By Frank Diamond

AUTHOR’S NOTE: My short story, “Bricklayer,” was published earlier this month (December 10, 2025) in County Lines: A Literary Journal. The issue features writers from all over the world. You can purchase the journal anywhere if you just give them the ISBN: 9798268850482 or purchase it online at Bookshop.org which shares revenue with an independent bookstore near you: https://bookshop.org/a/16701/9798268850482.

“Bricklayer” begins on page 77. It is also pasted in below in this WordPress file.

Like every Friday, I breeze through the lab as a shortcut to get to the parking garage. That’s all I did. I mean we’re talking about a minute of exposure, at most. And exposure to what? The floor had just been mopped with some bleach-heavy solution and everything else sanitized with alcohol. No way there’s a harmful level of CONELAMIDE (pronounced con-el-a-mide) in that space. 

But Mergetranz wants to cover its corporate ass even against a one-in-a-million chance of contamination by the latest iteration of our drug; a version we ditched because it doesn’t do anything to anyone. Or for anyone. It’s basically a placebo, a dud.

And I get the text today of all days. I’m stretching, minutes before the beginning of the Broad Street 10K Run that I’m doing with Grandpa Seán O’Brian. That would be Seán O’Brian numero uno. I’m Seán O’Brian III.

The text from Mergetranz says, “Seán, HR wants anybody who’d been in the lab Friday to come in ASAP for a CDR precaution.”

CDR: contamination detection and remediation. The pharmacovigilance team must be in. I asked if I could come in early tomorrow, Monday, instead. I had told people my weekend plans, damn it.

There’d been a slight delay in response. God forbid somebody makes a decision at Mergetranz without running it by legal first.

About two minutes later, comes the answer: “Could you stop by after the race?”

I respond, “Will do.”

I let Dad, aka Seán O’Brian II, know that I might be late for the family luncheon we’d plan to have at McGillin’s Olde Ale House after. We’re a clan, we O’Briens. 

A photo of the Seán O’Brians — Grandpa, Dad, and me — standing side-by-side-by-side at somebody’s wedding captures an uncanny resemblance of what could be the same person at different stages of his life.

Now, I am running beside Grandpa O’Brien. Well, running’s the wrong word. Shuffling? Hobbling? Lumbering? We’re moving toward the finish line, and that’s what counts.

The weather on this April Sunday in Philadelphia ensures that the field of contestants would be bigger than usual (certainly bigger than the turnout for that drippy drizzle of a day last year).

When we started the temp was about 60 degrees. A high blue sky domes the city, cloudless and starring a sun that promises to behave. It will get warmer but there shouldn’t be much to do for the EMT squads that line the route. 

I glance again at Grandpa O’Brien. He’s always joked (at least we thought it was a joke but turns out he meant it) that he wanted to die at 100 while running his first race and drinking his last beer, but instead decided to do it this year. He’s just a kid: 96. Normally, I’d be packed in with the second wave of this scrum of some 40,000 contestants (I’m 34 and in good shape) but that’s not the point, is it? 

Grandpa O’Brien’s breathing? Steady. Pace? Much better than anybody else his age could do, and even many out-of-shape slugs half his age (48!).

I know better than to ask again, “How’re you holding up, Grandpa?”

I said that about 30 yards in and repeated it at the mile mark and Grandpa O’Brien responded (while gazing at the backs of those in front of us), “The same as when you asked five minutes ago, Seány-boy.”

“You’re doing good,” I encourage.

“I’m doing well and stop babysitting me.”

“I’m not, Grandpa.”

“Then why are you here?” 

He hasn’t gone existential on me. He means: Why am I purposely going slow? 

“We’re bonding, Grandpa.”

“Bonding, is it? Thought we bonded when I changed your diapers.”

“Whoa there! Statute of limitations!”

He brushes his knuckles against my shoulder, signaling endearment.

In the crowd, cameras flash capturing Grandpa O’Brien’s gesture. Professional photographers freeze certain moments of our run for their newspapers or social media sites or wherever else pictures land these days. We’ll probably hit YouTube as well, who knows?

A 96-year-old competitor piques human interest. Somewhere in this run two other 90-somethings compete, or so I heard. I suppose those geezers (or geezerettes?) are getting attention as well.

Grandpa O’Brien asks, “Was that” … gasp … “work texting” … gasp … “you before? … gasp.” 

“Unfortunately.”

