“Taking the Piss”
Casper Kelly

We’re all crammed into Uncle Peter and Aunty Carmel’s house on a Thursday. Tiny living room with faded red couches, tinier kitchen, stone backyard with laundry hanging (it rains every 20 minutes—when does the clothing get dry? I wonder). Rickety stairs lead right up to a bathroom the size of a broom closet. Three uncles, three aunts, at least three cousins, maybe five miniature cousins—this is not even a third of the Kelly family. Somehow, everybody fits. Including me, I hope.

Four years ago, the Kellys didn’t exist. They were vague, far-off ideas of people over in far-off Northern Ireland, and my dad—“Patrick,” my mom calls him in her special tired voice—was a vague idea of a dad over in god-knows-where. I had my mom and the Ishikawas, who were more than enough love and laughter and dysfunction to occupy me for 16 years. But then, the Kellys discovered I had facebook, and with my dad’s poor communication skills no longer a limiting factor, I boarded a plane. And the Kellys—all 10 of my dad’s siblings with at least three kids apiece—exploded into my life.

Thursday at Peter and Carmel’s consists of three things: Chinese take-away, back-to-back rounds of tea, and taking the piss. When you’re taking the piss, anyone and anything is fair game. The bigger the insult, the better. Right now, we’re looking at family photos on the TV, a never-ending source of inspiration.

“Ye couldn’t take the pictures like a normal person now could ye Carmel?” Peter calls out from his chair by the window. Peter, like all the Kelly men, is short and rotund like an aged hobbit. In every photo, he shows the same lopsided half-grin, revealing crooked teeth and squinting as if the sun were in his face. We’ve all inherited pieces of that long-suffering look.

The others join in. “What were you doing ma?” snorts Steph. Most of the pictures are upside down, with heads cut off and fingers intruding.

“I swear to ye I just took the pictures!” Carmel exclaims. She takes out her newly acquired, newfangled iPhone and stands up for effect. “Look—I’ll prove it to youse—” she holds the phone out in front of her as if it’s a wet diaper, looking over the tops of her (imaginary) glasses, and jabs the touchscreen triumphantly with a finger. “That’s exactly how I took those pictures,” she announces to the room.

“Not if they came out lookin’ like that you didn’t,” Niamh points at the TV and everyone titters, including Carmel.

I sit back and enjoy the show, hoping it doesn’t get sent my way. It’s taken half this second trip to even understand my new family’s accents, let alone their jokes.

Seamus rounds on me. “So, Casper—do you drink now or what?” He is tall—a Quinn, not a Kelly—and once-lanky. Seamus is the master of piss-taking: he’s the one that locked his sister-in-law in the bathroom during Granny Kelly’s wake (family legend). Right now, he fixes me with his blunt, unsettling stare.

“Well,” I begin earnestly, thrown by the question but ready to explain. “Not really—I mean, I’ll have a drink once in a while if it’s there and I feel like it and it tastes good, but I don’t usually go out to drink at parties.” I’d come to this Very Important Conclusion about myself after two years of deliberation in college.

Seamus bursts out laughing. “You’re quite the politician, aren’t you?” he chuckles, studying me. “I ask ye a simple question, do you drink or do you not—well, what is it? Don’t be tellin’ me this wile long speech you’ve got ready—do ye or don’t ye?”

I squirm, at a loss. Trisha saves me. “Och, Seamus, leave her alone,” she says disapprovingly. Trish is Seamus’ wife, my aunt by blood, as short as he is tall and as mild as he is mischievous. “Och, Seamus,” is her soft-spoken mantra.

“Yeah Seamus, no one finds your joking funny,” Steph chimes in gleefully. Steph is Seamus’ favorite partner in comedic crime. 25, obsessed with men, shopping and parties (and completely unabashed about it), Steph is more than a match for him. Relieved, I sink back in my chair. If I’d only caught the grin lurking behind his deadpan stare a little earlier.

If I’d only met them all a little earlier. Four years ago, they folded me in as if I’d been there forever, and I laughed with the rest of them when Steph pretended to spill her hot tea all over Seamus, or when Seamus got 7-year-old Ben to think I was a karate black belt. In two weeks, my shyness vanished.

