Brendan's way...

 I've found, as I write, Brendan's way of dealing with problems is to fix something. He does it a few times in Book One, and it shows up in Book Two when his uncle is having car trouble.

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...This one morning, when there was a mist in the air that kept the heat from becoming smothering, I woke to a motor chugging, outside, again and again and... 

Josiah O’Shea’s Cortina wouldn’t start on damp mornings and he’d had near everyone he could think of check into it, at no small cost to himself, until he let me look into it and I found the problem and... 

I laughed. Startled myself, remembering Josiah. A man who personified the image of a leprechaun. The first time I'd had a happy memory from nowhere. I nearly sighed with joy from it. 

I looked at the clock and it was just past nine. I'd been rising about this time, anyway, so got out of the bed and went to the window. It didn't hurt that the constant irregular noise was finally beginning to drive me mad. If a car's not working, why keep trying to make it do what it doesn't want to? 

I saw Uncle Sean was at the Volvo, under the bonnet...the hood, as it were; might as well use the American terms for all things. It was a dark blue 544 and looked like it had the twin SU Carbs to it. A decent car it was but in need of a wash and maybe attention paid to the rust spots developing between the passenger door and front wing...fender. The interior wasn’t in quite as good of shape but wasn’t beyond saving. From here the motor looked fine. But when Uncle Sean got behind the wheel to turn the key, I could hear the telltale creaking that meant some lubrication would be needed, or maybe a fresh set of dampers...shocks. 

Angus lay on the grass, nearby, watching him patiently.

He tried to start the motor, again, and it chugged along, working really hard to catch but not managing. So he went back under the hood, unplugged the spark wires, re-plugged them and tried again. Only to get nothing when he tried to start it. So back under the hood to undo other connections and redo them and try again. It was comical, for he did not sit easy in that car. 

Well, I had enough of it and went all the way downstairs and out the back door. Angus came up to greet me, so I gave him a scratch behind the ears. The bricks were wet and sticky, and the air had begun to feel warm and smothering, despite the mist. I wore only pajama bottoms, still, no slippers even, so the soaked grass tickled my feet...and I loved the feel of it... 

Caressing the back of my neck as I lay on the hillside, Joanna beside me, our complaints about life in Derry so simple and pure... 

I stopped, halfway to him from the house, took in a deep breath and forced myself to say, “Havin' troubles?” 

He jumped and looked at me as if I were a madman, which I probably seemed to him. “Bren, what you doin' out here? You ain’t dressed.” 

I shrugged. “Would you care for me to look at it?” I motioned to the Volvo. 

He grimaced, in response. “Dunno what you can do. Does this every time there’s a fog in the mornin'. Then in the afternoon, it starts up fine. But I need to get to Liam's and this is the only car left.” 

"Liam's?" 

"One of my bars. Liam's Trough. Not far from here..." 

I looked around and saw two dry spots where the other cars had been. “When’s Aunt Mari back?” 

“Dunno. Guess I’ll grab a cab. Lookin' at buyin' 'nother bar up in The Heights and the owner’s droppin' by to talk. I’ll get it towed to the shop, tomorrow.” 

I just leaned over the motor and it reeked of petrol...gas. He had flooded it. The engine was in fine enough shape. The cables were on the old side, possibly original. Same for the coil. I pulled at it without gripping the glove and it nearly come out. “Try startin’ it, again, but no more petrol.” 

He shrugged and sat behind the wheel and the car creaked. Definitely lubrication. I pushed both ends of the coil’s cable against their gloves, and the motor fired right up. 

Uncle Sean bolted from the car, startled. “What’d you do?” 

“You need a new coil,” I said. “It’s comin’ apart inside the glove, so you can’t see it. Dampness keeps it from makin’ the connection. Is there an auto shop nearby?” 

“On the way to Liam's. I can stop off.” 

I nodded. “You might want to think about havin’ all the cables replaced. They’re about due.” 

“Damn, Bren, where’d you learn that?” 

“I’ve been at this since forever. Clocks, tellys and the like. Cars. Made money from it. Had a job.” 

“Your mother never said a word.” Then he seemed to give himself a mental kick and added, "I mean..well..." 

"It's all right," I said. "She thinks me simple." 

