Page 24 of All Saints Day
The bartender’s hands shake slightly as he scoops ice into two high ball glasses; I’m not sure if it’s because he’s scared of my pops, or if it’s because he drinks too much—like my pops— and hasn’t had a drink yet today.
My old man reaches for one of the heavy glass ash trays stacked just on the other side of the bar in front of the bartender as the barkeep’s tremulous hands pour a few fingers of amber liquor over the crags of ice in my father’s glass.
“Been busy lately?” he asks casually, producing a pack of cigarettes from the satin-lined pocket of his jacket.
“H-haven’t had a moment to take a breath or drop a shit—”he stammers, looking at me. “Pardon my French, kid,” he excuses himself, but my dad waves him off.
“Kid’s heard a lot worse than that, believe me.” My father gives the bartender a conspiratorial wink.
He’s not wrong. By age 10, as the son of Patrick Castle of ‘Castle Security’—I had heard more than my fair share of far more questionable things.
“Ey, Paddy!” A voice calls from the back of the restaurant as the doors to the kitchen and back room swing open to reveal a ruddy-faced man with brassy curls and beady blue eyes. “What a surprise! I was gonna come around to see you tomorrow night!”
I had heard my dad call Tommy ‘fresh off the boat’ to some of his other friends—Tommy’s accent still the gentle lilt of County Claire rather than my father’s own eastie accent—pure Boston.
“Yeah, sure you were, Tommy,” my dad scoffs, taking a drag on his cigarette as the bartender passes us our drinks.
“My word, is that wee Frankie over there?” Tommy blusters as if he hadn’t seen me at my mother’s funeral just before last Easter. “Next time I see you, you'll be taller than me and your da.”
As Tommy fawns over me, the bartender takes his opportunity to make a speedy exit—making for the back rooms as soon as he can.
“Yeah, the littlest Stone ‘Castle’—ourRook—he’ll be twice as strong too,” Dad ruffles my hair affectionately, the mop wild and shoe polish black just like his. “Already solid like an ox before his balls have dropped, this one,” my father jokes crudely, the two older men sharing a laugh as I do my best to mimic their casual sips from the tall highball glass.
Even though he’s still smiling—his manner still easy and sunny—my dear old dad wastes no time getting back to business.
“Tommy, you were a little light on your last payment.” My father raises a rakish brow and purses his lips. “And you don’t have any leftover candy either, so I guess I’ve been a little concerned.” Dad snaps his wrist a few times, his large yellow gold watch rotating lazily back into place.
Tommy looks anxiously to me and then back to my father.
“Things have been a little… complicated lately, Paddy.” He sweats, wringing his hands gently. “It’s a lot of grown-up talk that probably isn’t much for Frankie,” Tommy laughs, nervous. “Probably best to leave it for another time.” He does his best to use me as his human shield.
“Don’t you worry about the boy.” My father makes to dismiss Tommy’s worries with a wave of his hand. “He’s going to inherit Castle Security along with the rest of my ‘kingdom,'” Dad scoffs. “How else is he going to learn the family business if not from his old man?”
Tommy pales as he realizes he won’t be slithering out from my father’s grip that easily.
In the memory, their voices warp and stretch—becoming muffled and far away as I slip from that recollection into yet another flashback.
Dad and I are sitting in Rosie O’Leary’s parlor; sun illuminating the fabric tapestries of Catholic Saints she’d hung over the windows of her downtown Quincy apartment like stained glass windows.
I stare at the faintly glowing image of my father’s namesake; Saint Patrick, hung in the bay window. Green robes draped around the body of a thin man with a white beard and kind eyes—a shamrock pinched between his fingers.
“What’s got you so shaken up, Paddy?” Rosie asks on the heels of another dry, raspy smoker’s cough.
Dad hesitates, nodding to me—clinging to my backpack straps in silence.
“Why don’t you pull out your video game and have a seat on the couch, kiddo.” Dad waves me over to the couch.
I do as I’m told. The Gameboy comes out of my backpack, and I sit down on the ratty couch with my back to Dad and Rosie, turning up the sound on my game so that the grown-ups feel confident I’ve stopped listening. Of course, in reality—I canhear perfectly over the jaunty chiptune to follow each and every murmured word.
“It’s about the most recent shipment Matty’s boys brought in,” my dad hisses haltingly before continuing on. “There’re some nasty rumors about the candy he’s been circulating.”
I can’t see Rosie, but I can hear the quiet swish of her tarot cards as she shuffles them from hand to hand, my eyes wandering from the pixelated screen in my hand held to a tapestry of a beautiful young man stuck through with many arrows wrought in blue, gold, and crimson.
“I haven’t heard anything, Paddy, honest,” she sighs, the cards making dry muffled sounds as she spreads them out on her kitchen table. “But you don’t need to come to me to hear stories about the neighborhood candy,” she presses.
Even though I’m barely thirteen, I know my father’s business well enough to know that neither of them is talking about Snickers bars. They’re talking about the drugs that my Dad’s business partner Lorenzo Genovese helps circulate throughout the city. My dad and his so-called “Security Company” provide Genovese’s distribution hubs; bars, nightclubs, brothels, and gambling dens—with protection from other ‘self-respecting businessmen’ along with law enforcement. A mutually beneficial relationship that constantly hangs in the balance.
I hear my father’s knuckles pop as he makes a fist.
