Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 75

Forward movement...

Laptop's working so I managed to get two chapters input from my red pen edit. It's going slow because I'm making further changes. Adjusting. Cutting redundant sentences. At the moment, the story is 135,000 words and I'm past the most intense part of the edit, so it may wind up being right around that...but no guarantees.

I'm really a crappy writer, and this book is proving it to me. I work and rework and re-rework the sentences I write in order just to get them to make sense and be in the order they should be, and still find they aren't quite right, yet. It's as if I'm peeling an onion layer by layer but never getting to the center of it. I just slop crap together and think it's fine...till I look at it later and think, How the fuck could I have written that?

And the ideas I jammed in to give the story detail and interest? They's silly. Affectatious. For example, I had it where Brendan's father never told his kids the stories he tells in pubs to cadge drinks from the patrons. His bar mates come to his wake and wax eloquently about his stories being so amazing and true, and when Brendan tells them Da never told them, they say he's being silly. The whole concept is silly.

Instead, changing it to his father telling the stories to the kids when he's drunk and close to incoherent, and use an example about harpies living in the Cliffs of Moher and how it came about. Bouncing back and forth in the tale so it's hard to follow. Makes a lot more sense, that way.

In Book Three, when Brendan's twenty-five, he hears a taped recording of his father telling that same story before he'd had his second drink...and it is beautifully told. Almost like poetry, his voice melodious and sure, and it builds anger in his that the man would share his best voice with his friends and those who'd support his alcoholism but not with his family.

Took me six fucking years to figure out how much better that would be.

Shit, shit, shit...

One of the two portals on my MacBook Pro is dead, the one I used for the power connector. I didn't know this until the battery had drained to nothing and it shut down on me, completely. Took me all kinds of tricks to get it back up, and that was only when I tried the second portal as a last resort. That worked. I tried plugging in a thumb drive to the initial portal and nothing. Won't load in.

On top of this, the battery needs replacing because it will not hold a charge for more than half an hour. I hadn't cared because I was working from home and had it plugged in. But if the primary portal is dead and the second one is being used for power, I have no way to download anything onto a drive unless I unplug the power and do it quick, quick, quick. 

Which I did, today. Saved everything I could, even stuff I had already saved. Just to be safe. I suppose I could pull out my old MacBook and see if it will work with the WiFi. I really liked it, but it's 15 years old. so has limitations.

Looks like I'll be buying that MacMini, after all, since I do 99% of everything on my laptop at home. Pisses me off, but what can you do?

I hate technology.

The opening chapter of APoS...

