Fourfront, page 11
“You have been thinking about this for a while,” I said, as if I didn’t know. It was always interesting to see if he had another turn of the screw or if anybody had been added to the list.
“Do you see that crane?” he asked, pointing his spoon in the direction of the tall construct waving about above the City Hall like a scorpion’s tail about to strike. “I’d hang my specially designed state-of-the-art tub off the top of that and do the hippy-hippy shakes up and around and topsy-turvy and head over heels so that just one of my chosen list would fall out, one at the time. That is the circus that I want. Just ten minutes.”
“Well, bully for you,” I said, thinking of my own list, “but I’m afraid that whenever the coup comes neither you nor I will have much to do with it.”
“Speak for yourself,” he said, calling the waiter for something or other. “I have military training just as well as you. You can’t put that one over on me.”
“Five weeks in the FCA twenty years ago! I know of some petty dictators who still wouldn’t have us. When the tanks roll up I’m going to stay sitting here smoking my cigar.”
If this was bullshit we were under the illusion it was good bullshit, and anyway if we couldn’t pass muster we could at least pass the time. We all got whanged by life’s vicissitudes but we still had our middle-aged dreams to keep us warm. Our ship would come in, or we would find the crock of gold at the end of the garden, or we would fall in love with a rich Jewish princess. Or at any rate we could keep talking as long as we had no other choice and there was no other thing to do nor any other place to go. O yes, we had our complaints, but it was better to curse the darkness than light a penny candle on a star.
“You better stuff yourself with that apple tart,” I said to Adam, having nothing better to say, “you won’t get anything as good as it until tomorrow. There’s nothing worse than pangs of hunger in the smack-bang-middle of the high afternoon.”
He would do that anyway without any encouragement from me, but that didn’t mean we were in any great hurry to pack up and go. To be on duty was not the same thing as to be in work. We still had time to gabble about the Ex-President’s mistress, the humour of the financial pages, ecological holidays in Greenland, the etymological derivation of the exclamation mark, the man who died of a broken fart which was great gas, and the pimp who thought everything was great crack. We paid a fortune for our lunch in order to help the economy as we did every day and we wearily wended our way back to the office.
Out on the street everyone was on the move. They all looked as if they were going in the same direction. There was a look in their eyes which had never been there before. You knew that even if you had never seen them until now. I tried to talk to one young fellow but he stared at me from out of eyes that welled up in tears.
Adam tried to chat up one woman but she laughed at him with a nervous highly-strung laugh.
I grabbed one old wrinkly by the elbow but he shook me off with a viciousness which I scarcely thought he could have.
Adam spoke to a child but no wisdom came forth from his mouth.
“Has the government fallen?” I shouted to the crowd.
“Fallen, my arse,” said one guy with a wart on his nose and vanished in the great wash.
“Has the stock market collapsed?” Adam pleaded, because he could be quite sensitive about these moneyed things when he had to be.
“Fuck the stock,” said another guy who looked to be about a thousand years old and never enjoyed a day in his life.
“Have the Brits attacked?” I shouted, falling back on the old enemy in time of necessity, but I only got an emphatic “Not at this time” from a woman who was sucking her thumb.
“He’s over there!” screamed a man between horrors and hosannas who had a rosary beads or a knuckle-duster wrapped around his fist, and pointed us with his whole body to the corner of the road where we thought we had first heard the music.
“Who is it?” we both asked in unison and together, scarlet butterflies rising in our stomachs.
“This is the day I have been waiting for since the beginning of time,” the man said, and then grabbed us by the dirty scruff of our necks and shoved us forward to where the crowd was gawping up at the building.
“This is it now,” said your man, as happy as a kid going in to see Santa Claus, “you’re all fucked, you shower of fucking fuckers. Thanks be to God!”
“Who is he?” I asked, even plaintively, about the guy standing on the corner of the upper window who looked as if he was about to jump. “Why doesn’t somebody get the ambulance or the Gardaí? If he falls he’ll make an awful mess.”
