Green Hell

Part I

The day began. . badly.

For Jack, this was like breathing. Natural.

It was never a plan to write about Jack Taylor. I’d come to Dublin as part of a Rhodes scholarship to conclude a treatise on Beckett. To end up living in Galway, drinking as if I meant it,

. . how’d that happen?

As Jack would say,

“Fuck knows.”

This is not. .

A Boswell to Dr. Johnson

Or even. .

A Watson to Holmes gig.

But rather a haphazard series of events leading me to abandon Beckett in pursuit of the Taylor enigma. Little did I know it would be an ironic reflection of one of Jack’s favorite novels:

The Wrong Case.

As Jim Crumley had once said of a book,

“This is not a crime novel, it’s a story with some crimes in it.”

Quite.

I met Jack Taylor at a time of odd disturbance.

James Gandolfini,

Cory Monteith,

Alan Whicker

Had all recently died. Jack mourned all three. He had heard of only the first. The second was the star of Glee and the third had presented a show called

Whicker’s World.

Jack said those last two represented (a) the youth he never had and (b) how old he was not to recall Whicker.

Both ends of his booze-soaked candle. James G of course was in The Sopranos, demonstrating, Jack said,

“How depression and brutality are uneven dance partners.”

This, like many things he said, made sense only to him.

I hadn’t, he claimed,

“Drunk enough.”

To truly grasp absurdity. Accounts in part for my name. My mother is Irish and steeped in the iconography of a blood saturated in epic/tragic history and so, after

Brian Boru

My first name.

My father hails from Boston though, alas, is not of the infamous immediate family. Though they do say all Kennedys are related.

Yeah, right!

That dog doesn’t hunt. I haven’t come within a spit of the Hyannis Port compound. I will admit to a certain strain of impetuousness. Spring break in Cancún the year of my graduation, I came to from a tequila slammer ruin with a tattoo on my arm, reading

P.T. 108.

When I’d jokingly suggested to Taylor I write of his life, he’d gone deep.

Then,

“Do a Tom Waits.”

“Huh?”

He sighed, said,

“Shall I tell you the truth or just string you along?”

The heft of the man. Jack was, he claimed, exactly six feet tall, adding,

“Like the Pale Nazarene.”

For such a ferocious derider of the Church, he was sodden with its

ritual,innuendo,

propaganda.

I’d told him I was an atheist and he laughed, loud and warm. He had one of those truly epic laughs. It was so rare but when he let go, it was all-embracing. His eyes and his wounded spirit on song.

Said,

“See how that flies when a fucker shoves a gun in your mouth at three-thirty in the morning.”

Riddle me that.

The books he was reading in those last days. As if he knew something.

Satan, your Kingdom must

Come down. .

(Massive Attack)

Playing as I perused the book titles.

“Perused.”

A fifty-euro sound bite, Jack said. Adding,

“That track used in two TV series:

Hannibal

and

Lecter.

The connection?

Jack’s coked taste.

Those books:

Reconstructing Amelia

Where’d You Go, Bernadette

Lottie Moggach, Kiss Me First

Sara Gran, The Bohemian Highway

Lynn S. Hightower, Flashpoint

The Universe Versus Alex Woods

Malcolm Mackay, The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter

And of course, the boxed DVDs:

House of Cards

Breaking Bad

Les Revenants

Borgen

The Americans

And I wondered how a perpetual drunk, pill-popping, on/off nicotine freak could focus long enough for any of the above. I asked.

He said,

“Practice.”

July 2013: The Galway Races on the shimmering horizon. I’d known Jack for three months. In truth, with him,

The rush.

The intensity.

The sheer hard core.

It felt like three years.

How we met? Not as you’d hazard: in a pub.

I was on the ground, my top teeth crushed by a steel-toed Dr. Martens. Two thugs, trainees almost, no more than sixteen. . collectively had waylaid me as I came out of McDonagh’s Fish ’n’ Chips. Bottom of Quay Street but a bad poem away from the Spanish Arch. I was balancing my smartphone and the food, authentically wrapped in the weekly Galway Advertiser, the first one asked,

“Gis a chip, cunt.”

The richness of Irish youth vocabulary. The second one, I’d carelessly allowed behind me.

Come on.

I’m an academic, not a kung fu fighter.

He hit me hard in my lower back with a baseball bat. The shame, not to be even mugged with authenticity, like, say, with a hurly.

Oh, America, we export too well.

Shock and pain swamped me as the first took my top teeth out with his boot. Shame too, mortification, I was taken down by. . fuck’s sake. .

Kids!

Seriously?

Amid blood and dizziness, I gasped as both kids stood, ready to, as they chanted,

“Let’s kick the fuckin be-Jaysus out of this bollix.”

A figure loomed behind, then I heard,

“What’s the craic?”

And he literally cracked their small, malicious skulls together. They reeled apart, moaning, and he dropped the first with a kick to the groin. He reached a hand to me, said,

“Take it slow, Pilgrim.”

As. . was I hallucinating?. . John Wayne.

With his help, I was able to stand, even spit out some teeth. I mumbled,

“Thanks, I guess.”

He smiled, said,

“A Yank.”

I asked, as I tried to fight off nausea and tremors,

“Is that like. . bad?”

He was staring at the second kid, who, though on his feet, was dazed. He answered,

“Long as you got the bucks, we love you.”

Then checking my ruined mouth, said,

“Better get you to A amp; E.”

Used his cell, called a cab, urging them,

“Get here like yesterday.”

Again a faux American intonation, as if he was subtly mocking me. Sure enough, a cab screeched to a halt in, as I’d come to know Jack’s term,

“Jig time.”

Helped me to the cab, then turned, moved back to the seriously fucked kids, and, get this, frisked them.

The kid still standing, utterly dazed.

Jack slid into the seat beside me, holding the kid’s money wedge, said,

“Cab fare.”

Contempt

Prior

to

Investigation

From Boru Kennedy’s Notes/Journals

He sees the little girl, Serena May, delighted with the new trick he showed her. How to make a silver coin disappear. He’d thought, ruefully,

A trick the banks had perfected to an inordinate degree.

The sun had been uncharacteristically hot. He’d opened the window on the first story and watched as the little girl gurgled happily on the floor.

Then he dozed.

Woken by a small cry.

Barely a whisper, more a tiny whisper of utter dread. Jumped to his feet.

The child was gone.

Thus began a whole fresh circle of hell. Later, when the full truth was revealed, he might have been partially absolved.

But forgiven?

No.

Never that.

Least of all by himself.

I worry about anyone who is lighting himself on fire for our enjoyment.

The New York Times wrote in 2012 about Cat Marnell, a confessional columnist who described her vampire hours, soulless sex, fragile mental state, and drug-fueled lifestyle. Her job, she said, was to be:

“Fucked up.”

Jack Taylor had been doing that job all his life.

I was released from the hospital on the first day of the Galway Races. The fierce three-week heat wave had come to a deluging stop. Torrential rain lashed the streets. Did it stop the racing?

In Galway?

Like. . hello!

A temporary bridge in my upper mouth would hold until, a cheerful doctor said,

“Some fancy dentist can charge you exorbitantly.”

Dentistry, I soon learned, like everything else in Ireland, was nightmarish expensive. To my utter amazement and perhaps a little delight, my savior was standing outside the hospital’s main entrance. He was wearing chinos, Crocs, and faded T-shirt with the slogan

“Is maith an talann an ocross.”

(Hunger is the best sauce).

He was deeply tanned and his full head of graying hair needed a trim. Deep lines gave his face the allure of old parchment but the eyes were alive and slightly mocking. Extending a hand, he said,

“They let you out.”

I took his hand, registering two missing fingers. Barely perceptible was a tiny hearing aid. I shook his hand (carefully), said,

“I owe you big-time.”

Holding my gaze, he said,

“Jesus kid, lighten up, these are the jokes. C’mon, I’ll buy you a jar.”

Not for the first time I behaved like a prig, protested,

“It’s not noon yet.”

He sighed, took my arm, said,

“It’s Race Week, the town is on the piss.”

Led me across the road to a pub called the River Inn. He said,

“It’s Ireland, there’s not a river within spittin distance.”

I noticed he limped slightly but still moved with an economy that belied his years. He was right about the town. The place was jammed but he muscled his way to the bar amid shouts of

“Taylor, thought you were dead. .”

“Jack, ya bollix. .”

“Lend us a tenner. .”

“Any tips for the Plate. .”

He ignored all, got a winning smile from the barwoman, who asked,

“Usual, Jack?”

“By two,” he said,

And somehow, despite the crush, carried out a table for us by a large window. He said,

“Plant yer arse on that.”

Did he mean the table? He straddled a stool, producing a second from the crowd. I sat, asked,

“How will she find us in this mob?”

He asked,

“Roisin?”

“. . if that’s her name.”

I trailed. He muttered,

“I hope to fuck, hell of a time to discover she’s a Mary.”

Then added,

“Take her a few minutes to build those pints.”

“Pints!”

I said,

“Alas, not for me, Jack. . it’s Jack, yes? I’m on painkillers.”

“Yah lucky fuck, the pints will have you flyin in jig time.”

The woman appeared, unfazed by the madding crowd, plunked two perfect pints and two shots before us. Jack handed her a flash of notes, said,

“And one for yourself, hon.”

She gave him a smile of pure radiance. He raised the pint, said,

“Slainte amach.”

Downed half his pint, hammered the shot, said,

“Get that in yah, another round coming.”

My Taylor baptism if not of fire, then certainly Jameson.

Flashes of

Huge merriment

Amazement

Incredulity

Pathos

Punctuate my fractured recollection of that first, long, insane day with Jack. We even backed a horse, named, I shit thee not:

Beckett’s Boy

Ridden by A. P. McCoy

And Jack saying to me,

“See kid, the shit-hot favorite is ridden by the people’s favorite,

Ruby Walsh.”

