I was in a public house last week — more of a rarity these days than in years past. It was filled with the boisterous, pre-Christmas, after-work bonhomie: that cozy sense of being warm and indoors intensified by the chilly New York evening outside. The Guinness was good, the pint glasses Imperial size. The playlist in the background was decidedly seasonal: Slade, “Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart,” Mariah Carey.
“Can’t be long now,” I remarked to one of my companions. No sooner had I picked up my pint again than there it was:
It was Christmas Eve, babe, in the drunk tank
An old man said to me, "Won't see another one"
I knew it was coming, but it somehow stopped me in my tracks. I waited to see what would happen. Would the hubbub in the room soften? alter? steer itself in a different direction to acknowledge that it was that song, this week? I scanned the room and listened more intently to the roar of conversation around me. Nothing changed. Though the trappings of the bar were Irish, the crowd was the crowd you find in any bar in the Financial District of Manhattan: from everywhere, soon to depart back to everywhere on the 4, 5, 6, A, C, E, N, PATH, 7:27 Metro North, 7:32 LIRR, 6:53 NJ Transit. It was just another Christmas song to be talked over. My hopes of the place spontaneously joining in with the chorus were dashed on the rocks of seasonal volubility.
Then I noticed her, the bartender who had served me and apologized for my pint dripping down the sides. I had bantered that a good full pint was better than an over-generous bishop's collar any day. She had chuckled politely. She knew what I was talking about. She was from Clare maybe - hard to tell with the noise. Now she was at the taps again pulling a pint. Staring off into the middle distance toward the door with a wistful look on her face, you could see her lips move as she sang quietly along:
The boys of the NYPD choir
Were singing, "Galway Bay"
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas Day
That was somehow enough, somehow perfect. You could see it in her face. The song touched her and she knew full well that it was that song this particular week.
Kevin Holohan is a native of Dublin and now lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son. His latest novel, “So You Wanna Run a Country?”, will be published in March 2024 and is available for preorder here.
