I was on Capel Street drinking in McNeil\u2019s. It was half ten. The pub had just opened. Two tourists from the States were the only other patrons. They couldn\u2019t believe how early they were drinking. They kept commenting on the hour. \u201cI can\u2019t believe it\u2019s before eleven right now,\u201d one of them kept saying. They were being so bad.\u00a0I sipped my Guinness and\u00a0thought\u00a0of Eimear. She was gone. I hadn\u2019t a clue where she\u2019d gone off to. She certainly wasn\u2019t in McNeil\u2019s.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
I stepped into Grogan\u2019s and sat at the bar. Behind me, a few older men talked about the horses. They\u2019d 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 Caf\u00e9 en Seine because they\u2019d turned me away the week before. They\u2019d said I was too drunk. I\u2019d 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.<\/p>\n
It was dark when I caught my bus going back to Finglas. There were boys at the back making sex noises. They\u2019d moan and then laugh their heads off. I pitied the men they\u2019d become, cringing at moments like these.<\/p>\n
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\u2019d just gotten back from the Shels match. I winced at the sight of the black eye he was sporting. \u201cThe security threw me a dig,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cSorry,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAh,\u201d he said, waving it off. \u201cI was being a cunt.\u201d<\/p>\n
We had two pints then he got up to go. He had work in the warehouse early the next day. \u201cYou\u2019re not staying, are you?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll have one more,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere Rory,\u201d he said, addressing the barman. \u201cKick him out after the next one.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRight, John.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGo home after the one, Liam.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rory poured me a Carlsberg when mine was nearly done. Beside me was Tom O\u2019Riordan. Sitting in front of his stool was a Jack Russell I\u2019d 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\u2019d want possessing it. It was in those moments with Tom that you got a great whiff of his beer breath. Eventually you\u2019d find an out, assuring him you\u2019d be back to him in a bit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI nearly threw myself off of Howth Head today,\u201d Tom said. It was to neither me nor Rory, and to us both at the same time. He\u2019d mentioned suicide a number of times before. It had become less worrisome by this point.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was going to,\u201d he continued. \u201cI was going to and then I heard this bark. I turn around and what do I see?\u201d He took a sip of his pint. \u201cThis little boy behind me.\u201d He patted the Jack Russell on the head and scratched under his chin. \u201cI turn around and he\u2019s looking at me like I matter. Like I really do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou do matter, Tom,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
He nodded at me then looked down at the dog. \u201cWhat do I see? This little boy looking right at me.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think,\u201d Tom said. \u201cI think, what everyone needs, is to be looked at like this little fella looked at me.\u201d<\/p>\n
We cheersed to that. A month later Tom killed himself. It was in his ex-wife\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A few months later, Patrick and I walked along the River Tolka, each of us holding a can of beer. We\u2019d gotten back from Spain the night before. The sun had turned his skin pink where it\u2019d 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\u2019d be meeting up with Eimear for dinner that night.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll just have a piss,\u201d Patrick said, indicating a pole next to the footpath.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hate these things,\u201d he said a few seconds later. \u201cI immediately assume it\u2019s dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019ve seen before.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":22018,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3530],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction","writer-luke-miller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21453"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22019,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21453\/revisions\/22019"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}