This is after Brendan's been caught in a bombing and taken to his Aunt's home in Houston to recuperate. She has 3 kids, 2 girls a boy, Scott, and they live next to River Oaks. Brendan is trying to rebuild his life by doing what he used to do in Derry, fix things. Todd's a bartender at The Colonel's and Brendan's his bar-back.
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Word got around to the neighbors and I’d be asked over to fix a vacuum cleaner or lawn mower -- not by the home-owners, themselves, mind you, but by their maids and gardeners. Then they’d slip me a couple dollars and I’d add that to the pile I was saving. Still I noticed that many would sooner toss lamps and appliances in the dustbin than get them repaired, so I began fetching them out and fixing what I could, myself. I found a second-hand shop on Shepherd where the owner would give me a bit of cash for whatever I brung him, and I’d add that to my pile.
Dunno why I was saving money, except I still had the notion of opening my own repair shop and knew I’d need cash for it. I wasn’t like Uncle Sean, who could borrow from banks or build up investors for his newest venture -- as he was doing with The Colonel’s; my profile would have to remain low because I knew if I was found out, I’d be deported and bring no end of trouble to those who’d helped me.
I wasn’t told this by my aunt and uncle; I pieced it together from things they let slip along with bits mentioned in letters I got from Mairead. As I understand it, Danny got me home -- Colm's name was never raised -- and I was worse than bad off. Blood covered me, one arm hung at my side and I responded to nothing, not even Ma’s fury and slaps, of which there were many. Father Jack and two lads from the IRA showed up within minutes and the initial thought was to say I was caught in the bombing and take me to hospital -- but a Catholic lad hurt in a bomb on the Waterside would have been suspicious, and because I had a medical history at Altnagelvin, I couldn’t say I was Protestant. A doctor sympathetic to the cause was snuck into the house, reset my dislocated shoulder, sewed closed the cuts and bound up three cracked ribs, after which he put me on pills to keep me quiet.
I was snuck across the border in Armagh as Father Jack traveled by the normal route, then he took me to Shannon Airport. Papers had been worked up for a three months medical visa in America and I was ferried to Houston as a charity case the church was taking there for cancer evaluation at a hospital that specialized in it, all under some long-dead lad’s name. Then I was handed over to my aunt and uncle and Father Jack flew home, and not once did immigration raise a question. I got the feeling my status was something we’d simply work out when the time come.
To be honest, I didn’t care if it did, for Aunt Mari’s family helped keep me active. The girls adopted me as their pet and undertook a complete makeover of my wardrobe. I wound up with hip-hugger jeans and cut-offs and boots and sandals and enough Madras button-ups and printed t-shirts to fill a bloody Wellworths, which dented my savings but there were low-cost and second-hand shops around to keep it to a minimum. I wasn’t allowed to cut my hair, but they showed me how to make it smooth and shiny. I could shave the scruff on my face but had to leave what fuzz there was for my moustache -- and after it being so long since I’d put a razor to my cheek, I had enough to claim one. They took me ice-skating in The Galleria and introduced me to MacDonald’s and assured me the football team -- soccer team was as fine as anything in Ireland. On that they exaggerated greatly; the games we attended were pathetic.
As for Scott, he was accepted to university in Austin so was planning for that. And it was decided once he left, I’d take over the pool house and he’d be back to his old room. He was so ready to move on to another city, he didn’t mind.
So I settled into a nice routine. A busy one that kept my mind focused on the now and wouldn’t let it drift into the past. And the flashes of memory faded away and I regained some of the weight I’d lost to the point I felt good enough to walk home after work, some nights, not so much because Todd felt put out by giving me a lift but because he took up with a girl in Jersey Village, which was the opposite direction from me. So on the nights he had a date, I went “shanks mare,” as he put it. And I didn’t mind because invariably I’d find something nice in a dustbin -- no, trash can along the way that I could take on to repair and feel quite the entrepreneur...Uncle Sean’s word, not mine, though I did like the sound of it.
Now sometimes cars would pull up and an older gentlemen inside would ask if I’d like a lift, but I always turned them down. I had no trust of strangers and had a fair idea they weren’t asking me out of the kindness in their hearts. But one warm night this car slowed beside me and there were two lads my age inside, and one called out to me, “Hey, you’re the Irish guy!”
