A Galway Epiphany

by Ken Bruen

  I laughed, said,

  “That would be a no: No, you don’t pay taxes so, tell me, why did you come?”

  She was well rattled but took a moment to compose herself, then the cheery Californian resumed.

  “We had been looking at Ireland as a base for our sisterhood and then we heard of the miracle, looked up Galway, and just knew it was divine providence.”

  I had no reply to this nonsense so said nothing.

  She was on a roll so continued, said,

  “The miracle of Jack Taylor. It is perfect. A former lost soul, an alcoholic, a drug addict, prone to extreme violence, the cause of grief to so many, and God chose you, the most wretched of his creatures, to bestow his grace upon.”

  Fuck.

  I said,

  “Flattery won’t work on me.”

  She looked at me with that blend of pity and condescension that pharmacists reserve for some poor bastard who tries to buy meds with codeine in them.

  She said,

  “We’ve set up our convent near the shrine of the memorial and already hundreds of people are camping out there. Imagine what your appearance would mean.”

  I was choking with rage, tried,

  “What is it exactly you think I am supposed to do?”

  She got that look of bliss that fundamentalists have when they are at their craziest, said,

  “Saint Jack, that’s what they’re calling you. We can make Galway a city of global pilgrimage.”

  The nurse came in. Trish, I think she was called. I told her,

  “This woman thinks I’m a saint.”

  Trish suppressed a burst of laughter, said,

  “She should try nursing you.”

  Connie rounded on her, spittle at the corner of her fading botoxed lips, near spat,

  “Respect please: This is a man of deep spirituality.”

  Trish gave her a long look, said,

  “You need your head examined.”

  Then turned to me, said,

  “There’s some kind of Hells Angel being held by security. He claims to live with you.”

  Keefer.

  Exactly what this shindig needed.

  I said,

  “Let him in.”

  He arrived looking like a cross between a biker and an outlaw, his hair in a ponytail, that Willie Nelson bandanna, leather jacket with a denim vest over it, combat pants, motorcycle boots, a battered rucksack on his shoulder. He stood, exclaimed,

  “Taylor, you’re back.”

  He nodded at Connie, noncommittal, who just gaped, said to her,

  “Be a good gal, shut the door.”

  She didn’t like it, echoed,

  “I beg your pardon?”

  He smiled, said,

  “It’s not complicated: Shut the bloody door, on your way out, preferably.”

  He plonked the rucksack on the bed, took out a bottle of Old Grand-Dad, two mugs, poured liberally, handed me one, said,

  “Stay away from Mack trucks, buddy.”

  Connie was horrified, shrieked,

  “What if a doctor comes by?”

  He looked at her as if she were a simpleton, said,

  “Why I asked you to shut the door.”

  Then adding heresy to blasphemy, he lit up a joint, drew deep, handed it to me. I was in heaven, reeling from the hit of neat booze, the rawness of the joint.

  Connie near screamed,

  “Do you know who I am?”

  Indignation writ huge.

  He shrugged.

  “Sure, the broad running the Sisters of Something scam.”

  She turned to me, said,

  “Say something.”

  I raised the mug, tried,

  “Sláinte.”

  Connie considered her options, which were few, decided on flight, said,

  “I shall withdraw for now. But Jack, we’ll be seeing each other: We have important work to do.”

  Then to Keefer,

  “The Sisters of Solace will not be mocked.”

  And she was gone.

  Keefer said,

  “I could be wrong but I think she took a bit of a shine to me.”

  Then he added,

  “Reminds me of Joan Didion, who was described as having cool bitch chic.”

  I said,

  “You’d make quite the pair.”

  He laughed, then,

  “You missed Christmas.”

  I nodded gravely as if some losses must just be endured.

  Asked,

  “How is our falcon?”

  His face shone, he said,

  “She hunts like a thing of beauty.”

  I showed him the match and the note from the matchstick man. He read it with a worried frown, said,

  “We’ll have to find this lunatic.”

  I said,

  “Not too hard. Let’s see how many fires there’ve been.”

  That hatred is a system that, however much it may be held in check by other forces of character, works for the destruction of the hated thing, as anger does only in its extreme forms, and in human beings works with a deliberate and self-controlled activity as one of its distinctive marks, is generally recognized.

  Destruction then becomes the prominent end of hatred.

  All means may be adopted for this end.

  (Rvnd. Alexander F. Shand)

  Benjamin J. Cullen.

  A fine worthy name he felt.

  Nobody called him

  Benny

  Or Ben

  Or any of those mundane derivations.

  At least they never called him that a second time.

  He was in his late forties. His looks were average, nothing stood out. He liked it thus and dressed accordingly, conservative but expensive.

  He was fueled by hate.

