Lime green and charcoal gray

Will wiped the smut off his cheek and blew the dirt out of his nose and got back to shoveling the coal out of the grotto. He'd been working 7 hours that gray March Saturday and had just an hour to go before quitting. He'd have just enough time to scrub the coal dirt off his face and arms before his mother served supper at 2:30.. They'd go to 4 p.m. mass afterward and then he and his father would go to the pub in downtown Dublin. He'd turned 16 yesterday and it'd be the first time he could have some dark ale with his father and his buddies.

Will liked Dublin. His mother and father didn't know it, though Father Edwin who did his confession did know. He'd gone to the whorehouse on Limerick Street a dozen times since he'd turned 15. He loved paying for the women, made working in the coal mines and the grotto worth it. Last summer he'd saved up the money to buy one of Miss Annie's girls for real intercourse. Nothing'd ever felt like it and he'd exploded in less than a dozen thrusts. Took no time at all. He'd learned since then that girls liked it when you took your time and he liked it better, too, because it meant the explosion would be more wild.

As he finished up the last of the coals he thought about the scherzo. He hadn't touched his violin in practically 2 weeks. He'd wanted to play this afternoon after he got home, but Mama had insisted -- they'd all go to mass, the three of them with Will's little sister Emily. He hated Emily. She tattled on everything Will did, except for going to the whorehouse, which she didn't know because she didn't even know about sex yet. He wanted to hang all her dolls and scare the shit out of her. But the violin -- he missed it a lot. He'd almost finished working on the Beethoven concerto's rondo, but had to put it down once his parents told him, go work forty hours a week to pay your way. Ever since then, he'd only had fifteen minutes here, ten minutes there. It mostly sat in the case under his bed.

He went home that afternoon, skin dry and grimy from the coals, hungry at the bottom of his tummy. He'd forgotten to eat his oatmeal before leaving for work at 5 a.m. He was real glad Mama was cooking today. She'd have boiled ham and cabbage waiting for him. He could smell the aroma as he opened the door, but he also heard the scratching sounds of his violin from the parlor room. Emily was playing his violin, scratching away on his very own violin. His very own teacher Mr. Lowrey sat next to her. Mama stood in the kitchen, her back to the scene in front of Will's unbelieving eyes. Didn't Mama and Mr. Lowrey know she was butchering his violin?