It's Okay to Lie If Your Fingers are Crossed

IT’S OKAY TO LIE

If Your Fingers Are Crossed

By Jack Flynn

Copyright © 2012 Jack Flynn

All rights reserved

Smashwords edition

ISBN: 978-1476303314

tailgatepress@gmail.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS

COPYRIGHT PAGE

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

AUGUST 1950

FLYNN’S FIELD

THE BOYS OF SUMMER

FRANKY

THE BLAME GAME

BUCKING UP

FIRST HALF OF THE FIRST

THE OLD HOMESTEAD

LOUIE

SHOOTOUT IN DODGE

TABLE MANNERS

PENNYPINCHING

THE LAMB & THE LION

PUDDING

READING THE TEA LEAVES

TO BE A CLOUD

SPORT & GINGER

ICE CREAM PONY CART

REAPING THE REWARDS

KITTENS, GUNS AND BIRDS

READY, SET, GO

RAIN

WHITE CORPUSCLES

MIKE FLYNN

PRECIOUS MOMENTS

FUNNY BOOKS AND VALUES

THE BIRDHOUSE

IN THE FACE OF GOD

SAM

AUNT NORA

THE ROBIN HOOD SCHOOL

THE KITE

HARRY THE SECOND

DECENT EXPOSURE

CHANGE OF PLAN

FROGMAN

FINAL PLAN TAKES SHAPE

BIG RED

PREPARATION FOR WAR

ARMAGEDDON

SWEET VICTORY

EPILOGUE

This book is dedicated

to my late wife Jeannie

who stood by me

when it counted.

Special thanks to Barbara Duffy and Ray Gagnon

Billy Flynn lived in a world where people had not yet learned

through television, how not to be themselves.

He wanted to be a small white cloud,

naked and beautiful.

A soft cool mist sailing across infinite space,

a toy of the universe.

His soul was free when he was young,

beautiful naked and free.

Reaching through the darkness of his room,

Hands of infinite space,

a movement

in the dark.

INTRODUCTION

North of Fenway Park, August, 1943…

The National Guard was on its way to Unicorn Golf Course for maneuvers. Billy Flynn and Franky Kendall were standing next to a lamp post on Oak street wondering what would happen if they pulled the switch in the red box. Maybe the light would go on. They put Billy’s tricycle on Franky’s Radio Flyer and Franky climbed up. Standing on tiptoe he caught hold of the switch and pulled. The light didn’t go on. Instead a high-pitched wailing noise came out of the red box. Franky plunged headlong onto Billy’s back and they fell in a heap to the ground.

They heard sirens. They looked up and saw fire engines, army tanks and jeeps heading toward them, followed by two hundred tightly bunched National Guard soldiers with rifles on their shoulders. Momentarily they sat and stared at each other with mutual expressions of awe at what they had unleashed.

Their eyes half out of their sockets, the two youngsters bolted across Flynn’s Field toward Franky’s house expecting bullets and bombs to be raining down on them at any second. They fell down several times and tumbled over each other as they scrambled over the porch railing and dashed for the back hallway. Franky flew head-first through the screen door and landed in the dog dish with Billy on top of him. They picked themselves up and slammed the door shut just as Franky’s Mother came into the kitchen. The Nazi’s are comin’, Franky yelled to the startled woman, as they raced past her into the living room and dived behind the couch. It was the worst traffic jam in the town’s history. It took hours to untangle all the jeeps, tanks, fire engines, streetcars and autos that were backed up two miles into the Town Square. When it was over Mrs. Kendall dragged the two boys from behind the couch and pulled them to the front door. As they peeked out from behind her skirt, the alarming visage of the head Nazi, Fire Chief Cronin, loomed before them. He was peering through the screen door with a tricycle in one hand and a Radio Flyer in the other…

…Seven years later

AUGUST, 1950

Billy the First jumped from the ‘39 Chevy Suburban and plucked a pure white Major League ball out of his brand new Wilson fielder’s glove. He let go with a hard one to Tonto sixty feet away and Tonto caught it expertly with the old rabbit fur glove.

"Hmmm, good throw Ke-mo-Sah-bee, good throw."

"Tonto wound up and threw a fast ball to Billy the Second who wore a black mask and had a thirty-two ounce Louisville Slugger in his hands. Whack! He connected and hit a screamer to deep center where Billy the First was running for the ball at top speed. As he ran, he caught a glimpse of the Lone Ranger sitting on a ledge above the entrance to the silver mine. He was sipping a Ballantine Ale and smiling indulgently like any good parent. Silver" was behind him munching on some wild oats.

"Billeeeeee!"

