Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 55

Jeremy returns from Israel...

It's 1974 and Brendan has a new low-key job after crippling a cop while at work at The Colonel's. This is from chapter 18, Compatriot. Jeremy was during the Yom Kippur war, dragged into the IDF. He was home for a little while, during Hanukkah, and Brendan could already see, even then, the fighting had affected him, deeply.

-----

Late in June, Jeremy returned to Houston from the kibbutz and his family held a Welcome Home party for him, inviting all of his friends and the whole of my Houston family. 

It was on a Sunday and I was supposed to go with them, but I'd zipped over to the shop to check a grinding noise I'd heard from the rear wheel of my Montesa; Rene gave me the okay to do it, now they trusted me. Turned out Hugo was there, as well, changing the oil on his latest girlfriend's car. So we'd chatted and I'd been late and called to tell Aunt Mari I'd meet them there. 

Well, as I rode up, Jeremy came bursting out of the house, crying, "You got a bike!" Then he all but danced around it, still chattering, "It's a Montesa! I never even heard of these till I got to Israel. Lots of guys have 'em--well, bikes like this. Rockin' all over Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, riding two or three on 'em, even. So cool! When'd you get it?! Can we go on a ride?" 

He sat on it before I had the chance to respond. So I just slipped my helmet on him, hopped in front and took him for a spin down the block and around. To say I was on alert for anything that might cause an accident is to put it simply. I resolved to get a second helmet to have on hand. 

Jeremy wrapped his arms around my waist, to start, then stretched them out as if he were flying. 

"Lots of soldiers ride bikes like this," he called as we zipped along, his voice breathless. I didn't bother to mention he'd already said as much. "Two on each, zipping along. Alive and carefree." 

"Am I not the first to carry you on one?" I called back. 

"Naw. Not even the twenty-third or fourth. Yossi and I rode from Eliat to Jerusalem on his MotoTrans. This bike's a lot more comfy." 

"I'm liking it." 

"When'd you get it?" 

"A few month back. Off an airman returned to the States. Needed some tender care." 

"She runs great." 

"You want a turn at the handlebars?" 

He hesitated then said, "No, no, I never drove one. Just rode. Just rode." 

By this point, we were back at the house, so I stopped on the driveway. He hopped off and removed the helmet, and as I sat the bike to park, I saw a haunted, guarded look fill his eyes. 

"Good idea to use a helmet," he said, his voice distant and-- 

Danny started away then turned to look at me and said, "Don't blame me, Bren." Then he vanished into the mist and-- 

Jeremy's voice was soft and hollow, like his had been, as he continued, "Never know when you might take a-a-a spill. Or you-you never know what, and--" 

Danny looked at me as he was getting in the car, his eyes wide with shock and anger and-- 

"Jeremy!" 

We both jumped. It was his mother calling, from the door."Where've you been. Everybody's looking for you!" 

"Yeah, mom," he called. "Right there." Then he cast me a sad smile and said, "Thanks," before he ran inside. 

I hesitated then slipped a fresh pack of Marlboros in my back pocket and followed him in. I had a feeling one particular cigarette in it would come in very handy, later.

Was this a massive affair! There was barbecue in every form imaginable, both in the house and on the patio. Baked potatoes. Ears of corn. Steaming bowls of beans. Salads and casseroles and desserts and breads and muffins, all well dug into. Once I saw it, I was put in mind of Da's wake and wasn't so sure how to work my way around it. 

Through the night I saw that no matter where Jeremy was, he was thronged by people. Talking. Laughing. His hand being shaken over and over and over. 

Now perhaps it was because I hadn't seen him since Christmas--or to be honest with myself, had ever really known him--but to me he seemed...I don't know how to put it...even though he was there in body, he was really elsewhere. Changed even more, from Hanukkah. Quieter. Careful. And there was one moment when I caught him looking at me and I smiled back, but I caught hints of horror in his eyes. 

An expression I'd seen far too often, in Derry. 

He was dealing with some terror from the Yom Kippur war and was trying to put it aside in honor of the celebration, for he'd come home without injury. To his body, at least. And his mother was beside herself with joy. No need for a strange Irish lad to make a wreck of that. 

