I grassed from an internet cafe, so deep in the inner city, it was an independent republic. A place where the citizens were allowed to get on with whatever it was they were doing, provided they didn’t bother anyone on the outside.
Cameras owned every street. The police could trace an email sent from a laptop or an iPhone. I wore a hat and dark glasses at night. Like a rock star.
I was the only white person in the cafe. Walk into a shop in some other part of town and there was always the chance you would meet someone from home, or work, or wherever. In Ireland, there was only one or two degrees of separation. Except in Ethnicland.
The email gave the police the exact location of the Olsen place and a detailed account of the death of the Papillon.
More than a week passed before the cops got around to calling to the Olsens but by then the dead donkey had galloped off. The runs had been cleaned up. Bones were buried, or maybe Dermo made consommé for the flask he brought on lorry trips.
Dermo must have had the captured dogs killed in one last savage waste not, want not orgy.
He produced state dog licences and breeding papers from the Kennel Club. There was no proof. No one ever exhumed a donkey or a Papillon and so it was, the Olsens walked. The Olsens were always breaking some law. Some were small laws like driving without silencers and more were big laws. The family sold stuff from their vans. Dodgy smokes and fake DVDs. You’d never know what they’d be up to. Maybe Dermo smuggled in drugs but Maureen hated drugs, so maybe not.
There must have been a tip-off.
Most likely the police made a judgement call. Which was more important to the law? High-quality intelligence, or a few stray dogs waiting to be torn apart on death row?
The Olsens were giving the cops information in return for immunity. Mo was sure of it. She often overheard Dermo talking to a Sergeant Matt. Dermo used to tell Big Matt, as he called him, about the criminals he met on the road, the stuff they were up to, where they were going, and why.
I was petrified and wished I hadn’t sent the email.
But if they did trace me, would I be forced to testify against the Olsens behind a screen, wearing a bulletproof vest, with a new nose, and a digitally altered had-a-stroke voice?
I was truly horrified over what happened to the little dog. But I wasn’t going to testify against Dermo. Not for a dog. Maybe not even for a human.
The stress of it all fuelled the mad dreams and worries.
Would I finish up on a witness protection scheme, somewhere in the Deep South of the USA? In a place where there were no Irish, and catfish gumbo stunk the house. With fuck all to do all day only swat flies with rolled up newspapers and flick the zapper until I get epilepsy or go blind from jerking off at porn channels.
In the end I give myself away with the emigrant’s corny longing for home by going up to an Irish pub in El Paso and singing ‘The Fields of Athenry’ and asking for Chef Sauce with my corned beef and cabbage and saying top of the morning or whatever crap it is mock Irish people say when they greet each other in Hollywood movies.
Thor Olsen, a long-lost Swedish American lumberjack cousin, spots me from the pictures circulated by the clan all over the world. He cuts my head clean off with his axe. And sticks it on a barbeque fork, as a warning to the others.
Although on the positive side there would hardly be too many lumberjacks south of El Paso. Unless he was a cactus lumberjack.
As ever and always I began to lose it under stress. I saw all this in my mind.
The wide awake dreams were back.
Ridiculous as the odds were, I just couldn’t turn off the stupid images, especially in waking time. It’s like watching your operation on a TV monitor. There’s no end. At least with nightmares they stop when you wake up the next morning and you say thank God, it’s only a dream.
Which makes me the living dead. But my dreams are all action. I’m a frenetic zombie.
My Mammy told me I was always talking about ‘pictures on my pillow’ when I was a kid. She and Dad assumed these were my happy kiddies’ dreams about Disneyland and stuff.
Mam thought it was kinda cute, but they were terrifying head movies of people being killed. Maybe it was brought on by the murderous TV we watched from the age of four.