Dudley Soldier Boy Hanigan

1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4835-3637-8
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 308 Seiten

Soldier Boy Hanigan is a military brat on a mission to grow up and either farm in Illinois or join the choir in a French Cathedral. Mostly he longs for distance between himself and his father and for any world outside the fences of an Air Force Base.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Dudley, Will

Leseproben

TWO: HAMLET

Two tall pine trees stood, one on each side of the wide wooden porch in front of the house, which stood in the middle of the block. Ulysses stood on this porch and stared at the tree closest to the front door. They stood, in his imagination, like guards or sentinels. He wondered who climbed the trees and steps before he did. He wondered what the trees might have seen standing there, and how old they might be, and who lived across the street. He wondered where the Post Office was in this little town, and he began searching for flagpoles as he dug his index finger into pine sap that oozed from the pine tree’s flaky exterior. As he pulled his sticky fingers back from the tree he heard the noise of a loud muffler. The boy looked up and grinned. He saw the familiar sight of his Uncle Ray’s big green truck, which came all the way from Chicago. The flatbed behind the lime colored cab was filled with furniture, assorted household goods and bedding. A sign was painted on the door of the truck that said Fitz McBreen Plumbing Contractors Call the Mick at 312-236-6132.

“Hey, Soldier Boy!” Raymond Fitzpatrick McBreen yelled out the side window. “Come here." Grinning wide, Ulysses walked up to the truck, wiping pine sap onto his shorts. Ray McBreen extended his arm and tossed the boy a piece of Juicy Fruit gum. Grinning from ear to ear at the unexpected sugar surprise, Ulysses tore the yellow wrapping and stuffed the gum into his mouth as Ray’s huge body exited the truck. The large redhead reached down and picked the little redhead off of the ground. Holding Ulysses out and away from his body, Ray smiled, apparently satisfied with what he saw, then put him back down and said, “Now get your ma and pa and tell them her brother is here.” He put the boy down and watched him scamper into the house.

“Mama, Uncle Ray is here,” Ulysses hollered as loud as he could with a mouthful of gum. Annie and the Sergeant were inside wielding paint brushes in the kitchen. Ray walked in behind Uly.

“I hear there’s some folks around here bought a new old house and might need some new old furniture.” Ray took Annie’s hand and walked her back out to the front porch, smiling. “You think Rock can help me unload this stuff?” Tears filled Annie’s eyes as she looked up at her older brother, who was almost twenty years older and had spoiled her all his life.

Ray took on an air of exasperation and said, “What? Did you think I was going to forget about you? Come here.” He wrapped his huge arms around the woman, looked down and dried her tears. Victoria and Zoë, who had been hiding in the kitchen after sneaking in the back door with Bernadette, peeked out the front door at him in awe. Ray's eyes lit up when he saw the twin towheads and he began making silly faces in their direction. They were hooked. After five seconds of silly faces, he looked over at the Sergeant, who had put down his paint roller and joined them on the porch. “Come on, Sarge, we got a truck to empty.” The little Sergeant looked up at his huge brother-in-law and nodded in assent.

It didn’t take long. Ray and the Sergeant put their hands to work and within seconds the priest living next door showed up and started helping. Across the street a curtain moved and a phone call was made. Two minutes later ‘Blue Hair’ Buck showed up and yelled at the priest for not praying for help sooner. Ray McBreen stared at the new arrival. “Blue Hair? How’d you come by a name like that, given that your hair’s redder than mine?” It sounded like a fair question to the big Irishman, and Blue Hair smiled. His hair was indeed redder than Fitz’s, which was thick, curly, and a deep auburn shade of red. Blue Hair was a carrot top, probably visible for miles.

“Blue here’s a house painter, Mr. McBreen,”

“Call me Fitz,” said McBreen.

“Well, Fitz, my name’s Father Herb Fleischman.”

“That’s a slippery name,” said Fitz. The priest looked up at him and tried to hide a laugh, but unsuccessfully. He said, “I live next door, and Blue here comes from a long line of house painters. Now I heard that when he was a kid a bucket of blue paint ended up on his head somehow. I didn’t know him back then, but he’s been Blue Hair ever since I’ve known him. What is your name, Blue?.” The priest smiled, and Blue Hair Buck shrugged his shoulders and mumbled something soft and unintelligible to the priest’s ear. “And don’t you tell nobody, Father,” he said.