As polished and complete as it's gonna get, right now:------- Those who knew Eamonn Kinsella...and were truly being honest with themselves, for once...had to admit that were he born but ten miles to the west or north his murder would have been seen as the fitting end to a hard and brutal man. As his son, I do not make this claim lightly. Nor is it merely from spite. While true he near twisted my arm off when forcing me to turn over a five-pound note I'd received for my tenth birthday, just so he could drink himself into another stupor, that does not factor into my opinion. All it does is prove that my father was a very difficult man. 
In many ways and with everyone. 
It would take little more than a wrong word, here; a wrong look, there; or even a wrong touch on his shoulder to call forth some beast within. Then suddenly you'd find yourself on the floor with a split lip or blackened eye. And it would be your fault for his reaction, no matter how improbable the cause, so expect no apology. With his height of well above six feet, weight at more than fifteen stone, and back still carrying the strength gained from a long-past position as a navvy, few were they who would take the dispute further. 
That was why, as word of his death spread, the first thought on many-a-mind was he had finally focused his anger on the one absolute truth of existence -- that there was always somebody bigger, stronger, meaner and better with his fists than yourself, and that one day you were sure to meet. 
His body was found off the Limavady Road, down a farm trail that might have offered a pleasant view of the Foyle had it not decided to turn so sharply to the east. The morning air was cold and blustery, and the fields around him bleak and gray despite recent whispers of snow and the brightness of the sky. He had been dumped in a ditch, his coat pulled down his arms and his hands bound tight behind him. Rumors also flew that he had been emasculated, never to be confirmed one way or the other. It was verified that every bone in every finger was broken, several ribs were shattered, an elbow had been dislocated and his face pummeled into the merest hint of a human visage. Blood soaked his shirt to his trousers, the knees of which were torn and scraped as if he’d been forced to crawl on them. Or been dragged. And it was said not one tooth was left in his mouth. 
As for the Coroner’s release on the manner of his death? It was the purest embodiment of callous simplicity.“Mr. Kinsella perished from the result of a bullet being fired into the crown of his head.” 
Mr. Kinsella perished. 
He was not murdered. 
Nor was he killed. 
Or even slaughtered, like a cow in the abattoir. 
He merely perished.A charming word you'd hear more often on the lips of someone claiming they're perished from the hunger. Or thirst. Or cold. Or the mere seeking of a job. Not once until that Coroner's comment had I ever connected the damned word with death. Which sent me to the library to dig into their dictionary and discover it actually was defined as such, with synonyms being expire, wither, shrivel, vanish, molder and rot, any of which might have been just as inappropriate. 
He had lain on his back in a slight trail of dirty water until his clothing was soaked through and solid with ice. One unseeing eye open and tinted by blood; the other swollen shut. Well-preserved, he was. Refrigerated, even. Time of death was somewhere between midnight and four of that morning, which brought forth a great deal of anger. Two nights before, he had been jostled out of McCleary’s in his far-too-usual condition, just after last orders. And he had not returned to his hovel, that much was certain. Nor had he been seen anywhere else, since. So to one and all it became a truth carved in stone that his torturers had enjoyed their game with him for near two days. 
Adding to the horror of his lengthy demise was how the somewhat reticent undertaker handling the funeral arrangements had gently but firmly insistented on a closed casket. 
"Considering the overall devastation visited upon him," he'd softly said to the widow, "well...there's only so much one can do, you know, and really, Mrs. Kinsella, it would be best to remember him as he was." 
To which she began to wail, "My poor Eamonn." As was expected of her.Mrs. Haggerty, her immediate neighbor, was at her side...which was how word of this travesty leap from house to home with the speed of telepathy; that woman never knew a secret she couldn't spread faster than the BBC. 
I also was in the room, as was my elder brother, Eamonn, the younger. I was standing quietly, and told I was being quite stoic a lad, as my elder sister, Mairead, sat on a stool and wept. Eamonn's fists were clenched and his body tight, for he and Mairead knew what all of this meant. And while I did understand the concept of death, I could make no sense from the quiet reticence in the way it was being depicted by any and all concerned.Not then, anyway. 
But oh, did this news increase the dead man's stature in the eyes of any and all. He quickly became the truest of true Irishmen, who did not release his hold on life as easily as others would have. Who fought to the end in order to return home to his kith and kin. Why, he even spat blood in the faces of his killers, that much was a certainty. Before the day was gone, he'd been elevated to the likes of Cu Chulain and Michael Collins and every other hero of Ireland's past, with all past grievances forgotten. 
So throughout the afternoon and evening, many a pub mate dropped by to offer kind remembrances of my Da's bleak eyes and long face, a visage that brought to mind tortured poets and sad balladeers. They wistfully spoke of how he could sing so well as to make the angels weep. Elegant tunes of Ireland's ruined past and her dead future. Others provided gentle smiles as they told stories about the stories he could weave. Melodious tales of fairies living in oak glens that once spread forever across the land. And of gods who roamed her once glorious green fields and forests. And exciting events wrapped around Grianán Aileach, the ancient ring fort but six miles and a hundred worlds away from town. Oh, he had a true Irish heart in his use of word. In another time under much better circumstances, he'd have given the likes of James Joyce and Sean O’Casey a challenge as the nation’s bard, for each tale was brought to life with such beauty and perfection you'd have thought he lived through each and every one. 
