There was a sudden explosion of sound and Brian lay still on his back, unable to believe it was his mother's voice.

"Now, you listen to me, Katherine O'Malley, I've put up with your silences and your whispers and your tripping on your tongue all I'm going to. I'll shake your head off your shoulders and take the strap to you myself if you don't quit this moping around and mooning over yourself. Now take yourself up to the schoolyard and take your basketball and go find Bobby Kelly. The poor lad must think you've lost your sense you've neglected him so." There was a softening in the harsh voice, just slightly, "Go on now, Kit. I'm telling you that you must!"

Kit ran through the house, slammed out the door. He heard the basketball bounce as she ran, then he heard Kit's voice call out, "Hey, Bobby. Hey, Bobby, wait up, will ya?"

In the silence that followed, Brian heard a gasp, a great swallowing sound, as though his mother had held her hands over her mouth not quite in time. Then he heard the soft sounds of her prayer and he leaned back in bed to wait until she returned to the kitchen.

THIRTY.

HE HADN'T SEEN ARTHUR Pollack for a long time and his first impression was that Arthur was lost inside his uniform. The coat was too long at hem and sleeve; the visor of his cap practically covered his forehead and the earflaps obscured most of his neck. Arthur enthusiastically offered Brian half of a mittened hand.

"Hey, Brian, gee, kid. Gee, it's great to see you."

Actually, it seemed that Arthur was having difficulty in seeing anything. He wore small, round steel-rimmed tinted glasses which steamed over as soon as he came into the heated storeroom. Arthur shrugged and his narrow body shivered inside the large coat.

"God, it's cold out there. I don't know how those crazy people can sit through these football games week after week."

"We've got some hot coffee, Arthur. One of the guys keeps a hot plate here. Jesus, you look like you need a bucket of hot coffee."

When Brian handed him a mug of coffee, he felt a surprising warmth of affection for his friend. He shook his head good-naturedly. "Gimme your coat; I'll put it over here with mine. My God, what have you got, five sweaters?"

Arthur held up his fingers. "Three, plus long underwear. I am not what you'd call a fan of winter." He wrapped his hands around the mug and smiled up at Brian. "So. Well, Brian, kid, how are you doing?"

The small gray eyes, one turned in slightly, searched his face candidly and Brian recalled the last time they had met and he remembered vividly, painfully, but now somewhat sadly and wistfully, Rita Wasinski.

It was a funny thing. They hadn't seen each other in more than six months yet Brian felt the exchange, unspoken, between them. He had learned what Arthur had known all along. You live with what you have to live with; time heals; things work out. Wordlessly, Arthur was asking him : Wasn't I right, kid?

Brian smiled, nodded, just the way Arthur had nodded to him. It was a peculiar thing. When he was around Arthur, some essence of Arthur, his mannerisms, his method of communicating, flowed into Brian. While not consciously imitating Arthur, Brian found himself adopting his gestures, his nuances. This seemed to relieve him of the necessity of too many words.

"Things are good, Art. Hey, what's with the glasses? I never saw you with glasses before."

Arthur's hand went up and he touched the frame lightly with his fingertips. "I had some kind of infection in my eyes for a few weeks so I got to wear these tinted glasses for a while. They're actually just windowpanes. You know, Brian, I don't know why everybody is surprised when they hear I got 20-20 vision. Even the eye doctor I went to was surprised. I don't know why."

There was a deep rolling sound rising upward toward the little room where they were. The floorboards rumbled as one team or the other made a good play. Arthur turned toward the door and shrugged.

"Now if it was baseball and it was the Dodgers and the Giants, then, I'm interested. Football? Forget it. So, Brian, how come you're up in my precinct? Isn't the Polo Grounds a little far afield for a Clinton Street man?"

Brian shrugged without answering. He'd had a lot of good assignments that Arthur knew nothing about; he'd seen prize fights, the rodeo, the President of the United States, a few movie stars up close.

They exchanged a few bits of gossip about mutual acquaintances, bantered back and forth good-naturedly, then Arthur said, "Well, Brian, I guess you don't know, but I'm getting married."

