THE BOOZY BANSHEE OF BRANNOCK-A-BEND
Chapter 8: Ya Can Take the Redneck Out of the South...
but Ya Can't Take Him into an Irish Bar!
by
Peter "Lou" D'Alessio
Copyright © 2012
As above his head as it was, Fitz-Ryan managed to keep the Dougals off the property and old man O’Malley at bay. Pegleg went on a major yelling campaign to boost the tourist trade, which proved to be very profitable for Brannock-A-Bend when word got out from the Ministry of Tourism that the Brannock-A-Bend banshee had gone all rampagey. It should be noted, however, that Pegleg insisted that between 3:00 and 5:00 PM in the afternoon he be given time off to watch the re-runs of classic American football games on the American NFL channel. So Beau would row the ghost to Ida’s house, row back to keep on working on the still, then turn around ninety minutes later and row back home. Pegleg usually had roasted-anything waiting for him. After dinner, he’d row back with the ghost and work until dark.
The Widder Browne had come back the next day with the aging additives O’Neil needed. Unfortunately, when she had driven out to Ida’s place, the boyos were across the pond building their still with Pegleg, so they missed meeting her once more. O’Neil missed her again at the mayor’s office, luckily missing Mayor O’Malley too.
While Pegleg really liked these two wild colonial boys, it was becoming obvious that Beau was definitely his man. More so than anyone living (except O’Neil) Pegleg recognized the big man as not only very big, but very smart, and he admired the wits of a man willing to let the world see him as not very bright. It gave Beau an edge.
While Pegleg was a “boney-feedy” pirate, he didn’t get to be Moonshiner to the Queen of England by taking shortcuts. If you’re going to do it, do it right. When Beau and the good Father had walked out of McNally’s joint, he found old man Murphy with at least two acres of corn growing right next to the pub and plowing a field of weeds with an old fashioned pull rig and a horse that would have fit in at the front of a Budweiser beer wagon. The old boy was a retired farmer and, according to his wife, needed a hobby. Beau took one look at the field and realized that a truckload of fresh-picked corn would cook up better than twenty-five pound bags that had sat in a warehouse for a year or two. So after “schmoozin’” Murphy up about how much ‘Yanks’ loved corn on the cob and popping the cork on one of old Pegleg’s jugs, Beau bought the old man’s crop harvest—at fair market price, which had Murphy grasping his chest. Nobody ever paid fair market price! Beau’s fame was spreading!
Beau had also learned his lesson about propane gas. It was an interesting experiment, but it didn’t work. It needed a major source of propane, canisters with thousands of dollars of gas for big runs—all well and good, but it would become obvious that there was something going on at Idy’s place with a couple of truckloads of propane tanks being dropped off.
The small still would run on a fire burning wood or charcoal briquettes. Why not the big one? So in the middle of the night, under Pegleg’s direction, Beau was on the side of the mountain taking down trees and chopping them into firewood. It was back-breaking work for Calhoun, but good times remembered for Pegleg.
“Beauregard, boyo, back h’in d’days, why, we be burnin’ whole forests down, one piece at a time...”
Chop, chop, chop.
“...it’s all in the smoke, lad.”
Chop, chop, chop.
“Now tat ya be doin’ it all correct like, I be proud t’have me name...”
Chop, chop. “You’re not gittin’ tired, are ya cap’in?” Chop, chop.
“No, no. Keep goin’, boyo, h’an’ we’ll have tiss dun in no time!”
Beau was doing it right, and Pegleg knew it. In an odd way, it made the pirate feel almost alive. Even O’Neil’s chemicals could not make up for six-month-old vegetation, and Pegleg’s pride as a moonshiner knew it. Beau’s intuitive choice of fresh corn would perk up the mix in a most happy way. The sketch for the future was to run off one or two pots with the corn and a little local wheat they had bought in bags, just to break in the new still. By contest time, they’d take old man Murphy’s harvest and make some real moonshine magic.
