Outside The Sparrow, The Painted Ladies
And he had been a good provider, all these years. They’d raised three kids, and it weren’t his fault their younger girl had run off with that laoso wick. That sort of thing was a mother’s duty, and no mistake. The spitch hadn’t even had the decency to put a proper ring on her finger before there’d been a babe in her belly. Beth wouldn’t stop nagging him about it, going on about how ashamed she was in front of the neighbors, but what was he have supposed to done? The girl had always been an odd one, and anyway, Beth was the one who ought to have sorted her.
Hadn’t he gotten her a place in the Painted Ladies? Wasn’t he always working to bring home the ging? Doing a man’s work too, not that sissy shit catering to them galdori. No, he worked with his hands, and he was clocking proud of it. No need for Beth to tell him how well the neighbors were doing, them fancy ones who went to the galdori mansions every day, sucking up to those scum. If not for those galdori and their taxes, taking half of what a man’d come by honestly, they’d have had enough for them things the neighbors had. Lately it’d been new cloth. Beth wouldn’t shut up about how she needed cloth from some new shop, dragging him past it when all he wanted was to sit in peace and relax for one minute. His own wife, oohing and awwing at the galdori shopping just a few blocks from their home, as if they ought to be happy to have them around.
All Jack wanted to do tonight was sit with his boys and have a drink. The Sparrow was a proper place to relax a bit after a long day, cozy, not so fancy that a man felt he couldn’t be at ease, located in one of them old houses in the Painted Ladies. He was a man; he had a right to do as he wished, tick it. If Beth nagged him after the couple coins that a drink cost, then he’d tell her so, and this time he’d make it stick. She owed him a proper respect for all he did for her.
Then one drink had turned into two, and two into three, and the next thing he knew most of his pay check was gone, pissed away on beer. The cards came out, and Jack saw a chance to win back what he’d lost and threw the rest down to ante in. It should’ve been easy, the idiots with him were all drunk, but he kept drawing the wrong cards, clocking bad luck, much worse than he deserved.
“Fold,” Jack scowled, throwing down another hand and sitting back in his chair, hands folding over the stomach protruding out over his pants. The wooden chair creaked beneath him, then splintered noisily, dropping him to the ground amidst bursts of laughter from those around him.
Scowling, Jack rose up, brushing splinters from his arse in a manful fashion, and flipped off his so-called friends and stalked outside amidst calls to lay off the beer. It wasn’t raining, at least, although the street outside was clocking muddy from the rains. That meant a lecture from Beth, though how he was supposed to walk to and from work without getting mud on his boots Jack couldn’t fathom. Fool woman, she was.
He had been a fine figure of a man when he was younger. He remembered how his wife had looked at him back then, the way she’d stroked the big muscles of his arms. He still had the same big arms and strong hands, but she didn’t seem to appreciate them anymore. If his waist had thickened a bit - well, he was a man, wasn’t he? It was honest come by. He still looked better than any scrawny galdori. Any woman ought to look at him, admire him; any man ought to know he was how a proper man should look.
Like that woman at the corner, just down the street. She was fair olio, all dark curls and wearing some fancy looking dress. He watched her as she called goodbye to some other lady walking away. They were both laughing, and he squinted at the red slash of her mouth in the growing dusk. Then she turned, walking towards him, her face softening out of its smile. He felt a pang of disappointment; figures she'd stop smiling just as he was really getting to see her.
“Come on,” Jack called, almost without thinking about it. “Give me a smile, oes?”
The woman looked at him; he could see those dark eyes look at him. She didn’t smile. Instead she just looked away, as if he weren’t nothing, as if he were beneath her, and kept walking, just a few feet from him.
Jack straightened up a little, staring at her. He recognized her now, with a pulse of hot anger. It was the woman from the cloth shop, the one whose dresses Beth was always admiring. She was wearing one of them now, a soft thing with sleeves in some fabric he couldn’t identify, something like he could never afford to buy Beth. She was one of them bringing the galdori to the Dives, sucking up to them in her shop, and she’d as good as said she thought herself too good for him, above him.
“Galdori-loving tumble,” Jack hurled the words at her and saw her flinch. It felt good – it felt powerful. She wasn’t ignoring him now, was she? No, he’d showed her. She was still walking, nearly at him, and Jack lunged forward off the wall, half-stumbling. He reached out, one hand closing over the soft fabric on her arms, the rough, callused skin of his hands catching against her dress. He was taller than she was; she barely came up to his chin. Grabbing hold of her arm made him feel even better, stronger, like the world couldn’t touch him. He felt her struggle and he held her tighter, his fingers digging in to her upper arm.
“Let me go, please,” Even her voice was pretty, all soft and quivering. He liked it; she sounded afraid.
“Stuck up bitch,” Jack grunted, looking down at her. “Teach you t’ ignore me,” he spat, and saw her flinch again as flecks of spittle struck that pretty, made-up face.