He paused.

The bookies were truly like Dante’s forgotten circle of a Celtic hell. Despite the ban on smoking, the air was suffused with smoke. Smoke of frenzied desperation.

Jack said,

“Bang a ton on BB.”

“A ton?”

Slight shadow of annoyance flitted across his battered face, then was gone, he enunciated slowly,

“Put a hundred euros to win.”

Despite the booze, the sheer adrenaline in the very air, caution whispered. I asked,

“Couldn’t we, like, put fifty to show?”

Took him a moment to translate American to Irish-English, then,

“Place better? No fuckin way. I never played for safety my whole befuddled life.”

I bit down, withheld,

“And gee, look at the evidence.”

I played to win.

Won.

At 8 to 1.

Jesus H!

I never won a goddamn thing outside of literary stuff. I yelled,

“My Gawd, that’s like, with the exchange rate, like. . a thousand bucks!”

Tried to give him half.

No way. Jack’s response. . like this,

“Buy me dinner.”

Which was chips doused in vinegar, sitting on the rocks over Galway Bay. A six-pack in a cooler and a twenty-euro dope deal.

We proceeded to:

Do a line

Throat-drop two fat chips

Chug the beer

Then belch as if you meant it. With Jack, I was learning he could turn on a red cent without conversation, rhyme, or reason. He was talking about Walter Macken, veered, asked,

“How was Dublin?”

I said, of my Dublin impressions,

“What’s with the rabbits?”

I told him that

(a) I was stunned by the number of beggars and in one bizarre scene, outside the ultraexpensive Brown Thomas, a man on his knees, a cardboard sign pleading for food.

(b) All the homeless guys/beggars on nigh every bridge had, get this, a rabbit.

Jack gave a resigned chuckle, said,

“Last year, on a slow news day-meaning Syria, the Banks, Household Charges were on hold-the media ran with a story of a young homeless guy who kept a pet rabbit. Some mindless morons grabbed the animal, slung it into the Liffey.”

“Fuck,” I said,

“Then. .”

He continued,

“The homeless guy dived in, saved his rabbit. . Lo and behold, he got all sorts of help, including the Mayor’s Bravery Award.”

Paused.

“. . so now every lowlife is trying to cash in on the act.”

I mulled this over, then,

“In Galway. . are there rabbits?”

Shook his head,

“Naw, we have a no-frills gig going. Just feck the homeless guy in the river.”

Impossible to tell if he was yankin my chain. I tried,

“No rabbits then?”

“Only in stew.”

The

Year

of

the

Understatement

Shadow Puppets

Even now, I’m not too sure how

Drunk

Coked

Crazed

Or

None of the above Jack was when he told me about “The Man Who Tortured Women.” Laid out that stark phrase like a flat hammer, turned to look at me, then,

“Anthony de Burgo.”

Then, bitterness leaking all over his words, he sprinted,

“Impressive name, huh? And fuck me, Tony’s an impressive fellow:

Lectures in Anglo-Irish lit, has numerous academic essays, studies, and, get this, even slums as a hack noir novelist, to, as he said on The Late Late Show ‘pay the light bill.’ Oh, Tony’s a droll bollix and no mistake. Even persuaded our Galway hurlers to line out for a. .”

Pause,

“Spot of cricket.”

Jack took a deep breath, fired up a Marlboro Red with a heavy click of his Zippo, blew smoke, continued,

“What ‘spiffin fun’ that was and all for charity. The guy is a media darling. How could you not love him, too? His looks got a brooding De Niro (circa Mean Streets) gig going. ’Cept every few months, he grabs a teenage girl, tortures her beyond imagining, stops a breath short of murder.”

Paused.

“Least so far.”

Sweat had broken out above his dark eyes. He reached for the Jameson bottle, hit his coffee with it, offered, I declined, he drank deep, I asked,

“Why isn’t he in jail?”

Jack seemed to shudder, then shook himself off, said,

“Tony’s a clever boy, very, very, clever, and he’s got the hotshots in some Rotary-type club to keep him, if not decent, certainly free.”

I wasn’t sure where this was going or even why he was laying it out. He saw my face, stubbed out the cig, said,

“Thing is, I’m going to take him off the board.”

Was I rattled?

Phew-oh! I avoided his eyes, asked,

“Why are you telling me this? Us Americans, we specialize in euphemisms. Who else gave the English language the richness of:

bought the farm

punched his ticket

deep-sixed him?

So like, you know. . ‘take him off the board,’ am I reading you correctly?”

He gave a short laugh, nodded.

So. . so, I threw it out there:

“Kill him?”

Another nod.

Mystified, I reached for the bottle, poured a healthy dollop, drank, gasped, asked,

“Why on earth are you telling me?”

No hesitation.

“Because you are going to be my witness, my. . how shall I say. . last Will and Testament.”

The Jameson singing in my blood, I near shouted,

“You gotta be. . I mean, like, seriously, fucking kidding me.”

He stood up, stretched, said,

“Kid, I never fuck around with murder.”

Later I would learn that Literary Heroine, a prose poem, was de Burgo’s attempt at a “Howl-like” narrative. Jack commented,

“Tony likes to play, wordplay is just one facet.”

Did I believe Jack was seriously going to like. .

Um. .

kill a professor?

Shit,

I mean,

kill anybody?

Those first head-rush, adrenalized weeks of his company had me, to paraphrase Jack:

Be-fuddled,

Be-wildered,

Be-fucked.

As the Irish so delicately phrase it,

“I didn’t know whether I was comin or goin.”

My proposed treatise on Beckett was put on a haphazard hold as I tried to find a balance in Taylor’s world. A man who was as likely to split a skull with a hurly as hand fifty euros to a homeless person (providing he didn’t have a rabbit, of course).

A week after this bombshell, Jack invited me to an “Irish breakfast.” We met in the GBC, Jack saying,

“The chef, Frank, he’ll take care of us.”

I was about to order coffee when Jack went,

“Whoa, buddy, did I not say Irish breakfast?”

“. . Um, yes.”

“Right, so we’re having a fry-up and, fuck me, you cannot desecrate that with coffee, it has to be tea.”

I tried,

“I’m not real hot on like. . tea.”

He mimicked what the Irish think is a passable U.S. accent.

“Get with the program, pal. .”

It wasn’t. . passable. Not even close.

Heavens to Betsy, the food came.

Thick toast with a nightmare sledge of butter,

fried eggs,

rashers,

fried tomatoes,

and, apparently, the favorite of the late pope,

black pudding.

No doubt accounting for his demise. Jack explained the cups had to be heated and he stirred the tea with gusto, said,

“This is yer real hangover antidote.”

That, I truly had to take on trust. Jack ate with relish, me. . not so much.

He asked me,

“Know the one beautiful sentence?”

Like. . do I venture the clichés?

I love you.

I forgive you.

God loves you.

Et al. He said,

“Peace broke out.”

WTF?

He smiled, briefly, said,

“Not that you need to worry, peace for us is as likely as the government cutting the country some slack. You know the latest crack? Fuckin water meters in every house. The bastards think up new ferocious schemes to hammer an already bollixed population.”

I had to comment, went,

“Some turn of phrase you have there.”

A shadow, no more than a whisper of rage, danced across his eyes, he asked,

“Turn of phrase? Let me give you a real beauty.”

Like I had a choice.

“Lay it on me.”

He intoned,

“Catholic ethos is an oily and pompous phrase. . that sounded like a designer fragrance.”

Jack reached into his jacket, pulled out a crumpled copy of the Irish Independent (Saturday, August 10, 2013), said,

“Here’s what Liam Fay wrote:

‘Fr. Kevin Doran is a medical miracle-and indeed, a miraculous medic. He sits on the board of the Mater Hospital’s governing body. Doran extolled the rigorous moral code underlying what he proudly calls the Catholic Ethos.’”

Jack had to pause, rein in his rage, continued,

“‘In adherence to this uniquely righteous philosophy, he insisted the Mater will refuse to comply with the new law that permits abortion when a pregnant woman’s life is at risk.’”

I muttered “Jesus!”

Jack put the paper aside, said,

“Whoever else is involved, it sure as shootin isn’t Jesus.”

I’m caught staring at Jack’s face. He is brutally tan, as if the sun had a vendetta, personal, and lashed him. He smiles, tiny lines, white, creaking against the parched skin, like whiteness trying to run.

He said,

“I picked up a new habit.”

No need to ask if it’s a good one. With Jack, all his habits are bad, very.

Continued,

“During that heat wave, I’d take half a bottle of Jay, sit on the rocks near Grattan Road, and just. . yearn.”

Back to the murder business, I asked,

“How come you know about those girls?”

Paused.

Gulp.

“And the Guards. . don’t?”

He shrugged,

“The Guards know, they just don’t give a flyin fuck.”

Later I Googled Father Doran and learned his areas of expertise were, as Jack would list them:

The Supernatural

Angels

Saints

Fairies

and

Elves.

I thought,

“Fifty shades of demonic propaganda.”

Persisting,

“But you know him. . how?”

He seemed distracted, looked around him, then snapped back, said,

“A little nun told me.”

Before I could recover from this ecclesiastical bombshell, Jack said,

“Thomas H. Cook wrote in his novel Sandrine’s Case, ‘The sad thing in life is that for most people, the cavalry never arrived.’”

I managed to hold my tongue, not to be an academic asshole by saying,

“I don’t read mystery novels.”

I instead managed to still stay in facetious mode, remarking,

“But you’re the cavalry, Jack, that it?”

Came out even more sarcastic than I intended. He let that bitter vibe hover, then,

“Most ways, son, I’m more a scalp hunter.”

From Jack Taylor’s Journals

Sister Maeve and I had a history, most of it convoluted, most of it bad. But a year ago, by pure luck and thuggery, I managed to return the stolen statue of Our Lady of Galway.

