Read Online All the Old Haunts by Chris Lynch - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Chris Lynch
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you, O’Brien.”
She had never been serious before this. I mean, never. As relentless as the miserable weather had been through that entire alleged summer, that is how persistent Cait’s cheeriness was. And it wasn’t like that crap Celt sweetness from the Irish Spring commercials that make you want to puke and change your name from O’Brien to Stanislaus and never, ever use the soap or any other green products ever again. But this was real, she was real. I know, because I tested it every chance I got because, to be honest, I couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t see why a person should be so sunny in a place where the sun refused to shine.
She was like those palm trees and tropical plants popping up all over the west. What’s a nice flower like you doing on a rock like this? She stood out, Cait did. Maybe that was the thing. Maybe that was the why of it. Why maybe I did some things that possibly I shouldn’t ought to have been doing.
So anyway, I took notice, when she got serious.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “You have something to tell me.”
I was supposed to be getting away from my “element” for the summer. Better things, you know, on the Emerald Isle. As if maybe it was sunlight that had been turning me to the dark side of the force. Ireland’s basic goodness was supposed to right me. Noplace is that good.
Cait was, is, near as I can figure, my second cousin. Something like that. I never was any good at the math. For sure, she is a relative of a relative. I know that because I met her at a clannish gathering of about a hundred people gathered at what I guess was a farm even though it didn’t appear to be growing anything much besides little stone buildings with no roofs. My arrival in Galway was an excuse for these folks to get together and have what they call a hooley. And holy hooley they did. I don’t believe any one of them even noticed when I left after a couple of hours with Cait as my guide to the fun side. And for sure, Galway had a fun side.
The festival was a new thing then. Galway was a new thing. Fastest-growing city in Europe, was the word all over the radio, all over the Advertiser. For the first few days that was a trip, was fun, was electric. Even when the caller to the Gerry Ryan show pointed out that Calcutta was generally considered to be the fastest-growing city in the world, but did that make it a good thing? I didn’t care. What did I know about Calcutta? I had never been to Calcutta.
I had never been to San Francisco either, so I wasn’t about to differ the first few times I heard Galway called the San Francisco of Europe. It was all fine with me. Might as well have been Calcutta, since I was with Cait and Cait was choice in every way. We waded through the jugglers and the clowns and the big German tourists on the tiny little sidewalks of Shop Street and Market Street and the street that crossed them, Cross Street, and if I did get the temptation to make fun of the creative effort that went into naming the streets, and if I did act on that impulse, it didn’t matter because Cait could smile through whatever I did. I think she liked to hear somebody takin’ the mick out of the place.
Takin’ the mick. Is that a phrase, or is that a phrase? Never heard nothin’ like that before. I was taking that one home with me.
And I never held a girl’s hand before. No kidding, I never ever did. I laughed for real the first ten twenty thirty minutes of it because it was just so nuts. I looked at Cait’s little china-white hand inside my kind of gray-beige one, and I was just made to laugh, as she led me through the streets. She looked back, laughed at it too, but didn’t let go.
Did plenty of other things with girls and hands before that. Never did the holding before. Lovely. That’s a word too, isn’t it? Lovely. They use it a lot. I knew of the word, but had never had occasion to use it, not one time in my life, before Galway and arts festival and Cait. Go figure.
“You are
She had never been serious before this. I mean, never. As relentless as the miserable weather had been through that entire alleged summer, that is how persistent Cait’s cheeriness was. And it wasn’t like that crap Celt sweetness from the Irish Spring commercials that make you want to puke and change your name from O’Brien to Stanislaus and never, ever use the soap or any other green products ever again. But this was real, she was real. I know, because I tested it every chance I got because, to be honest, I couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t see why a person should be so sunny in a place where the sun refused to shine.
She was like those palm trees and tropical plants popping up all over the west. What’s a nice flower like you doing on a rock like this? She stood out, Cait did. Maybe that was the thing. Maybe that was the why of it. Why maybe I did some things that possibly I shouldn’t ought to have been doing.
So anyway, I took notice, when she got serious.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “You have something to tell me.”
I was supposed to be getting away from my “element” for the summer. Better things, you know, on the Emerald Isle. As if maybe it was sunlight that had been turning me to the dark side of the force. Ireland’s basic goodness was supposed to right me. Noplace is that good.
Cait was, is, near as I can figure, my second cousin. Something like that. I never was any good at the math. For sure, she is a relative of a relative. I know that because I met her at a clannish gathering of about a hundred people gathered at what I guess was a farm even though it didn’t appear to be growing anything much besides little stone buildings with no roofs. My arrival in Galway was an excuse for these folks to get together and have what they call a hooley. And holy hooley they did. I don’t believe any one of them even noticed when I left after a couple of hours with Cait as my guide to the fun side. And for sure, Galway had a fun side.
The festival was a new thing then. Galway was a new thing. Fastest-growing city in Europe, was the word all over the radio, all over the Advertiser. For the first few days that was a trip, was fun, was electric. Even when the caller to the Gerry Ryan show pointed out that Calcutta was generally considered to be the fastest-growing city in the world, but did that make it a good thing? I didn’t care. What did I know about Calcutta? I had never been to Calcutta.
I had never been to San Francisco either, so I wasn’t about to differ the first few times I heard Galway called the San Francisco of Europe. It was all fine with me. Might as well have been Calcutta, since I was with Cait and Cait was choice in every way. We waded through the jugglers and the clowns and the big German tourists on the tiny little sidewalks of Shop Street and Market Street and the street that crossed them, Cross Street, and if I did get the temptation to make fun of the creative effort that went into naming the streets, and if I did act on that impulse, it didn’t matter because Cait could smile through whatever I did. I think she liked to hear somebody takin’ the mick out of the place.
Takin’ the mick. Is that a phrase, or is that a phrase? Never heard nothin’ like that before. I was taking that one home with me.
And I never held a girl’s hand before. No kidding, I never ever did. I laughed for real the first ten twenty thirty minutes of it because it was just so nuts. I looked at Cait’s little china-white hand inside my kind of gray-beige one, and I was just made to laugh, as she led me through the streets. She looked back, laughed at it too, but didn’t let go.
Did plenty of other things with girls and hands before that. Never did the holding before. Lovely. That’s a word too, isn’t it? Lovely. They use it a lot. I knew of the word, but had never had occasion to use it, not one time in my life, before Galway and arts festival and Cait. Go figure.
“You are
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