“If you put phenobarbital in a nice glass of champagne, it will be like I’m going to sleep and you won’t have told me when exactly you’re going to do it.”
I wanted to shake him but he had a fine old tremor already in play. I said,
“So let me see if I follow this. Every time I see you, I give you a lethal glass of champers, a kind of clerical Russian roulette.”
He actually tut-tutted, prepared to bear with my density, said,
“But I have selected the day, my birthday, which is around the corner.”
Of all the insane thoughts storming my brain, I asked,
“Champagne? You don’t drink that shite.”
He sighed, patience ebbing, said,
“But it will be my birthday.”
Was there logic there?
Fuck if I could find it.
Then my mind cleared a bit, asked,
“What about me, murder and all that mortal shit stuff?”
He waved that away with
“You have so many sins, will God notice?”
It was all so weird, unbelievable. I snarled,
“Where the fuck do you think I’m going to get phenobarbital if, and big if, I even for one mad moment considered doing the deed?”
His patience really was wearing as thin as a nun in Lent. He said,
“You’re in the life.”
Whoa!
Hold the fucking phone. I snapped.
“In the life? What, you’ve been binge-watching The Sopranos?”
He reached in his pocket, took out a vape, said,
“Won’t be needing this shite no more.”
And with what I must admit was a near perfect throw landed it in the wastebasket, then took out the ultimate coffin nails, Major, the green pack that are so strong you need two people to inhale.
He managed to get the cig in his mouth but trying to flick a Bic lighter was too much for the shake in his fingers. Exasperated I grabbed it from him, fired him up. Did he thank me? Did he fuck. He said,
“Give me back my Bic.”
Enveloped in smoke, he said,
“Don’t be modest, Jack boy, you have dope dealers coming out of yer arse.”
Lovely PC turn of phrase.
I asked,
“How do you know about phenobarbital?”
A sly smile, then,
“I’ve been watching Mary Kills People; even better than Google for DIY offing yer own self.”
Offing yer self.
His vocabulary really had changed, if not improved. He stood up, crushed the cig beneath his foot, on my floor! Said,
“I have to go. I’m glad you agreed to be my executioner.”
God almighty.
I said,
“You ever say anything even in the neighborhood of that, you can get your own rope.”
He gave a short merry laugh, said,
“Jaysus, you need to lighten up. No wonder you look so old. Here’s something to cheer you up.”
I could hardly wait. He said,
“A young lad is being forced to drink liters of cider by some older boys: What is the term for that?”
I said,
“Business as usual?”
Impish grin, then he said,
“Cider bullying.”
He gave me a playful punch in the shoulder, laughed again, said,
“Ah, Jack, you’ll be the death of me.”
T. S. Eliot wrote about the dread of
The mental emptiness...
Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about.
This was not my dilemma.
I had two very focused events to weigh.
Kill a child (Sara).
Kill a priest (Malachy).
God in heaven.
I sat looking out my bay window, seeing/not seeing the ocean stretching to the Aran Islands. Asked aloud,
“How in holy hell did I get to such a fierce dilemma in my life?”
I had a black coffee in front of me, with a glass of Jay riding point. My mind was a sewer of horror. I could do nothing but, like, that was going to solve anything.
I remembered some lines of Rilke.
Still though, alas
I invoke you, almost deadly birds of the soul.
A knock at the door. I welcomed any respite from my own torrid company, hoped it might be Malachy with a change of mind. He was a priest. Wouldn’t all his clerical training, his indoctrination force him to pull back from the abyss?
But then, Malachy was no ordinary priest; far from it.
Opened the door to Dysart, the ex-priest, the one who wanted to kill Sara, who had gone to Keefer’s place and had a shotgun shoved in his face.
I said,
“Come in. I’m nearly glad to see you.”
“God sends your ex
Into your life again
To see if you’ve learned anything
Or
If
You’re still the same dumb fuck.”
Before I could front Dysart on his poor showing in front of Keefer, he took me totally by surprise with
“Tell me, Jack, what has scared you in your life. I mean the stuff that haunts you for days after with its image.”
I was fairly spoiled for choice there. I went for evasion.
“Well, the two movies by Ari Aster, Hereditary and Midsommar.”
When I was a Garda cadet I saw Polanski’s Repulsion, which lingered for months in my head.
But for the sheer moment of terror, when my hair stood on end, that would be when the bag moved with a body in it in Audition.
He was annoyed, said,
“You’re being flippant. I mean, have you ever been face-to-face with utter evil?”
Was he fucking kidding? I snarled,
“Don’t be a supercilious prick. I’ve been right up and personal with evil on a nearly fucking weekly basis.”
His hand went up; he let out a fake,
“Whoa, dial it down a notch, buddy.”
After Malachy, after the fracas with Keefer, I went into meltdown, grabbed him by the throat, spat,
“You don’t come into my home and tell me to dial it fucking down.”
He was scared. I thought for a minute the white cold fury wouldn’t ebb and I’d kill him, but some epiphany hit me from left side and I let him go.
Much later, when all this was done, I’d be able to put words to the epiphany but not then, not there. I was too wrought up.
I slumped back, as if I’d been the one struck, and thought I might keel over.
Dysart was shaking, trying to catch his breath. He looked at me, said,
“A moment there, you had true evil in your soul.”
I whispered,
“Believe it.”
“An
Epiphany
Is
an
Experience
of
Sudden
and
Striking
Realization”
I gave Dysart a large Jay and he produced a crumpled pack of Camels, lit one bruised cig with a heavy Zippo, said,
“I was off these for ten years, then I came to Ireland.”
I said,
“Go ahead, blame us. You must have British blood.”
He rubbed his neck, muttered,
“I thought you were going to kill me.”
I looked at him, said,
“I was.”
That put a kink in chat for a while, then he said,
“I met your wife, sorry, ex-wife, at meetings.”