Pipe Dreams

By Alan Joscelyn

So this Irishman walks into a bar.
No joke. The bar happens to be The Club, a hole-in-the-wall bar owned by Helena lawyer Miles Patrick on old Last Chance Gulch. Despite an unexpected welcome from Cabo, The Club's resident cat, the Irishman persuades Miles to travel to Sneem, in southwestern Ireland, where Miles has become the owner of an old manor house, for the annual celebration of an ancient Irish festival.
Miles' arrival in Ireland draws him into a deadly intrigue involving an artifact whose origins are lost in antiquity, and confronts him with the compromising history of his own Irish ancestors.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781387556359

Book preview

Pipe Dreams

PIPE DREAMS

By

Alan Joscelyn

Musick has charms to soothe a savage Breast

To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak

I’ve read that things inanimate have been moved,

And, as with living souls, have been informed

By Magick numbers and persuasive sound.

The Mourning Bride, William Congreve, 1697

Chapter One

So this Irishman walks into a bar.

No joke, it was my bar.

Well, me and my partner Rom’s bar, a little cubbyhole off Last Chance Gulch in old downtown Helena.  We call it The Club, a quiet place with dark, hand-tooled paneling where you can get a good scotch or a cool pint and await perspective in a world full of ragged edges and striving people.

An evening in late-March, the equinox gone, also St. Patrick’s day and the usual jokes inflicted on me because of my name, Miles Patrick. 

But still not spring.

I had just descended the wooden stairs from our law offices on the second floor of the building and entered the long barroom through the doorway at the back.  I stood for a second waiting to hear the spring-loaded door, marked Private latch itself behind me, scanning the room.   I’d been kept on the phone past five talking to a lawyer on the coast.  Sadly enough not the west coast, but the east, where it was two hours later.

Like I said, ragged edges and striving people.

The barroom showed good patronage for a weeknight, two guys standing at the bar, one at each end, and a couple groups clustered around tables in the space offsetting the bar.   Full spectrum jazz from the fifties, Stan Kenton maybe, drifting out from behind the bar as my eyes scanned the room.  I felt the muscles in my face relax with the music.  

The barkeeper was a man named Jerry Crowell, a friend of mine, seventy-some years old.  A lawyer, retired from Homeland Security, one of a group of retired guys, mostly lawyers, that I call the Gang.  After Rom and I had opened the Club, they’d persuaded us to let them remodel the room at the back of the bar into a clubroom, a place with some comfortable chairs, a coffee maker, and a card table.  A place they could use to get out of the house for a few hours a day.  First to arrive in the morning made the coffee, and by nine their clubroom usually had half a dozen guys sitting around reading the papers and shooting the shit.  A couple days a week, a card game would break out in late morning and the players would send out for sandwiches.  It worked out good, for them and for me.  Having them close gave me access to about three hundred years of legal experience, and I took advantage.  

After the Gang had been in their new clubroom for a few weeks they’d offered to take over management of the Club, and now Jerry and a couple others of the Gang made up the usual bar staff. 

Jerry turned from placing a pint in front of the man at the far end of the bar, who I didn’t recognize, and walked towards me, his polo, blue jeans and woven leather loafers making him look casual but proficient.  What can I get you, boss?

Hey, Jer-- I began, stopping as I saw Cabo the cat spring from the floor behind the bar to materialize in front of the man Jerry had just served, just as he was tipping his pint of Moose Drool over his bottom lip, eyes half closed in anticipation.  The big arched-back striped yellow cat skidded toward the man, whose eyes got big behind round glasses.  His head jerked back with a hunnnh!, and he fell back and down to the floor, chased by a slug of dark beer that had escaped the glass still clutched in his right hand. 

I heard a fervent Jaysus! as the beer caught up with him with a wet slap.  Cabo seated himself on the bar where the man had been standing and looked down, tail twitching in bemusement.

The place went stone silent for an instant but for the music as everyone gaped, awestruck by the catastrophe, then the silence was broken by a torrent of Irish-accented profanity as the man struggled to gain his feet.

