“I doubt that.”
He nodded, crushed the butt into the ground with vehemence, said,
“You’re right. Scratch the slow shite.”
Call it serendipity or just sheer shite bad luck. That priest was running through my mind
. . for reasons
Not at all
When
I heard
“Taylor!”
In that tone of
Get over here. . now.
Imperative, very.
I was on Shop Street, just outside Tommy Hilfiger, who, despite the so-called pestilence of recession, was doing a roaring trade.
Go figure.
The very bane of my life has been a friend of my late mother. Her very own tame priest, he was easier to maintain than a dog and cheaper to feed; he simply needed pious platitudes as a rudimentary diet. Her part of the deal was to look good with a priest in tow. These changed days, you’d be considerably safer to tow a rabid rottweiler. Father Malachy.
Phew-oh.
What a charged lethal history we had.
He loathed, despised, and downright hated me. Straight up.
And get this for Irish irony: I saved the bollix’s hide, and was he grateful?
Was he by fuck. Few more resentful than those you’ve helped. The gas part was, he hated priests more than most. His calling was a joke. It was purely a job and one he detested. Said to me once,
“Confessions, fuckers whining about beating wives and getting drunk. I should be so lucky.”
He was dressed in the priestly gear, rare to rarest these days owing to the suspected public fatwa, his suit jacket a riot of either dandruff or ash or both. His pockets bulging, like those of a cheeky boy who’d raided an orchard, save he carried many packs of cigs and
Lighter
Matches
Handkerchief
Nasal spray
Breath freshener.
Well, maybe the last one not so much, but one could hope. He looked diminished, not just age and nicotine. A year back he’d been set on by a vile gang named Headstone and never quite recovered.
Who would?
It saddened me, no matter how much I despised him, and I did, but it was no joy to see him fade. He was a tangible link to my past and a reminder, too, that once I’d held belief. He stared at me, said,
“Jaysus, you look like something the dog refused to drag in.”
I smiled, glad of the constant.
Then he asked,
“Would you come for a drink?”
By all that’s unholy, it was startling. Next, he might even offer to pay but that would be stretching it. I said,
“Sure, where’d you have in mind?”
He gave a sly grin.
“Someplace you’re not barred.”
We went to Richardson’s on the Square, still family-run by some amazing miracle. The barman said,
“Good day to you, Father.”
And got,
“What’s bloody good about it? Bring us a couple of pints and slow-draw them.”
The barman wasn’t fazed. Like I said, a family place.
We sat in the corner, Malachy with his back to the wall, eyeing the door. Beatings do that. A light sweat broke out on his forehead and I recognized the onset of a panic attack. I said,
“Take a deep breath.”
He snarled,
“Take a fucking jump in the Corrib.”
He tore off his jacket, let it fall to the floor, and, when I went to retrieve it, he snapped,
“Leave it.”
My sadness for him was eroding fast.
The pints came, I toasted,
“Sláinte.”
He spat,
“Bad cess to them all.”
Them being an Irish generic term for all the gobshites who crossed his path in vexation. He killed that pint like a nun on ecclesiastical meth, wiped his mouth, said,
“I’m off for a fag.”
He was rooting in his jacket when he noticed I wasn’t moving, asked,
“Aren’t yah coming?”
I said, quite demurely I thought,
“I don’t do that type of thing anymore.”
My tone framed for max annoyance.
Landed.
He said,
“Jaysus, the day you give up anything, there’s a new wing in hell.”
And off he stomped. A book had fallen from his jacket, I bent to pick it up and nearly had a convulsion.
. . Fifty Shades of Grey.
I was so fucking delighted. A true stick to wallop the living be-fuck out of him.
When he returned, reeking of nicotine, enough to make me, a smoker, gag, I prepared my best shot. At school, the days when the clergy could beat you with impunity, and often with approval, they liked to lecture at length about
. . dirty books.
Pronouced, doirty.
As if they all originated in Dublin.
Prime contenders were
Joyce, of course, though you’d have thought a medal would be more fitting for attempting to get a thrill from Finnegans Wake.
Edna O’Brien.
J. P. Donleavy
Ian Fleming
And a series of soft- to softest-porn novels, all with the name Angelique in them.
Before I could launch, he signaled for fresh pints, said,
“I’m sorry for your friend.”
And before I could say anything, he added,
“Even though he was a Protestant.”
There are times, not many so much anymore but enough, that sheer hereditary hatred will stun me. Malachy had trained, if such a term as train can be applied to the priests of his generation, but fuck, he spent seven years in seminary doing something besides playing hurling and bad-mouthing Brits.
Liturgy, theology, the Latin Mass, surely they would have dented even his thick skin.
Seemingly not.
One time, he’d told me of sending silver paper to the African missions and that, mad as it seems, was a widespread practice.
I’d asked, in dismay,
“What the fuck for?”
Cross me heart, I was waiting for a half-sane answer. He’d told me,
“Gollywogs like shiny things.”
Now he asked,
“Your friend, Savile, was it?”
A sly dig over the Jimmy Savile scandal, rocking the BBC, but maybe I gave him too much guile credit.
I hissed,
“Stewart.”
He shrugged, laying into the fresh pint,
“Not an Irish lad, then.”
Jesus.
Maybe blunt trauma would kick-start him. I said,
“The shotgun blast tore off his face.”
Unfazed, he said,
“I know. I’ve hunted rabbits in me time.”
Enough.
I stood up and he grabbed my jacket, cried,
“Jack, Jesus, don’t go, I need your help.”
Truth to tell, I hesitated. Time of the Priest, a nasty, vicious case involving child abuse, Malachy had been on the accusatory hook and nigh destroyed. He’d begged for my help and I’d managed to free him of the stain. Was he grateful?
Yeah, right, along the lines of Oscar’s
. . No good deed shall go unpunished.
Too, he never, like fucking ever, missed an opportunity to slag
Slander
And, as the kids say,
Diss
Me in every form of religious viciousness at his yellowed fingertips. So the temptation to go,
“Go fuck your unholy self.”
Was paramount. I sighed, Jesus, almost like my mother who could have sighed for Ireland and frequently did. I’d say Lord rest her but not even the Almighty has that alchemy.
His gratitude was almost worse than his bile. He gushed,
“Christ, Jack, thanks, thanks a million.”
I snarled,
“Hey, I didn’t say I’d help. You hear me say I’d do that?”
He nearly smiled. The bollix. I was sitting, so he was halfway home, now he’d but to nail the deal. The barman, unbidden, brought two Jamesons, said to Malachy,
“On the house, Father.”
He grunted as if such was only to be expected. He said to me,