Pat lowered his head and replied softly, “No, Timmy.”
The barman’s gaze was fierce and penetrating as he wound the tea cloth about his knuckles in a gesture which might befit a prizefighter.
“As much as this backside knows about snipe-shooting,” he declared, “and do you know why that is? Do you know why that might be, Pat?”
Pat swallowed and noted with some anxiety the imprint of his fingers on the side of his glass.
“No, Timmy,” he replied, “why?”
The barman’s closed fist hit the counter with a dull “thupping” sound.
“Because they can’t, Pat!” he barked—quite shrilly. “Because they can’t! And do you know why that is, Pat? Do you know why?”
Pat shook his head. The barman leaned in close, intímate and conspiratorial. Every word seemed careful and considered.
“Because they never went! They never went near the moon!”
Pat stared at the frozen yet animated countenance directly in front of him. He felt as if he were suspended somewhere in outer space.
“Never went near it?” he croaked.
“No!” snapped the barman. “Cooked the whole thing up above in Washington! And done it all like a film in the Nevada desert! Sure you knew that, Pat! Don’t tell me you’re going to sit there and say you didn’t know it! Weren’t we only talking about it in here last night!”
The barman swung on his heel, the stained tea cloth as some sad epaulette wilting upon his shoulder.
“I say, Josie!” he cried. “Wait till you hear this! Pat believes—”
The words leaped from Pat’s mouth as he tugged at the barman’s sleeve.
“No! I don’t!” he cried.
Every muscle in Timmy Sullivan’s body seemed to relax as he brightened and, smiling, said, “Indeed and don’t I know well you don’t! What do you take me for, Pat, huh? Do they think the people’s eejits? Do they think the people’s eejits?”
“The people’s no eejits!” shouted Josie (Jones) at exactly that moment, discarding his high stool with disdain. “The people has as much brains as any of them!”
The barman closed one eye and nodded gratefully.
“That’s right. Now you’re talking, Josie. The people has brains surely, and they’ll not be codded by the likes of these NASA boys above. Am I right? Any boy in this bar, you ask him about your iron cores, magnetic fields, or even your lunar phase. Do you think he won’t know? He’ll know all right, for he’s forgotten more about lithospheres and molten zones than Mr. Cape Canaveral Press-the-Button will ever know. Have I it right there, Josie, would you say?”
“You have it in the shell of a nut,” replied Josie, clearly pleased.
Timmy Sullivan’s eyes twinkled as he turned to Pat and said, “Now, Pat! Do you hear that!”
Pat smiled and weakly ordered another glass of Macardles accompanied by a treble Johnnie Walker whisky chaser. “Oh now but it’s a good one, boys, but it’s a good one!” smiled Timmy Sullivan as he acknowledged the signal of a dedicated customer down at the far end of the bar.
Toward the end of the evening, there were quite an amount of empty glasses on the counter in front of Pat, to the extent that he was almost invisible to Timmy Sullivan, who was darting about his premises flicking his tea cloth vigorously as he called, “Time now! Come on! Time now, please!” Much of the frenetic activity which was proceeding around Pat was invisible to him as he, for no discernible reason, smiled vacantly to himself and searched for his cigarettes before overhearing, somewhere close by, “There he is! Say it now, why don’t you!”
Pat paused for a moment. His head seemed inordinately heavy to him. He was taken aback to see a scarlet-tinted countenance glaring lividly at him as his response—which was, “Huh?”—at last found itself.
“Go on, I tault ye! Say it now! Make a laugh of the pope now!” he heard again.
Pat’s saliva felt quite thick and sickly. “What?” he said.
“Don’t what me!” snapped the voice, harsh as rusted steel. “Don’t what me, you Protestant ye! You can drink none!”
Pat was relieved to hear the comforting, steady voice of Timmy Sullivan as his tea cloth swept into view like a flag of peace. “Ah come on, lads! It’s way past time!” he shouted, adding with a smile, “Youse leave Pat alone there now! It’s time he was off up the wooden hill! Right, Pat?”
Pat’s smile in reply was somewhat faint and sickly.
A strange placidity descended on Pat as he made his way home some time later, already having almost forgotten the unpleasant interlude, preoccupied as he was with the bluish rays of the light which was emanating from the distended orb directly above his head.
