Mr Gariety Himself, A Tale of Some Incredulity

By Peg Elliott Mayo

The Daffodill Pub and Grub, presided over by Mister Gariety, Himself gathers the intelligencia of Ventry, County Kerry in dear old Ireland for consideration of the woes and benificence of the times. His work is complicated by the presence of Grizzler, an apparent Airedale, but in truth an enchanted dentist.
The tales of life in Ventry, County Kerry are exposed in direct proportion the quantity of Guiness consumed.
The casual reader will need to enter the Daffodil to fully participate in the outlandish doings.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peg Elliott Mayo
• Release date: Aug 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476141251

Peg Elliott Mayo

Born March 31st,1929, Easter Sunday on the cusp of April Fools Day in the year the stock market died. So much for karma! Don, is the tall Shy Guy, spouse, creative force & phenomenal companion. Three living middle-aged offspring who are neither children nor “mine,” KT, Stan and Peter. When your “baby” is eligible for AARP you search for new descriptors. Three outstanding grand “children.” Jane and Anna Rose, college students, and Aaron a graphic designer, metal artist, gardener, creative force, all around good sport and friend. Home is a modest place on the banks of Coast Range Oregon river, 28 miles from “town.” I’m part of a mixed neo/retro hippie, artistic & staggeringly diverse forest community. Identity at various times: daughter, wife, widow, mother, grieving parent, Aries, failed factory worker, potter, basket maker, sewin’ fool, adequate organically-committed cook/food preserver, clinical social worker specializing in PTSD, loss, relationships & creative expression, hospice volunteer, tree hugging ecoappreciator, party girl, recluse, foolish risktaker, writer, computer graphics-photography neophyte, established writer & storyteller.

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Mister Gariety, Himself

A Tale of Some Incredulity

Copyright 1983/2013©

All rights reserved

Peg Elliott Mayo

[e-mail]

www.rivervoices.com

Smashwords Edition

Mister Gariety Himself A Tale of Some Incredulity is a work of fiction. Characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

A PARTIAL ACCOUNT OF THE DOINGS BOTH SANCTIFIED AND DISRUPTABLE WHICH ARE FOR THE READERS’ DISCERNMENT.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

This accounting is done with no insults intended to whomever may find themselves described herein.

CHAPTER 2

Mister Gariety, Himself, continues despite impediment. Nothing could be nearer the truth than the following accounting.

Grizzler is instructs in ideological anthropology and heresy in Arabia. Mister Gariety is led into generosity by a devious plan.

CHAPTER 3

Mister Gariety views the human condition with contempt. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.

A halibut fisherman, two passionate women and a faery goat collide for a time in the Daffodil.

CHAPTER 4

Mister Gariety warms himself vicariously. Disbelief is the hallmark of an inferior intelligence.

Grizzler ruminates upon ideological anthropology of the Sandwich Islands and the perils of poteen are exposed.

CHAPTER 5

Mister Gariety endures the abuse of the lads. The dignity of man is often sacrificed upon the altar of idle amusement.

Ever ready to instruct, Tim Shaunnassey speaks of the terrible conversion—by supernatural means—of Paddy Cleary. Grief is experienced.

CHAPTER 6

Mister Gariety is educated on the ideological anthropology of sensuality, which is not to be condemned without consideration of its importance.

Grizzler's excesses are enumerated. A man and his dog share many intimacies unknown to those denied such understanding.

CHAPTER 7

Mister Gariety confronts Grizzler on the differences between the acceptable behavior of dentists and canines.

Tommy O'Toole's despair brings great excitement to Ventry and a plot belatedly begins to unfold.

CHAPTER 8

Mister Gariety and the madness of it all. Those who have never been gulled have ventured no risk.

CHAPTER 9

Mister Gariety travels a new path.

Nobility of character is a rare and charming attribute. Mister Gariety becomes enmeshed in the cogs of power.

CHAPTER 10

Mister Gariety in the eye of the hurricane. Donkeys, dogs and men show their mettle under fire.

Between the anchor throwing, donkey cart races, Mrs. O'Crohan, Hercules and hints of bogus ruffianism a good deal of confusion is generated,

CHAPTER 11

Mister Gariety faces an astounding introjection which threatens enchantment of the masses. certain things are best left unsaid, but seldom are.

Mister Gariety overflows with the milk of human kindness, the bishop is revealed as a man and Old Meg touches on delicate matters.

CHAPTER 12

Mister Gariety approaches greatness at the hour of testing. Human capacity for daft behavior tests credibility.

The mind boggles and staggers at the complexity of the Darlin' of Dingle competition, young love, human selfishness, His Excellency and Old Meg when mixed in a single tale, however cunningly wrought.

BLATHER by and about the author of these disreputable musings. Forgiveness is define. Practice it.

THE INTRODUCTION

In which one of the characters in this story, Joseph Robert Hogan,

steps out in the beginning and ponders whether literary introductions are useful or even possible. Judge for yourself.

