Chapter 1

Being from the south side of Chicago, Mickey thought he was prepared for whatever life could throw at him. Boy was he wrong. He was living in New York for the last 3 years, he had a good job managing a bar for this old Irish family the O'Connell's. The bar was in Brooklyn, it wasn't in the crappiest neighborhood, but it wasn't in the best either. Part of the reason why Mickey had been given the job was because he was from the south side of Chicago and knew how to handle situations when it came to crazy drunken customers.

He had been in New york for a month, he was living at a crappy hotel around the corner from O'Connell's bar and would go there every night to just relax and have a drink. He was working at a construction site, but the job was temporary. They only needed a temp crew for about a month until the unions settled on everything, but it had paid really well and it was the only way Mickey was going to get to new york so he had taken it on a whim and figured he could find something once he was in the city.

A month had passed and still no luck at finding a job. He didn't really have tangible skills that looked good on paper, plus his tattoos didn't help or allow for conventional jobs. So there he was sitting in the bar half way done with his first drink, worrying about the fact that their was really only one more solid week of work at the site before they would tell the temp workers to go home and Mickey was worried he would have to go back to Chicago. A loud noise of glass breaking pulled Mickey out of his worry, he looked towards the bar to see a scruffy guy with a 5 o'clock shadow holding a half broken glass cup in his hand an swinging it around towards the bartenders and the guy sitting near him at the bar.

The guy was clearly drunk by the sound of his belligerent rantings, but he seemed to have a pretty sturdy hold on the jagged glass cup. The grey haired man that was a fixture in the corner of the bar at a lone booth stood up for the first time since Mickey had been coming there. The guy looked worried and Mickey figured he must be the owner and for whatever reason felt bad enough for the guy to intervene in the sticky situation at hand. He stood up and drank the last gulp of his bear, he cracked his neck to the side and then walked up to the crazy drunk guy and tapped him on the shoulder.

"whhhat dzo you wan Fuck face" the older man slurred his words and turned the jagged glass cup towards Mickey and was swinging it erratically.

Mickey didn't even flinch at the site of what you would call a weapon now more then a cup

"I was just curious as to what the problem was, thought maybe I could help" Mickey said casually as if the guy wasn't acting crazy.

"theey wond give me a drinkk" the man explained as if it was the biggest tragedy in the world.

"Oh well yah, thats because it was last call 10 minutes ago. They announced it don't you remember" Mickey said patiently.

"Itzz las call, you sure" the guy asked Mickey skeptically.

"of course i'm sure why you think everyone is just finishing up there drinks and nobody ordering nothing" he said looking around the room and the drunk man followed his gaze.

"oh mannnn I didn't hear dem cawl it" he said and put the broken glass down finally believing Mickey's words.

"Yah I figured as much, how about you give it a rest for the night i'll see you here tomorrow" The man grumbled about no more good booze dropped the jagged glass on the floor and stumbled out of the bar.

Mickey turned back to his table and grabbed the packet of cigarets and walked outside. He was leaning against the brick building smoking when a voice started him.

"why'd you do that for me" a raspy voice spoke out .

" I didn't do it for you, I did it for me guy was giving me a headache" Mickey answered taking the last drag from his cigaret before putting it out on the pavement.

"where you from kid" the man asked clearly not done with the conversation

"Chicago" Mickey answered, but didn't really know why.

"ahh your a southy, makes sense you got that look about you" the guy said, and Mickey didn't need to ask what he meant. He already knew what that look was.

"how long you gonna be in town" he asked

"not sure yet, the job I have is about to end and can't really find much else so we will see I guess" Mickey didn't know why he was revealing so much to this stranger, but he couldn't seem to help himself

"you ever bartend before" the mans question surprised Mickey.

"yah at the local bar in my neighborhood called the alibi"

"alright well i'm short a man tomorrow night, come try it out for the night and we'll see how it goes" The man said before walking back into the bar.

Mickey was surprised by the offer mostly because the man didn't know him, but he smiled lit up another cigaret before making his way back to the shitty hotel.

Pretty quickly after starting at the bar Louie O'connell took Mickey under his wing. He was the owner of the bar for the last 20 years. He had 3 daughter Mary, leah, and gina. His wife had died of cancer really young and he had to raise the girls all by himself. The two older daughters were married and had moved to different parts of the country, but gina who was only 16 was still living at home with her dad. Knowing the Mickey didn't have anyone in the city Louie often brought Mickey home for dinner and gina had taken to the rough boy. Both louie and gina had become Mickey's new family, which was fine because Mickey really wanted nothing to do with his old one. The only one he talked to from his family was his younger sister Mandy, but she had moved to Boston with her boyfriend a year before Mickey had moved out to new york.

6 months into working at O'connells Mickey had discovered that the bar manger was skimming off the top and it pissed Mickey off to no end. He waited 2 weeks until he caught the piece of shit red handed and then decked the mother fucker in the mouth in front of the entire bar.

3 people had to pull Mickey off of the guy or he wouldn't stop swinging. Louie had thrown Mickey into his office and then asked him 'what the fuck are you doing'

"I caught that mother fucker stealing, he needs to be thought a god damn lesson" he had said out of breath from the beat down he had just delivered.

After louie threw the jerk out into the street, he had thanked Mickey and offered him the apartment that the piece of shit was staying in upstairs. Mickey had been ecstatic because it meant he could finally leave the shitty hotel he had been staying in.

So fast forward to 3 years later, when louie's cousin had decided to move to California and left his job as manager. So Mickey was given the job and the task of finding a new full time bartender since he had too many other responsibilities then being just behind the bar. Thats how Ian Gallagher walked into his life and turned everything upside down.