He looked at me,
“You’ll be a man.”
This seemed to deeply sadden him.
We crossed to Claude Toft’s, the only casino in the town. Such things as online betting, a myriad of bookies were all in an unimaginable future.
My father went straight to the roulette table, took the money out of his jacket, looked at me, the wad of cash in his right hand, hovering, asked,
“Red or black, Jack?”
I near whispered,
“All of it?”
He nodded.
I watched the wheel spin, looked up into my father’s face. He said,
“Choose.”
12
“Upon my return to Ireland,
I told my friends about Irish people
Who had done well.
Not everybody was happy for them.
Fuckers
Thieves
Probably born with it.”
When I was a child, the sternest warning uttered by parents went,
“Don’t ever bring Guards to the door.”
Now, the day before St. Patrick’s Day,
The Guards came to my door.
Loud, hard, and shouting.
Slammed me up against the wall, screaming,
“Don’t fucking move.”
As if.
I wanted to say,
“I paid my TV license.”
But levity was not in the air.
At the Guards station, I was flung into an interview room, left to wait.
Time droned on until supercop himself, Sheridan, appeared.
He was supposedly on loan from the States but his accent danced a wobbling reel between broad New Jersey and Shantalla.
He was dressed in FBI mode: tight clean-line suit, tiny mic in the ear, buzz-cut hair. He turned the chair around so he sat cowboy style, arms resting on the back. He had watched way too many movies. He began,
“You’re like seriously fucked, Jack.”
I waited a beat, then,
“What else is new?”
Amused him.
Slightly.
He said,
“No wisecracking your way out this time, buddy.”
Buddy?
I said,
“You’re not my buddy.”
He reached into his jacket, produced a cigarette, lit it, blew an impressive cloud of smoke, looked at me, waiting for a comment.
He got none.
He asked,
“You know a young boy named Jimmy Tern?”
Uh-oh.
I said,
“A spoiled brat.”
He blew more smoke, then,
“His friends say you threw him in the canal.”
For fuck’s sake.
I said,
“For fuck’s sake.”
He got right in my face, asked,
“Why’d you kill him?”
God almighty.
I said,
“He’s dead?”
Sheridan said,
“As a doornail.”
Some beliefs just defy logic, and no matter how much you rebel against it the notion persists.
Like this:
If you need a lawyer, our genetic code, our history, kicks in and we want a guy with three essentials:
Brit accent Anglo-Irish roots Disdain
And, not essential but valued,
Double-barreled name.
I got
Jeremy Brett-Shaw.
That hyphen is worth the exorbitant fees.
But
He didn’t get to me until I’d been locked up two days,
Missing a wedge of real sporting history.
On St. Patrick’s Day,
At Twickenham,
We beat the English in rugby to add
The Grand Slam to
The already secured Six Nations title.
I also missed Cheltenham, where Irish horses won over twenty races.
All this with the murder of a child hanging over my head.
I don’t much remember those two days as I had the mother of a hangover, ferocious guilt, remorse without the aid of booze, Xanax, even a cig.
I did learn that the boy had been hit over the head once with thundering force.
“A hurley,”
Said Sheridan.
Adding,
“Your weapon of choice, Jack, eh?”
I thought about that, asked,
“When was the lad killed?”
He sneered, said,
“You already know that, surely.”
I bit down, asked,
“Humor me.”
Resigned sigh from him, then,
“Eight in the evening, the day after you tossed him in the canal.”
The proverbial light above my head. I did a rapid calculation and, bingo!
Fuck me, I had the most incredible alibi ever, hugged it close like all the rosaries I’d meant to say but never did.
Sheridan sussed the change, demanded,
“What, what is it, you have an alibi?”
I gave him the most vicious smile I had, said,
“Lawyer.”
Jeremy Brett-Shaw arrived with trumpets.
Like loud.
Presence felt.
He was a short man but booming; everything about him screamed,
“Look at me.”
It was hard not to.
He used his reduced stature like a sly intimidation.
Storming into my cell, roaring,
“Gather your gear, Mr. Taylor. We are so out of here.”
Throwing in the American phrase to show he was current.
I had spoken to him very briefly on my one allowed call, enough to tell him my gold alibi and, most important, prove I could pay his outrageous fees.
He was in his late sixties and seemed like every single year had been of note.
His suit was just the biz, the kind you could throw in a ball and it would bounce right back to pristine shape, a suit that declared,
“It may have cost the earth but, I mean, just fucking feel the quality.”
He had a well-trimmed beard, a substantial belly, tiny feet, and his hair was that salt-and-pepper style not seen since the TV show Dynasty.
As I shrugged into my jacket, Sheridan came blustering in, snarled,
“Who the fuck are you?”
He made the mistake of seeing Brett-Shaw’s small stature as something to exploit.
Phew-oh.
Brett-Shaw drew himself up to all of his five-foot, five-inch height and the energy emanating appeared to increase his stature.
Righteous indignation has its uses.
He hissed,
“Sheridan, I believe, the so-called supercop?”
He paused as if to savor the taste of what was coming.
Continued,
“Honest to god Guards, real cops, are out searching for a cop killer and you,”
Venom dripped from his lips,
“Are instead harassing a local legend, a bona fide hero who saved the swans of Galway, you...”
He looked like he was going to spit.
Didn’t, quite.
“You, who didn’t even take the blooming time to check a rock solid alibi.”
Sheridan, momentarily lost, rallied,
“Alibi? Fucking alibi? I’d bet a week’s salary to hear that.”
Brett-Shaw rocked back on his heels, said,
“Nun.”
Sheridan was orgasmic, shouted,
“None. I fucking knew it, you sniveling ambulance chaser, none, fucking beautiful.”
Brett-Shaw held out his hand, asked,
“The week’s salary? All major credit cards acceptable.”
Sheridan, confused, near stammered,
“But you said none.”
Brett-Shaw with exaggerated care fixed the knot in his Masonic tie, said,