Meanwhile, back in reality, Father Sean dutifully made the rounds with Pegleg’s stash of whiskey. He dragged O’Neil door to door and got his face known. “Mrs. Flanagan, I’d be likin’ ya ta meet Idy O’Neil’s nephew. He’s from the colonies, and he’s come home to the tribes a’ Galway Bay.” O’Neil would smile his best little boy smile and hand out a jug of hooch, being certain to let them know he’d made it himself—back in the colonies. Luckily, nobody wanted to know how he’d gotten a barrel of moonshine through customs, on a plane, through customs again, and out to Idy’s place. That it hadn’t been made in Ireland was important. As close as O’Neil could get to breaking down the chemical composition of Idy’s and Pegleg’s stashes, there’d always be a difference in taste to the discerning tongue.
Taste difference? When all else fails, blame it on the water!
It was getting the job done. People were feeling more relaxed around the big American who wasn’t afraid to offer a soul a drink. The other one? Just ask the ladies. There was shine being made, a banshee (or a more than reasonable facsimile) yelping on a regular schedule again, and not a fish had yet to be caught.
“Hubert, I want both them boys in here tomorrow, 10 AM. Am I making meself clear?”
Fitz-Ryan smiled at the mayor. There was no getting away this time. Normally two Americans visiting Brannock-A-Bend wouldn’t even turn the mayor’s head, but the business of the banshee changed things. O’Malley revolved around money the way the earth revolved around the sun. Every yell from old Pegleg rang the bell on someone’s cash register, and some of that went into O’Malley’s till. If these two Americans were affecting that, he’d make it his business.
Fitz-Ryan nodded to the mayor and turned to walk away. He stopped in his tracks. “Oh! Idy’s nephew? He’s a chip off d’old lady’s block. I saw him swing tat ole goose gun a’ hers yes’erday. Deadly! Ab-sir-lutely deadly! Both barrels at wonce, an’ he be eating duck fer a month now. An’ he don’t like uninvited fishermen, neither. Ya might want to pass tat h’on to d’Dougals.” It wasn’t a subtle hint, but with O’Malley, if you didn’t hit him on the head with a shillelagh, he wouldn’t get it!
The mayor looked up from his desk and nodded. He’d figured it out. The Dougals ran the risk of getting shotgunned if they kept snooping around Ida O’Neil’s property. Fitz-Ryan doubted it would stop the invasions, but it was worth a try.
Fitz-Ryan was beginning to really like these two footballers, as he called them. He, as a younger man fifteen years junior to Ida, had always had a lump behind his zipper for her, although he never acted on it. That he was looking after her nephew, even if mostly in his mind, all seemed rather proper. Yet it wasn’t young Michael O’Neil he was really worried about, but his big friend. The Dougals had gotten wind of the fact that Beauregard Calhoun had been a professional ‘down lineman.’ The Dougals looked at American football as something one did to warm up for a Rugby match, a real man’s game. He’d be the one to beat down. Fitz-Ryan knew what these two were capable of, and wanted Beau to avoid them at all cost.
He brought this up after motoring across the lake (Paterson may have hated the electric motor, but not Fitz-Ryan... slow and steady and always in need of more juice was just his style) and walking up the hill to the cave. Beau and Pegleg were puttin’ the finishing touches to the septic tank boiler and getting ready to start cooking the mash mix down in Aunt Idy’s still. Beau showed little or no concern, and Paterson wasn’t helping. Fitzy would explain that these two brothers were beasts at best, then Beau would look over at Pegleg, who’d just shrug it off.
“Ga’wan, ya great dead ting, yer no help a’toll! D’boy’s likely t’have his head stove in, an’ you standin’ dere grinnin’ like a ape! Do ya not realize what dese two will do ta ya?”
“Hubert Fitz-Ryan, are ya daft, man? I stopped bein’ intimidated by roughnecks within seconds of dat barrel of goonpowder explodin’ and blowin’ me t’fookin’ pieces! As fer me boyo here, I gibe five to one he chops ’em both inta firewood and uses ’em under ’is mash pots.”
