by Ken Bruen
I listened to Snow Patrol’s new album. They had a three-year hiatus while Gary Lightbody battled the booze. He described the wait until five in the evening as he shook and suffered before he could have that drink,
A habit shared by thousands of Irish women who had that first glass of wine but not until six. He spoke of his self-loathing, sense of failure, so six months after he quit the booze he had to face the demons that drove him to drink.
The lyrics on the new album are deep, personal:
His father’s dementia,
See who he was his own self.
Scary shit.
I know. I step on to that similar battleground, knowing one battle won is but a spit in the face of the war.
And
Those bullets from a previous skirmish are useless in the next.
I reread Fred Exley’s A Fan’s Notes.
The line,
“Drink to dim the light of the world.”
I need to set a dimmer my own self.
13
“As
Kingfishers
Catch
Fire”
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Scott finally met Jericho
And Stapleton’s son.
The trio would eventually form an unholy alliance with the purpose of
Killings Guards
Causing chaos
And wreaking havoc in Jack Taylor’s life.
Here’s how that went down.
Jericho was a Galway girl.
*
When Scott killed his third Guard, a new recruit named Sullivan,
He did the deed, then darted into an alleyway.
Risky
To wait so close to the scene of the shooting, but he had to find out if the crazy girl was still on his ass.
She was.
He heard,
“Risky!”
Fuck, could she read minds?
This girl was eerily stalking him.
Why?
He leveled the gun at her, his hand displaying a more than noticeable tremor.
Was she scared?
Yeah, right.
Hand on hip, she said,
“Don’t be a gobshite.”
Then she snapped the weapon out of his hand in a fluid motion, said,
“I’m Trish, but you can call me Jericho. I’ve formed a crew”—American hard-ass inflection—“with a burglar and we both share an idea. We want to fuck with an old dude name of Jack Taylor. He killed our kin and you, you he witnessed killing the lady cop, so . . .”
Long pause.
“Wanna play?”
He was, as they utter in novels of merit,
Flummoxed.
Or,
As they say in Galway,
Fucked.
So she urged,
“We better like hit the road, Jack, or you’ll be like the Ulster rugby players, spit roast.”
Scott was not the most avid consumer of news. He was a beat above Kardashian but he knew that term from his stash of porn. He asked,
“What are we going to do next?”
She gave a smile of such gorgeousness that he got an instant hard-on, which she noted. She said,
“We, my not so brightest Scott, are going to send the bould Mr. Taylor some pizza. Lots and lots of pizza.”
Scott was now in that state of mind described by O’Casey as
“In chassis.”
That in Galway we call fucked also.
So he asked the obvious.
“Why?”
She made a mock sigh as if it were self-evident, said,
“To fuck with his head. I left him a crystal skull, then stole all his mirrors.”
Scott wondered if maybe it was best to try to get the gun back and just shoot the bitch.
She waved a slim finger with an inverted cross on the nail, said,
“Whoa, don’t think about it. Now let’s go and get wasted with Stapes.”
They went to McSwiggan’s as Jericho liked the tree in the lounge.
Yes, an actual tree, don’t even ask.
Jericho charmed the bar guy like putty and he brought them very fine margaritas. He left his number on a beer mat. She looked at it, tossed it like a mini Frisbee, said,
“Loser.”
They drank, Scott in a mind-speeding clusterfuck of emotions.
Adrenaline high from the shooting.
Mad hots for Jericho.
Utter confusion as to what the hell was going down.
The drink gave him some space and he wired down a tad, asked,
“How’d you meet Stapes?”
She was vaping from a long black shiny tube, billows of smoke hovering, and a man, uptight in general, glared at her. She said,
“Stapes was robbing my apartment.”
Scott pushed,
“Did you attack him?”
“I gave him a mild scolding and a blow job.”
She didn’t mention that Stapes bore a resemblance to her father and that she hated her father.
The gent who’d been glaring at her could stand it no longer, marched over, snarled,
“Miss, you cannot smoke in here.”
She never looked at him, said,
“ ’Tis vaping.”
Triumphant, he blurted,
“The law treats that nonsense the same.”
She stood up, grabbed the guy’s crotch, hard, asked,
“That do anything for you, darlin’?”
He winced, unable to get words out. Jericho planted a tiny kiss on his neck, whispered,
“Bite me.”
*
Outside, Jericho was on fire, her mind ablaze from the rush of the scene,
Un . . . til
Until she saw the raven on the roof of a car.
She shuddered.
*
Stapes, as Jericho called him, was fresh from breaking into the local church.
Sacrilege?
You betcha.
His dad, Lord rest him, had frequently intoned,
“The only good church is a desecrated one.”
Man, it was a blast.
He was renting a very expensive apartment in Salthill, Ocean Towers, right across from the Blackrock Diving Tower.
