Set in the gritty, vibrant underbelly of late-1970s Chicago, Lakefront Wolves is a raw, visceral coming-of-age tale that follows Finn Kelly, an eighteen-year-old high school senior grappling with a turbulent inner world and a penchant for violence. This short novel dives deep into Finnâs psyche, blending psychological horror, crime, and rebellion against the backdrop of Chicagoâs affluent North Shore and its criminal underworld.
Through Finnâs eyes, readers experience a world of drugs, rage, and retribution, where loyalty and betrayal blur, and the line between sanity and madness is as fragile as a snowflake. Finn Kelly is a paradox: an All-State quarterback, A-student, and drug enthusiast with a hair-trigger temper. Haunted by years of bullying, Finn carries deep emotional scars that fuel his volatile behavior. His memories of humiliation, particularly at the hands of his adolescent peers resurface as he navigates a world of escalating criminal pursuits.
Set in the gritty, vibrant underbelly of late-1970s Chicago, Lakefront Wolves is a raw, visceral coming-of-age tale that follows Finn Kelly, an eighteen-year-old high school senior grappling with a turbulent inner world and a penchant for violence. This short novel dives deep into Finnâs psyche, blending psychological horror, crime, and rebellion against the backdrop of Chicagoâs affluent North Shore and its criminal underworld.
Through Finnâs eyes, readers experience a world of drugs, rage, and retribution, where loyalty and betrayal blur, and the line between sanity and madness is as fragile as a snowflake. Finn Kelly is a paradox: an All-State quarterback, A-student, and drug enthusiast with a hair-trigger temper. Haunted by years of bullying, Finn carries deep emotional scars that fuel his volatile behavior. His memories of humiliation, particularly at the hands of his adolescent peers resurface as he navigates a world of escalating criminal pursuits.
A lively outdoor party of about seventy teenagers. Subdued laughter. The Whoâs current hit song, âWho (the fuck) Are You?â thunders out of a pair of JBL L100 speakers wired into an expensive Sansui 9090 DB stereo receiver sheltered inside an open garage. Nobodyâs dancing. Everybodyâs drinking. Everybody being the high school seniors wearing pastel Izod Lacoste polos, Bermuda shorts and sandals who boast grand bullshit stories about their summer vacations with Mother and Father in Europe and South America.
Here they have gathered on this stale and humid Friday night in late-August, 1978 in the quiet suburban neighborhood called, âTall Treesâ where big brick homes sit on bigger tree-filled lots in the village of Glenbrook on Chicagoâs North Shore. This is a party of pretentious, upper-middle class cartoon-character teenagers who pretend to be cool and important, just the way Mommy and Daddy trained them. The generic pastel country club boys lamely pitch trite pickup lines to their snobby underfed girlfriends in a futile effort to get laid before they return to their senior year fall semester next week.
The volume of âWho (the fuck) Are Youâ abruptly lowers. The incel flirting and insipid conversational chatter stops. Silence. Attention transfers. Toward the sound that is rising in volume. The rhythmic series of thudding and grunting sounds coming from the end of the homeâs driveway near the street, as if The Whoâs drummer, Keith Moon, was banging out these brutal beats on his drums.
At that very moment I am thinking about the writer, Conrad Aiken, and his thoughts about psychological horror and alienation as they relate to snow. Why? Not sure yet, but Iâve become mesmerized by it. Chicago snow Iâm familiar with; I grew up here. Aikenâs snow is different. Tantalizing. Soothing. Especially in August. My snow flake thoughts fall, blow, and drift within the dark gray crevices of my brain, then freeze on Aikenâs phrase: "It was not only lovely, it was secret. If anyone found out, it would be gone, it would stop, it would melt." Melt... Hmm. Would my mind melt? What? Hmm... I read last year about the âMiracle of the Snowâ at St. Mary Major Basilica on the feast of Our Lady of the Snows, which is on August 5th, that commemorates a miraculous snowfall in Rome in the middle of summer in the 4th century. Imagine that. Where am I right now? Slipping and sliding out of a mental snowstorm, while getting plowed with the relentless repetition of the hot and bright fiery starbursts of phosphene that beautifully explode within the dark secret world of my visual cortex. My eyes are closed. I wince on each hard echoing thud that slams into my occipital lobe. It might be cool to observe this if it wasnât happening to me. Tight solid fists pummeling flesh and bone. My flesh. My bone. Mostly my face and around my eyes, thus the starry starry night, bright, fiery starbursts like a Fourth of July fireworks show thatâs not quite loud enough to drown out the earworm song lyric repetitively sung by Karen Carpenter, âOn the day that you were born the angels got together And decided to create a dream come true So they sprinkled moon dust in your hair of gold And starlight in your eyes of blue!â Boom! Boom! Boom! She was a drummer, too. Her songâs drum beats now mesh with my beating, just as the owner of this party house, a shithead named Randy Strand, interrupts Karen by yelling down at me, sequenced between the beats and starbursts, âWrong! Fucking! Party!â
Because I am at Randyâs house. With the large, aforementioned crowd of high school kids. But Randy and this crowd of friends attend a high school different than my own. Most of them congregate in silence around a keg of beer, probably Heineken, up by Randyâs open garage. They vacantly stare down the driveway as they sip from their Red Solo cups, watching with indifference the violence occurring near the street, on the sidewalk, where douchebag Randy and three of his dirtbag friends punch and kick a muscular kid who wears scuffed motorcycle boots, jeans and a ripped t-shirt. A kid who is solidly and immovably down on all fours on the white sidewalk, stoically taking the beating. Who the fuck are you? Daltrey sings. I am the who the fuck am I. But this isnât Whoville.
