Extinction Level Event (Book 4): Rescue

by Jones, K. J.

  “That’s freaky.”

  “Yeah. But they are freaky. You don’t go to the O-C.”

  “Explain.”

  “Old Colony. One of three projects in Southie. Keep in mind, South Boston isn’t huge. But a whole section is made up of public housing projects. Big ones. A lot of people. A lot of ugly buildings. At least when I was growing up, it was ugly. Slum ghetto filled with sheleighlies. Even people who weren’t Irish became Irish. I wish I had that book.” He gazed around the room at all the stacks of books. “A dude from there wrote about it. All Souls, it’s called. Pretty good. Though he gets ragged on at home for talking.”

  “For talking?”

  “We are so fucking weird. I both love it and hate it.” He stretched out on the bed beside her.

  Their faces on pillows, they looked at each other.

  “So, wait, the not-talking is a Southie thing, not just a Peter thing?”

  “Yup. We utilize the age-old Irish male emotional tactics. Don’t talk but drink heavily.”

  “Oh. Good. That’s so healthy.”

  “It’s worked for generations for us.”

  She chuckled. “And produced three public housing projects.”

  “Well, there is that.” He rolled over and looked at the ceiling. “Every old group in this country seems to have major dysfunctions. Notice that?”

  “Who else?”

  “Take your pick. Blacks. Indians. Rednecks. We’re all on welfare and generally pissed off.”

  “Oh. Okay. But did your dad get involved?”

  “He tried to stay out of it. It was their second year at law school. On the first day of class in the first year, the Catholic Irish guy from Southie was not a welcomed person. All the Biffs and Chads with their sweaters over their shoulders and talking about the country club.”

  “Oh. That sounds comfortable.”

  “Totally. So Mikey got with another undesirable. Bob Greene. Black guy. Uncle Bob to me. Both men were recently married. Planning a brilliant future for their future families once they got out of law school. All that. From the very first class on the first day of the first year, those two were joined at the hip. It was them against all the Chads and Biffs whose wives were Muffy and Buffy.”

  She laughed. “That almost is not an exaggeration.”

  “Oh, it’s worse in Boston than New York ever was. Fucking Yankee Bostonians. Think they’re better than everyone else. Catholic Irish and black are basically the same thing to them.”

  “We just say Irish in New York.”

  “What about those Protestant Irish?”

  “I don’t know. Never ran into one. We don’t seem to have any.”

  “Did you eat them or something?”

  “We may have. So, Mikey and Uncle Bob become B-F-Fs. What next?”

  “Judge Garrity’s fucking forced busing to make every public school half white and half black as if that makes any sense at all. Not neighborhood schools anymore and whoever’s in the neighborhood goes there. No. Bus kids to make up this fifty-fifty shit. And these government assholes start with our high school and Roxbury, which is black and ghetto, too. Both schools, poor ass as it can get. Fucked up text books. Toilets without seats.”

  “Ew. That does sound ghetto.”

  “Big time. They used to joke about which school was poorer.”

  “Nice.”

  “It’s so fucking stupid. It’s like merging black South Central LA with Hispanic East LA. There’s going to be violence. There was violence without merging. But to merge two poor ghetto schools, gotta be fucking kidding me. But the press never told the white side was public housing ghettos, too. They described the Point, which was parochial schools, and described Southie as all, quote, Irish enclave working class. Don’t know about you, but I’d not call the projects working class.”

  “They always mentioned Irish?”

  “Yup. Always, quote, Irish enclave. They totally everything in the papers. Christ. Even in my time growing up in the nineteen-eighties, we were being jacked by our cousins in the OC for our sneakers.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah. True story. We’d go visit Grandma. Get jumped by our cousins, who took our designer sneakers. Our Reeboks and Nikes and shit. My little Velcro sneakers. We’d come out, bruised and bleeding, wearing Bobos.”

  “What are –”

  “K-Mart sneakers.”

  “Ah. K-Mart. I’ve heard of that store.”

  “You’re so young and precious.”

