Sex and Murder Magazine

By David W. Landrum

Sossity Chandler performed at Qimby’s Irish Bar every Wednesday night. She liked the set-up. On the entry level sat a well-lit bar, bright with rows of colorful liquor bottles, the traditional mirror behind the bartender, taps with ornate beer logos on the handles, green felt pool tables, foosball games. Past a rail and four steps down, a darker area of tables, ski-ball lanes, and a small stage occupied a space twice the size of the more brightly lit bar.

Prolonged applause and cheering greeted her as she took the stage. The regular audience of poets and musicians had swelled to three times its normal size due to her sudden success as a pop musician. A number-one single and CD had catapulted her from the status of a local performer to stardom in the last month. Tonya Aldair, her manager, had organized a tour, to begin in one month, but Sossity had decided to honor the performances she had scheduled in local bars and coffee houses. She did music and, occasionally, read poetry at Qimby’s. She tuned her guitar as the applause and shouting died down.

“You guys never gave me that kind of a hand before I made the charts,” she quipped.

The poets shouted rejoinders, most of them obscene. She laughed and launched into her hit song, did two others, and went over to join her boyfriend, David, at one of the tables. She kissed him, settled back and sipped the whisky he had bought as one of the poet/musicians took the stage. Her gazed wandered to the posters on the wall in the lower area of the bar. Though they were written in Gaelic, she recognized “I.R.A.” at the bottom of each.

“I heard the guy who owns the bar was in the I.R.A.,” David said, when she mentioned the posters to him. “He had to leave Ireland because things got too hot for him.”

She did not reply. Jessie Malin, bearded, wearing a kilt, began to read. He did two poems then picked up a set of small pipes and invited some other musicians, a fiddler, a percussionist, and Sossity on guitar, to join him for an Irish reel. The group did a modal Irish jig, improvising ten minutes, and closed to thunderous applause by the poets in the lower level and the blue-collar drinking crowd in the upper level.

She rejoined David. A few minutes later, a waitress came to their table.

“One of the customers is buying all the band members drinks,” she said. “He’s from Ireland and said the music you did reminded him of home.”

She glanced up at the bar. A grey-haired man caught her eyes and waved. She blew him a kiss. After the slam she told David she wanted to thank the man. He said he would drive to her place and wait for her. He was going back to Western Michigan University in the morning and this would be the last night they would have together for a while.

Sossity went over to the table and introduced herself. The man’s name was Aidan Sinico. She thanked him for buying her a drink.

“Happy to,” he said, his Irish accent pronounced. “I felt like I’d gone back home. Thank you again, Miss Chandler.”

“Sure. And please call me ‘Sossity’.”

“Good Irish name,” he commented.

“My Mom says it’s an English name. She’s from London.”

“Brits—they’re bent on stealing everything from us.”

They laughed. He bought her another drink.

“Where are you from in Ireland?” she asked.

“Limerick—and please, don’t say, There was a young man from Nantucket.”

“I played Limerick once. I lived in London for a year back in the early ‘nineties and managed to get a few gigs in Ireland. I did an open-air concert at Saint John’s castle with Gerri Muir.”

“Ireland is the most beautiful country in Europe,” he mused. “Unfortunately, I can’t go back. I liked the poem you read a couple of weeks ago.”

Two weeks ago was a cover slam. Poets competed reading other poets’ work. Sossity had read poems by Yusef Komunyakaa and Seamus Heaney.

“You mean ‘Punishment’? I hesitated to read it because it’s so grim.”

“Grim but realistic.”

“I can’t imagine people doing that sort of thing—I mean, what kind of man could do something like that to a woman—either the women who is executed in the first part of the poem or the women who are abused and humiliated in the last couple of stanzas?”

He shrugged.

“Maybe a man who loves his country.”

“Loves his country? A girl talks to a British soldier and they abduct her, cut her hair off, strip her naked and handcuff her to a bridge. One of the girls was actually tarred and feathered.” She shuddered. “God, I can’t even think about something like that.”

“I don’t approve of it,” he said. “I hope you don’t think I was saying that. But I understand, given the history of our country, how certain people would feel strongly enough to do such a thing. Didn’t Heaney say the same at the end of the poem?”

“He said he could understand it, yes—but he is ashamed he didn’t speak out against it.”

