Ken Bruen - Priest

‘Join you for a minute?’

I moved over on the bench and he sat down. He smelled of hops and barley, which figures if you’re in the bar game. He put his hand in his pocket, produced a pipe, a leather pouch of tobacco and fired up, took his own time in getting it lit, gave a sigh of contentment. The aroma was sweet but not cloying and he said,

‘Clan.’

The brand.

He stared at the jacket, said,

‘Cost a few punts, that.’

‘Euros.’

He was not a man who liked being corrected and I made a note of it. He answered,

‘Euros, punts, none of it worth a toss.’

I said,

‘My son gave it to me.’

Took him by surprise and he thought about it, then,

‘I don’t have a family, never wanted to give up me freedom. What’s he do, your lad?’

My lad.

Without missing a beat I said,

‘He’s in computers.’

He muttered there was a future in that, but not with any conviction.

We sat in silence, surveying the square, then he said,

‘I’m coming from a funeral.’

Explained the attire. I did the Irish thing, asked,

‘Anyone close?’

He was not a man who answered quickly. As if he searched for hidden agendas, then,

‘Who’s close?’

I wished I had a cig, asked,

‘Was he a friend?’

I was thinking, why the hell don’t I shut up? He didn’t answer for a full five minutes. I know, I counted every awkward one. Then,

‘A customer.’

I was surprised and gave a grunt of assent. He turned to me, said,

‘You knew him.’

‘Did I?’

‘The priest, Gerald.’

And I remembered Gerald saying,

‘The Devil’s right hand.’

Gave me a spooky feeling, though it could have been the need for a drink. I said,

‘I’m sorry.’

He nodded as if he expected nothing less, then,

‘The bastards wouldn’t bury him, so I shelled out.’

I presumed he meant the Church and said,

‘That was good of you.’

He stood, shook the ashes out of his pipe, banged it against the bench, said,

‘Don’t talk shite.’

We let that gem swirl above our heads. Then he gave me a full look, said,

‘You’re a quare one.’

Not in the sense of gay, but more the Behan meaning of odd. Before I could, as it were, rise to the occasion, he asked,

‘What kind of man goes to the pub, pays good money for whiskey and then doesn’t touch a drop?’

Did I want to explain to him it was my deal with God?

No.

When he saw no answer was coming, he shrugged, said,

‘No skin off my nose.’

And walked away.

I wanted to roar,

‘Thanks for sharing.’

But I was afraid he’d come back. I sat for another twenty minutes. I’d liked that priest a lot. One meeting and I felt like I knew him. Tried to find some prayer. A wino approached and I gave him ten euro, felt that was the best prayer of all.

* * *

Next morning, I was up early, got the phone directory and rang Michael Clare. A woman answered.

‘Michael Clare’s, Engineers, how may I help?’

‘I’d like to speak to Michael, please.’

Step on those manners.

‘May I say who’s calling?’

‘Father Joyce.’

If she recognized the murdered man’s name, she kept it to herself, said,

‘One moment, please.’

Then like afterglow, added,

‘Father.’

He came on, caution in his voice, said,

‘Hello?’

‘Mike, it’s Jack Taylor.’

A moment, then,

‘Ah, the private dick. . The Father Joyce bit, that supposed to be what? Ironic?’

‘I don’t do irony.’

He let out a suppressed breath. ‘What is it, Taylor?’

‘What happened to Jack?’

‘Listen, Taylor, I’m a busy man and you’re clearly an idiot. Either get to it or-’

‘I want to buy you lunch.’

‘What?’

‘So, are you up for a spot of lunch?’

Exasperation in his tone, he asked,

‘Why on earth would I have lunch with you?’

Time to get ol’ Michael focused, said,

‘Met your sister.’

Huge intake of breath, then the palpable rage.

‘You stay the fuck away from my sister.’

I ignored that, continued,

‘Here’s some hard ball. If you don’t meet me, I’ll make some phone calls, tell that flash receptionist her boss cut a priest’s head off, and you know what, I had me a talk with a nun and she got me thinking, maybe your sister beheaded the priest?’

He went quiet, then agreed to a drink that evening in Brennan’s Yard, six thirty, and he slammed the phone down. It rang almost immediately. Vinny from Charly Byrnes’ bookshop.

‘Jack, me oul’ segotia, it’s Vinny.’

‘How are you doing, Vinny?’

‘Good. Reason I’m calling is, we got a load of new books — a lot of crime — and among them David Goodis, Dan Simmons and other gems.’

I was amazed.

‘I thought it was impossible to get Goodis?’

‘It is, but you know us, we like a challenge.’

‘That’s great, I’ll be in.’

‘Don’t sweat it, I’ll put them aside for you.’

A dark coincidence, in that time of shadows, that those books should come along. I was too far out on the edge to read, or to read anything significant into this happening. My existence had become so haphazard, the odd had become the norm.

* * *

In 1953, at the age of thirty-three, following a prolific New York career as a pulp writer, David Goodis returned home to live with his parents in Philadelphia. He became a virtual recluse.

His lifestyle was beyond strange. In California, he rented a sofa in a friend’s house for four dollars a month and would crash there intermittently, when he was on the prowl. Prowling for the fat black hookers he paid to humiliate him. Wore suits till they were threadbare, then dyed them blue and went right on wearing them. Recycling before his time.

A habit he had, taking the red cellophane from cigarette packets, shoving it up his nose, pretending to have nose-bleeds. How fucking weird is that? Then he’d howl from pain. Thing is, he’d have slotted right into Coyle’s.

This was a writer with a six-year contract from Warner Brothers, published his first novel at twenty-one, and at twenty-eight years of age his most famous book, Dark Passage, was sold as a Bogart/Bacall vehicle.

After the death of his father, Goodis began to lose it, big time. When his mother died, he was truly gone, lost. He sued the producers of The Fugitive, believing they had stolen his work. He ended up in the asylum, and at the age of forty-nine he was dead.

Every day, I tried to listen to the news, to keep some anchor on reality, reasoning if I knew what was going on then I wasn’t entirely gone.

Ireland prided itself on being

Confident

Aware

Modern.

Our image abroad was that of hip coolness. We were, in the words of the culture, a happening place. Imagining we’d moved far from the provincial, closed, parochial society of the bad years, events were occurring to remind us we hadn’t moved as far or as fast as we thought.

A story that beggared belief that day.

Health workers, checking on a house, found a woman dead in her bed. Not only had she been dead a year, but her sister slept in the same bed! Said she never realized, thought her sister was just ill. A brother, living in the same tiny abode, said,

‘I thought she was pretending.’

A photo of the poor bastard in all the papers showed a face of ancient bewilderment, not unlike the faces of the hordes who sailed to America in the coffin ships during the famine.