Wasn’t it young Johnny Malloy who, zipping up and putting his pecker away after the circle jerk under the Crossbay Bridge, said that Father Smith was queer? Young Johnny Malloy who beat up his old man after his old man beat up his old lady? Young Johnny Malloy who, when I said Johnny you can’t hide out in my bedroom closet forever, said to me I’m gonna hitchhike to Paris? Young Johnny Malloy who didn’t know there was an ocean, at least, between him and the City of Light, who finally went home where his old man was afraid to hit him again? Young Johnny Malloy who, in the Sunnyside Queens Arena, pounded his way through every thin sweating boy the Golden Gloves dropped in front of him? Young Johnny Malloy who punched through his reflection in the plate glass window of the House of Wong and never boxed again? Young Johnny Malloy who went down for manslaughter after shooting random dark-skinned men in East New York, winging two, and killing a third? Johnny Malloy who died of a heart attack or cancer or cirrhosis or AIDS, or was hit by a truck or crushed by an airplane that fell out of the fucking sky, don’t ask me, I don’t know. Who, when he said that about Father Smith, the priest who set up the little league and befriended every battered boy in Howard Beach, I said, No way—then heard again the fluttering robes and felt the weight pressing my face into the woolen carpet on the rectory floor, felt his hand grazing my ass, my penis—O Johnny Malloy, O beaten mother, beaten father, O Golden Gloves, Crossbay Bridge, O House of Wong, O murdered strangers—forgive us, our sins, and what’s become of us.
Peter E. Murphy was born in Wales and grew up in New York City where he operated heavy equipment, managed a nightclub and drove a taxi. He is the author of ten books and chapbooks including Looking for Thelma, winner of the inaugural Wilt Nonfiction Chapbook Prize. His essays and poems have appeared in The Common, Diode, Guernica, Rattle, Rhino and elsewhere. He is the founder of Murphy Writing of Stockton University in Atlantic City, NJ.STORY IMAGE CREDIT: Flickr Creative Commons/Jinterwas
