Born & Bred (27 page)

“How are ya tonight, Boyle?” the Driller asked, surprising Danny as he climbed into the back seat. He had never spoken to him before. They were taking the road to the mountains but Danny had nothing to fear. He had kept his mouth shut just like he promised.

Except with the priest, but he wouldn’t be able to tell anybody about it.

He still wasn’t sure why he had made his confession. A part of him joked about trying to get on God’s good side, if He had one, but another part of him was really contrite. That part was the one that wanted to start over and get his life on track again, the way everyone wanted him to be—the way Deirdre would want him. He hadn’t really given a shite before, but now it was different.

“I hear that you and your girlfriend are getting back together,” Anto smiled over his shoulder.

Danny wasn’t surprised. He knew that nothing happened that Anto didn’t get to hear about. There were plenty of little snivellers around who reported to him in the hope of currying favor.

“All kissed and made up, Boyle?” the Driller joined in.

“Ah sure, you know yourselves, lads. Am I right?”

They all agreed and relaxed as the Driller changed to a lower gear to climb the hills.

“So what’s the crack, tonight?” Danny asked when the silence became ominous and memories of Scully flitted by in the darkness.

“Not a lot. I just had something to do up this way and I thought we could have a little chat.”

As the lights of an oncoming car flashed like lightening, Anto turned instinctively and then grinned at Danny: “We are going to need you to go over to London and pick up a few things for us.

“Don’t look so shocked. It’s no big deal. We’ll send you over to watch a football match and the guy who’ll sit beside you will leave a few packages. Just stuff them inside your clothes and no one will notice. Nobody pays attention to the football crowd. It’s totally safe.”

Danny knew the score. He had gone over to see Liverpool a few times and brought packages back. No one ever bothered him. The trick was to wear the team scarf and just hope there weren’t any United fans around.

When they got to the mountains the Driller pulled over, not far from where Scully got killed. They all got out and huddled around the boot as the wet winds whirled. Inside, between the spare tire and the repair kit, lay the big black and brown dog. Its eyes were wide open and its red tongue hung from the side of its mouth. It had two holes in the top of its head and dark streaks of red ran from them.

“I had to,” Anto explained. “I caught the fucker chewing on a package. We can’t have that. We have to have trust—and loyalty. You’d think that a dog would know that.”

“C’mon,” the Driller beckoned to Danny to take hold of the dog’s legs and swing it out. “Danny and I will carry it up behind the trees and dig a hole.”

“Thanks,” Anto sniffled and Danny was sure that he saw a flash of remorse.

They kept their silences all the way back to Rathfarnham. Anto smoked while the Driller hummed softly to himself.

“By the way,” he finally said when they came to a stop outside the Yellow House. He didn’t turn around but spoke to Danny through the rearview mirror. “Someone was asking after the gun.”

“Not that you need to worry,” Anto joined in, still staring at the windshield. “Nobody’s going to find it.”

Danny wasn’t sure, but it felt like they weren’t really talking to him—that they were sending messages to each other. It wouldn’t matter. He would just do this last thing and then he’d be done with them.

CHAPTER 14

Danny laid out his guitar case and sprinkled it with a few coins—seed money to encourage those who passed to give. He raised his guitar to his chest and ducked his head beneath the strap just like the way priests did with their stoles. He turned into the doorway behind him and tried to tune to the hustle and bustle around him as he took a few quick hits. It was how he got ready for his shows.

Only this time he felt different. This time he wasn’t feeling so sarcastic about everything. In fact he was starting to feel better about how things were going to work out. He stood up straight and turned to face the passing crowds.

He took a moment and tried to sense their mood and how they would react. And, as he strummed a few defiant chords to announce that his show was starting, he thought he felt a little flutter inside. He didn’t want to go to London, and it wasn’t just because he might get caught. For the first time since he was a kid he was starting to think about the right and wrong of things.

