TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME

 

If a pair of mighty calves were all a man needed to guarantee himself high office, thought Mulcahey, then the American tourist would surely have passed muster.

Despite the generous drape of the tailored flannels Mulcahey could clearly discern the bold curve of the musculature. Looking for all the world, the little Irishman decided, like a pair of lard-packed bladders and those very same sweetmeats left to swing in the butcher’s window far beyond the purse of his fellow townspeople.

 

All were millionaires that basked beneath the aegis of Lady Liberty ... Or so it was said about that immigrant paradise beyond where rich red beef came served up as though it were a mere casual daily staple and the mighty sons of Irishmen free to grind it with the teeth they were born with.

Demi-immortals like this one, thought Mulcahey.

A smile wouldn’t have killed the visitor. Mulcahey cocked an ear to try and catch the exchange with the pub landlord.

‘We’ve no taxi to speak of,’ O’Driscoll ingratiated himself with the Yank. ‘Sure, there’s hardly the want ... But Boxty here has the use of a cart.’ He stabbed a nicotine-stained finger at the little fellow. ‘Would you ever run the poor man out for a breath of fresh air,’ he wheedled, ‘and a chance to take in the peninsula?’

Mulcahey caught the rarified scent of papered money and he threw out a hand of friendship. The Yank bear-pawed it as though he were greeting a child and Mulcahey raged inwardly at the condescending lack of manly firmness. He swallowed his pride with the dregs of his pint and indicated the exit.

 

It was a sturdy cart with a fine Irish Cob to draw it. Even so, Mulcahey feared for the axle when the stranger threw his great bulk up beside him.

They’d clattered and bounced their way well above the cluster of grey rooftops before the smaller man decided to risk the eerie silence.

‘From where might you hail, I wonder?’

For a moment he thought the giant would refuse to answer.

‘Baltimore.’

Mulcahey sensed an advantage.

‘Is that right?’ He said slyly, ‘and ourselves not seven miles from the original!’

The Yank’s eyes were fathomless slits.

‘That’s what I just said, pal.’

Mulcahey was gob-smacked.

‘Jasus ... you’re a Corkman then?’

‘Born and reared. I was a bare seventeen when I boarded steerage for Boston.’

‘Would I know the family at all?’

‘There ain’t nobody extant. None that I know of, least ways. Cept’ one, maybe.’

‘And the name?’

‘English ... Mike English.’

 

Mulcahey’s emotions were in an uproar. A blow-back with a secret and hell’s mouth his destination. What kind of an American would spurn the fishing and the craic to suffer a visit to that old industrial school? It was Mulcahey’s alma mater. A labyrinth harbouring a beast and that same beast long since elevated to supreme lordship over an orphanage for the damned.

Old brother Benedict had perfected a novel way of hammering the Holy Trinity into a boy. A left hook for God the father, a haymaker for his holy son and something akin to a karate chop to the back of the skull to denote the mysterious presence of the holy spirit and woe betide the ignorant thick who forgot that particular pearl of intrinsic Catholic wisdom.

It was to be a horror trip down memory lane then.

No good could come of it and Mulcahey might have hauled the old mare about in her traces but for the sudden excruciating grip on his thigh.

‘There it is,’ hissed English.

Mulcahey heaved back on the reins and crossed himself.

An old Sassenach wall still concealed the building’s filthy secrets. Impeccably constructed from famine labour, it formed a rough stone quadrangle broken only by an imposing pair of steel-shuttered gates.

Mulcahey ground his dentures.

‘I’ll not go in, by Christ!’

 

Abbot Benedict topped the American by a head.

He looked lean and athletic and Mulcahey blanched at the horny fists swinging easily about the narrow waist. That man, he decided, was still the spit of a bare-knuckle bruiser. The Yank might have had it in youth and breadth, mused Mulcahey, but he’d be loath to bet his shirt on the difference. The little man felt that introductions might be in order but the abbot pre-empted him. He fixed the Yank with a bold stare and demanded he state his business.

‘My son.’ said English. He’s here and I’m takin’ him out.’

Mulcahey stared open-mouthed at his passenger but Benedict merely raised a quizzical eyebrow.

‘Is that right?’ he asked silkily. ‘We’ve a mile of sinners’ bastards in here. Had you an eye on one in particular?’ Mulcahey quailed at the satanic smile.

‘It can go hard or it can go easy,’ growled English. ‘Don’t make never no mind to me either way, but I ain’t leaving without my kid!’

Before Benedict could react, the younger man slammed a fistful of greenbacks on the desk.

‘Your favourite charity,’ he snarled. ‘The child goes by his dead mother’s name of Lawrence.’

 

Mulcahey saw the breed in the boy. A ten-year-old blonde with his father’s blue eyes and the noble face a stranger to anything resembling a smile. The mystified orphan cast desperately about Benedict’s office for something to fixate on; anything but the adults. He settled for the lewd picture of a nude Christ being flayed alive by a couple of legionnaires.

The Yank locked eyes with the boy for just a heartbeat then a terrible tension seemed lift from him. He was unable to master his voice. Instead he silently exhorted Mulcahey to escort the foundling outside with a wave of his left hand.

The boy allowed Mulcahey to lead him through the labrynth and outwards toward an impossible promise of sunlight and freedom. They’d barely begun to negotiate the stairs when they were rocked back by the dull thunder of unarmed combat.

 

The horse plodded along in blissful ignorance of any acts of human sacrilege.

Mulcahey squeezed the reins with his fists and tried to reconcile the superstitious terrors assailing his soul. Finally he could stomach it no longer. He had to know and the Yank recounted the tale in a flat monotone.

‘He’s lying on the floor nursing his nuts. It was after your time but I got my own dose of the Holy Trinity. Thought he’d be pleased to see how well I remembered it.’

‘Mother of God! You mean-

-Don’t sweat it, Boxty. A hump like him ain’t goin’ nowhere near the cops. He’s forever spouting on about miracles, ain’t he? Maybe if he prays hard enough his teeth will grow back.’

Mulcahey was left gawping as the American swivelled about to address his progeny.

‘Say, kid,’ he grinned a fatherly encouragement. ‘You ever heard of Mickey Mantel?’