“Like some magic and mysterious light,” thought Pat to himself as he searched once more for his cigarettes. For the tiniest of seconds he could have sworn he heard voices close by. “Pah!” he murmured dismissively, inserting the Major between two fingers. But the push he felt against his shoulder soon banished the possibility of further “Pahs!” or similar exclamations of disregard.
“Say the Our Father’!” growled the voice of a familiar figure from Sullivan’s Bar.
“Aye!” exhorted its companion—a rotund figure encased in raveled cardigan and muffler—”And quick too!”
Pat did not know either man. They were not from the district. He thought, in the circumstances, that he had better comply.
“Our father who hash in handbook!” he began, somewhat clumsily, the words heavy as overripe plums in his mouth.
A smile of deep satisfaction began to creep across the visage of his interlocutor.
“You see?” he said, giving Pat another push. “Didn’t I tell you?”
“You sure did,” came the reply. “You sure did! And to think I wasn’t going t’balayve ya!”
The first blow caught Pat in the solar plexus and doubled him up helplessly. The beating which he then began to receive can only be described as merciless. A piece of stick which they found to hand—completely by accident—was employed with savage efficiency. Blow after blow rained down on the head of Pat McNab as he lay facedown in the gravel.
“Now! See how you like that, you atheist!” heard Pat in the distance, the sound of the discarded stick falling on the gravel, followed by the gallops of retreating feet and cries of, “Come on!”
It is not inaccurate to say that—inexplicably, perhaps, and clearly inappropriately—Pat now felt a strange sense of peacefulness descending upon him, as though that pale and fragile planet—the last thing he saw before his heaving lids at long last closed—had cast about him yellow nets of light and comfort, as though to draw him toward her and the man within her who forever seemed to smile.
Initially, Pat felt quite odd, and indubitably, there was a nagging sense of unease which despite himself he simply could not seem to elude. Understandable, surely, for one does not—indeed, why should one—expect the sartorial splendor emblematic of one’s dreams to be within one’s grasp in what was, in effect, but the infinitesimal fraction of a second. And yet—there he was, Pat McNab, impeccably attired in a suit of velvet plum, complete with dicky bow and cuffs of crafted lace. Equally unexpected—and with comparable alacrity—was the sight of what were literally hundreds of what in former generations might have been described as “teenyboppers” screaming with such vigor that their voices had reached an almost unbearable, unearthly pitch, hurtling as in a single wave in one direction. Ecstatic cries of, “Pat! Please! Sign my autograph book!” leaping from their lips as they wept. “Oh! If only we were old enough to get into your show at the Copacabana!” their tender young bodies collapsing into states of unconsciousness, cheeks streaking with tears. Had Bud O’Kane not appeared only seconds later, Pat would most certainly not have known what course of action to pursue. Such a quandary as he found himself in now, he had no precedent for, and neither the firmness of purpose or language which might assist him in the negotiation of it.
Bud’s large hand almost covered half of Pat’s back as he slapped it firm
ly.
“Hey, Pat!” he grinned. “There you are! Look—I got some people you oughta meet. How about you drop by the Copa for a beer? That okay with you?”
At once, Pat McNab appeared to relocate his misplaced bearings. He felt comfortable with Bud O’Kane. From the breast pocket of his jacket, he produced his RayBan spectacles, reflecting a diminutive Bud O’Kane in each lens.
“Yup?” quizzed Bud hopefully.
“Why sure, Bud!” replied Pat brightly—almost incandescently, indeed!—”I don’t mind if I do!”
There were few patrons in the Copacabana Lounge at that hour but Pat didn’t mind, for right at that moment, as he twirled the angled umbrella in his turquoise-colored cocktail, he was just about the happiest guy in town. He smiled to himself as he thought, “Well, I don’t know if I’m in Paradise or not, but one thing is—it’s as close as I’ve ever come to it! And you’d better believe it!”
What Pat was specifically referring to was the luxurious spectacle of loveliness which had just strolled—strolled?—no, floated!—across the dance floor to stand directly before him. Bearing—he reflected for a second—the oddest resemblance to a woman who had once been known as Bridie Cunningham. With her copper-colored hair and freckle-splashed dimples, a creature who’d stepped from a dream.