Jaysus, Joseph and Mary!  A fekkin’ yellow cat!  Holy Mother of God!  Infernal fekkin’ beast!  A man can’t get a fekkin’ pint of good beer to begin with, and then try to take a fekkin’ drink of it anyway!

I glanced at Jerry, still frozen behind the bar in amazement, mouth half open in wonder, then strode down the bar and extended a hand.

You all right?  Let me help you up.

Hold me fekkin’ beer.  The man handed me the now half empty pint glass, then used both hands to lever himself off the floor.  Never saw such a fekkin’ thing in my life, he sputtered as he regained his feet and reached to take back his glass, his eyes flicking back and forth from me and the glass to Cabo, still sitting on the bar reveling in what he had wrought.

The man was about five eight, dressed in gabardine pants, a red plaid, flannel shirt and sturdy, black work shoes.  Something about his face gave him a youthful, almost childlike mien, but, up close, the graying of his close-cropped hair and the fine lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth made him out to be older than my first impression, maybe mid to late fifties.

I’m Miles Patrick.  I own the place.  My peripheral vision picked up Jerry handing a towel across the bar, and I took it and offered it to the man.  I apologize for the cat.

The man, still standing back a pace from the bar, accepted the towel with his left hand, and daubed with it at his wet shirt front, while casting a baleful look at Cabo.  The divil you say.  Look at him sitting there, proud as a fekkin’ peacock.

I had to admit, the yellow cat seemed well satisfied with himself.  Jerry moved to scoop him up.

No no, leave the bloody creature alone.  He’s earned his spot.  I’ll give him that.  He put his glass on the bar a couple feet from Cabo and turned to extend his hand.  Paraic O’Brien is my name.

Paraic.  There was a name I’d never heard.  I shook his hand, feeling the rough callouses that come from a lifetime of manual labor.  Well, welcome to The Club, Paraic.  With the man off the floor and being tended to, the other patrons returned their attention to what they’d been doing before the ruckus.  I turned to Jerry.  Pour me half an inch of scotch, Jerry, and bring Mr. O’Brien a new pint.  Put it on Cabo’s tab. 

Jerry grunted, the ghost of a smile passing his face, and turned to filling the order.  I put a hand on Cabo’s back, feeling the taut muscles beneath the silky fur, and massaged the big cat’s neck.  Cabo’s the cat’s name.  He’s the Club mascot.  Showed up a couple winters ago when it got about thirty below, one ear frozen, half starved.  We took him in and he adopted us.  The big cat, pushing against my hand and purring, was anything but skinny now, solid and glossy, though one ragged ear still showed the evidence of that winter’s frostbite.

I got nothin’ against cats.  Got a couple of them meself, back in Sneem.  This one just gave me a bloody start, appearin’ out of nowhere like that.  A grudging smile crept onto his face, and he reached over and patted Cabo’s head.  Ya great fekkin’ brigand.

Sneem you say.

Ay, Sneem, you know it?

I did.  Small town on the eastern coast of the Iveraugh Peninsula, one of the four -- or five, depending how you counted them -- peninsulas jutting into the Atlantic off of southwest Ireland.  I knew it because of a strange turn of events that had begun the previous July with delivery of a letter from a long dead client, containing a certificate for what turned out to be all of the shares in a not-quite defunct corporation.   I’d chased down the certificates, damn near gotten killed in the process, and in the end learned I was owner of six grand houses scattered around the world; one of them was a manor house located near the tiny town of Sneem. 

I happen to own a place near Sneem.  An old manor house.  I’d almost remarked on the coincidence, but twenty-eight years practicing law had cured me of believing in coincidence, ever, any time, any place. 

Paraic O’Brien looked at me and nodded.  Indeed, the old O’Rourke place, and why else do you think I would have traveled halfway around the world to get to this place, but to meet you?

Like I said.

Jerry Crowell set a new pint on the bar in place of Paraic O’Brien’s half-empty glass, and put a cut-crystal whisky glass showing half an inch of amber liquid in front of me.

