Ken Bruen - Green Hell

“Fucked up.”

Jack Taylor had been doing that job all his life.

I was released from the hospital on the first day of the Galway Races. The fierce three-week heat wave had come to a deluging stop. Torrential rain lashed the streets. Did it stop the racing?

In Galway?

Like. . hello!

A temporary bridge in my upper mouth would hold until, a cheerful doctor said,

“Some fancy dentist can charge you exorbitantly.”

Dentistry, I soon learned, like everything else in Ireland, was nightmarish expensive. To my utter amazement and perhaps a little delight, my savior was standing outside the hospital’s main entrance. He was wearing chinos, Crocs, and faded T-shirt with the slogan

“Is maith an talann an ocross.”

(Hunger is the best sauce).

He was deeply tanned and his full head of graying hair needed a trim. Deep lines gave his face the allure of old parchment but the eyes were alive and slightly mocking. Extending a hand, he said,

“They let you out.”

I took his hand, registering two missing fingers. Barely perceptible was a tiny hearing aid. I shook his hand (carefully), said,

“I owe you big-time.”

Holding my gaze, he said,

“Jesus kid, lighten up, these are the jokes. C’mon, I’ll buy you a jar.”

Not for the first time I behaved like a prig, protested,

“It’s not noon yet.”

He sighed, took my arm, said,

“It’s Race Week, the town is on the piss.”

Led me across the road to a pub called the River Inn. He said,

“It’s Ireland, there’s not a river within spittin distance.”

I noticed he limped slightly but still moved with an economy that belied his years. He was right about the town. The place was jammed but he muscled his way to the bar amid shouts of

“Taylor, thought you were dead. .”

“Jack, ya bollix. .”

“Lend us a tenner. .”

“Any tips for the Plate. .”

He ignored all, got a winning smile from the barwoman, who asked,

“Usual, Jack?”

“By two,” he said,

And somehow, despite the crush, carried out a table for us by a large window. He said,

“Plant yer arse on that.”

Did he mean the table? He straddled a stool, producing a second from the crowd. I sat, asked,

“How will she find us in this mob?”

He asked,

“Roisin?”

“. . if that’s her name.”

I trailed. He muttered,

“I hope to fuck, hell of a time to discover she’s a Mary.”

Then added,

“Take her a few minutes to build those pints.”

“Pints!”

I said,

“Alas, not for me, Jack. . it’s Jack, yes? I’m on painkillers.”

“Yah lucky fuck, the pints will have you flyin in jig time.”

The woman appeared, unfazed by the madding crowd, plunked two perfect pints and two shots before us. Jack handed her a flash of notes, said,

“And one for yourself, hon.”

She gave him a smile of pure radiance. He raised the pint, said,

“Slainte amach.”

Downed half his pint, hammered the shot, said,

“Get that in yah, another round coming.”

My Taylor baptism if not of fire, then certainly Jameson.

Flashes of

Huge merriment

Amazement

Incredulity

Pathos

Punctuate my fractured recollection of that first, long, insane day with Jack. We even backed a horse, named, I shit thee not:

Beckett’s Boy

Ridden by A. P. McCoy

And Jack saying to me,

“See kid, the shit-hot favorite is ridden by the people’s favorite,

Ruby Walsh.”

He paused.

The bookies were truly like Dante’s forgotten circle of a Celtic hell. Despite the ban on smoking, the air was suffused with smoke. Smoke of frenzied desperation.

Jack said,

“Bang a ton on BB.”

“A ton?”

Slight shadow of annoyance flitted across his battered face, then was gone, he enunciated slowly,

“Put a hundred euros to win.”

Despite the booze, the sheer adrenaline in the very air, caution whispered. I asked,

“Couldn’t we, like, put fifty to show?”

Took him a moment to translate American to Irish-English, then,

“Place better? No fuckin way. I never played for safety my whole befuddled life.”

I bit down, withheld,

“And gee, look at the evidence.”

I played to win.

Won.

At 8 to 1.

Jesus H!

I never won a goddamn thing outside of literary stuff. I yelled,

“My Gawd, that’s like, with the exchange rate, like. . a thousand bucks!”

Tried to give him half.

No way. Jack’s response. . like this,

“Buy me dinner.”

Which was chips doused in vinegar, sitting on the rocks over Galway Bay. A six-pack in a cooler and a twenty-euro dope deal.

We proceeded to:

Do a line

Throat-drop two fat chips

Chug the beer

Then belch as if you meant it. With Jack, I was learning he could turn on a red cent without conversation, rhyme, or reason. He was talking about Walter Macken, veered, asked,

“How was Dublin?”

I said, of my Dublin impressions,

“What’s with the rabbits?”

I told him that

(a) I was stunned by the number of beggars and in one bizarre scene, outside the ultraexpensive Brown Thomas, a man on his knees, a cardboard sign pleading for food.

(b) All the homeless guys/beggars on nigh every bridge had, get this, a rabbit.

Jack gave a resigned chuckle, said,

“Last year, on a slow news day-meaning Syria, the Banks, Household Charges were on hold-the media ran with a story of a young homeless guy who kept a pet rabbit. Some mindless morons grabbed the animal, slung it into the Liffey.”

“Fuck,” I said,

“Then. .”

He continued,

“The homeless guy dived in, saved his rabbit. . Lo and behold, he got all sorts of help, including the Mayor’s Bravery Award.”

Paused.

“. . so now every lowlife is trying to cash in on the act.”

I mulled this over, then,

“In Galway. . are there rabbits?”

Shook his head,

“Naw, we have a no-frills gig going. Just feck the homeless guy in the river.”

Impossible to tell if he was yankin my chain. I tried,

“No rabbits then?”

“Only in stew.”

The

Year

of

the

Understatement

Shadow Puppets

Even now, I’m not too sure how

Drunk

Coked

Crazed

Or

None of the above Jack was when he told me about “The Man Who Tortured Women.” Laid out that stark phrase like a flat hammer, turned to look at me, then,

“Anthony de Burgo.”

Then, bitterness leaking all over his words, he sprinted,

“Impressive name, huh? And fuck me, Tony’s an impressive fellow:

Lectures in Anglo-Irish lit, has numerous academic essays, studies, and, get this, even slums as a hack noir novelist, to, as he said on The Late Late Show ‘pay the light bill.’ Oh, Tony’s a droll bollix and no mistake. Even persuaded our Galway hurlers to line out for a. .”

Pause,

“Spot of cricket.”

Jack took a deep breath, fired up a Marlboro Red with a heavy click of his Zippo, blew smoke, continued,

“What ‘spiffin fun’ that was and all for charity. The guy is a media darling. How could you not love him, too? His looks got a brooding De Niro (circa Mean Streets ) gig going. ’Cept every few months, he grabs a teenage girl, tortures her beyond imagining, stops a breath short of murder.”

Paused.

“Least so far.”

Sweat had broken out above his dark eyes. He reached for the Jameson bottle, hit his coffee with it, offered, I declined, he drank deep, I asked,

“Why isn’t he in jail?”

Jack seemed to shudder, then shook himself off, said,

“Tony’s a clever boy, very, very, clever, and he’s got the hotshots in some Rotary-type club to keep him, if not decent, certainly free.”