Then I headed back to the house, feeling vague and sleepy but also hungry for breakfast. Both Uncle Sean and Angus let me go. 

There was no one about to ask after food, so I dug into the cooler. Found neither eggs nor sausage for a fry-up, so fixed a sandwich from the wealth of things available. Flaps of cheeses and a round, thin-sliced meat called bologna that didn't even begin to look like meat, and lettuce so crisp it could cut you and some sort of mixed sauce called Sandwich Spread all piled high on two slices of white bread that felt as light as a feather. There were also tomatoes, but they were so rich and red they made me uneasy. I found only a couple cans of Dr Pepper chilled in the fridge’s door so took one, opened it and returned to my room. 

I sat on the bed and ate, feeling very luxurious, and thoroughly enjoyed the Dr Pepper; it wasn’t as sharp and biting as Coke. Then I dozed a little before rising, again, and for the first time found myself weary of having nothing on me but sweat and pajamas. 

I took a long hot shower. Let the steam boil through me. Watched how it caught the light from the window and made tiny rainbows in the clouds of beauty and gentleness. Loved how it filled my lungs and wiped away the world long past. This was such luxury. Then I toweled off...and had to towel off twice more, thanks to the humidity bringing out my sweat. 

"No wonder Americans bathe every day and there's non-stop ads on the telly about deodorant," I muttered to myself. "If they didn't slather themselves with it, they'd reek." 

So I did. Some kind of spray called Right Guard. It filled the air and smelled of chemicals, and I wound up coughing my way out of the bathroom from how it near choked me. 

I may have used a bit much.

Zoning...

Due to sleeping poorly, last night. My toilet was acting up and whenever I got up to pee, I had to put my hand in the reservoir basin to stop it from running. Now I'm barely awake. It appears building maintenance fixed it, again, while I was gone. So far, it's been fine, but I'm already ready for bed.

Worked in the office for six hours going over paperwork and plotting out the rest of the week. Got a few groceries on the way home and made potato salad then worked a bit on APoS.

Brendan is reading Mairead's letters from Toronto and is piecing together how he came into America. He also learns the family has had many visitors from Ireland, but Uncle Sean is being cagey about it. Indications are they're from organizations other than NORAID.

But I have to stop because I'll be typing along and suddenly just zone out. Sit here and close my eyes and rest until my head sort of topples over. It'll be an early night.

At least Brendan's learned that...while his brother, Eamonn, was arrested, tried and convicted of smuggling under the Special Powers Act, it had nothing to do with the bombing. He also knows Colm and Danny were not detained. He's not sure how he feels about them since they are directly linked the the bombing that nearly killed him...but that will be determined seven years from now, when he returns.

Forward movement, again

I worked the new stuff in and am now through to chapter 6 of New World for Old. Brendan is overjoyed at his exile. He can now do as he wants, he thinks...but that is quickly cut down when he learns he's overstayed his visa and that presents a problem that needs to be handled before any plans can be made. It winds up being a lot more complicated than that, but that's all for later in the book.

What matters is breaking through the logjam. For now. His brother, Eamonn, gets busted by the Army but Brendan learns it's for being part of a weapons smuggling operation. Initially, it was going to be arms from Libya, but then I remembered Qaddafi's people were pissed off at the IRA in 1973, so I may shift it to Poland. That's who you get Semtex from...the explosive. But it's not what was used in the bomb that Brendan was caught in. It's far too stable.

I'm in the office the rest of the week to assist in the run-up to the NY Antiquarian Book Fair, handling EU and UK dealers who cannot remember from one fair to the next how Customs works. Of course, things are a lot nastier, now, thanks to Brexit. Before that stupid move, we could use the UK as a safe route for transporting books into the US for book fairs. Now we have to deal with a half-dozen different countries' regulations and paperwork, and none of it's easy.

Brexit has also killed some major antiques fairs in the UK, because it's so much hassle and expense to ship items for display in and out it's not worth the time or money. Masterpiece has been canceled, this year, and that was a major fair. But without the EU dealers, it dropped to 40% of what it was and no one wanted to bother.

It's the same in Hong Kong. China messed it up and killed the China in Print Fair. It was a lovely, high-quality book fair in the perfect venue, but no one wants to deal with the new requirements to get it going, again, after Covid. So...stupidity reigns supreme.

