Neil McCarthy
Peter God
From the off, let me state for the record his name was James.
– How are you today, James?
– Ah sure I´m fine, thanks Peter God.
(Nicknames were nailed to your back where I come from)
James commanded the far corner of the bar like a general
surveying his infantry. Customers came and went, saluting.
Fuckle was another favourite of his.
One day my father took him a live lobster as a thank you for
a job he’d done on a car we had – a death trap. Held together
by bailing twine and Hail Marys.
– Fuckle I do with that? said James furrowing his brow.
Apparently, he waited until we’d driven off, thwacked it
with a block of wood and lobbed it over the sea wall, RIP.
Took us all a few months of James telling us he didn’t have
a Toyota until some tower of hope suggested he meant iota.
Those who laughed weren’t sure who they were laughing at –
Tom Thumb, pint-from-halfway-down-the-barrel, tulip glass;
Cidona Willy, Carlsberg Steve, Noel 5-Day-Forecast;
Mary Brandy-and-ginger-no-fuckin’-ice.
– Twill be fine and dry for the week, James, offered Noel.
– Oh, it will indeed, thanks Peter God!
The unbaptized slipped under the radar, only the click of the
door closing itself alerting us to their departure.
The loud ones, the no-homes-to-go-to crew, patted
themselves down religiously before leaving – sang goodbye a
dozen times, holding onto the door like a windsurfer to his boom –
an invitation to twist their arm, to buy a pint of their company.
– Is it coming or going you are, James?
– I don’t have a Toyota, Mary.
So, will you have one more?- Sure, I will. I will, sure. I will.
Neil McCarthy is a poet from West Cork. His first collection – Stopgap Grace – was published by Salmon Poetry in 2018 and subsequently shortlisted for the Shine Strong Award. He now lives in California.