For one sharp breath-catching instant, Rita Wasinski's face, pale, startled, frightened, flashed through his mind and kept the words of congratulations from getting any farther than his throat. He knew that Arthur had seen the hardly discernible hesitation.

"I'm one hell of a lucky guy, too, I'll tell you," Arthur said smoothly. "Naomi is a schoolteacher and she comes from a complete, large family, the whole works: father, mother, one sister, one brother and even a grandmother. She accuses me of proposing because I want a ready-made family." He reached out, tapped Brian's shoulder and winked. "When you meet her, don't tell her she's right!"

Brian shook Arthur's hand and spoke in a rush of words, all the right things he was supposed to say. He spoke warmly and quickly, as though he owed Arthur an apology for something he could not define.

Surprisingly, he found himself speaking about Mary Ellen Crowley, and as he spoke about her, she became more real than she seemed at times when he was with her.

Arthur studied him carefully, tilted his head to one side and smiled warmly. "Brian, that's great. Really great. I knew there had to be a reason for you to look so good." Arthur straightened up and thrust his head back. "You notice the change in me? Everybody says I look great and that I must be in love!"

"Arthur, you're beautiful. Really, buddy, I hardly knew you."

"So, when are you setting the date, kid?"

"Hell, I'm in no position yet, Arthur. I still got my kid sister and brothers, you know. Family." Unexpectedly, he added, "But I'm pretty sure she's gonna be the one."

He'd never said that before to anyone, never really thought much about it, but as he said the words, he knew them for fact. He'd marry Mary Ellen Crowley sometime, in the future. That was as definite as if it had been decided so long ago he couldn't remember the exact time or place.

A guy named Walsh, big, red-faced, twice as wide as Arthur Pollack, shoved the door open and the room filled with a cold blast of air.

"Shit," Walsh said, "it's almost as cold in here. Some goddamn place they give us for a relief."

"There's some coffee," Arthur offered.

"Shit, that ain't gonna warm me up." He moved clumsily, dug inside his bulky blue-serge coat, came up with a flat canteen. He unscrewed the cap, took a deep swallow, sighed with appreciation, then offered the others a swallow.

"Thanks, but I've got a look coming from my sergeant in about ten minutes," Brian said.

Walsh opened his tight collar, took off his hat, rubbed a large raw hand over his short red hair and squinted at Brian. He made a deep throat sound which was not quite a laugh. "Shit, no sergeant's gonna go worryin' about what's on your breath, O'Malley. Who you kiddin'?"

Brian's eyes glazed and Arthur saw his mouth tighten and his head come up slightly. "I'm not kidding anybody, friend," he said. "There's nobody around worth kidding."

Walsh considered this for a moment, examined it and decided it was not worth bothering with. He scanned the small room and grumbled at the lack of comfort. "Well," he conceded, "at least they got a radio. I wonder if the fucking thing works."

He twisted the knob, then adjusted the tuner. There was some heavy static until Walsh zeroed in on the station he sought. The familiar laugh and narrow metallic voice filled the small room: Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? (laugh") The Shadow knows! (laugh-laugh-laugh)...

"For Christ's sake, Walsh, you gonna listen to that?"

Walsh puffed his stub of a cigar to life and ignored Brian.

Arthur stretched and flexed his thin arms, ready to do battle with his heavy uniform overcoat. He eyed it sadly. "I wish this was as warm as it is heavy," he said. He seemed to sink an inch or two under its weight. He jotted down his schedule for the next few weeks and handed the scrap of paper to Brian. "Let's get together, kid, maybe with our girls, maybe a little restaurant hopping, huh? Or maybe just the two of us for a drink or something, okay?"

Walsh abruptly turned the volume of the radio up.

Arthur took the hint and said, "I better get back on post."

Brian buttoned his coat. "Wait, I'll go with you. I'm on meal relief. Gotta see if I can catch a hot dog before my time is up."

"Don't eat the hot dogs here, Brian," Arthur advised. "Did I ever tell you about the time I worked for a hot-dog company? Well, it was the company that sells to the stadium and-"

Brian held his hand up. "Don't, Arthur. Please. Because I got a feeling you're going to tell me about all kinds of terrible things mixed up in the frankfurters."

