Lost & Found Ch. 04

Joey grinned.

"Robbie called me last night, we had another talk about this; I think he just wanted me to tell him again that Uncle Frank was the way to go with this, and I made sure I let him know that he needs to sit down with both of them, Uncle Frank and Aunt Kat, so I called them and kind of...pushed Robbie into going there today; he's not "dealing with an emergency" at work today, he's in Morgan Hill, getting the benefit. I hope you don't mind?"

Casey smiled at her older brother, both her smile and her eyes softening as she considered how much he cared for his younger brother. Casey pulled his head down and kissed him gently on the cheek.

"Thank you for still looking out for our boy!" she whispered, grinning back at Joey's quick grin.

++++

Robbie pulled into the driveway of his former home, Frank and Caitlin Novak's residence in Morgan Hill, a suburb of San Jose, noting both Frank and Caitlin's cars already parked there, so he swung off to the side and parked across them. He walked into the house confidently, not bothering to knock; this had been his home for several years, and he was still a member of this family. As he walked through to the back, he heard the twins, arguing as usual, Frank mediating, and Caitlin clattering in the kitchen, and suddenly he was back; it was as though he'd never left.

Morag looked up and spotted him, immediately giving a shriek and pelting toward him, followed closely by Moira. The red-headed identical twins mobbed him every time, Frank suspecting that they just wanted to hit him up for more cash or freebies, but the truth was the two girls adored Robbie and wanted their brother back again, even though they loved Casey and worshipped little Robbie, and every chance they had to have him to themselves they took with both hands.

Caitlin heard the commotion, and slipped up behind Robbie to slide her hands around his waist and kiss him lightly on the neck.

"Robbie, welcome home! You should come down more often, we all miss you!"

Robbie spun round to hug his aunt in a bear hug, suddenly glad and relieved to see her, opening his arms to gather in the twins as well so he could hug them all at once.

After squeezing them all soundly, Robbie released them, letting all three of them breathe again.

Caitlin took his hand, kissing him softly on the cheek, motherly and concerned.

"Joey tells us you need to talk, come on through to the den. Girls, your dad and I need to talk to Robbie, this is private, and I mean that, so go find something to do, we're going to be a while."

The twins finally left after all their protests were dismissed, muttering darkly about how they weren't really members of this family, that they got shoved out the door for the least little reason, and that no-one ever told them anything about what was really going on. Caitlin grinned as she listened to them, feeling for them, but knowing full well that what she and Frank were going to tell Robbie was definitely not for their ears, and never could be.

Frank ushered Robbie into the den, and waited for Caitlin to settle the girls and ensure their privacy. As he waited, his mind cast back to the circumstances that led him here, to this moment, if truth be told, to help him set out in his mind what and how he was going to tell Robbie about what had happened, what the family was all about, and what he meant to all of them.

****

My name is Francis Xavier Novak; blame it on a Catholic upbringing, and call me Frank, everyone else does except Caitlin; she, out of everyone, always called me Frankie, and only she could get away with it; anyone else who called me that would end up picking their face up off the sidewalk. My mom was Colleen Hennessey, and her parents were immigrants from the depression-hit tenements of Chicago in the 1930's, her father lured here by the promise of work. It was hard work, too, back-breaking labor in the factories owned by the Dolan family, long hours for pittance wages. I know my grandpa resented it, but the alternative was no money at all in Chicago, so they stayed and sweated it out.

Mom was born here in Springfield, and she could remember Grandpa working long hours to put barely enough food on the table, while the Dolan's and their relatives in Springfield and surrounding towns got rich, fat and arrogant. There were damned few Cadillac's to be seen in this part of the world, but those that were belonged to that family and their myriad offshoots.

My dad was a first-generation Ukrainian immigrant named Marcin Novacek, anglicised to Martin Novak. He'd come to the USA as a small boy but he never forgot his roots, and always pined for the chance to one day return home to the old country. It never happened; when I was less than a year old, he was killed by a hit and run driver on Serramonte Avenue downtown. Initially, all the eyewitnesses identified the car as a late-model black Cadillac Coupe DeVille, which struck him so hard he was thrown 20 feet, killing him instantly. My sister Sarah was four years old when it happened, and she remembers my father clearly, but I have only pictures mom gave me; I don't remember him at all.

