When O’Byrne turned fourteen he and his father started fighting a lot, and O’Byrne immediately got into trouble at school. His grades plummeted and he began drinking and smoking pot and getting arrested. His father was a plumber who always kept the family well provided for, but there was tremendous turmoil at home—a lot of drinking, a lot of physical combat—and one night things got out of hand and O’Byrne’s father shot him twice with a .22 rifle. From his hospital bed, O’Byrne told the police that his father had shot him in self-defense; that way he went to reform school for assault rather
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