  “Aren’t I? But go on. Wait. How do you know so much? The riots happened when?”

  “Nineteen seventy-four. I know about it because Mikey and Uncle Bob were real intense about us learning what happened. We weren’t taught it in school. But we needed to know. Especially since we’re held accountable to even this day for shit that happened before we were born.”

  “My parents didn’t do that. I had no clue anything happened in the North in the Seventies. It was all the Sixties in the South in our history class.”

  “What did you think happened in Detroit then?”

  She shrugged. “They called it white flight.”

  “Instigated by what?”

  “They just said white flight. Racism.”

  “They burned down Detroit in nineteen sixty-seven.”

  “Burned down?”

  “Yeah. Riots all over America. It’s called the Summer of Riots. They burned down Detroit. Chicago.”

  “I remember Chicago burning.”

  “No. That was Chicago Burns, Part Two, the sequel. They burned it down in nineteen sixty-seven.”

  She sat up. “All that happened?”

  “Yup.”

  “The white flight thing was due to burning Detroit?”

  “Yup.”

  “Holy shit. They lied to us.”

  “Welcome to America, toots.”

  She shook her head. “Continue the story, Sullivan.”

  “Crap. Where was I?”

  “Mikey tried to stay out of it.”

  “Yeah. But when it got to be NAACP all over the place and KKK involved, it turned really race oriented and it was fighting in the streets. Literally fighting in the streets. Attacks on people. Molotov cocktails. The whole nine. A total war zone.”

  “Over this stupid fifty-fifty idea of the government?”

  “Yup. Whacked a wasp nest wicked bad. Mikey and Bob starting arguing. But no one was actually for the forced busing, though. The Greenes were middle class Bostonians.”

  “They dropped their R’s?” She giggled.

  “Wicked bad. And they’re Catholic. Uncle Bob’s ancestors went back practically to Colonial times in New England. They’re like Mazy’s family. If there was slavery, it was so far back no one remembers. But they actually weren’t. His family had this ancient document I got to once see. It’s indentured servant contract papers from passage from the Bahamas to Boston Harbor.”

  “Wow. That’s so cool. I love old documents.”

  “They are all into their family history type shit. You’d love ‘em. Got a lot to be proud of. He’s related to the first black police officer in Boston, which was before they’d allow Irish into the department, mind you.”

  “Wow.

  “His wife, Aunt Olivia, her grandparents left Alabama or some fucking state right after World War Two. He was a war vet and not about to deal with Jim Crow shit after killing Nazis.”

  “He was in one of the Negro platoons?”

  “Yeah. I think his platoon liberated a camp. But history doesn’t like to mention them doing anything but dancing. Ya see, that was the stuff that pissed off Uncle Bob. He wasn’t onboard with the white left shit. He said they made it sound like blacks were still dependent on white people for everything. Couldn’t do anything themselves type shit. But there was racism in the schools. The principals. Huge amount of black people were coming up from the South.”

  “The Great Migration.” She nodded, taught that part of history in school.

  “Yeah. They
were agrarian and illiterate and all fucked up. Just like our ancestors were from Ireland. And, just like us, everybody hated them. They get pushed into ghettos, just like the foundation of Southie. Do you think other Catholic Irish born in the United States and established were hugging the nasty shoeless newcomers? Hell no. They were trying to get away from them too.”

  “I know the Americans totally disliked Italians.”

  “Oh, God, yeah. You got the monkey cartoons, too.”

  “Monkey cartoons? Huh?”

  “Everybody got depicted as monkeys. Blacks. Irish. Italians. Whoever was the undesirable at the moment. Drawings that got chimp features for people.”

  “Chimps are apes, not monkeys.”

  “But monkey is so much more fun to say.”

  “I’ll let it pass.”

  “Thank you, professor.”

  “Keep going with the history lesson.”

  “Okay. So … Boston starts reshuffling for these new undesirable immigrants.”

  “Black people from the South?”

  “Yeah. Might as well be immigrants. The South was so goddamn different, like a foreign country.”

