#c:william

The south side of Chicago was notorious for lowlifes, scumbags, bottom-of-barrel dubbed the “low-lifers” of American Society, or rather, your average American family. Sean and his family apparently fell into that category and he had spent most of his life in such a fucked-up family unit. It really was true that you couldn't choose your family, you adapted to it.

There was Sean, freshly out of high school, now while he could have been applying for college – the boy was intelligent, good with numbers, could have easily taken some kind of math degree course to become a bloody professor of it, he was using his other talents, namely side hustling, pick-pocketing and slight-of-hand , not to mention his natural charisma and gift of making a shop owner think he gave them the money for that CD player but instead distracted them enough to not only get the CD player but an extra fifty bucks on top of it. He was easily the biggest contributor to the minimum household income that unfortunately had been dipped into by the alcoholic and drug addict father of him and his older sister, Shay, at least three times until Shay decided to hide it in an empty container of moisturizing cream that their father hadn't even thought to look in yet.

Shay was the oldest sibling, very pretty, very headstrong, during the day she worked at a restaurant as a waitress about six blocks up from where their run-down four bedroom house was. She had a bad history of dating the wrong guy, struggled to take care of her and her brother while dealing with the drunken antics of their father William. The siblings mother, still alive, could be arguably even worse than their father with her drug addictions – she had run off with another man, chasing a high, when Shay was only five years old and Sean was two years old. A five year old forced to pretty much raise themselves and their two year old brother would be enough to give anyone issues.

And lastly, there was William. William who was the pinnacle example of everything wrong a father could do to their kids. Barely around the house, except for after the bars closed and even then, he would pass out in alleyways, a man who thought he was entitled to whatever money his kids managed to scrape together, the only enduring quality he had was his own con-artist tenancies and the fact that he wasn't so much a violent drug-addict and drunk, but even that had happened on a rare occasion. The last time he had gotten in a physical fight with Sean – because Sean refused to give him a cut of his last money changing deal, he had given Sean a black eye, and Sean had knocked him to the ground so hard he hadn't got off from the floor for half a day. Shay and Sean both had let him just sleep it off, but both of the siblings knew that it wouldn't be the last time that had happened.

Currently, their father was passed out in the backyard, about six empty bottles of cheap beer scattered around him as Sean looked out the window. “---maybe we should have gotten a dog, could have trained him to piss on him to wake him up.”

Shay had walked into the kitchen in her waitresses outfit, pining her hair up as she stepped closer to Sean, looking out the kitchen window. 

“----dammit, this is why we can't have nice things, so much for my attempt at growing those flowers he is crushing underneath him.”

“Another gift from one of your regulars trying to weasel their way between your legs?”

Shay had given Sean a look as she scoffed and turned on her heels to grab her cellphone she kept hidden between the layers of tea towels, stuffing it into her side pocket. ”He's old, it was a potted petunia, it was sweet. We are about fifty dollars short for the electricity bill due tomorrow, I don't get paid until next Friday and my biggest tip yesterday was that bloody plant William just crushed. Think you can get us the rest?”

Sean had reached into the cupboard, pulling out the “moisturizing cream” and shuffling through the rolled up bills to pull out a twenty. “Yeah, there is some street festival going on in the north side, pockets will be easy pickings' I'll also check out that used computer store that has new owners”

Shay had nodded as she made her way out the door. “See if you can get me a new pay-as-you-go phone, the screen is cracked from the last time I chucked it at William's head.” Just like that, Shay was out the door, not bothering to check on William still passed out in the backyard as she made her way to work.

A fan video for a family strung together by a string of fate and destiny;

Featuring:

           Sean O’Hare

                  Shay O’Hare

            William Heart (Shay’s father)

          Sara O’Hare (deceased - Shay and Sean’s mother)