally was being accompanied by a cacophonic off-key rendition
of the 1812 Overture, complete with fireworks.
To divert myself from anguish, I awakened the nut-brown maiden
who was sharing the pad and got her to resume the ministrations
of the gentle hand, and, after having settled the business I came there
for, it was time for me to depart.
Beyond the curtain, where the only source of light was a little
red-globed lamp, all the bodies were asleep on mats. The Emperor
was still present, though not upright, so I prodded him awake and
said I had to go.
Once more, I had lived through a night of stumbling, whoring,
and drinking. Again, remorse, the devil's contrition, came galloping
in, lance in hand, skewering, accusing, finger-pointing, lacerating the
soul; myself whimpering like a dog. But a bath and a couple of
aspro, and a night's sleep in my comfortable bed, and I returned to
alert immorality.
It did occur to me that I had a specific purpose in India, which
I had almost forgotten, and I frantically leapt from the bed to check
under the mattress, but my golden cache was gone.
Despair oozed into my heart, nearly bringing it to a tarry halt. I
searched everywhere, under the bed, in the wardrobe, on top of the
wardrobe, the drawers of the bureau, the bath tub--but no gold.'
Try and explain this to Zurich!
I wasn't inclined to believe that he had connections with those
who break legs on consignment and, for slightly more, shoot you
dead. But then, one never knows.
The first thought after the emergency surge of adrenaline had
passed was that a drink, even of that malodorous piss at the speak242 MALACHY McCOURT
easy, would do wonders for the jangling nervous system. I still had
the smallest bit of good sense left, though, and first went to check
the post office to see if there had been a response to my cable. There
was, referring me to a new contact at another small local enterprise.
That still left me with the small matter of the boosting of the
bullion from my boudoir. While I'm at the P.O., why not send a
gram to the goldman in Zurich and let him know the stuff had
gone poof? How to word it? "GOLD STOLEN; PLEASE ADVISE."
Forget it, and get out of the country, as they will be onto
you now, so go, man. Why the fuck didn't I think of that before?
It could be the police, and now they were playing games with me.
Every man on the street was now watching me. Paranoia was the
order of the day.
The sweat was pouring out of me, still stinking from the sewer
water I'd drunk last night. After informing the reception desk that
I was checking out, I dashed up the stairs, and told the man who
was cleaning the room to go, as I had to pack. He offered to help,
but realizing he could be the thief, I told him his assistance was not
required at the moment. If memory serves, my exact phrasing was,
"Fuck off, and leave me alone!"
I cleared out the drawers and the wardrobe, dumping everything
on the bed, and went to lift the portmanteau off the latticed luggage
holder by the bureau. The grasping hand was stayed by an unexpected
resistance; I tugged again, and up it came, still heavy. The
heart fluttered, and when I set the bag on the bed and opened it,
there, snuggled inside, comfy and safe, were all those delightful,
shining ingots. I kissed the fuckers, I was so glad to see them, and
did a merry little waltz, holding them close to the chest, jabbering
to them like a lunatic.
Then the paranoia set in again. Was the gold stolen, and then
put back again, to set up an inescapable trap? Were "they" even
now, about to burst through my door and pounce on me in all my
innocence?
A MONK SWIMMING 243
But then it edged back into my mind. When I had returned in
my half-stupored state, in last night's fine dawn hours, I had figured
out that if I put the stuff almost in full sight, purloined-letter style,
nobody would see it, and so I had removed it from beneath the
mattress and placed it in the luggage, the first place a thief would
look. That was how the heart-stopping mystery was solved.
A tap on the door signaled the bellman coming to take the
luggage. "Why?" sez I, forgetting I had told 'em I was checking out.
"Tell them I've changed my mind. I'm staying."
"Very good, sir." He stood smiling at me, not moving.
"Ah, yes. The rupees for your trouble."
"Thank you, sir."
the NEW TRADING COMPANY MAN I was to get hold of told me
he would pick me up, and we would go to his club, which was in
the suburbs--an enclosed place, with tennis courts, a cricket ground,
and a few golf holes. I asked the man why we were out here in the
open and how was I to get the gold to him.
"Nobody would suspect us doing anything out here at the club,
and as I trade with Europe and the Americas, it is only natural I
should entertain my business contacts here."
He led me to the changing room and sent me into the lavatory,
where I took off the vest and dropped it into a golf bag he then
casually carried into his locker. I was spending so much time in
lavatories, I was beginning to entertain the karma idea: Maybe this
was my destiny.
That exchange completed, I headed back to the hotel. The Emperor
was hanging around the premises when I got back, so I in- gs- structed him to fetch one of the Roman Catholic dowry girls and
dispatch her to my room. Of course, the desk clerk had to be bribed
j;to allow my lady visitor in, since an unbribed hotel desk clerk is a
fiercely moral person.
244 MALACHY McCOURT
The evening repast was had, and the Emperor took me to another
dungeon, where only homemade beer was served, which had a good
wallop to it, so 'twas not long 'til the chin started drooping toward
the chest and I wended the way back to the hotel.
The next day, I flew to Delhi, braved the various exit customs
and immigration officials, paid the rupees to get out, and headed to
Rome. But a trifle of engine trouble occurred, so the pilot Utumed
and took us back to Delhi. Many nervous people inhabited that
plane, including Sarah, a rather nice-looking girl seated next to me.
I babbled a bit about it being a safety measure the pilot was taking,
rather than an emergency, and that we'd be doing the perfect threepoint
landing in double-quick time, which of course happened.
Somehow, my new friend misdirected her gratitude for her salvation
my way, so the formerly nervous young woman gave me a big hug
and a rather-more-than-friendly kiss.
There was the usual milling at Delhi Airport, and, of course, the
officials with the stamps came out in force. It was a stampers paradise!
They had to stamp us all back into India, through customs
and immigration again, and then stamp us all back out, as we reversed
the procedure a mere two hours later. What a frightful economic
disorder for the rubber-stamp and ink pad industry, if we
should all just decide to stay home!
Airborne again, I had hopes of joining the Mile High Club, that
exclusive group of male liars who claim they've had sexual intercourse
with an airline stewardess or someone eke they just met whilst in
flight. Wives, fiancees, girlfriends, and persons previously known are
not counted. My new chum, Sarah, was on her way to join her
family in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and after the requisite few beverages
of the 86 proof variety, I fell in love with her. I suggested she
abandon this silly notion of visiting her mom and dad in the godforsaken country of sand, heat, flies, oil, and harems, and continue
on to Rome with me. She appeared to consider the idea seriously,
but I wasn't sure. Overcome with temporary amour and alcohol, I
A MONK SWIMMING 245
secured a couple of those skimpy airline blankets, lifted the armrests,
and stretched the pair of us out on the narrow confines of the seats,
atop seatbelt buckles and other protuberances. I kept falling off and
getting wedged 'twixt my seat and the back of the next row, and
only with great dexterity was I able to resurface.
Sarah, who thought it all very amusing, kept up a steady stream
of giggle guaranteed to quell any ardor. Passing stewardesses averted
the eyes, as they apparently didn't want to intervene in this love fest.
It just got sillier and sillier, and with the pair of us laughing our
arses off, any hopes of Mile High Club membership, or indeed any
club membership if word got out, faded into the stratosphere.
Sarah bid me bye-bye at Bahrain, and off she went to join her
family. I stopped off at Rome again. I'd made a promise to myself
that I would make an attempt to really see the Holy City on this
stop, and barreling about to basilicas occupied the jet-weary psyche
tor a portion of a day; drinking, the rest of it.
At least the people who ran that city had the good taste to leave
ancient walls and buildings intact. You couldn't hurl a stray bit of
granite in any direction in Rome without hitting a church, a cleric,
or, in the summer, a native of Cleveland.
The basilica's original purpose, as designed by ancient Romans,
was for the tribunals to carry on the legal system, a more civil
gladiatorial arena, if you will. The Church then, in its cunning quest
for power, built basilicas with similar designs so that the average
punter would still be overawed by architectural power and, by association,
attribute to the Church legal power.
Later on, of course, outside the city, spreading its grasping holy
tentacles ever further, the Church would dominate rural landscapes
with churches of different design. Towering spires were the order of
the day and, inside the spires, huge bells tolled the order of your day: the get-up-outa-dat-bed bell; the Angelus bell; the come-toMass
bell; the come-eatyourcrustofbreadwhilewefeaston-your- ^things bell; and, after your handful of days of all that, your death246 MALACHY McCOURT
knell bell. Inside the churches, huge organs filled the space with
triumphal, powerful sound, and there was a panoply of power
places—pulpits, thrones, and altars.
Centuries after, the Church passed the baton to Capitalism, when
they agreed between them it would be far more efficient: Rather than
having the peasants laboring in the field and squeezing from them
the tithes, they would do the sweat-of-the-brow bit indoors, and be
allowed to take a tenth portion with them when they left.
"But, let's see," said the new Synod of Syndics, "how can we still
dominate the landscape and the soundscape and prevent escape?
Something like spires. How about smokestacks? They'll not be able
to miss them. Bells? No place to put 'em. How about blasting steam
horns or screaming, high-pitched whistles? Yeah, either will do, so
long as it's morning, noon, and night. Organs again? No! Machinery:
roaring, belching, dangerous machinery for the power that's in it.
