A Pheasant Walks into a Bar...

      Character list
          Brian Meade (barman) — in his late twenties
          Danny Nail — early seventies
          The Jackal — hard to put an age on him
          John Buckley — early sixties

Scene 1

Lights up on a bar interior. Two men sit on high stools with their backs to the audience and the third is leaning on the counter with one arm akimbo. The barman behind the bar is looking at his phone. There is a large window behind the bar counter with yellowed opaque glass. The characters are frozen in tableau. Each character becomes animated for their soliloquies. First is the barman who looks up from his phone when he speaks.

Brian: I can’t say I ever wanted to be a barman. It was always just there. I worked here all through my teens and it was part of the fabric of our family life. We were like farmers, we didn’t know what holidays were. Except for good Friday but that day was spent cleaning the bar, a deep clean they called it. (Pauses and looks around) I don’t know has this place ever been deeply clean. How can it be? We’re legalised drug dealers, we spend our days servicing alcoholics, bleeding them of the scant resources they have. You can’t think like that though if you want to stand behind a bar, someone else would be slinging them out pints if we weren’t us, and at least we’re decent to them. I give them slices of toast, easy bits like that, pot noodles, and if the mother makes soup she gives them out a bowl of it. We wouldn’t be officially a bar that does food like, that’d be some amount of red tape to be dealing with. At least it’s easier when you own the bar to treat them like real people, fellas renting have to squeeze every drop out of them to make it work. I don’t own the bar. It’s my parents’ bar. I don’t even think it’s coming to me, there’s older than me in the family. I don’t want it really.

What happened was that I was doing engineering in college. I loved it. It was something completely different. Not the engineering part. The being in college

part. Then I failed second year. And then I repeated it and I sort of dropped out halfway through, and told no-one. But I was never going to get away with that and then when everyone did find out it was desperate, and I was told that if I wanted ‘continued financial support’ from my family, I needed to start working in the bar. It was supposed to be temporary, until I had made enough money to pay for my own course, teach me a lesson I suppose. But time has passed, six fucking years have passed and I’m a procrastinating eegit and I can see my parents struggling with their urge to not interfere too much, not to make me lose the rag, but try to encourage me to do something else at the same time. I don’t lose the rag much anymore; I’m getting too old for it.

Every day is the same, it makes it easier for time to sneak past, when every day is the same. These three fuckers are pretty constant; in early, out before the evening crowd; the working alcoholics, the night owls. It’s around five o’clock when the changing of the guard happens but John Buckley often pulls a double shift. He’s some man to put away pints. The Jackal is here every day and Danny Nail is here about half the time. They’re grand now, they’re not too talkative at this hour. They’ll talk amongst themselves a bit but not too much either. In a couple of hours, when the fuckers get chatty, ’tis then they wreck my head. John especially. (Slight pause) I suppose Danny Nail is grand even when he is boozed, I’m just being cranky now.

Brian Meade returns his attention to his phone. Danny Nail turns around.

Danny Nail: I worked hard all my life; I still do on the odd day one of the old farming families need a bit of light labour. I wait at the crossroads from eight ’til ten, every morning, ’cept Sundays, and if no-one has picked me up by then, I head here to Meades. I reared a family on the back of my labour and there isn’t one of them living within five hundred miles of me. What was the point of it all? I couldn’t tell you. You just had children because you wanted to have sex and that was the only way you could achieve that goal back then. Marrying someone you barely knew and sticking your buldanger into them the first time you spent a night together under the same roof. Not a great way to start a life together. A funny old set-up when I look back at it now.

I still share a house with my wife, but that’s about the height of it. She’d be off visiting children places a lot of the time, America and Australia and Sweden and one in fucking South Korea if you can believe it! God forbid any of them would have just gone off to Cork or Dublin or even London, to be able to be a help to us, because we are getting fucking old now and we’re one fall or stroke away from sitting in the chair by the fire and I don’t think the two of us would be able to mind each other. Intimacy of all sorts has been abandoned. A failed punt at a happy marriage. There was neither of us pricks but we had no business spending a lifetime together. They do courses now you know, beforehand. I try not to sneer at the modern world

I got to work outside all my life. Tisn’t many get to say that. I lived the dream one young fella told me; work outside all day, come home to my dinner in the evening then go out to the pub at night. I never cooked a meal nor washed a child. I don’t know now if he was right or wrong in calling it ‘the dream.’

