Chapter 3

Bertrand had a tendency for overkill. Possessing a temperament and a super-charged imagination that demanded structure even when little existed naturally, his mania for organization had presented itself on innumerable occasions about the homestead. There had been the case of his clearing a brood of starlings from the drive house. A messy business, if you let it but from one Bertrand would not flinch. A half dozen squawking, flightless birds coiled above the door in the attic were disposed of. After all, it was his job to end the clatter and they were an obscene, noxious bird what with laying their eggs in songbirds' nests and crowding out more desirable species. Moreover, their very presence constituted an eyesore and that, coupled with their grating noise, concluded their fate. They were pests, simple and unadulterated, and on a farm any such nuisance had to be wrenched aside. Still, he had not drowned them like unwanted kittens or burned them out like that nest of yellow jackets in the currant bush. A simple twist of their neck either between the fingers of his leathered gloves (he disliked the feel of flesh on feather so this necessitated hunting for a thick pair of mittens), or placing the head of the screaming nestling under one's boot did the business. Almost effortlessly, but again nothing about tending land was done entirely without deliberation or exertion. Structure and foresight held things together. It was the nature of the beast.

And so it was with Bertrand's decision to hunt bees. The best method to oust any hive from its perch, so talk ran, was to wrap an old cloth about a stick and daub it with flammable pitch. Once lit, it made an impressive torch and could be brandished against pests of any description. As a kid, Bertrand recalled killing bumblebees in the old woodshed with a fly swatter. Now that was some kind of action which allowed the adversary manoeuvrability above and beyond that of skulking bees with a flame or killing baby birds. The enraged swarm would charge out from paper lairs encircled about the inner walls of a shed through whatever chinks or holes led to their tormentors. A little smoke applied judiciously, moreover, would send dozens piling out the holes in threesomes so that only a good, well balanced swat could hope to silence several existing at once. At times, the bees would threaten to get the upper hand and Bertrand and a friend would get panicky, think of the Alamo or just about any heroic last stand made possible by sheer courage.

Once, as a torrent of wasps had flown angrily out a large chink in the wood, Bertrand had been hit squarely in the forehead causing him to abandon his post leaving poor Alex a near victim. Fortunately, fear had given proverbial wings to their feet and they had outdistanced the swarm out the shed toward the relative safety of the house. In recalling the story, endless rejoinders were made back and forth as to what would have happened had a river been the only salvation. Could they have outfoxed the bees, held their breath long enough and swam the distance or would the cagey bees, if pressed, have waited patiently above the surface to wreck revenge? Bertrand did not have answers to these questions but it made for good speculation, bravado and late evening entertainment. Killing enraged bees with a swatter or the end of a broom or plank was keen sport and one culled with knife edge excitement. He craved excitement almost as much as his regimen demanded rigidity. And to be fair, he had heard all wasps were quite savage and retained venom in their sting that could prove lethal to the elderly or infirm. It was a quick rationalization, then, to believe such creatures were of the same stock and trade as weasels, starlings or the other unwanted denizens of his father's farm. Why, more people died of wasp stings than of snakebite in North America annually. Something had to be done about that outrage.

Late summer is a time yellow jackets have primed their airborne paper lodges with enough sustenance needed to carry through from fall to winter. Some mature nests average the breadth of a good sized milk pail but Bertrand had heard tell of an occasional oddity exceeding the circumference of a waste paper container. Just the thought brought the fire into his eyes. Oh, to find such a one on a search and destroy mission then lodge a tent pole up its arse! A good bout of artillery practice might then follow--rocks at 40 paces until the enemy had been given a sound thrashing. They shall not pass was the watchword of the night.

