The Gurrening Part II
Part I of The Gurrening is here.
It was much later when The Gurrier awoke. His head was swimming and he felt like someone had put his tongue in backwards and glued it to the roof of his mouth. He’d seen Kesey do that to someone before and was relieved when he felt it move sluggishly in his gob. As far as he could tell everything else was in the right place and he cast his eyes about looking for revenge. It was then he realised that although his tongue was in the right place, he was in the wrong place. Very wrong.
The Black Murphy’s devil music began to pound in his head again as he struggled to sit up. DOOM, DOOM, DOOM, DOOM. The drums reverberated in his skull sending his teeth a chattering. Strong hands gripped him and he was lifted up into a blinding light it. There was an acrid smell of burning and he moaned softly as he saw what awaited him.
The great hall above the Village was filled to bursting with the clan of the Black Murphys. They had come in their droves from all parts of the country, in all manner of shapes and sizes. The moon mad Murphys of Ballyhaunis were there with their blue stained skin and hysterical blindness. There were the Filthy Murphys of Sleam, banished there after the Dirty Rising of ‘32. The swarthy Murphys of Spanish Point whose ancient geasa it was to swim naked along the west coast of Clare and ward off sharks and selkies from the local fishermen. The giant tattooed ‘Arse’ Murphy was there with his inbred clan of six limbed mutant offspring. It was said he drank a bathful of Castrol GTX one day and eloped with an unmarried elephant from Duffy’s Circus. The hideous children were the result of this unholy union but he always kept his ‘wife’ in the caravan behind the house so no one knew for sure. The rake thin Bastard Murphys of Bangor were there too eyeing up the others drinks and looking to borrow money, bastards. And finally there was the Black Fiddler himself ‘Pox’ Murphy the dirtiest, filthiest, ugliest bastard of them all. He and his poxy fiddle were there drumming the crowd up into a frenzy.
‘Friends, relations and bollixes!’ said The Pox motioning for silence. ‘My thanks to you all for gathering here tonight to bear witness our most ancient of traditions. A special thanks must also go out to our friend and ally The Bastard Kesey for his invaluable expertise in bringing our quarry here tonight.’ There was a chorus of cheers at this followed by Kesey’s voice piping up from the back of the room ‘When do we burn him?’
‘All in good time friend Kesey,’ said The Pox ‘but first there are certain traditions to be observed.’ The Pox spread his arms to the crowd in supplication, ‘It has been ten long years since we of the Black Council stood before you on this very spot and elected this shameful excuse of a man to the honoured position of ‘Gurrier Murphy’ ‘ he grinned evilly at The Gurrier. ‘What say you, has he done well?’ The crowd roared, there was the sound pint glasses connecting with unprotected foreheads. The Gurrier prayed ferverently to the few Gods he hoped he had not permanently ostracized or offended. ‘Hmmph’ said Pox Murphy, ‘it seems the clan is undecided’. ‘Burn him!’ came a cry, ‘I want me brain soup’ said another. ‘He’s not that bad’ came yet another. They all turned. ‘Put a gag on that bastard he’s not allowed to vote for himself’ said The Pox. ‘But we won’t hear the death screams then.’ said another.
‘Jaysus why do I put up with this,’ said The Pox shaking his head. ‘Just give him a few kicks, we have to get this show on the road. C’mon I only have the room booked until half eleven. Get him up here onto the stage’ A few swift boots were applied to The Gurrier’s kidneys and he was hefted up onto the stage arms and legs bound by ceremonial catgut and brillo pads. Pox Murphy leaned in close to him and The Gurrier smelled the rank stench of Guinness and dog biscuits on his breath. ‘Do ye remember how it goes then eh Murphy? Do ye remember what happens next then?’ The Gurrier cast his fevered mind back to that night ten years ago when he became the Clan Gurrier for the first time. He had been young and strong back then, full of rage and booze. He remembered some of it, but the rest was lost to him. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder doctors had called it. The mind shuts down and locks off memories that are too stressful to deal with. But now those old locks were rusting and something dark and terrible was stirring in the mind of The Gurrier. Shapes and sense memories were leaking through. In his minds eye he saw flames and smelt burning, pain engulfed him and he screamed as Pox Murphy stood back and revealed the thing of his nightmares on the platform.
‘Oh God, Oh Jesus Christ. No! Noooooooo!’ The Gurrier cowered back at the sight of it, Pox Murphy cackled and danced a jig on the platform. ‘That’s right Gurrier, you remember all right. The trial at the heart of The Gurrening. The Dirty Tree.
