Irish Goodbyes (Ch1–6)

Chapter One — Colors

“Hello, darkness, my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again.” — Simon and Garfunkel

I had no clue where we were. I thought it might be early morning, but there was no trace of sunlight, just water trickling down the walls. I strained to catch a hint of anything pushing through a crack or a hole in the asphalt. But there was nothing.

“Dad, where are we?” I whispered as we waded through ankle-high sewage.

“Quiet soldier,” he responded tersely.

Armadillo-sized rats pushed past me. They were everywhere. They scurried over my feet and climbed up my legs. Shit and garbage permeated the air. It stunk to high heaven. I couldn’t decipher if my stomach ached due to the awful smell or the panicky, trapped feeling I felt. It didn’t matter, though, because I was a soldier, and a soldier shows no distress. A soldier has no tells. A soldier lives under pretense.

We marched through the quiet, step after step, slowly. Dad stopped abruptly raising his right arm with his fist clenched. I froze.

“Gooks up ahead. I can smell the dink bastards. Flamethrower soldier.” It was a direct order.

I handed him a red cigarette lighter and a can of Ma’s blue Aqua Net hairspray. Silence and darkness groped me. The rituals preceding death were unfamiliar to me. I was green.

In an instant, a bright white flash illuminated the tunnel. Behind the white flash was a red flame, and within that flame, a blue base. Dad was burning them alive. I was captivated by the colors and swirl of shadows that painted the walls dispelling the darkness.

“Kill ’em all!” I screamed. My voice shrilled in a mid-pubescent screech. I sounded like a girl. Embarrassed and ashamed I regained my timbre. “Send those gook bastards to hell,” I continued in a counterfeit voice.

Intense pretense.

Fire bounced up and down, left to right, right and left, down and up. Dad torched the invisible enemy until every last one of them was dead. As the lighter flickered out a second silence and darkness ensued. A quieter, darker, and more intimate dyad.

Sparks ignited from a second flick of the Bic. A deep inhalation and a crackling noise sounded, like bacon grease popping in a skillet. It sizzled. Dad held his breath for what seemed like an eternity. His body jerked violently as if he were spastically swimming underwater. A boundless cloud of white smoke followed as the light evanesced. Silence and darkness visited again with ghosts dancing inside the smoke. Neither of us moved. I remained motionless; Dad was stuck.

I experienced my first forever.

“Dad, we should go,” I eventually said, but he didn’t respond. He couldn’t. He was being held hostage. I could hear him struggling to speak. I listened to his spit, his tongue, his teeth, and the insides of his mouth wrestling.

“Wait.” He managed, weakly.

A second forever. The silence and darkness feasted upon me. The ghosts turned cannibalistic.

Ten minutes later Bobby Killacky showed up. A good Marine always does.

A voice called from the darkness, “Jack.”

Darkness didn’t answer.

“Sergeant O’Brien, what’s our location?”

Dad snapped to attention. “You know that answer, Lieu.”

“Negative Sergeant O’Brien. I do not. I repeat, what’s our location? I need to call it into command.”

Loc Nihn district, Binh Phuroc province, in some damn dink-built tunnel. They have tunnels everywhere, Lieu. Charlie’s everywhere.”

“That’s clear, Sarge. Your mission is complete here. I order you and your men to stand down. Fine job, soldier, damn fine job.”

Bobby gave Dad a crisp salute. Dad returned. And that was it. Just like that, it was over. The three of us trudged the unhappy road to destiny back in silence. The darkness and ghosts followed closely behind.

We climbed out of a manhole cover in the Getty Square section of Southwest Yonkers. We were a good three miles from where we entered. We must have been down there for hours.

The moon’s soft underpull comforted me as the stars began going in for the night. The horizon promised another day. The sun began to surface as it slept and snored my nightmares away.

That was the last mission Dad, and I had gone on. We had gone on previous ones, but that last one was the first one he had smoked crack. Dad wasn’t even drinking in the earlier missions when he took me out at one or two in the morning. Those missions were solely flashback-driven, dare I say innocent? And poor Ma, she would wake up at 5 a.m. to get ready for the day and find us missing. Her husband and her only son, gone. Not knowing what to do or where we could be, she’d call Bobby. He’d come and find us, every time.

Chapter Two — Sixth Man

Bobby Killacky was my 5th and 6th-grade basketball coach and a United States Marine. He was fond of me and treated me well, but he was enamored with Dad. He and Dad were soldiers. They shared certain bonds civilians couldn’t understand. Dad saw real action in Vietnam. Dad had killed men, possibly even women and children. He also saved numerous lives and brought three children into this world. Bobby respected that. You had to.

I wasn’t terribly athletic or a gifted basketball player. Still, I was a hard worker and enjoyed doing the grunt work and the intangibles. I made up for my lack of talent with hustle. I dove for loose balls, boxed out, rebounded, threw elbows, passed, defended, made my free throws, protected the ball, set picks, took offensive fouls, and when I had to, I took the shot. I wasn’t flashy or graceful. I was fugly. I was the sixth man.

Basketball was a vocation Bobby did not seek, it sought him. He was a natural. Bobby instilled the values of hard work, discipline, commitment, and sacrifice in us. He conditioned our bodies and disciplined our minds. His goal was to turn scared, insecure, and confused boys into confident, fearless, and composed young men. I was anything but that. A majority of my teammates had already experienced puberty. I was nowhere near it. Most of them started their growth spurts. I had not. They started dating girls, and although I wanted to do the same, I lacked the confidence to ask a girl out, much less make the first move. I was low man on the totem pole in my circle of friends, which consisted mainly of my teammates. I was a peasant and they were kings.

Our team practiced from 3 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Saturdays.

Tuesdays we ran suicides for an hour straight — no breaks. Suicides were an exercise in endurance: physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Suicides are run on the basketball court and are intense. Most other basketball squads ran laps around the basketball court to loosen and warm up. Not us. We ran suicides. To run a suicide, you run from the baseline to the foul line and back to the baseline. Then from the baseline to the half-court line and back to the baseline. Then from the baseline to the opposite side court foul line and back to the baseline. Finally, from the baseline to the opposite court baseline and back to the original baseline. At each line, you bent down and touched it with your fingers. Bobby and Dave, our other coach, watched us like hawks. If they caught any of us cheating, or slacking by not actually touching the line on the floor, they called us out, shamed us, and made us do 20 push-ups on the spot while standing over us and ridiculing us. If we were caught doing it again, they made the entire team do 20 push-ups. We learned quickly not to slack or cut corners. We ran suicides for 3,600 seconds straight, no breaks, while Bobby and Dave yelled at us every few minutes, “Every second counts, men! In basketball and in life, every second counts!” After the suicides, we took a brief water break and commenced to shoot free throws for the next thirty minutes.

