The Deception of Love Chapter 2

February 5th, 1931

Every night I write.  Every night I write what has happened in my life, my life that has abandoned me and left me with nothing.  I sit in a one bedroom apartment, where the lighting is nothing but a single candle, and I shiver every time I breathe.  The last time I saw my father was two weeks ago.  He said he was going to make things better, to find a job, a job that was as good as his last one.  He helped us more from the nicer flat into this dark basement of hell and said we needed to be patient; then he disappeared.   

Me mum told us she agreed with him, but she weeps so often I don’t think she’s even tryin’ for our sakes.  I think he dimed us out, and left us to dry.  He was too drunk.

Every day I patrol the streets, looking for any work, no matter how menial, just to get money.  With money I can get food.  With food my family can live.  My brother wanted to continue school, but me mum didn’t allow him.  I didn’t return to school, though me mummy thinks I do so every day.

I haven’t gone to school for three months.  Not many other kids have either.  But the funny thing is, none of their parents know a thing about it.

“Frankie, c’mere.”  Alroy showing up on the doorstep after months of not coming around, stared at Frank, a ghostly look on his face.  Frank didn’t move an inch.  Alroy rolled his eyes. “C’mere, you follow?  What in the devil is wrong with yeh, boy?”  Frank instinctively rubbed his stomach, his fingers running over the scar.  “Ah, what’re bullin’ for?  That was years ago.  Look, I made”—Alroy’s fingers dragged a few coins into a countable position.  “I made six dollars and fifty-nine cents, boy!  I think that’s something ter celaborate fer…”  Frank heard his familiar drunken slur.  He glanced at the coins, and added it up.  He’d only earned, or brought home to them for a change ninety-six cents.  Hardly even enough to buy a candy bar; forget about feeding all four of them..  Frank’s mother walked over, scrubbing a pot.

“Can I see, Alroy?”  Kayleigh asked in a quiet voice.

“Sure, ‘un.  I d’won’t kow know why.”  He laughed hoarsely at his own pathetic rhyme.

“That’s ninety-six cents.”  Kayleigh whispered.  It was hardly even audible.

“’Un, yu dink I fwon’t know how-how-how ter fount?”  He glowered, his eyes bloodshot.

“I worked all”—he slammed his hand on the table—“Feckin’ day”—he yanked the soapy pot out of her hand—“To be cridifized by some lumbnut woman like yeh?  Well I say no cridifzing from you, woman!  All yeh have to do is stay here, and watch over these two bags, and dwat’s it! You fowan’t know how fonking hard it twis to work in dat place!”  He swung drunkenly at Kayleigh who ducked, and so instead he brought it crashing into Frank’s ear.  Frank doubled up and felt his ear.  It was throbbing, and hot blood was trickling, but not nearly as fast as his tears.  His father knocked into him on the way to the door, and shouted, “Oh, just be patient, Kayleigh!  Things will get better if yeh leave off protectin’ dem kids!  Make ‘em work, make ‘n’ work der damn backs!”  He opened the door, left, and slammed it leaving it hanging off its lower hinge, and his shadow disappeared out into the cold.

Frank turned around to find his mom’s face as white as paper.  Her hands were shaking, and she timorously called for Beagan to come out of the bedroom.  Given there was only one toilet, a bedroom, and a tiny kitchen, Beagan had heard what had happened, and entered only after the fourth call of his name.

“Mum…Mum…I really think we should move to Uncle Tommy’s.”  he murmured.  He was fiddling with some string and was staring at his shoes.

“Yeh, we can’t stay here in New York.  Maybe New Jersey is better”—

“Your father has never left us before.  He won’t do so now.”  But even she didn’t sound entirely convinced, and her voice cracked.  She moved to repair the door, and pushed it against the frame, her actions fooling neither Frank nor Beagan.

“Mum, you’re suffering a bad dose of sour milk.  Why drink it when there’s fresher dairy?”  Frank sensed another blow over the head, but it didn’t come.  Instead she stared death-like at the door, still standing, and said, more to herself than to them, “I take this man to be my husband, through sickness and health, and will never part.”

