Between Halos and Horns

Chapter 3 ~ O'Finnegan

"Wait, wait sorry," I interrupted suddenly, rubbing my nose.

"Somethin' you don't quite agree with?" Reid asked, his left eyebrow arching ever so slightly.

"Yeah, I just...-" I groaned, trying to get my thoughts together. Why was I even listening to this? He was born in 1934? Bullshit.

"I know it's all hard to swallow, kid, but I'll explain everything," he replied evenly, crushing his cigarette into the mounting pile of ash. "Now, can I continue? I don't exactly have all the time in the world here."

"Just, two questions."

"Shoot."

"Okay, how the hell were you supposedly born in 1934? You look mid-thirties, at least."

"I plan on explainin' that later on. Like I said, magic is real in this world, you've just been playin' the blind man for too long."

"Alright, fine, but how about your dad? Your father? What was his name? Norman, right? You never thought to maybe go out searching for him?"

"Oh I thought about it plenty, and eventually I did go out lookin' for 'im. But again, I'll explain this all later. First things first: Bo Deacon."

I didn't mean to, but I sighed out of frustration, this guy wasn't making too much sense to me. But I took another sip of my rapidly cooling coffee and motioned with my free hand to go on.

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We were nine years old, Dale and I, and the Second World War was nearly at its height in conflict. I remember I used to read in the papers about how our boys were doin' over there in Germany, and France, and Japan. Of course, the media back then put a few more muscles on Uncle Sam than he actually had, but hey, all in the name of patriotism, right? Anyway, one day Dale and I were skimming through the streets, searchin' for potential victims to our petty crimes. We were very talented by then, naturals you could say, at what we did. We knew who we could and could not take from at any given time. We knew which streets were patroled by the law more often, and we knew which were dead ends, no profit.

"All's I'm sayin' is," Dale was sayin', "we go into the house, take just two things,two things, Tai, that's all. We'll get mo' money from one house than pickpocketin' ten folks. Now if ya think about it in the right mannerism, you'll really be savin' a load of folks a lot of grief. If you've got a house and nice things in't, chances are you got the money to replace it. That's all's I'm sayin' Tai,all'sI'm sayin." Somethin' you should note is that up to this point, we hadn't broken into a house before, we kept to the streets. Sure we talked about it, but the potential cons always drove us away from the pros. This time was different though, Dale had that look in his eye. You know,that look. The one a person gets when they're determined somethin' has to happen.

"I can see where you're comin' from, Dale," I replied. "No, don't look at me like that, really, I get it. But what you ain't seein' is the possibility of bein' caught n' kilt off over somethin' stupid."

"Ain't nothin' stupid about it! Two things, remember? Just two, nobody will miss it. Come on, don't be chicken, Tai. It'll be easy, easier than stealin' Mrs. Walsh's apple pied from the window sill."

"I just don't know." We were quiet for a little while, just walkin' through town, no right-minded person giving us a second glance. We was just a white boy and a black boy dressed in Depression-khakis with hats on, no need to even bother with us. To this day, I wish someone would have recognized us on that street. I wish some angry fella would have remembered the face that stole his nice wristwatch so they would take us to prison, and then afterwards, me and Dale would have been on the straight and narrow. We would've gotten jobs, new homes, wives and children, maybe even an automobile each. But that didn't happen, not that day, the day of all days.