Page 2 of Dark Ink

I grew claustrophobic despite the expansiveness of the blue dome above me. I sensed those same farmhouse walls moving in on me. I could remember pressing my face against their faded wallpaper to try and hide, wallpaper my da had torn at in the night because she picked it out, because she was gone. I was nowhere near that sagging porch, but my head whipped around like he would appear suddenly behind every big, wide oak tree. I swore he was close. He was coming for me. I strained for any hint of him on the line—a grumbled curse. The shattering of a beer bottle. The crack of a fist against bone. A wet cough.

“Why did you call me?” I asked, my voice hoarse like I’d been screaming.

I wondered if my father was watching Liam now, his red-rimmed eyes narrowing before spitting from the corner of his narrow lips. Was Alan there? In the shadows behind him? Rubbing his knuckles against his palm?

Liam had the decency to sound reluctant at least, to clear his throat in hesitation before daring to say aloud, “I know he wasn’t the best father, but…”

I was no longer on that bench, there across from the college. I no longer had good friends who cared for me, cared about my health, my happiness. I no longer worked as an artist, as a professor, as a tattoo parlour owner. I was a kid again. Too scrawny for hard labour. Hands too feminine. Skin too soft. Eyes too much like the sky on the coldest day of winter when the air seems about to snap in two. Eyes too much like hers. I was a kid again who was beaten for not being strong. Beaten for not pulling his weight. Beaten for drawing when the others worked. Beaten because it felt good for him. Beaten because he couldn’t beat her for leaving. For dying.

The corners of my mouth curled up into a cruel smile. It wasn’t a smile fit for a sunny autumn day, but it was no longer a sunny autumn day. Not for me. It wasn’t the smile of a healthy man. But I wasn’t healthy; I was already circling the drain whether I knew it or not. It wasn’t even a natural smile, but I didn’t know cruelty naturally. I’d been taught it. Shown it. Had it beaten into me: the wickedness of destroying someone else’s life.

“Don’t worry,” I said, smiling through each and every word. “If I don’t see him again in this life—and I won’t, God as my witness I will not ever see that man again—I’m sure I’ll see him in hell one day. We’ll have a big family reunion, us fecking Merricks.”

I hung up without waiting for a reply. Nothing Liam could have said or done would have changed my mind. The time for words, the time for action was years ago.

I hung up.

The “Raglan Road” song resumed.

Just as I saw her.

Originally a poem by Patrick Kavanagh, it’d been put to song by Luke Kelly. He sang about a dark haired women who he first saw on Raglan Road and the words slithered into my ears like an omen, wrapped around my throat like a vice grip, intoxicated me like a drug. He knew pursuing her would hurt him but he did it anyway.

She was across the street. Cars passing blocked her from view only for her to reappear, stunning me anew. The wind tugged at her dark hair that she struggled to keep out of her pale heart-shaped face. She looked around her with darting, nervous eyes, like the world was also not as it seemed for her: not blue skies, not warm sunshine, not autumn leaves dancing as they fell. She weaved along the busy sidewalk with a sketchbook clutched tightly to her chest. I imagined it was how you were supposed to hold airline seats when you crash.

I stood. I didn’t intend to. I didn’t remember telling my legs to move. But I couldn’t stop myself. I was drawn to her, my Raglan Road girl, as she disappeared through the wrought iron gate of campus.

I darted across the road. Cars honked and tires screeched and maybe it was me who would be awaiting my father in hell instead of the other way around. But I didn’t care. I ran after her. I had to find her. To grab ahold of her. As if touching her would keep her from dissolving into ether.

My eyes skimmed the throngs of students for her as I imagined brushing my fingertips along her pale skin, walking them along the fine bones of her wrists, as delicate as a bird’s. I’d slip a single flower between her rigid fingers. But what kind, what kind? I thought as I darted down random cobblestone paths, slipping on leaves, bumping into armfuls of textbooks.

A rose?

Never. Not for her. Not red. Too overt for the baggy, tattered sweatshirt she huddled beneath like a child.

Lily? No. Not white. Too innocent for those full red lips.

No, for her…a wisp of baby’s breath. Gentle as a fine frost. Picked right from the garden.

I spun round.

“Where is she?” I asked a passing student.

He darted away.

“Where is she?” I shouted after him.

I tore at my hair, fumbled in my pocket for a joint. So, my father was dying, was he? Good. The bastard could rot. He could be buried in a pine box and eaten by the worms.

I wouldn’t cry when he died.

I was sure of it. I hadn’t cried since my mother’s funeral. That earned me an open palm to the back of the head. A hissed, “Man up, you little sissy.” I didn’t learn many life lessons fast, but I learned that one instantly.

But for my Raglan Road girl, I’d cry. For her I’d take the pain.

The weed did nothing for me. Already I was craving something stronger. I offered my joint half-smoked to a kid on a skateboard. He reached for it and I snatched it out of reach.

“Tell me where she went first.”

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