Friday Penny.

I sat up from bed and rubbed my eyes sleepily rolling over and hearing my parents talking in hushed voice, I looked over to the right and saw Malachy beside me still sleeping soundly the small sound of his snoring covered by his arm. I walked over the cold wooden floors to my parents and asked them what was happening, mother looked between me and my father and he nodded to her, she took me by the hand and told me that father had gotten a job at the Limerick cement factory and he was starting today. An overwhelming sense of joy invaded me; a smile spread across my face as my mother wrapped her arms around me and hugged me as tightly as she could. This was the big break we were waiting for, this was the chance we needed. Father could now prove himself worthy and work every day making us more than sixteen shillings a week to survive on, I turned to him and saw that he too was proud. He was proud of himself for finally accomplishing something. He was really for work and by the patches of bloody paper on his chin I could tell he had shaven, maybe he had turned around. I ran to the end of the room and woke up Malachy telling him the good news; it took him a few minutes to process it because he too smiled finally realizing what this meant. That whole morning Malachy, mother and I jumped around the house praying, singing and yelling about how happy we were, mother held Michael as she sang her favourite songs and we joined in at the chorus. I couldn’t wait for tonight, father promised me and Malachy that we would bring us to see a movie, our very first movie. I couldn’t wait to see what a cinema looked like, I had heard from some that it’s a gigantic room with screens as big as apartment buildings and that live orchestras played but others said that you would sit on wooden chairs and watch a boring movie but I’d rather stick with the more extravagant story. It was nearing the end of the day and father would be home any moment, Malachy and I had already tied our boots up and had out jackets and hats on neither of us could stop grinning at each other. A half an hour passes and Malachy and I are growing tired from standing in our boots we start to slouch and finally sit down, when it finally turns six o’clock mother throws her dish towel on the counter and yells curses into the air, she yells that she can’t believe he would do this to them after all they’ve been through after all the promises he made to them today. I didn’t understand what Ma meant at the beginning until I finally caught on, she meant that father wasn’t coming. I couldn’t believe it either, he promised. Malachy and I lost our grins and untied our boots, we tossed them into the corner and went to go comfort mother. She quickly fell asleep with exhausting her breathing becoming more heavy and steady with left her sleep, Malachy and I stayed up until father came home crashing through the doorway, he smelt of alcohol and was holding on to everything he could reach, he came up to me and Malachy and offered up the “Friday Penny” we rejected it and watched mother wake up and send father downstairs, her voice was stern and steady and she was going to back down. With a swift motion she stepped forward and father coward downstairs, the next morning father sleeps in missing work and losing his job, and we all start right back where we were.

Big dreams.

as a Saturday and I was outside sitting on the old emergency exit balcony watching men, women, children and elders walk by, the weather was nice and warm for once and I thought I ought to profit from this weather before it left us. It wasn’t the slow paced grandparents or the children that were running around playing tag or skipping rope in the middle of the road that interested me though it was the men, what I was soon to grow up to be. A group of men were sitting around smoking there fags and the lucky ones that used up all there dole money were smoking cigars. These men were rugged and worn out, they looked tired and beat as they sat in their old metal lawn chairs and talked about everything and nothing. Many people and commotions walked passed them and they looked like they didn’t even notice, they kept their old eyes trailed on each other and kept talking about to newest pub in town or any job openings. I thought to myself how ridiculous, how pathetic. These men were sitting here in their chairs wearing their best suits and suspenders hanging down and they were saying how exhausted they were about having to go collect their dole money. Their dole money which they didn’t even earn, it was given to them. The one thing that was given to them, free of charge, free of work yet they still needed to take a break from being so “dignified” it frustrated me to the end, why couldn’t these men stop smoking their cigarettes which would only worsen their consumption and they would eventually die from, and go try to find themselves a well worthy job that would keep food on their families table and heat in their homes. What, what… what losers. That’s what they were they were losers. The men are supposed to be the supporting family member, the member that you can lean on when you’re in need but instead it’s the women. While these men are sitting outside smoking their lives away their wives are inside their homes cooking, cleaning and taking care of the children. They’re the ones who deserve to be going to pick up the dole money, they were the responsible ones, they were the ones who thought with their head and not with their stomach. They slaved away all day long, just like mother did, just like she was doing right now. I turned my head to the right and spied through the window she was holding Michael on her right shoulder while she tried to clean the apartment with one hand, I looked at my mother and knew right there and then that something needed to change. I knew that when one day when I was going to find a woman and marry her she’ll be just like mother, but this time around I won’t be like father, I’ll be a man of respect and dignity. I’ll have a job and make money and we won’t even need the dole that’s how much money well be making, one day it’ll be like that and when that day comes ill buy mother and father and baby Michael a brand new house where they would all live, that’s what I would do.