Beau, who was working underneath Idy’s mash boiler, sat up. “Boys, I’m touched by yer concern and confidence in me. But I ain’t got no kick ’gainst dem guys. I ain’t gonna fight nobody!”
Over the three weeks since he had first joined the conspirators, Father Sean was getting a bit concerned that he was growing a bit feeble minded. With all the whiskey passing through his hands, he was losing track of things. His bottles of medicinal whiskey seemed to be constantly dropping in volume, and he couldn’t for the life of him remember using it or giving it away. But Sister Maria was ever on the job, more than happy to make the run to McNally’s pub for a refill. In fact, she was becoming a ‘regular.’ No longer shy, she’d boldly go up to McNally and say, “I'd like to buy a bottle of whiskey, please, yer house brand, Mister McNally.”
The owner of the pub, realizing he was hearing that a bit too often throughout the course of the week, shakes his head and frowns. “Anuther bottle of Irish whiskey? And you being a nun, too, Sister Maria!”
“Oh, no, no," Sister Maria exclaims. "It's for Father O’Doul. His constipation, you know. The poor man is so stressed.”
McNally smiles, nods, and puts the bottle into a bag. Sister Maria pays, takes the bag and goes on her way. Later that day, McNally is on his way home when he passes an alley. There in the alley is Sister Maria, rip roaring drunk, the empty bottle at her side.
“Sister!” he scolds. “And you said it was for Father O’Doul's constipation!”
“It is,” answered the nun. “When he sees me, he's goonna shit.”
It all started innocently enough. Pegleg and Beau had mixed the mash and water, filled Idy’s mash pot, and lit the fires under the small still for the first run. It would be anti-climactic for a while as it all cooked down, so the house brand spirit gathered up Beau’s pole and fishing box and handed it to him.
“H’are ya go, boyo. I’ll be watchin’ the pot fer a while. Ya comes here ta fish, go fish. Ya ben werkin’ hard, ya need a little shore leave!”
“How is rowin’ on the lake shore leave?”
“Err. H’O’Neil is right... y’are a flamin’ arse’ole! Take the pole an’ starts rowin’.” Beau’s eyes went right away to the pot above the fire. “Wat’cha tink, boyo? It’s goona blow up? Better me t’an you, lad.” It seemed reasonable; Pegleg couldn’t be killed twice. Minutes later, Beau shoved off.
Now, one has to realize that Beau Calhoun is the consummate sportsman. His post-college life had so far consisted of training camp, football season, hunting season, fishing season, training camp, and so on. This year had been the first, since high school really, that the cycle had been disrupted. As soon as the oars hit the water, he felt as if he had been holding his breath for ages, and now the world was right. That feeling was about to dissolve in one of the greatest battles on water since the battle of Midway.
Calhoun was a highly experienced angler, catching trout, salmon, bass, catfish; just about every freshwater fish America has to offer—except one! And while he had read and heard about pike from pros in the high northern Yankee states, he’d never actually seen one that wasn’t baked, fried, broiled, or moussed. It had never occurred to him that he was about to deal with something that had teeth from the tip of its mouth right out the gill slot, was essentially a cross between an alligator and a shark, and was as likely to eat him as he it. And the pike in Idy’s lake and never been fished. They didn’t know people and they didn’t want to. They weren’t happy about the boat with the motor on the lake as it was. Later, Beau would suspect Pegleg knew all this and had sent him out just to get beaten up by something with no arms or legs. Beau had come to the Emerald Isle expecting trout, a pound to three or four. He had three-pound monofilament line now for a fish that would floss its razor-like teeth with that stuff. He'd brought lures that looked like flies and beetles, a pole light enough to resemble the high branch of a tree, and little teeny-tiny fishhooks for teeny-tiny red worms.