Strangely, when the sheriff of our fair town investigated the accident, all the eye-witnesses thronging the sidewalk at the time either had no clear recollection of what had happened or claimed they hadn't really seen what happened; these same people were also the recipients of some kind of windfall, as they all somehow managed to afford new cars that week. The only black 1972 Coupe DeVille in town belonged to Jerry Dolan, son of the owner of the factories that had made the Dolan family fortune, and a notorious drunk driver. As the sheriff was also his cousin, as was the mayor, the investigation was pretty cursory and closed as 'Unsolved'. It was an interesting point that Jerry Dolan's DeVille was reported 'stolen' that same day, and found burned out in a field behind Bad Indian Wood a couple of days later.

Just over a year later, mom married Michael Joseph Moran, the man who brought me up, and who I thought of as 'dad'. He was a huge man, with hands like shovels, but the sweetest, mildest temperament you could hope to find. I was never wary of him, and he was never too tired to pick me up and swing me on to his shoulders when I got tired or fed-up with walking. I looked forward to when he'd tuck me in on a cold night, or hold me on his lap with his huge arm around me, sitting in the big armchair in front of the fire reading nursery rhymes to me, or Pooh, or his favorite, The Wizard of Oz, until I fell asleep.

I was almost three when mom brought a new baby home; her name was Caitlin Roisian Colleen. Mom told me that she made me promise I would look after her, because I was her big brother, and that's what big brother's did, and then she made me hold Caitlin's hand while I promised to always take care of her, and she always swore Caitlin smiled at me as I promised mom I would always look after and protect my little sister.

I always loved my baby sister anyway, and I belonged to her for as long as I could remember; all she ever had to do was want something and I'd get it for her, or do it for her, or make it happen for her; she was my responsibility, and she owned me outright from as early as I can remember.

Growing up in the 1970's and 80's was the same for us as any other family in the Midwest; we went to school, did family things, squabbled, fought, fell-out, made-up, lived normal, everyday lives. Sarah (known in the family as 'Sally', probably because as a small child it was easier for me to pronounce) was almost five years older than me, so growing up we never played together a lot; I think she felt that age gap quite keenly; when she was ten years old she was nearly twice as old as me, and more so between her and Caitlin. We all loved each other fiercely, but it was my job to look out for Caitlin, and Sarah left me to it (unless someone threatened one of us younger ones; then my big sister turned into an avenging angel, a sight scary and awesome to see. Every smart kid in town (and a lot of the stupid ones, too) learned early-on just how much hell would rain down on them if they messed with Sarah Novak's family...

I progressed through school at pretty much a walking pace; there was nothing much I was interested in, except sport, specifically boxing, but the school didn't offer much in the way of coaching, concentrating as it did on track & field, football, and wrestling. Sarah tried to get me interested in other things, even suggesting church activities, which should have indicated how worried she was about me; she didn't like the idea of me hitting people and getting hit back, and we had several almost-arguments about it.

The only one who didn't get on my case was Caitlin; she was only three years younger than me, so I could talk to hear more easily and freely than I could with Sarah. Don't get me wrong, I loved and adored Sarah, but I had a closer, more confidential-type relationship with Caitlin.

Eventually I stumbled on the gym at the YMCA on Harvey Street, where I discovered our parish priest, Father Bernardi, showing rights over lefts to some of the kids training there. I found out he was a fanatical follower of the kings of the ring and a disciple of the squared-circle who could quote statistics all the way back to the 1920's, a true boxing aficionado. As I was a natural southpaw I had a distinct advantage in the ring, something he saw immediately, and took it upon himself to coach me from age 12.

So, on Saturday nights, while my friends were out getting into trouble, learning how to smoke, or caged-up and locked-down indoors, I would be down at the gym with him after Benediction, working the speed-bag, jump-rope and weight-bench, circuit training, or sparring endless rounds with everyone the good Father could dig up who'd climb into the ring with me.

