Excerpts from Jonathon Marcel’s Honor Thy Father
Chapter 4
“Jack Delacroix’s will is in probate. It’s being challenged by an illegitimate daughter no one knew he had.”
I stalk back to my desk where the drink caddy waits to console me. “No such thing as an illegitimate child.” I hold out a bottle of bourbon, and Gabbler dismisses the offer with a slight wave. “Now, if you want to talk about illegitimate fathers, I’ll be more than happy to have that discussion.”
Chapter 6
The idea that a father would abandon his son is not strange to me. Mine, a drunk crack addict, never wanted a family, just a place to flop and a ho to bounce up and down. Abandoning me wasn’t about protecting me, it was about skirting a father’s responsibility. I doubt my dad knows his daughter is dead, shot by someone like him. I doubt he knows I’ve been to prison or whether I’m even alive.
I don’t know if he’s dead or alive, and I don’t care. I stopped caring a long time ago.
Does Joseph Delacroix know his dad is dead? Surely he would have attended the funeral.
What goes through a boy’s mind when his father sends him away?
I can tell you what goes through a boy’s mind when he wakes one morning to find his father has split. The feeling isn’t pleasant. If you’ve never had a father, you’ll never know. For those whose father died, that sorrow is nothing compared to the enduring pain of abandonment.
Chapter 11
Rory looks me up and down then chuckles. “Funny, you don’t look Irish.”
“You should see me after I’ve had a few pints of Guinness.”
Rory shakes his head, still laughing. “Everybody looks Irish after a few pints of Guinness.”
Chapter 16
Megan is wide-eyed behind the wheel, gritting her teeth, scanning the streets. It’s a bit obvious this is more than she signed up for, but she isn’t cowering. This redheaded lass is down for the cause.
The back seats are folded down to make room for our passengers. Banger Number One is finally coming to, finding himself duct-taped and unable to struggle. The crazy micks made sure to lay him face to face with his dead homeboy—psychological torment with a twist of sick Irish humor. Rory climbs up front with Megan, and I slip into the middle row. Patrick trails in the Honda.
“I know a place on the east side,” Rory tells me then nudges Megan. “Head for Delancey Street.”
“Right,” Megan says, struggling to appear brave and tough. She shoots down Perry for a quick getaway, and when she makes the turn south on Greenwich, Rory places a soft hand around her arm. “Easy with the heavy foot. We’re alright now. There’s only Patrick in your mirror.”
She takes a deep breath and sighs loudly. “Fuck, Rory. You could’ve warned me.”
[…]
Megan makes a couple of navigational changes and then we reach our destination. Another car is idling just south of East River Park. A young, pimple-faced ruffian with a short haircut is leaning against the trunk. We pull in behind him, and he opens the trunk.
“I’m not getting out of the van,” Megan says assuredly.
Rory laughs. “I reckon you will or you’ll burn to death when Sean lights it.” The kid in front of us is lifting a gallon-size gas container out of the trunk of his car. “Everyone out.”
“Fuck!” Megan pops the back hatch and heads to the Honda, taking over the driving for Patrick who is coming to help us.
Chapter 17
“DeShawn, talk to me.”
“About what?”
“Anything. Just tell me what’s bothering you, what’s on your mind.”
“Okay, I’m black, I come from nothin’ and had nothin’. This guy, this Joseph Delacroix, he’s white, and comes from wealth and stature. We have nothing in common except we were both abandoned by our fathers.”
“Did you think you were the only one to be abandoned by a parent? The world is filled with broken homes, DeShawn. Don’t be naive.”
“I’m not being naive. You don’t know what it’s like. You lived a privileged life with both parents.”
“Just last week you accused me of not knowing what it’s like to be black and have to live in white society. Now you’re accusing me of not knowing what it was like to grow up poor with one parent.”
“Candice, that’s not how I—”
“Stop. It’s my turn to talk. I do not question how unsettling it must have felt to be abandoned, but I will wager it is just as unsettling to losing a father because your mother divorced him for his infidelities.”
“Am I hearing this right? Candice Sullivan is from a broken home?”
“Yeah, privileged Ms. Sullivan is from a broken home. Who would’ve guessed?”
Chapter 18
It’s a tiny room. Plain, simple, without the wall posters, pictures and decorations you’d expect to find in a typical college dorm. And no TV. Father Brandon gestures out the window that looks back to where we came from, and up where the sun is shining on those luscious green hills. The moment I began to lose myself in the splendor of the hills, a sharp blast of a locomotive’s horn draws my eyes away to see a long stretch of freight cars rumbling down the tracks past St. Elizabeth’s Convent and under the West State Street overpass in front of the campus.
“The ringing of train bells is as constant as the birds singing,” says Father Brandon, “as is the call of the hills.” He lets me refocus before continuing. “Many men seek solitude. Some find it at sea, others among the trees and hollows. Few surrender to it behind the walls of a monastery.”
“Jason became a priest?”
“He struggled with his vocation, not believing he had a call for one. He didn’t understand that our one true vocation is simply our love for Jesus Christ. He believed that to demonstrate his love for God he had to become a priest, but that was not his calling. Our work, DeShawn, our profession, we do not chose. Rather we are guided to it, and once we embrace it, it engulfs us in fire.”
The priest’s words have me reflecting over my childhood desire to become a big-city police detective, only to end up a lowly private eye. Hard to believe God would have guided me to this profession by routing me through prison, but what better way to humble a man than to set his ass down behind bars.
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