“I saw Heaney read once,” Sinico said, changing the subject (Sossity was glad of this, their conversation had gotten so tense). “Talked to him afterwards, in fact. He’s a good chap.”

“I heard him read in London. He did all his famous poems: ‘Punishment,’ ‘Digging,’ ‘Mid-Term Break.’”

“He deserves the accolades he’s gotten.” He looked at her. “And you too. Congratulations, girlie. I read the article on you in the paper. I think it’s great that you’re still playing local dives even though you’re famous.”

“I don’t know how famous I am or how long I’ll stay famous, but I always honor my commitments.”

They finished their drinks and she went back to her apartment—she stilled lived in an apartment downtown—and to David.


Next week Sinico was at Quimby’s with a red-haired woman his age, and he was very drunk. Sossity read a poem by James Wright and one by Alicia Stallings, and then did her songs. He waved at her. She came over to his table.

He introduced her to the woman, Gormley O’Conner, Irish, chubby, with fading red hair and watery eyes. The poets read in the lower level.

“No Heaney tonight?” he asked, his voice slurred.

Drunken people were boring. She resolved to get away from him as soon as politely possible.

“Not tonight. I thought of doing the sonnet he wrote about peeling potatoes with the girl who later dies but decided on the other poets.”

“The poems you did were nice.”

Sossity got up and was about to join her friends on the lower level when Sinico fell out of his chair.

People gathered around to help. Gormley asked if Sossity would help her take him home.

“It’s not very far,” she said, “—down on Carrier Street. I’m too drunk to drive and I’ll need help getting him in the house.”

The only person present who knew Sinico was the manager, and he was tending bar and did not want to leave. Sossity agreed.

“Aidan is a little leery about letting strangers know where he lives,” Gormley added. “He doesn’t give it his address to anyone. But I trust you, Miss. Just keep it a secret. He has enemies.”

“I’ll keep it to myself. I’m familiar with that part of town. I lived on Carrier Street when I was small.”

Outside, light snow fell. The woman, Sinico’s lived-in companion for six years, piloted Sossity to a house near the intersection of Carrier and Union, down from Fourth Reformed Church. It was, in fact, directly across the street from the house she had lived in until age ten. They managed to get him out of her car and inside, where he tumbled on to the sofa.

“He drinks too much at times,” Gormley noted.

“Is he going to be okay?”

“He’ll sleep it off.” She hesitated then said, “He has a lot of bad memories and tries to cover them up with drink.”

She drove back to Qimby’s to hear the rest of the poetry slam.

*****

A few weeks later, while dining in Chicago with her manager, Tonya Aldair, and some agents and booking managers, she met someone who knew Aidan Sinico.

“How is he?” he asked.

“Okay, I guess.”

“Well, that’s good. He barely got out of Ireland with his life.”

“Was someone after him?”

“The I.R.A. was after him.”

“I thought he was in the I.R.A.”

“He was, but he went rogue. He and his mates did some things that brought such bad publicity the leaders decided they would take him out. He made it to America, though, lucky chap.”

“He lives in my home town—in fact his house is just across the street from where I grew up as a girl—only one number’s difference in our addresses. He is part owner of a bar in Grand Rapids. What kind of things did he do?”

“You don’t want to know.”

The man, Digby Conroy, managed several Irish bands who toured the U.S. Sossity told him about the gigs she had played there. He said he would love to have her perform for some venues he worked with.


Four years later, after a concert in Dublin, Sossity and David (her husband by then) sat down in a pub with members of the band that was opening for her during her tour of Ireland (a short tour—only ten concerts). Like many of the Irish Sossity had met, they were funny in the wry, quirky way—a natural response, she thought, to the tragedy of their nation’s history. She drank a pint of stout and, after a while, excused herself to go to the ladies room. One of the women there—a blonde girl named Gisel—said she would go with her. After the inevitable jokes about how women always peed in pairs, the two of them left.

“You know Digby Conroy, our agent, I understand?” Gisel said as they were washing.

“I met him in Chicago a few years ago. He arranges concerts for me in Ireland and the UK.”

“He told me you know Aidan Sinico.”

Sossity stopped lathering her hands and turned to Gisel.

“Yes, I know him.”

“So do I.”

She looked into the young woman’s eyes.

