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Authors: Ken Bruen

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BOOK: The Guards
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“No.”

“So … the library?”

He was confused, wanted to hit back, said,

“You sure don’t look like a reader.”

My turn to laugh. If you don’t laugh at least once in the asylum, time to up the medicine. I asked,

“What does a reader look like?”

“Jesus, I don’t know, a serious bastard … a …”

“Bill… yo, Bill, take this on trust… I’m one serious guy.”

He wasn’t throwing in the towel yet. No wonder them midland crowd make good farmers. He rushed,

“But you’re a boozer, you admitted it. When do you get time to read?”

“Between bouts. When I’m laid up, I read.”

“I never heard the banging of that. Between skites I’m in bed … dying.”

“I’ve always been a reader; no matter what else I lost, I hung on to that.”

He lit another cigarette, grunted,

“They don’t like you reading.”

“Gee, that’s going to weigh on my conscience. So, Bill, where is it?”

“On the first floor. You won’t be able to go, it’s OT after dinner.”

“O what?”

“Occupational therapy, making baskets.”

It had finally come to pass. I stood on the precipice of being a basket case. The nurses began to wheel round the medication trolley. Got my jolt of Librium and said to Bill,

“Catch you later.”

“But it’s OT!”

A whinge had crept into his voice. I stood up, said,

“Books are my therapy.”

I heard Bill mutter,

“Divil a queerer sort of alky I ever met.”

BOOKS AND ALL POINTS WEST

There’s always been books. All my bedraggled life, they’ve been
the only constant. Even Sutton, my closest friend, had exclaimed,

“What’s with the fucking reading, man? You used to be a guard, for christsakes.”

Which is Irish logic at its finest.

I’d said to him then and umpteen times since,

“Reading transports me.”

He said with his characteristic candour,

“Shite talk.”

As I’ve said, my father worked on the railways. He loved cowboy books. There was always a battered Zane Grey in his jacket. He began to pass them on to me. My mother would say,

“You’ll make a sissy out of him.”

When she wasn’t within earshot, he’d whisper,

“Don’t mind your mother.
She means well
But you keep reading.

“Why, Dad?”

Not that I was going to stop, I was already hooked.

“They’ll give you options.”

“What’s options?”

A faraway look would come into his eyes and then,

“Freedom, son.”

For my tenth birthday, he gave me a library card. My mother gave
me a hurley. She was frequently to use the same stick to wallop the bejaysus outa me. I did play hurling. How else could I have qualified for the Garda Síochána? No one appreciates a good hurler more.

The library card was “ticket to ride”. In those days the library was located in the Court House. Books above, courts below. Each time I went, I gazed at the gardaí in awe. Then upstairs to gaze at the books in wonder. The two threads of my life had been interwoven.

One literally led to the other. I have been unable to shed the influence of both no matter what the circumstances of my life have been.

I began with Robert Louis Stevenson, Richmal Crompton, the Hardy Boys. No doubt I’d have continued in a haphazard
fashion, eventually losing interest, if not for head librarian at the time, Tommy Kennedy A tall thin man with an air of other-worldliness. My first few visits, he’d glance at my selection, go “mmm …” and stamp them.

One particularly wet dark Tuesday, he’d approached me, said, “I think it’s time we organised your reading.”

“Why?”

“Do you want to get bored?”

“No.”

Started me out with Dickens. Gradually eased me into the classics without any fanfare. Always, he kept it at low key, let me believe it was my choice.

Later, when teenage tornadoes played havoc with everything, he introduced crime fiction. Kept me reading.

He also put books aside, then later I’d get a parcel containing

poetry

philosophy

and the hook

American crime novels.

I’d now become a bibliophile in the true sense of the word. Not only did I love to read, I loved the actual books. Had learnt to appreciate the smell, the binding, the print, the actual feel of the volumes.

My father had built me a large bookcase, and I’d learnt to line the books alphabetically and according to category.

I was also running wild. Playing hurling, drinking cider, barely attending school. But back home, I’d gaze at my library with a glow in my heart.

