Wolf Eyes: A Pub Story

When Cormac would get a particular flavor of drunk, his blue eyes would shine with a haunting glow, like a wolf’s eyes reflecting the light of a winter moon.

Or like a piece of glass in an alleyway puddle, reflecting the neon of a nearby sign. Not unlike the piece of glass Cormac was now staring at, on his knees, while the rest of us pinned him to the ground.

Cormac’s wolf eyes had come out earlier than usual that night. I first detected a hint of them around 11 o’clock when my attention was seized by a thunderous roar coming from table eight.

It was Cormac, of course, letting loose a primeval “Ha haaaarghhh!” after polishing off a shot of whiskey, the table’s occupants giggling with delight as he slammed down the empty glass.

This ritual would repeat itself many times throughout the night, as it often did. The slurping of whiskey, the instinctual, insuppressible howling that followed, the slamming of glass on laminated wood — it was the pub’s unofficial soundtrack, and it often drowned out the musicians playing on the tiny, dimly-lit stage in the corner.

“Another round for you beautiful people?” Cormac asked, wiping droplets of whiskey from his golden-orange beard.

“Four more shots of Jameson for the table,” an old man replied, “And another one for you too, of course.”

“Coming right up,” Cormac sang before dancing his way back to the bar, a brown, beer-stained serving tray under his arm.

By 1:00 a.m. the pub had grown quiet, with just a handful of customers remaining. They were all gathered around a high-top near the center of the pub, their arses firmly planted to the infamously heavy cast iron bar stools.

The old-timers at table eight had stumbled out about a half-hour earlier, but not before treating Cormac to a few more shots of whiskey. Cormac, in turn, had bought the table a few rounds, and the end result of this liquid reciprocity was one you might expect: Namely, severe inebriation.

If it had been any other waiter on shift that night, events undoubtedly would have unfolded differently, even if the quantity and frequency of the whiskey imbibing had remained the same.

For most humans, you see, intensive drinking tends to result in sluggishness, a dumbing down of the senses, and, eventually, a deep, dreamless slumber.

But for Cormac “Wolf Eyes” McCue — an energetic alcoholic who just last week had sheepishly confessed to me that he’d accidentally (or, perhaps, quasi-accidentally) broken a man’s femur in a drunken brawl — intensive drinking had a decidedly different, more violent effect.

By some miracle, Cormac managed to successfully close out all of his tabs that night. And once free of his work obligations, he began doubling down on the pursuit that undoubtedly came more naturally to him.

The musicians, Alan (guitar, vocals) and Jeff (fiddle), had packed up their instruments and were joining Cormac in this pursuit. The three of them had already sent me, the busboy, on a few trips out back to the keg room to siphon off some pints of Guinness.

The pub’s keg system, you see, used pumps to ensure the kegs maintained the ideal pressure. By pushing down on a pump, I could force the excess gas and foam out of a keg via a little rubber hose. But as I soon discovered, if I kept pushing down on the pump after the gas and foam had cleared, beer would come flowing out of the hose.

Cold, delicious, illicit beer.

While I was busy doing runs to the keg room that night, Terry the barman had gotten busy using his secret (arguably, magical) method for convincing the “locked” bottles of Jameson to open up and let us in.

To pour a customer a shot, Terry had to stick a bottle in this little device that a) released the bottle lock and b) measured out the proper amount of booze. When Terry discovered that the measuring device used a magnet to release the bottle lock, he brought in a magnet of his own and discovered that by simply pressing the magnet to a bottle lock, he could pour shots.

Endless shots.

Armed with these techniques, we as a pub staff were able to get around the pub owner’s monitoring systems and procure as much beer and liquor as we wanted — gratis — every night we worked.

Admittedly, it was, perhaps, a tad dishonorable. Or, perhaps, a tad illegal. (The word “stealing” comes to mind.) But in our defense, working in the dusty, windowless, basement-level pub often made us quite thirsty. And quenching our thirsts was one of our favorite pastimes.

This pastime, as it were, often led us to another one of our favorite pastimes: gambling.

So, with the lone group of customers still sitting round the high-top, the pub staff — Cormac, Alan, Jeff, Terry, and myself — retired to a booth of faded green leather for a poker game.

Cormac went all-in on the very first hand. And despite being significantly less intoxicated than Cormac, Terry had the requisite bravado to call him.

King ten off-suit versus ace two suited. Terry caught an ace and that was that. Cormac was out.

But within seconds, Cormac had pulled out a twenty from his wallet (which he had left on the table from his initial buy-in, as was his custom) and asked for more chips.

“You sure about that?” some of us asked, and all of us thought. Cormac was more than likely blacked out, and we didn’t want to see him throw his money away.

Cormac’s wild eyes widened. “Chust give me the fuckin’ chips!” he barked.

Reluctantly, Alan counted out neat stacks of white, red, blue, green, and black chips, and slid them across the table to Cormac.

“Come to papa!” Cormac drawled, raking the chips toward him with his forearms, toppling the stacks into one big, messy pile in the process.

Three hands later, he was all-in again. But this time, the poker gods were smiling down upon him it would seem.

When Jeff called with an ace ten off-suit, Cormac flipped over a pair of aces with a piercing yelp. And in spite of his impaired balance, he managed to do a halfway-decent jig around the customers sitting at the high-top.

Cormac then spun his way to the backdoor, grabbing an empty pint glass on his way out. He returned five minutes later with a fresh pint of the black stuff and a lit cigarette hanging from his jaw.

It was at this point that any questions surrounding Cormac’s perceived state of inebriation quickly disappeared. For when he returned to the booth, he’d already forgotten about the pocket aces from the previous hand, and was pulling another twenty from his wallet, demanding that we let him buy in again.