Alex had been reluctant to accompany Bertrand northward through the lower forty toward 3 mile wood. For one thing Bertrand had not been specific about the actual purpose of the errand so he had surmised it to be mere peg-legging or a chance to kick up a little steam. What finally swayed him was the mentioning of a visit to the sand pit toward the end of the miles. Now this was something he had rarely visited and it did present some possibilities for exploring. In spite of warnings to stay clear of the pit, every boy along the river had a fascination with the dunes and gorges pock marking that bit of earth. Wind sculptured landforms notwithstanding, imagination unfettered itself in myriad forms that stretched from shades of Arabian Nights to more recent movies wherein the protagonist had to climb a seemingly endless mound of sand to fulfill a sadistic command. Plenty of ammunition there! Perhaps something to the effect of double nought seven might be conjured from that heap of sand.

Images of gouged out earth, mole hills and a troglodyte's existence in the trenches of Verdun flickered across Bertrand's mind. An old grandfather and trunks of adventure books in his attic had fascinated him with story after story around a winter's fire about men burrowing like moles during World War One. This and the primeval urge to dig and bury lurked fiercely in the breast of the newly erect carnivore, the man child.

It was not long in coming. True to form during the woodward trek, a wasp's nest had been located and, once clubbed with a stick, yielded a livid horde. What was more, this time no adventure book heroics took hold. Instead, stung and dazed, his face a mass of welts, one of their number crashed through brambles and thickets toward the sand and gravel pit. In a few more strides, Alex would be over its outer perimeter spiralling down endless chutes of dirt. Suffocation and the random jerk of limbs caught in some nightmarish bog would overpower any resistance.

In a mind made panicky with fear, Bertrand recalls a spate of facts from the natural world. Any item grounded in natural fact was accredited with near reverence and infallibility. Alex's upcoming fate would even be held explicable if seen through this context.

Wasps in their predator state have been known to render spiders senseless, then bury them encrusted with eggs.

An ant lion will dig an entrapment, then hiding behind a blind, await the unwary.

Caterpillars are butchered by flying insects with jaws extended for that sole purpose of slaughter. Less luckier ones live on as hosts for mounds of greedy larvae.

Bertrand stirred himself from his covering. Having climbed into a low lying cavity of limestone shelves, he was able to elude his pursuers. His thoughts wander again to Alex. Had Alex heeded local caution concerning the sand pit in his panic stricken flight? Unlikely, as Alex was unclear of the exact presence of the quarry and could not be expected to realize its many treacheries if terror stricken.

Like the starling young, Alex had been sluggish, refusing to be stirred until prodded by a stronger outside stimulus. And, as with the nestlings, Alex had succumbed to laws red in fang and claw, cause and effect relationships.

Emptying the last stone from his knapsack, Bertrand imagines the huzzah of battle to have cleared this forest glade. He perceives the clenched stone to be the stream smoothed missile David used in overpowering Goliath-the last silver thimble fired at Goliad[1].

With a cry, he implores Alex to come forth and stand his ground--sensation and imagery roam lawlessly in his brain as mop up operations are set to begin.

[1] Site of a second Texan massacre in the war of independence with Mexico.

THE WAGER

"We think by feeling. What else is there to know." Theodore Roethke

"I can live an adventuresome life vicariously through my characters. It's inexpensive and a dandy form of ready made self-expression. The perfect sort of sublimation exists after all. For years I wore myself out trying to amass enough experience to commence serious writing. You know the having to see all and do all syndrome. I realize the pursuit of that plateaus sheer idiocy as it remains ever distant as one grows older."

Wenceslaus at that point placed his pen down and turned to open a glossy picture print of a ship under full sail, a clipper mail packet on the China run over a century ago.

"Shakespeare never experienced the myriad situations he subjected his characters to--how could he--except perhaps subliminally. Jules Verne must have employed a similar type of wish fulfillment with his prophetic writings that splashed a hundred years into the present. What I propose doing is to animate my earliest atavistic yearnings in a like fashion. I hope to give scenarios embedded in the innermost recesses of my psyche time to materialize, to exude from the substance of dynamic characterization. In short, the cave wall pictures Plato mentioned, hitherto until now dim and elusive flickers, will become flesh and bone entities within their own right."

