by Mike Lupica
“I accepted his wishes on the coffin,” his mom said before they left the funeral home. “But my wish is that he receive a hero’s good-bye. Because that is exactly what he was.”
So there were firemen everywhere when he and his mom and Emily got to the church, all of them in uniform, forming two lines that stretched from the sidewalk in front of St. Columbkille all the way up the steps to the open double doors. Tommy noticed the firemen were all wearing white gloves, and as soon as he and his mom and sister were on the sidewalk, he watched white gloves on both sides of them go up in salutes as the three of them walked behind the pallbearers carrying Patrick Gallagher’s coffin up the steps.
Uncle Brendan called it the biggest funeral St. Columbkille had ever seen.
His mom held Tommy’s hand. Tommy held Emily’s. They walked up the steps and waited in the back of the church for the rest of the family to arrive, grandparents and uncles and aunts and cousins.
“Is today the last night, Tommy?” Emily whispered to him.
“It is, Em.”
“So no more sad things after this?” she said, looking up at him.
He didn’t know how to tell her, or maybe didn’t have the heart to tell her, that he wasn’t sure the sad things would ever end for them.
The funeral mass was a long one. Father Walters, who’d married Tommy’s dad and mom, and baptized both him and Emily, gave his sermon. Then the fire commissioner spoke before Uncle Brendan went up to the pulpit for what he refused to call a simple eulogy, saying that they were all in the church today to celebrate “a great American life, lived to its fullest by a great son, husband, father, and friend who left us too soon because he was the bravest of Boston’s bravest.”
At the end of the service another man in uniform, Brighton’s fire chief, stood in front of the church and prepared to read the Firefighter’s Prayer.
Tommy remembered his dad reading the same prayer in this same church last spring after an older, retired fireman had died. Not in the line of duty, just of old age. It was the way it was supposed to be.
The way it should’ve been for Patrick Gallagher of Engine 41.
The fire chief started speaking, not needing to read a piece of paper, just saying the words from memory:
“When I am called to duty, God, wherever flames may rage, give me the strength to save some life, whatever be the age. Help me embrace a little child before it is too late . . .” Tommy knew the rest of it by heart himself. His dad had taught it to him.
When mass finally ended it was time for the coffin to be carried back outside St. Columbkille and put back in the hearse for the ride to the cemetery. Tommy knew what was coming, knew the last part would be the worst of all. Tommy had heard his grandmother on his dad’s side, Grammy Gallagher, talking quietly about her son’s “final resting place” at the house last night.
Tommy had no idea why anybody would call it that. His dad wasn’t resting—he was gone and he wasn’t coming back. He’d been gone from the time the ambulance had arrived last Saturday. Maybe even from the time Tommy had heard that first siren during the game against Allston. Thinking back on the game, Tommy felt as if it had been played by someone else, someone living a whole different life than the one he was living now.
At least everything went faster at the cemetery. The prayers were shorter, and when they were done, members of his family placed flowers on top of the coffin. Tommy wasn’t sure if he’d have to watch the coffin being lowered into the ground. He couldn’t stand the thought of seeing his dad buried and gone for good.
But it turned out he didn’t have to watch. He found out later that his mom had given specific instructions that the coffin couldn’t be lowered until Tommy and Em were gone.
His mother was the last to place a flower on top of the coffin. When she was done she walked back over to Tommy and Emily, holding their hands, as bagpipes started playing what sounded like the saddest music Tommy had ever heard. When the bagpipes stopped, they heard the chimes of bells ringing in the distance.
Three bells, rung three times. Uncle Brendan quietly said those were the bells that usually signaled the beginning of a fireman’s shift. Today they meant the end of Patrick Gallagher’s last.
When the bells fell silent and it seemed like the whole cemetery had, too, Tommy turned and saw two more lines of firemen, stretching all the way back to where the black town car they’d driven to the church in was parked. One last time he saw the white gloves go up, and then he and his mom and Emily were walking to the car, his mom stopping every few feet to shake someone’s hand. But his mom never looked back.
“Are we going home now?” Emily said to Tommy.
“We’re going home, Em.”
She looked up at him, her face looking more curious than sad. “What happens then?”
Tommy told his little sister the truth then, as best as he knew it. “We’ll be together. The three of us. Mom will take care of us like she always has. I’ll help out, too.”
Ever since his dad had died, people who’d come to pay their respects had been telling Tommy he was the man of the house now. Only problem was the real man of the house wasn’t around to show him how to take on the role.
SIX
TOMMY HAD BEEN WRONG. It wasn’t over after the funeral.
There were more people at the house later, bringing more food. It seemed to Tommy that when there was a death in your family there was some unspoken rule that said you didn’t get to be alone except when you were sleeping. That way, if friends and family were around, eating and drinking and talking, maybe you wouldn’t think too hard about the person who wasn’t around anymore.