Well...I may have an answer...

All of the angst from yesterday's post kept me up till nearly 4am...but I may have found an answer to the problem. It's not yet a complete answer, but it kicks that can down the road to Book Three. Here's what I got:

How did Brendan get to his Aunt and Uncle's?

He is about to leave Derry, on his own, when he is caught in a horrific car bomb. His left arm is dislocated and 3 ribs broken, lacerations on his face and head, and a concussion. His rucksack was still on his back when the bomb went, which kept him from being more severely injured. Still had his passport and money. 

The car was left in place by two friends of his--Danny who's also cut up but not badly, and Colm. It wasn't supposed to explode until much later. They rush Brendan away to a safe house on the border, near Strabane, and send word to his mother. She comes and fights to keep him alive against those in the Provisional IRA who want to bury him. She contacts her sister and brother in law, in Houston and they agree to take him. PIRA goes along with it so long as he will stay away.

He's slipped across the border south of Strabane and held in a farm house near Drumcroy. A doctor is brought in and finds he's suffering from Akinetic Catatonia and his heart is acting up. He needs time to heal from his wounds and near heart attack. Aunt Mari and Uncle Sean use their money and connections to give Brendan that time. 

He's provided a passport under the name Brennan McGabbhin, thanks to a farming accident that killed a man and injured his son, in Donegal. That was nearly a year ago, but it's still usable. Aunt Mari travels over to take him from the Irish Republic to Houston. He gets a 3 month medical visa due to heart and emotional problems, then an extension, then overstays. 

So the story in Derry becomes: Brendan Kinsella has left to find work, as verified by a note and money left behind for his mother. And while there are rumors he's dead, no one really knows. Ma even tells his brothers and sister she thinks he's probably run afoul of PIRA and is buried somewhere. Mairead, his married sister in Toronto, has an idea of what really happened but plays along to keep Brendan safe.

And Brendan, now Brennan, is exiled.

I still haven't worked out why Ma protects him after being so nasty to him for so long, but I have ideas. We'll have to see what comes up in Book Three. 

Why?

I'm stuck in wondering why Brendan is snuck into the US instead of just being put in a grave. Why would PIRA go through all that trouble? How would they even know a way to contact his aunt and uncle and assume they would agree to it? Or...how would his aunt find out about this in time to stop him being shot and buried? He would be a direct link back to his family and his brother and friends, if he was allowed to live.

Does it have to do with his father? Anything that happened with him would have been nearly 25 years before the bombing, when the IRA was regrouping and trying to figure out who they were, again, after WW2. Their next border campaign to break the NI away from the UK wasn't until the middle 50s, right around the time Brendan was born.

I don't have an answer and I need one to continue. It will figure in everything, because even he is wondering this. He's ecstatic he's free...but he's also wondering why. There has to be a reason for this to be happening this way, and I've been glossing over it till now. Ignoring it, really. So I spent all day wondering and asking myself and digging and coming up empty.

Worked myself into a tension headache and made a pain in my middle right back even worse, so right now my head is killing me and my back won't let me move fast, at all. Can't blame that just on old age. It's all because I'm pushing to get to the end of this book and I need answers. And I'm not finding them. I'm even wondering if there is one. If maybe I've written myself into a corner with no way out...and will have to redo Book One completely. Shit.

Maybe sometimes there is no answer.

Brendan learns who he is

 This is part of chapter 4, where Brendan is told what's going on...

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Aunt Mari drove up and honked at me, and I realized I was standing dead in the middle of the drive. I stepped aside to let her pass and followed the estate...no, station wagon back to the garage. Made it through the large gate before it closed and trotted up to her like a pet dog. 

“Look who’s out and about,” she said as she opened the door. 

“Aunt Mari,” I croaked, “this neighborhood...the space of it all...” 

“Oh, this is nothin’, Bren. What ya doin’ with that?” She motioned to the iron. 

“Thought I’d mend it. Spare you the need of a new one.” 

“I already have one, but if ya’d like to fix it, that’d be nice. I could take the new one back.” 

