I was about five minutes early when I pulled into the parking lot of Paddy's Pub. To my surprise, all three of my boyhood chums were already there. Hard to believe, I thought, that the four of us were still close after all these years. We had all gone to kindergarten together, except Ozzie, whose family had moved to Merriwether, New Jersey, when we were in second grade.

Sam Robinson spotted me first, calling out, "Over here, Joe!" Sam is almost as tall as I am, and his medium-brown skin has nary a wrinkle that I can see. The other three of us are secretly awed by Sam's genius. A research scientist by nature, he is the first African-American professor at Jefferson County College, mainly teaching anthropology. We love to tease Sam about his passion for languages. He's fluent in quite a few foreign tongues, but what the others didn't know was that Sam started studying Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic so he could read the Bible in its original languages. He swore me to secrecy when he shared that information with me, saying he didn't feel comfortable sharing that with the others.

Marty chimed in, "Wow--five minutes early! Way to go, Joe!" Marty Boneski is a roly-poly five foot five, with a balding pate and twinkling green eyes behind his "Coke bottle" glasses. We often refer to him as the computer geek, not just because he works as a technical representative for a major computer company, but because he knows more about computers than anyone else we've ever known.

Dr. Oscar Martin, better known as Ozzie, is a slim five foot ten, with a sandy crew cut and hazel eyes that look as if they know a lot more than they reveal.

"Happy birthday, Joe!" Ozzie bellowed, giving me a high five. "Sure glad we could all get together and have some fun. Who knows where we'll be five or ten years from now."

I smiled, suddenly feeling very old. "Thanks, pal. It's great to be here with my three best buddies."

Mary McNamara, Paddy's vivacious young redheaded waitress, swiftly arrived at our table. All four of us knew the menu by heart. We meet at Paddy's quite often by unanimous choice. Nothing beats Paddy's famous stacked corned beef sandwich on rye served with potato chips and a dill pickle spear. Mary took our orders and headed back to the kitchen. In the meantime, Ozzie produced a wrapped gift from under the table and presented it to me.

"Aw gee, fellas, I'm surprised you remembered," I said, embarrassed as always whenever anyone makes a fuss over me. They all urged me to open it. Shredding the paper and ribbon, I opened the box to discover a bright red baseball cap with two bills. On one side was printed, "I'm the Leader," and on the other, "Follow Me."

Ozzie insisted that I put it on immediately. With a bill over each ear, I felt ridiculous, but I'd pulled my share of pranks on these guys in the past, so I decided to humor them.

Sam and Marty followed suit with their gifts. Sam had chosen a rectangular blue plastic badge that read "Panic Button." In the center was a little white button that, when pushed, sent up a flag from the top labeled "Quick--bring me a martini!"

After I installed the badge on my flamboyant Hawaiian sport shirt, I opened Marty's gift which turned out to be a toilet paper holder. "Well, now that's an interesting gift, Marty," I said. "I hope you don't expect me to wear it during lunch?"

Marty laughed. "No. It's just what it appears to be, but I managed to rig it up with one of my electronic gizmos to make it a bit more interesting. You'll see later when you install it at home. I think you'll get a big bang out of it."

"Gee, thanks, I can hardly wait. I hope it doesn't explode," I said, laughing nd rolling my eyes.

Before I could say anything else, Ozzie handed me a package. "Well, actually Joe, we have one more present for you. We all chipped in to get it because we thought you deserved something extra special since this is the big 5-0 and all."

"Don't rub it in," I said, reminding them soon they would be facing the same plight. We were all born within a few months of each other in the same year. It just so happened that my birthday came first.

"Remember, I can get even with you guys before the year's out," I warned them.

As my attention turned to the last present, my curiosity became more aroused. I tore off the wrappings and was stunned when I saw the gift - a digital camera! Top-of-the-line model, no less.

Momentarily speechless, I finally said, "Wow! This is really awesome and now that I've finally mastered that laptop, thanks to Marty, I've been kinda wishing I had a digital camera so I could send pictures of the kids to my folks down in Florida. Marty . . . ?"

