wouldn't hear of it. And off he went, and he died there, and they shipped him home in a body bag. Sweet Jesus, what a fucking waste.'
'Why do you suppose he went, Mick?'
'Ah, who can say? He was home on leave before they shipped him overseas. I told him if he wanted to get out now it would take more than a phone call, but 'twould be easy enough to get him out of the country. He could go to Canada, or to Ireland. Mickey, says he, what would I do in Canada? What would I do in Ireland? What did I ever do here? And he gave me this sweet smile, a smile to break your heart. And I knew he was going to die over there, and I knew that he knew it.'
I thought for a moment. I said, 'You think that's why he went?'
'I do.'
' 'I have a rendezvous with death,' ' I said, and quoted the few lines I remembered of the Alan Seeger poem.
'That's it exactly,' he said. 'A rendezvous with death. He had a date and would not break it, the poor lad.'
A little before two, Burke shut down the taps and sent the handful of customers on their way, all but the little old man in the cloth cap. He stayed put on his stool while Burke placed the chairs on top of the tables so they'd be out of the way when the floor was mopped first thing in the morning. When he was through he brought over Mick's bottle and a thermos of coffee, setting them within reach on the next table.
He said, 'I'm off, Mick.'
'Good man.'
'Mr. Dougherty's still sittin' there. I'll walk out with him, shall I?'
'Ask him if he'd rather stay until the rain lets up. He's no trouble. Just lock up, and I'll let him out when he's ready.'
But the old fellow didn't want to stay past closing. He followed Burke to the door and they went out together. Mick turned out all the lights but the one over our table, came back and freshened his drink.
'That was Eamonn Dougherty,' he said. 'He never set foot in here, and then in the early spring they closed the Galway Rose on Eleventh Avenue. The building's scheduled for demolition, or maybe they've already taken it down. I haven't been over there to see. Dougherty went every day to the Galway Rose, and now he's here every day. He'll sit for eight hours and drink two pints of beer and never say a word.'
'I don't believe I know him.'
'Why should you? He was killing men fifteen years before you were born.'
'Are you serious?'
'We talked of West Cork,' he said, 'and Paddy Meehan's pub and its improvements. Eamonn Dougherty is from Skibbereen in West Cork. During the Troubles he was with Tom Barry's flying column.' He sang: ' 'Oh, but isn't it great to see / The Auxies and the RIC / The Black and Tans turn tail and flee / Away from Barry's coll-yum.' Do you know that song?'
'I don't even know what the words mean.'
'The Auxies were the Auxiliaries, the RIC was the Royal Irish Constabulary, and you know who the Black and Tans were. Here's a song you'd understand without a glossary.
On the eighteenth day of November
Outside of the town of Macroom
The Tans in their great Crossley tender
Came hurryin' on to their doom
But the boys of the collyum were waiting
With rifle and powder and shot
And the Irish Republican Army
Made shit of the whole fuckin' lot.
'It was a bloody massacre, and trust the fucking Irish to write a song about it. Eamonn Dougherty was in the middle of it. Oh, he did his share of killing, that one. The British had a price on his head, and then the Free State government put a price on his head, and he came here. A relative got him a job unloading trucks in a warehouse, though you wouldn't think he had the size for it. Then he was a taxi dispatcher for many years, and he's long since retired. And drinks his two pints of beer a day, and says not a word, and God alone knows what goes on in his head.'
'When you first started talking about him,' I said, 'I found myself thinking of another little old man. His name was Homer Champney.'
'I don't know him.'
'I never knew him myself,' I said, 'but he started something. Or continued something, it's hard to know for sure. It makes a hell of a story.'
'Ah,' he said. 'Let's hear it.'
23
And so I told the story of the club of thirty-one. I talked for a long time. When I was done Mick didn't say anything at first. He filled his glass and held it to the light.
'I remember Cunningham's,' he said. 'They served good beef and the bar would pour you a decent drink. When I think of all the places that are gone, all the people who are gone. I don't understand time. I don't understand it at all.'
'No.'
'Sand through an hourglass. You hold something- anything- for a moment in your hand. And then it's gone.' He sighed. 'When did they have their first meeting? Thirty years ago?'
'Thirty-two.'
'I was twenty-five, and a loutish piece of work I was. They'd never have had me in their club, or any other decent association of men. But that's a club I'd have joined if asked.'
'So would I.'
'And never missed a meeting,' he said. 'Standing together. Bearing witness. Waiting for the man with the broad ax.'
'The man with-?'
'Death,' he said. 'That's how I envision him. A man with his arms and shoulders bare, wearing a black hood and carrying a broad ax.'
'Elaine would say you were put to death in a past life, and the man you just described was the executioner.'
'And who's to say she's wrong?' He shook his big head. 'Sand through an hourglass. Eamonn Dougherty, the fucking Scourge of Skibbereen, sitting on his barstool watching the years slip past him. He outlived the Galway Rose, the murderous little bastard. He'll outlive us all, with his wee cap and his two pints of beer.' He drank. 'A long line of dead men,' he said.
'How's that?'
'Ah, it's a story. Do you know Barney O'Day? He used to come to Morrissey's.'
'I never met him there,' I said, 'but I knew him when I was at the Sixth. He managed a bar on West Thirteenth Street. They had live music, and sometimes he'd get up and sing a song.'
'Had he any sort of a voice?'
'I don't think he was any worse than the paid entertainment. I used to run into him at the Lion's Head, too. What about him?'
'Well, it's a story I heard another man tell at a wake,' he said. 'It seems Barney's old mother was in hospital, and he was at her bedside, and the dear told him that she was ready to die. I had a good life, says she, and wrung all the joy I could out of it, and I'm not after havin' machines keepin' me alive, an' tubes stickin' out of me. So give us a kiss, Barney me lad, says she, as you were always as foine a son as a mother could ask for, an' then tell the doctor to pull the plug an' let me go.
'So your man gives her a kiss and goes off to find the doctor, and tells him straight out what the old woman
