Irish Town

Irish Town
Matthew John Meagher
“…story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.”- Tim O’Brien

“Love’s never died; it just looks a little different these days.”- Irish Slay

PART I
The Hall

Jester
Powder Match: 60 Days
I take a shot of cheap whiskey. The sun creeps an orange hue through my window. I take another shot to get me to normal and begin my school day. My name is Jeremiah Connelly. Most people call me Jester.
In the reflection of a cracked and scratched mirror, I see a woman creeping through my neighbor’s backyard wearing only a parka and snow boots, carrying her black high heels. I hear a sliding door open. I crouch down, and peek over my window sill. As she escapes, I see my neighbor with another woman. It’s his teenage daughter.
My neighbor is huge and jacked. His muscles ripple across his shoulders as he breathes. He’s sprawled out on the bed naked with one leg hanging over the side. His daughter whips the other woman’s G-string panties off his lampshade, holds them between her two fingers like a biohazard, and throws them in the hamper. She turns on the shower, tiptoes over to the bed, grabs empty beer cans and an ashtray to dump into the trash. She slaps the back of his thinning grey hair to wake him. He continues to lie motionless. She slaps his back and he wakes up. She hands him a cup of coffee and turns to open his closet to pick out his outfit for the day.
He gulps down the coffee and tops it off with a shot from a flask. With one eye open, he trudges his way to the bathroom, and sees that she has everything laid out for him: a shirt, pre-knotted tie, pants, belt, socks, and shoes. When he comes out, she cleans up his spotty beard with a razor and styles his hair. He actually looks like a functioning adult.
At least she has a dad.
I look at my reflection in the mirror. A crack in the glass stretches over a scar that reaches from my right brow to my chin. Cherries broke it in last year’s Powder Match. The scar is the only masculine thing I have. I suffer from resting baby face. I’m a high schooler who looks thirteen. With my hood up, I look bald. I drag myself over to a closet filled with black hoodies, all saying “Jester” on the back. One good thing about being the Jester is my hoodies. They’re impermeable. Since it’s cold year-round up here now, keeping warm is something I don’t have to worry about. I jump when I hear Mom’s voice boom, “Jester! Irish is here!” I turn to get a last look at my neighbor through my window. He’s sitting and staring right at me.
He looks familiar.
I pull my hood up over my head, run downstairs and out the door, grabbing my scarf as I go. I follow my adorable demon dog-Dooby. She’s an oversized wiener dog with the fury of a Pitbull. She doesn’t lick my toes; she bites them.
A steel-black limo pulls up to the front door. Old brakes screech as the limo that I fixed up over the summer arrives. There is still a rusted steel door on the rear passenger side, but that’s nothing compared to the battered “tin can” Irish had presented me back in June. He’s a kid that can get things.
The icy, snowy wind makes it hard to see, but I can follow Dooby waddling to the limo door. I wrap the white scarf around my neck and pull the hoodie strings tight. A plume of smoke billows out as the door opens. As I enter the limo, I join Ashton’s Irish Brigade, a nickname the town has given us. The limo reeks of a decade ago when we were children. Cracked leather, old whiskey, stale smoke, and windows black as holes; it’s like riding in a vintage hearse. In the middle of the limo is a blinking three-dimensional tele-screen showing the weather. Big surprise…it’s gonna be cold and windy.
Dooby jumps on Curly’s lap. Curly Brown is our Smoke Quartermate. Smoke Quartermates raise Demon Dogs and deal drugs. Tall, pale, and skinny, his long, dreaded hair is folded into a bun making his hoodie look like a helmet. He, Dooby, and Irish are sitting across from me.
Irish sits with his brother, Twitch. They cradle fresh bundles of wood and chug bottles of water. Irish always has water. I don’t know how he gets it since the Cherries control the Dam. He who has water, has power. The mountain wetlands have dried up and the western slope is in a never-ending drought. It snows in the winter, but barely enough to cover the valley. Snowdrop Resort is one of the only remaining mountain resorts in the country. The drought forces the Cherries to make their own snow.

