A Village Voice by Brian Martin

Author:Brian Martin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
Published: 2019-08-29T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

New York, 1960

On the occasions when he was home on a Sunday morning, Jim Flanagan liked to sleep late. His wife Jeannie would keep the kids quiet and then take them to eleven o’clock Mass. By the time they got home Jim would be up and he would fix them breakfast (although the kids insisted on calling it lunch having had their breakfast around eight thirty). Jim had just turned over and fallen back into a deep sleep, it must have been around nine O’clock, when he was gently shaken awake by his wife. His dad was on the phone and needed to talk to him right away. Okay, not good, his dad seldom called the house, which was fair enough as Jim kept very irregular hours. Something was wrong. He went down to the kitchen and picked up the receiver.

“Pop, you okay?”

“I’m alright, I need to see you this morning. Be here at eleven. I’ll explain later.”

“Do you want me to…”

“Don’t talk, son, please just listen and be here at eleven. I need to see you.”

Jim was going to ask if his dad wanted him to bring the car but clearly his dad didn’t want him to mention it.

“Alright, Pop, I’ll be there for sure. See you then.”

“Alright, Jim, see you in a little while.”

Jim hung up and began to worry. He was not by nature a person who worried much about anything. He had never heard his dad sound like this. Why couldn’t he say anything, why not mention the car? His dad sounded like some of the guys he worked with, “don’t use the phone, but if you have to, say as little as possible, you never know who’s listening.” Oh God, I hope it’s not that kind of trouble. Jesus, what has he gotten himself into now? He thought about phoning his brothers, but assumed that if his dad wanted them he would have called them by now. He looked at the kitchen clock; he could catch a train and then take the subway but Sunday morning transit into the city from Queens could be slow. To be sure of getting there on time he would bring the car. Why didn’t Pop want to mention the car on the phone? Maybe he needed Jim to take him somewhere. It’s not a medical emergency, he has two sons living in the same apartment building, they could call an ambulance. He wanted Jim and he wanted the car and he was being cautious about what he said on the phone. Ah Jesus, this was trouble.

Jim explained to Jeannie that he had to go see his dad right away and that he didn’t know what it was about. She said that she hoped everything was alright. She knew better than to ask any further questions and she never ever asked him when he would be home. They were way past that. She tried to always have a little something in the refrigerator for when he was home. In

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