New Segment! Saturday's Storyteller: "A one legged Jedi walks into a bar..."

by Belinda Roddie

"A one legged Jedi walks into a bar..."

"Oh, no."

"He comes up to the bar and he asks the barkeep for a hot chocolate..."

"No, stop. Drake, shut him up before it's too late."

"Why, is it that serious?" asks Drake, his smile glowing silver behind his glass of amber.

I can't help chuckling at my friends' typical antics. Peter has been trying to tell a "timeless" joke of his to the gang while the tired-eyed bartender passes me another pint of Smithwick's. The froth is still sparkling on my lips as I cast my vision on the gorgeous Áine, who's feigning utmost panic while clutching her Heineken bottle to her chest.

"I'm telling you, it's a disaster. This pub will crumble from the sheer dreadfulness of his joke. Thousands will cower amid the rubble! The punchline uses bone humor, for God's sake! Bone humor!"

"Hey, I didn't make it up," Peter mutters with a skipping smirk as the rest of us laugh.


"Let me guess..." Kevin puts on his best impression of James Earl Jones. "Obi-wan never told you the truth about your femur..."

That sparks a guffaw out of everyone, so I decide to play along. "He told me enough!" I squeal in a marvelously grating Mark Hamill whine. "He told me you broke it!"

"No," Kevin's voice resonates throughout the tiny space, before a harsh breath rattles from his lips and sends Drake keeling over his stool.  "I am your femur!"

I'm about to shriek the "That's impossible!" line, but by then, everyone's laughing until tears are leaking from Drake's eyes, and Áine's face is as red as her hair. I stumble backwards, grinning from ear to ear, and accidentally knock into a white-haired Irishman who promptly excuses himself from the space.

"Sorry," I call plaintively after him, before turning to the group and adding, "Hope I didn't make him sick."

But the four of them have gone back to their drinks and moved on to a different topic: The music, in fact, wafting in from the adjacent corner where three men and a middle-aged woman with a beaked nose play reels and sing, "The Spanish Lady," much to the pleasure of the older patrons. I focus my eyes on the accordion player for a bit, then hear my own feet shuffle outward as I pull myself from my stool.

"You all have fun," I proclaim, my lips a little too close to Áine's ear. "I'm going to empty out my tank."

She doesn't look at me in reply. I hobble off to the restroom with a swollen feeling in my groin and a half-empty glass of red ale resting all by its lonesome at the bar. There are only three stalls in there, all of them shouldering the typical odor of cigarettes, stale perfume, and urine. I stumble into an open and rip the zipper down, sitting on the toilet instead of squatting because at this point, I just don't give a damn anymore.

I piss long and hard into the stony basin, the echo of the stream tinkling across the walls. Right next to me, I can hear someone vomiting. Probably a college girl who couldn't handle all of that Guinness she inhaled, after all.

When I'm done, the puking girl has left, and I slowly maneuver to the sink and douse my face and hands in cold water and harsh soap. When I lift my head, I see a rivulet circle around a spiked lock of my hair before descending in one frigid swipe across my left cheek. I feel my pupils dilate as I try to focus on my reflection.

I look an awful lot like Tyler after I've had a few drinks. Especially when it comes to the dark, purplish circles under my eyes.

***

I met Áine in freshman year of college. We were in the same class, Psychology 101, with a professor who liked dying his hair blue and purple and hated the fact that, in the Harry Potter universe, he would be considered a Hufflepuff. I remember that Áine's hair was a lot shorter then, and darker; it was naturally bright red, and I didn't get to see the actual color until she complained that her roots were showing.

For the longest time, I kept spelling her name wrong. When she told me to find her on the majestic list of social networking sites, I typed in what I thought was her name but didn't see her pop up in the search engine. I tried altering her surname, adding a middle initial, making up a middle name, nothing. I told her the next day, and the look that settled on her face was peaceful but slightly tinged with a sharp amusement.

"Let me guess," she said in her light, lilting voice. "You spelled it A-N-Y-A, didn't you?"

I bit my lip. "Isn't that was it is?"

She took the next five minutes with me before class to help me write out her name. It was simple enough: Áine. But I was eighteen and scatterbrained, and I kept objecting that how she was spelling it was clearly "AY-n," which made her smile but also made her more insistent.

