It's Hard To Be Holy

EP. 21: Chapter VI (Cont'd)

Coarse, Offensive, and Xenophobic Language. Descriptions of Domestic Abuse. Reader Discretion Advised.

There was only one man who never fell under the Specter's spell. Prejudice does have its insidious ways, and Colin Malone could find no charm in a native of the land that had claimed his favorite son. Not that he tried too hard—

'He lays a hand on her again, I'll fuckin' kill him,' he declared, halfway through his third pint.

It was a cool, spring afternoon in O'Toole's, and the Specter had returned to St. Gregory's the night before. Upon his unceremonious arrival, Bud and Vera were quickly shepherded to their grandparents, while Alanna left the house of her own accord. She did this whenever her father made his presence known. No one knew where she went, but it was better that she was out of sight. The Specter made no secret of his dislike for his eldest's size and lacking attractiveness, and on his last visit had threatened to 'Shylock the fat from her body.'

Whatever happened in the apartment when the husband and wife were finally alone went unseen, but the screams that resounded from above had sent Colin into a fury. He might have done something, but Mary, for all her loving nature, refused to allow him to intervene. As she liked to say, and did say again on that afternoon: 'She made her bed. Nothin' we can do about it.'

'How stupid can she be?!' seethed Colin. If he wasn't allowed to kill the bastard that had violated his daughter, he'd settle on blaming the daughter. 'How many times I tell her?! If ya see a dago battin' his eyes at ya, gouge his fuckin' eyes!'

'COLIN!' came Mary's usual groan, her eyes darting to her little grandchildren, currently fighting over a bowl of peanuts. Children are amazing creatures of resilience and compartmentalization. All the fear that came with the Specter's arrivals could be easily offset by their excitement of the treats and visits to the bar with their grandparents. 

O'Toole's! A better playground has never been invented.

'All this talk about the Blacks and Russians...It's really the fuckin' guineas we oughta be afraid of!'

'COLIN! Stop it now! They're Italian,' Mary muttered, pointing towards the oval eyed children, with their dark, curly hair and easy summer tans. 'Ya keep on and they're gonna think it's somethin' to be ashamed of!'

'IT IS SOMETHIN' TO BE ASHAMED OF!" and his roar at last drew the attention of Bud and Vera.

'Don't mind us, darlin's,' said Mary, in her most saccharine voice, waving her hand for the pair to look away, 'just be good and eat your peanuts.'

'I'll never forgive her!'

'COLIN!'

'I warned her—I fuckin' warned her!—what would happen. Terrible things, I said. Didn't I say that?! I did! Terrible things! And look at her now, reapin' the consequences!'

'Pa,' asked little Vera. 'What's a consequence?'

'Never you mind,' said Mary.

'You and your brother are consequences!'

'COLIN!'

'Six consequences! And she's dragged ya into this mess and gotten y'all stuck. I mean, ya'd think she'd have learned her lesson when the fat one showed up!'

'COLIN!'

And here comes the problem with children. Yes, their ability for resilience is an admirable one, but children, largely small children, tend to have questions when they are confused. Annoying questions that are infernally difficult to answer. So it was with Bud at this moment. Something didn't ring true in his grandfather's statement, something he couldn't shake off. He'd learned his numbers—unhappily—in Mrs. Jackson's class, but the math Colin had used didn't make sense...

'Pa...there's only three of us,' he said, counting out the number of Carr children on his short, stubby fingers.

'No. Six.'

'COLIN!—No! NO! Stop right there—'

'No, Pa,' said Bud, all set and ready to show off his counting skills. If had to learn numbers, might as well flaunt the knowledge. 'It goes: Alanna, me, and Vera. That's one, two, three!'

'Your forgettin' your brothers.'

'I don't have any brothers.'

'COLIN! STOP! STOP! We agreed with Niamh not to talk about—'

'I didn't agree to nothin',' the old man shrugged, and then went onto to tell a story that went something like this:

Niamh Malone became Niamh Malone-Carr in the winter of 1947. She already had bruises and scars, but the Specter had her trapped. You could see his triumphant smile in their wedding pictures. Two months later came Alanna Kathleen Carr. The textbook definition of an 'oops'.

For the next ten years of life, between the wild nights of drunken, forced relations, the many of the Specter's infidelities, the curses and vicious beatings, and the long, thankful absences, came the brothers.

The stillborn.

The cot death.

And:

'Alfonso Ignatius, the first,' finished Colin. Mary buried her face in her hands. Vera was distracted by the peanuts, but Bud, starring open mouthed at his grandfather, was scandalized.

'No,' he stammered. 'No, Pa! I...no! I'm the only one.'

'No. Your Alfonso Ignatius, the second. Alfonso the First was born about...what was it, Mary?'

'Don't talk to me!'

'I think it was about 16 months or so before ya came along. But ya know...he was sickly, had a hole in his heart. They couldn't do nothin' for him.'

'You mean...I was named after...'

'You brother, yeah!'

'...a dead kid?!'

Nothing that Bud had ever seen or heard in his life could have prepared him for this appalling revelation. There is something in a name, isn't there? Bud always thought so. He wore his name...names...nicknames...with pride. They made him what he was. If there was one consistency in his life, it was the belief that he was special. Years later, people told stories of how he'd been touched by God. They were stories told in harmless jest, but Bud believed them. God had made him to be great and special. One of a kind! A unique gift to the world. So how could it be that his name was reused? No, worse. So much worse! How could his parents have cared so little that they had merely replaced their defective infant with him?!

Replaced!

His parents had treated him like someone who sneakily switches out their child's dead goldfish.

'Why?!' he later berated his mother.

'We wanted to keep the tradition alive,' she told him with her usual peevishness.

'What tradition?'

'Ya know...Alana. Alfonso—'

'You named your youngest Vera! Why couldn't I have been, I dunno...an Albert, or an Alexander?! Friggin' Alfred would have been just fine, Ma!'

'We wanted to pay our respects to your brother.'

'What respects?! I mean, it wasn't like the kid fuckin' stuck around long enough to make much of an impression!'

WHACK!

In fairness to Bud, a child like him has to hope for exceptionalism. One must believe they are remarkable if one has so auspicious a beginning as the Great Carr's.

Which brings us neatly to his birth...