I’d surprised him alone in the office of Joseph Andrews Mortuary, which was right across the street from the St. Stephen’s church rear entrance on 33rd and where he worked a few hours a week and therefore wouldn’t be wearing that moth-eaten oversized coat so he couldn’t do his his weirdo “Dutch Defense.” “You miserable potato-eating cretin!” I snarled. I like to think of it as praying with my heart. We’d gone swimming at the 23rd Street pool—me, Jimmy Connelly, Farragher and Tommy Foley. Ignoring the warning voices in my head that were saying, “Go not to the pool today, Joey,” I went anyway, meeting up with the others at the pool and thinking maybe my hyperalertness against the chance they might again seek to “safety test” the operational limits of my lungs would serve to keep my thoughts away from Jane and the question of my sanity for a while. I stayed clear of the diving pool so nothing happened. It was on the way home that “The Great and Enduring Farragheronian Evil”
