Jerry, Kris, and Me

Jerry King passed away this week. We bid him adieu yesterday. Jerry was a friend of mine and I wanted to try to write a few simple words about him today.

So, here goes…

When Patricia and I landed in Castlebar, back in 1997, we knew hardly anybody but ourselves. As time passed, we tended to each seek out some things we knew and find some welcome there. For Patricia, one of these was Castlebar Tennis Club. She peered in the gate at Pavilion Road and was warmly welcomed in by Anne Garavan, marking the start of many years of playing and many great friendships, which continue right up to today.

For me it was the library. Wherever I lived in my life, I had always found solace and shelter in the local library. From my first of many excursions, as a boy, into Sligo Library, to the grand reading room of Melbourne City Library, from Chelsea, Twickenham, and Kensington right here to Castlebar, where I stuck my nose in the door, found a welcome, and never looked back.

Jerry King was a key part of Castlebar Library, and he made me feel welcome there from the first time I set foot inside. I probably first met him when I was checking out a couple of books and, while doing it, he expressed an interest in what I was going to read. This initial contact soon grew into long discussions about books and reading and developed to a place where Jerry would sometimes even lead me through the bookshelves to find a volume that he guessed I might like. He was never wrong.

Jerry didn’t just check out books in the library though, he lived and breathed the place and his innovations there became things which continue to shape my experience of living here in Castlebar. He organised a wildly impressive series of writers to come for evenings where they would read and talk to an audience. These were tremendously successful and I have great memories of many of the writers who came. The excitement of having Frank McCourt, hot off his success with Angela’s Ashes. The impressive spectacle of Joseph O’Connor,  decked out in one of his best suits, expanding on his ‘Star of the Sea.’ But, for me, the night to end all nights was to be allowed to sit in the quiet company of the Master himself, John McGahren, as he quietly read from his work and modestly deflected questions about the TV adaptation of Amongst Women, advising the audience that he had never seen it.

Jerry was a master of table quizzes. I loved his quizzes, particularly the music rounds. Our tastes seemed so in tune that I always seemed to do well with those questions. Our LP stacks must have looked quite similar to each other’s.

Jerry started a monthly evening gathering in the library of people who liked poetry and I went along, even though poetry often remains a bit of a mystery to me. The evenings turned out to be magical and memorable. It was amazing to see the elderly ladies who turned up, reciting entire works from memory, for that was how they were taught. The evenings encouraged us to look deeper into poetry to find something new to read out each month. One month, I remember, I brought a lyric from a Bob Dylan song, ‘The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.’ I read it out and boldly claimed it was as much poetry as anything else we might read or hear. Jerry didn’t say too much but, the next month, he turned up with the lyrics to ‘Me and Bobby McGee’ by Kris Kristofferson. He cited my bringing of Dylan and said he felt encouraged by me to do this. Then, remarkably and unforgettably, he sang the entire song to the assembled group. There we were, Jerry, Kris, and me, bound in a small moment. The singing of that song, at that moment, seemed to tie a lot of things together: Library, Music, Quizzes, Poetry, Friendship and Life. It was a moment I will not forget.

The poetry evenings came and went after a few years, though I do believe the lasting and excellent Book Club, which came after, owed quite a lot to it. I saw Jerry regularly in various places. At friends’ houses, the Tennis Club, behind the desk in the library, although his duties often kept him in higher office as the years progressed. It was always a delight to see his smiling face and to be unfailingly heartened and challenged in equal measure by whatever was the order of his day.

June 24^th, 2018, was a Sunday night and, around ten in the evening, I decided to take a walk around the town as I often did. That evening I detoured up towards the TF Royal Theatre because I wanted to see the crowd come out and get a feel for how the evening had gone. Kris Kristofferson was in our little town, playing a concert. Although I didn’t go, I felt an urge to be close to the place where he was playing. So I went up there for a look.

The concert had just let out. On the street outside I met Jerry and Majella, who had been to see Kris. The same Kris who Jerry had sung so brilliantly for poetry night, so many years before. There is no great point to this story, except that I had rarely met two people who were so alive and so happy to be out and about and in each other’s company. We chatted about how great the concert had been and I regretted not taking the opportunity to go. I hadn’t seen Jerry in a while, for some reason, and I found it completely uplifting to meet both he and Majella on that warm evening. It’s hard to explain but it’s true. Jerry, Kris, and me had enjoyed one more small moment together.

I’m going to miss Jerry. I’ll miss seeing his smiling face down on The Mall. I will miss being slipped a book I would never have found by myself. I will miss knowing that the elusive tune in Question Five of the Table Quiz is that final piano part from ‘Layla.’ The bit Scorsese used in ‘Goodfellas.’

Thanks for everything, Jerry. For all the books music, smiles, songs, questions, and answers.

Travel well, mate.