Who was Johnnie Gill? Chapter 17

by Victor Sullivan   © 2015      An Everlasting Smile

The town was busy as Johnnie turned Ribbon into the Square and tied her to one of the tethering rings in the wall beside the Bar. Inside, six early customers were talking about the battered old sailing ship that had arrived in the inner harbour on the previous evening, its rigging all in a tangle and several spars broken. It had probably run into a storm but nobody knew anything about it. No member of the crew had come ashore yet.
Johnnie, clad in his latest version of Cromwell, entered the bar, looked up from floor level and ordered himself a pint of stout from Brenda. He was wearing Cromwell No.3, made by himself, that had taken over the duties of Cromwell No. 2, the latter having finally been worn to such a state of utter delapidation that he had finally deemed it to be beyond any further patching or repair. Johnnie reversed Eureka into its usual place at the end of the bar counter where six regular customers were seated on the high bar-stools. They greeted Johnnie cheerfully and they all engaged in speculation about what cargo the damaged ship might be carrying and where it might be going to or coming from.
"Nobody's come ashore from it so far."
"No flags showing…"
"Might have all been blown away…"
"Ever heard of the Marie Celeste? The undamaged ship with no trace of the crew?" Johnnie asked?
At that moment the bar door opened and three strangers entered. They looked like seamen, probably from the mystery ship. Brenda greeted them cheerfully as she slid Johnnie's pint along the bar counter towards one of the locals, indicating with a nod towards the floor that it was for Johnnie, a normal occurance in the bar. Johnnie on Eureka was no longer a strange novelty; he had simply become an accepted part of normal life in and around Castletown Bere.
The three newcomers appeared to have appointed one of their members as spokesman on their behalf. He ordered whiskeys by pointing at a bottle and holding up three fingers. It was clear that he spoke little or no English. Had he enough money? … Yes he had. Brenda filled the three glasses and completed the transaction. Attempts at conversation were quickly abandoned. The language barrier was unsurmountable. Meantime, Johnnie had placed his glass of froth-topped stout on the front 'work shelf' of Eureka and lowered his face to take the first sip through the frothy head. The seaman who had ordered the whiskey knocked back his glassful in one gulp and glared around as if challenging his two anxious crew-mates and everyone else present to do likewise. His two colleagues tried to imitate their leader and one ended up coughing and spluttering while the other tried to hide his unfinished drink in his fist. It was clear to everyone in the bar that the two smaller and younger sailors feared their aggressive, bully of a colleague. The atmosphere in the bar became tense. The local men lifted their pint glasses and sipped the contents slowly. Johnny could still reach the dark liquid without having to lift and tilt the glass just yet. He lowered his head to sip his drink. At that moment the bully saw a freak lying on some sort of plank on wheels on the floor. Deducing that Johnnie was trying to drink from the glass, the bully yelled some incomprehensible words and, with his heavy seaman's boot, pushed Johnnie's head down onto his glass.
A gurgling scream turned every head towards Johnnie as his head came up, a mixture of stout and blood flowing from a flap of his face that had been sliced open by the smashed glass. It took only a few seconds for the locals at the bar to realise the enormity of what had happened. Jackets were taken off, sleeves rolled up. Two of them barred the door to block any escape. As they moved in towards the bully with clenched fists, Johnnie yelled something that sprayed blood through his exposed teeth and stopped them. In stunned satisfaction, they stared in surprise as Johnnie's super-strong arms locked around his attackers leg and the twin prongs of one of his Horses were buried deep into flesh somewhere. In the same instant his firewood-breaking technique was applied as if to a branch of a tree, to the the leg of a man. Johnnie's massive shoulders bulged as the bully's bellow of agony drowned the snapping of bones as he crashed to the floor. He made no further attempt to hurt anyone, the twin prongs of Johnnie's left Horse that hovered inches above his eyes ensured that.