Which put me off, for I'd heard Da's stories and singing voice, and not been much impressed. But when I said so, the usual response was, "Oh, you poor wee lad, how could you know?" Or, "What a thing to say about your poor dead da." Or, "This is what happens when you're simple." The last one usually followed by a wink and nod to whomever was seated next to them. And when neither Eamonn the younger nor Mairead said a single word to the contrary, the dismissal of my opinion was complete.
Simple! Once you have the reputation of that, you cannot seem to remove it. But I was smart enough to know now was not the time to remind the bloody hypocrites of the money borrowed but never to be repaid, or drunken rants along the road, or the beatings and the bursts of howling fury and the theft of any money we'd managed to pull together. I had long ceased to wonder at how much viciousness and cruelty could have been poured into one man in fewer than thirty-six years, and had just accepted it was a part of him. After all, he was hardly the only Irishman filled with anger. It was the one honest emotion those like him were allowed to hold. And if my mother was seen at market with fresh bruises, or was out in the cold night air walking us around till our lord and master had sworn himself into weary, drunken sleep? Well, her nails had left scratches deep on more than just his back, and her quick use of an iron skillet to the head had not gone unnoticed.But it hit me wrong, then. 
It wasn't till years later I understood that hypocrisy is just good manners, at a wake. 
So the bad of my father was made quiet and the best cried aloud.His funeral was well-attended and partially paid for through the intersession of Father Demian, who’d so often visited the man’s home in times of distress. The rest was provided by the widow's one sister, Maria Nolan, who had rushed over from Houston. Texas. It was she who'd sent me that five-pound note. She saw that everything was arranged as well as possible in our sad little hovel. She also kept my younger brother and sister at her hotel room to give them peace from the nonstop clamor of adults in the house. And when she spoke to the press, she emphasized that the widow had five children with another soon due yet was living in a structure that was condemned and had no prospects for better. She actually shamed the bastards who ran the town like their bloody fiefdom into at least promising new lodgings once the last of the Rossville Flats was completed.
If there were room still available on the queue, of course. Can’t make promises one might have to keep.
I think they expected that, as with most catastrophic events, soon all would be over and done with and life return to normal as the confusion surrounding us all drifted away, so they could return to ignoring us. And would have but for one small and final detail that proved more than important. 
Eamonn Kinsella lived and died in Derry, in the North of Ireland.Londonderry for those who cannot be bothered to learn the city’s true name.A Catholic town taken hold of by Protestants in the way an abusive man might take hold of a woman he fancied, refusing to let her go even if it meant her destruction. So when it was learned that my Da had been killed by two drunk Protestants, that well-mannered hypocrisy turned to fury. 
It didn't help the bastards swore to heaven and earth they’d only meant to have some fun with the Taig. Which was accepted as the most reasonable explanation by the powers that be, despite his vicious and extremely well-known injuries. So thus was the martyrdom of Eamonn Kinsella to Mother Ireland made a part of history and his trek to sainthood begun as the truth of his former violent existence vanished like a ghost. 
The year was 1966, when several other Catholics were killed for being Catholic and Catholic schools attacked by the Protestant fools, all because the move to civil rights for the Catholic minority in the state had begun to grow in force. It was as if they thought hitting someone who's asking you to stop hitting them means they will shut up and let you continue the beating. To add to the insult, Protestant leaders insisted the Catholic population was responsible for the discrimination against it so no quarter would be given to make amends for the past transgressions that they, themselves, had caused. 
It never ceases to amaze me how many stupid people refuse to see the reality of what is happening around them. That we had decided not to let the past determine the course of the future. That trying to keep everything as it had been was no longer an option, and if they would only compromise a little, a lot could be achieved and both our world and theirs made better. 
But to follow that course would have been intelligent, so arrogance and stupidity took sway...and what followed was all but pre-ordained. 
Having barely passed my tenth birthday, I was not much aware of the quiet hatred that was building to an explosion of death and cruelty. An explosion made only the worse by it happening in a supposedly civilized part of the dwindling British Empire. But what child can see the growth of history around him when even few adults can? Things happen, and you either weep when it ends poorly or rejoice when it doesn’t. Thus, my father's death held resonance for me in but the most selfish, limited and childish of ways -- that he was gone, and I could now live my life in the manner I chose, that of a lad filled with hopes and dreams and prayers and promises, thinking himself to be in a place of safety.

