Ken Bruen: The Guards

It’s almost impossible to be thrown out of the Garda Síochána.

You have to really put your mind to it. Unless you become a public disgrace, they’ll tolerate most anything.

I’d been to the wire. Numerous

Cautions

Warnings

Last chances

Reprieves

And still I didn’t shape up.

Or rather sober up. Don’t get me wrong. The gardaí and drink have a long, almost loving relationship. Indeed, a teetotal garda is viewed with suspicion, if not downright derision, inside and outside the force.

My supervisor at the training barracks said,

“We all like a pint.”

Nods and grunts from trainees.

“And the public likes us to like a pint.”

Better and better.

“What they don’t like is a blackguard.”

He paused to let us taste the pun. He pronounced it, in the Louth fashion, “blaggard”.

Ten years later I was on my third warning. Called before a supervisor, it was suggested I get help.

“Times have changed, sonny. Nowadays there’s treatment programmes, twelve-step centres, all kinds of help. A spell in John O’ God’s is no shame any more. You’ll rub shoulders with the clergy and politicians.”

I wanted to say,

“That’s supposed to be an incentive!”

But I went. On release, I stayed dry for a while, but gradually, I drank again.

It’s rare for a garda to get a home posting, but it was felt my home town would be a benefit.

An assignment on a bitter cold February evening. Dark as bejaysus. Operating a speed trap on the outskirts of the city. The duty sergeant had stipulated,

“I want results, no exceptions.”

My partner was a Roscommon man named Clancy. He’d an easygoing manner and appeared to ignore my drinking. I had a thermos of coffee, near bulletproof with brandy. It was going down easy.

Too easy.

We were having a slow duty. Word was out on our location. Drivers were suspiciously within the limit. Clancy sighed, said, “They’re on to us.”

“Sure are.”

Then a Mercedes blasted by. The clock hit thermo. Clancy shouted,

“Jaysus!”

I had the car in gear and we were off. Clancy, in the passenger seat, said,

“Jack, slow down, I think we might forget this one.”

“What?”

“The plate... see the plate?”

“Yeah, so what.”

“It’s government.”

“It’s a bloody scandal.”

I had the siren wailing, but it was a good ten minutes before the Merc pulled over. As I opened my door, Clancy grabbed my arm, said,

“Bit o’ discretion, Jack.”

“Yeah, right.”

I rapped on the driver’s window. Took his time letting it down. The driver, a smirk in place, asked,

“Where’s the fire?” “Get out.”

Before he could respond, a man leaned over from the back, said,

“What’s going on?”

I recognised him. A high profile TD. I said,

“Your driver was behaving like a lunatic.”

He asked,

“Have you any idea who you’re talking to?”

“Yeah, the gobshite who screwed the nurses.”

Clancy tried to run block, whispered,

“Jeez, Jack, back off.”

The TD was outa the car, coming at me. Indignation writ huge, he was shouting,

“Yah brazen pup, I’ll have your job. Do you have any idea of what’s going to happen?”

I said,

“I know exactly what’s going to happen.”

And punched him in the mouth.

There are no private eyes in Ireland. The Irish wouldn’t wear it.

The concept brushes perilously close to the hated “informer”. You can get away with most anything except “telling”.

What I began to do was find things. Not a difficult task, it requires only patience and pig stubbornness. The latter was my strongest point.

I didn’t come to one morning and shout, “God wants me to be a finder!” He could care less.

There’s God and there’s the Irish version. This allows Him to be feckless. Not that he doesn’t take an interest, but He couldn’t be bothered.

Because of my previous career, it was believed I had an inside track. That I knew how things worked. Over a period of time, people sought me out, asked for my help.

I hit lucky and found resolutions. A minor reputation began to build on a false premise. Most important of all, I was cheap.

Grogan’s is not the oldest pub in Galway. It’s the oldest unchanged pub in Galway.

While all the rest go

Uni-sex

Low-fat

Karaoke

Over-the-top

it remains true to the format of fifty or more years ago. Beyond basic. Spit and sawdust floor, hard seats, no-frills stock. The taste for

Hooches

Mixers

Breezers

hasn’t yet been acknowledged.

It’s a serious place for serious drinking. No bouncers with intercoms on the door. Not an easy pub to find. You head up Shop Street, skip Garavan’s, turn into a tiny alley and you’re home. If not free, at least unfettered.

I like it because it’s the only pub that never barred me. Not once, not ever.

The bar is free of ornamentation. Two hurleys are crisscrossed over a blotched mirror. Above them is a triple frame. It shows a pope, St Patrick, and John E Kennedy. JFK is in the centre.

The Irish saints.

Once the pope held centre field, but after the Vatican Council he got bounced. He clings to an outside left. Precarious the pose.

I dunno which pope he is, but he has the look of them all. It’s unlikely he’ll regain mid-field any time soon.

Sean, the owner, who can recall Cliff Richard being young, said to me,

“Cliff was the English Elvis.”

A horrendous concept.

Grogan’s was my office. I sat there most mornings and waited for the world to come knocking. Sean would bring me coffee. A measure of brandy poured in — “to kill the bitterness”.

Some days, he seems so frail I fear he’ll never make the few steps to my table.

The cup rattles on the saucer like the worst of bad news. I’d say,

“Use a mug.”

He’d be horrified, say,

“There are standards!”

Once I asked, as he shook in unison with the cup,

“Will you ever retire?”

“Will you ever stop drinking?”

Fair enough.

A few days on from Cheltenham, I was at my usual table. I’d won a few quid on the Champion Hurdle and hadn’t yet squandered it. I was reading Time Out. Most every week I’d buy it. The London guide, listing nigh on every event in the capital.

My plan.

Oh yeah, I had one. Few things more lethal than a drinker with a plan. Here was mine.

I’d gather up every penny I had, borrow more, then head for London.

Rent a fine flat in Bayswater and wait. That was it. Just wait.

This dream got me through many’s the awful Monday.

Sean rattled over, put my coffee down, asked,

“Any sign of you going?”

“Soon.”

He muttered some benediction.

Took a sip of my coffee and it burned the roof of my mouth.

Perfect.

The brandy after-hit lit among my gums, battering my teeth. Those moments before the fall.

Paradise encapsulated.

J.M. O’Neill in Duffy is Dead wrote that brandy gives you breath, then takes it away. More, you had to get up earlier and earlier to drink yourself sober enough for opening time.

Try explaining that to the non-afflicted.

A woman came in, looked round, then moved to the counter. I wished I was more than I was. Putting my head down, I tried out my detection skills. Or rather, my power of observation. Had only glanced at her; how much could I recall? A fawn medium-length coat, expensive cut. Brown hair to her shoulders. Make-up but no lipstick. Deep-set eyes over a button nose, strong mouth. Pretty, but not overly so. Sensible shoes of good brown leather.