Cheers, I said, acknowledging both the information about the Irishman’s presence in my bar and the drinks.  I’d got a telephone call about the manor in Sneem just the week before, from a lawyer in Cork, whose client, a development company, wanted to buy the manor and grounds in connection with a golf resort project.  My response had been cool.  My properties had come with a sizeable trust fund and I wasn’t under any pressure to sell.  In fact, my fianceé Casie and I had a grand plan to visit each of the properties before making any decisions about what to do with them.  We’d been to Venice, and Ireland was next on the list, with a trip loosely planned for sometime in the next couple months, depending on Casie’s mother’s progress following heart surgery.   Paraic O’Brien, I figured, was a follow-up to the lawyer’s call – the personal touch. 

I tipped my glass toward the Irishman; he picked up the new pint, and nodded to me across the top, eyes sparkling, and as we both took a sip of our drinks, the unsettling thought hit me that the man looked for all the world like a leprechaun.  I said nothing, savoring the sensation of liquid heat as the smooth scotch worked its way down my gullet.

We weren’t able to find out who owned the O’Rourke place until just now, the Irishman said companionably after a short time.  The records showed only some company called Night Train, of all things.  Then, one of the ladies who had some time, and has a computer, finally found someone behind the company, just this year.  Someone with the family name of Patrick, no less.  And so here I am, a Patrick to meet a Patrick.  He took another swig of the Moose Drool.  Ahh, it's not Guinness, now, but it’s not bad.  Then, reacting to the undoubtedly blank look on my face, Paraic:  It’s the Gaelic for Patrick.

I rested my left elbow on the bar next to Cabo, who still sat there, purring, and set my glass on the bar.  A wasted trip then, I’m afraid, Paraic.  All I can do is tell you the same thing I told the man who called last week, the lawyer from Cork.  I’ll think about it.

The Irishman put his pint glass on the bar and looked at me intently.  From Cork you say, and a lawyer?  That must be the McAllister’s man.  So they’ve already started on ya’, have they?  But you didn’t agree to sell?

No.  So you’re not working for the same people, I take it.

I am not.  He sounded indignant.  The last thing our town needs is another fekkin’ golf resort for the fekkin’ rich folk from Dublin.  He took another swig of beer as though to wash away a bad taste in his mouth.

I’m confused then.  Why would you come all this way to see me if you’re not working for the developer?  I noticed Jerry had picked up on the conversation and was casually listening, arms folded across his chest, as he leaned against the back bar a few steps away, looking over the barroom.

Well now, you may not recognize it, seein’ as you’ve never been to our town to see things with your own two eyes, but your manor house now, it’s quite the thing of beauty and that’s not all of it.  Do you know about the pipes and the legend?

The blank look on my face answered for me. 

Whsssst, man, you don’t know, do you?  The man’s eyes sparkled behind his round glasses.  And you with the fine name of Patrick.  Do you know anything about Ireland at all?

My great-grandparents were Irish.  Though true, this was an evasion.  Unlike many families with Irish ancestors, there had been no ongoing connection with the old country.  As I understood, my great-grandmother Stella had been married to my great-grandfather Hercules’ older brother, a cruel man who abused his young wife continuously.  One night, Hercules and Stella ran off together to America, leaving behind a scandal which had cut off any relations with the families left behind.  I had the impression my great-grandparents had lived a quiet and sad life as the result of their beginning, and efforts by my grandfather, and then my father, to contact the Irish branch of the family after Hercules and Stella were gone had been firmly rebuffed, the hard feelings evidently having been passed down from generation to generation. 

Paraic sensed the shallowness of my connection and pursued my attempt to gloss it over.  Oh, and I suppose that makes you an authority then.  Tell me then, what is the national sport of Ireland?

I was about to say soccer, but didn’t get the chance before Jerry blurted it out from his stance up the bar, adding but you don’t call it soccer, do you, over there it’s football, right?

