by Carol Coffey
Brendan stammered. “You’ve gone to such trouble. You should give it to her.”
Coleen shook her head. “No, honey, I think it would mean more coming from you.”
Brendan looked at the cross and closed the box gently. He climbed the stairs to where his mother was getting ready.
“Sorry it’s late,” he said sheepishly as he placed the tiny box in her hand.
She opened the gift and he watched her eyes widen in surprise.
“I had one just like this. How . . . how did you know?”
Brendan smiled coyly. “Coleen,” he replied bashfully.
“It’s beautiful,” she said as she placed the chain around her neck.“Thank you.”
When Jonathan arrived with Pilar, Eileen returned to her quiet, shy ways and hardly glanced at him in the lounge where Frank held court with stories of his time in the force. Brendan glanced at Jonathan who sat on the sofa in a silent daze. He was dressed in his best wool vest and white shirt and his mop of foppish blond hair was freshly washed. Despite the lighter dose of medication Pilar had given him that day, he gazed dreamily at the group as though he was in a deep trance.
As they sat at the table to eat, Patricia joined the group and sat facing Jonathan at the end of the table. Frank, who had already had three whiskeys, raised a toast to welcome the visitor to his home. He winked at Brendan and turned his attention to Pilar, loudly exclaiming that he wished her father was alive to see her and Brendan together and that, while she’d always been part of the family, he hoped it would become official.
Coleen stood and took the glass of Jameson from him as Brendan cringed.
“What?” Frank bellowed. “Now what have I done?”
Pilar laughed, which eased the tension in the room, while Patricia sat twiddling her new chain nervously.
Jonathan sat motionless facing her and appeared to all present to be hypnotised by the light show as his eyes followed the bright beams around the table.
“I believe I’ve seen you before, ma’am,” he then slurred.
Brendan leant forward and looked down the long wooden table to where his mother was seated.
Patricia stammered and looked furtively around the room.“I –I don’t think so. I think I’d remember meeting you.” Certainly she would remember this strange man who stood out at the table in his 1930’s clothes and depression-style haircut.
“Oh yes, ma’am. I’ve definitely seen you before. You were twiddling that very cross around just like you’re doing now,” he drawled, now speaking more clearly.
Patricia looked around the table again and flushed.“You’re mixing me up with someone else. I just got this cross tonight.”
Jonathan fixed his eyes on the woman and smiled sleepily. “I’m not mistaken, ma’am. You looked real nervous . . . and you were . . . sad. You were wearing an orange top with big purple circles on it and –”
“I remember that. It was a dress!” Coleen said. “You bought it when we went shopping in Rockaway!”
“Your hair was longer and you had some of it back in a clip.”
Patricia’s flush deepened as she became aware of all the eyes resting on her. Brendan knocked his glass of Coke over the table and sat staring at his mother as the brown liquid seeped slowly into Coleen’s white linen tablecloth.
“I’m . . . I’m sorry . . . I really don’t remember you. I – I think you’ve definitely got the wrong person,” Patricia stuttered.
Brendan stood and quickly moved to the other end of the table. He knelt by Jonathan’s chair and gazed intently at him.
“What else do you remember?” he asked.
“You were real upset,” Jonathan continued, still staring at Patricia who sat like a statue on the other side of the table. “You were sitting in a car and . . .”
Jonathan stopped as he tried to bring the complete memory to mind. He raised his hand and began to massage the side of his head.
“And . . . you . . . you looked like you were missing something. You kept moving your arms as though someone had taken something from you and then you crossed your arms and . . .you were crying.”
“What else?” Brendan asked urgently.
“You took a bag onto your lap and lifted a baby’s bottle from it and . . . you cried even more and then you leant forward and I think you opened the glove compartment of the car and . . . something in there scared you. You jumped back like there was a rattlesnake in there and you stopped crying real quickly then. You just stared out the window and looked like you were waiting on something. You didn’t move your eyes until . . .”
Patricia jumped up from her seat.
“How could you know that?” she cried.
“Where were you? Tell me!” Frank demanded.
“Until what, Jonathan?” Brendan urged.
“Until he got into the car with the baby.”
“Who?” Brendan demanded. “Who was it?”
Patricia looked around the room and sat back down.Her eyes clouded over as though she was lost in thought. Neither she nor Jonathan answered.
“Where . . . where were you, Jonathan?” Brendan asked.
“I . . . I was in . . . a box . . . in a box looking out of the window . . . through a small hole in the side that my grandma had made so I could see out.”
Brendan slumped back on his heels and exhaled heavily. He looked at Pilar who sat open-mouthed at the other end of the table. He moved his gaze to his mother.
“Mam?” he said, hoping that she would speak.
