Merrick

DAVID THOMPSON, MURDER BY THE BOOK.

I was back in Brooklyn, Van Morrison with Astral Weeks on the stereo, not an

Mp3

Or any of the new fangled shite

On a sound system that the brothers would have been proud of. You can’t appreciate

music with things stuck in your ears.

Play it loud and aggressive.

Annoy the neighbors.

The whole point of stereo.

Just ask the black cats what the boom boxes are really all about.

My neighbors were a pair of stoner dudes, worthy of a Don Winslow novel, no I hadn’t

begun to read, they told me! And when I played, especially Thin Lizzy, loud and defiant,

they begged

‘Louder dude.’

Stoner’s, like I said.

Madam George was on and that bring s me as close to tears as any Oprah show. The

dreaded memory began to un-reel, I opened the seal on The Wild Turkey, the deli didn’t

stock Jay.

Yet.

Took a hit, good, lit a cig, and tried to let the lyrics blot out the awful mind replay.

Eddie and I, two kids from the Republic,Eddie from Dublin, with that indefinable accent,

you didn’t know was he

a…………….cultured

b……………………….had notions

c…………..just a cunt

not many of us with the Boyo’s then,

after Bloody Sunday,

well, they came in droves.

‘Field of Dreams’, build the stadium and they will come, well, the Brits built a blood

stadium that they’d never quite play ball in again.

We earned our respect in the real testing ground.

South Armagh.

Bandit country.

Arm elite Armageddon.

Taking heavy hits every fookin day, got so you didn’t even talk to the new guys no more,

they’d be dead in two days. The SAS had us on the run, a turkey shoot but as they had no

respect for us, they got smug and we got back, viciously. Began to hit them literally at

home and I’m not real proud of that.

Different time.

We were finally sent to Belfast, the big number. Street to street, rooftop to alley, hit, run

hit again.

I was barely twenty and hadn’t one night ‘s sleep in a year.

Even the brass saw how beat we were and gave us two days Rn R in a safe house off the

Falls. We had crates of bottled Guinness, Fenian music, a stash of Poitin. We made

serious inroads on all of it. Even had some girls come round, look after our food,

washing…………..and stuff. Molly, red haired, Jesus wept, she adored Van the man,

used to have me listen to The Philosopher’s Stone, over and over till she was convinced I

got it. She was the very best of Irish women

Smart

Defiant

And ferociously loyal.

Said to me

‘Ryan, I’m your bulletproof vest.’

I was eating the stew she’d made and it was fierce good, full of spuds, meat, cabbage and

that heavy gravy, I looked up to tell her I might love…., I knew she figured I was going

to say ’Stew’ but she never got to find out, I never got to tell her.

A bullet took most of her head off, her blood and brains blending with the beautiful red

hair. I dropped the bowl as a mortar took out most of the top floor. Eddie was on his

belly, crawling towards the back door, his girl splattered over the far wall. I don’t

remember her name and I feel real bad about that.

I got my pistol out of my waistband as a borage of machine gun fire racked across the

room. Made it as far as Eddie, saw his face had a curious expression, shock I figured. He

said

‘Ryan, it doesn’t have to end like this?’

The fook was he talking about.

Added

‘They’ll let you live.’

My mind recoiled.

We were only just getting used to the term Supergrass, where the Brit’s grabbed our best,

turned them, and used them to decimate our ranks. He reached out his hand, I spat

‘You fookin can’t betray your country, Jesus Fookin wept, what else is there?’

I swear by all that’s Holy or otherwise that he smiled, said real quiet

‘I’m not.’

He was a fookin Brit, explained the dodgy accent and him being fookin useless at

hurling.

‘You’ll get a new identity, some nice money and all you have to do is tell them what they

already know.’

I managed to rise on to one knee, looked out the searchlights sweeping the house, the

street, and for a moment, it almost looked like white light, biotical sheen. Eddie pushed,

said what was to become my mantra of destruction

‘C’mon Paddy, it’s over.’

I got out of there, but I’m not really sure I ever truly left.