She stood up, victor triumphant, said,
“You never held her until the day you had her by the hand and let that man shoot her. It’s your fault she’s dead. You, you killed her.”
I felt a tear roll down my face, plink in the sparkling water. I begged, truly begged, ended with
“That day, that awful day, we really bonded, we connected, I swear to God.”
She was walking away, threw out,
“One day is not connected, it’s bogus affection, meandering sentimental horseshite. She meant nothing to you and you mean even less to me. I ordered you a large whiskey to be served when I leave. Oh, don’t worry, it’s paid for, as is everything in your evil existence, paid for by others. Keep the miraculous medal. It’s already tainted by your hands.”
Then she was gone.
The drink appeared in jig time.
What did I do then?
I complained about the ice in it.
In Jameson? I mean, c’mon.
The next six days are lost to nigh total blur.
It was the Galway Races; you could do blitzkrieg drinking and still blend into the engulfing insanity of the week.
Many days later I came to in my own bed, had a tattoo on the inside of my left arm. It was a dove with 3.5 printed underneath.
I had what looked like a busted left cheekbone.
My face was covered in dried-out blood, bruises already fading, torn lips, upper teeth broken.
And lo, a miracle of Galway, maybe even a fucking epiphany: a duffel bag stuffed to the brim with fifty-euro notes, blood on the top layer, lots of blood.
I was wearing a newish T-shirt that featured the logo:
Don’t sweat the small stuff
They too deserve to live.
Really?
It took two pints of water, two multicolor vomits, three aspirin, three fingers of Jay to be able to function, then a Xanax to measure me out, focus a little bit.
I did a scan of the room, no bodies immediately found.
My Garda jacket was hanging on the back of the door, the apartment wasn’t trashed. It might even have looked tidy! Nobody likes a messy drunk.
“I’m not necessarily
Saying I go to a lot of funerals.
(I do.)
But
What does it say about
A man’s life
That he has the undertaker
On speed dial?”
I checked the calendar. I’d been MIA for five days.
As I sipped the coffee, added a hint of Jay, I finally got the courage to check my phone.
Fifteen messages.
Took a deep breath.
Two from Ceola, the first berating me for not turning up to meet her, the second saying she and Dysart were heading for the farm and she hoped maybe I had already gone ahead.
A message from Malachy, saying,
“You were supposed to kill me two days ago and, what, you couldn’t even rise to a birthday card? Would it have been so difficult to do that? Some friend you are.”
Okay.
Then two from Dysart, calling me a cunt, demanding I show up. Another from Ceola. She sounded hysterical, scared, nigh screaming, like this,
“God, oh God, Jack, this has gone very bad, oh no!”
Then her phone went dead.
The rest were from Owen Daglish, urgently demanding I get in touch.
I rang him with a deeply ominous dread.
He opened by launching into a severe bollocking, then roared,
“Stay put, I’ll be at your apartment in jig time.”
He was.
He stormed in, asked for a large Jay, urged I have one too.
Looked at me, added,
“One more for you.”
He lit a cigarette, blew out a cloud of tense smoke, said,
“There has been a massacre at the farm of your buddy, the Rolling Stone guy.”
He let that hover, snarled,
“Where the fuck have you been?”
I didn’t want to hear him say what my mind conjured up. He said it fast.
“Your friend is dead, a young lady who I believe lived with him, she’s dead, and a man we have identified as an ex-priest and, weirdly, a falcon.”
I asked,
“No teenage girl?”
He was furious, went
“Girl? Christ, aren’t there enough dead for you?”
I said with an audible tremor in my voice,
“There was a girl of maybe fourteen staying there, the miracle girl, Sara?”
He said,
“Not the fucking miracle kids again. They have been a bloody curse.”
How right he was.
Slowly, he described the scene.
Keefer with his face shot off. Ceola, her throat cut.
Dysart was burned alive when the farmhouse was set ablaze. The falcon was beheaded.
Forensics was treating it as some sort of bizarre murder(s)-suicide.
I put my head between my knees and vomited onto the carpet.
For a week I was put under the Garda hammer.
Questioned.
Quizzed.
Threatened.
Cajoled.
My answer to everything was constant:
“I don’t remember.”
And I didn’t.
Melvin Minkler, now a senior officer, snarled,
“You’re telling me you were in a blackout for a week?”
I looked at him. I was so shattered he could have beaten me to pulp (which he sure seemed inclined to wish for) and it wouldn’t have touched the pain I was in. I said,
“No, no, I’m not telling you that. I’m telling you I don’t remember. It could have been five days, six?”
He threw up his hands in exasperation, said to the young Guard taking my short statement,
“You fucking believe this cunt? He’s admitting he’s such a drunk he was out of it for days?”
The young Guard, named Sweeny, I think, said in total sincerity,
“I believe him. My dad was like that.”
Melvin was enraged, went with
“Did I ask for your fucking family history? You think I give two shites about what your father does?”
Sweeny, undeterred, said,
“Does? No, did. He died screaming in the jigs.”
When I was released, alibied by most of the barmen in the city, I leaned over O’Brien’s Bridge, lit a cig, despair waltzing through every slow membrane of my beaten mind, and grief like a pounding blast of heavy metal hammering on every nerve.
A man approached, dressed in a fine white shirt, black pants with a crease (who irons anymore?). He was in his late fifties with short, neat brown hair, heavy black shoes. Despite the heat wave he had an aura of black anger. I know. I’ve been there often.
He near spat,
“You Taylor?”
I said,
“Unfortunately, I am.”
He had spittle at the corners of his mouth, said,
“I’m Mister Haut.”
Prick.
You call yourself mister, you obviously never had a real punch to the face, but it wasn’t too late.
I said,
“And?”
He literally quivered, managed,
“The name means nothing to you?”
I lit another cig, tasting nothing, said,
“Nope.”
His hand shot out, grabbed my shoulder. I said,
“Two seconds before I break your nose.”
I didn’t feel angry, not even remotely stirred up, but I would break his nose.
He pulled back his hand, said,
“My daughter, Greta, you threatened her, claimed she was a troll, the cause of a young woman’s distress.”
Took me a few seconds then,
“Distress? Fucking distress? Your bitch daughter hounded and terrorized a young girl named Meredith so much that she hanged herself with her dad’s tie.”