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

Back in the bad old days, Ken Bruen published a novel called The Hackman Blues , one of the most important books in the crime canon. And it was published against seemingly everybody’s wishes. Even after its publication there were anguished cries from the House of Lords to have the book banned. To have created such a commotion must have been both bemusing and amusing for the young author. There must have been times when he wondered if he made the right choice. He did, despite strong pressure not to. Hackman is a book that tells it like it is. A book about AIDS. A book where everything doesn’t fit neatly into the pigeon-holed template of redemptive crime fiction, where order and justice prevail, no matter what. That’s Ken Bruen. He writes noir. There aren’t always happy endings. There isn’t always redemption. There is often chaos. The unexpected happens for no reason. Life sucks, but it’s a ride, folks, and with Ken Bruen, you’re hanging on by your fingertips for dear life.

“Waste... Remains?”

Learnt

All there was to learn

of the wasteful

and

the wasted

what remains

isn’t always

the worst

that’s left behind.

Funerals can be fun. How’s that for a positive attitude. I was thought-feeding this when a shadow loomed above my dwindling pint (of stout). Sean, a second-hand bookseller. I knew him well... well in the Irish sense. I’d buy him a drink, and he’d tell me some secrets of the trade. The following one nigh on destroyed me. His name was Shaun after his year in America... but he’s over that now. I don’t remind him of it... often.

“A fella brought in five hardback Graham Greene’s today.”

“In good condition?”

“Pristine! Like they were never opened.”

“And?” (I had to ignore that pristine.)

“He was in a fierce state from drink. I offered him a fiver.”

“Did he take it?”

“He hemmed and hawed... sweated... shook, then snapt the fiver.”

“God bless Graham Greene. I suppose it’s a complete coincidence that he was a convert to Catholicism.”

Sean gave me a worried look. Vaguely satisfied I wasn’t needlin’ him, he continued. I was, but that’s neither here nor there.

“I was checking through the third book, and on page five there was a fiver... on page ten there was a tenner... on page twenty, a twenty...”

“Stop! Stop for Godsakes... I know alcoholism is a progressive disease, but this is cruelty itself.” Sean idled with his pint. I dunno what visions the glass yielded. An endless line of first editions... mebbe. I could stand it no longer.

“Okay... okay... tell me just this. How many pages in the book?”

“Two hundred and fifty,” and he laughed. Deep. I didn’t like him a whole lot then. But I had to know. Damnit. He knew that.

“Tell me the title then.”

“ The Human Factor .”

“Oh, sweet Lord above... that’s vicious.”

I allowed myself to notice him sucking on the glass. Do it. Go to it, I thought. I knew I’d hear a story like that on the day of a Monday funeral. What else! I looked at my watch. I should be moving for the 6:15. A crowd would already be gathered at the morgue. I hate the Monday funerals. But I knew I either give this thing my whole attention or forget it. Due to my own naivety, I’d missed the nine o’clock removal from the church. Recently, I’d been practicing a bracing honesty. Deadly stuff! I had also neglected to touch the talisman I’d written above my bed. It’s a favourite G. K. Chesterton paradox. The one describing Elizabeth Barrett’s life at home with her bullying father.

“She took a much

more cheerful view

of death than her father

did on life.”

Mighty stuff. But I’d forgotten to touch it and paid the price. The Irish town I live in is undergoing a crisis of identity. Who isn’t? It’s large enough to warrant the dubious title of city but retains a provincial flavour.

I had hardly hit the main street when I saw O’Malley. It was too late to avoid him. So we did the Irish dance of polite verbal hostility.

“How are ya, Dillon?”

“Not bad. And yerself?”

“Fine, fine! Have you time for a coffee?”

Everything in me roared— No. No way — not ever... so I said, “Yeah.”

I was suffering from a glut of self-improvement books. A galaxy of inspirational tones were having an adverse, not to mention perverse, effect on my behaviour. Terms like confrontation, face your fears , and best your neuroses had me dizzy with integrity. I bought the coffee. Black for O’Malley... like his nature. Whoops! A negative attitude. True though. O’Malley could never stand me. I decided to cut right through to this.

“You never liked me... did you?”

He nearly dropped the coffee in his lap. “Wot?”

“Let’s face it... (good, positive approach) you hate the living sight of me. Would you like me to tell you why?”

“Cripes! Have you taken drink?... anyway, why do you think I don’t like you?”

“Because you can’t understand why I don’t need a crowd, why I hang out on my own. My independence grates on your nerves. But the reason you most dislike me is because I never mention the money you owe me.”

“Ary... you’re as mad as a hatter. Everyone knows that.”

“What’s more, I can also tell you the reason I don’t like you. It’s a lot simpler...”

“Who the hell cares, you’re a bloody lunatic.”

“I don’t like you because you don’t like me.”

I got up then and left. Timing: it’s all in the timing. By evening the story would be all over the town. T’was too late now to catch the nine o’clock hearse. I heard O’Malley roar, “Ya bollix,” after me.

I notice nowadays that they like to spell this “bollix” in an up-market fashion. I’m a traditionalist and like the old forms. At least O’Malley had given me the old usage. Why didn’t that make me feel better. The story by tonight would lack the financial aspect. By now O’Malley might even have converted it to me owing him the money. My father operated on a different type of diplomacy. He’d have taken O’Malley behind the guards’ barracks and beat the living daylights outa him. One thing is certain, there wouldn’t have been any roaring of names after him. Traditional, up-market or otherwise. They buried my father in 1980. Shortly after I began my first faltering steps on the funeral philosophy, my Irish instincts ensured that logic would play no part in the formation of this. Obvious works of reference like The Tibetan Book of the Dead , I completely ignored. I knew instinctively that if the philosophy was to be practical, I’d have to steal, adapt, and plagarise wholesale. This I’ve done. The beauty was that familiarity could seem like the ring of truth. I had two fathers. The one who actually existed and the one I wish he’d been. In June 1980, I buried both. My mother is a non-runner. She died when I was three and is buried up in Louth. A fierce enough epitaph in itself. Drink killed my father. But in Ireland, very few died from drink. They die pist in car crashes, in drunken brawls, fall drunk from bridges, under cars while footless. But... the death certificates list coronary failures and other euphemisms which leaves other drinkers free to the business at hand. My father died in the horrors... screaming of funerals he’d never attended. This was relieved with rats and various low-life forms coming through the walls to him. I think he mentioned bank managers in there. He was sixty-two years of age and, moments before he died, he sat bolt upright, like the best clichés. I moved near for words of wisdom... words of comfort... mebbe. He grabbed my wrist. Many’s the one since who regrets the last error of judgement. He should have gone for the throat. The stench of his breath was woeful. But I was going nowhere. The grip was ferocious. Betwixt a mixture of spittle and venom he roared, “Get to the funeral...”