Green Hell Read Online Free PDF Page A

brew.”
    His eyes flashed, he asked,
    â€œDid I ask you for a definition? I know what the fuck it is. You have yet to learn the one essential mode of Irish survival.”
    I shot,
    â€œAlways buy your round?”
    He sighed, said,
    â€œNever under any circumstances interrupt a story!”
    A few tense moments followed, then he resumed,
    â€œThe guy was a take-no-prisoners drinker. Serious, sure, methodical. I’m not sure how, but we got talking. He’d spent time in a jail in South America. . . . Like an eejit, I said, ‘Well, least you got back.’ The guy stood up, gave me one of those looks that plays a reel on your soul, said, ‘It’s what I brought back with me that’s the worry.’”
    I waited until I was sure he was finished, asked,
    â€œDid he mean he picked up some . . . like, disease?”
    â€œOnly if the soul can be afflicted.”
    Outside, I was saying good night when Jack handed me the three hundred euros, said,
    â€œGive it to the drinking school.”
    Whoa, hold the goddamn phones. I asked,
    â€œWhy don’t you?”
    He was moving away toward the water, said,
    â€œI don’t want to encourage them.”
    I didn’t see him for a week. I’d moved into a small apartment in Lower Salthill. The rent was about the same as the national debt. I was still hamstrung between my Beckett dissertation and a book on Jack. Something about Galway had seeped into my bones and I almost felt that I belonged. I was brewing coffee, arranging my papers on a small table when the bell went. Opened the door to Jack, he said,
    â€œI bring gifts.”
    I asked,
    â€œHow did you find me?”
    â€œThe postman told me.”
    I was outraged, asked,
    â€œAre they allowed to do that?”
    He raised his eyes, said,
    â€œJaysus, lighten up . . . are you askin me in?”
    I stepped aside.
    He handed me a bottle of Jameson and a cross which seemed to be made of reeds. He said,
    â€œSaint Bridget’s Cross, keep your home safe.”
    I was moved, covered with,
    â€œDoes it work?”
    He sat in my only armchair, said,
    â€œTime ago I gave a home owner a solid silver cross.
    A burglar buried it in his chest.”
    Where do you go with such a tale? I went to my excuse of a kitchen for the two mugs I owned. One had the logo “667.”
    I handed it to Jack, who said,
    â€œI get it, the neighbor of the beast.”
    He uncapped the Jay, poured lethal amounts. I said,
    â€œI’ll get some water.”
    He growled,
    â€œWater this and I’ll break your neck.”
    Skipped the water.
    Jack knocked his back, said,
    â€œSlainte amach,”
    I sipped mine. He looked around, said,
    â€œNeed to get Vinnie here, from Charley Byrne’s Bookshop, furnish the place.”
    I said,
    â€œI have a Kindle.”
    â€œAnd may God forgive you.”
    It was a few days later, I decided to drop the dime on Jack. To, as the Brits say, “grass him up.”
    To be what Jack would have spat,
    â€œA treacherous informer.”
    The scourge, no less he claimed, of Irish history.
    Syria continued to be torn asunder by Assad. Despite repeated evidence of the use of chemical weapons against the rebels, the world dithered and demurred. Obama condemned the regime but still took no military action. The United Kingdom voted against intervention. Syria burned alone.
    Niall Horan of One Direction reached the Rich List. This news pushed Syria from the front pages. It was not difficult to understand Jack’s lament,
    â€œNobody gives a tuppenny fuck.”
    By reporting his projected threat against de Burgo, I felt I was at least trying to give “a good goddamn.”
    . . . his unshaved head and unwashed look
    Made me think of a man who has gone into
    another country. One where a person can be
    dissolute without penalty, only to return home
    and find everything he owns in ruins.
    ( Light of the World by James Lee Burke)
    I made an