Wenceslaus reached back propping a foot against the table containing an old woodcut with some masking tape and a copy of Stendal's Rouge et le Noir. I thought of him subconsciously acting out the role of his many anti-heroes by parading their values through the pages of his many would-be books. Rather impatiently I moved to counter his studied expression.

"And what of actual events rooted in your own experience? How will you give your characters real presence, an allowance to take away from them unintentional archetypes or woodiness? What are your chances of breathing life into these shadow forms without some common backdrop with which to share a basic empathy?"

He continued to maintain his stare, not even breaking the gaze to light a cigarette or reach for his mug of coffee. He replied with a little annoyance.

"Words, nothing but smoke screens to conceal a bankruptcy of the thought process. How on earth do you propose I make love to every woman alive, explore every crevice of this earth? Surely, you aren't serious with this mumble about animating characters. I propose to let the characters speak of real ingredients through the force of actual events."

"Animation is for cartoons, not serious playwrights. I'm surprised at you," he went on. "What you are advocating is a bilateral pool of shared traits. I venture to say such a thing is not only patently absurd but unnecessary." He had let the coffee grow cold and turned to it with renewed annoyance.

The wind, it seemed, too, was expressing a little of the afternoon's short-tempered.

"Pity we live in this climate. All bluster and snow. Hardly the stuffing from which romantic heroes are made," he said stiffly.

"And what of Tolstoy, London, or Service?" I nearly whined back at him. "They used lack of glamour in their settings to their advantage. Primeval landscapes are not only physical but the force behind many a fanciful mind. That's the artificiality I was concerned with earlier. Next you will be playing the Gauguin adventurer convinced your lack of inspiration or ready talent is attributable to March weariness rather than to personal shortcomings. You will spend all your time searching for that thatched cottage in picturesque Arly country."

"Let me offer some more unwanted advice," I said, renewing the attack. "Remember the example of William Turner, the English landscape painter? He embodied in this next example what I attempted to clarify by argument. In crossing to Calais he had himself strapped to the mast at storm's height so that he might better witness the pummeling of his own ship. A breakthrough in the use of colour lead to the hey day of romanticism and preparation for neo-impressionism. This all came through one man's willingness to live events in the flesh not by haphazard random reading."

Wenceslaus was staring out the window apparently unmoved by what I, in my vanity, thought the near-definitive illustration.

"So you suggest that for me to write effectively about a given period I must breathe the very strains, the odours, verisimilitude of the age? By that account no one would be accredited teaching Macedonian history unless he first had witnessed the Hellenic revival in the first millennium before Christ. I would bloody well have to be impervious to all the dictates of common sense to follow through on your suggestions!"

"To prolong your garrulous argument, let me continue with this case in point: to understand the problems of the blacks or talk intelligently about the colour bar I would have to dye my skin and assume the identity of a Negro. Is this correct?"

"Well, hasn't that been done?" I replied carefully.

"Yes, but not for the reasons you advance."

"For sociological reasons, for the sake of novelty to do ...", he finished with a gesture.

"This argument is growing stale and circular, he began anew. Quite frankly, I grow tired of you and your pedantics. You remind me of the Medieval Schoolmen and their emphasis on clarification to the point of excluding Truth. Yes, even Truth if it could not be neatly packaged in their air-tight groupings."

I perceived Wenceslaus, in a moment of understatement, to be more than a little disaffected.

"And isn't it you who argues the finer shades between thisness and whatness, thickness and opaque intrusions at this juncture?" I was now needling him with his own wealth of details.

"Opaque intrusions," a bewildered smile now entering his face.

"Take out your razor, Ockham." [1]

Wenceslaus fingered the mug more openly. I didn't know who was baiting whom. I thought I had bested him but realized in doing so I was only personifying the shallowness I strove to dismantle through argument.

