Paused.
“Maria Brady Nicoletta.”
What a great name. Fuck, I’d date her my own self just for her name. I rolled it round my mouth. It fit, like fake joy. He gave a slight smile, knowing the power of the name, said,
“She deserved the name in that she was gorgeous, lovely in spirit, great heart, and...”
Longer pause.
“Married.”
He looked at his empty glass then to me but we were all out of booze. He continued,
“I drank a fierce amount in those days. There was unease in my parish and, of course, with my affaire, lots of rumblings, but I was arrogant. I gave great sermons, not the usual dreary shite” — the Jameson kicking way into play here — “but real witty, uplifting material.
He stared at me, almost shouted,
“Get this. I wrote a weekly column for the local newsletter.”
He blessed himself, shuddered at his recall, went on,
“God almighty, the shame. I titled it ‘Clerical Errors’ and used it to take shots at local businessmen. Then Valentine’s Day, the fucking karma of it, I was driving Maria’s Bentley, smashed it into a tree.”
I guessed the rest, said,
“So Maria was in the passenger seat?”
He stopped, irritation in his eyes, said,
“No. No, she wasn’t.”
I could wait. He finally staggered out the ending, said,
“I never even noticed I’d hit a small boy before the tree. He died two days later.”
Maybe in better stories, better people, I’d have given him a manly hug, muttered some inane bullshit, but I went with my gut, said,
“Your milk will be cold.”
After he’d gone, I took the empty bottle, threw it in a wide arc, saw it disappear into the tree line. I shouted,
“Score one for Sister Martha.”
In the morning Martha left me the paper, Valium, coffee. My hangover was about to kick in.
Hard.
But I stunned that sucker with the V, hint of Oxy, and the coffee. I wasn’t kidding myself. These meds, hard-core as they were, would only postpone the inevitable crash. It would be a muthafuckah, as the brothers say.
I’d take enough of the Seconal I’d gotten for poor Malachy, sleep through the worst of it.
I hoped.
If I didn’t wake,
Fuck it.
Mornings, I headed out to the large playing field with my hurley, the tennis balls. Whacked those fuckers out of the park. A scrappy terrier who belonged to the Haven watched me hit the first two. On the third I shouted,
“Go get it!”
He took off like the hound of heaven, a streak of utter speed and focus. Then he trotted back, delighted with his own little self, and dropped the ball at my feet. I had saved some strips of bacon from the kitchen, fed him one.
Then in perfect harmony I hit the balls and he hurled after them. A joy to watch a dog in full canine run. I didn’t pet him, as I’d lost two dogs, and
Could not
Would not
Bond with another.
Midway, Vincent showed up, looking like a crushed nun, all wringing hands, guilt-pious expression. I said,
“Get yourself a hurley. We’ll wallop that hangover to hell and back.”
If you have depression, or just feel like shite, get yourself a hurley, stash of old tennis balls, a large field or, better yet, a spot above the bay, whack those babies out to America itself.
A dog is pure bonus.
Guaranteed to be the best vent you’ll get without kicking the crap out of people.
I had to lend Vincent my hurley and what a joy to see him belt out years of rage into the blue beyond. He loved it.
Exhausted him and the dog. He exclaimed,
“That is awesome.”
I asked him the name of the dog, he said,
“Novena.”
He was drenched in sweat, rivers pouring down his body, and he was delighted. He said,
“’Tis a fine hurley.”
I told him the truth. Sometimes it seems the thing to do. I said,
“My dad, the bed of heaven to him, went to an artisan in Bohermore, back in the days of the Magdalene laundries, and Rory Gallagher, the man took weeks to make individual hurleys from the ash. He’d put steel bands on the top if you were playing dirty bastards like Dublin. I’ve had it all these years and it’s provided a measure of justice, if not the law.”
I held it out, said,
“I leave tomorrow. I’d like you to have it.”
Despite halfhearted protests, he took it.
That evening I stayed in my room, playing all the angles as to where Sara would be. Even tossed a coin. All spelled out Ballyfin.
In the morning, my rucksack at my feet, I said good-bye to Sister Martha. She said,
“Good riddance.”
As the car approached, Vincent came hurrying out, handed me a well-read book. I said,
“Some spiritual horseshite, I suppose.”
Looked at the title:
The War Against Evil (author unknown).
He said,
“In your case, it is indeed a spiritual battle.”
The car pulled up, Rael driving. I got in, said to Vincent,
“Keep lashing those balls.”
I did wonder after if it hadn’t sounded just a tiny bit gay.
Rael drove fast, urgently, asked,
“Have you an answer for us?”
I lit up, blew smoke, said,
“Ballyfin. Next weekend she’ll be there.”
He nearly swerved off the road, gasped, asked,
“Isn’t that the village with Saint Patrick’s actual stick that he used to expel the serpents?”
I nodded. He mulled on that, that Sara would be there. Then asked,
“You sure?”
I was quiet for a moment, then said,
“I’d bet her dark life on it.”
There’s a moment in C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when the human children who have arrived in Narnia ask whether the White Witch, who rules the land, is a human woman or not.
The kindly Mr. Beaver tells them she isn’t, and offers some advice.
“When you meet anything that’s going to be human and isn’t yet, or used to be human once and isn’t now
Or
Ought to be human and isn’t,
You keep your eyes on it
And feel
For your hatchet.”
The Beast Slouches Toward Ballyfin
I had inherited Keefer’s pickup truck as well as the farm.
The cynic in me echoed,
“I inherited the farm; he bought the farm.”
Sunday morning.
Ballyfin.
There was a hatchet on the back panel, where in down-home Alabama there’d be a shotgun to off any stray easy riders. If I put on a Stetson, played Hank Williams, got me a hound dog, I’d be the redneck dream.
I drove to Ballyfin early. I heard on the radio that the celebration festival would be concluded with Mass outside the church whose roof they were raising funds to restore. People were advised to arrive early as the new influx of migrants would mean space might be limited.
Between the lines, you could almost hear a worry/caution from the Ballyfin residents that perhaps taking a hundred refugees was a stretch but for the day of fund-raising they’d suck it up.
I dressed in black for a black day: combat pants, sweatshirt, my Garda coat, and watch cap. I didn’t have my hurley anymore but I did have the Glock.
Asked myself,
“Am I going to shoot Sara?”
On the pickup’s sound system I played Dylan’s “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.”
Ballyfin was overshadowed by a large hill and the refugee camp was the other side of that, away from the village center. I got out of the truck, lit a cig, surveyed the camp. It seemed to teem with people — a hell of a lot more than a hundred.