But now, four years seemed a lot longer than 16, and I wasn’t sure how much else we had in common. Earlier this week, I had been dragged on a harrowing shopping expedition through Belfast with Trisha and Stephanie. While they gushed over clothes and spritzed perfume on each other (“Ooo, that’s lovely,” Trish said of every dress), I wandered apart from them, thinking wistfully of that old castle I wanted to see or the walk through fields into town or the Sperrin mountains. Our one trip to a castle was somewhat interrupted when Steph mistook a 300-year-old armchair for a place to put her feet up.

I have, however, managed to blend in somewhat. Seamus whoops in my ear, bringing me back to the living room, and for once I do not jump like a startled rabbit. Whooping is a signature Kelly move, the main offenders being Peter and Seamus. The kids have started doing it too. I haven’t bothered to try—my voice is not built for such exuberance.

I turn to Seamus with one eyebrow raised, pleased with this small victory over my nerves. “Ah, you can’t scare her anymore now,” says Trish, smiling. “She’s like the rest of us now—tired of your shite!”

The talk returns to the pictures on the TV. Peter is standing with Nicola, one of his daughters, who is 8 months pregnant.

“Look at the bump on him—you’d think he’s the one with a baby coming—somebody better throw him a baby shower!” Everyone guffaws except Peter. “Stop that now,” he says gruffly from his perch by the window.

“You’re a grumpy old man, Dad,” Steph teases. Peter grunts and folds his arms. “Well, ye are! –Casper agrees with me, don’t you?” she winks at me behind his back. My cue is clear.

“Yeah, he’s a little grumpy,” I offer timidly. Peter still intimidates me.

He twists around as Steph and Seamus cackle, his hands on his short legs, an affronted look on his face. “Hey!”

“Leave your father alone.” Carmel’s stern voice is formidable. Suddenly, her new phone beeps in her lap and her eyes grow round like an owl. “Oooo!” she hoots in surprise. Steph and Seamus roar with laughter. She’s been doing this every time she gets a text.

Dinner arrives and we stuff our faces. The Chinese food is pretty bad, but I know better than to complain. I’ve had a lifetime in New York to get spoiled, and Seamus won’t let me escape from that detail.

After dinner, I take to sketching them all, one by one, and they are at it again—Seamus declaring that I’ve made Steph look too good, Carmel telling me to draw Seamus like the old fart he is, Steph insisting over Seamus’ scoffing that the flattering picture I drew of her sister Niamh is actually her. I manage to put a jab in about Seamus’ big nose and they pick up the joke, throwing it to each other and giving it life. I begin to feel like I’m getting the hang of this.

Later, with the food in us, we sit on the red couches with another round of tea. The kids have been whisked away for the night, so the house is a little quieter. The couches have gotten deeper, and for a while I don’t speak, immersed in the little altar set into the wall, a faded icon of the Virgin Mary surrounded by a mess of birthday cards and trinkets. There is a small teddy bear half-buried under the clutter. Years and years of accumulated life, I think, and I’ll never know about them.

Peter, once again in his chair, looks over his shoulder at me. “Well Casper—do you ever see much of your dad now?”

My dad. I suddenly realize he is more of a stranger than the people in the room with me now—and I like it that way. “No,” I say carefully, unsure of what to divulge to his family. “We used to talk on the phone, but he was always traveling when I was a kid and now we don’t really keep in touch except for Facebook.” Trish clucks and shakes her head.

“Hmph. I can’t figure our Paddy out,” Peter muses. “Remember him as kids, Trisha?”

“Oh, aye!”

“He was a wile strange boy, wasn’t he?” The room nods emphatically. “Quiet. He was wile hard-working too, and into saving and that. And now…well, what do you think of your dad, Casper? Do you like him?” he asks me.

I could be getting myself into hot water. I have no idea how loyalty works in the Kelly clan. But I go for the truth anyway.

“I’ve learned over the years to take everything my dad says with a grain of salt,” I smile dryly. “Honestly, he’s kind of full of it.”

Peter starts laughing. And keeps laughing. He laughs so hard he shakes and his voice grows hoarse. “Well done!” he chortles, wiping his eyes. “You’ve got some sense in ye, anyhow. Seamus! Carmel! Get in here!” he hoists himself halfway out of his chair to call the family in from the kitchen, brimming with his discovery. “Go on, tell them what you said,” he gestures at me. His eyes are alive with delight.

“I was telling Peter about my dad,” I say, warming them up. “He’s full of shit, isn’t he?”

The room erupts and I join in, grinning, Seamus clapping me on the shoulder.