A Short Story by Cal Ward
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| There has to be an easier way to pass the Winter |
Weasel Redhawk Billings balefully regarded the crazily flapping canvas on the steel frame of his geodesic 'bender' with lachrymose eyes. There had to be, he thought, an easier way to pass the Winter than in a bloody bender with half rotten canvas in a godforsaken bog in the middle of Offaly. Offal with a 'y'; they'd named the bloody place well anyhow; these mad Micks with their grotty little thirty acre farms and their bloody turf and their Guinness. The place had looked allright when he'd wandered in back in the Spring and he'd shacked up with Stella. There had been sunshine and working on the bog for Mick Molloy and beer in the 'Bog Barrow' in the evenings. The Geezer who owned the place was a bit of a wanker but he'd given the go-ahead to the new-age travellers to pitch their benders and stay as long as they wanted. He was having a spot of bother with the previous tenant and wanted her out. She kept horses over around the farmhouse and had built stables with her lunatic husband, Nicky Carroll, and knew everything about everything - except paying the rent of course. He figured if the New Age Travellers took up the best field with their benders and their goats and their Hiace vans then she'd take the hint and move on. She didn't and there had been a standoff for months. Things had come to a bit of a head when the lunatic husband - Nicky Carroll, had showed up at Stella's bender with a tractor and a slurry tank that he had somehow managed to borrow or steal and had emptied a thousand gallons of cowshit into her vegetable patch. 'I thought I'd help the cabbage along, Missus' says he. It ran under the wooden pallets that were the floor of the bender and coagulated there, a stinking black mess with worms wriggling in it. Stella had enough; she piled the gear into the Hiace and took off for the camp up in the mountains where the Poet had his setup. He wouldn't be surprised if the Poet had been giving her one all along. Weasel Redhawk had hung on hoping things would get better and they did. The geezer who owned the place got plastered one night and wrecked the farmhouse and Carroll and the missus had moved back into their Council House but they still came down every day to visit the horses. Weasel Redhawk went over one night and let himself in through a window and located the bottle of Hennessy brandy the Carrolls used for softening up prospective buyers of the horses they broke and quaffed the lot. On the way out he decided to let the old dog off the leash where the poor old bugger was tied night and day and the ungrateful ghett had sunk his teeth in Weasel Redhawk's ankle. How was he to know he'd been kicked on the head by a horse and was quite off his rocker? Anyway it was the opening he was looking for and he had gone off to the County Hospital in Tullamore and from there to Moloney the Solicitor and had filed a claim against the Carrolls for neglectfully allowing their dog to attack people and had been awarded three thousand quid. It might as well have been three million for all the difference it made to Nicky Carroll who had never paid a bill in his life but it had the desired effect of getting them off the premises leaving Weasel Redhawk Billings in sole possession. The geezer who owned the place had met some sheila down in Cork and was never around these days. Samhain had been just great. He'd gathered a big pile of wood and lit a big bonfire and the Poet and Stella and the crowd from the mountain had come down and they'd brought music and it was a gas. Stella had gotten stoned out of her tree and had wandered off into the bog and some farmer bloke had found her bollick naked in the meadow when he was drawing turf and while he was trying to drag her out of the way the bloke's wife had come along and caught him and oh man you should've seen the pounding that old doll gave the bloke. It was magic! Even the old parish priest had arrived down with the teacher and the postman for a look at all them naked hippies dancing around the fire. Weasel Redhawk had asked the old Padre what he thought of the party and the old man said something about it being a pity it wouldn't rain. What a party! What a Summer! From time to time Owen Holohan would call by with a drop of poteen or a joint of venison and they'd enjoy a natter. At first he'd thought Holohan was a queer but eventually he accepted that he was just a decent friendly old sod and they became good pals. He'd even presented Holohan with a carved walking stick that he'd made from a piece of wood he'd found in the bog. Holohan had spent ages examining it and seemed quite fascinated with it.
