I literally rocked back.
He let me reel like that until he said,
“I told him next time the shotgun will be loaded.”
Keefer looked over my shoulder. I turned to see Sara, the falcon perched on her arm. The sun behind them gave the appearance of a statue, carved in ice; both were motionless. It was hard to say where the bird ended, so close they seemed, like one lethal force. I noticed the scar in the shape of a crucifix below her jawline. It seemed to throb like a resentment.
Keefer smiled, said with a forced cheer,
“Sweetheart, look who’s come to visit you.”
A few tense moments, then she handed off the falcon to Keefer, who said,
“I’ll give you guys a moment.”
She stared at me for a time then moved toward me, arms outstretched. She was no longer the vulnerable child, if ever she had been, but was now a young woman, looking way more than the supposed fourteen, an air of supreme confidence about her.
She was fingering her neck and I realized she was in fact rubbing my daughter’s gold miraculous medal, then her arms went round me.
She leaned in real close, whispered,
“Fuck off, cunt.”
“The Miracle of Small Proportion.”
Known colloquially as the small miracle
Occurs when a person provides
A major service/assistance
To a person they despise.
It is as rare as it is small.
I’d returned from Keefer’s by cab. Keefer had said,
“You no longer have use of my truck and don’t come here again.”
As I got into the cab, I turned to see Sara standing by the house, a smile of utter malevolence creeping across her pretty face.
I knew the cabdriver, Hugh McEntee. His mother (McEntee-Kennedy), Ena, had saved many girls from the infamous Magdalene. He let his eyes sweep across the farm, said,
“Worth a few bob.”
I grunted some vague assent.
The radio was tuned to Keith Finnegan. He was paying tribute to Kitty Kelly, who’d died at the age of 105, and Hugh asked me,
“Did you know her?”
Everybody knew Kitty. She’d worked Births, Marriages Department in the county buildings. She knew your date of birth the minute you walked into the office. Not too many of that caliber anymore.
She was always cheerful and if you met her on the street she’d greet you with total warmth, like this,
“Young Taylor, you look mighty.”
I’d met her on the day of her ninetieth birthday and she told me she was going to have a ninety-nine for the occasion — that is, the ice cream cone with a flake on top.
Hugh said,
“Kitty attributed her longevity to a glass of sherry every night, even in the nursing home. The nurses made sure she had that.”
I tried to balance that lovely story against the sheer evil of whatever the girl-child Sara was.
It only helped a little, like a rosary against the storm.
I spent a whole day in a blue funk, one of those awful “sit in a chair, stare at the wall, feel unable to rise to anything” ones, the mind in a blitzkrieg of guilt, rage, frustration, and every voice in your head screaming,
“You are a worthless piece of shit!”
A strangely level voice asking,
“Seriously, name one good thing you can be proud of.”
As a gauge of how low I was, I didn’t smoke, drink, or take a Xanax.
Did I wallow in that hell?
Yes.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, after you stood up, full of new resolve, full of a hard-won belief, that you were now a whole fresh page?
Like fuck.
When I did eventually stir, I made some coffee, as bitter as a translated prayer. I showered, the water scalding, the water lashing me. I’d often wondered what exactly the term self-flagellation truly meant.
I wondered no more.
I dressed in a faded T-shirt advertising the Rory Gallagher tour, so you can guess just how old it was. Clean 501s and, it being summer, worn moccasins that loved my feet.
Took a long neglected book from the shelf, from K. C. Constantine’s the Mario Balzic series. Most people never heard of him, and the fact that he remained totally anonymous wasn’t going to raise his profile.
I was half-engaged in the book when the doorbell rang. Did I welcome the distraction?
No.
Opened it to Father Malachy.
He looked terrible, like ill. He was dressed like a civilian, a tired unironed shirt and gray leggings with the cuff that no one on the planet can wear with panache.
He had a blackthorn stick, like a prop from The Quiet Man, and he was leaning heavily on it. He barked,
“Don’t leave me standing here like a bollix.”
I waved my arm in a sarcastic sweep of welcome, because welcome he surely wasn’t. He limped in, sank into a chair with lots of sighing, puffing, generally milking the whole invalid vibe. He said,
“Don’t stand there like an ejit, get a person a drink.”
I was very impressed with my own restraint but it had its limit. I poured him a Jay, asked with bitterness,
“Ice?”
He near snapped the glass, peered at the level, asked,
“You rationing it?”
I looked at the watch I didn’t have on my wrist, said,
“Tops, you have one minute to get your mouth in gear, else I’ll kick your arse so fast out the door you won’t know what happened.”
He looked hurt, I mean as if I had offended him, then,
“There’s no need for that, Jack.”
Use of my first name, sure sign some heavy shite was winging its way. He said/whined,
“No need for that at all.”
I poured a coffee, wanted to lash some Jay, but one of us, I felt, better try for control. I asked,
“Why are you here?”
He said,
“I need you to kill me.”
Over the years, I have sworn a hundred, a thousand times that I’d like to kill Malachy. Few have tested me as he has. But now he was asking me?
I went,
“What?”
His head down, he said,
“I have motor neuron disease, in the advanced stages. From the time of diagnosis, it kills within three years unless you are Stephen Hawking. I am already losing control over my hands, feet, legs, and arms. I won’t be able to talk, walk, or swallow, then I won’t be able to breath without some machine hooked up to me, then I’ll die.”
I said,
“Fuck me.”
Malachy was not one of life’s smilers. Grimace, yes, often, but smiles, no. He smiled now, said,
“No, fuck me.”
I got the bottle of Jay, poured for us both. He said,
“Good health.”
He took a drink, said,
“I can’t live without being able to do anything so they’ll ship me off to one of those clerical hospitals where they hide the worst priests and I’ll die being abused by angry, frustrated nuns.”
I asked,
“They have such places?”
He laughed, asked,
“They’re the Church, what do you think?”
I thought they did.
He put his glass down, the tremor in his hand causing the glass to do a mini jig on the surface. He asked,
“So will you, Jack, will you help me die?”
Phew-oh.
Wrong on so many levels.
I asked,
“Isn’t suicide like the worst thing on your guys’ agenda? Eternal damnation, no burial in consecrated ground, burn in hell, and all the attendant fury?”
He smiled, well pleased, said,
“See, here’s the beauty of it, you’ll be killing me, so it’s not suicide.”
Aw, for fuck sakes. I said,
“For fuck sakes, that won’t fly.”
He wasn’t fazed, said,