Page 7 of Cillian

“Ain't there laws against that shit?” I argued, desperate for a way out.

“Cilly, so much has changed since you've been in. The world is changing and unless we want to stay in the same place, we have to change with it. This partnership supplements the loss of the Callahans, eliminates our risk in the coke business and most of all, got you out of the pen. This really was the only way,” Tadhg argued.

“Pa would have never asked me to do this.”

“Well, Pa ain't in charge no more. Tadhg is,” Bellamy defended. “And if it wasn't for fucking Tadhg you'd be locked up or dead like Pa intended.”

Knowing how little bargaining tools I had, I paced there more frustrated than before and worst of all still fucking horny. “So, we're just working with Blacks now?”

“To be honest, they're not as bad as Pa made them out to be,” Paddy nonchalantly shrugged. “Plus, they got some good pictures.” Bellamy hit Paddy in the chest. “What? They do!”

“Look, I ain't no racist. I just think people do better when they stick to their own. Italians with Italians. Greeks with the Greeks. Irish with the Irish.”

“Part of me don’t disagree with you but you been locked up long enough not to know. Pa was bad for business the last few months he passed. We needed to do something to get profits back up and it happened to come with a string that helped you get out.”

It was finally dawning on me that this was happening. If I wanted to avoid this fate, it’d come with having to kill my brothers. While I was tempted, this suit looked too good on me to want to sully it now.

“So, I ain’t got no choice?” As I crossed my arms across my chest.

“Nope,” they all collectively answered.

“Then I'm going to need more whiskey. And a hell of a lot more snow.”

Two

Queenie

Dread coursed through me to the point of wanting to vomit. I couldn’t believe I was being forced to do this. I thought the drive to church would feel like any other, but with each passing mile, it became painfully clear what today was.

Days of the past maybe once felt like freedom. Today felt like a death sentence. The only escape from it likely was death. A tear rolled down my cheek as I quickly wiped it away before my father could bear witness. Half the ride there, he warned me to stop my crying or he'd give me something to cry about.

“You want to wear a slap across the face on your wedding day?” he questioned. “Then I suggest you stop all that crying. You could do a lot worse.”

My father wasn't a large man. Five-ten at the most. But he had no problem keeping you in line with his fists if he had to, so I forced whatever tears I had left not to shed. I knew he wasn’t kidding when it came to making sure I obeyed.

I favored him more than my light skinned Creole mama, but if I were being honest, I never believed Mama was Creole. I think she just said that because back in North Carolina, it felt like anything was better than being Black. Here in Boston, it wasn't no different. Only up here with all the Irish and Italians, Black was just Black.

They didn't see light skin or dark skin, all they saw was Black. And with that, they treated you accordingly. My father never let us forget how much he worked his tail off to become a leader in our community. He could go where no other Colored men could because he spoke well and dressed nice.

It's too bad the person he was for the world, wasn't the man he showed to his family. Certainly not to his eldest daughter. I was just a means to an end for him. Made to feel like there was no use for me except to fulfill his selfish ambitions. Knowing what lay at the end of this car ride, I chose to say nothing. Be nothing. Because to him, that's all I’d ever be.

They say no good deed goes unpunished. I regretfully learned that the hard way ever since I came forward as a witness in that murder case. Taking it to the grave would have been my best option, but I couldn’t live with the guilt that an innocent man would never know justice. A man of God, no less.

What I didn’t account for was being asked to recant a year and a half later. It was surprising enough that they’d even take the testimony of a Black girl seriously, let alone put a white man in jail because of it. But none of that mattered once my father learned he could gain something from it. Recanting gave my father something he couldn’t get on his own.

A seat at the table.

Only I was the only one paying the price for such power. A bargaining chip so men could get their business deals met. Sometimes I wish I’d been born a man. If I were a man, no one would be forcing me to marry someone I didn’t want to. Especially not a white one.

Straightening in my seat, I prayed my voice didn’t crack at my next question.

“Papa, can you please tell me which one it is?” Still unsure which of those Sullivan men I’d be marrying. I’d only met one of them in passing; likely the one with the least reservations with marrying a Black girl. But I’d made it clear if I had to marry a stranger, I didn’t want to be with some old man.

“It would just make me…feel more at ease if I knew which one I was dealing with,” I said, as I pinched at the skin on the back of my hand. Mama cut her eyes at me warning me with a look not to push it, knowing with my father being the controlling freak that he was, she knew better not to talk over him before he got any words in.

“Queenie. Why does it matter? It ain’t like you ain’t never seen one of them before. It don’t matter which one of them Sully boys it is, you're gonna marry who I tell you to. The boy ain't but a year older than you that's all you got to know.” Dismissing me before I could even get a chance to follow up.

“By the way, when we get to that church? Keep all that question-asking to a minimum. I promised that boy's brother that you were quiet and obedient. Don't no man want a woman asking him a hundred and one questions. I swear to God if you mess this up for me,” He threatened, forcing me to slouch back into my seat.

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