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| Bender paradise |
That was midsummer. Now it was bloody midwinter and Weasel Redhawk's bender was close to takeoff in the gale that blew all the way from Nova Scotia with nothing to stop it only the steeple in the cathedral in Athlone. The field was ankle deep in mud and the goats had taken off up the bog to somewhere drier and more sheltered leaving Weasel Redhawk to survive as best he could. He couldn't light a fire and getting out to the laneway and into town to collect his dole was a nightmare. He was sitting in a pub in town one dole day wondering if the bender was still in one piece when he saw Stella who had also come into town to collect her dole and do some shopping. She and the Poet had an old car and she offered to give Weasel Redhawk a lift back to the bog. He accepted the offer and piled his stuff into the boot. Stella drove as far as the railway bridge at the edge of town and suddenly stopped and said; 'Get out you bastard, you don't deserve a lift for the way you treated me out in that bloody bog, get out'! 'Fair enough' thought Weasel Redhawk; 'No bloody point in arguing with an unstable female’ and got out and went around to get his stuff from the boot. Stella followed him shouting insults. When he slammed the boot door a strange thing happened. Something, probably the handbrake cable went 'THWANG' inside the car and it started to roll down the railway bridge. It hit the parapet, crossed the road and overturned into the ditch. Dimly, Weasel became aware that fate had handed him an opportunity to escape becoming bender-bond for the duration of an Irish Winter. Stella was losing her already fragile self control at a dizzily accelerating rate. She attacked Weasel with her tongue, fists and feet becoming more incoherent and less co-ordinated as she pressed her attack home. Weasel for his part, acted with uncharacteristic restraint and held her at arm's length by the simple expedient of placing his hand on her neck. His long arm ensured that only her fingertips reached him and since she had cultivated the habit of biting her nails, these were harmless. Her feet were another matter and she kept up a barrage of kicks with her daintily shod feet. He spoke softly and persuasively; "Kick me again, Stella, and I'll give you one in the kisser" while at the same time keeping an eye on the road until he saw what he was waiting for. An old couple in a Morris Minor (or “Bull Minor” as it was known locally) came trundling homeward with their morning's shopping. Weasel grabbed Stella and deftly flipped her over on her back and proceeded to slap her lightly around the face with exaggerated flailing movements of his arms; Laurel and Hardy style. The spunky old boy hopped out of his little car with a "What're you doing to that poor woman?" while his wife added "Ya aul' feckin' bully!". The rest was simple. a trip to hospital for Stella where she was pronounced seriously traumatised by a young doctor who knew better than to argue and a ride to the local Garda station for Weasel where he was charged with assault and released. The local Gardai were used to the ways of the hippy community and made a minimum of fuss. Mostly they left them alone apart from the occasional cannabis raid. Stella was escorted home weeping hysterically by a couple of tut-tutting friends and given a joint to soothe her nerves.
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| Home sweet home!! |
Weasel endured a few more weeks in the bender and was called to the local District Court in Kilcormack. He packed his possessions that morning and said goodbye to the bender and the mud and hitched a lift across the rain sodden Boora Bog to what he hoped would be a custodial sentence in a nice warm jail somewhere. He was to be vastly disappointed. Justice McGlynn had forty years experience on the bench and his forays into "The Bog Barrow" public house during his fishing and shooting trips to Clonloum had added a measure of local knowledge and savvy to that experience. Furthermore his lifelong crony and shooting and fishing guide, Owen Holohan, had often regaled him with hilarious stories of the goings on in the local hippy community. Shrewdly, he eyed both Stella and Weasel and deduced that both were present for reasons that had little to do with law or justice. A quiet word with the Sergeant during recess confirmed this. When the case was heard and ample evidence had been presented that Stella was damaged for life despite her healthy cheerful appearance and Weasel was a danger to society despite his half starved scrawny appearance, he quickly handed down a guilty verdict and imposed a fine of fifty pounds. Weasel jumped from his seat with considerable alacrity and informed the Justice that he had neither fifty pounds nor the means to acquire it and would prefer if he, the Justice, had imposed a custodial sentence. With a half smile Justice McGlynn intoned; "Very well then, fifty pounds with a month to pay and a two-month jail sentence in default of payment". Weasel, rattled now, jumped up again and said in desperation; "But I'd prefer to go to jail now - I have no hope of paying fifty pounds, ever". With a final grave "A month to pay; next case" he shattered Weasel's hopes of immediate state accommodation for the Winter's duration.
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| As cold a s frog in a Bog!! |
Weasel went home crestfallen but after enduring a further muddy month over a steadily rising watertable in Clonloum Bog he made his way back into town and presented himself at the Garda station. The old sweat on dayroom duty, who was three months from retirement, glanced up and uttered a curt "Well?" "I was fined fifty quid for assault and I didn't pay; I'm supposed to go to jail". Without even glancing up this time, the old sweat who, as it happened, also liked a pint in The Bog Barrow with Holohan and the boys intoned; "Fuck off Weasel!". Weasel recognised a stone wall when he saw one and immediately put plan "b" into operation. He scooted around the corner to the Hammer Tavern and proceeded to drink cider with gusto. By late afternoon he was roaring drunk and broke and lying on the pavement outside the Hammer having been tossed out by the proprietor for being obstreperous. He made his unsteady way to the Garda Station and presented himself at the dayroom desk long enough to state his name and his intention to sleep in the bicycle shed at the back of the station until he was taken to jail. He then installed himself on the old couch in the bicycle shed and fell asleep, snoring. There had recently been a scandal over a drunk who had died while in Garda custody up in County Cavan and the Sergeant, with a eye for any threat to his eventual promotion to Superintendent wasted no time ordering a Taxi from the nearby rank and sending him, with an unwilling young escort, off to Mountjoy Jail in Dublin.