Because I loved the look and feel of a volume, I’d begin to read it. That’s how I started to find poetry. I was never to find it in my life, but it was always within reach.

Not a fucking word of this was I saying to another human being. Mention poetry in our street and you’d lose your balls.

My father frequently stood in front of the growing collection, would say,

“Kenny’s themselves would be proud of it.”

My mother, disgusted, had her party piece.

“Filling his head with mad notions. I’d like to try telling the rent man he can have some poems.”

My father would give me a look and I’d mouth silently,

“She means well.”

Later, I’d lie in bed, hear her rant,

“And I suppose you’ll tell me we can eat books. I’d like to see them buy a loaf of bread.”

In fact, she did get her wish. My first day away at Temple-more, she sold them and used the bookcase for the fire.

Tommy Kennedy had forecast great things for me. Dreamed I’d even go to college. My exam results barely got me accepted as a guard. When I told Tommy my career choice, he put his head in his hands, said,

“What a crying shame.”

The night before I left, I met him in Garavan’s. I was big then, hurling and potatoes adding bulk and muscle. I was in Garavan’s waiting. Tommy came in, squinted through the half light. I shouted,

“Mr Kennedy.”

Life had worn him down. He had the shape of an old greyhound. An air of melancholy in his wake. I asked,

“What will it be, Mr Kennedy?”

“A bottle of stout.”

Ablaze with youth and bravado, I got the drinks. Pint for me. Tommy said,

“You’re starting early.”

I looked at my new watch, shining on its plastic strap. A Woolworths’ special. He gave a sad smile, said,

“I didn’t mean that.”

I said,

“Slainter.”

“Good luck, Jack.”

We fell to silence. Then he produced a slim volume, said,

“A going-away gift.”

Beautifully bound, old leather cover, gilt edging. He said,

“It’s Francis Thompson ‘The Hound of Heaven’. I hope it never gains significance for you.”

I had nothing for him. He said,

“I could still send you the parcels.”

“Um … better not… you know … country fellahs, they’d think I was queer.”

He stood up then, shook my hand. I said,

“I’ll write.”

“Do that. God bless.”

Course I never did … write, that is. To my eternal shame, he was dead two years before I heard.

SUTTON

My time in Ballinasloe, I thought of a hundred things. Most of a
depressive nature. The roads not less travelled but blindly staggered upon. People who’d been kind to me and I had abused so very badly.

A reckless disregard for the feelings of others. Oh yeah. I had a shitload of guilt. Add a dash of remorse and gallons of self-pity, you had the classic alcoholic in all his tarnished glory.

Outside, I dealt with this baggage through drink. Just blot those suckers way on out. Numb the pain. The paradox being that each fresh numbness trailed fresh damage in its wake.

Behold a pale rider, tanked to the gills.

The first few hospital days, the time of detox, you were encouraged to drink lots of water. Flush those toxins away. I could do that. You had a blood test to calculate the damage to kidneys and liver. Mine had taken a fine hammering. Daily
shots of multivitamins to drag the system screaming back to health. Librium of course. Then my favourite, a sleeper for those nights. The night holding the most terror for the alky.

Did I dream? You betcha. But not any of the predictables.

Not

my dead father

dead friends

dead life

No.

I dreamt of Sutton.

Our friendship had been instant. One of those inexplicable bondings that defy analysis. I was a young guard, green as cabbage in most things. He was then a grizzled barman, veteran of numerous skirmishes, real and imaginary. Even now, I’m unsure of his nationality, his age, his background.

They changed as often as the pubs we prowled. Over numerous sessions, he told me he’d been, variously

A soldier

entrepreneur

painter

criminal

There was a kernel of truth in each telling, but the details shifted and swayed so often you could never nail down one particular fact.

He was your true chameleon. Blending into whatever surrounding he’d then selected. When I met him, he’d a full-blown northern accent. Could sound like Ian Paisley as easily as Eamonn McCann.

Now that’s impressive, not to mention frightening.

I once heard him mimic Bernadette Devlin to an eerie degree.

When he moved to Galway, he’d the accent down in a week. You’d swear he’d never been past Tuam.

