Кен Бруен - In the Galway Silence

“You in the business of renting cars or just fucking with people?”

Frightened him. He stammered,

“No call for that,” and looked around for help. There was none.

Just me.

He said,

“The Mazda is a standout in the crossover SUV class. The CX-5 is a joy to drive.”

I cut him off, asked,

“Is it stick shift?”

I meant, had it gears that you manually handled so you actually knew you were doing the driving and not the automatic shite they peddled, ad nauseam, and don’t even get me started on hybrids / electric crap.

He dismissed me with a shrug, said,

“Perhaps sir would do better somewhere else .”

The contempt dripped from every italicized word.

For a moment, I considered pucking him on the upside of his arrogant head but went with,

“You should think about working in a pharmacy. They seem to specialize in employing cunts who read you the riot act if you ask for Solpadeine.”

I went down to the car park off the Claddagh and God smiled, or maybe the devil. Sitting right there was a battered Jeep, the license plates covered in dirt.

Perfect.

Took me all of five minutes to hot-wire and drive that muthah out of there.

The back window was dirty, ideal for me perch; shoot from there.

Locked and loaded.

Now I just had to break into Anthony’s home and grab the rifle.

Adrenaline was giving me a jolt of energy that made me feel alive in a dark and glorious way.

Back at my apartment, I did a few lines of coke to smooth out the vibes of electricity, was watching Stephen King’s

Storm of the Century ,

Little realizing how utterly serendipitous that would be very soon.

A knock at the door. I opened to

Michael Allen,

Holding my daughter’s hand.

He pushed the little girl toward me, snapped,

“You get her today. My love and I are having a date day.”

And the fucker winked at me.

The girl looked frightened. I said,

“Come on in love, I’ll get you a soft drink.”

The tiniest of smiles.

How that warmed my ice heart.

Allen summoned me outside with a beckoning finger, said,

“I need a freaking day free of the damn nose snot.”

Lovely.

He smirked.

“Try to keep her out of the pubs.”

And he was gone.

I closed the door and faced my daughter with deep anxiety, tried,

“Anything you want to do, ’tis done.”

She looked at me quizzically, asked,

“Are you, like, really my, like...”

Pause

“... Dad?”

Her accent veered between American Valley girl and mid-Atlantic twang.

I said,

“Yes, I am your father.”

Fuck, how weird that sounded.

She had a small satchel, made of just beautiful soft leather, Gucci on the front.

She took out a flask and a board game. I asked,

“Is that your tea?”

Thinking, with Kiki, it would of course be herbal green muck.

She said,

“It’s a smoothie.”

Right.

She looked at my overflowing untidy bookshelves, asked,

“Can I tidy that?”

OCD?

I nearly said,

“Hon, you touch my books, you lose the arm from the elbow.”

But went,

“Thank you, that would be lovely.”

She asked,

“Alphabetically or by genre?”

WTF?

Had to pinch my own self, mentally ask,

She’s only nine?

Her little face was so elfin, so heart wrenching in its earnestness, I thought of the lines of Merton,

    “ You will be loved

          and it will

            murder your heart and drive

                   you into the desert .”

Who knew?

We had an amazing day, chock-full of

Laughter

Food

Sodas

Chocolate

And

Hugs.

... Hugs ?

Who could have foreseen that?

I went into the bathroom and down on my knees, whispered,

“Oh, thank you, Jesus!”

Meant it with every fiber of my wasted soul.

If you’ve seen series one of The Wire you might remember a young black drug dealer from the corner, teaching young bloods how to play chess.

In a truly fantastic, memorable scene, he demonstrates the chess pieces by calling them all the names the boys use for

Cops

Dealers

Soldiers

And explains the various moves in the way a young gun plots his way to the top.

I did that using nuns as pawns, and priests and cardinals, too, and, of course, we almost had a bishop.

The king was the pope

And

The queen, well, she was her very own mum.

She loved it and we played for hours with me promising to get a custom-made set for her own self.

A beautiful perfect day.

End of watch.

I took her hand and we stood outside my apartment, looking out across Galway Bay, my joy near boundless.

A motorbike roared behind me and I turned

Too slow.

The first bullet took Gretchen in the throat.

The second blasted through her tiny heart.

She

  emitted

      the

        tiniest

           soft

             sigh.

And was gone.

They have a new barman

in Garavan’s, but I don’t talk to him at all.

In fact, most days, I stay home,

pretend to read,

the bottle at my hand

and the smashed, crushed chess pieces

at my feet. If you were to look in the window you’d

probably be struck by the utter stillness.

The absolute quiet.

You might even comment,

Jesus, a room of the dead,

but, then, you might say nothing.

Nothing at all.

Marvin Minkler was the old-school type of detective. He’d been in the army, served overseas, and then joined the Guards, progressing rapidly up the ranks by sheer smarts and that ancient concept of being good at his job.

Maybe best of all, he evaded office politics and was beholden to no one person. He’d been sent down from Dublin to investigate the highly suspicious deaths of

Tevis

Harley

Mrs. Renaud’s apparent suicide

Plus the horrific shooting of a nine-year-old girl on the Salthill Promenade — the death of my beloved Gretchen. He arranged to meet me in Crowes pub, not the police station. Like I said,

Old school.

I was seated at the back of the pub where Ollie Crowe ignored my smoking as did the customers. No one approached me. Word was out about the killing of my daughter and I was best described as armed and maniacal.

True that.

Ollie had set up a fresh shot of Jameson before me, then withdrew quietly. The front door of the pub opened and a bitter November wind made a fast attempt to freeze the lounge. The man who walked toward me could only be a cop — the walk, half strut, mostly caution.

Head of snow-white hair and not because white was the new option. Tall, in his vaguely maintained late forties. His face was of the sort you hear called craggy.

Basically, no one wants to come right out and say you’re an ugly cunt.

Wearing a gray suit that was so nondescript it meant money or poverty in that you noticed it without actually knowing why. He held out a large worn hand, offered,

“I’m Detective Minkler. Most call me Marv. I am sorry for your shocking loss.”

I was too weary to be insulting, said,

“Jack Taylor.”

He gave the hint of a smile, said,

“That much I do know.”

He didn’t ask,

“Is this a bad time?”

Every time now was a very bad time.

I kind of appreciated that.