Critical Mick

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Reviews by the Clown that All Other Critics Want to Strangle with a Black Turtleneck

Caught in Amber: An Anthology of Poetry, Prose and Fiction
edited by Eileen Casey
South County Dublin Libraries, 2006

We're All Scratching Away, Dreaming of Striking Rich

Critical Mick, in his unruliest review yet, covers Caught in Amber: An Anthology of Poetry, Prose and Fiction with a story of his own....

Some fat-arsed blow-in of a rich Yank got a bright idea, and so the country townland ringing outer County Dublin was spread thick with sweaty bodies. Neither Diarmuid nor Brickie wasted breath repeating a curse or appreciation. They leaned on their shovels a moment and spat into loamy earth. "Fuck's sake," Diarmuid swore.

"The Bleedin' Jaysus," Brickie agreed. Hundreds had left their homes in Lucan and the surrounding suburbs, fought the traffic, to come to turn this rolling field into dirt. "All for the smell of a pound, as if a one of us will get rich."

"Madness," Diarmuid reiterated, wiping away summer's weight of sweat. Irish property developers had bagged up their millions and fled to Spain. That's no matter. On the ground, to its people, the land was still a goldmine. Every field had a name because it had once sustained a town. Colganstown. Clutterland. Hazelhatch. Cottonambner. All that was left were stone border walls, and those would soon be toppled by some eejit with a pick. Here they were digging but not planting, though there was not a thing wrong with this soil. Diarmuid spat again and twisted his sam-hire spade into the sod. Nor a thing wrong with the surrounding congregation, shovelling like slaves. Not a great deal wrong, nothing a few stories couldn't explain.

And a few tales were what was needed to pass the time. Again the pair sank their own shovels deeper into townlands with ancient names, and words began to come. This was how each long July hour Diarmuid and Brickie eased their expectation of failure and fear of success.

2 Diarmuid

"Look at the sight of that," Brickie nudged. "Is that not Eileen Casey, the poet herself?" The woman he indicated bent furiously, working away like a mad thing.

Diarmuid noted that she had a talent at this. He worried. Casey dug like a runner sprinting toward the finish. "One hell of a mover."

Brickie just snorted as if his nickname came from a lifetime of expertise on building sites.

"You'd never think she was only just after editing a collection of poetry, prose and fiction for the South County Dublin Libraries," Diarmuid tossed loose earth.

"Wha?"

"There's this group that meets in the Lucan Library, every other Saturday morning. They write stories, poems, sketches of how life used to be in Dublin back when they were small. You know, the type of yoke RTE have on the radio- Sunday Miscellany. The gear the Tribune spreads over a page of its arts magazine has once a month."

Brickie surprised Diarmuid by not taking the piss. "Ah sure," he said. "We're all dreamers, every one of us that you see working away in this field when we could be at home with the feet propped. We're all scratching away, dreaming of striking rich."

"Look at that Casey! Books of poetry of her own, editing Anthologies of local talent. She's got a good shot of hitting it."

"Fuck off," Brickie reverted to form. He laughed. "I'm the one who's going to make it big. Just watch me."

"You are in yer arse." Diarmuid had been in the Guards, collaring Brickie back from easy wealth more times that he could count. In time knocking on the door of Brickie's flat had become routine. A cup of tea before hauling the career blagger to the station. A year later the tea was replaced by a solid tip on the location of a rival's stolen goods, if Diarmuid would look the other way. Then a fistful of money every few months. Now the pair shovelled like machines, covered in the same muck.

3 Diarmuid

The hours ticked by as the manager circulated, noting each digger's number on a clipboard full of timecards. Diarmuid would point out fellow laborers. "That's Joan Byrne. She had a story called ‘Old Man' in that anthology, it's worth noting." Or, "See there? That lady? She's Dympna Murray-Fennell. Three pieces in that same book. One of them reminded me of you, Brickie. It was about a winter bird-watching trip."

