Free Cross by Ken Bruen Page B

descriptions, and lots of them were bare, due to poverty or neglect or both. Shit, I grew up in one. We had a few sticks of furniture, and one particularly rough winter we used the kitchen chairs for the fire.
    You think I'm talking about Ireland in the last century – would it were so. My father worked hard, but there were times the work just wasn't there. My mother would put his best and only suit in the pawn. That same pawn shop is now located in Quay Street, the trendiest area in our new rich shining society.
    Stewart's place was the barest accommodation I've ever seen, and I've seen Thomas Merton's cell in photos. There was one chair, hard back, a tiny sofa, and two framed quotations on the wall.
    Stewart was amused at my reaction.
    'Bare, eh?'
    I let out my breath, went, 'You moving in or out?'
    He spread his hands in a futile gesture.
    'Prison teaches you lots of stuff – sheer random cruelty, for one, and that's just the wardens; and, more importantly, the bliss of nothing. I've been studying the Zen Masters, and with a bit of time I'll be still.'
    I wanted to go smart arse, say, 'Still what?'
    But said, 'The only Zen I know is pretty basic.'
    He waited and so I muttered it:
    'After the ecstasy
    The laundry.'
    He laughed, there was actually a little warmth in it.
    'Trust you, Jack. That is so typical of what you'd choose.'
    I could have argued the toss, but the truth was, I couldn't get past Cody. I could see him the first time he'd offered me the business cards, his whole face a light of eagerness and desire to please. A shudder hit me and my whole body began to shake.
    Stewart went, 'Whoa there, big guy. Take a pew, I'll get you something.'
    I sat on the hard chair, naturally – keep it rough – and Stewart reappeared with a glass of water and two pills.
    'Take these.'
    I held them in the palm of my hand and said, 'I would have thought you'd had enough of the dope business.'
    The insult didn't faze him. He motioned for me to take the stuff and I did, washing it down with the water. He said, 'I'm out of the trade
but I keep some . . . essentials here. I got out of prison, but that doesn't mean I'm ever free of it. I wake in the night, covered in sweat –
I'm back there, some thick gobshite from the middle of the bog trying to stick his dick in my backside. I don't think I need to explain panic attacks to you, Jack.'
    Carve that in Connemara stone, or better yet, Zen it.
    His mobile rang and he said, 'Gotta take this. You just sit there, be still.'
    What's the biblical line? Be still and know?
    Know, as the Americans say, 'It sucks.'
    I zoned out, went away to that place of white nothingness. The mind shuts down and there's a slight humming to be heard, and if you could see your own eyes, they'd have that nine-yard stare.
    Then Stewart was back, I looked at my watch and nearly an hour had passed. I was mellow, laid back, tranquillized, thank fuck, feeling no pain.
    I stood, moved to the wall, read one of his framed quotes. It went:
    'The fundamental delusion of reality is to suppose that I am here and you are out there.'
    The attribution was to some fellah named Yasutani.
    I said, 'Deep.'
    Stewart considered it, then said, 'At the risk of repeating myself, I think that describes you also.'
    Whatever those pills were, they were the bloody business. I felt relaxed, a concept that was as alien to me as niceness, and my mind was clear. It wasn't till then that I realized how burdened it had been with fear, grief and worry about Cody. Can you be saturated with sorrow, seeped in sadness, a walking mess of melancholy?
    I was.
    I asked, 'You ever hear of Craig McDonald?'
    He simply stared at me.
    'He was a newspaper editor in Ohio and became a bestselling novelist. He wrote a novel about pain that would pull the teeth from your skull,' I said.
    He thought about it, then said, 'Your kind of book.'
    I sighed. 'Reading about it makes you feel you're not alone.'
    He handed me a vial of pills. 'More of the same. You get the