I soon developed a reputation as a snappy counter-puncher, with a tight, close guard, a solid chin, a smoking short right jab and a blurring left hook that caught many opponents completely unawares. When not training, the good Father would tell me blow-by-blow stories about the fights at Madison Square Garden he'd watched, seeing undercard boxers eventually go on to become world champions; he told me about hitching to Philadelphia to watch Jersey Joe Walcott and Rocky Marciano, and 'the hardest punch ever thrown', ditching school to watch Floyd Patterson fight Archie Moore, and Ingemar Johansson, Sweden's first heavyweight world champion and take back the title, and blowing off his studies at the seminary to see Patterson's punishing matches against the immortal Cassius Clay, now known as Muhammad Ali, and the notoriously brutal Mob puppet Sonny Liston, and as a boy way back in 1951, slipping into the Polo Ground, New York, to share in the magic of 'Sugar' Ray Robinson's famous fight against the English boxer Randy Turpin to regain the world Middleweight title. I knew all those names, I'd been an avid reader of 'Ring' magazine ever since I discovered the sport, and to be trained by a man who'd actually been there and watched those legends fight was an enthralling experience for me.

I was inspired by his stories, and I promised myself one day I'd be a champion at whatever weight I found myself when my chance came. In the meantime, I trained, I worked the bags and the weight-bench, and I sparred endlessly. Mom and dad were concerned at my lack of interest and mediocre progress in school, but they were also encouraging and supportive that I'd found something I liked and could do well, and that kept me out of the trouble all my friends seemed to find so easily.

Oddly enough, my biggest fan was Caitlin, or Kat, as everyone called her, although, with hindsight, maybe not so odd. Also, as a side benefit, almost no-one picked on me or my sister at school; when word got around that I was the real thing, all the school bullies and wannabe tough-guys avoided me, which was gratifying, but also disappointing; if only one of them had tried something with me, just once...

And so things progressed, until I was nearly sixteen. Sarah was in college over in Monte Vista, just a few miles away, and had a steady boyfriend, Joe Anderson, who seemed like a nice guy. Joe was always polite and respectful to Sarah, and obviously into her, friendly and interested in me without being condescending in any way, and effortlessly good with Caitlin, who had her own not-so-secret crush on him, which amused Sarah and tickled Joe pink.

Then it all seemed to go wrong for Sarah. One night she went to a party with some of her college friends; Joe wasn't with her, they'd had some kind of argument in the car outside the house that afternoon, she'd gone to the party without him, and she'd come back in a hell of a state, dishevelled, in tears, mom ready to call the sheriff, and dad trying to calm everyone down. I admit it, I eavesdropped; no-one was going to tell me anything, but it was obvious something had happened to Sarah, something bad, something to do with whoever's house the party had been at.

As I snooped further, I heard more than I wanted to, about what had happened to my big sis, where it happened, and most of all, who did it. I knew what they were saying, and the sound of my big sis, who'd never been anything but the best thing in my life, crying desperately as she told mom and dad what had happened to her, made my blood boil.

For the first time in my life, I wanted to hurt someone real bad; in all my bouts in the ring I'd never lost my temper, my opponents were just that, opponents, not my enemies, not objects of hatred, and I'd respected them. But now I wanted to grab that piece of shit and pound him until he was just a lifeless red ruin for what he'd done to my beautiful big sister.

The following afternoon I waited outside the campus until the man I wanted to see came ambling out like he owned the place. I walked next to him along the sidewalk as he walked to his car, until we passed an alleyway, then I pushed him as hard as I could, watching him sprawl full length among the garbage and litter. He may have had almost five years on me, but I had 20 lbs and four inches on him, and he hit the ground with a satisfying thud.

"Hey, what the fuck...?" he bellowed, jumping to his feet, and that's when I let him have it, a looping roundhouse left, powered by all my rage and disgust, that spun him round and dumped him back in the garbage.

As he climbed to his feet, he got a quick one-two that slammed him back against the wall and as he came back off the wall, he got another left hook, this one right into the bridge of his nose. I heard the craacckk! as his nose broke. Today I feel ashamed of it, but right there and then I felt a huge burst of satisfaction watching him bleed like a stuck hog.

To give him his due, he came back out swinging, but he had no chance; he was used to having his teammates on the football field protect and defend him, the star quarterback, and his half-wit gang of bullies and yes-men to help him throw his weight around in the corridors in high school, but when he was alone, he was easy meat, and every punch he threw missed, while every punch I threw connected somewhere painful. I battered him to his knees, feeling immense satisfaction that this pig who had hurt my sister was on his knees before me, asking, no begging me to stop, blood pouring from his nose and mouth, his eyes bruised and blackening, large bruises all over his face where I'd connected again and again.