The rear of the car used some sort of amazing design to vanish into its tail and she pulled out bags of groceries, saying, “Take these in, will ya?” 

I nodded and carried two full bags into the kitchen. She followed with another. Since I still had the iron she had to open the sliding door. 

We set everything on the center counter. 

“Now you sit, lad. I’ll put these away.” 

“I could help you.” 

“No, it’s faster if I do it. I know where everything goes. And we've plenty of time before we leave.” 

"Leave?" 

“The doctor’s. Isn’t that why ya're dressed?” 

I'd had no particular reason to put on clothes; I'd just wanted to. But thinking about it, I remembered her mentioning at some time or other there was to be a visit. So I shrugged. “Is this all right, what I’m wearin’?” 

“Sure it is. He’s very informal, this man.” 

“You say I’ve seen him before,” I said and... 

The round blond lady dressed in white with a kind face caressed my cheek with the backs of her fingers and said to Aunt Mari, “Lord, his eyes...so big and hurt, they cut right to your heart.“ 

I tensed. Made myself turn focus to the iron. Began to inspect it, carefully. 

Aunt Mari was putting vegetables into the fridge so didn’t notice. “He's a heart specialist." 

"Was...was I having problems with it? My heart?" 

"A little. The pills ya got are for it." 

I nodded, still a bit uncentered. "There was mention of it, I think, when I was at Altnagelvin. But the doctor spoke with Ma, not me." 

She chuckled and said, "Ya were at Altnagelvin?" 

I cast her a confused glance. "Ma didn't tell you?" 

She started putting tins of vegetables in a pantry. "How could she? Yer doctor's name, here, is Gilbert, and he come here, a few times. Then I took ya to him, twice. He told us yer break from the world was good because it helped keep ya quiet and gave yer heart time to mend." 

"Was I so bad off, then?" 

"There were problems, but they've settled. Dr. Gilbert can better fill ya in on them." 

"I doubt I mended from being quiet," I huffed. "The B-girls say I was anything but." 

She cast me a smile. "The B-girls?" 

"Well, I...I can't tell them apart, yet, so..." 

Then she chuckled. "That actually fits those two. Ya'll learn how to handle them. And keep in mind, they both love to exaggerate." 

I shrugged and focused on the iron, not yet willing to accept the snippets of memory that I’d catch. 

"The doctor also said to be patient, with ya. That you'd regain your senses. Seems he was right.” 

"What was it wrong with me?" I asked, fingering the iron's back panel. "Was it my heart caused me to lose my mind?" 

"Ya didn't lose it, Bren. Ya got a severe shock and yer brain couldn't handle it so shut down, that's all. He said it was something like an akinetic catatonia." She dug more tinned goods from the bag she looked straight at me. “Do ya remember anything since ya got here? Any of it?” 

I just shook my head. The iron's back panel wasn’t easy to remove, but I managed to get off to reveal the connections. “Have you a knife I can use?” 

She handed me a strip of metal that held a razor’s blade. “This do?” 

“Aye.” 

I unscrewed the fasteners and got to work on cutting the wire and stripping off the casing so I’d have bald wire to reconnect to them. I slipped the newly stripped part into its holder then tightened everything down with the edge of the blade before replacing the panel. Finally, I looked around for an outlet to test it only to notice Aunt Mari staring at me. 

“What?” I asked. 

“Ya've not heard a word I’ve said,” she replied, a bit peeved. 

“When?” 

“For the last five minutes. I’ve been talkin’ along and ya’ve been offerin’ up an occasional grunt to suggest ya're listenin’, but ya’ve been so focused on that iron, ya haven’t heard a thing, have ya?” 

Shite. I shrugged. “I...I can get like that. On occasion, Ma had to flick me with her finger to snap me from it, but it’s only ‘cause she’d go on and on and I’d just stop listenin’.” 

“And ya think I go on and on like yer mother did?” 

“No!” Now I felt irritated, her making me feel awkward, like that. “I just...I have the habit of it when I’m workin’. I don’t mean anything by it.” 

“Don’t worry,” she said and rubbed my hair. “Lord, ya had such lovely curls, once. Ya like your hair like this?” 

I nodded. “I think I’d prefer it in this heat. I already feel the need of another bath.” 

“Oh, this is nothin’. Wait till August.” 