After dinnertime the remaining guests said their good-byes, and it was just Tommy and his mom and Emily, the three of them alone for what felt like the first time since his dad had died. The food that hadn’t been wrapped up and given to people as they left had been put away. The kitchen had been cleared, and Tommy had carried the extra chairs back down to the basement. More than anything, Tommy felt relief that maybe he had given his last good-bye handshake, been told by the last mourner how strong he needed to be. Or how proud his dad had always been of him.
His uncle Brendan had been the last to leave. On his way out he’d tapped Tommy’s chest and said, “Everything you need is in there, the way it was for your dad. You might not realize it yet, but you’re as brave as he was.”
“I don’t feel that way.”
“You’re doing better than you think,” Uncle Brendan said. “I’ve been watching you these past few days.”
“How do you figure?”
“You have his courage. You have his strength. Never forget whose son you are.”
“Never,” Tommy said.
The house was quiet now. Not like the quiet in the hospital room, but a different kind. There had been other times in the past few days and nights, after the downstairs lights were turned off and it was time for bed, that the house had been silent. But this was more permanent.
His mom went upstairs to change out of her black dress. Emily was already in her room, her door closed. Tommy stood in the living room, alone, and stared at his father’s fireman helmet on the big table in the corner where there were so many family photographs on display. Now all the pictures in their frames had been organized around that helmet, with the number 41 on the front.
Tommy stared at it for a long time, taking in the quiet, then turned and walked up the stairs to his own room, yanking off his tie as he did, tossing it on the floor, and closing the door behind him.
He’d told Emily the truth, they were all together, this new version of their family. But even with Emily right next door and his mom down the hall, Tommy felt as alone as he ever had.
Football practice had been canceled tonight, even though they usually practiced on Wednesdays. But most of the guys on the team had gotten off from school to go to the funeral. Nick, Grec
k, and their parents had gone to the cemetery to attend the funeral, and then they’d come back to the house, too, along with Coach Fisher and his wife.
Before Coach had left the house, he’d pulled Tommy aside on the front porch and said, “This is totally your call, and your mom’s. But you can take off this Saturday’s game if you want.”
“No!” Tommy said, surprising himself and maybe surprising Coach with the force of that one word, how it came out of him so much louder than he’d intended.
He dialed himself down a little and said, “I want to play, Coach.”
“Okay.” Coach Fisher put a hand on Tommy’s shoulder. “I’d never dream of trying to stop you, I just thought I should give you the option.”
“I want to play now more than I ever have,” Tommy said. “My dad would want me to.”
“I expect that he would.”
Both of them talking about his dad as if he were on the other side of the front door. Talking about him in the present tense.
“Dad always said that you only got so many Saturdays in your life.”
“I know exactly what your dad meant,” Coach said. “It’s why I’m still at it, son. It’s why I’m always telling you and the other boys to appreciate every second of each game. Because someday you’ll all be willing to pay any amount of money to get even one of them back.”
Tommy looked up at him. “Coach, I don’t just want to play. I need to.”
Coach put out his hand. One more hand to shake. This time Tommy didn’t mind. He looked Coach Fisher in the eye, the way his dad had taught him—one more life lesson from Patrick Gallagher—and shook his hand.
“I’ll see you at practice,” Coach said, and then he walked back inside to tell his wife it was time to go.
They were playing the Watertown Titans on Saturday afternoon, at home. They had practice tomorrow night, Friday night off, then the game the next day. Tommy couldn’t wait. Like he’d told Coach, he needed to play. Needed something to take his mind off things. When he was alone, he focused all his energy on the upcoming matchup against the Titans. He knew football shouldn’t matter right now, as important as it had always been to him, and to his dad, but somehow it mattered more to Tommy now than it ever had before.
It was one more thing he needed his dad to explain to him. But then there were so many questions that needed answering, so many things that had happened across the week that he’d wanted to share with his dad, because even as sad as things had been, he knew that if his dad had been around, he would have given Tommy a look or a wink to let him know that he understood how weird some of it was, or even downright funny.
But his dad wasn’t around anymore to answer questions, or talk football, or just listen to Tommy like he always had. Patrick Gallagher wasn’t around to give Tommy the advice he desperately needed.
He knew his mom would come in eventually to say good night. For now, though, he just lay on top of his bedspread, still in his clothes, lights off, his room as quiet as the rest of the house, wishing he could hear the sound of his dad’s voice one more time.
SEVEN
WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE,” Patrick Gallagher said, “everybody wanted to play offense.”
“Everybody still wants to play offense,” Tommy said.
“Yeah, I guess that never changes.”
“So even when you were a boy, everybody wanted to be Tom Brady? Even before the Patriots were taking the air out of their footballs?”
“Hey!” his dad said.
“Just kidding.”
“As if Deflategate was funny? Not in this family.”
“Sorry.”
“My point is,” Patrick Gallagher said, “all of my buddies wanted to be quarterbacks, running backs, or wide receivers.”
“Just not you.”
“Not me. I wanted to play defense.”