Back in the 1970s there’d been the phenomenon of the moving statues. Our Lady, literally seen to move in various “blessed” parts of the country, led to an almost hysterical reaffirmation of faith in the country. Quashed later by the clerical scandals. But for a brief time, there had been “Holy Ground.” Our Lady of Galway had been moved by a gang of feckless teenagers.

My success in this case put me briefly back in the Church’s graces.

Sister Maeve came to me, told me of two girls who’d been savagely raped and beaten, tossed aside. We’d met in Crowe’s Bar in Bohermore. Sign of the fractured times in that a nun in a pub didn’t raise an eyebrow, mainly because she was dressed like Meg Ryan. She’d ordered a sparkling Galway water, to see, she said,

“The tiny bubbles shimmer.”

Two of her former students came to her. Amid sobs, fear, shame, and utter despair, they’d told her of their ordeal. How de Burgo, acting as mentor to their studies, had lured them to a flat on the canal. After, he’d thrown them out on the street, warning,

“Speak of this and you’ll go in the canal.” Maeve had duly reported all to her Mother Superior, who said,

“Jezebels! Common harlots who enticed a good man.”

De Burgo was one of the prime movers in having extensive renovations made to the convent. Maeve, pushing aside her now flat water, said, in a very un-nun-like fashion,

“Who is going to besmirch the name of a man responsible for the central heating?”

Comfort versus truth?

No contest.

I asked Maeve,

“Why have you come to me, Sister?”

She considered her answer, then,

“Because you understand that justice is rarely delivered through ordinary channels.”

Something radiantly different in a tiny, holy nun letting loose her very own

Mongrel of War.

Whatever else I thought, I didn’t think she “got the right guy.”

She had moral indignation, I had rage but, more important, I had the hurly.

Later, when I was asked about the essential difference between Jack,

A wild Irish fucked-up addict.

And me,

A WASP wannabe academic.

I was able to summarize it thus:

I liked to quote Beckett.

Jack quoted Joan Rivers.

And an ocean of misunderstanding flowed between the two.

Much has been said of Jack’s propensity to violence. Not long after I’d found a place to rent, in Cross Street, just a drunken hen party from Quay Street, Jack announced,

“I’m treating you to dinner.”

His version:

Fish ’n’ chips from Supermac’s on Eyre Square. It was relatively early, 7:30 p.m. on a slow Galway Wednesday. Come four in the morning, when the clubs let out, it became a war zone. We were in line behind a young couple. Dressed for a night out, the guy in a smart suit, the girl in a faux power suit but without the confidence. The girl was asking,

“Please, Sean, I just want chips, no burger.”

The guy’s body language was flagging. . volatile.

They got their order and the guy grabbed her portion of chips, mashed them into her suit, said,

“No burger, no fuckin eat.”

I glanced at Jack, his body was relaxed, no visible sign of disturbance. For one hopeful moment, I prayed he might not even have registered the incident. We got our fish ’n’ chips, then Jack added,

“A carton of your hot chili sauce.”

I said nothing.

We got outside, the couple were standing at the Imperial Hotel, the guy jabbing his finger into the girl’s face. Jack said,

“Give me a sec.”

Ambled toward them, not a care in his stride, the chili carton oozing steam from his left hand.

He said something to the girl, who stepped back. He slapped the chili into the guy’s face, gave him an almighty blow to the side of the head, asked,

“You want fries with that?”

He looked like the kind of gobshite who’d spent his

Life

(pause)

being mildly amused.

This was Jack’s verdict on a guy selling flags for Down Syndrome Ireland. The “mildly” brought to crushing effect the contempt he felt.

I asked Jack,

“The violence, the almost casual way you rise to it?”

He had the granite flint in his eyes, which cautioned,

“Tread very fuckin lightly.”

Clicking back and forth on the Zippo, he held my eyes, coldly said,

“For starters, you don’t ‘rise’ but descend to violence.

Let me paraphrase:

‘Some are born to it

and others

have it thrust upon them.’”

Wearying of his semantics, I asked,

“And you, which category are you?”

His eyes slid off me, dissing me curtly, said,

“Take a wild fuckin guess, hotshot.”

Reaching into his battered all-weather Garda coat, he slapped a single sheet of paper before me, said,

“Read.”

Four names:

Siobhan Dooley

May Feeney

Karen Brown

Mary Murphy

He said,

“All students of de Burgo.”

Then abruptly standing up, he said,

“Get yer arse in gear.”

“For?”

“An appointment with the eminent professor.”

“What?”

“As an American high-flying student, you are meeting to discuss Beckett and the Galway Connection.”

Then he shrugged, said,

“Who the fuck cares, we just want to meet the lunatic.”

“We?”

He smiled, cold,

“I’m your concerned old uncle.”

“Can you do ‘concerned’?”

He was already moving, said,

“I can certainly do old.”

The University of Galway was teeming with new prospective students. Parents in tow, they were checking out their new home. It would be the one and only time the parents got a look in. Their role from now on would be twofold:

(1) Pay for books.

(2) Pay for bail.

De Burgo’s office was in the old part of the building. I noticed Jack’s limp was prominent and he said,

“Gets a sympathy vote.”

A secretary assured us we had to wait for only five minutes, would we like some water?

Jack said,

“With a splash of Jameson.”

She gave him a look that implied:

“Old guys, they still have some moves.”

Then we were told to enter Dr. de Burgo’s chambers. Jack’s face was granite. He looked as though he wished he still held a container of chili sauce.

De Burgo was engrossed in papers, pushed them aside with a sigh, came round the desk, hand extended, said,

“Welcome to my humble retreat.”

Whatever else he implied, humility wasn’t in the mix. He looked like an Ivy League professor from Central Casting. Corduroy jacket over worn plaid shirt and, yes, patches on the sleeves. Pressed navy chinos, boat shoes, a well-tended goatee below deep-set eyes. Eyes that were burning with intensity. But, as Jack would say,

“Off.”

Definitely.

When he looked at you, a sense of unease slid along your spine. He motioned us to sit, then, like Mr. Laidback, perched on the edge of his desk. All was well in his academic principality. He said,

“Now Beckett, just recently I gave a lecture on the postmodern reliance of his language in relation to. .”

Here he paused, made those air quotation marks, continued,

“The current idiom of Anglo-Irish usage.”

Silence hovered.

Then Jack said,

“Cut the shit, pal.”

Like a slap in the face. He turned, faced Jack, asked,

“I beg your pardon?”

Jack stood, looming over him, said,

“See this list of girls? Ring any postmodern bells?”

Shoved the four girls’ names in his face. Took him a moment, then his face regrouped, he sprang from the desk, reached for the phone, said,

“I think security are needed.”

Jack, unfazed, asked,

“You going to surrender to them?”

I was up, grabbing Jack’s arm, said,

“We’ll be leaving.”

As we got to the door, Jack said,

“We’ll be coming for you, fuckhead.”

And I got him as far as the secretary. On her feet, she asked,

“Is everything all right?”

Jack said,

“Your boss is a serial rapist, don’t be alone with him.”

The critics assert that all of Beckett’s characters are drawn from his early life in Dublin; the streets, bogs, ditches, dumps, and madhouses.

Beckett implied his people were the castoffs, the lunatics, the street poets, the “bleeding meat of the entire system, denizens of an urban wasteland.”

I thought how well the above could easily fit Taylor’s world. After our train wreck meeting with the professor, we ended up in Garavan’s. They still have the snugs where you believe you have a measure of privacy. Intrusion is the theme of Jack’s exis shy;tence. We’d just settled with our drinks, a sparkling water for me, Jameson and the black for Jack. Jack had barely skimmed the pint’s creamy head when a man burst in, plunked himself down beside Jack, gasped,

“I’m dying of thirst.”

He was in his very bad fifties, wearing a distressed pin-striped suit, a grimy shirt, and blindingly white sneakers. His eyes were dancing insane reels in his head. Jack got him a pint, laid back, asked,

“What’s up, Padraig?”

The man, seeing my stare, gulped half the pint, nigh shouted at me,

“Hey, I used to be someone!”

Jack muttered,

“Didn’t we all?”

Another swallow and the pint was gone. He glanced at me as if I wasn’t up to speed, said,

“My wife left me.”

I said,

“I’m sorry.”

His head cocked, question mark large in his face, he asked, amazed,

“You know her?”

Staying tight-assed polite, I said,

“No.”

Spittle leaked from his lips, he near spat,

“Then why the fuck are you sorry!”

I had no answer. A light peered through his madness. He said,

“You’re a Yank.”

No joyriding point on this statement. I agreed I was. He turned back to Jack, offering,

“Get the fuck into Syria, help those poor fuckers.”

Jack asked,

“What can I do for you, Padraig?”

His body language altered, then, positioning for the kill, he said,

“Two fifties, Jack.”

The description of a hundred taking the harm/sting away. Jack gave him twenty and Padraig turned to me, asked petulantly,

“Where’s your contribution?”

I shrugged.

He turned back to Jack,

“God be with the days only rich Yanks came here.”

He lumbered to his feet, said,

“I’ll have to go, the wife will have my dinner ready.”

And he was gone, trailing bile and disappointment.

I asked,

“Did his wife come back?”

Jack gave me a look, ridicule spiced with irritation, said,

“Jesus, wake up, he never had a wife.”

Needing more, I pushed,

“The pin-striped suit, was he in business?”

“Sure, if you count traffic wardens as business.”

Jack indicated we were done, shucked into his all-weather coat, asked,

“Want to tag along on a case this evening?”

Gun-shy by now, I asked,

“Will there be. . ah. . violence?”

He gave a sly smile, said,

“We can live in hope.”

A time would come when I’d tentatively ask Jack,

“Do you get a rush from. . um. . you know. . the violence?”

He considered that, then,

“My friend Stewart, a Zen entrepreneur, ex-drug dealer, believed I’d become addicted to it.”