"Wenceslaus, Wenceslaus, let's cease this before emotion colours our better judgment. Let us stop for the time being and let a wager stand."

"A wager?"

"Yes, you know of Pascal and his wager on faith?"

"Vaguely, but I'm tired of this thumb-pressing."

"I know, but hear me out."

"What we wish to establish here," I began, "is the superiority of experience over imagination, actual events to intellect."

"Precisely," I maintained. "Let each of us do a bibliographical survey establishing the whereabouts of most authors' inspiration. The Muse as it were, that is the point whereby a given author is ready to grasp order from the chaos of eclecticism. Not exhaustively, of course, just a random selection of say ten and then report back to one another. Each must promise to abide by the general consensus of the search."

"Such a thing will deteriorate to mere sham, a freshman's guide to the use of periodical literature, he parodied holding a hand aloft like a scolding professor."

"It's one step in the direction toward delineating how others reacted to a similar problem."

"Fair then. We'll try it. But isn't it doomed to a split vote by the very choice of our authors, we having had some previous contact with their lives and thus knowing under which force the man propelled his search?"

"Partially, but we are after the division point, that hiatus in time whereby each no longer procured experience but began to write. That's our quest. The movement towards actual writing, why the mood descended on whom when it did at its precise locus in time."

"Locus?"

"Yes you know locus, in mathematics."

"What have we accomplished," he said turning to me wearily.

Tongue in cheek I replied by his very gestures he was experiencing a weariness with the thought process and embarking on the need to try the experience route.

"Sophistry," he cried aloud. "Pure bullshit. But we will let the wager stand and upon it our friendship, our acquaintanceship all I associate with the likes of you and yours. And, further, for argument's sake, argument itself."

"Aye, let all that stand and more. Let's get Faustian about this and raise the tempo, I nearly implored. One, by virtue of his defeat must swear off writing for a full three months. He must promise not to desecrate paper with tainted thought until the ink of this clamour gels as a sturdy lesson to his peevishness."

"Awkward, but interesting. Continue."

"Nothing more, just this little writing circle shall have the papal rite to banish anyone from its blessed entourage for violating the tenets of established truth. Let's rest our case for argument's sake, on this and all that has transpired today."

My companion was working on a pair of stubborn galoshes as I prepared my coat for a quick exit through the snow.

The workings of Truth, all debate seemed so pointless after all--just an elixir for resentment with the shifting sands of mood ever ready to wash away any permanency. Like snow, words reigned as queen of the elements for an appointed time, then they, too, passed away.

I had the feeling I had witnessed more than a huffy outburst within myself against winter's dreary confines or the frustration of a limited talent.

I had expressed the narrowing of tolerance and the box canyon of a roped spirit that clamours for freedom on the wind of a signal fury.

I paused and went forth into the storm.

[1] A Medieval Schoolman celebrated Or his sharpness.

ERRANDS

We repeat, the aim of the IRA has always been the liberation of our homeland. Any who aid or abet the enemy must fall full prey to force of arms. (The Republican Proclamation)

Somewhere in the distance a dog kept at his baying. A long mournful whelping that seemed torn from the damp night's very throat. Sean could not help but hear it; so deeply did the dog's vocal cords implant sound upon human ears. He could not help but think of the provos warning nuzzled like that dog's steady cry over and over into the fabric of one's memory swift as searing iron.

"Aid or abet," he murmured softly to himself, "a long distance is covered by such a comment."

His Catholic heritage did him no justice in resolving the torment. By birth, name even appearance and occupation--all such persuasions meant he should embrace what the Republicans preached. One no sooner got his name on their lips, Sean Paddy MacGuire than they knew him Catholic. Two grandfathers had died in the troubles prior to Erie's break with Westminster. That alone should dictate undying hatred for the English and their stooges, the Prods, in Ulster. He found little comfort, though, in the ever continuing war of nerves. Yet the manifesto bade every Catholic to think with his blood and put shoulder to duty.