My body jolts as I absorb the nonstop blows. In fact, I barely feel them. I rigidly remain unmoved in my four-point position. My eyes are swelling. My teeth cut my lips and the insides of my cheeks. Blood sprays from my mouth creating a dark red spatter pattern on the white concrete that begins to resemble Jackson Pollockâs abstract expressionist painting, Red Number 5.
Iâm usually the smartest guy in the room. But not tonight. Nope. Not by a longshot. I fucked up. Because I am fucked up. On a couple of Rorer 714 Quaaludes I took an hour ago for, as Rorerâs marketing tag suggests, a âquiet interlude,â which I had been looking forward to because I like sedatives and hypnotic medications that help me manage my overactive imagination. Rorer declares their Quaaludes put its âvictimsâ out for the count; either voluntarily or otherwise. Victims? Lol. But Iâm not out. I remain sturdy on my hands and knees in my immovable four-point wondering between Karenâs words of angels and moondust and the thudding punches, how the fuck Rorerâs ludes transported me to the wrong fucking party. Shouldâve only taken one, not two. Always excess. Fuck me. That makes Randy correct about me being at the wrong party. I hate losing a competition or a game by getting my shit wrong, especially against a weaker opponent like this faggot, Randy. Self-sabotage always pisses me off. A lot. Which can cause me to, at times, overreact, and become rapidly explosive. Like nitro. And then things tend to go BOOM.
Randyâs three friends, out of breath now from throwing many many punches, stop, straighten up, and stare down at me, wondering why Iâm not unconscious. Randy finally tires. He stops punching. But then kicks me hard in the ribs to finish.
I groan. Then very slowly, I unsteadily rise to my feet. Dripping blood like a horror film zombie that will not die. Iâm six feet tall and weigh two hundred pounds, most of it muscle. I coordinate my balance in my scuffed motorcycle boots. My face is bloody of course, my left eye has swollen shut. I check my teeth with my tongue, they seem to be where they belong. I spit a gob of phlegmy blood on the sidewalk and take a deep breath.
Randy, out of breath, mocks me, âAll-State quarterback, huh? That canât fight, worth a shit? Why is that, QB1?â
I manage a small smile, because despite the damage I donât feel any pain. I slur and chuckle, âIâm doing âludes, man. Seven-fourteens.â I wink at him with my unswollen eye and say to him and his three douchebag friends as I stagger away, âSee ya fuckheads. Real soon.â
My name is Finn Kelly. Iâm eighteen-years-old. And, a lot of other things.
Iâm in the shower at my house in Glenbrook. I live on the west side of town. My bloodstained hands grasp the shower head as the water sprays my cut and swollen face. Blood runs down my scuffed and bruised purple body. I lower my head under the soothing stream of comforting hot water. And drift off into a memory--
A school bell rings loudly, continuously, like an alarm signaling danger. It is. Itâs four years ago. Iâm wearing a Catholic school uniform: navy blue dress pants, a sky-blue button down shirt, non-conforming white Adidas basketball shoes with red, white, and blue stripes, and a thin navy blue tie that blows in the breeze as I ride my blue Schwinn Continental ten speed bike to school. I liked blue back then. I ride up to the bike rack near my grade schoolâs entrance doors. Kidsâ bikes are already in the rack, as usual. I park mine and lock it.
This is my old school, St. Paulâs Catholic School, offering grades one through eight.
No kids are outside, as usual, because I always timed my arrival to avoid seeing or talking to anyone. Because we all werenât getting along, in a Catholic manner. I reach for the front door handle and get hit with a bolt of anxiety. I try to focus, take a breath, open the door, and enter the empty hallway. My mind is racing. Wait, did it snow today? No! Itâs mid-May, Finn, the eighteenth, the feast day of the Ascension of Our Lord. Itâs going to be eighty degrees today. Say an Our Father! Shut the fuck up. The shiny brown tile floor emits the smell of fatal cleaning chemicals that Howie the janitor uses every night to mop the floor. Chemicals that have probably been slowly killing us over our eight years here in this Catholic school hell. No wonder Howie had no teeth. The ringing school bell stops. Silence. I hurry to my eighth-grade classroom and slide in through the open door. I quickly walk past my classholes who mock and ridicule me as I stride toward my seat in the rear of the room. I pass by the two bitchiest pricks in class, blonde arrogant Crooked Teeth Kylie and Gay Mitch, who had been caught last fall in the cloakroom with his hand down the front of Kenny-the-Retardâs pants. These two bullies lead the daily jeers directed at me like shooters at a firing squad. They and the others join together to murder me every fucking morning. This is why I arrive as late as possible.
Crooked Teeth Kylie spits out, âBucky Beaver finally made it! Late as usual! Hey Bucky! Chewing bark for breakfast?! You got a load of sap dripping off your chin!â
The irony. Look at your own teeth, bitch. What have you been gnawing on, granite cock? She derisively laughs at me. Too loud. Too long. I never forgot how she howled at me. How I shrunk further inside myself under her daily onslaught. Her eternal silent days would come. I donât respond to their insults even though they sting my soul. I hurry past her and the blackboards that I see are chalked again with giant white beaver faces featuring enormous buck teeth. These assholes do this every day. Every, fucking, day. I hate it. I hate them. But I donât know what to do about it. Yet. But I will. And nobody in authority at St. Paulâs cares that this is happening to me.
