Nevermore: The War (Part: 1)

Jack Shepherd was married, once, a long time ago. The first time he was on Earth, he had been married three times. The first one died of typhus only two months after their marriage. The second one died in childbirth nine months to the day after their wedding, taking Jack's almost son with her. He had two children, a boy, Jack Junior and a girl, Mary, with his third wife, however she decided she was better off alone and kicked him out into the blinding snow a little over two years after their wedding. He does not know what may have become of their children. He is sure that he must have had illegitimate children from the eleven years he served in the British Army. He does not know their number or names. He had been drafted just a month shy of his sixteenth birthday and he had deserted at the grand old age of twenty-seven, having been generally bored of things there. Now he sits in his office and tries to remember any of his wives names and finds that he cannot.

Jack sits in his office in the dark, his feet resting on his desk, drinking more whisky. It is not the best tasting whisky he has ever had, in fact, it tastes remotely of old shoe, but it is strong, and that is how he wants it to be. His latest divorce was in Hell. He had never had a happy marriage. He thinks of his father. Jack's mother had been a young girl working in the local Baron's kitchen. His father had been a retired soldier, fresh out of the Army but already married to an English woman. They carried on their affair for quite some time, however, despite their carefulness, she ended up with child. She had worked in the local Baron's house until the affair was discovered and she was let go. She served drinks at the local pub, but lived in the poorhouse. Jack was born in that pub. His mother had named him after the priest who had absolved her and Jack's father of their sin, however, the priest had died three days before. Jack's mother could not support a child, so she left the baby boy on his father's doorstep. His father's wife was livid and threatened to drown the infant Jack. Jack's father turned to his brother, who was married, but childless. Jack's father eventually had five more children, however the only son died in his crib at only three months of age. After his sole legitimate son died, Jack's father went back to the Army. Jack's mother had gone on to have an affair with a priest. The baby boy miscarried and the mother died of poisoning. Jack was raised alongside his uncle's four children.

Jack's father's wife predeceased his father, and, his daughters already married, his land and money were left to his illegitimate son, and Jack took the money, and tried to settle down, without success. When his third wife kicked him out, he lost his lands, most of the money having already been lost.
Jack broods over how his own son in Hell, Jason, thinks of him as he thought of his father. Jack broods in the darkness over how Maire, his latest ex-wife, thinks he is a useless drunk. He has another son on the way with Maire. He is sure that it is a son; she is convinced that it is a daughter. The child will either be named John or Peggy. Jack does not like either name very much, but, as with everything between him and Maire, he had no say in the matter. Jack only hopes that John or Peggy does not grow up to hate him as much as everyone else does. Kerrigan is the only person Jack can think of who does not hate him. She should, but she does not. Kerrigan saved him long ago.

Outside, the snow falling casts an eerie blue glow on the room. Outside, the snowflakes tumble down, as the burning amber liquid, Jack's life support, tumbles down, and he drinks. He drinks to forget. Jack has not forgotten yet. A rapping on his office door announces the arrival of Kerrigan Sheehan, his dear friend. She lights a fire and tells him that now is the time to stop moping. He is silent. Another hour passes in a very empty Hell, and there is screaming in Jack's head. Awful, awful screaming.

Beauty: that's a question for the ages. Maire had been beautiful. So had the whisky. He had not chosen it over her. She had chosen for him. She was there. In the Vampire Senate. Between them sat Kerrigan. In better days, she kept them from becoming amorous during Senate meetings, now she kept them from fighting. On the floor in the middle of the amphitheater, one of the Senators, a beautiful woman originally from Japan, is speaking in a soft, graceful, mellifluous voice. The debate drones on. Jack sits there in his own world, in his own thoughts. Outside, the blueness of a snowstorm rages. In Hell, it snows. How bizarre, thinks Jack. On his desk, the green candle with the green flame burns low. He watches it. He wants to sit and cry. He cannot let himself. Men do not cry, he thinks to himself. Men do not cry. They drink. He thinks. They drink. His ex-wife sitting two seats down is doing her very best not to see him there, and he thinks back. Had he only been in Hell a hundred and fifty years? It had. Time flies when you are always drunk.