"Tonto whistled and Scout came charging across the plain. Both Billys leaped up on Scout’s" back and galloped toward the ball which had turned into a giant orange sphere. Now it was all in slow motion and the sphere made a huge figure eight in the desert sand. Turning a bright yellow, it rolled up the side of a distant mountain and lodged in the early afternoon sky. A shaft of light beamed down and broke through the window of Billy Flynn’s room, waking him. Billy rubbed his eyes, yawned and stretched. He was naked except for his socks.

Groggily, he turned on his elbow and looked at the clock on the bed-table: 1:30. He had only intended to close his eyes for a few minutes after lunch and here it was two hours later. He climbed out of bed, stumbled to the closet and pulled out a ball glove.

Billeeeee!

Pounding the glove with his fist, Billy belly flopped across the bed and looked out the window. Through the leaves of the giant Oak in the backyard he could see the first two kids straggling across Flynn’s Field for the Thursday afternoon game. By their size and walk he could tell that one of the boys was Roley Edwards and the other, Snake Kelly.

Billeeeee?

Billy rolled off the bed and went to the other window. His cousin Kenny was sitting on the steps next door fingering a Louisville Slugger and keeping tabs on Roley and Snake as they scavenged for shingles and rocks to use for home plate and the bases.

Billeeeee...

Bird-like footsteps on the stairs.

Billeeeeeee... She was singing it almost...

You’re not asleep in the middle of such a lovely day are you?

Bird-steps down the hallway.

He picked up his dungarees from the floor and pulled them on.

Billeee... What are you doing in there?

Dot Flynn yanked open the door. She spotted her son by the window zipping up his fly.

Billy, why didn’t you answer me?

She paused, waiting for an answer. She didn’t get one.

Billy, if you want to go outside and play you’d better hurry up and go. You don’t want to waste this lovely afternoon. Aren’t you going out? You really should you know... you look so pale.

Billy turned and looked at her—this seemingly frail, tough as wire, forty-five-year-old Irish-American lady with the small sharp blue eyes that were always on the lookout for something—anything out of place. She stood in the doorway in her flowered house-dress and pushed a few strands of grayish hair from her forehead. Noticing that the bed was slightly mussed she went over and smoothed it out.

What are you doing? she asked, with a hint of suspicion in her voice.

Watching Kenny.

What’s Kenny doing?

Watchin’ Roley, Billy said, moving to the closet and grabbing his sneakers off the hook by the door.

Well, I wish you wouldn’t stay up here with your door closed on such a nice day.

Billy sat on the floor and pulled on the sneakers. He rubbed his tooth with his finger. She walked over to him.

Do you have another tooth ache?

Yeah, Billy said, but not a big one.

Stand up. Let me see.

He stood and opened his mouth.

Which one is it? she said, probing with her finger.

That one! Billy winced.

She backed away. Well, make sure you take an aspirin on the way out. It’s your own fault you have these toothaches anyway—all that gum and candy you eat.

No it ain’t my fault, Billy shot back, It’s your fault cause you won’t let me go to Janey’s dentist!

Don’t say ain’t. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, Janey’s dentist is a specialist and you just need fillings. Besides, girls’ teeth are more important than boys’ teeth. You’ve got your choice. You can either go to Dr. Pringle or Cousin Dudley.

I ain’t goin’ to old man Pringle. His hand shakes and he’s half blind. He drilled right through Peewee Linehan’s lip once.

No, he didn’t. Where did you ever hear a thing like that? From Peewee. He showed me the hole.

Well, I don’t believe it. Dr. Pringle is a good man and a good dentist.

His breath smells like tuna fish.

Why should you care? You like tuna fish.

I like to eat it. I don’t like to smell it.

Well, if your teeth rot away, you won’t be able to eat anything. As soon as Janey’s recital is over, I’ll make an appointment.

Uh-uh, not with old man Pringle.

Okay then, I’ll send you over to Cousin Dudley.

For Billy, Cousin Dudley was not a happy alternative. He was the Flynn’s last resort dentist. His forte was pulling, which dovetailed with his two main interests in life—hunting and fishing. He charged three bucks a tooth––the best deal in town. He’d look at a tooth and say, Well, she’s gonna have to come out in three or four years anyhow. Might as well yank her out now. Ten minutes later the tooth would be gone, no x-rays––no anything.

Maybe I’ll do what Dad says to do, Billy said, tie one end of a string to my tooth, the other end to the doorknob, and slam the door. He says it’ll pop right out that way.

Yes, I’m sure that would be very wise, Dot said, and while you’re at it, why don’t you tie one to your tongue and pull that out too.

That’s the way it was between them—a joke that wasn’t a joke—a constant tug of war. Billy wished she would leave. Absently, he ran his fingers over the half-finished model of a B-17 that was on his bureau next to an autographed photo of the Lone Ranger. Dot craned her neck toward the window.

Oh isn’t that Roley Edwards out there, she asked, as though it was news to her.

Billy didn’t answer.

If it is, why don’t you go out and play with him? He’s such a nice boy. Why don’t you?

