The Emerald Lie (16 page)

She laughed, said,

“It’s a fat porcelain one and I put all my spare change in there for Enable Ireland, I call it ‘
The pig sings charity.
’”

I knew that reference from Anthony de Mello’s book
Awareness.

“… Trying to get people to change is like trying to teach a pig to sing.

All it does is annoy the pig.”

Maeve then changed tack, said,

“I have holidays soon.”

They get holidays?

From what?

Piety?

She saw my skepticism, smiled, said,

“I go to spend a week on the Aran Islands with my sister.”

Serendipity?

I told her about my meeting on the boat with the man and boy and asked if she might inquire discreetly on them.

She was excited, said,

“I’ll be like an undercover agent.”

I said drily,

“Mind it doesn’t become a habit.”

And felt a thud in my chest and then a ferocious fit of coughing. Maeve, all concern, got me some water and the spasm passed. I paid the bill, left a hefty tip, and Maeve said,

“You are a generous man.”

“Naw, I just want her to like me.”

And fell on my face.

Park Wilson never saw the brick coming. Smashed into the side of his head and, though not killing him, it shook the be-Jaysus out of his brain cells. Park had been as usual in a swirl of letters, clouds of vowels fandangoing and cartwheeling in a cacophony of verbal dexterity. A crew of kids, standing on a wall, saw him thus, engrossed and muttering to himself. The fiercest of them spat,

“Wanker”

Pulled the concrete brick loose from the wall’s edge and let fly.

To his astonishment and horror, it hit the man square on the forehead, felling him instantly.

They fled.

Park twisted on the ground, the sheer impact bringing a moment of clarity unlike anything he’d ever experienced. He tried to rise but blood poured into his eyes, disorienting him. He managed to get up on one shaky knee, reached out

For help?

Letters?

Clarity?

His fingers found the said brick and he pulled it toward him, lifted it up to his face, and, momentarily wiping his eyes clear, he peered at the assault weapon, imagined he read on the side that was unbloodied

…
a … e … i …

His brain started to freeze and he muttered,

“What comes after
i
?

I
before
e
?

But not …”

What?

Holy God, what?

He fell backward, the brick slipping from his dying hand, the last vowel eluding him just as peace had eluded every decade of his insane existence.

He emitted a tiny sigh and his last breath formed, danced a little, then died on the gravel stones of the gravel path.

He died as he had lived.

Without rhyme or reason.

It was, if not a fitting epitaph, at least a grammatically correct one.

The wall the boys had been standing on was known locally as Casement’s Wall. He is said to have begun building it before being arrested.

Sir Roger Casement, 1864–1916, Irish rebel, has reportedly

…
been hanged on a comma.

At his trial, Casement had argued that the Treason Act was unpunctuated and thus not legal. Two diligent officials searched the Records Office and stated that the original document was legal. Thus the story spread that Casement had

… attempted to be freed by grammar.

It may have been of some scant comfort to the dead Park that a grammatical brick had done him in.

Dying.

La mort est maintenant.

Three months in the hospital and emerged with the doctor’s verdict

… tops?

“You have three months to live.”

… “It is in the liver, spreading gradually to the brain.

… Put your affairs in order.”

Or rather, in my case, disorder.

A due date focuses the mind wonderfully.

Suddenly you don’t have to fret about paying the water charges. You want to weep for the pup that will be left behind.

What did I miss in the three forlorn months?

Me own self.

Ireland voting yes to same-sex marriage.

And,

On a weird connected note,

Bruce Jenner on the cover of
Vanity Fair
as a woman with the phrase

… “Call me Caitlyn.”

Jesus wept.

Missed the Eurovision song contest.

Ah, horrors.

Missed the Grammarian being literally bricked.

I got back to my apartment and, for a few minutes, sat on the sofa in delayed shock. What I most wanted to do was simply curl up in a ball and howl. Dying!

Fuck.

Managed to stir and grab the bottle of Jay, pour a wallop, and sink it. Stood with my eyes closed until it hit my gut. Then hit it did.

Hard and wonderful. Wiped my brow and let out a slow, agonized,

… phew.

A new storm of epic proportions was forecast and this one, they promised,

Was

        The Big One.

Batten down the feeble hatches. I met with my rent-a-thug and, after a lot of haggling, got the old revolver I wanted.

Cost

… a lot.

The guy telling me,

“You gotta pay for class.”

An indication of its vintage was he could procure only five bullets. I said,

“Should be sufficient.”

Got the look and the question,

“What are you killing?”

Asked in half-jocular fashion.

I said in a similar tone,

“The past.”