“But why?”
His dad laughed. He laughed a lot, and loudly, not caring who was around to hear him. Tommy always thought it was the pressure of his dad’s job that made him want to let loose when he got home and just throw his head back and laugh.
But nothing was more fun for his dad than football, than finding an open patch of green grass so that he and Tommy could work on Tommy’s game. They were at Rogers Park on this night, on Foster Street in Brighton. It wasn’t close to being a real field, just a place where parents brought small children and pushed them on swings or caught them when they came down the slides. Others came to walk their dogs. But there was usually enough room for Tommy and his dad on a summer night, after supper, to come and work on the small things that Patrick Gallagher said were going to make Tommy a big star someday.
Maybe even get him to Foxborough, home of the New England Patriots.
It was the first week of August. Tryouts for the Brighton Bears would be held in a couple of weeks. But tonight it was just the two of them, in shorts and T-shirts, both of them wearing football cleats with rubber spikes. They were using the football Tommy’s dad had given him on his last birthday. But there were nights when the drills Tommy’s dad would put him through didn’t require a ball.
“You ready to work?” his dad asked.
“Always.”
Tonight Tommy’s dad was going to work with him on studying a quarterback’s moves.
“Most guys on defense,” his dad said, “think their job doesn’t start until the ball is snapped. But they’re wrong. They’re the ones who are always going to be a step or two behind the play.”
His dad didn’t say it out loud, but Tommy knew what he was thinking: Patrick Gallagher’s kid was never going to play a step behind.
“You start fighting—and winning—the battle against the offense before the ball’s even been snapped.
“Like Malcolm Butler,” Tommy said.
“Exactly.”
Tommy knew by now that his dad thought Butler had made the biggest defensive play in Super Bowl history. And he thought Butler had done so because the play had really started for him as soon as Russell Wilson, the Seattle QB, had approached the line of scrimmage.
“As soon as that kid saw the formation, he knew what they were planning to run,” Tommy’s dad said. “In that moment, he was smarter than Wilson, smarter than the Seattle coach, smarter than their offensive coordinator. We’re talking about a kid who couldn’t even make it at a junior college in Mississippi. Playing the biggest game of his life he saw the three-receiver set and he recognized it from practice sessions before the Super Bowl. And he just knew. That was why he was just sitting there waiting when Wilson tried to throw the slant pass that he was sure was going to win the game for the Seahawks.”
“They should have run Marshawn Lynch,” Tommy said.
“That’s not the point. Coach Belichick was daring them to risk not getting that yard and having to use their last time-out. My point is that it wasn’t just Butler’s talent that helped him make that interception; it was his mind.”
His dad was big on that. Talent plus judgment. He said that if you didn’t have both in sports, you’d generally lose to somebody who did. His own problem in football, he’d always told Tommy, was that he’d had more intelligence on the field than talent.
“People have this idea that quarterbacks are the only great thinkers on a football field. Good thing they’re not, or I would have never gotten off the bench.”
Tommy grinned at his dad again. “I thought you said we were going to work. Or are you just gonna talk all night?”
They separated by about twenty yards, Tommy’s dad pretending to be a quarterback dropping back to pass. He told Tommy to watch as much as he could at once, try to see the whole picture, his feet, where his eyes were looking, how he angled his body when he was setting the ball to throw. Sometimes he’d drop straight back; sometimes he’d roll to his right or his left. But every time, Tommy was supposed to react to what he was seeing the way he w
ould if he were back in coverage.
Then his dad would yell, “Now!” and release the ball, expecting Tommy to anticipate his movements, every single time.
When Tommy would sprint in one direction and the ball would go the other, he’d not only have to chase it down, he’d also have to explain to his dad why he’d made the wrong read.
“I know how much you love to read books,” his dad said. “Well, I want you to love reading QBs on a football field just as much, even if it’s speed-reading a lot of the time.”
As their practice wore on, Tommy’s reading got better and better. After about an hour, after he’d not only read him perfectly but picked the ball off, his dad said, “You getting tired?”
“Are you?”
“Never!” his dad said. “You know me. Last man standing.”
“Not when I’m on the field, too.”
“That’s my boy.”
They kept playing until it was nearly dark. Played until Tommy’s dad announced last pass of the night and Tommy was moving to the right spot even before his dad brought his arm forward, cutting in front of an imaginary receiver, catching the ball cleanly, running across Rogers Park, toward the small playground, chased by a couple of small dogs.
His dad high-fived Tommy when Tommy handed him the ball, laughing as he said, “I think one of those dogs was gaining on you at the end, dawg.” Then the two of them walked across Rogers to the car, his dad’s arm around Tommy’s shoulder.
“You know what I hate?” Tommy said.
“What?”
“I hate when it’s time to go home.”
“Me too,” his dad said.
They walked in silence, night coming fast now, like it was racing them to the car, until Tommy’s dad said, “But look on the bright side, boyo.”
