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And there was no rehab in those days-none at all. If you were Catholic, you had Lent-forty days at the tail end of winter when you could give up anything in service to Our Lord Jesus-who supposedly spent forty days in the desert with the devil whispering sweet little nothings into his holy ear. As a sign of your devotion to His noteworthy struggle, Catholics are meant to conduct a fast from one of their favorite things-food, sex, candy-whatever you might find enjoyable and hard to stay away from. Believe me, most Irish Catholic men spent that month and a half on the wagon. Jesus resists the temptation offered by Satan-the Irish resist Bushmill's and Budweiser. I'd call it just about even.

My brother Johnny got clipped by a drunk driver while he was delivering papers on his bike. He was in the hospital for a couple of days and then he came home. But for those two days? There was extra potatoes and meat for everyone else. The food chain in action. There were no airbags no seat belts no helmets no Ritalin no Adderall no special ed classes no learning disabilities no tutoring no nothing-you had to be a REAL retard to be considered a retard. Talk therapy in those days consisted of my mother saying "That homework better be done by dinnertime or you are gonna have to deal with your father!" Everybody got hurt and stabbed and shot in the face with BB guns and bitten by dogs and slapped by their parents and fed shitty food-no one was smart or good-looking or gifted or unique. The toys alone would kill or maim you.

One time I was cutting through the alley between Tommy Mullaney's building and ours when I heard my brother shout "Hey faggot!"-his usual way of saying hello. I looked up to see Johnny and his best friend Cliffey DeCoursey down at the other end of the alley with a brand-new toy in tow-a bow and arrow. Not a TOY bow and arrow, an actual, real live bow-and-arrow set you would use to go hunting for venison. Now, Cliffey DeCoursey's parents deciding to give him a real bow and arrow as a birthday present would-in this day and age-be either the foundation for a record-setting lawsuit by my parents or the beginning of a foster child investigation or both. But in those days it just made Cliffey and every other kid in the neighborhood think they were cool. Anyways, one millisecond of a nanosecond after I heard the word "faggot" and stopped and glanced up-which probably says something about my own self-esteem-my brother let the arrow go and I am telling you THUNK! that's how quick the arrow stuck itself in my skull. Two inches above my right eye-I still have the scar. Cliffey went one way and Johnny the other and I was left standing there like some kind of horrifying William Tell Overture.

I climbed the alley fence and ran up the three wooden flights on the back of my building-the arrow still in place-and ran into the kitchen where my Uncle Jerry put down his beer and yanked the thing out of my head-at which point I started to howl and he said "It's out goddammit yer fine so shut up!" My dad said I didn't need stitches but my mom went into a what if he's brain damaged now and he's not that bright to begin with monologue so he and Uncle Jerry drove me to the hospital where they did the usual here's a piece of candy because this is gonna hurt like hell routine and they sewed me up and then we drove home fast because it was close to dinnertime and my father got really pissed because no one could find my brother or Cliffey and my dad and Mr. DeCoursey had to go house to house and building to building looking for the two escapees until they finally found them an hour or so later hiding in the basement of Tommy Spencer's building which led to a very entertaining and rare double ass-kicking up the entire block, which I watched with relish from our third-floor window.

And after dinner that night, in the living room while we were watching TV, my father sat down in his favorite chair while I sat on the floor and we both watched the Red Sox game on the TV. He handed me a bowl of ice cream and