Sneaking out of the house on Jocelyn Street was easy; sneaking back in required strength and agility. Joe, Kevin, and Brian agree that getting out the third floor window and dropping down to the porch roof wasn’t too difficult. The house was built in 1910, and the wooden gutters were built into the roof itself. So, they were sturdy and could easily hold a teenage boy.
Throughout their adolescence, each of my brothers would, on occasion, drop from the third floor to the porch roof in the front of the house, near Mom and Dad’s room. Then they would hang from the porch roof on the side of the house and grab the pillar with their legs, shimmying down to the railing. Our parents never noticed they were gone — as far as I know.
My brothers’ memories are fairly vague on what their excursions entailed. Kevin points out that the statute of limitations on these activities has long since expired. But they all say that the trip back up the side of the house was tough.
Getting back in required standing on the porch railing, shimmying up the pillar and grabbing the gutter in order to lift yourself the rest of the way up. Once on the roof, Joe would knock on the window of the room that Kevin, Brian and I shared as small children.
One night Brian woke up to find a dark figure climbing through the window and over my bed. He tried to scream but nothing came out of his mouth. I never woke up. The next day, he found out it was Joe. When it was Brian’s turn to get back in, he knocked on that same window.
Since my mother couldn’t sleep without a window open, no matter the season, Kevin chose my parents’ room to enter the house. He would lift the screen and try to sneak through the room. This was often unsuccessful — invariably Mom would wake up and give him what for, ending with I’ll deal with you tomorrow.
Decades later, it was those nocturnal peregrinations that caused Mom to respond to a man standing over her bed in the middle of the night by saying, “What the hell are you doing here?” But it was not one her seven children, as she had assumed.
I’m just here for money, I’m not going to hurt you, he said. She got out of bed and threw on her robe, taking the stranger back down the stairs to the kitchen. Why did you turn out all the lights? he said. It’s a waste of money, she replied. Your garage is empty. I thought nobody was home, he said. Dennis had borrowed the car and left the garage door open.
When they got to the kitchen, she took a twenty dollar bill she had gotten out of the Riggs Bank ATM earlier that day and handed it to him. The kitchen door to the back porch was split where the robber had popped it open with a shovel that he took from the garage. As he left, he said, Wait twenty minutes before you call the police. And get that door fixed. She picked up the phone as soon as she saw him disappear into the backyard.
When the policemen had taken her report, one of them asked if she had any sons in the area. She said, Three. He said, Why don’t you call one of them to come stay with you until you can get the door fixed? She refused. It’s two o’clock in the morning. I’m not going to wake them up. I’m fine. After some back and forth, he said, Listen, either you call one of your sons or I’m going to have to stay here with you. It’s your choice. Brian came over and spent what was left of the night.
All my brothers had some familiarity with the 8th precinct house of the District of Columbia Police Department. A couple of those nice officers even made a house call when Joe and his friends Larry and Dick dreamed up a contest to see who could shoot the most alley lights out with their BB guns.
There was a gnarly, old crabapple tree in the churchyard of Wesley Methodist Church on Connecticut Avenue. Joe and his buddies spent many happy hours lobbing those rotten little fruit up into the sky so they would land with a wallop on the roofs of passing cars. And snowballs were great for throwing at the cars on Reno Road right where it curved to the east at Jenifer Street.
It isn’t completely counterintuitive, then, that Joe and Kevin would become lawyers like my father. Let’s just say that they were familiar with the law from a young age. And like my Dad, they were probably motivated more by financial pressure than the service of justice. But as their lives unfolded, they both served justice and provided for their families.
Joe went to Loyola Law School in New Orleans. He had three small children and a wife who worked as hard as he did to make that possible. But Mardi Gras comes around every year in New Orleans, whether you are a hard-working student of the law with a full-time job or not. And that first year was no exception.
It was 1972 and the height of the anti-war demonstrations. The demonstrators had come to New Orleans to get some added coverage for their cause. Joe and Lane were with some friends headed into the city on Causeway Boulevard. The NOPD had a group of protesters with their hands on a cruiser and their legs splayed. Joe rolled down his window as they passed and yelled, Oink, oink.
A cop jumped into the second cruiser at the scene and made a quick u-turn. Joe’s friend pulled his car over and rolled down his window. The policeman came up beside the car and asked, Who said, Oink, oink? Me, Joe replied. It was’t long before Joe had been charged and released. The lawyer he consulted said, Relax. This will probably be no papered. Let me know if you hear anything more from the court.
Joe never heard from the court. He went on to be law review and have a successful career in Louisiana. By the way, what is now known to the family as the oink, oink charge was, in fact, “Incitement to Riot.” That may be the one thing Joe shares with Donald Trump.
Kevin is still practicing law, representing clients from all over the world in immigration cases. Speaking several languages has been useful. There always seems to be a language he has in common with a client, whether it’s Chinese, Russian, or Spanish. He’s even started to learn a little Irish, buíochas le Dia. Thankfully, none of my brothers have been in a courtroom other than for work.
The night after the man broke into our house with a shovel, Brian’s friend Frank stopped by. He walked into the kitchen and put a sawed-off shotgun on the table. Brian thought it would be a good idea to have this in the house. Brian, Frank and Mom sat and talked for a while. Mom said she felt bad for the fellow, who didn’t even have enough money to buy a flashlight. He used matches to light his way through the darkened house. Well, it’s time for me to go to bed, Mom said, and she got up to leave. As she left the room, she turned back to them, pointed at the shotgun and said, Don’t play with that thing.
Life of Reillys 