Ask any fisherman anywhere. No matter where one fishes for game fish, there are always small, annoying fish to steal your bait and waste your time, generally referred to as ‘garbage.’ It might be rock bass, or suckers or chubs, but here in Lake Idy, it was the lowly perch. A distant cousin of the pike, some folk actually prefer them on a plate, being a sweet meat, if they get lucky and catch them at a big size; a perch fillet, however, is no more in size than a fish stick! Most fisherman looking for game fish see perch as a waste of bait. They do share one common trait with the pike, though: they are aggressive when pursuing prey, hitting the prey head- or tail-first, and trying to swallow it whole. It's important to note that perch are also very high on the pike’s menu.
Beau was about fifteen yards off shore. He would have gone out into deeper water, but between rowing Pegleg back and forth, chopping trees, and doing all the heavy work on the stills, he wasn’t really in a rowing mood. He dropped anchor. Back on shore, he could see Paterson standing in the entrance of the cave, arms folded across his chest and smiling. Beau waved. Paterson waved. The stage was set.
On Pegleg’s advice, Beau was using the largest lure he had, barely an inch long. He had several metal leaders, strips of metal wire about eight inches long, that prevented fish from chewing their way to freedom, and he joined them together. On the very first cast, something hit his line... or at least he thought something hit his line. He easily reeled it in and, when he had gotten it within a yard or two of the boat, realized it was a medium-sized perch. The damned thing had swallowed the entire lure and all the treble hooks completely, and was floating with its mouth pinned opened. It shouldn’t have been able to do that, not at that size. Beau knew it was probably a death sentence for the perch—getting all three hooks out was going to be damned near impossible. This was NOT the way to begin his fishing trip to Ireland.
Old Pegleg had given Beau a small bottle of his best barrel to keep him company during the inevitable waiting time that fishing brings. Well, now as good a time as any to pop the cork! He opened the bail and let the perch swim free, still sucking on the hooks. It disappeared below the water. While Beau was fiddling with the bottle there was a tap on the line he didn’t feel, and the line began to walk out. It didn’t run like a bass or trout, but it ambled away slowly. Beau didn’t know it, but he was doing everything right to live bait fish a pike. He played with the bottle for a few minutes, never realizing he had hooked thirty pounds of dynamite. When a pike takes a small fish, it enters into its mouth slowly. The pike spins the smaller fish against all those razor-sharp teeth and literally scales it. Its mouth is all bone, so to set a hook it has to swallow the bait all the way to get behind that oral armor plating. So the fisherman sits still and waits. Many is the angler who set the hook too soon and only pulled out a piece a bait that was now pinstriped.
Beau had taken a pop or three and was just sitting. At last he decided it was just too bad for the perch, and began reeling in. He couldn’t believe how much line had drifted out. It seemed to have drifted all the way to an old tree that had fallen into the water almost a football field away. He reeled several yards in, but then the line went taught and he instinctively pulled back to set the hook. Everything stopped, and then the spot where the line went into the water seemed to move in a semi-circle, turn—and seemed to charge the boat. As the line grew limp, Beau reeled as fast as he could to try and create the tension needed to keep whatever he had on the line. At about five feet distance, everything stopped.
Beau strained to see what was coming up from the water. And then he realized... it had. Sitting in the water, three or four feet away, was what appeared to be a log—only there were two eyes at the front of the log that appeared to be studying him! Two little lumps, floating on the water, just like a Florida gator! Beau took up the slack, but before he could, the two lumps submerged and vanished in a flash, taking line out faster than Beau had ever seen a freshwater fish travel. The reel’s drag offered very little resistance—in fact, the pike seemed to be enjoying the exercise. It took almost all the line off the spindle, then turned and charged at the front end of the old boat... right where Beau had the anchor tied. The fish was giving him two choices; reel up the slack line and try and horse it into the boat, or lift the anchor to keep the fish from wrapping around the anchor rope and keep on fighting!
