is just Patrick Sullivan II, who is not the nicest of people. He doesn’t curse or throw things or hit, but he does drink, a lot. And he also ... broods, I guess. Dolores calls them his “dark moods.” Sullivan calls them “being a lazy asshole.” I can see how both interpretations are correct.
When he’s brooding, P.J. has two tendencies: he remains for hours in the frayed ivory wingback chair in the living room, and he says nasty, true things. Once I came over to get Sullivan so we could go cruise the streets by the college to eyeball hot undergrads, and as we left, his father told Sullivan that he’d been an accident. That he and his mother never meant to have a baby so many years after his older brothers, and that if P.J. had known back then that he’d be supporting a kid when he was sixty he would’ve wrapped the cord around Sullivan’s neck when Sullivan came out.
It’s a pretty terrible thing to say, looking back on it.
But his father said it in that joking way that guys do, so that you can’t be sure if they’re just trying to be funny. We both knew that he wasn’t trying to be funny. But because he said it that way, I couldn’t get properly defensive on Sullivan’s behalf.
Sullivan never got angry, either, no matter what P.J. said, whether he said that Sullivan had a monkey’s face or that he was destined for prison. Sullivan would just get glib and high-strung. I kind of liked him, actually, when he was keyed up like that, because when he was, he got really funny and very, very good when we played music, but it wasn’t a good idea to let him drive. Because when he was like that he drove too fast and too far, and once, we ended up near Philly with a tenner in my pocket and a quarter tank of gas, and we both had to dig under the seats for change to have enough gas to get back. And we laughed like crazy people and busted illegally through one toll booth because we didn’t have the change, and Sullivan was wild and high as a kite and never said a thing about his father. And I didn’t say anything, either, because I didn’t want to ruin his mood with that crap.
So we were the wild, brilliant punk gods of Alexandria, and we never said anything about Sullivan’s family. I didn’t want anything to change.
(I know, okay? I know.)
Sullivan kept getting better. He was a genius on that fiddle, man. At school, he played it as a violin, and he did the shock-and-awe thing with dead Europeans like Vivaldi when he was supposed to, but if you wanted to lose yourself, you asked him for a reel.
God, he was good.
I used to be jealous of his fiddle. When we were nine, I broke Sullivan’s arm with a baseball bat from his brother’s room. He’d been practicing his fiddle all summer, and I had come over to confront him about it, and we’d fought. I hadn’t meant to break his arm.
I’d meant to break his hand.
Sullivan told his parents that we’d been wrestling and that he’d fallen on the headboard of his bed. His father called him a clumsy little bastard. I didn’t argue. Later, I drew a picture of Cú Chulainn on Sullivan’s cast, and he told me that I owed him a broken bone, someday. I knew it was true.
This is the way that Cú Chulainn got his name: when he was young, he killed the guard dog of Culain out of self defense, and Culain got all snively and sad over the brute’s death, so Cú Chulainn promised to guard his castle in the place of the dog. So he changed his name and became the hound of Culain.
After I broke his arm, I told Sullivan that we ought to change our names, like Cú Chulainn changed his name after killing the hound. Sullivan said he was going to be just Sullivan, no Patrick. I said I was going to be Bryant, after my favorite guitarist’s last name. We spat and swore on it.
Usually it is me that goes looking for Sullivan. I’m not saying he never comes over to my house before we head out to make trouble, but I know I’m the needy one. Plus Dolores makes killer peanut butter cookies (my mom’s allergic to peanuts, which should be a felony) and there’s always the chance that I can pinch some when I drive over. But one sticky summer evening, as I am cleaning the garage (even punk gods have chores) and my kid brothers are kicking ball and riding their bikes in the street because Mom told them not to, I hear their joyous cry:
“Sulllllivan!”
And there he is, striding down the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched, striding fast in that way that tells me that tonight he will be playing like the devil. His fiddle case is strapped over his shoulder. I leave the lawn mower orphaned in the middle of the garage and come out to meet him. My kid brothers are riding their bikes around him in circles.
“Hi,” I say, wiping my greasy hands on my pants. I smell like rocket fuel.
Sullivan’s eyes have a hooded look. He stands there, hands still stuffed in his pockets, and he says, in a dangerous way, “Let’s go to Mullen’s.”
Let me tell you something about Mullen’s. It’s a pub, the sort of pub that is legendary, that hosts sessions every Thursday night. A session, or a
“Ha,” I say, even though it is clear from the way Sullivan is just standing there, oblivious to the bikes circling him, that he isn’t joking.
A year and a half ago, before I had my full license, my dad had driven us to Mullen’s when we heard they had a rocking session. We’d been to a couple of lousy ones at other pubs, all old drunk men squeezing accordions and singing “Danny Boy,” so we were psyched to find a good one. Once we got there, though, and found the session in the back of the pub, we hadn’t even gotten to take out our instruments. Lesley Nolan, the bastard fiddle player who leads the session, paused between tunes to chew out a concertina player who missed the B part on “The Apples in Winter,” telling him to get out of the pub before he embarrassed himself. Then he noticed us standing there, hopeful with our instrument cases, and he snarled at us, “the session’s closed to new players.”
We’d popped back in a few times since then, lingering at the door to listen, but it was the same old regulars, whipping along with such proficiency between sets that they had all played so often that the seams between tunes were invisible. The only time we saw anyone new was when they let in that new bodhrán player, but I heard he played for a pro band back in Chicago, so he didn’t have to prove anything.
But for us, Mullen’s stayed out of reach. We were relegated to open mic nights and college bars. Bookstores, cafés, sidewalks, train stations. We were good, good, good, but we never even got the chance to show what we had at Mullen’s. Even watching the musicians of the Mullen’s session talk and laugh together, conversation for no one else in the pub, rubbed my hairs the wrong way. They could all screw their traditional selves, that’s what I thought. Pompous Mullen’s and their club. The lot of them and a bus token would get you a ride.
Now, standing in my driveway, Sullivan says, “It’s time.” He jerks his chin up and I see that his eyes are wild and intense. To not play with him tonight, somewhere, would be a crime. I can talk him out of Mullen’s on the way.
“I’ll get Cú Chulainn,” I reply.
At first, it is not
With the benefit of crystal-clear hindsight, I think I knew, right off, that she was no ordinary girl.
What I definitely knew was this: when I saw the way she looked at Sullivan, that first night, the ground beneath our friendship felt suddenly fragile. It was the first time I considered the idea that our ascendancy to punk god status might not be as inevitable as I had thought.
And I saw him look back, his eyebrow quirked, thinking.
She scared me for so many reasons.