  A dark, uncompromising, all-encompassing hatred, and he hugged it to himself like a malevolent lover. He didn’t have a tortured childhood; like everything else, it was mundane. Ordinary parents who were too normal to detect anything amiss in their only son. He was quiet, which suited their quiet dispositions.

  In his late teens he had discovered The Art of War

  By Sun Tzu.

  It spoke to him directly when he memorized chapter 12.

  “The Attack by Fire.”

  Which began,

  There are five ways of attacking with fire. The first is to burn soldiers in their camp; the second is to burn stores; the third is to burn trains; the fourth is to burn magazines arsenals; the fifth is to hurl dropping fire amongst the enemy.

  He would adapt this thesis to suit himself like all the best nutjobs. He was chuffed to learn that Tony Soprano quoted the book in the television series. Later it amused him to learn that the two most read books in American prisons were

  The Art of War

  And

  Sidney Sheldon, The Other Side of Midnight.

  He’d never admit it, his arrogance and intellectual contempt would not allow it, but he did once sneak a peek at the Sheldon, muttered,

  “A precursor to the era of Kardashians.”

  His mantra was simple:

  Burn everything.

  What did burn was his intelligence. And with it rode contempt. He learned early to adopt a facade of acceptance so he could blend in.

  He was fascinated by the concept of love.

  He heard mutterings,

  I love you

  Love to

  Love always

  And was truly baffled.

  Now hate, it felt real, set you afire, and even the very expression

  I hate you

  Shocked in its simplicity.

  He had a twisted sense of the absurd, liked to say,
/>
  “Ah, love, what’s not to hate?”

  His favorite expression, the one that really got him, was

  “I love you to death.”

  Ah, bliss.

  He could nearly grasp it.

  Nearly.

  He’d studied to become an accountant. Figures were feelings-free, no emotion attached. Then he met Alison. She was no beauty but she gave him camouflage, until,

  Until,

  She said, after a few short weeks,

  “We’re done.”

  Instant rage, brimming under a tight icy politeness as he asked,

  “Why?”

  She smoked the odd cigarette, especially when she was nervous, and had the habit of using long matches, as if she had to keep the flame at a distance.

  She said,

  “You don’t set me alight.”

  Three weeks later, the dorm she lived in was burned to the ground. Alison and two other girls didn’t survive.

  Benjamin bought a box of long matches after the funerals.

  Nonsafety brand.

  There was once in the country of Alifay.

  A sad city.

  The saddest of cities.

  A city so ruinously sad.

  It had forgotten its name.

  (Salman Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories)

  I was finally leaving the hospital. All the tests had been done and the doctor continued to express his astonishment.

  He advised me to

  Take things easy.

  I looked at him, asked,

  “You ever hear of the singer Iris DeMent?”

  He hadn’t.

  I said,

  “She has a song that says, easy’s gettin’ harder every day.”

  He considered that, said,

  “I actually think I understand.”

  The nurse looked in, said,

  “There’s a priest here to see you.”

  Even the doctor smiled as I said,

  “Tell him he’s too late, I didn’t die.”

  Malachy burst into the room, looking tired, irritable, and very unholy.

  He accused,

  “You’re all right?”

  The doctor wisely slipped away. I said,

  “Sorry to disappoint.”

  He was genuinely puzzled, went,

  “But a Mack truck hit you.”

  I asked,

  “You haven’t heard about my miracle?”

  Not impressed, he said,

  “The luck of the very devil.”

  I asked,

  “Are you the bishop yet?”

  He looked like a child whose toy has been stolen, said,

  “They’re going with some other bollix.”

  I tried not to smile, said,

  “Least you’ve accepted the decision with grace.”

  He didn’t seem to hear, said,

  “I wanted that gig.”

  Then, snapping back to his usual surliness, said,

  “They’ve sent a hatchet guy from Rome.”

  Now I was amused, asked,

  “To silence you?”

  He stared at me, said,

  “The reason I’m here, I was sent to arrange a meeting with him for you.”

  “No,”

  I said.

  He was kind of delighted but said,

  “He’s from Rome.”

  I said,

  “Look at me. Do I look like I give a fuck.”

  He was seriously glad, offered,

  “They don’t take no as an answer, it’s not Church policy.”

  In there was a hint of fear. I said,

  “If they make you bishop, I’ll maybe meet him.”

  He stood for a moment, said,

  “This is the first time I think I’ve ever liked you.”

  My apartment had that forlorn look that a place gets when no one has been there for months.

  It had the look of a sad place in a sad city at a sad time.

  I had brought the essentials on my way.

  Bottle of Jay.

  Twelve-pack.

  I opened all the windows, let the wind of Galway Bay shoo out the bad memories, though it would need to be a ferocious one to accomplish that.

  My body was weak from six weeks in hospital so I’d resolved on fierce long walks to rebuild. I looked round and the whole atmosphere was forlorn, a fitting epithet for my life. I shook myself, made a strong black coffee, added a hint of Jay, muttered,

  “Get a grip.”

