Posted on 09/11/2003 12:30:36 PM PDT by vikingcelt
...and there has not been a busier day at Channel Five of the Gates, not ever. And it was different to almost all the busy days at any of the other Channels over the last sixty or seventy years. Usually the busy days are the days when armies of great powers are in action Down Below and then all that arrive in the Channels are alike in that they are young men in their prime, all aged between sixteen or seventeen and the late thirties, all in uniform.
...but this was different. There were babies, babies of every colour of skin you can name, round fat little babies with curls of gold, black crinklecurl babies, glintingly yellowly beautiful babies with sloe eyes. And there were real old ones, matriarchs and patriarchs, some nearly one hundred years old, one over that, on sticks, in wheelchairs even. And there were young men and beautiful young girls, rascally looking boys, solemn men that looked like bankers and professors, career women with power suits on them, secretaries, windowcleaners, janitors, construction workers, whizkids of both genders and neither, beauty queens, hairdressers, jewellers, icecream and coffee salesmen, insurance men, conmen, a rabbi, a Franciscan priest with an ascetic face, nuns, teachers, creche-minders. Yes, this one was different. It looked as if this busy day at ChannelFive had been created by somebody just taking away an indiscriminate slice of a big city. Or the whole population of a good-sized town. Or nearly the entire population of Monaco or a principality. How many were there? I'm not certain, maybe twenty thousand; as the Recording Angels toiled in a double shift the line seemed to stretch on forever and ever.
...and eventually, at the very end, there did come the uniforms, but they were not army uniforms of the kind that usually cram the channels of entry at the Gates. These were policemen and firemen, some young, mostly though from the thirties to the forties and the fifties, a big navy bulk of them, still wearing all their equipment, the policemen first, moving in a disciplined fashion, though tiredly, shuffling through, name after name...
...and so many of the names had the ring of the Irish surnames to them, and so many were even spoken with the blas of Ireland. The O's and the Macs of those that they called The Finest down below, where they came from. There were a lot of O's and a lot of Macs, an awful lot, names like O'Donnell and O'Shea and O'Sullivan and Murphy and Reilly and O'Reilly and all the derivations of those. When you looked again, though the Recording Angels did not have time to look, what you saw was like a recitation of the same names that had passed through Ellis Island all those years ago, and all the other entry points since, which, eventually, have all sent their spended souls up to the Channel Five which has always served the United States of America at the Gates...
...and when all the Finest had passed through, finally, there came the firemen, and their Chief, a man called Downey, another good Irish name, he was at the head of them. He was old, real old, maybe in his sixties, but still straight as a reed and tough as nails, and as formidable as the hundreds of uniforms and helments lined up behind him. They had been waiting patiently a long time, for the others to be processed, and had even occasionally parted to let hundreds of civilians through, and now it was their turn at last.
...and after the Chief gave his name he stood beside the Recording Angel, the one with the grey wings (because there had been a lot of dust about) and he kinda helped the Angel spell all those strange Irishy kind of surnames again. And as each of the firemen passed him by, to form a sort of roughly formed waiting regiment in the waiting zone before the Gates, the Chief gave each of them a quick pat on the back, a kind of salute, as they went through.
...Flaherty...Joyce...Murphy...Byrne...the names sounded a lot like that, almost like a chant in the end as the firemen passed through, for each that pat on the back, for each the waiting place in the group already waiting. There were three or four hundred in that group, I think before the last one passed through, his helmet under his arm, his feet heavy.
...and there was a lull then, for they had waited until last. And the Chief put his big hand on the back of the tired angel, just between the dusty and drooping wings, and he thanked him courteously for processing them so quickly. And, says he, I'm glad you got the spelling of the names right on the forms. And then the Chief shook hands with the Angel. And then he went to the head of the group of firemen and they marched up slowly to the Gates.
...and there was a big man there, obviously in command, a Chief of the Gates, and the Chief went up to him and shook hands and he said, and I quote: "Yes, sir, we'd like to go in now, we're all a bit tired, my men and I".
And the big man said, and I quote: "Yes, Chief, where have you come from?"
And the Chief replied, and I quote: "Oh, from Hell sir, straight from Hell".
And the Gates opened then and they went in.
Cormac MacConnell can be contacted at cormac@clarefm.ie
I have reposted this on every 9/11 since first reading it in the Irish Emigrant. I have likewise appreciated and followed Cormac MacConnell’s writings for much longer.
Being a MacConnell myself and a writer, I feel great kinship for the man who can take us to the very gates of Heaven and show us the awful and yet beautifully sensitive, noble result of such evil actions. I have no doubt that when his own time comes to pass through Ireland’s ‘Gate’, Cormac will be blessedly received by all of those martyred souls he so poignantly burned into our collective memory for each time that damned anniversary approaches. Dhia leat, Cormac- ‘Bless you’.
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