Pbbbbbt, the Irishman scoffed.  It’s not fekkin’ soccer, and soccer’s not fekkin’ football either.  Hurling, the sport of Kings, that’s the national sport of Ireland.  After that, Irish football.  Then, thirdly, soccer.  Ah, me.  He looked sadly at the two inches of ale left in his pint glass.

Hurling, I said.  That involves long sticks and a small ball, right?  Like lacrosse?

Comparing feckin’ lacrosse to hurling is like comparing light beer to Guinness, Paraic O’Brien said, shaking his head morosely.  And they’re called hurleys, not ‘sticks.’  Take a guess, lads, how many people were in the stadium last September when Cork met Galway in the national championship.  He looked from Jerry to me and back again, waiting for an answer.

I don’t know, Jerry ventured.  Twenty thousand?  You could tell he thought he was being generous. 

Twenty thousand, Paraic scorned.  More like sixty-five thousand.  He looked from one to the other of us again, seeking a reaction.

Jerry nodded obligingly, mouth downturned at the corners to show he was impressed.

Paraic turned back to me, on a roll now.  Well then, you should know this one, given your family name.  How did Patrick, the Saint, first come to Ireland?

I searched my memory.  Uhh . . .

Oh, Jaysus, the lord of our manor is a fekkin’ ignoramus as to all things Irish, and him with the name Patrick, too.  Paraic’s needling of me had now drawn the attention of the other patrons, who were watching and smiling.  He was kidnapped from his family in Britain by a band of Celtic raiders and sold to work as a swineherd in the hills of Ireland.   He drained the last of his pint with a flourish, and put the empty glass on the bar.  And I thought everybody knew that.  His eyes twinkled and his cheeks had taken on a glow as he looked at Jerry, then at the other tables of drinkers, drawing encouragement from his audience.  A distraction was needed.

Here, I said, nodding at his empty glass.  Another?  Before he could move I snagged the glass and handed it to Jerry.  Bring the man another.  Then, before he could get off another question, I jumped back in.  What about the pipes and the legend?

Oh, right, right, the pipes.  The Irishman was watching Jerry filling a fresh glass with rich, brown colored beer from the tap with the ornamental moose handle.   Well, d’ya see . . . -- he paused as Jerry set the fresh beer in front of him -- your fine old manor is built on the site of an ancient castle, the castle of King Conchobhair, one of Ireland’s most famous Celtic chiefs.   Some of the old structure still stands on your property, near the manor, and overlooking the ocean.  Legend has it that on the third Saturday in March, the King would sound his pipes at dusk to mark the beginning of three days of celebration for the arrival of spring.  Everybody within the sound of the pipes would fall under a spell, lose all anger, pettiness and vindictiveness, and devote themselves to three days of merry-making.

He tipped the pint to his lips and drained a couple swallows, lifting his red eyebrows in appreciation.  So.  He set the glass back on the bar.  In Sneem, we continue the tradition, every spring.  A piper sounds his pipes at dusk on the last Friday of March marking the beginning of three days of celebration -- well, two full days, really, but on Friday evening, all day Saturday and Sunday.  Music, and dancing and drinking and eating.  Did I mention the drinkin’?

He drained another inch of Moose Drool from his pint.   Everyone Irish knows about King Conchobhair’s Pipes and the festival.  It’s the heart and soul of our town.  And it all is connected to your manor.

Paraic reached his free hand over and stroked the glossy head of the cat which had given him the start.  There, there, ya’ fekkin great feline.  Are we goin’ ta be friends now?  Cabo pushed against the hand appreciatively, purring, causing Paraic to look at me with a grin. 

And you came half way around the world to tell me about the pipes and the festival?

Yes, and to invite you to the festival.  Ya’ see, you’ve become an important man in our town.  The town council thought it would be neighborly to get to know you, and to have you get to know the town.  Before you make any decisions on whether to sell the manor to someone of the likes of the McAllisters.   A volunteer was needed to make the trip and extend the invitation, so I stepped forward.  The question to you then, Mr. Patrick, is will you come? 

