Ambush (Michael Bennett 11)

We had the phone set on speaker and placed it in the middle of the group, which was getting a little antsy waiting for the call.

At exactly ten minutes after eight, the phone rang and some dull-voiced New York Department of Corrections bureaucrat told us that the call would last approximately ten minutes and that it would be monitored. Great.

My oldest son, Brian, had made a mistake. A big mistake—selling drugs. Now he was paying for that mistake, and so were we.

Tonight was Thanksgiving eve. Tomorrow we would embark on our annual tradition of viewing the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and it would hurt not having Brian with us.

My late wife and I had begun this tradition even before we started adopting kids. She’d get off her shift at the hospital and I’d meet her near Rockefeller Center. When the kids were little, she loved the parade more than they did. It was one of many traditions I kept alive to honor her memory.

She even made the parade after chemo had wrecked her body, with a scarf wrapped around her head. The beauty still managed an excited smile at the sight of Bart Simpson or Snoopy floating by.

As soon as Brian came on the line, there was a ripple in our crowd. The last time I’d seen him, he was still recovering from a knife attack that was meant to send me a message.

Tonight, he sounded good. His voice was clear and still had that element of the kid to it. No parent can ever think of their child as a convicted felon, even if he’s sitting in a prison. Currently, Brian was temporarily housed at Bear Hill Correctional, in the town of Malone, in northern New York. It was considered safe. For now. Mary Catherine and I talked over each other while we asked him about the dorm and classes.

Brian said, “Well, I can’t start classes because I haven’t been officially designated at a specific prison. That will happen soon.”

All three of the boys spoke as a group. As usual, they took a few minutes to catch Brian up on sports. Football always seemed to be the same—the Jets look bad, the Patriots look good.

Then an interruption in the programming.

Chrissy, my youngest, started to cry. Wail is probably more accurate.

Mary Catherine immediately dropped to one knee and slipped an arm around the little girl’s shoulder.

Chrissy moaned, “I miss Brian.” She turned to the phone like there was a video feed and repeated, “I miss you, Brian. I want you to come home.”

There was a pause on the phone, then Brian’s voice came through a little shakier. I could tell he was holding back tears by the way he spoke, haltingly. “I can’t come home right now, Chrissy, but you can do something for me.”

“Okay.”

“Go to the parade tomorrow and have fun. I mean, so much fun you can’t stand it. Then I want you to write me a letter about it and send it to me. Can you do that?”

Chrissy sniffled. “Yes. Yes, I can.”

I felt a tear run down my cheek. I have some great kids. I don’t care what kind of mistakes they might’ve made.

We were ready for our adventure.

Chapter 2

IT WAS A bright, cloudless day and Mary Catherine had bundled the kids up like we lived at the North Pole. It was cold, with a decent breeze, but not what most New Yorkers would consider brutal. My grandfather, Seamus, would call it “crisp.” It was too crisp for the old priest. He was snuggled comfortably in his quarters at Holy Name.

I wore an insulated Giants windbreaker and jeans. I admit, I looked at the kids occasionally and wished Mary Catherine had dressed me as well, but it wasn’t that bad.

I herded the whole group to our usual spot, across from Rockefeller Center at 49th Street and Sixth Avenue. It was a good spot, where we could see all the floats and make our escape afterward with relatively little hassle.

I was afraid this might be the year that some of the older kids decided they’d rather sleep in than get up before dawn to make our way to Midtown. Maybe it was due to Chrissy’s tearful conversation with Brian, but everyone was up and appeared excited despite the early hour.

Now we had staked out our spot for the parade, and were waiting for the floats. It was perfect outside and I gave in to the overwhelming urge to lean over and kiss Mary Catherine.

Chrissy and Shawna crouched in close to us as Jane flirted with a couple of boys from Nebraska—after I’d spoken to them, of course. They were nice young men, in their first year at UN Kearney.

We could tell by the reaction of the crowd that the parade was coming our way. We sat through the first couple of marching bands and earthbound floats before we saw one of the stars of the parade: Snoopy, in his red scarf, ready for the Red Baron.

Of course, Eddie had the facts on the real Red Baron. He said, “You know, he was an ace in World War I for Germany. His name was Manfred von Richthofen. He had over eighty kills in dogfights.”

The kids tended to tune out some of Eddie’s trivia, but Mary Catherine and I showed interest in what he said. It was important to keep a brain like that fully engaged.