The Dirty Tree rose before him a black turd from Satan’s arse. A huge blackened stump of prehistoric Blackthorn dragged from the Bog of Allen by the Clan Murphy centuries ago. Fossilised by untold millennia beneath the earth the Black Murphy’s worshipped it as a relic of their dead Gods. It was known as The Wishing Stump by some, The Dagdas Toe by others, The Pookas Currach by still more. All knew it was a thing of dark power that made women weep and grown men faint dead away.
Once every ten years, in the month of Samhain as the year waned and the Gods were deep in their death sleep this sacred object would be hauled from its resting place beneath the Liffey and brought to this spot to play host to The Gurrening. Those foolish men who wished to become known as Gurrier of the Murphys would be immured within it’s dark womb and the mighty stump set ablaze. The Murphy who managed to gnaw his way out of the wooden tomb before he burned to death would be proclaimed the new Gurrier and hold the title for ten years, whereupon he would have the opportunity to be roasted and eaten at the next Gurrening or take his chances in the Black heart of the Bog once more. Curiously almost no one ever chose to undergo the trial again. It seems being eaten alive was preferable to submitting to The Gurrening twice.
‘Well you know the tradition Murphy,’ said The Pox. Is it roasting for eating you are or is it back in the tree with you?’ He eyed the Gurrier closely and licked his lips. ‘I always wondered what your brain pan would taste like.’ The Gurrier looked from the dark stump and back to the crooked yellowing teeth of The Poxy Fiddler. ‘Oh no not the tree again, please not the Dirty Tree, anything but the tree. Gnaw on my gizzards and grind me up for soup but please have mercy don’t send me back to the tree.’ The Pox grinned and turned to the quiet the crowd. ‘He has made his decision. It’s the Dirty Tree for him again.’ There was uproar in the room. Cries of ‘Brain soup, brain soup’ and ‘burn the hairy bastard’ could be heard above the din. The Pox leapt up and grabbed a flaming brand from the torch lit stage. ‘Come on then lets get this eejit burnt then, the van is parked on a double yellow.’
Strong hands gripped The Gurrier and thrust him deep into the heart of the Dirty Tree. Its cold clammy embrace and boggy stench closed around him as he heard the others binding the circumference in catgut and barbed wire. The Pox was busily pouring petrol onto the kindling beneath the stump and whistling a horrible screeching tune.
Finally when he was done he came closer to the stump, leaning in to The Gurrier. ‘So ye bollix any last words then?’ The Gurrier smiled and whispered something. The Pox frowned and leaned in closer. ‘What are yeh smilin’ about. Sure amn’t I about to burn the shite out of you and then later on we’ll dig yeh out of the tree and make your bones into jam.’
The Gurrier was laughing now, tears streaming down his face. ‘Oh, oh Pox, you poor gobshite you weren’t to know I suppose. Heh, heh. Tell me this tree, the stump, the Dagda’s toe. Do ye know what kind of a tree it is then?’ ‘Blackthorn,’ said Pox looking flummoxed.
‘Yes, Blackthorn. Produces a berry called a sloe. We make it into sticks for fighting but over there in the other place they make it into a drink you know. Into a Gin. Sloe Gin.’
The Pox paused scratching his head, a thought or a memory circling him just out of reach. ‘Gin eh, well that won’t help you now. Here what’s that, who let that fecking squirrel in here, get off me torch. Jaysus theres another one. Where did it. OWWW the feckin’ thing bit me. You little bollix I’ll fecking brain you. Ahhh there’s more, AAAAAHH MAMMY THE’RE ALL OVER ME. AAHHHHH JESUS MARY AND SAINT JOSEPH.’ The Black Fiddler of Kilbeggan disappeared beneath a sea blood red eyes and black squirming bodies. The Gin Lady, stepped over the flailing limbs, inspected the Dirty Tree and clapped her hands. ‘Oooh I love it. I’ve spoken to the squirrels and they love it too. It’s just right.’ The Gurrier looked desperately from the quickly disappearing form of the Pox Murphy and the clearly insane Gin Lady his mind racing. ‘Emm. Yes glad they like it. If you’ll just give me a moment to gnaw my way out I think they will find it a most comfortable home.’
Kesey and Red Presley appeared as The Gurrier was picking the last bits of barbed wire from his teeth. The Attack Squirrels had taken up residence in the Dirty Tree and were frolicking happily in the branches tossing the odd eyeball and leg bone playfully to one another. The Gin Lady cooed contentedly at them and picked fossilized sloe berries from the wizened branches. ‘Dirty Gin I’ll call it, in honour of the occasion.’
The Gurrier shook his head and looked sharply at Kesey. ‘So you were in on this all along?’ Kesey opened his arms in a gesture of appeal ensuring The Gurrier could see he was armed. ‘Well you know what they say, you can choose you friends but not your family.’ The Gurrier considered that for a moment and then shrugged. ‘Fair enough,’ he said ‘but next time you go in the tree.’