New York, Land of Dreams

By Amanda

1891

His name was Avery. Avery Andrew Anderson, and he most definitely thought it was a joke that his parents were playing on their unfortunate son or something akin to that. He lived fairly well in Virginia (from what little he could remember,) much better than when they all moved to New York. It was ironic, he supposed. Because he remembered a house all to themselves, having enough food, and even playing with toys and starting his academics. And then his parents thought it best to move to New York, thought that they would prosper more there than they had in Virginia. More than anything else, his parents wanted to be rich.

Obviously that didn’t work out. Immediately, he was put to work in a factory, his ‘cultured’ accent quickly falling to the wayside as he listened to all the other children who worked there as well. Instinctively, he knew something was wrong with that picture, but being a six-year-old, he couldn’t much put his finger on it.

The move was difficult. Avery didn’t want to say goodbye to his home, to the friends he played with after church, to anything, really. But his father said that he had gotten a managerial position in a factory in New York, which ‘paid twice as much’ and ‘came with no damn union to inhibit me.’ Avery’s father hated unions. Felt that substandard work took over the real worker’s abilities. Avery’s father, of course, had no such position lined up; he had never even spoken to anyone in New York, ever.

Secretly, Avery suspected that his father had some past that he wanted to hide away from, but the promise of a ‘bright and prosperous city’ seemed to blind he and his mother for the longest time. By the time that anything came about to Avery’s childish suspicions, his father was long gone and away.

And so they moved. It wasn’t as though Avery hated New York; in fact, he loved listening to the hustle and bustle of the carriages as they ran by his tenement, but it was never home. That’s what Avery wanted more than anything, to just have a home again. Even in his younger years, he had always felt strangely attached to places, and being suddenly moved from them, startled his ‘delicate’ disposition.

But of course, he was digressing. He always tended to do that. Try to tell someone something, and end up on a completely different subject. That was the cause of a lot his bruises, that was for sure.

Anyways, he and his family had moved to New York, gotten into a tenement, and all started working factory jobs. He could tell that his mother was, slightly, disappointed in his father; the ‘Henry, really?’s echoing through their house when Avery got back from his job.

What a job it was. 12 hours a day, six days a week (Sunday off, of course.) And all of this for six-year-old Avery. He almost lost his arm a couple of times, as he was able to crawl in through the machines to fix broken pieces or whatever have you. There was even a time when he almost lost his everything. It was hard work, no time for the fun he was used to when he was younger.

As he grew older, figured out everything, he knew that his parents were fools. They thought that they could run New York like the back of their hand. Instead, they were lost in the thousands of other families who were thinking the exact same thing. Most days, Avery chuckled at their stupidity. Some days, he wondered what his life would have been like.

Because his father walked out on him and his mam, and she wilted away, not knowing how to deal with life without her ‘dear, sweet, Henry.’ (Who, as it seemed, wasn’t so dear or sweet, after all.) She had died, and then it had just been him.

Just little Avery Anderson, seven (almost eight) years-old. Nothing in his life, and no one he knew.

And he was alone.