Purgatory

25

I was watching Season 5 of Breaking Bad when I heard the knock at the door. Expecting Kelly, I ran my fingers through my hair. Make an effort, right? Smile in place, I opened the door to Ridge.

A very distressed Ridge. Could see her red eyes, knew it must be bad. If Ridge was crying it was hard-core. I ushered her in, got her sitting down, waited.

She said,

“Stewart’s been shot.”

That didn’t make any sense. Not Stewart, the guy was too fast, too aware. I muttered,

“What?”

“He was found at the home of a young guy who’d been killed and we think he may have disturbed the killer.”

I couldn’t get a handle, tried,

“What young guy? Jesus, where, I mean, how is he, Stewart?”

She stared down at the floor. I grabbed her shoulder, rougher than I intended, shouted,

“Ridge?”

“He’s dead, Jack.”

The next few days were a flurry of dazed and utter confusion. I was there, present, but only barely. For some fucked-up reason, Stewart had named me as his next of kin in his papers. He had to be kidding but kidding wasn’t anything he’d be doing again. I knew he lost all contact with his family after his jail time, but to name me, Jesus, what was he thinking?

Like everything else, he’d arranged his disposal, as he termed it in his will.

Cremation.

“He was afraid of small spaces,”

Ridge told me.

How’d she get told and not me?

You want cremation in Galway, it makes perfect Irish sense, you have to travel to Dublin. Fuck. In my anger, I’d spat,

“Hey, give me a can of petrol and a Zippo, we can stay home.”

Ridge let that slide.

Kelly had said,

“Anything you need?”

Yeah, my friend back.

She got Reardon to arrange a flight to Dublin and Ridge, Stewart, and I made the trip early on the Monday morning before the races. We were back that evening, with Stewart in an urn. All of that is only vaguely recallable, brief vignettes of pain and anger. I was drinking but not drunk, not sober, and certainly not in any sane state of mind.

Phew-oh.

I do remember the plane ride back, Stewart on the seat beside me. I asked Ridge, who was as shell-shocked as my own self,

“What do we do with the urn? Put it on our mantelpieces, take it alternate weekends?”

She shook her head, said,

“He left instructions.”

Of course.

Ridge and I were waiting close to Nimmo’s Pier, a boat due to take us out on the bay, to scatter Stewart. I’d handed the urn to Ridge, felt weird holding my friend thus. Ridge looked down at it, said,

“And I’ve held you in the palm of my hand.”

It was shortly before noon, the Claddagh church would soon be ringing the bell for the Angelus. I was burning with bitterness, bile, and bewilderment.

I said,

“Who’d ever think I’d outlive Stewart?”

Ridge gave me an unknowable look, said,

“You shouldn’t have, no way.”

Jesus, steady.

A lone swan came gliding along. Ridge watched it with longing, said,

“They say a swan is the reincarnation of a Claddagh fisherman who drowned.”

Fuck.

I said,

“Jesus, I’m so tired of Irish

Piseógs

Stories

Omens

Superstitions

Fairy fucking tales.

Stewart is fucking dead and he ain’t coming back as a swan or any other freaking thing.”

Like I said,

“Bitterness oozing.”

I’d checked out Lee Waters, he’d fit the bill for the C33 agenda, but the Guards were no way going the way of a vigilante and, anyway, Stewart had been a dope dealer. Never no fucking mind it was years ago, he was dirty, end of story. Waters, and Stewart, had been clients of Westbury and Stewart had told me he was trying to find a link with Westbury and former victims, and I’d

. . blown him off.

I said to Ridge,

“Stewart thought the lawyer, Westbury, was worth investigating, maybe even built a case for him being the C33 character.”

Ridge shook her head.

“It’s nothing. The Guards checked out all this nonsense, there is no link between the killings.”

Fuck sake.

I said,

“What about the notes?”

She gave me the look, then,

“There’s a school of thought, um. . that suggests. .you. . you might have written those.”

“Are you fucking kidding? Why? Why on earth would I do that?”

The boat was approaching, I moved back from the pier, asked,

“And you, Ridge, what school do you favor?”

Said,

“You’ve been under lots of pressure and maybe, you know, a desire to look, um. . significant, in front of your American buddies.”

She put a lean of condescension on buddies.

I started to move away, she asked,

“Where are you going? We have to scatter Stewart’s ashes.”

I fixed my eyes on her, tried to keep my voice low, said,

“You’re smart, just take the top off and. . scatter.”

* * *

My mind was in free fall.

A line from Scott Walker, he’d said something like this is how you disappear.

To a torrent of self-recrimination, the chorus of not disapproval but downright bile, thinking,

“I always knew when the joke was over, but my dilemma?

Never being quite sure when it began”

Toward David Mamet describing his childhood,

. . In the days prior to television, we liked to while away the evenings by making ourselves miserable, solely based on our ability to speak the language viciously.

Pause.

Stopped to catch my breath, reach for my cigarettes,

And,

“Fuck, don’t smoke no more.”

Fume, yes, freely and with intent. The director Mike Nichols declaring,

I do well with the fundamentally inconsolable.

Fucking A.

A homeless person asked me for something and I shouted,

“You want something? Here, a word of consolation, fuck off.”

Repented.

Went back.

Gave him fifty euros, heard him mutter,

“Bloody eejit.”