He said this without rancor, it was what it was, then added,

“Like greatness, some are born to it, then others, God help them, have it thrust upon them.”

I wish I’d realized what a rare moment that was. He was actually letting me in but I blew it, went the wrong way, said,

“Could you just walk away?”

Silence for a full minute, then,

“For a supposed scholar, you are as thick as two cheap lumps of wood.”

Attempting recovery, I said, conciliatory,

“I’d like to meet your friend.”

He laughed without a trace of humor, said,

“Good luck with that; they settled his Zen ashes across the Bay.”

Daily Mail, September 2013

Headline:

250 Sex Fiends on the Run: Convicted Paedophiles and Every Hue of Sex Offender Have Disappeared or Broken the Terms of Their Release

On page 19, above a tiny paragraph, almost lost amid reports of Miley Cyrus’s sexual antics, was this:

22 New Vocations to the Priesthood

Jack would ask,

“And those are connected. .”

Pause.

“How?”

One of the rare to rarest times I was with Jack and not in a pub was over coffee in McCambridge’s. Black for Jack and decaf latte for me, earning me full derision. He said,

“What’s the friggin point? Without caffeine, it’s like Mass without Communion; there’s no hit.”

I had no answer. My iPad was before me, the famous photo of Beckett as my screen saver. His face almost as lined and ruined as Jack’s. I asked,

“You read Beckett?”

Gave me a long look, then,

“If I say no, you’ll write me off as pig ignorant, so let me assume a literary mask and say, ‘I don’t read him, I savor him.’”

I nearly smiled, he said,

“Ol’ Sam was a Bushmills guy.”

When I didn’t rise to whatever bait he was trolling, he continued,

“See, Catholics are the Jameson guys. Bushmills is for the other crowd.”

He reflected on his own words, added,

“You might say black Bushmills is for. .”

Paused.

“Black Protestants. . and, trust me, we aren’t talking about skin color.”

The evening I accompanied him on “the bit of business,” he was dressed in a black tracksuit, carrying an Adidas holdall. I tried to go light, said,

“Promise me there’s not an AK47 in there.”

“Nope, just a simple hurly.”

He led me down past Spanish Arch, parked himself on a bench facing the Claddagh Basin. He motioned for me to sit. Time passed to the sound of gulls and a vague turmoil from a Quay Street hen party. Finally I asked,

“What are you waiting for?”

He nodded in the direction of a small group huddled close to an upturned boat, said,

“A fairly regular drinking school, doing no harm to anyone save themselves. Over the past few weeks, some young guy appears, drops a homemade Molotov among them. No one’s been killed. .”

He took a deep breath,

“Yet.”

I had my laptop, about to open it, paused. Sounding more priggish than I intended, I said,

“Surely a case for the Guards?”

He snickered. I never actually thought there was a sound to match the word. There was. But damn it, I persisted,

“And why are you here? Indeed, why are we here?”

Lord, I sounded like a frat boy!

Jack said, in a low tone,

“They hired me.”

Oh, sweet Lord, I guffawed,

And worse,

“And they’ll pay you in what. . Buckfast?”

As to what would have gone down, I’ll never know, but out of the Spanish Arch shadow a man appeared, moving fast, almost a blur. His arm raised, holding a bottle, a bottle ablaze, moving toward the school. Jack was up, hurly out of the bag, and amazed me with the speed.

Whoosh!

I could hear the knee crack and the guy was down. Jack kicked the bottle aside, reached into the guy’s jacket, pulled out a wallet, shoved it into his own pocket. Jack never saw the second guy, came flying from his blind side. Without even thinking I decked him with the laptop. Jack turned, said,

“No spam, eh?”

The first guy was whimpering, pleaded,

“Didn’t mean no harm, just a bit of fun.”

Jack said,

“You need to have that broken nose looked at.”

The guy touched his unblemished nose, managed,

“What. .?”

As Jack swung the hurly.

We were in the bar at Jury’s, it being the nearest. I was having a large Jameson to stop my trembling. Jack? He was having fun, asked,

“How’s the laptop?”

“Dinged but working.”

He raised his glass, said,

“Like the mighty fool.”

He flipped through the guy’s wallet, saying,

“This kid likes cash.”

Three hundred euros. Then a driver’s licence, he read,

“Owen Liffey. The fuck is named after a river and worse, a Dublin river.”

I could feel the drink warming me, even starting a buzz. As if reading me, Jack said,

“It’s why we drink it, kid.”

Then he suddenly whirled around, his eyes traveling the length of the bar, an odd expression lighting his face. I asked,

“Seeing a ghost?”

He turned back, said,

“Yeah, sort of. I was only ever in here once. I was laden with a case, The Killing of the Tinkers. I wanted some downtime, a pub where I knew no one.”

He gave a brief laugh, then,

“Who am I going to know drinks at Jury’s-Chris de Burgh? There was a guy, right at the end of the bar, sinking what I think you call boilermakers.”

“Sure, a shot and a brew.”

His eyes flashed, he asked,

“Did I ask you for a definition? I know what the fuck it is. You have yet to learn the one essential mode of Irish survival.”

I shot,

“Always buy your round?”

He sighed, said,

“Never under any circumstances interrupt a story!”

A few tense moments followed, then he resumed,

“The guy was a take-no-prisoners drinker. Serious, sure, methodical. I’m not sure how, but we got talking. He’d spent time in a jail in South America. . Like an eejit, I said, ‘Well, least you got back.’ The guy stood up, gave me one of those looks that plays a reel on your soul, said, ‘It’s what I brought back with me that’s the worry.’”

I waited until I was sure he was finished, asked,

“Did he mean he picked up some. . like, disease?”

“Only if the soul can be afflicted.”

Outside, I was saying good night when Jack handed me the three hundred euros, said,

“Give it to the drinking school.”

Whoa, hold the goddamn phones. I asked,

“Why don’t you?”

He was moving away toward the water, said,

“I don’t want to encourage them.”

I didn’t see him for a week. I’d moved into a small apartment in Lower Salthill. The rent was about the same as the national debt. I was still hamstrung between my Beckett dissertation and a book on Jack. Something about Galway had seeped into my bones and I almost felt that I belonged. I was brewing coffee, arranging my papers on a small table when the bell went. Opened the door to Jack, he said,

“I bring gifts.”

I asked,

“How did you find me?”

“The postman told me.”

I was outraged, asked,

“Are they allowed to do that?”

He raised his eyes, said,

“Jaysus, lighten up. . are you askin me in?”

I stepped aside.

He handed me a bottle of Jameson and a cross which seemed to be made of reeds. He said,

“Saint Bridget’s Cross, keep your home safe.”

I was moved, covered with,

“Does it work?”

He sat in my only armchair, said,

“Time ago I gave a home owner a solid silver cross.

A burglar buried it in his chest.”

Where do you go with such a tale? I went to my excuse of a kitchen for the two mugs I owned. One had the logo “667.”

I handed it to Jack, who said,

“I get it, the neighbor of the beast.”

He uncapped the Jay, poured lethal amounts. I said,

“I’ll get some water.”

He growled,

“Water this and I’ll break your neck.”

Skipped the water.

Jack knocked his back, said,

“Slainte amach,”

I sipped mine. He looked around, said,

“Need to get Vinnie here, from Charley Byrne’s Bookshop, furnish the place.”

I said,

“I have a Kindle.”

“And may God forgive you.”

It was a few days later, I decided to drop the dime on Jack. To, as the Brits say, “grass him up.”

To be what Jack would have spat,

“A treacherous informer.”

The scourge, no less he claimed, of Irish history.

Syria continued to be torn asunder by Assad. Despite repeated evidence of the use of chemical weapons against the rebels, the world dithered and demurred. Obama condemned the regime but still took no military action. The United Kingdom voted against intervention. Syria burned alone.

Niall Horan of One Direction reached the Rich List. This news pushed Syria from the front pages. It was not difficult to understand Jack’s lament,

“Nobody gives a tuppenny fuck.”

By reporting his projected threat against de Burgo, I felt I was at least trying to give “a good goddamn.”

I made an appointment to meet with the top guy, Superintendent Clancy. He’d recently been named

Super Cop

and won the highest award the precinct can bestow on a Guard.

A sad irony that he had once been Jack’s best buddy. They’d trained together at Templemore, been holy terrors on the hurling field, and always

“had each other’s back”

until

Jack’s drinking had him disgracefully bounced from the force while Clancy climbed the ranks, awash in glory.

Over the years they’d become bitter enemies. The golden friendship steeped in envy and bitterness. Who ever thought he’d save Jack from the fatal action he was planning? It had, if you will, a poetic symmetry.

I met the super on a Monday morning. An air of gloom pervaded the Garda station as Ireland had just lost one-nil to Austria, shattering any slim hope of World Cup qualification. The manager, an aging Italian, Giovanni Trappatoni, had resigned. Over five years he’d received ten million! Read it and weep.

Plus, a golden handshake of 500,000 euros. His tenure, according to Jack,

“Reached a new low in Irish soccer.”

I was led into the super’s office by a tank of a Guard who had, he said,

“A sister in Boston.”

He didn’t ask if I knew her but it was there, hovering. Over and over in Ireland, I’d had this experience and saw the look of incredulity when I didn’t know the aunt, niece, brother in just about any state of the union.

Clancy was behind a massive oak desk, strewn with files and papers. Dressed in full blue, he had a riot of decorations on the tunic. A big man, swollen even larger by good living, but with a brute force emanating, cautioned,

“Don’t mistake flab for weakness.”

He stood up, extended a huge meaty hand, said,

“Always glad to welcome a Yank.”

Then to the other Guard,

“Tea for our visitor or would you prefer coffee? We even home-brew the best Colombian.”

And he waited.

I realized this was a joke and, a little behind, tried a smile, said,

“I’m good, thank you.”