None of this set off any warning bells to me. I believed it made him fascinating.

Because I was essentially deaf, to the important things, because I was young …

because

because

because

Because maybe I didn’t want to acknowledge his darkness, I let a whole series of signposts slide by me.

From the off, he’d been upfront about the violence. Had told me of bar fights when he’d near murdered his opponents, adding,

“Know what, Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“I regret it.”

“Well, it sometimes gets out of hand.”

“Fuck, no, I don’t mean that. I regret I didn’t kill the bastards.”

I laughed it off.

My time off was erratic. As the “troubles” flared, ignited, I could pull duty for forty-eight hours at a stretch. But no matter when my breaks came, Sutton would stop work, and off we’d roar on the batter.

One memorable Saturday night/Sunday morning, we’d drunk long and hard in a shebeen on the Lower Falls. The palpable
air of danger and gunsmoke only heightened the rush. I swear you could taste cordite in the pints. Sutton’s face was glowing; he said,

“Man, this is it, the absolute best it gets.”

From that trip, I still have a hand-carved two foot harp. Made by the inmates of Long Kesh. I must have heard “The Men Behind The Wire” a hundred times.

Washing down creamy pints with golden shots of Bushmills, Sutton leant over to me, perspiration rolling off his face, said,

“Isn’t this
it
, Jack?”

“It’s hopping all right.”

“You know what would be the trip?”

“Tell me.”

“To kill some bastard.”

“What!”

“Yeah … just to waste some cunt.”

“What?”

He pulled back, pinched me on the shoulder, said,

“Only messing … you need to lighten up, Jack.”

Such moments had happened over the years. I’d swept them
under the carpet of empty bottles and monumental hangovers.

Odd times, I got the uneasy feeling he hated me. Could never nail it down and dismissed it as the product of the drink paranoia.

One evening, I was waiting for him at a pub in Newry. I usually had a book hidden on my person, snatching a read at opportune moments. I was thus engrossed when I heard,

“Jesus, Taylor, always with the books.”

I moved to put it away, but he grabbed it, read the title “The Hound of Heaven” said,

“Francis Thompson, eh?”

“You know it?”

He put back his head, recited,

“I fled him down the nights and down the days …”

I nodded and he said,

“He died roaring.”

“What?”

“It’s how alkies go, they die roaring.”

“Jesus.”

Whenever misgivings arose, I shut them down. Drilled into my mind—"He’s my friend. Anyway, who’s perfect?”

The library in Ballinasloe was closed. For renovations. My days
were spent in OT. A basket of tiny springs on the table. My job, to fit them into biros.

Rest of the time, I gulped Librium, tried to avoid Bill and longed for the sleepers come night.

The last Ballinasloe dream was so vivid, I’m not sure it didn’t happen. Sutton saying,

“You’re the reader … the crime expert in fact.”

“Yeah.”

“Read Jim Thompson’s
The Killer Inside?”

“Missed that.”

“You missed the best one.”

But there’s God. And not only in Tom Jones’ song. The day of
my release, I was given my clothes, fresh washed and ironed. Plus a bulging wallet. No drinker ever ends up with money. It’s against the laws of nature. When I’d left my flat, I couldn’t have had more than thirty odd quid. I stared at the wallet. The nurse, misreading it, said,

“It’s all there, Mr Taylor, we don’t steal from our patients. Four hundred and fifty pounds. Count it if you like.”

She stormed off. I went to say goodbye to Dr Lee. I said,

“Could I make a contribution?”

“Don’t drink.”

“I meant …”

“So did I.”

He put out his hand, said,

“There’s AA.”

“There is.”

“And Antabuse.”

“Right.”

He didn’t shake his head, but the implication was there. Then, he asked,

“Jack … have you family … friends?”

“Good question.”

“Well, you better go find out.”

Outside, the sun was shining. A coach paused and every one on the crowded thing stared at me. Backlit by the most infamous asylum in Ireland, with my body in bits, I sure as hell wasn’t staff.

I gave them the finger.

Most applauded.

BOOK: The Guards
2.97Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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