Кен Бруен - Galway Girl

Pluck your eyes out

And you wake up

With the sheet knotted around you

Like a vine.”

The fine Australian crime writer Peter Temple died aged seventy-one.

Ireland beat Scotland to win the Six Nations, and if they beat England at the dreaded Twickenham they’d have the Grand Slam.

We hoped, as this fixture was set for St. Patrick’s Day, we had some hard-core charm on our side.

I Never Sang for My Father,

A grueling emotional ride with Gene Hackman, was on cable.

Did I watch it again?

No.

My own father was great.

Few people in my life had such an impact on me. He was that rarity, a good decent man, as opposed to my mother, the walking bitch.

He once said to me,

“I’m not an aggressive person and I rarely feel aggressive but sometimes...”

Pause.

“I do feel the need to cut loose, be reckless, and be a man.”

I was twelve and this meant little to me. I always felt aggressive and vented on the hurling pitch.

My father worked on the railways. After a particular shift, his overtime and a win on the horses collided to leave him with the grand total of 1,500 pounds.

A friggin fortune in those days.

He hadn’t yet told my mother and I think he was on the verge of handing it to her when she from nowhere exploded,

“When do I get a new kitchen set?”

Before he could flash the money, she sneered,

“What kind of pathetic excuse of a man are you? I could have married somebody in the Post Office.”

He grabbed his coat, said,

“C’mon, Jack.”

And we were out of there.

Walked to Salthill, my father silent most of the way.

I didn’t care. As long as I was in his company, my world had a foundation.

The Castle Inn had just opened and was doing a thriving business, mainly due to the extras from Alfred the Great filming in Galway then.

They were earning mad money as Anglo-Saxons fighting draftees from the Irish army.

For a pound, you’d get eight pints, ten cigs, and change for chips on the way home.

My father ordered a pint and a Paddy chaser.

Boilermaker.

We didn’t know such terms then, it was simply a short one to keep the pint company. He got a mineral for the boy.

All soft drinks, which were either Claddagh orange or bitter lemon, came under the heading of that.

My father rarely drank spirits, had said,

“Road to hell.”

True that.

The very first Wimpy bar was due to open and we’d soon be able to try the very first hamburgers to hit the country.

My father drank fast; again, unusual for him, said,

“There’s a poem titled ‘If.’”

He paused.

Then,

“Lines in it that if you can make a pile of your winnings and roll them on one turn of the dice, it says...”

He looked at me,

“You’ll be a man.”

This seemed to deeply sadden him.

We crossed to Claude Toft’s, the only casino in the town. Such things as online betting, a myriad of bookies were all in an unimaginable future.

My father went straight to the roulette table, took the money out of his jacket, looked at me, the wad of cash in his right hand, hovering, asked,

“Red or black, Jack?”

I near whispered,

“All of it?”

He nodded.

I watched the wheel spin, looked up into my father’s face. He said,

“Choose.”

When I was a child, the sternest warning uttered by parents went,

“Don’t ever bring Guards to the door.”

Now, the day before St. Patrick’s Day,

The Guards came to my door.

Loud, hard, and shouting.

Slammed me up against the wall, screaming,

“Don’t fucking move.”

As if.

I wanted to say,

“I paid my TV license.”

But levity was not in the air.

At the Guards station, I was flung into an interview room, left to wait.

Time droned on until supercop himself, Sheridan, appeared.

He was supposedly on loan from the States but his accent danced a wobbling reel between broad New Jersey and Shantalla.

He was dressed in FBI mode: tight clean-line suit, tiny mic in the ear, buzz-cut hair. He turned the chair around so he sat cowboy style, arms resting on the back. He had watched way too many movies. He began,

“You’re like seriously fucked, Jack.”

I waited a beat, then,

“What else is new?”

Amused him.

Slightly.

He said,

“No wisecracking your way out this time, buddy.”

Buddy?

I said,

“You’re not my buddy.”

He reached into his jacket, produced a cigarette, lit it, blew an impressive cloud of smoke, looked at me, waiting for a comment.

He got none.

He asked,

“You know a young boy named Jimmy Tern?”

Uh-oh.

I said,

“A spoiled brat.”

He blew more smoke, then,

“His friends say you threw him in the canal.”

For fuck’s sake.

I said,

“For fuck’s sake.”

He got right in my face, asked,

“Why’d you kill him?”

God almighty.

I said,

“He’s dead?”

Sheridan said,

“As a doornail.”

Some beliefs just defy logic, and no matter how much you rebel against it the notion persists.

Like this:

If you need a lawyer, our genetic code, our history, kicks in and we want a guy with three essentials:

Brit accent Anglo-Irish roots Disdain

And, not essential but valued,

Double-barreled name.

I got

Jeremy Brett-Shaw.

That hyphen is worth the exorbitant fees.

But

He didn’t get to me until I’d been locked up two days,

Missing a wedge of real sporting history.

On St. Patrick’s Day,

At Twickenham,

We beat the English in rugby to add

The Grand Slam to

The already secured Six Nations title.

I also missed Cheltenham, where Irish horses won over twenty races.

All this with the murder of a child hanging over my head.

I don’t much remember those two days as I had the mother of a hangover, ferocious guilt, remorse without the aid of booze, Xanax, even a cig.

I did learn that the boy had been hit over the head once with thundering force.

“A hurley,”

Said Sheridan.

Adding,

“Your weapon of choice, Jack, eh?”

I thought about that, asked,

“When was the lad killed?”

He sneered, said,

“You already know that, surely.”

I bit down, asked,

“Humor me.”

Resigned sigh from him, then,

“Eight in the evening, the day after you tossed him in the canal.”

The proverbial light above my head. I did a rapid calculation and, bingo!

Fuck me, I had the most incredible alibi ever, hugged it close like all the rosaries I’d meant to say but never did.

Sheridan sussed the change, demanded,

“What, what is it, you have an alibi?”

I gave him the most vicious smile I had, said,

“Lawyer.”

Jeremy Brett-Shaw arrived with trumpets.

Like loud.

Presence felt.

He was a short man but booming; everything about him screamed,

“Look at me.”

It was hard not to.

He used his reduced stature like a sly intimidation.

Storming into my cell, roaring,

“Gather your gear, Mr. Taylor. We are so out of here.”

Throwing in the American phrase to show he was current.

I had spoken to him very briefly on my one allowed call, enough to tell him my gold alibi and, most important, prove I could pay his outrageous fees.