His eyes crinkled and, to my horror, I realized more humor was coming.

He said,

“Better be good or we’ll feel your collar.”

He came around the desk, gave me a resounding thump on the back, said,

“Just kidding. Sit your arse down and let me know how I can be of service.”

I was beginning to veer toward Jack’s antipathy. I said,

“Um, it’s a little delicate and may even sound far-fetched.”

He hovered over me, boomed,

“Trust me, lad, we’ve heard it all here, so spill. . ”

And, alas, spill I did.

All.

The very mention of Jack had him on high alert. He listened without interruption until the whole sad, sordid saga was spent.

Moved back behind his desk, put his size twelves on the desk, said,

“Taylor is a drunk, a fabulist, he even believes some of his own fantasies. Much as I’d like your. .”

Pause.

“Yarn to be true, it’s horseshite. Even Taylor, with all his dodgy dealings and, dare I say, nefarious enterprises, not even he would quite stoop to such a lunatic scheme.”

He stood up.

I was being dismissed and, hate to admit, shamed. My cheeks burned. Clancy said,

“And let’s face it, sonny, if you’re his friend, he’s even more bollixed than I thought. But, tell you what, if you ever get something solid-like date, time, location, give us a call. We live to serve.”

I’d gotten to the door, feeling as crushed as a Beckett character in a garbage bin, when Clancy said,

“If you intend to reside a while. .”

He let contempt pour over that word, then,

“It might behoove you to remember that we tolerate most shenanigans on this proud little island of ours but. .”

He stared me full in the face,

“But we fucking loathe informers.”

Later that day, a female Guard named Ridge, recently returned to the force after a horrendous accident, dropped the dime on me. To Jack!

It is biologically impossible for a human being to remain conscious in the face of such a potent weapon of narcolepsy as a modern. . politician. Boring, snoring, Rachel Reeves isn’t the only dull MP.

(Stephen Pollard, editor of The Jewish Chronicle)

Even if you’re a brain surgeon, you’re allowed to

be interested in your appearance.

(Alexandra Shulman, editor in chief of British Vogue, reassures women that it’s all right to be clever and talk about frocks)

When I’d ventured to Jack my idea of writing about him, he said,

“Jesus, get a fuckin life.”

Undeterred, I continued and carefully (very), I’d ask him questions. He snapped,

“I don’t do sharing.”

But somewhere in there, he wasn’t entirely resistant. Sometime later, he said,

“Perhaps you could do a Tom Waits.”

Lost me.

I said,

“Lost me.”

He sighed, said,

“For a young guy, part of the most sophisticated techno-savvy generation, you are pig ignorant of the things that matter.”

Annoyed, I tried,

“And like. . Tom. . whoever. . matters?”

He was shaking his head.

“Fuck me, that’s like asking if the Clash are relevant.”

I sat down, waited, then got,

“Tom Waits said,

‘Shall I tell you the truth or just string

You along?’”

Getting no comment from me, he went on,

“I like the idea of the unreliable narrator.”

Why was I not surprised?

That evening a book dropped through my mailbox.

Patricia Highsmith, Edith’s Diary.

A note enclosed:

Kid,

About the best unreliable narrator you could read. Maybe pick up a few pointers.

J.T.

Was he asking/telling me a lie?

After my visit to Superintendent Clancy-I’m not going to lie to you-I felt bad, real shitty. I’d not only done a pretty dubious act but damn, it had blown up in my face. Clancy had not only dismissed me but oh, Lord, effectively called me a rat, a fink.

I took the Jack solution, I went to a bar, Jury’s, and who knows, maybe I thought I might run into the South American specter. The bar was pretty much empty, mirroring accurately how I felt.

Two young women were at a corner table poring over a magazine. I ordered a 7 and 7 and got a look from the bar guy.

“Seagram’s 7 and 7-Up.”

His look said. . “Then, that’s what you should have said.”

Day just kept giving!

I was considering a second one when a voice said,

“Oh, go on, live a bit.”

One of the girls ordering wine spritzers. I noticed how pretty she was, verging on seriously hot.

Because I’d been around Jack his, shall I say, “terseness” rather than “blunt rudeness” had rubbed off.

I snapped,

“How would it be if you minded your own business.”

A beat.

Then,

She laughed out loud, said,

“A guy with balls. You’re a rare breed.”

I sank back into my funk. Twenty dire minutes later, I finished the drink and, if anything, it had deepened my despair. Asked myself if it was too late to get back on my Beckett or cut my literary loss, head stateside. On the way to the door, the girl blocked my path. And her looks? She could be a ringer for Meadow, Tony Soprano’s daughter and, in my fragmented book, that was solid. She asked,

“Are you some kind of mature student?”

Mature was imbued with a weight of scorn.

I tried for Jack’s “wipe the floor” with her but I had nothing. Her face, just truly lovely, had unnerved me. She stood there for a moment assessing me.

Man, there are few analyses like that of an Irishwoman. It’s not even so much what you are as

“what they might make of you.”

Scary shit.

She asked,

“If I marry you will I get a green card?”

I spluttered,

“What the. .”

She gave a radiant smile, said,

“But let’s play by the rules. Meet me here at eight tomorrow and buy me dinner.”

I managed,

“Like a date?”

She was turning on her heel, then,

“Well, it’s hardly like a. . tragedy.”

A shopping mall in Nairobi was seized by terrorists brandishing automatic weapons. They screamed at anyone who was a Muslim to leave. A young non-Muslim, an Englishman, managed a few nervous words of Arabic and was released. They then began to systematically murder the remainder. At least fifty people were killed.

My dinner date with Aine (it was, she said, Irish for Ann) went well. After I asked her to my apartment for a coffee, she said,

“You just want a fuck.”

Good Lord!

Then she added,

“Let’s see if you’re worth screwing.”

I thought her use of the most basic obscenity was a test and, heavens to Betsy, it certainly was testing, but I felt I could hang in there. Bottom line being that she kept me off balance and that in itself was a rush. She said to me,

“If a man says no to a woman, she wants to die. If a woman says no to a man, he wants to kill.”

I told her a partial truth, said,

“That’s very provocative.”

And got that Irish look, mix of amusement and derision, as she answered,

“But provocative to whom?”

I was attempting to explain to Aine why I’d started writing a book on Jack Taylor, began with,

“The guy saved my ass.”

She was skeptical, said,

“He stopped a street fight! It hardly merits you devoting your life to him.”

As I’ve said, Aine was hot but, truth to tell, exasperating. I continued,

“One book is hardly devotion.”

She fixed on me that intense no-prisoners Irish gaze,

“You got some high-flying scholarship to study Samuel Beckett and you’re jeopardizing that to write about a worn-out alky nobody?”

I tried to explain that mystery and Ireland would be a surefire combination in the States. Then I could, having sold film rights, return to Beckett at my leisure. She was raging.

“Are you three kinds of eejit! A book about a broken-down Kojak in the west of Ireland is going to fly?”

I said, rattled,

“I know about books.”

She rolled her eyes, said,

“And sweet fuck-all about the real world.”

A single entry in Jack Taylor’s journal/notes for all of September 2013:

“Cuir fidh se anois a chuid gaoither anois”

(Now it shall please his conscience now).

Jack’s TV viewing had once been a learning curve all of itself. He asserted that American television was the new literature, that the finest writing was contained in the scripts of

Breaking Bad

Game of Thrones

Low Winter Sun

reaching back to The Sopranos and excelling onward. But like the darker turn in his psyche, he was now enthralled by

Hardcore Pawn

A pawnshop set in the middle of Detroit’s 8 Mile, it was Jerry Springer meets American Horror Story.

Pawnshops, he said,

“We’re the new Church of Ultimate Despair.”

Kennels for the Hound of Heaven.

I was treating Aine to dinner in Fat Freddy’s in Quay Street. They do a seriously good chili. Aine was having coq au vin, smiling as she said it to me,

“Irish people can never order that with a straight face.”

We’d just started a carafe of the house wine when I excused myself to answer my cell. Took the call outside on the street amid a riot of hen parties and young people celebrating exam results. The call was from my former tutor in Dublin, who, no frills, asked,

“The fuck are you playing at?”

Meaning, my abandonment of my tenure at Trinity as part of my scholarship.

I lied, said,

“Just taking time out to savor the country.”

Pause, then,

“Savor fast and get your arse back here, you don’t want to lose your place.”

Lots of replies to this but I went with brown-nosing,

“Yes, sir, I’ll be back in a few weeks.”

Buying time if not affection.

When I returned to the table, a man was sitting in my chair, leaning across the table, apparently engrossed in conversation. I went,

“What the hell. .?”

The man stood up, mega smile, hand out, said,

“Boru, forgive me. I was just keeping your lovely lady company.”

Something in the way he said “lovely” leaked a creepy familiarity over the word and I realized who he was:

The professor, de Burgo.

As I put this in some kind of skewed perspective, he rushed,

“I spotted you earlier and just wanted to pop over, ask if there was a chance you’d guest-lecture for my department.”

He then literally ushered me into my chair, handed me a business card, said,

“But let me not spoil your evening. Give me a bell when you get a chance and, truly, we’d be delighted to have you on board.”

And he was gone.

Jack seemed to get his rocks off on subtly putting me down.

Well, maybe not so subtly.

He’d been telling me of the golden age of TV, when he was a young man, said,

“Fuck, we had Barney Miller and the magnificent Rockford Files.”

I admitted that, no, I didn’t know those shows. He said,

“And you’ll look back on what? The Kardashians!”

I went the wrong tack, tried,

“I don’t really watch a lot of television.”

And he was off.

Like this,

“Course not, you’re too freaking academic to slum, you probably have wet dreams about Kurosawa and Werner Herzog.”

Jesus!

I said,

“That is reverse elitism.”

He laughed out loud, said,

“Bet you’re one of those pricks who say, “I don’t read fiction,” then sneak into the toilet with the National Enquirer.

