#275 July 11

http://genius.com/John-berryman-dream-song-275-annotated

Again anticipating an extended sojourn in Ireland. In the meantime, teaching, dramatic chair throwing (Indiana U. graduates like myself get a special chuckle out of that), drinking, of course. It’s all good, but let’s get on with it. That sweet foggy Irish oblivion beckons, a new start, a re-engagement with actual life, Leprechauns and banshees, good dark stout and amber whiskey. Everybody loves Irish people.

I was on a ferry from Le Havre, France to Rosslaire, Ireland. A storm came up in the English Channel and the boat was plowing through 30-foot waves. I was quite literally the only passenger on that ship who didn’t get seasick. It was coming—I was in some crappy little cabin with a couple of punkish Belgian guys, thinking to myself, I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit here in this little steel jail cell vomiting with these freaks, so I went outside and climbed up to the top of the ship, over some ropes and chains and “Do Not Enter” signs, up to the wings that extend to the sides off the bridge, and had a blast watching these incredible, massive blue-green waves crashing over the bow. It was raining, and there was all this ponderous slow-motion bucking, the white foam and water sometimes 8-feet deep cascading off the decks. It was wild and great fun, and it blew the seasickness away. Eventually the first mate invited me onto the bridge and I spent the rest of the voyage talking to the Irish crew, who were Irish and loved to talk, and were happy to show off the navigation and ship-running equipment. We pulled into Rosslaire late, a sleepy little village seemed to me that also happened to have a dock big enough for a cruiser-sized ferry boat. There were no accommodations in Rosslaire, but the ferry company had some vans waiting to drive us into Dublin. I had hooked up with another Irish guy name Ian during some pretty intense chess games earlier in the day before the storm started. We would go into Dublin and get a hotel room together, and the next day I’d call the people who I’d be visiting the rest of the week

Ireland had a rugby match with Wales scheduled the next day, so there wasn’t a single hotel room left in all of Dublin. None. Not one. Nothing. The clerk assured us that we weren’t the only people to be sleeping in doorways that night in the rain and there was nothing he could do. He had called every hotel in town and had already turned away thirty people stranded like us. Another guy we were with said he knew of an abandoned bus in a field not too far, and it was water tight so we would be able to sleep there and keep dry. Ian had a better idea, so we left the bus to him and I followed my friend Ian through the twisting alleys and back streets of Dublin, utterly lost and at his mercy. But he was cool, and we were having fun on this ridiculous little absurd adventure

“I know some people who live here,” he said. He went to a pay phone and called, but no one was home. We were in front of the apartment building, it was 11:00, dark and deserted. He looked up and down the street—empty. So he kicked open the front door. “Are you sure you’re supposed to do that, man?” I said. “Nothing to worry about. They must be in bed.” So we climbed up to the fourth floor, past some fairly nasty, pissy-smelling bathrooms with soggy carpets on all the landings. His friend’s door was unlocked and we pushed in. There was a light on, but the flat was deserted. “I know where they are. Wait here.” I dropped my suitcase and sat on the couch. Ian disappeared.

A half hour later I heard some people approaching. One of them said, as they were climbing the stairs, “What the bloody hell do you think happened to the front door?” I was really hoping they’d keep climbing, but no, they came in and found me sitting on the couch with my suitcase. Three guys and a woman, all about my age. In the states, if one had pulled out a gun and shot me, he wouldn’t have gone to jail for it. “What?” he said, shrugging his shoulders and waiting for an explanation. I told him, but I was so nervous that I forgot Ian’s name. “I met up with this guy on the boat from France, and he brought me here, and I can’t remember his name.” They all looked at each other, sized up the situation, some sort of sub-verbal communication passed between the four of them, then one said, “Pub’s open. Let’s get a pint.” So we did. They left Ian a note tacked to the door (thought they still weren’t sure who he was, since his name had left my head completely) and they led me to a neighborhood pub and we ordered a round of Guinness, which went down fast, then another, and Ian showed up soon and joined us, and it was all very Dublinish and festive. After a third round it was getting late, so the six of us made our way back to the apartment. The door knob and lock were busted, but they didn’t care. They put a brick against it on the inside to keep it from blowing open. The guy who lived in the flat turned out to be an actor, and he played a pirate on a local children’s TV show. We watched DVR tapes of his program for the next two hours, him with a big cardboard sword and eyepatch, saying “Arrgh, Mateys!” with a green parrot puppet on his shoulder, and we drank Harp and Beamish they had in the frig, and when we finally started getting tired and nodding off, they all filtered away and crashed in various rooms, and I slept on the couch. There was a big breakfast of sausage, boiled potatoes and tea in the morning, and lots of hugging. Like, lots of hugging, all around. I called my hosts, who I had met in Paris (they were put out that I hadn’t called them the night before and saved myself all this drama), and Ian walked me to the bus stop. I caught the green double-decker bus and rode it out to my host’s house somewhere out in the countryside. I never saw Ian or the pirate and his friends again. We didn’t exchange phone numbers or addresses, and of course this was before cell phones and emails, so more hugs and gone. The Irish are the friendliest and most welcoming people on earth, and they love strangers, and they will share whatever they have with you, and they love to talk. I’d love to get lost there again someday.