I got up to leave, didn’t touch the Bushmills, said,

“Appreciate your time.”

He was staring at the shot glass, then shook himself, said,

“Thing to remember, Jack, about my movie?”

I waited.

“In the final edit, lots of shit gets, like, you know, on the cutting-room floor.”

I said,

“Jesus, Mary, and Joe Cocker.”

He laughed, asked,

“You speak American now?”

I let him savor it, then,

“From Season One of Damages.”

He took my glass, turned it over the fries, watched the whiskey muddle over the curry sauce, dribble over the side of the plate, begin to drip to the wooden floor, said,

“It’s all there, Jack. Some of us, the followers, we’re TV, get maybe one series.”

I was tired of him, his bullshit sermons, asked,

“And you’re the movie mogul, right?”

He smiled, shook his head.

“No, Jack. Smell the coffee, I’m the money guy.”

35

“You think they can convict her,” I said. “Motive and opportunity, prior solicitation to murder, plus the jury won’t like her.”

“Because?”

“Because she’s what my mother would have called cheap. She’s too pretty, too made up, too blonde, lot of attitude, drinks to excess, probably does dope, sleeps around.”

“Sounds like a great date,” I said.

— Robert B. Parker, Widow’s Walk

He would never again tempt innocence, he would be good.

— Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Lewis Hyde wrote about John Berryman, and it’s a wee stretch to see it as the Modern Ireland, whereas irony was once riding point to our deep abiding sense of humor. Now, as Hyde had said,

“Irony is only of use once.”

. . Irony has only emergency use. Carried over time, it is the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy their cage.

Fuck, I hated that to be true. And as I waited to meet with Tremlin the cop whose daughter Reardon said he’d employ, I seethed over the newly published Richard Burton diaries.

The critics had always lumped the Celtic hell-raisers,

O’Toole

Harris

As if there was romance in drink-to-lunacy shenanigans.

Christ on a bike.

Burton wrote,

He despised the Irish, everything about them, their posturing, the silly soft accents, their literature, their genius for self-advertisement, their mock belligerence

Pause

. . their obvious charm.

It was small comfort that we’d beaten the be-Jaysus out of the Welsh in the Nations Cup. While I waited for the cop, a guy came into Garavan’s, made a beeline for me, offered,

“Want to buy a book of poems?”

He had that half-insane expression of a patient newly released from a mental hospital or a recent convert to vegan. Which is much of the same thing. I asked,

“Who are they by?”

He seemed to think that was the most foolish question he’d heard in many’s the day, petulated,

“Meself.”

Sure, I could have asked,

“And you are?”

Went,

“How much?”

“Eighteen euros, and two for twenty-five.”

I bought one, the volume titled,

The Abortion Collection.

And on the back it declared,

“Do judge by the cover.”

It’s a spoof, a joke.

So maybe my thoughts of irony were premature. Tremlin arrived, looking hale and happy? Guards did happy? He ordered from the barman, breezed over to me, his hand extended, said,

“Gotta give it up for you mate, you delivered.”

I did?

I gave the humble smile, related in a pure way to a grimace. He sat, continued,

“Jesus H. My missus is over the moon. A job with Reardon, she’d been sure our little one would be emigrating like all the rest.”

Pints came.

He raised his, smiled,

“Sláinte agus go raibh míle maith agat.”

Staying in the humble mode, I said,

“Glad to be of help.”

He reached into his jacket, produced a black leather folder, asked,

“You ever hear of the Refuge?”

Unless it was Johnny Duhan’s new album?

He continued,

“The rich, and I mean the seriously fucking loaded, the type you and I only wet-dream about, they have their own very private hospitals. For addictions, sex crimes, all the shite the tabloids would kill for, they created their own treatment centers and the Refuge is the very best. You ever hear of Gormanston?”

“Yeah, a boarding school for boys, run by. . Franciscans?”

“Right, Ireland’s very own Eton.”

Perish the thought.

He said,

“In County Meath, and about five miles up the road from this posh school, is the Refuge.”

He tapped the folder.

“Map and assorted shite in here, plus,”

Waited.

The big flourish,

Produced a warrant card, said,

“Special Branch, and it’s even got your name on it.”

I was impressed. He held it out to me, cautioned,

“One time only, Jack, that’s all it’s valid for, else. .”

Let it trail off.

I took it and felt, Jesus, what?

Ferocious regret, if only,

Fuck, I hadn’t been thrown out of the force, would I have gone on. . would. .?

And shut it off, said,

“This is bloody great, thank you.”

He motioned with his glass and more pints were built. He said,

“Don’t wait too long to use it. The patients, especially the high-priority ones, they tend to be moved after a few weeks.”

He then moved on to hurling, the Galway team and our hope of the all-Ireland next year.

After I left him, I took a walk down through the town, with my Special Branch ID, the book of poems, and felt, in a jagged way, I was most of what you might call the Irish contradiction.

Ridge felt enormous guilt over Stewart’s legacy. Who knew he’d amassed so much? She’d sent a check off to Our Lady’s Hospital Crumlin; the work they did with children would uplift the most grizzled cynic.

A light blue 2008 Ford Focus 1.8. By pure coincidence she saw it slashed in price and, on a whim, bought it.

Then the guilt eased. Stewart had been nagging her to buy a car. Course, with the money she now had, she could have bought two of them. The seller had explained about mileage, even pulled the bonnet up, telling her about fuel gauges. She listened with feigned interest. They both knew

. . She liked the color.

Friday, she finished work early, decided to take the car for a decent workout, familiarize herself with the stick shift.

Heading out of the city, she figured she’d go as far as the new motorway bridge just outside Loughrea. Traffic was relatively light as she accelerated toward the bridge. At the stairs on the left-hand side of the bridge, a young man struggled as he made it to the top. He had to stop, wipe the sweat from his brow. The large jagged piece of concrete had left deep ridges on his hands and he muttered,

“Aw, fuck.”

Looked around, as if his mother would appear, clip his ear for cursing. On the bridge now, he was alone. He’d timed it almost every day for a week and knew, almost to the minute, the time when the bridge was deserted. He looked out over the rim, a gray BMW glided under him like a shark.

“Shite.”

He thought,

“That one would have made a fierce bang.”

Sighing, grunting, he hefted the concrete onto the rim, nearly lost it, and just managed to hold the block back. He had seen this so many times in his mind, it had to be exactly right.

The color.

God alone knew why but the car had to be the color of the one in his imagination.

Light blue.

36

The weather will continue bad, he says. There will be more calamaties, more death, more despair. Not the slightest indication of a change anywhere. . We must get into step, a lockstep toward the prison of death. There is no escape. The weather will not change.