Tire Swings.

It’s been a few days since Angel on the seventh step has been feeling well, I like to talk to him a lot even though he doesn’t respond. He looks at me with his big blue eyes and watches me as I talk, I feel important for once, I feel as if he’s the only one that truly understands me. Sometimes I rock him in the old wooden cradle father found on the side of the street and sing him lullaby’s that mother used to sing to the twins. I miss the twins very much and they’ll always have a special place in my heart but I know that there in a better place now, and I think that Michael was a gift from them to keep me company and to keep mother and father occupied and motivated. As I was rocking him two men walked in wearing big boots and fancy jackets, their hair was slicked back and they had a tool belts around there waists with note pads to their sides. I looked around alarmed searching for mother, wondering why two strange men were in our home. She told me it was alright and those men were just the inspectors making sure the house was in ye’ good shape, I wondered to myself how this apartment building could be in ye’ good shape when just a couple of weeks ago the downstairs floor flooded, the wooden floors creek and some hollow threatening to collapse under your weight. They walked around the small apartment crouching down, checking things and each time scribbling small notes onto their frail ripple paper. I asked one of the men with a scruffy beard what he was writing and he told me that he was writing the secrets that the house was telling him. I thought to myself how odd that was that our house was telling him secrets I wonder what the secrets were, I looked at father and asked him if he knew what the secrets were and he grumbled keeping his eyes focused on the window. The men started to pack up there things and scribble a few more notes as they were walking out the door when mother asked them if they had any boots to spare for us, when the last word was uttered from her mouth fathers head shot up staring at her in disbelief, he told the men it was alright and they were allowed to leave. Once the door the sound of the door clicking in its hinge occurred father and mother started disputing other something I believe father won, or maybe lost because the next day when he came back from work he grabbed out pairs of boots and a rubber tire and started to fix them, he fixed all the holes and gashes and added an extra layer of warmth. The next day I had to wear them to school, I was utterly embarrassed as I crossed the school yard my new boots clunking against the cold hard ground bringing stares and laughs from my classmates; I hoped that was all that would happen. Once in class kids I felt eyes on my and Malachy, I could hear laughter in corners and I knew they were whispering about us. A few of the meaner boys came up to us and laughed about our boots they asked us if we got them from a junk yard and I told them that my father made them and they would last a lot longer than his would! They taunted us for the first half of the day until my schoolmaster shouted hitting his long wooden stick on his dark brown desk swearing under his breathe he told them to treat others the way they would like to be treated and threatened to whip the next person who teased us, at that moment I was happy to have a schoolmaster like him and for the rest of the day I kept my head up as high as I could with boots like those and walked proudly home.

Breath of life.