  In a moment of industry I sat down, dealt with the bills, and even had some money left when they were done. The one thing I had always held on to, my Garda all-weather coat, had been left at the home of Maeve the nun, only a few hours before she was murdered.

  She had given me the gift of a navy wax Barbour coat. It had disappeared after the truck ran me over. I wasn’t too sorry, but how could I wear it when it was a constant reminder of Maeve?

  There was an old pea jacket I could use for the time being. I put that on over an Aran sweater, a Galway United scarf and watch cap, then headed out to begin my rehabilitation.

  The end of January, it was bitter cold but I killed it, walked from the diving boards at Blackrock, along the prom, down Grattan Road.

  It was a comfort to have the ocean on my right during the walk: I have always found a deep yearning from the sea, but yearning for what?

  Fuck knows.

  The locals I met seemed to sing from the same hymn sheet, like this:

  “You’re alive!”

  Or

  “You’re a miracle.”

  Halfway along Grattan Road I stopped in utter dismay.

  The famine memorial, where the supposed miracle occurred, was surrounded by tents, not just a few scattered around but hundreds, stretching to the Claddagh, like a mini city.

  Banners were proclaiming THE MIRACLE OF GALWAY.

  I kept my head down and tried to move past quickly but heard shouts of,

  “It’s him.”

  Oh, fuck.

  People began streaming toward me, wanting to touch me, and I think I heard, I hope to Christ not, “Heal me.”

  I was going to be crushed by hysterical piety.

  A car pulled up, door thrown open, and a voice urging,

  “Get in, for fuck’s sake.”

  Owen Daglish, the only remaining friend I had in the Guards. I was barely in when he hit the gas, blew out of there.

  He glanced at me, accused,

  “You must be out of your mind coming here.”

  Indeed.

  He drove on past the golf club, found a hotel toward Spiddal, turned in, pulled up, said,

  “Let’s get a drink.”

  No argument there.

  The hotel was quiet; in the bar was a lone female bartender who smiled, said,

  “Welcome, gentlemen.”

  Owen grunted, not accustomed to civility, ordered,

  “Two pints, two Jameson chasers.”

  Looked at me, asked,

  “For you?”

  I stared at him before he said,

  “Jeez, lighten up. I’m kidding.”

  He handed over a fistful of notes, said to the woman,

  “We’ll be at the corner table. Try not to fuck up the pints.”

  We sat, in silence, needing the drinks.

  When they came, Owen examined the heads of the pints, said,

  “Not bad.”

  I said to the woman.

  “Thanks a lot.”

  The woman moved away. Owen asked,

  “The fuck is with you? Thank you? You trying to make me look bad?”

  I took a sip of the Jay, said, />
  “No, you need no help there. You manage to bollix all by your lonesome.”

  He downed the pint in almost one go, burped, said,

  “Ah, better.”

  Then to me,

  “This fucking miracle business is some mad shite. Half the city is delighted at the incoming business, the other half is worried about controlling the chaos.”

  He thought about that, asked,

  “You think there was anything in that first event? I mean, you and the truck is just blind luck . . .”

  Did I believe there had been miracle/miracles?

  No.

  I said,

  “I think the world is so fucked. Trump has America literally shut down, Brexit is a mess beyond belief, Venezuela is becoming the new Syria in the worst way, so people are desperate for something miraculous. There was never really a better time to provide a miracle.”

  He ordered another round. I said,

  “Not for me. I’m supposed to take it easy.”

  He laughed, snorted,

  “That’ll be the day.”

  Indeed.

  He worked on the fresh drinks, then,

  “Your name came up in another case.”

  I said,

  “I have the perfect alibi: a coma.”

  He asked,

  “You ever meet . . . wait, I’ll check my notes.

  Took out a battered Garda notebook. I felt the familiar pang of regret at having been thrown out of the force. He double-checked, then continued.

  “Renee Garvey?”

  It sort of rang a bell but elusive. I said,

  “Why?”

  He said,

  “She has a young daughter who is obviously a victim of abuse but is in some sort of shock and not talking. The mother, Renee, was apparently thrown through a third-floor window, worse, a closed window.”

  I asked,

  “Did she survive?”

  He gave me a withering look, said,

  “No miracle for her, she’s dead as dirt.”

  I felt terrible. Now I remembered her desperation and how flippant I had been.

  More points on the guilt sheet. I said,

  “I failed her.”

  He looked at me, interested, asked,

  “What’d you say to her?”

  I could recall the words clearly. I said,

  “I told her to get a hurley.”

  He shook his head, said,

  “You’re a cold fuck, Taylor.”

  And he was my friend?

  I asked,

  “Where is the husband?”

  “He has a solid alibi but we’re fairly sure it’s him. He is one vicious bastard and only last week collected the insurance on her, which he is now drinking big-time.”