A LONG WAY FROM MANY PLACES

A Pint of Faith to Get By

All you can think is: “The Romans were. They knew how to build roads. Straight ones. These streets must lead somewhere?”

To a Lindt chocolate shop. There are three in Old Vienna, the city’s historic First District. Possibly six. Poor suggestions for a pre-arranged rendezvous.

And you wander this ersatz grid painfully aware that other tourists have it figured and know the way to wherever they’re going. You end up on Stephansplatz, lost amid a gently stampeding crowd. Your wallet in front pocket, hand on, your purse is clutched to your tummy like a football. The staggeringly gorgeous and fussily ornate gothic cathedral, its craftsmanship divinely inspired, looms over cartoony Asian girls with pink pigtail hair and white miniskirts and go-go boots, shooting frames of selfies. Stephansdom is cosplay backdrop scrim, solid as it may be. Barefooted vagrants, slumped on the plaza’s cobbles, somnolent against walls, beg. There is a substantial dollop of human shit and one discarded sock in the lee of the church (also begging from visitors although “seeking donations” might be more dignified parlance as the clergy has a nicer house than all the homeless combined). The revolting pile is a tad too close to a street food vendor’s operation for some tastes.

You must turn away from it all. Look up in another direction. Marring the architecture of the Hapsburg dynasty are signs: HERMES, DIOR, LOUIS VUITTON. And signs of times, ROLEX and PATEK PHILIPPE: You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation. Fuck off. Everywhere, blissed out shoppers suffering from a birth defect – devoid of that crucial self-awareness gene – stop ABRUPTLY! anywhere to photograph the designer logo on their gusseted, rope-handled paper bags. Gauche and tacky social media and MasterCard credit to their shallowness. A swampy nadir.

You’ve got to shoulder your way away from it all. There’s not enough air. There’s not enough space. You hurry down a side street that may or may not lead you elsewhere. You encounter an armed Austrian soldier, warm in winter kit, forest camouflage, guarding what? A museum and Holocaust memorial on Judenplatz. You pause. The computations take a second. You think: “Still?” But you already know the answer: “Always.” And then you have your Vicktor Frankl moment: “Why?”

The Stephansdom spire is the wayfarer’s compass needle. But like a magician’s trick, it has disappeared from the ashen sky. Poof! Just like that. You’re desperate to return to your hotel for a break, to scour away your disgust and despair. You turn this way and that. After a few more wrong turns you find yourself lost yet again but standing outside an Irish pub. A perfectly adequate Plan B refuge. And you smile because a theorem has been proved: Anywhere you go in the rich world, there will be an Irish pub. Ipso facto slainte. Depend on it.

You’ve no idea who Molly Darcy is, was or if she even ever existed. But right now, she’s the woman of your dreams. She’s open for business. There’s a short stack of international editions of The New York Times, yesterday’s papers of peculiar dimension, but so what. There’s a New York Yankees banner on the wall and a New York Rangers pennant too. Curious. There’s no Smithwick’s on tap, but a pint of Kilkenny will do.

All you can think is: “It’s been a shitty morning, but the rest of the day, the rest of the holiday, need not be this way.” The music inside Molly Darcy is soothing. Strictly Memphis and Detroit, Stax/Volt and Motown-Tamla, not the usual Emerald Isle-themed Spotify list as much as you may appreciate Van Morrison. Marvin Gaye is singing “What’s Going On?” and you wonder if the whole wide world has maybe just been having a shitty morning of late. It’s coming on Christmas and the only minor miracle on offer is that it won’t fall on a Monday this year. Faint hope flickers.

Dispatches from the Crooked 9 has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of everything since 2013. Sunset Oasis Confidential and Of Course You Did are still out there languishing in multiple formats. Nothing says "I love you" at Christmastime like a couple of skinny books by a woefully obscure Canadian author. Visit my companion site www.megeoff.com for links to your preferred retailer.