Hand-job Mitch chimes in, âDoes it take long to brush the wood chips stuck in your giant teeth? Do you floss the slivers out, or chew on them like Euell Gibbons? He eats pine trees, you know? I bet you eat pine trees, too!â He cackles like an effeminate hyena.
My front teeth are actually of average size but for some reason thatâs what these dickwads focus on. I take a coping breath, and completely shut off all the external stimuli. My personal world is now silent. Itâs secret. And Iâm safe. I learned how to do this, all by myself, during an Arctic snowstorm back in January while reading my dadâs counterculture bible, âBe Here Nowâ by Ram Dass. A few of his tools actually enabled me to take a bit of control of my hurricanic fourteen-year-old life. It was a revelation. But Iâm still filled with humiliation, dread, and rage as I take my seat. I swipe the snow flakes off my desk top and think for a fast moment about my other deeply personal molten-lava issue thatâs ready to erupt from the depths of my volcano. When? Donât know. Now, I rigidly face forward, ignoring Kylie, Mitch and my heckling classholes, waiting for the clown show to begin.
Just as the hot Italian in high heels, plunging silk blouse, and an inappropriately short skirt enters our classroom. This is the wet-dream airhead known as Miss Giovanetti, our teacher. Sheâs in her mid-twenties and still hasnât learned anything about social mores or professional standards of behavior. Hmm, I notice sheâs not wearing nylons. Itâs going to be hot today and our school canât afford to install AC. St. Paulâs is a new and relatively poor parish. I feel a surge of testosterone as I stare at her legs, thinking how wet theyâll get later this afternoon as the temperature rises. Suddenly my anxiety is replaced with horniness.
Giovanetti glances obliviously at the blackboards with the numerous white beavers chalked on them as she sets her purse and briefcase on her desk. My classmates settle down as she cluelessly scans the room. My anxiety returns as I watch her. Hoping for once, during these last two weeks of school, in this Catholic school house of horrors, that she sees me and my angst. That she finally perceives whatâs been happening to me and does something heroic to make them all stop! She smiles directly at me. Uh-oh. Anxiety skyrockets. Now what?
She vacantly says, âFinn! You got another âAâ on your English paper! The only one, again! You smarty pants! Youâre such a good boy! I wish the rest of you were as smart as Finn. As a reward, how would you like to erase the boards for me before we get started?â
I flush with overwhelming embarrassment. She talks to me like Iâm her pet dog. Reward? Erasing the boards is a chore, bitch, not a reward. God, sheâs so fucking retarded! No self-awareness whatsoever. My self-conscious humiliation grows exponentially. Driven deeper and wider by the only adult in the room who should know better. I start to sweat. I tightly grip the edge of my desk. Squeeze, release; squeeze, release; squeeze release; then slowly rise from my seat. In a sick-stomach daze I stagger toward the front blackboard with the giant mocking white chalk beaver on it with its huge buck teeth. I try to block out everybodyâs faces as I stumble forward up the aisle, ready to projectile vomit. I could drown Kylie in puke. Mitch, too. Hold them down and drown both of them in my vomit. Iâd like that.
Giovanetti is delighted without realizing her own obtuseness, âWow kids, I see we have some talented artists in our class -- just look at all of these beautiful rabbits! Wouldnât you agree, Finn?â
Kylie, Mitch, and the kids snicker... then burst out laughing!
The taunting beaver images on the boards close in on me. Theyâre fucking beavers not rabbits! The kidsâ raucous laughter hits me with hard waves of distorted cacophony. To distract from the kids and the beavers I intently focus on Giovanetti sitting on the front edge of her desk in her short tight skirt. Her legs are slim, long and slightly apart. Her thighs are smooth. I was right, no nylons today. I catch a glimpse of her shiny white satin panties up between her thighs as I approach. I could see myself fucking her. Though my best friend Coleâs older brother, Sean, known as âPsycho Sean,â once told us that you never fuck crazy. I kind of get that, but I would definitely fuck this nitwit. Right on her desk.
Giovanetti and me are now eye-to-eye. She vapidly smiles and offers me the long cleanup eraser. I take it, and glare at her for letting this shit happen to me. Every fucking day. For five months. I turn around and face my classmates with blazing cold rage. They laugh harder! I calmly raise the eraser. And explosively CRACK Giovanetti across her dimwit face, filling the front of the room with chalky white dust particles that sparkle in the sunbeams blazing through the windows... that bring to mind my own secret snowflakes. And I feel much better.
Iâm out of the shower and dressed. I shake off the remnants of my eighth-grade bucky beaver nightmare and Giovanetti sex fantasy as I hustle downstairs toward the front door. The ludes have mostly worn off. Good. My mom, Shannon, a sad-eyed wilting forty-three-year-old Irish beauty, stands by the door with empathy and, I notice, extreme worry.
âFinn? You wonât--â
âI have to.â I glance at her as I exit out the door. I stride with intent to my green Chevy Malibu parked in the driveway. I get in, and drive off.
Randyâs outdoor house party is still rocking. Loud music plays. Kids are drunk, drinking, and laughing. Some of them stand on the blood spattered sidewalk. Randy and his fighter friends are on the sidewalk laughing, drinking beer, flirting with a few uptight preppy virgins in their plaid skirts and penny loafers.
