The Sammy Kelly Story

By David Halliday

Sometimes I can’t remember what he looked like. Before my mom died. He seemed stronger back then. Taller. It’s like when my mom died something inside my father caved in. Waking up, I can hear my old man downstairs. He’s been up for hours. Don’t think that he ever sleeps. Wanders around the house like a ghost, mumbling. Sitting in the garden in a chair staring at his roses, talking to no one. Talking to the emptiness. Talking to mom. Living in his own world. Living in yesterday. Limbo. Broken. Drifting from one day to the next. In and out of the hours. Sometimes he looks happy. When I come home from school, I walk into the living room and sometimes find him sitting on the couch where I’d left him earlier that day. No television on. No music. Just sitting there. Sometimes he looks like he’s dead.

The last book in The Invisible Man series. A young boy is dealing with his mother's death, and a father who hasn't come to grips with his own grief. And a girl who doesn't see him. And in the background, a serial killer who is stalking her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Halliday
• Release date: Nov 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370820801

David Halliday

I have published poems, short stories, plays, art works in reviews and publications across the United States and Canada. I have several published books:murder by Coach House Press. This book is a series of poems and illustrations set up like scenes in a movie, describing the murder, trial, and mob execution of an innocent man. Winner of the 2001 Eppie for poetry.The Black Bird by. The Porcupine’s Quill. This is a book of poems, illustrations and short prose pieces describing the fictional making of the John Huston film, The Maltese Falcon.Making Movies by Press Porcepic. This is a book of long poems, interviews, short fiction pieces about a fictional BBC documentary about a fictional Canadian film maker, Samuel Bremmer and his company of actors and colleagues. It follows his career through the creation of a series of his movies.Church Street is Burning, a book of poems, was a finalist in the 2002 Eppie for poetry.The God of Six Points, published by Double-dragon-ebooks. A man who believes he is a god believes he has murdered one of his subjects.Sleeping Beauty, published by LTD ebooks.com is a murder mystery. A woman lands in a small village where the only escape is to be murdered. Finalist in the 2003 Dream Realm Awards. Winner of the 2004 IP Book Awards.The Hole, published by LTD ebooks is one in a series of cop stories. There are unusual happenings in the quiet suburb of Islington. People have begun to disappear. And they have been disappearing for generations. For the soon to retire Sam Kelly, this is his last case as a detective. All the clues point to a mysterious hole, which appears to have no bottom.In 2007 I was short listed for the C.B.C. Literary Contest in poetry.

Book preview

The Sammy Kelly Story

By David Halliday

The Invisible Man. Part 18

The Sammy Kelly Story

Published by David Halliday at Smashwords

Copyright 2016 David Halliday

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1. A Lazy Friday Evening

Sometimes I can’t remember what he looked like. Before my mom died. He seemed stronger back then. Taller. It’s like when my mom died something inside my father caved in. Waking up, I can hear my old man downstairs. He’s been up for hours. Don’t think that he ever sleeps. Wanders around the house like a ghost, mumbling. Sitting in the garden in a chair staring at his roses, talking to no one. Talking to the emptiness. Talking to mom. Living in his own world. Living in yesterday. Limbo. Broken. Drifting from one day to the next. In and out of the hours. Sometimes he looks happy. When I come home from school, I walk into the living room and sometimes find him sitting on the couch where I’d left him earlier that day. No television on. No music. Just sitting there. Sometimes he looks like he’s dead.

The day ends. We eat pancakes. Dad thinks it’s breakfast. There is some conversation. Mostly about things that are unimportant. Every so often he’ll ask about football. Every time I give him the same answer. But he wasn’t listening. He looks at me with this far away smile. He’s so proud. Creeps me out.

If it was Friday evening and there was nothing to do, I’d go and sit out on the street curb. Jonathan was always there. Sitting, listening to his rap on his head phones. Smiling. Jonathan is always smiling. First day in school, Jonathan got into a fight. Trying to be tough. Jonathan was always trying to be something he is not. This day he smiled at some grade eleven. He got beaten up. Blamed me. Said I should have been there as his back-up. My old man is pissed at my old lady. Jonathan said. He took out a package of cigarettes and offered me one.

I shook my head. Got football.

One cigarette won’t hurt, Jonathan cried.

I looked over my shoulder at Jonathan’s house.

Aren’t you afraid your mom will see you? I asked.

Jonathan looked around in a panic.

Is she looking? he asked.

We were practically sitting in front of Jonathan’s house. It never occurred to him that his mother might take a look out the window and see him sitting on the curb smoking. Jonathan was terrified of his mother. He didn’t see her standing at the front door so Jonathan lit up. He looked at me and laughed. I knew that there was going to be another story about his old man. Jonathan thinks that his dad is nuts. He doesn’t know crazy.

I don’t want to hear it, I said.

Hear what? Jonathan asked.

Anything about your dad going nuts, I responded.

Oh, Jonathan responded. He wiped his forehead and looked around. I knew he was going to make some remark about the temperature, part of Jonathan’s acquired social mannerisms. Jonathan mimicked everything around him. Copied some black rapper’s dress code. Copied his grandfather’s conversation pieces. And he practiced different laughs. To see which one fit. They all sounded the same to me. Jonathan was the only kid I knew who introduced conversations with a remark about the weather. Something only old men did.

Jesus, it’s hot, Jonathan said right on cue. We were sweating buckets in the portable today. My old man is pissed at the school board…

I glared at Jonathan. He stopped talking.I took a swallow from the can of Coke that I’d brought out. I passed it to Jonathan. He took a swallow.

Thanks, buddy. Jonathan handed the can back to me. Jonathan thinks that everyone is his best friend. It creeps other kids out. I’m used to it. And I guess I am his best friend. Not that I applied for the position. We’d just known each other for so long. Since we were little kids.

Did you go out to practice today, Sammy?

I shook my head. It was cancelled. Coach Hurley didn’t want to stand out in the heat. Guys think that he went to play a round of golf. Coach Hurley is addicted to golf. It’s all he talks about at football practice. Golf and grass. The stuff you run on. Always boasting about the grass on our football field. He watered it all summer. Sometimes I think he resented us playing on it. One time he got down and smelled the grass. Said it was sweet. All I could remember was the people who let their dogs run in the field all summer. Standing there with their little white bags waiting for their pooch to have a dump.

Jonathan laughed. Mrs. Dineen gave me shit today. Said I couldn’t sit in my seat listening to my electronic device. That’s what she called it. An electronic device. How lame is that? She told me to take it out of my ear and do my math. No way, man! I got to listen to my tunes. How are you supposed to do fractions in this kind of heat without your tunes? It isn’t humane. I got rights. Hey, I was looking at this book my old man has on diseases…

I glared at Jonathan. He stopped talking.

Why didn’t you try out for the team, Jonathan? I had to change the conversation. Otherwise Jonathan would have gone on about diseases. He’s obsessed by the possibilities of the human body. I didn’t want to hear that shit. Not since my mom died.Jonathan shrugged. Old man Hurley doesn’t like me.

Jonathan continued to listen to his rap while we talked. That was Jonathan’s skill. He could listen to everything at the same time. And understand nothing. I took another swallow of Coke.

Hurley doesn’t even know you, I responded. Besides, everyone makes the football team.

Back in the day, there used to be three football teams at the school. You can see the banners hanging in the gym. There was a bantam, junior, and senior team. Football fell out of favor. Now there was just the one team and even then there were barely enough guys to make a full team. There were guys on the team who couldn’t do one lap without coughing up a lung. Sweating after a few pushups. Like they were going to have a heart attack. Should