He was given pride of place throughout the night. His uncle, a charming man closely resembling him but near bald, drove in from Austin with his family of three daughters. Jeremy was even shown deference by his father, and his two brothers and sister. But he never rose above this quiet, careful calm. 

As the night wore on, I found it more and more troubling.Like at Da's wake, everyone talked about his greatness and glory in ways that seemed unreal. Refusing even a word that might be contrary to their praise. 

Finally, I had to get off to myself in corner of the back yard. Get away from the ghosts surrounding me. 

I knew that I'd been fortunate in that none of my close friends had been killed in the battles around Derry. Nothing till that bloody fucking bomb. Before that, so many I'd known--well, was acquainted with--had been. People who vanished from your thoughts the moment they no longer lived. Who counted only as memories, anymore. And my melancholy rose at knowing I was, effectively, one of them. 

That simple lad, Brendan, gone and soon forgotten. 

Another ghost of the many in Ireland.

Pause

Last night was shit. Didn't sleep well. Up and down. Waking with a neck that was out to kill me, probably thanks to a cold front blowing in. I've got psoriatic arthritis in the left shoulder and neck. Had planned to go out and buy new shoes as well as drop off my invoice to Caladex, but stayed in and grumped my way through the day.

I don't do insomnia. Not part of my repertoire. So on the rare occasions where it hits, I turn into a beast. Don't want to talk to anybody. See anybody. I just want to huddle and be to myself. Eat like shit. Drink too much DPZ. Feel sorry for me and my life.

I halfway wonder if part of this is because Brendan's backing away from an important part of NWFO. He's bitching at me that I imposed it upon him and threatening to...well...I don't know what. He's just being irritating. We're in the middle of draft six, it's been part of every other draft, and he's just now letting me know he's not happy about it?

Meaning I'll have to rewrite an entire chapter and find new motivation for other actions down the line. Just what I needed--more work.

I'm also feeling overwhelmed, financially. Auto insurance has bumped up by 15%. I owe over $1200 in taxes. APoS-Derry isn't selling very well. The world political situation is careening towards catastrophe and chaos. And I'm tired of fighting with amazingly stupid people, online. Not just MAGAts but some progressives who have a black and white view of how things should be. I think I better stop social media, for a while.

Then I learned episode 1 of the new season of Vera was available. It hadn't been so very good, the last few seasons, so I wasn't sure I was going to ignore it....until I realized that her initial partner, David Leon as Joe Ashworth, was coming back. Fired up the Britbox and watched the show...and it was lovely.

Doesn't hurt that I have a crush on David Leon and used him to help me build Joss in The Beast in the Nothing Room. A villain who's not a villain in a story that has an impossible killer who isn't a killer...

I'm really fucking proud of how that story turned out. Patting self on back did a lot to help my aches and pains.

14 chapters done, 20 to go...

 It's funny, but working on APoS-NWFO is helping me with my blood pressure. I got into some back and forth with a couple MAGAts on Twitter, managing to keep my temper and basically mocking them, but when I tested my BP it was 182/100 w/88. NOT good, very red zone.

So I stopped, went to the bank, got some eggs and guacamole, tried to find a copy of Vanity Fair's Hollywood edition, and came home. Then had dinner, and worked on a couple more chapters. And I took it, again, just a bit ago and it's down to 155/100 w/80. Not good but not in the red zone.

I really should go walking. That always does make me feel better and opens my mind more. I just need new shoes.

Anyway, these chapters are when Brendan meets Everett, a gay graphic artist for a grocery store chain in Houston. Scott wants to show off how he and Jeremy, his best friend, used to sneak into gay bars to drink, when underage. He drags Bren to Montrose and into an old house made over into a gay bar, where it turns out they're having a drag show.

Brendan's nervous and Everett notices so becomes protective of him. Scott winds up too drunk to drive and Brendan is not sure where they are, so Everett drives them home to River Oaks and becomes a fixture in Brendan's life.

A very supportive fixture. He's got a crush on him, but with Brendan being 17 doesn't even think of stepping over the line. And Brendan doesn't care about him being gay. Unfortunately, it's going to lead him to some painful understandings about his family, hypocrisy, and intolerance.

Left, right or straight ahead?