A few days after Christmas had passed and it was a great Christmas. I decided to ignore the children who taunted us and called us “Zulus” because I knew we were better than that, mother collected a pigs head from the butchers on Christmas Eve and it was delicious. It was my first time trying pig head, I was a little bit sceptical because I had never eaten the head of an animal before and it felt cruel, after all I wouldn’t want anybody picking at my brain when I died. I played with my food until my stomach growled in protest and decided to try it, a small bite at a time. My first bite was so miniscule I could hardly taste a thing so I had decided to take a second bigger bite and this time as I put the fork in my mouth the metal grinding against my teeth the scent of cooked meat invaded my nostrils and I couldn’t take it, I gobbled down my whole meal before anybody else had time to finish theirs. Father laughed at me and padded me on the back, I felt proud and happy as everyone wished each other Merry Christmas for the seventeenth time that day. But today mother had been feeling sudden pains in her stomach, the same kind of pains she had when Oliver and Eugene were in her belly, maybe the new baby was kicking hard or screaming inside, but whatever he was doing was hurting mum and I didn’t like it one bit. Soon enough at around three o’clock in the afternoon mother knelt over in her thick winter dress and socks and held on to the counter top telling father that it was time while taking deep breaths, what was it time for? Was it time for tee, or was it time for a walk? I didn’t understand but I would soon find out as father rushed around small beads of sweat forming on his forehead and a look of concern in his eyes around the small apartment grabbing the a few small items that comforted mother, he grabbed her favourite rough red and white plaid blanket and her coat and they rushed out. When father returned I bombarded him with questions asking him if mother was having her baby, where babies came from, and why does mum keep having them. He soon became frustrated with all my questions and told me to hush; he had never told me to hush before I believe it was the stress that was getting to him. He looked like a mad man pacing around the room his hands behind his back and his eyes fixed to the ground but soon enough mother returned home with a baby, Michael. It was the most precious thing I had ever seen, he was so tiny and fragile wrapped up in a world of blankets. His eyes were closed and he was as pink as the little girl’s cheeks when I would tell them they were pretty. His fingers were ten times smaller than mine and his nails looked almost invisible, it was hard to think something so small could come from such a big stomach, I wonder how he came out. But mother doesn’t look very happy, she tells us that Michael has a very bad cold, and might not survive it, so I made a promise to myself not to let baby Michael die with me around I was going to protect him from everything and anything even a small little cold. My promise didn’t stand for much because soon after he stopped breathing his small little stomach no longer moved and his face began to become purple when mother noticed she screamed for father and she started to cry, father gently but quickly laid Michael down on the ground through my tears I noticed that father was putting his mouth around his nose, for a quick moment I thought how disgusting until he sucked all of the mucus out of Michaels nose making him scream back to life colors slowly re-appearing in his skin, that was one of the reasons I loved my father so much, because even if he was a low life drunk that used all our dole money he always knew what to do. He always knew what to do.

False hope.

