He paused, considered, then,
“She’s ready to hunt.”
I gazed at her. She was fierce and beautiful, utterly still, a wonder of the sky. I involuntarily loud swallowed. Keefer said,
“She has that effect on me every time. Your buddy said you called her Maeve.”
I nodded, my throat constricted. He asked,
“That your wife’s name?”
I managed,
“A nun.”
He did a double take, then said,
“Of course.”
I checked his bookshelf, a laden one, tomes spilling out all over the shelves.
I pulled out Charles Maturin’s novel Melmoth the Wanderer.
Published in 1820 by the Dublin vicar, it is a Faustian story.
Melmoth is the classic loner, trailing the prospect of ferocious evil in his wake.
Its most notable fan was Baudelaire.
There were other dark books:
Aleister Crowley, Kenneth Anger and his Hollywood Babylon,
Various bios of the Stones and Led Zep, in particular, Jimmy Page and the years of the occult.
Then Harry Crews, Hunter S. Thompson, Capote’s Music for Chameleons.
Poetry,
The doomed ones mainly:
Anne Sexton
Ted Hughes
Robert Lowell
If you can tell a person by his library, then what did I learn about Keefer?
I muttered,
“Keep a gun ready.”
Keefer provided me with a falconer’s vest; it had an abundance of pockets.
Then a thick leather glove. He surveyed me, said,
“Let’s rock.”
The first afternoon we spent getting the bird to fly from Keefer to me.
Scared and exhilarated me. Took a lot of time and my arm was tired from keeping it outstretched, and it involved lots of small pieces of meat as lure.
I daren’t think where they came from.
I knew, there and then, though fascinated, enthralled by the falcon, I would never be able to like setting it loose to kill birds.
The first time it landed on my arm after exhausting hours, it hit with such force I nearly fell.
God almighty, the power.
Keefer ambled over the length of field to ask
How it felt.
I was almost in a trance, staring at the bird, but managed,
“Like I was hit by a Limerick hurler.”
Attempts by me to tie off the hood for the bird, using my teeth to secure the length of lead from the hood, were a pitiful failure.
Darkness began to fall, thank fuck.
Keefer said,
“Okay, let’s get some brews.”
No sweeter words.
Keefer made dinner, asked,
“Steaks?”
There was a table cut from what seemed literally the stump of a tree. It had been polished but still maintained a rustic vibe. The falcon had been set on her perch, hooded, in the corner.
I asked,
“That to get her used to us?”
Keefer laughed, said,
“No, to get you used to her.”
Hmm.
Keefer was standing over a battered stove, grilling the steaks, adding onions, peppers. Smelled real good, though I worried how Maeve might react.
She was making cooing sounds that had me a little on edge. Keefer turned to me, said,
“She’s happy. Worry when she’s silent.”
That was so reassuring.
Keefer asked,
“With the steaks, a nice Lafite, from ’98, I think.”
Wine.
The fuck I knew from wine.
I’d drink it from the lavatory — might even have over the years. He stared at me for a moment, then laughed, said,
“Buddy, the fuck I care about wine? Pulling your chain. Grab us a coupla longnecks from the fridge.”
I did. He set the steaks in front of us, large French loaf to wipe the sauce, baked spuds oozing in butter, gravy, and beans. I had an appetite.
When was the last time I had that?
I’d hazard ’99, like the Lafite.
Finished, he lit up from a soft pack of Camels, said,
“Eddie Bunker’s fave cig.”
If he said so.
He pointed to a cupboard above the bookshelf, said,
“Have a look in there, see what bourbon you fancy.”
There was a huge range of bottles, and in the corner — right in the corner — a Walther PPK.
I might know fuck all about wine but, by Christ, I know guns.
The next few days, it was evident my heart wasn’t in falconry.
I loved to see the bird fly, soar, dive, and marveled at its slick, beautiful focus.
But watching it kill...
Not so much.
I know, I know, the violence in my past and, worse, in my heart, but the deliberate hunting down of the birds, it turned my stomach.
And I do understand ’tis nature but, hey fuck, it doesn’t say I have to like it.
I did get a kick out of the long days in the woods, the country, but the city called to me. Keefer nodded at me during one hunt and I knew he knew.
Odd thing, as the evenings progressed, we sat into the wee hours, drinking, doing some spliffs, trading stories.
I told him more than I think I ever told anyone,
Even about the deaths of the children, my own and others. He was appropriately silent, and when I told him about Jericho, he seemed to pay extra attention.
As dawn came, he said,
“There was a small town in Ohio plagued with crows. They became a danger to crops, the local birdlife.”
He laughed, said,
“They’d gone rogue, so a falcon was brought in, cleared out the crows in a matter of days. The moral is?”
The fuck I knew from morals?
He said, very quietly,
“You set a killer to catch a killer.”
Later in the day, as I sweated heavily from the falcon whamming into my arm, Keefer tossed me a T-shirt, said,
“Have a fresh shirt.”
It wasn’t until I was falling into bed that I actually noticed the message on the T.
It read,
God sends your ex back into your life to
See if you’re still stupid.
36
“Grief
Is
the
Thing
with
Feathers”
Meanwhile, back in Galway,
How Jericho really got her name.
At the Burning Man festival, where Emerald and Jericho met and hooked up, they spent most of the time on peyote and a guy had a large screen showing the gruesome, violent movie Criminal.
It starred Ryan Reynolds as an agent who is shot in the head and his memories are transferred to a vicious killer played by Kevin Costner.
Yeah, family fun.
Emerald had a serious hotness for Costner and, in a moment of drug euphoria, exclaimed,
“If I die, my mind will be transferred to you.”
Hard-core peyote, so little wonder Jericho bought into the craziness, and when Emerald baptized her with the best tequila, chanting,
“From henceforth, thou art Jericho,”
It became so.
Jericho liked to fuck with people and tell them her name came from U2 or whatever weird shite came into her head.
She had watched Criminal while doing lines of coke and wondered,