Jan Burke - Bloodlines

Jack paused in the act of lifting the cup of coffee.

“Miss Swan came up to me. I’m pretty sure she knows I talk to you.”

The cup rattled against the saucer as Jack set it down and started laughing. “Swanie? Swanie figured it out already?” He laughed again. “Helen Swan is smarter than any man in that building-including Old Man Wrigley. My hat’s off to her, by God!”

O’Connor was puzzled. “You aren’t upset?”

“No, why should I be? This is great. She’s got to be jealous as all get out.” He paused. “She scare you?”

O’Connor shrugged. “A little. At first.”

“And now?”

“There’s something about her-I don’t know.”

“And you want to be a reporter?” Jack scoffed. “You’ll have to do better than that. What’s this ‘something’?”

The boy’s brows drew together. “All right, then. She puts me in mind of a queen.”

Corrigan grinned. “Ah, yes. She does have that effect on gentlemen of all ages. And the next thing you know, they’re giving her their utter loyalty and devotion, rushing off to do her bidding.”

“Not me,” O’Connor declared. “I’m loyal to the Express, one hundred percent!”

“I never doubted it, Mr. O’Connor.”

They talked for a time about O’Connor’s day at school and the stories Jack was working on. Jack drank another cup of coffee, then suggested they go for a long walk together. “Not quite ready to call it a night, are you?” he asked.

No, O’Connor wasn’t.

The double bill at the downtown movie house was letting out just as they neared the theater, and Jack took O’Connor’s hand as they made their way across that crowded section of sidewalk. Perhaps because Jack was recognized or perhaps because there were no other children nearby, some of the men and women leaving the theater watched Jack and O’Connor. The women usually smiled at them-Jack would nod or touch his hat brim.

For those moments, O’Connor ignored the fact that Jack was not much older than his oldest brother and fantasized that he was Jack Corrigan’s son; that his father, Jack Corrigan, had taken him to see The Texas Rangers and China Clipper, that he was the son of the best reporter in the world and everyone knew it, that his father was proud of him and thought him the finest of young men, and then… and then they had walked beyond the edge of the crowd and Jack released his hand.

As his hand dropped free of Corrigan’s, O’Connor thought of his real father, Kieran O’Connor, and felt ashamed of himself. The small pleasure of the fantasy was forgotten.

Corrigan was asking him something. “I’m sorry,” O’Connor said, “I was thinking so loud, I didn’t hear you.”

“I was asking if anyone had ever taught you how to box.”

“No, sir. Dermot tried once, but it didn’t take. If I did the right thing with my hands, I did the wrong thing with my feet.”

“A common problem,” Corrigan said, “even among the pros.”

They had reached the shore by then and Corrigan stopped to take off his shoes. “C’mon,” he said, “take yours off, too. Easier to learn on the sand.”

O’Connor followed suit, then shivered as his bare feet hit the cold beach.

“You’ll be warmed up in a minute,” Jack said.

The moon shone bright over the water and sand. Jack began to show O’Connor how to hold his fists, how to throw his weight into a punch, how to protect himself from a counterpunch. The sand both braced and slowed his feet, and twice when he overstepped, it cushioned his falls. Some of Dermot’s lessons came back to him, but now made more sense.

Jack rolled up his pants legs and dropped to his knees, held both hands up. “Okay,” he said, “come at me. Hard as you like.”

After a few hesitant punches, Jack said, “Harder.”

O’Connor punched a little harder.

“Harder,” Jack said again. “Pretend I’ve been mean to Maureen.”

O’Connor began walloping Jack’s open palms.

After a few minutes of punishment, Jack yelled, “Okay, okay! Truce! Uncle! Hell, I’m not going to be able to hold a pen tomorrow.” At O’Connor’s look of horror, he said, “Just a joke, kid. Just a joke. I’m fine. How are you?”

O’Connor was breathing hard, and as Jack had predicted, he felt warm from his exertions. But the breeze off the water was cooling him, the sand was soft beneath his feet, and he knew he had boxed better this time than he ever had with Dermot. He smiled. “I’m fine.”

Jack stood and brushed off his legs and feet. “We’ll have another lesson tomorrow.”

“Do you mean it?” O’Connor asked.

“Sure. But don’t try this out on anybody until you’ve had a chance to really learn what you’re doing.”

“Oh, I don’t aim to start fights.”

“Kid,” Jack said as they began to put on their socks and shoes, “if I thought you were aiming to start fights, I wouldn’t have taught you anything about boxing.”

“Who taught you?”

“My father.”

O’Connor was silent, suddenly seeming to need all his concentration for his shoelaces.

“Your dad ever teach you anything?” Corrigan asked.

O’Connor looked up. “Oh, sure. Lots of things. When I was little, he taught me how to tie my shoes. And when I get big enough to shave, I’ll know how, ’cause he used to let me watch him do that. And he used to sing, so I learned a lot of songs from him.”

Corrigan was quiet as they began to walk back to the Wrigley Building, heading up American Avenue. Nearby to the north, eerily silhouetted in the moonlight, were hills so crowded with oil derricks they seemed cloaked in a strange black forest of identical leafless trees. “That’s where my dad worked,” O’Connor said, pointing. “He built some of those wells.”

“Roughnecking-that’s some of the hardest work anywhere,” Jack said.

O’Connor nodded. “My dad likes hard work. Maureen remembers him better than I do-from before the accident, I mean. He never drank in those days. Not a drop. And even now, I know…I know it’s not what he really likes. Do you know what I mean?”

“I think so, yes.”

“I keep praying that the Lord will cure him. I don’t understand why he doesn’t. I mean, Jesus suffered on the cross, but he didn’t stay up there for years at a time, now, did he?”

“I’m not the man to teach you about religion, Conn. I’ll be a poor enough boxing coach.”

Jack saw that the boy was making some earnest reply, but just at that moment, a Red Car came by, rumbling its way down the rails to the next stop.

“What did you say?”

“I said, never mind boxing-I mean, I won’t mind learning it. But what I really want you to teach me, Mr. Jack Corrigan, is how to be a newspaper-man.”

T HE NURSE CAME BACK TO CHECK ON CORRIGAN, BREAKING THE SPELL reminiscence had cast on O’Connor. She attempted another round of banter with O’Connor, but after his third one-word reply gave it up and left him to brood over Corrigan alone.

He watched Jack, still filled with wonder that the man had taken an eight-year-old boy’s ambitions so seriously. Jack had told O’Connor to begin by keeping a diary, to note what he had seen and heard each day, and his thoughts on any matter that struck his fancy. “That will be private,” he said. “So I’m going to trust you to do that on your own. I’ll give you assignments to turn in to me.”

O’Connor had borrowed paper from Maureen that evening and wrote, “Jack Corrigan told me this will help me learn how to be a newspaper reporter. I hope he is right. P.S.: He gave me a boxing lesson, too.” A week later, Maureen presented him with a gift, a small cloth-bound diary with gilt-edged pages and a lock and key. She had earned the money doing mending for the lady their mother worked for, and O’Connor knew it must have taken the whole of her earnings to buy it. When he wanted to pay her back with his lucky silver dollar, she said, “Oh no-never give away your luck. Besides, this is an investment on my part. I want to be able to brag that my brother is the famous newspaper reporter Conn O’Connor, whose name is on the front page of the Express. So you do what Mr. Corrigan tells you and fill up this diary.”