Page 18 of Paddy

First day on the job and already I'm thrown into the deep end of the pool of problems. Guess I had to start acting like a real nanny.

“Well, the truth is, I'm quite new in this job. But I'll make it my priority to find out. Is there anything else you I could help you with?” At that she smiled.

“Only if it involves conversations over drinks and dinner.” Like I said, predictable. But the Sullivan's curse had me patientenough to pass over what was predictable. I didn't chase after what I couldeasilyget.

The reward was only in the challenge. Especially since I could have any woman around for a good lay, but I needed to feed that urge inside me that got off on a woman's pain. Otherwise, the real me stayed dormant, and if I couldn't have both, my choice was to abstain from it at all.

“How about we leave that up for another time?” I turned her down gently, as thankfully Elijah returned back in sight, easing away some of that discomfort. I held up my hand for her to shake.

“It was nice to meet you…”

“Mrs. Taylor,” she filled in the blanks.

“Mrs. Taylor. I guess you'll be seeing a lot from me from now on. Don't want to take any more of your time.”

Side by side, the kid and I walked over to the car, as he got comfortable in the passenger seat, and I made my way over to the driver's side.

“You good? You don't need any help with your seatbelt or anything,” I asked, strapping myself in.

“No, I'm okay,” he said, as I patted him on his shoulder. Next up was getting us out of here, and back to the house.

“Hey kid, you're a little quiet today. Why don't you start by telling me how your day was?” His wee shoulders shrugged, as he wrestled the book bag on his lap to this car's floor.

“Ehhh…it was okay, I guess.”

“Come on, you can do better than it was okay. What'd you learn? What’d you do? See anything good with that—" I snapped my fingers, trying to recall the things my nieces and nephews went on about. “Ahhh…show and tell! You see anything good at the show and tell?”

Another shrug. Christ! With some kids, it was like getting blood from a rock.

“Not really.” Scratching my head, I reminded myself that it was a kid that I was dealing with. I couldn't risk getting all frustrated or annoyed.

“Well, that's fine, because I want to talk to you about something. Your teacher says that you're really smart, but that you disappear from class from time to time. Mind telling me what that's about?”

“You're going to tell my mom,” he whined, to where I held up my hands to dismiss his mistrust.

“Hey kid. One thing you don't have to worry about with me, is that if you tell me something, I won't go blabbering off to your mum if you don’t want me to. So, is what your teacher saying true?” He let out a deep sigh.

“Yes.”

“You want to tell me why?”

“I don't know. Because some of the kids in my class make fun of me, call me names. Sometimes they push me, other times they hit me. Everyone at my school is white, and other than my teacher and a few other kids, I think they don't like me because I'm Black.” Shite. This one was a heavy one, even for me. I didn't pretend we lived in a post racial society where race no longer mattered.

Government changed laws because there were those brave enough to fight for things to change, not because every white person believed Blacks were equal.

Other than my accent, I never really had to deal with any of that extra shite, but I did remember how badly they treated us Irish when we first moved here. At least I had that to draw from.

“You know, I had a hard time fitting in with people when I was a kid too.”

“But why? You seem so cool?” I don't know why that shite put a smile on my face, but it did.

“Well, you know how people treat you differently because of your skin color? People treated me differently because of my accent, the way I spoke. People didn't like me because of the country I came from. It was so bad my brothers and I would get into fights over it. You’ll learn this as you get older, but it's like it's in a human's nature to hate people they fear or don't understand. But that's not your problem, it's theirs. It don't hurt if every once in a while you beat some senses into someone. Always worked for me.”

“Yeah well, all the kids are so much bigger than me.”

“Listen kid, size doesn't matter when you learn how to fight. My little brother Cilly used to be small like you, but he wasn't afraid to get his arse kicked. Plus, he grew up to be big like me. That's what will happen with you, I just know it.”

“You never get scared of getting hurt?” Truthfully, the battles I fought at home were far scarier than the ones I fought in the street. I could have either cried about it or done something. I always chose the latter.

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