But a spit, really, from Jack Taylor’s gaff.
Part of the motivation.
The cost didn’t bother him as he’d burgle the landlord when he split.
And dude, he, like, always legged it.
His dad’s rule of thumb:
Never nest too long in any kip.
He was in love/lust/heat with Jericho.
He did think,
“Dumb-ass name.”
His thoughts were an intense blend of Irish/U.S./U.K.
Mongrel mind.
He had broken into her apartment, not knowing her but convinced the place was empty. He’d been doing some lines and, in truth, his judgment was shot to shite.
He was emptying a stash of gold coins he’d found in her knickers drawer, thinking,
“Silk?”
Bang.
A shot whacked into the wall beside the press he was rifling.
Scared the bejaysus out of him.
Turned to see a fine-looking young woman, dressed in jeans, T with the slogan,
“I’ve got you, babe.”
She was pretty in a lopsided fashion. What appeared to be a scar above her mouth should have ruined her but it added a touch of hurt that was appealing. Her hair was fade cut and jet black. She looked like . . .
Like
A fuckin’ warrior.
And a slight smile hinted she was very easy with firearms.
She said,
“The fuck you doing in my knickers?”
He had never really been a guy who told the truth.
It never yielded much in benefits.
He was all about the benefits.
But something about this . . .
This chick,
As his father called them,
>
Unnerved him and had him try the actual truth.
He said,
“I’m a burglar, like you know, stealing your stuff.”
She considered this, then racked the slide. He could hear the ratchet of the next bullet getting ready.
She said,
“So, I could like shoot you, and the law would be on my side.”
He acknowledged this with a slight nod, then tried,
“But you’d never know what you missed in the sack.”
She laughed, a nice dirty sound, then,
“Cheeky bugger, aren’t you?”
And so it began:
Raw sex;
Violence (which they both enjoyed);
Revenge, a joint aim;
Hatred for Jack Taylor for different reasons but close enough;
A feel for chaos.
Jericho told him about being at the Burning Man festival,
Which he knew jack—no pun intended—shit about.
And meeting
The love of her crazy life:
Em/Emerald/Emily.
Becoming her lover, ally, all-round bestie.
They’d done acid at the Joshua Tree because of some weird fucked-upness of Em’s about U2, and there Em had baptized her
. . . Jericho.
Emerald had called her Jericho because of a fairly bad movie but more of that later. She liked to throw in the U2 reference as it made her seem a little dim, which kept the enemy off balance, and for Jericho everyone was the enemy.
Taylor killed Em.
Taylor killed Stapes’s dad.
So,
Not rocket science, they had a common motive.
They’d bring in Scott because he was already killing Guards and, mainly, his bollixed mind suited their vague general plan of just fuck everything and have crack doing it.
Crack in the Irish meaning of fun but they were open to dope of any hue.
Of course they were.
*
After a particular bout of sex, more violent than intimate, Stapes was lying back in bed. Jericho said,
“I had a sister, Gina, adored by my family.”
She let out a sigh, said,
“Glorious Gina, my daddy called her.”
Stapes sat up, indicated the chain around her neck, the two G’s on it, figured,
“So that’s the two G’s, eh?”
She lashed out with ferocity. He saw the serpent that lurked behind those eyes. She hissed,
“Don’t be fucking absurd.”
He nearly said,
“Or maybe gone girl.”
But thought she might well slit his throat—
Which is exactly the thought she was entertaining.
*
Emerald had said to Jericho,
“Gather a few allies, lure them with whatever it takes,
Then fuck them over.”
Jericho, still not fully in Emerald’s mind-set, asked,
“Why?”
Emerald had given her a radiant smile, said,
“Because it feels so good to see them burn.”
Jericho had only one real fear:
Crows, ravens, hawks.
When she’d pushed her sister into traffic, a jet-black crow had settled on her windowsill.
Scared the living hell out of her.
Those beady eyes.
At similar moments of her violent acts, of which even she’d lost count, a dark bird would appear like clockwork at her window.
No amount of rationality could rid her of the ice freeze fear the birds inspired.
She’d told Emerald, who didn’t blow it off, but said,
“Witchy shit.”
14
Not that he was alone.
He also had his library, of course.
After Astrid died, he filled the void
Of words unspoken
With the new silence
Of books unread.
Derek B. Miller, American by Day
Ireland was gripped by three issues,
Burning ones.
1. Four Irish/Ulster rugby players, after a horrendous three-week rape trial, were found not guilty.
The girl who made the allegations was subjected to interrogation that was as vicious as it was cruel.
2. The coming referendum on abortion.
The abolition of Section 8, as it was known.
Ferocious feelings on both sides.
And daily, as No and Yes supporters clamored to be heard, you could sense a terrible violence simmering.
3. Big Tom died.
Who?