“Shut your face, you fool,” said your man again, a smile like a flea’s arse flitting across his face. “There’s no chance of him falling. Don’t you see his wings?”
He was, unfortunately, right. I had been paying attention to the trumpet in his right hand and to his unusual get-up and I hadn’t noticed the two golden wings sticking out behind his back.
“Jaysus, I know who it is,” said Adam, nearly licking my ear, “it’s fucking Goldie Horn.”
I suppressed a chuckle as nobody else was chuckling, and anyway, this was real serious public shit rather than simple private angst.
“Or maybe it’s Icarus,” I retorted. “He’s probably forgotten that we have aeroplanes for the last hundred years.”
“Judas Icarius,” said Adam, “give him enough rope to hang himself.”
“It is written also,” said your man “that thou shalt not go free because this is the day of accounting.”
“We had those accountants in last week,” said Adam, “and they were some accuntants.”
Just then Willie Wings on the window let a great blast from his trumpet and everybody jumped back in horror. He laid down his trumpet and did produce a big red book from within his breast and commenced to read.
“Districts seven and eight,” he proclaimed, in a voice that had a certain eastern accent to it, “that is to say, Cabra, Phibsboro, Arbour Hill, Stoneybatter, Inchicore, The Coom, The South Circular Road and adjacent areas, Section A; Districts three and nine, Clontarf, Ballybough, Clonliffe, Drumcondra, Whitehall, Santry and Griffith Avenue, Section B; Districts five and thirteen, Coolock, Artane, Raheny, Bayside, Barrytown, Sutton, Donamede and Baldoyle, Section C; Districts one and six, Ranelagh, Rathmines, Rathgar, Terenure and Harold’s Cross, Section D; District four, Donnybrook, Ballsbridge, Sandymount, Sandycove and Ringsend, Section E; Districts ten and eleven, Ballyfermot and Blanchardstown, Section F; District eighteen, Cabinteely, Foxrock, Cornelscourt . . .”
People began moving away as their districts were called out, some obviously despondent, others proud and haughty, but nobody was saying very much. Whatever sounds there were came from the buzz of the announcements and the shuffle of feet beginning to move into the distance.
“Where are you?”
“Section E I think. I hear we’ll get our entry cards at the gates.”
“What about the wife and kids?”
“It’s everyone for himself now. That’s the rule. Anyway they will have heard by now.”
“I don’t know if I’m suitably dressed. My mother always told me to have clean underwear on me in case of an accident, or unforeseen circumstances. Maybe this is what she was warning me about.”
I turned around when I heard the newsboy shouting about the evening papers. The first edition was out earlier than usual because of the news.
“Herald or Press,” he roared, his voice reaching new heights of excitement. “End of the world news! End of the world this afternoon! Official statement from Heaven! Last judgement in the Phoenix Park!”
I shoved him the price of the paper and Adam looked in over my shoulder. According to their religious correspondent angels were landing in different locations all over the country since midday proclaiming the news. Judgement had already been given in most other European countries. The heavenly host was moving with the sun and wouldn’t reach America until early in the morning Irish time. I suppose there was no such thing any more as Irish time but it was difficult to get rid of the old metaphors. There was no hard data as yet available from the rest of the European Union because all the fax lines were clogged up and the Internet was acting funny. There was a small diagram at the bottom of the second page which purported to show unconfirmed figures for the number of saved and the number of damned in each country so far. It gave us some satisfaction to see that good Catholic countries like Spain and Portugal and even Italy had the highest saved rate. But Adam said that they also were the biggest producers of red wine, and that was the real reason. Against that there was a very high damnation rate in awful Protestant countries like Germany, Denmark and Finland, but England was the worst of all.
“Eighty-four per cent!” said Adam, in wonder and not a little satisfaction. “That won’t leave much room for us, thanks be to Jaysus.”