“Yeh well, mum, I don’t think the pope planned to have a husband getting drunk and forgettin’ ‘bout his chappies.”  Beagan mumbled, his lips hardly moving.  This did, however, seem to pull their mother out of her trance.  Moving back to the table, she muttered, “Beagan, Frank, please sit.”  Her face, so plump and orange years ago, had transformed into a wispy, weak one, with her voice soft and often scratchy perhaps due to her sacrificing of her own food to her children.  Beagan, however small he’d been for his age, seemed to have done the opposite of evolution and shrunk, with extended ears and a rat-like countenance.  His arms were skinny and purplish-white, causing a person to assume the lad had a serious skin issue.  Frank, three years older, had also greatly transformed over the past few years.  At twelve years old, he had been legitimately healthy in midtown, where his dad had worked steadily, and he had received meals every morning, midday, and evening, lived in a sanitary home, and had no severely life-endangering illnesses.  Here in Hell’s Kitchen, they lived in a one-bedroom apartment where rodents and bugs infested closets and bathrooms, they all shared the same toothbrush and toothpaste, had one meal a day if lucky, and had to by hand clear out their toilet after using it, given that it malfunctioned throughout the winter, and only occasionally flushed properly in the summer.

“We’re not going to bother Uncle Tommy, Beagan.  He’s dealing with enough right now, so…so we’re going to stay here in New York, and”—

Beagan whined and interjected, “But mum, we can’t live here anymore! I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I”—he began to thrash around and kicked a wall until Kayleigh held him securely in her arms.

“I won’t leave you, and we’re staying.  Which means”—

“I can’t, I can’t, I ca”—Kayleigh clapped her hand to his mouth, muffling the noise.  “You, Frank, are the only one who can survive going outside right now.  I, and you, Beagan, are too ill to go anywhere, especially school.”

“But I like school, I like Mrs. O’Neill!”

“Hush.  Now, Frank, you must continue your education.  Go to school, eat, come home, and do your eccer.  You follow?”

“And how are you two going to eat?”

There was a long pause, and for a moment they could only hear the vicious winter wind whipping the air outside.  Even Beagan quieted for a moment, ears pricked up, listening.

“We’ll manage.”

“No we won’t!”  squealed Beagan again, still prying open his mother’s arms, breaking the silence.

“I’ll sneak you two foods from the school cafeteria.”

“Don’t you dare young man.  No matter how bad things get, we never steal, and are always honest.”

“Doomed to die because of you, mum! You, you, you, you!”

“Frank, tomorrow be careful, alright?”

“Yeh, mum.  I-I”—Frank felt his throat seize up.  “I love you.”  Frank felt tears running down his cheeks.  Later that night, Frank fell asleep on the floor next to the bed his mother and brother shared.  “We never steal, and are always honest.”

Frank saw his mother even frailer than she was now.  And his little brother, Beagan, shivering in a corner.  He was sleeping.  “Food, food, food!”  he grumbled.  Frank called for Kayleigh, but she just lay in her bed, staring at the ceiling.  She was paralyzed.  Something was wrong.  She moved her mouth, and Frank rushed to her side.  “Help.”  Her eyes widened as they looked past his.  Frank turned, and Alroy was towering over them, intensely rich, the pan from yesterday in one hand and the iron in the other.  “Oh, just be patient, Kayleigh!  Just leave dem kids and it’ll get better!”  He swung the pan, and Frank dodged it, leaping out of the way but instead brought it crashing down onto—

Abruptly awake, Frank sprang to his feet soundlessly and managed not to scream, but it was a very close thing.  His heart was thumping madly in his chest, but his drunk, failure of a father wasn’t here, his brother wasn’t shivering in the corner, and nor, did it seem, was his mother paralyzed, but—I won’t let that happen.  He fumbled for a match, and squinted for a candle in the near darkness, finding neither.  Knocking into the bed, he heard his mother snore gently.  Re-adjusting his position, he tried the desk next to the bed.  Opening the drawer, he peered into it, rustling a few papers unintentionally, but Kayleigh and his brother thankfully slept on.  Once he located a match and a candle after many long minutes, he exited the room, and pulled on as much warm clothing as he could.  Slipping on his father’s snow boots that Alroy had forgotten, he walked to the door, but stopped with his hand on the knob.  Glancing over his shoulder, Frank whispered, “I’ll be back, mum, I’ll come back.”  He then twisted the knob, and stepped out of the basement apartment, the early morning sprinkle of snow trickling down his back.