“No Cormac, you’re still in, remember? You just had that killer hand,” I implored.

Cormac tilted his head to the side and made a confused expression, like a puppy trying to figure out why there was nothing to fetch after a bratty kid pretended to throw a ball. But after a few seconds, it seemed to sink in, and Cormac let out a celebratory, “Haaaarghhh!”

Apparently pleased with Cormac’s vocal offerings, the poker gods continued to bless him with decent hands. The rest of us, meanwhile, were getting skunked.

By 2:30 in the morning, Alan, Jeff, and myself had all been knocked out. And while we likely would’ve been permitted to buy back in, none of us were too keen on continuing to play with Cormac at the table.

Having been relieved of his dealing duties many hands earlier (after one of his shuffling attempts led to an impromptu game of 52-card pick up — much to his drunken enjoyment), Cormac now sat with his arms dangling at his sides.

Unable to form comprehensible words, let alone complete sentences, Cormac’s checks, calls, and raises had degraded into a series of lupine grunts and snarls, sounds that he emitted only after a thorough prodding to the ribs to indicate it was his turn.

“Come on, Terry, put him out of his misery already, will ya?” Alan the grizzly guitarist asked anxiously.

“I’m working on it,” Terry replied behind clenched teeth.

But as fate would have it, Cormac, the man who was too drunk to speak, the man who was too drunk to understand what the hell was going on around him, would go on to defeat Terry and win the game.

We all found the humor in the situation, of course, and couldn’t help but snicker as we helped Cormac stuff our money — his winnings — into his wallet.

“I can’t fucking believe it,” Terry the barman was muttering. “He must’ve been blacked out the entire game…and he still won.”

Cormac bared his teeth as if attempting to smile and emitted a low, laugh-like growl.

“Alright,” Jeff spoke up. “Let’s put our champion in a cab and start a new game, shall we?”

We all nodded in agreement, and Alan began re-stacking the chips.

It was now 3 a.m., last call, and Terry had walked over to the group at the high-top to take their final beverage orders of the night.

Jeff and I, meanwhile, were helping Cormac to his feet so we could put him in a cab.

“Come on, bud,” Jeff was saying, as we tried to ply him off the leather. But somewhere, in the depths of his consciousness, Cormac seemed to register what was happening.

And he was none too happy about it.

Cormac mustered a “Narrrgh!” as he pushed us away.

He then struggled to sit up straight, his hollow gaze fixed on the colorful chips moving about the table top.

“I think he wants to play again,” I announced, stating the obvious.

“Of course he does,” Alan said. “But just look at his eyes, he’s toast.”

Indeed, Cormac’s eyes had completed their wolfish transformation, and now appeared as two cosmic vortexes, pulling in light but releasing nothing.

Revealing nothing.

No fucking wonder he had won the poker game.

“Let’s go, Cormac,” Terry declared firmly. He had just served the high-top crew their final round and was striding back toward the booth.

“Narrr…rrrarrggh!” Cormac replied; the vortexes narrowing; intensifying.

“Fine, your call,” Terry said calmly, and then grabbed Cormac under the armpits and forcibly pulled him to his feet — a move that would ultimately be interpreted (in Cormac’s alcohol-ridden mind) as a declaration of war.

The next few moments were jagged. An oscillating blur of speed and silence, slow-motion and sonic booms.

Within seconds of being hauled to his feet, Cormac had lunged for one of the nearby cast iron bar stools and began wielding it like a claymore.

A pint glass was the first casualty of the weapon’s wrath, exploding on impact into a hundred shiny, prickly bits, which showered us like a freezing rain.

Still distracted by the initial explosion, I failed to react to Cormac’s next swing, which landed — albeit unintentionally, or perhaps quasi-unintentionally — firmly on my left shin.

Ten years later, there’s still a dent in the bone.

But it would be Cormac’s final swing that would frighten us the most. For at the top of that swing, he released the metal stool like an Olympian throwing a discus.

We watched in horror as the unlikely projectile sailed through the air, its trajectory putting it on a collision course with the poor bastards sitting at the high-top.

The flying barstool missed hitting a paying customer in the head by near inches — nay, centimeters.

If, at that fortuitous moment, the customer in question had leaned over by even the slightest of degrees, he would have been struck unconscious. Or possibly struck dead.

The stunned patrons stood up from the high-top in disbelief, staring at the bar stool that had just crashed into the wall next to them.

Terry, Alan, Jeff, and myself, meanwhile, were busy subduing our manic coworker, who was lashing out like a rabid coyote. Punching. Kicking. Scratching. Biting.

After successfully pinning Cormac to the ancient, moldy carpet that adorned the pub’s floor, the four of us dragged him slowly toward the back door, apologizing to our horrified customers along the way.

Still struggling against us, Cormac used forward momentum to momentarily break free of our restraint. He ended up plunging headfirst through the door and out into the alleyway, where he landed facedown in a puddle. The remnants of a beer bottle were poking above the surface nearby, like shiny, fractured icebergs.

Cormac pulled himself to his knees and attempted to crawl away, but we were on him before he could make any significant headway. Terry sat on one leg, Alan the other. Jeff’s arms were around his waist, and I had my arms wrapped around one of his shoulders.

It was during this strange embrace that Cormac looked up from the broken glass and locked his eyes with mine. And for a flickering moment, I was pulled into the universe that Cormac now inhabited.

The place was unfathomably empty; devoid not just of matter, but of time. Of language. Of perception. A place where life and death had no meaning. A place where centuries could pass in seconds and milliseconds could stretch into millennia.

This was the Otherworld. Tír na nÓg. Mag Mell. The world behind the eyes.

And Cormac was an explorer.