Eventually I decided I'd beaten him enough to get some answers out of him; if I didn't get enough answers out of him, I was going to beat him some more. Right then I didn't care if he scuttled home to mommy and she kissed his current trivial set of boo-boo's better, or he got carried into the ER because I'd beaten the living shit out of him, but he was going to tell me everything or the ER was going to be the least of his worries.

I held him upright by his expensive bouffant hairstyle, which I guess was supposed to make him look like someone out of Wham! or something, but just looked stupid surrounding his meaty thick-lipped face.

As I questioned him, piece by piece I got the whole sordid story out of him, how he'd decoyed Joe out to a motel on the town line with a message supposedly from Sarah, that she wanted to meet him there and talk, and how he'd paid Laurie Hollister, the school tramp, to tell Sarah that she was Joe's new girl, that she and Joe had been doing the business, and how she was going to be with him after the party in a room they had in an out-of-town motel, and then how he'd lured Sarah up to the bluffs, and what he'd done to her there.

To this day I don't know how I didn't just chop him in the throat and watch him choke to death there and then. When he'd finished, I dragged him to his feet and gave him another couple of vicious lefts and rights to the face, just for spite, to make him fear me, and to hurt him some more for what he'd done to my beautiful sister. As I left him sitting there in the garbage, slumped against a wall covered in dog-piss stains, bloody and afraid, he looked up at me, his little weasel eyes darting around like rats in a barrel.

"Who are you?" he croaked, "what's Sarah Novak to you?"

He flinched as I walked back toward him and reached down to haul him closer by his collar so I could look him in his scared little eyes, now puffed and bruised where I'd given him something to remember me by.

"Sarah Novak's my sister, and for what you did, I should kill you; maybe one day I will. You should know one thing, you little dog's dick; I'm fifteen right now, and I fucked you up good, imagine what I'll be able to do to you in five years time. Stay away from my sister, and from my family, or I'll do this to you every chance I get, and every time it'll be worse, you hear me, you little prick? And while you're down there in the dog-piss, think on this; you were lucky it was me; my mom wants to cut off your balls, then shove a double-barrel up your quacker and pull both triggers for what you did, and if you think it's just talk, then you don't know my mother, so thank your lucky stars I got here first!"

He nodded, unable to speak for nervously swallowing. I left him there minus his dignity, his bravado, and several of his teeth, surrounded by garbage and dog urine, his expensive Michael Jackson 'Thriller' jacket and trendy Lee Cooper jeans covered in smears from the rotting garbage and nameless filth he'd spent so much time sprawled in.

By the time I got home I was shaking in reaction and my hands were burning, the skin of my knuckles split and bleeding in places. As I came in, Caitlin spotted me.

"Frankie, have you seen...oh my God, Frankie, what happened to your hands? Frankie, honey, what is it?" she held my arms tightly, unnerved by the sight of me shaking.

She towed me into the kitchen and sat me down while she got a bowl of water and dumped some ice into it.

"Here, put them in here!" she ordered, taking my hands and pushing them into the ice water. It felt good, alleviating the stinging and allowing them to unclench. While my hands were soaking, she went and found some gauze and some antiseptic, and spent the next 20 minutes drying, cleaning and taping-up the worst of the cuts. When she'd finished, she sat back and looked at me appraisingly. One of the things I'd always found most appealing about Kat was her ability to look right into you and work out what was going on inside; she had that in common with Sarah, which was why I've never been able to sneak one past either one of them.

"I...got into a fight, okay?" I lied, Kat looking me with one eyebrow raised, a gesture she'd inherited or copied straight from mom.

"Don't even bother trying to lie to me, Francis Xavier Novak!" she gritted, leaning forward and poking me in the chest. "I know no-one in that school will touch you. This is to do with whatever it was that happened to Sally, isn't it? What happened? No-one will tell me anything, Sally just stays in her room crying, and mom and dad look like they've been fighting, now mom just sits there crying, so Don't. You. Start. Lying. To. Me!"