The Irish people were going to the polls, a referendum on two points:

(a) To keep or abolish the senate.

(b) To set up a new court of appeals.

A fast track for cases in reality.

Jack was shucking into his all-weather Garda coat. I asked,

“You have to be somewhere?”

He stared at me, said,

“I’m going to vote.”

I was astounded, said,

“You. . you vote?”

And he looked as if he might deck me, asked,

“You think alkies don’t have rights, that it?”

In exasperation, I said,

“There’s no talking to you.”

“No, you mean there’s no lecturing me!”

A day later I was having a drink with Aine. We were in Hosty’s, early in the evening, and a nice air of quiet pervaded. I’d nearly perfected the pronunciation of her name, had it as close to

“Yawn-ah.”

Without the “y,” obviously.

We were doing well, she was telling me about a beauty course she was close to finishing. Then, she hoped to open a nail salon. I asked,

“There’s money in nails?”

And got the look.

The door behind me banged open but I didn’t turn around. Then a hand grabbed my collar, hauled me off the stool. I crashed to the floor, my pint spilling over a new white shirt I was sporting. Jack stood over me, his fists balled, spit flying from his mouth, he rasped,

“You tout, you piece of treacherous shit, you ratted me out to the Guards. .”

He had to pause for breath, some control, then,

“And to Clancy, fucking Clancy of all people!”

Aine was trying to grab Jack, pull him back, but he effortlessly shrugged her away, said,

“I thought we had some kind of friendship! If you were anybody else, I’d kick your fucking head in.”

Aine shouted,

“Leave him alone. I’ll call the Guards!”

He turned to her and the manic rage seemed to ebb. He said,

“Jesus, the Guards! You two deserve each other.”

He looked down at me, said,

“You sorry excuse for a man.”

And then threw some notes onto the counter, said to the stunned barman,

“Buy these two beauts a drink, something yellow,

And weak as piss.”

It was Aine who declared,

“OK, if you’re going to do a book on that. .”

She faltered,

“Asshole,”

Then,

“You’re going to have to be the scholar we keep hearing you are.”

I wasn’t sure where this was going, said,

“Not sure where this is going.”

She stifled her impatience, explained,

“Sources. . research, talk to the people who know/knew him.”

Made sense.

Within a few days I had a list.

Like this,

Assorted barpersons.

A woman named Ann Henderson, supposedly the one and only great love of his life. Of course, as used in Taylorland, the affair had ended badly with Ann marrying another Guard, an archenemy of Jack. Indeed, it was hard to find people who weren’t enemies of his, arch or otherwise.

Cathy and Jeff, the parents of the Down syndrome child whose death was widely attributed to Jack’s negligence.

Ban Garda Ridge, a sometime accomplice, confidante, and conspirator of Jack’s.

Father Malachy. A close friend of Jack’s late mother and someone who’d known Jack for over twenty years. I was hoping he’d shed some light on Jack’s hard-on for the Church. In light of the recent clerical scandals, maybe hard-on was a poor choice of noun.

A solicitor who’d haphazardly dealt with Jack’s numerous escapades with the Guards.

There was a Romanian, Caz, whose name featured often but he’d apparently been deported in one of the government sweeps.

The Tinkers were among the few who held Jack in some sort of ethnic regard.

Father Malachy was the parish priest at St. Patrick’s, the church of note for Bohermore. I had called ahead and, on arrival, was met by a nun. She was so old that she was practically bent in two. I wasn’t sure if I should acknowledge her physique and stoop to her level. Jack would have said we’d bent down enough for the Church. She raised a feeble arm, pointed, said,

“The Father is in the sacristy.”

I tried,

“I don’t wish to disturb him.”

In a surprisingly terse tone, she snapped,

“Ary, he’s been disturbed for years.”

Then declared,

“You’re a Yank!”

“Um. . yes.”

“I have a sister in San Francisco, with the Sisters of the Pure of Heart.”

Wow, so many ways to play with that line. But she asked,

“Did you bring something?”

. . Just an attitude. .

I said,

“No, should I have?”

“And they say Yanks are flaithiúil (generous).”

I headed down the aisle and she fired,

“You’re already on the wrong foot.”

Father Malachy was almost invisible behind a cloud. The effect was startling, as if a Stephen King fog or mist had enshrouded him. Then the stale fetid smell of nicotine hit like a hammer. He was in his late fifties, with a face mottled by rosacea, broken veins, and what I guess can only be described as lumps. He was dressed in clerical black, dandruff like a shroud on his shoulders. And I have to be mistaken, but the magazine he wiped off the cluttered desk seemed a lot like the National Enquirer.

Surely not?

He peered at me, rheumy-like, and, with not one hint of compassion, he snapped,

“What’d you want?”

I said,

“I’m Boru Kennedy and wonder if I might have a. .”

He barked,

“What the shite kind of name is that? Are ya a Yank?”

I’d seen The Quiet Man and Darby O’Gill and the Little People, but any Hollywood image of the jovial Irish priest bore no relation to this ogre. Luckily, I had been cautioned to bring a bottle. To, as Aine suggested, “wet his whistle.”

Not sure why I told the nun I had nothing but Jack had advised me once. . Lie always to the clergy, it is their stock-in-trade.

I handed over the bottle.

Jameson, of course.

I was a dude who learned.

If he was grateful, he gave no sign. He growled,

“I’ve a cousin in the Bronx. He works for the Sanitation Department.”

Then he laughed,

“The bollix is down the toilet.”

Pause, another cig, then,

“What do you want?”

I took a deep breath, lied,

“I’m doing a profile of. . um. . colorful Galway personalities and I wonder if you might, please, have some thoughts on the ex-policeman Jack Taylor?”

I waited for an explosion, a torrent of abuse, but a sly grin danced along his lips, he asked,

“How much are you paying?”

Of course.

In my time in Ireland, I’d learned a few moves for dealing with the locals:

(1) Never. . ever, pump yourself up.

(2) Adopt a nigh manic love of hurling. You didn’t have to actually learn the game, just mutter “Ah, will we ever see the likes of D.J. Carey again?”

(3) Make almost undetected snide comments on nonnationals, sliding in mention of the Holy Grail, i.e., medical cards.

(4) Constantly refer to the weather as simply fierce.

(5) Buy the first round but especially the last.

(6) Rile a priest to get him going.

I went with number 6, said,

“They say Jack saved your life.”

Phew!

Fireworks.

He was on his feet, cigarette smoke nigh blinding him, spittle leaking from his mouth. He shouted,

“That whore’s ghost of a bollix! He killed a child and don’t even get me started on how he drove his saint of a mother into an early grave.”

He blessed himself, adding,

“May she rest in the arms of Jesus, the Bed of Heaven to her.”

Lest he launch into a full-blown rosary, I tried,

“I was told the child’s death was an accident.”

He made his hmph sound, underwrit with indignation, said,

“Ask her parents, yeah, ask them if it was an accident.”

He was eyeing the bottle, could only be moments before he climbed in and that was an event I wished to bear witness to. But he changed tack, said,

“Our new pope, supposedly he’s embracing the simple life. No Gucci slippers for him.”

He fumed on that a bit, then conceded,

“Least he sacked that bishop who just built a thirty-one-million place.”

Threw his arms out to embrace his run of his home, said,

“And they expect me to live on the charity of the parish! You know how much they put in the basket at Mass last Sunday?”

I was guessing, not a lot.

“Twenty-four euros, two buttons, and a scratch card.”

The urge to ask if he won. On the card.

I stood up to take my leave, said, offering my hand,

“Thank you so much for your time.”

But he was still in hate-Taylor mode, didn’t quite know how to turn it off. He asked,

“You heard about him and the nun?”

Sounded like the title of a very crude joke. I tried,

“I do know he’s close to Sister Marie.”

He shot me a look of contemptible pity, spat,

“Not that wannabe Mother Teresa. Years ago he was working on a case involving a murdered priest and an old frail nun had been working with the poor murdered fellah. Taylor said to her. .”

Pause.

“I hope you burn in hell.”

I had an ace, played,

“Wasn’t that the time Jack saved you from serious child abuse allegations?”

We were done.

On his feet, he snarled,

“Get out of my office. . ya. .”

He searched for the most withering insult and as I reached the door, he trumpeted,

“Yah Protestant.”

That evening I had dinner with Aine and related the encounter with the priest. She said,

“There was a time, you know, priests ruled the roost here.”

I thought how far they’d tumbled, said,

“Seems like they’re reduced to scraping the bottom of the Irish barrel.”

She laughed, said,

“More like these days, it’s shooting clerical fish in the barrel.”

I’d been spending more and more time with her and, I don’t know about love, but it had certainly moved into an area of need. We had grappa with the after-dinner coffee and she smiled, said,

“Lucky you.”

Being with her, having found her, I felt way more than lucky but I asked,

“Why?”

That malicious twinkle in her eye, she said,

“I know for a fact you’re getting laid.”

Notes from Boru’s Papers

Amen

To that, Jack thought.

He had spoken again to Sister Maeve. One of the girls allegedly attacked by de Burgo had killed herself. Left a note for Sister Maeve.

It read:

I feel so dirty, so defiled.

My priest says I am a liar.

Please pray for my tainted soul.

Like a haiku of bitter acid. Etched in utter despair.

Jack pledged,

“If it’s my last act, I’ll make that bastard burn.”

Took me a time to track down Ann Henderson. She was, according to most sources, the “love of Jack’s life.”

She had some colorful, varied history her ownself. After Jack, she had married a Guard. This same individual for various motives decided Jack needed

“the lesson of the hurly.”

A very Galway practice. Involving three ingredients:

(1) A knee

(2) A hurly

(3) Rage

Took out Jack in one lethal swoosh, leaving him with a permanent limp. As stories go, this would be sufficiently dark, adequately noir for the most jaded palate. But in Taylorland, half measures availed them nothing. A vigilante group, named the Pikemen, in a misguided attempt to recruit Jack, took out the hurler.

