34

Manson was a crazy fucky, tipsy with demons which paced him a degree higher than Nick Copeland because Nick had everything to live for, had put his family first (so had Manson, well, in a way) and Nick had failed without even a hint of notoriety.

— J. P. Smith, Airtight

Prince Paul: “I would much sooner talk scandal in a drawing room than treason in a cellar.”

— Oscar Wilde, Vera

Time ago, in The Killing of the Tinkers, a former priest said to me, bitterness leaking over every measured word,

“Jack, a terrible darkness is hovering. It’s going to be the passing of the priests, where once they trod on hallowed ground, now they will tread on the thinnest ice. Lunch parties will be replaced by lynch ones. To wear the Roman collar will be to wear a bull’s-eye on their back.”

I’d had a few, the Jay sinking nicely, whispering nice warm lies to me, and I trivialized his prophecy, said,

“Arrah, go on, they will always pull off the ecclesiastical smoke and mirrors.”

He’d stared into a dwindling pint of the black, seeing nothing but demons, howling ones, said,

“You will see, not so much the end of days but a rise in such as

Scientology

The Black Arts

Sham clairvoyants

Fundamentalism.”

He’d stood abruptly, shot out of the pub, and, in those days, I cared enough to follow him. He was huddled in a doorway, gulping down a cigarette as if it were Holy Communion, he coughed, and I asked him,

“What will you do?”

He gave me a look of utter surprise, as if the thought never occurred to him, said,

“I’m going the Irish way.”

I mused on that, then tried,

“Pretend it isn’t happening or, worse, confined to the U.K.”

He laughed, no relation to joy or humor, said,

“I’ll slow-drink myself to oblivion.”

I made light of it, said,

“I doubt that.”

He nodded, crushed the butt into the ground with vehemence, said,

“You’re right. Scratch the slow shite.”

Call it serendipity or just sheer shite bad luck. That priest was running through my mind

. . for reasons

Not at all

When

I heard

“Taylor!”

In that tone of

Get over here. . now.

Imperative, very.

I was on Shop Street, just outside Tommy Hilfiger, who, despite the so-called pestilence of recession, was doing a roaring trade.

Go figure.

The very bane of my life has been a friend of my late mother. Her very own tame priest, he was easier to maintain than a dog and cheaper to feed; he simply needed pious platitudes as a rudimentary diet. Her part of the deal was to look good with a priest in tow. These changed days, you’d be considerably safer to tow a rabid rottweiler. Father Malachy.

Phew-oh.

What a charged lethal history we had.

He loathed, despised, and downright hated me. Straight up.

And get this for Irish irony: I saved the bollix’s hide, and was he grateful?

Was he by fuck. Few more resentful than those you’ve helped. The gas part was, he hated priests more than most. His calling was a joke. It was purely a job and one he detested. Said to me once,

“Confessions, fuckers whining about beating wives and getting drunk. I should be so lucky.”

He was dressed in the priestly gear, rare to rarest these days owing to the suspected public fatwa, his suit jacket a riot of either dandruff or ash or both. His pockets bulging, like those of a cheeky boy who’d raided an orchard, save he carried many packs of cigs and

Lighter

Matches

Handkerchief

Nasal spray

Breath freshener.

Well, maybe the last one not so much, but one could hope. He looked diminished, not just age and nicotine. A year back he’d been set on by a vile gang named Headstone and never quite recovered.

Who would?

It saddened me, no matter how much I despised him, and I did, but it was no joy to see him fade. He was a tangible link to my past and a reminder, too, that once I’d held belief. He stared at me, said,

“Jaysus, you look like something the dog refused to drag in.”

I smiled, glad of the constant.

Then he asked,

“Would you come for a drink?”

By all that’s unholy, it was startling. Next, he might even offer to pay but that would be stretching it. I said,

“Sure, where’d you have in mind?”

He gave a sly grin.

“Someplace you’re not barred.”

We went to Richardson’s on the Square, still family-run by some amazing miracle. The barman said,

“Good day to you, Father.”

And got,

“What’s bloody good about it? Bring us a couple of pints and slow-draw them.”

The barman wasn’t fazed. Like I said, a family place.

We sat in the corner, Malachy with his back to the wall, eyeing the door. Beatings do that. A light sweat broke out on his forehead and I recognized the onset of a panic attack. I said,

“Take a deep breath.”

He snarled,

“Take a fucking jump in the Corrib.”

He tore off his jacket, let it fall to the floor, and, when I went to retrieve it, he snapped,

“Leave it.”

My sadness for him was eroding fast.

The pints came, I toasted,

“Sláinte.”

He spat,

“Bad cess to them all.”

Them being an Irish generic term for all the gobshites who crossed his path in vexation. He killed that pint like a nun on ecclesiastical meth, wiped his mouth, said,

“I’m off for a fag.”

He was rooting in his jacket when he noticed I wasn’t moving, asked,

“Aren’t yah coming?”

I said, quite demurely I thought,

“I don’t do that type of thing anymore.”

My tone framed for max annoyance.

Landed.

He said,

“Jaysus, the day you give up anything, there’s a new wing in hell.”

And off he stomped. A book had fallen from his jacket, I bent to pick it up and nearly had a convulsion.

. . Fifty Shades of Grey.

I was so fucking delighted. A true stick to wallop the living be-fuck out of him.

When he returned, reeking of nicotine, enough to make me, a smoker, gag, I prepared my best shot. At school, the days when the clergy could beat you with impunity, and often with approval, they liked to lecture at length about

. . dirty books.

Pronouced, doirty.

As if they all originated in Dublin.

Prime contenders were

Joyce, of course, though you’d have thought a medal would be more fitting for attempting to get a thrill from Finnegans Wake.

Edna O’Brien.

J. P. Donleavy

Ian Fleming

And a series of soft- to softest-porn novels, all with the name Angelique in them.

Before I could launch, he signaled for fresh pints, said,

“I’m sorry for your friend.”

And before I could say anything, he added,

“Even though he was a Protestant.”

There are times, not many so much anymore but enough, that sheer hereditary hatred will stun me. Malachy had trained, if such a term as train can be applied to the priests of his generation, but fuck, he spent seven years in seminary doing something besides playing hurling and bad-mouthing Brits.

Liturgy, theology, the Latin Mass, surely they would have dented even his thick skin.

Seemingly not.

One time, he’d told me of sending silver paper to the African missions and that, mad as it seems, was a widespread practice.

I’d asked, in dismay,

“What the fuck for?”

Cross me heart, I was waiting for a half-sane answer. He’d told me,

“Gollywogs like shiny things.”

Now he asked,

“Your friend, Savile, was it?”

A sly dig over the Jimmy Savile scandal, rocking the BBC, but maybe I gave him too much guile credit.

I hissed,

“Stewart.”

He shrugged, laying into the fresh pint,