Der Untergeher

Having drunk too much Porter Garryowen exclaimed ‘[Porter] is a great provoker of three things …nosepainting, sleep and urine’ (Macbeth, Shakespeare). Across the gangway next to the window sits James Giltrap busting a gut, the alewife pulling her apron strings humming. Today being the Feast of the Denunciation (following the Feast of the Annunciation), the brown Porter flows like Communion wine. Tbilisi and Raimondi brew extraordinary brown Porter, aged in oak barrels and bunged with brass-monkey taps. The assistant to the brew master, Dushet'is, tamps the bungs in place, checking for cracks in the casements. ‘horse’s ass’ thinks Garryowen troubling with a toothpick that has lodged itself in his gums. ‘its all a lie’. James Giltrap pats the alewife’s half-buttock, her tray held aloft her red curly locks. ‘the nerve’ thinks Garryowen, ‘the man’s a cunt, never worked a day in his life’. Garryowen rises and heads for the door, a puddle of brown Porter seeping onto the floor under his stool. They called him Der Untergeher, his teeth sticking out of his jaw like boar’s tusks.