“Thanks Stewart, your Zen spirit has made a contented man very old.”
Silence, then,
“Jack, you OK? You sound a little… off.”
I thought of Kosta, said,
“I’m all right, as right as a rumor.”
Clicked off.
I crashed early, meaning I managed to get to my bed, took the Mossberg with me, and, as long as I didn’t shoot meself during the night, I was doing OK.
Next morning, thank Christ, I couldn’t remember my dreams but they’d been rough. When you wake with your hair drenched in sweat and panic riding roughshod all over your torso, you weren’t dreaming you won the freaking lotto.
Got a scalding shower done, a lethal strong coffee in me and the Xanax. Spent an hour practicing the moves with the gun. I was clumsy, couldn’t get into a rhythm but stayed with it; it would come. By fuck, I’d make it. Got my all-weather coat. The right inside pocket was a shoplifter’s dream, large and unobtrusive. The Mossberg slid in like sin. I got a yellow pad, wrote down all I knew about Headstone. Took me a time, writing with your left hand for the first time is a bitch.
Done, I sat back, drained the coffee, and stared at the pad, willing it to speak to me. There was a pattern, a design; I just hadn’t got it yet. I brushed my teeth, the smell of burnt paper still lingering in the air, hovering above the sink, like some specter of paradise lost, a lost plea of transcendence.
Shrugged on my coat, the gun in place, and headed out to face the day. Whatever it brought, I was at least locked and loaded. As I opened the door, I glanced one last time at the sink and my dead dream, muttered,
“Smoke, that’s all.”
I came out of my apartment building, made a sign of the cross at the cathedral, moved across the Salmon Weir Bridge, and didn’t look to see if the salmon were jumping. The water had been poisoned two years now and the only things jumping were me nerves.
Of course, I ran into a wise guy, some fuck I vaguely knew, who immediately stared at my fingers, said,
“Not paying your debts, eh?”
It did flit across my mind to have him jump where the salmon didn’t. I said,
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
Smirk in place, he said,
“Common as muck these days, everybody’s in debt and having to give up parts of their life they never expected.”
I said,
“I gave them your name, said you’d cover my tab.”
Whatever he shouted after me, it contained not only invective but a sense of alarm.
Good.
Books.
I needed to ground myself and nothing, not even the Jay, quite does it like books. I don’t always have the focus to read them but I sure do need them around. Especially as a woman was not in the cards, not no more. I headed for my second home.
Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop has grown and become almost as important as the swans of Galway in the very pulse of the city. I hadn’t been since my most recent accident and felt almost content to be heading there. I passed the newest head shop, doing, it seemed, a brisk trade. Not a high away was the Oxfam shop, emanating a mellow vibe. And then Charlie’s. Sylvia Beach would have been proud of those guys.
Vinny was behind the counter, chatting animatedly to a customer. He had that Clinton touch of making each person feel like the most important one. His trademark long black hair was trimmed. He no longer resembled John Travolta in Pulp Fiction, whose character was named.. . Vincent.
Go figure.
He handed a stack of books to the customer, said,
“Sure, pay the rest when you can.”
Why the town loves the shop.
He saw me, asked,
“Jack, it’s my smoke break, time to join me?”
Oh, yeah.
He has the laid-back gig down to a fine art, without working, and yet, if the situation requires it, he can focus like a hunting Galway heron. He lit up his Marlboro Light, offered the pack, and I said,
“Thanks.”
Forgetting, I tried to use my right hand with the Zippo and, without a word, Vinny leant over, fired me up. I folded my right hand in a feeble fist and asked,
“Want to know?”
He reflected, then,
“On reflection, no.”
Not that he didn’t care. It was the very caring that doused his curiosity. He said,
“A friend of yours was in the other day, the Ban Garda?”
I was stunned, asked,
“In an official capacity?”
He laughed, said,
“Jack, we’re a bookshop, not a speakeasy.”
Added,
“Least not yet.”
He finished his cig, extinguished it carefully in the provided bin, said,