“Pat!” grinned Bud, placing his large hand on Pat’s shoulder. “I’d like you to meet Lee. She’s a big fan!”
Pat McNab watched his hand as it seemed to take forever to extend, as though in the slowest motion possible. The only words which would come into his mind were, “If every bit of her doesn’t look like Eve, the very first woman born, well all I can say is that whatever bit is missing ain’t worth a whole lotta hollering about!”
The words at the back of Pat’s throat seemed to form themselves slowly and individually, like the smallest and tiniest of seeds.
“You’re a very beautiful lady, Lee—” his voice seemed lighter than he had intended it to be—”has anyone ever told you that?”
The slightest touch of pink that came into Lee’s cheeks as she lowered her head had the effect of turning Pat’s legs to strings of spaghetti. A fact which ought to have troubled him. Why then did he feel more exhilarated than he ever had in his whole life?
Fly me to the moon
And let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter and Mars!
Pat clicked his fingers as his reflection moved about the vast glass dome that overlooked the packed nightclub. Outside, the temperature was 150 degrees. Beyond the glass, planets and stars gleamed and glowed like so many thousand million marbles.
“I’d like to dedicate this one to the woman who’s gonna be my wife,” clicked Pat. “Miss Lee Stravoni!”
Miss Lee Stravoni who looked away shyly as the strings of the orchestra swept away the inevitable cries of heartbreak and hopelessly youthful envy. “And they say we got no atmosphere? Come on, guys!” clicked Pat as he caressed the microphone like a child long loved.
The careers of pop and cabaret musicians are littered with the burned-out ash of bad decisions, mistaken choices, and the consequences of hubris. But such was not going to happen to Pat McNab, who three weeks later married the most beautiful woman he had ever in his life encountered. And who now, in her forget-me-not patterned nightdress, lay back in his arms and gazed into his eyes. Barely a month together, he thought, and already it seemed like they’d come a million miles.
“A million light-years,” he repeated, fingering her long copper tresses as he reflected just how right the pope had been.
“He was right all along,” he whispered to his wife, “he was number one dude all along, babe.”
Lee nodded and snuggled in toward his shoulder.
There had never been a crowd like it in the Paradise Bar. Outside, hordes of disappointed punters wept uncontrollably. Bud O’Kane took the mike.
“Ladies and gentlemen! Here comes the moment you’ve all been waiting for! I know how many of you have traveled a long way to be here tonight—so without further ado, let me introduce to you, ladies and gentlemen—Mr. Pat McNab!”
There can be no word employed here to adequately describe the performance delivered by Pat that night in his sequinned leisure suit and gold medallion. The encore of “Fly Me to the Moon” was not deemed sufficient by the distraught, emotional crowd.
There has been a lot written about time and space and alternative universes and the notion of perception vis-à-vis the incalculable vastness of the cosmos, but litde of it was of any interest to Pat. All he knew now was that he woke up each and every morning to see the world in a way which he had never done before. The way, perhaps it could be argued, most people had, since time began, perceived it to be. But not Pat McNab. And when he cast his eyes across it now, all that he wished to do was stride uncompromisingly in the direction of his telephone and place a call to the Vatican, directly to the head of the one true Church himself. He smiled as he thought of the words he would use. “Pope,” he would say, “you were right. All the time, you were right. They are like Adam and Eve. She is the palest, purest creature ever created from a mere handful of clay. Thank you. Thank you so much, Pope.”
Pat’s space-age house was second to none; the video screen which you pulled down like a calendar on the south-facing wall would take the sight from your eyes. The cube-shaped chairs, fashioned from a rare alloy found only on Mars, had the effect of rendering visitors utterly slack-jawed. The “living Delft,” which rearranged itself randomly to supply whatever dish might be required at any particular time, rendered the dreariest of domestic routines as a glorious carnival. The family pet—Argo, the lizard-dog—was a constant heartwarming companion. Pat and Lee’s children, Anco and Zok, loved him. Happiness itself almost seemed to take human form within their silver-domed abode, located close by the Sea of Tranquility.
“Pat,” Lee said one day, playing with one of the hairs on her jumper (it was one thousand years old), “you know what I sometimes think?”
