Donleavy was furious. JP and the two boys couldn’t remember when they had seen him so livid. He was literally banging the pints down in front of them. If he were a cartoon character at this moment, then he’d be depicted with steam coming out of every orifice. It didn’t make for relaxed imbibing. Mono was positively scared to order another round. In decades of drinking together there had never been confusion as to whose shout it was – but Mono had tried to convince Rasher that it was JP’s round simply because he was afraid to order from Donleavy.
“He’s takin’ it hard, ain’t he?”
“That’s the understatement of all time. He’s like a man possessed.”
“Well – I suppose that’s twice they’ve postponed the openin’ of the pubs. I heard he had to go through hoops to get the last set of kegs. God only knows what he’ll need to do to get the next set”
“It’s a bit like bleedin’ prohibition isn’t it?”
“Yeah – with Donleavy as Al Capone and Michael D Higgins as Woodrow Wilson.”
“So, who are we then?”
“I don’t know – but I wanna be played by Johnny Depp.”
“Marlon Brando more like.”
“But ain’t he dead?”
“…and yer point is…?”
The boys went back to pint swilling. It seemed that the volume of each gulp had decreased. Maybe there really was a nervousness to engage Donleavy for fresh pints. JP was in his usual position as the central character socially distanced on his bar-stool with Mono on the right and Rasher on the left. He was staring at a point in the bar counter mirror just to the left of the Jameson bottle.
“It’s strange times, ain’t it?”
“Jayzus JP – you don’t have to state the obvious.”
“Naw. Naw. I know all that pandemic shite. But I mean the way people are goin’ ‘bout things.”
Rasher looked at Mono. Mono looked at Rasher. They shrugged.
“What’ya mean… exactly?”
JP adjusted his gaze to the right of the Bushmills bottle.
“Well this is one time we should all be listenin’ to the Scientist Geeks? The guys in the white coats, yeah?”
Mono piped up:
“Well the immunologists, really.”
Rasher nearly spat back into his pint.
“Jayzus. Aren’t you the proper little Scientist yerself – couple of weeks ago the only ologist you had ever come across was a Bollocksologist.”
“Hey, hey…”
JP tried to shush them back into order.
“But really. Not a lot of our behaviour makes sense, does it?”
“You mean me, you and Mono?”
“Naw, naw. People in general.”
“That’s alrigh’, so. I thought yer were havin’ a dig at me and Mono.
The boys finished off their pints. Mono plucked up the courage and gestured for more incoming from Donleavy. The bar owner grunted and started pulling pints. Mono exhaled slowly, significantly less stressed now that the order had been recognised and he went back to the conversation.
“There’s nowt as quare as folk.”
“That’s what they say.”
“I heard one there recently. If yer had a jar with a hundred sweets and yer knew one of them would either kill ya or make ya incredibly ill…what would you do?”
Mono looked at Rasher. Rasher looked at Mono.
“I wouldn’t eat any of the bleedin’ sweets”, Rasher said, emphatically banging his pint on the bar. “Do I look that much of a gobshite?”
Mono jumped in.
“Is that a real question…just….”
JP tried to get it back on track.
“So why would people gather at house parties, why would they crush together at BLM protests, why would they jump up and down at being asked to wear a facemask? Why would they think the virus would go away durin’ the summer when its already runnin’ rampant in hot countries? It’s like they want to get to the poisoned sweet as quick as possible.”
“Don’t ever underestimate how stupid people can be.”
Mono took his time to speak.
“I heard an even better one than the sweets, JP.”
“Yeah – what’s that?”
“The only thing we need to fear is fear itself”, Mono paused for a few seconds. “And stupid – we should be shit scared of stupid.”
“Nice one.”
“Yeah – spot on.”
“Will we go for chips?”
“Yeah – and a battered cod.”
They drained their pints.
“We’re gone so.”
JP@Donleavy’s 