Chapter 8

Brendan carefully folded his new purchases and placed them inside his duffle. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a new, used cell phone that supposedly came with a thousand minutes of airtime. The phones in the pawn shops in Jersey City had been too expensive because they had a sideline business of convincing customers to sign up for dubious carriers for a pricy month by month fee. Brendan wondered how anyone could be so gullible, but kept the thought to himself as the guy behind the counter casually flashed his gang tattoo on the inside of his forearm, just above his wrist. The show convinced Brendan to cut the conversation short and walk out quickly lest he really annoy the guy.

Strolling down the street, he heard the muted voices of lots of people and then he heard a cock crow. Ducking down an alleyway between two tenements, Brendan emerged into the midst of an open air market surrounded by the backs of tenement buildings and dotted with trash bins. Faces and skin colors from every continent were picking their way through the bazaar selecting live chickens, rabbits, ducks and eels. There were roots and vegetables. He struck up a conversation with a couple from Mozambique who had a dozen cell phones laid out on a dishtowel and shoebox. For $40, Brendan had a new, anonymous phone.

He turned towards home.

Back in the family room with his phone in hand, Brendan stepped out on the chilly back porch to call Carly. The line rang but no one picked up the phone. He tried every fifteen minutes for an hour and a half. The sun was setting and the urge to visit Carly was strong. Brendan made his goodbyes to Paul before shooting out the door to walk to her house.

Brendan was about a block and a half from her house when a cop car came whizzing by him with lights on but no siren. When it stopped up the block and was met by another patrol car coming from the other direction, Brendan's internal alarm went off. He continued his steady pace and pulled abreast of the first car. Four cops, three in uniform and one in a suit, were standing in front of Carly's front door banging on it, threatening to bust it down if she didn't open the door.

Brendan watched with disbelief. Two cops drew their guns and stepped to the sides as the other uniform took a step back to kick in the door. Brendan wanted to shout, whether it was to warn Carly or to distract the cops, he wasn't sure.

Suddenly a rifle shot rang out from across the street. When Brendan jerked his head back to the front door, one cop was falling down. Then the shots began to really fly. Another cop went down. Brendan kissed the pavement with a swiftness he didn't believe that he still possessed. Sirens lit up the neighborhood. One of the cops fired back. Lights started flashing red and blue. Brendan began to crawl crablike backward from the shooting zone, staying in the gutter.

He desperately wanted to see what was going on as the shooting continued, but his utter fear kept him creeping backwards. Cars pulled up and feet rushed past him as he continued to crawl. The pop-pop of hand guns ratcheted up into the rat-a-tat-tat of automatic weapons. Brendan, now completely panicked, turned tail and ran with his head down. He passed a cop van and unmarked cars with their lights flashing.

When he was a block back from Carly's house, he stopped to catch his breath or maybe his sanity. An old wrinkled woman poked her head out the door. "Who are they shooting at?" the old lady asked.

"The Fusco house," Brendan replied. He kept running his hand through his hair as he tried to take in the scene that was developing before his eyes. More weapons were coming to bear. One of the cop cars suddenly exploded in flame as the front end of the car lifted off of the ground.

"RPG! RPG!" the cops called out as they all pulled back. Then automatic fire erupted from another point and another uniformed cop fell.

"Holy Shit!" Brendan yelled as he rushed the lady's front door for protection. Inside the door his eyes lit upon the telephone and the old yellow phonebook. In a moment of inspiration, he flipped open the book and dialed the local TV stations. Four stations later, he rejoined the woman as they foolishly stood in the front doorway to watch the developing battle.

A lull in the gun battle was disturbed by more sirens sounding from all directions. The firing started again. More police cars arrived. Another lull began and Brendan thought he heard the yells and cries of hundreds of voices. He looked at the woman next to him.

