Ken Bruen - The Devil

‘So Jack, I don’t get this American gig. I mean, come on, what the fuck’s with that?’

That line was from Caz, a Romanian in Galway for over ten years.

The Immigration midnight raids, the sudden weekly deportations of non-nationals, he always escaped the net.

Even wangled a job as an interpreter for the Guards and so had all kinds of info.

For a price.

He was as trustworthy as a bent tuppence. We weren’t friends, he was too slippery for that and I was too wary. But we had history and a give-and-take dance.

I gave.

And he took, as much as was on the table.

I’d run into him outside the Augustine church, not a breath away from the newest head shop selling Ecstasy due to a loophole in the Irish law.

Seemed kind of apt, both sold mood change, depending on what you believed and especially what you had to spend.

If you managed to skip the church and the head shop, and continued on what used to be a lovely little lane, you hit the sex shop, and not two porno mags from there was, yup, St Vincent de Paul.

There is a wonderful ironic set of inferences in all of that, but I’m fucked if I could be bothered making them.

I was in the church, lighting candles for the recent dead, my old dead and, by the look of things, some yet to come.

I was frustrated by the new automatic candle routine. Vegas without the showgirls. I’m a dinosaur, I know, way past my sell-by date, but is it too much to ask for the old gig of tapers, actually lighting the candle and being connected?

It was my version of comfort food. Candle soup for the soul, if you will.

The whole ritual had a richness to it, a sense of tradition.

And yeah, my candles didn’t light.

Like me bedraggled life.

As I came out, I dipped my fingers in the Holy Water font. Surely that wasn’t poisoned.

Yet.

Standing on the steps to the church was Caz.

He glanced up at the church, asked,

‘Find any grace in there, Jack?’

His accent was more Galway than my own. He had almost classical Romany features, a head of fine black hair, shining in the weak sun, the lively eyes, the chiselled nose, and was dressed in an Aran sweater, last seen on the Clancy Brothers, the Irish version of the American vest, all tweed and pockets,

and best of all,

the rip-off Barbour wax jacket we were selling to tourists as made in Connemara.

Put him on the Galway hooker – and I do mean the ship we make here, a beautiful craft – and he could be a poster boy for the new Ireland.

Cheap,

fake,

and

smug.

I said,

‘Live in expectation of a miracle.’

He liked that.

Gave his best smile, the one that warns, watch your Euros. Two of his teeth were solid gold. In an Irish person, there would be simple gaps. He asked,

‘And did you find one, a miracle?’

Hard to dislike him and I’d tried. I said,

‘I sure did. Today’s the day you get to actually buy me a drink.’

He feigned hurt, but then said,

‘Sure, I just got me dole money and the allowance for the three dogs.’

‘You have dogs?’

‘Don’t be an eejit, Jack.’

We paid out for non-nationals to feed imaginary canines and wouldn’t pay our nurses. As Stewart had so delicately put it,

‘You do the math.’

No doubt he had the sought-after medical card.

We went to the Front Door, a pub I still have some affection for.

Being contrary, we went in the back.

Don’t ask.

I like it, despite the bouncers, those wannabe FBI eejits.

Sign of the times, there was an actual school for bouncers in Salthill.

A weekend course. Guess it only took three days to figure out how to kick the living shite outa some poor bastard and appear justified.

It still managed to vaguely resemble the old pubs and I suppose that’s as much as you can expect any more.

We grabbed stools at the counter and a gorgeous girl approached, asked,

‘Caz, what can I get you?’

Two pints of Guinness.

She built them slow and easy, a real professional. When she was done, the creamy head on those pints was a work of art. Almost a shame to touch them.

We did.

Caz, toasting ‘ Slainte amach .’

He’d garnered enough Irish to wing the important stuff, like toasts, begging and false flattery.

I went with ‘ Leat fein .’ (And yer own self.)

We put a serious dent in the pints, then he asked,

‘How’ve you been?’

Usually I went with the Galway reply. ‘Grand.’

But the truth got in first, said,

‘Depressed.’

He signalled the girl and she put two new ones under construction, said,

‘Depression is sadness gone riot.’

I was floored. Out of the mouths of babes.

He continued,

‘Anyone who can describe depression exactly has never been there.’

Paused, then,

‘Because it’s beyond words.’

Whatever the fuck was in those pints, he’d nailed it.

His eyes went out of focus and he was somewhere else, said,

‘My mother, back in Romania, she was so sad. We didn’t know about depression so my father just beat her. She walked into the woods one day and we never saw her again.’

The pints arrived. No money had yet changed hands. I clinked his glass, wanted to say, Sin an sceal is bronach . (That is the saddest story.)

But I figured he already knew that.

He snapped back, the artful dodger in play anew. But I went for it, asked,

‘Would a demon come after a person – personally?’

You can ask Romanians such things and not feel like a horse’s arse. You ask an Irish person, they’d think you were talking about the Inland Revenue.

He nodded, the cream from the fresh pint on his upper lip, said,

‘Oh yeah, first they attach themselves to your family, friends, then through them they claim you.’

I asked the obvious.

‘Why?’

‘A demon will believe you spoilt some scheme they’d planned and the payback is your soul.’

He gave a bitter laugh, said,

‘They seem especially fond of Catholics. The more lapsed the better.’

Jesus Christ, I was afraid to admit the awesome truth of his words. As if sensing my distress, he abruptly changed tack, said,

‘Your friend Ridge took a bad beating, I hear.’

I had to remind myself he had the ear of the Guards. He continued,

‘The assailant…’

Looked at me. I took a long swallow of the excellent pint, waited, then said,

‘Was of course charged, and is out on bail.’

I already knew the answer but what the sweet fuck, I asked,

‘What will happen?’

He finished his pint in jig time, belched, said,

‘Slap on the wrist, claims of provocation and all the good legal argument, and mainly friends in high places.’

Then he asked the question we’d come in on.

‘What’s this mania for America you have?’

I told him of the time before when Ridge and Stewart got me a ticket, she got sick and I had to defer, then this time was refused entry. But to answer his question I said,

‘I loved my dad, he always told me America was the promised land, that you could be who you really were, free of the baggage of the past, and of their deep love of the Irish, their help all through our bedraggled history, and how they took you as you were, not what some gobshite said you were – I thought if I could go there I could be free of all the terrible stuff I’ve been caught up in, and their books, their attitude, seemed like real freedom to me.’

I was drained.

Hadn’t spoken such a full sentence since I took my pledge as a young Guard at the passing-out ceremony at Templemore.

He asked,

‘You ever read Anton LaVey?’

I’d never even heard of him and said so.