Ken Bruen - Green Hell

“Cuir fidh se anois a chuid gaoither anois”

(Now it shall please his conscience now).

Jack’s TV viewing had once been a learning curve all of itself. He asserted that American television was the new literature, that the finest writing was contained in the scripts of

Breaking Bad

Game of Thrones

Low Winter Sun

reaching back to The Sopranos and excelling onward. But like the darker turn in his psyche, he was now enthralled by

Hardcore Pawn

A pawnshop set in the middle of Detroit’s 8 Mile, it was Jerry Springer meets American Horror Story .

Pawnshops, he said,

“We’re the new Church of Ultimate Despair.”

Kennels for the Hound of Heaven.

A linguistics expert has predicted

that the next generation of young Irish

people will speak with American accents.

I was treating Aine to dinner in Fat Freddy’s in Quay Street. They do a seriously good chili. Aine was having coq au vin, smiling as she said it to me,

“Irish people can never order that with a straight face.”

We’d just started a carafe of the house wine when I excused myself to answer my cell. Took the call outside on the street amid a riot of hen parties and young people celebrating exam results. The call was from my former tutor in Dublin, who, no frills, asked,

“The fuck are you playing at?”

Meaning, my abandonment of my tenure at Trinity as part of my scholarship.

I lied, said,

“Just taking time out to savor the country.”

Pause, then,

“Savor fast and get your arse back here, you don’t want to lose your place.”

Lots of replies to this but I went with brown-nosing,

“Yes, sir, I’ll be back in a few weeks.”

Buying time if not affection.

When I returned to the table, a man was sitting in my chair, leaning across the table, apparently engrossed in conversation. I went,

“What the hell. .?”

The man stood up, mega smile, hand out, said,

“Boru, forgive me. I was just keeping your lovely lady company.”

Something in the way he said “lovely” leaked a creepy familiarity over the word and I realized who he was:

The professor, de Burgo.

As I put this in some kind of skewed perspective, he rushed,

“I spotted you earlier and just wanted to pop over, ask if there was a chance you’d guest-lecture for my department.”

He then literally ushered me into my chair, handed me a business card, said,

“But let me not spoil your evening. Give me a bell when you get a chance and, truly, we’d be delighted to have you on board.”

And he was gone.

He looked old, like a stranger.

He was someone else, someone whom

he could easily hate.

(Tom Pitts, Piggyback)

Jack seemed to get his rocks off on subtly putting me down.

Well, maybe not so subtly.

He’d been telling me of the golden age of TV, when he was a young man, said,

“Fuck, we had Barney Miller and the magnificent Rockford Files .”

I admitted that, no, I didn’t know those shows. He said,

“And you’ll look back on what? The Kardashians!”

I went the wrong tack, tried,

“I don’t really watch a lot of television.”

And he was off.

Like this,

“Course not, you’re too freaking academic to slum, you probably have wet dreams about Kurosawa and Werner Herzog.”

Jesus!

I said,

“That is reverse elitism.”

He laughed out loud, said,

“Bet you’re one of those pricks who say, “I don’t read fiction,” then sneak into the toilet with the National Enquirer.

The Irish people were going to the polls, a referendum on two points:

(a) To keep or abolish the senate.

(b) To set up a new court of appeals.

A fast track for cases in reality.

Jack was shucking into his all-weather Garda coat. I asked,

“You have to be somewhere?”

He stared at me, said,

“I’m going to vote.”

I was astounded, said,

“You. . you vote?”

And he looked as if he might deck me, asked,

“You think alkies don’t have rights, that it?”

In exasperation, I said,

“There’s no talking to you.”

“No, you mean there’s no lecturing me!”

A day later I was having a drink with Aine. We were in Hosty’s, early in the evening, and a nice air of quiet pervaded. I’d nearly perfected the pronunciation of her name, had it as close to

“Yawn-ah.”

Without the “y,” obviously.

We were doing well, she was telling me about a beauty course she was close to finishing. Then, she hoped to open a nail salon. I asked,

“There’s money in nails?”

And got the look.

The door behind me banged open but I didn’t turn around. Then a hand grabbed my collar, hauled me off the stool. I crashed to the floor, my pint spilling over a new white shirt I was sporting. Jack stood over me, his fists balled, spit flying from his mouth, he rasped,

“You tout, you piece of treacherous shit, you ratted me out to the Guards. .”

He had to pause for breath, some control, then,

“And to Clancy, fucking Clancy of all people!”

Aine was trying to grab Jack, pull him back, but he effortlessly shrugged her away, said,

“I thought we had some kind of friendship! If you were anybody else, I’d kick your fucking head in.”

Aine shouted,

“Leave him alone. I’ll call the Guards!”

He turned to her and the manic rage seemed to ebb. He said,

“Jesus, the Guards! You two deserve each other.”

He looked down at me, said,

“You sorry excuse for a man.”

And then threw some notes onto the counter, said to the stunned barman,

“Buy these two beauts a drink, something yellow,

And weak as piss.”

I would prefer to be in a coma

and just be woken up and wheeled

out onstage and play and then put back

in my own little world.

(Kurt Cobain)

It was Aine who declared,

“OK, if you’re going to do a book on that. .”

She faltered,

“Asshole,”

Then,

“You’re going to have to be the scholar we keep hearing you are.”

I wasn’t sure where this was going, said,

“Not sure where this is going.”

She stifled her impatience, explained,

“Sources. . research, talk to the people who know/knew him.”

Made sense.

Within a few days I had a list.

Like this,

Assorted barpersons.

A woman named Ann Henderson, supposedly the one and only great love of his life. Of course, as used in Taylorland, the affair had ended badly with Ann marrying another Guard, an archenemy of Jack. Indeed, it was hard to find people who weren’t enemies of his, arch or otherwise.

Cathy and Jeff, the parents of the Down syndrome child whose death was widely attributed to Jack’s negligence.

Ban Garda Ridge, a sometime accomplice, confidante, and conspirator of Jack’s.

Father Malachy. A close friend of Jack’s late mother and someone who’d known Jack for over twenty years. I was hoping he’d shed some light on Jack’s hard-on for the Church. In light of the recent clerical scandals, maybe hard-on was a poor choice of noun.

A solicitor who’d haphazardly dealt with Jack’s numerous escapades with the Guards.

There was a Romanian, Caz, whose name featured often but he’d apparently been deported in one of the government sweeps.

The Tinkers were among the few who held Jack in some sort of ethnic regard.

Father Malachy was the parish priest at St. Patrick’s, the church of note for Bohermore. I had called ahead and, on arrival, was met by a nun. She was so old that she was practically bent in two. I wasn’t sure if I should acknowledge her physique and stoop to her level. Jack would have said we’d bent down enough for the Church. She raised a feeble arm, pointed, said,