"No, see, it's an Irish name. Áine." She pronounced it slowly, determinedly, drawing the two syllables out like a string from between her teeth. "Ah-n. Yeh. Ái-ne."

I found her social networking profile later on and marveled at the goofy picture she had of her back from Halloween, teeth white under a floppy hat as she promenaded around in her Carmen Sandiego costume. Since then, I knew just how beautiful Áine really was - the name and the girl.

A semester later, she met Tyler at a College Democrats meeting, which conflicted with an advanced biochemistry course I was taking in order to satisfy my major requirements. Tyler had exactly the type of "soul" Áine wanted, as she called it; she wasn't one of those horoscope-obsessing, homeopathic-medicine-praising "spiritualists," but she put a lot of value into an indivdual's "persona." Tyler, like her, was more "artistic." He loved science fiction. He was deliciously nerdy but at the same time loved to hike and swim and go sailing on a small lake near his house in Minnesota. I imagine the night he first kissed Áine and wonder if he had been talking about Doctor Who combined with Shakespeare just beforehand.

The two dated all the way through junior and senior year, even throwing a joint graduation party before the two of them rented an apartment in San Anselmo, right in the jugular of California. I found myself drawn to the Buck Institute in a suburb about a twenty minute drive away, taking on an internship and studying aging in mice before considering grad school. During that time, Áine introduced me to some of the boys from Tyler's workplace; Drake and Peter were the two who actually gave enough of a damn about me to begin a friendship. They were both appropriately mild-mannered, working as project managers in an architecture firm that handled repair and construction lawsuits. They loved some of the geeky things that Tyler, Áine, and I all enjoyed, but they were more sports-minded, more interested in TV and fun leisurely activities that one would normally do after a standard 9-5 workday. In time, however, we all became very close, so close that Áine and Tyler organized a trip to Dublin, Cork, and Galway for the five of us. There, Áine said, she could learn a bit about her background and we could enjoy some Irish "culture."

A week and a half later, Tyler and Áine ended their four-year-long relationship. Before any of us could even ask questions, she had hitched up a high school friend of hers, Kevin, with the now spare airplane ticket. "We're going to Ireland," she had told me over the phone, "and that's final." She gave me no details on what exactly happened between her and Tyler, and I, thinking it was a typical sob story, didn't push it.

Peter was a bit of a cheerleader, though, in that he enthusiastically supported his friends but also gossiped a lot. A couple of nights before the big day of departure to Dublin Airport, he told me over drinks that Tyler had become abusive over the last six months.

"Physically?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said. He explained that Áine had also implied that she had dealt with emotional and verbal abuse as well. He was going on about how Tyler turned out to have more issues in regards to family and friends than he thought before I cut him off.

"So does Drake know about this?"

Peter nodded before adding, with a somewhat skeptical look on his face, "Truth be told...I'm surprised you didn't."

I wasn't. Áine had told me multiple times throughout the years that she had considered me her best friend, the only person she could really trust besides Tyler, someone she could speak with constantly. But she rarely told me anything at all. Most of the time when we went out together, it was a lot of her talking at me and a lot of me staring at the top of her rosy head before I could take a look at her glossy eyes. According to Celtic lore, Áine was a goddess of love who was usually represented by a red mare. I never realized how appropriate that was until I watched her like a silent admirer.

We flew to Dublin and enjoyed drinks at the Brazen Head and walks down O'Connell Street. I basked in the tormented history of it all while Áine spent most of her time staring down at a tourist book or gliding her eyes across walls or books full of heritage information. She found her ancestor's name later on in a book in Cork, as well as his wife's name - which had been her grandmother's name - which was now her name.

The whole time, I was waiting for her to turn into that red mare, panic, and race away from the cobblestone streets into traffic, yearning for a calm pasture to sleep in.

***

I return to the bar and notice that the musicians have finished their set and are packing up their instruments. The banjo player slings his case across his left shoulder and glances at me only momentarily before smiling at a wizened fan of his. I sit back down on the same bar stool I was perched on before and notice that my glass is gone, just before Drake apologetically slides me down a full one.

"Kevin drank it," he murmurs, casting an eye over at the culprit, while Áine watches the Gaelic football game on the TV.  "So I bought you a new one."

"Where's Peter?" I ask.

"Outside. He went for a smoke." Drake gives me the old body scan and furrows his brow. "You okay, kiddo?"