Brendan's getting into a touch of philosophy, now. It's at the time of the Houston serial killings committed by Dean Corll, and the city being obsessed by it. Even the B-girls have an opinion, and think it kept happening because the boys being murdered were poor and no one in law enforcement cared about them.

Scott's trying to find a reason for it, so talks to Brendan as they're by the pool behind the house...

-----

"You're friends for years," Scott said, "then one day you get taken to a party and it becomes--hope you don't mind if we tie you to a board, torture you and kill you, for fun. Then you're never seen, again. I don't get it. How can you do that to somebody you know? Known most of your life?" 

I said nothing. Just thought of Da going out to tell his stories and sing his songs and get paralytic, as usual. Full intent to come home to a row with Ma. Instead, joined with some men who offered him more of the devil's brew, but really saw him as nothing but a toy to be torn apart. That they swore they hadn't mean for it to go that far was a lie. They'd dumped his body and run off to hide, hoping they wouldn't be caught out. 

But they were. And they'd wept and cried and moaned, over and over, things just got carried away. As pure a lie as ever was told, yet still accepted by those in power. 

It was the same on Bloody Sunday. So many had doubted the Paras had run up aiming to kill anyone, really, but they had. They were loaded with real bullets. Fourteen dead for no cause, no matter what that lying Widgery Report claimed. He hadn't seen the faces of the paras as they gunned people down. Hadn't witnessed the joyful gleam in their eyes as a bullet tore apart a fellow human being who was running from them. Once they'd begun their slaughter, they dove into it. And at that point, it was just bad luck to be in the way of a bullet a soldier was firing because he could. The reasons...the excuses, those could come later. 

For everyone had their excuses, and they'd be different for every person who flips from friend to foe. Protector to killer. It assumes they actually put thought into their course of action instead of just rolling along with it all. Not knowing where it will end until it's ended.

What did strike me was the arbitrariness of it. The men who killed my Da could have taken any of a dozen others, but he's the one they stumbled upon. And on Bloody Sunday, standing five feet to the left or right might have saved your life, for nothing else would have. If that para aiming for me had fired a moment later, I'd not be here, myself. It was all just luck of the draw. 

Like with that bomb.If I'd kept Joanna at the back of her Da's shop fr two more minutes, she might have survived. If I'd stayed there to wait for her, she might still have been caught by the blast but I wouldn't have, and I might have been able to get in and save her. It was just the arbitrariness of everything that most affected me. 

If Father Jack had been our priest instead of Father Devil, would Danny have taken the mantle instead of growing cold and angry, over the years? If it hadn't been Father Devil there to-to-to use him in ways I still was unsure about, would he have--Jesus, would he still have joined with the IRA? Been willing to set that bomb?I could work myself in circles thinking about the what-ifs. 

The one good thing about that madness was how it cut away my fears that part of the reason they targeted that shop was for me being with Joanna. That I was the link in the final decision to hit them. That they found out I was heading over to see her, one last time, and they feared I was passing along information so set out to stop it. That they decided to protect themselves in a way most hideous.I could finally see that was nonsense. 

Her father was high in the UVF, so he could have been a target at any time. Any Protestant like him would have been slated for destruction, thanks what their groups had done to Catholics.To my own father.  So I could finally accept it wasn't me who lit the fuse that killed her. It had nothing to do with me. It was just chance. Only circumstance for it to happen at that particular moment. Just rotten luck of the draw.Mine and hers. 

Ours. 

Like those lads now dead.All for no real reason. 

I finally had to tell Scott, "You ask for explanations when there aren't any. Things happen, and all you can do is hope they don't happen to you." 

"No, there has to be a reason," Scott snapped. "For them to suddenly start taking friends and others they knew to their deaths. Kids younger than me. Brothers. Families destroyed." 

"It may be nothing more than a pair of selfish bastards out for a bit of money." 

"C'mon, Bren, people ain't that greedy. Shit. I bet it was the idea of having the control of life or death over somebody else. A way of showing who owns who, and nobody owns me. It's not like they had that much of a future in store for 'em." 

Oh, God, that bloody crap, again. That would never happen in River Oaks. He was going to worry this like a dog with a bone. Like Angus and his rawhide toy. Keep at it till there was nothing left and he needed something to replace it.