Should we keep the stained-glass windows? Naw. Ordinary glass
windows will do—they'll get stained soon enough." And so power
was transferred from the papal glove to the invisible hand, and there
you have it: the gospel according to me.
, ACK IN zurich, I WAS TOLD THAT BECAUSE THERE WAS A
bit of restlessness in the gold market, we were postponing the
next trip for five or six weeks. I was given my remuneration to date
and remembered that the brother Frank had suggested that if I had
an opportunity, I should visit Ibiza, a Mediterranean island off the
coast of Spain, then a popular spot with the jet-setters and itinerant
proto-hippies of Europe and the U.S.
It is my belief that all island peoples are cuckoo, and while it is
yet to be resolved which of the many theories advanced explain this
phenom, it remains a fact that I was able to fit right into the island
life. It helped that Brendan Behan had preceded me, because the
lunacy of any peripatetic Mick thereafter was measured against his
doings, and if his antics had set the mark at 100 percent, then the
rest of us were safe, as it was hard to hit even 75 on that scale.
The hotel I checked into was solid with decorative tiles, arches,
snd marble floors, which echoed even when people talked softly, and
I! was economical in the peseta-outlay department.
247
248 MALACHY McCOURT
All the expats, plus a smattering of the born-andbredon-theIsland
battalion, who for some reason did not mind being seen in
the company of the runoff of Europe and the U.S., would sit together
getting potted, whilst quoruming, which meant having a minyan
of at least ten pesetas for two Fundadors, the favored local drink,
made from decayed, burnt, liquefied, grapes. Amongst us were Scandinavians,
Limeys, Taffys, Jocks, the Mick (me), Krauts, and Eyeties,
and we would all foregather and drink the night away. There
were some artists who weren't artisting, writers who weren't writing,
and actors who weren't acting. Nobody seemed to have a function,
a purpose, or a mission, and the focus was on the gatherings of an
evening.
The island police, the Civil Guard, not very different from the
days when Franco occupied the island in the so-called Spanish Civil
War, strutted up and around the Plaza on Sundays for the band
concert after Mass. They were impeccable in their uniforms, with
shiny boots, brass buttons, leather headgear, and gloves. It was apparently
de rigueur to wear the left one and carry the right one in
the left hand, leaving the right hand free for the ever-present ciga,
rette, just like the evil Nazi with the University of Heidelberg dueling
scar in the movies. The fag-puffing Civil Guard--and they
were about as civil as their war--eyed us, and we eyed them, but
we were generally left to our fun and our Fundador.
strolling DOWN THE STAIRS OF the hotel one noon, I got chatting
with a smallish couple from England, who informed me they
were on their honeymoon. I gave the perfunctory congratulations to
the male, and "I wish you every happiness" to the female, and invited
them to a celebratory beverage. Noon it was, mind you, and not a
smidgen of grub had yet passed the teeth. Nevertheless, a few jorums
of beer put the head into the carefree mode, and thence came the
graduation to my new friend, Fundador.
A MONK SWIMMING 249
The three of us chatted about this and about this, and sometimes
touched on that. The groom explained that he had recently been
promoted into management in his workplace and that he wanted
nothing more to do with unions and their "shower of shirkers," as
he put it. It was the usual song:
, ^ The working class can kiss my arse,
I've got the foreman's job at last.
Courtesy forbade me from pile-driving him into terra firma for
his treason, and a glance at his--I realized now, misfortunate--wife
convinced me that she must be rescued from this brainless traitor to
his class. We toddled off to another cafe and another cafe and
another cafe. At one point, a whispering waiter told me he had some
absinthe--then as now not exactly legal--and would I be interested
in purchasing some? "Yo estoy su homhre," sez I, having a go at the
lingo.
After a few strong cups of the absinthe, I became totally convinced
that the young bride was now deeply regretting her premature
marriage to the conservative management arsehole, and that her eyes
were beseeching me to please, please rescue her from durance vile. I
winked at her to show my solidarity with her desire for freedom,
and to reassure her that the troops were massing for the mission.
The husband caught me winking at his new possession--although
I don'c think she herself ever noticed--and, to cover up, I
pretended I had something in my eye. By this time of night, around
nineish, almost nothing had yet plopped into the still waters of the
stomach, and we were so sozzled that the fumes of absinthe and
brandy were able to ascend untrammeled to the cathedral of the
brain, wherein glorious Te Deums were sung in anticipation of victory
over Godless capitalist manipulators who lure young girls into lives
of corruption and materialistic gratification.
My plan was to keep pretending I was his friend and, by staying
250 MALACHY McCOURT
close to the working-class princess, I knew there wasn't any possibility
of him foiling my plot to liberate his prisoner. They invited
me to their room for a nightcap. I sidled up to the sideboard, where
the traitor to his class had placed the key, which was attached to a
heavy brass plate bearing the room number. I slid it into my pocket,
still not knowing what exactly I was going to do with it and, after
the drink was had, bid them good night and crab-waddled my way
to my own abode up the stairs.
I doffed the sabots and waited what might be called a decent
interval, time enough for the oppressor of young womanhood to
have gone to his bed for the slumber. I knew the woman was anxiously
awaiting my rescue, I'd read it in her doleful face; though we
hadn't actually discussed it, I knew what had to be done.
A slurp or two of the burnt grape and down the stairs I slithered.
My first attempt to unlock their door failed, because I used my own
room key. The next attempt brought near disaster, as I dropped the
heavy key and brass plate on the marble floor with a dreadful resounding
clang, and I found myself saying "Shhhhh" to the key, as
drunks do in the movies. It was a few forays ere I got the key into
the hole, turning it as carefully as a doorknob in a Hitchcock film.
I slipped into the sitting room and stood waiting for the breath to
ease, and to let the optics grow accustomed to ye olde Stygian darkness.

Remembering the location of the bedroom door was easy, but
getting to it was another matter. Advancing across the floor was
extremely hazardous--bits of clothing on the floor, a shoe here, a
shoe there, low tables for the barking of shins, ferocious chairs that
reared up in the dark to frighten even intrepid knights errant like
myself. My instincts, however, guided me into the bedroom, and I
knew I had arrived because of the sounds of elephantine crepitation
emanating from the vaguely outlined bed in the corner.
"So, the swine snores as well," sez I to myself, having no one
else to converse with at that moment, "and she will be well out of
this dreadful week-old marriage.'"
.-?1
IllKlTiiBniiiiTO--mb--
"HHti^y^^^^ -""H
i» ..a

A MONK SWIMMING 251
A swift slither to the side of the playpen, and leaning past the snorting carcass of the Capitalist Quisling, I gently shook the shoulder
of my newly beloved. The shook bod shot up into a sitting
position, a lamp was switched on, and suddenly there was a room
filled with light. A swift appraisal of the contents of the bed indicated
that what I thought was the damsel in distress was the husband,
and that the snore manufacturer was none other than my
beloved, and neither one of them had a stitch of clothing on--not
a vestige of a pajama, not a hint of a negligee.
By God, sir, this was a fine how-dye-do. I had barely turned my
back, and they were clawing each other in the heat of high passion!
If ever there was a case of instant infidelity, this was it!
"What the bloody hell do you want," sez the diminutive Brit,
frantically trying to cover himself.
The former beloved now bolted upright and, in a querulous, nasty
tone, began berating me, to wit: "A thief in the night," sez she, "a
pervert, a peeping Mick, a savage Paddy, a robber."
Due to their state of undress, neither one would emerge from
under the hastily thrown up covers, so I was in a position of clothed,
upstanding power. Looking at this perfidious female, I was glad my
mission had failed. She was a snorer, an abuser of the gallant rescuer,
and unfaithful--I would never be able to trust her again. On top
of that, she was siding with her captor against me!
Sez I, simply and brilliantly, "I came to return your key, which
I mistook for my own."
"Wha?" sez the counter-jumping cockney.
I repeated the lie.
"Put the bloody thing on the table and leave here before I ring tor the police."
Houdini would have envied my disappearing act, performed in
one seamless motion. The key with brass plate was dropped, egress
was achieved, and I was up the stairs in a bound, into my room, "of even sure whether I had opened the door or gone directly
through it. Once ensconced in the bed's embrace, I exhaled a long
II.
252 MALACHY McCOURT
breath of relief at my narrow escape from (a) a dreary life with an
English wife, and (b) an encounter with the not-so-Civil Guard.
Then, of course, the dark, diamond-eyed demons arrived for their
nightly gnawing at my soul, humming the tune of deep despair and
of longing for the family life, which, of course, never existed, a
product of stupidly sentimental nostalgia. Once more, the salty tears
of self-pity flowed o'er me, without managing to wash anything away.
In the warmish light of the day, when a cogent thought or two
managed to insert themselves between the waves of brain pain, memory
asserted itself and the events of the night flushed the visage with embarrassment. Of course, I couldn't face the honeymooners, much
less call them to apologize, so for about a week I managed to avoid
them--no mean feat in the small community on that little island.
When I was inclined to show my face again, I discreetly inquired
about the whereabouts of my treacherous new love and her captor.
I was informed they had departed home to the nation of shopkeepers
and I could again roam the island untrammeled by embarrassment.
I amused myself by summing up the whole affair with "Absinthe
makes the heart grow fonder."
Having failed to liberate a new bride, another plot began the
germinating process in the booze-damaged brain. If I were to rent
one of these villas here and then nip back to the U.S.A., abduct
Siobhan and Malachy, and bring 'em back to the island, I could
then through devious routes communicate with Linda and extract
from her a promise to try the reconciliation under the threat that
she would otherwise never be allowed to see the children again.
