went to high school.”
“As your father would say, I rest my case,” Evelyn said with uncamouflaged satisfaction.
A HOODED sweatshirt under a wool jacket insulated Sean from the freezing mist. The cinch for the hood had been drawn tight and tied beneath his chin. As he jogged along High Street toward Monument Square in Charlestown, he passed a basketball from one hand to the other. He’d just finished playing a pickup game at the Charlestown Boys Club with a group called “The Alumni.” This was a motley assortment of friends and acquaintances from age eighteen to sixty. It had been a good workout, and he was still sweating.
Skirting Monument Square with its enormous phallic monument commemorating the Battle of Bunker Hill, Sean approached his boyhood home. As a plumber his father, Brian Murphy, Sr., had had a decent income, and back before it became fashionable to live in the city, he had purchased a large Victorian town house. At first the Murphys had lived in the ground-floor duplex, but after his father had died at age forty-six from liver cancer the rental from the duplex had been sorely needed. When Sean’s older brother, Brian, Jr., had gone away to school, Sean, his younger brother Charles, and his mother Anne had moved into one of the single-floor apartments. Now she lived there alone.
As he reached the door, Sean noticed a familiar Mercedes parked just behind his Isuzu 4 ? 4, indicating older brother Brian had made one of his surprise visits. Intuitively, Sean knew he was in for grief about his planned trip to Miami.
Taking the stairs two at a time, Sean unlocked his mother’s door and stepped inside. Brian’s black leather briefcase rested on a ladder-back chair. A rich smell of pot roast filled the air.
“Is that you, Sean?” Anne called from the kitchen. She appeared in the doorway just as Sean was hanging up his coat. Dressed in a simple housedress covered by a worn apron, Anne looked considerably older than her fifty- four years. After her long, repressing marriage to the hard-drinking Brian Murphy, her face had become permanently drawn, her eyes generally tired and forlorn. Her hair, which she wore in an old-fashioned bun, was naturally curly and although it had been an attractive dark brown, it was now streaked with gray.
“Brian’s here,” Anne said.
“I guessed as much.”
Sean went into the kitchen to say hello to his brother. Brian was at the kitchen table, nursing a drink. He’d removed his jacket and draped it over a chair; paisley suspenders looped over his shoulders. Like Sean, he had darkly handsome features, black hair, and brilliant blue eyes. But the similarities ended there. Where Sean was brash and casual, Brian was circumspect and precise. Unlike Sean’s shaggy locks, Brian’s hair was neatly trimmed and precisely parted. He sported a carefully trimmed mustache. His clothing was decidedly lawyer-like and leaned toward dark blue pinstripes.
“Am I responsible for this honor?” Sean asked. Brian did not visit often even though he lived nearby in Back Bay.
“Mother called me,” Brian admitted.
It didn’t take Sean long to shower, shave, and dress in jeans and a rugby shirt. He was back in the kitchen before Brian finished carving the pot roast. Sean helped set the table. While he did so, he eyed his older brother. There had been a time when Sean resented him. For years his mother had introduced her boys as my wonderful Brian, my good Charles, and Sean. Charles was currently off in a seminary in New Jersey studying to become a priest.
Like Sean, Brian had always been an athlete, although not as successful. He’d been a studious child and usually at home. He’d gone to the University of Massachusetts, then on to law school at B.U. Everybody had always liked Brian. Everyone had always known that he would be successful and that he would surely escape the Irish curse of alcohol, guilt, depression, and tragedy. Sean, on the other hand, had always been the wild one, preferring the company of the neighborhood ne’er-do-wells and frequently in trouble with the authorities involving brawls, minor burglary, and stolen-car joy rides. If it hadn’t been for Sean’s extraordinary intelligence and his facility with a hockey stick, he might have ended up in Bridgewater Prison instead of Harvard. Within the ghettos of the city the dividing line between success and failure was a narrow band of chance that the kids teetered on all through their turbulent adolescent years.
There was little conversation during the final dinner preparations. But once they sat down, Brian cleared his throat after taking a sip of his milk. They’d always drunk milk with dinner throughout their boyhoods.
“Mother is upset about this Miami idea,” Brian said.
Anne looked down at her plate. She’d always been self-effacing, especially when Brian Sr. was alive. He’d had a terrible temper made worse by alcohol, and alcohol had been a daily indulgence. Every afternoon after unplugging drains, fixing aged boilers, and installing toilets, Brian Sr. would stop at the Blue Tower bar beneath the Tobin Bridge. Nearly every night he’d come home drunk, sour, and vicious. Anne was the usual target, although Sean had come in for his share of blows when he tried to protect her. By morning Brian Sr. would be sober, and consumed by guilt; he’d swear he would change. But he never did. Even when he’d lost seventy-five pounds and was dying from liver cancer, his behavior was the same.
“I’m going down there to do research,” Sean said. “It’s no big deal.”
“There’s drugs in Miami,” Anne said. She didn’t look up.
Sean rolled his eyes. He reached over and grasped his mother’s arm. “Mom, my problem with drugs was in high school. I’m in medical school now.”
“What about that incident your first year of college?” Brian added.
“That was only a little coke at a party,” Sean said. “It was just unlucky the police decided to raid the place.”
“The lucky thing was my getting your juvenile record sealed. Otherwise you would have been in a hell of a fix.”
“Miami is a violent city,” Anne said. “I read about it in the newspapers all the time.”
“Jesus Christ!” Sean exclaimed.
“Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain,” Anne said.
“Mom, you’ve been watching too much television. Miami is like any city, with both good and bad elements. But it doesn’t matter. I’ll be doing research. I won’t have time to get into trouble even if I wanted to.”
“You’ll meet the wrong kind of people,” Anne said.
“Mom, I’m an adult,” Sean said in frustration.
“You are still hanging out with the wrong people here in Charlestown,” Brian said. “Mom’s fears are not unreasonable. The whole neighborhood knows Jimmy O’Connor and Brady Flanagan are still breaking and entering.”
“And sending the money to the IRA,” Sean said.
“They are not political activists,” Brian said. “They are hoodlums. And you choose to remain friends.”
“I have a few beers with them on Friday nights,” Sean said.
“Precisely,” Brian said. “Like our father, the pub is your home away from home. And apart from Mom’s concerns, this isn’t a good time for you to be away. The Franklin Bank will be coming up with the rest of the financing for Oncogen. I’ve got the papers almost ready. Things could move quickly.”
“In case you’ve forgotten, there are fax machines and overnight delivery,” Sean said, scraping his chair back from the table. He stood up and carried his plate over to the sink. “I’m going to Miami no matter what anybody says. I believe the Forbes Cancer Center has hit on something extraordinarily important. And now if you two co- conspirators will allow me, I’m going out to drink with my delinquent friends.”
Feeling irritable, Sean struggled into the old pea coat that his father had gotten back when the Charlestown Navy Yard was still functioning. Pulling a wool watch cap over his ears, he ran downstairs to the street and set out into the freezing rain. The wind had shifted to the east and he could smell the salt sea air. As he neared Old Scully’s Bar on Bunker Hill Street, the warm incandescent glow from the misted windows emanated a familiar sense of comfort and security.
Pushing open the door he allowed himself to be enveloped by the dimly lit, noisy environment. It was not a classy place. The pine wood paneling was almost black with cigarette smoke. The furniture was scraped and scarred. The only bright spot was the brass footrail kept polished by innumerable shoes rubbing across its surface. In the far corner a TV was bolted to the ceiling and tuned to a Bruins hockey game.
