Callous

“Ta tu an bas agam,”

Said my mother.

You are the death of me. As she lay dying.

Gathered around her bed were a priest (not me, as priest); Colin, my marine brother; and me, the object of her dying scorn.

The priest administered the holy oils, which, they say, ease the dying, and give an acceptance, a grace even.

Nope.

Not a chance.

She took Colin’s hand in hers, said,

“Ta tu and mac is fear.”

You are the best son.

Then she let out the tiniest breath, died. The priest turned to me, said,

“You should be ashamed of yer own self.”

I snarled,

“Don’t you start.”

He had that old Brooklyn spirit. Never walk away from a fight, said,

“You want to say that outside, you heathen?”

Colin, big, sun-blasted from Afghanistan, towering over us, said,

“Much as it would be a kick to see two priests duff it out, maybe now is not the time.”

He put an arm on the priest’s shoulder, said,

“Let me see you out.” Not a request.

Boerum Hill.

Writers, right? You think Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, but do you think dive bar?

Worse, cop dive bar.

Me ’n’ Colin, after the funeral, that’s where we ended, because what do you do after a funeral?

Drink and bitch.

It’s like tradition. Piss and moan. The bar there is called Al’s.

There is no Al.

There’s barely a bar.

Shebeen, more like, with Bud and bourbon. Nowt else, save attitude. It’s a mean place for mean cops.

Perfect.

Colin was wearing his combat jacket, his master sergeant’s stripes, torn off but still legible, barely, like a prayer never answered, a faint echo of what might have been.

He had his army boots, dusted and worn. I had my old barn coat. Once I think it might have passed for leather. Cop pants, cop shoes. I kept thinking I was wearing my clerical collar, the memory of it like a scar.

We looked like bad dudes.

One of us was for real; the other was still in the bleachers.

The place was jammed, a juke hammered out the Pogues, then the Clash, then the Pogues all over. We stood at the ramshackle bar; the guy behind it was once a Hells Angel, now serving booze to cops.

Go figure.

He kept a sawed-off and a hurley nearby, in plain sight, a sign above them saying,

your choice.

He barked.

“Gents?”

Colin said,

“Boilermakers.” What else?

We got behind those, felt the false warmth kick. I noticed a dog-eared paperback in Colin’s jacket, asked,

“What you reading?”

Colin fetched it out, handed it over. What was I expecting? To my disgrace, I expected a Spillane, even a Sheldon; shame on me. Saw,

Drive your plow

Over the bones

Of the dead

By Olga Tokarczuk.

Colin did that finger sign to the bar guy, another round, then to me,

“Suckered you, huh?”

I didn’t reply. Saw on the dust cover that the author was a Nobel Prize winner. I tried,

“How’d you mean?”

He reached into the top pocket of his jacket, took out rolling leaf and papers, fixed a smoke. The no-smoking rule didn’t carry traction in this no-man’s territory. He lit up with one of the ol’ army-issue Zippos, then, to my astonishment, passed it to the surly bar guy, who muttered,

“Class.”

He fast rolled a second, fired up, inhaled deep, and here’s the fuck of the thing. I’d half hoped it was for me. Reading my thought, he said,

“You don’t serve drinks.”

As if that made any sense at all.

Then, indicating the book, he expanded,

“You thought: A grunt, army dumbass, so some tit-and-ass shite.”

Before I could protest, he said,

“Army lit, like Tim O’Brien. Being a marine isn’t just point and shoot.”

He raised his glass, said,

“To the horrors of peace.”

I noticed two obvious off-duty cops sending looks our way. One, a burly beer-fucked guy, was muttering darkly to his buddy. I knew it wasn’t anything complimentary.

I asked Colin,

“We heard you were MIA for a time.”

He shrugged, chugged his drink, said,

“My unit went off radar for a seek-and-massacre gig.”

Before I could ask if I even wanted to know, he said,

“I’m going to Ireland.”

I went,

“What?”

He gave the tiniest of smiles, not a gesture he had much recent practice with, said,

“Kate surfaced in Galway. Our aunt?”

Pause.

“Died.”

Pause.

“Left Kate a cottage. Kate asked me to come visit, maybe even share.”

I was hurt, offended, rejected, angry, managed,

“She invited you?”

He shrugged, said,

“Well, buddy, she sure as shit wasn’t ever gonna ask you.”

Fuck.

I tried,

“Why not?”

He noticed the burly cop heading our way, said,

“She hates you, bro, and six o’clock, we got incoming.”

The burly cop approached, all bristling aggression. He noticed Colin’s army jacket, stopped, then,

“Thank you for your service, son.”

Colin tipped his glass in acknowledgment; the guy looked at me, said,

“Pity about the shit company you’re in.”

Colin said quietly,

“Dial it down, buddy.”

The guy said,

“This garbage got his partner killed, then ran from the force.”

Colin sighed, said,

“You need to very discreetly fuck off.”

The guy, slightly flustered, tried,

“Got no argument with you, soldier.”

Colin turned away; you’d be silly to think he was done.

The guy thought he was done, pushed,

“This cowardly punk needs to leave.”

Colin said, almost in a whisper,

“Or what?”

The guy, now all booze macho and stupidity, said,

“Or I’ll drag his sorry ass out.”

Colin, in a fluid movement, lashed out with the palm of his hand, hitting the guy close to the carotid artery.

There was a moment of pure stillness, then the guy dropped to the floor like the proverbial sack of dumb potatoes. Colin glanced at the guy’s crew, asked,

“Any takers?”

No.

We left after another brew, got outside, and I said,

“Jesus, you might have killed the guy.”

Colin rolled another cig, said,

“I sure hope so.”

   Back at the family home, that sounds almost normal, as if we’d been happy there.

Like fuck.

I brewed coffee. We sat at the large wooden table in the kitchen. Patrick’s name was gouged in to the wood. I covered it with a coffee mug. It was not a topic either of us could talk about. I asked,

“Is Kate clean?”

He gave me an odd look, almost impossible to read, but it held a hint of menace, said,

“Yeah, she kicked the H, still drinks, but in Ireland, that’s almost mandatory.”

I gave that some thought, asked,

“You think she might be up to a visit from me?”

He moved the coffee mug, traced Patrick’s name with his finger, said,

“No.”

Fuck.

He stood up, did one of those neck movements that fit guys like, said,

“Our aunt was murdered; I’m going to find the guy who did it.”

I was dancing along the precipice of rage, asked,

“No one told me.”

He chuckled, said,

“Bro, it’s a family gig, and you?” Trailed off.

I snarled,

“The fuck is that to mean?”

He leaned on the table, his size and intensity were like a storm hovering. He said,

“You were a cop, a priest and, in truth, our family isn’t real hot on either.”

Now I stood, anger leaking all over my face. I snapped,

“Dad was a cop.”

He laughed.

“I rest my case.”