Dave's Anatomy: My History As a Writer #38: "Punishment"

Seamus Heaney

Continuing on with Sossity Chandler, another story came to mind, this one inspired by a poem by Seamus Heaney. If you don't know his poetry, the late Mr. Heaney was an Irish poet who won about every award you could think of, had a long and illustrious career as a poet, and also worked as a translator. He did a translation of the ancient poem Beowulf. That particular translation was the first book of poetry to make the New York Times Bestseller List in fifty years (the last one was one of Robert Frost's books). The name of the story was "Punishment."

Sossity appears at different stages of her career. In some of the stories, she is struggling, playing one-night stands, and barely making enough money to survive. She doggedly goes on, determined to continue her career as a musician even if it is not rewarding Success eventually comes to her. At the beginning of "Punishment," she has just made it big, her songs have gone to number one, and the status she dreamed of has come about at last.

Sossity still respects the gigs she scheduled before success came. She plays as featured artist at a poetry slam at a place called Quimby's Irish Bar. I did poetry slams for years. They were raucous readings of performance poetry done often in bars and coffee houses. Poets would read and judges picked from the audience rated the poems. In the story, "Punishment," Sossity not only does music but reads some of her favorite poetry. She also meets Aidan Sinico, a regular patron who, her husband mentions, is a former IRA member who had to leave Ireland for going rogue. One night, in fact, she helps his wife get him home when he drinks too much. She notes that his house is across from a house in which she grew up. One of her booking agents who was Irish said Sinico committed terrorist acts. When Sossity asks about them, he says, "You don't want to know."

Years later, on a tour of Ireland, she meets another person who knows Sinico. Her name is Gisel, and she was the victim of one of his gang's terrorist acts. She was, literally, tarred and feathered by them. “They tarred and feathered me,” Gisel continued. “Some people found me an hour later. I was almost dead. They got me free and got me to a hospital. Recovering from the physical damage was easy compared to what it took to put myself back together psychologically. I tried to kill myself twice. The second time I almost succeeded. If it hadn’t been for Lenny, my husband, and the people from this organization who supported and counseled me, I would have either committed suicide or gone mad.”

Sossity tries to console Gisel, but her efforts don't work. She tells Sossity the IRA wanted to kill Sinico because his acts made them look bad, but they could not locate him. They would only go after him, she said, if they could do it "pat"—easy and with no chance of being caught. Later on, Sossity hears that Sinico has been killed—shot to death and then covered with tar and feathers. She also finds out that she had a part in it because she told her booking agent that she used to live across the street from Sinico and there was only one number difference in their addresses. Her web page included a picture of her as a little girl, on her bicycle, in front of her house. The house number is visible in the photograph. Her booking agent probably mentioned it to Gisel, Gisel looked at the webpage and reported what she found to the IRA.

The story ends with Sossity reflecting on the impulses that lead to terrorism and murder. She remembers the poem "Punishment" by Seamus Heaney, about a girl killed in ancient Germany and an incident in Ireland similar to it a millennia later:

My poor scapegoat,

I almost love you
but would have cast, I know,
the stones of silence.
I am the artful voyeur …

I who have stood dumb
when your betraying sisters,
cauled in tar,
wept by the railings,

who would connive
in civilized outrage
yet understand the exact
and tribal, intimate revenge.

The layers of tribalism, hatred, sectarianism seem to be so embedded in our society, so entrenched they can never be challenged or altered. Sossity wonders how music or anything else can make a difference. As Heaney points out, we condemn but we also understand. The impulse to belong to and exclude run deep in the human soul. All of us are vulnerable to satisfaction of "tribal, intimate revenge."

The story appeared in Sex and Murder magazine, no longer published, but you can read it in their archives, here, "Punishment."

Coming soon, a new novella, a wuxia story (Chinese martial arts tale) titled The Sorceress Time. Stay tuned for details.