The hound of Andrea Cullen

There's not a mouthful of a pint as memorable as the first one, or the last one. So, if the day is good and the mood is right, the six gulps in between the start and end of a jar should be remembered for lively, bright, flowing banter. Now, I' m not going to drawl on tediously, furrowing my brow, explaining anymore of the necessities of a good setting for the fun and the craic. All I 'll say is that myself and McNulty were having a right time of it on the high stools in Brogans, and by Jaysus, I'll tell you that afternoon we'd have solved every economic glitch from Athy to Algeria, whilst doing all the more atypical Irish drinking things, these actions incorporate wearing bee's feet and putting pyjama's on cats



You'll have another pint of plain? Says a twinkle eyed McNulty to me, clasping my bicep and leaning forward from the stool to gather the attention of the publican.

'A rhetorical question there, that does no great help in thwarting the image of the drunken Fenian, ya bowsie' says I. I was not holding a smidgen of an air of bitterness in my heart towards the man. For how could I, as at that moment there was not another person in the room apart from himself and meself.

'Two more of the same me oul flower' he shouts leaning over the counter, an ever portly belly full of porter rests on the bronze rail, jingling, as he gives a fierce yelp of joyous intent.

'Will I get one for the Nordie lad?' he says to me, non-chalant to any cost he may incur, and he’s a grand generous man, that’s why I love him.

'Nope, not yet'. I reply. 'He'll be twenty minutes or thereabouts, sure the head on the boy last night, below at Andrea Cullen's house party. Spent most the night telling me about the shaft on the back of McArdle's Massey, he fixed it and all, even after all the racket during the week, he scored last night as well. Don't think he got home till the noon. Didn’t hear pray tell about the dog though.'



'Did you not hear the ins and outs of the story, jayz, he fairly walloped it' replied McNulty, turning to me initially earnestly, then with a growing smirk of gleeful entertainment at the thought of Setanta's misadventures.



'It went for him, didn’t it?' I was trying to pry the story from McNulty, both for my own personal entertainment value and the general craic. Sure he's a fair mighty storyteller as are all the McNultys. They'd often spend the night below in the old house telling stories till first light, his old lads father was a great one for the tales after a few small ones, and it's true what they say, that, what's in the cat, is in the kitten.



'Yes, it fair and it did, was his own fault it came for him though', the nature of McNulty's reply in tone alone was positive. It hinted there would be an explanatory in depth regalement of the previous nights events, with an air of subjective humour to spice things up.’ You see', interjected McNulty, squinting one eye in such a way, that when you were well accustomed to him, you would expect a long telling of past events. 'He jumped the fence after the sliotar and made a mighty bang climbing up it, sure as we know Setanta's more gorilla than gazelle as regards of his fleet footedness. Anyhow, such a bang woke Cullen’s hound, with the mixture of confusion due to the noise, and the inclining notion that Setanta had taken it's ball, it ran the length of the garden and was scraping it's claws against the wood quicker than Johnny wrote the note.' Taking a good gulp of his porter, McNulty continued. 'Sure Set; a brazen fella after six Dutch, dismissed the dogs hostile temperament and clambered back over the fence, like warrior Fenian or drunken fool and faced the dog'.



'Fucking eejiit', I added to great pointlessness, but at least it let him know I was with eager ears.

'Sure myself and Jas O'Leary were out on the patio watching the goings on, of him, swinging the hurl at the dog, the hound with hairs on edge, and a mouth of froth. It was a classic case of using the carrot or the stick. Set however had to be different, with the dog’s sliotar in one hand and the hurl in Set's other claw, he chose the later and former together to morbid effect. I’ll tell ya now buck, if he hit it from the fifty as hard against Ballymucroe last week it would have done half less than drop fair short like it did'. He paused and looked at me, his eyes blinking like the clapper's, the excitement fully evident, aware the next line was the crescendo of the story and his heyday, well hay moment. 'I ll tell you Franno, I knew full well the dog was dead once the ball cracked off the ash, just a prophetic feeling, you know? The type you get now and again, ya know one of those quare moments. Like when you meet eyes across a bar with some lad, or hit the sliotar from a tight angle over the bar, just the internal rush of knowing, ya know? Sure it was stone dead almost instantaneously, spazzing out for a second, then was lying lifeless, out out brief light bulb.' With a laboured spot of silence, and a flimsical and superficial consideration for the poor creature he grimaced melodramatically. This painful expression became a grin then a leer and then a spluttering laugh. When he saw my cheeks upturned and my mouth opening to emit ferocious cackles of sardonic amusement, his spluttering became a full-blown deep guffaw. 'I tell you ye's couldn’t write it' he said, almost choking with laughter. 'Fair flann to the mental bastard,' he said to me, amid our callous sneers.

'What became of the dog?'I asked, still half composed. I had a rattled gut and was burping crisps, all due to the ferocity of my laughing.

'Himself and Jas lobbed it into the septic tank, in the field behind the house'

'Ah Jesus, when Andrea finds out, ah for the love of God' I said holding a faint but sinful air of humour. I knew Set's action was wrong, but I slightly forgave him for two reasons, Set being drunk, and because of my inhibited mores, due to the sinful I'd consumed wit the mighty avarice not seen since the weekend of my brothers wedding, meant I was drunk too. I took a gulp of my pint at the thought of Andrea's father’s angry head. In my minds eye, his face was scrunched up with quizzical disgust as he opened the septic tank for emptying, to come across the remnants of his Labrador. That'll be some shock, worsened by the probability he'll have come to the comforting empty consensus the dog strayed when he was away. The horror when he see's it, dead, covered in his own digested Christmas faeces. Mother of God, his dog killed by a queer with a hurl while he was sunbathing in the Seychelles, Jaysus how the mighty will have fallen.

The thought of Andrea's father is gladly interrupted by a grand clatter of a welcoming hand on my back. I turn around on the high stool to see Sets pretty blue eyes.

Lads, what’s the story, two more? He asks

I look at McNulty, I'm only able to see his brow and jaw the white frothy inside of his glass in front of his cherub face, 'one, yes? Two yes' I say and wink. 'Three Guinness' Set shout's to the bar man. I down the rest of my pint; I'm on gulp number three.