He's a scrawny, knob-nosed sort of guy, so it's funny to hear him call me "kiddo" when I actually weigh forty pounds more and stand three inches taller. I hide a smile behind my teeth and nod.

"Yeah. Just a little woozy."

"Shame," muses Drake. "Maybe you shouldn't drink that, then."

But I grip the glass and shake my head furiously like a stubborn three-year-old, and he laughs. He guides me over to the stools where Áine and Kevin are sitting. I see Kevin's fingers drifting on Áine's shoulder before he pulls them away. A comforting gesture; she's probably been talking to him about Tyler.

"I think we're leaving soon," Kevin declares to me and Drake. "Áine doesn't feel very well."

"I'm fine," Áine weakly objects.

"It's all right," replies Drake with a soft shrug. "It's getting late, anyway. We should get back to the hostel."

"You go, then," snaps Áine, sounding more groggy than drunk. "I want to stay here." Then she looks at me, eyes wet and nearly weeping like the Irish keeners we learned about yesterday. "You'll stay with me, right?"

I nearly recoil out of shock. This is the first time she's spoken directly to me since we went into the pub. I cast Drake and Kevin a look, and they give me an incoherent answer, so I think, "Fuck it," but actually say, "Sure. I can stay here. You two see if Peter wants to go back."

There's not much Drake and Kevin can really say in terms of protest, so they peel their jackets off their stools and pull them on like new skin before sauntering out of the cramped vicinity. I'm just beginning to realize how noisy it really is; the cacophony of voices, the squeals of sneakers and boots on wooden floors, and the crackling of glasses are all starting to get to me. I sit down on the stool just vacated by Kevin and say nothing, watching as Áine slowly pushes aside an unfinished pint of Murphy's.

"You want to go for a walk?" she asks me. And I can't say no.

***

Sometimes I wish I were Irish. I'm anything but. I have the German jaw. The French nose and chin. Even the English brow and the Scottish dark brown hair that sticks up when I don't regularly comb it. But nothing Irish.

Irishmen can be poets, musicians, storytellers, and wooers. I'm not any of those. I'm a woman with an acceptable sense of humor, a tolerable tongue, a remarkably calm perspective of politics, and a brain so crammed with scientific theories, equations, and methods that I sometimes dream about sitting in a laboratory scrawling mole conversions on a chalkboard. Again, anything but.

I know that if I wanted to write a poem for Áine, I could. But it'd be awful. She's different than I am. She's a girl who can pull off holding a glass of chardonnay in one hand, a ballpoint pen in the other, a book of Byron or Shaw on her knees and her cat Freddie lounging on her lap with his spotted face turned up toward the ceiling. Anyone else (especially me) would look like a caricature, a moron pretending to be appreciative of literature or an admirer of classical music. But not her. She holds the geeky side of her, the poetic side of her, and the psychologist side of her as comfortably as carrying a ring of keys, a phone, and a wallet in her pockets. The only real thing we have in common - besides a mutual admiration for Isaac Asimov and a love of the movie Dune - is that we're both hopeless romantics.

Áine can pull that off. Goddess of love, indeed. Goddess of summer, of wealth, of sovereignty. A true queen. She can be the rambunctious or vicious side of her namesake - I mean, the goddess Áine bit off the ear of a king after he tried to rape her - but she can also have the tender, noble passion of what the goddess was meant to be about.

I can't pull that off. Not without looking stupid, anyway. And that's why I think she fell in love with Tyler instead of me. But there's one thing I can lord over him, one thing he could never fathom in that rageful mind of his. Call him a bard, but you can call me a knight. Because I would never harm a hair on Áine's head.

***

The streets of Galway are dark and cramped like bloated blood arteries, as we step outside the pub. Because the traffic's farther away, I can hear the Corrib brushing past the rocks as the current hurtles toward the sea. Áine's not looking at me, but she's giggling and frolicking like a schoolgirl, her mane of hair tossed back and her eyes fully blazing like shields of bronze.

"Dance with me," she says, and she latches onto my arm before I can utter out my reply.

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"C'mon!" she insists. "It'll be fun. No one's looking. They won't judge."

She spins around and pirouettes, and I'm expected to hold onto both of her hands and twirl her like a top. Not too fast, I tell myself, for fear that she's more intoxicated than I first predicted. When I pull her towards me, she hiccups and then whoops out a raucous laugh before letting go of me and letting the wind whip around her as she spins. My hands are steaming from her touch.

