Page 65 - Vol. VI #2

rescued from the corn silo and a moose, of all things—likely a Minnesotan that wandered too far south—strolled right down Main Street.
my visa was to travel, just to travel. I was meant to go back. Only I never did. And that makes me a goddamned illegal alien.”
Dally nodded. “I know what you think; you think I immigrated properly.” He collected his thoughts, wondering where to start. “I came over here on an airplane when the Kennedys moved into the White House, God bless ‘em. Believe me, how I
Russ lifted his hand slightly again, “Enda?” he whispered.
“She felt, what? Not dread nor fear, but
steadiness and a ma er-of- factness she knew would hold her in place...”
Dally continued, “No, I’m not particularly proud about how I got the money to come over to America and make a fresh start of things.” He took in a large breath and let it out slowly. “You see I robbed some people, on the docks in Galway. They were strolling, hoity-toity in their fine shoes and linen clothes. All I could think about was that America was out there, at the other edge of the Atlantic.”
Dally nodded, “Oh, she’s American you know and we’re legally married so I was eligible
for the green card. But I never applied for it. Couldn’t be arsed about it after they shot Ken- nedy. Truth is, I left a girl behind in Ireland and I always thought I’d get back to her. There now, that’s my dirty laundry.”
Russ’s eyes sparkled and his lips stretched across empty gums. Oh he had an enormous laugh caught within himself, laying there listening to Dally-Boy, his old buddy, this larger-than-life, ruddy-skinned, foul-mouthed, Irish friend of his, with brown bits of teeth and something rotten
got the money together for that plane ticket is something I’ll be explaining to Saint Peter before I enter the pearly gates.”
in his breath, his mottled nose like the posterior of a plucked chicken, his greasy hair combed back, still dark and thick with rakish bits of grey, his eyebrows wiry and unkempt, with dry bits
of skin and food (food!) caught in them, like two mustaches misplaced on his forehead. Dally-
Boy his friend with his belching and farting, his bloviate opinions about politics, pot holes, and Republicans, of hippies, women, and the Inter- net, of ISIS and North Korea and don’t let him get started about the grotesqueness of that fat fuck in the White House. Yes, inside his dying self, Russ Russo roared with laughter.
Russ blinked his eyes.
Russ opened his eyes wide, “tell me more,” they said.
In Irish, Enda’s name means bird and in the last few years of their marriage, Dally-Boy called
her Birdy. At first she wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Birdy, a trivial, thin-boned, flighty thing. But over time she became fond of the nickname. Once, while watching a hawk soar over the corn- fields she said out loud, “Birdy,” and from that point on she equated her nickname with the abil- ity to rise above, to see everything as it really was.
(continued on next page)
Dally leaned forward his bushy eyebrows formi- dable things, looming in Russ’s near vision. “About the other part, about being illegal, you see
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