“We’re gonna be 90% free throw-making team men! And how do we do that?” Bobby shouted.

“Practice, sir! Practice!” We shouted back.

We finished practice with revolving full-court lay-up lines for the remaining thirty minutes. Everything we did was ordered and structured. Everything had its purpose.

Tuesdays were tough.

Tuesdays sucked.

Tuesdays were supposed to.

Thursdays we practiced offense and defense. Our offense was an up-tempo approach. We pushed the ball up the court and into a 1–2–2 or a 1–3–1 configuration: a point guard, two shooting guards, a center, and a forward. We were always moving. We were always setting picks and always cutting. We were pros at the give-and-go, and we constantly crashed the boards. Rebounding was a big part of our game.

Our defensive scheme was a brutal, unforgiving, east-coast style approach. We employed full and half-court presses, sideline and baseline traps, man-to-man defense, 2–1–2, 1–3–1, and 2–3 defensive schemes.

Thursdays were educational, rhythmic, and practical.

Thursdays were supposed to be.

Our final weekly practice was on Saturday mornings and was fun. We met at the gym at 7:00 a.m. and had a team breakfast. We cooked, prayed, ate, and cleaned up as a team. We told jokes and laughed. We talked smack, gossiped about girls, and loathed the New York Knicks. We spent the next two hours scrimmaging — shirts versus skins. Full-court, five-on-five competitive basketball. We were good, and boy did we have a blast. We were a team, a unit. We were conditioned, disciplined, and tough. Bobby and Dave showed us how to be that.

I wasn’t the only boy on our team that had family issues. I just thought my problems were worse. But no one person’s pain is greater or lesser than the others. My pain was the worst solely because it was mine. I didn’t have much in the world at the age of 10, but I had that, and I owned it. I owned it spiritually, physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Wazzy had it pretty bad, too. His dad was a hopeless alcoholic. Mr. Wazelenko, or Waz as we called him, often showed up to our games drunk. It wasn’t uncommon for a game to be canceled or forfeited due to a fistfight he started. And it wasn’t always the opposing team he fought; it was anyone. When he was sober, he was a saint. He pitched in around our community, attended church, took us on fishing trips, and played baseball with us. But when he was drinking, he was a terror. Then there was Auggie’s Dad. Auggie’s dad was loosely connected to the Mob and suffered a problematic relationship with gambling. He was flashy and sketchy, wearing gold watches and selling bootlegged items out of his trunk that ‘fell off the back of a truck.’ Patrick McDonagh and Sean Meyer’s dads were absent. I never met them, and they were never spoken of. D’Arcy’s dad was sort of missing. He spent ten months out of the year working on the pipeline in Alaska. He came home for two weeks twice a year. As the years progressed, he spent less and less time at home until one day he stopped coming altogether. Joe Madden, Ray Dugan, Pat Conners, and Jamie Westbrook appeared to have stable families, but I’m sure they had their issues, too.

All families do.

Chapter Three — S.O.S.

The year was 1977. It was mid-July and New York was experiencing a record-breaking heatwave. It was beyond hot. New York has its own type of heat. It introduces itself around Memorial Day, and initially, there’s a pleasantness about it, almost romantic. If you’re not careful, you’ll fall in love. After the 4th of July festivities and the honeymoon phase ends, it begins harassing you. By August, it’s suffocating, criminal, and demands an end. It’s no different from the typical relationships we experience throughout life. Make no mistakes, weather is a relationship.

All things are.

But in the summer of 1977, I was four and a half years old, I didn’t care how hot it was. My immediate concern was to go outside to play. My older sister, Jill, two years my senior, shared my concern. We had a large, sloping backyard with a lot of overgrown grass to run wild on and a garden hose with holes poked in it to run through to keep us cool. We had an antique, post-depression-era wooden swing set with a see-saw and a slide. Our backyard was a kid’s utopia. It kept us busy for hours during the summertime.

Unlike the previous summer when Ma sat on our back porch smoking Merit 100 cigarettes and drinking Pepsi while she barely kept eyes on us, unless we were in earshot and kept cowardly close, we didn’t go outside at all. That wasn’t going to work for me. As we got older I thought we would experience more freedom but now it seemed like we were going in reverse. It didn’t make any sense to me. Nothing made sense that summer.

The greater New York City area was in a terrible panic that summer. Terror ruled the nights, and fear filled the days. The media, who back then was more responsible with their reporting techniques and relied less on alarmism and hyperbole, coined that summer “the Summer of Sam.” The city, its boroughs, and the surrounding suburbs were in an escalating state of trepidation. It began in July of 1976, a little over a year after the official end of the Vietnam War, and came to an end in August of 1977. The city had been taken hostage by a killer on a murderous rampage. In the end, the killing spree totaled six murders and seven critically wounded. In addition, the killer was responsible for setting approximately 1,500 fires. It was nationally publicized, and the killer was dubbed the .44 caliber killer. That name changed when Jimmy Breslin, a writer for the Daily News, received a letter.

The opening statement read: “Hello from the gutters of New York City which are filled with dog Manure, vomit, stale wine, urine, and blood.” The letter was from the .44 Caliber Killer but was signed ‘Son of Sam.’ From that point on he was referred to as the Son of Sam.

Haunting and poetic. The letter put the city on a virtual lockdown. The masses were terrified to go outside. Men all of a sudden weren’t so tough. Women with long brown hair were dying it blonde and cutting it short as the early Son of Sam victims were primarily young women with long brown hair.

Ma and Dad, who were still in their twenties, hired a babysitter on weekends and went out drinking and dancing at the 140 Club or the Emerald Isle. Now they stayed at home and invited their friends over. Jill and I preferred the latter. Their friends would get drunk and slip us all sorts of goodies, resulting in ice cream headaches, sugar and caffeine rushes, and unsupervised late-night television. In contrast, our babysitter plopped us in front of a static-filled T.V. with no ice cream or soda while she snuck beers and smoked pot on our back porch. Then she put us to bed thirty minutes early so her smelly boyfriend could come over, eat our food, and kiss her ugly face.

