Green Shadows, White Whale Part 30

But the top of the entire day was when one of the young-old boy-men back at the pub asked what would it be? Should he sing "Mother Machree" or "My Buddy"?

Arguments followed, and with polls taken and results announced, he sang both.

He had a dear voice, all said, eyes melting bright. A sweet high clear voice.

And as Nolan put it, "He wouldn't make much of a son. But there's a great daughter there somewhere!"

And all said "Aye" to that.

And Snell-Orkney and his pals prepared to leave.

But seeing this, Finn raised a great hand to prevent.

"Hold on! You have improved the weather in and out of the park and the pub. Now we must hand back some of the same to you!"

"Oh, no, no," was the protest.

"Yes!" said Finn. "Men?"

"Finn!" they responded.

"Shall we show them a sprint?"

"A sprint?" There was an onslaught of jubilation. "Yes!"

"A sprint?" said Snell-Orkney and his chums.

29.

"There's no doubt of it, Doone's the best." Added Finn: "Anthem sprinter, that is."

"Devil take Doone!"

"His reflex is uncanny, his lope on the incline extraordinary, he's off and gone before you reach for your hat."

"Hoolihan's better anytime."

"Time, h.e.l.l. Now? Before the tall gent with the pale face and his congregation get away?"

Or, I thought, before everything shuts at once, in a few hours, meaning spigots, accordions, piano lids, soloists, trios, quartets, pubs, sweet shops, and cinemas. In a great heave like the Day of Judgment, half Dublin's population would be thrown out into raw lamplight, there to find themselves wanting in gum-machine mirrors. Stunned, their moral and physical sustenance plucked from them, the souls would wander like battered moths for a moment, then wheel about for home.

But now here I was listening to a discussion the heat of which, if not the light, reached me and Snell-Orkney's crew at fifty paces.

"Doone!"

"Hoolihan!"

Timulty charted my face then glanced at Snell-Orkney and said: "Are you wondering what we're up to? Are you much for sports?

Do you know, for instance, the cross-country, the four hundred, and such man-on-foot excursions?"

"I've witnessed two Olympic Games." said Snell-Orkney.

Timulty gasped. "You're the rare one. Well, now, what do you know of the special all-Irish decathlon event which has to do with picture theaters?"

"The anthem sprint you have just mentioned," said Snell-Orkney.

"Hold on," I finally said. "What kind of sprint?"

"A-n-t-," spelled Finn, "h-e-m. Anthem. Sprinter."

"Since you came to Dublin," Timulty cut in, "I know that you, being a fillum man, have attended the cinema."

"Last night," I said, "I saw a Clark Gable film. Night before, an old Charles Laughton-"

"Enough! You're a fanatic, I know, as are all the Irish. If it weren't for cinemas and pubs to keep the poor and workless off the street or in their cups, we'd have pulled the cork and let the [isle sink long ago. Well." He clapped his hands. "When the picture ends each night, have you observed a peculiarity of the breed?"

"End of the picture?" I mused. "Hold on! You can't mean the National anthem, can you?"

"Can we, boys?" cried Timulty.

"We can!" cried all.

"Any night, every night, for tens of dreadful years, at the end of each d.a.m.n fillum, as if you'd never heard the baleful tune before," grieved Timulty, "the orchestra strikes up for Ireland. And what happens thenl"

"Why"-I fell in with it-"if you're any man at all, you try to get out of the theater in those few precious moments between the end of the film and the start of the anthem."

"You've nailed it!"

"Buy the Yank a drink!"

"After all," I said casually, "after a few times the anthem begins to pale. No disrespect meant," I added hastily.

"And none taken!" said Timulty. "Or given by any of us patriotic IRA veterans, survivors of the Troubles and lovers of country. Still, breathing the same air ten thousand reprises makes the senses reel. So, as you've noted, in that G.o.d-sent three- or four-second interval, any audience in its right mind beats it the h.e.l.l out. And the best of the crowd is-"

"Doone," said Snell-Orkney. "Or perhaps Hoolihan. Your anthem sprinters!"

Everyone smiled, proud of his intuition.

"Now," said Timulty, his voice husky with emotion, his eyes squinted off at the scene, "at this very moment, not one hundred yards down the slight hill, in the comfortable dark of the Grafton Street Theatre, seated on the aisle of the fourth row center, is-"

"Doone," I said.

"The man's eerie," said Hoolihan, lifting his cap to me.

"Well ..." Timulty swallowed. "Doone's there, all right. He's not seen the fillum before-it's a Deanna Durbin brought back by the asking-and the time is now ..."

Everyone glanced at the wall clock.

"Ten o'clock!" said the crowd.

"And in just fifteen minutes the cinema will be letting the customers out for good and all."

"And?" I asked.

"And," said Timulty. "And! If we should send Hoolihan, here, in for a test of speed and agility, Doone would be ready to meet the challenge."

"You people don't go to the cinema just for an anthem sprint, do you?" asked Snell-Orkney.

"Good grief, no. We go for the Deanna Durbin songs and all. But if Doone, for instance, should casually note the entrance of Hoolihan, here, who would make himself conspicuous by his late arrival just across from Doone, well, Doone would know what was up. They would salute each other and both sit listening to the dear music until finis hove in sight."

