‘There is no doctrine better suited to man than that which teaches him his dual capacity for receiving and losing grace.’
Pascal, Pensées, 524
AA members would understand my behaviour, I’d be no mystery at all. No drink and no programme. I was doing what they call white-knuckled sobriety. Further, a dry drunk.
How did I remember this shit?
How could I not?
Near my new home, on the corner where Eyre Square hits Merchant’s Road, is a new off-licence. I’d told Cody to go home, we’d speak soon. I walked straight into the bottle shop. A non-national was arguing with the assistant, claiming that he’d given a fifty-euro note, not a ten. I stared at the top shelf, the labels singing to me. The argument at the counter seemed in no danger of ending, so I said to the non-national,
‘You want to move it along, pal?’
He spun round, prepared for fight, got a look at my face, opted for flight.
The assistant watched him go, muttered,
‘Fucker.’
Then to me,
He was young, twenty maybe, and already steeped in bitterness. I nodded, said,
‘Give me a bottle of Early Times, a dozen cans of Guinness.’
He had to reach for the bourbon, got it down, stared at the label, said,
‘I never tasted that.’
Was he going to start now?
When I didn’t reply, he went,
‘Right, and a dozen Guinness?’
Got them packed in a plastic bag and said,
‘You get a free T-shirt, any purchases over forty euro – you’re entitled.’
Seeing I wasn’t delirious at my luck, he jammed the shirt into the bag, said,
‘I guess large.’
I paid him, asked,
‘This your full-time job?’
‘Jaysus no, I’m doing Accountancy.’
I took the bag, said,
‘You’ve all the qualities.’
I was outside when I heard him add,
‘I didn’t charge you for the plastic bag.’
In the two years since the levy was imposed on them, the litter problem in the country had been halved. I muttered,
‘Way to go.’
A guy leaning against a doorway asked,
‘Help another human being?’
I gave him the T-shirt.
Then Jeff’s face loomed large and I turned back, said to the guy,
‘God just smiled on you.’
Handed him the whole batch of booze . . . I was half a street away when I heard him shout,
‘More like the devil.’
Argue with that?
I didn’t.
I had been pacing the floor of my apartment. I was still on high dough. The adrenalin surge hadn’t abated and the ever-present rage wasn’t sated. I shucked off my coat, put a CD on.
Arranged the props and the lights.
If I couldn’t listen to music sober then I’d have to start to learn.
I fucking would now.
Be it maudlin, artificial, guilt-induced . . . grieve I would. You listen to Johnny Cash and it doesn’t move you, you’re already in rigor mortis. Turned the music up – Johnny in full gravel. I surveyed my apartment. The new music centre, when did I get that? Or where? The bookshelves lined with volumes, courtesy of Vinny . . . how’d that happen?
You can operate in a blackout and be sober, the legacy of the years of waste. You can stop drinking but never get clear. As I assessed my domain, I mouthed aloud,
‘Adds up to what?’
The Dandy Warhols, why did they pop into my head? The adrenalin was cruising, opening the Information Highway in my mind. A deluge of useless data came flooding out – a passage I’d memorized during my training at Templemore:
On 17 August 1922, a contingent of the Civic Guard under the command of Chief Superintendent Mattias McCarthy, having occupied Dublin Castle, lined up in the lower castle yard for inspection by Eamonn Duggan TD, Minister for Home Affairs.
The Irish Times the next day reported,
‘Yesterday’s little ceremony removes the last trace of the old regime . . . Ireland’s destinies are in Irish hands. If the new Ireland is served by a force which will uphold the best traditions of the Royal Irish Constabulary she will be fortunate indeed.’
My early days of training, I’d memorized those words as a source of pride. They bore witness to the career I was going to honour and bring credit to. I remember having the Irish Times piece on the wall of my room. It lightened my heart every time I read it, made me feel I was part of the country, a tangible power for the betterment of the nation.
Jesus.
The CD finished.
Shook my head, knew if I looked in the mirror I would see tombstones in my eyes. Was listening to music to bring oblivion and what I got was the dead. All my own people, and for some reason those I’d never even known. James Furlong, the Sky war correspondent, filed one bogus report after a lifetime of real dangerous reporting and couldn’t live with the shame. That his Down Syndrome daughter found him hanging tore me to shreds. I asked God,
‘Where’s the fucking joy You promise? Where’s the happy times I’ve been obsessing about?’
The list of deceased continued. A Righteous Brother, June Carter and David Hemmings, who’d been in Galway in the late sixties to star in Alfred the Great, fresh from his triumph in Blow-Up and then the sexiest man on the planet. The movie was described as the greatest turkey of its time, but was welcome in the city due to the income it generated.
Stood, willing myself to shed the shadows, selected REM . . . Best of compilation, track six, ‘Losing My Religion’, about him being in the corner.
I was moving, doing Stipe’s routine. How sad is that? A man in his fifties, the debris of a ruined life dogging his memory, dancing on the top floor of an apartment over Galway Bay, knowing every word of the song, thinking,
Boilermaker.
Bourbon with a beer chaser, living some distorted idea of the American dream.
Another gulp of self pity, another disc.
Springsteen with ‘Thunder Road’. Nick Hornby estimated he played the song 1,500 times.
