Passing Through

By Jack Fay

The novel traces the life of Jack Moran from a Boston Irish ghetto, to the military, a post-retirement job; and resident of a home for elderly persons, where he passes on. Jack has a secret of which he is saddened. It happened in Vietnam when he accidentally shot and killed a Vietnamese family. The novel begins with a part discussion of the incident and concludes with details of the full incident. Throughout the book, Jack tells of many experiences, some humorous and some tragic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781463408572

Jack Fay

Jack Fay is a former Special Agent, US Army Criminal Intelligence Division (CID); Chief of Standards, Georgia Peace Officers and Training Council; Chief of Plans and Training, Georgia Bureau of Investigation; Director, National Crime Prevention Institute, University of Louisville; Director, Corporate Security, the Charter Company; Security Manager, British Petroleum; and Adjunct Professor at three universities; author of 12 commercially published non-fiction books. Mr. Fay holds the Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and the Master of Business Administration degree at the University of Hawaii.

Book preview

Contents

The Early Years

The Military

Retirement

Nearing the End

The diner was close to empty and the top of the cook’s white hat could be seen bouncing behind an open window to the kitchen. At the end of the counter near the diner’s entrance a buxomy waitress with gray-streaked hair feigned interest in three truck drivers debating NASCAR standings. Two regulars, men in their early seventies, sat on stools at the other end of the counter. One of them spoke: Did you hear? Jack Moran bought the farm three days ago. Someplace down in Georgia. The speaker was a head taller than his companion or it looked that way because he sat straight up on the stool. In her five years working at the diner the waitress had never seen him hunched over his coffee cup, elbows propped on the counter, head bowed, looking like a tired old man beaten down by life. A green Cardigan buttoned to his throat failed to conceal a paunch that had started to grow thirty years earlier. The cuffs of his gray slacks rested on army low-quarters spit-shined to a high gloss. He lifted his coffee cup above his head and yelled to the waitress, Refill, here.

The man next to him wore faded denims and a tattered baseball cap bearing the logo of a plumbing company. He was short, thin and in need of a shave. Before responding to his friend’s comment, he brushed scraggly hair from the side of his face and discreetly brushed a thumb across his nostrils. He said, Yeah, I got a call, too. Word gets around fast.

The waitress placed a coffee refill on the silestone counter. Here you go, Mark. She turned and was two steps away when the man she called Mark said to her back. The name’s Matt, not Mark. I told you a hundred times. He could not see the satisfied smile on her face as she returned to the truck drivers and their spirited conversation. Damn woman, he grumbled. Been comin’ to this grease pit five years and she still hasn’t learned my name.

His companion said, You should have a name like mine. Chester. No one forgets a name like Chester. He picked up the glass in front of him and swilled down the last bit of orange juice. Don’t like this stuff. But the doc over at the VA says I have to drink five glasses a day. Somethin’ about a vitamin. C, I think he said it was.

Matt blew across the top of the coffee cup before taking a sip. I worked for Moran, you know. Best boss I ever had. He changed, though. Not so much you could see right off—but it was there. He wasn’t able or he didn’t try to get back to his old self. It was that damn screw up in ‘Nam that did it to him.

It can happen to a man after he shoots up a whole village.

The Early Years

Ma and Dad

My name is Jack Moran, and I live in a home for old people. A man my age has had time to rack up lots of experiences. For me, some were good, some not so good, and one really bad. Let me start at the beginning.

Ma was 17 and Dad 22 when they met at the Bohemian Dance Hall in South Boston. The Bohemian was a place to meet young ladies, not long off the boat from Ireland and hoping to find a little pleasure in their drab lives. I guess Dad went there hoping to pick up a cute one and use his slight knowledge of Gaelic to lure her into bed. Thinking Ma was from Galway or some such place, he asked her to dance. She agreed and it was soon clear she couldn’t speak a word of Gaelic. But it didn’t matter because Ma met all the other prerequisites: blonde, peek-a-boo hairstyle, well-endowed, slim waist and trim legs. Eight months later they married.

Ma was knocked up when she walked down the aisle. Witnesses said my father did not look happy. My mother was said also to be less than joyous after having to shame my father into doing the right thing. If anyone was happy, it was the interior person, namely me. There’s nothing worse than a rendezvous with a coat hanger.