I slowly roll toward Randyâs house in my Chevy. Then stop about five houses away. Iâm staring. Iâm raging. Iâm not sure what Iâm going to do. Iâve been in this moment many times. How far am I going to go with payback this time? Will I end up in jail? Do I fucking care? No. Payback. I see the party kids on the bloody sidewalk in front of the house. Randy and his friends flirting with the girls who casually stand on my blood. My fucking blood. My mind spirals. I donât know whatâs coming. The rage inside me accelerates and redlines. I impulsively floor it. The Chevyâs tires squeal, launching the car forward like a guided missile. Picking up speed. Steering onto the sidewalk. Motorcycle boot down hard on the gas pedal. Accelerating right at Randy -- who freaks at my car speeding directly at him.
The drunk kids on the sidewalk react slowly, too slowly, then scream! Randy dives away. They all dive onto the lawn as I fly past them in four thousand pounds of cold-rolled Detroit Chevy steel. I barely miss scared-shitless Randy looking up at me as I rocket past.
I slam on the brakes and slide to a squealing, tire-smoking stop. I turn the Chevy around and slowly drive back to Randyâs house. I stop across the street. Kids scatter up the lawn toward the house in legit fear. Why didnât I turn the steering wheel? A fractional turn wouldâve done the job. Hmm. I put the Chevy in park. Calmly exit the car with my keys. Glance at scared-stiff Randy thirty feet away as I casually walk to the trunk. The party music cuts. Silence. Randy and the kids stare at me in shock and fear, unsure of what Iâm going to do next. Good. Fuck âem. Maybe theyâll learn something tonight about fucking with the wrong person who accidentally came to the wrong house. I open the trunk, remove something from within its darkness, conceal it under my jacket, and close the trunk. I walk to my open driverâs side window and set the thing inside on the front seat. I turn around, lean back against the car door and blankly stare at Randy. I quietly say to him, âCâmon, Randy. Letâs talk.â Randy stares at me, then glances at his friends. They donât look as confident now as they did earlier when they were all gang-banging me on the sidewalk. They look like the scared pussies they are, pussies that canât imagine whatâs about to happen to them. I smile at Randy, âYeah. Bring your faggots.â I reach into the front seat area just as--
A Glenbrook Police cruiser slowly rolls between me and Randy. It stops close to me. Its driver-side window is open, revealing Police Chief Gallagher behind the wheel. He looks at me directly, with resignation, and sighs. I stare at him with my one unswollen eye. I know him, well. Heâs an asshole but heâs fair. He looks out the open passenger window at Randy and his friends who seem to be very relieved. Then Gallagher turns back to me and says, âYour mother called Jack. And Jack, he called me... So. Here we are. Right?â
I nod.
âGo home, Finn. Weâre not doing this tonight. Those fucking chumps arenât worth time. Are they?â
The âJackâ that Chief Gallagher just referred to is my best friend, Coleâs dad. Who is a criminal. A REAL criminal. Jack and Gallagher have some kind of arrangement, the specifics of which Cole and I have discussed without coming to an evidential conclusion. I stare at Gallagher. I can barely restrain my massive need to destroy Randy and his friends right now! In front of Gallagher, Finn? Fuck yeah--
Gallagher cuts off my moment of malefaction saying, âTonight is over, Finn. But youâll have another day. Right?â
Heâs acknowledging how I feel. Okay. I dial down my rage. This is new for me. Heâs offering another day. To deal with Randy and his faggots. Iâll take it. The time to think about a better plan and how to stay out of jail. I mumble through my swollen cut lips, âOkay.â
Gallagher nods to me. We have a deal. Then he turns his head toward the open passenger window. He speaks into the patrol carâs mic in a weary voice that is propelled out of his roof-mounted PA speaker: âThis partyâs over. Leave the premises now or Iâll start writing five hundred dollar tickets for underage alcohol. Got it? Get moving.â He looks back at me, and nods at my car like, âget in, and go.â
Smoldering, but feeling a little better, I get in my car and drive off.
Everything in my immediate space is black. I drift in space. I feel good. Iâm listening to Chris Woodâs melancholy tenor saxophone on Trafficâs song, âThe Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys.â Itâs the most soothing song I know. It helps. Twenty-three-year-old Stevie Winwood sings, âBut today you just read that the man was shot dead By a gun that didnât make any noise But it wasnât the bullet that laid him to rest Was the low spark of high-heeled boys.â Gradually, my bedroom becomes visible. In the roomâs smoky darkness my bookshelves are holding a complete twenty-two volume set of The World Book Encyclopedia. More books on the shelves: The Hitchhikerâs Guide to the Galaxy, Breakfast of Champions, Siddhartha, God Is Dead, GOD: A Biography, Hells Angels, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, One Flew Over the Cuckooâs Nest, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Be Here Now, Silent Snow, Secret Snow, and Sybil. Plus sports trophies for football, hockey, baseball, and swimming. I read a lot and play sports. Iâm also a druggie. And a fuckup. Iâm eighteen, and the days of being bullied at St. Paulâs are four years behind me. However, the days of those thousands of cuts into the caudate and putamen sections of my brain are still fresh. So my neurologist told me. Iâm mostly mellow but Iâve been in trouble the past couple years. One reason is I have a hair-trigger temper. The doctors tested me meticulously with hardware and software but couldnât find anything overtly or covertly abnormal about my neurological functions. But I know Iâm not quite right. I speak well, Iâm coherent, logical, intelligent, and social. Iâve had several girlfriends, great sex, and all of us still like each other after our breakups. Even after I had my heart ripped out by the first girl I loved. Dogs love me, too. So, all in all, I probably seem to be above average to most people. The docs said I did not have sociopathic or narcissistic tendencies, although that would have been more interesting. My significant problem, going hand-in-hand with my temper, is that I like to fight. I donât respond to verbal confrontation the way most guys would expect. I donât talk trash, push, and shove. I instantly punch the shit out of the guy. Boom! Heâs down on the ground looking up at me. I like that. My twitch reflex reaction time is instantaneous. I donât think at all. I suppose it gives me some sense of power. Instant retribution. For the situations I had been powerless in the past? Absolutely. Iâm good at it and it's satisfying. Both positives in my book. My way of avenging my younger self from the denigrating eighth grade bullies who humiliated me on a daily basis. That repressed rage had to come out sometime.
