Ken Bruen - The Devil

On Long Walk, across the water from the caravan, the man with the golden tresses fumed, said,

‘Taylor, she goes on your list. The sow never knelt, but you will.’

The sun lit up the ruined caravan and the burnt remains of Peg.

The man knew that what her charred remains might yield was a smile of pure victory.

As he stomped along Long Walk, even the swans withdrew from his passing, huddled on the other shore.

Despite the sun’s brief respite, he threw no shadow.

I heard about the fire on the radio. Jimmy Norman’s show. He’d been playing one of me all-time favourites, Nilsson’s ‘If Living Is Without You’.

That he died of booze endeared him to me anyway, but this song reminded me of when I’d met the love of me life and she left me for a Guard, because, she said,

‘You’re a hopeless drunk.’

Yeah, I know, it’s a classic whine-into-your-glass dirge, but no less effective for that.

Time eases all pain.

What a fucking crock.

Sometimes I thought I saw her on the street and me heart died all over again.

I nearly missed the news item.

As it sunk in, I wanted to weep. The fire department believed the woman had fallen asleep with a burning cigarette in her hand.

The inference being ‘a drunk’.

An empty whiskey bottle found amid the charred remains seemed to endorse their premiss.

Like the Peter Gabriel song, I grieved, in ribbons over her terrible death, song titles mutating like wrapped cobras in me fevered brain.

I muttered Leonard Cohen’s ‘Who By Fire?’.

Why the fuck did I bring booze and cigarettes to her?

I didn’t know if I could go to the funeral. Tinkers grieve like Muslim women, the awful keening and wailing. I wasn’t sure my shredded nerves could withstand it.

But Jesus, I could do flowers, had to.

Rang Interflora.

The woman was sympathetic without being cloying.

I ordered a dozen red roses and she asked if I’d like to add a note. I said, ‘Just “Deepest condolences, Jack Taylor”.’

A pause and I figured she was writing it down, then she asked,

‘You live at Nun’s Island?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you wish to send a second wreath?’

‘What?’

‘Bear with me a moment, Mr Taylor. I haven’t been in the office for the past few days, touch of flu, and the girl I have, not a fecking clue, just boys, boys, boys.’

I needed to hear about her personal fucking problems? I gave a snort of impatience. She caught it, said as she shuffled through papers,

‘This is very odd.’

‘What?’

She sounded almost panicked.

‘Must be that nitwit of a girl. According to the dates, the wreath was ordered…the day before the poor unfortunate woman died.’

I felt a wave of dizziness, but asked,

‘What does the card say?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

Now she was getting attitude?

‘The card for the first wreath?’

‘But Mr Taylor, you wrote it, didn’t you?’

Christ on a bike. I said,

‘Please forgive me, but grief, it has me all over the place.’

She eased a notch, said,

‘Of course, Mr Taylor, I empathize.’

I prompted,

‘The card?’

‘Oh, of course, it reads…well, it seems a touch odd.’

I waited.

‘It reads…“Didn’t see this coming.”’

I hung up.

See .

It wasn’t possible, couldn’t be. I tried to get my mind into focus. The note could only be from one source.

I asked myself for the hundredth time,

‘What does the Devil want with me?’

The old people used to say,

‘The Devil can only enter your life if you invite him.’

Had I?

In my darkest hours, I’d ranted and sworn at God. Hunched over a toilet bowl, puking me guts out, I remember I’d cried,

‘Anyone else out there?’

Never, never thinking there was a darkness waiting to be bidden.

I’d lived in the dark so long.

Had the darkness come to live in me?

I muttered,

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph.’

I had to get out, walk the town, dispel the shadows. The pelting rain had eased but I grabbed my all-weather coat. The Sig fitted neatly in the right pocket. Popped the Xanax and headed out. Something about the date was itching at me subconscious.

A newspaper confirmed my unease. The tenth anniversary of Columbine. Whatever you believed, the Devil had stalked the halls of the high school that awful day.

Coincidence?

They say coincidence is when God wishes to appear anonymous.

He was sure keeping one blitz of a low profile these days.

And the other gem,

‘If God seems far away, who moved?’

Bollix.

I walked down Shop Street. A mime artist dressed as the Joker was performing outside Garavan’s. I dropped some coins in his box and he said,

‘Joke’s on you, boyo.’

My temper was not at its best, the Xanax was failing to chill me. I snapped, asked,

‘Aren’t you fuckers supposed to be silent or did I miss something?’

He smiled, and I hoped those yellow fangs were part of the make-up. He said,

‘You missed the bigger picture.’

It wouldn’t look too great if I was to be seen beating the living be-jaysus out of a street performer.

I moved on.

At Anthony Ryan’s, the clothes shop, a figure emerged, bustling with bags of stuff. Stopped and lit a cigarette.

Who else?

The nicotine czar, his own self, Father Malachy.

I said,

‘Business must be good if you can shop in Ryan’s.’

He looked terrible.

Christ, he always looked woebegone but now he had an added air of desperation. The ubiquitous dandruff lined the black shoulders of his suit. He hadn’t shaved and the grey stubble gave him the aura of a dank wino. His hair was like a bedraggled crow.

He neither heard nor saw me. I moved closer and a shower had been least of his priorities, it seemed. I asked,

‘They give you a clerical discount there?’

His eyes finally registered and he stared at me…in relief?

He took me completely out of left field, grabbed my arm, said,

‘Let’s get a jar.’

All the years he’d torn me limb from fragile limb over my drinking, and now this? I was about to say,

‘Never look a gift priest in the mouth.’

But he looked too close to the brink, so I said,

‘Sure, you’re paying, so yeah.’

We went to Feeney’s, close to where Kenny’s wondrous bookshop used to be located. It was that rarity, unchanged. Not too far from the old pawn shop, where my late mother used to hock my dad’s suit and his beloved pocket watch.

She had hocked his life a long time before that.

Years ago, when I drank in Grogan’s, and had my loved friends, Jeff and Cathy, and their golden child, Serena May…

But I can’t dwell on them or the child.

Two sentries held up either end of the bar there. Two old men in cloth caps, always nourishing a half-full/empty pint, and as far as I knew they never spoke to each other.

But they were as reliable as a sincere prayer.

All the bad shite that had ensued over the years, I’d lost track of them. I’d presumed, hoped, they still kept their vigil there. And even though Grogan’s had been sold after the death of the child, I clung to the hope that they had found stools in some other old Galway bar.

As we entered Feeney’s, right by the door was one of them.

I realized I never knew their names. So I did the Irish dance, asked,

‘How’ve you been?’

He looked at me and the same disinterest he’d always shown was still alive. He said,

‘Middling.’