Ma’s mother, Nana to me, rented the first floor of a three-story tenement in Chelsea, near what was called the Rag Yards. An unending line of horse-drawn wagons trundled down the cobblestoned street in front of Nana’s place. The wagons were unloaded in the Rag Yards where money passed hands and the goods were baled.

Monday through Saturday nights a hunch-backed old man shuffled down the middle of the street with a hand shovel and metal can. He scooped horse buns from the cobblestones and plopped them in the can. What he did with them I do not know.

Drunkenness in the streets was common in Chelsea. Many of the men living there unloaded ships in Charlestown and South Boston. Before hopping the El or a trolley car home, more than a few would stop for a boilermaker, then a second, a third, and a couple more for good luck.

I vaguely remember a man named Paulie who I believe was Nana’s beau. He was hanging around Nana’s house when Ma, with me in tow, arrived for an afternoon visit. Nana started to shoo Paulie out the front door, but before getting there Paulie asked if he could baby-sit me on the front steps. We can watch the horses go by, he said. Fresh buns give off steam, you know. Jack will like that. Ma was about to say no but Nana spoke first. She told Paulie, If you let him out of your sight for even a second, I’ll kill you. Understand? He shook his head up and down and smiled at me as he took my hand.

We sat on the front steps watching the horse-drawn carts go by. Every few minutes Paulie’s voice would go up an octave. Yup, there’s one getting ready to go. He’d cup his hands on the sides of my head and point my eyes in the direction of a horse. A reddish-brown grapefruit would tumble out of the horse’s rear end. See, I told you, Paulie would exclaim. Look at it. Look at all that steam. He would tousle my hair and laugh. Marvelous, ain’t it?

I was getting antsy so Paulie let me go onto the sidewalk where I practiced my new trick: walking. The sun was slipping below the tenement tops across the street and we were about to go back in the house when a longshoreman staggered down the sidewalk in our direction. As he passed me, he lurched and his hip grazed my shoulder. I fell ass-first on to the sidewalk, unhurt thanks to cloth diapers. Paulie didn’t think kindly of the incident and was off the stairs and on the drunk like a raptor on a rabbit.

Charlestown

When Ma and Dad married, she left Nana McKinnon’s place in Chelsea and Dad left Grammy Moran’s place in Medford. They moved to Charlestown, the lowest of the low-rent districts in Boston. Dad picked a second-story flat in a tenement on the slope of Bunker Hill Street. People back then called Charlestown an Irish ghetto but as I grew from toddler to teenager it didn’t seem a ghetto to me. Life was good if I kept my nose clean and steered clear of the street drunks and Dad’s calloused hands. A whack on the side of the head, of which there were many, kept me reasonably straight.

Dad worked as a longshoreman at the Navy Yard near City Square. In the mornings he’d walk to work and in the evenings stagger back. He’d eat a cold supper from the top of the stove, and when the last forkful went down he’d drop into bed, clothes and all. Like clockwork, he went on a toot every three months. He wouldn’t come home on payday night and he’d stay gone a week. Ma knew it would happen again and again and again. Between the inevitable toots, Ma would put aside a little money to carry us through.

Dad was capable of working at a better job. He had graduated from high school, a big deal back then. But he preferred longshoreman work, not because of anything he liked in that job. His pleasure came from the opportunity to mingle with his pals and stop at a tavern or two on the way home. When Dad was at work or at a gin mill, Ma nipped from a quart bottle of ale she kept hidden on the bottom shelf of the fridge. In one sense they had a marriage of common interest.

The old lady living on the first floor of the tenement was a toothless white-haired widow whose only love was a brown and white Saint Bernard that never left her side except to do his business in the foyer. Every two weeks or so, the widow swept the dog’s leavings into a pile. The pile looked like a pyramid of shriveled baseballs. The widow used a worn-out broom to propel the chunks out the front door onto the sidewalk without regard to anyone who might be passing by.

We came and went from the house doing the tango to get around the dog’s leavings. We would have gone out the back way but couldn’t because there was no back way, except for the metal fire escape that barely clung to rotting wood outside our kitchen window.

