A/N: This is my first fanfiction, it was for a school assignment (: reviews?
I see the other fathers walking out of the pubs stumbling and hardly able to walk and I worry because I can't see my Dad past the rows of women clutching their chests and bumping me about. If I don't find him, he won't come out of that pub till morning and that means the agent will leave him behind and we'll have to be the family on the block that doesn't get to stuff themselves will meat and potatoes and sweets and go to Savoy cinema and turn on the electric fire when it gets cold. I'm looking around for my dad but I can't find him among all the other men, tipping like newspaper sailboats when the wind gets too strong. I look at my mom. Where's dad? The corners of her lips twitch upward in that fake smile adults try to give you when there are bad things going on that they don't want you to know about. Why don't you go look for him? I want to say no but I know she's not really asking me. It's an order. I wonder why adults do that. Ask you if you want to do something when they aren't really asking at all. I don't actually want to but I don't say that because I don't want to get clitther on the gob.
In the pub I hear Roddy McCorley being belted out and it makes me sick to my stomach. I march up to my dad and puff out my chest and try to be a man.
Dad, it's time to go.
Och, aye, just one more.
Dad, you have to go to England and work and send back the money so we can –
Don't be a bad boy.
But we –
He sighs loudly and says I'll go as long as you promise to never end up like me, going off to work for those who oppressed you.
I don't know what oppressed means but I'll do my best to never turn out like my father because if I ever find a wife and have kids I don't want to do to them what my dad is doing to us.