ALL THOSE BLOODY YOUNG CATHOLICS

WATTO! ME OLD darling. Where have you been. Haven’t seen you since…Let me buy you a drink. Who’s your mate? Jan. Goodday Jan. What’ll it be, girls? Gin and tonic, yeah. Lemon squash. Fuckin’—well, if that’s what you. Hey mate. Mate. Reluctant barmen round here. Mate. Over here. A gin and bloody nonsense, a scotch and water for myself, and a—Jesus Mary and Joseph—lemon squash. I know. I asked her but that’s what she wanted. Well and how’s the world been treating you Watto me old mate. No, not a blue. I was down the Yarra last week in the heat, dived in and hit a snag. Gerry? Still in Perth. I saw him not so long ago, still a young pup, still a young man, a young Apollo, a mere slip of a lad. I went over to Perth. I always wanted to go over. I’ve been everywhere of course in Australia, hate to hear those young shits telling me about overseas, what’s wrong with here? anyway what? yeah well I’ve got this mate who’s the secretary of the bloody Waterside Workers, right? I says to him, think I’ll slip over to Perth. He says, Why don’t you go on a boat? I says, What? How much? Don’t shit me, he says. For you—nothin’. Was I seasick? On the Bight? No fear. Can’t be seasick when you’re as drunk as. Can’t be the two at the same time. All those seamen drunk, playin’ cards, tellin’ lies—great trip, I tell you, great trip. Course I got off at the other end had a bit of trouble, once you’re back on dry land the booze makes itself felt, but anyway there I was. Yeah yeah, I’m gettin’ to Gerry. Blokes on the boat asked me where I was goin’, I says, Don’t worry, I’ve got this mate, he works at the university—I didn’t tell ’em he was a bloody senior—what is it? senior lecturer? Reader. Anyway first bloke I run into was this other mate, Jimmy Clancy, you’d remember him I suppose, wouldn’t like him, bi-i-ig strong bloke, black beard, the lot, always after the women, well he hasn’t changed, still running after ’em, I told him off, I lectured him for an hour. Anyway it was great to see him again. He used to hang round with Laurie Driscoll, Barney O’Brien, Vincent Carroll, Paddy Sheehan, you know. Paddy Sheehan? Pad hasn’t had a drink in—ooh, must be eight years. He was hittin’ it before, though. Tell you about Pad. I was in Sydney not so long ago, went up for the fight, well, on the way home I went through Canberra and I tell you it was shockin’. Yeah I said shockin’. Ended up in a sort of home for derelicts—the Home for Homeless Men! Well, I come to out there, I had plenty of money see, it was the fight, the time Fammo beat Whatsisname up Sydney, I had tons of money, tons of it, I says to this Christian bloke out there—he wasn’t one of those rotten Christians, he was one of the ones with heart—I says to him, Listen mate, I don’t want to stay here, I’ve got plenty of money, just get me out of here—I’ve got this mate Paddy Sheehan who’s a government secretary or something, so the bloke comes out to pick me up in a bloody chauffeur-driven car, bloke in front with a peaked cap and that, Paddy with his little white freckly face sitting up in the back in his glory—he really laid it on for me. So I says goodbye to the Christian bloke, I says Here, have some of this and I give him some money. How much? Oh I dunno, I had handfuls of it, it was stickin’ out of me pockets, I just passed him a handful of notes and away I went in the big black car. All right all right, I’m gettin’ to Gerry. Perth wasn’t I. Yeah well we sat and we talked of the times that are gone, with all the good people of Perth looking on. Ha ha! Course we did. He’s still a boy, full of charm, like a son to me. He was a young tough buck then, love, all handsome and soft, wet behind the ears, and Watto here done the dirty on him, didn’t you Watto! Yes you did, you broke his heart, and he was only a boy, yes sweetheart—what was your name again? Watto here she hates me to tell this story, yes she does! He was only a child, straight out of a priestery—no, must have been a monkery because he said he had to wear sandals—course he’d never fucked in his life! Didn’t know what to do with his prick! And Watto here goes through him like a packet of salts! Makes mincemeat out of him! Poor bloke never knew what hit him. Drove us all crazy with his bloody guitar playing. She told him didn’t you Watto that she didn’t want no bloody husband but he wouldn’t listen, he was besotted, drawin’ her pictures, readin’ her the poems of W. B. Yeats, playin’ his flamin’ guitar—they used to fuck all day and all night, I swear to you love—no shutup Watto! it’s true isn’t it! I dunno what the other young Catholics in the house thought was goin’ on in there—but one day I gets this lettuce and I opens their door a crack and I shoves the lettuce through and I yells out, If you fuck like rabbits you better eat like ’em too! He he! Look at her blush! Ah Watto weren’t they great times. Drinkin’ and singin’ and