Grandfathers

I never had a grandfather, at least that I can remember seeing. My grandfather on my mother’s side was a renegade or a free spirit or something in between. He had just turned eighteen when he was inducted into the Canadian Army and sent to South Africa to fight in the Boer War on behalf of the Queen. In 1903, two years later, he returned home to Saint John, New Brunswick. Eight years later he married, but not before he visited every tavern within fifty miles of Saint John. By nineteen he had sired two children, the youngest of whom would later turn out to be my mother.

A second induction notice arrived in the mail. The Queen had decided to send my grandfather to France so he could say hello to the Huns. When the day came to board a transport ship, my grandfather could not be found. He was at home telling Nana to take herself and the kids down to Boston. There was barely enough money to buy train tickets but that seemed to be of no concern to him. He wrote a name on a card and handed it to Nana. He said, This person is me Dad’s cousin. She’ll be waitin’ for you at the train station in Boston. Lives in Chelsea, she does. A grand place to live. The good lady will put you up until I join you.

My grandfather crossed the Canadian border into Maine through woods near Presque Isle. He hitchhiked to Chelsea, joined my grandmother, rented a flat and sired two more children. A decent life was beginning to show promise when a telegram arrived. My grandfather’s mother had passed away. Got to be at the fun’ral, he said and took a train to Saint John.

The Canadian Army MPs were waiting for him. He was sentenced to two years in prison. A month before he was to be released, the prison burned down, with my Canadian grandfather in it.

My father’s father was Christopher Augustus Moran. By the time I was old enough to be curious about him, I ran into a black curtain. Grammy’s home and the homes of her children were devoid of photos of him. His name never came up, and my every question about him disappeared into thin air. It was as if he had never existed.

Only once did I hear Grammy say anything about him. I was eleven years old, and by then Grammy had migrated to the outer fringe of Alzheimer’s. She and I were in the front room of her house in Medford. Her hair, gray and wispy, was pulled to the top of her head into a bun that barely reached the top of the rocker she sat in. The day was one of those summer days when you think time has taken a vacation. Grammy was not her usual talkative, funny self. I asked her, Are you okay?

She didn’t move an eyelash. She was out of comprehending range, visiting a place far away. More than a minute of silence went by. I was trying to decide between going to Hickey Park to play baseball or to Wright’s Pond for a swim when Grammy spoke. Your father’s name is Christopher Edward. Do you know that?

Yes, Grammy, I know.

His father’s name was Christopher Augustus.

I was on to something. Grammy, what happened to my grandfather?

He was killed by a train.

Did the train run over him?

Tish, no. Don’t be silly. He was just on the train. He struck his head.

Did the train have a wreck?

She was silent for a minute before answering. Train? What are you talking about? Your grandfather fell from a great height. Now you leave me be.

My Sister Was a Bed-Wetter

Dorothy was younger than me by two years. I was five and we slept in separate beds in the same bedroom. She hadn’t yet learned bathroom protocol. By peeing in bed every night, her mattress took on the look of a dishrag soaked in lemon Kool-Aid, but in this case there was no lemony odor.

On a particularly wet-bed morning, Ma threw up her hands in despair and dragged the leaking mattress out of the bedroom, into the kitchen, and onto the fire escape. She climbed out of the window and pushed the mattress over the fire escape railing. Thump went the mattress when it hit the alley below.

Ma caught me staring at her when she climbed back through the window. What’s your problem? It was more of a warning than a question.

Where’s Dorothy going to sleep? I dared ask. With you, that’s where. I protested on the premise that the first-born had certain rights that could not be violated, an assertion that went nowhere.

Let me remind you, little boy, you were a bed wetter yourself. When Ma saw shame cross my face, she softened. It will be just until we can afford to buy a new mattress.

Dorothy got off on a good start that first night we slept in my bed. We were both in soaked pajamas when Ma pulled back the bed covers in the morning. She said nothing but I could see the tip of her tongue slide past her lips, a sure sign of anger.