Jill and I had our own bedrooms. I got used to being alone at an early age. At bedtime, I stared at the chipped popcorn ceiling while car headlights bounced off the walls. I listened to horns blare and cop sirens wail. Stuck in-between reality and sleep, I waited for the monsters under my bed to come alive.

They did.

Monsters always do.

That summer, I didn’t know what was wrong; however, intuitively, I knew something was off.

Kids always do.

Dad worked for the city of Yonkers and went out with the boys after work for a few beers and maybe a friendly fistfight (things were different back then). Now he came home directly after work, arriving no later than 4:15 p.m. He came home to his cooped-up wife and two kids climbing the walls, which dripped with sweat from the heat, humidity, and lack of an air conditioner.

“Daddy!” Jill and I screamed in unison as he walked through the door. We ran towards him, full-throttled, and attacked him with the unbridled energy only kids have. He scooped up us, one in each of his strong arms, and kissed us both on our foreheads. He always kissed Jill first.

“Hey Sue, everything okay?” He asked as he put us down and patted our behinds.

“I’m fine, Jack, a little stir-crazy, but I’m used to that by now. How was work?”

Dad glared at us, charging us up, and raised his arms over his head in a victorious X stance. He began chanting, “Work is ova, work is ova,” while shaking his head up and down like he was in a rock band and fist-pumping the air. His jubilee was an airborne transmitted infection.

Jill and I cheered, jumped up and down, and joined his chant as we stomped around the living room in circles, working ourselves into a tizzy and sweaty little messes. Ma wasn’t pleased.

“Well, good for you,” Ma replied as she lit a Merit 100. “I need to go down to McSorley’s and get some things, Jack,” she said as she extinguished the cigarette she just lit. Our house was lousy with ashtrays full of ¼ smoked cigarettes.

Dad tried handing her the car keys.

“Nah, Nah,” she responded as she waved her hand. “I’m gonna walk, Jack.”

McSorley’s, our local grocery store, was under a mile away on Lake Avenue.

“Ya think that’s a good idea with that lunatic Sam on the loose?”

“Who’s Sam?” Jill asked as sweat dripped off of her chin.

“What’s a lunatic?” I asked with a bright red lobster face I got from doing headstands against the wall.

“Jack, it’s not even 4:30. I’ll be fine. Plus, I’m a natural blonde. He’s not interested in me.”

“Hell, he’s not! I’ll tell ya what he is, though. He’s a coward and an opportunist,” Dad said as he violently nodded his head. I made eye contact with him and nodded in agreement regardless of not having a clue what a coward or an opportunist was.

“What about carrying the groceries, Sue?”

“I’m just getting the staples, Jack: milk, eggs, Pepsi, potato chips, and cigs.”

“Okay,” Dad shrugged, “but be careful, Sue,” he said as he kissed her on the lips.

Gross.

Jill and I enjoyed the break from Ma, as Dad allowed us to expel our endless energy running wild outside on the sidewalk and street while Ma was at the store. Dad stood at the top of our long and gravelly driveway where he could keep one eye on us and the other eye on Ma’s return.

Dad lit a Kool cigarette, cracked open a Schlitz, smiled at us, and kept his head on a swivel. Jill and I played hide and go seek. Cars passed cautiously. Other neighborhood kids joined us and we switched to playing tag. Two-handed tag. The sun continued to bake us. The world was weird, beautiful, and routine. I liked it.

“Kids,” Dad shouted, “let’s go!” That was our cue to instantaneously change from sweaty little dirt devils who were raising hell into pristine angels who were patiently awaiting mothers’ safe return. As Ma turned the corner, she wasn’t carrying any groceries, just her 70’s style purse and smoking a cigarette. She was walking with a fella who had his hands full with two grocery bags — our grocery bags. From afar, they appeared to be old friends in familiar conversation. Ma talking and him laughing.

“Who is that, Daddy?” I asked as I pointed my filthy fingers toward them.

“I haven’t the foggiest,” he replied.

I pushed my hand toward the sun and stretched out my fingers like a web. I studied it closely. If I squinted hard enough, I could see through the thin part of my skin, between each finger. I wondered how I was made. How did God do this? Why did He do this? Would I ever meet Him in person? I had a lot of questions. I was curious.

The three of us were all curious about who this man with Ma was, but Jill and I, being kids, got bored and lost interest quickly. We circled our arms around Dad’s legs which was difficult as our arms were short and Dad was a big guy. He was 6"4', 240 pounds, and thick like an Oak tree. We managed to wrap our sunburnt arms around his upper thighs as we began singing and circling him.

“Ring around the rosie — pocket full of posies — ashes ashes — we all fall down!”

Jill and I exploded backward and fell onto the sidewalk cement in hysterics. Dad, unimpressed, stepped over us and intercepted Ma and the strange man.

“Thanks, buddy, I’ll take those from here,” Dad said as he snatched the bags out of the man’s hands.

“Who’s this, Sue?”

Jill and I had peeled ourselves off of the gummy cement after watching the gases wiggle and rise from it. We flanked Ma as she cradled us, one under each arm.

“Is that Sam?” Jill asked and pointed.

“Is that the lunatic?” I asked as I looked up at Ma, squinting and positioning myself to block out the sun’s attempt at blinding me.

“Everyone, this is David. David, this is my husband Jack, and these two little heathens are Jill and Sean, our children.”

David pushed his hand out towards Dad, but Dad didn’t take it declining the handshake with a grocery bag in each hand.

“David lives around the corner on Pine Street and North Broadway,” Ma continued.

“Well, thanks again for carrying our groceries, neighbor,” Dad said.

“No problemo,” David replied. “I see Sue down on Lake from time to time. I’m a Postman and afta work I like to sit on the park bench, drink a couple of cold ones, people watch, and do a little reading to wind down before going home.”

“He’s reading Vonnegut, Jack, Cat’s Cradle,” Ma interjected.

Dad nodded his approval. He was fond of Vonnegut.

“When I looked up, I saw Sue walking by, struggling with her grocery bags, so I offered to carry them home for her. No big deal.”