Into action! There was a handy place on the ocean, which rented
for forty dollars a month; spacious, with three bedrooms and a
couple of baths, a bit of land, and fully furnished. A chat that
|l| I combined fractured English and my dreadful Spanish secured the
W}
prospective services of child-care personnel. Of course, there was the
nagging question of what was to be done about making a living, but
I decided I could just continue the gold-smuggling routine.
o ^
A MONK SWIMMING 253
Everything now in place for my plan, I moved into the new
hacienda and plunked the corpus on the terrace with little interference
to Fundador flow.
A couple of days elapsed, and I was approached by a canned and
fit woman in the mid-thirtyish range with the most intense blue eyes
and the blondest hair I have ever seen. Her manner had all the
compassion but none of the delicacy of a Prussian officer. She addressed
me as if I were a tank division about to begin battle.
"I am haffing a coketail party on Thursday night at 6:00 p.m.
You will come, hah? And you must not forget there will be ozzer
peeples. You will vear a lounge suit, pleeze."
All I could say was, "Ja!"
I was there on the stroke of the Angelus, in extremely close
proximity to the bar, and I met pilots, stewardesses, and other worldweary
traveling types, plus a sprinkling of German aristocracy. I
discovered mein hostess was a Baroness von Sausagelink or something,
and she was also a painter.
I had not had any grub that day, as I thought that commodity
would be supplied at the hooley, but there was not so much as a
macadamia in sight, so once more I was fueled solely by liquor.
The do got louder and rowdier, and as I couldn't seem to find
an unattached female, I decided to give in to encroaching sleep. The
few yards back to my hacienda seemed impossible to traverse, so I
trudged up the stairs of mein host's house and found a simple cot
in what appeared to be a small studio. It occurred to me that if I
laid me down on the top of the bed, someone would come in, wake
B.me up, and ask if I was all right, as people do that sort of thing, fso I would forestall that civilized gesture by getting a pillow and ^crawling under the bed, where I drifted off to sleep to the labored
attempts of sozzled Saxonians trying to sing.
I was awakened sometime later by a light being switched on, and
the sounds of two people whispering.
Him: "Mein Liebling, oh, oh, oh ...?"
254 MALACHY McCOURT
Her: "Ich bin dein, oh Liebling!"
Him: "I luff you, oh, oh, please me!"
Her: "Ohne Hast, ohne RastJ"
Him: "Do not torture me, oh, aah, oooh, aaaah..."
During all this palaver, items of clothing came floating down into
my limited view from beneath the bed—a jacket, a tie, a blouse, a
brassiere, a skirt, trousers, the knickers, the shorts. Shoes were then
kicked off, and all of it to the sounds of deep breathing, suckins
lips, and hands rubbing on flesh, interspersed with sharp intakes of
breath.
The light was extinguished and, concomitantly with the flight of
light, it seemed as if several tons of humans had suddenly parked
themselves on my chest, expelling all air from the lungs. Little did
the two lovers care, as they were too busy in the lust arena to give
any consideration to the fact that there could be a human being
under the bed. Even conservatives, stupid as they are, always looked
under the bed for Communists, and brought their children up to do
likewise. But not these two Teutons, hammering away, scarring my
chest with the imprint of bedsprings. Just as I was about to expire
due to decompression, the door was smashed open, a light switched
on, and then a screaming, high-decibel chase took place around the
room. First, two pairs of bare feet exited the bed, followed by their
bodies, followed by me taking a very deep breath and being restored
to life. I then observed the only show I've ever seen starring feet:
two pairs bare and one pair shod in pointed heels, one of which was
removed to be used as a weapon, as I could hear the heel chunk as
it hit body parts.
There was a merry chase around the studio, with things being
knocked over, vases smashing, and canvasses being trod on. I sur'
mised the identity of the intruder who had caused such a to-do y
bursting into the room. She was the wife of the K.L.M. pilo'1 who
was slipping the bratwurst into the Baroness, for that was w
"Mein Leibling" was. The pilot hurriedly gathered up his portio
A MONK SWIMMING 255
f rhe scattered garments and managed to get the frothing wife out f the room, giving "Mein Leibling" a chance to bolt the door to
me She put out the light and settled back into the bed, all undressed
with nowhere to go. She sighed and tossed and turned on the mattress on my chest, but, as the weighty partner was gone, I
was able to breathe, though the chest was still sore from the previous
hammering.
Eventually, the Baroness von Sausagelink sighed her way to slumber.
Time for me to exit, though I had no idea what the time was,
but I'd no wish to be caught under the bed if they came searching
for Communists in the a.m.
I slid out and stood up and was about to leave quietly, when
passing clouds allowed a shaft of moonlight to illuminate her visage,
now soft in sleep and haloed by golden hair, making her look desirable.
Then, in an instant, all was dark again. I knelt down beside
her and woke her up.
"May I join you?" I whispered.
"Yes, of course," she answered.
She moved over, and I moved in, sans culotte etc., and, as we
embraced, she cupped my beard with her hands and said softly, "Oh,
you are not the same man ..."
'No, I'm not," sez I.
It doesn't matter," sez she.
"It doesn't," sez I. And life went on.
the next day, the Baroness von Sausagelink resumed her formal demeanor with me, and we never dallied again after that moonlit "'ght in her studio. We nodded and said "Good morning" or "Good
evening"; if I'd had a few jars, I'd venture a "Guten Nacht."
Ac
^ECAUTION AGAINST ANY future trouble with the local ge"
began taking Spanish lessons from the daughter of the local
chief. She was a charming, diffident slip of a lass around the
256 MALACHY McCOURT
eighteen- or nineteen-year mark. Having packed in the formal education
part of my life at the age of fourteen, and having never
comprehended the vagaries of any grammar, I found this a strange
odyssey. My ^young teacher would usher me into the living room, close the doo-^ and begin speaking to me in simple everyday Spanish--the
"Ha w are you?" "I am fine. How are you?" sort of routine,
I was a bit surprised the chief and his missus would leave us in
a room sin (fn.cnna, but, of course, taking into consideration that we were on an is land, he was the top cop, and egress was limited to an
infrequent fei^-y and plane, it would have been ill-advised to try any
tricks with tr^e Senorita Professora.
She was l_ovely to look at, with soft dark eyes, and demure in
demeanor, s<^ of course, I decided there and then to secure the
divorce fros} Linda, drop on one knee, declare my eternal love for my teacher, s^sk her to wed me, then have off to El Jefe and formally
ask for the daughter's hand in marriage.
However,, because my Spanish never permitted our romance to
advance beyond ascertaining that she was fine and I was too, I was
unable to p-ursue this course, and anyway, island life began to pall
on me. So 'twas time to decamp to try my hand at the fleshpots of
Paree. In return for letting them use my villa, a young couple let me
have the us^ of a houseboat on the Seine, so off I went on the ferry
to Barcelona having said good-bye to my teacher and various drinking
friends.
On the boat, I got chatting with Carol, a young woman who d
a child of sibout three years, a little girl. She was going back to the
U.S. because her husband had left her for some German tourists wench. I c^ecided there and then that I would save her and her
daughter b^y marrying her when we got to Barcelona. Some senc -o
Fundador ^nd an absinthe chaser can give rise to such thinking.
We checked into the same hotel in Barcelona, but not the saint- room. A brief spell of sobriety, accompanied by empathetic ^ ne impelled n-ie to take Carol out to dinner with the little m
A MONK SWIMMING 257
shared tearful stories of lost love, broken marriages, and the
iserv of watching the children suffer for the lack of the other
arent. That evening, some long-buried chivalrous instinct led me to
simply see the lady to her door and give her a chaste kiss on the
cheek, and we both went off to our cheerless, separate beds. In the
morning, she had departed by the time I woke up, and I never saw
her again.
popping UP TO paris WAS easily accomplished, but finding the
houseboat was something more. I had expected an elegant, well-kept
craft, freshly painted, with scrubbed decks, the cynosure of the envious
eyes of the native "Parisites," as one Brit expat I knew termed
the residents of that city. But the craft I found lay low in the water,
an orphan barge, grey and rotting. The deck was soft, pulpy, and
dangerous, and a misplaced foot was apt to go straight through the
old planking. Under the deck .there were three compartments, lit
only by portholes that had never been washed. Each compartment
had a large bunk with a soggy mattress, smelly pillows, and despairing
blankets. Over it all hung a smell of decay and rat piss.
Humming "There's No Place Like Home," I ensconced myself
in the middle compartment, found an oil lamp, lit same, and did
some further exploration. There was evidence of a female presence
in the first compartment, while the third seemed empty. There was "° ^ower or tub or bathroom as such, except for a hole in a aboard through which the Seine could be seen.
ut had I not grown up in the slums of Limerick? So I was not
PWurbed once the initial twinge of "Aw, Jasus, 'tis not what I had
drnerized in my noggin" had passed. My boatmate appeared in
hours, a female in appearance and in garb, with an expression er 80" like the keel of the craft we now inhabited, barnacled ""t. I never found out her nationality or anything about her, e of the fact that she spoke to herself a lot. She did lay down
258 MALACHY McCOURT
the law: She did not like to be spoken to, and did not like to speak
to people, particularly people sleeping on the boat. I was warned to
stay out of her quarters, as she knew, she said, when people pried
and disturbed her personal belongings.