“August?” 

“That’s usually the worst month for heat and humidity, with September almost as bad.” 

I began to float, as if my feet were no longer touching the floor. I dropped the iron to the counter and just managed to ask, “Aunt Mari, when am I to go home?” 

She did not look at me. Just busied herself with folding the paper bags. “Oh, I...um, I’m not so very sure what’s to happen next.” 

I did not like the sound of that...the meaning of it... “Am I banished?!" 

She only sighed and put the bags into a cabinet drawer. She wasn't answering me. She was trying to avoid my question. 

I could barely breathe. "Why? What did I do?” 

She took in a deep breath and turned to me. “Nothing. It was just an accident and...” 

"Accident? It was a bloody bomb that took down half a...!" 

Her eyes grew sharp and she snapped, "No! Ya were nowhere near a bomb. It was a farming accident. Ya saw yer father decapitated and..." 

"What the bloody hell are you on about?!" 

"Whist that talk! Listen to me. Brendan Kinsella left Derry before that bomb. He had a passport and his mother got his note, showing he left. It was after that, when the bomb went off." 

Then it hit me. "You said I was nowhere." 

She very deliberately said, "We don't know where Brendan is or went. We've no way to contact him. You are Brennan McGabbhin, third cousin to me. From a farm in Donegal." 

“But I was...” whispered from me. 

"Ya were in a farm accident! Nowhere near a bomb." 

"But that's not true...it's not...not..." 

Danny looked around at me, startled, his eyes wide and I turned and started to run for the shop but I slipped on the wet pavement and the world vanished in a cloud of white smoke and fire and silence and I was lying on the ground, blood covering my face and screaming and Danny grabbed me and forced me to my feet and held me as Colm punched me and... 

I was staring at the ceiling, a cold rag to my head and my heart pounding like the devil. It took me a moment to realize I was stretched out on the kitchen floor. Aunt Mari was kneeling over me, a portable phone to her ear. “...When he just keeled over,” she said. "Oh, he's comin' 'round."

Stories...

I slammed into a nasty funk and it took me three days to get myself to where I could refocus on APoS. And I did it by going through the first three chapters, again, and finding Brendan's emotional core in them and heightening it. The story picks up 6 months after the bombing, but to him it's just a day or two. And he keeps having flashbacks to not only the explosion but its aftermath in as people try to decide what to do with him.

But while working on it, earlier, all of a sudden I had added in a quickie flash of what seemed like his mother trying to smother him, while he was injured, and is stopped by Danny. I didn't mean to, because this is a real trigger for me.

My own mother tried to smother me, when we were living in San Diego. I was six months old and sick...hell, I was born sickly...and she was probably going through postpartum depression, which wasn't paid much attention to, back then. She'd never been the strongest, emotionally, and she was close to the edge thanks to that.

I would not stop crying and she had learned my father was fucking around on her. He'd even knocked up another woman. So she put a pillow over me and was pressing down when, apparently, someone dropped a pan in the next apartment and the sudden, sharp noise startled her out of her mood. She took me to a doctor. Found out I had spinal meningitis. I got meds. And she moved us back to San Antonio.

My folks were divorced a few months later. I didn't see my father, again, till I was 21.

When I was 10, she told me about this after one of her breakdowns. She was hospitalized a total of 5 times, starting in London. Twice in San Antonio. Once in Grand Forks, ND. And the last in Glendale, after she and my father had remarried and were trending towards divorce, again.

I handled it. I thought. I dealt with it throughout my life. But suddenly comes this attempt by Ma to smother Brendan, in his flashbacks...and I think that kicked me into this funk. I don't want to use it...but it's right for the story. It's right for Brendan. It's just...it's not right for me.

But it's staying in.

It's staying in.

Monday...fucking Monday...

Couldn't sleep last night, not till after 4am, so today's been a slug of a day. Pretty down. Did nothing-work yet still managed to find out my CPA didn't report $200 in prepaid estimated taxes to NY State. Money I'm due as a refund. Oh, and apparently Blogger went back through my blog postings...and I mean way back...and attached warning notices on two of them. From 2014. When I uploaded the first couple scenes of Carli's Kills in screenplay format.