One half of the double door of the bar was lifted off its hinges and the whining bully was carried on it to the pier by his two very worried crew-mates, escorted by the bar customers whose menacing body-language required no translator. On the way to the pier other curious and amused bystanders joined the cortege. Having dumped the patient roughly on the pier to await a boat to take him back to his damaged ship, the bar clients returned with the door, replaced it on its hinges and went in search of Johnnie. They found him, still on Eureka, inside the wide bar window where Brenda, kneeling beside him, was availing of a shaft of evening sunlight to illuminate Johnnie's slashed face as she prepared to sew his cheek back together.
"Shouldn't we get the Doctor?"
"I'll go for him."
"Don't waste your time. I've tried. He's out of town for the week." Brenda responded.
"Shouldn't you wait 'till he gets back?"
"No! This has to be sewn together straight away! A bad cut like this must be sewn as soon as possible or 'twill heal with his face all open. I've sewn glass cuts before, but that was on hands and nothing like this. Don't expect any bar service until Johnnie is fixed up. My father has gone off somewhere and won't be back 'till late tonight. I'm on my own here."
Brenda crouched over her patient, armed with an ordinary sewing needle and thread. With only a momententary hesitation, she drew the flap of Johnnie's cheek to where she felt it should be and pushed the needle through the flesh. Johnnie didn't even wince but the result was not satisfactory and she cut the stitch out.
"I need a curved needle to do this. God! Where will I get the likes of that?"
Johnnie tried to speak but found it impossible to make himself understood. He indicated that he wanted to write and one of the onlookers produced a pencil and a piece of cardboard. Johnnie wrote:
2 TWIGS, 1 STRAW, 1 GLASS OF WATER, 1 LIGHTED CANDLE.
The items were procured quickly. Johnnie took the needle from Brenda and pushed it through two twigs. Next he cut a section from a straw and placed one end between the puzzled Brenda's lips, indicating that he wanted her to blow through it while he directed the opposite end of the straw close to the side of the yellow flame of the candle. Brenda blew, creating a thin point of intense flame in which Johnnie manipulated the needle, deftly bending it with the twigs before dropping it with a sharp hiss into the glass of cold water. Pulling off the twigs, he presented the curved needle to Brenda. The helpers standing around looking down at the bloodied form of Johnnie on Eureka applauded.
"I can't stitch him properly down there. 'Twould be better if he was on the bar counter."
Willing hands did as Brenda wanted and Johnnie, complete with Eureka, was hoisted carefully onto the counter. Two men were given candles to hold, the needle was threaded and the stitching began. It was a long, clean gash that ran from the corner of Johnnie's mouth almost to his right ear. The curved needle was an immediate success as it penetrated the cheek flesh repeatedly, drawing the sides of the gash together. It was obvious that Brenda had done such stitching before, even if it wasn't on somebody's face. The stitches were neat and even. Johnnie never even whimpered and appeared to have fallen asleep.
But he hadn't! Each time Brenda leaned close to his face to insert another stitch the neck of her dress drooped loosely just below her patient's eyes affording a unique and rewarding glimpse of her interesting clevage, mere inches from his nose. It happened without embarrassment, awareness, or need for apology.
"That's the last one. Now to clean you up and bandage your face."
The bandage proved difficult. It went around his head and covered his mouth. Starvation and silence threatened to be a possible outcome for a few days. The bar customers joked about the impossibility of a silent Johnnie as they hoisted Eureka, with Johnnie on it, into Ribbon's cart and sent them homewards before returning to the bar to congratulate Brenda and re-commence their interrupted drinking.
Afterwards, word spread about the mayhem in the bar. The reports differed wildly. Some versions stated emphatically that two legs were broken, another account claimed that it was the two shin bones of one leg that were "in bits and sticking out." The repeated and embellished descriptions of the bullying seaman's injuries became more and more gruesome as the day passed. By the time the story had reached and circulated in Allihies, the bully had been beaten to a pulp by the cripple, Johnnie Gill, and would never again be able to walk. If asked what had really happened, Johnnie merely replied,
"Ach shure I only put a bit of manners on him!"
That was all the confirmation that was needed. Nobody would ever again try to attack Johnnie Gill… if they wanted to retain two fully functioning legs.