“Well boo” … gasp … “hoo. You’ll make more” … gasp … “in five years” … gasp… “then I did” … gasp … “my entire” … gasp … “working life, lad.”

He’d been a bricklayer, and when they lowered Grandma O’Brien’s casket into the frozen ground last December, tears dropped off the wedges of Grandpa O’Brien’s banged up face and he’d looked at his huge hands as if those slabs had betrayed him. 

Death tore her out of his grasp. On the gravestone, her name: Margaret “Peggy” O’Brien née McDermott, and then birth and death dates. Underneath: his name, birth date hyphen space. Death date: TBD. 

Grandpa O’Brien’s right, too, about my income. 

I’m Mergetranz’s lead project manager. People say “merga-what?” because it’s a biotech startup that nobody’s ever heard of. Yet. No matter. We have one client but it’s a big one: the U.S. Government. Specifically, the Department of Homeland Security.

I oversee pharma scientists, molecular biologists, physicists, computer experts, and other brilliant characters working on SETACC, or Selective Enhancement of Targeted Aspects of Collective Consciousness.

The company’s super vigilant about preventing lab leaks. Hence the text. HR didn’t make me ditch the race and report immediately because we’d decided two weeks ago to tear up the development gameplan for CONELAMIDE and start over. This version failed, but we’re not quitting. We’re keeping the name, too. Eventually we’ll make a CONELAMIDE that works.

“Almost halfway, Grandpa.”

He nods. I wait for more, but more doesn’t come and not just because he’s conserving his breath. These days, the gladhanding political animal who’d climbed up the ranks of union leadership surfaces only occasionally since Grandma O’Brien. 

A cousin at the wake made the mistake of viewing Grandma O’Brien’s death with philosophical detachment, saying that, after all, she’d “passed after a good long life”; she died at 93. That longevity requires celebrating, not mourning. 

My cousin assumed that Grandpa O’Brien, a few yards away and whispering intently to somebody, wouldn’t hear. 

Mistake.

Grandpa O’Brien spun about, stepped toward us.

“Life is precious, boyo,” he told my cousin (who is in his late 40s). “Don’t matter if you’re 2 or 102. I want her to stay with me.” 

The cousin murmured agreement and retreated to a pew to sit among other attendees. Some who’d witnessed the takedown gained appreciation of just why we should mourn now and save the life celebration jazz for future family gatherings. 

In Grandpa Seán O’Brien’s exit fantasy, Grandma Peggy O’Brien would be waiting at the finish line in a folding chair, and he’d die in her arms. 

“Peggy’s gone, now,” he said, meeting reality with a shrug. “We all go.” 

But do we? Really? Do we? Entirely?

Those questions dog SETACC. It wants to utilize evolution; tap into what the human race experienced over some 300,000 years. We need to be able to weaponize the collective consciousness. Granularly. Not just some broad universal that people think of when they hear that term. But the knowledge and memories and experiences that every individual human being has ever known since we and the apes went separate ways. Or, as some prefer, since after the fall.

For instance, “Og” lived to the ripe old age of 35. Was his life celebrated? If so, how? Was he mourned? If so, how? Was he buried, burned, or left to rot?

SETACC wants access to everything that Og knew and felt and feared in his cave some 250,000 years ago right up to the moment the big cat ate him, or an abscessed tooth done him in, or some microscopic organism nailed him. We want Og’s essence. Og’s entirety. Og’s soul. Not in a religious sense, but the part of him — that energy — which lived on somewhere, somehow after Og’s death. 

DHS believes that’s the way to counter and contain synthetic consciousness, the level of knowledge that AI reaches for. 

People stopped obsessing about how computers and cellphones can not only trace and trade information about your activities, but also suggest other shows or books or products you might be interested in. People accept it now.

SETACC will be able to know what brand of illegal beer some John Doe quaffed during the Great Depression, what grog that Benjamin Franklin preferred, not to mention the details of Franklin’s sexual escapades. Or the details of the escapades of Franklin’s paramours, for that matter. Who got away with crimes? Who did good and noble acts that nobody in their lives knew about? No secrets.

And speaking about beer….

I say, “Dad will have a cold one waiting for you when we cross the finish line, Grandpa.”

If we ever cross the finish line.

Dad — a vigorous 63 — wanted to run and had been training with Grandpa for a good two months, but then broke his ankle. Dad’s on leave from his job as a pilot for one of those mega online companies that rule the world. 

