My name is Frank McCarthy.  I lived at the corner of 5th and 32nd Place, Midtown.  We used to live there 2 years ago.  Just before the Great Depression hit.  Life was good, life was nice.  I remember playing football in the backyard, with Adhamh and Blaine.  I remember watching me mam cook sausages and rashers.  I remember me daddie coming home from his smashing job, telling stories about his day, or simply opening up a newspaper, and reading the news.  I remember going to Catholic school, and how the nuns would slap me silly for sneezing in church, or turning around.

We now live at the back near9th and 45th Street, Hell’s Kitchen.

My life does not have a football, nor do we have sausages and ham.  My daddie doesn’t come home from his smashing job, and tells us stories or the news.  My daddie doesn’t even come home anymore.  I always go to school, and do my studies.  I used to eat hungrily with my little brother, Beagan, at the cafeteria, and smuggle food.  We then walked back home.  No matter what, on school days, we used to make sure we got there, and back, on time.  In New York City, Hell’s Kitchen, snow is not the only thing you fear.  This is my story, and my life.

“Frankie, stop listenin’ to the wireless.  Have you finished your studies?”

“Mum, for all you know, I could’ve finished it last year and yeh still wouldn’t know.”  Frankie lazily replied over his shoulder, his eyes still facing the minuscule radio.

“Don’t you talk to me like that!  Turn that wireless off and c’mere, you follow?  Your Pa will be here at any moment, and if he sees you addling yeself over Bull Island again”—

“I’ll come in a sec, Mum, but it’s Father Ted, so they’re not quite the same”—

“Frankie, you’re always a day late and a pound short, so turn that ruddy thing”—

“I am not unreliable mum, I am relaxing.  Yeh’re a bit away in the head to not have heard of it.”