“And they say chivalry is dead,” Ma said as she winked at Dad.

“Well, thank you again, Mr…?”

“Berkowitz, David Berkowitz.”

“Mr. Berkowitz.”

“Call me David.”

“Okay then, David, thanks again.”

Dad’s protective and suspicious nature softened.

“Ya wanna come out back and have a cold beer, David? We can discuss Bokononism,” Dad laughed.

“Oh, no. I can’t, thank ya, though. I have to get home before my neighbor lets his dog out in the courtyard which is right below my window and barks all night. I swear,” he stopped, looked at us, and continued, “that dog is killing me.”

David said his goodbyes, turned, and left.

“Let’s go kids,” Ma said and waved us forward.

Damn, time to go inside I thought. I hated inside.

As we climbed the stairs to our second-floor apartment Ma turned to Dad, “That David boy, he seemed nice enough. A little thrown off tho.”

“Yeah, trown off indeed.” Dad huffed. “If he’s not careful I’ll trow ’em into the Hudson Riva.”

Ma opened our door as the early evening heat escaped and punched us in the face like a Max Baer overhand right. It almost knocked Ma over. We sulked our way into the house in silence. Dad tossed the keys on the table and headed toward the kitchen to put away the groceries. Jill and I ran to the freezer to try and sneak an ice pop before dinner and Ma stood there pensively.

She broke the silence by doing a silly but dramatic jump turn, throwing her hands everywhere, and blurted out, “Who wants to go out for pizza and ice cream?”

“We do, we do!” Jill, Dad, and I chanted. Ma smiled, giggled, and shook her head.

Thank God for the moments.

Chapter 4 — Birds, Bees, and Butterflies

We ate ice cream a lot that summer. The ice cream man must have made a fortune off our block alone. That summer, for Jill and me, the weekdays were an exercise in patience and perseverance. The weekends, however, were to be enjoyed. The Son of Sam was still on the prowl, so we were kept on high alert and on a self-imposed house arrest. As the summer melted into August, it was simply too unbearable to stay inside for any prolonged length of time. Especially on the weekends when Ma and Dad were home. After breakfast, we went outside to play, as it was still cool in the mornings. We marched back upstairs at half-noon for lunch: a glass of milk, raisins, and a bologna and cheese sandwich (Were we in jail?). Then we did schoolwork. Sure, it was summer, and we were young, but our education was important, especially to Ma, a lifelong educator. After lunch, Jill and I watched an episode of Conjunction Junction and the Magic Garden. Then we read aloud to each other and practiced simple arithmetic while Ma and Dad sat outside on our second-story porch. Our porch overlooked the Hudson River and had spectacular views of the Palisades. Our unique position provided a glorious and much-needed breeze. At 3 p.m. we went back outside for a few hours before dinner at 6 p.m. Structure was a big part of our daily activities.

Jill played on the swing set while I chased yellow and white butterflies throughout the yard. I pretended to be an Air Force pilot in pursuit of the enemy. I was a small kid but I was fast and had a low center of gravity; I gave them hell. I chased their erratic flight patterns as they dove and dodged me. The wind passed through my straw-thin blonde hair, pushing it in every direction, much like the butterflies do as they flew with the skills of a veteran pilot. But in the end, I won. Not through speed, agility, or luck, but through intelligence. I captured them in a butterfly net.

In New York, the heat peaked between 1 and 3 p.m. It became oppressive. We kept our homemade sprinkler on all day and ran through it every few minutes to keep us cool. As the afternoon pressed on, the ice cream truck was scheduled to show. Before anyone could hear its slightly retarded and stuttered jingle, I ran to Ma and Dad with a declaration in the form of a song.

“The ice cream truck is here. The ice cream truck is here!” I sang with my arms flailing as I moved around like a lit Jumping Jack.

“No, it’s not,” Ma retorted, “I don’t hear anything but those damn dogs barking. Day and night, bark, bark, bark!”

I didn’t think she was lying or being difficult, she most likely didn’t hear it, but I did. I had an internal clock and a sixth sense for things like this.

All kids do.

That’s our job.

A few minutes later, like clockwork, the ice cream truck appeared. However, getting ice cream was not a guarantee in our household. Ma and Dad did not spoil us. They were frugal and exact with their money. They had hopes of buying a house and saved every penny. Ma and Dad made us earn it.

“You ain’t getting something for nothing in this lifetime, buddy. It don’t work that way.” Dad said.

So, we negotiated. Ma offered 25 cents for a back rub and 50 cents for a foot rub. Dad offered 25 cents to wash the car and 50 cents for yard work.

A local boy my age, Conrad Heinz, had been singing the praises of rainbow sprinkles the previous day and I wanted to try them. I had to have it. A vanilla ice cream cone with rainbow sprinkles cost 40 cents, so I agreed to do yard work later that day. Jill opted for an orange push-up pop, which cost 20 cents. She agreed to rub Ma’s back later that night while Ma relaxed and watched an episode of the Waltons.

She loved the Walton’s.

I hated them.

We were each given an advance and made our way to the ice cream truck. Conrad was there and had already gotten his cone with rainbow sprinkles. He looked as if he were in heaven. He stood there with his snide smirk, licking away, in his preppy clothes and change juggling in his pocket. So, what his family made more money than we did and already owned a house. So, what he always had new clothes and a nice haircut and I would sometimes have to wear Jill’s hand-me-downs and had a bowl-cut. His last name was a ketchup brand. My last name was Royalty. His came from a shelf in a store. Mine came from history. He was a condiment. I was a King.

I wanted to punch his stupid red ketchup face, but I pushed passed him and stepped up to the truck’s counter instead.

“May I have a Vanilla waffle cone with rainbow sprinkles, please, sir?”

“Coming right up, young man.”

I hadn’t experienced forever, yet, but I was getting some first-hand experience into it.

‘Hurry up, hurry up,’ I thought to myself. I watched the soft serve ice cream slowly curl its way out of the machine and into the waffle cone. ‘More, more, higher, higher,’ I thought. He finished filling the cone and rolled it through the rainbow sprinkles.

“That’ll be 40 cents, young man,” he said.

