Green Shadows, White Whales by Ray Bradbury

Author:Ray Bradbury
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2013-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

It was twilight in Heeber Finn’s pub, with only Finn and myself and Doone and Timulty there to listen to the spigots and nurse the suds.

“There is no figuring us,” said Finn. “We Irish are as deep as the sea and as broad. Quicksilver one moment. Clubfooted the next.”

“To what do you refer, Finn?” I asked.

“Take the case of the AMA invited to Dublin in the final part of last year, for instance,” said Finn.

“The American Medical Association?”

“That one, yes.”

“They were invited to Dublin?”

“They were, and did.”

“To what purpose?”

“To enlighten us.” Finn turned to gaze in the mirror and comb his soul straight. “For we need enlightenment. The great unwashed is what we are. Have you stood in line at the pustoffice …?”

“Post office? Yes.” I wrinkled my nose.

“Is it not like trudging about a sheep-sty pigpen?”

“Well …”

“Admit it! By midwinter, the average Dubliner, for months not out of his clothes or into the tub, walks higher than his shoes by Christmas. You could plant bulbs in his armpits by New Year’s. Pick penicillin off his shins Easter morn.”

“What a poet,” said Doone admiringly.

“Get to the point, Mr. Finn,” I said, and stopped.

For you must never ask an Irishman to get to the point. The long way around and half again is more like it. Getting to the point could spoil the drink and ruin the day. “Ahem.” Finn waited for the apology.

“Sorry.”

“Where was I? Oh. The AMA! Invited to Dublin they was, to teach us the cleanliness that lives skintight to godliness.”

“How many medics were invited?”

“A team of surgeon-rascals, and a platoon of pill-prescribing learned physicians. There was a big ta-ta about it in the Irish Times. Headlines, by God. ‘American Doctors Arrive to Educate the Irish and Preserve Lives!’ ”

“Sounds wonderful.”

“It was, as long as the good feelings lasted.”

“They didn’t?”

“The College of Surgeons, Dublin branch, invited their American cousins across. It seemed a grand idea in the pub, along the bar and over the drinks. Someone must have sent a telegram late at night, when all was awash and no one recalled. Next thing you know the New York surgeons respond: ‘Yes, by God. Stand back! Here we are!’”

“And no sooner the cable read when at Shannon a planeload of menthol-smelling docs step off and smile ’round, full of brains and lacking the wisdom to use same carefully.”

“But they were given the grand tour, nevertheless?”

“Embarrassed, because they could not remember having sent the drunken telegram, the College of Surgeons, Dublin branch, put on a brave face and gave them the free rein to peer in this ward, then that, for a full week. A terrible mistake. The surgeons pared every fingernail, checked laundries for unwashed frocks, tested scalpels to see if they could split hairs or cut cheese, took snorts of oxygen, tried the anesthetics on for size, and at last—can you think it?—unmasked the Irish surgeons, college and all. A devastation.”

“What happened then?”

“Why, hell man, we threw them out of the country!”

“They let themselves be thrown out?”

“It was that or be served fresh for the postmortem.

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