I’m one of Timmy’s girls

I remember little me. Asking so many questions in my head. Voiceless voice box. Silent chatter. I wanted to know.

Sometimes the eyes of the men at the Chip Club were sad and others were delighted. Most were lonely. All were loyal.

They remember little me. But recognize me as my mother now because time stopped in that house the moment it was built.

I’m one of Timmy’s girls. They always say they thought so. Asking how my mother is.

I know some names on the board filled with golden plates up there of the dead guys - all good for dying young. I like to pick out my uncle’s name. And then my great one. Then grandpa. I can’t remember if he was on there. Danny meant more anyway. And Buster. Buster. Yeah. Did you know him? The old timers might.

They’re all old timers to me: from the uneven floor boards and the asbestos soaked tiles, the Garlic prayers sent from the motherland hanging on sinfully faded walls, the railing I knew to be a big banister that was as strong as it was smart as spewing splinters in fingers tiny and old, splinter only pocket knives could remove.

They’re all souls to me: the pool table that coughed chalk and the sticks that were always someone specific while still everyone’s in general; the deep leather seats had cigarette breath since the late 60’s - a fragrance both potent and wholesome: the fragrance of my mind’s home and still the one aroma that reminds me of religion.

I remember little me. She’s in the room with me, inside me. Except now my mouth moves. My voice box volume is at its max despite paralyzed by memory. All of my questions, I ask them.

I’m still one of Timmy’s girls, perhaps a shadow of my Donna, the only visit from Mother Mary Andrew Square’s ever known. I’m still the little girl rollblading on tables and picking Reese’s from the vending machine courtesy of Southie’s Jiminy Cricket

I’m still one of Timmy’s girls but I came back without him just to ask what all of you are still doing here.

Six drunk ghosts of men still sitting in the chair they died in look away from the plaque that reminds them the good die young and they raise their glasses to me. None know my name but all of them know my last.

The Chippewa Chief in the portrait smirks and says,

welcome home, with those eyes, a purely loyal blue. You’re one of Timmy’s girls so I’ll always remember that little girl: you.