Esteemed Reader,

I am supposed to introduce you to the story of Mister Gariety, Himself, but I think this is mostly a waste of your time and probably impossible . . . a literary how-do-you-do-it’s-awfully-nice-to-meet-you. Introductions. If you were watching TV this is where you get up and go to the refrigerator. And how can I arrange these overtures and not make this confession: this is really an epilogue tacked onto the front?

I will give it a quick try and then get on with a better task: I’ll introduce you to our storyteller and my friend, Peg. She’ll sit quietly here, just for now, and I’ll do the talking.

First, the story:

You are about to enter a magical world, a world whose magic comes from its unambiguous truth. When these introductions are over, the doors of the Daffodil Pub and Grub will swing open, and you, Esteemed Reader, will be swept in with the boyos, the lads from Ventry. You may heave your own sigh from a tiring day as you pull up a stool and ponder the possibilities of your favorite refreshment. And then, without warning, before your eyes have quite adjusted to the dim familiarity of this place, all your senses are invaded by odors unexplainable. A relentless cacophony of smells. No one inside the Daffodil can avoid it, even you. The lads sense that something is different tonight... and so our story begins.

And there you are . . . properly introduced. I warrant that Mister Gariety is a hospitable man by nature and trade, so he will attend to all other introductions as the need arises. May your glass never be empty.

Now to my better task:

Story telling is an old tradition and nowhere more revered than it is in Ireland. In the old days, which aren’t that old in Ireland, the important stories are told by the shenache or rememberancer. These are the old men and women who serve as repository of all worthy happenings and events, knowledge of the significance of the faery magic, of history itself. To the instinctively curious Irish, their communication stands in for the library, television, the New York Times and the National Inquirer. To a race of people who stand alert at the very sound of the spoken word, who play with language, and who live for the telling and the hearing of stories, the shenache is a shaman for the soul and spirit.

I first heard the storyteller in Peg’s earliest stories long years ago when she returned from Ireland. She had been touring the back roads of Kerry, Galway, Clare and Sligo for months in an old pony cart. I think the pony’s name was Bob. The stories of Dingle, Ventry, Miltown Malbray, Lisdoonvarna, Ballymore West, Ballybunion, Limerick and Sligo City started coming and have kept coming ever since. Back then, I mean back in San Diego, an ever-changing group of us would gather on the weekends, explore the seventies with cheap wine and good cheer—and the storyteller just emerged.

I had, ‘til then, read very little of Peg’s fictional work. I heard almost all of it. I was curious about that when Peg asked me to be a reader for Mister Gariety...and here’s what happened. As Peg made additions to the story (like a hearty stew, nothing was ever subtracted) she wouldn’t print a copy and send it. She would call me long distance and read it. I became her listener. To a writer, who is a storyteller in the literal sense, nothing could be more natural. Storytelling has always been Peg’s connection of choice with her audience.

Here, Excellent Reader, in this rite of introduction, I generously provide some advice: listen as you read. You will hear the voice of the old storyteller, the cold print is but an artifact left over in the silence.

The doors of the Daffodil are just around the corner: maybe you’d rather just go on ahead with the lads. Or I can tell you a little about the storyteller’s past lives. When I first met Peg she was running a volunteer crisis counseling service for teen-agers in San Diego. She invented the Lifeline concept years ago, and it is still copied nation-wide. I, for one, sacrificed time away from my lucrative career as a curb address painter to apply for a position, and I will never forget the application form. You had to write down something you thought was funny. I learned late that humor was actually mandatory. Anyone who made a poor effort or left that space black was immediately weeded out as a potential counselor. Seriously.

In another time, Peg was counseling prisoners at a minimum security facility outside of San Diego. After a while, the warden gave her the keys to lock everyone in if she was last to leave for the day. It was a mistake. Peg is nobody’s guard. But that’s another story...

Somewhere in here, Peg turned her grandfather’s house—once rural as Ballinasloe, Country Galway which was his origin—located now in what realtors call one of San Diego’s most exclusive areas, into a home for wayward hippies, barefooted troubadours and emancipating middle-class youth. Over the next five years, that house saw over fifty tenants...and each of them had three or four friends who took over a couch for extended visits. This was the seventies, if you are keeping track...the music still meant something. It was still considered healthy to experiment with hedonism... and people looked to themselves and each other for entertainment. The house became a forum for ideas, long conversations, ridiculous money-making schemes and lots of story telling. I was tenant a least twice and thrown out only once, which was marginally deserved.

There were parties. This was our own Pub and Grub, with Peg, Herself, holding court over the literary proceedings. She would seduce and then tease her audience by including several of them—always with a smile and wink—in the narrative at hand. I’m in this story. Me. The writer of this introduction.