Billy groaned inside, feeling the utter futility of her comment. For God’s sake, the game was already planned. Yes, he was going to play with Roley—Roley and the other seventeen or eighteen kids that would be showing up in a few minutes. It bothered Billy that his mother only saw parts of things. And it bothered him that she was always peeking and poking around his room and opening his door without knocking. At night if she heard the tiniest noise, she would call out, What was that Billy? What are you doing in there?

He was almost twelve years old. Couldn’t he have some privacy for Christ’s sake? And this was no time to be annoying him anyway—particularly in the light of what she had done the day before. Billy had a favorite T-shirt—a Boston Braves T-shirt his Great Aunt Nora had given him for his eleventh birthday. Aunt Nora didn’t know a baseball from a fan belt, but her instinct as to Billy’s wants and needs was uncanny.

From the day he got that shirt, his mother was constantly pulling it off his back and throwing it into the laundry. She’d say, Do you have to wear that stupid shirt every day? People will think you don’t have anything else to wear. It looks so awful, with that dumb Indian and that goofy bat on the front of it. Indians don’t play baseball anyway, do they?

The truth was, Dot didn’t care much for her Aunt Nora and no gift the woman gave her kids ever met with her approval. From the first moment she saw it, she made up her mind that one way or another, she would get rid of that shirt. She had always done that to his things. She would simply decide on a whim that an object was due for removal. Usually, the only warning was an off-hand comment like, What’s that dirty old thing doing here. Or You’re too old for that. Or You never play with this anymore. Sometimes there would be no warning at all. He’d find it gone. He’d say, Where’s my such and such? And she’d say, Oh that old thing. I threw it out. The precise manner of execution varied. One time, it would go into the trash, another time, the furnace. Sometimes, she’d feel benevolent and give it away—usually to someone he hated. It happened to his favorite blanket, his favorite Roy Rogers shirt, his pearl handled gun and holster, his favorite truck and his Lone Ranger slippers. As a result of his mother’s actions, Billy did two things. He learned to hide things real good and he learned to swear. And that was a funny thing because in the neighborhood the comment was: Billy never swears.

How did he manage this swearing without swearing? Simple. He swore to himself. It was his way of equalizing the way he felt inside with a lot of the crap outside—no repercussions and no punishment. And no one ever suspected. Not even his mother, at whom a good many of his swears were directed.

So Wednesday morning, when he reached under his pillow and discovered that his Braves tee shirt was gone, he instantly deduced that she had snuck in during the night and copped it. He raced downstairs and found her ironing in the kitchen. He stood in front of her, breathing hard, not saying anything.

She feigned concern. What’s the matter with you? Your face is all red.

Through gritted teeth, Billy said, Where’s my tee shirt?

What tee shirt, dear?

Billy stared into her face looking for a hint––some tiny clue that might tell him whether it was all over or not––whether his shirt was dead or alive. Inadvertently her eyes moved toward the cellar door.

That was his answer; there might be a chance. He bolted down the cellar stairs and ran to the furnace. He ripped open the rusty cast iron door and there it sat on a pile of old winter ashes, untouched and unblemished by the raging flames of motherhood. He had expected to find charred remains. Instead, he found his Braves tee shirt. It would survive another day.

But on this baseball Thursday, Billy had a more important problem with his mother. Although blissfully unaware of it, Dot Flynn was interfering with something vitally important to her son. On the Yankee Radio Network the next evening, they were going to repeat the 1948 Lone Ranger Anniversary Show which Billy had missed the first time around. On that show, they would be telling how the Lone Ranger met his friend and companion, Tonto, found his horse, Silver, learned to make silver bullets and how he came to wear a mask––the entire story of how he got to become the Lone Ranger. The unique feature of the show was that the Lone Ranger was going to appear unmasked as one of the original group of Texas Rangers who were hunting the notorious Cavendish gang.

Billy had been a Lone Ranger fan since the age of nine when he first heard the show and discovered that it was about a masked man who was on the side of the law and performed good deeds anonymously. Because he wore a mask people initially misjudged and distrusted him, but by the end of each show, after being helped by him, or hearing of his good deeds, they would celebrate his virtues. Billy was amazed how the Lone Ranger could remain so calm and patient when so many people misunderstood him. He was captivated by the Masked Man’s sonorous voice and quick fists, and marveled at his ability to tell right from wrong. The Lone Ranger never used his gun to kill. He would wound the outlaws or shoot their guns out of their hands.

Billy’s interest in the Lone Ranger was not an ordinary one. Not only was the Masked Man his hero and pal, but unknown to his mother and everyone else, he would sometimes intervene directly in Billy’s mind giving him advice and direction. Usually it would be in the form of thought, but at certain critical moments, actual spoken words would come through. Other times, the Lone Ranger and Tonto would be tending to business out in Lone Ranger, Wyoming and Billy was on his own.

