Excerpt: Tragic chain of events set off in 'Mondo Desperado'

March 28, 2000
Web posted at: 6:17 p.m. EST (2317 GMT)

(CNN) -- Patrick McCabe set his latest novel, "Mondo Desperado: A Serial Novel," in the small town of Barntrosna, Ireland, which readers are told would be a fine town to live in if the Devil himself had not been ordained in the village church. "Mondo Desperado" was released last week by Harpercollins.

'Mondo Desperado: A Serial Novel'
by Patrick McCabe

Hot Nights At The Go-Go Lounge

It's hard to figure out how in a small town like this a mature woman of twenty-eight years could get herself mixed up with a bunch of deadbeat swingers, but that is exactly what happened to Cora Bunyan and I should know because she was my wife. It is now exactly a year since the nightmare began, when my good friend Walter Skelly first voiced his suspicions, taking me by the arm as we left Louie's Bar and Grill on our way back from lunch to the office of Barntrosna Insurance.

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'Larry,' he said, 'look here. I don't want to alarm you but there's something I think you should know ... it's women-Cora. They have needs, you know what I'm saying. You gotta pay them a little attention, that's all.'

When Walter had finished his story, I could just about stand up. I looked at him and barked: 'I can't believe you'd say such a thing! You-of all people, Walter! Why you oughta be ashamed of yourself!' He tried his best to apologize, but I had already turned away for I wanted to hear no more. 'Get your hands off me!' I snapped, and I completed my journey back to the office alone.

But all that afternoon, I couldn't get his words out of my mind. By three-thirty I could stand it no longer. I strode out of my office and stood in his doorway clutching a bottle of ink. 'Walter!' I snapped, and just as he raised his head, I shot the contents of it directly into his face. Before he had time to respond, I was already gone. I knew now why Skelly had tried to poison my mind against Cora. Sure I did -- because he'd had his eye on her like every other man in this two-bit backwater. I swore to myself that if he ever came near her I would kill him stone dead. With a .357 Magnum I'd put a hole in his head big enough to sleep in. 'You hear that, Skelly!' I snarled at the mirror in the rest room.

If only I'd known then one-tenth of what I know now, I would have seen that Walter was only trying to help me. That he was doing what any friend would have considered his duty. But I was blind. Blind! I only had eyes for Cora and she knew that. She'd known it all along.

That night, as I left the office, I had a few more words with Walter Skelly. I told him as long as I lived I never wanted to see him again. 'You got that, Skelly?' I growled and flipped a thumb and forefinger at the brim of my hat. He started into saying something about Cora but before he got too far I stopped him and told him that if he was figuring on finding another ink bottle heading his way then that was fine by me, and maybe a smack in the mouth for good measure.

I didn't know it, of course, but that was the last opportunity I was to have to do anything about the tragic chain of events about to be set in motion. And now, it was already too late.

As I drove home, I turned the events of the day over in my mind. Even the thought of what Walter had done was enough to sicken me right to my stomach. Sure, I knew Cora was a pretty gal and that there were guys in Barntrosna who had wanted me dead when I married her. But to stoop that low, to try and poison a guy's mind against his own wife? The more I thought about it, the more I thought: Walter Skelly is a very sick man.

That was what jealousy had done to him, you see-like 'em all! Hell, even the day we got married, they couldn't let up. Grown men crying! Crying because she'd married me -- Larry Bunyan. Who would have ever believed it? The sweetest doll the town had ever seen and what does she do-hooks up with Bunyan! Poor old Larry! Who sits behind his desk all day threading paper clips!

But that was where they got it all wrong, you see! Way wrong! No sir, we Bunyans don't spend our lives threading paper clips. We spend it just like Pop Bunyan did, working our fingernails to the quick building up an insurance firm second to none in this country so that a man can take care of girls like Cora Myers the way they oughta be taken care of -- jewels, mink coats, you name it! 'Larry,' she said to me that night by the pool out in Sandlefoot, 'I love you! I want to have your children!' If only she'd known the effect those coupla words had! Why, I guess I must have grown about ten feet tall right there and then! I could see old Pop standing in front of me, puffing on his pipe and resting his hand on my shoulder, saying: 'You see, son? You have amounted to something, after all! Son-let me say something! Hell, am I proud of you! Proud, my boy!'

This excerpt reproduced with express permission of HarperCollins Books. Copyright © 2000 Patrick McCabe.

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