Patricia moved her eyes to her brother and swallowed.“You told me he was no good and I . . . I didn’t listen. He contacted me, said that he had changed. He said he had a job and an apartment in New York and asked me to come back to him. Brendan was eight months old and I was afraid that I would spend the rest of my life living under your roof with nothing that was my own. I took the train to New York with Brendan and met him. He drove me to his mother’s apartment in Harlem. I had never met her. He said she wanted to see Brendan but when we got there he parked the car and took Brendan and he didn’t even bring me inside. He left me in the car like he was ashamed of me or something . . . and I . . . I realised that I had made a mistake and I began to cry. I was so scared that he wouldn’t bring Brendan back out. I sat there in the car and waited. After a while, I . . . he said when he left the car ‘Don’t you touch anything until I get back’ . . . but I leant over and looked in the glove compartment. I don’t know why I did that. I . . . just looked in and there was a gun and . . .” She looked at her brother and cringed. “And . . . drugs. I was terrified. Finally he came back and handed Brendan back to me. As we drove off I tried to think about how I would get away from him. I thought he’d kill me or Brendan if he suspected that I intended to leave. When we pulled up outside his apartment block, I made an excuse that I had to go to the store for baby milk but he insisted on going with me.”
Patricia’s breathing quickened and her chin began to tremble.
“I knew I had to make a run for it. I took off my seatbelt and he . . . he must have suspected. He said I wasn’t taking his son anywhere, that I could go back to New Jersey if I wanted but that Brendan was staying put. I fumbled at the handle of the door and he tried to grab my neck but instead he got hold of my necklace and tore it off. I ran for about two blocks with Brendan in my arms. Each step I took I expected to hear a gun firing after me. I saw two police parked in a car and I stood beside them while I tried to catch my breath. I told them I’d lost my wallet and asked them for a lift to the station. When I got there I boarded the train and I think I cried all the way back to Dover.”
“So that’s why you were so upset that day!” Coleen said. “Imagine, I thought that it was over that stupid necklace!”
Patricia looked at her brother.“I couldn’t tell you what had happened because I knew you’d think I was stupid to go there but, Francis, I wanted a life of my own. I wanted a way out and I thought Rafael could offer me that.”
“What about Jonathan?” Brendan
asked.
Patricia looked at the strange man and shook her head sadly. “I never knew you were in that apartment. I swear it. I would have done something. I would have helped you.”
Brendan went to his apartment and returned with the photo of the basement apartment Jonathan had led the police to on the night he was found. He held the photo out to his mother.
“Was this the house?”
Patricia nodded.
Brendan shook his head, amazed that he had been in the very house that Jonathan had been kept prisoner in for God only knew how many years. There was only one person now who could tell Jonathan where he was from and how he came to be in that apartment. It was going to be a very hard thing to do but he had to go and see Rafael Martinez. He had to meet his father.
Chapter 29
The meeting with Rafael Martinez tookthree days to arrange with the correctional officers at the maximum-security facility which was a six-hour drive from Dover town. Frank had warned his nephew of the risks of being turned away without having met with Martinez if it wasn’t set up beforehand, so he had made some calls and three days later was assured that Brendan would get a short time with the prisoner.
To Brendan’s surprise, his mother insisted on going with him, stating that she did not want him to go through the meeting alone.
Convinced now that Jonathan had actually been kidnapped, Pilar agreed to drive them there.
When they turned onto the long straight drivewayof the prison, the impressive entrance to the tall grey building in the distance looked more like thebastion of a medieval castlewall but, as they neared, the spotlight on the towerand the armed guards standing along the curtain wall exposed the building’s true purpose. As they neared the checkpoint, Brendan’s muscles became taut with tension, sending shockwaves of painful spasms from his shoulders to his trembling thighs. Pilar reached over and touched his arm gently while his mother, who had not uttered a word since they left a roadside diner in Scranton, stared out at the ominous building before them.
Despite the blistering heat, Pilar insisted on waiting in the car while Patricia and Brendan walked the last few steps to the security check point. He watched his motherbaulk at the indignity of being searched and stood still while a metal detector was waved around his own body. The correctional officer studied Brendan’s identification closely before handing it to another CO who stood statue-like inside the main entrance.
“Martin, huh? You can tell you’re Martinez’ son!” he said as he returned Brendan’s passport to him. “Let’s hope you’re not a chip off the old block.”
As they walked together through a maze of doors, Patricia suddenly stood still.
“I can’t do it,” she whispered.
Despite her low tone, Brendan could hear the sound of sheer desperation in his mother’s voice. He had never heard her sound afraid before. He turned to face her.
“I can’t see him. I . . . I just can’t!” she pleaded.
“It’s okay. I’ll be fine,” he assured her as he continued down the long polished corridor to the visitors’ room with the CO close by his side.
The visiting room of Attica prison in New York State was not at all what Brendan had expected. As he had lain awake the previous night, he had imagined a small, stuffy, heavily guarded room with glass panels separating the prisoners from their visitors who could only communicate with each other through telephones perched on the wall of each cubicle. Instead, he was led into a bright, open-plan room which was furnished with several wooden tables and soft-cushioned chairs. Impressive murals lined the walls of the cheery room which, instead of the hard tiles that had reverberated under his feet on the cold corridors, was floored with a soft, straw-coloured carpet.
