then my life changed forever. Standing by herself against the wall was the beloved Diana of my dreams. She saw me as soon as I saw her and I began to make my way through the thicket of blatherers that stood between us.
At that time ’twas rare for me not to know somebody at these gatherings, but tonight not one soul impeded my path. In short order, I was standing in front of Diana, encouraged by her lovely, warm, welcoming smile. With a greeting I took her hand, mine all atingle at the touch of her, and said, “I will never let you go again.”
There was a band playing some music, and I asked her to dance. With my arms around her, the next words out of my mouth didn’t surprise either of us as much as it seems they should have.
“Will you marry me?” I asked her.
Diana smiled and didn’t say anything, but she didn’t chase me away, either. As usual, I had my ordinary quota of whiskey; after all, a person has to celebrate meeting the love of one’s life. (Conversely, of course, a person would have to drink because of losing the love of one’s life. Or, indeed, misplacing her, or taking her to dinner, or to bed or to Spain, for that matter, and so goes the nattering, insistent voice of alcoholism.) But I was in good spirits, as they say, and as charming as could be to my newfound, refound love.
I took Diana home that night to what seemed to me a perfect night of lovemaking and was awakened by the gentle touch of her hand on the forehead as she held for me the cup of coffee in her other hand. And there was Nina, the silent, wondering, blond little Nina, just turned two, living in her own world of tongue-clicking and rhythmic head motions, totally baffling the professionals as to her nature. Some said she was retarded; others ventured that she was autistic. Someone else decided on brain-damaged, and one famous specialist said that she was perfectly normal and the only problem was having a nervous mother.
Whatever it was, Nina and myself got along quite well, as I’d grown up with people who bore all kinds of disabilities, physical and mental and emotional (if they are not one and the same thing), and it didn’t strike me as anything out of the ordinary.
I took right to this new family, and before long I was quite determined that I would now settle down and take care of Diana and Nina, and try to start seeing more of my own children, Siobhan and Malachy. But I’m the man who gave good intentions a bad name, as simply intending to do something good is no match for derangement and the disease of alcoholism. I still attempted to maintain the fiction that my drinking was harmless fun. I know now that before I could change, before help could be sought and accepted, I had to acknowledge that I had a problem, but I still wasn’t quite ready. Love may conquer all, but it does not begin its activities with my timetable in mind.
I’d like to have the proverbial dollar for every broker or banker who has said to me, “I’d like to open up a place like this and have all my friends come and drink there, and I’d get someone to run it for me, and I’d come in on the weekends to say hello to everyone.”
HA! I did forbear on most occasions from launching into a blistering response on how hard it is to run a saloon; the sycophantic air one has to adopt to keep good customers coming back, not to mention the vague unease of constantly selling booze to known alcoholics.
No matter how I looked at it, the reality of what I was doing bashed me in the brain every time. All around the world at distilleries, breweries, and wineries, people were pouring into bottles the fermented results of that which grows generally in fields. Bottles and barrels and jugs and jeroboams full of whiskey, beer, wine, vodka, gin, champagne, and bourbon, just to mention a few. And thousands of trucks, trains, ships, and planes were used to transport this stuff to wherever it is needed, and me calling up to order cases of it to sell to my so-called following. Some of them could take it or leave it, but there were others who I knew to be alcoholic (though of course I couldn’t see I was one of them), but that didn’t stop me from vending the stuff to them. Like any dope pusher, I had fixed expenses, and always, as is said, the rent has to be paid.
There was one lad, Chris, a member of a well-known acting family, who drank enormous quantities of Jack Daniel’s every night. He was about twenty-two years of age and was spending on an average one hundred and fifty dollars a week at my place alone. I didn’t mind the income, as it literally paid the rent in the early sixties, but I was worried about the damage being done to this young man. So I went to his father, who told me that the son had his own trust fund, and he had no control over it or him. When he found out, Chris was furious that I’d gone to his father. He told me that was the end of his days as a customer at Himself and stomped out.
I ran into him again years later, and he is a sober and mature man, and we are now quite good friends.
Jim Tierney was another one, a tall red-visaged literary type who could quote from Finnegans Wake, indeed, from a list of other classics as well. Brilliant as he was, he had a spot of difficulty in holding the job, so he generally hooked up with well-to-do ladies, one of whom was Sally Smith. On the first of the month she breezed in regular as the dawn to find out her beloved’s consumption for the previous month and what the bill was. There was great comfort in this until the day she informed me that the free ride had come to an end and no more tabs would be picked up and good luck to you Malachy and off she went.
Jim arrived a few hours later and ordered his usual double Dewar’s on the rocks. “A word with you, Jim,” sez I.
“By all means,” sez he.
“There is a substantial tab due from last month and your lady guarantor has decided not to pay any more of your bills, she tells me,” sez I.
“She will get over that,” sez he. “I’m delighted we are having this little confabulation,” he continued, “as on the way here I was thinking that should I someday own a hostelry such as this, and if you were a habitué, it occurred to me that I should extend to you unlimited credit.” He always did speak in flowery terms, which amused me when he was conning other folks, but, as usual, I was in a financial clutch and not in a mood to be so conned myself.
“You don’t have a saloon,” said I. “And I’m not a habitué, and you owe me seven hundred dollars, which needs paying now.”
He slowly shook his head and assumed a disbelieving and disappointed look, and said, “I never thought I would see the day when my friend Malachy McCourt, bon vivant, man of letters, compassionate friend of the needy, would descend to the dungiest depths of sordid commerce by demanding filthy lucre from a man who disdains such transactions. If you persist in your demands I shall have no choice but to leave these premises and, when I do, I assure you I shall never grace your porte cochere again!”
Jim stalked to the door, opened it, turned dramatically, and, in stentorian voice, he bellowed, “And furthermore, FUCK YOU!” He marched off into the night, leaving me with the gob agape and somehow feeling that I was guilty of something.
That other Limerick git, Richard Harris, had just finished playing King Arthur in the movie version of Camelot. Harris had grown up among the toffs in Limerick, not part of my crowd, but I’d encountered him there once, in a game of rugby, and he had been among the Irish and British actors that made my first bar, Malachy’s, home base. In a fit of noblesse oblige he now decided to once again move among us common people.
Wearily he told me he’d had his fill of the chicanery and falsity of Hollywood and the acting profession and that what he would like to do is work for me as a bartender. So it came to pass the man got behind the stick with another stalwart man, Jack Sandon, a fine barkeep, who never removed the cigarette from the corner of his mouth even to deliver the most stinging of insults.
Harris poured with abandon and without measure and never seemed to take money from any of the clientele, and there were many more than usual, as word got out and the dazzled came to gaze at this movie star boniface. One eve, a couple of cheery and quite inebriated elderly ladies told me that my bartender was a very nice young man as he refused payment for the bottle of Dom Perignon they had imbibed. The hand was clapped to the forehead on receiving that piece of news.
But at the end of the week the King was surfeited with serving hoi polloi and gave me notice that he