Laurence Lumsden is originally from Dublin but has lived in Montreal since 2007, and his writing draws inspiration from the experiences of immigrants and emigrants. He was delighted to escape from a career in tech under cover of the pandemic. He has previously been published in the Sky Island Journal.
Dead End Manifesto
By Laurence Lumsden
Dara died alone. But every time I dream of it, I’m there too. Looking on, unmoving, while Dara stands on the stone parapet, mute and certain in the silence of mid-stream. Dublin’s riverbanks are gaudy in Saturday-night neon, but darkness covers the oily current that coils below. A steep dive, an apologetic splash, and his white body disappears. His body, her body. Their body, that’d be the correct pronoun nowadays. Dara’s dead body tumbles out to the open sea and is embraced by the cold waves. It was years ago. It was last night. It’s every night.
I haven’t crossed over to the northside in all these years, but this evening I doze off on the tram and only stir when we’re on the bridge. At the next station I gather myself up and go for a ramble. Dear Jesus, but it’s a lovely evening, the damp streets glittering in the low sunlight. There’s the familiar tang of wet tarmac, mixed with the whiff of rotten cabbages from the old fruit and veg market. Its red bricks are all aglow. The white pub on the corner is another survivor, one of our old haunts. It’s a bit dilapidated, in dire need of a lick of paint, but in fairness it always looked like that. Grotty. A tourist would probably call it a charming remnant of dear old Dublin, but I’m no tourist. The name is unfamiliar though, didn’t it used to be called Slattery’s? Decent pints anyway, as I recall. It was a good spot for discovering new bands before they were famous, or before they disappeared under the detritus of their dreams.
I pull the door open, and the pub exhales a warm beery breath. Come on in, it says. Inside it’s twilight. The stage at the back is as cramped as ever, and there’s a three-piece band setting up. ‘Testing-testing-1-2-3.’ Not breaking any new ground there anyway. There’s a young crowd around the bar, drinking out of bottles, cooly surveying the scene. Craft-beer types. Fakers, that’s what Dara would have called them. No-one was more authentic, though I was too slow to realise it.
There’s an older contingent here too, a few middle-aged blokes sitting at the tables. Good God, is that Keego?
I hang back for a second. Sure enough, it’s Conor bloody Keegan, in the ample flesh. Still dressed in a black polo neck and black jeans, but now with a shock of white hair on top, he looks like a caricature of the pint of stout in front of him. A fellow devotee in the church of Arthur Guinness, and from the size of his paunch I’d say he’s a daily communicant.
Conor Keegan, at school he wanted us to call him Coke, but we weren’t having that. Keego he was, and it drove him mad. He had a band, convinced he was going to be the next Bono, and in fairness to him he did have something in common with the great man: the same overwhelming lack of self-awareness.
‘There y’are Keego,’ I call out, approaching his table. ‘Long time no see.’
‘Would you look at who’s dragged himself in,’ he says, without even the hint of a smile. ‘How’re you keeping yourself?’
There’s a condescending tone in his voice that I decide to ignore. To be fair, I’m not looking too sharp compared to him. He has a well-moisturised sheen coming off him, his hair thick, his face tanned. He hides his age well, the bastard. I order two pints at the bar and pull up a chair.
‘Are you here on your own?’ I ask him.
‘I am. I just came in to see the band. I’m looking for a new lead guitarist and I got a tip that your man there is decent, so I’m here to check him out.’
‘You still have your band? What was it you were called again, eh, Coke and the Bars from Mars, wasn’t that it?’
There was no way I could have forgotten that name. It always made Dara crack up with that infectious giggle, making me laugh ‘til I could hardly breathe.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ says Keego, voice rising, ‘that was at school. I’ve had a band called Dead End Manifesto for years now. You’ve obviously lost all contact with the Irish music scene if you haven’t heard of us.’
‘Ah sorry Keego, I haven’t been to a gig in years alright. What does it mean, Dead End Manifesto? Is it a political band? Or are you being ironic?’
‘It means whatever you want it to mean, I’m not Bob bleeding Dylan. It just came to me in a dream one night and I liked the sound of it. Dead End Manifesto, it’s a lick on the kick drum and a finish on the high hat.’
‘Badum-a-Tisho.’
‘Bless you,’ says Keego. ‘So yeah, I lost my lead guitarist and I’m on the trail of a replacement.’
‘And you really think you’ll find one here?’ The three characters in the band that’s setting up don’t look very promising to me.
‘Well I found the last one here, on a Saturday night a few years ago.’
I take a quiet sup of my pint.
‘There was a trio playing. Two useless eejits on the drums and the bass, hardly a pulse between them let alone any rhythm. But the guitarist was deadly, could play anything. Tight and controlled too, none of the posing you get from a lot of blokes. Sam Odemwingie. As a band they weren’t up to much, but the audience was in raptures that night. Sam knew it too, setting your heart soaring with one phrase, then breaking it with the next. You know what I mean?’
I nod.
‘Anyway,’ he goes on, ‘after their set, I go up to Sam with an offer to leave the two eejits and join a proper band with top-class musicians.’
