From the Ground Up

“It’s not much but it’ll get you a bed tonight,” Patrick’s mother whispered, discretely slipping a handful of coins and a few postage stamps into his jacket pocket. “I love you son.” She gave him a fleeting final hug before dashing back up the steps to their apartment.

From the sidewalk Patrick caught a glimpse of his younger sister, Mary standing at the front window before their frantic mother whisked her away out of sight. There was nothing anyone could say or do that would change anything. Not this time.

“Fuck you!” he yelled, spearing the air with both middle fingers.

A faded, rusty metal arrow pointed down the steps to the boarding room’s entrance. Already dusk, Patrick took his chances and rang the bell attached to the bars of the iron clad door, and waited.

“What the devil’s happened to you, lad?” the woman greeted him, her thick Irish accent a welcome trait. “Come in, come in,” she gestured.

“I don’t mean to be any bother, ma’am,” Patrick removed his cap. “I’m looking for a room overnight if you can spare.”

“Well the room isn’t much but you’re welcome to it,” she smiled, noticing his bedraggled state. “And I’ve some clothes of my late husband’s that’ll likely fit you if you like.”

“Thank you, I appreciate it,” Patrick dipped into his pocket to pay for his lodging.

The room wasn’t much but compared to sleeping rough, it was luxury. Patrick peeled off his socks and rubbed his aching ankles. His flat feet reminded him of his father’s loathing, and how if only he was a ‘real man’ he could have gone off to war and carried out his duty. He’d spent his youth apologising to his father for his imperfections, but not anymore. Tonight, the eve of the rest of his life, as he rested his head on a stranger’s pillow, he promised himself come hell or high water he would not look back. Ever.

The early morning sun peeked through the window casting a crooked shadow across the bedroom wall. Patrick lay awake listening for any sounds of life that would signal the start of the day; his boss, Lou would be expecting him at the store mid-morning.

The instant he opened the bedroom door he was met with the familiar sweet vanilla scent of milk toast. A pang of guilt rushed over him as he remembered how he had cursed his father from the sidewalk the day before, and how disappointed his mother would have felt hearing his outburst.

“Sit, sit!” the woman insisted, gently patting his back. “You need a bit of fattening up lad,” she chuckled.

“My mother always says that,” admitted Patrick.

With a black eye and a bundle of dead man’s clothes, Patrick said his goodbyes and continued his journey away from home. When he showed up at work his boss, Lou, who had been a staple in his life for the past six years, confessed he knew this day would come. The pair sat in silence in Lou’s office, neither wanting to start the conversation. Lou leaned back in his chair and sighed as he reached for a cigarette from his shirt pocket before tossing them on the desk towards Patrick. “Go on,” he insisted, “it’ll calm your nerves.” 

“Dad, well he starting having a go at Mary when he found out about her being knocked up. He just went crazy, Lou. I tried pulling him off her and Ma was screaming and he just kept telling me to keep my hands off her and threw me out. And that’s it, Lou, I’m done. I can’t do it anymore, I hate him.”

Without warning Lou pushed his chair back and began to make his way to the door, pausing to place his hand on Patrick’s shoulder, “You’ll stay here tonight. We’ll figure this out.”

The thin office wall couldn’t spare Patrick from overhearing Lou’s heated phone conversation with his father. Doubt washed over him as it had so many times before. He wondered whether he’d done the right thing and whether his father, adept at convincing others of his innocence, would fool Lou with his bullshit reasons – like last year when he broke his six- year-old brother’s arm and he swore he’d break the other one if he ever told.

“Right then, you’ll be needing your belongings from home. Your old man has agreed to me taking you over.” Lou’s announcement came as a shock to Patrick who had not planned on ever stepping foot in that house again.

“I don’t know, Lou. I mean, I’m not keen.”

“Look, what’s he going to do with me there? You’re going to go and speak your piece, man to man. Anyway, the sooner we get you sorted, the sooner you can get back to work – your room in the workshop isn’t going to pay for itself, is it?”

“No, sir.”