What . . . he was counting?
Shouted the refrain, something about no free ride.
Like I didn’t know.
Then, like a classic crime story, ‘Meeting Across The River’, the line in there about carrying a gun as if it was a friend.
Then I sat in the chair, surveyed the empty apartment, the ghosts of all I’d ever known. Jeez, was suicide such a bad idea?
Bruce finished with the Tom Waits song ‘Jersey Girl’ and I sang along, quieter now, near weeping for a Jersey girl I’d never encountered and never would, not ever. And did the thing drunks always regret, swear they will never do, but it’s, like, compulsory. Picked up the phone, some soul loneliness begging for a human voice, rapped in the digits, heard Ridge go,
‘Yes?’
Tentative.
I said,
‘It’s Jack.’
No warm cry of welcome.
So I added,
‘You won’t have any more trouble.’
Stunned.
‘You found him?’
‘Yes.’
‘And who . . . is he?’
‘Name of Sam White. You did him for public urination.’
I was happy with the turn of phrase, only slightly slurred on the Sam. The Ss are a bastard, get you every time when you’re in such a state of agitation. I must have sounded like I was drunk.
She was rummaging in her memory, then,
‘Him! He’s the one?’
‘Not any more.’
‘Did you hurt him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Biblical.’
I waited, wondering if she’d go nuts, accuse me of being a vigilante, ask me what I thought the Guards were for. She said,
‘Good.’
I expected a show of gratitude, at least some appreciation, but she went,
‘You sound odd.’
‘Yeah? Funny thing about violence, it puts your gift for small talk down the toilet.’
‘Were you hurt?’
‘Not any place that it shows.’
She savoured this, then,
‘What does that mean?’
I could have given her the talk on how violence takes a bit of your soul, that damaging another person diminishes your humanity, but there was no way of saying that without sounding like a prick, so I said,
‘You’re smart, you’ll figure it out.’
Steel in her voice, she said,
‘Don’t take that tone with me.’
Crashed the phone down.
God does not help those who help the Guards.
In my head was the speech Clare had given me, the condescension he’d shown me, the names he called me, and I was forced to unclench my fingers where they’d burned into a tight fist. Last time I was that angry, I punched a hole in the wall and broke my wrist.
* * *
Noon the following day, I met Malachy in the Great Southern. He had a pot of coffee going, a cloud of nicotine over his head. He said,
‘Christ, you look rough.’
I’d needed a pot of coffee to get up and out, snapped,
‘What’s it to you?’
He considered that. I took one of his cigarettes and he managed not to comment. I realized I still had the patch on so I put the cig back in the pack. Without preamble, I laid out the investigation as it happened, from meeting the bouncer guy to Michael Clare’s admission of killing Father Joyce. I didn’t say I didn’t believe the story. Finished, I sat back, asked,
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Do?’
‘He murdered your friend, a priest . . . will you go to the Guards?’
He shook the coffee pot empty, said,
‘I’ll say a Mass for him.’
I couldn’t believe it, asked,
‘You’re kidding, right?’
He was looking at his diary, making hmmm sounds, said,
‘The early-morning Mass, at seven. Will you come?’
I stood up, went,
‘So Clare walks, that it?’
He had an expression of what I can only describe as resigned tolerance, not one I’d ever seen him display. He said,
‘’Tis God’s business now.’
I wanted to reach down, grab him by his clerical collar and shake him till he rattled. I said,
‘Clare told me of an unholy trinity of the Church, the Guards and him. He should have added you – you don’t seem to care if he’s the guilty one or not, you just want to know if your arse is safe.’
He sighed.
‘Jack, those men, they have a vision of the future. Small people like you and me, we go along, they can see the bigger picture.’
I wanted to beat him senseless. I stood up, and for the first time in my life I wanted to spit on someone, bring up a ton of phlegm and gob it out on his tired suit. You’re about to spit on a priest, you’re so fucked, even the Devil is mildly taken aback. I managed to rein it in and said,
‘I’d say God forgive you, but I think even He would see that as a reach. You’re one sad wanker, and you know what? I think you interfered with those boys too.’
And I was out of there. Jeff’s pub, Nestor’s, was only a few hundred yards away and it was so appealing to head there. I looked at Eyre Square, the winos congregating, whispered,
‘Where are you, buddy?’
I was nursing a diet coke in Feeney’s when Cody arrived. I put my fingers to my lips, said,
‘No comment on the diet coke. You don’t know me well enough to have an opinion, least not one that matters a shit to me.’
He took a deep breath, said,
‘My father always treated me like a retarded person, said I’d never come to anything, that I was a fierce disappointment, and you know, you made me feel like I was someone’
His voice faltered and I thought he was going to cry, but he bit down, held it together, sort of, continued,
‘This sounds stupid, and I know it’s, like, weird, but I thought you were kind of like the father I’d have wanted.’
Before I could respond, he said in a rush,
‘But I can’t stomach the rage, the ferocity you have, so I resign. I’m afraid I’ll end up like you.’
I wanted to shout,
‘Resign? Are you fucking kidding me?’
He stood up, said,
‘Goodbye, and . . . am, God bless.’
I watched him shuffle out, and I swear to God, it looked like he had a limp.