No surprise coming here, that I had been to Chicagoâs Cook County Jail for several weekend incarcerations a few months ago. Starting Fridays at 6 PM and lasting until 6 PM Sundays in the low-key Work Release Section of the jail. This penalty was for fighting with a bunch of Cook County Sheriffâs Deputies at a party where they were summoned to attend due to raucous behavior. And for then battling with four of them in a small bathroom after one Deputy managed to get a handcuff on my left wrist, which I pulled away and then started swinging the other loose one at him. More Deputies entered, I pushed two through the glass shower doors into the bathtub, then pistols were unholstered and gunshots were fired, mostly up into the plaster ceiling where its powder and dust fell on us all like snow. Gunshots in a small room are a lot louder than youâd think, is what I thought, and then, with the luck of the Irish, I escaped from them. Running out of the bathroom and out of the house like O.J. motherfucking Simpson running through an airport. They didnât like that at all. They acted tough, got rough, but thatâs another story. Two girl friends I knew picked me up as I was hitching home with my handcuffed hand in my pocket. When we got to my house they went up to my room. I went down to the utility room and grabbed a hacksaw. Erin sawed the cuff off. I hid the cuffs under the cushion of my blue chair in which I am now sitting. The Sheriff Deputies came to my house at six the next morning. My dad, who is an attorney, just let them in, without hesitation, or even asking for their warrant, to arrest me. Then he went back to bed. Probably with another nasty hangover. What the fuck, Dad?
I was the youngest man in the Work Release section. There were about forty-five of us in a large space, two to a cell that was locked at night from ten oâclock to five in the morning when worker inmates could leave any time after that to go to their day jobs. They then had to be back at jail by 6 p.m. Most of them did not work on the weekends when I was there. During the day you could watch television, play cards, read, or do whatever in the large day room. I did my school homework. The older Black, Mexican and Puerto Rican dudes left me alone. The only other white inmate besides me was an older White guy. He was friendly and quiet but we didnât really talk. Everybody seemed to know who he was and left him alone. I found out from my cellmate that he was a big-time bookie in the Chicago Outfit. He looked like Al Neri from The Godfather. The other guys would occasionally wander over to me when I was doing my homework at a rec table, AP Calculus and Physics, and ask me questions about what I was studying. Iâd explain the current problem I was working on as simply as possible. Theyâd stare at my textbook and notebook, the graphs, the symbols, the Greek letters, and then saunter off shaking their heads wondering what the fuck I was doing in there. I did a lot of wondering about that myself. I hated being locked up, with guards having control over my time and freedom. But, I fucked up, and my sentence couldâve been a lot worse. It was very claustrophobic and stressful inside. Lucky the room was huge and the ceilings were high. I wouldnât eat any of the fake industrialized food. I didnât sleep at all for the forty-eight hours I was there. Shannon would drive an hour down from Glenbrook to the jail on the Southside of Chicago, Twenty-Sixth Street and S. California on Sunday nights to pick me up when Iâd be released at six oâclock. Sheâd usually bring me a ham and cheese sandwich and a jar of cold milk. We didnât talk much on the ride home. She loved me. Always hired the best lawyers. But she didnât know how to solve my problems. My dad didnât really care. He mostly left me alone, which was fine with me, except when he got too drunk, nasty, and verbally abusive with me at the dinner table. We were a dysfunctional family in many ways, except for my pretty sister, sixteen-year-old sophomore, Ciara. Who was high-IQ, grounded, sober, pragmatic, and patient. She had a lot of the saintly virtues that I lacked. Where did she come from? Lol.
I wouldâve been expelled from school but I was an A-student, top 5% of my class of over seven hundred kids, and an All-State football player. The Dean called me into his office one day after the cop fight and said that if I ever felt like I needed to leave school for the day, I could just get up and walk out of class. Any time, any day, for any reason. Cole and my friends were impressed with my new superpower. I never used it. I liked school.