The French were having a bit of a bother then with a covert
right-wing insurgent army group, who, like the Brits, didn't take to
the idea of the people of Algeria, Morocco, and Libya being free of
colonial jackboots and deciding their own nations' destinies. So,
these military-trained terrorists took to murdering Algerians and
Moroccans and dumping their bodies into the Seine. 'Twas a rare
day I didn't see the gendarmes and their grappling hooks hauling
out well-ventilated or garroted bodies from the river, done in by
officers and gentlemen of the French army. So much for Egalite, Liberte. and Fratemite.
The tall de Gaulle was still satuminely presiding over a resurgent
country, whose care and compassion for French Indochina (Vietnam
to you, ma'am) he had gleefully passed to the tender mercies of the
U.S.A. As the tourist season was now ended in this month of October
1962, there were no signs of map-toting tourists nattering about the
Louvre. The time of year was a bit greyish in the climate arena, but still
comfortable. A cursory, perfunctory stop at Notre Dame, then a peek
at the Mona Lisa, whose smile is not enigmatic to me. Anyone can see
it's not a smile, but a grimace, the cause of which is gas.
I had a go under the Arc de Triomphe, which, of course, brought
to mind that sobering photograph of the Nazis' entry into that lovely
city. I tried to imagine the lusty Aryan voices roaring out the Horst
Wessel Song, and the "whack, whack" of the goose-stepping jackboots
thumping terror into the hearts of the fearful French as the
Nazis polluted the Champs-Elysees. As always, the underlying taint
of anti-Semitism was present in France, in the Dreyfus case and the
betrayal of thousands of Jews by Nazi collaborators. On the other
hand, I reminded myself, there were the Maquis and the Communist
Party, who fought heroically against Hitler's hordes and whores.
A MONK SWIMMING 259
Thus cheered, a ride up the Eiffel Tour was edicted, as were
visits to the Les Halles markets, and a pop into the Folies-Bergere,
and all the other tourist doings, but the heart wasn't in it. Here
was the romantic city of Toulouse-Lautrec, strains of music wafting
through the foggy air, and here was I, wandering through the streets,
yearning for the company of the woman I loved, only because she
didn't love me.
I found the Parisians were very impatient with bods like myself
who didn't speak French, and I was too distracted to even pick up
a pliorie book, let alone a French phrase book, so it was a standoff.
In restaurants, I took to jabbing at the menu, most times not recognizing
or caring what arrived from the kitchen. I already knew
that all French cooking was built around sauces and gravies, designed
to disguise the stink of rotting and decomposing carcasses of longdead
cattle, pigs, sheep, and fish, but I didn't give a fiddler's fuck
what was plunked in front of me. Whiskey was horrendously expensive,
so the wine of the country was the drug of choice, be it
red or white, or in cognac form.
Even though I was traveling on my own passport, I was still in
m;' smuggler's mindset, so I was wary of seeking out the company
of Brits, Irish, or Yanks, or any other English-speaking bods, for
that matter. I'd come here looking for the Paris of Joyce, Heming- way . Gertrude S., Alice B., Picasso, the Shakespeare Bookshop, Henry
Ivlilkr, and good old hedonistic Oscar, who preceded the wallpaper
in death, but I spent my time drinking alone, eating who knew what,
an" most every night I would make my morose way, unaccompanied,
to my rotting riparian retreat,
fne early a.m., I heard the sounds of footsteps on the deck over
myhung-over head, and then a "Halloo!"
Halloo yourself," sez I, grumpily. "Who is it, and what do you
^I
Was someone saying he wanted to speak to "Meester Makort." '"ig it was the gendarme with an extradition warrant, I hopped
260 MALACHY McCOURT
smartly out of the bed, donned the outer garb, and nipped uo t
the deck, to find a smallish, smiling chap, decked out in a neat crre suit, compleat with the polished shoes. He spoke decent English and
said he was a movie producer, and he had heard from my boatmate
the surly one, that I was an American actor holidaying in Paris. He
was producing and directing a film, which needed an American gangster
character.
"How about an Irish gangster?" sez I. He laughed and said there
was no such thing. I laughed and said there were thousands of them,
just check the roster of the Republican Party.
He laughed again, and said he didn't understand. Anyway, he
wanted me to learn many pages of dialogue in phonetic French, and
also to deliver the lines with an American accent, and he would like
me to have it all learned by the following night. Chevalier il'industrie that I was at that time, I did try to have a go at it. I spent the
afternoon in a cafe, with wine flowing into me and out of me, and
as I got more sozzled, I became more convinced that the Charles
Boyers and Yves Montands, and the Jean Claude this, and the Jean
Claude that, were all at the end of their careers, and it was fortunate
that I had arrived in Paris when I had, as soon I would be Simone
Signoret's only love interest.
The afternoon became night, and my fantasies of French stardom
shifted from the mere sky-high to the stratospheric, and I wandered
from hoite to boite, trying out my phonetic French. Some waiters were
amused, while others were offended at my savaging of this, the most
sacred of languages--only French-speaking peoples find it necessary
to appoint language police--but, sans souci, I laid it on the l;ids.
When I awakened around noon the following day to the throbbing
noggin, the totally dry mouth, and a Vesuvius threatening 1
the belly, it took a bit of time to bring into focus the events or the
previous day, which were, when recalled:
I. A Gallic laddie had offered me a part in a film;
A MONK SWIMMING 261
2. The character was an American gangster, who gangstered
in French;
3. I'd said I would do it;
4.1 couldn't find the script.
Rather than face the man, I made myself scarce at the boat for
a few days, leaving a note that I had been summoned to London,
or some other banal lie, and so died my dream of stardom in France.
I never saw the producer again, and my boatmate denied ever mentioning
my name to anyone, as she didn't know it. Odd, that.
It wasn't exactly nattering when the Academic Francaise bestowed
all kinds of honors on Jerry Lewis some years later. Scraping the
bottom of the cauldron for something to take the place of a goldsmuggling,
out-of-work, out-of-marriage, drunken actor, it seems
they came up with someone to fit the bill.
I STAYED IN paris FOR six weeks, suffering the hangovers that come
only from the juice of rotten grapes trampled into insensibility by
the fungoid feet of unwashed farm laborers. It was not a pleasant
time. I developed a mini-mania about conserving the sous and the francs, walking rather than taking the superb Metro, ordering the
cheapest wine, and being not at all squeamish about gnawing on Ae remains of deceased equines and fish that had nourished themselves
on the foreign bodies found in the Seine.
Uothes went uncleaned, shirts unwashed, socks unchanged, the
"sir and beard oily and bedraggled; indeed, the only time I washed
yselt was when I checked into a pension every ten days or so for ^ry purpose, which was a relief to myself and everyone in sight.
-hen, despite untold quantities of the cheap wine, my mind
not cease leaping about like a caged and vicious rodent, it time ror another geographical relocation to escape it.
to London again, and the pubs again, friendly, warm, and
262 ^ALACHY^cCQURT
predictable-, lith familiar r-, i r ..
v , 1, ul" ^ency, and a comfortable small hotel
where the ad- %< ci-ranpri i ,
,. , , -"-rapea, ^ ^nce clothing went to cleaners
shirts and thf-ncte private „, -.-li -i * i .
r l r- i p ^ff to 'he Sundry. A trip to the barber
tor the tnrxir- n. hoarri an,-i i j i i . . ,
e oeard an^ ^ ^ dead hair, and a bit of cheer
returned.
I met u-pritliR Harris 11, ^, . ., -^gain an" taok to the usual carousmcr One riotous, rlby mght en , , i. l tt j , & l o -,^ g ^ded with me on the Underground at
about 8:30 ^., ky myself a , , j- r y i , c, . ,, y "iyscu a^ heading ror I do not know where.
spotting a ddectible vounff , -r i , r
jji r 1. y g ^"g on one of Ae platforms in the
middle of tk rush nnur T j i
., , , ' ^nnounad to the on-thewayto-work
assemblage thic nis narM'riila i .
6 <s particmar carriafie was being taken out of service,
and would evcryofip Irinrllv .- i
3 le Kincuy t^g ^^er carnage. To my astonishment,
the obdient Brits did a ^ a l l l
„ , - ^s requested, leaving me with a subway
car aH to r^lf. If only they ^ get out of Ireland as quick!
1 then sunimoiiej ^e delp < < l i i r
--Stable young thing on the platform to
loin me in my o»n private c . ' i, l j-i ci r
. ; P"vate c^ ^^^ ^ ^ 5^ ^^ ^ fraction
bemused, and a trifle hesitant- . l t i i r
ne nesitant ^ jelfteanor, but I assured her I was
merely there to ensure she harf , j i , , , i
' , , sne nac:l a decent and untroubled ride to work,
and proceeded to sinv to her , j i , . »,
. -.., - . 6 er ^ntil we arrived at her destination. My
beautinu newrnerid who sh^i. /-, < a, wno sn^ ^ ^y^ ^ Constance, was vastly
amused at the antics of .-l,,,, 0 , t i , . , , , i
cs or this t^ereJ Irishman, and yielded ye olde
phone number and a nromisfr i r ,
- - " P1^0"11^^ meeting for the evening.
