Drinking With Men : A Memoir (9781101603123) by Rosie Schaap Page B

table for all to share, and we bought round after round in turn, and laughed, and talked feverishly about the books we loved. Peter seemed to find my interest in his country’s canon quaint and misguided.
    â€œWhatever you do, for God’s sake, just don’t sing in here,” Michael warned me in a grave whisper. He nodded in the direction of the genial, avuncular publican who looked like an Irish Santa Claus. “He once killed a man for singing in a pub.” I believed him. I didn’t find out until weeks later—when I repeated the story to someone else—that Michael had just been bullshitting me, taking the piss, as they say. Good one.
    That first intoxicating night at Grogan’s yielded three major developments. First, I was indoctrinated into the great Irish cultural tradition known as
craíc
(pronounced
crack
—which disturbed me the first time I heard people talking about it, since New York was at the time in the thick of its devastating crack epidemic).
Craíc
, alongside Guinness, is major currency in a Dublin pub. It is discourse, conversation, chatter. It can be light or heavy, funny or serious. It can be about absolutely
anything
,
but it must flow freely, it must have rhythm, and it must not be dominated by a single participant. There is good
craíc
and there is bad
craíc
. Grogan’s was always good
craíc.
    Second, with alarming speed I acquired a taste for Irish whiskey, preferably Jameson. After my early romance with Jack Daniel’s had come to its ugly end in California, I could no longer stomach even the smell of American whiskey, its redolent, deceptive sweetness. But Irish whiskey was a different thing altogether. Gentler, milder, less aggressively sugary. I still liked a pint of stout, but in Jameson I knew I had found my one true love. (I still defend Irish whiskey against frequent allegations that it is inferior to its Scottish counterparts, particularly to status-symbol single malts, and refer to spirits authority David Embury, who wrote, “If you really like the peat-smoke taste of Scotch, you may prefer it to Irish, just as you may prefer smoked ham to fresh ham. From every other point of view, however, I believe that Irish is infinitely superior to Scotch.”)
    Third, I discovered that the word
cunt
—totally forbidden where I came from, the worst of the worst, unholiest of unholies—could, if delivered with the right inflection, be light, affectionate, friendly, practically a term of endearment. This took some getting used to, but by summer’s end, I could unhesitatingly call my Irish friends complete fucking cunts and mean it in the nicest possible way.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    A nother night at Grogan’s, not long after the first, a middle-aged man turned up at our usual table. All the regulars knew him and behaved differently in his midst. They sat up a little straighter and seemed to measure their words more carefully. Peter whispered his name in my ear. “Good poet,” he said. “Published. A few books.”
    â€œSo, you’re a poet?” I asked him. By then, I knew how to start a conversation in Grogan’s.
    â€œI am,” he said. And with that, we got to talking. And we kept talking. The Poet grew up in a small town, but had lived in Dublin since his twenties. He wore an unmistakable cloak of personal tragedy, which I found extremely appealing. He was exactly twice my age. And he was kind and attentive and laughed at my jokes and made meaningful eye contact. He had a beautiful, soft voice. He would read poems to me, I was sure, if I asked. Maybe I wouldn’t even have to ask.
    It was getting close to last call. “Michael and I are going to go to the workshop at the Oak this week,” Peter told me. “You should come. Wednesday night.”
    â€œI’ll be there,” I promised.
    â€œBring a poem,” he said.
    On Wednesday evening I made my way to