A Song for Ireland

Tuna salad and caffeine-free Diet Coke again, no doubt, I grumbled mentally, secretly hoping against hope that I was wrong as I grabbed up the pathetic looking brown lunch bag that my wife Sylvia had slapped together for me. I took a peak inside and didn’t know whether to sigh, puke, or congratulate myself on my exceptional precognitive skills. Eh, she does her best…doesn’t she? So I decided to just shove it in my briefcase and suck it up, just like every morning.
“Sylvia,” I called endearingly as I headed for the ugly metal garage door, “why do you buy this ‘caffeine-free diet’ crap? No one drinks it but you, and it’s hardly even real soda. I mean, what do you think we are, the undead?
“Have a nice day, dear,” and, “Wait! Dad! I need money, Jack and I were planning to-” were the last words I heard in that god-forsaken madhouse before the door swung threateningly shut behind me. I walked painfully around to my car, got in, and sat there for about five minutes with the keys in the ignition but not turned on. Was it really worth it? I thought about the impending layoffs; layoffs are to businesses as lethal injection is to death row. Apparently it’s not difficult for inmates to pick up on recognizable patterns which can somewhat determine who’s getting the juice next, i.e. first go the white guys, then the old ones, then the fat ones…In layoffs, it’s usually the useless ones, then the overworked and underpaid, the under worked and overpaid, then the fiendish and grouchy doughnut-craving secretaries. Soon after were the short and skinny geeky white guys whose wives are all taller than them. Tobias and Nommensen were already gone, and today I had my meeting with the CEO. Grand.
I finally got up the courage as well as the stomach to start my car and proceed to the office. I turned the key in the ignition, and-
“HERE--COMES--IRON MAN!”
“JESUS CHRIST!” I replied. The radio had shrieked loud enough to blow someone into oblivion. I rammed my hand onto the power on/off button and leapt out of the car just as my 16-year-old twins Jack and Alex popped their heads out the door.
“Everything alright, Dad?” asked Alex, nervously chewing on a piece of his scraggly brown hair.
“NO!” I ranted. I yanked the Black Sabbath c.d. out of my radio and demanded to know whose it was. Alex claimed that Jack had the car last, then scooted back into the safety of the house.
“Do you…have any idea…of how LOUD that was?” I asked through gritted teeth, trying to keep my temper. Jack shook his head and stared at the floor.
“WELL IT WAS PRETTY GODDAMN LOUD!” I bellowed. I flung the c.d. at my son, catching him in the chest and then bouncing to the floor. I swung myself back into the car and sped out of my driveway like a bat out of hell.
* * *

Five minutes later, I was standing by the side of the road next to two flat tires, a jagged pile of broken beer bottles, and a road kill chipmunk, my cell phone battery completely dead. It was not worth it to try and walk back home, so there I stayed, in the middle of a desolate road running through a housing development intended for rich, retired old men who like to golf.
As I sat there on the curb, cursing life, I noticed a human-like figure seated upon the path which trickled through the large green golf course across the road. I walked over to the fence which had a sign that read, “No Trespassing” and saw that it was indeed a person, a girl of about my sons’ age sitting upon the dewy ground in a pair of tattered jeans and a New York Yankees t-shirt that was far too large for her. She was also wearing a pair of speed skates, and seemed to be staring fixedly at the orange glow behind a few random puffs of white in the sky across the large pond beside the hills. I hated to ruin it for her, but hey, tough old world, baby.
“Excuse me, miss,” I called. The girl turned her head to look at me, and her face was pasty and gaunt, as if she had not slept in days.
“Yeah?”
“Do you have a cell phone I could use? I got two flats and I need to get to work.”
“No, it was confiscated because I was being an asshole,” she answered flatly and honestly. I could help but laugh slightly despite my foul mood. I followed her gaze into the distance and realized how truly entrancing the view was.
“It looks like home,” she stated matter-of-factly.
“Oh? Where are you from?”
“Ireland.” She sounded perfectly American. But if she really was Irish, I was sure she’d kick the shit out of me if I mentioned it.
“But only it’s really sad, because look--” She motioned with her head towards to rolling hills of the golf course and continued, “All those hills are gorgeous, but they’re not real. They were created by men into a golf course because we could not be happy enough with simple, natural beauty. Nope, they had to turn it into a competitive sports which usually ends in caddies being beaten to a pulp. The pond, too. Men made it. And then it’s ruined altogether by the houses along here.” She shook her head and gazed back out at the fiery sunrise.
“Have you been in this country long?”
“Born and raised here. But every true Irish-American just wants to go home. Something in our hearts just tells us, like a nagging parent who won’t shut up until we’ve found some way to make it back to the Old Country.” So that explained it.
I was about to open my mouth and comment that I was fifty percent Irish and didn’t mind living in the United States at all, but the girl had taken to humming to herself as she stretched out on her stomach and flicked a little beetle off of a flower. Whe she raised her arm I saw deep, clean cuts all down the side of it. I don’t understand this kid. Should I try?
“Any particular reason why?” I questioned, pointing at her arm. She smiled a bit and replied, “Use your imagination.” She went back to humming.
“What song is that?”
“You ask a lot of questions.”
“I don’t know you.”
“You don't want to know me.” The girl glared contemptibly into my exhausted eyes. She forsook humming and proceeded to sing the actual words as she shifted her angered stare back out across the pond.
“…Living on the western shore…saw summer sunsets, asked for more…I stood by the Atlantic sea, and sang a song for Ireland…”
“That’s pretty.”
“It’s a song about home.”
“I figured.”
“At home people care about things.” That confused me.