Shock and awe...

There may be civil war in Russia. We'll know more in the morning, but at the moment it appears the head of Wagner, Prigozhin, has led his men to surround the headquarters of Russia's Southern Military Command in Rostov-on-Don and is planning to march on Moscow. If he's in control of Rostov, he's got access to a huge amount of military materiel, and that's scary.

However, he's verbally attacked the current Minster of Defense, Shoygu, but not Putin, so a lot of this is still off-center. BUT...it's just possible this will give Moscow the excuse to withdraw from Ukraine without losing face...which would be lovely.

I am convinced this happened because I posted a video of Tom Hiddleston dancing to Ra Ra Rasputin, by Boney, yesterday. Rather fits, in a way. No matter what, I'm accepting responsibility for it.

Also some family chat to deal with. And the realization I haven't gotten my tax refund from NY State...and finally noticing my CPA input my old address for a check when I'd always had it direct deposited to my checking account. It's not a lot, but every little bit helps. Meaning no inputting done, today, and Monday will be taken up with getting that corrected, I'm sure.

So...just more digging into notes and adding a few more details to APoS. Simple things like add a photo on the wall of Brendan's grandparents, on his mother's side. He knows his father was an orphan but there are questions about a lot of that, questions he cannot get answered even though people in Derry know each other's lineage back a dozen generations, almost.

There will be, tomorrow. I'm getting this draft done by the end of the month.

Ready to start next polish...

More notes made. A bit of revision to smooth some additions over. Now it's time to go through and input all the changes in the Word file. See what I've got going here. Make it fit and be a smooth read, which is why I go over and over and over my work. I'm not like Stephen King; I don't have his command of language, never have. He spits 'em out like a human branch of AI.

I used to think I was smart. The way some of my books fell together gave me a hint of arrogance, a bit too much certainty that I know what I'm doing. I just neglected to keep in mind that those were jaunty things with sex and violence in them, and weren't too solidly grounded in reality. My hardest one, Bobby Carapisi, took a fair amount of effort to make right, but that was because the characters took me places I didn't want to go and I fought them.

But with A Place of Safety, I'm dealing not only with a real time and actual places and events that truly occurred, I'm dealing with making sure the characters ring true for how they would have lived their lives. And dealing with a couple people already having told me I will never be able to make it right. So I've worked it and worked it and worked it and am now at the point where I can accept that if it's good enough for someone in LA or NYC or even London to read it and feel it's true, that's the best I can do.

I won't be able to not read what people say about it, if it gets any reviews. That's a compulsion with me. But it's also how I see what works and what doesn't. Like with The Beast in the Nothing Room. The reviews are pretty good for it, but one comment caught me and I could see where I'd made a mistake; I didn't set the relationship between Finn and Christian up well enough to honestly earn the ending. Didn't make that mistake in the books after.

So on this story, I'm dancing as fast as Tom Hiddleston...just nowhere near as hot...

The fates intervene...