‘And sure how could Sam Odem-thingy refuse an offer like that.’
‘Odemwingie. Well, Sam’s first response was to tell me to get lost, or words to that effect. But I can be very persuasive, you know. So things took off from there and we built a big audience. We played the length and breadth of the country. You name a town, and we played it.’
‘Termonfeckin.’
‘What?’
‘I suppose you never played in Termonfeckin,’ I say, offering him a cheeky grin. ‘Never mind. Anyway, what happened?’
‘Sam changed, and started playing up to the audiences. Throwing shapes with the guitar, distracting the real music fans.’
‘Distracting them from what?’
‘From the songs and the lyrics. From me! I was the lead singer, and it was my bloody band after all. Things came to a head in Carrick-on-Shannon.’
‘Well don’t they always.’
‘Sam went off on a long solo, disrespecting our music. I tried to make things clear after the gig, but Sam decided to leave and that was that.’
There are oily tears welling up in Keego’s eyes, as he takes a long pull of his pint to finish it off. I hate it when people get all emotional without any warning. Dara used to do that to me too.
Keego heads off to get another round of pints, via a long detour to the toilets. His story had surprised me, there was more to him than I’d realised. Maybe he’d changed. But all the time he talked about Sam I was thinking of Dara. Keego and I had both lost someone, but he was doing something about it.
Keego returns with the pints. We tip glasses with a nod and a cheerless ‘cheers’, then fall into silence. All around us I hear laughter and loud conversation, lives going on, the common mysteries.
‘Are you still doing the house painting?’ I ask him finally.
‘I am indeed,’ he says. ‘It’s a simple job but I love the flexibility of being my own boss. I work when I want, take a few days off for gigging or whatever.’
He leans across the table as though he’s taking me into his confidence. ‘You probably don’t realise it,’ he says, ‘but you can learn a lot about people from the colours they choose to surround themselves with. Some people are very definite, authentic, in bold colours with lots of contrast. Then there’s your pastel types, pleasant enough but dull and inoffensive. But don’t talk to me about the greige lot, the ones with no balls, afraid to express themselves or try something new.’
‘Greige?’
‘Beige with a hint of grey, you know? Anyway, I suppose you’re still a servant of the public in Dublin Corporation?’
‘It’s called Dublin City Council these days,’ I clarify for him, ‘but yeah I still work in the records department.’
‘So you haven’t moved on?’
He’s going to talk about Dara. I feel the blood drain from my face.
Whump! Whump! Crash! Jesus, it’s like we’re being bombed, and I’m almost blown over by the shockwave – the three feckers on stage are launching into their performance. Conversation is impossible, thanks be to God.
I give it a couple of minutes, then finish my pint and salute Keego with a nod and a mouthed ‘all the best!’ I’m out the door before the music stops.
It’s drizzling rain now. I pull up my hood, put my head down, and I’m across that bloody bridge before I’ve time to think. Past Wood Quay, up Winetavern Street, under the arch at Christ Church, then down the hill and along Patrick’s Street to the canal. I make it home just before the heavens open and the rain starts coming down in buckets.
I sit down on the sofa and pick up my iPad. Keego and his stories, you never know where the line is between truth and fantasy. Sam Odemwingie. No Google, not the Nigerian footballer, the Irish guitarist. Ah Jaysus, Sam is a woman. No, hang on, she’s a man, or…
Oh well played Dara, wherever you are. Well feckin played.
There are two million views of the video. The American audience loves Sam, who’s a brilliant guitarist in fairness. A great voice too, Keego didn’t mention that. There’s an interview at the end.
‘Sam, your music is so eclectic, there must be many artists who’ve influenced you. How do you describe what you play?’
‘Look it, I don’t believe in labels,’ says Sam, in a thick Dublin accent. ‘I refuse to be categorised like that. Rock, pop, Ireland, Nigeria, him, her. If the audience appreciates me music that’s all that matters, you know?’
‘You come from Ireland where you were in a prog-rock band, Dead End Manifesto. Tell us about the musical journey that brought you here.’
‘Yeah, I was in a band, and it was good for a while, but I felt very constrained, you know? I was stuck. I needed to express meself in me own voice.’
‘So you set out on a solo career?’
‘Well I’d no plan. But it’s important to realise when you’re trapped, to know when the time has come to move on. And then do something about it, you know?’
The audience claps and whoops.
‘And besides,’ continues Sam, ‘the singer in Dead End Manifesto was an awful eejit.’
‘A what Sam?’
‘An eejit, you know? His heart was in the right place, but his head was completely up his hole.’
‘Hole? Oh! Well, thank you, Sam. That’s Sam Odemwingie everybody!’
I can’t help feeling sorry for Keego, being called an eejit on YouTube, two million times and counting. But it’s easy to understand why Sam had to move on.
Move on. I put down the iPad and the quietness descends around me. Greige. All my walls are greige. Jesus Christ.
I can hear Dara giggling away at me, but I’m not laughing anymore.
There’s a rumble of thunder and the rain beats harder against my windows. A lick on the kick drum and a finish on the high hat, was that it? Badum-a-Tisho.
The Galway Review 