It started on the bus, after he had a few hits around the corner from the bus stop where nobody could see him. He couldn’t hide from it anymore and just pretend that he was still a teenager doing the stuff because he was bored. It had become a full time job—buying it and selling it—and it had taken over his whole fucking life. Only he had been far too stoned to notice.

What’s worse, he was even working with the pushers and the dealers. He had wandered into Hell without even noticing it. Granny had always said that it would be like having his whole body thrown into a fire but she was wrong. It was more like he had fallen in a vat of shit and was slowly sinking.

He couldn’t get out on his own. He’d need a fucking miracle, or something.

Fr. Reilly said that they still happened—small miracles that changed lives.

Even Deirdre said that Miriam talked about stuff like that happening all the time.

Deirdre had taken him for coffee after the pictures and Danny didn’t get high the whole time. He didn’t need to—when he was with her everything was different. It was almost like the way it was in the songs he sang.

And he wouldn’t sing wistfully anymore. From now on he would sing about the bit of hope Deirdre had given him. She knew what he was like—better than anybody—and she was still willing to give him another chance. He hadn’t had that since . . . his granny got sick.

It wasn’t just Deirdre but her friend Miriam, too. She had seen right through him and yet she encouraged Deirdre to help him.

Fr. Reilly was always saying things to him, too. Stuff about doing what was right just because it was the right thing to do—the way Christ would have wanted. He had convinced Danny that what was happening to him was normal for people in his situation. He was, after all, a child of a “not-ideal” family and had to come to terms with that. And, the whole country had to come to terms with everything that happened in the North—and all the stuff that was happening in the South, too. Fr. Reilly suggested that he start looking at everything from another perspective, that instead of thinking about himself as a sinner, he might consider that he was also a victim.

Even just thinking about it as a “situation” made Danny feel better and Fr. Reilly also told him that he had been given absolution for all that had happened before.

Danny wasn’t sure how he felt about that part, but he liked when everyone said that they could see that he was really trying to change. They even started saying that he was just an “unfortunate young fella.”

His mother said that even his aunts were saying that about him, but, knowing them, they were probably also saying all the other stuff that Fr. Reilly told him he had to learn to ignore.

It was hard because he used to say the same things about himself—all the shite about it being all his fault. A lot of it was, but he had to accept that and put it aside so it wouldn’t get in his way further down the road.

He thought about having another hit but he didn’t want to risk it in case the Garda-fucking-Síochána wandered by. Besides, he had promised he would give it up—and he would, right after he got back from London.

He thought about starting with
Coming into Los Angeles,
the song he sang when he was trying to have a laugh with himself. Instead, he began to sing
Leaving on a Jet Plane
and all the passing women responded and left a good scattering of coins in his case. Even the sun poked out for a moment. When he was a kid he liked to think of it as God smiling down on him but then when it rained? What was he supposed to think then?

“That’s the problem with the way the Church tries to teach: they made you think of normal stuff as bad.” Fr. Reilly had told him. He also admitted to Danny that he often wished that people could just talk to God face-to-face so that they could really understand what was being said on His behalf. But he was still on at Danny about going to the Guards and telling them what had really happened.

He couldn’t do that. If he did he’d have to spend the rest of his life hiding in shitholes until they finally tracked him down. No matter what the cops and the priest told him, he knew he could never be free of them. Good stuff like that didn’t happen in his life.

Except Deirdre, but he’d fucked that up, too.

He was getting a second chance, though, he couldn`t deny that, even though he knew better than to get excited and start hoping. He used to make that mistake when he was a kid. It wasn`t really anybody`s fault; he knew that now. He was just a fuck-up, just like his father. And his mother? He hated thinking badly about her, but really . . . he had been fucked from the start.

He had to go to London and it wasn’t going to be so easy this time. Since the thing with Scully he had lost his nerve. Watching him die in his own piss brought it all home—the stakes were so much higher now but he had to do it one last time. He didn’t have a choice. They had him by the balls and would probably never let him go, no matter what Anto said.