“How’s that, Gisel?”

“You’ll find out tomorrow,” she said, and walked out of the restroom.

Sossity had a whole slate of things tomorrow: meetings, press conference, photo shoot, presentation by a charity she supported, and a concert to round things out. Gisel was wife of the guitar/mandolin player for her opener band. She wanted to ask her about Sinico but she abruptly left the table, went over to the bar, and began to talk to some friends. Her brusqueness puzzled Sossity.

The next day at one o’clock, she attended a presentation by one of the organizations she supported. The group to which she gave several millions and with whom she publically identified worked to stop violence against women by investigating and exposing sexual trafficking, slavery, and other forms of abuse against women. Sossity sat in the front row with Tonya. David and the children had headed back to the United States that morning. After speeches by officials of the organization, she prepared herself for testimonies by four women who had experienced the things against which the organization fought: a Sudanese, Egyptian, Slovenian, and an Irish woman. The Irish woman was Gisel.

She listened. The Sudanese woman talked about the rape and abuse she had suffered at the hands of partisans in the civil war there. The Egyptian woman recounted the experience of female circumcision. The Slovenian girl—only twenty-two—was sold into sexual slavery at age fifteen and had only been able to escape the system in the last year. She wondered what Gisel had been through. She walked up to the microphone and began her testimony.

“One night walking home from work,” she said, her tone even but full of emotion, “four men abducted me. They said someone had told them I was dating a British soldier. I said it wasn’t true, which it wasn’t. I didn’t even know any British soldiers. But they didn’t believe me, or didn’t want to believe me; and because I’m Protestant they were sure I had to be a collaborator. They took me to an abandoned warehouse, beat me, and sexually abused me. After that, they shaved my head, stripped me naked, and handcuffed me to a bridge in the middle of town. It was winter. I couldn’t imagine they would do more to me, but they did.”

She paused. Sossity waited, her breathe caught in her throat.

“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. I barely survived. Recovering from the physical damage was easy compared to what it took to put myself back together after the psychological damage. 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.”

After this she showed slides of what she looked like after her ordeal—burns covering her face, scalp, neck, and her upper part of her body. She had had corrective surgery and skin grafts. Sossity remembered thinking something was not right about her face.

Gisel went on to talk about the organization’s program for women affected by the sectarian violence—women who, like her, were abused; women who had lost spouses or children in bombings and shootings.

By the time she had finished, Sossity felt drained. An official got up and gave a short talk. In the middle of the talk, a though occurred to her that made her sit bolt upright in her chair and caused the blood to rush to her face. Tonya glanced at her.

“What is it, Sos? Did you forget to put the cat out back home?”

She could not respond. She remembered what Gisel had said last night. And she remembered Sinico’s response to her at Qimby’s bar when she had said she could not understand what sort of man could commit violence against women.

Maybe a man who loves his country.

She wanted to dismiss the thought, but the force of logic crashed in on her. Conroy said Sinico had done things that made the IRA itself want to eliminate them. He was hiding in America. He told her could not go back to Ireland. Now she saw the reason.

At the reception afterwards, she spoke to the four women, thanking them for their willingness to share such traumatic experiences. The look in Gisel’s eyes, when Sossity spoke to her, confirmed her suspicions, even though the two of them did not exchange words.

“Get me Gisel’s phone number,” she told Tonya as they took a taxi back to their hotel.


“Lenny and I were dating then,” she said, as they sat in a near-empty pub. “He stuck with me, despite the fact that I was covered with scar tissue and practically a raving lunatic for most of the two years after it happened. He really loves me, and that pulled me through.”

“I’m so sorry, Gisel.”

“I was the only woman he and his gang tarred and feathered, but six other women went through what I went through except for the last part. I hope the I.R.A. gets him some day.”

“Don’t they know where he lives?”

“Of course they do. He lives in your home town and owns a bar, but unless they can do it pat, they won’t attempt it.”

“Do it pat? They want to kill him?”

“What he did to me and the others made them look bad. It turned public opinion against them. They want to warn others they can’t go against the organization and then run away and be safe, but they want to be sure it’s an undertaking with no risk involved. If they had his address they would probably attempt it.”

She shuddered inwardly at the idea that someone she knew might be a target for a politically-motivated murder.