Ann blamed Jack.

It wasn’t then that they had simply history, it was open brutal wafare.

Jack lost. . as always.

I met Ann at the Meryck Hotel. On the phone she said,

“Let’s pretend we have some class.”

Irishwomen had this lock on non sequiturs. Did they always have the last word? According to Jack, they most certainly always had the last laugh, regardless of how bitter. I’m not sure what I was expecting. An aging woman, gray and broken from grief and her legacy of men, downtrodden?

I think that was the description I was anticipating.

Quelle surprise. . which Jack had Irish-translated as

“Fuck me sideways!”

She was well groomed, finely preserved, indeterminate forty-through-fifty range. An immaculate tailored navy coat, strong face, with that melancholic slant that attracted rather than repelled. Her hair was shot through with blond highlights. The eyes, intense blue with a light that spoke of deep reserves. She welcomed me warmly, said,

“But you’re little more than a gasun.”

The pat-your-head, kick-your-ass sandwich her nation specialized in.

We ordered tea. Yeah, I was trying to go native. Was even managing to swear without consciously thinking about it. She asked,

“So, how can I help you?”

I launched. Gave her most of my Taylor narrative. She was a good listener. Took a time but eventually I was done. Not sure what responses I was anticipating but laughter wasn’t among them. She said,

“You need to watch that.”

“What?”

I’d deliberately avoided cusswords. She gave me a warm smile, and how it lit up her face. I could see how Jack would have cherished its glow. She said,

“I could be listening to Jack.”

She had to be kidding. I tried,

“You have to be kidding.”

She reached over, touched my arm, said,

“You have taken on his speech patterns. Next you’ll be making lists.”

Clumsily, I tried to cover the current list with my teacup. She continued,

“Jack has a dark, very dark magnetism. Alas, it obliterates those who stay drawn to it. Look at his closest friends. . Stewart,”

Pause.

Dead.

Then,

“Ridge. . just out of hospital. Not to mention a long line of casual acquaintances, bartenders, street people, so-called snitches, even an innocent child. All Taylor-tainted and all dead or wounded. My own husband and, God forgive me, my own lost heart.”

Fuck!

I noticed she still wore the Irish wedding band, the Claddagh ring. The heart turned inward-for whom, Jack or her husband?

I didn’t ask.

Did ask,

“Do you hate him?”

She seemed quite astonished, took a moment to regroup, then,

“Not so long ago it seemed as if Jack might be on the verge of happiness.”

We both laughed nervously at such a notion. She continued,

“An American he met on a weekend in London. The affair apparently burned bright and rapidly. The high point was her impending visit to Galway. . Jack was aglow.”

I went,

“Wow, hold the phones. She knew about his drinking, right?”

She rolled her eyes, said,

“Mother of God, everybody and his sister knows that! There was another woman, hell-bent on destroying every aspect of Jack’s life and had somehow gotten hold of his mobile. The American arrived, no one to meet her at the airport, so. .”

She took a deep breath.

“She answered Jack’s phone, said,

‘Jack can’t come to the phone,

he’s about to come in me.’”

I went Irish,

“Holy fuck!”

I ventured,

“Do you still have some. . um. . residual feelings for Jack?”

She laughed but not with any warmth, said,

“Residual! Jesus, sounds like a TV repeat. How deeply fucked is the ordinary art of conversation by political correctness.”

Her use of obscenity gave her words a blunt trauma and also affirmed that this line of questioning was done. She gathered her coat, asked,

“What happened to your friendship with the bold Jack?”

Taken aback, I considered some answers that might put me in a better light. This woman’s approval seemed necessary. I said simply,

“I betrayed him.”

She took a sharp breath, then,

“Phew, that’s bad, no return there.”

I asked,

“He doesn’t forgive betrayal?”

“Jack doesn’t forgive anything or anyone.”

I reverted to American, said,

“Hard-core, eh?”

She gave me a look, savored that, said,

“There is one person he can never forgive.”

I wanted to guess, “Your husband,” but some discretion held my tongue. She had such a look of profound sadness, so I asked,

“Who might that be?”

“Himself.”

Jack had recently resumed drinking in the River Inn. He hung there as NUIG staff like to unwind near the university. After a grueling day of between one and two lectures. One guy dressed in a worn cord jacket with, and I kid thee not, patches on the elbows, was a regular. A man who’d read his John Cheever or watched one too many episodes of University Challenge. He liked to drink large Jamesons, no ice, no water. A dedicated souse. Jack knew him slightly from Charley Byrne’s bookshop, where he spent hours loitering in the Literary Crit section.

Jack began to join him at the counter, freely buying him rounds, creating an artificial camaraderie through drink. The guy liked to talk a lot.

A few sessions in, Jack slipped de Burgo into the chat, began,

“Professor de Burgo seems to be highly respected.”

No one pisses on academics like their colleagues. The guy didn’t disappoint, muttered,

“Cock of the fucking English Department.”

Gently prodding, needling, Jack brought the prey to play, said,

“A firm favorite of the ladies, I hear.”

Bingo!

The torrent opened, accompanied by a huge “umph.”

“Ladies’ man, my arse. He lines up all the naive starry-eyed first-year students, grooms them, and then. . in his words. .”

He took a hefty belt of the Jay, as if what was coming needed lubrication, certainly artificial strength, said,

“Nails the cunts.”

Jack bit back his own ice-cold fury, asked quietly,

“How does he get away with it?”

No hesitation.

“Connected. The Garda super, half the city’s movers and shakers, they’re his golf buddies.”

Jack wondered how much he could reveal of what Sister Maeve had told him of the condition of the girls, went with,

“I’ve been told those girls are in a bad way.”

He nodded ruefully, said,

“Time back, I’d a bottle of Old Midleton, a real fine vintage, got buried into it with the professor, and recklessly observed, ‘Jesus, you could kill one of those girls.’”

Jack said,

“Bet that rattled him.”

He glanced up at the TV. Sky News was reporting on 25,000 lost in the Philippines typhoon. Some horrors are of such magnitude you can’t grasp them. He shook his head, seeing but not assimilating. He said,

“De Burgo laughed, said, ‘One can always dream.’”

Then he abruptly stood, glared as if Jack stole something from him, said,

“I don’t think I want to talk to you anymore.”

Jack sat for a time, his mind careering amid nails, typhoons, and stray snatches of conversation from other drinkers. Their main topic was the appointment of Martin O’Neill as Ireland’s new manager with the red-hot announcement of his assistant, Roy Keane.

Keane was a tornado of a whole different caliber. The government was pleased, took the spotlight off its cancellation of medical cards for children with Down syndrome. Jack ordered another pint, watched the slow build of the black, and thanked some deity for at least one unchanged staple.

Next on my list of Taylor trails was Ban Garda Ni Iomaire. Female Guard Ridge. Now a sergeant, she’d only recently returned to duty after a horrific accident. My data were meager. She was gay, combative, and once a close Taylor ally.

Now, she was simply elusive. I’d left messages, called the station, and hit a brick wall. Finally it was Aine who tracked her down. They attended the same gym. She agreed to meet me in Java coffee shop. I’m not sure what I expected. A woman who not only survives in the Guards but gets promoted, well, she was hardly going to be a shrinking violet.

The first surprise was her size; she was small, almost petite. She moved with a grace due perhaps to her kickboxing training. A large gash across her forehead testified to the gravity of her recent accident. I was sitting and rose as she approached. She snapped,

“Spare me the gallant shite.”

Oh, boy!

She sat, leveled hard brown eyes on me, asked,

“You a Jack fan?”

I stammered,

“Um. .”

She ordered,

“You pushed to meet me and now what, you’re shy? Jesus!”

Oh, Lord, another ballbuster. I decided on diplomacy, asked,

“How are you after the accident?”

Big, big mistake.

“Accident! Do you know me? No, so why would you give a toss as to how I am or do you mean the train wreck that is Taylor?”

It was probably too late to run. So, haltingly I told her of my project, the book on Jack and my plan to interview those who know him.

She appeared to be only half-listening as she ordered herbal tea. The waitress was having some difficulty with this, asked,

“You do know this is called Java? The hint is in the name, meaning, ‘Hello?’ We serve coffee.”

Before this escalated, I put in my two cents, said,

“Chamomile is good.”

No kidding, they both glared at me. Ridge said,

“You hear anybody ask you?”

Maybe they were sisters! Certainly related in animosity. We waited until her tea came, she didn’t touch it, just fixed me with that stare, the one that says,

“Let’s hear it, asshole.”

I asked,

“How would you describe Jack?”

“A feckless drunk.”

OK.

I waited.

Nothing further.

I tried,

“But he did have a certain measure of success. I mean. . with your assistance of course.”

She rolled her eyes, then,

“Cases got solved despite him, not because of him.”

I felt frustration building but strove for an even tone, asked,

“So why did you hang in there all these years?”

Her body language altered, not a lot but a modicum less of steel. Maybe chamomile is underrated. She said,

“Time was, I thought the light shone stronger in Jack than the darkness. I believed he was running from the ugliness, the brutality. But I was wrong. All the time, he was courting it until finally it became not a part of him but all of him.”

I said,

“Wow, that’s a bleak picture.”

She was done, stood up, said,

“He’s a bleak man.”

Desperate, I asked,

“Surely there is at least one redeeming feature?”

She seemed to consider that, then,

“He knows who he is. If that’s a point in his favor, then he’s even more fucked than I’ve said.”

She had reached the door when a thought hit her. She came back, leaned over the table, got right in my face. She was proof that sheer physical intimidation has less to do with build than intent. She said,

“You want, as you Yanks say. .”

hissed this,

“. . a sound bite?”