My Jewish lawyer, Richie Goldstein kept me in school and out of Joliet Prison. I had been facing two-to-five years in Joliet for two counts of aggravated battery with injury to two of the four Sheriffâs Deputies in the bathroom, where I had been hiding, who drew their pistols on an unarmed male, me, and blew three holes in the ceiling causing plaster and dust to rain down on us like dumbfuck powder. They were âinjuredâ (bruised) when I shoved them out of the way to escape my impending death in the bathroom. Two days later, after the fight, on a nice Sunday afternoon, I was with my mom at Richieâs house in Evanston sitting on a couch outside his office waiting for our first meeting with him. Mom and I overheard soft voices, due to the door being closed, of what sounded to us like several dudes with Mexican or Puerto Rican accents talking about bombs and machine guns, and Richie counseling them that there was a technical error with the warrant and he could probably get them all off. For seventy-thousand. Their meeting ended and the dudes exited Richieâs office. These four fierce and intimidating men coldly glanced at my mom and me as they walked past us in their camo jackets, black boots and berets. I wondered what they did and what they were thinking about us at that moment. White hate? When I asked Richie who they were during our meeting all he said was they were associated with the FALN. I looked them up when I got home. FALN was a highly organized and motivated terrorist group that was dedicated to âliberating Puerto Rico from U.S. control.â Gangsters. Richie was heavy. My problem for him to adjudicate was mice nuts. To get started he charged a five-figure retainer -- as if my problem was rhino balls. My mom did not want me to go to prison. So she wrote Richie the check. He did what he said he would do. No prison. And I learned once again that itâs very expensive to not get sent to where a very politicized and aggressive Cook County Stateâs Attorney, who is aching to move up the chain in crook county and join the U.S. Department of Justice, wants to send you.
My Technics direct drive turntable spins the vinyl Traffic record. Stevie sings, âIf you had just a minute to breathe And we granted you one final wish.â I have posters on my bedroom walls. Chicago Cubs Ron Santo and Ernie Banks. Chicago Bears Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers. Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Traffic and Chicago. Theyâre my bedroom buddies.
Stevie sings, âWould you ask for something Like another chance?â I donât know, Stevie. My life is pretty exciting. Not always in a good way, but Iâm confident I wonât live to be twenty-five. Which is fine with me. Because Iâm not quite right. And I donât quite fit. These are the things I know about me. And accept. Maybe the next world will be better. Homeworkâs done, so I do another bong. My room is smoky. I set the red glass Graffix bong next to my baggie of green buds on the glass top of my Old Style beer coffee table. I lean back in my chair, exhale a cloud of smoke, open a pill bottle, and pop a couple blues, 10mg of Valium.
Thereâs banging on my bedroom door. I hear the muffled voice of a perpetually angry man. Itâs my alcoholic, criminal attorney father, Conor Kelly. He loudly grumbles, âTurn that shit down! Fucking goddam transvestite Brit-pop pedophile drug addicts! Enough, Finn!â His voice trails off as he walks the hall, âCanât you listen to some goddamn classical, or opera?!â
I stare at my door with the black and white âCaliforniaâ photo-poster of the naked blonde model standing up to her knees in ocean surf. She smiles at me. I want to move to California. Illinois sucks. Especially Crook County. My bare foot rests on a green push-button phone sitting on the green shag carpeting. The black and blue swelling on my cheek and right eye is receding from the beat down at Randyâs house last Saturday night, the night after the fight with the cops on Friday night. Last weekend was a fucked up two-fer. Even Cole was impressed. My face doesnât hurt now and it looks cool. I sit stoned and motionless in my blue chair. I imagine surfing blue breaking waves while vacantly staring at the model on the back of my door.
Stevie sings in his beautiful soulful voice, âBut spirit is something, that no one destroys.â
I hope not. Because Iâll need it to get to the next thing. I disabled my phoneâs ringer because it annoyed me. Now when anyone calls it makes a hollow click-click-click sound, which itâs doing right now. I lean down and pick up the handset. And listen...
âHey, Cole... Yeah.â
Now weâre passing city buildings, urban blight. Chicago is home to over a hundred-thousand gangbangers in sixty major gangs. Mostly Black, Mexican and Puerto Rican. You got the Gangster Disciples, Vice Lords, Black P. Stones, Latin Kings, etc. whose taggers have spray painted every imaginable surface with their colors and symbols. I see a beautifully sprayed âred crownâ with âLLâ for Latin Lords inside it. I havenât heard much about them. A group of demented ragged homeless men huddle near a gutted car. Their greasy hands pass around a bottle in a paper bag. Just as--
A pristine, lime green, 1968 Camaro SS passes them and parks curbside in front of an office building in the Loop. Iâm inside the Camaro. Sitting in the front passenger seat in a bit of a haze, pondering the precarious status of my fucked up mental, legal, and judicial situations. I slowly say, âIt comes in waves. Silently. Softly. Wraps me. Holds me snugly. It feels comforting.â Sitting behind the wheel of the Camaro is my best friend since we were ten. The slick, smart, well dressed and very aggressive Cole Wolfe. Weâre both full Irish and admire Bobby Sands and the IRA. Our heroes. Irish gangsters. Tiocfaidh ĂĄr lĂĄ! âOur day will comeâ (in Gaelic) is our motto. Cole puts the Camaro in park and listens as I speak introspectively while vacantly staring out the windshield at the homeless men drinking by the gutted car. I continue, âA dark soft blanket. Smothers me. Slowly. I canât breathe. So I roll with it. No fear. Follow where it takes me. Maybe all the way. This time. So I flow. And transform. Into a fucking ghost. Not caring. About anything at all.â I turn and blankly look at Cole. He gets it. Weâre the same in a lot of different ways.
Cole says, âLike youâre inside of a soft, satin-padded coffin... Done. Dead. And gone... Yeah.â
âMore like âSilent Snow, Secret Snow.â And we all know what happened to Paul.â I open my door, exit the car.
