He and Rosie live on the first floor, and twenty-three-year-old Patrick still lives with them. Their other son, JJ, and his wife, Colleen, live on the second floor. Katie and Meghan are roommates on the third floor. Everyone but Patrick pays Joe and Rosie rent, but it’s minimal, way below market value, just something to keep them all responsible. And it helps pay off the mortgage. They had to refinance a couple of times to put all four kids through parochial school. That was a huge nut, but there was no way in hell his kids were getting bused to Dorchester or Roxbury.
Joe turns the corner and decides to cut through Doherty Park. Charlestown is quiet at this sleepy hour on a Sunday morning. Clougherty Pool is closed. The basketball courts are empty. The kids are all either in church or still in bed. Other than an occasional passing car, the only sounds are the jingling of Yaz’s tags and the change in Joe’s front pocket playing together like a song.
As expected, he finds eighty-three-year-old Michael Murphy sitting on the far bench in the shade. He’s got his cane and his brown bag of stale bread for the birds. He sits there all day, every day, except for when the weather is particularly lousy, and watches over things. He’s seen it all.
“How are ya today, Mayor?” asks Joe.
Everyone calls Murphy Mayor.
“Better than most women deserve,” says Murphy.
“So true,” chuckles Joe, even though this is Mayor’s verbatim reply to this same question about every third time Joe asks.
“How’s the First Lady?” asks Murphy.
Murphy calls Joe Mr. President. The nickname began ages ago as Mr. Kennedy, a reference to Joe and Rose, and then at some point it morphed, skipping from father to son, defying actual US political history, and Mr. Joseph Kennedy became Mr. President. And that, of course, makes Rosie the First Lady.
“Good. She’s at church praying for me.”
“Gonna be there a long time, then.”
“Yup. Have a good one, Mayor.”
Joe continues along the path, taking in the distant view from this hill of the industrial silos and the Everett shipyard on the other side of the Mystic River. Most people would say the view is nothing special and might even think it’s an eyesore. He’ll probably never find a painter parked on this spot with an easel, but Joe sees a kind of urban beauty here.
He’s descending the steep hill, using the stairs instead of the switchback ramp, when he somehow missteps and his view is suddenly nothing but sky. He skids down three concrete steps on his back before he has the presence of mind to stop himself with his hands. He eases himself up to sitting, and he can already feel a nasty series of bruises blossoming on the knobs of his spine. He twists around to examine the stairs, expecting to blame some kind of obstruction such as a stick or a rock or a busted step. There’s nothing. He looks up to the top of the stairs, to the park around him and the landing below. At least no one saw him.
Yaz pants and wags his tail, eager to move along.
“Just a sec, Yaz.”
Joe lifts each arm up and checks his elbows. Both are scraped and bleeding. He wipes the gravel and blood and eases himself to standing.
How the hell did he trip? Must be his bum knee. He twisted his right knee a couple of years ago chasing a B&E suspect down Warren Street. Brick sidewalks may look pretty, but they’re bumpy and buckled, brutal to run on, especially in the dark. His knee hasn’t been the same since and seems to just quit on him every now and then without warning. He should probably get it checked out, but he doesn’t do doctors.
He’s particularly careful going down the rest of the stairs and continues down to Medford Street. He decides to cut back in and up at the high school. Rosie should be getting out soon, and he’s now feeling a stabbing pinch in his lower back with each step. He wants to get home.
As he’s walking up Polk Street, a car slows down next to him. It’s Donny Kelly, Joe’s best friend from childhood. Donny still lives in Town and works as an EMT, so Joe sees him quite a bit both on and off the job.
“Whaddya drink too much last night?” asks Donny, smiling at him through the open window of his Pontiac.
“Huh?” asks Joe, smiling back.
“You limpin’ or somethin’?”
“Oh yeah, my back is tweaked.”
“Wanna ride up over the hill, old man?”
“Nah, I’m good.”