“Sinico is an alcoholic,” she said. “He lives in constant torment over what he did to you and the others. Isn’t that punishment enough?”

“To you, maybe. To me—well, I see it differently. Is there anything besides death that will requite what did?”

“Maybe you’re right,” Sossity replied after a moment.

They changed the subject, talking about more neutral matters. Sossity noticed, though, that Gisel did not come to any of the concerts her husband’s band did together with her and did not show up at the pubs afterward to drink. Sossity did not see her for the remainder of the tour.


She forgot about the matter. Six months later, after a concert on a rainy spring day in Charleston, South Carolina, David called and told her the guy who had bought her a drink at Qimby’s Bar back when they were dating had been shot and killed in his home.

“They’re saying it was a professional hit. He was involved with the I.R.A., wasn’t he? Maybe they came after him.”

She found herself unable to reply.

“Sos, are you there?”

“Yes. Sorry. It was just such a shock to hear.”

David told her what he knew about the killing, which was only what he had read in the paper. After he hung up, she found the article on the internet. The police said it looked like a professionally done hit: two shots to the head with a small-caliber pistol, nothing missing, so robbery was not the motive. An odd feature they mentioned was that the assassins had poured a can of hot tar over Sinico’s chest. They had not harmed his female companion sleeping in an upstairs room. The authorities had no clues, no motive, and no suspects.

She sat there for a long while and then went back to the bedroom room. Tonya, who was accompanying her on the tour, lay in the twin bed across from hers, reading. She looked up.

“You okay?”

“No. I mean, yes. Someone I knew from the slams in town was murdered.”

“I’m sorry. Who was it?”

Sossity gave her details. She did not say, however, what she had surmised even as David described the murder to her. The I.R.A. had wanted to kill Sinico. They had not gone after him at the bar. Obviously they had not sent anyone to tail him. But somehow they had gotten his address—the address he never gave out to anyone. Sossity realized what had happened. She had told Conroy there was only one number’s difference between her childhood home and his. And she had put a photo-biography on her webpage with a picture of her at age eight on her pink bicycle in front of her family’s old house on Carrier Street—the number of the house clearly visible, and readable, behind her, the name of the street given in the caption below. Conroy had told Gisel about the difference in addresses. Gisel had seen the photograph on the website and sent her friends right to Sinico’s house.

Sossity pretended to read a magazine so Tonya would not question her further. She looked down at the glossy page but did not see the pictures or the words. Gisel had had Sinico murdered. She—Sossity—had aided in the murder, albeit unwittingly. Guilt numbed her. Nothing her intellect said could stem the tide of emotion she felt. Her careless words and careless posting of an address had meant his death. She had had a hand in it. She felt as if she had killed him herself.

Suddenly a sharp wave of panic tore through her. Her heart pounded. Her face burned. She tried to get control. After a moment the anxiety passed. She thought about calling her priest then thought of two close friends to whom she might confide. But she felt if she told anyone about it, she would end up telling others. If the I.R.A. thought Gisel might reveal anything about the murder, they would kill her as well.

As she sat in bed, listening to Tonya flip the pages of her novel, she knew she would have to keep the matter to herself. She could never speak of it to anyone. It would remain, a stone in her soul, all her days—the price she would pay for being careless.

Sossity showered, brushed her teeth, and slipped into a nightgown. Once in bed, she picked up Heaney’s collected poems, which was lying on the nightstand (she had been re-reading his poetry this trip). It fell open to the page it often fell open to because she went to that particular page so often. She read from “Punishment”:

My poor scapegoat, I almost love youbut would have cast, I know, the stones of silence.I am the artful voyeur…I who have stood dumbwhen your betraying sisters, cauled in tar, wept by the railings, who would connivein civilized outrageyet understand the exactand tribal, intimate revenge.


She stared down at the poem. Tonya glanced over at her. She put her book down.

“Something is wrong,” she said. “Tell me.”

“I can’t. This is something I have to deal with myself.”

“You’re sure?”

She nodded. Knowing through long association that it would be impossible to find out anything on matters Sossity Chandler did not wish to reveal, Tonya went back to her book.

Sossity sat in bed, looking out the window at the lights of Savannah, thinking of Gisel, of Aidan Sinico, and of the urge toward tribal, intimate revenge that still ran strong down in our blood.