That time in the quays when his da had gone to the toilet. O’ Flaherty, his smirk as big as the froth on his stout, had put his hand on his knee, then moved it higher to his genitals. Keegan had had the sense to stand up and follow his father.
‘Full bladder, son?’
Keegan told the old man what had happened. The latter’s face became hard, dark like the exterior of Kilmainham jail. ‘And him a priest!’ On returning, he said, ‘There’ll be no more welcome in our house for that bastard.’
Now Keegan was the sole mourner at his burial. Why had he come?
He’d been fourteen. A decade later, another bar in town, and there he was, holding forth to a couple of teenage boys. His dog collar was at a rakish angle, his black jacket undone revealing a tun of a belly. A big man, charming his acolytes with scraps of Latin and quasi erudition. It brought to mind a cuddly panda. He’d saluted Keegan with, ‘Lads, a scholar and relative is with us. Look on yon cousin of mine for a guide to your own esteemed futurity.’ Occasionally thereafter he came across him in Dublin. He’d found him entertaining, eccentric, and had a reluctant fondness for him.
In his thirties, Keegan talked to a half-cut fellow in a dive, who told him his alcoholism was due to a cunt of a priest teacher who’d sexually assaulted him. ‘His name? Gerald O’ Flaherty. May he drown in a vat of acid.’
An explanation then as to why his cousin was forever moved around the country. His superiors seemingly didn’t know what to do about the problem. Would relocation have changed him? Of course not. Keegan kept an ear to the ground, asked discreet questions. Was that because the fondness was still there? Or was it fear at what he could do to his own kids?
One guy recalled him going to the showers after sport, and demanding the boys shed their towels. Somebody else said he enjoyed caning boys on the bare buttocks. Then there was the description of him kissing boys under the age of fourteen vigorously on the lips. Parents had informed the guards, but their complaints hadn’t received due attention. A priest? The boy must be making it up, sure.
Distress was his leaving card. He must’ve damaged many during his five decades of contact with children. Their muteness all these long years, after he’d had his momentary pleasure at their expense, perhaps equated to the silence of priests and police. He crushed life like a car-breaker in a yard; emotions were carrion to his beady crow’s eyes. Each young boy had to reassemble himself, a jigsaw without a cover. Many probably never overcame their traumas.
The earth was thrown over him. Keegan wished he’d done something. Anything. He’d cause no further harm anyhow. Going, he noticed knotweed behind the grave. You couldn’t shift that stuff. Not even with a vat of acid.
