Galway Jack

Galway Jack
By Derek Turnbull

I was there the first time he came into the Fat Ox. It was late one
Friday evening and Steve,
Ian, Pete and I were sitting out the back in the poolroom, waiting on a
free table so we could
play doubles. We were drinking our pints and talking the usual
nonsense, cutting across each
other's conversations and laughing loudly. I'm telling some story or
other when I become
conscious of someone standing just a few feet away to my left. The
others notice too and we all
exchange looks. The man is big, very big and although he's maybe
mid-fifties, looks a hard
bastard in his crumpled grey suit. Clearly drunk to hell, he's staring
right at me, and not so
much swaying as listing from side to side, like an old wooden boat. The
man and I look at each
other for a few seconds and then I quickly dart a look back at the
others to check the general
state of readiness, should this kick off. I'm somewhat concerned
therefore to note that all three
are looking intently into their tightly held pints, not back at me. I
turn again to the man. He's still
staring at me, saying nothing. This goes on and on for what seems ages
so I pick up my pint
and raise it to him before taking a gulp, hoping he will take this as
some sort of friendly gesture.
He doesn't. He continues to stare. A good thirty seconds of silent
staring goes on. I don't want
to turn my back on him, but I don't want this staring to go on either
so I say "Anything I can help
you with? Looking for someone?" Not a word. The silent staring
continues some more and then
he lurches much nearer to me and leans in close. "I'm Galway Jack", he
whispers menacingly
in my ear. Then he moves round to my left, places both his big hands
flat on the table and
looks slowly at all of us, making eye contact. "I'm Galway Jack", he
says again, this time out
loud. He then reaches across the table and helps himself to one of my
cigarettes. He produces
a lighter from his jacket pocket and lights the cigarette, watching us
the whole time, daring
someone to say something. We don't. "I'm Galway Jack, remember that",
he says, giving us
another look. We all nod that we understand and at this he turns and
staggers off to the other
bar. Later, when the landlord Danny comes over to take away the
empties, we ask him about
the big drunk. "Well it seems that he's called Jack and he's from
Galway", he says helpfully.

The next time we go in the same thing happens, he comes over, tells us
he's Galway Jack,
nicks a fag and wanders off. He's drunk again but he's less aggressive
this time. The following
week he does it again. Pretty soon a routine is established - at some
point during the evening
he comes over to us, we say "evening Galway Jack" and pass him the
fags, he takes one, nods
to us and returns to his seat. We'd see him help himself to other
people's fags as well, but
nobody really seemed to make a fuss about it. Pretty soon he's a
regular in the Fat Ox.
Everyone gets used to him, and as he get used to us, drops the
threatening manner. He's
drunk most nights but never as bad as that first night. Mostly he'd
just sit at a table by the front
door with his pint and a paper, watching people come and go. He'd
always sit alone, and never
talked with anyone.

One Sunday afternoon a few of us meet in the pub to watch football on
the big screen. It's a big
game and the place is pretty crowded. A lot of the locals are in,
including Galway Jack, who
always came in for the football. Towards the end of the game an
argument starts up at the back
of the room over some sending off and there's a bit of a scuffle
between these two big blokes.
A table is pushed over and the drinks go flying. The only one behind
the bar is Kerry, Danny's
young niece - Danny's down in the cellar changing a barrel. Suddenly
Galway Jack is up out of
his chair and heading over. The two of them are squaring up to each
other, about to go at it,
when he grabs them both and drags them out of the pub as if they were
children. As he comes
back in, having sent them packing, we're all facing him and chanting
Galway Jack! Galway
Jack! Galway Jack! This stops him dead and for a moment he stands there
dazed. Then he
goes bright red and starts looking down at the floor in front of him.
The chanting dies out, as it's
clear we've embarrassed him. There's an awkward silence in the bar for
a few seconds and
then young Kerry calls out "thanks Galway Jack, you're my hero!" At
this we all clap and holler
and he briefly raises a hand in acknowledgement. The moment passes and
people turn back to
the screen, but I continue to watch Galway Jack as he returns to his
seat and see the trace of a
smile on his big red face.

From then on Galway Jack becomes a sort of unofficial doorman at the
Fat Ox. Every evening
he'd sit in by the door and keep an eye out for trouble and in return
Danny would give him free
drinks. He began to wear a rather lurid old tie, which he seemed to
think appropriate to his new
position. We'd all go over and give him one of our fags at some point
in the evening. At closing
time he'd usually help collect up the empties, unless he'd had too many
free drinks and fallen
asleep, which happened from time to time.

Well, one evening we're out back playing pool, just Pete and I, when
Danny rushes over.
"Galway Jack's collapsed, do you know any first aid at all?" We don't
but we rush back into the
other bar with Danny. Galway Jack's flat out on the floor. Someone
calls for an ambulance and
we put a coat under his head for a pillow and wait. The ambulance
arrives in a few minutes and
we give them a hand getting him onto the stretcher and into the
ambulance. It's too late though
he's already dead. A heart attack they reckon. After they go we sit
around quietly talking about
Galway Jack. As we're talking it occurs to me that we need to tell
Galway Jack's family what's
happened. "Does anyone know if he had any family here?" I ask. Nobody
knows. In the two or
three years he'd been coming to the pub he'd still not said anything
much apart from his name.
Given that he was a drunk and practically lived in the Fat Ox we
assumed that there wasn't a
Mrs Galway Jack anywhere abouts, but did he have a family or friends
here or back in Galway?
"Someone should find his next of kin and let them know", I say. "Well
I'll take charge of this",
says Danny. "As a landlord I've certain responsibilities. A customer
dying in the pub is one of
them. It's a bit like being the captain of a ship or something". I tell
Danny he's clearly talking
bollocks, but offer to help him anyway.