It was decided, today, by the powers that be, I was going to get nothing done because my laptop decided to start doing some very weird things. It kept dinging at me and the screen would fade slightly then come back and posts I'd made days ago were suddenly showing up, again. So I properly freaked out and backed up everything I could then shut the thing down and went to the Mac Store at Walden Galleria to look into how much a new one would cost if I needed one.
OUCH!
Just a Mac Mini with a keyboard and mouse would be $1100.00, and that's without a mac monitor. Those damn things would have doubled the price, at best. I looked at the ipad setups and none of them felt comfortable, but a new MacBook Pro that I could accept would kick me up to $2000. Shit. I can't afford any of that.
If all I needed to do was writing in Word, I could do that on my old MacBook, but it's too old for current WiFi. I have an old ipad but never got comfortable with it. I finally gave up and came home to do further investigation, if I could. And figure out how much I'd have to pay to upgrade my PhotoShop and Word, since you can no longer buy them outright.
Fortunately, when I fired up the laptop, it was back to normal and an update was due. I cleaned it with Clean my Mac and did the update and it's been working fine, the last hour or so. But it spooked me. Reality is, I could afford the Mac Mini with an after-market monitor. It would just mean digging into my savings. I'd really rather not, just yet. Not till everything's settled with my brother.
Long story short, today was shot. BUT...if anything does go wrong, I'm totally backed up on a thumb drive.

Latest draft done...

Done. Again. Wondering if I just passed over the last few chapters with few alterations because I'm tired of it. Weary of it. I've been at this book for decades and now my biggest fear is I'm just letting it go because I'd worked on it so long I just can't anymore. No idea. But tomorrow I will go through my notes, see if anything cries out to be added in, then Friday start inputting the changes.

This does count as a rewrite, since I did some serious restructuring. I moved a memory Brendan had of seeing Danny and his father arguing behind the church they attend. His father works there, and Father Demian is the priest. Brendan was eleven, at the time.

I had it happening late in the book but it felt wrong, so I shifted it to earlier, when he's first begun to notice how moody Danny has become. Both are about twelve years old and Brendan begins to suspect the priest was molesting Danny, but then Father Demian is replaced with Father Jack and everything becomes more even-keeled, for everyone.

Now, at the later point, when they're fourteen, Brendan knows the truth but also learns Danny knows he's been seeing Joanna, a Protestant girl. Brendan thought he was being clever enough to keep it a secret. Of course, Danny won't tell on him, but it's still a shock. Now the structure feels better, since this all leads up to Brendan being ordered to end the relationship, in the next to last chapter, and he decides to leave Derry, instead.

God, I have no idea if the story makes sense or reads true. I haven't for a while. I just keep trying to make it better and better. I do think it's conceivable I could publish it in January. So far my push to find an agent has only gotten me silence or rejection. So...aim to publish all three over 2024...and see how it goes.

Maybe I'll do a box set, too.

64 pages left...

If all goes well, tomorrow, I'll be done with my red pen edit of APoS-Derry and can go through my notes to add in aspects that might enhance the story. I've got plenty. I take notes from everything I can, be it CAIN or Derry of the Past or emails to people in the country and videos available on YouTube.

I've done some restructuring and cutting. There was one moment I had Brendan repeating some gossip, albeit for a good reason. He needed to find out what was going on with a friend of his who has having a crisis...but it just rang wrong for him, so I cut it. Completely. The chat they have now is disjointed, a bit, but still says what it needs to and makes Brendan think he might have hated his father over something the man could not have controlled. And it jolts him to his core.

He and Joanna catch a ride down to Dublin to look at Trinity College. She's thinking of colleges to apply to and Brendan was hoping she'd consider Trinity, but she unimpressed. She's leaning more towards Queens College, in Belfast. He hates that idea because he wants to get away from the Catholic/Protestant divide in the north. I added in a hint that the reason he gets a tattoo of her name on his shoulder is a way to nudge her to go for St. Andrews, like he wants. Rather passive-aggressive of him.

I'm also developing the suggestion he has a heart condition that is undiagnosed. He starts off with a quiet cough but in a couple of vicious situations he comes close to what seems like a heart attack. One man even tells him he needs to have it looked at, but he never does. It won't be found out till the end, just before he's sent to Houston.

