Anthony's Monologue

Tony C reached up and rubbed his forehead, as if trying to rid himself of a headache, but it wasn't a headache.
"Nothing changes, nothing ever changes," he muttered. The words leaving a bitter taste as they flowed with ease from his mouth. Admitting this however, changed nothing, and he had admitted it, many times.
Staring at the slit of late afternoon sunlight filtering through the small window over his kitchen table, he watched dust motes float in the air, suspended in the sun's rays like their own small universe. A shadow crossed the corner of his eye, turning, a small brown Wren landed on the ledge of the windowsill and begins foraging for food.
The distractions provided a momentary diversion however. It appeared nothing could keep
"What happened to the regular piano player?" He asked.
"Ah, the jerk got called to play another joint, said he could make more money, can you beat that, just up and quit, didn't even give notice. Anyway, I got the kid here, he's pretty good, so everything will be alright."
"I hope so," Tony C muttered as he turned and walked over to get the sheet music ready for the night's program of songs. The owner motioned with his head for the kid to follow him.
Thinking about the owner's words, Tony C wondered what he meant in saying the kid was pretty good. A one legged man on crutches walks pretty good, but you wouldn't enter him in a race. What he needed was a good piano player, not one who was just pretty good. Shrugging his shoulders in disgust, he continued getting the music ready for the evening's
It was the only new dress he remembers his mother having. The photographer had caught his mother with her head tilted downward and smiling. Tony C liked to think she was smiling at him. When she smiled it was like switching on a light and letting its luminance shine on everything and everyone around her. It always made him feel good.
The picture appeared to portray a happy family, but it wasn't so. Tony C's memory had always been good, which had unfavorable consequences, since the bad times are as easily recalled as the good ones, and he remembers his father’s words that day.
"Come over and stand beside me," his father had said. Anthony looked at him and shook his head no. "Damn you boy, get over here when I tell you. The men in this picture need to stand together; you don't need to be hanging on to your mother's skirt." Anthony didn't answer, and wouldn't look at him. Then on one of the few occasions his mother stood up for him, she looked at his father and said, "He's all right, let the boy be."
"Damn momma's boy." He muttered. But Anthony heard him, just as he had all the belittling remarks he'd ever made about him. His father never tried to hide them. He often looked at Tony C‒as he did that time‒as if there was some guilt he should expiate when all along it was his father who was