"Sure." Hoolihan danced lightly on his toes, flexing his elbows. "Let me at him, let me at him!"

Timulty peered close at me. "Lad, I observe that the details of the sport have bewildered you. How is it, you ask, that full-grown men have time for such as this? Well, time is the one thing the Irish have plenty of lying about. With no jobs at hand, what's minor in your country must be made to look major in ours. We have never seen the elephant, but we've learned a bug under a microscope is the greatest beast on earth. So while it hasn't pa.s.sed the border, the anthem sprint's a high-blooded sport once you're in it. Let me nail down the rules!"

"First," said Hoolihan reasonably, "knowing what they know now, find out if these gents want to bet."

Everyone looked at Snell-Orkney and me to see if their reasoning had been wasted.

"Yes," we said.

All agreed we were better than human.

"Designations are in order," said Timulty. "Here's Fogarty, exit-watcher supreme. Nolan and Clannery, aisle-superintendent judges. Clancy, timekeeper. And general spectators O'Neill, Ban-nion, and the Kelly boys, count 'em! Come on!"

I felt as if a vast street-cleaning machine, one of those brambled monsters all mustache and scouring brush, had seized me. The amiable mob floated Snell-Orkney and a.s.sociates and myself down the hill toward the multiplicity of little blinking lights where the cinema lured us on. Hustling, Timulty shouted the essentials: "Much depends on the character of the theater, of course!"

"Of course!" I yelled back.

"There be the liberal freethinking theaters, with grand aisles, grand exits, and even grander, more s.p.a.cious latrines. Some with so much porcelain, the echoes alone put you in shock. Then there's the parsimonious mousetrap cinemas, with aisles that squeeze the breath from you, seats that knock your knees, and doors best sidled out of on your way to the men's lounge in the sweet shop across the alley. Each theater is carefully a.s.sessed, before, during, and after a sprint, the facts set down. A man is judged then, and his time reckoned good or inglorious, by whether he had to fight his way through men and women en ma.s.se, or mostly men, mostly women, or, the worst, children at the flypaper matinees. The temptation with children, of course, is to lay into them as you'd harvest hay, tossing them in windrows to left and right, so we've stopped that. Now mostly it's nights here at the Grafton!"

The mob stopped. The twinkling theater lights sparkled in their eyes and flushed their cheeks.

"The ideal cinema," said Fogarty.

"Why?" I asked.

"Its aisles," said Clannery, "are neither too wide nor too narrow, its exits well placed, the door hinges oiled, the crowds a proper mixture of sporting bloods and folks who mind enough to leap aside should a sprinter, squandering his energy, come dashing up the aisle."

I had a sudden thought. "Do you . . . handicap your runners?"

"We do! Sometimes by shifting exits when the old are known too well. Or we put a summer coat on one, a winter coat on another. What else? Now, Doone, being fleet, is a two-handicap man. Nolan!" Timulty held forth a flask. "Run this in. Make Doone take two swigs, big ones."

Nolan ran.

Timulty pointed. "While Hoolihan, here, having already gone through all Four Provinces of the pub this night, is amply weighted. Even all!"

"Go now, Hoolihan," said Fogarty. "Let our money be a light burden on you. We'll see you bursting out that exit ten minutes from now, victorious and first!"

"Let's synchronize watches!" said Clancy.

"Synchronize my back-behind," said Timulty. "Which of us has more than dirty wrists to stare at? It's you alone, Clancy, has the time. Hoolihan, inside!"

Hoolihan shook hands with them all, as if leaving for a trip around the world. Then, waving, he vanished into the cinema darkness.

At which moment, Nolan burst back out, holding high the half-empty flask. "Doone's handicapped!"

"Fine! Clannery, go check the contestants, be sure they sit opposite each other in the fourth row, as agreed, caps on, coats half b.u.t.toned, scarves properly furled. Report back to me."

Clannery ran into the dark.

"The ushers, the ticket taker?" Snell-Orkney wondered.

"Are inside, watching the fillum," said Timulty. "So much standing is hard on the feet. They won't interfere."

"It's ten-thirteen," announced Clancy. "In two more minutes-"

"Post time?" I said.

"You're a dear lad," admitted Timulty.

Clannery came hotfooting out.

"Ready! In the proper seats and all!"

" 'Tis almost over! You can tell-toward the end of any fillum the music has a way of getting out of hand."

"It's loud, all right," agreed Clannery. "Full orchestra and chorus behind the singing maid now. I must come tomorrow for the entirety. Lovely."

"Is it?" said all.

"What's the tune?"

"Ah, off with the tune!" said Timulty. "One minute to go, and you ask the tune! Lay the bets. Who's for Doone? Who Hoolihan?" There was a mult.i.tudinous jabbering and pa.s.sing back and forth of small change.

I held out four shillings "Doone," I said.

"Without having seen him sprint?"

"A dark horse."

"Well said!" Timulty spun about. "Clannery, Nolan, inside, as aisle judges! Watch sharp there's no jumping the finis."