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

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.