Chapter 7
Mother had been furious to learn that I had been in the same room as a poker game, let alone the same house. But her anger was shifted when Pa came home drunk with only his pants on.
"What happened to your shirt?" Mother screamed at him. This was 2 am and her cries of anger woke up the entire apartment building. That was it, I thought. We'd be kicked out of the building and be forced to move away from this neighborhood. I prayed that night that we wouldn't have to move out of Brooklyn, for I had finally made friends and didn't want to leave them behind.
We did get kicked out by a furious Mrs. Fredricks who, with cat in hand, shouted blasphemous things at Mother and Father before giving us two hours to pack our stuff up and get out. We were forced to wander the streets with our possessions until the sun came up and people started to move about. After a few hours of searching, we found an apartment on Poplar Street, a few streets down from Doughty, which Mother liked better. The apartment had 3 rooms, which meant we could have a sitting room as well as a bedroom if we so desired. The kitchen was still small, and the rooms smelled of urine but Mother was still in her cleaning glitch and soon had the house spotless and smelling "fresh as a daisy" she called it. Daisies were her favorite flower and she often called me her 'little shasta daisy.' I didn't mind the nickname, as long as only my Mother called me it.
Pa had to promise not to cause problems and Mother was actually singing in the kitchen when I came back from work, which took a little longer to get to but I didn't mind. I got to see more of Brooklyn and meet more people. There was a little flower shop down on Vine Street and a kind old woman ran it. She would say hi to me by name or by Miss O'Reilly, and often gave me flowers on my way home so Mother could have some pretty things to brighten up our apartment. She was a little blind but she was very generous with her kindness. Once I brought Siobhan with me to work and she gave Siobhan some candy treats for her to eat, and a rose to give to her new friend in the apartment over, Roger, who was just her age. Siobhan had started to talk, and once she had a friend that's all she talked about. 'Roger and I played trucks or Roger showed me how to play piwate.' We were all thrilled that she was talking, and this old woman, her name was Miriam, really brought her out of her shell. Siobhan talked to 'Miss Miriam' about Maria, and she actually came out and said Maria had gotten sick and 'drownded.'
Siobhan had taken to coming to work a lot, so I would leave early so she could talk to Miriam. Siobhan also talked often of Miss Miriam and how nice she was. Mother liked to hear Siobhan talk, since it reminded her so much of how Maria talked, but Mother became very jealous of Miriam since Miriam was 'taking Siobhan's attention away from' Mother. So she refused to let me take Siobhan to see Miriam, but did I listen to her? Nope. Siobhan gets to see Miriam on my lunch break, but I had to make her promise me she wouldn't speak of Miriam to Mother at home. She didn't, and Mother was pleased at Siobhan's improvement. When Mother was happy, the rest of the house was happy. Pa was being good with drinking and only came home drunk a couple times. That also made things easier around the house.
Since my family was being much nicer I decided to invite Spot in after one of our walks home. Siobhan was with us, and was thrilled by Spot's slingshot. Spot was amazingly good with her, he'd give her lessons in how to hit Roger with a makeshift slingshot he made her out of a piece of wood that he found on his way to our apartment. He gave her piggy back rides, but only after he got out of the viewing range of the other newsies.
"I gots a reputation to uphold." He smirked, plopping a giggling Siobhan onto his shoulders. We walked like this towards my apartment and he set her down outside the door.
"You want to come inside? You could meet the rest of my family." He glanced around him and thought about it but decided it was alright by him.
The house was busy, unusually busy, but everything stopped when Spot, hand in hand with Siobhan, and I walked in. Mother looked quizzically at Spot, like he might be the infamous Miriam, and then at me.
"Ma, this is Sp—err Michael Conlon." I said, introducing Spot. I figured Mother wouldn't really like me hanging out with a "Spot." Which was what she called a 'dogs name.' Mother smiled, recognizing his name from my stories.
"Nice to meet you Michael." She walked over, wearing her apron, which she obviously had been using to clean the house all day, and shook his hand, making sure Siobhan's hand was removed from his. Spot gave her a slight smile and shook her hand. He glanced nervously around the small apartment, but I could tell he was impressed, even if he would probably never admit to it.
Jack came running in from the kitchen to see the new visitor, with Francis toddling behind him. Francis went all shy, as he usually did when strangers were present, and hid in Mother's skirts. But Jack was one of the bolder children. He walked up to Spot, looked him over and grinned. Spot smirked back.
"What's yer name kid?" Spot leaned over to Jack's height.
"Jack Lawrence O'Reilly. He talks funny Mama." Jack turned around, his nose scrunched up like Spot stunk of some sewer rat.
"Now Jack, remember your manners. It's not nice to say mean things like that to our guest. He probably thinks we talk funny, love." She bent down and pinched Jack's cheek and this made him scowl even worse. He turned back around and looked over Spot again. His eyes lit up at the sight of Spot's slingshot thought.
"What's that?" He pointed to the slingshot on Spot's hip. Spot glanced down, and retrieved it from his belt.
"This heah is a slingshot. Ya gotta protect yaself out dere on the streets." Jack was now intrigued. The older boy had a toy and Jack liked toys. Mother did not approve of Jack playing with such a toy when he asked and Jack went huffing back to the kitchen.
"I didn't like that slingshoot anyway." He was heard muttering as he walked away. Francis peeked his head out from behind Mother's legs when Spot laughed. I was surprised by Spot's laugh, considering I hadn't heard it much before.
"It ain't gonna cause nobody no harm Ma'am. And who's dis little boy?" Spot pointed at Francis who immediately burst out in a fit of giggles and wrapped himself even tighter into Mother's skirts. I laughed. Francis was such a happy go lucky child, even with all the things he has to put up with.
"That's Francis. He's shy and doesn't want to meet my new friend." I said, knowing that if I told everyone that he wouldn't do something, he would do it.
"Well that's jes too bad, I guess I'll go now…" Spot took my lead and took a step backwards towards the door. As soon as Spot said this, out popped Francis.
"I wanna meet Bwenn's fwiend." He stuck his thumb in his mouth and smiled up at Spot. "I'm Fwancis." He hasn't mastered saying the 'r's yet, so everything comes out sounding a little funny.
"Hi Francis, I'm Michael but you can call me Spot." I glanced at Mother, but she was beaming. She obviously liked having her children cooed over by a friend of mine. Probably because Spot looked too rough to have a kind heart. It wasn't a side usually shown to the newsies, and I knew if I ever mentioned this to them, he'd hog tie me and hang me off the bridge.
"Spot funny." His grin widened and he poked Spot in the nose. "I like Spot. Mommy can we keep him?" Everyone burst out laughing, including Francis. He plopped on the floor and just looked up at everyone, smiling a toothy grin, well as toothy as a two year old's smile can be.
"Well my little shasta daisy, I'm glad you have found yourself a friend. Nice to meet you Michael, I have to get started with the dinner. Bless you." Mother smiled and left the room. Spot nodded and gave her a quick smile, something not many people had ever seen before either. Then he looked over at me.
"Shasta daisy?"
"Yeah it's a type of flower. My mama's favorite." Spot looked like he was in thought and then just smiled.
"I think I've found you a name." He just smirked and said he had better go. He waved goodbye and that was that.
Integrating friends and family is always an interesting experience, and I knew it had gone well. Maybe convincing Mother that I could be a newsie would be easier now that she saw what they were like.