Mick Read Free Page A

toward it I knew what was up there on my head. It was a knit tam-o’-shanter, bright green like the underbelly of a baby tree frog, small brim with the cloth shamrock stuck on, and a baseball-sized white pompom on top. Supposed to symbolize, can you believe it, pride ? I felt like a dink. Terry beamed at me from under an identical cap.
    “Terry, you know, I’m really not much of a hat guy...”
    He didn’t even consider it. Threw his arm around me and squeezed so hard my shoulder blades touched. “Whatsa matter, you don’t wanna look like me?” He laughed like he thought that was such an outrageous idea. “This is beautiful. Ain’t this nice, Mick? You look like goddamn me . We could be goddamn twins, we could. They’re gonna eat us up at the goddamn Bloody, boy.”
    He thinks we look exactly alike, but I don’t quite see it. His hair is orange, and mine is, well, it’s red.
    But he was right, we lit the joint up when we walked in the bar. “Hey, he brought the Mick. Yo, boys, Terry brought the Mick along.”
    “’Course he did. Wouldn’t be no St. Paddy’s without no Micks.”
    They all smelled like cabbage already, Terry’s buddies. The bartender drew a tall one for Terry before he even asked, and one for me too even though I’m exactly fifteen years old and look exactly fifteen years old. Terry tipped back and drank his beer halfway down, slammed the glass on the bar, then slapped me on the forehead because I wasn’t drinking mine yet when for chrissake we’d been in the place for a minute and a half already. I drank, not as much as Terry drank in one gulp, because I don’t have a blowhole in the top of my head, but I did okay. The taste was high and tinny, with a strong bitter finish, so I knew it was Harp.
    The bartender slid two plates of steaming pink food across the bar. Terry growled at it like a ravenous happy dog. I covered my mouth and nose with my hands as the bitter, sulfuric odor of the cabbage climbed over me.
    “Get it away, Terry,” I said through my hands.
    “What are you, crazy? This is some fine shit.”
    “That’s exactly what it is, man. Get it away from me or I’m gonna lunch all over the bar.”
    “You’re embarrassing me,” Terry said. “Tomorrow people’ll be steppin’ on each other’s faces to get this stuff. This is a damn honor, them gettin’ it out for us tonight.”
    “ You eat it, then.”
    “I would, but that ain’t the point. You gotta eat it. Damn, this is CB&C, man, you ain’t got no choice but ta love it. This is who you are. You can’t not like it. Not in front of all my friends, anyway. Not tonight.”
    I shook my head, which might not have looked like much but under the circumstances was a pretty ballsy move. I knew how strongly Terry felt about crap like this, and he’d beaten hell out of me for a whole lot less.
    He leaned close. “If I gotta cram it down your throat with a broom handle...”
    I was very much afraid of my brother. Not just at that moment, but in general. However, I was even more afraid of the corned beef and cabbage.
    “Kill me,” I said.
    He went all red, redder , that is, in the face. He looked over his shoulder at all his boys swallowing whole palm-sized slabs of meat. “Then just pick at it, for chrissake. I’ll try to help ya without nobody seein’. Christ...”
    I had truly humiliated him. So I did what I could, spearing the tiny bits of bacon and onion that were cut up in the cabbage, making with the big chew like my mouth was full of a whole lot of bulk, washing down every bite with the Harp. Then I ordered Guinness.
    “ That’s the boy,” Terry said, ripping a sharp elbow into my ribs. “That almost redeems ya. Bartender, make it two.”
    The bartender smirked as he stared down into the thick brown head rising under the tap. “Right, Terry, like I was only gonna bring one .”
    No green beers on St. Patrick’s Eve. That was for the dabblers tomorrow. Tonight was for red beers, amber ales, and especially,