  “Okay. Fair enough. It still kind of is at times.”

  “People are trying to get their kids to better schools. The school quality will plummet with the new immigrants. But the principals only allow the white kids to transfer out. Not the middle class Bostonian black kids.”

  “Aw. I see. That would be real racism.”

  “Yeah. It sucked. So, their parents call up the NAACP and sue.”

  “That’s the American way. To sue.”

  “Should’ve worked, ya know, to sue. But I guess people weren’t as good back then in suing. Instead of millions of dollars in compensation and heads rolling, the shit blew up. NAACP has their own agenda, and it wasn’t to educate middle class Bostonian black kids.”

  “Oh, crap.”

  “Yeah. Then we got the legacy of Irish betraying each other. We’re as bad as black Americans with this shit. Ya make it, you move on up, and you go against your own, feeling ashamed at the country club with Biff and Chad. Like those black judges with the blond white wife who is harder on ghetto black kids than anybody else, because he’s ashamed to be associated. All that bullshit. Enter in Judge Garrity. He lives in the suburbs.”

  “With Chad and Biff and Buffy?”

  “He’s way up their asses. Probably laughed without moving his lips like them.”

  “What? Like Prince Charles?”

  “Something like that. This dude has a hard on to civilize Southie.”

  “Isn’t a Kennedy involved?” she asked. “Isn’t there always a Kennedy involved?”

  “So true. Good ole Ted, the special needs Kennedy brother.”

  “Didn’t he kill somebody?”

  “Yeah. A woman. Hence, I say special needs.”

  She giggled. “You saying hence.”

  “I’m getting it from you.”

  “Good. Maybe I can civilize you.”

  “Good luck, babe. All that’s happened is you’re getting less civilized, if you haven’t noticed.”

  “Shut up. I’m giving you a pass between throwing shit at you.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “Go on. Tell me more on what happened.”

  “Teaching the youth of today.”

  “Yes, go on, idiot.”

  “Fine. Where was I?”

  “Garrity. Black judges with blond white wives.”

  “Oh. So, everything started out about this forced busing idiot thing.”

  “Slamming ghettos into each other. Always a smart idea. So government.”

  “These guys were fucking geniuses. How much worse could you make this shit? But, of course, there’s nothing about integrating their suburbia really good schools, right?”

  “Of course not. That’s why our grandparents moved to the suburbs. To get the good shit.”

  “But as these asshole agenda groups infiltrate, shit starts turning into race. It gets wicked bad.”

  “In South Boston?”

  “Everywhere that’s affected by the new regime policy. So, outside of Southie, too. But Southie does the worst of it.”

  “Well, yeah, being ghetto people.”

  “Exactly. The public housing assholes, including my own blood relatives, who were eager to beat up anyone. They protest by refusing to attend classes, like these morons could afford missing school. Then as the school buses roll in, they start throwing shit at them. Bricks and shit. Real nasty stuff. Turns into riots.”

  “White people rioted?”

  “It always seems to be us Irish who riot.”

  “What’s wrong with you people?”

  “Hey, you’re half us.”

  “Not in this case.”

  “You can’t pick and choose.”

  “Yes, I can. My grandparents never mentioned rioting.”

  “They lied then.”

  She blew a raspberry at him with her tongue.

  “I told you, all the old groups are all fucked up.”

  “Anyway.”

  “So, their wives started first with the arguing. Since Ma’s family were rioters.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Yeah. Things got personal with between Maggie and Olivia fast.”

  “But they remained friends?”

  “Not the wives. But Mikey and Bob did. So Bob would come to the house without Olivia. And since we had a big guy-guy thing going on when I was growing up, Ma got outvoted. We, um … how do you feel?”

  “Whoa. Sullivan.”

  “What?”

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Speak or die.”

  He laughed. “That’s not what the therapists at the VA said.”

  “Maybe they should have with you meatheads..”

  “Okay. Fine. We worked on refurbishing a nineteen sixty-six Ford Mustang. Cherry red.”

  “Ah.”

