Galway Confidential

1

How do you come out of a coma?

 Really

   Really

     Slowly.

Or—

So they told me.

I opened my eyes after what seemed like an ice-white light had filled my head.

Hospital.

Tubes stuck in/attached to every orifice.

I was bewildered, befuddled, but mostly I was very—

Thirsty.

Like a bastard.

Moving very cautiously, I tried to sit up, kind of managed it. A man was sitting by my bed, wearing a surgical mask, serious save the cartoon characters sprinkled on it. He asked,

“Water?”

I nodded.

He stood, got a glass, filled it, then brought it to my mouth.

Nirvana.

I gulped it, coughed.

“Easy, easy big guy.”

I tried to talk but my vocal cords felt mangled, atrophied.

More water.

I could feel something almost snap in my throat and prayed to some God that my speech was okay. Take speech from an Irish guy?

Just shoot him.

The man was in his fifties, dressed in a black tracksuit with gold trim on the side; it was expensive, I know that as the cheap version hung in my wardrobe, unworn and unloved. I’d been very drunk when I bought it.

Ah, glory days.

“Who are you?” I asked, my voice fighting to return.

He sat back down, intoned, “Mise Raifteirí an file / Lán dúchais is grádh.” (I am Raftery, a poet / Full of hope and love.)

Paused, made a flourish with his hand, a gold claddagh ring glinting in weak Galway sun from the bay window and almost involuntarily I volunteered, “Le súile gan solas / Le ciúnas gan crá.” (With eyes without light / Calm without anguish.)

We’d recited that in primary school, so embedded that I could recall the lines without trouble. The memory was accompanied by the lash of bamboo across my knuckles. Inflicted by the brothers of mercy, to whom mercy was an alien concept, maybe even, God forbid, Protestant.

A daze of corporal punishment colored all my schooling.

You got walloped, suck it up.

Raftery was a Medieval blind poet who traveled the countryside, poetry for substance. Nowadays he’d get a medical card and direct provision.

Raftery, the present one, explained, “I can trace lineage back to the blind bastard, so Raftery is the moniker I trade under.”

He reached in a holdall by his feet, produced a hip flask with leather trim, asked, “Uisce Beatha?” (Water of Life?)

This translates as holy water, but in Ireland means moonshine/poitín.

Coming out of a coma of nigh two years duration, is booze the way to go?

Fucking A.

I nodded so he held my head back, tilted the flask, and I drank.

Wow.

Phew-oh.

It kicked like a Connemara pony.

Brief interlude as my ravaged system tried to assimilate this ferocious insult, and then—

Bliss.

Utter.

I relaxed, sank back into the pillows with a deep sigh of contentment. Whatever shenanigans had landed me in a coma, in the hospital, ebbed away like the dying light of evening devotion.

Raftery asked in mock FBI tone,

“You’ll be wanting data?”

Not really.

Another shot from the flask and I might never question anything again, ever.

A doctor, trailed by a coven of nurses, came rolling in.

“Mr. Taylor, you’re back.”

He sniffed, took a moment, then snarled,

“Who’s drinking?”

Glaring at Raftery, who smiled weakly, the doctor said,

“It would be beyond madness to give a revived patient alcohol.”

Then he and the nurses began a series of tests, prods, blood samples, and all the other paraphernalia designed to keep the patient in a state of imminent terror.

Raftery shunted from the room, gave me a wave.

“We’ll talk soon, Jack.”

The doctor said,

“We have to remove the feeding tube and it may be a tad uncomfortable.”

Taking the tube from my stomach, I’d like to say I took it like a man.

No.

I howled like a bastard.

The doctor, finally finished with manhandling me, stood back, hands on his hips, dismay writ large on his face.

“Mr. Taylor, you’re a mystery, one might even hazard a miracle, but you’re in good health, which is just amazing.”

I gave him a smile of what I thought might be appreciation but more likely transformed into a grimace.

I don’t do appreciation.

He then outlined a program of therapy and rehabilitation.

“After which you’re free to go.”

Then, muttering, he left, literally scratching his head.

I looked to the least severe nurse, echoed,

“Therapy!”

Nora declared her name badge.

“Jack, you’ve been in a coma for eighteen months, it takes time to get the body up and functioning, to get you...”

Searched for a word.

“Mobile.”