Danny Nail returns to his pint and The Jackal turns around; he speaks in a conspiratorial manner.

The Jackal: I don’t know why I’m called the jackal. No-one ever told me why. I can’t ask now, it’s been years. I don’t like asking questions anyway because it only makes you look stupid. My eyelids make a massive noise when I blink. Sometimes I think people can hear it. but it’s better when I have a few pints, it dulls the click of them. Lubrication of some sort. Lubrication is key. A tube of grease is the best thing you can have if you’re trying to fix anything. I know lots of bits and pieces like that. Oneliners, and secrets too, small things that other people don’t know or maybe they do but they know they’re secrets too and say nothing, the way I do. (The Jackal takes a sip of beer).

I like the way drink makes me feel. And not feel. Drink is great. It softens people mostly and there’s a lot of hardness in this world. I’ve seen my share of it and I rather it the other way. This is a nice bar. I come here every day a while. My mother wouldn’t have liked that but sure she’s dead now and I can walk in and out of town whenever I like. I don’t like going any place with a big crowd. There’s a lot of lookyloos in those places. Danny and John are grand that way. I don’t ever get the crawling skin with them. If you’ve never had crawling skin, then you’re a lucky man. ’Tis like the whole of you is wobbling on the outside and you think people can see it, but they can’t. People don’t see a lot of things.

The Jackal turns back to his pint. John Buckley turns around. He is exuberant.

John Buckley: I’ve been drinking here since I was fifteen years old. I had my first pint here. A beautiful pint of the black stuff it was, little drops of water on the side of the glass like you’d see in an ad. ’Twas just beautiful, and you can still get a good pint in Meades but the consistency is gone when that fella is behind the bar. Brian is a pure useless barman, head stuck in his old phone the whole time, looking at pictures. Tits and things I’d imagine, you can see all these things on the new phones you know. T’would want to be tits or something, the amount of time he gives to it. No manner! (John takes a sup from his pint).

And what’s worse is that he’s well able to have the craic with the younger crowd when he wants to. There was a time they won the county and the place was black with young people for three days, there was mighty craic all day and all night, he was well able to laugh and give free pints that time.

He has no time for the likes of us though. The fellas keeping the show on the road. That’s what we are, truth be told. (John takes a sup from his pint).

He’d badly want to get over his college fiasco and get on with his life, have a small bit of fucking banter with his customers. Tis like getting blood out of turnip getting any fucking chat out of him. The fucking gom and he sitting on a gold mine. At least it could be a gold mine if he may stop being such a miserable prick. All these places could be going good again. Pubs used to be some craic. This is only a shadow of the way things were.

John Buckley returns to his initial position and the light goes straight to black.

Scene 2

Lights up. There is a pheasant in the middle of the stage. It is in profile to the audience but its head is slightly cocked in their direction. All the men have turned to look at it. Danny Nail stands and walks around the bird before speaking.

Danny Nail: There’s two types of pheasant in Ireland. This is the one without the white collar, the less haughty-looking one, the rarer of the two. I’ve shot at them from time to time but there’s something unfair about pheasant hunting. They make it too easy with their big ‘TUCKETUCK, TUCKETUCK, TUECKETUCK’ as they take off and their slow glide to earth means you can afford to miss your first shot because you’ll have an easy time with your second. Brought over here by rich gobshites with too much time on their hands and now you have rich gobshite wannabes carrying on their traditions. They’ll try to tell you that they care for the animals but ’tis the same as farmers trying to tell you they care for their cattle, you don’t kill and eat things you care for. The crowd shooting pheasants will tell you pheasants can’t live naturally in Ireland without them breeding them but that isn’t true either, I’ve seen plenty pheasant chicks in my time and seen them grow to adulthood without any help from a gun club. They should drop the pretence and just get on with. If you want to shoot something, just say you want to shoot it and don’t be letting on to be some sort of fecking animal rights activist who just so happens to own a rifle. This poor bastard shouldn’t even be in this country, and it definitely shouldn’t be in this pub!