Constance ivas from , ..ari, n r .1
>rom a ra.t^ er Bnt family, ensconcec : i
decent part of London with i l i i 1 . i 4 , , , , , . enough shekels to do the travel md
have the odd bite nf rmil-i ;,. ,- i , . , n c- . c., < j s ^ some of the best bistros in the Big
bmoke. bhe loved the lancrh .„. ,
me laugh, ^ j ^ quite willing to provide it,
as there was nothing more lilc^i i , < ^ g mui.c "K.e( ^ provoke outrageous behavior on
my part than Bntisli propriety
We whirled about Londo^ ^ „ pub, club to club, witn rhe
occasional mandate foray to ^ ^eemed British theater. He, parents
were amazing^ .ourteous „ ^ ^nsidering the fact I keF- 1^ out late every night ^d, mdee^ ^times aU night, as we h.d all
those fleshly desire, ^ ,oul^ ^ be satisfied alone and . rhe
A MONK SWIMMING 263
^^"vning bit of news from Constance was the fact that
j che Archbishop of Canterbury, the number two man
.)) of England, the jolly old C. of E. That bit of info ^ with glee, as the thought of me ploughing the flesh
l(;( we of the Capo of the C. of E. seemed proper redress
,-(^«e forced-rucking tithing my ancestors had to endure.
for some o>
i.jpeak of your Protestant ministers
.^fr church without morals or faith
.if foundation stones of your temple
,i( halls of King Henry the Eighth!
^ this to Constance, who, in a spirit of rebelliousness
. us, redoubled her efforts to please. ^d reparaO0
,_ nt^ "^^"de for both of us, knowing full well that it
i,r about it, a temporary liaison. Her cool demeanor, her ^.nodoU^ ' r / ,
, , a-nd willingness to have an adventure brought balm to
good humof' . , ° , , - „ „ , ,. ,
„ , J soothed the soul so that 1 could really let sunlight tiy heart a^ , . . - . . _. . ' °
; , <. despairing arenas or my spirit. 1 he violence and rage "ito the dar-r' , , , . r l ., i . , , . -z while, so there was no necessity tor me to go about "Ubsided for ^ . . . . „ . / 6 ),. . . ^.^-isive, or, indeed, ortensive people.
R l -cA ^-vm?, been temporarily fixed, 'twas time to move on.
Ap-rr-^ l-AST NIGHT WITH cheerful Constance, and no vows ^ter. one
of l . ,- touch, I nipped over to Limerick--irresistible Lim^eping
if^ ' rr
^ick k' f^7^ affectionate memory and maniacal hatred.
-pl t^-^ was g0"0 to America again, living in an apartment Vd rj L-.^1'ln Brooklyn, so I checked into the Glentworth Hotel,
^nr^ <^° be in, with restaurant attached, and went perambu6"oc(
spot ^ '
^"g round ^ town-
The y^*-11^ disease of nostalgia drove me into pub after pub
^tel' di h i ^ ^ ^a<^ no cc)ntrc)l I'd very little to be nostalgic about,
264 MALACHY McCOURT
but even the most oppressed have some sunny memory of the worst of times. Nazis, Fascists, and Conservatives are all great ones for
nostalgia--yapping about returning us to the days of glory, family unity, sunny days, traditional values, and happy peasants, engaged in
simple pursuits, gamboling about on the village green, where death
disease, and poverty dare not show their faces. It's a strange disease
nostalgia, obscuring all reality, and an evil manipulation in the hands
of right-wing swine.
But I was not wandering about Limerick because of the right
wing. In fact, it almost occurred to me that conservatives had little
to do with any of my troubles.
At about eight o'clock, I returned to the Glentworth for the
evening repast, and, running the peepers down the menu, I found it
replete with fish: hake, haddock, trout, prawns, salmon, whitefish,
bass, etc. And, at the bottom, in a difficult-to-read print, there was
an entry which read "Pork Chops (2)." Summoning the hovering
equerry (a lad I knew from days of yore, so I was a trifle embarrassed
that he was my waiter), I told him I'd love to get the molars into
the Pork Chops (2).
"The PORK CHOPS, sir?"
"Yes, the pork chops, and stop calling me 'sir'! We grew up
together. Remember?"
"I know, sir, but I have to call you 'sir' here, or I'll get the sack.
Now, the PORK CHOPS, sir?"
"Yes, the fucking pork chops."
"Just a moment, sir."
The maitre d'hotel have into sight, and bore down on my table.
"Mr. McCourt," he addressed me, "did you know that it is Friday5
"I did," sez I, though I didn't, nor did I give a fiddler's fart.
"Well, sir," sez he, with that coup de grace look in his eye, ""I"
you know you ordered the PORK CHOPS?"
I had forgotten the Catholic no-carne on Friday rule, but I vi'asn
about to admit it, so I told him, "Yes, I know I ordered the POH^ CHOPS. I am not Jewish." I was thinking he would laugh, but
A MONK SWIMMING 265
nstead, he said "I see," and went off to secure the whacked remains
of the deceased hog for my repast.
I felt somewhat less than welcome at the Glentworth thereafter,
and so spent a lot of time with Sean and Mary Costello, a young
couple who lived next door to the mudder's council house on
O'Donoghue Avenue in Jamesboro. They had four children—Jack,
Maria, Ger, and Margaret—and a more hospitable and open-door
policy than in their house you could never find. It was a wonderful,
lively place, and everyone of that family either sang or played an
instrument or both.
I enjoyed taking the drink with Sean, and accompanied him to
his local pub on the Roxboro Road, a bit of a run-down place,
owned by an elderly man whose wife did the work, assisted by the
daughter part-time. I had no shortage of the pounds, shillings, and
pence and, though I couldn't say I'd acquired it by hard work, or
any work, really, except to suggest I was doing well in America, I
was still wont to display the readies at every opportunity.
Twas not long 'til the rather crafty owner of the pub approached
me with a request, doing a pained performance of the stage Irishman
in severe convulsions over a fierce and terrible problem.
Ah, now, begob, Malachy," sez he. '"Tis the way ould Christmas
is almost down upon us, and what with wan thing and another,
shure amn't I short the do-re-mi for to get in the supplies for the
season, and, as you know—God knows who would know better
than yourself—'tis the busiest time of the year, and you with the
money rolling in, and if you could see your way to letting me have
a few hundred quid, shure you'd be the first on the list to be paid—
no bother at tall, at tall."
1 d been warned the big touch was on the way, as indeed, 'twas
not a small sum in those days. I couldn't say no, so I dipped into
e gold dough cache and forked out the readies as requested. If I
at tn^ top of the list for repayment, nobody was paid, for I
^n t seen a pound to this very day, and the pub has changed
ands "^y times over.
D
ESPITE THE READY QUIDS AND THE CONSTANT DRINKING,
'twas not long before I was again feeling thoroughly- useless
and purposeless. I'd worn out my status as a minor celebrity in the
city of my childhood and found the enveloping gloom of winter in
Limerick suffocating. With Christmas fast approaching, I th-ought it
would be a good time to visit Siobhan and Malachy. So, orEf to Aer
Lingus with me, and to booking the flight to New York. Having
no abode in New York, the St. Moritz Hotel on Central Pack South
had to suffice.
Frank and his War Department were doing the Christmas dinner
routine for the family, and the mother would be there, so we were
stt for the holiday. I wanted to murder every Salvation Army Santa
^aus and bomb every radio station that played Christmas carols; I
wanted to strangle all those who wished me a Merry Christmas, and
do in the jerks who blandly breathed "Happy Holidays" in my
Erection.
267
268 MALACHY McCOURT
I understood perfectly the reasons for the upsurge in domestic
murders with carving knives in the kitchen at Christmas. It is the
unending demands that we be "merry," while all of us are furious
at the commercialization of what is a holy day for many, the birthday of Jesus Christ, however arbitrarily it might have been chosen.
I had the chance at the holiday family tableaux, but instead I
chose to wallow in grief, and made sure that my four-year-old daughter
and my three-year-old son knew of my misery. Whether as a
direct consequence or not, Siobhan developed one of those horrendous
high fevers, in the 105°-106° region, resulting in the three of
us spending most of Christmas in the emergency room of Roosevelt
Hospital. It got so bad we had to immerse her in a bathtub filled
with ice cubes and water. You'd wonder why the little girl did not
suffer severe hypothermia from the shock.
Of course, I blamed Linda. If that selfish woman persisted in
breaking up the family, who knows what's going to happen?
That night, with the crisis passed, after I'd gotten us all bunked
down, the recurring nightmare of my children falling out the window
of a high building awakened me with the usual strangled cry. I found
them both safe, sound asleep in the next bed, so I went back to
sleep and entered another nightmare. This one took place on the
subway: When the train doors were about to close, Siobhan ran out
onto the platform, and the train pulled out of the station. I pressed
my face to the window, trying somehow to reach her, but as the
train sped into the dark cloacal depths of the underground, she stood
on the platform, looking at me, receding further and further into
the distance, and I woke again drenched in sweat.
with A STRANGE 1962 DYING and an unknown 1963 a-birthing,
I was bunking down in my mother's place on Flatbush Avenue in
Brooklyn. The couch was my nesting place whenever I made m
way back at night. The poor mother was in great agony (->vcr Tnv
A MONK SWIMMING 269
fall from marital and social grace, but was forbidden by me to mention
anything about what I was doing, what I was drinking, or my
lifestyle. There was an abuse of her hospitality and her concern, and
whilst I could see the pain in her eyes, I wouldn't allow any discussion
of my plight.