“Any mention of Purgatory?” I mentioned, scanning the page up and down, “or the likes of Limbo?”
There wasn’t, but there was more than enough speculation about who amongst the great and mighty and the eminent greasies of the country would go up and who would go down. The journalists were very kind to themselves but more than nasty to politicians whom they didn’t like. They weren’t too sure about the Cardinal as he had criticized the press the week before, but they did admit that if the Pope was saved that he had a very good chance also. I supposed this was an attempt to be fair now that the end was nigh. There was a full page of the detailed arrangements – the various routes to the Park, parking lots, the sites of the different pens into which people were to go, the tents of the Red Cross, fish and chip stalls, beer tables, bookies stands, photographers, toilets.
“They all seem to be walking anyway,” I said, as we had failed to hail a taxi, “let’s go.”
We hit the road and joined the throng making its way to the Phoenix Park. Most of the people were quiet and reflective although there was the occasional murmur of prayer and the jangle of a rosary beads. Dublin Bus was providing a special cheap knock-down one-way fare but most people seemed to want to walk. I suppose it gave them a chance to stop and think every so often and to examine the state of their souls. Others were going back over the course of their lives trying to put it all together. The humour improved as we went on, however. We heard an occasional nervous laugh as if people were practising confessions on one another.
“Do you remember?” Adam asked me reflectively, “do you remember you asked me once what would I do if I knew the end of the world was coming? Remember that?”
“I was talking about the Third World War then,” I said. We were passing by Phibsboro at this time and the road was getting congested at the major junction. “We all thought it would happen that way. But I suppose since the Russians and Americans decided against frying us all God decided he’d have his pound of flesh anyway.”
“It’s just as the poet said: ‘This is the way the world will end, this is the way the world will end, this is the way the world will end, not with a bang but with a wimpey.’”
“And you said you’d go mad around the streets rubbing and robbing and plundering and whoring and fucking and blinding and doing all those things that only crawl under the skin of civilization. And I said I’d blow my head off with a gun. Funny that we don’t want to do any of those things now.”
“Life must go on,” he said wearily, “that’s the way it is – so it goes.”
“Last few ices, last few ices,” a vendor shouted, “anyone now for the last few ice-creams.” He pushed his way through the crowd with skilled and sharp elbows.
There was a small bunch of angels standing guard outside Glasnevin Cemetery as we were going by. They had their golden swords drawn and had their backs to us. We thought this was a bit unusual until we saw them holding back the crowd inside. A motley collection of emaciated corpses, rotting bodies, skeletons, stiffs, cadavers and carcasses jostled at the gates trying to get out. It must have been that they were looking for a second chance. I have to say that they were not suitably attired to join the likes of us on our way to the general judgement.
“Do you see de Valera?” shouted one woman, pointing out a lanky tall skeleton peering longingly through the bars of the gates.
“He hasn’t changed much, anyway” said another.
“Except that he’s a bit straighter now than he ever was,” said a third.
“So much for the treaty,” somebody mumbled.
“Who called him a traitor?”
There might have been a row only somebody joked that he could hardly be called the devil incarnate now, which drew the reply that he was at least the devil of Éire.
There were others who swore that they saw Roger Casement who would certainly know his way to the Phoenix Park; and yet others who said that it had to be Daniel O’Connell arguing with the angels with big rhetorical flourishes in the hope that he might be let out. Maybe he thought he had one more big speech in him before a captive audience.
We didn’t have time to follow the discussion as we were swept along in the tide of people away from the tide of history. It might have been interesting to have them along. They could have told us all that stuff the biographers never dug up. Ah well.
“Isn’t it enough for any one of us to be living in the present for none of us can be living forever and we must be satisfied,” said Adam, taking the words out of my mind. But he said many other things also which are not the matter of this story but which might be worth telling by somebody else some other time.
