Oh, fuck!
She was on it, repeated, with venom,
“Really students!”
You’re in a hole, stop friggin digging. I dug.
“You know what I mean. It’s not like you’re an obvious Lit type.”
Sweet Jesus, did I say that aloud?
She stared at me for a long moment, as if really seeing me, then literally drew back, gathered her things, said,
“Fuck you.”
And was gone.
The barman came by, asked,
“Anything else?”
“Something seriously amnesiac.”
Jack was listening to a very drunk guy who was in mid- shy;monologue. The diatribe had begun in a vaguely promising manner, with even flashes of a sub-Proust/Joycean flavor, but was deteriorating fast.
Like,
“So, Jack, I’m asking you, there’s this guy on I’m a Celebrity. . the fuckin awful jungle reality show. This bollix has got a ten-thousand-euro Rolex and, I kid you not, he’s an adult but he cannot read the time.”
He stops, astounded by the lunacy and bewildered by the Jameson. Shook his head, continued,
“. . What’s with the world, Jack, like we’re celebrating the culture of ignorance. That wanker Simon Cowell says the secret to success is being lazy and lucky.”
He stared at a fresh pint, a Jay as old outrider, puzzlement on his face, like
“How’d that happen?”
Shrugged, reached for one.
A low rumble came from the man’s stomach and an almost rictus crawled down from his hairline. Jack knew that gig. Had borne lonely witness to it his own lonely self, a thousand times over every brand of toilet bowl on the planet. Jack looked around, no one else noticed and certainly no one cared.
He said quietly,
“Incoming.”
The man vomited all over the counter. A small volcano of Technicolor gunk. A piece of green testified to the last attempt at food. People were backing away fast, exclaiming,
“Aw, for fuck’s sake.”
Or
“There goes the neighborhood.”
Jack turned to the barman, said,
“Now that’s a Kodak moment.”
Aine refused to answer my calls. I even fell back on the hackneyed gesture of flowers. They were returned. Sat on my coffee table, slowly dying. My mother had believed if you slip an aspirin into the water, the flowers will last.
Right.
Like my life, they withered. In studying Jack, I had fallen into the most obvious trap for a biographer. I was too close. Worse, in many ways my life was now imitating Jack’s. I had alienated my few friends, driven away my girlfriend, and, oh, sweet heaven, not only was I talking like him, I was steadily drinking like him. To some, strolling into a pub, having the barman holler,
“The usual?”
is some lame sign of arrival.
The fuck with that.
See, even the cussing.
A more worrying trait was the anger. Close up I had witnessed Jack’s volatile temper. When in doubt, he lashed out. The gauge was permanently set at aggressive.
I found a new simmering rage developing daily. All my brief life, I had been the mellow dude, my mantra,
“Whoa, let it slide, buddy.”
I’d discovered a curious phenomenon about living alone.
The utter stillness.
If you don’t move, nothing does. The very air seems to be suspended. Then you walk the length of the apartment, it’s as if you are part of that atmosphere and it closes behind you. No wonder people crammed their homes with kids, TV, radio, dogs, other people. Noise to break that eerie silence. Jack punctuated it with Jameson. I was beginning to understand a little more of what drove him.
I’d been almost feverish in my compulsion to contact Aine. Had been to her apartment probably a few more times than was prudent. Her roommate finally said,
“Just fuck off.”
And, too, I probably sent more texts than was appropriate. Worse, I’d been to her mother’s house. Oh, Gawd, wish I hadn’t. The woman was polite but adamant, advised,
“Time for you to move on, son.”
Still. I thought, if I could see her. . Hung around the college until a porter finally asked me my business. I didn’t play that well and though he didn’t actually lay hands on me, he did say,
“Don’t let me catch you here again.”
How did this even happen? I was a successful American doctoral candidate with a prestigious scholarship and I was skulking around like a love-torn puppy.
Not cool, dude.
Then the oddest thing. I had been out all day, paying utilities, soaking up the Galway vibe, even spoke to Jimmy Norman, the coolest DJ on Galway radio. The guy had, get this, a cordon bleu, a master’s degree in business, a daily show on early morning radio. . and. . a pilot’s license. The whole new man. . seriously? And when I had coffee with him, he amazed me with his knowledge of local politics. I felt I was becoming, if not one of the players, at least the guy who knew them. Then, on to the Galway Advertiser to meet with Declan Varley, the editor, and Kernan Andrews, the arts/entertainment, go-to guy. All these dudes were young, smart, clued in, and a testament to the whole new generation of Irish who bowed down to freaking nobody. I was pumped, wired on possibilities. To be American in Galway was still to be blessed with remnants of Kennedy afterglow. On the fiftieth anniversary of JFK’s death, it was still currency to be a Kennedy. Man, I played that gene card.
Got back to my apartment, buzzing, the endless possibilities, and then. .
Something off.
Stood in the middle of my living room, sensed the air had been disturbed. A new presence had, oh, so slightly, altered the air. I checked thoroughly. My iPad, TV, all there. The sense of an intruder was almost palpable. I didn’t know what to make of it. I also didn’t know that by this stage Aine had been dead for two days.
Because nothing was taken, it never occurred to me that
Something. .
might have been added.
Miscellaneous notes, quotes,
chapter headings, descriptions Boru had
intended to flesh out
his Taylor book
Manic Street Preacher Richard Edwards was crucified by many Hounds of Heaven-
clinical and manic depression
anorexia
alcoholism
self-mutilation
He walked out of his hotel room in 1995 and was never seen again.
And yet you want to believe that in the place you’ve come to, where God has allowed you to prosper and for a few generations at least be safe, you honor your religion by doing this. By making something stunningly beautifuclass="underline"
The Story of the Jews with Simon Schama.
Jack’s physical appearance was a testament to the myriad of
beatings
muggings
hammerings
he’d received by
hurly
hammer
baseball bat(s)
shotgun (sawed-off)
He had a distinctive limp and a hearing aid, and two fingers of his right hand had been removed by rusty pliers.
His eyes had the nine-yard stare of long-term convicts doing hard time. Hard time was the mantra of his bedraggled, violent existence.
The years of Jameson, Guinness, and coffin-nail cigarettes had lent to his voice a hoarse, creaky rasp.
The difference between a person who says
“Bring it on”
as opposed to
“Bring it”
is the difference between a person who comes at you verbally
as opposed to
with a hatchet.
It’s very simple.
It’s intent.
James A. Emanuel’s more than a poet,
more than an ex-pat: a man.
(Stanley Trybulski on the passing of a great poet, as written on Stanley’s blog, Mean Streets)
Slick lizard rhythms
cigar smoke
straight gin
sky laced with double moons.