Irish doesn’t drink, but he smokes like a chimney. His eyes are cold and black. His flush skin is rugged and life-ridden. His massive frame barely fits in the limo, and his hoodie pulls tight over his broad shoulders. A tattooed clover, in tribute to his mom, drips from his left eye, and a thick Celtic cross wrapped in a rose covers his neck. His sharp jaw-line and thick beard give the image of a full-grown man. Girls swoon every time he enters a room, but he doesn’t give them a chance. Irish couldn’t fight in last year’s Powder Match. He was in the hospital. His dad had beaten the hell out of him. Twitch replaced him and the Cherries beat him to a pulp. He’s a different person now. Irish takes him to school and makes sure he has water and food. Other than that, Twitch just stays in his room working on his art.
Shea Murdoch sits up front with our driver, Freshmore Quartermate Benny. Shea is smaller than Irish, but has the dense, compact aspect of a bowling ball. His smoky-grey eyes and buzzed brown hair show a “back off” vibe. He cracks his knuckles as a toothpick hangs from his lips. Shea is part of the Brigade, but not a Quartermate. His family has been in Ashton since the mining days. He knows the ins and outs of the valley.
Quartermates are leaders in the community appointed by Irish. Benny, our driver, leads the Freshman and Sophomores.
I say, “What up, fellas? We gonna do something different this year? Elect some smart kids? Give me some help in Academia? Or are we still going with a bunch of candy asses for the Snow Brawl?”
Shea nods towards Irish.
Irish says, “There’s my Jester. Cynical and drunk. Lucky you’re smart.”
“Get off your cross, Irish,” I say. He turns away and stares out the window as I place two cubes of ice into a glass and shower it with spiced rum.
He says, “We do what Vivian wants.”
We leave my neighborhood, Ashton Hills. A few families live up here, but most houses are deserted. We turn the corner past a rusted Bachelor Loop sign. The Loop is a gravel road tourists use to explore some old ghost towns. We don’t want Ashton to become a ghost town. Powder Valley is hidden miles west in the Rocky Mountains. Sometimes we get hikers who brave the trek, but the “Falling Rock” or “Watch Out for Bears” signs deter people from getting too close.
Irish speaks with a hoarse tone as he plays with the flame of his lighter. He sniffs the air, coughs, and says, “Must be Monday. Smells like cinnamon.”
The Sugar Sweet factory bubbles brown cinnamon smoke. The factory has a history. It was once the home of an Irish silver mining operation, but the mine went dry and the owner was forced to figure out a way to employ Ashton with a factory with no material to make product. Horatio Steele’s family owned the plant then. A hundred years ago, his great grandson, Trenton, converted the facility into a candy factory, using old family recipes for various kinds of sweets. Now his son Bart runs the Sugar Sweet Factory and employs nearly the entire town. When the opioid crisis hit, Bart’s concoctions became medicinal. They can heal or enhance, sometimes even cure diseases. We make the Sweets. We don’t consume them. Cherries do. The Cherries use special Sweet concoctions to beat us in the Powder Match by getting stronger and healing faster. Sweets we sure as hell can’t afford. So the smell is a slap in the face every Monday morning.
Curly sits, rolling a joint in a flame with his long bony fingers. He reaches from his left ear and asks, “j for me J.?”
“Nah…I’m good,” I say.
He takes a cig stick from his right ear, places it in my mouth, and lights it.
“Thanks, Curly. You know I hate the first day of school.”
“All good, bruh. Where’s Mars at?” Curly asks. Mars is our Five-Points Quartermate. Five-Points is a project community in town.
Benny interjects: “Neveah’s coming in this year as a freshman. She’s trying to pass my Quarter straight to Mars’s.”
Neveah is Mars’s younger sister. I have to be careful when talking about her around Mars. Everyone does. She’s ridiculously good-looking. He sent a few of his Quarterminions to mash a kid who gave her a Valentine…in the third grade. I saw her running laps on the track the other day, and I swear the girl looked like she belonged in college.
Benny pushes a dash-app that links to a town website and puts on Dropkick Murphy’s, an old Irish band, broadcasting their songs on the internet to let the town know we’re heading through.
We pass the squalor of Ashton. Men and women stumble across icy sidewalks and rats scurry from beneath their feet. Other rats dig through the pockets of the passed-out drunks that litter trash-strewn streets like discarded bottles. Broken windows gaze from crumbling buildings. A pall of smoke hangs over everything. Ashton is similar to the ruins of winter war-torn ghettos. Each building, burnt grey, cracked and broken, resembles an old Depression photograph.
Ashtonians have always been fighters. They fought in all the wars. Ashton is known for its soldiers. PTSD is as much part of the town as is the dirty air.
We stop at a back entrance to the Sugarsweet Factory. Irish, using one palm, hands Curly a few racks of bottled water, and in less than a minute, Curly makes the exchange. He jumps back in the limo with a bag full of Sweets. Sweets may not be physically addicting, but they feel like heaven. Some of the concoctions have been known to cure dementia. But the hell we live in, anything good is hard to come by. Ashtonians use the Sweets to fill their opioid addictions.
I pour myself another drink. Minutes pass in silence as we drive down the mountain from the factory into Five-Points. We stop at the food kitchen. Half the town lines up around the corner. Irish knocks on the inside window for Benny to stop. Benny rolls the window down and one of Mars’s minions reaches in for the bundles of wood and Sweets. People huddle and jump on the kid. Benny pushes the gas and we drive to school.

