The Callahan Touch by Spider Robinson

Author:Spider Robinson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2015-10-07T16:00:00+00:00

7

The Mick of Time

My, didn’t Mike look surprised, when he materialized there in front of my bar?

I was a little startled, myself. The big red-headed mick was stark naked, and even more red-faced than usual. From these and other evidences, it was apparent that I had caught him in the midst of a tender…well, no, possibly more of a volcanic…moment with Lady Sally McGee, or some designated alternate. Even the cluricaune—who had roused from his stupor the instant I’d spoken my wish—opened his drunken eyes wide at the sight, and stared in uncharacteristic silence. Mike, of course, shifted mental gears in something under a second.

“The saints preserve us with BHT,” he boomed cheerfully, “and calcium propionate to retard spoilage. I thought I’d seen the last of you mugs. You pulled it off, then? No, I see by your faces you haven’t. Then how in the name of God’s gilded gonads did I get here? Jake?”

My heart was hammering like mad. No, like glad. Just the sight of the Mick of Time was enough to make me feel that same wave of fierce joy I’d felt last night, when my friends had come through my door for the first time in much too long. I felt a little like an Apostle on Easter Sunday afternoon. “Hi, Mike. It’s not a short story. More of a novelette…”

He nodded easily. “You know me,” he said. “I got time.”

Then there was a medium brief interruption. I was the first to lose it, vaulting over the bar, but I only led the pack by instants. I will simply say that not one of us experienced the slightest hesitation or self-consciousness or awkwardness about hugging a big naked Irishman, then or ever, and if you find anything weird about that, I condemn you to live in that skull for the rest of your life.

Isham and Tanya kept guard, of course, but I think everyone else managed to slip into and out of that gang hug before it was through. We were all laughing and crying and considerably less worried than we had been a moment ago.

All except me. As I stood back and let my friends have a chance to hug our mentor, I got in about a good ten seconds of happiness. And then I had a thought that made me literally bite my tongue. If I could wish Mike Callahan into my bar…why couldn’t I wish Mary Callahan-Finn into my bar?

Why couldn’t I wish her into my arms again?

Barbara and Jessica had been gone for nearly two decades—my mother even longer. But Mary had only been lost to me for a period measurable in months…

Of course, she was married now. To a guy that blew up planets sometimes. A good friend of mine, besides.

(I winced, remembering something from my browse through Irish history—the Finn Cycle. It’s the story of Fionn Mac Cumhail, or Finn MacCool. He fell for Cormac’s daughter Grainne, but she eloped with a member of his own band—much the way Mary dumped me for my pal Mickey Finn.

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