A Fifth of Bruen: Early Fiction of Ken Bruen

I’m not much for premonitions. I don’t see anything as a portent of the future. The past has a full hold on haunting and absolute hallalluas without completion.

In the present, I drink... and have a fragile being. When I dreamt of Julie’s mongrel being mangled by a truck, I put it down to drink. No food either. My father was in there, too, but he was a featured player. The dog, Carlo, was a guest appearance. Drenched in sweat, I fell from the bed. The nightly horrors had helped sweat a lot of the booze out. So I told myself — a raging thirst, I nigh-on died of shock when I saw the ransacked flat. Burglars... what? Oh God... think... big blond dope... yeah, yeah and... threw him out. “I threw him out. Fair bloody play to ya, Dillon.” I was in no shape to work. Few in the town were. En route to Traders I met “Bad Weather.” He said his words... “and isn’t it me that bloody knows it,” I thought. Rain lashed down and it was the all-encompassing freezing kind. My hangover was shrieking for help. No. I crawled into my uniform. I didn’t have to worry about the supervisor... he’d be answering his hangover for at least another week. The replacement for the clothes department manager had arrived. A thin length of efficient misery, he was sporting a pioneer badge. Pinned. The shop wasn’t open but a full staff was due to prepare for the January sales. A quarter had showed. The pleas of flu were rampant in the personnel office. There are no hangovers in Ireland. You get the “bad dose of flu.”

“The nerves act up.”

“A relative... any relative... dies suddenly.”

“You catch that oul bug going round... everyone has it...”

For all of the above... for none of the above, we’d three-quarters of the staff out. I stalked out along Traders perimeter. The car park hadn’t been nicked in my absence. Walk point. I gave a cigarette a lot consideration. But I couldn’t get to it. The thought increased my nausea. T’was one of the most conscientious days work I ever did. I patrolled like a thing demented. Walk that sucker off. And had me a whale of positive thinking. “Sick... I’m not sick... whoops, nigh puked there... no... good good... walk. Cramp... no... retch... argh... I’m well, I’m well but... on the other hand.”

For lunch I had two Alka-Seltzer. Get that goodness down. Ah. My shift ended at four. The guy relieved me had the dog patrol. Was it on meself or was the dog the worse for wear drink-wise.

“He has that oul stomach bug that’s doing the rounds,” I was told.

“How’s yerself?” I asked.

“Well, Dillon, I have a touch of the flu... I wasn’t going to come in at all.”

I watched man and dog limp off. A fearsome duo. Mainly to themselves. I met Gurteen agitated... and extremely so.

“I need to talk to you, Dillon.”

“Okay.”

“Let’s go to Nestor’s, and you can buy me my Christmas drink.”

Nestor’s is a spit and sawdust pub. They only serve natives. They’ll serve a wino if he’s a local... and even women.

Mrs. Nestor is as old as Guinness and as black. From dirt. I dunno if she hates everyone but she sure fakes it well. Locals get a kinda tempered hostility.

“Lads,” she said — you’re a lad till you marry. Then you advance to yolk.

“Howyah, Eileen,” said Gurteen. No one... absolutely no one called her that. But Gurteen was missing the few dots from his dice. Exempt from all regulations.

“Give us two pints of Arthur J,” he said. She shuffled off to do that. She was a huge Connamara woman who’d married a local. Her eyes gave malice a bad name. Mebbe she’d had a head of hair once. Rumour had it she’d got the first ever hair net in Ireland. It sure appeared as if she’d never felt the need to once remove it. It fit like a bonnet... like dead glue. She dressed habitually in black.