THEODORE RILEY
I RECALL we took the shortcut we weren’t supposed to take and, as fate would have it, the three Mc Murtry brothers stopped us in the middle of the alley–their alley.
My fists clenched. My older brother Kiernan held his hand across the front of me and said, “Be still.” My fists remained knotted and ready but “still” for the time being.
The three Mc Murtry hoodlums were the regrettable sons of a wealthy Protestant gangster, our Da’s political rival. None of them over eighteen, and all with faces as cheerful as dead hamsters. First, one of them shoved Kiernan and started yelling about our Da, his politics, our being Catholic, and something about Da having a “floozy” at the pub. Kiernan, a tall, slender agent of peace who was headed for priesthood, tried to reason with them. “Not our business,” he said, holding his hands up, real calm. Then the fat drug-head brother, who had cheeks like boiled cabbage, threw a punch, took Kiernan off guard. I kicked the biggest brother in the nads, but the pervert dropped me to the ground and pinned my arms. I couldn’t move and lay face-down screaming for them to stop beating Kiernan and for that hamster to get his fat arse the hell off a’ me. “He’s no fighter,” I shouted. “Off me, you prigs! Let me up! I’ll fight ya all!”
But they didn’t stop their punches, blows, and kicks to his ribs even after he’d passed out.
“Kiernan!” I called out. “Kiernan?”
Then they turned on me and just as they started in an old lady at the end of the alley screamed, “Guard! Help! Guard!” They ran off. I scrambled to the ground at Kiernan’s side. “Are ya alright?” There was blood all over his coat, his shirt, his face . . . none on his fists.
I lifted his head onto my lap. “Ah, brother . . . ” His eyes were open, but he wasn’t breathing. I rocked back and forth, holding his lifeless body, and cried, “Sometimes you have to fight, brother. You have to fight.”
***
The next Friday, my tenth birthday, Kiernan’s body lay wrapped in Da’s best tweed suit in a fancy casket in our sitting room. As we waited for the wake to begin, for the people from church, Da’s lace factory, our pub, grocery, and school to come give their bests, bring their casseroles, and say their prayers and goodbyes to my brother, I slipped out the back door.
Just the Friday before I’d waited for Kiernan to come home and play. I was splayed across a dirt trench in our backyard stacking tiny sandbags, setting up a battlefield, forming hills and rock walls, digging trenches and valleys. Mamaí hollered to me, “Theo, watch yer sister. And remind yer Da to get milk on his way from the pub,” then slammed the front door and left.
I said, “Okay,” but kept playing. Da left. I forgot my little sister Imogene and continued to set up for our backyard battle, lining up my tin soldiers, the Irish Defense Forces, with green arm bands that would soon battle Kiernan’s British Forces, with red arm bands. It was my fault we had to go out for milk. My fault the battle we ended up in was real, not play.
I didn’t know much about politics, and didn’t care much about the difference between Protestant and Catholic, but did know what I had to do for Kiernan, who always had my back, defended and protected me. I understood that. It was a brother’s sacred contract. And I understood battlefield strategy and that a good one was needed against these blaggards that were all twice—make that three times—my size.
***
I sneaked inside Mc Murtry’s store without their Da seeing me, hid under a counter and watched the gouger count his pinched riches and open his big safe, full as a Gypsy’s bra, then stuff that money inside and lock up the store. He secured every window, double-checked all the doors, and left. Then outside was the rumble of his posh car; finally, he was gone.
When I came out of hiding, right next to me was the sweeties shelf lined with boxes of my favorite, Baby Ruth bars. I was tempted to snitch one but recalled Kiernan saying to me another time a candy bar looked good to my itchy fingers, “Rileys are not pinchers.” So I left it and went on with my preparations.
My knowledge of the Mc Murtry boys’ legenday, riotous Friday night card games in the back of the store made them sitting ducks. While waiting for them to arrive I gathered my battle supplies, gasoline and matches, then poured a ring of gasoline around the back room, up and down the aisles—then climbed up onto a rafter to wait. It wasn’t much of a wait.
About ten minutes later they showed up, half drunk, oblivious to the smell of fumes I thought for sure would give me away. They entered the small, windowless back room where they had a table, chairs, and their secret reserve of whiskey and cigarettes. Above the door rested a high wooden beam sturdy enough to hold me. From that beam, with matches in hand, I watched as they settled up to the table. Their other thieving friends would show up soon, so there was little time—and in combat, timing was everything.
They laughed, talking about how they’d taken the new kid Grady’s lunch money, as they had mine a hundred times, and how after they did that, they did something to his pretty sister and how funny it was that they left her crying in the park with her knickers torn. They’d been bad to the bone all their lives—nobody’d miss ’em.