Chapter Two

My first impression of the Emerald Isle, craning my neck to look out the tiny window of the big Delta jet, was lush green fields rushing by beneath us, clothed in long, tattering wisps of white ground fog, the contrast between the green and the white deepened by the brilliance of the rising sun.  The breadth of my view diminished quickly as the aircraft descended, and at 8:30 a.m. Monday, as the plane thumped down on the runway at Shannon Airport, I was in the home of my paternal ancestors for the first time in my life. 

After hearing Paraic O’Brien’s pitch the previous Wednesday evening, I’d invited the man to my home for dinner, the least I could do given his startling reception to The Club, and the fact he’d come so far to see me.  Casie was with her mother in Oregon, so it had been just the two of us, enjoying a couple T-bones, rare, and a good bottle of red wine.  We’d talked more about the manor, about Sneem and the people who had bestowed the invitation upon me.  Turned out Paraic was a plumber.  He’d retired the previous year, for the most part, he said, meaning he’d closed his shop but still did work from time to time for friends and acquaintances. 

I liked the guy.  After one of Helena’s two cabs had picked him up to take him back downtown to his hotel, I’d called Casie and told her about the visit and the invitation.  She’d said she was certain she’d be another week with her mother at best, and had encouraged me to go, leaving open the possibility she’d join me if things went well with her mother.  There’d been nothing going at the office I couldn’t put off for a week or so, and in the end, I’d decided to take up the people of Sneem on their invitation, and  booked the ticket the next day.

After gathering my one suitcase and clearing customs, I made my way to the small Bus Eireann booth, at the end of a line of car rental booths on the front wall of  the terminal.

Can I help you, now?   The clerk was a woman, plump, fifty-ish. 

I need a ticket to Sneem.

Twenty Euros that’ll be.  You’re American?

American.  I handed over the money. 

The bus stops outside that end of the terminal, she said, gesturing as she handed over the ticket.  Twenty minutes.  She looked up. First time to Ireland?

It is.

And to Sneem.  And are you going for the festival?

Paraic had told me the festival would be kicking off the following Friday and that I ought to stay for it, but with Cas back in the states, I’d figured five days would be plenty to see the manor and get a feel for what we ought to do with it, so my plans were to leave on Saturday.

Sadly, no.  I’ll be back in Limerick Friday to catch the morning flight back Saturday.

All business, then, is it?  She tempered the scolding with a smile.  I see the likes of it every day, people rushing through the airport, in a hurry to get here and there, with no time for fun.  Do you know the legend?

The pipes?

To be sure, the pipes.  All who hear them fall under a spell.  No time for worry or business, just for music, dancing, for merry making.  Her eyes went out of focus, watching something I couldn’t see.  And more.  She sighed.  It’s true, I’ve seen it myself.  It’s a wonderful time.  You should stay, especially since you’ll be there anyway.  She and her boyfriend would be there all three days, she said.

Well.  No one likes to have people thinking they aren’t the fun sort.  Maybe I’ll see you there. 

You’d better go change your return flight, then, hadn’t you?

I smiled at her as I walked away.

Chapter Three

I had about half an hour until the bus for Killarney by way of Limerick.  The plan was, I would meet Paraic, who had left Helena Friday, in Killarney, and he would ride the rest of the way with me.  He’d insisted, though I’d told him I was certainly capable of getting to Sneem on my own.

The bus schedule I’d gotten with my ticket showed our arrival time in Killarney as 11:45, more than two hours driving time, and the map of Ireland I’d brought with me showed 69 miles as the distance from Limerick.  The answer to why it would take over two hours to drive 69 miles turned out to be narrow roads not suited for speed, and stops – generally a store or pub with a small Bus Eireann sign in the window – in every town along the way, quaint towns, their narrow meandering streets lined with tightly packed, brightly painted structures of vintage stone and masonry construction.

