The Living and The Dead by Dr Garrett R FitzGerald A Thesis Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of M.A. (Research) in Creative Writing at Waterford Institute of Technology Supervisor: Janice Fitzpatrick Simmons April 23, 2008 MA Thesis – Dr.Garrett R FitzGerald Dedicated to my wife, Trudy, to our children and their children, and to all of our people, living and dead. MA Thesis – Garrett R FitzGerald Acknowledgements My eternal gratitude to those who have made this possible, even at my time of life: Janice Fitzpatrick Simmons; poet, lecturer, course director and inspiring facilitator. Greagoir O Duill; poet and great teacher. John Ennis; poet and Head of School at WIT. My “classmates” - now friends, who gave me more than they can know: Eamon Breathnach, John Doorty, Alan Garvey, Rory Johnston, Rita Kelly, Marian Seyedi, Sam Thomas. My long-time English Lit. mentors: Eithne Horkan-FitzGerald, James Joyce and Francis Frewen SJ. The medical men who found and fixed the “Big C” and other things. Mossy, Kevin, Francie, Dermot and the lads. ABOVE ALL – “ALL MY PEEPILS” FitzGerald 1 Table of Contents  Notes…………………………………………………………………………………………………….2 Short Stories.......................................................................................................3-64 She Must Know Something……….3 Midges………8 The Yank………12 Bonsai………15 Michael………21 Sea of White Crosses………29 Apple Tart ………38 The Ladder………42 Saving Dwyer………48 Turkey………51 Baby Blue………58 Book Chapters………………………………………………………………………….……65-84 Chapter 4 from Navajo Gene - Louise’s Last Testament………65 Chapter 15 from Navajo Gene - Housecall from Hughie……….77 Short Humorous Essays……………………………………………………………............85-105 The Laying Hen………85 Visitor in Rome………88 The Seven Deadly Questions………91 The Kisfosti Kambola Man………95 A New Syndrome………99 The Gerrul from Carrick-on-Suir………102 Poems………………………………………………………………………………………………….106-124 Litany………106 nan………107 Hands………108 The Hill of Crogue………109 dan………110 fogarty………110 doctor know………111 Headspin………112 Hundreds and Thousands……..114 dance………118 global warming……..119 To Lady Alice Fitzwilliam (sonnet)………120 Contre le Montre (villanelle)……….121 Sestina Lente (sestina)………122 McGaherns’ Day Out (ballad)………124 Dissertation……………………………………………………………………………………….125-186 The Crucifixion of Gabriel Conroy………125 Works Cited………185 FitzGerald 2 MA Thesis – Garrett R FitzGerald Notes The Short Story, “She Must Know Something” has been published in “Southword” (2007). The Short Story, “The Yank” has been published in “Medicine Weekly” (2008). All of the Short Humorous Essays have been published in “Medicine Weekly” (2006- 2008). My novel, “Navajo Gene” was begun in May of 2007 and is now in the final stages of revision. The Dissertation, “The Crucifixion of Gabriel Conroy” has been formatted in the MLA style in accordance with the guidelines in Gibaldi, Joseph. th MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 6 ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2003. FitzGerald 3 SHORT STORIES She Must Know Something Zabrinski was beside the bed. The vase the sour nurse gave him wouldn’t stay upright. Water spilled over the edge and wet the bedside table. The vase leant sideways no matter how he arranged the flowers. They should have cut the stems shorter, he thought; all they wanted was his twenty dollars. In the end, he leaned the heads of the flowers and the side of the vase against the wall. Most of the water was gone. If they died, they died, he thought. He liked to keep busy in the room. Otherwise he’d have to talk to her. The messy business with the flowers was the easy bit. His wife started up, “They only talked about money and hunting rifles and vacations. They didn’t care about my pain. They didn’t give a damn.” This again. He didn’t look at her. He moved across the room and took in the view at the window, nothing much except brick walls. He watched the raindrops on the panes following tracks made by other raindrops. They avoided the islands that came from years of crud. He could smell the Mekong and heard the blades of the choppers in the distance. She brought him back. “You’re not listening to me, Jack. You’re just like them,” she said. “Griffin isn’t listening, I just know it. The nurses aren’t neither. None of ‘em believe me. That’s the worst thing.” He came back to the bedside but still did not look at her. He looked at the drip tube which went into her arm and at the plastic bottle at the top. He got blood from one of those drips years ago. He didn’t remember much about it, except those slope doctors. He read the bottle. There was a strip that said KCL. FitzGerald 4 “They’re giving you something called KCL,” he said. “What’s that for?” she asked. He still looked at the stuff. “It’s probably something to get rid of the nightmares,” he said, “some kinda tranquilliser, maybe.” He sensed what was coming. “I’m sick of telling you. I haven’t got nightmares, not then, not now. I don’t need tranquilisers. Why don’t you listen? You’re all the same.” Funny; the pain