I think often of Eugene and Oliver and wonder what they’re doing; I hope they’re playing together on a warm sunny afternoon in a beautiful garden filled with roses, tulips and Penelope’s. I know how much the twins loved to play in the flowers and pick them for mother. I wish they would have been able to see the new house; it’s a lot better than the last. The wood boards creek under our weight, the paint on the walls were chipping and it’s a lot of a smaller space than our other apartment but it feels cozy and warm. I’ve never been somewhere long enough to call it home except Brooklyn of course but this place feels, familiar. Ma is sad and always says she hears Oliver and Eugene, maybe she has become one of those spirit seeing people, the ones that can read into the future? Maybe she could rent a tent a tell people there fortune like the pretty ladies as the summer fairs in Brooklyn. Sometimes I really think she does see them, shell be folding our laundry after using the neighbours water supply and all of sudden shell look up with a hope in her eye and a smile on her lips, shell turn around quickly as if someone was entering the room but as soon as the look came it left her face turning the corners of her lips down in a vertical direction sometimes I think they even tremble but she quickly comes to the realization that Oliver and Eugene aren’t back, she then sighs and continues folding her laundry or washing the dishes. The shillings aren’t helping the situation either; our dole money has descended because of the death of the twins leaving us with only sixteen shillings a week. It’s hardly enough to buy stale bread and a few pieces of coal, but well survive, I know we will. Father leaves during the day wearing his crisp stainless shirt and his freshly ironed faded black tie. He takes long strolls to the farms asking them if they need any help and he works himself to the bone until there’s not only sweat on his brow but on his whole core. He works until the look of desperation fills his eyes and his arms start to quiver with each item he lifts. Mother says you’d think he would come home exhausted after working himself so hard but he doesn’t, he takes the money that the fathers give him for milking there cows and cutting their crops and he goes to the pub and drinks his sorrows away. He drinks until he can’t remember his name, he drinks until his life is good but the next morning when he wakes up wearing his dirty and stained white shirt and ripped tie he’s back where he started. Work less, penny less and three family members short because he can’t support them. I hope that one day hell bring the money he makes on the farms back so we can have a full meal, like on Christmas day. Christmas was coming and I was excited as I walked home from school with Malachy we arrived at our building to see water flooding from the steps, I rushed and swung open the door to see a wave of water rushing towards me. Malachy and I ducked to side and waited for the wave to pass leaving nothing but a few feet of water left, we looked around trying to find Ma when we saw her talking to the neighbour outside with some of our belongings. When she saw us she looked sad, as if she had disappointed us. She told us she was sorry and I hugged her, she was cold. She told us later on that we would be moving into the upstairs apartment, Malachy and I were excited we couldn’t wait to see what the upstairs looked like, maybe it was warmer than downstairs and it must have a better view! When we arrived upstairs lugging our few belongings up the stairs it was just what Id expected. We had a top view from our windows and we could practically see all of Dublin, Malachy and I decided to call it Italy because it was warm and dry just like the place we learnt about in school. Maybe this Christmas was going to be a good one after all.

Burnt Orange.

Were in Ireland now, father brought us here but I don’t know why, maybe it’s because of money or maybe Pa just misses seeing his family every day. Either way I hope we go back to Brooklyn soon, it’s shitty and cold over here, since we’ve gotten off the boat I’ve had a horrible cough and my nose keeps running, I keep whipping it on my new coat’s sleeve and mother keeps slapping me across the head for doing so; she says it’s a rude and disgusting thing to do in front of people. But when I look around all I see are people sneezing and whipping their faces across the sleeves of their own old and thin worn out coats and coughing into their hands, it seems like Dublin is a place where everyone is sick. I wonder if there’s anybody healthy over here. It’s so dark in this town, the sky is grey, the ground is grey, the buildings are grey even the people are grey. Everyone is wearing black, white or grey, they all look like poor priests roaming the street, and someone ought to buy a coat the same color as the autumn leaves back in Brooklyn that would sure lift the town’s spirits. Maybe I’ll save up and buy a box of chalks, I saw these two girls on 5th street with a box of chalks once they said it was for drawing on the streets. I’ll have to use all the colors of the rainbow and draw a huge mural filled with children, happy families and an enormous table filled with all kinds of foods; breads, soups, turkeys, ham some butter and flour and maybe even a few pastries. All this talk about food was making me hungry, ever since we were kicked out of father’s mothers house we’ve been looking for somewhere to stay the night and my legs were getting awfully tired, and my stomach was getting awfully hungry and the twins haven’t stopped crying since we started walking at the crack of dawn this morning. The sun was starting to go down and the street lights were starting to go up, mothers were yelling out windows in a funny accent for their children to get there arses in the house for bed, most of the mothers were thin and frail and had bags under their eyes that were as dark as coal. Their eyes were sunken in and their hair was tied up in buns, they also all wore dirty aprons. I noticed that the children that were running into the houses were mostly the same age as me, some of them looked in our direction and others didn’t but the ones that did looked at us all in the same way; as if we were strange. They looked confused and distorted as they rushed into their warm homes, why did they look at us like that? Was it because we looked lost and abandoned or maybe we look different from them Irish folk, furthermore I still wiped my nose on my sleeve just in case I had any indecent substances hanging and that’s why they were staring. As were walking into no particular direction Pa sees a man with funny clothes on and rushes towards him, there’s a metal crested badge on his shit that says “Police Man” and he’s wearing big dark boots that look like they could crush anything that came in his way, they were spit shined and tied to the perfection, I wish my boots looked like that. As I looked down at my own shoes all I saw was worn out brown corduroy boots that had holes in the soles and my rights boot was missing half of its lace. The man tells us to call him Guard so I do, he tells us we can stay in the prison for the night and ma says thank and hugs the nice officer. When we arrived at the “prison” all the cells were filled with men and women who all smelt like dad when he came home late in the night, some were passed out and those who were still awake sung songs is slurred voices but the prison was warm and that’s all that mattered, I huddled next to the twins and Malachy and soon fell fast asleep.

