His Father's Son: To save the son he loves, a desparate father must confront the ghosts of his past by Black Tony

Author:Black, Tony [Black, Tony]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Black & White Publishing
Published: 2013-09-02T16:00:00+00:00

16

Guard O’Dowd said he was marching Marti up the road to Mam, where if there was any sense left in the woman she would belt the b’Jaysus out of him with a riding crop or some manner of painful strap. Guard O’Dowd still had his very big hand on Marti’s neck when he walked. When Marti didn’t walk fast enough there would be a squeeze on his neck and the guard would say by Christ it’s a whipping such as never was seen in the world I’d deliver if ye were a son of mine. The bicycle made a squeaking noise from the buckled front wheel and Marti could hardly steer at all with the handlebars all pushed to the side. He felt bad when he looked down at the bicycle, but Guard O’Dowd made it hard to look down at all when he was forever at the squeezing with his very big hand.

There were far too many boys about the place acting the giddy goat for Guard O’Dowd’s liking and wasn’t his job like throwing apples into an orchard morning, noon and night on account of their antics. It would never have been countenanced in his day, said Guard O’Dowd, when a man would be thanked for giving a young cur a wrap in the snot locker and the streets were a quieter place and safer entirely. These days it was desperate, verging on the diabolical, with all the carryings on about the place making old ladies scared to come out of their homes, afraid of a mouthful of cheek or worse. Guard O’Dowd squeezed Marti’s neck hard when he said a mouthful of cheek, and then there was a shove and a jolt and he was told, “Move yeerself.”

“I am moving,” said Marti.

“And I’ll have none of yeer lip,” said Guard O’Dowd. “Oh yes, it was a fair old gas at the time, was it not, a fair old hooley ye had to yourself with the fire.”

“Ah, you’re hurting me.”

“That’s the general idea, boy. I bet there’s not a minute, not a second nor a millisecond of thought ye gave to the people you could be hurting with the fire, now was there?”

“There was nobody there.”

“Ye had the whole place in a state of fear and panic, so ye did. Old ladies worried in their homes, their poor hands trembling with the thought of the fire approaching, not knowing if they were to be burnt out of house and home.”

Marti didn’t believe it when he said about the fear and panic and he thought it was all just a holy show to make him scared, but he was scared enough anyway. He had never been taken home by a guard before and Mam was sure to be mad angry and say it was a hot arse he had earned. Hadn’t he only just started at Saint Joseph’s All Boys Catholic School and here he was mitching and stealing, lighting fires and being taken home by a guard already. It would be the hot arse for sure.

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