Galway Confidential

7

During a previous case involving the church, I met a young priest named Father Pat. He was as raw a youth as you could find, but some time in my company and he developed a line in cynicism. His world view darkened.

Plus, he got a taste for Jameson and that is its own path to weariness.

I was in my apartment; it had been kept functional by Raftery while I was out of the game.

I was reading

The Wreck of the Deutschland

by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

It seemed appropriate as I read about the nuns drowning in the poem.

Raftery had gifted me a Nespresso and, wow, did that make seriously great coffee. I was on my second cup when the doorbell rang. Figuring it was Raftery, I opened the door.

Father Pat.

He looked kind of fucked.

No priest suit but it was not uncommon now for the clergy to keep a low, very low, profile. He was wearing a ragged sweatshirt with the logo sweet meat.

Cute.

He had blue jeans with a hole on the knee, less fashion than life. And a battered pair of sneakers. I ushered him in, sat him down, gave him a cup of the very fine brew. His hands shook and he reeked of booze. Did I feel a twinge of guilt over my part in him drinking?

Not really.

He was a priest.

Priests drank.

He said,

“I tried to visit you in hospital, but your brother barred me, said,

‘The man is sick, priests he doesn’t need.’ ”

“He’s not my brother.”

Pat sighed.

“Why is everything about you so complicated?”

He sank into the sofa, let out a breath, asked,

“Can you give me a drink?”

The state of him, I poured a measure into a mug and put it into his shaking hands. He knocked it back, shuddered, closed his eyes, and groaned.

“Don’t throw up on my couch.”

After a few minutes, he righted himself, asked,

“Another?”

No fucking way.

I said,

“You need to be dried out, you don’t want to go into the jigs. I’ve been there many times, and you are just not the type to weather that.”

He reached into his jeans, pulled out the drunkard’s roll, i.e., a mess of tangled notes that leak coins every which way. He snarled,

“If it’s paying you want?”

I asked,

“What happened to you?”

He leaned back into the sofa, the essence of despair, said,

“I’ve never been right since Malachy.”

Me neither.

Malachy was the priest friend of my bitch mother and the bane of my life. Somehow or other he inveigled me to help him out of his various crises and never once showed an iota of gratitude. Then he got serious cancer, the type that screams,

Don’t plan for Christmas.

And he freaked me out by asking me to help him on his way.

I refused but stalled him by saying I’d have to think about it. As other crazy events spiraled round me, he slipped away. He’s buried in Rahoon cemetery, and he’d hate that, hate that he wasn’t in town.

Pat said,

“He liked you; you know.”

He didn’t but I let it slide. I asked,

“How are you, um...”

Pause.

“Doing priestly stuff in your condition?”

He gave a bitter laugh, said,

“They suspended me.”

“On full pay I hope.”

He gave me the look, the one that says,

Seriously?

I said,

“You need to be in hospital, to be dried out.”

He shook his head.

“And who might I ask will pay for that?”

I said,

“I will.”