So tomorrow I'm digging into the Bloody Sunday part of the story, which to Brendan turns from a pleasant Sunday into complete chaos and he sees people murdered right before his eyes. I'm treading carefully, here, and keeping it as close to the facts as possible. Making sure I haven't stepped out of line. But that's what convinces him it's time to leave Derry.

Smashwords sale July1-31

 Smashwords is having their summer sale, 1-31 July 2023, and some of my ebooks are participating, but not all. The ones which will be part of it are going to be free. Sales are weak and I want them read, and apparently the only way to get people to pay attention to your work, these days, is to put it up on Kindle Direct and deal with their crap, or offer it for free. So here are the ones I'm doing.

Carli's Kills

Bobby Carapisi

The Alice '65

The Lyons' Den

The Vanishing of Owen Taylor

Just another kind of promo that I hope will help jump-start interest in the books, again.

Brendan and Joanna...

This is after the battle of Bogside, during the celebration fleadh (party). The British Army is now patrolling the city, keeping the Protestants out.--------------------Just past one on the second day of the fleadh, I was leaning against the Free Derry gable, feeling so real and good I closed my eyes to listen to a piper playing Dreams of Galway. People still milled about and what craic I heard was happy and quick. It was like a bright new world for us all. As if we were ourselves, alone, apart from the rest of Ireland, with prayers and dreams and hopes and promises aplenty, building our world anew, and I was thinking, This is how it should always be and... 
“I know this hat!” jolted me as my cap was grabbed off my head. 
I spun around...and it was Joanna, laughing with those friends of hers. She wore bellbottoms and a light jacket, and her hair danced in the breeze as she spun about and set the cap on her head and looked so much like an angel it hurt me. 
“I’ve never seen it before,” said the girl closest to her, a round pale thing that looked like a marshmallow in her white dress, stockings and shoes. 
“In Woolworth's,” she said. “Caught him looking at us. Shy and sweet.”She pinched my cheek. I was still so shocked, I could think of nothing to say.“You’re not much of one for words, are you?” she continued, smiling. 
I glanced around. A couple people were eyeing her, frowns on their faces. She wasn’t known and would soon be asked to verify her right to be here. 
I finally found enough voice to ask, “How’d you get here?” 
“On the bus,” she said, then they dissolved into giggles. 
I kept my words soft. “But the checkpoints...” 
The marshmallow said, “I’ve a cousin lives in Ballymena so said we all lived there, and no one stopped us.” 
“Helps to bat your eyes at the soldiers, it does,” said the other friend, who resembled the pop star, Lulu, made more-so by how her face was made up. 
I realized Joanna wore only lip-gloss and a dash of powder, her skin was so clear and bright, and she had the air of mint about her...spearmint. Yes, spearmint.Like I'd been chewing to hold the glass in our windows in our old home and I grinned, stupidly, at the thought...but then I saw Jackie, Aidan, and a couple other lads from Creggan moving toward us and knew they’d be very unhappy some Protestant girls had snuck into our fleadh.
So I waved to them and said as loud as I could, “Here, Jackie, some birds I met in Claudy!” 
The Lulu said, “I’ve never been...“ 
I turned, smiling, and shot a quiet “Whist,” at her. 
Joanna caught on and turned her smile on Jackie. “We heard there’s a fleadh and came to see. It’s lovely.”Marshmallow had a bit of fear in her eyes as she nodded, unable to speak. 
Jackie wasn’t ready to accept it, yet. “What’s your name?” 
“McGillicuty,” shot out of me. “Jo, Mary and Lulu. They’re cousins...nieces of Mrs. McKenna on Little James.”
“How’d ya get in?” snarled one of Jackie’s mates, a big bruiser of a thick lad with a voice like a growling wolf. 
Joanna stepped around me and went straight to him, her smile growing near wicked as she touched his chin and said, “The soldiers are boys, just like you, and how does any girl get around them?” 
He blushed. The big bastard actually blushed. 