I protested, and they've agreed that they overreacted, but it's not just fucking irritating; it's scary. This is how obnoxious social platforms are going to be, now. What was fine 9 years ago is On-no-we-can't-have-that, anymore. And it's ridiculous.

There's also all the bullshit about Marjorie Taylor Greene being on 60 Minutes, a program I stopped watching years ago, and TFG flying from Florida to NYC to face charges, tomorrow and the whole right wing uproar over that. CNN did a breathless moment by moment like was done when OJ did on his infamous chase in a Ford Bronco...and to even less effect.

Tennessee is kicking out 3 Democrats from the state house because they support gun control, but not a word in the MSM. Just on Twitter. Florida just enabled any fucking lunatic to buy and carry a gun, and barely a mention. Texas is trying to set it up so the Secretary of State can override the results of an election and install his or her own preference, and still nothing in the MSM. I'm so sick of this country.

Oh, Jesus, Sufjan Stevens' song about John Wayne Gacy is playing on KCRW. Perfect.

Piss poor writer...

Not very up, at the moment. Going through this rewrite of New World for Old, I'm finding stupid mistakes and repetitions and contradictions and it's kicking me in the balls. I can understand typos and even missing words, since sometimes my brain races ahead of my fingers, and while I try to catch them all I know I won't. Even though I'll have gone through it again and again. Then had it proofed. And gone through, again.

But in this I had Brendan calling Bernadette and Brandi, his cousins who act like they're twins but aren't, by their names when he can't yet tell them apart. And they like to mess with him, despite their mother's warning. Made obvious because I mention a few paragraphs later that he still can't tell them apart.

And it's set up he has an appointment with a doctor the following Thursday, but the way much of the preceding chapter is written it seems like events take place over a few weeks. Had to clarify that. But finding issues like this, even as I'm trying to make the book consistent and believable, hit hard at my self-confidence.

I'm still plugging through, but it's looking more and more like this draft is going to take some time. Good thing is, I only have one or two days lined up at Caladex to go over paperwork for the NY Antiquarian Book Fair. That'll happen around two weeks prior to the last weekend of the month, when the fair takes place.

I'm halfway tempted to drive to Toronto and have some Beijing Beef at a Panda Express, there. About 100 miles, each way, for fake Chinese food, but it's one of my obsessions and there are none in this area. Like Jack in the Box; none in the mid-Atlantic or New England states for some damn reason. Two of their tacos would be perfect, right now.

Back to 1.253978886204 or something

Okay, in order to make this work in my head, I rewrote the final part of APoS-Derry, after the bomb, and now I'm going through New World for Old to re-establish Brendan as someone other than who he is. He doesn't realize it, at first, because everyone refers to him as Bren or Cousin Bren. If anyone starts to get too specific about anything regarding him, his aunt or uncle quietly shift the conversation away from that.

I've worked through the first three chapters and it's doing well. Now comes the one where his aunt finally explains to him the reality of the situation...and rather than be horrified, he's relieved. To his own shock. He was brought over as Brennan McGabbhin, a third cousin from Donegal, in Ireland. Brendan has simply vanished and no one knows where. And they plan to keep it like that.

Something else popped into this that I'm a bit startled by. He's injured in the bombing and his heart is close to giving out, and there are discussions as to whether or not to finish him off. So Ma decides to end the arguments by trying to smother him, but is stopped by Eamonn and Father Jack. Bren only remembers snatches of it, as well as moments from the trip over when his medications were wearing off.

But this may lead to Brendan finding out why his mother treats him rough...and my current thought is, she tried to force a miscarriage and it didn't work, like had happened with other pregnancies. She did not want another child, yet here he is, and he's the one who gives her the most trouble. She doesn't hate him; she resents him.

At the moment, I've got Brendan being given Valium to keep him quiet, but I may change that to Librium. Still looking into the interaction with nitroglycerin tablets, since he has a heart issue. So far it doesn't seem like it's a good idea to mix the two. But something to keep in mind is this is 1972/3 and the research is not as conclusive about any of that, yet.

Of course, I only intended to work new details into small sections of the book. Never was gonna happen that way; I did one change here with led to another change there and now I'd doing a full rewrite of NWfO. It's just my way of writing.