The Ginger Man

by J.P. Donleavy

O but they can’t have them. That’s the way things are arranged.

This evil man from Mars, hand on the flat of her back. Pressing with dignity. And whatever else happened, if we have that, we’re all right.

“Hell is for poor people.”

Dreaming out this sunset. Tacked up on a cross and looking down. A cradle of passive, mystifying sorrow. Flooded in tears. Never be too wise to cry. Or not take these things. Take them. Keep them safely. Out of them comes love.

For women are lonely people, lonelier with women and with men, enclosed by sunless children and the little vanishing things that go away during the years of waiting. And hearts. And how was love so round.

My whole sexual life depends on the nuances of wealth.

Rub my knuckles because this climate is only for brains.

I guess with me it has been a case pure and simple of a little frightened man looking out and seeing all the prowling animals.

Jesus and I have been through a great deal together. And I tell you Lilly, he would roar with laughter and say, why my dear child you laid with the ginger man?

Just this last time. Sins are sticking out everywhere.

Why does food make so much money in my dreams?

Could tell her that life is a matter of resistance.

How small we make our worlds. Gather them in, tighten them up into little castles of fear. Must get out into the meadows.

Clichés are the only things make sense these days.

I

have always felt even in the throes of indiscretion, folly, lust and lassitude that business was for me and I for it.

Debts. I owe the whole world. Even the Eskimos. But. And this is the main thing. I’ve kept the dignity. Dignity in debt. A handbook for those just starting out. In debt in death.

I’ll give satisfaction if only illusory.

What to do? Smile, by God, smile at all costs. Come through smiling.

Here lies the body of Tone who left only a moan.

When things are bad you keep telling yourself they can’t get worse. Then they get worse. And stay that way until you’re so weary and screwed you can’t even worry anymore. It gets like that. So damn bad that you have to cheer up or die. Clocklan was right, the whore. Up there selling God clouds.”

“Tony, you’ve got so much brains you’ll never amount to a thing.”

“Tony, I think a pint would see us right.” “I think you’re right for the first time since you last said that.”

“If it weren’t for me ould blood being blue I’d have sold it at the hospital long ago.”

Huddled over cigarettes and porter. There comes a time in the city of Dublin, when the glass tinkles. Morning despair and afternoon’s passive agony fruits in a jell of joy. And leaks all over when it melts later. I look into Tone’s face, which is Ireland.

While I try to get up heat rubbing the pennies.

Within that carpet of light. All my tiny sad despairs.

They say there is good in everyone. If you just give them a chance. And a good boot in the arse.

“Danger. Listen to me. I want you to know your friends will stand by you during delivery of egg. Never let it be said I deserted in an hour of wealth.”

“Mac, I think a bit of the Algeria for a breather. We destroyed the city of London in one mighty blow.” “I’d say however, there was a bit of the counter attack somewhere.”

“Danger, let nothing more be said to spoil or foul the beauty you have released into this room. Give us the bottle.”

Bury me on neutral soil. Perhaps in Austria with simplicity and subdued colors and faces.

“Massed army of all the saints couldn’t keep me away.”

I am the hot ticket to eternity riding the melted rails in all directions.

The motor birds are coming with lots more from across the seas. And I want to be loved for my money.

I feel all sin starts in the park. Like marriage begins in the dark. And ends with the lights on.

Here we are Danger, on me own silver platter dating back to the time of the Geeks who were Gooks from Gaul.”

All I want Is one break Which is not My neck.

I’m the month of October. Facing winter forever.

Me Rolls is so long it gets stuck in the traffic.”

“Have to wear a life preserver for fear of drowning in the softness.” “More. More. Eeeeee.” “And a compass so’s not to get lost inside.”

look like tramps the sacred night before the birth of the greatest Irishman of them all. Sure, he wasn’t a Jew.”

The lyrical quality of money is strange.

As much as blowing is classically significant, I don’t find it a substitute for the real thing and to complicate matters, I don’t even know what the real thing is.

I want you to remember this, that this is America and we out-produce, out-sell, out-manufacture, out-fight and out-screw the rest of the world but the latter is elusive.

And Danger, a lovelier girl never moved where whores fear to tread.”

“The Lord is my shepherd as I am one of his sheared sheep.”

“Not holy, but I’ve taken the eve into consideration.”

“Christmas is a fraud. This room is filled with knaves and thieves. Jesus was a Celt and Judas was British.”

That they bring children down upon us by the wrath of God. For fucking.