“Come on, get in the car.”
“I need the exercise,” says Joe, patting his gut. “How’s Matty doin’?”
“Good.”
“And Laurie?”
“Good, everyone’s good. Hey, you sure I can’t take you somewhere?”
“No, really, thanks.”
“All right, I gotta go. Good to see you, OB.”
“You, too, Donny.”
Joe makes a point of walking evenly and at a rigorous clip while he can still see Donny’s car, but when Donny reaches the top of the hill and then disappears, Joe stops the charade. He trudges along, each step now twisting some invisible screw deeper into his spine, and he wishes he’d taken the ride.
He replays Donny’s comment about having too much to drink. He knows it was just an innocent joke, but Joe’s always been sensitive about his reputation and drinking. He never has more than two beers. Well, sometimes he’ll finish off his two beers with a shot of whiskey, just to prove he’s a man, but that’s it.
His mother was a drinker. Drank herself into the nuthouse, and everyone knew about it. It’s been a long time, but that shit follows you. People don’t forget anything, and who you’re from is as important as who you are. Everyone half expects you to become a raging alcoholic if your mother drank herself to death.
Ruth O’Brien drank herself to death.
This is what everyone says. It’s his family legend and legacy. Whenever it comes up, a parade of memories marches closely behind. It gets uncomfortable real fast, and he swiftly changes the subject so he doesn’t have to “go there.” How ’bout them Red Sox?
But today, whether due to a growth in bravery, maturity, or curiosity, he can’t say, he allows this sentence to accompany him up the hill. Ruth O’Brien drank herself to death. It doesn’t really add up. Yes, she drank. In a nutshell, she drank so much that she couldn’t walk or talk a straight line. She’d say and do crazy things. Violent things. She was completely out of control, and when his father couldn’t handle her anymore, he put her in the state hospital. Joe was only twelve when she died.
Ruth O’Brien drank herself to death. For the first time in his life, he consciously realizes that this sentence that he’s held as gospel, a fact as verifiable and real as his own birth date, can’t literally be true. His mother was in that hospital for five years. She had to have been as dry as a bone, on the permanent wagon in a hospital bed, when she died.
Maybe her brain and liver had been soaking in booze for too many years, and it turned them both to mush. So maybe it was too late. The damage was done, and there was no recovering. Her wet brain and soggy liver finally failed her. Cause of death: chronic exposure to alcohol.
He reaches the top of the hill, relieved and ready to move on to an easier street and topic, but his mother’s death is still pestering him. Something about this new theory doesn’t ring true. He’s got that unsettled, hole-in-his-gut feeling that he gets when he arrives at a call and he’s not getting what really happened from anyone. He’s got a good ear for it, the truth, and this ain’t it. So if she didn’t drink herself to death or die from alcohol-related causes, then what?
He searches for a better answer for three more blocks and comes up empty. What does it even matter? She’s dead. She’s been dead a long time. Ruth O’Brien drank herself to death. Leave it alone.
The bells are ringing as he arrives at St. Francis Church. He spots Rosie right away, waiting for him on the top step, and he smiles. He thought she was a knockout when they started dating at sixteen, and he actually thinks she’s getting prettier as she ages. At forty-three, she has peaches-and-cream skin splashed with freckles, auburn hair (even though these days the color comes from a bottle), and green eyes that can still make him weak in the knees. She’s an amazing mother and definitely a saint for putting up with him. He’s a lucky man.
“Did you put in a good word for me?” asks Joe.
“Many times,” she says, flicking holy water at him with her fingers.
“Good. You know I need all the help I can get.”
“Are you bleeding?” she asks, noticing his arm.
“Yeah, I fell on some stairs. I’m okay.”
She takes hold of his other hand, lifts his arm, and finds the bloody abrasion on that elbow.
“You sure?” she asks, concern in her eyes.
“I’m fine,” he says, and squeezes her hand in his. “Come, my bride, let’s go home.”