The great thing about Word...

Microsoft Word can be a pain in the ass, sometimes, but one great thing about it is the ability to cut and paste so easily. I'm doing a lot of that in this run-through, making the flow of the story smoother and tighter and less cluttered with nonsense.

I dumped a lot of Brendan's angst-y chatter and focused on the emotions of the moment and his general confusion. Which shifted to him deciding it was time to rebuild his life. Mainly because he has a near breakdown when the B-girls sneak into his room as he's taking a shower.

He comes out of the bathroom to find them on his bed, and they start drilling him with questions about Joanna. They'd seen the tattoo on his left shoulder and want to know who she is. It sends him crashing back to the bombing and the horror he'd witnessed, and he howls for them to get out of his room.

Their response? This is our house. You're just a guest, so we can go where we want.

He finds out they've snuck in several times and collapses into near hysterics from the anger and the memories slashing at him. He has to slam into the bathroom to keep from hurting them. He's there for hours trying to calm down. Doesn't have his heart medication. Nothing. It's not until night begins to fall and he knows the stars will soon be out that he begins to calm down.

He dresses and goes downstairs to tell his aunt and uncle he cannot live there. His door has no lock, and he does not feel safe. Aunt Mari and Uncles Sean convince him not to leave by saying he can move into the pool house. Scott's in there, now, so has to return to his room. Which makes him very unhappy.

But due to the fact that he was willing to leave and fend for himself, Brendan feels he's made the first step in rebuilding his life.

Here and there...

I'm through chapter 7 of NWFO and the word count, which got up to 145,200 is down to 144,400. I'm finding a lot of repetition--or really, being overly emphatic about a detail-- that needs to go. Much of which I'd left in because I wanted to make sure I had those points made, but now it's cut and slash.

It helps that Brendan's now fully aware of his second identity as a lad of the South and keeping to it, as best he can. Mainly because by doing so he's helping to protect his family. He's still torn between the pain of being cut off from those in Derry and the joy of knowing he can rebuild his life in a way he chooses, without interference from anyone.

He thinks.

But his aunt and uncle are still not being forthright about his status in the country...at least, not beyond the acknowledgement that he'll need to get another extension on his medical visa and they aren't sure if that's possible. He's been in Houston just over six months, during which a new Visa law was passed regarding immigration. I'm still trying to figure out the limitations on that, if any, regarding coming to the US for medical treatment.

Meaning his situation is still up in the air, somewhat. Especially since the paperwork was handled in a less than legal manner, for US Customs purposes. That's why his aunt and uncle want him to stay close to their home and not do anything that might cause trouble.

But our Brendan, he goes his own way.

Brendan begins to understand...

I got through chapter five of NWFO and Aunt Mari has told Brendan he's not himself, anymore. He was brought over from the South of Ireland as a third cousin with a heart condition, for treatment by a specialist in cardiology. He's now on medication and his heart is much better. But it's still a shock and causes him to black out. He knocks his head, has blood on his shirt, but he's got an appointment with the doctor so goes upstairs to change.

-----

It wasn't till I reached the stairs to that attic room that my mind could focus on something like turning on the light in the stairwell so I could see. And turning left at the top before grabbing the handle on my door, to open it. No latch, so no key needed. The B-girls at school so no need for the chairs under the knobs. Just wander into the center of the dusty light. 

And there I stood still for a moment. Used a wooden chair to steady myself. Give my heart a chance to catch up to me. My head a chance to stop throbbing, at least a little. 

Everything about the room was the same as but an hour or so, ago, but now it was alien. Not Brendan's temporary abode, but the hideaway of an unknown lad named Bren. The bed unmade and staying so. A book half-read on the table, beside it. An ashtray half full. An empty cigarette packet next to it, with a folding book of matches. 

Those had been Brendan's, I thought. 

But no, they couldn't have been. They were Bren's, only. What else could that mean? 

I managed to half-stumble into the bath and hold myself before the mirror to check my wound. It was a nasty cut, still seeping a bit of blood. Some had trailed down my face and over my cheek. But then, I’d gotten worse from Da. 

Who was not my Da, now. 