In the fraction of an instant it took to decide, the matter of Beau and the pike entered the realm of legend. The Banshee of Brannock-A-Bend would be only slightly more speculated over than Beau and the pike, something old Paterson would come to appreciate. Fisherman all over the world would crack open many a beer bottle over Beau and his fish. In the old days, Irish minstrels would have written songs to sing to the Irish kings about the battle—and probably been put to death for scaring the royal children!
Beau went for the anchor rope, figuring he could take up the line quick enough afterwards. He braced the pole under his arm, lifted the anchor, then reeled like crazy. The frickin’ fish rammed the boat, causing it to rock and take in water. Beau saw his pole bend in half, straighten, then bend right back. The anchorless craft was being towed backward, then in circles. Realizing he didn’t have a net, Beau lifted his pole with his left hand to raise the pike’s head, then with his right hand swung an oar to try and knock the fish out. He did, in fact, hit it, and it left a gash right between the eyes... and boy, did that piss the pike off!
On the field of play, opposing interior linemen stop at the whistle, face each other, turn for their huddle, and it starts again. After the smack, Beau and the fish stopped. The pike floated up and slowly drifted towards the boat, and Beau leaned his face over the side. The two warriors went eye to eye. Beau considered reaching out and snatching it under the gills, but he’d been warned by old Pegleg that pike had razor-sharp teeth to the very tip of the gill slot, and losing a finger or two was a real possibility. Before he could decide if the fish was worth loosing part of a hand over, the pike leapt forward, jaws snapping. It missed Beau's face by a fraction of an inch. In his attempt to pull back, however, Beau toppled off the bench seat, and it nearly capsized the boat—with the pike swimming back and forth in front of the lineman, seemingly hoping he’d fall in! The pike pulled back suddenly, yanking the pole out of his hand. In a panic, Beau snatched the handle of the pole out of the water just as the pike dove. With the fish pulling down and Beau pulling up, the three-pound test finally gave way and snapped. Again the boat rocked violently, taking in more water.
There was a strange feeling in Beau’s head akin to a good slap to the helmet. He could see the captain standing in the cave mouth laughing his “bloody arse” off. In the water, the perch’s head, with all three treble hooks still in its mouth, popped to the surface. The ga’damned pike had eaten the good parts and spit out the pit! As Beau looked at the perch head, two dark eyes rose silently to the surface and stared at him.
The scream could be heard all the way across the valley and halfway to Galway Bay. Beau was rowing back to the shore on the other side as fast as he could pump the oars, “mudderfukkin’’ and “som’nabitchin’’ the pike, who followed him a few feet behind, all the way home. He was rowing so hard, his last stroke set the boat almost cleanly on the shore. He tumbled out of the boat, knocked over O’Neil (who had just driven back from O’Malley’s office), snatched the truck keys out of his hand, jumped into the truck, and took off towards the town cussing like a sailor and hooting like a banshee.
In the late ’70s, there was a tourist boom in the Connemara district, mainly due to the fishing industry. McNally had brought in a small fortune in ‘tourist-oriented’ fishing gear. He'd set up a small stand at the end of the bar in hopes of cashing in a little on the boom, but it just sat there. If Beau had been thinking clearly, he would have gone to the Wider Browne’s general store, but he was far from thinking clearly. Or perhaps he was thinking clearly. It was a toss-up as to what Beau needed more, a pole or a drink.
Charley Brennan and McNally were talking to old man Murphy when the squeal of brakes, tires, and the road in front of the pub turned all their heads. The Dougals were already half-smashed and never looked up. When McNally saw Beau was coming in, he began taking the items off the bar and down from the wall that hadn’t been Dougal-proofed. What happened next would be recited countless times by old man Murphy nearly every day or night for the rest of his life... and it was always good for a free shot and a beer, despite what Murphy’s wife wanted!
“Ya could smell d’rubber burnin’ as the Big Yank slammed through McNally’s door. D’Dougals, seein’ dere chance, got oop and stood shoulder t’shoulder, blockin’ d’Big Yank’s path. It was truly Herculean! Puttin’ his paws on the Dougals h’an boostin’ thru dem like dey wasn’t even dere, one goon over d’bar, the other out the winder. Brennan put a shot glass on d’bar!