I handed him two quarters. He handed me my cone and change. I was delighted upon receipt. A vanilla ice cream cone with rainbow sprinkles. ‘Golly,’ I thought as I inspected it, ‘pretty, simple, and all mine!’ Those sugary colors burst with flavor and the ice cream was softer than snow. It tingled my senses. I closed my eyes and focused on the taste as I began a rapacious licking pattern.

Heaven.

A strange sensation soon took hold, a feeling that should have not been there. There was movement in my mouth. I started to panic and began to run toward Ma. The pain began to surge, slowly, then suddenly. It felt like an electric current had zapped me. It was upon me.

Hell.

A bumblebee had landed on my ice cream cone and I licked it directly into my mouth. The bee mimicked my behavior. It panicked. Fear and flight collided, and the bee stung my tongue. I dropped my ice cream cone and screamed. My tongue began to swell. With my mouth wide open, screaming bloody murder, the bee flew out and went into seclusion to die. My ice cream cone was dead, too. Smashed on the concrete sidewalk, melting, with its waffle cone destroyed and its rainbow sprinkles sullen and grey.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Ma yelled as she inspected my tongue. I watched Ma’s face fill with fear as my tongue continued to swell. In a panic herself, she gathered Jill and Dad. We hopped in the car and raced to the hospital.

“Hurry, Jack, it’s still swelling,” Ma said as we sped down Park Avenue.

“Don’t worry, sweetie, you’re gonna be fine. Try breathing through your nose,” she instructed. She was terrified.

Ma was afraid my tongue would swell to an unmanageable proportion, possibly choking or suffocating me.

“Faster, Jack,” she barked.

We arrived at the hospital moments later. Dad scooped me under his arm and raced inside through the emergency room doors like he was an adrenaline-filled running back.

As it was, I survived. The doctor gave me a shot of Benadryl in my left butt cheek to relieve the swelling. The bee had stung my tongue and the swelling I suffered was a normal reaction and not a result of being allergic to bees. Typically, they would have administered the medicine orally, but I could barely swallow, so a painful shot in the butt it was. It made me sleepy…

…I woke up a few hours later to the distant sounds of laughter, story-telling, and Billy Joel. Ma loved Billy Joel. Dad liked The Doors.

My door creaked open, and a shard of light entered.

“Hey, Ma, he’s up!” Jill shouted.

I squinted and felt wobbly. It felt like I was underwater. I did a breaststroke as I swam to the surface. Golly, I felt groggy, and boy did my left butt cheek hurt. Ma and Mrs. McDermott came in. Mrs. McDermott was Kim’s Ma. She was a nurse, and pretty. I got nervous around pretty girls.

“Hi sweetie, how ya feeling?” Ma asked.

“Not so good, Ma. Everything hurts.”

“I know Sean,” she replied, painfully, “show Mrs. McDermott your tongue.”

I felt conflicted. Generally, if I were to stick my tongue out, especially at an adult, I’d get a spanking. My butt already hurt. Ma could tell I was confused.

All mothers can.

“It’s okay, Sean, you’re not going to get in any trouble. Go ahead, show Mts. McDermott your tongue.”

A freebie I thought, excellent! I let her have it. Mrs. McDermott leaned in and inspected my tongue. She smelled pretty. I felt nauseous.

“It looks better, Sue. The swelling’s gone down,” she said as she ruffled my hair, “That’s a healthy and handsome Irish boy ya got there.”

I smiled. I liked being called handsome.

I started feeling guilty. I really went overboard with the whole tongue thing.

“We have company Sean; come and say hello,” Ma said as the three of us exited the bedroom and walked into the living room.

Ma and Dad had friends over. Eileen and John Spencer, Tuppy McDermott, Jack Moran, and a guy called Moose. They were sitting out on the back porch enjoying cocktails, smoking cigarettes, listening to the guys tell stories, and shooting the shit: politics, Son of Sam, and the local neighborhood gossip. I made my entrance and got a round of head noogies, kisses to my forehead, and specific instructions on how to shake another man’s hand: a firm solid grip, two shakes, eye contact, and remove.

Jill and I worked the room for as long as we could until they stopped paying attention to us. I guess the alcohol started doing its job. We all have a job to do: the birds, bees, butterflies, kids, parents, Son of Sam, and even alcohol.

Jill and I grew bored. We started playing a game she called Truth or Dare. I didn’t really understand the game, the truth part at least. Why would I ever tell the truth? The truth just got me into trouble, so I kept picking dares. Jill dared me to go downstairs, climb into our car, turn it on, and drive it. She wiggled the car keys, taunting me. I boiled and snatched the keys out of her hand.

This may qualify as my first official poor decision in a life riddled with poor choices.

I took the dare.

Crazy Irish Catholic kids always do.

While the adults did whatever it is adults do, Jill and I snuck out of our apartment. We tippy-toed down the stairs and let ourselves out of the front door. W snuck over to the car and climbed in. Jill slid over to the passenger’s seat. I took the helm. I was far too short to reach the steering wheel and the foot pedals below. Luckily, Ma had a few school books in the back seat which I grabbed and stacked under my butt. Much better. With an awkward stretch, I could see out of the window and reach the pedals.

My goal was nothing more than to roll a few yards and stop well before we reached the point where the adults could see us. That would show her. I had been bragging to her for months that I could drive, and now I had the opportunity to prove it and win the dare. Dad and I would sometimes take a boys-only trip to the store or go for a joy ride. He would sit me on his lap and I would steer the car. It was easy. I had watched Dad as his right foot would tap the left square pedal. We would slow down or stop. When he applied pressure to the slenderer right rectangular pedal, we went forward. I knew that the stick jutting out of the steering wheelbase had to be shifted for the car to be put into motion. I had an identical bar on my tiny Tykes three-wheeler, so I was familiar with that. It all made sense. I inserted and turned the car key but it only produced a clicking noise.

Jill began to tease me, “Told ya, dummy, you can’t-”

“I can, too,” I screamed back, cutting her off before she could finish. Determined, I pulled the stick again, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Dummy, dummy, dummy. Dummy, dummy, dummy,” Jill heckled as she bopped in her seat.