A knot was already beginning to form, and there was nothing I could do to hide it. If I'd still had my old hair, I could have.But why did I care?I'd never made excuses for Da or Ma, over my injuries...except-- 

I was lying on the divan and told the ambulance attendant my bruising was because I'd fallen down the stairs, and he didn't believe me and-- 

I covered my eyes.The explanation Aunt Mari had offered to my family here--who was not my aunt, now, but a-a-a cousin? Did I understand that right? It almost seemed like no explanation had even been offered. Was that why I was only Bren and not Brendan, here for a doctor's care? Or merely a mad lad who's too-too sad? 

Oh, Christ, I couldn't keep my thoughts straight.  It was all I could do to think about washing my face and sticking some toilet tissue to the blood, to help it clot better. Faster. Something. Before pulling on a fresh button up shirt from the wardrobe. 

It's funny. This time when I looked at my old boots--boots that had cut deep into me but a few hours before--they were no longer my boots. Is that why I felt nothing at seeing them? 

The room was back to shifting under and around me, so I collapsed against the bed. Put the cloth of ice back to the cut. I noticed the hole in the jeans stained with blood, but it was so little, I hated even the thought of trying to change them. Instead, I just sat there and let my new world spin around me. 

I was now some lad from God only knew where who'd apparently seen his Da die and gone off his head. 

One of the men in suits said, in veddy-veddy British, "Yes, medical reports seem in order." 

"Immigration, too. His visa..." 

In Uncle Sean's voice?Still naught but flashes and nothing more.Nothing more to matter. 

Except I was banished.Cut off.Not merely from Ma and my brothers and sisters, but from the whole of Ireland. And it had been done to-to-to protect me? To protect my family? 

 "He belongs in a grave!" 

"You do that and I'll make your life hell!" 

"But he was there to warn his Proddy tart!" 

No!No. Anyone who knew me knew I never carried tales. I might have taken Joanna away from there to keep her safe, but nothing more. 

Oh, God, that returned to the understanding of what I could have done to keep her from being hurt. Which led into knowing, deep within understanding, that were her Da to be killed by PIRA or OIRA or any member of the alphabet she-she-she would have banished me. 

And that would have destroyed me. 

But even so--without question, I'd not have deliberately ruined the operation. 

I-I-I don't think I would have. 

But here I was in the minds of those who counted, connected to it in some way. Not by any who knew me. Never by any of them. Just luck of the draw, is all. 

Then how could the British have even known I was there, if I was carried off? How could they have known it was me caught in the bombing? In all that chaos? Could someone have heard me call to Danny, then added two and two? Were just the rumors about Joanna and myself all the evidence needed to link me to the bombing? Had they found my letters to her and come sniffing around for more Catholics to blame? Is that why my absence had been kept to the simplest explanation? That I'd already left to the South to find work? Or Scotland? Or London, where it would be easy to disappear? 

See, Brendan Kinsella couldn't be part of what happened. He wasn't here, so no need to waste your time, on him. 

Then where is he? 

How can anyone know what he was planning in that quiet head of his? 

A response anyone who knew anything about me would have acknowledged, to the peelers or the Brits. 

Was that why I'd been rebirthed? Seek him out, yourself, for the good it'll do you. And so what if never he's found? I'd been permanently vanished. 

Now that my head was returning to me, it was obvious that was more the reason because-- 

"He belongs in a shallow grave." 

"For what? Just bein' there?" 

"Seeing his Proddy tart, probably warnin' her." 

"How could he, when he didn't know?" 

"Then why was he there? Right then?" 

Christ, that made too bloody much sense. That's what they'd been considering. Arguing about. Just vanishing me. I was bad hurt but couldn't be taken to Altnagelvin for treatment. I was a liability and the smartest move would be to finish me off but-- 

Ma pressed a pillow over my head and I let her and it would all be fine but Danny pulled her back as she snarled, "Isn't this what you want?! Kill a lad who did nothin' to yous?" 

Nothing.Except exist. 

The swirling madness in my head was slowing down and I could see that, now. It came to me not so much in a flash as just, He's a danger to the cause and needs to be neutralized. It's gone or a grave. Just the way it has to be. And the story would remain the same--

He left and we don't know where. 