Danny returns to his seat and The Jackal speaks.

The Jackal: I’ve eaten a fair bit of pheasant in my time, but I don’t really like it. There’s an oiliness to the meat, not a nice oiliness either, it tastes more like something you’d use for gears. There’s also the danger of pellets. You have to chew pheasant meat slowly, consider every mouthful carefully for fear of breaking a tooth, the mush that ends up in your mouth is something you’d as likely spit as swallow.

Now swallows, there’s a tasty treat, but you can’t be telling people these things. I wouldn’t want people to know the best way to hunt a swallow anyway because they’d all be at it. I developed it myself. I put glue on the telephone wire in front of my house. I tie two ladders together; it makes one giant stepladder and it is shaky but it’s worth the risk. They always land there and enough of them get stuck for me to make a meal out of them in the range. The roasting birds give the kitchen a sweet, sweet smell. ’Tis the African air that makes them so sweet. I think, anyway. I have it in my head that the heat and all the different animals and the smiling people, they make the air sweet. There isn’t much sweetness in the air around here. I can smell cows and milk, all the time. Except for when someone’s spreading slurry. You’d look forward to it, for the change.

The Jackal returns to his initial position. And John Buckley becomes animated. Standing over the pheasant, bending at his hips and looking down at it.

John Buckley: Ah lad! Ah lad! This is gas, this is fucking gas! A pheasant, here, in the bar! This is a story and a half, this is like something from long’go. Like the time the mountainy man brought his donkey in the door of the bar and asked for a pint of Guinness for the beast, for medicinal purposes he said, or the times Davey Ryan used to put a rabbit in the ladies’ jacks, the screaming! Stuff like that used to be great craic. People having high piss competitions at the back wall, fellas daring each other to try to jump over stacked stools in the bar. People were mad to be out with people. I don’t know what’s happened to everyone, they have no interest in each other anymore. The old people blamed cars for the death of the rambling houses, my parents blamed telly for the death of the dances. (John takes a sup from his pint).

Are pubs dying too? They’re deader than they were. Drink driving laws, smoking bans, fellas fecking jogging, they all had something to do with it. But they’re not dead yet! There’s still hope, there’s still people out there who want to meet people. People like me. Something just needs to happen; they’ve done all the things to kill the pubs but something needs to happen, and that’ll make them good again. (John takes another sup from his pint).

Something good just needs to happen now too; to make it a proper gas story. Someone has to say a gas thing or the bird should take a shit on Brian Meade’s boring bastard head, it might liven him up a bit!

John Buckley returns to his original position. Brian Meade becomes animated.

Brian Meade: That’s a fucking pheasant. What’s a fucking pheasant doing in a bar? It has no business in here. Can you shoo a pheasant? I don’t think it’s dangerous. This is the last thing I need. (Pause) It’s beautiful.

Scene 3

Lights up, The room is brighter than before. Danny Nail is cowering near his stool. The Jackal is still in his seat but he is in profile to the audience and there is a feather seemingly stuck in his upstage nostril. John Buckley is on his stomach on the floor. Brian Meade is nowhere to be seen but the window at his back has been smashed and we can see the village outside. Brian Meade stands up from behind the bar where he had ducked.

Brian Meade: A pheasant on the ground looks to be around the size of a basketball but when the fucker is in the air, he’s the size of a round bale. His wings are like electrons — everywhere at the same time. (Notices the brightness of the room) That window must have been fair dirty. I should have cleaned that. I’d have to stand on a crate to reach it though. There’s a drop on the outside. I was afraid someone would see me. Off he went to college and look at him now, washing windows. Having notions is one of the worst sins you can commit around here and people drop and roll in it when they think someone’s had their notions confounded. That fucking pheasant had notions. Walking into a people bar.

Brian Meade ducks down to his original position again. Danny Nail stands to face the audience.