Lou was unflappable, he didn’t take shit from anyone. Patrick admired that about him. Even in the truck on the way over, while Patrick sat in nervous silence, Lou causally chatted about his wife and their kids as if helping Patrick out was no big deal, like it was just another job on a never-ending To Do list.  Still, Patrick thought, Lou didn’t know his father like he did. It was no secret that Patrick Snr had a volatile temperament, but people who knew of him seemed to accept it as if it was hardly surprising considering his years with the Boston Police Department. Less visible was his booze-fuelled temper which he saved for those closest to him. Patrick had the scars to prove it.

When the truck pulled up outside the red brick building that had been Patrick’s home for all of his nineteen years, the sidewalk was empty except for a cluster of leaves that the late afternoon breeze had picked up and scattered along the curb. Patrick psyched himself up with a deep breath. It was now or never. The pair entered the building’s foyer and before there was time to contemplate second thoughts, they were climbing the stairs to the third-floor apartment.

A very anxious Mrs Hogan opened the door. She gestured her son and his boss inside between profuse apologies for the state of the place and declarations of her gratitude for her son’s return. Her nervousness was unsettling and prompted Patrick to urge she have a seat while he put coffee on the stove. Lou removed his cap and took a seat at the table opposite Patrick’s mother.

“How are you Mrs Hogan?”

“Aileen, please. Well, as you might imagine I was worried sick about Patrick. This nonsense with his father is getting out of hand.”

“I understand, Aileen.”

“Ma, he punched me!”

Lou interrupted, “Hold your horses, Patrick.”

“You asked for it. You know you did,” came a voice from beyond the kitchen.

Lou’s chair legs grated the floor as he sprung to his feet while Patrick’s wayward coffee beans quivered across the linoleum. He motioned Mrs Hogan, who was mashing her hands as if trying to shape a happy ending, to stay in the kitchen.

“Do you mind if we have a word, Mr Hogan?”

“That’s what you’re here for isn’t it?”

Patrick Snr sat in the far corner of the dimly lit parlour. His black leather boots rested on a small foot stool while beside him sat a bottle of whisky nearly drained of its contents. He swirled what ice cubes were left in the bottom of his tumbler before tipping the remainder in his mouth and crunching through them like a ravenous animal.

At work, Patrick had seen plenty of times how easily his boss could handle pig-headed people like his father - those types who would try and rip him off or get a free lunch as Lou would say. Still, standing here beside Lou knowing first-hand the potential of his father’s drunken wrath, that didn’t help settle the fear that was building inside him.

“I suppose the boy’s been telling you a sob story. Is that it, Patrick?”

“Well, sir, he’s come to say his piece and I’ve come to make sure he does.”

Patrick Snr poured himself another drink. “Oh, you have, have you?”

“I didn’t touch her, Dad. I’m telling you now like I told you yesterday. I’ll take a lie detector or whatever. I didn’t do anything. I’d never –”

Lou patted Patrick’s shoulder. It seemed they had achieved what they’d set out to do.

It wasn’t until the old man put his glass down and winched himself up out of his throne that Lou put his arm across Patrick’s chest as a barrier between father and son.

“Who the hell do you think you are? You come to my house, with my son, and try and tell me how it is or how it isn’t.”

“Mr Hogan, the boy’s said what he came to say.”

“Nobody asked you to go sticking your nose into other peoples’ business. I saw plenty of your type on the force.”

It was clear from Lou’s body language that he’d had enough but the old man kept on haranguing him until breaking point. It was when Patrick Snr stooped to insulting Lou’s Italian heritage that walking away was no longer an option. Lou lunged at their collective tormentor and shoved him into the plaster wall before tightening his grip around his shirt neck and thrusting him across the sparsely furnished room. Mrs Hogan’s screams pierced the dusty air as she witnessed the three men scramble for dominance.

“Get the fuck off my father!”

It took Mary three times bellowing her command from the hall doorway before the rivals noticed her standing there brandishing a .38 hand gun. Out of breath, Patrick and Lou retreated while Patrick Snr lay on the floor and began laughing uncontrollably when Mary redirected her aim toward him.

“Go on then. You haven’t got it in you, girl!”

Those were his final words. Mary had fatally shot her father with his own service revolver. She collapsed to the floor; the gun was still gripped firmly in her hand when Lou seized it.

Patrick helped his mother through the haze of the room to his sister. It was then, when Mrs Hogan knelt clutching her fourteen-year-old daughter that she learned that it was her husband who was responsible for Mary’s condition.