It wasn’t food or need to speak that troubled Johnnie in the days that followed the leg-breaking incident, it was Brenda. He simply couldn’t get her out of his mind. Each time he ran his tongue along the wound inside his repaired cheek the stitches reminded him of her. Whenever he had difficulty speaking, eating or drinking, he remembered her. Every time he saw his own hands they reminded him of Brenda’s hands and how kind they had been to him, even if those stitches had hurt more than he would ever admit to. Everything he thought about got mixed up with images of her. Brenda had offered to remove the stitches if he returned to her. IF he returned to her?! What had IF got to do with it? How SOON should/could he return? THAT was his next problem.

Johnnie’s gashed face had healed remarkably quickly and the removal of the stitches proved to be a straightforward procedure for Brenda. She undertook the procedure without the presence of any helpers other than the unnecessary, unwanted and unappreciated presence of her father. It was he who passed a mirror to Johnnie that revealed, for the first time, his new facial appearance, an everlasting, lopsided smile. During the following weeks Johnnie practiced various facial expressions whenever he stopped beside a pond of still water. He attempted to practice his new looks in Ribbon’s drinking water bucket: neutral or blank, puzzled, displeasure, intense displeasure, authority, anger, downright bloody fury, laughter, leering, sneering. He finally gave up, conceding that he, and the world around him, would have to accept that a basic component of his facial expression would, for ever, be a lopsided leer, bordering on a smile, no matter how mad angry he might be feeling! What made his new appearance easier to live with was that his leer reminded him of Brenda. Wonderful, beautiful, kind Brenda, who had stitched him up when his face had been split open. Brenda! Brenda…

Who was Johnnie Gill? Chapter 16

by Victor Sullivan © 2015    Mobility & Ghost Stories 

Over time, Johnnie's donkey-cart acquired several money-earning tools. The first of these was a hand operated grindstone that put a keen edge on many a knife and chisel. Johnnie would arrive in his donkey-cart outside a farmhouse and call to the occupants to bring out their knives to be sharpened. Willing children would be invited to bring a jug of water and then turn the handle of the grindstone while Johnnie skillfully honed the blades. Such was the demand for his sharpening services that he was obliged to add a second, coarser, grindstone for sharpening heavy axes and that essential peat-cutting tool, the sleán. 

Word reached Johnnie that one of Castletown Bere's two cobblers had been obliged to give up his shoe and boot repairing services because both of his hands had become 'all twisted with the pains and his only son had run away to sea.' Johnnie felt that a visit to the old craftsman would not be time wasted and so it proved. The man was well aware of Johnnie's reputation for repairing horse-harness, so boots and shoes would be no problem. In fact, Johnnie Gill had, from an early age, successfully carried out boot and shoe repairs. Johnnie bought many of the cobbler's tools and his stock of leather. He also listed the principal clients as dictated by the retiring cobbler. As part of the transaction, Johnnnie was to receive some lessons in the finer points of shoe-making . They then retired to Johnnie's usual bar where he lay on Eureka on the bar floor and the old ex-cobbler sat on a low fish-box beside him. The symbolic cobbler's last was placed on the saw-dust covered floor between their glasses. Many hours later, kind bar patrons unknown hoisted Johnnie and Eureka onto his cart, together with his newly acquired cobbler's last and other acquisitions, and launched Ribbon in the direction of the Gill farm. 

But it was not at Gill's farmhouse that Johnnie awoke. The unfamiliar, neglected buildings and the overgrown bushes seemed to be part of a dream. Then, slowly, his thumping brain cleared a little, realisation dawned and he remembered poor old Molly O'Hanrahan's donkey! That's where they were! At Molly's abandoned cottage. Ribbon, unaided, had simply returned to her old home while Johnnie had most certainly NOT been in control! He vowed that henceforth he would be a 'One-Pint and no more' drinker. It was a vow that he almost kept.

On a trip to Cahermore, five miles to the west of Castletown Bere, Johnnie delivered a set of chairs. While there, his services were called upon to sharpen knives, repair shoes, and stitch harness. It proved to be a long day as word went around that he was working in the area. People were still bringing him more jobs as darkness fell. He was invited to 'stay the night' and was given a substantial meal. That night he slept in his client's kitchen, on Eureka, between the family's big sheepdog and the banked down, open fire. Awake before anyone else in the house, Johnnie ventured outside on Eureka, to find that Ribbon had already been fed, most likely by the same person who had left a pile of harness outside the door that would require at least another day's work. On seeing the surprise workload, Johnnie's generous hosts invited him to 'Stay the night' yet again and the profitable experience became a routine. In the years that followed, Johnnie was welcomed into several houses where he could 'Stay the night' on his work circuit that included the villages of Cahermore, Allihies, Urhin, Eyeries, Ardgroom and Adrigole. However, not every family was willing to have the quaint cripple within their home as many children, and several mature adults, were intimidated by his appearance as he disembarked from his cart and dragged himself about on Eureka, sometimes wearing Cromwell. It was not unusual for very young children to run away from him in tears, much to his regret.