*

“I think he’s really trying to sort his life out.”

Fr. Reilly had spent the last few days convincing himself, but he couldn’t help but wonder why Danny Boyle had confessed what he did? And what was he supposed to do with what he’d heard? God’s plan in this wasn’t clear to him. He should tell the police but he couldn’t. All he could do was show Danny God’s compassion and hope that he would be moved to do the right thing.

“I’m not sure about that.”

He looked up, into Miriam’s eyes. They were sitting in a small booth near the back, closer than they had been before and he fought the urge to reach across and touch her fingers, just for some human comfort. He envied others that could do that. Hug each other, kiss each other’s cheeks, but all of that was off limits to him. A priest had to be aloof so he could pass on God’s word free of the slants of emotions.

But sometimes he got distracted and thought about it. That was when he forced himself to remember that they were both just very concerned for their protégé. She was Deirdre’s mentor while he was stuck with Danny. Sometimes, he thought he had been given the thin end of the stick, but other times he reminded himself that he should be honored to be chosen as God’s vessel in all of this.

It also allowed him to see Miriam above board and to share his feelings, even if they were about other people.

“I just think that Deirdre should go on with her life right now and not wait around.”

They were at opposite sides of the table but they were leaning toward each other so they could keep their conversation private in the swirling turmoil that was Bewley’s on a Saturday afternoon. It was the only time in the week when he could leave Fr. Brennan on his own. Dinny O’Leary had agreed to keep an eye on him and not let the old man wander away. O’Leary knew what was going on but never let on that he did and Fr. Reilly was grateful for that.

“You might be right but I think Danny would be crushed if she did.”

“But you can’t expect her to?”

“No. No, you’re right there. It’s just that I think it might be the only thing that is keeping Danny going these days.”

“She’ll have to go on with her own life. She will have her degree in two years and I hope she goes on and does her master’s—and maybe a PhD.”

He knew she didn’t dislike Danny. In fact she often said that she wanted to go along with Deirdre and Patrick in believing that his life could be turned around. But she also said that she had seen it far too often. Families and friends torn apart by drugs and all the scourges that came with them.

But she didn’t know the whole story and he did not feel it was his place to tell her: Danny had been doomed from the start. He didn’t like thinking badly about Jerry and Jacinta, and Nora, but between the lot of them, they had made a right mess of things.

He believed in Danny because his God demanded it. He believed that Danny was in earnest and was doing everything he could to turn his life around and what he needed now was for people to believe in him, and forgive him his past.
I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.

“I don’t think that Danny would ever get in her way.”

“Perhaps. But he might get in his own way and that would be just as bad.”

*

On the bus ride home, Patrick puzzled over all that was said so he would know how to act the next time they met.

But he had to put it aside when he got there, when he had to become the curate of an old man who had lost his mind. He had been so busy with Danny that he hadn’t done what he had decided: he hadn’t talked with the Bishop yet. He couldn’t while they were still dealing with Danny. He knew his uncle had enough to do, and that he felt guilty, like he owed the Boyle family something.

Fr. Reilly felt guilty, too. He hadn’t been a good enough priest to them.

They hadn’t talked too much about dealing with families like the Boyles during his days at the seminary. And when they did, they were told that they wouldn’t have to face it alone, that the Power of God would flow through them—that they’d have Him to guide them all the way.

But Fr. Reilly felt rudderless and useless. He really had no idea what the Boyles must be going through.

Sometimes, he tried to imagine what he would do if he was Jerry but he kept getting distracted when Jacinta turned into Miriam. It was temptation whispering in his ear. It was like when the serpent spoke to Jesus in the middle of the desert, when he was showing them the example of self-sacrifice.

Only evil wouldn’t use Miriam; she was more like an angel. An angel that tended to the fluttering flame of his convictions as a priest. An angel who told him, in the cryptic manner of women, that he was being tested. Just like before, when Danny was sent to them after the incident in the church.