Usually, on a Sunday morning when he’s not flying, Dad would be serving as a lector at Mass, after which Mom and him go to Riverfront Diner for breakfast. (It’s nowhere near a river.)

And usually, on a Sunday morning, Grandpa O’Brien would be driving the “old people” to church in his van: People in their 80s and 70s, as well as a scattering of 60-somethings who’ve had rough paper routes; individuals decades younger than him. The old people. He says it without irony.

We’re a religious family (but not holy rollers; Exhibit A: the aforementioned beer consumption) and it’s a good thing that I can’t discuss my work with my relatives because they’d take a big psychological step back. They’d view SETACC’s attempt to tap into the collective consciousness as stepping on God’s toes.

The drug we’ll eventually develop (and we will eventually develop one) would drill down and across consciousness, acting the way wormholes in space theoretically do; transporting someone instantly to the edge of the universe, or to somewhere specific in the universe to find answers. It doesn’t involve trying to swallow the entire universe whole. 

So too, CONELAMIDE wouldn’t connect someone to the entirety of collective consciousness; lab animals’ brains have hemorrhage in those attempts. Ick.Talking about cadged roadkill here. 

No, CONELAMIDE would drill down to a part of human knowledge needed to address a particular problem today. To find insight buried in antiquity. To be able to browse the scrolls destroyed in the fire at the Great Library of Alexandria. Aristotle wrote over 200 treatises, of which only 31 survived. This drug will unearth the lost ones.

CONELAMIDE will counter AI’s aggression, if AI turns aggressive. In the beginning, it would be sold to the military for defense purposes. Eventually, though, we’ll market a version for consumers.

Genealogical trees would look like shrubs next to what our drug will unearth. CONELAMIDE would allow people to essentially chat with distant relatives; and I’m talking very distant relatives, ancestors from prior centuries. How many people know the first names of their great-great grandparents? Exactly.

When Grandpa O’Brien dies, I’ll still be able to mine his thoughts and feelings and sensations. 

“OK, Grandpa?”

For the first time since the run started, he turns and looks at me.

“Are you?” he gasps.

No, suddenly I’m not feeling so good. Just like that. My legs ache, spasms strafe my back with each step, and those steps require the sort of effort needed to scale a vertical wall at a climbing gym. My breathing becomes more labored than Grandpa’s. 

Those physical symptoms accompany mental ones, as well. My brain whirligigs on me. I feel simultaneously dethatched and connected to life. All of life. Colors, sounds, tastes I’d never experienced before overun my senses. It’s like what I read about LSD trips. 

I don’t stop. I don’t slow. I don’t let on. This could be anything, and anythings can be waited out. A song worms its way into my head, Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero,” and I’m not even a big fan of…

———————————————————-

…Nat King Cole’s. But I hear his “Too Young.” Big hit. 1951. How in holy hell do I remember that? I was … what? 23? 23! Cheese and crackers! To be 23 again!

Was that when I met Jack Kerouac? Yes, 1951. At Caffe Reggio on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. Years before moving to Philly. I’d been on a job, re-cobblestoning a chunk of Jane Street. Me and a buddy drop in for brews after getting out of work early because a rainstorm stomps on us. 

We see it coming, quickly roll tarp over the bricks and place traffic cones about to hold it down, and then scatter at about 2 in the afternoon when the clouds open, running through the streets, at first holding the sports pages on top of our heads, but then litter-bugging them because they mat up and anyway it’s summer and the shower cools us. 

I don’t even remember that guy’s name. We just happened to be working the same job. Anyway, he doesn’t stay at Caffe Reggio long, maybe leaving after two beers because he’s married, and misses the wife. He gets an umbrella from the bartender that some drunk had forgotten and bolts. 

I elect to wait out the downpour, light up a Camels and watch through the window as the storm grays the scene.

People run for it. A car or two crawl by, windshield wipers not making a damn bit of difference. A fella offers a pretty girl shelter under his umbrella, and she scoots right beside him so I’m guessing they know each other somehow. They hurry on, a couple in the making.

Down the other end of the bar sit a few guys talking and arguing about writers and artists; you hear a lot of that blather in the Village. They smoke non-stop, lighting the new with the stub of the old. Makes me think of that scene in the Wizard of Oz, which I snuck in to see when I was 11. The part with the smoke machine emitting different colors of fumes. Ah, 11 in 1939. With not a clue about what goes on in Europe, or how it will scramble life.