"Ach yourself. Stop clanging that shovel against stones, it'll soon be as bent as you are."

4 Diarmuid

There were five false calls of excitement after lunch. The diggers scrambled into a crowd, the manager came running. Each object was examined scientifically and judged to be an old trunk, a tin box, worthless stone. They were discarded back to the field, loose earth kicked over them.

"Ten euros an hour for this shite," Brickie lamented.

Diarmuid answered with a term more suitable to a council flat upbringing. Brickie gave him an earful on the reality of childhood in a council flat. Diarmuid rattled off Louise Phillips' evocative descriptions of communal washing lines. This poetry from that Lucan Library collection passed a few minutes.

"What was the best one, in that book?" Conversation was an excuse for Brickie to stop and stretch the ache from an aging back.

"It's down to two," Diarmuid leaned on his own shovel in reply. "Maurice Flynn- you know him? No? He had a great short story about three old codgers, jawing away after the funeral of one of their out and out alcho mates. One of them, this old man named Paddy, had courted the widow years before she'd married yer man. A great story. 'Moments,' it's called. Really captures one."

"Here now- Maurice Flynn? He's one of those guys who's digging up around that wee lake. Yer man who swears he's on a vision that treasure's buried up there?"

"That's him. Brickie, sure enough." Diarmuid licked dust from his lips and spat.

"Who's the other?"

"This young feller from Clondalkin, Colm Keegan. You've seen him swinging the pickaxe over by the canal. He's not only a poet, he also pulls off the grittiest accounts of Dublin scumbaggery that I have read. Nice little crime pieces about punching Guards in nightclubs, drinking by the canal, racing rings around the M50 on cocaine...."

Brickie nodded. He'd have to remember that one.

Diarmuid went on. "Keegan's in there with some poetry- can't stand poetry myself. He also puts the capper on the collection with a story about a woman foolish enough to be in a car with druggies she doesn't know, way up in this secluded place in Blessington. There's a fight. Along comes this immigrant, he's Chinese, he just chucks a pebble at the car. No Jackie Chan shite. This is a real story, real involving, about mistakes and clawing back. About villages buried under water by development-"

Brickie leaned off his shovel, lifted it high as he snorted, and swung it against the back of the head the pig who had so often busted him.

5 Diarmuid

Diarmuid ducked. Brickie had become his only mate left, but around this mate Diarmuid was too wise to ever relax his constant guard. The shovel snipped like scissors past his ear. Diarmuid coiled all the force in his legs, and came up driving the handle of his own spade square into Brickie's gut.

The ex-con grunted, an acknowledgement that Diarmuid had intended to knock the wind out of him. "What the Jaysus was it for that time, Brickie?"

"We're a right pair of muppets," the big convict replied. "Just ask yourself- what are we doing out here? We're not clearing way for a road or a factory like our fathers would have done. What's everyone who's digging up this field after?"

"I don't need to be telling you, Brickie- there's a horde of gold buried somewhere on these five acres. That Yank who bought this field planted them, and they'll belong to whatever soul strikes that spot. People from Clondalkin, Tallaght, Templeogue and further beyond have come to pay ten euro an hour for a shovel and the right to keep what gold they find." Diarmuid laid out all the inescapable facts he knew, just like he was talking to Brickie back in an interview room at the Garda station. He stood back here as he had done there, waiting for how clear cut the matter was to sink in.

"Ya daft badger," Brickie replied. But this time, he had more to add. "And in all these months, all these hundreds of Dubs digging away from the canal to the trees to the lake and field, has anyone dug up so much as a old Celtic pin's worth?"

Diarmuid was impressed that Brickie knew about the archaeological treasures that were periodically unearthed across Ireland. But he answered, "Not a sausage has been recovered, Brickie. It's as that bleedin' Yank says- this is like playing the Lotto, but with exercise. The prize is guaranteed to be won by someone sooner or later. As there's not much soil left to turn. It'll be found any day."