"Listen, Brian, if you knew what I knew, you'd never eat another one of those poisoned things again."

"I've eaten six so far today, Arthur," Brian said and pressed his hand against his flat stomach. "Don't tell me anything. Not anything at all."

They started down the ramp which led to the interior of the stadium, stopped for a moment to exchange greetings with a couple of patrolmen heading for relief. The two older men were football fans and they were vigorously arguing a point and asked the younger policemen for an opinion.

The discussion became very involved because Arthur started to kid them along, and even though he knew nothing about football, he was convincing. Brian backed him up, taking his cues from him.

There was a sharp blast of cold gray wind from around the corridor that led to an aisle into the upper tier of the Polo Grounds and a roar of human voices rose, the familiar roar of excitement, so familiar it went almost unnoticed by the four policemen.

It was Arthur who noticed first, sensed, felt, something different. He held his mittened hand up for a moment, then grabbed Brian's arm so that the others turned to him in surprise. Arthur tilted his head toward the sound, which had changed somehow, almost imperceptibly. He moved toward the opening, and the others followed.

They stood looking down at the playing field wondering what play had caused the strange, indefinable scene. Incomprehensibly, players on both teams were mingling, hands on each other's arms, shoulders, not teammates, just players mingling with umpires and officials who seemed to wander on the field in a daze. They all stood, puzzled, waiting to absorb what the nearly incoherent voice of the announcer on the loudspeaker had said.

Fans stood up restlessly, leaned forward, questioned, shrugged. Some people yelled for the game to go on, yelled "What the hell is going on?" "What the hell is the delay?" "Come on, what gives?"

"Hey, Jesus, hey, Jesus, you guys."

They turned, the four policemen, and there was Walsh, hat off, coat off, cigar in his hand, his large, normally red face gone white as a sheet.

"What's up, Walsh?" Brian asked.

They moved toward him, the four surrounded him in the corridor. Walsh's face contorted, puzzled. His mouth was dry and his voice crackled when he spoke.

"Jesus, I don't know. See, I was listening to The Shadow, you know? Right?" He looked at Brian and then at Arthur as though he needed them to confirm this fact. "Well, then, right in the middle of the story, see, they interrupted the program. This guy just busts right in with a news announcement and he says that the Japanese had just bombed Pearl Harbor. And that all of our warships there got sunk. And that this means that we're at war with Japan. Jeez, you think it's some kinda joke like that nutty guy pulled about the Mars invasion a coupla years back?"

One of the older patrolmen raised his eyebrows and turned to his partner. "Pearl Harbor? Where the hell is Pearl Harbor?"

Only Brian O'Malley knew where Pearl Harbor was and that the U.S.S. Arizona was currently in Pearl Harbor and that his cousin Radioman John O'Malley was stationed on the U.S.S. Arizona.

Arthur heard the quick choking intake of breath, the gasp as though Brian had been kicked in the stomach. Arthur saw Brian's face drain of color, turn as white as Walsh's.

"Brian, hey, what is it, kid?"

Brian stared at Arthur and moved his head slightly, then said softly as a moan, "Oh, Holy Mother of God. Poor John!"

The O'Malleys didn't have much time to grieve for John. Too many things happened too quickly. Secretly, his uncles might have questioned themselves about the ultimate wisdom of their solution for poor John, but among themselves none of them betrayed anything but pride in his heroism as described in the Navy Department's telegram.

Billy O'Malley, a full-fledged Marine, was to receive his mail addressed to him at something called "A.P.O. San Francisco" and his letters home, generally cryptic, were even more so.

Billy Delaney deserted Roseanne two months after their third child was born and joined the Army. After an absence of four months, he showed up, trim and sheepish, and signed over his allotment to Roseanne, and by the time he returned to camp in Kansas, they were reconciled.

Francis Kelly enlisted in the Navy and left behind a bloated, pregnant, self-satisfied Marylou, who promptly put a little rayon flag with a blue star on it in the window of her apartment to show that she was a Navy wife.

