The Shelf Life of Joy

By Michael Herlihy

Seventh grader Aiden McManus must confront his fear of loss and risk in this novel that evokes the Boston suburbs during the winter of 1971-1972. Aiden faces a bully at school while his brother is in Da Nang with the Marines and his family and friendships are changing. With humor and heart, he must choose between courage and comfort as he navigates the upheaval and challenges in his life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Herlihy
• Release date: Jul 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301028382

Michael Herlihy

Michael Herlihy is a writer and teacher living in Bethesda, Maryland. He Is a Bostonian at heart and grew up in the lean years of the Red Sox and Patriots. He has published numerous nonfiction pieces in America, Boston College Magazine, the Catholic Standard, and Congress Monthly, among others. The Shelf Life of Joy is his first work of fiction.

Book preview

Chapter One

Some dink is always making junior high school harder than it needs to be. I liked elementary school a whole lot better, and not just because you have recess every day. It was safer. In fact, my time at Paul Revere can’t get end soon enough.

Yesterday, David Furnace got his books dumped while I was at my locker. I had been putting my math book away and had just clanged the door shut. David, the skinniest and probably the smallest kid in the seventh grade, shuffled past me clutching his books to his chest the way girls do. He may as well walk down the corridors holding a firing range target in front of him instead of his books.

The corridor was splashed with sunlight from the picture windows lining the hall and the heat from the rays made it feel like summer inside, though it was Thanksgiving last week.

Kevin Hennessey strode up behind David with the unmistakable click-clack of the taps on his boots. His footsteps sound like the ticking of a time bomb, and the louder they get, the closer you feel like you’re getting to an explosion.

Kevin’s the biggest jerk in the entire state of Massachusetts, if not New England. Maybe even for the East Coast, but I’ve never been farther south than Washington, DC (on a family trip last summer), so I can’t be sure about that. He’d certainly be in the running, though. He has this beat up black leather jacket with about six million zippers on it and it’s only a matter of time before he joins the Barons or some other biker gang. He’s already got most of the uniform.

He passed David like he was a car on Route 128, suddenly stopped and ripped the books out of David’s arms with such force that David’s black-rimmed Buddy Holly glasses fell off the bridge of his nose. Kevin towered over him like a victorious prizefighter, smirking.

Kevin saw me watching him and turned, froze solid right in front of me.

You got something to say jerk face?

I wanted to say something to Kevin, but I didn’t. He weighs about two hundred, which is about seventy five more than me, and is one of the tallest kids in the school. I’m not.

He’s no Ivan Koloff. He’s a mound of blubber, but I’m still half his size. If Sean weren’t in Vietnam, I could have threatened him with my brother. Kevin might have listened to that.

David just stood there with his crooked glasses and his shirt buttoned up to the top and cried. His books and papers littered the hallway.

Billy Johnson and a couple of the popular jocks came down the corridor and stepped all over his papers. Billy kicked David’s science textbook ahead of him like a soccer ball.

Don’t be such a slob, Billy said. The other jocks laughed like Billy was Flip Wilson or something.

Pick up your trash, Kevin said. If a sneer could talk, it would say that Kevin’s was the the way to do it. He kicked one of David’s notebooks and clanked away.

David didn’t try to pick anything up. I guess he’s used to it. Twelve or thirteen years old and he has already surrendered. If I were going to give him any advice, I’d tell him to hold his books in one hand against his hip like me—it doesn’t make me better or anything, but David’s way of doing it makes him look unusual. You should be able to hold your books however you like. That’s not asking too much.

Kevin can be different and get away with it because he could pound anyone who would dare to stand up to him. No one dumps his books.

I felt sick to my stomach.

I didn’t help David pick up his papers. Just like everyone else, I pretended I didn’t see what happened. I went to my next class. I felt like as big a jerk as Kevin for walking away. What a way to end the school week.

* * *

Chapter Two

Miss Dalton was reading us a short story in English earlier in the week about a new kid at this fictional school who gets picked on and made fun of because he’s different. He brings weird lunches with smelly limburger cheese and wears sweaters with bright colors that his mother has knit rather than jeans and t-shirts. He suffers through school as the butt of taunts and pranks.

She came to the end of the story where another new kid comes to the school. He’s an outsider and immediately becomes a target for bullies. The kid who’s been picked on has a choice how he’s going to treat the new kid. He decides to make fun of him in front of a bunch of other kids.

That’s how the story ended. I would never write a story with that kind of ending. People need some hope.

David came to my mind as I read it. I hope he doesn’t turn into a jerk if some new kid comes to school.

