An insane crystallization was pulling at the edge of my mind. I took out my flask, took a wallop, offered it to him. He drank and winced.
I leaned against his car, took out cigs, lit us up.
He said,
“I shouldn’t, with the training, but...”
Indicated his ruined leg.
Continued,
“She once told me if I ditched her she’d cry rape, even get into a vulnerable shelter, not that she’d spend much time there, just enough to fake out the carers. And here’s the weird bit...”
The agony of his ruined knee kicked in on a fresh wave and he howled with the intensity of it.
I handed him the flask and he drank deep, muttered,
“Thanks.”
Then continued,
“Alice had this scheme to entrap you, pretend she was fucked, and blame me, in every sense, then get you to hammer the bejaysus out of me for ditching her.”
He looked at me, said drily,
“Seems to have worked.”
I tried to get my mind around the way I had been played, then asked,
“Her lesbian friend, lemme guess, is her name...”
I had to take a breath, then uttered,
“Jericho?”
He nodded.
I put the hurley back in my kit bag, muttered,
“Sorry, I guess.”
He limped away, said,
“That really, really helps.”
32
Dancing
with
Jesus
As I headed home, the kit bag slung over my shoulder, the hurley sticking out like a very bad idea,
I was a maelstrom of
Rage
Shame
Humiliation.
To be played, and so expertly.
My apartment overlooks Galway Bay. When I walk along the promenade the sight of the ocean usually makes me yearn.
I stopped, saw two young men in their twenties and, what?
Were they lighting a fire?
Fuck.
No, a makeshift spit and, to my horror, I saw a large bird struggling near their feet. They were hollering and high-fiving.
I eased down onto the sand and approached, asked,
“What’s up, guys?”
Almost friendly.
The first one turned, mocked in a South Carolina accent,
“Gonna make us a little chicken dinnah.”
He was on some dope that made his movements just that little bit delayed, but the second guy,
A whole other country.
Built like the proverbial brick shithouse, he was wearing a muscle shirt, shorts, and, get this, Doc Martens. He was slugging hard from a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. His tone was menace in neon. He said,
“Get the fuck off, yah old cunt, or you’ll join this buzzard on the spit.”
The first guy was just your ordinary dumb brain-dead ejit but this number, he was a violence junkie.
I looked at the poor buzzard. It had what looked like a broken wing, and each time it tried to scuttle away the second guy stood on the bird and relished the rush of cruelty.
I dropped the bag, took out the hurley, asked the first guy,
“You’re from Dublin?”
He nodded and got a hard shoulder from the second, who snarled,
“Don’t talk to the bollix.”
I said,
“The reason I ask is Sunday you guys play Tyrone in the All Ireland football final.”
I swung the hurley, dropped the ejit fast.
Continued in a quiet tone,
“See, I prefer the hurling.”
The dangerous one, true to form, produced a Stanley knife, blade of choice for your lower-grade thug, hissed,
“Gonna cut yer fucking bollocks off.”
Lunged at me. I stepped aside and walloped his skull as he went.
That’s all he sang.
I put out the fire, resisted the compulsion to put the psycho on the spit.
Took a long draft of my flask, then gently lifted the wounded bird. It did try to bite me but, then, everything does.
I could tell it was a very frightened creature, and if I had to guess there and then, I would have hazarded a hawk of some kind.
Headed back to my apartment. Apart from cooking the bird, I had very little idea what the hell I was going to do.
I said,
“If you live, I’ll call you Maeve.”
I did remember a line from the movie The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid.
A greenhorn asks a grizzled cowboy,
“What’s the name of your horse?”
The cowboy spits juice, then drawls,
“Don’t name something you might have to eat.”
Argue that.
Got back to my apartment to find Jericho had again been visiting.
Left a note, of course, and a small figurine of Jesus.
The note:
Jack
This is a dancing Jesus.
There is a chorus line of the apostles doing a conga line behind him.
Do you miss that nun? So
So
Bad
It’s so sad, boo-hoo.
(Then an emoji of a crying face.)
I’ll slit your throat while you sleep and then Alice will ride your dead dick.
xxxxx
J.
I tentatively put a hand on the figurine,
And
Jesus danced.
33
Never
Rely
On who you think you are.
Never
Rely
On what you think you know.
Do
Rely
On
Murphy’s law.
Alice came out of the shower. She’d taken a while as it was a bitch to get blood from under your fingernails.
Jericho was listening to Leonard Cohen.
The same track always,
“You Want It Darker.”
Some interpreted the title as a question,
Others as a command.
Jericho looked up, a piece of Maeve’s bloody skirt in her hands,
Asked,
“You think that’s dark enough for them?”
Pa Connell is a vet and a close friend.
He’d once said to me,
“Jack, you need something, call day or night.”
You say that and, though sincere, the last friggin’ thing you want is a guy calling you after midnight.
I mean, fuckit.
When I had the dogs, and it kills me to even mention them, their passing nigh murdered me, Pa was a constant source of help and support.
I called him now.
Woke him too.
I could hear his wife mumbling.
I begged,
“Let me see you now.”
“Christ. Jack, it’s two in the morning.”
I didn’t want to shout,
“I know the fucking time.”
I whined instead.
“It’s a matter of life and death.”
How could he refuse?
He didn’t, said,
“I’ll be in my surgery in an hour.”
I had the bird wrapped in a light blanket, with a makeshift hood for its eyes to fool it into sleeping.
It wasn’t fooled, tried to bite me every opportunity.