Brooklyn Works

chapter 1

My name is Olivia and I live under the house that resides in the wonderful city of Brooklyn. And this is all I’ve ever know. My father lives upstairs, and he eats upstairs and he forgets his worries with a good drink upstairs. The only reason he would come downstairs would be to release his anger. And to release the force that wavers behind his fist until his arms can’t afford another release of anger and pursues the hotness of his anger through the verbal issuing of abuse.

    It’s a thing really. A beautiful thing when you flip it shine a bit of light and turn it one hundred and eighty degrees away from your general direction of view. But that’s what we all do. And maybe if someone had finally decided to give it even a glance in the mirror, and small one in the least, they would see all the ugly they had missed.

    But this isn’t going to last long, I assure you. In fact here I am now sitting in the basement.  The lovely downstairs I call home. The one place I can live without the questions. Well not the questions I ask myself. Those are with me all the time. No matter what I do. But the ones from my father. The ones I don’t get yet when he asks them. The ones that land me extra blows. Here I can cry and call upon the questions I also don’t know the answer to but these hurt a lot less, I don’t think it would look right if I punched myself in the face.

    I ask the real questions, the questions you never get an answer to and if you do then you’d be ruining your life. At least you would with the real answers. But sample answers can never hurt. Especially when they change from day to day or at least until the next bout of lessons.

    That’s another thing the lessons...These lessons aren’t for others. It’s not like the kids I used to see who would go and carry a backpack and hold their mother’s hand. All the things I would see when I was allowed outside. Before I was confined to the downstairs. I wanted all of that so badly. I even prayed for it. I must not have done it correctly because I’m still stuck here. And that’s not the worse part.

    But anyways, the training I took consisted of a small necklace and a small bag of clothes. I was leaving and I had been learning how to do so for a long time. Olivia Weston was taking this show on the road. And the path was as clear as it would ever be. And I knew this only by the loud noises from above me. And then from the sudden silence. If I didn’t move now I’d be caught. His sleep was of a very strange pattern. By the time he woke from his drunken stupor and grief caused breakdowns I’d be far away. And he would be so far behind I’d never have to worry about him ever again.

    Quietly as I could (I can do many things very quietly) I made my way up the stairs. The heavy snoring was interrupted by the chokes of air and probably all that he had ingested. Freezing I allowed his fall back into slumber. It was a little before his heavy snoring started again and I was free to move. The way to the door was highlighted by the trail of bottles and the stench of the man I used to call my father.

    With the fast thinking I was probably born with, I thought of my mother. I looked around trying to locate it from the spot where I was glued. I had no real luck in the dark room. But my eyes landed on the area around the lamp whose dim glow was highlighting the thing I was searching for. A picture of a woman with green eyes like my own and a highlighted caramel skin. Along with the man in the chair snoring his life away. A happy him. I had seen the picture only once before and immediately I knew who she was.

    My mother stood there next to him. And there is where I was going. To her the woman in the picture. Somehow I knew I would make it to her and no matter what I was going to see her and live with her. No more of the dark basement for this girl. This was my time to be free. And I was grabbing it just as I grabbed the photo between my small fingers and held it closely. She was my only chance. With the picture in my hand and the bag on my back, and most importantly the necklace around my neck I would set off on the journey to save my life.