Frank Semyon and Jordan Semyon in “Unfinished Business”

Frank Semyon

How’d a water stain get there?

Frank Semyon

It rained maybe twice this last year. It’s like everything’s papier-mache.

Stop thinking.

Frank Semyon

I don’t like being on a ledge.

Nobody gets rich on their own money.

Frank Semyon

I never really knew what to do with it. Money.

Frank Semyon

I see that about myself.

You always said you want lots of land.

Frank Semyon

Yes, but you need children to leave it to. It’s never really yours. You don’t take it with you.

You don’t take anything with you.

Frank Semyon

Just yourself. Whatever that was.

I’ve worked my whole life. Same as you. And not being poor is better than the opposite.

Frank Semyon

My old man back in Chicago, when I was a kid… [laughs] He used to lock me in the basement when he’d go on a bender. Usually last the night. Let me out the next day. Thought he was keeping me safe, I guess. This one time, I was six - he puts me down there. I wake up and it’s locked. It had happened before. Anyways, so I guess he ended up arrested, I guess.

God, baby.

Frank Semyon

Well, by the second morning I was out of food. The third day the light bulb burnt out. Pitch black in there. That’s when the rats started coming out. I dozed off and I felt a thing nibbling my finger. I woke up, it was, you know, chewing my finger.

What did you do?

Frank Semyon

I grabbed it in the dark with my hands, I started smashing. And I just kept smashing it until it was nothing but goo in my hands. Two more days I was in there. In the dark. 'Til my dad comes home.

Sometimes I wonder how many things you have like that. That I don’t know about.

Frank Semyon

Ever since, I wondered: what if he never comes home? What if I’m still in that basement in the dark? What if I died there? That’s what that reminds me of.

What?

Frank Semyon

The water stain. Something’s trying to tell me that it’s all paper-mache. Something’s telling me to wake up, like… like I’m not real. Like I’m only dreaming.