they’ve pretty much stopped going to the Knight’s Work-the Marines down there were kicking the living shit out of those guys on a regular basis.”
“You know any names, people I should be talking to?”
“Not a one, Nick.”
I put the photos in my jacket and looked back over the railing at the floor below. I noticed some movement from the right side of the room. A bouncer was pushing through the crowd, heading for the main bar. The DJ had begun spinning the twelve-inch version of Big Audio Dynamite’s “Hollywood Boulevard.”
I looked to the center of the bar. McGinnes had his hands on the blond boy’s chest, bunching up his turtleneck and breathing right up in the kid’s face. Martinson yelled something to my back as I moved towards the steps.
The stairs were a blur. I was on the dance floor, the strobe light stylizing the rapidly scattering partners as it synchronized its patterns with the song’s drum machine.
I was vaguely aware of large bodies converging from the left and right, and as the crowd parted, I saw the redfaced blond boy, unhurt and on his ass. McGinnes had turned back to the bar to resume his drinking.
A big guy with something like an ax handle in his upraised fist brushed by me and moved for McGinnes’ back. I swept him with my right foot, and he went down to his knees, dropping the weapon as he fell.
I was grabbed almost immediately from behind in a bear hug. McGinnes had turned and realized what was happening, an apologetic look on his drunken face, accompained by a slightly sad grin that told me what was inevitably going to go down next. Nevertheless, even as he sensed another bouncer approaching him from behind, McGinnes futilely lunged for the steroid boy whose arms were around me.
McGinnes was dropped with a kidney-shot before he could get near me. The one I had tripped was up and walking towards me, a tight sneer on his chiseled, Aryan face.
I thought, as he took a wide stance and drew back his fist, how easy it would have been to drop him with a front kick square in the balls. But in those few protracted seconds I had decided that there was no way out of the club that night without being pummeled, that I might as well take it, and that McGinnes and me, we had it coming.
The lousy prick went for my nose, but I turned my head and went with the punch, catching it high on the cheekbone. The sound of the blow must have sickened the man holding me, and I was released. Then I was pu KThe punchshed from behind with the momentum of a wave, pushed as if my feet were off the floor. McGinnes was being moved similarly, covering his sides and face with his arms from the potshots that the bouncers were taking as they pushed him forward. Many in the crowd were yelling and laughing, the first sign of spontaneous joy on their faces that I had seen all night.
McGinnes was shoved out the door first. He tripped down the steps and fell to one knee on the sidewalk. I kept my balance as someone gave me a final push, walked down the steps, and helped McGinnes up. He mumbled, “I’m sorry, man,” and I could see that he really was, and that he was in some pain.
His pants were ripped at the knee, exposing a clean scrape beginning to redden with blood. I said calmly, “Let’s just walk,” and we did, crossing the street like two gentlemen to the occasional jeers of the spilled-out bar crowd behind us.
Lee was leaning against my car, fist up to her mouth and tears in her eyes as we approached her. “I can drive,” I said, and indeed the events of the last few minutes and the cool night air had made me feel somewhere near sober. We slid into the front seat with Lee in the middle. I turned the ignition key and drove slowly down the block.
I headed east. McGinnes found a beer under the seat, cracked it, muttered “Jesus Christ,” drank, and passed the can. Lee handed me the can after having some herself. We drove in silence for a few blocks. McGinnes, whose right ear appeared to be larger than his left, chuckled as he turned his head my way.
“Well,” he said, “we showed ’em.”
“That we did, Johnny.”
“Yeah,” Lee said, “you sonofabitches really showed them.”
She was laughing through her tears and we joined her, a release that had McGinnes alternately coughing, spitting out the window, and laughing some more. He cried, “Irish bar!” as if there were no other choice.
Lee kissed him on the cheek and then me on my mouth. I continued driving east.
We parked on the corner of North Capitol and F, in front of Kildare’s, McGinnes’ favorite pub. He almost exclusively drank there now, though at one time his bar had been Matt Kane’s on Thirteenth and Mass, until Kane died and McGinnes began complaining about the place being full of “wine drinkers and ghosts.”
We entered and crossed a crowded room where a tenor was singing, passed the main bar, and arrived in the back room, where a few tables were empty. A waitress directed us to a four-top. We must have looked like accident victims, though no one here seemed to take notice.
The place was all muted greens and mahogany. A geezer with a long gray beard, his cane hung over the back of his chair, drank dark beer methodically, closing his eyes with each sip. A couple of young Scots sat near us, discussing rugby as they washed down their ham sandwiches with mugs of ale.
“Now this is a bar,” McGinnes said, winking at Lee and smiling to expose some blood seeping from the top of his gum Kop ='3'›“Ns. He signaled a waitress who arrived with a bartray at her side.
“How you doin’, Johnny?” she asked pleasantly with a shockingly thick Irish accent. She was plump with thick calves, but had a lovely, pale freckled face topped by thick, wavy black hair.
“Meg,” he said, gesturing around the table, “I want you to meet my friends, Nick and Lee.”
She pulled out a wet bar rag and lightly dabbed around my eye. “You boys had some fun tonight. Better wash that up in the WC.”
“Thanks, Meg,” I said.
“What will you be having, then?”
McGinnes said, “Is Carmelita in the kitchen tonight?”
“She’s just got off. Getting changed now.”
“Tell her I’m out here, Megan. And give us four Harps and four ‘Jamies.’”
“Carmelita’s already drinkin’ a shift beer.”
“Then send out three Harps,” McGinnes said, “and four whiskeys.”
I got up and made my way to the stairs that led to the toilets. At the sink I ran some cold water into my cupped hands. Someone in the stall behind me expelled unashamedly as I splashed water onto my face. In the mirror I saw that I had been slightly marked and was a little swollen, but it had all been relatively bloodless. My hair was wild and I dampened it, moving it around into some semblance of uniformity.
When I returned to the party, Carmelita, a girlfriend of McGinnes’, with whom I had partied once before, was seated at the table. She smiled when I kissed her on the cheek.
Carmelita was wearing a plaid skirt, pumps, and a crisp white blouse, though she had worked in the kitchen all evening. Her hair, highlighted by a reddish rinse, was set off by her deep red lipstick. Like many other working immigrants in this city, she had an admirably fierce pride in how she looked when not on shift.
She and Lee were talking when McGinnes interrupted, and we raised our glasses without a toast, drinking down the smooth Jamison’s whiskey. The amber lager was a fine complement, and we had another round of both.
We left Megan five on twenty and exited Kildare’s. McGinnes told us to wait on the sidewalk, entered a smaller bar next door that had off-sale, and emerged with two sixes of longnecks under his arm. He smiled obtusely as he goose-stepped towards us and said, “Let’s get going.”
He and Carmelita climbed into the backseat of my car, cracked some beers, and handed one up to Lee, whose leg was against mine.
“Where we going?” I asked into the rearview.
“Head on up to Mount Pleasant,” McGinnes slurred. “Carmelita lives that way. And we can drop in on Mr. Malone, see how his date’s going.”
“Come on K3'›r., Johnny…”
“Do it, Jim,” he ordered, “and put on some Irish.”
I slid some Pogues into the deck, Boys from County Hell, and turned up the volume. McGinnes was trying to sing along to the group’s wild, punked-up bastardization of Irish music, but mostly he and Carmelita were fitfully laughing and making out.
Lee passed me the bottle and told me what a great night she was having. I laughed at that but agreed and