Cole says, âWait, what the fuck happened to Paul?â
I smile at Cole and close the car door. I walk past the homeless men toward the building entrance. I mumble words to myself that later turn out to be a verse of an R.E.M. song, âTry. Cry. Fly try. That was just a dream. Just a dream.â Even though Michael Stipe hasnât written âLosing My Religionâ yet. I get to the office building door and look back at Cole seated in the Camaro. I watch a drunk bum wobble over to it, give it an appreciative look, and sit down on the hood. Oh, not good. Thatâs Coleâs baby. Donât fuck with the baby. He tauntingly smiles at Cole. Cole rolls down his window. I smile as I watch my friend deal with the bum. Cole always makes me laugh.
Cole is surprisingly calm and says, âFuck off my car, dude.â
The bum responds, âWho me? I take yo car you White brat. Think I canât? Watch me, muthafuckah.â
Three of the bumâs psychotic associates stagger toward the Camaro. One breaks
his empty bottle on the curb and waves the jagged neck around. Heâll be lucky if he doesnât cut his own throat. Another slides a flashing knife from his pocket. Heâs the dangerous one.
Cole raises his shiny chrome semiautomatic pistol and aims it at the bum through the front windshield. âGet the fuck off. I have no time for you idiots.â
Sunlight flashes off the chrome pistol across the bumâs friendsâ eyes. They grumble, and shuffle away from the car. The bum slides off the hood, âFuck you, you muthafuckinâ cracker! I gettin youse next time!â He staggers back to his drunk grumbling associates.
Cole smirks and lowers the pistol.
Iâm in a two-room office suite inside the building. A sign on the wall reads: âTysen Ticket Brokers -- All Chicago Events.â I stand in front of a thick bulletproof window that separates me from the sole proprietor, thirty-year-old Jewish ticket scalper, Ira Tysen. Motionless, we stare at each other through the glass with grim âfuck youâ looks. Silence.
And then I say, âPhone hasnât rung, Ira. Not one time.â
Tysen responds, âIâll say it again, Finn. Twenty-five seats. Fifth row center. Fifteen-hundred. You fuckinâ get that you retarded Mick?â
I pull out a thick roll of cash from inside my jacket. Iâm loaded. Twenty Bennies. I peel several hundreds from the roll. And touch my ear, âYour phone? Still not ringing. Three hours, Ira, until Ozzy rises out of hell and hits the stage. Youâll take nine. And be happy.â I fan-out the crisp hundreds and press them against the thick window near Tysenâs face on the other side.
He goes berserk, âYou motherfucker! Youâre killing me! God-fucking-dammit! Fuck you, Finn! Fuck you and Cole! You two fucking cheap-ass critters. This is Black fucking Sabbath! Fifth. Row. Center! Chicago. Fucking. Stadium!â Tysenâs breathing hard. He could stroke out. Hmm, I might get the tickets for free. A long, silent pause...
âFucking eleven! Goddammit!â
Another long pause. The supratrochlear vein in Iraâs forehead is throbbing hard. Iâm
glad Iâm on this side of the glass, in case that thing explodes. I say, âNope. Nine... Or, maybe eight-fifty?â
We revert to our cold staring âfuck youâ faces... then, we both simultaneously slide the cash and rubber-banded tickets to each other through the narrow slot under the window. I fan through the banded tickets with my thumb to make sure theyâre all legit; they are, and slide them into my jacket.
Iraâs vein has calmed. He calmly counts the cash. âYou used to be soft, Finn. A nice Catholic North Shore goy. Almost humble. What happened to you, Irish?â
I walk to the door, âEverything. Nothing. Who cares, Ira. Fuck off till next time.â Tysen flips me the finger as I exit into the hallway. I press the elevator button, then walk to the hall window. I look out the window, down at Coleâs Camaro illegally parked in front of the building. A Chicago Police Cruiser slides up next to it and stops. Moments pass... The police cruiser drives off. I look back at the elevator. It dings, the elevator doors open. I walk to it and climb aboard. The doors begin to close as JosĂ©, a twenty-year-old Latin Lords gangbanger slides sideways between them into the car. The doors close. He fake smiles at me. I step back into the corner, watching him. On cue, JosĂ© whips out a knife and lunges at me. He presses the shiny blade against the side of my neck. Weâre eye-to-eye. Too close.
JosĂ© with the gang-bang talk, âShitting your pants, Whitey? Letâs do this quiet.â
Iâm calm, zapped on Valium, and chronically suicidal, âWhat? Kill me? Go ahead. I wonât scream. Promise.â JosĂ© didnât expect that. Weâre face-to-face, staring into each otherâs eyes. His breath stinks like cooked corn and tripe. He presses the knife point into my neck. Blood trickles. Now Iâm annoyed, âDo it or get the fuck off me.â
JosĂ© quickly pats my pants, coat pockets, takes the banded tickets from my inner-coat pocket, âWhereâs the fucking roll?!â He reaches for my front pants pocket-- A hollow POP echoes off the carâs brown metal walls. Hazy blue smoke slowly wafts up around our faces. Weâre still staring at each other, eye-to-eye. The color of JosĂ©âs irises lighten from dark brown to tan then gray. He steps back, drops the ticket bundle on the floor. He stares at me like, what in the fuck? He drops the knife. Then he smiles, with amazement. And collapses to the floor. Blood pumps out of the hole in his gut below his sternum. He jams his hands over the blood-pumping hole. I notice that his top hand has a small tattoo of a red crown between his thumb and index finger. He looks up at me, smiling. I slide my pistol into the back of my waistband.