I huffed and put some bite into my voice. “Jo...you said you’d not do that around me.” 
She stepped back and put my cap back on my head, still smiling. “Now, don’t be such a child.” 
Lulu laughed, despite herself. 
Jackie took a look at her and his face softened. “So you’re enjoyin' yourself, then?” 
Lulu took on an attitude I couldn’t quite make out as she said, “I’ve seen no reason not to, yet.” 
Jackie reached over to her but I put myself between them, without a thought, and said, “Now Jackie, these girls aren’t of age, and I promised to keep watch over them.” 
“You?” said Thick. 
“Aye. It’s not like we have to worry about the peelers or lads from the Waterside trying to make trouble with our lasses, is it? I’m here as their...their...” 
Joanna wrapped her arm around mine and sighed, “I told my aunt we didn’t need a chaperone, but she didn’t believe us.” 
“You must be someone special," said Aidan, "for our Bren to let you wear his cap.” 
“She is,” popped out of me before I could think to stop it.She beamed at me and it was my turn to blush. 
Jackie laughed. ”Keep a good watch on 'em, Bren. Show ‘em the kind of man you are.”Then he and his mates wandered off. 
I turned to Joanna and her friends and said, “He might well check with Mrs. McKenna and be sore pissed when he finds out we lied to him. C’mon, I’ll get you to home.” 
"But we only just arrived." 
"Yeah, right, we should wander around a bit, first. Not leave too quick." 
“What about you?” Joanna asked. “Won’t he come for you?” 
“I’ll worry about that when it happens.” 
I didn't really think Jackie would care enough to do it, or even if he did he'd be hard with me. But it did make me feel quite the man about town by acting all concerned for their safety. What's best, I saw what I'm sure was a hint of respect in Joanna's eyes. 
So we listened to more music. During one, all three danced their jig and many around us clapped at good they were. We had a bite to eat and orange crush, and Lulu was after having a toffee apple, but they were in the middle of preparing a new batch so it was forgotten. It was so calm and easy and lovely.
Just as it was starting to grow chill we headed on. I said little as the girls chattered about Jackie and his mates. Lulu was quite taken with him while Marshmallow thought they were all crude and in need of a shave. Joanna just cast me a knowing smile. 
It’s funny, but me having on my NASA cap, wearing my finer clothes and escorting three girls out of the Bogside apparently gave us an aura of respectability, as Marshmallow, put it. We were asked a few short questions at the Waterloo checkpoint then allowed past. We caught a bus across from the Guildhall, grandly paid for by me, and headed back to the Waterside.We hopped off at Edward Street and headed through an area of nice semi-detached homes with gardens and flowers and nearly new cars parked in front. Some lads the girls knew were milling out and about and called to them in ways I found unpleasant, but they got ignored. We turned down a lane with no outlet and went straight to the house at the head, where I recognized the estate car in front. 
Lulu and Marshmallow scurried off to their own homes when Joanna’s mum and brother came out the door to watch us approach. She was worried; he was wary and had his eyes sharp on me. 
“Where have you been?” she asked, her voice sounding far too much like wee Eammon’s mother’s. “We’ve been looking all over for you. Who’s this with you?” 
Before Joanna could speak I said, “I’m Billie Corrie of the Fountain, ma’am. We met up in Woolworth’s, in the music. I thought it best to escort the ladies home.” And I made myself sound very grand as I said it. 
Her mother smiled, indulgently, and nodded. “Thank you, Billie. It's growing late. Would you care to join us for tea?” 
“That’d be...that’d be smashin',” I said, copying a saying from a program on the telly. 
Joanna took me to the toilet, her eyes dancing with laughter. At the basin, she made a motion of washing her hands. I grinned, pleased beyond anything that she’d remembered when first I saw her.Then I noticed her brother was watching us. That made me uncomfortable, but I did my best to ignore it.