That afternoon Ma went to Farrell’s Drugstore and came back with a rubber sheet. For those unfamiliar with the concept, a rubber sheet is a urine catchment device that provides absolutely no provision for comfort. Rubber sheet or no rubber sheet, I knew that Dorothy would do her thing that night, and sure enough, she did. The sheet was sinking under our combined weight so that her warm pee formed a shallow pool directly below us. To be honest, the pee felt good while it was warm. But when it got cold, it began to sting. I was angry, but not at my sister. Ma was the guilty party. A point had to be made. A line in the pee had to be drawn and I had a perfect plan in mind.

After Dorothy had fallen asleep on our third night sharing my bed, I threw the covers back and turned her on her side facing away from me. I kneeled and peed on her from head to toe. It was one of my longest pees in memory.

The next morning Ma took one look at Dorothy’s sticky hair and let out a Christ, help us all. My intent was to make Ma assign responsibility to Dorothy so I said, She sure can pee, can’t she Ma? Ma grabbed my chin between thumb and forefinger, and with the stare of a tigress, warned, Don’t push your luck, little boy.

Cousin Gertrude

Dorothy and I were never left unsupervised when Ma would go out in the evening to play Bingo at her sister’s house. Dad would be zonked out in bed. My cousin Gertrude would be called upon to baby sit.

Gertrude’s approach to the baby-sitting mission was to feign utter devotion to her young charges and promise unwavering vigilance. And for an extra nickel she’d wash and dry the supper dishes. As soon as Ma was out the door, Gertrude would transmogrify to her normal self. She’d grab me by the collar of my pajamas and growl into my face, I’m not taking anything off you this time.

Naturally, I felt compelled to question my babysitter’s authority, a brazenness that did not sit well with her. When the order came to go to bed, Dorothy would skip off with a sweet smile while I’d refuse or make up an excuse. One of my best ploys was to say I had to use the toilet. I’d go into the bathroom with a toy tucked inside the elastic band of my pajamas and lock the door. Only after Gertrude screamed and pounded on the door would I come out and go to bed.

One night when she announced beddy-bye time I told her I had to do number two, which happened to be the truth. Gertrude reluctantly said okay, but made me promise to leave the number two in the bowl for her to see. I went into the bathroom, locked the door, hopped on the commode, and made a sizeable contribution. After thinking about the situation, I decided that a man’s number two should not be open to examination, nor the existence of it questioned. If Gertrude followed through on her threat to inspect the commode and found it empty, all she had to do was take a sniff. So without hesitation I pulled the wooden handle at the end of the chain hanging from the overhead water bowl. The evidence went down the toilet, so to speak. Upon hearing the flush, Gertrude had a conniption and, like all of the women I have angered since, gave me a thorough tongue-lashing.

Buddy Bowman

Buddy Bowman, a boy my age, lived across the street. Buddy and I would play in the grass around the monument at the top of Bunker Hill Street.

Whenever I knocked at Buddy’s door, I’d be greeted by a piercing screech from his profoundly retarded brother Billy. Although older than Buddy or me, Billy spent most of everyday inside a play pen in the kitchen. Billy liked me, probably because I listened when he made unintelligible sounds, and I’d never complain when he’d grab me by the arm and drool on my sleeve. When I’d leave, Billy would blubber and flail the air with skinny arms.

One afternoon Buddy asked me if I had ever felt my mother’s tits, which I hadn’t and which seemed a strange thing to do. Buddy said he had felt his mother’s tits lots of times. I told him I didn’t believe him. He said, She’s napping. C’mon I’ll show you.

I followed him to his house and when we entered he gave Billy a box of Animal Crackers to keep him quiet. I followed Buddy to the doorway of his mother’s bedroom. I could see she was on her back sleeping in a housedress on the top of the bed. Buddy put a finger to his lips to solicit my silence. He tiptoed to the side of the bed and slipped his hand under the top of his mother’s housedress. While Buddy was squeezing and looking back at me to make sure I didn’t miss anything, Mrs. Bowman’s eyelids opened and she looked directly into my face. I could tell she had been pretending to sleep all along.

I ran out of the house as fast as my feet would carry me. Buddy caught up and yelled in my ear, I told you so, I told you so.