When we reached the gates of the Phoenix Park the crowds were as thick as flies on a summer eve. They were coming from every direction, some on their own, some with their families, some with their second families, some others uncertainly with their present partners of similar gender or bent. Life was still ours but the future which beckoned was short. Guardian angels were posted every few yards giving directions and orders as required. We were all given identification cards on the other side of the Zoological Gardens. It would certainly be tragic if anyone was sent to hell as a result of mistaken identity.
The great blue sky was awash with music as we approached the centre of the park. Those cherubim and seraphim must have been practising for aeons and aeons just for this one day. I couldn’t quite see them yet but I could hear the brass and the boom and the hosannas and hallelujahs. I was lucky to be still with Adam although I must admit that Docila and the children did fleetingly cross my mind. If I didn’t see them this side of the judgement it was unlikely I would see them on the other.
We had red cards and we folowed all the directions until we got to our pen. We were made sit on long wooden benches and told to wait until we were called. The odd vendor had sneaked in and was attempting to sell Coke or orange-juice because it was a hot day. The angels didn’t seem to bother too much about them. I think they were more worried about the ones who were trying to duck back in the queue and were giving bribes to people with holier faces. They were also trying to ensure that we kept our eyes glued on the giant movie screens that were posted around us showing different pictures. I was hoping to get a glimpse of the Judge and the throne and what was happening in the centre of the action but that didn’t seem to be coming up yet. To tell you the truth they were quite interesting. We had a choice of about seven different screens but we could only concentrate on one at a time.
The one I was looking at was a kind of horror movie. For a moment I thought it was a video of what was going on in another part of the park. There were angels in it, I remember. Seven of them if I recall correctly. They had trumpets and were preparing to blow them. When the sound of the first trumpet was heard I did see a beast coming up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon its head ten diadems and curses spewing out of the mouths of the seven heads. And then another one blew his trumpet and I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire and the fire was licking the rims of the mountains and the people were climbing up the mountains to escape from the fire. And when the third angel blew his trumpet the mountain rose up and crashed down into the sea and the sea became blood and swallowed up all the boats and the fish. This was like unto Krakatoa east of Java, only better! Then a star fell from Heaven to earth and opened up a bottomless pit, and the pit belched up smoke that threw up poisonous scorpions and hydra-headed monsters and cookie zombies with papier mâché make-up that wouldn’t convince anyone. Grand if you like that kind of stuff but I felt it had all been done before. The producer of this movie wasn’t very subtle, and anyway I don’t think it scared anybody.
I suppose the idea was that it would pass the time and divert our attention from the moving queues going past us to the place of judgement. We tried to stand up every so often in order to stretch our limbs but we were really trying to get a glimpse of the bench.
“Did you see him yet?” Adam asked me, after I did a little hop and a jump.
“I don’t think so,” I said, “he appears to be entirely surrounded by the Deitorium Guards. I think he’s tall, slender, blonde, bearded and blue-eyed.”
“He has no beard,” a wise-looking guy next to me said, speaking as if he really knew something that the rest of us didn’t. “He’s as bald as a baby’s bum, as well-dressed and groomed as any chief executive of a big company.”
“I heard that,” said a red-headed man courteously, “and I beg to oppose. I saw him a few moments ago and he was big, fat and hairy. Quite like the Pope actually, apart from his fine head of hair.”
“Ye’re all wrong ye ignorant slobs!” A woman was standing on a seat wringing her hands and mouthing at us in a brassy voice. “She’s a woman I’mtel ingye! A big strong power-dressed woman with glasses! I saw her.”
“Yes, and I suppose she is black too, and wears a ‘Save the Whales’ button, and is eating a macrobiotic sandwich,” I said, but I don’t think anyone heard me. They were too busy holding forth about what God looked like but I think in the end we had to agree that nobody had really seen him. Afew people might have got clocked if it wasn’t for the angelic police keeping a close eye on us. Adam said he was a bit pissed off with all this theology stuff although he did admit he was getting excited at the prospect of meeting Him. If it was only that He was the biggest cheese of all in the history of the world and that he wanted to satisfy his own curiosity.