I extended my body downward and stretched my legs to hold the brake pedal down. I tried the bar one more time, and bingo, it shifted. I slowly let off the brake pedal, and we began rolling. Jill started to scream with excitement. I straightened up with cockiness. However, Jill’s excitement and my smugness took a different tone and look as we began to pick up speed. Our driveway was on a fifteen percent grade. We started moving faster, quickly. I stretched down with both of my feet and slammed on the brake, but they only hissed as they pushed toward the floor. Our speed gained as Jill’s screams heightened. I didn’t know what to do. By the time we passed our house, we must have been going ten miles an hour. Not fast at all, but to us, two kids, who didn’t know what to do or what was fixing to happen, it was fast, and it was scary.

I turned around and could see Ma’s face struck with horror. She and our guests watched helplessly from the second-story porch as we rolled down our driveway. We were headed straight for a dilapidated and rusted wrought iron fence. Behind that, a twenty-foot drop. Ma screamed “Jack” and pointed to our runaway vehicle. As some fathers and most soldiers would, Dad jumped from our second-story porch, a good twenty-five feet to the ground where he tucked, rolled, jumped up, and ran toward us. His heroic effort, however, was too late as Jill and I crashed into the fence, mowing it down. The fence was surprisingly sturdy, sturdy enough to stop us. We teetered over the edge. Fear froze Jill and me like an ice pop.

When Dad reached us, he punched the back driver’s side window out, unlocked the door, and climbed in as we dangled over the edge. Jill and I moved from being frozen ice pops into gaseous hysterics. Dad’s weight surprisingly didn’t shift the car back in safety’s direction but acted more like an anchor. He smiled at us and said, “Jill, Sean, I need you two to both simmer down and listen to me.”

“Okay, Daddy,” I responded.

Jill continued to scream.

“One at a time, climb ova the seat toward me. Jill, you go first.”

He reached his arms out for Jill and said to me, “Women always go first in situations like this, son. Always.”

I nodded.

As Jill climbed over the seat, Dad grabbed her and handed her out to Moose who had come to help. Once Jill was to safety, I climbed over the middle and he did the same with me.

Once we were extracted, dad exited. He tried to stand, but his left ankle and right leg were injured from the jump. He fell to the ground. The adrenaline that previously ran through his veins, giving him the ability to jump, run and rescue us, had vanished. He didn’t scream or writhe in pain, he just pointed to the sky and thanked God we were all right. He asked Moose for a cigarette. Dad lit the cigarette, took a deep drag, and grabbed his ankle. As he exhaled, a bird flew over and shit on his head. Moose broke out in laughter. Dad followed.

An unmarked cop car pulled into the driveway with a single red and blue light flashing from its dashboard. It was Uncle Billy. Uncle Billy had recently been promoted to detective. He had heard a call come over the radio reporting a car had crashed through a fence at our address. Uncle Billy and Moose helped Dad into the back seat and they sped off to the hospital. His second visit today.

Dad suffered a right leg hairline fracture and a broken left ankle. The doctor tried putting him into a wheelchair, but Dad refused. They gave him a set of crutches and a bottle of painkillers.

Dad came home later that evening with a soft cast on his right leg and his left ankle in a hard cast. He immediately cut off both and flushed the painkillers down the toilet.

“I’m no junkie,” he said.

Dad despised the heroin addicts that occupied the Harlem streets. He hated that some of his Vietnam buddies became addicted to that stuff. Some were killed due to being what he called stoned in action.

He began self-medicating with a bottle of whiskey and a six-pack of Schlitz. He was drunk before sunset.

Most alcoholics are.

As the boys sat outside on the porch drinking and going over the day’s events, Ma and the girls were in the living room watching the news and playing Candyland.

“Don’t get stuck in Molasses Swamp,” Ma laughed.

A special report came over the T.V.: the Son of Sam struck again. A morose mood medicated the evening’s events. Mrs. McDermott and Mrs. Spencer went out to the back porch and told the boys. Ma hugged Jill and me, pulling us close. There was some indistinct cussing and yelling. Dad’s voice rose above the rest.

“Hey, Son of Sam, big man, huh? You wanna come try me? Come and getcha some. I’m right here, just you and me, one-on-one buddy. But you’re too much a pussy for that, huh?”

He was so loud the neighborhood dogs started howling.

Dad continued, “I’ll sweeten the deal for ya. I’m here with my two kids and my pregnant wife; that turn ya on, buddy? The possibility of killing an unborn child? Answer me, you fuckin’ coward!”

Dad was pissed and piss drunk. The fella’s tried calming him down but he wasn’t having any of it. He kept yelling and kept drinking.

Ma gathered Jill and me and instructed us it was bedtime, far past bedtime she growled. Like it was our fault we were still up.

Before I headed toward my room I turned to Jill and asked, “What’s pregnant?” Her eyes widened with wonder. She cupped her hands around her mouth and put them to my ear.

“Mommy’s gonna have a baby.”

Chapter Five — Texas is the Reason

“People are strange when you’re a stranger” — The Doors

The following week, Jill, me, and a bunch of neighborhood kids were in our backyard playing capture the flag. Ma and Dad had some friends over after work. They were outside barbecuing, drinking, and enjoying the little freedom we had. Ma went upstairs to get ketchup as I wouldn’t eat anything without ketchup. Mac’ and cheese with ketchup, steak with ketchup, potatoes with ketchup, pasta with ketchup, cheeseburgers with ketchup, hot dogs with ketchup, pasta with ketchup, and ketchup with ketchup. Ketchup, ketchup, ketchup. When she returned, she had tears rolling down her face, but no ketchup. I didn’t get it. She wasn’t sad, she was happy. She gathered everyone and announced she had big news.

“The Son of Sam has been captured,” she blurted out.

There was a celebratory explosion. The adults cheered. They jumped up and down and hugged each other. They cracked open beers, clinked them together in a toast, and chugged them down. We, the kids, exploded as well. We ran around our backyard with our hands in the air. Victorious! Screaming and shouting whatever we could copy from the adults. It was like the Yankees had won another World Series, a nail-biter one. Instantaneously, the city’s atmosphere changed. There was a sense of freedom and safety again. Just like that, the great city of New York and its beautiful people returned to normalcy. The Summer of Sam had ended triumphantly, and it was two local boys who unearthed it.

Two Yonkers Police officers, Pete Intervallo and Tom Chamberlain visited Berkowitz’s apartment at 35 Pine Street earlier that summer. There had been complaints and accusations regarding some dog shootings and strange letters showing up at people’s houses that were traced back to that address.