Arthur Pollack enlisted in the Army Air Force and was married just before his induction.

One cold and rainy day in March, Kevin came home from school much too early and with a glow of excitement that alarmed Brian the minute he entered the apartment. Kevin, three days after his eighteenth birthday, and three months before high school graduation, joined the Navy. There was no way to persuade him to wait and Margaret gave up the attempt and signed the papers.

All during the months following Pearl Harbor, Brian felt his life suspended in unreality. Only he was not part of everything that was happening around him; the others were all undergoing drastic changes, movement, relinquishing old responsibilities for the excitement of new adventures. Two of his younger cousins joined the Navy when Kevin did.

It was his mother and grandmother and younger sister who stood between Brian and the Army; he wasn't to be drafted because of his dependents.

It was Patrick Crowley who pointed out that there was always a way to do what you want providing you take the time to figure things out sensibly. What Patrick Crowley wanted was Brian O'Malley for a son-in-law; he knew that what Brian wanted was a way to get into the war.

"Well now, did you young people have a good time?" he asked in an artificially solicitous tone. "Why don't you go into the kitchen and help your mother prepare some tea?"

Mary Ellen responded to her father's suggestion as though it were a direct command: it was all the same.

He signaled to Brian and watched, settled in his chair, as Brian poured the two customary shots of whiskey. "Well," he said softly, "let's drink the health of your young brother," Crowley said, intent on Brian. "The girl tells me he's joined up in the Navy. Here's his health then." He tossed the drink to the back of his throat, gasped, swallowed, blinked and twitched, which was also customary. "Well, and have you thought much about your own self, Brian? This is a big war, lad, and you must be itchin' to get into it."

Brian slugged down the drink and carefully rotated the glass between his fingers. He'd known Crowley well enough by now to realize this was no casual conversation. It was the preliminary to something and he felt curiosity as well as caution.

"Well," Crowley said abruptly, "the girl will finish her first year at the Academy come this June."

"Yes, I guess so."

"When do you plan to marry her, if I may ask?"

The question took him totally by surprise. The glass slipped from his fingers and he felt the heat rush to his face as he bent to retrieve it.

"Well, that's been on your mind, I take it?" Crowley said flatly, more statement than question.

"Well, yes, sure. I mean, yes. But I'm not exactly in a position right now to...well..."

"Well, yes, sure, I mean, yes, but," Crowley mimicked him precisely, then laughed shortly. "God love us, but who the hell ever is in a position? The point is, I see no sense in investing another year on the girl at the Academy while you're cooling your heels and trying to see exactly what your position is." He gestured for another shot of whiskey and held his eye steady on Brian as Brian poured. "Not for yourself, lad? Ah, it's just as well, for you should have a clear head for this little talk. Now, here's what I had in mind, lad. You'd like to get into the fray, in a manner of speaking, lad, wouldn't you? What with even your little brother in the service, and your young cousin among the first killed, it must make it hard on you. If you'd your choice, what would it be?"

He dreamed of being a pilot, but realized the dream was unrealistic. He knew he became seasick, so the Navy was out.

"Marines," he answered, without much thought.

Crowley's head jerked up and down several times. "Well, that would be very fine. Would serve you well in the future, too. Remember this, lad, a man who hadn't a part of this great war, he won't be worth shit in the future. Remember that now."

And then Crowley put it to him, straight out, on the line. So that Brian could enlist in the Marines, he'd give a dowry of a year's tuition; that would more than support Brian's mother and grandmother and sister, along with Brian's allotment. Mary Ellen wouldn't need it; she'd live at home.

As quickly as the old man said the words, the possibility formed inside Brian with a force beyond anything he could protest. He'd have it all: the adventure, the excitement, the freedom of all responsibility, and Mary Ellen, waiting for him at home.

The technicality, easily tended, was asking Mary Ellen. She accepted shyly and he never knew if her father had ever discussed the situation with her and it seemed wiser not to ask.

When he left for war, he left a beautiful young wife, pregnant with their daughter, to spend the next three and a half years under the care of her parents.

PART FOUR : The Grandson: Patrolman Patrick Brian O'Malley 1970.