You might ask.
The godfather of Irish country music.
He was the very essence of the gentle giant.
His major hit, way back when a song meant something, was
“Four Country Roads.”
Put the sweet small town Glenamaddy on the minds of an older generation, the generation who would never understand Tinder, or indeed would never want to.
Tinder for the fading generation was simply something to light fires.
Of course, the new meaning set something ablaze, too, and nothing about it had a single thing to recommend it.
I met Owen Daglish in Garavan’s; he looked wrecked.
I didn’t think it was the right time to ask,
“How ya doing?”
Another Guard had been killed, so I went with,
“What can I get you?”
Large Jay and a pint.
Me too.
We were leaning on the counter like almost normal guys.
Popped in for a quickie after work.
That wasn’t us.
Never had been,
Never would be.
We drank with little joy but fierce determination.
Owen looked fucked: red eyes, black sacks beneath, unshaven, and a vibe of rage that rose in wings above him. This was a time to tread very easy, so I went,
“Man City won the premier.”
Fuck, he is a United fan, right city, wrong team.
He glared at me, near spat,
“Ah, we fuckin’ handed it to them.”
Should I encourage this, have a wee lad’s back-and-forth about Mourinho versus Pep? But a guy in his twenties, all aglow with piss and vinegar, nearly pushed Owen aside as he barked,
“Barkeep, bottle of your best white, some clean glasses.”
Silence.
Garavan’s is not the pub for such shite.
Bad as it was, the guy then produced his iPhone and addressed it loudly; they’re always loud, these guys.
The bar guy, Sean, not the most tolerant person, looked at the wine order, asked,
“You sure you’re in the right place?”
The fellow did that quizzical face of
You for real?
Owen had had enough of this bollix practically shouting in his ear, reared back, snarled,
“Get the fuck out of my space.”
The phone was put away as, get this,
The guy took a fight stance, demanded,
“You want to take this outside, asshole?”
Sean laughed in dismay, I near choked on my Jay, and Owen . . . well, Owen did what thirty years of playing hurley taught him. He did the minor swerve that is like manic choreography, and without actually moving from the counter he punched the guy fast, hard, accurate in the gut.
Then he turned to me, asked,
“Whose round?”
*
Many drinks later, I dared to ask,
“Did you know the Guard who was killed?”
He sighed, said,
“He’s the fourth. Some fucker is on a spree. This time witnesses, who as you know are as reliable as a nun on steroids, said there were two of them, shooters I mean, and they all agree one was a woman.”
He turned to me, said,
“A woman, Jesus in heaven. The world is fucked. Forty million to bring the pope here and hundreds on trolleys, a gay Indian as leader of the country
telling us we have to vote yes to abortion.”
These were the longest sentences he’d ever spoken. He drained his pint, said,
“To top it all, Arsène Wenger had to quit before he was fired from the Arsenal, after twenty-two years of service.”
I had nothing, not even the dregs of my Jay, to stare into, so after a long silence while he reupped our drinks, he said,
“There was a note left, in Irish again, like at the first two killings. Do you want to know what it read?”
Like, hello.
Yes.
I nodded vaguely, as if I didn’t mind.
I did mind.
More than I cared to admit.
He said,
“An cailin as Gaillimh.”
I translated,
“Galway girl.”
He looked at me, a fine warm flush giving him the appearance of sunburn. He asked,
“So, Mister Private Eye, or whatever the fuck you are, what do you make of that?”
The late turn to aggression was nothing new to me. I said, as quietly, as simply, as I could,
“That she’s from Galway.”
*
Jericho had only ever shared her past with one person.
Emerald.
They’d been hitting the booze hard and Emerald suddenly handed Jericho a gold chain, two gold G’s on it, said,
“For us, always, you are my golden girl.”
Jericho said,
“Golden girl, how odd you should give me that.
It’s what they called my sister sometimes, that or glorious.”
Emerald waited, so she continued,
“She was younger than me, golden curls, face like an angel, and just so fucking cutesy pie. I was supposed to mind her. We were coming home from school, I gave her a tiny bump, and a car ran over her, and maybe a bus, too.”
She took a breath, then,
“I thought, now I’ll be the golden girl, but fuck, worse, they made her into some kind of saint, always young, always beautiful, never to make any mistakes, so I knew then, knew that they loved the dead and I swore I’d give them plenty to love.”
Emerald laughed, fingered the two G’s, said,
“The original gone girl.”
15
“Say, are you an actor?”
“Miss, we are all actors.”
She thought about this.
“I’m not,” she said.
“Then,” said the stranger,
His tone never varying from amused condescension,
“You’re fucked.”
John Connolly, The Woman in the Woods
Mid-April, we had three days of lovely weather, so the country bought barbecues, gallons of ice cream, sunglasses, and the beaches were thronged.