Free Short Fiction of Flann O'Brien (Irish Literature) by Flann O’Brien Page B

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    —Up at the markets next morning before they were open. There was another chap there but I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t tell you what age he was or how bad he was. There was no four o’clock stuff that day. I was around the markets till twelve or so. Then off up town and I have meself shaved be a barber. Then up to a certain hotel and straight into the bar. There’s a whole crowd there that I know. What are you going to have and so on. No no, have a large one. So-and-so’s getting married on Tuesday. Me other man’s wife has had a baby. You know the stuff? Well Lord save us I had a terrible tank of malt in me that day! I had a feed in the middle of it because I remember scalding myself with hot coffee and I never touch the coffee at all only after a feed. Of course I don’t remember what happened me but I was in the flat the next morning with the clothes half off. I was supposed to be staying with the brother-in-law, of course, when the wife was away. But sure it’s the old dog for the hard road. Drunk or sober I went back to me own place. As a matter of fact I never went near the brother-in-law at all. Be this time I was well into the malt. Out with me again feeling like death on wires and I’m inside in the local curing meself for hours, spilling stuff all over the place with the shake in the hand. Then into the barber’s and after that off up again to the hotel for more malt. I’ll give you a tip. Always drink in hotels. If you’re in there you’re in for a feed, or you’ve just had a feed or you’ve an appointment there to see a fellow, and you’re having a small one to pass the time. It looks very bad being in bars during the daytime. It’s a thing to watch, that.
    — What happened then ?
    —What do you think happened? What could happen? I get meself into a quiet corner and I start lowering them good-o. I don’t know what happened to me, of course. I met a few pals and there is some business about a greyhound out in Cloghran. It was either being bought or being sold and I go along in the taxi and where we were and where we weren’t I couldn’t tell you. I fall asleep on a chair in some house in town and next thing I wake up perished with the cold and as sick as I ever was in me life. Next thing I know I’m above in the markets. Taxis everywhere of course, no food only the plate of soup in the hotel, and be this time the cheque-book is in and out of the pocket three or four times a day , standing drinks all round, kicking up a barney in the lavatory with other drunks, looking for me “rights” when I was refused drink—O, blotto, there’s no other word for it. I seen some of the cheques since. The writing! A pal carts me home in a taxi. How long this goes on I don’t know. I’m all right in the middle of the day but in the mornings I’m nearly too weak to walk and the shakes getting worse every day. Be this time I’m getting frightened of meself. Lookat here, mister-me-man, I say to meself, this’ll have to stop. I was afraid the heart might give out, that was the only thing I was afraid of. Then I meet a pal of mine that’s a doctor. This is inside the hotel. There’s only one man for you, he says, and that’s sleep. Will you go home and go to bed if I get you something that’ll make you sleep? Certainly, I said. I suppose this was about four or half four. Very well, says he, I’ll write you out a prescription. He writes one out on hotel notepaper. I send for a porter. Go across with this, says I, to the nearest chemist shop and get this stuff for me and here’s two bob for yourself. Of course I’m at the whiskey all the time. Your man comes back with a box of long-shaped green pills. You’ll want to be careful with that stuff, the doctor says, that stuff’s very dangerous. If you take one now and take another when you get home, you’ll get a very good sleep but don’t take any more till to-morrow night because that stuff’s very dangerous. So I take one. But I know the