MARCH 14, 2012
The Luck of the Irish - The Wee Man Returns
So anyway, the weather finally broke from its equivocating moodiness and a real mother of all dockwallopers set in to pound the wharves and soak the hills into sliding for a solid five days of drenching downpour. If the old saying is true, the lion of winter has come roaring in, and all of us around hear are longing for the lamb part to enter for sure.
Basements are welling up and flooding all over the place where for several years of drought people had forgotten about this kind of thing.
Yes, this is California, and you do not live here for a few decades without some sort of disaster costing you.
There is no natural holiday in March so people have seized upon the Irish, the way they always do, so as to have a good time at someone else's expense and give themselves excuse for cultural plunder.
In the year 1132 the Irish defeated the Norwegians at the battle of the Ford of the Hurdles, effectively ending centuries of Viking raids. This was the first and the last major battle that the united Irish ever would win, and there is much scholarship which states that due to the advancement of Christianity among the Norse at the time, the battle was conceded largely out of pre-Lutheran politness on the side of the Norwegians. Really, we do not want you to be put out. Go ahead and take the field; we do not want it that much anyway. This may have been the event to provide the template for all civil reconciliations of war going forward. It is a pity the Bush administration was so adverse to learning the lessons of history.
Denby was not thinking about paddywacking and similar abuses when the Angry Elf gang succeeded in invading his rooms to turn things all topsy-turvy, blaming all of the trouble on the chronics.
When Denby found his Johnson tuned to D major, he knew not a single chronic on the hall suffering from autistic schizophrenia was capable of that. All of his music files had been tampered with. The autotune software had been wrenched two full tones out of pitch.
Denby was a musician and not equipped to handle criminal thugs. He did not possess that sort of mentality or drive. He made his preparations to go.
Patty, a slightly autistic schizoid Native American from Pine Ridge begged him not to go.
"Sorry Patty, I am not wanted here," Denby said. Evil minds want their will."
"That is what I am afraid of," Patty said.
On the day Denby moved his four guitars and slim bookcases out of the Lunatic Asylum of St. Charles, it was a cold and wet day in March and a pall hung over the dismal halls. Even the hebephrenics forgot to laugh. The rain pelted down in an anger, as if Heaven itself was furious at how things had come to pass because of the Angry Elf's gang and Mr. Howitzer's intransigence .
As Denby drove away in his rented truck, all the residents of the St. Charles Asylum looked out from the barred windows and waved and then wailed for hours afterward until the trustees, lead by the security guard, Sgt. Rumsbum, came along to beat them into silence with asps and wooden dowels.
It was no wonder Patty had begged Denby not to leave.
In the Old Same Place Bar, the place rang up a stiff business, selling shots of Arthur Power and Jamison's and gallons of Celtic coffees. It grew nigh to the midnight hour and certain folks grew anxious about the re-appearance of the Wee Man who had caused some mischief in years past.
Instead the Angry Elf gang appeared to order drinks all around -- for themselves -- and the Angry Elf appeared pleased with himself over his recent victory at the St. Charles Asylum. Now this place at St. Charles belonged to him, and he was most convivial. It is an ugly thing when Evil wins a battle. It is something not pretty to look upon. On the eve of St. Paddy's things did not look well upon the Island.
At the stroke of Midnight, the Wee Man appeared, sharp as a tack and wearing a green waistcoat with chain and fob. It undeniably was the same Wee Man who appeared as last year with a twinkle in his eye and a pocket full of tricks.
"I say, you look like a dwarfish fellow like myself," the Wee Man said to the Angry Elf. "You look like an elf!"
"Don't call me an elf!" The Angry Elf stamped.
"O this must be an angry elf! Or a dwarf!" The Wee Man said. "Why are you always so sour?"
"I am not a dwarf," said the Angry Elf. " And if you say that again my hirelings will hurt you."
"O, but here is indeed an angry elf!" said the Wee Man.
With that the Angry Elf motioned his underlings to attack the Wee man, who promptly disappeared beneath their fingers, totally confounding them.
In a trice, the lights went out and all was confusion in the Old Same Place Bar. When the lights came on, various persons found themselves adjusting their underpants, much as had happened last year. Dawn removed to the lavabo to extract a golden brassiere. Suzie dropped a solid gold mesh thong to the ground with irritation to go the rest of the night commando. This caused some excitement in Eugene who crinkled in his gold-lame boxers.
As for the Angry Elf, he hurriedly shucked his pants so as to fling away knickers choked with worms and scorpions.
"Ugh!"
His underling thugs ran screaming from the bar with pants full of bees.
In a narrow cobblestone alley, under a moon that saw Jupiter and Venus in a close conjunction not likely to be seen for another one hundred years, Denby pulled up his rented truck and started to unload his life into his new diggings. A woman dressed in a long black dress leaned up against the lintel, with a glass in her hand. Her curves looked dangerous and needing caution signs to unwary drivers.
Denby paused, brought up short by this apparition.
"So Denby, how has it been for you?"
It had been eighteen years and more along with gallons of water under the bridge since they had last met. And now it was a dark moon under confluence in the San Francisco Bay Area, with a drizzly sky and all kinds of possible weather to happen.
"Well, Sharon, been up and down. Lately been looking up again."
"Luck of the Irish, I suppose." Sharon said. The rain fell upon her red gown and she did not notice.
"You are getting wet," Denby said.
"That's right," Sharon said. "I am getting wet for you just standing here. Come on in. I am the Welcome Committee. Welcome to the neighborhood. Let me show you the Welcome Basket."
Right then, the long howl of the throughpassing train ululated across the star-crossed waters of the estuary before stroking the romantic grasses of the Buena Vista flats as the locomotive wended its way from the gantries of the Port past the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, heading off on its journey to parts unknown, whispering of tales of love lost and found again. And all the luck of the Irish and more besides.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