fightin’ over politics. I remember a party at Mary Maloney’s place when Laurie Driscoll spewed in the backyard and passed out—next morning at home he wakes up without his false teeth—he had to call poor Mary and get her to go out in the garden and poke around and see if he hadn’t left his teeth behind as well as the contents of his guts. Oh, all those bloody young Catholics—’cept for Gerry, who was corrupted by Watto here—don’t get me wrong Wats! you done him a favour—they were all as pure as the driven snow—dyin’ of lust but hangin’ on like grim death for marriage, ha ha! They thought they were a fire-eatin’ mob in those days but they’re all good family men now. Course, I was never allowed to bring no women home, bloody Barney he tells me, Don’t you dare bring those hooers of yours back here, you old dero—I had to sneak them round the lane and into me loft out the back. And finally Watto here gives young Gerald the khyber, he moons tragically for weeks till we’re all half crazy—and then he met Christine. Byoodiful. Wasn’t she Watto. Byoodiful…ah…she’s still me best mate. Gerry was that keen to impress her the first time he got her to come back to our place, he says to me, Now you stay away, I don’t want no foul language, she’s a lovely girl. So I stays away and that night I come back real late from the Waiters’ Club with this sheila and we’re up in the loft and in the morning I didn’t know how I was goin’ to get her out of there! They were all down in the yard doin’ their bloody exercises, Barney and Dell and Derum—so in despair I pushes her out the door of the loft and she misses the ladder and falls down into the yard and breaks both her flamin’ legs. Lucky Barney was a final year medical student. Oh Christine was beautiful though—I’ll never forget the night you and her brought Gerry back here, Watto, he was that drunk, he’d been found wallowing with his guitar in the flowerbeds outside that girls’ dormitory joint you two lived in—youse were draggin’ him along between you and he was singin’ and laughin’ and bein’ sick—and then you went off, Watto, and left the poor young girl stranded with this disgusting drunk on her hands! Laugh! Aaahhhhh. Course much later she goes off with Chappo. I remember the night she disappeared. And years after that she took off with that show pony McWatsisname, McLaughlin. Didn’t you know that? Yeah, she went off with him—course, she’s livin’ with someone else now. Oh, a beautiful girl. Gorgeous. They fought over her, you know. They fought in the pub, and bloody McLaughlin had a fuckin’ aristotle behind his back while poor Chappo had his fists up honourable like this—I got the bottle off McLaughlin. At least if you blue you should do it proper. Cut it out, I says, look you don’t have to fight over cunt! If I was to fight over every sheila I’d ever fucked there’d be fights from here to bloody Darwin! Why do they have to fight over them? Those bloody young Catholics. Gerry. All right all right. And fighting over women! You don’t have to fight for it! Look if I can’t get a fuck there’s a thousand bloody massage parlors between here and Sydney, I can go into any one of them and get myself a fuck, without having to fight for it. I never put the hard word on you, did I Watto, in all those years? Well, Gerry. Yeah, he was in great form, lovely boy, always felt like a father to him, I taught him everything he knew, I brought him up you might say. Oh, he’s been over London and all over the place but he’s back over the west now, just the same as ever. Aaaah Watto I’ve been in love with you for twenty years. Go on. It must be that long. Look at her—turns away and giggles. Well, fifteen then. You’re looking in great shape. Gerry. Yeah, yeah…he was a lovely boy. Don’t I remember some story about you and him in Perth once? Something about a phone box in the middle of the night? Oh. Right. I’ll stop there. Not a word more. You’re lookin’ in great shape Watto. Your tits are still little though aren’t they. How’s the baby, my girlfriend? How old is she now? Nine. Jeesus Christ. She still goin’ to marry me? I seen her come in here lookin’ for your old man one time, he was drinkin’ in here with some of the old crowd, she comes in the door there and looks round and spots him. Comes straight up to him and says, Come home! And bugger me if he doesn’t down his drink and get up and follow her out the door as meek as a lamb. Pleeez sell no more drink to my father / It makes him so strange an’ so wild…da da dummm…/ Oh pity the poor drunkard’s child. A real little queen. Imagine the kid you and I would have had together eh Watto—one minute swingin’ its little fists smashin’ everything, next minute mai poetry, mai music, mai drawing! Schizo. Aaah Jesus. Have another drink. You’re not going? Ah stay! I only ever see you once every five years. Give us a kiss then. I always did love ya. Ha ha! Don’t thank me. Happy New Year and all the best. Ta ta.