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| Jail at last!! |
Upon arrival he was processed by a bored warden who arranged a meal and a new pair of blue jeans, socks, sneakers, shirt and sweater for him and put him in a cell with Mike for the night. Sober now, and feeling a bit rough he asked Mike if there was anything around that'd save a sinner and Mike handed him a joint. They smoked and talked for a few hours in convivial comfort and he learned Mike's story. He had, it seemed, "a bit of a problem" and had grabbed an old lady's handbag in O’Connell Street to raise some cash to buy "stuff". Not being a violent man by nature he had glanced back while running away from the scene of the crime to see if the old lady were all right. This temporary distraction from the serious business of escape had caused him to collide with a lamp post, knocking himself out and leading ultimately to a six month sentence in the "Joy" which, he informed Weasel was an all right place if you knew the ropes, as he, Mike did, and he would ensure that Weasel did too. Weasel went to sleep happy and dreamed of midsummer romps among the yellow gorse of Clonloum Bog.
After lunch the following day Weasel met the Prison Governor in his office. After enquiring politely if he were all right after his first night in prison he informed Weasel that due to the overcrowded state of the prison and the relative mildness of his conviction he would have to send him home again. Feeling completely deflated now, Weasel could only think of asking, "Can I keep me new clobber?" The governor, a kindly man, with enlightened ideas on rehabilitation said, "Of course", and an hour later Weasel was on a train speeding west in the direction of the Midlands and his bender in Clonloum Bog with his discharge papers (which he later framed as a souvenir), ten quid spending money and his smelly old clothes in a plastic bag and black depression in his heart. He visited the Health Board offices and got enough money for a few groceries and a piss up and hitched a lift to The Bog Barrow where he ordered some Cider to drink while he planned his next move. While he thus musing over his future in the corner seat near the potbelly stove and nursing his cider, Owen Holohan called in. Holohan had an arrangement with Mrs. Taiquin, who was a genuine old-fashioned gourmet, for the supply of table delicacies such as snipe and pheasant and young venison. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement as it allowed the publican to keep the best provided larder in the district and Holohan the pleasure of an occasional evening in the pub without the worry of explaining to Concepta, his wife, where the money had come from. He had been pondering a scheme to make the price of the Christmas festivities for himself and the family for some time and it involved Weasel Redhawk Billings and the huge pile of unwanted "bog oak" that Bord na Móna or The Turf Board had bulldozed into a pile behind the Holohan residence in Clonloum Bog. He ordered a Guinness for himself and a pint of Bulmers Cider for the severely depressed hippy and sat down by the potbelly stove to discuss his scheme.
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| Bog oak |
Owen Holohan was in possession of a stockpile of the finest quality bog oak, an idea, some money and some contacts. Weasel Redhawk Billings had time, needed a place to live, and was a talented carver of wood. Would Weasel like to live in Granny Holohan's "Granny flat" at the back of Holohan's house for the Winter while Granny was in California visiting her brother and carve (with equipment provided by Holohan) the bog oak into figurines which Holohan could, through his multitude of contacts, sell profitably? The cost of his keep would be deducted from his share of the profits. Weasel moved in that night and after a meal of roast rabbit and homegrown potatoes and onions went to sleep knowing that this time he would not be sent back to the bender in the bog for he knew Owen Holohan was a man of his word. Shortly thereafter there began to appear, in the windows and display shelves of high class watering holes and emporiums, a variety of exquisite black figurines carved from the beautiful ten thousand year old fossil spruce, oak and beech of Clonloum Bog. There were otters and duck and foxes and all the varied wildlife of the area in shiny black wood. There was even a South American Jaguar that had lived for a time in the area, having escaped from a circus. That bog oak is rarely jet black in colour bothered no-one and Weasel revealed to no-one that the shiny blackness came from a tin of boot polish. What mattered was that his imagination could see form in a formless piece of twisted root wood and his hands did the rest. In time he moved back to his bender, bought the tools he needed from Holohan and built a weatherproof log cabin. He had also realised there was no mystery in finding bog oak or selling bog oak figurines. Holohan didn't mind. Christmas had been a wonderful success. Concepta had gone shopping in town with a thousand pounds to spend, the car had a reconditioned engine, and Holohan had a shiny new duck gun and Weasel Redhawk Billings had a trade. Over a few pints in the Bog Barrow on Christmas Eve, Owen was complimented on his astute recognition of the potential in both bog oak, granny's empty flat and the rejected jailbird's talent. "Is it not better" he told his listeners, "To give a man a fishing rod and teach him to fish than merely to give him a fish"? "Although I often do regret I let him go so easily for I could have become a millionaire but every man must follow his star". They shook their heads in awe of a great intellect and Huey Guinan consoled him with the observation that "Great men make great mistakes".
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| Bog oak Sculpture |
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