dawn
I met a jolly turfman as I slowly walked along
The greatest conversation passed between that man and me
And soon I got acquainted with the turfman from Ardee.
The tranquil evening resounded with the dying echoes of the sprightly ballad as Pat shrank before the penetrating set of eyes.
“What do you think of that song?” he found himself asked.
Pat coughed politely.
“I think it’s very good,” he said.
The turf-selling vocalist frowned.
“Good, eh? You think it’s good, do you?”
“Yes! Yes!” enthused Pat. “Excellent.”
The now quiet surroundings reverberated with the sound of teeth being sucked.
“I see,” the caller said softly. Then, after some time, with a hint of abjection, continued, “Not like my turf.”
“No!” cried Pat. “Your turfs good! It—”
“If I had said, ‘I’m from Carrick. I’m not the turfman from Ardee—I’m the turfman from Carrick’—would you have bought it then, maybe?”
“No!” cried Pat. “Of course I wouldn’t!”
The man hung his head and narrowed his eyes.
“No. No, of course you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t have said, ‘Two full bags,’ or ‘A’bag and a half!’ You’d have said: ‘No bags! No bags at all!’ Isn’t that right?”
“That’s right,” agreed Pat.
“You know what’s the worst thing in the world?” said the turfman.
“What?” he said.
“Never mind what! Say: ‘What is it? What is the worst thing in the world, turfman?’”
“What is the worst thing in the world, turfman?” repeated Pat as instructed.
There wasn’t a sound for a second and then the peddler of kindling and peat said, “The liar.”
“Liar?” choked Pat.
“More than the husband who puts his wife’s brains in with a hammer, steals another man’s kidneys, poisons his own dog—the liar. Because he’s the man looks into your eye and says, ‘I wouldn’t do it. I’d buy no turf from a Carrick man.’ He’s the man looks into your eye and says, ‘Up Ardee!’ When all the time he’s thinking …”
A tense pause followed. Then the turfman said, “Say: ‘Up Ardee,’ mister!”
“Huh?” said Pat.
“Up Ardee. Say it. Go on now!”
“Up Ardee,” complied Pat.
“Worse than the man who mutilates himself to become a woman. Worse than the man who lays down with beasts of the field. Worse than the vilest fornications the mind can ever dream of, worse than …”
Pat felt hot breath on his neck. Then, paradoxically, a wintry tremor went running through him as he heard the words:
“Worse even than the man who murders his own mother.”
Pat’s smile was faint and sickly as he replied: “Do you know what I was just thinking, Ardee, or whatever your name is. It said on the forecast we could be in for a rough spell come October. I think I’d be as well to take ten bags—if you happen to have them, that is!”
“Ten bags?”
Pat nodded.
“Aye,” he said, “ten bags. Ah sure, to hell—make it a dozen. I’ll take the dozen!”
“You’d make a nice warm fire with that. You wouldn’t be long getting a nice roaring fire going with a dozen bags, eh?”
“What?” blurted Pat, forgetting himself for a second, then smiled and said, “Oh now! Now you’re talking!”
“Oh indeed and begod you would not!” continued the turfman. “You wouldn’t be long heating up if you had the dozen bags to be going on with!”
“That’s right! Isn’t it?” beamed Pat, becoming a trifle disoriented for no immediately identifiable reason.
“Do your cooking and the whole lot!” he affirmed. “Your griddle bread, for example!”
“You could bake away—couldn’t you?”
“Your griddle bread. Caraway cake. Not to mention boiling the water. All the water you need!”
“The water too! As much as you could use!”
“Like the fellow who threw the pan of water over his wife in Longford! It was turf he used to boil the water! I believe she was heard screaming for three days!”
“Three days?” gasped Pat.
“The doctors done all they could! But it was a waste of time! They said she was even worse when they finished with her! One of her eyes was blinded and there was a big red scorch mark the size of that all the way down her face. Then she started screaming in the night. Howling and howling! Howling, ‘You did it! You did it!’”
Pat coughed and looked around him.
“I think I hear someone at the back door!” he said. “I have to go in.”
“Imagine that!” continued the turfman—oblivious of Pat’s previous comments—”Someone screaming—night after night, over and over again, You did it! It was you did it!’”
“There it is again,” Pat said, inclining his head toward the back of the house.
“Shouting it without end! You did it!’ Never giving you a minute’s peace! Every time you’d turn