Pat left down his handheld news console and smiled. “What’s that, honey?” he said.
His wife came and sat on his knee, raking her long, slender fingers through his hair. There was no mistaking the transparent, guileless generosity in those eyes. “I think we’re in Paradise,” she said. Argo gurgle-barked and the children chuckled shyly. Outside, Saturn basked, neck-laced with gaseous rings. Pat squeezed his wife’s hand.
Thus the days went by, with Pat in his shirtsleeves at the white and shiny grand piano (there were crotchets and quavers all over it), frowning and scratching his head as he chewed on his pencil and made corrections on his music sheets.
“Come on, honey!” Lee would cry as she appeared in the doorway with an appetizing tray of nibbles. “Give yourself a break! You deserve it!”
And indeed, that was something Pat could not deny as each night he flopped down exhausted beside the woman he adored, constellations of ill-matched notes swirling before his tired eyes, the faces of his adoring fans melding into an adulatory blur. But who could deny that it was worth it, all of it, as each day upon the hour, the video screen shimmered with dry-mouthed newscasters who excitedly spoke of the “singing sensation Pat McNab” whose success “continued apace” and was astounding even the most experienced hands in the music industry as his sellout concerts persisted in “wowing” the universe. As one “talking head” eagerly put it, “Pat’s rendition of ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ is hotly tipped to scoop the much-coveted top award at this season’s Sea of joy Bash in September!”
Clearly Bud O’Kane was delighted most of all! Indeed, his career—after a series of scandals involving his previous protégé, Ned “Mr. Moog” McGeery—had been on the verge of virtual collapse until the fortuitous appearance. “Pat,” Bud said brightly, placing his hand on the shoulder of the universally acclaimed songsmith, “you are one mother-freaking star—and I mean it!”
Their mutual good fortune showed no signs of abating. Hord
es of weeping teenage girls continued to congregate at airports, talk-show hosts tossed back their heads and marveled at Pat’s off-the-cuff witticisms, middle-aged women flung themselves prostrate in front of the stage as he Pat stroked his microphone and crooned, “Let me know what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars!” The Day-Glo nomenclature upon a thousand video screens proclaimed ecstatically, “McNab no. I again!”
The home front, too, was as some magnetic field of good fortune. His children had been described by the teacher as “the brightest planets in the firmament” and it was hard for Pat to hold back a tear of pride when his ten-year-old daughter presented him with a report card which read, “1st in Class.” Was it any wonder that late at night he might find himself reflecting that he had been blessed with almost too much happiness, more being bestowed upon him than a man could feasibly be expected to bear? Consequently experiencing the slightest frisson of fear and trepidation that it might all be taken away from him?
But Pat need not have worried. For, just as he was considering the incipient disappearance of his myriad good fortunes and almost unbearable happinesses, the forces ranged about him were preparing to confer further honors upon him.
Or so it seemed.
Pat was drying himself off with his monogrammed towel after another fabulous encore when a knock came to his dressing-room door. Humming, Pat turned the doorknob to reveal Bud, standing beaming in the doorway in his rectangular-patterned sportscoat and yellow tie. “Hi buddy, my old pal!” chirped his manager. “Someone here to see you, I do believe! Permission to send ‘em up, sir?”
Pat smiled and nodded his head. “Of course, Bud!” he replied as he continued drying himself and went back inside, whistling. It was quite a few moments later that he heard the door opening and looked up to see the reflection of his mother in the mirror. At first, the truth is, that it didn’t seem like her at all, and out of his mouth the ejaculation, “Ha! That’s not Mammy! No way! Sure what would she be doing here?” would not have seemed inappropriate in the slightest. Admittedly, it was perhaps a more sophisticated, urbane version of the woman who had borne him, but there could be no denying—it was the woman who had borne him, all right. As soon as Pat had accepted this admission, however invisibly, the effect was instantaneous. His lower lip began to tremble and he burst into copious tears. The woman in the doorway seemed to glide soundlessly across the floor, stroking her son’s hair gently and cradling his head upon her shoulder. There can be no adequate description of Pat’s sobs now other than “huge” and his entire body, from head to toe, shuddered violently.