“D’Yank, ya could see, was fit to be tied. He slams his great mitts on d’bar an’ says h’under his breath in angry tones, ‘He tasks meeee!’ At dis point, Brennan pushes the shot glass away and fills a moog wid haf-a-da-boddle a’ d’Yanks h’own whiskey.”
“ ‘Wad d’fook is he talkin’ ’bout?’ Whispers McNally into me good h’ear.
“ ‘H’I’m not certain, ’ sez h’I. ‘Eider he’s talkin’ Moby Dick or Star Trek, an’ jud-gin by d’fact d’Yank is soakin’ wet, I’d say d’white whale was a shoe in!’ I terns to d’Yank and sez, ‘I see ya discovered d’Irish pike, have ya now, Yank!’ At dis pernt, d’Dougals reared dere h’oogly moogs. They comes up from behin’, h’as assassins dey h’are, h’an puts dere paws on the Big Yank. Only d’Big Yank weren’t in d’mood to have paws put h’on him!
“D’Yanks head dropped. He knew what was goona ’appen! He downed d’whiskey in won gulp, gently handed Brennan the h’empty moog... Brennan showed him d’boddle, d’Yank nodded... and then he terns and faced d’Dougals.
“B’Jay-sus, I never saw sooch a baddle. D’Yank had a Dougal by d’neck h’in each hand and was bangin’ dem flat-headed boyos ta’gither! Daniel Dougal slipped out a’ da grip h’an whacked d’Yank wid a bar stool, servin’ h’only t’anger d’Yank furdder. He drop-kicked Darrel Dougal over d’bar and thru McNally’s mirrer, smashin’ perfectly good boddles a’ likker and sum ale h’an beer. Den d’Yank grabs Daniel Dougal by his collar h’an right h’at d’crotch, hoists him ooooover his head, and flings him oot d’winder. Den! D’Big Yanks joomps, JOOMPS I SEZ, h’over d’bar, grabbin’ d’other Dougal by his bollocks, drags him out, picks him oop like a toy h’en tosses him thru d’winder, landin’ him atop his brudder.”
“D’Yank is beat oop but standin’, d’pub h’is smashed, but boat d’Dougals is wupped down. Brennan hans’ d’man anuther moog and he dunes’ it. McNally hans’ d’man a deep-sea fishin’ boat pole an’ reel, a box a’ pike lures, and a spool of twenny-pound test. The Yank sez, ‘Send me d’bill fer d’damages.’ McNally, good man dat he is, sez ‘D’firs’ fight wid d’Dougals is h’on d’house! Boot ya pay fer d’next won, Yank. Now go wid God.’
“Tell ya d’trooth, we’d a’ sole all tree of h’our wifes to da devil to watch the Dougals take a ass-wippin’ like dat!”
Connor Sullivan approached McNally’s pub for a bit of an evening cocktail. On the step outside he was accosted by Sister Marie, who said, “Surely a fine man like yourself, Connor, is not going into this den of iniquity? Surely you're not going to waste your hard-earned cash on McNally’s devil's brew. Why don't you go home and feed and clothe your wife and children?”
“Hang on, Sister,” sputtered Sullivan. “How can you condemn whiskey out of hand? Surely it's wrong to form such a rash judgment when you've never tasted the stuff?”
“Very well, Connor, ya may have a point,” said Sister Marie. “I’ll taste it just to prove me point. Obviously I can't go into the pub, so why don't you bring me some of McNally’s whiskey. Oh, and just to camouflage my intent, maybe you should bring it in a coffee cup, not a glass!”
“OK,” says Sullivan, and into the bar he breezes.
“I'll have a large whiskey,” he said to McNally. “And can you put it in a coffee cup?”
“My God,” says McNally, “tat nun's not outside again, is she?”
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