Кен Бруен - In the Galway Silence

I turned, went into Garavan’s. He followed, as did the bold Raoul. Seamas, I hadn’t seen in donkeys, was tending bar, greeted,

“I thought you were dead.”

“No, I was in England.”

He sighed, answered,

“Same thing.”

Harley motioned to Raoul, Keep frigging filming .

He nigh leaped to the bar, ordered.

“Two boilermakers, my good fellow.”

Seamas was never, ever anyone’s good fella . Maybe shades of Behan’s The Quare Fellow. But good? No way.

Harley added, in a snotty tone,

“You do know what a boilermaker is?”

Fuck.

I grabbed his arm, snarled,

“Rule number one: never antagonize the bar guy.”

For one fleeting moment, something crossed Harley’s face that showed there was something darker beneath the hail-fella-well-met bullshit , and, you know, that softened my view of him, not a lot, but in there.

The pints came and Seamas, God bless his Galway soul, deciding to play along, put the Jay in shooters, the shot glasses. Harley said,

“Let’s do this thing.”

As if we were heading into battle, which, in some ways, we were. He took the creamy top off the pint, then dropped the shot glass in.

It’s all a movie.

Was I going to do similar? I knocked the shot back solo. Harley seemed crestfallen. I asked,

“How exactly is this doc going to go down?”

He had half his drink gone, and it seemed to agree with him as he smiled, said,

“It’s already going down, partner.”

I rubbed my fingers together, said,

“Cash.”

Took some of my pint for effect, then,

“ Partner .”

He said,

“Let’s not mess this up with finance .”

I took out a ten, tip for Seamas, looked directly at Harley, said,

“Good luck with that.”

Fucked off outa there.

The bland song “The Sounds of Silence”

Had been reinterpreted by a band named, appropriately enough,

Disturbed.

Channeling Metallica, it is a brutal, beautiful, nigh-biblical threat.

In the new version, a black-and-white video accompanies this; it could be a scene from a John Sayles movie.

Almost on its heels I heard

“Human.”

The singer of this called himself

Rag ’n’ Bone Man.

The wonderful thing about these ballsy singers is they are so far from the current range of pretty boy whiners. Made you feel hope in a Trump universe.

Then, less than two weeks after the Manchester horror, came a concentrated three-pronged attack in London, but the consolation at least was the police shot and killed the three lunatics in just eight minutes.

My phone rang. Owen, my friend in the Guards, said,

“Jack, Clancy has been hit by a car.”

Superintendent Clancy, my nemesis.

I snapped,

“I didn’t do it.”

I could nearly see his guilty smile. He added,

“He is in hospital, in a coma.”

I asked,

“You think I should bring him grapes?”

Pause.

Then,

“I think you should bring a solid alibi.”

While I mulled this over, the phone rang again.

Tevis.

He said,

“Jack, my colleagues decided to do you a biggie, to show that Two for Justice has your best interests at play.”

Oh, fuck, not good.

I asked,

“Why would they do that?”

He snorted as if suppressing a giggle, said,

“To ensure you leave the investigation of the twins’ father alone.”

I said nothing.

He pushed.

“Don’t you want to know what they did?”

Not really.

I said,

“Sure.”

“We settled a score from your past, an irritation that has plagued you down the years, and to think you once were friends.”

Clancy?

I asked,

“Superintendent Clancy?”

Now he laughed, said,

“You’d think a Guard would be more careful on the road.”

And hung up.

Each

Angel

    Is

     Terrible.

This was the title of a quasi-memoir put out by Scott Harden. A crime writer living along the canal. He was in his fifties but looked older; an alleged stint in a South American jail had given him preternaturally totally white hair.

Tall and thin to the point of perhaps illness but his olive skin created a false sheen of health.

He liked to drink.

Jesus, don’t we all?

His tipple of choice, and sales permitting, was tequila. Due to the South American influence?

Who the fuck knows and, in truth, cares?

We weren’t friends but we’d crossed paths often enough to allow us to drink on occasion without sweating it. This time, we’d met on the prom. He was staring out at the ocean, a practice I’d enjoyed my own self. What did he see?

America?

Jail?

Failure?

He was dressed as always in battered brown leather jacket, dark jeans, off-white trainers. I thought,

“I could be looking at me fein ” (myself).

He sensed me. I guess if you survive prison in a hellhole, your sense of preservation is acute. He greeted,

“’Tis yourself.”

I answered,

“Buy you a pint?”

Not of tequila, no.

We went to Sally Longs, quiet midafternoon. I ordered the black and he opted for two bottles of Bud, no glass, explained,

“I like to turn out for the U.S. as they are the only gang to buy my books.”

I asked,

“How’s that going for you?”

He considered, then,

“If I put girl in the title, had a troubled but feisty female narrator, well, I’d have a shot.”

We toasted with,

“ Sláinte amach .”

And I asked,

“Will you go that route?”

He laughed, not from humor but something like weariness, said,

“It’s that or a misery memoir.”

I said,

“I’m reading Thomas Cook, Tragic Shores .”

He had the Bud bottle mid-lift, waited, asked,

“And?”

“Masterpiece.”

He said,

“I’m going for a smoke.”

Didn’t ask, just stated it. That is very appealing. I joined him. He produced a soft pack of Camels (they still sell those?) and I smiled, said,

“The U.S., right? Your loyalty?”

“Fuck, no. A guy gave them to me.”

He offered but I declined, said,

“I’m vaping.”

He gave that odd smile, said,

“Is it on meself or does that sound just the tiniest bit gay?”

He lit up, coughed, exclaimed,

“God, they’re stale.”

“When did the guy give them to you?”

He thought for a moment, then said,

“A year ago.”

I realized he had a way of speaking that you never were quite sure if he was taking the piss or it was some private gig that amused him alone.

He said,

“The guy? He told me he was a barrister.”

“Okay.”

“But turns out he meant barista.”

Starbucks had recently opened in the Eyre Square center and was thriving. A phone shrilled. He took out one of the very old mobiles,

No camera

No video

No GPS

No paper trail.

He answered, went,

“Uh,

  Huh,

    Yeah,

       Okay.”

Finished the call. I said,

“You talk too much.”

He looked like he might give me a hearty pat on the shoulder or a wallop in the face, said,

“Gotta boogie.”

And took off.

I sat there and wondered if for writers a person wasn’t ever real ,