Ailbe
Legacy Name: Ailbe

Al was sitting in his dirty old apartment building, looking out at the other apartment buildings and hearing his radio playing Jolson and feeling like he was going crazy. His neighbors upstairs were laughing and rustling. In the old days, he'd have grabbed a bottle and went up to join them, but now the idea gave him a bit of a headache. Another whole night spent in loud noises and flirtatious glances just to wake up hung over and with a girl on your arm? Listen, lady, I got work... Maybe not again 'til tomorrow, but...

tap tap skritch

His ruggedly handsome face turned from tired apathy to a frown. That noise again. Must have been rats in the walls, or something, but he knew rats, and yet he'd never heard it like this before. Oughta lay some traps... Something heavy fell upstairs and there was a cacophony of accompanying laughter. He flinched belatedly at the noise, and admitted to himself that he'd probably drank too much afterhours. But as long as he could still give everybody that nice sound, though, as long as his fingers could still find the keys, why not? O God, it was lucky in its way that his ma wasn't around. She always hated how he drank and carried on, and he oughta know better at his age. But after what he'd done, with the... the pregnancy, and, everything else ... he thought it was better for him to go away from the old family for a while. When he was younger, he thought he'd be living it up on his own, like something out of a movie. Ah, look what life can do to ya. Look what you can do to yourself! His Irish Catholic blood wanted him to be a lot more penitent, but he couldn't quite muster it.

Unsure whether he was more in danger of becoming a weepy drunk or of the inebriation wearing off, he stumbled to his feet and walked across the kitchen floor to turn up the radio. The rats shut up as his bare feet swept along the floor.

You made me love you, he sang-breathed in a low voice. His hand fumbled the dial, overshot. The room was flooded with sound for a brief instant, and then he turned back the little black knob between his deft long fingers. I didn't wanna do it.

On his way back to the chair, he tried lighting a cigarette pulled from his army surplus overalls (old habits, hey), but as he waved out the match and dropped it to the floor he sneered at the smell, and when he took a drag, he coughed acrid smoke. He dropped into the creaking old chair, thumping his elbows onto the table and putting his head in his hands, cigarette dangling from the left. Al, he thought to himself, with the walls tap-tap-tapping and the ladies upstairs laugh-laugh-laughing and his old eyes watering from smoke and who-knows-what, Al ol' pal, you're good and fucked up...

Imagine me with my head on your shoulder...
And you, with your lips gettin' bolder
A sky full of moon and a sweet, mellow tune...
I'll buy that dream!
It doesn't sound bad, and if it can be had
I'll buy that dream...