“Do you see that crane?” he asked, pointing his spoon in the direction of the tall construct waving about above the City Hall like a scorpion’s tail about to strike. “I’d hang my specially designed state-of-the-art tub off the top of that and do the hippy-hippy shakes up and around and topsy-turvy and head over heels so that just one of my chosen list would fall out, one at the time. That is the circus that I want. Just ten minutes.”
“Well, bully for you,” I said, thinking of my own list, “but I’m afraid that whenever the coup comes neither you nor I will have much to do with it.”
“Speak for yourself,” he said, calling the waiter for something or other. “I have military training just as well as you. You can’t put that one over on me.”
“Five weeks in the FCA twenty years ago! I know of some petty dictators who still wouldn’t have us. When the tanks roll up I’m going to stay sitting here smoking my cigar.”
If this was bullshit we were under the illusion it was good bullshit, and anyway if we couldn’t pass muster we could at least pass the time. We all got whanged by life’s vicissitudes but we still had our middle-aged dreams to keep us warm. Our ship would come in, or we would find the crock of gold at the end of the garden, or we would fall in love with a rich Jewish princess. Or at any rate we could keep talking as long as we had no other choice and there was no other thing to do nor any other place to go. O yes, we had our complaints, but it was better to curse the darkness than light a penny candle on a star.
“You better stuff yourself with that apple tart,” I said to Adam, having nothing better to say, “you won’t get anything as good as it until tomorrow. There’s nothing worse than pangs of hunger in the smack-bang-middle of the high afternoon.”
He would do that anyway without any encouragement from me, but that didn’t mean we were in any great hurry to pack up and go. To be on duty was not the same thing as to be in work. We still had time to gabble about the Ex-President’s mistress, the humour of the financial pages, ecological holidays in Greenland, the etymological derivation of the exclamation mark, the man who died of a broken fart which was great gas, and the pimp who thought everything was great crack. We paid a fortune for our lunch in order to help the economy as we did every day and we wearily wended our way back to the office.
Out on the street everyone was on the move. They all looked as if they were going in the same direction. There was a look in their eyes which had never been there before. You knew that even if you had never seen them until now. I tried to talk to one young fellow but he stared at me from out of eyes that welled up in tears.
Adam tried to chat up one woman but she laughed at him with a nervous highly-strung laugh.
I grabbed one old wrinkly by the elbow but he shook me off with a viciousness which I scarcely thought he could have.
Adam spoke to a child but no wisdom came forth from his mouth.
“Has the government fallen?” I shouted to the crowd.
“Fallen, my arse,” said one guy with a wart on his nose and vanished in the great wash.
“Has the stock market collapsed?” Adam pleaded, because he could be quite sensitive about these moneyed things when he had to be.
“Fuck the stock,” said another guy who looked to be about a thousand years old and never enjoyed a day in his life.
“Have the Brits attacked?” I shouted, falling back on the old enemy in time of necessity, but I only got an emphatic “Not at this time” from a woman who was sucking her thumb.
“He’s over there!” screamed a man between horrors and hosannas who had a rosary beads or a knuckle-duster wrapped around his fist, and pointed us with his whole body to the corner of the road where we thought we had first heard the music.
“Who is it?” we both asked in unison and together, scarlet butterflies rising in our stomachs.
“This is the day I have been waiting for since the beginning of time,” the man said, and then grabbed us by the dirty scruff of our necks and shoved us forward to where the crowd was gawping up at the building.
“This is it now,” said your man, as happy as a kid going in to see Santa Claus, “you’re all fucked, you shower of fucking fuckers. Thanks be to God!”
“Who is he?” I asked, even plaintively, about the guy standing on the corner of the upper window who looked as if he was about to jump. “Why doesn’t somebody get the ambulance or the Gardaí? If he falls he’ll make an awful mess.”