To help it, my note to Ma was in my poor handwriting, as would be easy to prove by notes I'd made at McCloskey's and from school. So no matter what, Brendan Kinsella could not legally be connected to what happened. Especially if one of them had used my passport to leave the country. It would have to be checked through at some point, wouldn't it? Unless I was to have remained in the UK. Off the train at Belfast. Ferry to Stranraer. Gone to London. Liverpool. Glasgow. 

"But you're nowhere, Brendan, so it's of no matter."Said aloud, possibly by me. 

I shrank a little.It now amazed me that I was still living.

Sixth Official Draft Begins...

Over the last two days I've dug into 3 chapters in A Place of Safety-New World For Old -- Nothing Things, Breaking the Surface, Moving On. Aside from some minor reconfiguring in the placement of moments, everything in is there that should be. Brendan joins reality, again, thanks to eating a tuna fish sandwich and having a coke. It's slow, but he begins to connect with his cousins and forces his way out of his shell.

It is a bit like watching a butterfly breaking free of its cocoon then staggering about, flexing its wings before it flies off. Everyone's being very low-key and casual. He doesn't know how he wound up at his aunt's place, yet, or that her children think he's a third or fourth cousin from the South of Ireland.

I've tried to keep the writing as much like someone waking from a deep dream as possible. And the way he finally does fully rouse himself is to be drawn outside the house, still in his pajama bottoms, only, and fix a car his uncle needs. That startles the man, who said his mother never told them he was capable of things like that. Brendan's response is, She thinks me simple. Then he goes back inside to make a sandwich, for himself.

There's a certain flow to the story that Brendan has laid down for me. And maintaining reality and honesty is my problem, not his. A real dilemma. But since it's all from his perspective, I have some leeway.

One constant will be conflict over his best friends, Colm and Danny putting the car bomb where it was. He wonders if Joanna's father's shop was chosen because of him. He beats himself up for not keeping her at the back door, when he came to say goodbye before leaving Derry. He fears his passport may have put a target on the back of his brother, Eamonn.

Lots of turmoil in him, even as he's fighting to regain his footing in this world and maintain a semblance of sanity. One more draft and maybe I'll ask for feedback and proofing.

This is my new anthem...

 I made it through the first night of writing my Irish opus and this reaches deep into my soul, at the moment...

Made me strong enough to face the next night, and the one to come with volume three of A Place of Safety.

Repetition for a use?

I have two separate spots in NWFO there Brendan is told how he was brought across to Houston after the bombing. My initial thought was to cut one...but now I'm thinking I'll just change them, a bit. The first one's being told by Aunt Mari prior to Brendan being seen by a cardiologist. The second by Mairead when she comes down from Toronto to visit, with her family. That's 3 years after Aunt Mari's version.

I need to solidify this and make it believable. Brendan was badly hurt by the explosion, so the most logical thing to do would be for him to die and be buried, in secret. It can't be known he was there, a Catholic lad near a Protestant's shop just before a bomb goes off. It would like the attack to his family and into the leadership of PIRA,, so he has to be done away with.

It's Colm who scrambles to get Bernadette and she pushes back against him dying, hard. Something else he doesn't understand, since he thinks she hates him. I've already had him work out how the bomb was transported and set, and that it was just bad luck that it blew early. If all had gone according to plan, Brendan would have ben on the train to Dublin and Joanna nowhere near the shop.

This feeds into his growing belief that we only have the illusion of control over our lives, and that shit happens to everyone, no matter how careful you might be. I had a bit of this in Bobby Carapisi, where Eric tracks down another man who was raped by Alan and his buddies and finds him at peace with what happened. His comment on how he chose to be that way instead of angry and bitter stemmed from a therapist who told him...

If you're driving to work but get broadsided by a drunk and wind up hurt and hospitalized, are you going to sit around and mope and cry and curse your fate? Or are you going to call work, tell them what happened, get yourself healed, realize it was not your fault, and rebuild your life?

It helped Eric grow a bit more understanding about his situation and begin to listen to Alan's version of his attacks...and slowly come to realize the man is just as damaged as he is. With that understanding, he began to heal.

I'm not doing that with Brendan. Not even sure it will be his final understanding. But it's a good stepping stone across a rushing brook.