By Nora Duff
Or so I thought. Malachy’s charm turned out to be genuine; his mind was quick, and his love of words ran deep. His escapades were reminiscent of the tales told by the Irish men in my own family. Broad and highly entertaining, these stories nevertheless hovered near sadness, and even tragedy.
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He began his first book tour last June with an appearance at the Mercury Theater on Southport. That night was a homecoming of sorts. In 1984 Malachy and Frank McCourt came to town with their two-man show, A Couple of Blaguards, and they ended up staying longer than anticipated. Fresh from a brief but fairly successful run in New York City, A Couple of Blaguards was abandoned by its original producer once it arrived at the old CrossCurrents nightclub off Belmont, right next to the el tracks. That’s when Michael Cullen, now owner of the Mercury, and his then partner Sheila Heneghan stepped in. “Michael and Sheila really rescued the show,” Malachy says. “They took it over and got all the press in, and suddenly it became this huge hit and ran for seven months. And some years later we ran it for five months, and we were only supposed to run for two weeks.”
At CrossCurrents, the producers caught a janitor selling tickets and sticking the money in his pockets. “We didn’t have a box office,” Heneghan says. “I had to push everyone aside and collect the money. It wasn’t really even a theater.” And there were fights at the end of the evening. “The guy who owned CrossCurrents at that time felt the money was his,” Cullen recalls. “We felt it belonged to the brothers. It was every man for himself. From then on we were always friends with Frank and Malachy.”
Like the characters in A Couple of Blaguards, Malachy tells stories that are often centered on drinking. Reading from A Monk Swimming–the title recalls how the line “amongst women” from the Hail Mary registered in the clogged ears of a young boy–he recounts one “well-fueled” adventure after another. He’ll tell you that he earned his first $100 by taking a bet that he couldn’t drink a bottle of whiskey in 45 minutes. He won the wager, but having just consumed another bottle of the stuff within that very same time frame, he did lose consciousness.
He eventually opened his own place, Malachy’s, which has often been called New York’s first singles bar. His gift for storytelling while serving drinks had become renowned, and he caught the attention of an ex-Chicagoan, Tom O’Malley, who was talent coordinator for the Tonight show. (O’Malley had once heard Malachy tell a crowd that he would send overdue bills back with the word “Deceased” stamped on their envelopes.) O’Malley offered McCourt $300 to chat with Jack Paar, launching a modest career on the early talk show circuit. Later he hosted his own radio program.
The show was first shaped on notecards and then the lines were eventually transcribed. A Couple of Blaguards moved from CrossCurrents to Briar Street and on to other cities. It continues to be performed, often with other actors (a new production just opened in New York with Mickey Kelly and Shay Duffin, who appeared at the Mercury last spring in Brendan Behan: Confessions of an Irish Rebel). “It always runs!” Malachy marvels. “It revives and revives!