I think Miss Dalton was trying to get us to do more than just listen to literature. I think she was trying to make us aware of how we treat others, but she chose a pretty depressing way to do it.

I looked over at Melissa Bradford. She seemed upset by the story. She moved to our town in third grade from Connecticut and was in my homeroom class that year, the year the Red Sox won the pennant and Yaz won the Triple Crown. Miss Hutchinson assigned her a desk next to mine and we’ve been friends ever since. Her family had lived in Stamford and her father got a job in Boston. He’s an attorney like my Dad.

She’s the prettiest girl in school, but I would never admit that to anyone. I’d never hear the end of it. My Mom wouldn’t act like that, of course, but I don’t talk about that stuff with her. I would never tell my Dad. I can talk to him and all, but it would feel too weird to suddenly bring up Melissa and girls around him. Sports are our main topic of conversation.

Melissa was wearing a dress and a sweater that looked pretty expensive. She dresses really well, as if she is going to perform in a recital. I don’t think she gets her clothes at Marshall’s. My sister has been insisting on getting her clothes from places other than Marshall’s, too.

It’s important to feel good about how you look in high school, my mother had told me this past August when she had dragged me with her and Eileen for the annual school clothes shopping expedition.

Why can’t Eileen get her clothes at Sears or Marshall’s?

When you’re in high school, you’ll understand.

I’m going to wear exactly what I’m wearing now, Mom.

Some of us like to dress nicely. Eileen practically sniffed as she said it.

There’s nothing wrong with jeans and a t-shirt.

I guess--if you’re a hobo.

That’s enough, you two.

I think I’d rather hit myself with a mallet than go shopping for clothes with my sister. I swear she looked at every single piece of clothing on the racks. My mother, who never gets antsy, waited and gave her opinion on each blouse or whatever Eileen held up and asked, How do you think it looks on me? (Like everything else, I had thought to myself.)

I ended up getting like one shirt and we spent almost two hours there, nine-tenths of which was devoted to Eileen’s clothes shopping. It would have been less torture to have my fingernails pulled out.

My Mom later thanked me in the parking lot for being so considerate. She surprised us by stopping at McDonald’s for dinner, which we don’t often do. She makes dinner just about every evening. That made it worth waiting for Eileen. My Mom only got tea for herself so that she could have dinner with my Dad at home. I went to Jack’s house to play street hockey while my Mom and Dad ate dinner.

Life at home is so much better than school. It’s calm, no one fights, and you can mind your own business and be who you are without a hassle from anyone else.

* * *

Chapter Three

Melissa isn’t like most of the girls in seventh grade who treat you like you’ve got B.O. She doesn’t make sarcastic remarks in class if someone gives a ridiculous answer to a question, like when Miss Dalton called on Brian Flynn to explain who Shakespeare was and why he was important and he said he was a tight end for the Packers. The thing is I’m not sure if Brian was trying to be funny or if he’s just a dope. You can’t tell with him.

She’s wicked smart, too. Miss Dalton read one of her poems to the class last quarter. It was about hiking in the woods and the way the trees looked and it was tons better than anything I wrote. Or anyone else wrote. When Miss Dalton asked the class for comments, all we could say was, That was well written. What else could we do, she’s just better.

She attends the Unitarian church on the town common. The Unitarian church looks great at Christmas because they put white candles in the front windows—there are nine of them. The lights in the window, along with the big evergreen tree that the fire department strings with colored lights, make the common and the center of town seem like the happiest and most peaceful place in town.

The church is three stories high, with huge front doors. At the top are a steeple and a bell tower. It rings out the hour, every hour. My Dad said it goes back to the colonial days of our town when the common was a meeting place for citizens and the clock tower helped people keep track of time. You would think it would be annoying to have a bell ring out all the time, but I actually like hearing it. It’s one of those things that you can rely on. I can even hear it from my bedroom if it’s the middle of the night and really quiet.

The Unitarians keep a glass-enclosed case outside the church at the corner of the common with a message they change every couple of weeks. It’s right next to Center Street, which runs through town. Anyone driving by can see it. When I go to the corner store to buy the Globe each morning, I make it a point to read it. It’s usually about peace and getting along with others. St. Camilla’s, where we go, only posts the Mass and confession times on its glass case, which is pretty boring.

Behind the sign the common forms a small depression that pools with rain and ices over in winter. We skate on it, Mitch, Jack and me, pretending we’re Bobby Orr.

We don’t ever go to the Unitarian church because we’re Catholics. Melissa once