Bakker Bugle Blog Say it three times fast. In Luxembourgish.

Monday, 21 February, 9:45

I’d been knocked to the ground, so I expected to be knocked out cold within seconds. That’s usually the way it happens. From my fetal position on the pebbles, I watched the thin man behind the window turn away. As usual, the boss didn’t like watching the dirty work.

The thug who had crept behind me knelt at my head. Without looking at my face, he reached inside my jacket’s chest pocket and withdrew my mobile phone.

“See, that didn’t hurt at all,” said the short guy with mean eyes. And they walked away. They left me my camera, my wallet and 97% of my physical well-being. I was so disoriented that I casually snapped a few more pictures before I left the Park.

I was shaken more by the unexpectedly pacific goons than by the confrontation itself. I walked away from home for a few blocks, doubled back twice (by habit) and found my way home. I called the little lady; she doesn’t mind my line of work, but she hates surprises.

She answered the phone on the first ring. “Where have you been? I called your mobile twice already.”

“Yeah, I’m not getting very good reception lately. Some hoods from Fitzwilliam are interfering with the signal.”

“Eh? Anyway, Eddie Jefferson wants you to call him. He’s in some kind of trouble. Sounds like you’re in your own trouble now.” After more than a decade, I still couldn’t read that tone of voice. Was her patience with my “work” running out?

“Okay,” I managed to say while my head started figuring the possibilities. “I’ll call him back now. Will you be around? I’ll let you know what’s going on after I talk to him.”

“Oh, he gets a return call immediately — pretty special guy, huh? Talk to you later, love.”

Eddie J was an old union man. He made his living about thirty years ago, mostly by persuading employers to settle contracts early and often. He retired young and aged quickly, like they always do. Bored and still in his prime, he was happy to lend me a hand with my business — whatever it might be at the moment. I thought of him often while I was living in Dublin, but we weren’t the kind of friends that keep in touch.

If Eddie called me about his own troubles, then those troubles were serious.

So I wandered around the park for a while, picking up as many details as I could. There were floodlights, generators, and big boards of electronic equipment. It was either a ritzy DJ setup or a military command centre. Either way, somebody wanted to make a big impression.

I found the sign that Old Patrick mentioned, and it was addressed to me. I was considering its meaning when a short guy with a bald spot and mean eyes jogged over from one of the buildings.

“Having trouble reading?” he asked with a sneer. “It says ‘Yer cooperation during this period is very much appreciated.'”

“I’m the kind of guy who cooperates,” I said with my most ingratiating grin. “Is there anything I can help with? It looks like there’s some lawn that hasn’t been covered yet.”

“You can help by getting yerself back to the other side of the fence. And if yer really after helpin’ — ye can take care of yer business on the Nort-side.”

I just watched him for a minute. I was deciding what to do next, and I didn’t see any attractive options.

He looked at the big, glass-walled building, where a tall, thin shadow was standing, motionless. When he turned back to me, he said, “What do ye tink about violent crime in this part of the city?”

“I’m opposed to it.”

He smiled, big and toothy, so I could see bits of the sausage roll he had for breakfast. I was wondering whether he appreciated my wit when I felt my knee give way. By the time I was aware of the pain, my face was resting on wet pebbles.

My first thought was that the Duchess’s grandson was probably enjoying the scene. I’m sorry to say that I have a hard time keeping focus when somebody knocks me down.

Monday, 21 January 2008, nine am.

The workers around the park seemed a little less tolerant of my presence on Monday morning. Maybe they didn’t like the idea of starting a new week without getting a weekend. Maybe they finally decided that I was nothing but bad news. Either way, my little hobby got a lot harder.

Old Patrick gave me a good tip, and I felt obliged to follow up on it. The movies tell you that these guys aren’t interested in anything but money, but they have more pride on the line than money. They have more pride than money, period. On any given day, I was more accountable to the old man than to my clients. And, honestly, I need him more than I need any one of them.

So I strolled once around the fence that surrounds the park. On an ordinary day, I could use my key and just walk right in. Today, big guys in fluorescent vests were milling around every gate but the west one. And that gate was in the wide open, making me feel like a rat in an empty lot next to the home of a bored insomniac with a .22 and a sniper’s citation from his soldier days.

Worse yet, one of the dowagers from the neighbourhood was tottering down Pembroke with her grandson in tow. These two watched the park like they had a marijuana plot inside, and for all I know, it was their little party getting underway. They doddered up to the same break in the trees that I was looking through, and stopped.

I said hello, but they must have thought that I was a part of the scenery, possibly some tree branch that the groundskeeper forgot to prune.

The old woman made a strangled clucking sound and started to educate her get on the situation before us. She had an accent that sounded like she was raised by a Victorian English lady on one side and a culchie shepherd on the other. My elbow practically rested on her shoulder, but I could only make out about a quarter of what she said.

“They’re just interested in the money and they couldn’t care less about what that monstrosity will do to the lawn,” I managed to hear. “No sense in those people.” That was good news. If she gave me trouble, I could easily satisfy her sense of common courtesy. But I wouldn’t learn anything from her today; if I spoke, she’d probably jump right out of that blue cashmere coat and hit me over the head with her cane on the way back down.

Without a reason to delay any longer, I opened the gate and walked through. As I carefully closed the gate, I caught a look of total astonishment from the Duchess of Richmond. She was probably wondering how I could have a key — after all, she’d never had tea with me, and I wasn’t wearing a yellow safety jacket.

29 January 2008.

It’s four o’clock, and I’m sequestered, i.e. stuck in an office with as much character as a Best Western. I’m killing time in Chicago, and it’s killing me right back. Nobody’s keeping me here, but I may as well be behind bars and razor wire.

If there’s one weakness you don’t want in my business, it’s a sense of obligation. When you feel responsibility for other people, you’re caught in a net like a 20-kg tuna off the coast of Newfoundland. And a single thread of fidelity pulled me into this one.

How I wound up here is a short story: I ran away from trouble in Dublin and then ran smack into it in Chi-town.

You’d think that an empty office with cinder-block walls and a big desk would be a good place to tell a story, but it’s not. All my mind does is bounce between how wondering long it’s gonna take before the lawyers get done and savoring the silken idea of yet another cigarette in the cold air.

I can’t get my thoughts together in this place, and that’s a problem if the legal eagles decide to take another whack at my testimony. So for now, I’ve got to concentrate on my job for today. Tomorrow, I’ll start thinking about Dublin again.

Tuesday, 22 January 2008.

“You need to hear what I got to say.” I’d barely reached the top of my stairs when Old Patrick whirled from his seat next to my mailbox. He must have been sitting on the sidewalk, with his back to the wrought-iron fence. From what I know, that was risky in this neighbourhood — I assume that there’s a reason why there aren’t beggars in Fitzwilliam Square.

“I wandered into the park yesterday; the Old Drunk act works better than yer Tourist, ya know. I saw some things, but right away, this guy in a suit came from nowhere.

“He said that he had a message for ye. He knows who ye are, and that you had better watch yerself as well.

“Com’ere — there’s a sign in there that you should see. But I did not read much of it before the gorilla tossed me out. And Little Peter won’t give it a go. I said that you’d give him a tenner, but he’s wary of the place. But mostly, I wanted ta warn ya.”

I walked Patrick to a diner in Rathfarnham, and we had a full Irish breakfast. He rambled through a number of topics, as usual. He was especially interested in the American dollar, and said, “I don’t know that I want those worthless notes from the tourists in the spring.”

On this morning, the state of the US economy was the least of my concerns.