Johnnie's increasing practice of 'Staying the night' had an unexpected social effect. It was considered quite normal for some houses to have a reputation as a Scríocting House where neighbours would gather regularly to play cards, tell stories, gossip, sing ballads, play a fiddle and even dance. A really good evening's entertainment could sometimes continue into the early hours of the morning. Such homes tended to offer 'Stay the night' invitations and Johnnie Gill found the cheerful evenings much to his liking. Thanks mainly to Susan's early tuition and her school reading books, together with the reading material he had salvaged from the Dunboy Castle bonfire many years earlier, Johnnie discovered that he had a flair for story-telling. It was a time when the ability to read was not yet the established norm in the area and a good storyteller was always welcome in a Scríocting House. Johnnie's late-night ghost-stories became notorious for scaring people. He usually set the scenes locally, very locally, so that his listeners, when on their way home, would have to pass the vividly described and easily identifiable roadside boulder or tree at the very spot where the hideous, supernatural event had taken place in his story… and might be about to be repeated …. 

On at least one occasion, and probably on several more, while telling one of his localised horror stories, Johnnie himself became so frightened by the ghastly details he had described so vividly, that he had to stay at the scríocting house overnight. He was simply too scared to pass the roadside pile of stones where he had set the scene of his story. However, there was a genuine historical horror event associated with that particular pile of overgrown stones where Johnnie set some of his yarns. The pile of stones had once been a wretched hovel in which an entire family had died of cholera in 1832. In that grim year the people were so terrified of catching the dreaded disease from dead bodies that, instead of reporting the deaths, procuring coffins and arranging funerals, the neighbours had simply stuffed gorse bushes into the tiny thatched cabin and set it alight with the corpses still inside, then they tumbled the stone walls in on top of whatever remained. Children were warned never to go near, or pick blackberries from around the overgrown remains of the hovel because: "Those blackberries belong to The Others."

Johnnie's story-telling reputation gave him further publicity for his more ordinary, practical services. Many of the younger people knew him as 'Johnnie Wheels' for obvious reasons, a nickname that he was quite proud of. Unlike many able-bodied men in the area, he was always fully employed, in spite of his physical disadvantages. He invariably carried a fistful of coins in a pocket, a rare thing among his peers. 

Johnnie's rota of 'Visitations' meant that he and Ribbon might not appear at the Gill farm for several days at a time. On his eventual return he would quickly assemble a batch of chairs or, if he had no actual orders, he would produce bundles of chair-legs or other components, ready to be assembled at short notice. Harness repairs were often required urgently resulting from some incident such as a cart capsize or a bolting horse. Someone always knew where to contact him in an emergency because Johnnie advertised his travel plans widely.

Who was Johnnie Gill? Chapter 15

By Victor Sullivan    © 2015     Shoes for Ribbon

Ribbon had been very carefully trained and well looked after by her former owner, Molly O'Hanrahan. The only thing that Johnnie's newly acquired donkey needed  was some hoof paring and a set of new shoes, requiring another visit to the whip-cracking, elderly blacksmith. Ever since that memorable occasion, ten years earlier, when Eureka had been recovered from the blackguards who had tried to steal it, Johnnie  had often visited the smith's forge. Sometimes old Nancy needed a horseshoe replaced, or her young and skittish, successor, Bessy, but often Johnnie merely visited the aging blacksmith for a friendly chat and to learn and practice new and clever tricks with the long-lashed stock-whip.

It was early one bright June morning when Johnnie proudly drove up to the forge with Ribbon and her cart, but the cheery, jovial greeting he was about to utter didn't get beyond the first word. The feeble condition of his friend, the blacksmith was all too obvious as he emerged from the dark interior of the forge to lean against the door-frame. A racking cough and blood-streaked spitting confirmed his initial opinion that the old man was not going to shoe many more animals. 