I looked in it and recognized the passenger as having been in the bar a couple times, plus I’d seen him around as I came to work, usually with some older fella. He was shorter and slimmer than even me with longer hair and a ratty little goatee, and his eyes were red...which I knew wasn’t from drinking. The driver was blond, a bit heavier and seemed more interested in the longneck beer he was holding than in any conversation, but what struck me most about him was how his hand shook as he drank from the bottle.
“Howya,” was all I said.
“I’m Wayne,” the passenger said as he offered his hand.
I shook it and, “Bren,” was all I told him.
“Cool. So you’re walking home?”
“It’s not so very far.”
“Want a lift? We’re headed down Shepherd. Going to a party, over at a friend of mine’s in Pasadena.”
“Thanks, but I’m almost there.”
“You sure? You could go to the party with us, man. Dean’s a cool guy; don’t mind you showing up. He’s got shitloads of everything -- beer, whiskey, other stuff.” And he gave the toke sign.
I thought about it. I’d been missing Todd’s joints and had considered asking him to get me some smoke of my own, but I had a revolving fan in hand and didn’t want to give it up, and no way in hell would I ferry that to a party. So I said, “I’m knackered -- uh, beat. Maybe another time.”
“C’mon, man, there’ll be girls there and lots of music and shit. You’ll have shitloads of fun.”
“Thanks. You have it for me.”
As I backed away, I heard the driver say, “Told you. Now let’s check Jack-In-The-Box,” then he drove off.
Something about it struck me odd, but I put it aside and continued home.
I mentioned it to Todd the next night and he snarled, “That’s one dude you wanna keep away from, Bren.”
“You think? Seems right enough.”
“Maybe. I dunno what it is about him, but there’s guys who’ll be all nice and palsy-walsy with you till you’re using their junk -- ”
“Junk?”
“Drugs. They get you hooked, make you a customer and soon you’re going out stealin’ shit or turnin’ tricks for ‘em. I think he’s one.”
“He did offer some stuff.”
“I think that older guy he’s with’s his dealer. They’re connected to a few too many kids who’ve run off from around here and it's just -- just stay away from him.”
I saw Wayne and his mates around a few more times and he always waved at me and did the toke sign, but I blew him off. A couple months later, his photo and the blond guy’s were plastered all over the paper, and I found out the parties he referred to weren’t for drugs. He was procuring lads for to be raped and killed by his buddy, Dean. Meaning that’s what he’d intended for me at the party he was going to. And it shook me up, how close I’d come to being one of them.
-------
Word got around to the neighbors and I’d be asked over to fix a vacuum cleaner or lawn mower -- not by the home-owners, themselves, mind you, but by their maids and gardeners. Then they’d slip me a couple dollars and I’d add that to the pile I was saving. Still I noticed that many would sooner toss lamps and appliances in the dustbin than get them repaired, so I began fetching them out and fixing what I could, myself. I found a second-hand shop on Shepherd where the owner would give me a bit of cash for whatever I brung him, and I’d add that to my pile.
Dunno why I was saving money, except I still had the notion of opening my own repair shop and knew I’d need cash for it. I wasn’t like Uncle Sean, who could borrow from banks or build up investors for his newest venture -- as he was doing with The Colonel’s; my profile would have to remain low because I knew if I was found out, I’d be deported and bring no end of trouble to those who’d helped me.
I wasn’t told this by my aunt and uncle; I pieced it together from things they let slip along with bits mentioned in letters I got from Mairead. As I understand it, Danny got me home -- Colm's name was never raised -- and I was worse than bad off. Blood covered me, one arm hung at my side and I responded to nothing, not even Ma’s fury and slaps, of which there were many. Father Jack and two lads from the IRA showed up within minutes and the initial thought was to say I was caught in the bombing and take me to hospital -- but a Catholic lad hurt in a bomb on the Waterside would have been suspicious, and because I had a medical history at Altnagelvin, I couldn’t say I was Protestant. A doctor sympathetic to the cause was snuck into the house, reset my dislocated shoulder, sewed closed the cuts and bound up three cracked ribs, after which he put me on pills to keep me quiet.
I was snuck across the border in Armagh as Father Jack traveled by the normal route, then he took me to Shannon Airport. Papers had been worked up for a three months medical visa in America and I was ferried to Houston as a charity case the church was taking there for cancer evaluation at a hospital that specialized in it, all under some long-dead lad’s name. Then I was handed over to my aunt and uncle and Father Jack flew home, and not once did immigration raise a question. I got the feeling my status was something we’d simply work out when the time come.