  “Oh, stop. You’re psychoanalyzing me.”

  “Somebody’s gotta with you.”

  “I need to go drink heavily now.”

  He tried to get up. She shoved him back down.

  “Help. I’m being held hostage by a woman.”

  He slipped his hands around her.

  “No, no. Talk, Sullivan. No nookie. You didn’t get a nookie pass.”

  “If I talk, do I get nookie?”

  “How about you prove you talk before I agree on anything.”

  “Not fair.”

  “Because you are an evasive moron.”

  “It’s what we do.”

  “I’m changing your traditions.”

  “Why did I get with the daughter of a therapist?”

  “Why did I get with an idiot from South Boston?”

  “Women have wondered that for generations. But we’re so adorable.”

  “We know that. Are your cousins sheleighlies?”

  He laughed. “Big time. The ones from the projects. Oh, God. Big time. They’re not in the projects anymore. Boston desegregated it and then made them look nice. When I was growing up, the place was gross. Nothing worked. In the middle of a Boston winter, everybody had their windows open, because the heaters were set to about one thousand degrees. It was like a Florida summer inside an apartment in Boston winter. Too bad there weren’t palm trees. That’s what I would have done.”

  “They really robbed you?”

  “Oh, Christ, yeah. They were the reason we got into martial arts. Dad got us in it. Ma wouldn’t stop bringing us thereafter he put his foot down. We got massively beat up. They took our jeans even. Then Ma would bring us to the mall to get new clothes and shoes.”

  “That’s seriously weird.”

  “I’m telling ya. She ran a bizarre charity, sacrificing three of her kids.”

  “Three?”

  “Baby Shannon was too little. She stayed with Ma and inhaled second-hand smoke from Grandma. I couldn’t stand it. There was always an overflowing
ashtray on the kitchen table. Her bright lipstick on the butts stuck in this heap. The place reeked of cigarettes.”

  “Wasn’t your mother concerned?”

  “Ma is some seriously weird when it came to her family. She was the baby of eight and the only girl.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “Yeah. She was the princess of the Southie ghetto. She was beautiful. Like incredibly.”

  “Your eyes are from her, right?”

  “Yeah. I got my mom’s eyes. Did I tell you I once got beat up for my eyes?”

  “No.”

  “Great story. Flynn was this guy who kept failing every grade. So he was huge. We were little guys. His girlfriend was overly mature in the, ah, chestal area.”

  “She had big boobs?”

  “Yeah. They’re down to her knees last time I saw her. And she’s really fat.”

  “Anyway.”

  “So she said something about my eyes being pretty. Therefore, big Flynn tried to beat them outta my skull.”

  “Yikes.”

  “Yeah. I was getting my ten-year-old ass seriously kicked.”

  “Ten?”

  “Yeah. But then MJ and Cate jump him. Cate’s flying around on his back, punching his face. Flynn’s punching MJ. It was wicked reta’ded!” He laughed.

  She smiled at his amusement and the Boston phrase.

  “We come home totally fucked up looking. Dad comes home from work and goes through the roof. He calls his brother, my uncle, who’s a cop. Long story short, they beat up Flynn’s father.”

  “Wait. What?”

  “Yeah. They couldn’t beat up the kid. That would be wrong. But his father defended his kid, that beating us up was our fault for being wimps. So Dad and the uncles had to beat him up.”

  “Rough area, huh?”

  He chuckled. “We’re kind of known for it.”

  “Your father is a lawyer and he beat a man up?”

  “Yeah. Not like somebody’s gonna sue him for it. Besides, that would the biggest pus—wimp thing to do ever in Southie and the guy would never hear the end of it because it’s not how we do things. We don’t call cops unless a body needs to be removed. And he’d go broke suing a lawyer. And my dad was connected.”

  She sat up. “Connected … as in? The mafia?”

  “No, the Irish mob. The Whitey Bulger thing. I’ve told you that.”

  “You said your maternal grandfather was a leg breaker for him, serving time for murder. But nothing about your dad.”