“Shut your face, you fool,” said your man again, a smile like a flea’s arse flitting across his face. “There’s no chance of him falling. Don’t you see his wings?”
He was, unfortunately, right. I had been paying attention to the trumpet in his right hand and to his unusual get-up and I hadn’t noticed the two golden wings sticking out behind his back.
“Jaysus, I know who it is,” said Adam, nearly licking my ear, “it’s fucking Goldie Horn.”
I suppressed a chuckle as nobody else was chuckling, and anyway, this was real serious public shit rather than simple private angst.
“Or maybe it’s Icarus,” I retorted. “He’s probably forgotten that we have aeroplanes for the last hundred years.”
“Judas Icarius,” said Adam, “give him enough rope to hang himself.”
“It is written also,” said your man “that thou shalt not go free because this is the day of accounting.”
“We had those accountants in last week,” said Adam, “and they were some accuntants.”
Just then Willie Wings on the window let a great blast from his trumpet and everybody jumped back in horror. He laid down his trumpet and did produce a big red book from within his breast and commenced to read.
“Districts seven and eight,” he proclaimed, in a voice that had a certain eastern accent to it, “that is to say, Cabra, Phibsboro, Arbour Hill, Stoneybatter, Inchicore, The Coom, The South Circular Road and adjacent areas, Section A; Districts three and nine, Clontarf, Ballybough, Clonliffe, Drumcondra, Whitehall, Santry and Griffith Avenue, Section B; Districts five and thirteen, Coolock, Artane, Raheny, Bayside, Barrytown, Sutton, Donamede and Baldoyle, Section C; Districts one and six, Ranelagh, Rathmines, Rathgar, Terenure and Harold’s Cross, Section D; District four, Donnybrook, Ballsbridge, Sandymount, Sandycove and Ringsend, Section E; Districts ten and eleven, Ballyfermot and Blanchardstown, Section F; District eighteen, Cabinteely, Foxrock, Cornelscourt . . .”
People began moving away as their districts were called out, some obviously despondent, others proud and haughty, but nobody was saying very much. Whatever sounds there were came from the buzz of the announcements and the shuffle of feet beginning to move into the distance.
“Where are you?”
“Section E I think. I hear we’ll get our entry cards at the gates.”
“What about the wife and kids?”
“It’s everyone for himself now. That’s the rule. Anyway they will have heard by now.”
“I don’t know if I’m suitably dressed. My mother always told me to have clean underwear on me in case of an accident, or unforeseen circumstances. Maybe this is what she was warning me about.”
I turned around when I heard the newsboy shouting about the evening papers. The first edition was out earlier than usual because of the news.
“Herald or Press,” he roared, his voice reaching new heights of excitement. “End of the world news! End of the world this afternoon! Official statement from Heaven! Last judgement in the Phoenix Park!”
I shoved him the price of the paper and Adam looked in over my shoulder. According to their religious correspondent angels were landing in different locations all over the country since midday proclaiming the news. Judgement had already been given in most other European countries. The heavenly host was moving with the sun and wouldn’t reach America until early in the morning Irish time. I suppose there was no such thing any more as Irish time but it was difficult to get rid of the old metaphors. There was no hard data as yet available from the rest of the European Union because all the fax lines were clogged up and the Internet was acting funny. There was a small diagram at the bottom of the second page which purported to show unconfirmed figures for the number of saved and the number of damned in each country so far. It gave us some satisfaction to see that good Catholic countries like Spain and Portugal and even Italy had the highest saved rate. But Adam said that they also were the biggest producers of red wine, and that was the real reason. Against that there was a very high damnation rate in awful Protestant countries like Germany, Denmark and Finland, but England was the worst of all.
“Eighty-four per cent!” said Adam, in wonder and not a little satisfaction. “That won’t leave much room for us, thanks be to Jaysus.”
“Any mention of Purgatory?” I mentioned, scanning the page up and down, “or the likes of Limbo?”
