I was on Capel Street drinking in McNeil’s. It was half ten. The pub had just opened. Two tourists from the States were the only other patrons. They couldn’t believe how early they were drinking. They kept commenting on the hour. “I can’t believe it’s before eleven right now,” one of them kept saying. They were being so bad. I sipped my Guinness and thought of Eimear. She was gone. I hadn’t a clue where she’d gone off to. She certainly wasn’t in McNeil’s.

I walked over to South Williams Street. It was where all the cool kids were drinking. And I was a pretty cool kid. It was raining, which was new for Dublin. It lashed against the cobblestone street, pooling in the spaces between the bricks. Darker clouds than the ones overhead loomed in the distance.

I stepped into Grogan’s and sat at the bar. Behind me, a few older men talked about the horses. They’d all managed to lose money. I drank a beer or two and picked at some chips. A few interchangeable pubs followed. The area began to fill up with people, darting between pubs to avoid the rain. My last stop was Café en Seine because they’d turned me away the week before. They’d said I was too drunk. I’d show them. Look who was getting in now. I wanted to hate it there, but the Rum Royale was delightful. The other tables were filled with couples sitting across from each other. I wanted to hate them too.

It was dark when I caught my bus going back to Finglas. There were boys at the back making sex noises. They’d moan and then laugh their heads off. I pitied the men they’d become, cringing at moments like these.

I met up with John at the Shamrock. He had a pint waiting for me. Kind gesture but by this point it was flat and tasted like metal. I drank it all the same. He’d just gotten back from the Shels match. I winced at the sight of the black eye he was sporting. “The security threw me a dig,” he explained.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Ah,” he said, waving it off. “I was being a cunt.”

We had two pints then he got up to go. He had work in the warehouse early the next day. “You’re not staying, are you?” he asked.

“I’ll have one more,” I said.

“Here Rory,” he said, addressing the barman. “Kick him out after the next one.”

“Right, John.”

“Go home after the one, Liam.”

Rory poured me a Carlsberg when mine was nearly done. Beside me was Tom O’Riordan. Sitting in front of his stool was a Jack Russell I’d never seen before. Tom was the drunk of the pub and often sucked to talk to. He had an incredible talent for isolating you from everyone else; an ability perfected by the last people you’d want possessing it. It was in those moments with Tom that you got a great whiff of his beer breath. Eventually you’d find an out, assuring him you’d be back to him in a bit.

“I nearly threw myself off of Howth Head today,” Tom said. It was to neither me nor Rory, and to us both at the same time. He’d mentioned suicide a number of times before. It had become less worrisome by this point.

“I was going to,” he continued. “I was going to and then I heard this bark. I turn around and what do I see?” He took a sip of his pint. “This little boy behind me.” He patted the Jack Russell on the head and scratched under his chin. “I turn around and he’s looking at me like I matter. Like I really do.”

“You do matter, Tom,” I said.

He nodded at me then looked down at the dog. “What do I see? This little boy looking right at me.”

He finished his pint and sat back, looking at the mirror behind the bar dreamily. Rory poured him another and told him how lucky we are to have him. His fingers were interlocked on his belly, and he still looked at the mirror.

“I think,” Tom said. “I think, what everyone needs, is to be looked at like this little fella looked at me.”

We cheersed to that. A month later Tom killed himself. It was in his ex-wife’s home. He cut her lawn, hung up some laundry, and then went to the bathroom and hung himself. I guess the dog stopped looking at him like that.

 

A few months later, Patrick and I walked along the River Tolka, each of us holding a can of beer. We’d gotten back from Spain the night before. The sun had turned his skin pink where it’d turned mine brown. There was a melancholy air after what had been a nice trip. We recounted moments from the week before, as though talking about them might get us back there if we just remembered hard enough. If memory could do that, I thought, I’d be meeting up with Eimear for dinner that night.

“I’ll just have a piss,” Patrick said, indicating a pole next to the footpath.

“I hate these things,” he said a few seconds later. “I immediately assume it’s dead.”

I walked around the pole to where he was standing. Plastered to the pole was a sign offering a reward for a missing dog. The shaky picture featured a Jack Russell I might’ve seen before.