Sean emptied his glass, left his seat at the window's ledge and made for the tavern door. Sectarian violence often came to pubs and was drawn clearly along denominational lines. O'Leary's was an obvious target for Protestant extremists that much he knew. Still, a man needed a pint from time to time so he doubted if he would discontinue the practice.

He shook his gabardine jacket clear of his arm and stepped into the night. Overhead a moon glimpsing the clouds made through an effortless sky. He might, should impulse seize him, step through the border area of Protestant Ulster to reach his home near Falls Road. Suddenly, the pub door became a fringe of orange heat amid whirls of smoke. Barely clear of the doorway, MacGuire was propelled by the force of the explosion's impact clear of danger. Dazed and uncomprehending, the full realization of his chance good fortune not yet registered, he stood watching the flames etch their amber fingers through the archway into the pilings about the roof. Elsewhere, two figures ran through the night scarce turning to watch their most recent torching. Had he a revolver bringing them down would have been matter of fact, at least the part of squeezing several bullets in succession about their direction. He had no such weapon and could only watch them make good their escape.

From the vicinity of the blast Sean could make out only engulfing fire spreading itself over the full circumference of O'Leary's pub. Placing coat against face, he edged closer to the door in hope of entering the building. Common sense told him anyone in the interior of the pub would be cremated by now. Foolish to speculate further about them, he winced. The demolished doorway also seemed to exclude any survivors since in all likelihood the blast had originated from those quarters. Silently, he tried to reconstruct the former faces about a room which minutes before had seen quiet patrons sipping a pre-supper drink. He was close enough to peer about the ruins of the entrance. A form or rather a booted figure face down under what appeared a fallen beam lay motionless before him. Astride the man, he half dragged then manacled the bleeding figure clear of the surging flames. Ensuring his immediate safety, MacGuire went a second time into the now inferno like remains of O'Leary's. Conscious now of the enormity of the blast as sirens wailed and a clatter of noise began, grim faced police and officers whose job it was to make sense of such happenings began to arrive. He was about to attempt a second entry when a wall of fire ended further heroism. He could not visualize anyone surviving twin disasters of explosion and torch. For a scant moment he watched the smoke billow into the sky illuminating the shabby houses of the neighbourhood. Nowhere could he find it within himself to hate. This surprised, even frightened him. An utter exhaustion filled him as he turned to see whom chance had allowed escape from the fire.

His shadow cast a tower's presence about the parking lot onto the prostrate form. Swallowing hard, MacGuire prepared to stare into the face of the man he had carved from fire's possession. In a single motion, once his fist grabbed the man's clothing, a muzzle lay against his throat.

"Thought I was through eh, damned Mickey," the fierce eyes seemed to speak all at once. "I've killed tonight. I'd soon as kill you now and complete the errand 'cepting I may need the temporary use of your skin. Now get to your feet."

MacGuire obliged the blackened face with nostril openings gaping hate. Already he was calculating his chances. The area was filling with people. The light from the raging building had ended their darkness. The gunman shoved the revolver again into his face. The man seemed to enjoy his threats of pistol whipping and promised death. MacGuire looked once again into the face more from force of the last twenty minutes' unreality than any perplexity of fear.

Got to think fast, must use the chance card of generosity for all its worth, he thought.

"I saved your life," he pronounced slowly. It met the anticipated response. In that slow second when his gaze met his assailant an opportunity afforded itself. The gunman in a mock gesture of appreciation had trained the weapon barely upward into his reach. In a single motion, half embrace and step into his adversary's stride, he had the man over. MacGuire was instantly aware of his opponent's strength. Enraged at the ruse's success, he glanced a blow across the Catholic's forehead.

"Guess you're happy he's dead," the soldier was saying as he helped wrap a bandage into place. "We're grateful for any extremist's death. Makes our job a lot easier," he was almost laughing now. Death wore such an ordinary face when it courted so often.