So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
Beholding your power and glory.”
“We are here today to celebrate the return of our friend and neighbor Joseph Kelty to his immortal father.”
A few people wept in the first rows. The priest went through his blessings and prayers, and when it was time to remember the deceased, he called Kelty “a little rough around the edges, except where it counted—in his heart and in his deeds.” He called him a “salt of the earth, good-hearted man, who came into this life without much and would have left the very same way were it not for the bountiful blessings of his family he had built up.”
A co-worker stepped up to the altar, a round-shouldered black man with a graying beard who introduced himself as “Carl. From the tunnels,” who said, “Joe Kelty was as solid and dependable a man as any who ever worked the lines.” He said he would pick up any shift when someone called in with a problem, rain or shine. “Except for his grandson Chris’s birthday. We all knew that day, June seventh.”
Several people in the pews laughed.
“And when he worked his way up to supervisor, even becoming our union rep, Joe didn’t lead by bossing people around. He had a quiet way of leading by example. He’d as soon grab a pick as quickly as any of us ‘tunnel rats’ down there. Show you how it was supposed to be done.”
Carl said they had a kind of ritual in the tunnels that when someone who had spent his life working the lines died, someone they wanted to honor, they named a section of track after him. And that “a quarter mile of the Staten Island Railway between New Dorp and Midland Beach would from this point on be known as Joe Kelty Way.”
People clapped.
“’Course, only those people who work in the tunnels will ever know that.” Carl laughed. “But to Joe, those were his family. After his beloved Paula, Patrick, Annette, and his grandkids. We’ll miss you, man.”
Carl sat down, and the man I’d noticed coming down the aisle stood up and went to the altar.
“I’m Patrick,” he said—a pleasant voice, short dark hair, nice build—“in case you didn’t know. And my dad was one of the quietest, most stubborn, good-hearted, but exasperating men I’ve ever known.” Several people in the pews murmured their agreement. “It was hard to get a good word out of him. ’Course, it was hard to get any word out of him at times,” he said, which drew more laughs. “That was just the way he was. Old school. He’d rather break an arm than break his word. If he told you he’d be there, he’d drive through a snowstorm for you, as he did many times when it came to his beloved MTA, to which he devoted his life. My father always said he didn’t have much, and he was right. But he always gave whatever he had. When I was young, he used to drive me out to the island for CYO hockey … even up to Boston, and we’d ride up together in his Ford—he always bought American!—and we’d barely exchange a word on the trip. Maybe around New Haven he’d turn to me and say, ‘Y’know, you shouldn’ta passed on that shot! Next time take it.’ I thought we were going to have this conversation, and then he wouldn’t say anything again for the rest of the trip.”
A few in the crowd chuckled.
“When Mom got sick …” He hesitated and cleared his throat. “… When my mom got sick, he took early retirement and he went with her, two times a week, every week, to the clinic. It ate up a lot of his pension, certain medications, getting her home care. Anything she needed. He didn’t flinch. And then it was his turn …
“I think everyone here knows, after the storm, even in his condition, there wasn’t a person who worked harder for his neighbors. For Mrs. O’Byrne …” He looked around for the person he was referring to. “Right, Mrs. O’B? I know she’s here somewhere. Her house was devastated and he practically cleared it by himself, brick by brick. When he went to my graduation from the academy, I know that his was the proudest face in the crowd. And he still didn’t say much!” That brought more laughter. I even found myself joining in. “But what he did say, what always stuck with me, was ‘You’re a cop now, Patrick. Be a good one.’ It was exactly who he was. Right?
“And if any of you want to honor his name, you can make a contribution to the Hurricane Sandy Relief Fund. Or better, come out and volunteer and join the rest of us down on Baden Avenue. We’re all pitching in to get these homes back in order. He’d love that. He really would.
“So bless you, Pop. You and Mom both. Whatever you were doing up there when you went off that road, I know it was for someone’s good. But I’m sure Mom is probably yelling at you now, ‘Why the hell did you even have to go up there …?’” He glanced apologetically at the priest. “Sorry, Father Steve …” More chuckles.
“Well, you can work that out with her for eternity, Pop. Down here, bless you for who you were. We’ll miss you.”
He sat back down and the mass finished up. At the final hymn they wheeled Kelty’s simple casket back up the aisle, the family following behind.
His son glanced appreciatively from side to side as he went past, recognizing most, shaking a hand here and there, thanking them for being there. He stopped for a second to give a hug to someone in the row in front of me.
As he passed by, he even gave an appreciative nod to me.
As I ride back home, conflict rattled my thoughts. On one hand, I felt guilty, hearing what a down-to-earth, honest guy Joe Kelty was. A guy who would rather break an arm than his word.
And I’d taken his money.
On the other hand, I didn’t hear a thing about anything missing from the crash site. About Kelty having lost his nest egg or his retirement funds. No appeal to the person who had taken it to turn it back in. Patrick said his father had spent the large part of his pension on his wife, who had cancer.
So where did this money come from?
No one seemed to have any idea what he was doing up there all that way from home. With half a million dollars in cash.
A salt-of-the-earth guy, I thought, as I crossed the Verrazano-Narrows heading back to Westchester.
Still, one thing I knew:
Joseph Kelty may have been the Rock of Gibraltar to his family or in the New York City subway tunnels.
But aboveground, he was definitely hiding something.
Twice a week, I take a kickboxing class at a gym in White Plains in the afternoons. That Friday I wasn’t exactly eager to go.
Finally I just decided that the best thing I could do for myself was to let off some steam. And there was nothing that did that better than delivering a spinning roundhouse side-kick combination into an eighty-pound bag.
I’d always kept myself fit. I grew up playing soccer and running cross-country in high school. In my twenties, I moved on to spinning and hot yoga. I took a little break when Brandon came along. But nothing I’d tried made me feel as strong or as empowered, or let out the stress when I needed it to, or built up the sweat like an hour of spinning, grunting, gut-crunching sidekicks—kicks