Back at my apartment, I dry-fired it, needed some oil. Like my system. But it had the resounding comforting click of the hammer dropping.

A bell tolling.

Told myself,

“Least now I never have to read Salman Rushdie.”

I was on countdown to the end. The pain had upped a level and I was gut-swallowing painkillers to a limited effect.

A side effect of this intense medicine was, according to my doctor,

… Mild hallucinatory effect.

Mild!

I fucking beg to disagree.

A bitter cold day I stood on the rocks over Galway Bay, thought of James Lee Burke and his ghosts in the confederate mist. I saw

Tall ships

… Breaking on the turbulent waves.

Could read their names:

Albion

The Medora

Elizabeth Hughes

C. H. Appleton

Coldstream

St. George

Valhalla

These were the famine ships,

Known as the coffin ships.

Between 1845 and 1850

These ships had serviced Galway in a desperate bid to save the starving, dying population.

I shook my head and the visions evaporated.

I felt a speech or some sort of spoken words would be fitting on the day I finally

Dropped the hammer.

My mind resonated with the most powerful death passage in movie history

… Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) in
Blade Runner
:

“I’ve seen things like

You people wouldn’t believe:

Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion;

I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the the Tannhäuser Gate.

All those moments

Will be lost

Like tears in rain.

Time to die.”

The image of Roy Batty dying in the rain seemed so damn apt.

If you want to tear the very heart from your chest. Watch the clip

On YouTube.

I had allowed these words, this image, to sear into my psyche. I almost lived the end of
Under the Volcano
where they dump a dead dog into the hole after the body of the consul.

On the edge of the Claddagh Basin, I met Cathy. The woman whose daughter, Serena-May, had died on my watch.

In a life-affirming book, the type of shite that would get you on
Oprah
, Cathy would have embraced me and cooed,

“I love and forgive you.”

Right?

She spat in my face,

Cursed,

“May you never have a day’s peace.”

Got a message from Sister Maeve. She had located the man and boy. They had indeed been on Aran but questions from locals had them depart fast. The man had seemed, in the words of the locals,

… to be a little overaffectionate to the boy.

Yeah, right.

So the fuck legged it.

Now the chances were good he might still be in Galway. I called Owen Daglish, a disgruntled Guard, still on the force but very bitter with the powers that wanted a new type of policeman.

Meaning, not Owen.

He was old school.

Translate, he never had a suspect who didn’t respond to the lesson of the hurley. As in, beat the living shite out of him without leaving the marks. Did I concur with this form of faux vigilantism?

Pretty much.

You wanted something from Owen, you had to buy him drink.

Lots of.

We met in Garavan’s, the barman greeting,

“Jack, I heard you were in jail.”

People heard all sorts of shit about me, never … ever … like

… you joined the Samaritans

Or

Even

… you volunteer at Age Concern.

Nope.

It was always down and dirty.

And,

Whisper it,

Shabby.

Some of it was even based on truth.

Owen was already working on a pint, chaser riding point. He looked

… fucked.

Par for the course for a Guard on the way out and down. He was wearing what had once been euphemistically termed a wax jacket. Now it not only was non-wax but barely resembled a jacket. Some guys, they let three days go unshaven and get that

Don Johnson

Jason Statham

Vibe.

Others

Look

Vagrant.

Guess which Owen was.

He said,

“Stanley Reed? Supposedly he and his son have some history.”

You had to appreciate his straight down to biz attitude. The barman brought a refill for Owen and a pint and chaser for
me. No words were exchanged. This is the almost sacred ritual between good bar guys and valued customers.

Valued, as in

They tip.

A lot.

I said,

“Tell me.”

“Mr. Reed has a sheet of sex offenses as long as a tax bill. The boy, Daniel, is actually a nephew but UK cops believe he is indeed, if you’ll pardon my French …”

Pause.

… “Diddling the poor lad.”

Jesus.

He produced a sheet of paper, said,

“This cost, Jack.”

I passed over an envelope, laden with euros. He flicked through the notes, went,

“Humph.”

Signifying nothing, nothing at all. He said,

“I don’t expect them to last long there as the Guards are attempting to get an English warrant.”

Delay and deferral, the name of the bureaucratic game. I asked,

“Can’t they hold him on some pretext?”

He sighed, sank the pint, said,

“See, Jack, the fuckup with the Grammarian, they are not rushing to arrests so much.”

He played with his empty glass and I signaled for a refill. He added,

“That whole clusterfuck, Ridge is for the high jump.”

“What?”

He gave a bitter laugh, said,

“Someone has to carry the shit can and she’s the designated driver.”