Galway Girl

Ireland stayed in lockdown for five days.

Heavy snow altered the city landscape in a sort of beautiful, flawed fashion.

Supermarkets ran out of all supplies and for two days there was an actual curfew because of the velocity of the winds.

Horror of all, even the pubs shut.

Grim days.

TV news rolled out weather experts who doled out increasingly dour doom-ridden forecasts. I holed up in my apartment, watching the ocean at its fiercest, at its finest.

Had to ration my booze lest the storm continued longer.

Eerie to see the streets so deserted.

On the Saturday, knock on my door, opened it to a young man. Took me a moment to recognize him.

Stapleton’s son.

Fuck.

I asked,

“How did you know where I live?”

He gave an odd smile, asked,

“May I come in? I brought supplies.”

He did indeed have many bags, bulging with food, booze, so

I let him in.

Asked,

“How’d you get all this when the town is literally shut?”

He said,

“My job.”

“Yeah, what do you do?”

“I burgle.”

Not many sane replies to this, so I went with,

“Oh.”

He grabbed a bottle from one of the many bags, said,

“Let’s brew up some hot ones.”

I held up my hand, said,

“Whoa, I don’t even know your name.”

He looked at me, went with,

“The fuck does that matter?”

Said,

“Terry. Mundane, eh?”

I took the bottle from him, shoved it back into the bag, said,

“Okay, Terry, thanks for the thought.”

I gathered up the bags, pushed them at him, opened the door, said,

“You take care now.”

His face turned in an instant, the laid-back guy gone and now a hard stone chill. He said,

“You fucking owe me, Taylor.”

I nearly laughed, said,

“Don’t think so, pal, now on your way.”

“You murdered my old man.”

I near stammered,

“That is ridiculous.”

He smirked, said,

“Not according to the people I talked to.”

I tried to stay cool, asked,

“Any of them offer proof, evidence, even motive?”

He weighed his words, then,

“Apparently you believed he was responsible for the death of a friend of yours.”

I shook my head, said,

“This is Galway. What they don’t know, they invent. Go live your life, leave the past be.”

He gave me a long look, said,

“Keep looking over your shoulder, Taylor, I’ll be around.”

I shut the door in his face.

Did I consider him a threat?

These days, just about everything seemed threatening. He was just one more dark line in a story embedded in darkness.