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

   such Gods as crost

   your mind... if God

   as such it could have been

   you never took

   to vital introspection

   ... He’d have an urgent set

   of other obligations

   such it was

   from you

   did know

   the very first

   in steps belief — form

   framing

   every reprimand

   you ever force-full

   gave.

The Traders funeral was huge. The store was closed for the day. A Friday! Phew-oh-d. A major trading one. Most of the mourners were dressed in Traders best. Less a mark of identification with the deceased as more the result of a late November sale.

I spotted some of the shop-lifters, and they looked appropriately grieved. He had been lax to prosecute offenders and was thus a huge loss to the thieving fraternity.

I hit the Square, and a rib must have broken in the devil. A shard of wintered sun. Cold of course but the illusion was sustaining. The bench there was vacant. I enjoyed the sight of the Bank clerks hurrying to their lunch. What an air of young gravity they worked for. A few more years, and they’d have the dead mackerel expression complete. Try getting them to a funeral. Their lives were geared to mutterings of grief on a daily basis.

A shadow fell. The head wino. I knew him as Padraig. The usual rumours beset him. He was supposedly from a good family. He was

   a teacher

   a lawyer

   a brain surgeon

   a lapsed genius

As long as I’d known him, he was in bits and fond of the literary allusion. Today, he was but semi-pist. “And greetings to you my young friend. Are we perchance pertaining of the late winter solstice...”

I smiled and gave him a cigarette. The tremoring of his hand we both ignored. He was about 5’5” in height, emaciated, with a mop of dirty white hair. The face was a riot of broken blood vessels, swollen now. The nose was broken, and more than once. Blue, the bluest eyes you’d ever get... underlined in red, of course. Ordinance surveyed. He mutilated the cigarette to get rid of the filter-tip. He smoked deeply of what remained.

“Well, young fellow, forgive me for the desecration of your cigarette.”

“No mind, my father did the same.”

“A man of subtlety and taste. Was he not?”

“He had his moments.”

“One deduces from the use of the past tense that he’s no longer with us — or worse — in England.”

“Dead... he’s dead.”

At the top of his lungs, Padraig began to sing. Startling the absolute wits out of me.

I looked furtively ’round, hoping he was through. He ate deep from the cigarette and in a cloud of nicotine... he bellowed:

He paused and I jumped in.

“Will you stop if I give you money?”

He laughed, showing two yellowed teeth, the rest, obviously, were casualties of combat.

“Indeed I will.”

I gave him a quid.

“Young man, you could have left, it would have been the wiser course in the financial fashion.”

“I like it here.”

“Pithy... you are not a man who gives away a lot... a lot, that is, in the knowledge department. What you have to say has the qualities of brevity and clarity.”

Before I could reply to this, briefly or clearly, he was assailed with a series of gut-wrenching coughs. Up came phlegm and various un-identifiable substances. I gave him a handkerchief. He used it to dry him steaming eyes.

“I am indebted to you, my young friend. It has been many the mile since I was offered a fellow pilgrim’s hanky. Might we indulge in a further spot of nicotine.”

We did... I said, “Your accent is hard to pin down.”

“Like a steady income, it has an elusive quality... not to mention effusive.”

There was no reply to this. I didn’t even try.

“At one dark era in my existence I was, I believe, from the countryside of Louth. Are you at all familiar with that barren territory?”

I had no intention of telling him of my mother. None! I said, “My mother is buried in it.”

“A burden for any crat-ure. May The Lord Bless Her. She’ll need all the comfort available in that forsaken land.”

My concentration was focused on not talking like him. It was highly contagious. He rooted deep in his coat, a heavy tweed battered number. Lightin’! Lightin’ with the dirt, as they say. Out came a brown bottle.

“A touch of biddy perhaps,” he said.

He wiped the neck with the clean end of my hanky and offered it. I took a cautious swig. Ar... gh... oh God. Red Biddy, meths, and sherry! My eyes felt reversed and a punch like bad luck side-swept my stomach. It got your attention... fast. He nigh on drained it when I passed it back with no apparent ill-effects... no iller than he habitually was at any rate. Relief being how you drink it mebbe. He said, “The only advice I remember is it’s better be lucky than good...”

“And are you?”

“What?”

“Lucky.” He laughed deep.

“It has been a long time, anyway, since I was any good. Whatever that means.”

Across the square, we saw a bunch of winos emerge from the toilets. Padraig shook himself in artificial energy.

“My young friend... my people await me... perchance we’ll talk again.”

“I’d like that.”

Not wild enthusiasm, but a certain tone of approval.

“I bid you adieu, and if I am to pray again I will mention your mater in the wilderness of Louth.”

The next time I saw Padraig, he was close to Louth himself.

I got to The Weir at eight. Marisa was waiting. She was clad in skin-close denim jeans, a heavy grey sweat shirt, and a maroon leather coat. Just right for the drug crowd who infested this pub at weekends. The serious drinkers retreated to the pubs below the Square. She looked delighted... to see me?

“How are you, Dillon?”

Energetic joy always throws me.

“I’m doing okay. What will you drink?”

“A snowball.”... in hell?

The Weir management knew their weekend trade. The barman had an earring and the attitude to match. Fixing his sneer, he fixed his attention to a point beyond my shoulder.

“Pint of Guinness, a Jameson, and... am... a snowball...”

“With a cherry?”

I was caught. I ran the range of immediate trade-offs. No. Too easy. At the same time, I reckoned I better get the ground rules down. He’d spew all over submissiveness.

“Yeah... but not in the Guinness.”

He got it. Raised his eyes to mine. For a second, I felt I was my father’s son. He got the drinks.

Marisa gave me a devastating smile. Was she smoking the weed?

“I missed you...”

“What! Was I late?”

“No... no. I mean yesterday and, yes, today, too.”

She was definitely on something. Who talks like that.

“Julie is going to join us and one of her suitors.” Was I now talking like her.

“Oh marvelous. She’s your friend... isn’t she?”

I downed a quart of Guinness. Sour. Bolt it in place with a wallop of Jameson. Better. I hoped Julie would arrive... soon. Marisa did whatever it is you do with snowballs. The best you can, I guess. Julie arrived, looking wonderful. She had a knee-length denim skirt... Aran sweater and a sailors reefer jacket. The jacket had the soft worn appearance that money can sometimes buy. Her boots would have cost my week’s salary... with overtime. A tall blond-haired guy held her hand. The type whom Woody Allen says “takes handsome lessons.” Good teeth, good build, good clothes. Good grief!