Me Da’

“Seamus Magilicudy”

I searched the Cardoza registrar’s face to see if there were any sign of “Oh, not one of those” as he pronounced the name of my roommate to be. Cardoza College was a predominantly Jewish school perched precariously on the hilly northern fringe of overwhelmingly Christian Willoughby, Connecticut. I was entering my senior year. The Wang International Student Program had brought fifty foreign students to campus. I had been to Ireland with the soccer team for the Internationals and had recruited a lad whom I had met there.

That a bunch of “Jew boys,” as we were referred to on the field, could compete internationally was a laughable matter. I don’t think we were there for anything but diversity, but then why was Seamus Magilicudy coming to Cardoza?

I met his train at the Rte. 128 station. He stepped off with a winning smile, his arms swinging and his long legs taking giant strides. . He was tall, lithe, blue-eyed, pale-skinned, with a mop of tousled brown hair. He was all animation. It was as if he got off the train talking.

In five days I had the outline of his life. Born in Limerick, within sight of King John’s Castle, which documented everyone who had ever owned Ireland, Seamus was a bookworm from birth. His drunken father could not stand him. Nor could he hold a job.. The family moved to Ennis when Seamus was five and his ma, Eloise, got work in the village bookstore. If possible Ennis had more pubs per block than Limerick and “me DA,” as Seamus called him, knew them all. He could be a vicious drunk. On our third day Seamus told me how his drunken father would rape his saintly mother while the five children would be pulling at his legs.

At ten the family moved to Galaway, probably to get away from some trouble that the father was in. They lived in the honky-tonk area down by the sea, not far from the football field where the Internationals had been held. The area reminded me of the Atlantic City of my boyhood. There were arcades and bowling alleys and miniature golf and a casino. Seamus grew up on the streets and loved the sea.

“I was nay goin’ to be me DA’,” he told me on the fourth day, “and so I went gay.” I did not welcome this confession, but Seamus quickly added that he didn’t “fancy” me. For that I was grateful..

“D’ ye have a mouth?”

I looked at him astonished.

“I mean…where be the local pub?”

Saldi’s was on the town-gown line and I had never been there. I did not drink.

Seamus needed a guide.

Saldi’s had arcade games and pinball and billiards and sawdust on the floor and booths and noise and I was thoroughly out of my element but I did have a Wang exchange student to look after.

And I had wanted that. I had come to Cardoza because I didn’t get a scholarship to Swarthford and I had wanted to go away to school and Danny’s father was a Jewish scholar and Danny, my best friend, was going to Cardoza, and so I had hitched a ride. I was about as Jewish as I was Eskimo. At Cardoza I got good grades, did not attend synagogue, and was bored, restless and becoming reclusive as senior year came round. I was missing diversity. Now I had Seamus.

At Saldi’s, Seamus was in his element.

As far as I could tell, he had begun with some Killian Red and gone on to some Guiness Stout, then followed up with a couple of American beers for comparison and if I wasn’t mistaken he had then moved on to some Irish whiskey. Seamus was holding court. He was a born-storyteller. He did not have an introverted bone in his body. He might have stepped out of Ulysees. Seamus could speak and drink for hours at a time, “blathering the blarney” as he called it. At the edge of his crowd, I sat and watched.

And sitting and watching was what I was doing again that night at Harbor View at the bar, nursing a coke and remembering. The soccer team was competing in a Pan American collegiate tournament and had lost that day to some minuscule and obscure West Indian island by the score of 6-1. I had scored the one goal, a header from just outside the right edge of the box that surprised the goalie, the crowd, my teammates, and me. Of course the throw-in from Seamus was so on target that Zero Mostel could have bopped it in. But the cheers were for me, and I was not going to let them go by.

Harbor View was an old Danish mansion that had been taken over by two lesbian women who had turned it into a bar, verandah, outdoor pool, and restaurant. . The bar sat at the far end of the verandah, overlooking the pool. The whole building was halfway up Dead Man’s hill, which rose at a forty-five degree angle from the port city of Charlotte Amalie. It was the most elegant dining place on the island of St. Thomas.

I was fascinated by the brown-skinned barman who had the longest fingers I had ever seen. I was on the last stool right up against the fence, the furthest from the entrance to the restaurant. I guess it was because of that that at first I did not see Seamus and he did not see me.

He was with the very dark and shiny black boy who had refereed our game. The boy looked to me to have some Indian blood in him. He had a regal quality and as they were being seated in the old Danish hearth room I could see Seamus touch him lightly on the back of the head. The touch was as delicate as it was firm.

I don’t know what came over me. I ordered a Pina Colada and followed it up with a Strawberry Daiquiri. I had determined to sample the barman’s entire repertoire and so a Chocolate Hole, a Melon Daiquiri and a Kaluha Colada followed in rapid succession.

When I had to piss I walked off in the direction of the men’s room and got so far as the imitation marble stairwell slumbering in a hallway hidden off the far end of the dining room. I felt pleasantly woozy. Without giving it a thought, I unzipped my fly, took out my cock, aimed it high in the air, and started shooting a long spray of piss down the stairs. I felt lightheaded and lighthearted and I kept checking that no one was coming. The stream of piss rose in a high arc, reached its apex and started its descent. It hit on the third step from the bottom, bounced in the air, and made it to the last step, from which it trickled onto the stone floor. I could not stop laughing.

I date the beginning of my alcoholism to that night.

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