“Meaning?”
“My doctor, Dr. Boxer, told me that and my meaning is, do I get to see Loyola? Let’s call it a vested interest?”
I nodded at the fat envelope, continued,
“Be nice to actually meet the dude who got me such a fine payday.”
He looked at his watch-yeah, you guessed it: not a freaking Timex, a fine slim gold job-said,
“I must run Jack, I’ll try and visit soon.”
And he was gone.
He made no sound as he slipped from the room. A clerical stealth bomber and, no doubt, this guy was incendiary. I glanced uneasily at the envelope. I should be delighted. Few things give me the blast like counting money, especially if it belongs to me. But the term tainted was rooted in my head. Something was off center and I knew in my heart that, whatever else, I hadn’t, as he said, performed a great service for Mother Church. Betrayal touched my tongue like blood in my mouth.
My favorite nurse came in to settle me, said,
“Isn’t that a lovely aftershave? What is it?”
“Treachery.”
She looked at me, said,
“The names they give these new fragrances these days. Men are getting better aromas than women.”
Like I’d know.
She had gotten me a sleeper and I said,
“You’re an angel.”
“Ah, go away with that. You wouldn’t know an angel if it flapped its wings in your face.”
But I did know their opposite number-and all too fucking well.
She fluffed my pillows, saw the envelope, said,
“You got a card?”
I didn’t answer and she asked,
“Are you all right Jack? You seem down in yourself?”
“I’m good, honest, just a bit weary.”
And wary.
After she’d gone, I did count the money; it was a lot, an awful lot.
I was due to be discharged in a few days but I caught an infection, it developed into a fever, and I was semi-comatose for another two weeks. I dreamt a lot of Laura and my surrogate son, and would come to, bathed in sweat, my heart hopping in my bedraggled chest. Sorrow was like a constant cloud over me and lashed me in every way it could. Times, too, I woke to an irritating itch in my hand, no fingers to do the necessary, and despair loomed larger than at almost any time in my banjaxed existence.
I do remember a patient strolling into my room a few times. I think his name was Anthony but I wouldn’t swear to it. He liked to sit and read the papers, aloud, saying,
“Keep you up to date with what you’re missing.”
What, like my fingers, my fucking life, Laura?
I’d drift in and out of fever as he read on.
One particular morning, as the fever was finally abating, he read.
I’d missed the first few lines but caught… Medals to the families of captain Dave O’Flaherty, Sergeant Paddy Mooney, and Corporal Niall Byrne. The Minister said, despite adverse conditions, the crew had responded with the Air Corps search and service motto…GO MAIRIDIS BEO (that others may live). The Minister deeply regretted the shameful length of time it had taken to acknowledge their sacrifice. The Bakers said, “We don’t wish for a medal for our son. It won’t compensate for the cover-up and the mishandling of the affair.”
I really believe that piece moved my recovery onwards, the cover-up lingered in my mind and if heroes, as those amazing men were, could be doubted, it was time for me to get my act together and get out of there.
The Brothers
…Grimm
Jimmy and Sean Bennet, the worker bees of the Headstone crew, were born to wealth-not quite in the same league as Bine, but definitely in the neighborhood. They’d gone to the same flash boarding school as he had but he was a few years ahead and he shone, in sports, grades, popularity. The golden boy. The brothers, alas, didn’t shine in one single area, save surliness. To their amazement, the senior boy, the wunderkind, took an interest in them.
Approached them one day as yet again they sat miserably on the football field, unchosen. He said,
“Guys, you wanna go smoke some weed?”
His accent was quasi-American and as likely to change as his mood. They didn’t know that then. He led them back behind the locker rooms, produced some serious spliff s, offered them over, said,
“Fire ’em up; let’s get wasted.”
They did.
He spouted a lot of shite about superior races, Darwin, and making your mark. They agreed with everything. He told them he had a nice supply of dope available and needed people he could trust.
Sean, stoned but still aware, thought,
“Runners.”
But, what the hell, they’d do anything he asked; he was the guy. Time came, they got busted-rather, Bine did and laid it off on them. They took the rap and he promised he’d one day repay in history.
History they were.
Expelled.
Bine went on to college and some dark sun continued to light his way.
The brothers, failures at just about everything, were given a trust fund and basically told to