ESP.LITERATURE

a story from MULEGÉ, a novel

No, nay, never no more.

Those portions of eternity too great for the eyes of man.

Before I could walk, bundled in cotton and wool, thumb sucking, I felt the rise and fall of tide and rush of current, salt sting, gull cry, creaks and groans of old wood flexed by sea and wind, the resinous, earthy smell of sails; and the sea, over time, the sea become my solid ground in a tempestuous household, a halfwit, autodidactic polymath of a  father who drowned himself in whiskey, a schizophrenic mother who could not cope, and the older brother and sister who had their own furrow to plow. He sang the ballads of Ireland, my father did, when drunk and disheveled, sitting in the Stickly chair he had built himself, his rumpled grey suit, jacket slung over the railing, Yale tie pulled loose, Phinneas having  carted him home from the ferry pier, him, my errant father, home to his island plot, Chebeague off the coast of Maine, isle of many springs, all asqueak jiggery pokery, to Penelope and I, become Telemachus, boy man, him serenading the wash and wrack, stomping his foot as he sang and it’s no, nay, never, never no more, will I play the wild rover, roving no more, tears film his eyes, head rocking side to side, I’ll go home to me parents and tell what I’ve done and ask them to pardon their prodigal son, my brother holding our mother keeping her from the stairway newel post where she beats her head as he sings all the louder no, nay, never no more, will I play the wild rover no never no more. No more, but always more. Always more. Her dreams, torments, chased by baying feral dogs, salivating beasts, howling, closer and closer, clutching a child to her breast, her awkward flight, her sudden scream, awakening, as we or me or one of them whoever hold and comfort with him elsewhere, always elsewhere, playing the wild rover, Fionn I be, he sang, he sang, diggity diggity do, diggity diggity do, Fionn mac Cumhaill I be. It’s Finn MacCool you be askin for, says Phinneas, two n’s, oddly enough, pedantic explication this professor’s stock and trade, the Eqyptian definite article pa combining with nehasi to give ‘the bronze colored one’, ‘the Nubian’, our very own ferryman himself, face like old leather tanned by sea and wind, on and on, slapping Phinneas on the shoulder, stumbling over the combing, lurching aboard, so tell the boy the story of Fionn mac Cumhaill, tell the thumb sucking, runny nosed brat of a boy, the tale of the thumb of knowledge, hero of the Fianna, savior of the Irish, his lost love Gráinne who runs off with that dashing Diamuid, Tristan and Iseult all over again, the frogs and dragons, heroes and villains, lies and truths, myths and lore tangled and woven like browned kelp stranded on the rock strewn shores of the island, howling then, yipping and yelping, standing to quote that mad man William Blake, his exemplar, flinging an arm out over Bennett’s Cove, head back, begins ‘ … the howling of wolves, the raging of seas, all portions of eternity too great for the eyes of man … ‘ his eyes brimming over, grasping the railing, head hung to weep for the little lost bust of Blake flung in frustration into the night from the upstairs bedroom window.