“That’s a nasty habit you’ve picked up, Patrick. You should cut it out.”

Patrick spins on his heel, and before I get a chance to blink, a flying cigarette comes out of nowhere and singes my cheek. Sparks explode across my vision, and for a second I’m blinded, and choking on smoke. I hear a metallic click, and I put my hands up laughing.

“Okay, okay, you got me,” I chuckle, brushing black ash from my face. “But I had the drop on you, Pat. You’re getting old.”

A grimace flickers across the grizzled old man’s face. He’s got white hair, as white as a dove, and a beard that goes half way down his chest. He’s wearing a long black trench coat, and he looks like an undertaker – or deeply depressed Santa Claus.

But none of that’s the most easily recognizable thing about him. No. Pat’s standout features are the two burnished steel, sawn-off, shotguns he carries with him under that coat, everywhere he goes – the shotguns that are now pointed at a spot an inch above my eyes. He’s a dangerous man, Patrick O’Hanlon is: a good man to have on your side.

“Dickie boy,” he rasps. “You keep pulling that trick, you’re gonna get a face full of buckshot one day, you know that?”

I notice that he hasn’t dropped his two shotguns, and that they’re still aimed – pointedly –at my forehead. Pat’s sending a message. I step past them, stifling a grin. I knead his shoulder, and the weapons disappear back under his coat. “Naw, you’re too good for that, Pat.”

“Patently not,” he grumbles, reaching in to the chest pocket of his trench coat and pulling out another cigarette. “I’m getting old, Dickie.”

There aren’t a lot of men I’d allow to call me by that nickname. My brothers, sure. Da’ – of course, not that he would. His pride wouldn’t let him. And Pat.

My earliest memory of the family’s old enforcer is Ma telling him off for smoking inside after he got invited over for Sunday lunch. The corners of my mouth turn up with amusement at the memory of Ma beating Pat’s chest with a broomstick, and then the sight of the pint-sized Irish lady stopping for a second at the sound of wood connecting with weapons.

Sometimes I think I can still hear the sound of her shrill scream ringing in my ears. “What have I told youse about hanging those up at the door?”

“What you grinning at?” Pat grimaces, lighting a match off the outside of his coat.

“Nothing, Pat. So, ‘s‘everyone here?”

“Almost. Liam still at college?”

Liam’s the youngest of my four brothers. He’s the one who got the brains in the family. Not that I’m stupid, far from it, but this kid – he’ll go far. I nod in agreement. “And da?”

Patrick’s face darkens, and what little of his face is visible and uncovered by white hair furrows with frown lines. “He’s here: in the back, gettin’ his shots. He doesn’t look so good. How is he, Dickie?”

“I’m sorry, Pat,” I say softly. “I know how long you’ve been with him. You’re right; he’s not doing so good.”

Pat clears his throat. He’s old school – not so good with emotion. I’m grateful for it. The more I have to think about da’s increasing frailty, the more I want to punch something.

“You’d best go inside, Dickie. They’re waiting.”

I clap him on the shoulder and we share a moment’s silence. I know what he can’t say. Pat’s been like a second father to me. It doesn’t last. I see Pat’s nostrils flare.

“You find yourself a woman, boy?” He asks.

“Why do you say that?”, I ask, my eyes narrowed. “You know me. Don’t like to get tied down. Don’t like being told what I can and can’t do.”

“I’m askin’ ‘cause you stink of sex, Dickie boy.” Pat leans forward with interest flaring in his eyes, and I shrank back under his inquisitive stare. “She different?”

“Just a girl in a bar,” I say lightly. My voice doesn’t sound natural, not even to me. It’s an octave too high, and squeezed tight.

He nods, and I can tell he doesn’t believe me. “You’re acting awful defensive, Dickie, for a man who met a girl in a bar,” he grins. “But I guess all of us got secrets, don’t we.”

I push through the swinging wooden doors and enter the bar. The last thing I need is a goddamn psychoanalysis session from a mafia killer. Jesus. What the hell’s my life coming to?

