Read Online Last Notes from Home by Frederick Exley - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Frederick Exley
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anything you want” did not extend to having the airline prepare special dishes for O’Twoomey, when Jimmy interrupted by directing his index finger to a vivid green jade ring bordered in gold and worn on the third finger of Ms. Glenn’s left hand.
“Is that a wedding band?”
“Well, it’s not exactly—I mean, it’s sort of one. It’s a friendship ring the man I live with gave me until his divorce becomes final and we can marry.”
Ms. Glenn broke out in a brilliantly hued embarrassment of having allowed this virtual stranger to intimidate her into revealing such intimacies.
“Ah,” O’Twoomey cried, “you’re a bleeding Prod, eh?”
“A what?”
“A Protestant, me girl, a bleeding Protestant! If you were living with a married man in Dublin, you’d be flogged, and sure you would, me lurverly colleen, and I do mean bleeding flogged!”
All teeth now, O’Twoomey was smiling with enormously sadistic pleasure, as though the very notion of stripping Ms. Glenn naked and beating her half to death with a truncheon appealed overwhelmingly to his Catholic morality.
“But enough of your harlotry for the nonce,” Jimmy said. “Lend me your dastardly seenful ring and I’ll show you and me lurve Frederick here how to make thump.”
Dutifully, quakingly would be more in the spirit of the gesture, Ms. Glenn removed the ring from her finger, handed it to O’Twoomey, and said, her voice breaking with humiliation and hurt, “Please, sir, can’t you just show Frederick? The plane is packed and I really have to—I mean, I must—help the other girls serve the passengers.”
“Oh, be gone then and continue in your life of damnable seen!” Jimmy cried. “In Honolulu 1*11 have a Mass read for your immortal soul! Just make sure,” he hastened to add, “that me lurve Frederick’s and me glasses are bottomless. And wouldcha look at this, me girl, me bleeding cup already manifests a bottom.”
I had taken but a couple sips of one of mine. Directly, and again unbidden, I mixed the second of mine and slid it across the tray toward O’Twoomey. In acknowledgment he gave me an enormously toothy smile and bobbed his head up and down with wooden jollity. “You are verily a lurverly chap, Frederick.” His hand again came under the tray to rest sensually on my thigh.
“I will, sir,” Ms. Glenn said. “I swear. I swear you’ll get the best service on the plane.” She then forced a smile of tentative, grievous artifice and flew away to the aid of her sisters. Again I scrutinized her behind receding up the aisle, as O’Twoomey of course did also. With his thumb and middle finger brought up to his pursed lips he blew a wog’s kiss of delectation after her.
On the tray between us O’Twoomey now had the green jade ring, a white button he’d taken from the pocket of his tan gabardine jacket, obviously one of the buttons his enormous belly had forced from his chocolate-brown shirt, and a Kennedy half dollar he’d asked me for. I am in no way sure I can tell one what thump or colcannon is, nor can I be sure it is in any way as disgustingly nauseating as Jimmy made it sound. Thump began of course with peeled boiled potatoes put through a sieve, by which I gathered O’Twoomey meant mashed. Dripping spittle over his chin, he went on to tell me that any one of the “grand Irish potatoes” would do, even lovingly and salivatingly identifying, as only a bonkers Irishman would do, the pretentious and pseudo-blarney-poetic names of some of their fucking spuds, Aran Banner, Skerry Champion, Ulster Chieftain, the latter of course being “a bleeding Orangeman’s potato.” To these Aran Banners mashed in hot cream one then added half as much chopped boiled kale smothered in hot butter.
“Kale?” I said.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Frederick, I’ve given up—but given up—on your Irishness. It’s a bleeding cabbage, a headless cabbage.”
I could not even envision a “headless” cabbage but held my peace.
“Is that a wedding band?”
“Well, it’s not exactly—I mean, it’s sort of one. It’s a friendship ring the man I live with gave me until his divorce becomes final and we can marry.”
Ms. Glenn broke out in a brilliantly hued embarrassment of having allowed this virtual stranger to intimidate her into revealing such intimacies.
“Ah,” O’Twoomey cried, “you’re a bleeding Prod, eh?”
“A what?”
“A Protestant, me girl, a bleeding Protestant! If you were living with a married man in Dublin, you’d be flogged, and sure you would, me lurverly colleen, and I do mean bleeding flogged!”
All teeth now, O’Twoomey was smiling with enormously sadistic pleasure, as though the very notion of stripping Ms. Glenn naked and beating her half to death with a truncheon appealed overwhelmingly to his Catholic morality.
“But enough of your harlotry for the nonce,” Jimmy said. “Lend me your dastardly seenful ring and I’ll show you and me lurve Frederick here how to make thump.”
Dutifully, quakingly would be more in the spirit of the gesture, Ms. Glenn removed the ring from her finger, handed it to O’Twoomey, and said, her voice breaking with humiliation and hurt, “Please, sir, can’t you just show Frederick? The plane is packed and I really have to—I mean, I must—help the other girls serve the passengers.”
“Oh, be gone then and continue in your life of damnable seen!” Jimmy cried. “In Honolulu 1*11 have a Mass read for your immortal soul! Just make sure,” he hastened to add, “that me lurve Frederick’s and me glasses are bottomless. And wouldcha look at this, me girl, me bleeding cup already manifests a bottom.”
I had taken but a couple sips of one of mine. Directly, and again unbidden, I mixed the second of mine and slid it across the tray toward O’Twoomey. In acknowledgment he gave me an enormously toothy smile and bobbed his head up and down with wooden jollity. “You are verily a lurverly chap, Frederick.” His hand again came under the tray to rest sensually on my thigh.
“I will, sir,” Ms. Glenn said. “I swear. I swear you’ll get the best service on the plane.” She then forced a smile of tentative, grievous artifice and flew away to the aid of her sisters. Again I scrutinized her behind receding up the aisle, as O’Twoomey of course did also. With his thumb and middle finger brought up to his pursed lips he blew a wog’s kiss of delectation after her.
On the tray between us O’Twoomey now had the green jade ring, a white button he’d taken from the pocket of his tan gabardine jacket, obviously one of the buttons his enormous belly had forced from his chocolate-brown shirt, and a Kennedy half dollar he’d asked me for. I am in no way sure I can tell one what thump or colcannon is, nor can I be sure it is in any way as disgustingly nauseating as Jimmy made it sound. Thump began of course with peeled boiled potatoes put through a sieve, by which I gathered O’Twoomey meant mashed. Dripping spittle over his chin, he went on to tell me that any one of the “grand Irish potatoes” would do, even lovingly and salivatingly identifying, as only a bonkers Irishman would do, the pretentious and pseudo-blarney-poetic names of some of their fucking spuds, Aran Banner, Skerry Champion, Ulster Chieftain, the latter of course being “a bleeding Orangeman’s potato.” To these Aran Banners mashed in hot cream one then added half as much chopped boiled kale smothered in hot butter.
“Kale?” I said.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Frederick, I’ve given up—but given up—on your Irishness. It’s a bleeding cabbage, a headless cabbage.”
I could not even envision a “headless” cabbage but held my peace.
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