They served a fine roast chicken, potatoes and string beans off real China, and just to show off a bit I accepted a leg and ate it using a knife and fork. They were quite impressed, and didn't seem to notice my soft cough as I prepared to make the first cut. What was even better? Her brother ate his with his fingers. And don't think Joanna and her bother didn't cast him a look or two.
Their last name was Martin, with her brother a Charles. Her father owned a menswear shop off Irish Street and her friends’ real names were Angela, for Marshmallow, and Louisa, for Lulu. They attended the same school and had been friends since forever. 
I told them of how I fixed things. Charles didn't believe me and suggested Mrs. Martin bring me a fine toaster that didn’t work on one side. I graciously said I would look at it, and it took me but a minute to see a connector had broken free. Mr. Martin had a soldering stick in his shed, so I fixed it for them, right there and at no charge. They were well-impressed, and I’d never been so proud. 
Charles continued to be worrisome, however. As I was taking the toaster apart, he mentioned, “I know a Ronald Corrie in the Fountain.” 
I just grinned and said, “That’s me uncle, and a lazier man you’ll never meet. If he even sees a speck of work to be done, he’s off the other direction.” 
Which brought a laugh from all and a near smile from himself. Still, he did not stop looking at me. 
It had begun to grow dark when I left. Joanna's Da offered to run me home, but I insisted on taking the bus. I headed off with my hands in my pockets, strutting like I had not a care in the world, even as I kept a soft watch on the lads who were still milling about. They let me pass, their eyes wary on me, but I guess I seemed too sure of myself to be thought of as a Catholic in the Protestant area. 
I was almost to the stop when I heard a car race up behind me. I spun to look and it was the estate car, with Charles driving fast at me. Some of the lads from the street were with him. He near hit me with the damned thing, trying to block me against a hedge, then they burst from the car and I was grabbed and slung around onto a fender. I hit it, hard but mainly against my hands, and a body pressed hard against me. 
It was Charles’s voice that snarled, “The bus depot. I knew I’d seen you before. You’re a bloody taig.” 
“You sure of this, Charlie?” came the other's voice. 
“He’s awful neat to be a paddy,” came as I heard more feet running up. 
“And the hat,” said the first. “Since when do papists have money enough to go to NASA?” 
“He’s a dirty fuckin’ taig, I tell youse!" he howled as he punched me in the side, near knocking the breath from me. "Sniffin’ after my sister!” 
I said nothing, just looked around and saw Charles’s mate was crowding in, so I kicked up and managed to connect with Charlie's nuts. That jolted him and startled them all, allowing me to slip out from under their grip and run.Two of the lads chased me as Charlie howled in pain and anger. 
I raced down Irish onto Spencer, saw a bus just about to pull away from the stop so ran faster and jumped aboard. It pulled away before they could catch me. It was going the wrong direction from home but I didn’t care. I rode it to Altnagelvin, then hid behind a column to see if they’d followed me. I think I saw them drive past but not pull in, so I caught another bus back to Guildhall. By then I was calm again. 
My cap on my head, I went through the checkpoints, the Army’s and our own, with little trouble then went straight home. Everything was quiet and calm. I got the feeling everyone all still over at the Fleadh. So I went into the back and sat by the herbs behind the hutch and gazed up at the stars.And let it all settle in on me. 
I’d been lucky to get away unhurt except for jab to my side. I knew that. I also knew that not once had I coughed during any of it. Nor had I cried from fear or pain or begged to be left alone. I had worked my way out of a hideous situation, all on me own. I had strutted into the middle of Protestant territory. Into the middle of the Waterside. Surrounded by my enemies. And I'd come out in one piece. Of course, Charlie would tell everyone who and what I was, so I’d be a fool to consider going back to see Joanna ever again. 
But bloody hell, wasn't she worth being a fool over?