Mam tells Bridey sheas very sorry over the weak chest and itas terrible the way her father suffers.Mrs. Hannon tells my mother that John is getting worse every day,And what would you think, Mrs. McCourt, if your boy Frankie went on the float with him a few hours a week and helped him with the bags? We can barely afford it but Frankie could earn a shilling or two and John could rest his poor legs.
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Mam says, I donat know, heas only eleven and he had that typhoid and the coal dust wouldnat be good for his eyes.
Bridey says, Head be out in the air and thereas nothing like fresh air for someone with bad eyes or getting over the typhoid, isnat that right, Frankie?
aTis, Bridey.
Iam dying to go around with Mr. Hannon on the great float like a real workingman. If Iam good at it they might let me stay at home from school forever but Mam says, He can do it as long as it doesnat interfere with school and he can start on a Sat.u.r.day morning.
Iam a man now so I light the fire early on Sat.u.r.day morning and make my own tea and fried bread. I wait next door for Mr. Hannon to come out with his bicycle and thereas a lovely smell of rashers and eggs coming through the window. Mam says Mr. Hannon gets the best of food because Mrs. Hannon is as mad about him as she was the day she married him.Theyare like two lovers out of an American film the way they go on.Here he is pushing the bicycle and puffing away on the pipe in his mouth. He tells me climb up on the bar of his bike and off we go to my first job as a man. His head is over mine on the bike and the smell of the pipe is lovely.Thereas a coal smell on his clothes and that makes me sneeze.
Men are walking or cycling toward the coal yards and Rankas Flour Mills and the Limerick Steamship Company on the Dock Road. Mr.
Hannon takes his pipe from his mouth and tells me this is the best morning of all, Sat.u.r.day, half day.Weall start at eight and be finished by the time the Angelus rings at twelve.
First we get the horse ready, give him a bit of a rub, fill the wooden tub with oats and the bucket with water.Mr. Hannon shows me how to put on the harness and lets me back the horse into the shafts of the float. He says, Jaysus, Frankie, you have the knack of it.
That makes me so happy I want to jump up and down and drive a float the rest of my life.
There are two men filling bags with coal and turf and weighing them on the great iron scale, a hundredweight in each bag. Itas their job to stack the bags on the float while Mr.Hannon goes to the office for the delivery dockets. The bag men are fast and weare ready for our rounds. Mr. Hannon sits up on the left side of the float and flicks the whip to show where Iam to sit on the right side. Itas hard to climb up the way the float is so high and packed with bags and I try to get up by 258.
climbing the wheel.Mr.Hannon says I should never do the likes of that again. Never put your leg or hand near a wheel when the horse is harnessed in the shafts. A horse might take a notion to go for a walk for himself and there you are with the leg or the arm caught in the wheel and twisted off your body and you looking at it. He says to the horse, Gaup ower that, and the horse shakes his head and rattles the harness and Mr.Hannon laughs.That fool of a horse loves to work, he says.He wonat be rattling his harness in a few hours.
When the rain starts we cover ourselves with old coal bags and Mr.
Hannon turns his pipe upside down in his mouth to keep the tobacco dry. He says the rain makes everything heavier but whatas the use of complaining.You might as well complain about the sun in Africa.
We cross the Sarsfield Bridge for deliveries to the Ennis Road and the North Circular Road. Rich people, says Mr.Hannon, and very slow to put their hands in their pockets for a tip.
We have sixteen bags to deliver.Mr.Hannon says weare lucky today because some houses get more than one and he doesnat have to be climbing on and off that float destroying his legs.When we stop he gets down and I pull the bag to the edge and lay it on his shoulders. Some houses have areas outside where you pull up a trap door and tip the bag till it empties and thatas easy.There are other houses with long backyards and you can see Mr. Hannon suffering with his legs when he has to carry the bags from the float to the sheds near the back doors.Ah, Jaysus, Frankie, ah, Jaysus, is the only complaint out of him and he asks me to give him a hand to climb back on the float. He says if he had a handcart he could wheel the bags from float to house and that would be a blessing but a handcart would cost two weeksa wages and who could afford that?
