Mrs. Bernadette O'Rourke shivered at the very thought. Even in the north of Ireland-she was from the south-they didn't have it so terrible.
There was a crowd in front of the school when she pulled up.
"Who are all those people, Mommy?" asked Kevin with those innocent blue eyes.
"Other mommies bringing their wee children," said Mrs. O'Rourke, but when she got Kevin out of the car she noticed an unusual number of very old ladies present. They were well past childbearing age. They looked too old to be teachers, to be sure. Perhaps they were grandmothers, she thought. The Lord alone knew how many mothers had to work these days.
Mrs. O'Rourke took little Kevin by his moist hand and led him up the walk to the school door entrance where the old ladies seemed to be concentrated. They carried old cigar boxes hung with what looked like colored balloons without air in them.
Little Kevin thought so too.
"Bawoons," he cried, pointing.
An old woman in a purple hat stepped up and smiled with teeth yellowed from too much tea and not enough brushing and asked, "Would you like one, sonny?"
"Yes!"
And the woman handed little Kevin O'Rourke a blue foil packet that said "genuine latex" on it.
Only then did Mrs. O'Rourke recognize the limp multicolored things hanging off the old lady's cigar box for what they were.
"Good God, madam! Are ye daft? Do ye not realize what it is ye be handing out to the boy?"
"It's for his own good," replied the woman in a snippy voice. "Here, peewee, let me help you with that," she told the boy.
And before Mrs. O'Rourke's horrified eyes, the old woman dug apart the foil packet and unrolled a lubricated latex condom that was a watermelon red.
"Madam!" Mrs. O'Rourke said huffily, snatching the thing before Kevin could touch it. "What is the matter with ye now?"
"I want my bawoon," said little Kevin, the tears already starting in his young eyes.
"It's not a balloon," his mother and the old woman said in the same breath. Only Mrs. O'Rourke's tone was angry. The old woman's was exasperated.
The old woman fingered one of the garish things as if it were rosary beads. "It's a condom, young man. Can you say con-dom?"
"Madam!"
"It's not to play with," the old woman went on primly. "It's for little boys to know about so when they become naughty men they don't cause diseases in nice young ladies."
"I won't be naughty," Kevin promised. "Can I have my bawoon now?"
"Madam, will you stop?" said Mrs. O'Rourke, clapping her hands over Kevin's ears. "The boy is too young to be knowin' of such things. Let him be, would you please?"
The old woman practically spat her vehemence into Mrs. O'Rourke's reddening face. "He is not too young! If we get them before they know anything, when they grow up they'll only know what we want them to know."
"What nonsense are ye talking now?" Mrs. O'Rourke's Irish temper was rising now.
"It is education. The board of education approved it four to three, and the three slackers were later reprimanded by the superintendent."
"Come on, Kevin," said Mrs. O'Rourke, not believing her ears. She pulled the boy along, trying to stifle her anger.
But another old woman blocked the door and said, "He doesn't have his little rubber safety cap. The young boys are not allowed in until they learn how to unroll their little caps and put them on."
"Put them on what?" Kevin asked, not understanding.
At that point the first old woman bustled up, and before Mrs. O'Rourke could block her son's innocent ears with her strong, protective hands, the old woman told little Kevin O'Rourke exactly where he should put his watermelon red condom.
Mrs. O'Rourke decked her with a roundhouse right that started at her right hip and didn't stop until the old woman was an awkward pile of bones on the school walk, her uppers and lowers bouncing in the grass.
The police were called. Mrs. O'Rourke tried to explain how the old women had provoked her with their foul terrible language-and in front of a mere boy at that-and the next thing she knew they were binding her trembling-with-rage hands behind her back with flexicuffs and she was in the back of what used to be called a paddy wagon in the days the Irish were treated like common dirt in the streets of America, and a matron was explaining to her that her little Kevin, the only good and fine thing that had come out of her brief marriage to darlin' Patrick, would be going to a foster home and the chances of getting him back were not very good at all.
Up until that day, Race Branchwood was just another unhappy three-hundred-thirty-pound disk jockey playing middle of the road music and reading the news-ninety uninterrupted seconds of news as the station's promos boasted-every half hour.
It was no glamour job. Oh, some thought differently. But not Race Branchwood. He had gotten his communications degree from Emerson College and thought he was destined for greater heights than playing mush for mushheads.
As it would turn out, Race Branchwood was absolutely right.
But on this early September day in the year 1991, Race Branchwood was Thrush Limburger, a name which he hated but which was a condition of employment at Radio Station WAKO in the Twin Cities, when he chanted into the microphone for the one-thousand-five-hundred-and-seventy-seventh time, "And now, ten uninterrupted minutes of seventies music, count them, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one uninterrupted minutes from the station that still plays with your bippy. This is Thrush Limburger, and I'll be right back."
He switched off the mike and left the sound booth, muttering under his breath as he hurried to the hall coffee machine.
"Thrush Limburger, my left testicle."
"What was that, Branchwood?" came the surly voice of the station manager.
"I said I got heartburn in my left ventricle."
"Burp. And while you're at it, try to lose a few hundred pounds. The next Arbitron book is only two months away and we're trying to project a lean-and-mean image. How can you show your face at public appearances looking like the the Pillsbury Doughboy?"
"What do you think people expect from a guy named Limburger?" Race Branchwood snapped back.
"The Limburger was to cover our bets. I want you looking like a Thrush, not just sounding like one."
"I could do better work under my own name. Race."
"Everybody knows that Race is short for Horace. You look like a Horace too."
"I am a Horace, you dink. It's my name, for crying out loud."
"We've had this idiot conversation before. I'm going to be next door having my hair done."
"Must be louse season again," muttered Race Branchwood, continuing on to the coffee machine, walking on tippy toes like so many three-hundred-pounders do. He coaxed the machine to fill the cup all the way this time just by punching the C in Coffee and added two sugars-real and not that pink stuff he hated-and a dollop of real cream and was back in time to pick off the latest news script that the WAKO news writer had laid beside his mike.
Race Branchwood took a quick sip of the coffee before picking up the script and switched on his mike.
He didn't know it, but the switching on of the microphone marked the end of his disk jockey career. It was also the end of Race Branchwood. He would never be Race Branchwood again. That was the only downside, the only regret he was to feel for the rest of his natural life.