Both Intervallo and Chamberlain were nervous about conducting an investigation. They weren’t detectives and didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes. But they did gather some information. They went to Berkowitz’s apartment but could never catch him at home. From the outside, as David’s apartment was on the 7th floor, they could see his windows were covered up, which they found strange in the dog days of summer. According to the information they received, they thought it prudent to continue with their investigation. They noticed that Berkowitz was roughly the same height and build as the Son of Sam descriptions. They also found that he had quit his job in July 1976, the same month that the shootings began. The two patrolmen were confident that they were on to something. They talked to their boss, who passed them along to Detective Richard Salvesen. They told him what they found, and Salvesen, impressed, passed the information along to Operation Omega. Operation Omega was a task force created to track down and capture the Son of Sam.

Coincidentally, James Justus, a New York City Police Detective, had been checking parking summonses issued in the Brooklyn neighborhood on July 31, the night and location of the last Son of Sam murder. He was assigned to search for witnesses who might have seen the serial killer. A parking ticket had been issued (and paid) to a yellow Ford Galaxie. Maybe whoever owned the Ford Galaxie had seen something, he thought. He ran the plates and found it registered to David Berkowitz. Calls were made, and evidence started piling up, all pointing to David Berkowitz. All of this came to a head the evening of August 10, 1977. The Omega task force and the Yonkers police set up surveillance on the street outside David’s apartment building. There they found the yellow Ford Galaxie with an assault rifle sticking out of a duffle bag in plain view in the back seat.

The NYPD waited for Berkowitz outside his building. He emerged later that night carrying his signature .44-caliber revolver. The cops approached him, and David surrendered without incident.

When they cuffed him, Berkowitz said, “Well, you finally got me.”

“Who do I have?” the Detective asked. “The Son of Sam,” Berkowitz replied.

Berkowitz was arrested and photographed with a grin of smug satisfaction. Later, when he was being interviewed by Sergeant Coffey, or “Publicity Joe” as he was better known, Joe asked him how he could so coldly murder his victims but have the civic responsibility to pay his parking fines. David’s responded, “Because I am a law-abiding citizen.” Coffey was equally amazed and baffled by David’s answer, cock-sureness, and demeanor. He was calm and collected. Focused. Detached.

The investigation further found the .44 caliber gun Berkowitz used in the shootings was purchased in Houston, Texas, a couple of years earlier while he was there visiting a friend.

When you’ve witnessed your parent speaking to a serial killer, and the case is later cracked by your unborn sister’s uncle-in-law and the uncle of a future drummer you’ll play with, the term “small world” quickly becomes interchanged with “strange world.” Officers Tommy Chamberlain and Peter Intervallo were celebrated and soon promoted to detective. My soon-to-be-born sister, Allison, married Tommy’s nephew, Kevin Chamberlain. I ended up playing in a punk band, Skin Kandy, decades later, with Peter’s nephew, Joey Intervallo. The gun was bought in Houston, Texas, the birthplace of the only woman I’ve truly loved, now, then, and forever. Strange indeed, or maybe not? Maybe the Universe arranging things? Maybe the Universe was speaking?

The universe always speaks.

I don’t always listen.

Most pertinacious people don’t.

Chapter Six — The Waiting Room

Unlike some of the other states, New York has a noticeable change from season to season. We experience all four seasons in New York, whereas in Texas, not so much. Autumn in New York is my favorite season and overall time of the year. I’m not alone or special there; they make movies about that subject. Autumn in New York is a destination and an interpersonal adventure. There’s an energy, a mystical frequency, and a connectedness that is extraordinary. A visceral explosion screams as nature demands our attention. The temperatures are perfect: 70-to-80-degree days and 50-to-60-degree mornings and nights. The excitement of school starting mixed with the social dubiety is magical. It’s an experience that drives individuals to be life-long students, teachers, and professors. It drives an entire industry. It’s an addiction and they don’t even know it.

Most addicts don’t.

How a season preparing for death can be so beautiful?

Perspective. Experience. Confidence.

It was the fall of 1981, and school had just started. We were now a family of five: Ma, Dad, Jill, Allison, and me. We weren’t ready to buy a house but we required more space with our new addition. We moved a few neighborhoods over to a bigger rental apartment. Allison was three years old and stayed at home with Ma. Jill was ten years old and in fifth grade. I was eight years old and in third grade. Jill and I attended Sacred Heart Elementary School.

That fall was the first time I witnessed Dad react uncharacteristically to my ploys for attention. It was an excruciatingly boring Saturday afternoon and we were new to the neighborhood. Sure, Ma and Dad knew some families on our street, but I didn’t know any of the local kids yet. Not one kid I went to school with lived on my block. I was shy and unsure of myself. I didn’t understand my place in all of this newness. I was the middle child in a middle-class family in the middle of nowhere internally. Jill, however, was genial and made fast friends with Judy Leone, a girl down the street who became my first object of affection. Jill spent most of her time at Judy’s house doing whatever it is that ten-year-old girls do. I spent my time playing with plastic green army men and Star Wars action figures. It was my escape. I pitted them against each other in an intergalactic war. I had a good imagination. I also helped Ma care for Allison. I liked being a big brother a lot more than I liked being a little brother. But I was only eight years old, and although I was okay with being alone, I would get terribly bored at times, and when I did, I pestered Ma and Dad.

That Saturday Dad promised to take me to Lennon Park to play catch after he finished reading the Herald Statesmen, our local paper. Thankfully, Saturday’s paper was thin with only three sections. That worked in my favor. If it had been Sunday’s paper I would have been screwed. Sunday’s paper is enormous, it’s like an encyclopedia. It had eight sections and was a two-person, three-hour endeavor. Dad read every article and Ma cut coupons and read the editorial section.

I waited as patiently as an eight-year-old boy could. I grew impatient and left Dad in the living room and looked for Ma.

“Ma! Ma!” I yelled as I walked down our railroad hallway. She didn’t answer. I listened by her door and heard her speaking softly. Curious, I opened her bedroom without knocking and found her changing Allison’s diaper.

“Sean, don’t you ever walk into my bedroom without knocking,” she yelled in a whisper.

“Now get out,” she continued and threw a shoe at me.

Oops.