Brendan stood in the room for a moment and glanced around at the other visitors and prisoners in the room. On his right, a woman with five children argued with her prisoner husband while a young white man held hands with his pretty girlfriend, neither speaking but gazing sadly into each other’s eyes. On his left, an old black man sat holding hands and praying loudly with two elderly black women. Beside them, a young Hispanic man and his elderly father sat facing each other. Both men looked desolately at each other but did not speak.
At the back of the room, a thin, heavily lined Hispanic man sat alone with a guard by his side. Even in the distance, Brendan felt that he could be looking at an older version of himself. Rafael Martinez looked very different to the young handsome Mexican in the photo that his mother had given him and he wondered if this was why Jonathan had not recognised the man. He walked up to the table and took the seat facing the man who sat confidently with an amused expression fixed on his wrinkled face.
“Do you know who I am?” Brendan asked nervously as he lowered himself into the seat.
“I got eyes,” the man replied in a heavy Mexican accent. “Where’s the other one?”
Brendan raised his eyebrows. “What?”
“The other visitor? CO said ‘you got visitors’ so I expected more than one,” he grinned. “Patricia, she lost her nerve, eh? Figures, bitch was always spineless.”
Brendan swallowed and looked at the black man whose praying had begun to reach fever pitch. He returned his gaze to his father who looked older than his years. Above his left eye, a deep cut oozed blood onto the steri-strip covering. Two of his upper front teeth were missing and the rest of his once-white teeth were stained and decaying. Both of his father’s lean upper arms were heavily tattooed, one of which looked very similar to the tattoo Brendan had done since he came to America and which his uncle detested. On Rafael’s left arm, a double skull tattoo with the letters MM was encircled by a flame. Brendan had read a little about gangs in America and knew what the letters stood for: Mexican Mafia. Further down his arm, a rose tattoo signified his father’s honour for having assaulted an enemy.
Rafael seemed to sense his son’s disapproval at his appearance and caught the younger man staring at the gash on his forehead.
“Aggression-replacement therapy is not working so well for me!” he laughed. He leant forward. “So, what do you want?”
Brendan glanced at the guard and wished he would move closer to his father.
“Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you. You’re not a pussy, are you?” Rafael sneered.
Brendan felt a flash of anger and narrowed his eyes at his father.
“Good, that’s what I like to see,” Rafael said in response to his son’s quick temper.
He leant back again and looked his son up and down.
“You do any time?”
Brendan looked away and shook his head.
“I can tell that you lie. What, you don’t think you are just like me, like my blood doesn’t run through your veins?”
Brendan clenched his fists on the table. “I am not like you!”
“Yes, you are!” Rafael laughed as he pushed his chair back onto its back legs and rocked backwards and forwards. A guard approached and signalled for him to return the chair legs to the floor.
“What you do time for?” he asked, ignoring the guard. “Narcotics? Guns?”
Brendan shook his head angrily. “I told you. I am not like you. I am not violent.”
The smile on Rafael Martinez’s face slowly disappeared. He returned his chair to an upright position and moved his face close to Brendan.
“Lot of men would pay dearly for saying less than this to me,” he said.“Now, I ask you what you came here for!”
Brendan studied the man and exhaled loudly. He took the photo of Jonathan as a teenager out of his pocket and placed it squarely on the table in front of his father.
“I want to know where you took him from,” he said.
As Rafael Martinez studied the photo, a leering smile washed slowly over his face. He folded the photo and shoved it back across the table to Brendan.
“I never see him before,” he said.
Brendan opened the photo and shoved it back across the table.
“Have another look,” he order
ed.
Rafael Martinez stood and leant forward, grabbing Brendan’s T-shirt and pulling him to him. The guard rushed forward, placing his hand on his gun.
“Sit down!” he shouted.
Martinez loosened his grip and returned slowly to his seat.
“All this man wants is for you to tell me where you took him from so he can get home. He has agreed not to file any charges against you if you give me the information I want.”
Rafael Martinez stared at his son as he considered his position.
“He can place you in that apartment where he was kept,” Brendan said, “and my mother can also link you to that house.”
Martinez leaned back on his seat again and grinned. “I have fifteen years left of my sentence. You think I care about another few years in here?”
Brendan tensed. Threatening Martinez with more years in Attica had been his only card. “Still, it would be better to enjoy a few years of old age as a freeman than die in prison, wouldn’t it? Also, you could do it for my mother. You owe it to her.”
Martinez folded his arms and stared at his son.
“I told you, I don’t know him.”
Brendan stood.
“Fine, well then we’ll see what the New York police have to say when Jonathan charges you with kidnapping, assault and attempted murder.”
“Murder?” Rafael Martinez said through gritted teeth.
“Yes, Jonathan has a very good memory,” Brendan lied.“You locked him in a box that he could have suffocated in.”