My brother Mike was tending bar at Dick Edward's, the designated
saloon for the John Birch Society of New York. One night a
week there was a meeting there of said society, and from the closed
| back room came floating the strains of the Horst Wessel Song. I
worked there for a bit, serving the lockjawed, the Nazi, the fool,
and the high-priced whore, both male and female.
My tenure at this caravansary was brief, as not alone was I insulting,
grumpy, ungracious, sarcastic, and envious of the half- and
nitwits enjoying themselves whilst I was fermenting inside, I managed
even to outrage my brother Mike, who had recommended me for
the job.
^ What was New York in January but a grey island, anyway, barely
breathing, with the air full of fractured New Year's resolutions,
streets full of angry, holidayed-out people, schools full of children
with broken dreams. Hovering above it all now was the warm
thought of suicide.
Time, once again, to flee.
My erstwhile employer in Zurich was a little perturbed at not
hearing from me for such a long time, but I charmed him out of
"is querulousness with the usual avalanche of Paddy talk and fake
concern for his welfare, all the while assuring him we were on the ^y to more fortunes. He got the ticket to me, plus another passport, ^d off to the Indian Consulate with me for the new six-month visa.
Visa secured, passport in hand, passage to India paid for, I made bother Sunday visit to my children, Siobhan and Malachy. It's an "nrnerciful role, being a Sunday father in New York, especially if
y°u don't have your own digs. Too cold for the park and the zoo, u "lends don't want two small kids scampering about their hab-
itations on Sunday, whilst they're recovering from the previous
night's excesses, trying to lift the quivering porringer of healing coffee
to the parched lips and hoping the day will be serene enough
for them to peruse the pages of the New York Times.
None of my usual haunts would do, since edicts of the law
prevented me from taking them to anything resembling a pub or a
saloon. Indeed, that day, thinking it safe enough, I took them to
Schrafft's for lunch, this being a place famous for its favor with
white-gloved octogenarians of the female sex, who came for cucumber
sandwiches without crusts. But safe, not bloody likely, as the old
ones liked to sip sherry all day, too.
The diligent and observant daughter spotted the bottles of Bacchus's
fluid glowing contentedly on the back shelf, and, in a highpitched,
high-decibel voice, yelled, "The judge said you are not to
bring us into places where they have whiskey!"
All eyes swiveled to this diminutive banshee, and then upwards
to my flaring red countenance. I tried the parental shushing routine,
but the little snipe danced away from me, chanting, "I'll tell' I'll Cell;
I'll tell Mommy, and she'll tell the judge, and he will put you in
jail." I slunk out of Schrafft's with two now-dancing kids, who had
wrested control from their father and reveled in it.
Fathers! Forgive them, they know not what they do.
Off with Daddy again to far foreign ports, leaving the little ones
behind,
T
HE FLIGHT BACK TO switzerland HAD ABOUT IT^1" THE adventure of the commuter's morning train ride. I d? lnto my usual hotel, and the goldman of Zurich arrived with ^ metalt and away we went with our hammers, flattening the ban)^ ""P1"1111 on each gold bar. We went through the routine of the ^vas vest with the pockets for the kilos of gold, and I departed ^r lvome again, with the familiar injunction to send the ambiguous ^g""1 when the mission was accomplished. My itinerary didi^ lncme dipping the wick in the fleshpots of the Holy City at thistlme> so from there it was straight on to Bombay.
The gold-smuggling caper had grown so routine thatift^"lndlan customs asked if I had anything to declare, I almost svV )ust the same old cargo of gold." Of course, prudence and ^e r Indian prisons capped any such notions of levity.
There was no Krishna's Birthday to inhibit commerce ^P'
so the transfer took place in the comfortable confines o^ 1 ;
272 MALACHY McCOURT
old whorehouse run by the respectable English madam, she of basic
black, lace, and the cameo brooch. A swift beddown with one of
the Lysol-wielding ladies of India's twilight, and then a swift exit to
Delhi and environs for the requisite week of touristing to keep things
from looking suspicious.
'Twas odd how the whole venture had become so commonplace
as to leave me bored and satiated with the exotica, the color, the
strangeness of all these places I'd so desperately wanted to visit when
I was reading and dreaming about them in the slums of Limerick.
Delhi was all right at that time of year, outside of the little storms
of red dust invading the eyeballs. I drank, ate, whored, slept, and
drank again for about a week, and then hopped on the jet back to
the Eternal City. I took one more trip after that, and then something,
it was explained to me, happened to the gold market in India that
made it less profitable for Western gangsters and money manipulators
to continue the smuggling.
I took another trip to Ibiza, to ensure my villa was still intact,
as I had paid a year's rent in advance--almost five hundred dollars,
a princely sum in those days. I was once again able to indulge my
fantasies of having my children with me. The plot to abduct the
children and force the recalcitrant spouse to come to the negotiating
table with a view to the reconciliation had been lurking in the rear
compartment of my foggy cranium, and now it came to the fore
again.
I had refined the plan, as follows: I would pick up the young
ones, ostensibly for a weekend stay with me, then I would take a
train to Montreal, and from there, a plane to Dublin. Then, onto
the overnight steamer going to Holyhead in Wales, and from thence
a train to London. A rest-up for a day or so, and then to Dover,
and across the English Channel to Calais, and another train to Paris,
followed by a plane to Barcelona, and again the boat to Ibiza.
I thought all the zigzagging, on a route that didn't require visas,
would throw the international police off the scent, as there would
A monksv^imming 273
be no record of our travels. E^ when I sat down on the terrace of
the villa, and gazed over the Mediterranean sea, and searched the
mind for the flaw in this kApping and hostage caper, it came
down on me that it wouldr^'work. It gradually seeped through
the Fundador fumes that the ^ouse wouldn't be too eager to leap
into my arms after I had w^"t stopped her heart with the fear of
never seeing her children aga^"
I considered the possibili^' of leaving the kids with the nanny
and meeting Linda elsewhere, P^haps Paris, and afterward she would
pledge her troth again. I w^ take her to the reunion in Ibiza,
where we would once more Vs 3 happy, All-American family, Mom,
Dad, Sis, and Junior. But tl/ torpion in the balm was that Linda
could nominally acquiesce t^ Anything, but as soon as she set the
peepers on the fruit of her ^mb, she would screech for the local
gestapo, and I would join Brt^Hauptmann in the annals of infamy.
I highly recommend ext^td contemplation of the Mediterranean
to provide enlightenme0'' especially when meditating on future
criminal activity. Not that } ^nsidered my plans criminal--I was
just setting right a great inj^ce. Of course, I didn't consider my
gold smuggling criminal eit^.I was merely a customs evader, and,
besides, how else was I goil^to explore the world with my limited
resources?
The projected failure of <"? plans served to intensify the drinking.
Then an irresistible thought ^tild pop into the head. Go to Tripoli,
the home of the Barbary pi"^, and I'd be off for the little jaunt.
More passing thoughts and ^nken impulses took me on side trips
to Rabat, Casablanca, Algie^'Tunis. There'd be few days and nights
of drinking in new places, ^mornings waking up wondering what
language it was I was being! ^ed to leave in.
These were all the neigl' "'hoods and places I'd read about and
had always wanted to see. ^te day I shall return sober and do so.
My goldman in Zurich ""g to ask me if I could go to Ireland
274 MALACHY McCOURT
and buy up some Irish passports for future use, against the day when
the gold market would stabilize itself and we were in business again.
He sent the readies for purchase of same, plus some expense money,
and I left one island, Ibiza--making sure to take with me my traveling
companions, self-pity and insanity--and headed off for another.

Of course, I had to stop in London to have a few jorums there.
I arrived one evening, and woke the next morning to discover I'd
been there for three weeks, and not a passport purchased or a child
in the house washed.
There was a bit of wonderment at my reappearance in Limerick,
as 'tis not the place to go to in the middle of a dreary winter,
especially if you have the necessary funding to be in a balmier clime.
Was said to me by all, "Oh! There you are. Are you home again?"
Translated from the Irish, this means, "What kind of feckin' eejit
are you to come in the bleak winter?" I deflected all inquiries with
the deft verbal sidestep, and went about my business.
The buying of passports was a bit complicated there. The applicant
had to first go to the local police station. There they were
required to apply for a character rating and receive approval after
stating why the passport was desired, what the destination was, and
when the person proposed leaving--all of which is nobody's business
but the traveler's, but that's the way things were. I did manage
to snaffle a half dozen of the documents for money, after explaining,
in the lying fashion I'd adopted, that they were to be used in some
currency transactions. The folks who got passports and sold them
to me pretended to understand, nodding sagely as I poured forth a
line of gibberish and lies.
One lad I enlisted got nabbed by the wife when she found out
from a neighbor that her husband had applied to the police for a
passport. She figured he was going to run off with some other lady,
and there was a hell of a bloody row. Discreet lad that he was, he
didn't say that I was involved in any way, and I must admit that
was some misplaced loyalty.
A MONK SWIMMING 275
The mission accomplished, I set about lowering the available
stocks of whiskey and stout on hand in Ireland. At one point, I set
myself the goal of having a drink in every pub in Limerick and
environs. I should have gotten on the plane and hied the bod back
co New York, but the ease of life in a comfortable hotel, the availability
of companionship all hours of the day and night, with never
a comment on my drinking, were enough to keep me there.