Ashton High
I don’t know what’s worse, a hangover or Ashton High. When I approach Ashton high I have to hold down the vomit. This pride of the town is cemented in towering maroon brick with skinny vertical windows. It’s similar to a prison. Kids rush inside from the cold. We pull off to the east side of the school and drop off Twitch. He’s a Nerd like me. Even though I know I’m going to see him in a few minutes, I feel like I have lost a friend for life every time he leaves.
Damn, Cherries.
We drive to the west side of school and park next to the fire lane in front. Curly snatches the Five-Points rack of water for Mars. Benny opens the door and grabs his rack. Dooby jumps out, slamming his face into the icy ground from the unexpected drop and sprints to the door wagging his tail like a hummingbird. This lucky mongrel is the only happy thing at this ominous high school. Even our principal, Mr. Sweeney, has given up on us. All he does is run to his office to drink and read novels. He hasn’t stepped foot in the Activities Hall in years. If we do see an adult, it’s our Assistant Principal visiting our hot gym teacher. These guys don’t have to worry about shit because there are no helicopter parents in this town. “Ash High, where dreams go to die.”
Irish is a bull among calves upon his entrance into the Activities Hall. Two hooded freshmen open the school doors. Ash High is similar to walking into the Roman Coliseum, except instead of gladiators and lions, it’s boys and lionesses. Curly picks up Dooby. Shea walks in first. Benny and Curly follow, waiting for us to enter before heading to their respective Quarter benches. Irish drops a cig stick into an old army canteen, pulls out an unlit cig stick, and rests it in his left ear. He follows me in.
Lights flicker like flames. The Activities Hall echoes with cackles and chatter like that of hyenas surrounding a zebra. A curl of overdone cologne, perfume, and smoked weed permeates the air. My skin turns to goosebumps stepping into the Hall. Everyone covers their faces with hoods. It feels like walking into an evil monastery.
The ceiling reaches at least fifty feet high and brick walls spread a football field wide. The floors are the same color as the brick outside. Benches or “Quarters” are on the sides. Not a soul stands in the middle.
On the walls are enormous flat screens that mock us in repeated loops of past Powder Match highlights. It’s an old, traditional competition with our rivals, the Cherries of Cherry Ridge. It’s reached world-wide attention and the winner gets the money from pay-per-view listings. We need the money in order for Ashton to survive. The Powder Match includes: Academia, consisting of five events (Applied Mathematics, Music, Chemistry, Art and Literature); The Chute, a dramatic downhill snow competition; and a climactic Snow Brawl used to break any tie. We have to win this year. We win and we get enough money to support our town.
Over and over we’re stuck watching re-runs of highlights from my dad winning the Academia trial. That’s my event. Academia is the first event in the Powder Match. We’d have a shot, but Twitch and I have been our only representatives for the past three years. We lose Academia because our school still uses chalkboards, while the Cherries have the most modern of learning tools.
Vivian Steele has won the second event, the Chute, three years in a row.
We’re surrounded by highlights of the original Irish, Jimmy Punch, and his Smoke Quartermate, Mickey Slay, Twitch and Irish’s dad, taking down Cherries on the Snow Brawl pitch. We used to win all the time. Not anymore.
Irish couldn’t fight last year in the final event, the Snow Brawl. He was hospitalized, after standing up to Mickey. Mickey doesn’t touch Twitch, so his alcoholic beatings are double when he gets to Irish. Irish is locked down when it comes to that stuff, so I stopped asking him about it.
We’ve literally been getting our asses kicked for years in the Snow Brawl. This is it. Now it’s our turn. It has to be.
Dooby growls at the screens and Curly pets him, lifting his ear to whisper, “Maybe one day, Dooby. One day.” Curly puts Dooby on the floor to waddle to the Special Ed. area where he spends the day as a therapy dog.
Irish walks through the doors and our show begins. Chatter halts and eyes glue to his every step.
He stops at Mars’s quarter.
HeyMars, thin, tall, and dark, wears his hood tight and sleek jeans that show lean muscle. The Five-Points Quarter is full of jocks and carries the most noise in the Hall. If there’s any legit party, it’s in Five-Points. With a slick shake of the hand (a Five-Points signature), Mars says, “There’s my man. Yo, Irish, I gotta give you props for taking care of shit this weekend. I don’t know what my moms would’ve done if she found out Berries came by our spot. We would have had trouble like that in a minute for sure. Anything you need…Points got yo back.” He crunches his knuckles looking around the room, nervous. “You too, J. I ain’t ever heard a boy stick it to a Berry like that. That’s some smooth ass shit you were spitting to those Cops about warrants. Them bitches was out in five. Appreciate it, fam.”
I say, “No worries, Mars, cops are always crooked in your neck. Your sister is coming in this year, right?”
He glances over our shoulders when the doors open. “Yeah, yeah…she’ll be here in a bit, right quick. Been up since four this morning, ya know. I keep telling her shit’ll be fine, but she can’t get the first day of the Hall rumors out of her head, I guess.”
“She’ll be fine, M. No one’s gonna say anything with her being your sister. It’ll be a walk in the park.”
“Word, word.” He pats me on the back. “I’ll catch you two at the Bridge later.”
“If we make it back from Cherry Ridge,” I say.
“Shit. It’s that time of the month again. Damn.”
“For sure. It’s that time of year.”
Curly’s Quarter is a bunch of crunchy, hippie stoners talking about new strains of weed or their hallucinations from the past weekend’s trip.