Кен Бруен - A Fifth of Bruen - Early Fiction of Ken Bruen

“I wouldn’t have thought that O’Malley was a friend of yours, Dillon.”

“Well, would you tell him I called in.”

He nodded. At the door, two huge guards were hauling a wino in. He was roaring like a bull and throwing his free hand to the free world... outside...

The guards said “happy Christmas...”

I hope I kept my peace if not theirs.

“Funeral II”

   Ashen

   was the way

   I felt

   when shunned again

   by people

   I had justified

   didn’t all

   that all... much

   really

   warrant grief

   — “tearing words beneath” –

   Beneath

   the anger... deeper

   anger

   ever lurks

   ... and wish

   I wish

   it weren’t so

   “so much now

   Phew...

   a sigh lifeless”

   The saying less

   that what I think

   it is

   the old triangle here

   of...

   think

   I thought perhaps

   of less

   than I could

   ever

   start to say

   A funeral

   begins the move

   up towards the hill

   you know — beyond

   the very plans

   you’d power play... it

   change you drastically

   a choice... to change

   was lined

   behind the hearse

I didn’t go to Julie’s.

I didn’t call Marisa.

I didn’t eat.

What I did was I drank... a whole lot. I didn’t get to evening. I was cold on the floor of my flat. I had me some rough dreams... French named or otherwise.

The next morning was dues time. I had to die. Walk through the hangover. If I had an inch of drink, I’d lose the next week. I didn’t do it for Padraig... he’d have said, “Lose the week...” I didn’t want to lose his funeral. So I showered and died. Drank shaky coffee and retched. I didn’t shave.

At the morgue were the priest and the hearse and myself. Oh yeah, Padraig, too, but he wasn’t feeling anything. Same priest... new hangover. I skipped the greetings. He gave me a seat to the cemetery. Padraig might have appreciated how we got there first. At the Square, I told myself, at least one of the winos will see the hearse. He’d pause and put his hand over his heart. If he’d had a cap, he would have removed it. Hail to the chief. That’s the way I told myself it was. Indeed, I regretted not actually seeing it in full. But like I say, I was hungover and prey to anxious foolishness. I recognized one of the gravediggers. O’Hanlon... a former security guard. Over six foot, he was broad and had the look of being well fed. He rarely smiled. You got a look into those wet-blue eyes and all the smile you’d ever need was right there. From minding the living to burying the dead, an Irish success.

Padraig was laid in Billy’s Acre... well away from the paying clients. In the days of the poor house, they took them here. To the present, your status could be destroyed if anyone belong to you had been put there. It veered on the Protestant graves, and those were the pits. On Cemetery Sunday, the priest blessing the graves ignored the paupers and the Protestants. The area of Billy’s Acre was neglected and overgrown. The caretaker didn’t bother with their upkeep, as who was there to complain. The Protestants were well known for their non-tending of the dead. I learnt that at school. They believed, “You passed on.” Why visit the graveyard when no one was home. They didn’t just chuck Padraig into the ground. But there wasn’t a whole lot of ceremony either. The priest read that dirge in which “man has but a short time to live and is full of misery.” T’was more fitting to us around the grave than the fellah within it.

Job, complete, the priest took off. I stood over Padraig and couldn’t find any last words of enlightenment. I felt the last of the hangover, and that might have been the most fitting tribute. O’Hanlon put his shovel down and began to light a pipe.

“You knew the client... did you, Dillon?”

“I did...”

“Well, like the priest said, we bring nowt into the world and that client sure as spit didn’t bring anything out... how’s the job?”

“Monotonous. How did you get into this line of work?”

“It’s a corporation job, so I’m secure. I like the hours. In winter it’s a whore’s ghost to put a shovel in the hard ground. We have to get it heated first. Did you know Rod Stewart was a gravedigger once?”

I didn’t. I fought the inclination to inquire if O’Hanlon sang. I was afraid of the answer. That O’Hanlon was over fifty wasn’t relevant. I think. He was in the grip of his dream.

“And that fella is worth millions, Dillon... millions... with blond women fighting over him morning, noon, and night.”

“You never know, alright...”

O’Hanlon nearly embraced me for the breath of my vision. “That’s it... you’ve said it all there... you have to be ready... you’d never know who’d show up in a graveyard...”

I left him spinning out his dream. I phoned Marisa, and icicles hung on the line. She agreed to meet me at The Weir for lunch. I debated returning to the flat to collect the Dylan Thomas reading by R. Burton. Presents seemed a travesty right then. The wren boys, dressed in colorful rags, were calling house to house... hollerin’ and shouting. A group of them saw me and in nigh chorus chanted, “How’s she cutting, Dillon?”

I wisht I’d know.

The Weir was deserted. I ordered a tomato juice. I think I hate the stuff. As ill as I was, it made little matter. I was glaring at it when Marisa breezed in. In fur. A new mini-length coat. She turned her cheek to be kissed. Not being Halian, I passed on this.

“Will you drink something?”

“Yes, Dillon... a g & t... and sour. Seasonal Greetings wouldn’t be entirely amiss.”

“What happened to your voice. Did they give you a vocabulary for the Christmas. Nobody talks like that... or are you pist? Does ‘g & t’ mean gin?”

The look. I got the gin and a tonic.

We sat for combat.

“Just who do you think you are, Dillon? You stood me up over Christmas... and you don’t have the decency to give me a present... even some perfume. My father says you tried to suggest he belonged to Alcoholics Assembly—”

“Anonymous... that’s Alcoholics Anonymous,” I said.

“For Godsake, who cares. I think you care more for that old wino than you do for me... I don’t think I can take much more of this.”

“Do you like tomato juice?”

“What?”

“I’m gonna let you have that tomato juice there... okay and I’m going to go now...”

“If you leave now... it’s... it’s over... I’m warning you.”

I had the feeling she’d use that line. Why does it always sound more sad than threatening. I got up and left. I thought a bit about the stranger in the fur and the new voice. Who was she? No one that I thought I’d ever get to know. It wasn’t till a lot later that I realized I was now the possessor of the Dylan Thomas record. I didn’t expect I’d be playing it a whole lot. But you never knew. I was glad I hadn’t drunk the tomato juice, for I was far too ill for that. Control is over-critical these days.

I was reading The Crock of Gold and even Stephens was failing to rally me. A bottle of scotch stood on the fridge. A stand off. Course the scotch held all the shots... punned or otherwise. The sun was over various horizons... yard-arms... and I kept postponing the inevitable.

The door-bell went... insistently. I opened the door to a complete stranger. A tall blond guy... over six foot and built like trouble. The kinda face women said was too pretty. I don’t follow that but he had that expression; he’d heard the women say it too. In his left hand was a brown paper bag... a bottle. Mebbe muggers did house calls. The clothes belied that. Rich knacker-ish. A worn suede jacket. Quality worn. A maroon sweat shirt that never heard of Traders, and the faded jeans that cost cash money for that fade. Was it on mesself or did he have a tan. In Ireland? At Christmas...?