The charm and character of the towns was reflected in the passengers who climbed onto our coach at these stops, mostly middle aged or older, sensibly dressed, quiet, but quick with a friendly quip for the driver as he checked their ticket or sold them a ticket.  By the time we reached Killarney, a larger, more modern, bustling version of the small towns we’d passed through, I was starting to get comfortable with a notion of Ireland and the Irish that was neither the silliness of leprechauns, shamrocks and little pots of gold, nor the matter-of-fact people and habitations of the U.S. and other places I’d visited in western Europe, but instead a blend of practicality and whimsy that I’d never experienced.

Killarney has a new bus station, adjoining a modern shopping center, and as the coach came to a stop in one of the bus-sized parking spaces, I scanned the plaza in front of the depot for Paraic.  No specific agreement had been made about exactly when and where we would meet in Killarney, just that we would, and as I looked, he pushed open one of the glass doors and walked onto the plaza, where he stood waiting, clad in khakis and a flannel shirt, arms folded across his chest, looking very proprietary. 

I was first out of the bus and he walked out to meet me with a pleased and cheery look on his face, extending his hand and pumping mine enthusiastically.  And here you are, just like clockwork.  Here, I’ll help you with your bags, then we’d best get a bite to eat.  The Ring of Kerry bus leaves in just forty minutes and it’s a longish ride to get to Sneem.  See, we go around the ring backwards, with Sneem at the end.

I’d been studying my bus schedules and map.  The Ring of Kerry is a road that loops around the Iveraugh Peninsula, beginning and ending in Killarney.   What Paraic was saying was that the bus would travel the circuit counter-clockwise, out on the west side of the Peninsula and back on the east, which meant Sneem would be one of the last stops before the bus wound up again in Killarney. 

Looks like I’ll get the grand tour then. 

With the best saved for last.  He appropriated my suitcase as I pulled it from the luggage hold, leaving me my briefcase.  Here, follow me.

The Irishman led me into the depot, then through a doorway into the shopping mall, and up a stairway to the second level food court, where we ordered lunch from a soup and sandwich bar. 

The townfolk are quite pleased at your visit, Paraic offered between bites once we were seated.  It’s been a long time since the O’Rourke place had a flesh and blood owner, someone they could talk to, someone who can be part of the community again.  Being the laird o’ the manor carries some responsibilities, ya’ see.  He winked at me.

Ah hah, I replied, trying to keep my voice neutral and wondering what he meant.

Oh yes, yes.  Definite responsibilities.  He assumed a smile that I thought was meant to be teasing, but came across as concerned.

Anything in particular you want to tell me about?

Oh, no, just making a general observation.  People will want to be looking up to you, that’s all.

Something in his demeanor made me doubt that was all.  Let ‘em look.  I’ll try not to disappoint ‘em.

We returned to the bus plaza just before our scheduled departure time, and, surprisingly, were able still to get the choice left front seats on the waiting bus.

Somewhere out on the Ring of Kerry, after we passed through Waterville, with its unobstructed views of the Atlantic, which I remembered seeing, and Caherdaniel, about which I remembered nothing -- I slipped into a fitful half sleep, my eyes refusing to stay all the way open, and Paraic, who had been giving me a dutiful travelogue description of the passing scene, obligingly reverted to an amused silence.  After an indeterminate time I was roused by a firm nudge in the ribs.

Here now, you’ll be wanting to see this, we’re coming on into town.

I sat up.  I had a fleeting impression, in the sheen of a steady drizzle of rain under heavy skies, of brightly-colored one and two-story buildings lining the highway, which had become the main street of Sneem, before my eyes focused on a banner spanning the road ahead, beneath which the bus stopped, after edging over onto a narrow verge on the left side of the street.  The banner read, in red block letters, Welcome, Miles Patrick, Honorary King, Festival of the Pipes.  Beneath the banner stood a small crowd of people, most sheltered by umbrellas, smiling and waving at the front of the bus and Paraic, who was waving back and gesturing at me with a broad, proprietary and victorious smile.

Paraic, I rumbled warningly, what’s all this?

Why, to be sure, it’s your welcomin’ committee. 

The driver, a middle-aged man with swept-back graying hair and a slight paunch, who seemed at ease in the driver’s seat as though sitting in his own living room, opened the door and turned to look at us.  "Looks like they were