Marty laughed, reading my mind. "Yeah, Joe, I know. I'll be happy to teach you how to work it."

I was deeply touched by their thoughtfulness and struggled to express my appreciation. Before I could say much, Mary arrived with the tray of food and the conversation came to an abrupt halt as we proceeded to dig into the mouthwatering sandwiches.

Sam proclaimed that he had an announcement: "Guys, you're never gonna believe this," he said in between bites, "but I've been awarded a research grant to do some studies on the Dead Sea scrolls. The grant will allow me to take a year's sabbatical starting this fall. I'm going to teach a few summer courses at the college, but after that--well, I can't wait. What an opportunity!"

Everyone congratulated him heartily, sharing in his excitement. If anyone deserved a break like this, it was Sam.

Just then, Paddy Hanrahan emerged from the kitchen, complete with his chef's hat and apron, carrying a huge three-tier cake, replete with red rosebuds, bluebirds, and five blazing candles on top. The burly Irishman, with his blue eyes, white hair and three hundred plus pound girth, had a way of overpowering the entire pub on the rare occasions he was able to leave the kitchen.

With his thick Irish brogue, he roared, "Silence everyone! Today is Joe's birthday, so I want ye all to join me in the singin'!" With his magnificent tenor voice, he belted out the first few notes of Happy Birthday. Everyone joined in. It felt like my ears were even beet red.

When the music stopped, Paddy said, "It's on the house, laddies. It's the least I can do since ye four crazy Irishmen don't drink. God knows why not; who ever heard of a non-drinkin' Irishman?"

Sam gave Paddy an incredulous look. "Irish? Me?"

Paddy went nose-to-nose with the tall black man. "Yes, even you, laddy! In Paddy's Pub, everyone is Irish. No matter what. It's the rule."

While we all cheered, Sam saluted, "Aye, aye, sir!"

After enjoying plenty of cake, along with ice cream provided by Mary, everyone but me needed to get back to work. As we prepared to leave, I pulled Ozzie aside and told him about the phone call from the school nurse.

"Sure, Joe," Ozzie said. "No problem at all. Bring Josh by after school and I'll squeeze him in between a couple other patients. And don't go getting all bent out of shape. It's probably nothing."

"Thanks, Ozzie. I really appreciate it," I said earnestly, gripping his hand.

I got home about one-thirty and displayed my gifts on the dresser to show Maggie when she got home. I decided to install the toilet paper holder in the bathroom off the master bedroom. I was going to try it out but was interrupted by the ringing of the phone--just another telemarketer trying to get me to sign up for another credit card.

"Just what I need," I grumbled, another credit card. I told the caller "Thanks, but no thanks," and hung up.

After making myself a glass of iced tea, I went to check the mail. I was pleased to see it was there already--some days it doesn't arrive until late afternoon.

Sitting down at the kitchen table, I took a sip of the iced tea and started sorting through the mail. Mostly junk, a couple of bills, some birthday cards and . . . hmmm, this must be one of Maggie's catalogues, I thought pulling out an unusually large thick brown envelope. The return address indicated it was from Berkeley Publishing House and was addressed to me. Oh no! . . . not a rejection letter on my birthday, I murmured as I tore the envelope open.

Inside was a copy of the manuscript for "Squad Call" that I'd submitted to them a few months ago along with a letter and some other papers. After quickly scanning the letter, my jaw dropped. They liked it! They wanted to publish my book! They had marked some editorial changes on the manuscript and there was also a contract enclosed. This was turning out to be a most extraordinary day.

I shuddered as I thought of the woman in the mirror this morning. Did that really happen? Just my imagination, I thought nervously as I glanced around the room, almost expecting to see her again. I could see I was definitely alone.

I decided I'd better pull myself together as it would soon be time to pick up Josh at school. I said a quick prayer that the blood pressure situation wasn't anything serious.








Continue to Chapter 3


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