Jack's suit does not fit him. On Earth, nobody wears suits like this. The pants go all the way to the ground, even on Jack. Just a jacket and pants. No neck ruffle. No tights. Jack's suit hangs loose on his thin frame. It has cigar burns and whisky stains all over it. It was once green. His shirt is tattered and torn. He wears a wife beater underneath to keep himself from freezing. His ginger hair falls over his eyes. His blue eyes cry freedom without him saying a word. Freedom he will never find, he thinks. Seven score and ten years ago he had died. He had been turned on Earth, so when he came to Hell, he was sent to live among Vampires. He came with nothing but the clothing in which he had been buried. He still has the tattered rags of green woolen breeches and once-white wool shirt and socks. The wool socks and leather brogues are worn through in places. Pity he had not arrived with the other object he had been buried with: his whisky bottle. He had drunkenly fallen asleep the night his wife had kicked him out of the house. He had been buried in the snow, and, in the morning, when his ginger hair had been spotted in a snowdrift and he had been dug out, he had already frozen to death. They could not take the bottle from his hand, so, instead, they buried him with it.

For a hundred years, after he had arrived he had nothing. He lived off his younger brothers, the twins, technically, they are his cousins, however, as his uncle raised him, they may as well have been his brothers. He lived off them and charity. As the old songs went, "O' all the money 'ere I had I spent it in good company." He had met Kerrigan through his brothers. For the first hundred years, he had all of the alcohol he could ever want and a different girl in his bed each night, still, he found no fulfillment. Kerrigan was married. He knew this, but he had slept with married women before then, both on Earth and in Hell. She said no. He was drunk. She beat him bloody. "And all the harm that 'ere I've done, alas, it was to none but me." In the last fifty years, he had made all of his money. He had done what Kerrigan had said. She had saved him. She made him fight. Jack still loves women. Jack still loves whisky. Now, instead of a bum, he is a rich man. He worked, and then he got into money lending. It still hurts him to lend money to people too much like himself. Kerrigan had introduced him to Maire. Together, he and Maire have a son named Jason. Jason has Jack's ginger hair and blue eyes, but is paler than his father is.

Pale and delicate. Maire. Beauty. Beauty had gone. More whisky. Drown the pain. Men drink. Men do not cry. Father. Pain. Revenge. Men do not cry. More whisky. And down it fell. And down Jack fell. More whisky. Maire had a little lamb. Its fleece was white as whisky. More whisky. Drown the pain. No good. The black sheep. Men do not cry. His father. A soldier like Jack. Daddy's little soldier. Daddy's little drunk. Revenge. Men do not cry. Men drink. More whisky. A home. A wife. Maire. Home. Ireland. Green hills. Green flame. Flickering in the darkness. Darkness. D-A-R...D was a drunkard and had a red face. Red-faced. Shame. Not shame. Never shame. Men do not cry. Men drink. More whisky. Two seats down sits Maire. Kerrigan. The wall? No, the guardian. Men drink. Revenge. Dad. Mistress. Jack. Son of a whore and a soldier, no son of his uncle. His father was no father. His uncle was a father. Be a father for Jason. Don't leave him the way father left you. Family. Maire. Divorce. Pain. Drown the pain. Men don't cry. Men drink. More whisky.

"Jack!" Kerrigan shouts, pulling Jack out of his reverie. "Jack, are you all right? Everyone's gone."

"Sorry, Kerrigan. Sorry. How long have ye been tryin' to get me attention?"

"About five minutes. Moreover, it is OK. Jack...you look ill. You need to go home and get some sleep."

"I can't, Kerrigan. I can't."

"Why not?"

"I love Maire."

"Who do you love more? Maire or the whisky?"

"Maire."

"Then why didn't you give it up for her? For Jason?"

"I tried. I couldn't do it." Men do not cry. Men drink. More whisky.

"Don't forget your scars, Jack. Don't fall that low again. I'm going to take you home. My husband be damned, I'll see to it that you're taken care of as best I can."

"Ye don' have to, Kerrigan."

"I want to, Jack. You're a close friend of mine. I know it's hard on you. Come on. If you won't sleep, let's go to Mc Finn's."

Jack sits in Mc Finn's, the best pub in Hell, in his opinion, and, increasingly, it is becoming his home. He downs bottle after bottle of whisky. Over time n Hell, a person can get such a tolerance for alcohol that they can drink whisky by the bottle and not get drunk enough to pass out. Jack's curse. Jack loves whisky and women. He loved Maire far more, though. He sits, looks back, and thinks if only I had not screwed around with other women. He does not think it was the drinking. Not at all.

