His Father's Son: To save the son he loves, a desparate father must confront the ghosts of his past Read Online Free Page B

and all over his desk.
    In the Nurse’s Room Marti was told to lie still and wait until someone could be found to sit with him. He didn’t know why it was called the Nurse’s Room when there was no nurse. There never was a nurse, and then the man the teachers called Mr Spitz and the boys in class called Charlie came in and said he would wait with him awhile.
    Charlie always wore the same mustard-coloured coat, except when he was in the playground or on the roof, then he would wear a big hat and a vest with holes in it. Marti liked Charlie because he would always have a laugh and a joke with Jono and himself, and if he found tennis balls or cricket balls on the roof he would sometimes give them to the boys to keep.
    “So you’re a bit crook are you, sonny?” said Charlie.
    “I’ve got a sore tummy. I ate too much choco and sicked it back up.”
    “Choco, eh? You can have too much of a good thing, you know.” Charlie messed up Marti’s hair with his big hand and said, “Well, maybe you had to learn your lesson the hard way.” Marti didn’t want to learn any more lessons the hard way, and he wished he had never taken the blue ten dollar bill. He wondered if he would be in trouble for being sick all over his jotter and all over his desk and if Mam and Dad would find out. If they ever found out there would be trouble for sure, thought Marti, and he curled over in the bed and groaned.
    “Now, now,” said Charlie, “I’m sure it can’t be all that bad … and your dad’s on his way to collect you. Doesn’t that make you feel better? You can spend the rest of the day at home.”
    Marti didn’t feel better at all. He didn’t want to go home either because Mam might say there was a dear price to pay for Dad taking time off from working and earning their keep. Dad couldn’t be taking time off to collect him because wasn’t it the working and the working alone that kept the roof over their heads, like he said. Mam must be really bad with the sadness called the Black Dog, thought Marti. If she couldn’t even come to collect him from school then she might even still be curled up on the sofa.
    He didn’t know what he would say to make it better. He knew Dad wouldn’t give him a row, Dad never gave out the rows. It was always Mam who would shout and say, “That’s you for the hot arse.” Dad never gave out the rows, or the hot arse, and sometimes Mam and Dad would row because Dad wouldn’t give out the rows or the hot arse.
    Marti felt the guilt for taking the money now and he wondered, would he be the one to blame for another fight at home? One time when he had been really bad and caused a flood trying to sail a boat in the bath, Mam said he was a bold boy, which is what the Irish say when a boy is bad. He had gone beyond the beyonds and was in big trouble when his dad got home.
    When Dad got home he didn’t really get angry, though. He only said if he had done that when he was a boy his own father would have taken a belt to him. He said that money didn’t grow on trees and that everything had to be bought and paid for and he couldn’t afford to be flooding the place for a laugh and a joke. He said if he had so much as thought of causing a flood at home when he was a boy, his father would have made sure he couldn’t sit for a week. He said his father played in the All-Ireland Hurling Final and could heft a belt like no man before or since, and if he had a drink in him you never knew whether you were going to get the buckle across your legs as well.
    Marti felt sad to think of Dad getting the buckle across his legs when he was a boy and wished he had been good so Dad wouldn’t have to tell him the story again, or to take the time off from working and earning their keep. He could see Dad shaking his head sometime soon and saying, “Well, this is a fine state of affairs with your mam sick abroad in the house.”
    A great lump swelled in Marti’s throat, caused by the sadness he felt for being such a bold