Your storyteller and I have shared lots of laughs and endured remarkably few fights due to our mutually compliant natures. We’ve actually buried each other’s dogs because the other one just couldn’t. We’ve shared our hurts and celebrated each other’s successes. Peg recently drew on her personal experiences and work as a therapist to author a book on the alchemy of grief, The Healing Sorrow Workbook: Transforming Grief and Loss. (New Harbinger Publications, 2001.) There, Dear Reader, another introduction.

I offer further testimony to this woman’s range because there has always been a workshop and prolific production: writing, sewing, pottery, baking, canning and basket-weaving. The baskets are either given away to friends or sold in posh galleries at art collector prices. Seriously.

As an enthusiastic beneficiary of Peg’s largess I offer, Gracious Reader, nothing unbiased. Very well then—and here is a curse for any Irishman—Peg does not sing well a cappella.

In the background, as I am writing this down, I hear something like the sound of coins hitting against a wooden counter. You will hear this sound a lot in the story before you and you may smile, as I do now, thinking of the pleasure it brings to old Gariety.

Today, Peg’s pony cart is parked somewhere in the Coast Range of Oregon, next to a river and away from the machines that most of us own—especially the machine that pleads for us to tune in and then convinces us to buy other machines. But there is a generous wood stove, cats to make you sneeze, and lots of baskets. She lives by the river with Don Pauls, her husband, who is also master of the mountain and faithful protector of the woods.

When I go up north to visit, the sun goes behind the mountain early and Don builds a fire about ten feet from the river. There is always cheap wine, dark beer, and a soothing tea at hand as well as an assortment of (organic) groceries. In between the long silences, stories are told and the fire is respectfully tended. The day melts away in the sound of the river.

It wasn’t long ago when I sat around that fire with Peg and Don, sorting out the stars and feeling my chair dig deep into the sandy gravel, when I first heard the sounds of the boyos shuffling into the Daffodil and listened to a story that goes like this:

Joseph Robert Hogan

Chico, California

June 1995

CHAPTER 1

This accounting is done with no insults intended to whomever may find themselves described herein.

Some number of the intelligencia of Ventry, County Kerry, Ireland, gather to consider a foul occurrence within the Daffodil Pub and Grub. A strange enchantment is described and Grizzler is introduced. A pattern of sorts is established

The door of The Daffodil Pub and Grub was shoved open with awful urgency by a man with dust in his throat and hope in his heart.

It’s a regular stench you’ve set up in here, Mister Gariety, was the genial opening salutation of the rough-hewed farmer colliding the front of the bar with his midsection. Was it your intention to inform the clientele of the sad condition of your plumbing or maybe it is that your washerwoman has been derelict?

From under a black cap, the addressee—Mister Gariety, himself—regarded his critic with an eye of practiced sourness. He remained on his high stool and attended to continued consideration of his cuticles.

You’ve no intelligence whatsoever, Timothy Shaunassey, and the fact is most amply displayed when you venture an opinion. The customary proprieties observed, Mister Gariety roused himself to move behind the font which featured a flamboyant brass handle surmounting a spout of the same material construction. Do you plan to pay your way at this time or am I to consider myself your daddy to be looking after your every want?

‘Aye. It may be your breath that thickens the air, coming as it does from such a dungeonous place as your chest, within which pumps the smallest heart in Ireland. The remark was delivered with the mild reasonableness of a man sure of his ground from the practice of walking over it. The wet counter rang to the bounce of silver. Take that Mister Gariety-Rarity in all your taut-fingered strumming of the cash box. Pull a pint for yourself in order to sweeten the proceedings.

Mister Gariety pocketed the coin and issued a begrudging, I will be your guest, Timothy, but there is no doubt in my mind that you will be looking to turn tables when the evening is on us and you’ve more thirst than manners.

Sure it’s a fine gracious man you are, Mister Gariety, one to look with suspicion at the Virgin, is my wager.

Keep a civil tongue in your head for her, Tim, or worse than my company will be yours in eternity. They crossed themselves.

A darkness more dank than sinister shrouded the pub. A single flickering lamp heroically spread its feeble light across the scarred bar and struggled weakly with the shadows. The uneven stone floor had the look of work done by prison naavies. Timbers salvaged from shipwrecks supported the sagging ceiling. The Daffodil gave the appearance of a chapel devoted to Saint Make-do, designed by Sister Chance, and attended by the aesthetically impaired. The dust on the granite floor, sifted over with a fine carpet of antiquated mud, cow byre leavings, and evidence of the roads of Ballymorewest, arose in a small storm as five pairs of hobnailed boots clattered through the door.

The newcomers brought themselves in and up against the same bar Timothy was supporting single-handedly. Their greetings were rough-spoken and familiar. Mister Gariety was entirely occupied, when not talking and making note of the talk of others, with pulling long streams of porter with the assistance of the brass handle.

You all know I’m not a man to make a critical remark— Timothy’s preamble was drowned out in guffaws and incredulous shouts.