There wasn’t, but there was more than enough speculation about who amongst the great and mighty and the eminent greasies of the country would go up and who would go down. The journalists were very kind to themselves but more than nasty to politicians whom they didn’t like. They weren’t too sure about the Cardinal as he had criticized the press the week before, but they did admit that if the Pope was saved that he had a very good chance also. I supposed this was an attempt to be fair now that the end was nigh. There was a full page of the detailed arrangements – the various routes to the Park, parking lots, the sites of the different pens into which people were to go, the tents of the Red Cross, fish and chip stalls, beer tables, bookies stands, photographers, toilets.
“They all seem to be walking anyway,” I said, as we had failed to hail a taxi, “let’s go.”
We hit the road and joined the throng making its way to the Phoenix Park. Most of the people were quiet and reflective although there was the occasional murmur of prayer and the jangle of a rosary beads. Dublin Bus was providing a special cheap knock-down one-way fare but most people seemed to want to walk. I suppose it gave them a chance to stop and think every so often and to examine the state of their souls. Others were going back over the course of their lives trying to put it all together. The humour improved as we went on, however. We heard an occasional nervous laugh as if people were practising confessions on one another.
“Do you remember?” Adam asked me reflectively, “do you remember you asked me once what would I do if I knew the end of the world was coming? Remember that?”
“I was talking about the Third World War then,” I said. We were passing by Phibsboro at this time and the road was getting congested at the major junction. “We all thought it would happen that way. But I suppose since the Russians and Americans decided against frying us all God decided he’d have his pound of flesh anyway.”
“It’s just as the poet said: ‘This is the way the world will end, this is the way the world will end, this is the way the world will end, not with a bang but with a wimpey.’”
“And you said you’d go mad around the streets rubbing and robbing and plundering and whoring and fucking and blinding and doing all those things that only crawl under the skin of civilization. And I said I’d blow my head off with a gun. Funny that we don’t want to do any of those things now.”
“Life must go on,” he said wearily, “that’s the way it is – so it goes.”
“Last few ices, last few ices,” a vendor shouted, “anyone now for the last few ice-creams.” He pushed his way through the crowd with skilled and sharp elbows.
There was a small bunch of angels standing guard outside Glasnevin Cemetery as we were going by. They had their golden swords drawn and had their backs to us. We thought this was a bit unusual until we saw them holding back the crowd inside. A motley collection of emaciated corpses, rotting bodies, skeletons, stiffs, cadavers and carcasses jostled at the gates trying to get out. It must have been that they were looking for a second chance. I have to say that they were not suitably attired to join the likes of us on our way to the general judgement.
“Do you see de Valera?” shouted one woman, pointing out a lanky tall skeleton peering longingly through the bars of the gates.
“He hasn’t changed much, anyway” said another.
“Except that he’s a bit straighter now than he ever was,” said a third.
“So much for the treaty,” somebody mumbled.
“Who called him a traitor?”
There might have been a row only somebody joked that he could hardly be called the devil incarnate now, which drew the reply that he was at least the devil of Éire.
There were others who swore that they saw Roger Casement who would certainly know his way to the Phoenix Park; and yet others who said that it had to be Daniel O’Connell arguing with the angels with big rhetorical flourishes in the hope that he might be let out. Maybe he thought he had one more big speech in him before a captive audience.
We didn’t have time to follow the discussion as we were swept along in the tide of people away from the tide of history. It might have been interesting to have them along. They could have told us all that stuff the biographers never dug up. Ah well.
“Isn’t it enough for any one of us to be living in the present for none of us can be living forever and we must be satisfied,” said Adam, taking the words out of my mind. But he said many other things also which are not the matter of this story but which might be worth telling by somebody else some other time.