Golden Gates.

I was looking at Malachy; his scrawny little legs swishing back and forth as he balanced himself on the unstable piece of wood. Every time I would hit the ground he would scream with pleasure as he would quickly rise towards the sky, he looked happy, it was his first time on a seesaw, now that I think of it, it was my first time too. It wasn’t a very pleasurable game, my ass was starting to hurt after hitting the ground so many times and my legs were starting to get tired from pushing off of the ground supporting Malachy’s weight but he seemed to like it and it kept him quiet so I kept pushing off the dusty ground making my shoes filthier by the minute. Around him the trees on Classon Avenue were beautiful, it was between warm and cold weather and they were in the middle of changing colors. Burnt orange and brown colors flooded the floors and few people were sitting on the brisk park benches leaving the park practically deserted for me and Malachy, I turned to my right and saw a swing set, a small slide and a sand box filled with dirty water, black sand and fallen leaves. The seesaw was coming to a decent, I decided to jump off and try the swing set forgetting that Malachy was on the other side of the seesaw, as I slowly turned my head to the side I saw Malachy screech a horrible sound as blood seeped through his fingers as he covered his mouth, the sight was horrid. I had never seen blood before and it wasn’t something I planned on seeing again. I was confused; I didn’t know what to do there was so much blood everywhere. Mother was going to have a fit when she saw that his fresh blood had dripped on to his new crispy clean white shirt. Some blood contoured his body and landed on the old rotten wood of the seesaw, leaving its mark on the wood for an eternity. Next time we come back to this park I’ll have to make sure if Malachy’s blood was still in the seesaw. I quickly turn in all directions looking for help when I spot mother running towards us with a stern expression on her face and her eyes darting between me Malachy and the seesaw, yet they rest on me with anger. She finally arrives to the crime scene huffing and puffing and grabs me by the arm telling me to get, her fingers leave a red mark on my arm as I scurry off towards the old metal gate ten times my size. The gate has big bold golden letters on the top it says Classon Avenue Park, I wonder if the letters were made out of solid gold… If so maybe I should take one to bring back home for Malachy as a present. The black paint is chipped off from the metal gates in certain places and the hinges needed to be oiled I thought as I opened the gate with a loud creak. I run two blocks to my building making sure to keep my head up like pa says. Pa says that if you keep your head up you look loud and proud and nobody will bother you. Once I got to our building I looked up, the building was quite tall and old, it almost looked like any moment now it could collapse. Clothes lines were strung from building to building exposing different colors of fabrics in the air we could even see Mr. Hathaway’s underpants! I scrambled by a few people to get to the main entrance when I saw my father’s friend, Mr. MacAdorey staring at the gutters with his wife. I bent over and finally saw what all the commotion was about there was a dead doggy in the gutter! The dog’s blood matched Malachy’s blood and I wondered what a coincidence that they were both bleeding at the same time, I scurried up the stairs to our building and said hello to Janice and Eunice who were drawing on the steps with sharp rocks. Once at the door I rang three times on our floor that was our secret signal that’s what mother said. I heard shuffling down the stairs and someone struggling with the locks, when the door opened my father was looking down at me with disappointment the creases in his forehead making four straight lines and the mouth was curved slightly on the right side, and I knew right there someone had already told him about Malachy.