As the following day is Saturday and I'm off work, I go with Danny to
the hospital where they
have Galway Jack, and talk to them about notifying his family. They
tell us that the police
usually do this but they'd yet to establish Galway Jack's identity.
They'd been through his
pockets but had found no wallet or ID of any sort, just a fiver, a few
coins and some keys. The
police had taken his fingerprints though so might be able to trace him
that way. Early the next
week I pop into the pub for a quick drink on the way home from work and
ask Danny if the
police have had any luck. "They haven't a clue", he says. "They were in
here earlier. Nothing's
coming up on their computers. They've checked with the Galway police
too."

The following Friday we're all in as usual. We get to talking about
Galway Jack and what to do.
Apparently the police still haven't got anywhere. Danny's niece
suggests we call all the bed and
breakfast and guesthouses in the area so we take a page of the phone
book each and get our
mobiles out. Most of the places we call have already been approached by
the police asking the
same question. After about an hour we're ready to give up when Danny
finds the place.
Apparently he'd been living in a guesthouse just round the corner. For
some reason the police
must have missed it. Anyway, we drink up and head round there. The
landlady, a Mrs Jacobs,
lets us in and we follow her up to Galway Jack's room, right at the top
of the house. As were
going up she tells us that he always paid the whole month's rent up
front, and as the rent
wasn't due again yet she hadn't given Galway Jack's disappearance much
thought. "I would
often go days, sometimes more, without seeing him," she says, a little
out of breath. "He always
kept himself to himself". Finally we get to the door and she opens it
and steps aside so we can
go in. The room is pretty basic. Just a bed, an old wardrobe and a
dressing table. No TV or
radio. The place reeks of cigarettes. There's some old worn out clothes
hanging in the
wardrobe and some more clothes in the dressing table drawers, but there
are no personal
effects at all. No letters, photos, books. Nothing. Not even his
passport. Just yesterday's
Evening Standard on the dresser, the crossword attempted and then
abandoned half way
through. How could anyone die leaving no trace at all? If it wasn't for
the clothes and the
unmade bed you'd hardly know someone had stayed here. The landlady told
us that he'd been
staying there for almost three years. He'd always paid in cash and had
been no trouble at all,
although she suspected he liked the odd tipple. He'd stay in his room
most of the day, only
going out in the evenings. As far as she was aware, he'd never had any
visitors, phone calls or
even a single letters the whole time. "Very sad indeed", she said.
Although we'd now found his
lodgings, we still hadn't learnt anything more about the man, what his
real name was, or where
his next of kin might be. "Very sad indeed", she said again as she let
us out. Back in the pub
we sat around talking about Galway Jack's lonely existence and feeling
sad. What must his life
have been like, alone all day in that miserable room? Christ it was
bleak. The room was almost
as bare as a prison cell. Maybe that was it. Maybe he'd spent some time
inside? But then
surely the police would have matched up his fingerprints? Perhaps he'd
been in the services at
one time? We spent the rest of the mulling it over.

The following day I called into the pub at lunchtime to talk to Danny.
"A few things are bothering
me about this Galway Jack business", I tell him. "Firstly, why didn't
he have any papers at all?"
You can't get through life these days without papers of some sort. He
must once have had a
passport, a birth certificate, and all that kind of stuff. Secondly,
where did he get his rent money
from each week? He didn't work or sign on, as far as we know. Maybe he
didn't need to.
Maybe he had savings. But if so where did he keep his money? There were
no building society
books, cheque books, statements, any of that?" "I know", says Danny,
"been bothering me as
well". Eventually we decide to go take another look around the room.
Danny calls up and we go
straight round. Mrs Jacobs takes us up to the room again and leaves us
to it. We start looking
behind the wardrobe, taking the cupboard drawers out, checking the
mattress, etc. Then Danny
lifts the tatty old carpet up and starts checking the floorboards.
Straight away he finds a loose
one, lifts it up, and pulls out a plastic carrier bag full of money. We
tip the money out of the bag
onto the bed and count. There's just over five hundred pounds in used
ten and twenty pound
notes.

The funeral was on a bitterly cold Tuesday morning. We'd decided on a
cremation and used
most of the money we'd found to pay for it. God knows where Galway Jack
had come by his
money, or who he really was. Anyway, about a dozen of us from the pub
turned up to pay our
last respects. Danny had arranged for a notice to appear in a local
paper in Galway, giving
details of the funeral and asking anyone who knew Galway Jack to get in
touch. However, as
we'd thought, no friends or family turned up. No one had called Danny
about him either. It
seems Galway Jack hadn't anyone back home either. The service was very
simple. We had the
organist play a few mournful old Irish tunes and the local vicar
struggled to find anything at all
to say about the big man. The whole thing, what with miserable weather
and all, had an almost
comic bleakness about it.

A few days later Danny and I went to collect the urn containing the
ashes and we spent that
evening wondering what to do with them. The urn sits in the middle of
the table, surrounded by
drinks, as we talk. "Seems a very small urn for such a big man" he
says. In the end it's decided
that the ashes should stay in the pub in case anyone ever comes looking
for them. His ashes
are still there now, sitting on a shelf behind the bar, alongside some
unclaimed raffle prizes and
lost property. Galway Jack might be unclaimed but he's not lost, he's
here with us in the Fat
Ox, where he belongs.