JosĂ© is incredulous, âThis... itâs fuckinâ real, man. Where... am I going?â His life fades. He becomes still. Eyes open. Done. Dead. Gone.
I quickly push the red âStopâ button. The alarm RINGS. I crouch, pick up the tickets and the bullet casing from the floor. I pull a bandana from my back pocket and use it to pick up the knife. I use the wrapped knifeâs point to pry out the embedded slug that blew through JosĂ© into the elevator wall. I glance down at JosĂ© as I slide the tickets, bullet casing and slug into my jacket pocket. I drop the knife to the floor, use the bandanna to wipe down the elevator buttons, pull out the âStopâ button, wipe it, the alarm stops. I slide the bandanna into my pocket. The elevator stops. Doors open. I step over JosĂ© body, look out into the deserted lobby, and quickly walk toward the exit doors.
I push through the doors. Quickly walk to Coleâs Camaro parked at the curb, open the passenger door, and slide into the front seat. Cole curiously looks at me from the driverâs seat. I calmly stare out the windshield. The bums are gone. Cole glides away from the curb, and smoothly merges into the Loopâs late-afternoon business traffic.
He says, âYou got a good price, right? I bet the Jew wanted fifteen. Am I right?â
âYep. Then eleven. We paid nine.â
âNice! This is how we build our business. Smart and quick deals. Captured, engaged customers. And high margins.â
I toss the banded Sabbath tickets onto the dashboard.
Cole notices, âBlood? On your neck? Whatâs that--â
I touch the dried blood spot on my neck from JosĂ©âs blade. âMustâve scratched off a zit, or a mole.â
Cole smiles, âDude, you gotta cut your nails. Girls donât like dirty snaggly fingernails up in their muffs.â
âYeah, Cole? Is that right? Perhaps then... a manicure is in order?â We look at each other, and start laughing, hard. At the preposterous idea of getting a gay fucking manicure.
Tears fill our eyes as we catch our breath. I take my pill bottle from my jacket pocket and pop a couple blues in my mouth. I wipe my eyes. âTurn on XRT.â Cole tunes the radio from WLUP Top 40 pop to album rock 94.7. We catch Cheap Trickâs song, âHeaven Tonight.â Robin Zander sings, âDown the line, couldnât get much, couldnât get much higher if you tried And tried and tried, youâre as guilty, itâs a crime, ooh, itâs a crime.â
Coleâs still thinking about Silent Snow, Secret Snow. âSo, Mr. Brainiac. What happened to Paul? In the secret snowstorm?â
âYeah... Paul... he went insane.â I look out the side window as we pass endless buildings covered with endless gang graffiti. My eyes land on the image of a spray-painted red crown. I close my eyes and say, âAnd Paul was okay with it.â Cheap Trickâs haunting chorus plays over and over as I drift, âWould you like to go to heaven tonight? Would you like to go to heaven tonight?â I reflect on the time I saw Cheap Trick at a dive bar called, The Brat Stop in Kenosha last year. I was seventeen and had my fake ID. You only have to be eighteen in Wisconsin anyway. Bouncers didnât give a fuck. There were only eleven people there. At a Cheap Trick show. In a dive bar. I stood four feet away from Robin as he sang this same song. He has the voice of an angel. He may have been from heaven. I wonder what itâs like. This year, theyâre breaking big. Playing the Chicago Stadium, twenty-five thousand seats. Sold out. They fucking deserve it. I hear the bridge of the song coming from the radio as I begin to float away, âYou can never come down, you can never come down You can never come down, you can never come down You can never come down, you can never come down You can never come down, you can never come down...â Why would I ever want to?
Meet Finn. He's an 18 year old kid who has potential. He's bright with great school scores and he's also an athlete, a footballer of some prowess. He has it all going for him, it would seem, and yet, he's determined to send what could be a well-planned, stable existence firmly off the rails. He drinks, he smokes, he takes drugs, he has violent tendencies and he's in danger of losing not only his mind but all that he holds dear.
We follow him through his current life which involves hanging out with his friend, Cole with whom he's starting a little business of drug-dealing and ticket touting. He worries his mother, Shannon. He argues with his dad, Conor. He lusts after Cole's sister, Noelle. He takes us back into his memories and we learn more about the motivation for his actions and the experiences that have moulded him. As Finn sinks further and further into a life that skirts crime, more and more is revealed through the narrative about the people with who he mixes as well as the secrets they may hold. Steadily, Deegan takes us from first person viewpoint into a third person narrative which runs in tandem with what we see through Finn's eyes whilst expanding our view of the world of which he is becoming a part.
Deegan writes fluidly in a book that is very easy to follow. His story evolves smoothly and takes us to a satisfactory ending that concludes the action of the book, whilst also leaving room for more.
I will warn you: when I started reading Joseph Deegan's book, I thought that I knew what it was going to be about and for the most part, I was right. However, it still managed to deliver a metaphorical punch to the face which left me reeling. This is actually an extremely apt metaphor to describe the act of reading this book as I felt, on completion, like I'd been pummelled, experiencing things that I never hope to see in my real life but that I'm going to struggle to erase from my mind's eye.
This, of course, is testament to the evocative nature of Deegan's writing and you don't read a book about gangsters in the 1970s and not expect it to show the darker elements of human nature. But be prepared to be shown it in all its gory glory.