in his leg only comes bad when she’s like this. It told him she was getting ready for the ‘buried alive’ story again. She should have been where he’d been and she’d know about ‘buried alive’. She comes in for some kinda biopsy, she makes it into World War Three. There was less whining when the Titanic sank. She pushed herself further down the bedclothes and looked at the ceiling. It was white like everything else. She closed her eyes as if he wasn’t there. Zabrinski sat in the chair near the window. He counted twelve electric outlets beside the bed, none of them in use. If she was as bad as she says, there would be lots of machines plugged in. They don’t, he supposed, have all these outlets in psychiatric hospitals. Maybe they have just one for electric shock treatment. Her mother had twenty shocks that time in Portland. Didn’t make much difference, went to the grave complaining. Complaining about men mostly. Now here we go again. She started up again. “I told Griffin I heard everything they said. I coulda been talking to the wall. You know what he said? He said ‘now now, you’ll do real fine’. I thought he was gonna pat my head and say ‘there’s a good doggie’. He almost did. You know what else he said? He said the head would clear in a couple of days and FitzGerald 5 I’d be real fine. He’s the worst kind of doctor, thinks that people have no brains. I’d like to give him hunting rifles, and shooting elk in Wyoming, and stocks and shares.” The husband rubbed his bad leg just above the knee. It took three months to fix before they shipped him home, then half a year in the Veterans. Then they gave him a medal and the door. He knew that whatever he said would make no difference with all this head stuff. The bit about there’s a good doggie sounded just about right. They should maybe give Dr. Griffin a medal too. Good thing the HMO was coughing up for all this. At least she won’t get to go to the State Hospital two hours drive away. Olsen would fire him from the sawmill if he took any more time off. Olsen would love to fire him, period. He watched the drops come down from the bottle into a plastic chamber. His leg felt like she was ready to start again. She talked to the ceiling, “I even told him that I knew about his arrangement to meet Loren what’s-her-name, the anesthesiologist. How could I know that? You tell me that!” She trumpeted her nose into a Kleenex. “ Like she should learn how to do her job! Six-thirty Friday for cocktails in Shiki’s in Eugene and a Japanese dinner. How could I know that if I hadn’t heard it all? Shoulda told him I’d tell his wife, how’d he like them eggs? She’s going to a high-school reunion in Seattle, leaving Friday noon. Very cosy.” She looked over at her husband, still at the leg. He looked at the white wall. The vase nurse came in and made like the room was empty. She looked at the drip and yawned and wrote on the clipboard at the end of the bed. She FitzGerald 6 started for the door. She turned around half-ways and said to nobody in particular, leastwise nobody she was looking at. “You’re getting along real fine, honey. Doctor says you get to go home soon as the marbles clear up.” She took a chocolate from the box on the bed table. She went out. “There it is again. She’s just like everybody else. You heard her.” “Maybe you should listen to what she says,” he said. “Sure talks like a nurse although she don’t behave like one. She must know something.” “Maybe she should listen to what I say, and you too and Griffin and the rest. You’re all the same. I can’t take much more of this.” He knew the feeling alright, Olsen at the mill and the V.A. and now this. The whole package didn’t amount to much. He looked at her head, white in the white bedclothes, could have been a stranger. “This leg is acting up again. I gotta go loosen up and get some supper.” “Go ahead. You’re all the same, anyways. And take them damn flowers with you, they’re not worth a damn the way you have ‘em,” she said. She looked up at the white ceiling. He got out the door. He paced the corridor. In a while, he went to the nurses’ desk where there was a regular nurse. “Can you tell me, please?” he asked. “This doctor, Griffin, is he a good doc?” “Never seen better and I’ve seen ‘em all,” she said. “Sure wouldn’t mind he did a job on me.” She laughed. He turned to leave. He crashed into a moving gurney that carried a gigantic yellow woman. He felt the shot of pain up through his leg. He felt dizzy for a moment, thought he would pass out. The big woman raged at him but he FitzGerald 7 didn’t hear what she said. He reached for his bayonet. It wasn’t there. He stumbled into the elevator. The elevator was almost full. He pushed at all the buttons till the door closed. When it did, it took the heads off the flowers. In the bar down the street, he drank whisky. There was a football game on TV. There were no customers to look at it. He looked at the mirror under the bottles. The old guy in there used to be me, he thought. Zabrinski swallowed more whisky for his leg and whatever.