I muttered,
“Delighted?”
She reached for my hand, her face a riot of joy, said,
“It’s so perfect. When I move in with him, we’ll be like...”
Reached for the horrible fucking word.
“Neighbors.”
I snatched back my hand, as if bitten, said,
“Neighbors?”
She was beginning to catch on, asked,
“Aren’t you happy for me?”
I tried to bite down, not go ballistic, settled for,
“Isn’t he...”
With utter sarcasm, leaned on,
“LIKE,
... a tad fucking old for you?”
Our server arrived, happy to announce,
“Your table is ready, folks.”
Almost in chorus we went,
“Fuck off.”
“We have a language that is full of ambiguities; we have a way of expressing ourselves that is often complex and allusive, poetic and modulated. All our thoughts can be rendered with absolute clarity if we bother to put the right dots and squiggles between the words in the right places.” (Lynne Truss)
I disappeared.
Utterly
Completely
Disastrously.
Post Emily, and I mean hours after, I got in touch with the only nun I knew.
Sister Maeve. She’d asked me for assistance in a very nasty, vicious case years before. It went like most of my work.
Apeshit, down the doomed toilet.
People got badly hurt but, somehow, Maeve got the result she was seeking and gave most of the credit to God and maybe ten percent to me. Enough to have her grateful. Few more valuable assets than a thankful nun. Ask the Vatican.
She agreed to mind the pup for a time; how long I didn’t know. Maeve had the completely unlined face habitual to her calling. And such peaceful eyes as if she had seen the total plan. She said,
“I will be happy to have the company of this little fellah for a while.”
Best of all, the pup liked her.
Back at the apartment, I was grabbing what hidden cash I had, decided to leave the gun. I was feeling so dark, it would be too much of a lure. I wore my Garda coat as stormy weather of a personal type was very much on the cards. I looked around the place; even my bookcase gave no comfort. I was just about to leave when a knock at the door. Opened it to Doc.
Who looked?
Apprehensive?
I spat,
“What?”
“May I come in?”
“No, I’m just leaving.”
He tried to see over my shoulder, asked,
“Where’s the pup?”
“The fuck do you care, asshole?”
He seemed crushed, tried,
“Is this about Em?”
“Em! When do you get to call her that?”
He tried another tack, said,
“Look, I know it’s a surprise and we should have said something before this but, cross my heart, it took us as much by surprise.”
I brushed past him, said,
“Have a nice life.”
He shouted,
“Shouldn’t you be happy for her?”
Jesus, nearly a clean getaway. I stopped, said, real quiet,
“I’d have thought you might be more comfortable with someone your own age.”
He put his hand on me. I looked at his hand and he withdrew, said,
“Okay, I get it. You’re protective, but in time you’ll come around and, you know, I was hoping you might do me the honor of being my best man.”
Aw, sweet Lord. I stared at him for one long moment then spun on my heel and left. I was halfway along Shop Street when a guy stepped in front of me, said,
“Cheer up, fellah, it’s nearly Christmas.”
I said,
“So much to look forward to, I’m dizzy with choice.”
“To fully mutilate grammar you need to firstly study it obsessively.”
(Owen Daglish)
Odd times in my blasted life, I would meet a thin weather-beaten man who,
Rumor had it,
Was a mid-list crime author (i.e., didn’t sell)
And had served time in jail in South America.
We had a slightly civil acquaintanceship and had shared the rare pint and even rarer to rarest conversation.
He was to be the last person I spoke to in Galway before my great escape.
He was wearing a pea jacket with the collar turned up, and an air of violence barely suppressed emanated from his whole being, but the strangest thing was
... That vibe seemed to be turned in on himself.
I said,
“How are you doing?”
The question amused him, as we stood on a deserted street after a raging storm. He said,
“I’m doing what little I can to stay on the dry side of things.”
Me neither.
I asked,
“And how is that working for you?”
He leveled his gaze on me. Ferocity without malice, said,
“It manages to pose as normalcy.”
I thought,
“Fuck, enough shite talk.”
And moved on.
He called after me,
“Jack, you can run but the road is always a dead end.”
Way too freaking deep.
I looked back and he was gone. I thought, not for the first time, that he was mostly fiction, a rumor pretending to be relevant.
I missed Stewart in so many ways. He had been, in just about every form, the one true friend I ever had. A former dope dealer who served five harsh years in prison. On release he reinvented himself as a Zen entrepreneur. No, not selling Zen but immersing himself in business with Zen as his fallback.
He had been by my side in so many horrendous cases and though we fought like tinkers, a deep and wild friendship endured. Sergeant Ridge was part of our unholy trinity and she and Stewart had become as tight as fleas.
He never gave up on me despite my constant ripping and ragging on him. Ridge believed my total lack of care and downright negligence had resulted in Stewart being cut in half with a shotgun blast.
She said,
“The very sight of you makes me want to vomit.”
I tried,
“Don’t hold back.”
And she came as close to walloping me as is feasible.
Fleeing Galway now, I wondered if Stewart would have tried to prevent me.
My heart scalded in my chest as I felt his utter loss sweep over me.
“A split infinitive has much in common with a split head. Both hurt like hell.”
Park looked around his aunt’s home. Somewhere in his still clouded mind he knew he should be grateful for her help. She got him out on bail, secured a lawyer, let him stay in her house. But there were restrictions. She’d said,
“Best if you don’t go out.”
What kind of sentence was that?
It wasn’t just flouting grammar. Worse, it was as if she didn’t even care. He said aloud,
“They have to care and they will... care.”
The policewoman,
Ridge?
She danced before his eyes like words he couldn’t articulate. And he knew all words needed to be articulated, otherwise they atrophied. She’d mocked him, mocked grammar, and, with malice aforethought, deliberately mangled and mutilated the most basic rules of common speech.
She’d sneered,
“You’ll get your due.”
... Due to
... means caused by,
With a second meaning of
... “owing to,
because of.”
He said,
“She will die because of her manner due to an irate man.”
And he smiled.
Thought,
“I am definitely on the mend.”
The rules were their own reward, but the bonus and beauty were that they seemed to reach out and eradicate the errors. His mind went then on a tortured circuit of reference and distraction, settling on the wonderful wordsmith