Brickie twirled his shovel again. Diarmuid dropped back to the balls of his feet, raising his own to block. The big slob laughed, then amazed him. "Yer a spa, Detective Sergeant. That gold is going to be found this very afternoon- and it'll be split between yous and me. Come on!"

6 Brickie

Part of it was the story the booted-out Guard had told earlier, that Triona Walsh one's "Eleanor, Fame and the Evening Herald" about the bird who dreamed of seeing her name in headlines, not knowing she would have a winning scratchcard in her hand that very day. Part of it was Brickie focusing his anger on all the hundreds of euro he had shoved into the hand of that fat Yank for fuck-all in return. Mostly it was what Diarmuid had said about that Colm Keegan story. "Lakes."

Too right.

"Move yer righteous twat, ye bleeding fuck," he invited his old foe to follow. And, fair play to the old Guard, he moved.

Brickie shouldered past Joan O'Flynn and Marie Tarpey, past other people he didn't know but who skittered out of his way. Maybe he'd landed fists on the sides of their heads once, and gone through their pockets. He had been hauled in to Mountjoy Jail too often to remember them all. Maybe just his size, it was all the same. In minutes he reached the bank of the townland's wee lake, where from the shining pats on the shore a body'd think the cattle had wet their snouts here just a day gone by. Cratered like a heroin addict's arm, the lakeshore held no interest. "Come on, ya beastly tosser," he encouraged Diarmuid. Straight into the cold water Brickie strode.

Shuffling to kick up as much mud as size twelve doc martins could, Brickie punched his way to the slimiest, most despicable dark core of the lake. Chills encircled his crotch and crept north. Knob deep in stale water, Brickie smiled. Diarmuid smiled. The fucker copped everything at last.

"The Yank wasn't pulling one, when he swore his gold was buried somewhere between the stone walls and the hedge," Diarmuid knew aloud before even sinking a shovel. Brickie's own spade felt the lakebottom give way with a wet suck. The ordinary decent men of Lucan looked on from the shore, amazed. Dylan Magill and Whacker Kennedy, Patricia O'Shea who was always on her mobile phone, they were witness to a new story they would one day be telling. No one had ever thought of wading into the lowest land and seeing what lay beneath dead water's chill. "Ha! Over here, Brickie, I've struck something solid!"

He strode, his mate gave room. "I've been waiting for thirty-eight years," he dug in. He dug with the strength of a man built like brick shithouse- and a brain, had to admit, only a wee tot smarter. Mud blossomed the water so his muscles heaved by feel alone.

When a corner of the underwater lump was clear of sucking muck, Brickie bent completely below. Water closed over above, but hand found smooth wood. In his big grubby mitts Brickie gripped the prize that life had always held just out of reach. He pulled. Then Diarmuid's hands were there, pulling too. And when the trunk came free, they roared like newborn babes as they burst back into the light and air. This was triumph, and the whole Cottonambner townland, thronged again with ordinary Irish people who had worked gold from the soil, cheered its celebration.

Critical Mick says: Yours for €10 while checking out the latest books or CDs, Caught in Amber captures the voices, views and memoirs of Lucan's local talent. Quality (as with any anthology) is mixed, but the character and insight of the best contributions in this slim volume are pure gold. Dig yourself up a copy today!

Yes, I know it took me forever to read and review!

Update, April 2008 Caught in Amber is now available for sale ( €10 including free postage worldwide) via the new Lucan Creative Writers Group website!

Read Critical Mick's May 2006 interview with Eileen Casey!

Yo! This review and all content on the DFA Guide site are copyright 2008 Mick Halpin. All links to other sites and documents are copyright to whatever source wrote something cool enough for Mick to give it a referral. Try to claim them as your own work and bad karma will catch up with you, baby. Believe it.

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This Page Was Last Updated On 18 April, 2008.