I went back to waiting impatiently in the living room where Dad sat in his plaid recliner with his legs comfortably stretched out on the ottoman. The paper spread three feet wide and he held up in front of his face which obstructed his line of sight and any view of me. I plopped down onto the floor and sat crisscrossed apple sauce in front of him. I stared begrudgingly at the back of his paper. What was so interesting I wondered? How could I be that interesting, or more interesting? I didn’t want to compete with a paper. I wanted to beat it. It was a shitty 25-cent piece of journalistic garbage, and it was beating me out for my father’s attention. What a bitch.

I used my superhero powers and attempted to burn a hole through the paper. That didn’t work. Damn it, I thought. He must have an invisible protective shield guarding it. He was good. I went puerile and started making faces at it. I crossed my eyes. I stuck my tongue out. I put my thumbs in my ears and blew my cheeks out. None of that worked.

I began picking my nose. Kelly Walsh picked her nose every day in school. So much we nick-named her ‘booger.’ If the other kids or Sisters at school saw my doing this, they’d have my butt, I thought. But I wasn’t in school. I was in the discomfort of my own skin, in the discomfort of my own home, and being ignored by my own father. So, I dug in, knuckle deep. I searched for a good one, one with some weight and size. After a minute of digging, I finally retrieved one. It was a hard one with no slime and the proper amount of wetness to it. It was perfect for a flick and flight. I lined it up, checked the winds, made sure Ma wasn’t coming, and let it fly.

Flick.

It fell terribly short.

Failure.

Damn it!

I again switched tactics and tried telepathy.

“Daddy, this is your son, Sean. Your only son. Your blood and seed. I am bored. I should be more important to you than that stupid paper. Let’s go play ball, pleaseeeee!” I screamed inside my head. To no avail, he did not receive it. Nothing worked so I turned around and turned on the television.

Television in the 1980s was a lot simpler than what we have today. We had a whopping seven channels to surf: 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13. The major network channels were: C.B.S., A.B.C., N.B.C., and FOX. The three other channels were local stations like PBS. It was less than entertaining. No wonder kids back then went out to play more than they do today; there was rarely anything good to watch on T.V. However, this particular Saturday, one of the local stations aired a New York Yankees game. The Yankees were playing the Oakland Athletics. Both teams were top teams and it was a great game to watch. However, what was more interesting was what the crowd did. It was strange; I had never seen it before. As it was, no one else had either. It had never been done it before.

A column of people in one section stood and raised their arms from their waists above their heads in a simultaneous and fluid motion. Then they sat. As they sat the column next to them did the same thing and so on. This went around the entire stadium. It was mesmerizing. The commentators couldn’t stop talking about it. They called it the wave. That’s what it looked like, a huge wave. The cameramen on the field kept showing it as if the baseball game was secondary. I guess history in the making dares to do that. I was in awe, but not speechless. I liked to talk.

“Dad, look at this, look at what they’re doing,” I begged.

He gave me a no-look answer.

.

“Yea, Reggie, Donny, Coach Martin, the Yanks, they’re winning, I know. They always win. No one can beat our Bronx Bombers, son,” he said in an ineffectual voice.

“No, Dad! Look, you’re missing it,” I yelled and pointed at the tele.

“What did Ricky steal a base? He’s quick that Henderson kid.”

“You’re not even listening,” I yelled, “geez! Ugh, you missed it again. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s cool. They said that’s the first time that it’s ever happened… in history… Dad!”

“Yea, yea, yea, everything’s created in the Bronx, son.”

That was an inside joke between him and Ma. They were proud of their borough and their city. Who wouldn’t be? New York is the capital of the world and the birthplace of a lot of things, except me. I was born a few miles north of the Bronx, in Yonkers, New York. I just wasn’t cutting it.

“Dad, when are we going to the park?” I asked. “I want to play baseball, you promised.”

“Indeed, I did, son,” he said as he put the stupid paper halfway down, “but only if you can answer me this riddle.”

“What riddle?”

“Okay, listen carefully. What’s black and white and red all ova?”

What’s black and white and red all ova? I thought about it for a minute. I had no idea. It didn’t make any sense.

“What?” I asked.

“A newspaper.” He replied, “Now let me finish reading the paper and then we’ll go to the park as we discussed earlier, okay?”

“Dad, why is six afraid of seven?”

“Because seven ate nine,” he replied as he raised and returned to his stupid paper.

Dick.

I shut off the T.V. and sat there in silence. I would martyr him to death. I wanted to punch him in his bloated face but I decided to practice my multiplication tables instead. I liked mental math. I was good at it and it bided my time. I eventually got to 9x9 and became resentful. The Saturday paper shouldn’t take this long to read, I thought. I had to get his attention and show him how important it was to pay attention to me.

I had an idea. I was bursting with ideas. I snuck up on him using my invisible powers until I was directly in front of the paper. With my index finger and thumb, I flicked at the back of the paper. I hit it hard. A loud ‘pop’ sounded.

All hell broke loose. Dad freaked out. He threw the paper into the air and did a backward somersault over the recliner. He knocked the ottoman over and fell into a military combat position behind the recliner.

“Incoming! Take cover,” he shouted. “Tex, Murph, Green, where the hell are youse?” He called into an invisible radio.

He fell into full flashback mode. It was no longer 1981, and he was no longer in our living room. He was somewhere else, somewhere in time. His eyes were not his; they were those of a younger Jack, just a boy, not much older than me. One fighting for his life, the lives of his fellow infantrymen, and for his country. He was in a former unapologetic and cruel reality.

It was another bad idea.

Most of mine were.

Dad was a Staff Sergeant in the United States Army. He served in the 25th Infantry Division, 1st Battalion Mechanized also known as Tropical Lightning. They were stationed out of the Hawaii Scholfield barracks. He served one tour from 1967 to 1968 and saw non-stop action. He was awarded four bronze medals: two Oak Leaf clusters and two for Valor, as well as one Purple Heart for taking shrapnel to his knee from a landmine they called a Bouncing Betty.

It had been said and loosely confirmed that Oliver Stones’ Masterpiece ‘Platoon’ was based on Dad’s platoon. It makes sense timeline and location-wise and parallels the movie’s synopsis of a U.S. Army platoon stationed in South Vietnam near the Cambodian border in 1967. That’s precisely where Dad’s platoon was in 1967. It has also been said that the character, Bunny, played by Kevin Dillion, was based on Dad.

I was eight years old.

All eight-year-olds are.