"You'll be my final customer, Johnnie. I'm letting the fire go out tonight. I'm not able for it any longer. You've just arrived in time. Is she gentle and quiet?" 

"As gentle as an angel. She used to be Molly O'Hanrahan's donkey, Ribbon. You two met before, I suppose."

"We did indeed. Poor Molly, she was aghh…….." His words ended in a pitiful choking sound and a long coughing bout. After much spitting and panting he seemed to recover his strength and un-tackled Ribbon from her cart.

The hoof paring of the first leg took much longer than was usual. Ribbon may have had unusually tough hooves. Pretending that hoof trimming was a useful skill for Johnnie to acquire, the old smith suggested that Johnnie's powerful hands should perform the paring of the donkey's hooves. Fitting and nailing the shoes took a much longer than was usual but at last the job was done. Little was said. Johnnie paid for the shoes and the blacksmith tackled Ribbon to her cart and watched as Johnnie demonstrated its tipping floor and his mounting technique, with Eureka. He turned Ribbon towards home.

"Wait! I have something for you. It will either keep you out of trouble or get you into it!" 

Johnnie stopped Ribbon and waited. The blacksmith went to the door of his forge, reached up, took down the stockwhip and presented it to Johnnie.

"Here. Take this and mind it for me. It has served me well. Be sure to rub it often with unwashed sheep's wool, fresh off the sheep. That's important to keep it supple. Good luck with it." 

"I'll mind it like a baby … for you. Thanks."

Johnnie flicked the reins and Ribbon plodded awkwardly towards home in her new shoes. aware that he and the blacksmith would never meet again. His old friend would never be forgotten, the whip he was clutching in his left hand would see to that.

  

As he appoached the Gill's farmhouse, Johnnie's mother was walking towards him, stopping him in the lane before he reached Ribbon's stable. She had been anxiously waiting for his return and had seen his donkey-cart cross the river at the bottom of the valley.

"Johnnie! Johnnie, don't untackle Ribbon. I want you to turn around and take your sister to town. That toothache is killing her all day. She needs the dentist. You and Ribbon take her to town. She's in a lot of pain. The men are all too busy at the hay and need the horse. The two mile walk  to town would be too much. Johnnie, could you take her….? "

Johnnie was aware of his 21 year-old sister's bouts of toothache. Her misery had been a dark cloud in the household for weeks. Now, unable to bear the pain any longer and with her swollen face wrapped in a thick scarf, Ada had, at last submitted to the inevitable and agreed to visit the dentist. The agony of tooth extraction was terrifying even when only being imagined or talked about. Now, in her desperation for relief from toothache, Ada prepared herself for the full reality of the anguish as she travelled towards the dreaded dentist on Johnnie's donkey-cart. They stopped outside the door of the dentist's house. 

"I'll wait here with Ribbon for you. It mightn't be as bad as you think. It will be over quickly."

Ada hesitated to get out of the cart and Johnnie remembered his own dread of anticipated intense pain before it struck and he felt a deep pity for his miserable and terrified younger sister.

"GO! Go now and get it over with!" He encouraged. Ada went, leaving Johnnie to imagine the various stages of the procedure taking place inside the net curtained window, that would culminate with his sister's screams. He waited. There was no scream. He began to imagine possible reasons for the delay. Then the door opened and there she stood, the dentist beside her, holding one arm. He helped her down the two steps and into the donkey-cart. The young dentist grinned at Johnny's bemused expression and answered his unasked question:

"She didn't feel a thing! Latest fashion in painless dentistry. Anesthetics.  She will tell you all about it later. She's a bit groggy right now but that will soon wear off. She might have a bit of a headache too but that will pass." 

It was a greatly relieved Ada who walked, still a little unsteadily, into the kitchen and began to recount her surprising painless tooth extraction. Her joy did not last long. That night her face swelled and a fever followed that every effort by her mother to alleviate failed. Ada grew weaker as the days passed. The doctor was sent for. He diagnosed severe blood poisoning following a tooth extraction, shook his head solemnly, expressed sympathy and left on his horse. Within an hour, Ada was dead, aged only twenty one.  It was 11th June, 1894. Johnnie would be 33 in just over one week later, not a happy birthday.