When we reached the gates of the Phoenix Park the crowds were as thick as flies on a summer eve. They were coming from every direction, some on their own, some with their families, some with their second families, some others uncertainly with their present partners of similar gender or bent. Life was still ours but the future which beckoned was short. Guardian angels were posted every few yards giving directions and orders as required. We were all given identification cards on the other side of the Zoological Gardens. It would certainly be tragic if anyone was sent to hell as a result of mistaken identity.
The great blue sky was awash with music as we approached the centre of the park. Those cherubim and seraphim must have been practising for aeons and aeons just for this one day. I couldn’t quite see them yet but I could hear the brass and the boom and the hosannas and hallelujahs. I was lucky to be still with Adam although I must admit that Docila and the children did fleetingly cross my mind. If I didn’t see them this side of the judgement it was unlikely I would see them on the other.
We had red cards and we folowed all the directions until we got to our pen. We were made sit on long wooden benches and told to wait until we were called. The odd vendor had sneaked in and was attempting to sell Coke or orange-juice because it was a hot day. The angels didn’t seem to bother too much about them. I think they were more worried about the ones who were trying to duck back in the queue and were giving bribes to people with holier faces. They were also trying to ensure that we kept our eyes glued on the giant movie screens that were posted around us showing different pictures. I was hoping to get a glimpse of the Judge and the throne and what was happening in the centre of the action but that didn’t seem to be coming up yet. To tell you the truth they were quite interesting. We had a choice of about seven different screens but we could only concentrate on one at a time.
The one I was looking at was a kind of horror movie. For a moment I thought it was a video of what was going on in another part of the park. There were angels in it, I remember. Seven of them if I recall correctly. They had trumpets and were preparing to blow them. When the sound of the first trumpet was heard I did see a beast coming up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon its head ten diadems and curses spewing out of the mouths of the seven heads. And then another one blew his trumpet and I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire and the fire was licking the rims of the mountains and the people were climbing up the mountains to escape from the fire. And when the third angel blew his trumpet the mountain rose up and crashed down into the sea and the sea became blood and swallowed up all the boats and the fish. This was like unto Krakatoa east of Java, only better! Then a star fell from Heaven to earth and opened up a bottomless pit, and the pit belched up smoke that threw up poisonous scorpions and hydra-headed monsters and cookie zombies with papier mâché make-up that wouldn’t convince anyone. Grand if you like that kind of stuff but I felt it had all been done before. The producer of this movie wasn’t very subtle, and anyway I don’t think it scared anybody.
I suppose the idea was that it would pass the time and divert our attention from the moving queues going past us to the place of judgement. We tried to stand up every so often in order to stretch our limbs but we were really trying to get a glimpse of the bench.
“Did you see him yet?” Adam asked me, after I did a little hop and a jump.
“I don’t think so,” I said, “he appears to be entirely surrounded by the Deitorium Guards. I think he’s tall, slender, blonde, bearded and blue-eyed.”
“He has no beard,” a wise-looking guy next to me said, speaking as if he really knew something that the rest of us didn’t. “He’s as bald as a baby’s bum, as well-dressed and groomed as any chief executive of a big company.”
“I heard that,” said a red-headed man courteously, “and I beg to oppose. I saw him a few moments ago and he was big, fat and hairy. Quite like the Pope actually, apart from his fine head of hair.”
“Ye’re all wrong ye ignorant slobs!” A woman was standing on a seat wringing her hands and mouthing at us in a brassy voice. “She’s a woman I’mtel ingye! A big strong power-dressed woman with glasses! I saw her.”
“Yes, and I suppose she is black too, and wears a ‘Save the Whales’ button, and is eating a macrobiotic sandwich,” I said, but I don’t think anyone heard me. They were too busy holding forth about what God looked like but I think in the end we had to agree that nobody had really seen him. Afew people might have got clocked if it wasn’t for the angelic police keeping a close eye on us. Adam said he was a bit pissed off with all this theology stuff although he did admit he was getting excited at the prospect of meeting Him. If it was only that He was the biggest cheese of all in the history of the world and that he wanted to satisfy his own curiosity.