Danny Nail: I have never been that close to the ‘Tucketuck, tucketuck, tucketuck’ before. I understand it now, it makes all the sense in the world to make that noise if ’twas a fox or something rushing at you, because, when you’re only four feet away from it, the noise deprives you of your senses for just a moment, like thunder, maybe that’s why they always answer thunder? Imitating it, practising. It buys you time to get up and away and glide off in a goading manner. The way it leapt into the air! The tail feathers were like one of those lads in the Olympics with the ribbon. Had it been a man it would have cleared the roof of the building! A thing of violent energy, but a thing of beauty too.

Danny returns to his original position. The Jackal does not turn from his profile position but he does sit up slightly.

The Jackal: There’s a feather up my nose. I don’t know if anyone has seen. I’m afraid to pull it out in case it’s stuck into something important. There probably isn’t anything important up there. (The Jackal tentatively removes the feather). That bird was a demon. A shapeshifter. A witch maybe. ’Tis usually hares and cats they turn into but my Granny said some of them could turn into anything at all they wanted, maybe ’twas one of them. I’m keeping this feather. It could be magic. Maybe I got some magic from it. That’d be gas. I could change, just a little.

The Jackal stills again. And John Buckley raises himself up off the ground.

John Buckley: I played Junior B football at a time of especial lawlessness in the rich history of North Cork Gaelic games. I had a few scrapes in my time and I was banned twice, no fault of my own. I had none of these so-called technical skills but I could stop a good player from playing. I have big fingers so I used to hook my little finger on the hem of their jersey and they couldn’t shake me, the ref would end up giving them a yellow card for going mad. I did a great line in falling awkwardly too. I could take out three men with a good fall. And if all else failed an uppercut is the only type of box you’ve any chance of throwing without getting caught. These were all skills that were much admired by my teammates and our supporters. A Tullylease fella shouldered me hard one time, after I had fouled him on the sly, and he broke his collar bone, it was probably the highlight of my career. The story grew legs over the years. One night here, late late, a young fella told me that he heard I had killed a man from Tullylease during a football match and the whole thing had been covered up by the GAA, that it had gone right to the top. I didn’t contradict him.

But there can be no doubt about it. The pheasant came out on top. He barrelled into my chest and there is weight in them, let me tell you that. I’m an ample bulk of a man but the pheasant was ample enough for me. He used me as a springboard to burst out the window there and fly off across the street. Fuck all wrong with him. I ended up going arse over tit onto the tiled floor. There’s no give in a tile. I’ll feel it tomorrow boy, I can tell you that. But, and I’m in the heat of it now, it’ll make one hell of a story! He was one hell of a bird!

Black out

Scene 4

The Tableau is the same as scene one except for a poster of a pheasant on the wall behind Brian with a red cross through it and the words ‘NO PHEASANTS ALLOWED IN THIS BAR’ written on it. The window has been replaced with clear, clean glass. Brian Meade becomes animated. The others animate as they speak.

Brian: We owned the story now, the four of us, it was ours to tell.

Danny Nail: Ours to regale the world with.

John Buckley: Ours to milk and twist.

The Jackal: Ours.

Brian: And we all left our mark on it. Through repeated retellings, to any who crossed the threshold – especially at the right time of day. It always started the same way: as soon as a shadow darkened the door the lads would turn and make like they had gotten a fright and John Buckley would exclaim… John: “Christ! I thought the Pheasant was back!” Brian: And then Danny Nail would say… Danny: I’ll be out the back door if I see him coming. Brian: The Jackal would then point to the feather stapled to his peaky cap and say… The Jackal: I suppose she’ll be looking for her feather back. Brian: Then Danny would correct him. Danny: ’Twas a male pheasant, Jackal, I’ve you that told a hundred times at this stage. Brian: The Jackal would only raise his chin at Danny and then I’d come in with, “I’d have to show him the sign,” and I’d point up at it and read it aloud, ‘NO PHEASANTS ALLOWED IN THIS BAR.’ And we’d have a laugh and if they were interested, the people that came in, we’d tell them the whole thing from start to finish and people didn’t know whether to believe us or not but we’d knock a bit of craic out of it ourselves so we didn’t care really. Slight pause. Danny: And the story meandered amongst us as the sign faded and curled. Slow fade to black.

The End