I dropped from the beam, lit a stick match and said, “You shouldn’t a’ picked on Kiernan, he wasn’t a fighter.”
“Jasus!” Joe Mc Murtry said. “Ya scared the piss outta me jumpin’ down like a chimpanzee.”
“And that Grady girl,” I said, “too good for any of ya pissers.”
“Go home to yer Da,” Joe said. “That provo piss-head. And that brother a’ yers—a fighter? No, he was a poofer. Now go, ya rossie shit, get the hell outta here ’fore I get up and beat—”
“No need gettin’ up,” I said. “I’ll see myself out.” I then tossed the flame to the floor.
A wall of fire exploded across the room. They all leapt up; their chairs flew backward. I latched the door, high-tailed it out the front, and never looked back.
***
At Kiernan’s wake, Mamaí, whose face was now like that of a disappointed Madonna on a vicarage wall, tucked his Bible into the coffin with him. She said I smelled of smoke and told me to go wash my hands and face and to be a good boy. I did.
And as a good boy I stood next to Kiernan’s casket all night. As the sound of the fire truck siren rang out six blocks away, I tucked a prayer card and a tin soldier, one of mine, in Kiernan’s pocket, then tucked one of his in mine, and said, “I took care of it, brother. You rest in peace now.”
Imogene stood about waist high next to me, crying. I took her tiny hand in mine and said, “Don’t worry, sissy, I’ll watch after ya.” She finally lay down in a cozy chair and went to sleep.
The church people brought lamb stews, soda breads, meat boxty, and sweet potato fadge. Mamaí slid a Baby Ruth candy bar into my pocket and said, “You’re a good boy, Theo. A good boy to sit with yer brother.” Her eyes were swollen and heavy. She looked half-asleep. She hugged me tight. “You still smell of smoke.” Just then a neighbor rushed in and said the Mc Murtry store had burned to the ground and the three sons were dead.
Mamaí’s swollen eyes bulged. She stared at the man as he gave details to the gathering crowd of mourners. Then, slowly, she looked down at me, that sleepy look gone, her green eyes full of questions. She reached into Kiernan’s coffin, snatched up his Bible, handed it to me and whispered, “Alright then, boy, just understand.” She shoved the Bible into my hand. “There’s a price for revenge, and it will be paid. You’ll take his place now.”
I looked down at Kiernan who had always protected me, and in that moment, for the first time, it really sank in deep, deep into me that my big brother was gone and that both our life paths were irretrievably altered by my actions and one of Mamaí’s unbreakable sacred contracts. The weight of his well-worn white Bible crashed down upon me. My eyes burned with tears.
“There’ll be no tears,” she said. “You chose your path, now walk it. And don’t say a word, boy.” She whispered, “Not a word . . . I’ve already lost one son. Now quick, go find your Da. The dye is set. We must act fast. No time for boyish tears.”
***
That weekend my birthday came and went without notice, without cake or gifts. Instead it came amidst tears and rumors of old man Mc Murtry’s quest for revenge. He threatened the Grady family, whose daughter was raped by his sons the same night of the fire—and threatened our Da, who he figured had something to do with that fire, and threatened our shrinking group of friends, who, fearing his wrath, distanced themselves.
With Kiernan buried, we sold everything we owned and boarded a train, then a steamer and headed out of Ireland for America. In America, Mamaí had a good friend, Constance Beaumont, who lived in a small town on the Oregon Coast. There, she said, we’d be safe.
From that day forward Mamaí forced me to attend church every Sunday, say my prayers, wear a rosary—carrying it in my pocket wasn’t enough; she wanted it on my body so Christ Our Savior would protect me from myself. And from that day forward in Mamaí’s eyes was that fear when she looked at me, fear when she held me, her precious lone son, whose soul was tainted by a sin so dark she would only whisper it in prayer, red rosary in hand, face lowered in shame.
Da’s dread of what may become of my “violent tendencies” led him to believe that a good beating on Saturdays would keep me in check, then church on Sundays. But as we settled into our new home and got to know our new neighbor, an American Indian, once a chief and warrior, Mamaí, despite her stern Catholic manner, decided Da’s beatings were not the way. God had sent us an angel, she said, an archangel maybe, but one of God’s angels none the less, and that angel’s name was Solomon.
Mamaí decided Solomon would teach me his ways of hunting, fishing, hiking, and most of all, his ways of finding harmony in this world. Harmony, she said, was the deep well that would be the source of my salvation. She figured with her prayers, red rosaries, and constant vigilance over my blemished soul, along with Solomon’s training, that my aggressive inclinations would take a healthy, new direction. But a blemished soul is a blemished soul.