I get sad sitting in Caffe Reggio and watching the rain. I think about the people who’ve lived and died and all the moments in all those lives snuffed out forever. Each soul a raindrop going splat, spalt, spaltaly-splat. I start thinking about World War II but then stop myself, steering thoughts to my Dodgers who’re in a dogfight with the Giants for the pennant. 

Two of the artsys leave, but one stays. He’s got brown hair. Though he sits, I can take his measure. He’s built like me, strong shoulders and arms. He could lay bricks. He’s 5’ 8” I’m thinking (correct), and about 180 pounds (never found out). An athlete or former athlete. 

“You do good work,” he calls over.

This does not surprise me. People at lunch often stop for a second or two on the sidewalk and watch me. I pretend they’re not there. 

“Pays the bills,” I say.

“You’re not like the other bricklayers,” he says.

“That so?”

“You’re an artist.”

I quaff my beer. Place the bottle on the bar with care.

“Craftsman,” I say. “Union.”

“I’m Jack, by the way.”

The bartender interrupts. 

“Another Kerouac?”

“On the house?” he asks.

Before the bartender can tell him to scram, I say, “Kerouac?”

“You know me?”

I say, “The Town and the City.”

His first novel published about seven years before On the Road makes him immortal. It got so-so reviews. I read it because I read everything.

I live home, helping Mom and the sibs. Dad’s dead. A hardscrabble life. One radio and one bathroom for all of us. I read all the time because nobody ever bothered to teach my father how to read and you can get books at the library for free.

“On me,” I tell the bartender.

“So, you’re one of my five readers,” Kerouac says. He gets up walks over and we shake. He sits one stool over.

That’s how we meet. We start off like a lot of guys in those days by sort of circling around what we’d done in the war. Jack Kerouac: Merchant Marines. Seán O’Brien: Army Corps of Engineers, where I’d learned bricklaying.

Fade to black.

When I die — which will be soon; I mean, come on, I’m 96 and Peggy’s gone — my children and grandkids will go through our things, but they’ll never find out about this part of my life. Me being driven by the Demon Vanity. Me trying to be an artist.

It’s Kerouac who eventually convinces me to go for it. I’m not the type guy people ever flatter, so I got no immunity to Jack’s rap. He affects me. He infects me.

I work my day job, and at night I experiment, fiddling with geometric patterns, trying to show my innards with brick the way Jackson Pollock does with paint. Building what I feel. (Trying to forget Dad telling me, “Nobody gives a shit how you feel.”) 

Kerouac says, “Your work’s like frozen jazz.”

He finds me space in the city where I can produce my “art.” It had been a horse stall. And produce I do. Slowly. Some stuff good, and a lot godawful. Eventually, Jack decides it’s time for me to exhibit. 

This comes after On the Road. He puts up the money for my one and only showing. That opened April 3, 1957, about two years before I met and married Peggy.

The show bombs. 

The critic in the Village View wrote that “we should respect the hardworking bricklayers whose honest labor fortifies the bones of our city. But they are craftsmen. They are not artists, and the show by Mr. O’Brien only underscores a divide that can’t be crossed in most occupations.” 

Kerouac says, “Screw him. He’s just one guy.” But there were several other reviews, so scathing that I felt as if someone plopped me in boiling water.

“Ignore ’em,” Kerouac says. 

I wish that I can steal some of his bullheadedness, or that Jack can give it to me, which Jack would do, if such a thing could be done. But I can’t and decide that’s it. I’m finished with the artist crap.

I am a craftsman, and what the hell’s wrong with that?

I sort of told Peggy about this damn silly detour in my life the way guys back then told their wives about their war slog. Just that it happened. Best to forget the details. I never swore her to secrecy and yet I knew that she knew that I wanted this to be buried with me.

Fade to present.

Jog. Jog. Jog. Jog. Will this ever end?

“Almost there,” my grandson says. He sounds and looks much better.

I scan the crowd at the finish line. I see my son, Sean the Second. They let him onto the street itself; him and some others of my family. The newspaper cameras flash, and the TV reporters hold their mics, ready to pounce. Everywhere people aim their cells at me. I’m punchy, I guess, because I keep looking for Peggy and think I spot her. That just can’t be.

As I close in on the finish, I glance at my grandson again. He’s smiling.

I manage to say, “Now” … gasp … “I can” … gasp … “die” … gasp … “happy.”

He says, “You are never going to die, Grandpa O’Brien.”