Lousy with Stature--Book #1

Chapter 2--A Diet of Kicks and Cuffs

"Oh, God! That bread should be so dear, And flesh and blood so cheap!"

― Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives

"And what's your name?" asked Francis.

"I'm Anthony," said Anthony. "You get the honor of sleeping next to me on the kitchen floor. Some girls might pay a lot of money for that."

Francis snorted. "Finally someone in the place who might actually bring in a buck.  None of the adults seem to.  Uncle Edwin runs this place: keeps the books, fixes things, and deals with people who have problems. I help him keep the place clean, and he's teaching me how to fix things. He's mostly out at the beer hall, though. He's always whining that I'm lazy or that I eat too much. I don't think he'll want much from you--unless you're here to work for him."

"No," said Anthony. "I still go to school. I wish I didn't have to. I much rather be out in the world doing stuff, you know?"

Francis sniffed. "I don't need school. I got a job."

"Lucky," said Anthony.

Francis shrugged.

"I'm not very good at most of it," Anthony admitted. "Math is fine, but reading is hard and history has too many dates to memorize."

"I love to read," said Francis.

"I thought you didn't go to school," said Anthony. "How did you learn?"

"I taught myself."

"You taught yourself?" asked Anthony.  He'd never heard of such a thing before.

"Sure," said Francis.  "No one else was going to.  My writing is messy, sometimes I say words wrong, and I don't always spell things right, but I work really hard to get better at it.  I use the newspapers to learn new words, you see.  I'll write them out a bunch of times until they stick in this melon of mine, and the stories help me figure out what they mean.  I learn all sorts of words: murder, love nest, nude..."

Anthony didn't even know what some of those words were, but Francis didn't need to know that.

"I learned to read so that I could read cowboy dime books," continued Francis. "I find money while I clean, and I'll buy them off some of the people who live here when they're done with them. I have a whole collection hidden behind the outhouses."

"You read for fun?" said Anthony in shock.

"All the time," said Francis.  "Trains can take you places, but books can take you farther.  You know where these books have taken me?  California, Utah, Oklahoma, Texas."

"Books like that need more pictures," said Anthony.

"They really do," said Francis.  "Golly, I wish I knew what they looked like, the...butes and the...canyons.  Sometimes, the words aren't enough to tell me."

Anthony didn't know what those words were either.

"Anyway," continued Francis, "I clean the house, too. Magnolia mostly sits in her room and cries. Gussie thinks she's crazy, but I think she's just sad; I've never seen her smile. She doesn't talk to me much either, just ignores me. But I don't feel bad about it. She ignores Orpah and Lennie, too, so Gussie takes care of them."

"What about my pa?" asked Anthony.

"Walter?" asked Francis. "Hardly see him. He's always working or drinking. I don't even know when he and Gussie have a chance to make babies. She's gonna have another one, you know!"

At least Pa isn't mean Anthony told himself.

"Gussie is mean," said Francis as if he were reading Anthony's thoughts.