John T. Moriarty
Historical
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One Square Mile of Mayhem
John T. Moriarty's One
Square Mile of Mayhem is the first work of fiction in a series of four books
about the adventures of Tim Mahony, a teenage Irish boy facing the dilemma of
growing up in the racially torn neighborhoods of Glenville and Collinwood in a
Catholic parish in Cleveland, Ohio. The book is 97% based on true events
that took place in the 1950s.
Tim Mahony's parents
migrated from County Kerry, Ireland to Glenville, Ohio, a suburb on the east
side of Cleveland, where they bought a delicatessen and worked hard to make a
new life for themselves. Their little shop became a hangout for an
undisciplined gang of white teenagers who were then fighting three other gangs:
African Americans from Glenville, other Caucasians from East Cleveland, and
Italian Americans from Murray Hill. Chaos and mayhem ruled the daily lives
of these young teenagers in the decade before the age of civil rights. The
violent sociological and racial metamorphosis come to a head when a gang member
is murdered at the Annual Parish Bazaar, the one event designed to bring the
warring factions together. Can racial harmony be restored
despite the tragic death?
$5.00 Electronic Edition
$13.95 Trade
Paperback Edition
Excerpt
The
hallway was desolate and poorly lit. He felt his way around until he came
to the stairway leading to the men’s room in the misty dark basement.
His hand flaked off old chips of red paint along the wall, as he descended the
stone, steel‑tipped, steps. Shadowy forms ahead projected on the
cold, hard surface to his left sent an eerie chill throughout his body. He
approached the rest room door slightly ajar at the end of the bottom landing.
The padded door creaked as he gently shoved it open. A small sixty-watt
bulb barely illuminated only the center of the large room. The perimeter
was blackness.
“Pete,
you in there?” he asked just above a whisper.
Slowly he walked, moving toward the urinals on his left.
He noticed to his right, six of the eight commode doors were shut tight,
which he thought quite unusual. Standing
at one of the creamy‑white glass urinals, he reached for the zipper of his
trousers. He stopped.
Something was strange and it gnawed at him.
He thought he heard the shuffling of feet.
He glanced over his left shoulder.
Busting
through the stall doors, ten black gang members cursed loudly, surrounding him
as he spun around confronting them. He
sidestepped gingerly, attempting to position himself between the menacing
assemblage and the doorway. Their
dark skin and clothing blended in with the dusky background.
He heard, click! Click! Click! in rapid succession.
He well knew that sound.
The
light of the bulb gleamed off the metal of the blade of one of the members, as
he held it at eye level. The
seemingly impossible dilemma of the situation prompted him to think about making
a run for it. That would be
suicide. I’m in a hell of a
jackpot,” he thought. Silently,
to himself, he began saying the Act of Contrition, “O my God I’m heartily
sorry for having offended you. I
detest all my sins…”
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Page was last edited on
11/11/10 04:41:45 PM
John T. Moriarty
June 1, 2001 - June 1, 2003