Miss Wilson

On my first day at Harvard Elementary Ma handed me over to a stranger who I was instructed to call Miss Wilson. When my fellow first-graders and I were seated, Miss Wilson asked each of us to name his or her religion. When it came my turn, I said I didn’t know. She asked me my descent. Since I had no idea what descent meant, I told her I didn’t know.

She asked me where I went to church. I told her I didn’t know. You are Irish, I assume. It was a pretty good assumption because ninety-nine percent of people living in Charlestown were Irish. From that point on, I was a marked man, although in this case I was a marked boy.

I went far beyond Miss Wilson’s worst expectations. Maybe it was because I talked out loud, or because I changed seats when the spirit moved me, or because I threw erasers, or because I liked to run crayons over the wooden top of my desk. Deportment, a strange word for me, was Miss Wilson’s most important topic. The person who showed the best deportment of the day had the honor the following morning to lead the class in a singing of Good Morning Little Yellow Bird. I never had the opportunity myself, so when the song was being sung, and Miss Wilson wasn’t looking, I’d use both hands to tug my mouth as wide as I could and waggle my tongue at the singer.

On snowy mornings just about all of the boys wore rubber boots or galoshes to school. The rule was to stomp your feet real good before entering the school, otherwise there’d be wet spots on the wooden floors in the hallway and under student desks. Another rule had to do with emptying one’s bladder. You raised your hand, obtained permission to stand and say the magic words, Teacher, may I please go to the basement? which was understood to mean you had to use the bathroom. You were not permitted to say, I hafta go or allude to the pressing biological necessity by doing a tap dance or clutching your crotch.

On a day when snow had turned to slush, I failed to stomp my galoshes clear of snow. A small puddle formed under my desk. It reminded me that I had to pee. I raised my hand but Miss Wilson wouldn’t look my way. I waited a while and waggled my hand again; still no recognition. By then I had to go real bad. The puddle could stand to be a little bigger, I reasoned, so I pointed the little devil down and let out a tiny squirt. Alas, once started, the valve wouldn’t shut off. The girl in front of me felt the spatter on the back of her legs. She raised her hand and, miracle of miracles, Miss Wilson recognized her. Careful to avoid stepping in what had gone from puddle to pond, the girl rose from her seat and pointed an accusing finger at my face: Teacher, that boy is peeing on me.

Miss Wilson verified the report, grabbed me by the ear, and pulled me down the hallway stairs to the furnace room next to the boys and girls bathrooms. The janitor was there shoveling coal into the furnace when Miss Wilson dragged me through the door and told him, This boy urinated in his pants. I didn’t pee my pants, I peed on the floor. If she couldn’t understand the difference, she needed a lesson in observation.

The janitor looked at me with condescension and said, Oh, he did, did he? The janitor told me to stand next to the furnace and dry off my pants. Can’t anyone get it through their head that I hadn’t peed my pants? But I lacked the courage to raise the issue. Looking at Miss Wilson, the janitor said I’ll get a bucket and mop and be right there.

Hurry. It may seep into the floor, and then where would we be?

I don’t have the slightest, the janitor said, tipping his engineer’s cap. My head was down in a posture of shame which I really didn’t feel. After all, it was her fault for not seeing my waving hand. With a long fingernail she lifted my head. Don’t you ever, ever do that again.

Yes, ma’am. I won’t do it again, I told her in a submissive voice. She snorted acceptance of my promise. Funny how people will believe you if you pretend they have the upper hand.

The janitor followed her with a bucket and mop. I backed away from the furnace and waited for him to return. Would he cuff me on the side of my head? Take me over his knee? Not that, for sure. He still thinks I wet my pants.

The janitor was humming when he returned. He rinsed the bucket and mop and slid both into a corner. Nothin’ to it, he said. From out of his back pocket he removed a packet of chewing tobacco and slid a pinch in his mouth. You know. I went to this school a long time ago. Lotsa boys done worst than you. One little feller sitting next to me done number two in his pants. He ruffled the hair on my head and told me to go back to the classroom.

On the way out I looked back and saw him smiling.

Mrs. Kane

Mrs. Kane, my second grade teacher, was at least thirty years older than Miss Wilson. Mrs. Kane was heavy set