From a side street, a mob of hundreds of people swept out. Brendan found this front row view surreal as people of all ages, armed with sticks, rocks and bottles ran over cops and their cars. Car windows were smashed. A police van was tipped on its side. Brendan watched a Molotov cocktail fly through the air and smash between two cars. Smoke started to rise from the street.

Concussive pops were heard over the crowd and clouds of tear gas appeared at various points on the street and in the yards. Bright bandanas appeared amongst the surging crowd obscuring their faces. Brendan ducked back into the house when the SWAT van pulled up in front of the house and twelve men, hyped up on adrenaline and testosterone boiled out of the back.

"Rubber bullets only!" barked the guy with stripes on his uniform. They fired and people at the back of mob went down, crying out in pain. The mob began to panic. A fresh wave of angry people appeared from the same side street, hurling more Molotov cocktails at the SWAT team. Brendan ran for the back door, slipped across the back fence and made a run for home.

When he made it to Paul's house, he saw everyone on the block crowded in the front room of Paul's mother-in-law's house two doors down. He dashed over and caught a glimpse of a television screen. Brendan forced his way in. The TV showed a live camera shot being taken from a helicopter. There was a delay of several seconds between the explosions on the bottles and canisters on the screen and the concussive sounds he heard from down the street.

His stomach turned on him. Brendan tore his attention from the screen and wormed his way back out of the house. Sitting on the front porch of the neighbor's house, he half listened to the descriptions being broadcast as he tried to bring his heart rate down into the realm of the manageable.

Ten, maybe fifteen minutes later, Brendan felt a hand come down on his shoulder. It was a sensation with bad associations.

"Hey, Danny, calm down," Sheila said.

Brendan nodded and deliberately took three deep breathes to calm himself. He wouldn't look at her however.

"Did you get caught up in the riot?" she asked.

Brendan nodded again. "I was a block away when the cops raided Carly's house. I saw it begin."

Sheila had a sharp intake of breath. "Carly, as in your Carly? That you went to visit, Carly?"

"Yeah, the Fusco house. She never opened the door. Two cops were shot from behind. Then all hell broke loose. Where the hell did all of these people come from? Where the hell did all these guns and rifle propelled grenades and Molotov cocktails, and tear gas come from?" Brendan was nearly hyperventilating again.

"Thank the NRA that guns and RPG's are legal in the USA. Thank God, they're legal!"

Brendan looked at her, forgetting to hyperventilate. "Huh?"

"I've got to protect my family from the official fascists. They can take my house, my job, my car and even my dignity, but they can't take my guns, Danny."

"Sheila?"

"It's coming, Danny. Those Christo-fascists fucked up when they joined with the NRA to get their voting majority. If we have to gun down every last stinking hypocrite, thug, and crook, we are going to do it. What would Jesus do? That's what Jesus would do, Danny."

Danny sat there with his eyes unblinking.

"Give me a minute to find Paul and tell him to watch the kids. We're going to St. Margaret's."

Brendan was beyond incredulous. "We're going to church to say Mass?"

Sheila gave him a withering look. "We're going to the neighborhood free clinic, now triage center, dumbass. How many of these people do you think have medical insurance?"

Later Brendan thought that he should have protested, but by that point he was fishing boiled sheets out of a huge pot in the rectory kitchen. Sterilized, the sheets would be cut up and used for bandages as the gauze and surgical wrap had run out hours ago. He had already boiled common sewing thread and sent it over to the church proper.

His newest friend, Hugo, had already poured boiling water on the table and fished the office scissors out of the smaller pot. As he maneuvered the first sheet from the stove to the table, Brendan heard the outside door open and close again. A gust of cold air brought a moment of blessed relief to his sweating body.

"Hola, Hugo," a young, feminine voice called out. Hugo and the young woman fell into a rapid fire conversation in Spanish that Brendan couldn't follow; he didn't even try. Instead he paid attention to the exhaustion in his arms, which trembled as he lifted the next sheet up and out of the pot. Depositing his burden on the table, Brendan finally took a look at the woman. She looked vaguely familiar.