Odysseus
Chapter One, Section One
Stately, plump Chadwick Icarus walked along the stairwell, his bratwurst practically slapping 'gainst his galoshes.
—Dammit, Blade, we're gonna be late for the opera. It'll be Act III: Ride of the Valkyries by the time we get there.
—Don't worry, Virgin, don't you know we can take long-legged, gargantuan strides to the theatre all along the streets of Dublin town?
—You're a bastard, a witty one at that, said Virgin O'Neill.
And so, like the Song of the Volsungs bursting out from the pages of a library, the two Dubliners briskly waltzed down to the city centre.
—Say, it's hot out, said Icarus. This reminds me of when Odysseus hisself was late for his Penelope, who was being badgered by suitors.
—What in Jehoshaphat's name are you talking about, Blade?
—Nothing, O'Neill.
The two of them went down the road, people were passing. Butter, yes, indeed, burnt butter that singed on a pan, all smoky and fatty and lipid. Approaching then, passing now, the kiosk of buttered corn and butter croissants. It made the belly of Chadwick Icarus' rather dumbly rumble in the tumble of his ravenous jungle. By the time they got to the theatre, the line of people that once was, shown in the aftermath of their rubbish and footsteps, had gone away with the winnow of the Irish breeze.
—Where's everyone? Inside, inside, don't you realise, inside, Chadwick? O'Neill called out to his friend, who was then rubbing his empty stomach.
—Yes, we'd better, uh, go in, then, shouldn't we, O'Neill? Icarus suggested plaintively.
The opera was a fine one when they got in, or so they could hear from a distance. That whole place had been lit up by glistening fairies, those ol' chandeliers, which were twinkling as they spun like ballerinas. Icarus took a liking to dancing, he said, One day I will have a daughter who will be the nicens little ballerina. O'Neill turned to him and looked at him queerly with a quizzical eyebrow raised.
—What's that, O Blade?
—Nothing, don't mind the words of little old Chadwick. I just got to eat; that's all.
Presently, the two of them stood inside the foyer and a butler with a silver platter, topped with cheeses and salmon on biscuits, with glasses of wine, came and asked the gentleman ever so delicately and politely if they would want one.
—Blade, spake O'Neill. You know we don't have the time for that.
Then he turned his palm over his mouth and whispered with a frenetic burst of his hissing voice:
—And we have no money, Blade. This poor sod thinks we've got legal tender betwixt us since we're at the opera and all...
The smell wafted in my nostrils, my maw had a slather of saliva inside it, my eyes spun in my skull like they were scared I'd be turned into Oedipus, my belly began to rumble and tumble like one of those barrels in the river that bang into rocks and turn over in the water. If the waiter kept the drinks and entrees before me any longer, I'd have turned into the Niagara Falls, let me tell you.
Then the time the opera met its fin de siècle, Icarus and O'Neill had seen enough of the gigantic waistband of the lead singer; this was not to mention that lilting voice which sounded more so a buzz saw cutting into their cochlea.
They went down to the river not to pray but to admire the water and take in its liveliness. Icarus turned to his comrade and told him the tale of the Roman emperor who tried to slash at the sea with his troops' swords.
—What a sight, what a sound, what a splash.
—The stories you know, eh, Blade?
By the far trees which looked like they were plucked from Elysium itself, the strange-haired cockatoo came prancing down the road with a painter mistress by his side, a beautiful dame by the peculiar pseudonymous mononym, that's right, J'Accuse. That American poet, and he really liked to show it, clapped his hands:
—Let's have us a peek-neek, Chaddy, my boy, demanded Mound.
—Why I'm famished, said O'Neill, apparently now starved.
Icarus gave no answer but his gut did. Grrrrrrrrrroooaaaarrrrrr. Brrrrrrraaaaapppppppppp, it went again. The others jumped at the sound of it, the sound of Charybdis sucking down all the stomach fluids inside of him in anticipation for the real sustenance. O'Neill in his tweed suit and pipe began to puff away, then suggested:
—We can go get a bottle of vino if we run two pennies together.
This American, bombastic as ever, clapped his hands. He let out an ecstatic cry of Bacchic glee.
—Ho-hum! I know just the place, O'Neill.
Troubadour, erotomaniac and as loving as he was, shoved a wad of cash into the hands of Chadwick, knowing full well he needed it. The two men, one a Dubliner, the other a Londoner, went down to the cellar that Mound told them about, got a cheap bottle for less than a denarius, popped it open, let it air, then plugged it again with the adamantine cork, went down to that river where the trees slanted slightly as though a mountain in the countryside of Ming China. The swans swam around and harassed another group of picnickers, the sun was out and seated the sallow skin of the pale Irishman and British expat.
riverside, the picnic reminded Icarus of the siege of Ilium, when Helen's face sent a thousand ships off to sea. A moocow came down the road, and it was the nicens road, and mooed a sullen moo. Strictly, Chadwick came down the river's muddy banks in big galoshes and Mound called out to him:
―Blade, where are you going? Mound said in his Popeye-Murican accent. Come hither and help me spread out some cheese on a water cracker.
Bottle in hand, the great Chadwick dawdled towards him and his galoshes were squeaking and rubbing on the ground.
Then all of them, all four, on all fours, began to spread out cheese on the crackers and the honey-sweetest little painter lady began to sing a song of her people, that is, the amphibious French.