"See, you can dance!" she cries out to me. "I knew you could."

I don't comment on that. Instead, I let her settle first and regain her balance.

"Why didn't you tell me that Tyler was abusive?"

The sounds of the world itself seem to be sucked away into a vacuum. Áine looks at me in a bewildered fashion, as is typical of her when she's drunk. But somehow, I think there are more layers to it this time that I'm not seeing.

"Who..." she stifles a burp, stumbles, and tries again. "Who told you Tyler was abusive?"

"Doesn't matter," I retort. "But it wasn't you."

"...I told you not to bring Tyler up." She says this with a laugh as curt as my words. "Remember? I told you...I told everyone not to bring him up."

"Well, I did."

"It's a vacation!" Her voice comes out in a mangled half-laugh, half-plea. "We're on vacation! Let's not talk about this. Please?"

As she asks this of me, she grabs my hands again. I tense up like I'm a wire bulging with electricity, and I'm worried that there will be a surge. So I pull my fingers away instead and look in a different direction.

"You told everyone else except me." My mouth is dry, my words hard and cold and scraping against my throat. "I had no idea Tyler hit you. Or caused you pain."

"Why do you care so much?" Áine demands.

"Because I care about you!" I bark in return.

Áine doesn't say anything for a while. At this point, other smatterings of people are exiting the pub and venues nearby, all chatting or laughing or gurgling on their way up the streets. I know why she's quiet; she doesn't want us to have a fight. When we fight, we only raise our voices so much, and then our words do the rest. We never boil, only simmer until the heat's down and we move on. Not like the screaming fights I was told she had with a belligerent Tyler.

We start walking and wind up by the river, the Spanish Arch on our left and the remains of picnics and evening busking on our right. It's probably about one in the morning now, the moon hanging over our heads like a mocking face. The water moves in all its frenzy past our huddled bodies, and I sit down and let my feet dangle over the jagged stone below.

"You know," I hear Áine say, as she finally breaks the silence, "you do look a bit like him - at least, right now you do."

I snort. "Great."

"No, not like that. Obviously, you're not a guy, and your face is different. But the hair's the same." Áine pauses, and I turn my head and see that she's pursing her lips. "And the eyes..."

My brain laughs at the thought that she dated Tyler because he sort-of-kind-of-maybe looked like me. - which either means I look manly, or Tyler looks more like a butch dyke than I thought. It sounds like a cheap romance subplot in an even cheaper drama - with an LGBTQ+ twist, of course. After a while, I feel her body heat as she sits down beside me, taking off her shoes and placing them next to her.

The air is sharp around my face and ears and neck. I wonder if the cold's biting at Áine's ankles. She's not wearing a jacket. I start taking off mine.

"No," she tells me when I'm halfway through. "It's fine."

I keep the jacket partly draped over my shoulders.

"Did Tyler really hit you?" I ask. "You never looked hurt."

"He aimed for the parts people couldn't see," Áine replies matter-of-factly. "Like my chest. And my back and stomach. I still have bruises."

"Why did he want to hit you, though?"

"Because I was frustrating him." I can actually hear her throat tightening, like wind being caught in a pipe or a vent. "His job wasn't the greatest, his family wasn't doing well, he said he was 'stressed'...and I was apparently just causing him more grief."

"Relationships can cause grief. It's normal."

"You never seemed to care about relationships."

I wince. Her words reaffirm my fears. But then Áine says something that astounds me, that I never would have expected.

"I'm jealous."

I close my eyes momentarily and see blue in front of me before opening them again. Somehow, my romantic feelings for Áine don't seem to matter anymore. I reach out and let my fingers settle on Áine's exposed wrist. In return, she takes my hand. She holds it firmly. Like she's worried that I'll disappear.

By now, Drake, Kevin, and Peter should back at the hostel. Maybe they're worried about us. Maybe they think we've passed out or run off. Or maybe they're all collapsed in their beds and aren't fretting about anything but the hangovers they'll probably have the next morning. I don't care. I look at Áine and see that she's got her eyes on the water. Maybe she's trying to seek out her reflection. Or Tyler's. Or mine.

It doesn't matter. On the streets of Galway, where no one can see us, I don't say anything. Instead, I reach out with my spare hand, silently, and stroke the mane of the red mare.

The prompt for this week's Storyteller was provided by Josh Low.