Although Dot Flynn tolerated her son’s fascination with the Lone Ranger, she made it clear to him that she thought it was all a bunch of nonsense. She told him that it was stupid show and any man who hid behind a mask must be a bank robber or a pervert.

Billy, not inclined to throw pearls before swine, hid behind his own mask of secrecy and did not tell his mother about the coming show. He first learned that he had a problem earlier in the week after seeing The Sands of Iwo Jima at the local movie theater. He was prowling around the house doing military reconnaissance when he overheard his mother talking with her friend Rose McDonald and his Aunt Clara, over tea. Dot Flynn casually mentioned that Billy would be going to his fourteen-year-old sister Janey’s piano recital on Friday night.

Not only was the recital going to be held on the same night and at the same time as The Lone Ranger Show, they were expecting him to go to the God-awful thing. And there was some talk that his mother might send him up to his Aunt Clara’s house that very Thursday night to keep him out of her and Janey’s hair.

He could not allow that to happen. If he was going to successfully combat this conspiracy he had to remain on the premises.

To Billy’s way of thinking, the Lone Ranger, Tonto and himself were blood brothers and the mere suggestion that he wouldn’t be with them on that night of nights was unthinkable. To Dot Flynn’s way of thinking, Miss Valentine’s prestigious piano recital was the important thing and for that week, the only thing. It was the last recital of the season and Dot would simply die if her Janey didn’t win first place and capture the highly coveted Mozart statue––an honor that had eluded her daughter for all of the six years she had been under Miss Valentine’s tutelage.

Dot felt that it wouldn’t look right if the whole family didn’t attend the recital. And Billy, although a little anxious that he hadn’t yet figured out how he was going to arrange it, was dead-bolt sure of one thing, as he stood in his bedroom that afternoon, annoyed at his mother’s presence and wishing she’d get the hell out of there. He was dead-bolt sure that even if the God-damned sky fell, come Friday night at 7:30 P. M., he would be sitting smack dab next to the RCA radio in the dining room, inhaling every word and hoof-beat, as the Lone Ranger and Tonto fought for law and order in the early Western United States.

Billy had to approach his mother about the recital problem soon, but he knew that in discussing such an important subject with her, timing was everything. If he was to avoid a major battle that would likely involve his old man in the role of enforcer, he had to be careful. So he decided that he would bring it up that evening after supper, while she was relaxing over her tea and his old man was out of the house.

As he took in the visage of his Mother standing in the doorway watching him get ready for the game, Billy was astounded by the gall of the woman. She knew that he was not going out to the ball field without his Braves tee shirt, and she was waiting to see where he had hidden it so she could eliminate that possibility on her next attempt. Billy went directly to his most recent hiding place, as if to say, try all you want, I’ve got a million places. He pulled the shirt out from behind his old man’s World War I helmet which was hanging on the wall right next to her.

It was a cat-and-mouse game they played with each other and Billy could tell by the slight smile on her lips that she was moderately impressed by his cunning.

You know, I’m making your favorite dessert––bread pudding, she said.

Billy, unimpressed, pulled the tee shirt on, glanced quickly into the mirror, grabbed his glove and squeezed by her into the hallway. She followed him to the top of the stairwell.

Didn’t you hear me? I said I’m making bread pudding––with raisins!

Billy continued down the stairs without answering, but he was thinking how stupid it was for her to say with raisins! She always put raisins in it. At the bottom of the stairwell he stopped—decided to give her a tidbit of attention. After all, she was his mother.

Vanilla or chocolate? he asked, lazily.

She smiled cutely. Why your favorite—chocolate of course.

Billy ground his teeth, which reminded him that he still had a toothache, so on his way through the kitchen he took a tin of Bayer aspirin down from the cabinet. He washed a couple of the white tablets down with a glass of water and headed for the back hall.

As he pushed open the screen door, the sweet smell of bread pudding found his nose. Chocolate my favorite––yechh! That’s Janey’s favorite and she knows it. I’ve been around eleven years and she still pretends she doesn’t know my favorite. Vanilla, vanilla, vanilla, God-damned vanilla—Janey chocolate, me vanilla!

As he walked down the back walk her voice trailed after him from his bedroom window.

Don’t forget. Supper will be on the table at exactly five o’clock. I don’t want to have to send your father after you.

Hi Yo Silver, Billy muttered to himself, as he headed toward the driveway where Kenny was tossing a ball to himself.

* * *

FLYNN’S FIELD

Between the two Flynn houses, under the shade of the great Oak tree, there was a small two-car garage. Billy’s Dad, Mike Flynn, kept his ‘39 Chevy Suburban on the left side and Mike’s brother, Hank Flynn, having no car, kept his gardening tools on the right side.

Both houses were brown-shingled with eight