The priest grinned and made a sign like a zipper closing his mouth.

Blue Hair nodded his head in agreement and started pulling back the ropes tying the furniture onto the back of the truck. Fitz grinned and shook their hands.

It didn’t take long; after unloading the truck, Ray and the little Sergeant took a toolbox into the cellar.

Walking down the steps through the back yard storm door into the damp enclosure, the Sergeant turned to Annie. “You keep the kids out of here,” he barked. “If they don’t come down here to start with, they won’t think about it.” When they reemerged from the cellar a half an hour later, water came out of the faucets in the kitchen and bathroom.

Ray stayed the night. He had brought tables and chairs, a sofa and three rugs and a bunk bed for Eva and Bernadette as well as mattresses.

“Annie, honey,” he said as he set a chair under the Hanigan’s new dining room table, “I asked the guys about finding you a piano, but we haven’t come up with one quite suitable yet.”

“I’ll be alright, Ray,” Annie replied. “The priest next door says there’s one in the grade school right across the street.”

“I know you’ll be alright, baby. I’m just saying it was a bit more than a piano.”

“We’ll find another one some day,” the Sergeant remarked.

Ray McBreen’s facial expression changed for a moment when he looked at the Sergeant. He had never trusted the little man, but kept his thoughts to himself. As long as Annie loves him, thought Fitz.

Ulysses watched his uncle. He wanted to be like him, and began thinking about what he had seen on the Fourth of July. He liked the new house and the new old furniture, and his Uncle Ray was there, and his Aunt Libby had come to visit, but he missed the piano. He knew what the Sergeant had done, but he didn’t know if his mother knew. It boggled the mind of the six year old.

Over dinner Ray looked at Uly and Sean and shook a giant finger at them between bites. He said to Annie, “You know, Annie, I’m glad there’s a priest next door. These mites might bear a bit o' watching.” He looked at his nephews and nieces across the table and grinned out of a mouthful of meatloaf. Leaning into the table, he said, “That guy seems like a nice priest, but don’t never trust no priests, kids. They’ll trick you, no matter how nice you think they are.” You listen to the priest, and the next thing you know you’re listening to the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny.” He grinned and Annie scowled at him. The boys nodded their heads up and down. Eva and Bernadette took on airs of thoughtfulness and did the same.

“Your mother says you kids here are going to school next month across the street in the big brick building.” Ray grinned at the boys. The school was on the corner and the convent was on the third floor. The priest lived next door, and Fitz wondered how much mischief these kids could get into in a town of less than a hundred people two miles down an asphalt road between cornfields.

Five minutes after dinner Ray McBreen was on the floor with Zoë and Victoria, letting them ride him like a horse. Thumping around the old oak floor in the hundred year old farmhouse he said, “Damn, Annie, you and this mean little leprechaun sure made some pretty babies.” The Sergeant didn’t say anything, and Ray looked back at Annie and said in about a half whisper, “What are you doing with six kids anyway, Annie? When you going to stop?” Victoria crawled up and wrapped herself around his neck. Annie laughed and said, "Oh, I’m done, Ray."

Ray nodded his head and smiled at Victoria and tickled her tummy. After the twins had been born, Annie had her tubes tied and kept the secret from her husband, who was a bit of crazy, as far as Annie was concerned, when it came to her body. He believed in what the church called the ‘rhythm method’ when it came to birth control. Annie figured that’s why four of her six kids showed up in October. She suspected he was also a little short on the “honor” part of “love, honor and obey. She supposed it was a compromise, because she sure as hell wasn’t buying everything in the obey part. What he doesn’t know, she thought, he doesn’t need to know.

Ray interrupted her thought. "I sure wish mama’s piano hadn’t been in that house. Now would be about a good time for you to play a little. I’ll see if I can get you some more rugs, Annie. You should have them before winter."

The next day Fitz McBreen went back to Chicago, promising to return in a few weeks with a few more things for the house.

Summer was flying and the Hanigan’s new home was a big yellow two story farmhouse with very little insulation and a green roof that sagged. Slowly Annie reached for a more normal life, and for...