A loud, familiar voice greets me. “Brother!”

It’s Kieran – my younger brother by a full ten minutes. We’re identical, but I got the looks. Least that’s what I claim – I guess he’d say the same of himself. He’s leaning over the bar, pulling himself a pint.

“Where are the rest?” I ask, hoping I’m not too late. I’d meant to be in and out of the Morello fight in half an hour – but my dalliance with Casey changed all that.

“Out back with da’,” he replies, while grimacing. “He’s not doing so good, Dec.”

Kieran’s admission hits me like a knife in the gut. It’s the second time in minutes that someone’s mentioned da’s condition; and now the words hit all the harder ‘cause it’s my brother saying it. It’s a low cold blow, making my stomach twist. This is the last news I want to hear.

We’ve all known that da’s health has been failing, but the downward spiral keeps getting quicker and quicker: it’s fucking terrifying. I’m the oldest, by ten minutes, and that means that when da’ passes, I’m the one who will have to take care of the family.

I wince and look around for a distraction. I get it, but from the last place I would have expected. There’s a commotion outside. It sounds like a carol, or a hymn or something, and the longer I listen, the wider my jaw drops.

“Ten Thousand Men of Harvard,

Want victory today,

For they know that over Old

Eli’s, Fair Harvard holds sway…”

“The fuck is that?” Kieran asks with a look of stunned disgust on his face. “It’s not those feckin’ college punks agin’?” Kieran always seems to fall into his accent more with a tad too much alcohol, or when he’s spoiling for a fight.

“Fuck if I know,” I reply, neatly plucking the mostly-full pint of beer from his hands. Kieran’s fingers clutch to save it, but a second too late. I take a deep gulp and sigh with satisfaction.

“Hey, asshole!”

“Perks of seniority, K,” I grin with false sincerity. “When you’re my age, maybe you’ll get it.”

He flashes me a sour look. “Asshole.”

A scrap of sound floats in through the door. It’s a whiny voice, a couple of octaves too high for my liking – higher even than mine when Patrick asked about Casey.

“Good sir! What say you let us into your fine establishment for a couple of jars?”

Kieran forgets his beef with me in a second, and his face splits wide with a broad grin. “Oh, this is gonna be good,” he says.

I can’t say I disagree. Patrick doesn’t suffer fools lightly – and especially not Ivy League, New World, WASP-speaking douchebag punks who chose the wrong goddamn Irish bar off Dorchester to get their guilty, gritty evening’s pleasure.

“Password, gentlemen?”

“Pass–?”, then we hear the sound of a hand slapping against a back. “See, Percy, I told you we’d find somewhere good down here. It’s a speakeasy, isn’t it?”

Patrick doesn’t reply. I can just imagine his face, as he’s looking them up and down, furrowed with disgust. I bet the Ivy Leaguers think it’s all an act, but I know better. They’re about to find that out.

“Oh, pick me!” His friend replies. I can picture him, too: all khaki pants and white Oxford shirt, purposely untucked: a tourist here from ‘cross the river, looking for his fix of the poor, the downtrodden, the Irish.

Patrick lets a long silence stretch out, and the friend eventually fills the awkwardness.

“It’s something local,” he guesses, his voice brimming with enthusiasm, “isn’t it? Let’s see – something historical? Can you give us a clue? Are you the clue?”

More silence, and I picture Patrick’s murderous rage with glee. I share a look with Kieran, and he mouths, “what do you reckon the old man’s gonna do?”

I shrug.

We don’t have to wait long to find out.

“Don’t ye feckin’ tooch me,”, Pat growls, “Lessen ye wantin’ to lose a finger, Ivy League.”

“Gun!”, a voice shrieks. I cover my ears and grimace as another joins it – screeching even higher. It sounds like nails on a chalk board.

“Please, sir,” Mr. ‘Khaki Pants’ begs. “We didn’t mean any harm. We’ll get out of here, and we won’t tell a soul!”