Soon the money began petering out, so a visit to the chap to
whom I'd lent the quids was in order. I went by his pub and his
wife said he wasn't in. "Right," sez I. "I'll drop in again."
Some more visits, and he wasn't in, which was strange for a man
who it was hard to find out. It dawned on me that the blighter was
avoiding me, so the next time I popped in, I said I'd wait, and after
a bit I leaned over the bar. There he was, crouching down, as if
repairing a pipe that wasn't there. "What time will you be in?" sez
I to him.
"Ah, bedad," sez he, "'tis the way now that times is hard and
Christmas is not what it used to be,1 with people not drinking and
spending their money on food and clothes and other useless things."
And he went on to decry the rise of materialism and the dreadful
draw of outside activities that took men away from the pleasures of
the pub. He was as loquacious in explaining why he couldn't repay
the loan as he was in requesting it. This avalanche of horseshite
engulfed me to the point where I forgot my mission, i.e., to retrieve
the readies I'd advanced this maunderer.
A call from my goldman, who was now in New York: (a) "Where
are you?"; (b) "Do you have the passports?"; (c) When are you
coming back?" Answers: (a) "I'm here"; (b) "Yes"; (c) "In a day
or so."
A MONUMENTAL PISSUP ENDED MY stay in Limerick. Not much
can be remembered, except for the absurdity of an Irishman nicknamed
Barrow Boy, who drunkenly and weepingly proclaimed his
276 MALACHY McCOURI
undying love for the Queen of England and. his sorrow and distress
at the disintegration of the British Empire.
The sight of a curly-headed, ma-faced cnick, standing in the sacred
precincts of a Limerick pub, tearfully and in an affected Cockney
accent singing Rule Brittania, penetrated the whiskey mists
wafting around my brain. Not a soul objected, as all politely listened
'til he warbled to the end: "Britons never, never shall be slaves."
It was that same Irish politeness allowed the fuckers to stay for
eight hundred years. No one could figure o-ut how to tell 'em they'd
o'erstayed ye olde welcome and 'twas time to fuck off, except, sadly
enough, for a few of the lads who took up the gun.
JI!1 As nobody else felt called upon to explain the situation to this
traitorous Gaelic Gunga Din, I took him outside and did so myself,
the NEXT DAY IT WAS off to Shannon Airport again, stumbling,
bumbling, mumbling, and maudlin, as if I were taking a coffin-ship
to America, with small chance of survival. "Things looked up though,
as the hostesses served me more than my share of the amber liquids,
due to my part in quieting a bald-patede, obstreperous arsehole in
the seat in front of me. As we were roarmig toward take-off, when
no one can be allowed to stand, he insistemtly banged the call button
to summon a hostess.
When we were airborne, he began sho'-uting and abusing the uniformed
women and, remembering my owrn bad behavior on previous
occasions, I decided that this would be a good time to make the
amends. So I leaned over the seat, tappin;.g him on the shining head,
and informed him that if his finger went in the direction of the call
button once more, I would break it of^f, plus he would have his
cranium stoven, and his body taking an <---inscheduled solo flight int0 the icy waters of the Atlantic. Not a wonrd did he speak for the rest
of the trip, and those green-clad lassies plied me with a sufficiency
of fuel to get me across the briny.
A MONK SWIMMING 277
The formalities were completed at Idlewild Airport, and a stroll
i retrieve the trusty portmanteau gave me time to conduct an audit
of the finances and an inventory of the assets. Assets consisted of
three shoes (apparently one had taken a walk by itself), some tattered
drawers, some defeated shirts, a woebegone suit, a drove of dead
socks, a balding toothbrush, a well-worn passport, and a tie that, if
immersed in water, would have made a thick, nourishing soup for
to feed most of Calcutta.
The finances, a careful assembly of coinage and notes, included
rupees, naye paise, pesetas, centimos, some half pennies, a half crown
or two, some crumpled, pathetic lira notes, a brave franc, a onepound
note, and an Irish shilling, but no sign of anything resembling
American currency. "Where did it all go?" I wondered briefly, but
the answer was too painful and obvious to dwell upon.
I explained to a kindly-looking chap that I had no American
money and needed a dime to make an urgent telephone call, and he
obliged. Rang the brother Frank in Brooklyn, he was home and told
me to belt right over. "Small problem," sez I, "I'm not in possession
of the coin of the realm." Decent man that he was, he said he saw
no problem: Just get a taxi and bang on his bell and all would be
taken care of.
An advance from the kindly brother kept me from the penury
regions and he asked me no questions, passed no judgments, gave
no advice, just "How much do you need," and off I was to the
fleshpots of New York.
Not much after that, I reluctantly signed the divorce agreement
^th Linda, on the theory that if I let her go free, she would fly
back to me. To my astonishment, she hoved off to Mexico and got
her liberation papers, and was now the ex—Mrs. McCourt.
And that was how those travels ended, with me as broke and
"weft as when they began.
FIVE
FATHER TO THE MAN
Now I'm resolved to try it,
I'll live on a moderate diet,
I'll not drink and will deny it,
And shun each alehouse door,
For that's the place they tell us,
We meet with all jovial good fellows,
But I swear by the poker and bellows,
I'll never get drunk anymore.
A man that's fond of boozing,
His cash foes daily oozing,
His character he's losing,
And its loss he will deplore.
His wife is unprotected,
His business is neglected,
Himself is disrespected,
So I'll not get drunk anymore.
old temperance song
WAS STAYING IN AN APARTMENT I'D FOUND IN queens,
when my mother informed me that she'd had the letter from my
father in which he stated that he had not been drinking for several
years and was working as a cook in a monastery (Frank said the
main activity there was fasting), and he was desirous of a reconciliation,
for, as he put it, "What God hath put together, let no man
put asunder." He had passport, ticket, and visa, and was all set to
begin this happy voyage into the future.
"What do you think?" sez the mother and, without waiting for
my answer, proceeds to give all the reasons they should reconcile.
He hasn't touched a drop of drink in years ("not since they invented
the funnel," sez I), he was healthy, and she still had the old graSh for him, and she was getting older, and he was always good company,
and they were sure they could make a success of it, and what do
you think?
"You've answered all your questions," sez I, "and it's you that's
going to have to live with him."
5fl7
A MONK SWIMMING 283
"I'll try it, so," sez she.
After making up her mind that the father, Malachy Sr., could
come and share her abode, a quarter of a century after having deserted
us, she wrote to him inviting him to get on the swift ship he
had prattled about in his letter, and get over here.
She didn't know how to sign it. "Your loving wife" was too
intimate, she thought; "your wife" was too cold; "Sincerely yours,"
too impersonal, as were "Warm regards," and "Yours truly." The
ending salutation delayed sending the letter for two days. She finally
settled for
"Yours, etc.
Anyk"
and off the bloody missive went to Belfast.
A few weeks later, the telegram arrived saying that he was on the
high seas on one of the Cunard ships, and on the I Oth of August,
1963, the mother, myself, and Siobhan and Malachy went to the
pier to meet the "new" man, the reconstructed saint, the to-be-loving
husband, the diligent father, and the doting grandpa.
My arse! Malachy McCourt Sr. came down that gangplank like
Toulouse-Lautrec, a legless drunk he was, being carried by two
sturdy crewmen. I saw the chief purser at the head of the gangplank
and asked about the dad's condition. In the studied tones of the
Brit when speaking of outrageous Paddy behavior, he announced in
supercilious, upper-class shorthand, "He's not too bad today, ectchewly.
Had the blighter in leg irons for most of the voyage. Not
sorry to see him off this vessel."
That tone and attitude always had the same effect on me--as if a
wire brush were employed in scrubbing my spine. There was only the
comfort of knowing they had been a syphilized race since Henry
VIII infected so many people, carrying all the way to Lord Randolph
Churchill, Winnie's papa, who died of the syphilis at the age of fortyfour,
so who were they to turn up their snoots at my loony pater?
284 MALACHY McCOURT
We retrieved his bag at customs and got him out to Flatbush
Avenue in Brooklyn, where the mother was domiciled. He questioned
my children on the catechism and on Irish history and sang
the old patriotic songs again. The man hadn't moved an inch in
the inside of his head, going round and round on love for Ireland
and love for the Holy Mother Church to two small kids who
wouldn't know the Virgin Mary from Typhoid Mary, or Ireland
from Coney Island. Bonkers as ever the man was, but hope springs
eternal: Perhaps, when he sobered up, all would change and he
might be normal.
He tried to explain that sailing the Atlantic on a British ship was
such a torment to him, knowing that under the keel were hundreds
of thousands of Irish people, asleep in the deep, who met their fate
while fleeing Brit oppression. And seeing the Union Jack flying on
the mast every morning drove him to the bar, where everything was
duty-free anyway.
We put him to bed, where he fell into the deep sleep of the
overindulged and slept through the night, but that was the last
night of peace for the poor mother. Sober by day, he rampaged
Brooklyn by night, urging stray Puerto Ricans, Blacks, Jews, and
Arabs to go and fight and die for Ireland. How he wasn't hammered
to death or knifed or robbed or beaten into insensibility is
a mystery to us all.
Night after night, the mother would telephone: "Would you
come over here and get him off me," and I'd go, and he'd preach
that she had a sacred obligation to submit to her husband and
perform the marital duty, or he'd report her to the church authorities.
She wasn't having any of that carryin' on, sez she, and him
langers drunk all the time.
