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March 1st - 31st
all Female sculptures.
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Being Irish:
New Mexico, 1957
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After high school, I left Texas and hitchhiked around New Mexico and California. During my travels, I became another person completely - Sean Michael O'Connor, a traveling boy from Ireland. I embodied this character from head to toe. With Sean Michael's thick Irish accent, I could be boisterous and charming, joking all the time, a sweet foreigner just a-wandering the countryside. Throughout my growing-up years, I had kept to myself, a loner and terribly awkward. But as Sean Michael, I could laugh and flirt. I could walk right up to a girl, throw her a line, and make her fall right over herself.
Of course, it got to where I couldn't break character. When someone would pick me up, give me a ride, I would try to talk Texan, but inevitably I'd return to Sean Michael. "Howdy," I'd begin as a Texan, but then I would switch. "I be Sean Michael O'Connor, making me way across this lovely country of yours, and I'm just a-wonderin' if I might mow your lawn or some such thing, in exchange for a meal."
This went on for several years, to the point where I could not recognize the sound of my own true voice any longer. It turns out people are much more generous if they think you're a foreigner. If you say you're from Texas, they're more likely to tell you to go get yourself a job and a haircut, but if you smile sweetly and speak like you're fresh off the boat, people will bend over backwards to show you hospitality.
SLINGING HASH
Early one morning, a trucker dropped me off outside a truck stop on the outskirts of Las Cruces, New Mexico. As I pushed open the restaurant door, I began my little pitch. "Can I be a-helping you out with anything in exchange for a bit of something to eat?" I asked with my practiced Irish brogue.
"No thanks, kid." He limped toward me and reached out his hand. As I shook it, I could smell the whiskey on his breath. He sized me up with a bit of a smirk. "You got a name?"
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"Sean Michael O'Connor, sir," I replied.
"Well, Sean Michael, we've got a cook and a waitress already, but you're welcome to take a couple of days and bunk out back."
Never underestimate the incredible hospitality of strangers. I followed the little hunchback as he hobbled out to the bunkhouse and showed me around. I laid back on one of the cots, and took a long nap.
That night the old hunchback got very, very drunk - both him and the cook. So when I came stumbling in from the bunkhouse around midnight, after having a few drinks myself, I found the waitress on the verge of tears as grumpy customers barked orders to her, bacon burned on the grill, and spilled coffee spread across the floor.
I stepped around the counter and started frying up some chicken fried steaks. "Now there, lads, give me-gal a rest. Can't you see she be shagged by the work of you bollocks?" The waitress gave me a grateful grin. Sure, I burnt half of what I made, but it didn't matter. Together we worked the night through until about dawn when the cook had slept off his drunk.
He stumbled out of the back pantry and blinked at me. "Who the hell are you?" The owner finally woke up in the middle of the afternoon. He came to find me, cupped his arm around my shoulders, and said, "God, Sean. Unless you got some other place to go, I'd sure like to you stick around awhile." So I did.
I stayed in Las Cruces for three months, until the itch to travel took me over. The whole time, I stayed in character - so much so that I began to forget I was ever not Sean Michael from Ireland. It would be years, before I found myself again. Many years, many adventures, and many lifetimes lived on the edge of danger. |
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