Kerrigan sits next to Jack. The booth is small, and he can feel her hand on his, her body next to his, her presence, which comforts him most of all. Jack's brothers are there as well. The twins, Shaun and Shameus sit across from himself and Kerrigan. Shane, the Werewolf, could not make it. Kerrigan animatedly talks to his brothers over a couple of rounds of whisky. Jack nurses what has to be at least his tenth bottle in silence in the shadowy recesses of the back corner of the booth. Across the pub, someone starts singing a drinking song.

Jack exists. He does not enjoy existing, but he exists. Kerrigan says that she had better be off to her husband. She does not mean to bother Jack by saying that. He understands. She says that she has to bring him home as well, Jack buys another three or four bottles, At this point, he cannot tell, and he follows Kerrigan. Halfway home, a favorite prostitute of his asks him for his company. He mumbles something about his divorce indistinctly and says not tonight. He just wants to pass out, yet he knows that he probably will not. Jack staggers and stumbles, sometimes using Kerrigan as a sort of living crutch to bring him home.

Jack's house is a huge mansion with a huge lawn. He has pet sheep, which he keeps in the back. They need their space. To walk into Jack's house, one must pass through the front doors, which are huge, castle-like, and heavy. Kerrigan effortlessly holds Jack up and pushes one open, pulling the key out of Jack's pocket. She puts Jack on the sofa and tells him not to go far. She goes outside, feeds his sheep, and puts them in the barn for the night. They are strange sheep. They are not white, but many colors and patterns. Jack created them himself only twenty years earlier.

Kerrigan walks back into the house. She brushes off her suit. Her black pants are somewhat loose and corduroy and her vest is similarly black corduroy, but short and tight. Her white shirt is tight and low-cut, and her jacket is dark green velvet.

Jack smiles at Kerrigan from the sofa. There is no happiness in his eyes, but Kerrigan is relieved that he is at least smiling. Then she sees why. There are three empty bottles of whisky next to him. Jack feels the whisky numbing his mind and body. He does not fight it, but still, he remembers Maire. He just wants to forget how his divorce ended. Men don't cry. Men drink.

"Kerrigan, gemmie some whisky."

"Jack, you really should sleep."

"Can't. Love to, but can't."

"Jack, I'm really worried about you."

"Don't be. Just get me some whisky."

"Do I have to go out, or is there still some left here?"

"Should be some in the kitchen."

Kerrigan goes into the kitchen and fills a basket with bottles of whisky. She delivers them to Jack on the couch. Kerrigan took responsibility for Jack. She had given his brothers their first taste of whisky when they were her pupils. They let him use them to get drunk, so Kerrigan feels that it was her fault. Jack sits and wishes for mercy. He is numb, but he feels it burn. The whisky is not very good, He got it cheap, but it is strong, and that is what matters to him now. Bottle after bottle. Gallon after gallon. More of the same burn. The amber liquid tumbles past Jack's heart into the black abyss. It makes him numb. For a minute, he feels peace. He wants to sleep. He cannot.

Jack falls into a stupor. Kerrigan thinks that she should really be going home to her husband, but she stays with Jack. He needs to get to bed, so she will wait for him to sleep. She drinks with him. She has things she wishes to forget too. She understands Jack. She loves him like a son. Jack lies against the arm of his sofa. His legs are so long that he cannot lay down fully on it. He pulls a cigar and match out of his jacket pocket. He lights the match against this shoe. The flame hisses and settles. He touches the flickering flame to his cigar and pulls the bitter smoke into his lungs. He drinks the whisky. He smokes the cigar. Jack relaxes. Finally, Jack relaxes.

Kerrigan starts singing a low lullaby, and Jack drifts into a deep sleep with a cigar in his mouth and an empty whisky bottle in his hand. Kerrigan puts the bottle on a table and extinguishes the cigar in Jack's metal ash try. She lifts a man over twice her size and carries him up the stairs to his bedroom. She has had years of experience with her husband, his brothers, and her own sons. Kerrigan takes off Jack's clothing and puts him in his pajamas and into bed. She tucks him into his four-poster bed, singing her lullaby all the while. Jack has a four-poster bed with long, green velvet curtains on the sides and end. Above the headboard, there is a family crest. The bed has green satin sheets. Kerrigan tucks Jack into bed and strokes his ginger hair for a few minutes. Kerrigan locks Jack's front door from the inside, puts his keys on his dresser top, and goes home to her own husband. Jack sleeps the sleep of the dead, the innocent, or, in his case, the very drunk. Finally, Jack gets his peace.