southside trash [shameless]

• Chapter 13 • Father •

Everybody's lives were, as always, put on hold because our pathetic excuse of a father was missing and despite him being such a pathetic excuse of a father, he's still our dad. Sadly.

"Hey, Ted. Yeah. Yeah, you see Frank? No, since Michael Jackson died?"

"John? It's Debbie. Have you seen Frank since last night?"

"Last night, at the Alibi?"

"Sorry about the door, and the window. Anyway I was wondering, have you seen Frank?"

"Did you get an admission into the ER last night or this morning? Frank Gallagher?"

"Keep an eye out. If you see him, give me a call."

The overlapping chatter of us all on different phones that we've gathered together fills the room, but we all go silent when V's phone starts getting pulled through the window.

"Shit!" She yells, trying to grab it before it exits the house, "what the fuck?" She pokes her head out and scoffs, "motherfucker," before storming out of the house, shaking her head.

We watch her running down the road after it, making me laughs slightly.

"Wen- Wendy. Give me the phone!" She yells at her husband, "Kev, Stop!"

She heads into her house and we can all hear yelling.  Sighing we sit down around the room in defeat. Lip, being the only one left on the phone hangs up and we're left in silence.

"Anything?" Fiona asks and Lip shakes his head.

"Nobody's seen him since last night." Ian huffs.

Debbie starts to whimper, about to start crying and we all jump up to comfort her.

I shove Kev's phone in my pocket so I can hug her. "Hey. Hey, don't worry, Debs." I rub her shoulder, "we're gonna find him, okay?" I pull her close to me in a hug.

"We split up. All the regular spots, okay?" Fiona says standing up, "go."

We all get up and leave the house splitting up; Lip and Karen, Carl and Debbie, and me and Ian go alone, while Steve and Fiona go to try and file a missing persons report.

We check everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Alleyways, under cars, motel rooms, porta potties, dumpsters, the washing machines at the laundromat, the Kash and Grab, the coffin shop, even the fucking sperm bank.  Yes, you read that correctly.

I stop by at Kev and V's and she tells me about Kev getting pissed that we were using his mobile and their landline, and I storm over to the alibi.

I shove the door open and throw the phone down on the bar, "you can shove your phone up your ass. No more freebies from me like Lip and I doing your taxes every April because you can't understand the instructions." I start to walk out but Kev quickly stops me.