I'd arrive to find him standing at the window of her second-floor
walkup, exhorting passersby on Flatbush Avenue to go to mass to learn Irish history, honor their fathers and mothers, say their prayers,
and be sure to die for Ireland. The puzzled people standing on the
A MONK SWIMMING 285
street would cheer him on and give him encouragement when he
seemed to falter, cheering and clapping, especially when he sang
about Roddy McCorley going to die on the bridge of the Toome
today. I'd be embarrassed to enter the little building, lest they connect
me with him, so I'd have to wait 'til he was either finished or
pulled in by my mother.
After two weeks of these whacko goings-on, and after he'd discovered
the two elderly ladies next door (whom my mother had
tried to conceal from him because of their propensity for the sauce),
I got him to go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. The speaker,
in a very moving story, related a horrible descent into hell, which
ended with him drinking kerosene.
"Well," said I to the man who had seeded me, "how did that
strike you?"
"Ah, I'm not an alcoholic," he responded. "I don't drink kerosene."

The old ones next door hadn't a tooth between them, except
the false ones for the daytime, and if there was a screed of hair on
their respective heads, it could only be found with an intense microscopic
inspection, but they were ecstatic at the arrival of my
berserk father, as there hadn't been a man in their apartment in
years, outside of the utilities man who read the meters. They had
pensions from the telephone company, so there was no shortage of
money for the Four Roses and ginger ale, which they were delighted
to share with the Da. According to my mother, they were
diligent in learning the patriotic Irish songs my father taught them,
especially,
We drink the memory of the brave,
The faithful and the few.
Some lie far off beyond the wave,
Some sleep in Ireland too.
All, all are gone, but still lives on,
286 MALACHY McCOURT
The fame of those who died,
All true men like you men.
Remember them with pride.
And they couldn't wait to die for Ireland, it seemed, but in the
meantime, they would drink for America.
About eleven o'clock one pleasant September eve, the call come
from the mater. She hadn't seen the old man since the day before,
when he went out, ostensibly seeking employment. He hadn't come
home last night, and no word of him at all this day, and she was
nervous of going into the new patriots' apartment for fear of what
she might find.
"What means that?" sez I.
"Well, I think there's been a bit of carrying on there," sez she.
"It's something I don't want to know any more about, so would
you come over, in the name of God, and see what's going on?"
Once more I trekked over to Brooklyn, and once more comforted
the disturbed mother. She had keys to the old ones' flat, as she used
in better times to bring in the odd cup of tea and a biscuit or two.
I cautiously opened the door and immediately kicked a bottle lying
there in the dark. There were several more of those lying about,
causing hazardous conditions for any pedestrian.
I made my groping way to what appeared to be the bedroom,
opened the door, and stepped inside. There came wafting through
the darkness a small symphony of snorts, snores, wheezings, and soft
whistlings. I managed to locate a light switch on the wall, which
produced the bing-bing-flicker of one of those circular fluorescent
lights so beloved by cheap landlords.
In the large bed, I observed three bald heads on the pillows, and
about seven miles of gums. I had difficulty in figuring out which
one was my father, but of course he was in the middle, the meat in
a geriatric sandwich. Leaning over, I shook him, which startled him
into a sudden sit-up and, first looking to the left at the old one,
A MONK SWIMMING 287
and next looking to the right at the other old one, he then looked
at me with all the innocence of an ambushed rodent, and saith:
"Who are these guys?"
The scene was so absurd, so farcical, so ludicrous, that I almost
became helpless with a surge of laughter from deep inside. But that
was quelled by a gasp from behind me. The mother had decided to
screw up her courage and face the force of this den of iniquity. In
a savage second, my laughter changed to rage at the sight of this
madman, my father, sordidly snug 'twixt two smelly old wanton
remnants of womanhood, and, grabbing him by the shirt, which was
all he was clad in, I lifted him into the air and gave him a fist in
the gut, which landed him crumpled in a corner.
The old ones slept. He muttered something about the Fourth
Commandment, and Honor thy father, and I screamed, loosing all
the tamped down rage I'd held within me since he had left us. And
I started bawling, and with the tears streaming down my face, I let
forth a rope of invective:
"You scrawny old whore's melt? Who in the name of Christ are
you to invoke the Commandments, when you've just pulled your
puny cock out of an old cunt, and what gives you the right to call
yourself a father, and what would you know about honor and decency,
when desertion and abandonment were your strategies for
dealing with life and death, and you would give up anything for a
drink, and you drink anything given to you, you sodden old crawthumping,
statue-kissing hypocrite, with your rosary beads, prayer
books, and exhortations to attend to our religious duties. Fuck your
rosaries and your missals and your religion and fuck your God and
your church and fuck you, above all, fuck you."
He just lay on the floor, with his old cock and balls collapsed
on his thigh, whimpering, "Ah, now, don't say things like that, Ah
now, don't say things like that."
And I wanted suddenly to pick him up and hug him to make it
all right, to comfort him, soothe him, and rock him. But I couldn't.
288 MALACHY McCOURT
I had to act the tough guardian of morality and mother's feelings,
and so I ordered him out of the house, this small, grey wisp of a
man, whose absence had loomed so large in Frank's life, my life,
Mike's life, and Alphie's life, and out the door walked this insignificant
man with a nondescript bag, murmuring, "Ah now, ah now,
there's no need for all this. Ah, now."
I closed the door, we heard him descending the stairs, and he
was gone again. Even when he was here, he was gone again. We sat,
the mother and myself, in silence, sunk in our own morass of doubts,
memories flooding back.
The mother and myself came out of the reveries at about the
same time, and she smiled at me, and I smiled at her. Here she was,
isolated in a dingy little apartment on Flatbush Avenue, having been
abused by brother and sister and mother, her father dead before she
was born. Married to an alcoholic, who saddled her with seven
children, three of whom died. She had taken up with another abusive
drunk in Limerick, and for that, none of us ever really forgave her.
Now once more victimized by her own yearning.
"He's gone," sez I.
"Again," sez she.
We laughed ruefully, as the novelist would say.
"What kind of eejit was I to think that he had changed?" sez
she.
"No more an eejit than the rest of us trotting after you," sez I,
who had thought the same. It was just a hope, and no blame to
anyone, except maybe his family in Northern Ireland, who wanted
to be rid of him.
"I should have known better," she said.
That should be on her gravestone.
The mother went to her once-more-manless bed, thinking the
Irish proverb, "It's all better than a bad marriage." I stretched out on the lumpy dark couch and went to sleep, dreaming dreams th.it
are not in my memory.
The day, the early summer day, when he took me hy the hand to go for
the walk, I was eager, because he rarely held our hand or carried anything
in his own, as he believed it was unseemly for a man to care for a
child or carry a -parcel in his hands. "Woman's work," sez he!
We walked out hy the way of Roshrien, past the White Gates of the
Railway, past the small houses the English built for railway workers
He told me we were going to a place where there is a well that has the
sweetest, coolest magical spring waters, which are there to make you
happy. I just couldn't get over how much I loved my daddy then, for
bringing me to this sacred, secret place. We clambered over one stilt, and
crossed afield that had cows who looked at me and frightened me, but
big, brave father chased them off with a wave of his hand. Over a ditch
we went with him, me carried above the clumps of stinging nettles, which
he said were good for you when brewed as tea.
We walked to the middle of the field, and there, midst a clump of
rushes, was the well. It didn't look to me like it was too magical, as it
was just water, surrounded by some built-up stones. "Kneel down and
289
290 MALACHY McCOURT
drink it," he said, and I did. I tried to remember something I'd read in
a Bible about soldiers being selected for battle by Moses, and whether
they cupped their hands and drank the water, or was it that they put
their mouths in the water and sucked it up?
I thought it was braver to put my mouth in the water and suck it
up. It was the loveliest water I'd ever tasted, and the more I drank of
it, the lovelier it became. And then we lay under a big shady tree, which
was the home of dozens of birds, and my father made up stories of
bravery anil dying for Ireland, and he sang many songs, and recited
poetry, and manufactured tales of the doings of the shapes in the clouds.
The bees hummed, the birds sang, and the insects cricketed all around us
as he talked, crooned, and made great use of the language to fill a child's
mind with joy and wonder.
The marvelous sun began its descent in the sky, and all around us
the natives of nature began the rustling and settling for the evening's rest.
My dad told me that all creatures had one thing in common: They all
knew how to pray. That's what they were doing now—thanking Cod
for another blessed and wonderful day, and we should go now and leave
them to their devotions.
The darkness was falling, as we walked back along the road to the
fetid lane, and there were scary moos and caws, and screeches from the
fields on either side of us, hut my dad picked me up and held me close,
and I wasn't afraid anymore, and I fell asleep and didn't wake 'til the
next morning.
When my father left us and went to England, I went to find the
well again. Over the same stile I went, over the same ditch, where the
stinging nettles threatened, past the big sheltering tree, to where the well
had been. It wasn't there: no rushes, no well.
I tramped all over that field, and the field to the south of it, and to
the north of it, and every other field, but never again did I find that
well, and never again did I find the father who brought me there.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Malachy McCourt, sixty-seven, is a writer and actor who has had
numerous featured roles on stage, television, and screen, including
such films as The Devil's Own, She's the One, and The Bonfire of the Vanities.
He is happily married, the father of five children, and the grandfather
of three. He lives in New York City.