She let me taste that, then,

“A blurb, isn’t that what they call them? Hell, you could even use it as a title, Jack Taylor is

a

Spit

in

the

Face.”

Then she was gone.

I wiped at my face as if spittle had landed there.

Aine was hugely excited, called me to say we had to meet, she had great news.

OK?

We meet in Crowe’s, she ordered a vodka, slimline tonic. I had a pint of Smithwick’s. I loved Guinness but, oh man, that sucker sits in your gut like lead. She looked, oh, my God, so darn pretty, and all lit up, gave a glow to eyes already on fire. I went,

“S’up?”

The Budweiser ref was lost on her. She gushed,

“Guess what?”

“You won the Lotto?”

Seemed to be an Irish response.

“No. Professor de Burgo offered me a position as a research assistant and he’ll help me return to college as a mature student.”

I felt fingers of ice sneak along my spine. Before I could say something reckless, she said,

“I knew you’d be delighted for me. It means I can talk to you properly about your work.”

I wanted to protest,

“Jack is my work.”

But went with,

“What about your job?”

She lit up even more.

“Oh, sweetheart, that is so you. Concerned for my welfare.”

Uh-huh.

She continued,

“I can still keep my day job and do the research in the evenings.”

Halle-fuckin-lujah.

More.

“The professor has great admiration for you.”

Yeah. . right.

Her effusiveness was not catching. I tried for something that wouldn’t sound sour, sound lame, I went with,

“I wonder why he chose you?”

Her expression changed and not for the good. She snapped,

“What does that mean?”

This is where a smart guy folds his tent. But no, dumb ass had to push it.

Like this,

“Just seems odd that with all the hundreds of students actually there, I mean, who are like, you know, really students?”

Oh, fuck!

She was on it, repeated, with venom,

“Really students!”

You’re in a hole, stop friggin digging. I dug.

“You know what I mean. It’s not like you’re an obvious Lit type.”

Sweet Jesus, did I say that aloud?

She stared at me for a long moment, as if really seeing me, then literally drew back, gathered her things, said,

“Fuck you.”

And was gone.

The barman came by, asked,

“Anything else?”

“Something seriously amnesiac.”

Jack was listening to a very drunk guy who was in mid- shy;monologue. The diatribe had begun in a vaguely promising manner, with even flashes of a sub-Proust/Joycean flavor, but was deteriorating fast.

Like,

“So, Jack, I’m asking you, there’s this guy on I’m a Celebrity. . the fuckin awful jungle reality show. This bollix has got a ten-thousand-euro Rolex and, I kid you not, he’s an adult but he cannot read the time.”

He stops, astounded by the lunacy and bewildered by the Jameson. Shook his head, continued,

“. . What’s with the world, Jack, like we’re celebrating the culture of ignorance. That wanker Simon Cowell says the secret to success is being lazy and lucky.”

He stared at a fresh pint, a Jay as old outrider, puzzlement on his face, like

“How’d that happen?”

Shrugged, reached for one.

A low rumble came from the man’s stomach and an almost rictus crawled down from his hairline. Jack knew that gig. Had borne lonely witness to it his own lonely self, a thousand times over every brand of toilet bowl on the planet. Jack looked around, no one else noticed and certainly no one cared.

He said quietly,

“Incoming.”

The man vomited all over the counter. A small volcano of Technicolor gunk. A piece of green testified to the last attempt at food. People were backing away fast, exclaiming,

“Aw, for fuck’s sake.”

Or

“There goes the neighborhood.”

Jack turned to the barman, said,

“Now that’s a Kodak moment.”

Aine refused to answer my calls. I even fell back on the hackneyed gesture of flowers. They were returned. Sat on my coffee table, slowly dying. My mother had believed if you slip an aspirin into the water, the flowers will last.

Right.

Like my life, they withered. In studying Jack, I had fallen into the most obvious trap for a biographer. I was too close. Worse, in many ways my life was now imitating Jack’s. I had alienated my few friends, driven away my girlfriend, and, oh, sweet heaven, not only was I talking like him, I was steadily drinking like him. To some, strolling into a pub, having the barman holler,

“The usual?”

is some lame sign of arrival.

The fuck with that.

See, even the cussing.

A more worrying trait was the anger. Close up I had witnessed Jack’s volatile temper. When in doubt, he lashed out. The gauge was permanently set at aggressive.

I found a new simmering rage developing daily. All my brief life, I had been the mellow dude, my mantra,

“Whoa, let it slide, buddy.”

I’d discovered a curious phenomenon about living alone.

The utter stillness.

If you don’t move, nothing does. The very air seems to be suspended. Then you walk the length of the apartment, it’s as if you are part of that atmosphere and it closes behind you. No wonder people crammed their homes with kids, TV, radio, dogs, other people. Noise to break that eerie silence. Jack punctuated it with Jameson. I was beginning to understand a little more of what drove him.

I’d been almost feverish in my compulsion to contact Aine. Had been to her apartment probably a few more times than was prudent. Her roommate finally said,

“Just fuck off.”

And, too, I probably sent more texts than was appropriate. Worse, I’d been to her mother’s house. Oh, Gawd, wish I hadn’t. The woman was polite but adamant, advised,

“Time for you to move on, son.”

Still. I thought, if I could see her. . Hung around the college until a porter finally asked me my business. I didn’t play that well and though he didn’t actually lay hands on me, he did say,

“Don’t let me catch you here again.”

How did this even happen? I was a successful American doctoral candidate with a prestigious scholarship and I was skulking around like a love-torn puppy.

Not cool, dude.

Then the oddest thing. I had been out all day, paying utilities, soaking up the Galway vibe, even spoke to Jimmy Norman, the coolest DJ on Galway radio. The guy had, get this, a cordon bleu, a master’s degree in business, a daily show on early morning radio. . and. . a pilot’s license. The whole new man. . seriously? And when I had coffee with him, he amazed me with his knowledge of local politics. I felt I was becoming, if not one of the players, at least the guy who knew them. Then, on to the Galway Advertiser to meet with Declan Varley, the editor, and Kernan Andrews, the arts/entertainment, go-to guy. All these dudes were young, smart, clued in, and a testament to the whole new generation of Irish who bowed down to freaking nobody. I was pumped, wired on possibilities. To be American in Galway was still to be blessed with remnants of Kennedy afterglow. On the fiftieth anniversary of JFK’s death, it was still currency to be a Kennedy. Man, I played that gene card.

Got back to my apartment, buzzing, the endless possibilities, and then. .

Something off.

Stood in the middle of my living room, sensed the air had been disturbed. A new presence had, oh, so slightly, altered the air. I checked thoroughly. My iPad, TV, all there. The sense of an intruder was almost palpable. I didn’t know what to make of it. I also didn’t know that by this stage Aine had been dead for two days.

Because nothing was taken, it never occurred to me that

Something. .

might have been added.

Miscellaneous notes, quotes,

chapter headings, descriptions Boru had

intended to flesh out

his Taylor book

Jack’s physical appearance was a testament to the myriad of

beatings

muggings

hammerings

he’d received by

hurly

hammer

baseball bat(s)

shotgun (sawed-off)

He had a distinctive limp and a hearing aid, and two fingers of his right hand had been removed by rusty pliers.

His eyes had the nine-yard stare of long-term convicts doing hard time. Hard time was the mantra of his bedraggled, violent existence.

The years of Jameson, Guinness, and coffin-nail cigarettes had lent to his voice a hoarse, creaky rasp.

Slick lizard rhythms

cigar smoke

straight gin

sky laced with double moons.

Pinned on Jack’s wall was a print of Fabritius’s Goldfinch. It’s a tiny thing.

Tiny bird

Tiny picture

Bare wall.

Most telling is that the tiny bird is chained. That this bird has for centuries represented

Christ on the Cross,

Alone,

Suspended.

The city of Galway was Jack’s very own cross.

Jack had been watching Denis Leary’s series Rescue Me in what they were now terming a viewing splurge. Meaning, you have one mega cluster-fuck of the boxed set back-to-back.

Get this,

Series One through Six in one slam dunk until,

Bleary-eyed,

Dizzy,

Souped

And the wild, crazy world of firefighters seems more real than the wet dreary days of a cold Galway November. Tommy (Denis Leary) could have been Jack,

alcoholic,

screwup,

addict,

violent,

Catholic,

smoker.

Halfway decent shell of a human being. Too, in one way or another, Jack had been putting out fires all his befuddled life.

Starting them, too.

And shards, snippets of the Brooklyn catalog banged around in Jack’s head. More real than any lame conversation he’d attempted in any given Galway pub.

“I’m doing you a solid.”

Yeah.

Save Jack hadn’t, nohow, done anyone “a solid” for a very long time. So, ridding the world of scum like de Burgo might be his very own

White Arrest.

October 28, 2013: Jack heard of the death of Lou Reed at shy;seventy-one on the very day he’d resolved to yet again try a spell of sobriety. He didn’t of course confuse sobriety with sanity. The nondrinking patches he’d endured simply seemed to spotlight his areas of madness in stark relief. Back in the day as a Guard, through subterfuge and bribery, he’d landed the security gig for a Reed concert in Dublin. It was a small venue and Lester Bangs’s description of Reed as a deformed, depraved midget seemed cruelly apt. It was the high or low of Reed’s heroin daze. Dressed in black leather jacket, skintight leather pants, black boots, and the obligatory black shades, he’d mumbled, stuttered, and pretty much failed to deliver a version of “Walk on the Wild Side.” He resembled a crushed tarantula devoid of any sting. Helping Reed limp to his dressing room, sweat washing away the white makeup, Jack had ventured.

“Good gig, Mr. Reed.”

A mumbled response.

Only later, while he was sinking a Jameson and creamy pint in Doheny amp; Nesbitt on Baggot Street, did the mutter crystallize.

It was,

“Ya cunt.”

Jack smiled, whispered,

“Wild side me arse.”