“Nay,” Patrick replies, his voice like sandpaper, “ye won’t. Not unless ye want to face charges”.

“Charges? Preposterous!” Khaki’s friend splutters. “We’ve done nothing wrong!”

“Assault,” Pat threatens. “Attempted break in? ‘Ere I was, minding me own business, when two drunks attempt to burglarize me place of business. ‘Ow do ye think Harvard would be thinkin’ on that?”

I fight back a laugh.

“The college?” Khaki says in a low, shocked – and feckin’ self-important voice. He’s shrinking from a lion to a mouse before our very ears. “you wouldn’t. We’ve –”

Patrick cuts him off. “Now, I’m a generous man,” he allows. “If you git’, and git’ now, maybe we can forget this unpleasantness.”

Their leather soled footsteps echo into the night, ricocheting off the cobbled side street like gunshots.

Kieran brings his hands together in a slow clap. “Bravo!” He cries. “Someone get that man a pint!”

The door to the card room clicks, interrupting us, and Kieran and I turn as one. The smiles slide right off our faces just like they did back when we got caught misbehaving as kids. This is worse.

“Yuppies!” Da’ wheezes.

I feel sick just looking at him. He’s skin on bones, and his skin’s gray and papery at that. He looks a shell of the man who took me to football games when I was a kid; the man every Southie feared and respected in equal measure.

Ridley’s holding him up on his left, and Mac on his right, and they’re helping him forward in a slow, sad shuffle.

“Yer lookin’ good, da’!” I say, forcing sincerity I don’t feel into my voice.

He looks at me with disgust, and it rocks me back. It reminds me of the man Seamus Byrne used to be – not this pale imitation before me – and I realize that the fierce, smoldering anger he was always known for is still there. It’s just his body that’s failing him. Only I can’t do anything about it, and it’s eating me up. If it was an enemy I could see, I’d kill it, but it’s not.

You can’t fight cancer, least I can’t. None of these fancy doctors can, neither.

“Get me to my seat, Mac,” he grunts hoarsely at my younger brother, before fixing me with another cold stare. “As for you – that’s enough of that, Dickie. Your ma and I taught you better than that, I thought. I look like shit. I feel like shit. So you better cut your lying, boy.”

“Still got your temper,” I laugh. The joke falls flat. I didn’t expect anything different, not when it’s so clear that our father isn’t long for this world. I look around and see misery written on each of my brother’s faces, and it mirrors what I’m feeling inside.

“And not owt else,” he grumbles, settling onto a creaky wooden chair. “So let’s get this over with.”

It’s obvious no one wants to be the first to speak. I get it. We got nothing but bad news, and da’s had enough of that recently to last a lifetime – his lifetime. I go first. I’m the eldest, and the way things are going it’ll be my job soon enough.

“Things ain’t looking good.”

“You’re telling me, boy,” da’ laughs – but it’s an awful, painful, hacking sound that makes me wince. He stops and waves me on, fishing inside his wool jacket for a handkerchief to mop the pink spittle from his lips.

All of us brothers share a look. I bet da’ sees, but he pretends he doesn’t.

“They’re tooled for war, and what with your condi –”

“My cancer,” da’ says with morbid finality.

“Your cancer,” I nod, “they’re getting bold. We already know they’re nibbling on the edges of our territory. They’re only going to get more confident. We need to bloody their noses before they do –”

“We need to make a deal,” da’ croaks, and the suggestion hits me harder than seeing him like this ever did. Da’ in his prime never would have said a thing. He would have thrown the first punch and feck the consequences.

“Da’ –” I shout, along with Kieran, and maybe my younger brothers too.

“You can’t –”

“Think about what you’re –”

Da’ slams his palm on the table, and my pint ripples. “I want you to set up a meeting, Dec,” he orders with some of his old fire, but I see how much it costs him, “with Micky Morello.”

I don’t like it, but I’m still his son; so while he lives, I will do what he says.