To be honest, I didn’t care if it did, for Aunt Mari’s family helped keep me active. The girls adopted me as their pet and undertook a complete makeover of my wardrobe. I wound up with hip-hugger jeans and cut-offs and boots and sandals and enough Madras button-ups and printed t-shirts to fill a bloody Wellworths, which dented my savings but there were low-cost and second-hand shops around to keep it to a minimum. I wasn’t allowed to cut my hair, but they showed me how to make it smooth and shiny. I could shave the scruff on my face but had to leave what fuzz there was for my moustache -- and after it being so long since I’d put a razor to my cheek, I had enough to claim one. They took me ice-skating in The Galleria and introduced me to MacDonald’s and assured me the football team -- soccer team was as fine as anything in Ireland. On that they exaggerated greatly; the games we attended were pathetic.
As for Scott, he was accepted to university in Austin so was planning for that. And it was decided once he left, I’d take over the pool house and he’d be back to his old room. He was so ready to move on to another city, he didn’t mind.
So I settled into a nice routine. A busy one that kept my mind focused on the now and wouldn’t let it drift into the past. And the flashes of memory faded away and I regained some of the weight I’d lost to the point I felt good enough to walk home after work, some nights, not so much because Todd felt put out by giving me a lift but because he took up with a girl in Jersey Village, which was the opposite direction from me. So on the nights he had a date, I went “shanks mare,” as he put it. And I didn’t mind because invariably I’d find something nice in a dustbin -- no, trash can along the way that I could take on to repair and feel quite the entrepreneur...Uncle Sean’s word, not mine, though I did like the sound of it.
Now sometimes cars would pull up and an older gentlemen inside would ask if I’d like a lift, but I always turned them down. I had no trust of strangers and had a fair idea they weren’t asking me out of the kindness in their hearts. But one warm night this car slowed beside me and there were two lads my age inside, and one called out to me, “Hey, you’re the Irish guy!”
I looked in it and recognized the passenger as having been in the bar a couple times, plus I’d seen him around as I came to work, usually with some older fella. He was shorter and slimmer than even me with longer hair and a ratty little goatee, and his eyes were red...which I knew wasn’t from drinking. The driver was blond, a bit heavier and seemed more interested in the longneck beer he was holding than in any conversation, but what struck me most about him was how his hand shook as he drank from the bottle.
“Howya,” was all I said.
“I’m Wayne,” the passenger said as he offered his hand.
I shook it and, “Bren,” was all I told him.
“Cool. So you’re walking home?”
“It’s not so very far.”
“Want a lift? We’re headed down Shepherd. Going to a party, over at a friend of mine’s in Pasadena.”
“Thanks, but I’m almost there.”
“You sure? You could go to the party with us, man. Dean’s a cool guy; don’t mind you showing up. He’s got shitloads of everything -- beer, whiskey, other stuff.” And he gave the toke sign.
I thought about it. I’d been missing Todd’s joints and had considered asking him to get me some smoke of my own, but I had a revolving fan in hand and didn’t want to give it up, and no way in hell would I ferry that to a party. So I said, “I’m knackered -- uh, beat. Maybe another time.”
“C’mon, man, there’ll be girls there and lots of music and shit. You’ll have shitloads of fun.”
“Thanks. You have it for me.”
As I backed away, I heard the driver say, “Told you. Now let’s check Jack-In-The-Box,” then he drove off.
Something about it struck me odd, but I put it aside and continued home.
I mentioned it to Todd the next night and he snarled, “That’s one dude you wanna keep away from, Bren.”
“You think? Seems right enough.”
“Maybe. I dunno what it is about him, but there’s guys who’ll be all nice and palsy-walsy with you till you’re using their junk -- ”
“Junk?”
“Drugs. They get you hooked, make you a customer and soon you’re going out stealin’ shit or turnin’ tricks for ‘em. I think he’s one.”
“He did offer some stuff.”
“I think that older guy he’s with’s his dealer. They’re connected to a few too many kids who’ve run off from around here and it's just -- just stay away from him.”
I saw Wayne and his mates around a few more times and he always waved at me and did the toke sign, but I blew him off. A couple months later, his photo and the blond guy’s were plastered all over the paper, and I found out the parties he referred to weren’t for drugs. He was procuring lads for to be raped and killed by his buddy, Dean. Meaning that’s what he’d intended for me at the party he was going to. And it shook me up, how close I’d come to being one of them.
Christ, was I the cat with nine lives, or what?
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