The bags are delivered and the sun is out, the float is empty, and the horse knows his workday is over. Itas lovely to sit on the float looking along the length of the horse from his tail to his head rocking along the Ennis Road over the Shannon and up the Dock Road.Mr.Hannon says the man who delivered sixteen hundredweights of coal and turf deserves a pint and the boy who helped him deserves a lemonade. He tells me I should go to school and not be like him working away with the two legs rotting under him. Go to school, Frankie, and get out of Limerick and Ireland itself.This war will be over some day and you can go to America or Australia or any big open country where you can look up and see no end to the land.The world is wide and you can have great 259.
adventures. If I didnat have these two legs Iad be over in England making a fortune in the factories like the rest of the Irishmen, like your father. No, not like your father. I hear he left you high and dry, eh? I donat know how a man in his right mind can go off and leave a wife and family to starve and shiver in a Limerick winter. School, Frankie, school. The books, the books, the books. Get out of Limerick before your legs rot and your mind collapses entirely.
The horse clops along and when we get to the coal yard we feed and water him and give him a rubdown. Mr. Hannon talks to him all the time and calls him Me oula segosha, and the horse snuffles and pushes his nose against Mr.Hannonas chest. Iad love to bring this horse home and let him stay downstairs when weare up in Italy but even if I could get him in the door my mother would yell at me that the last thing we need in this house is a horse.
The streets going up from the Dock Road are too hilly for Mr.
Hannon to ride the bicycle and carry me, so we walk. His legs are sore from the day and it takes a long time to get up to Henry Street. He leans on the bicycle or sits on the steps outside houses, grinding down on the pipe in his mouth.
Iam wondering when Iall get the money for the dayas work because Mam might let me go to the Lyric Cinema if I get home in time with my shilling or whatever Mr. Hannon gives me.Now weare at the door of Southas pub and he tells me come in, didnat he promise me a lemonade?
Uncle Pa Keating is sitting in the pub.Heas all black as usual and heas sitting next to Bill Galvin, all white as usual, snuffling and taking great slugs out of his black pint. Mr. Hannon says, Howare you? and sits on the other side of Bill Galvin and everyone in the pub laughs. Jaysus, says the barman, look at that, two lumps of coal and a s...o...b..ll. Men come in from other parts of the pub to see the two coal-black men with the lime-white man in the middle and they want to send down to the Limerick Leader for a man with a camera.
Uncle Pa says,What are you doing all black yourself, Frankie? Did you fall down a coal mine?
I was helping Mr. Hannon on the float.
Your eyes look atrocious, Frankie. p.i.s.s holes in the snow.
aTis the coal dust, Uncle Pa.
Wash them when you go home.
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I will, Uncle Pa.
Mr. Hannon buys me a lemonade, gives me the shilling for my morningas work and tells me I can go home now, Iam a great worker and I can help him again next week after school.
On the way home I see myself in the gla.s.s of a shop window all black from the coal, and I feel like a man, a man with a shilling in his pocket, a man who had a lemonade in a pub with two coal men and a lime man. Iam not a child anymore and I could easily leave Leamyas School forever. I could work with Mr. Hannon every day and when his legs got too bad I could take over the float and deliver coal to the rich people the rest of my life and my mother wouldnat have to be a beggar at the Redemptorist priestsa house.
People on the streets and lanes give me curious looks.Boys and girls laugh and call out, Hereas the chimney sweep.How much do you want for cleaning our chimney? Did you fall into a coal hole? Were you burned by the darkness?
Theyare ignorant.They donat know I spent the day delivering hundredweights of coal and turf.They donat know Iam a man.
Mam is sleeping up in Italy with Alphie and thereas a coat over the window to keep the room dark. I tell her I earned a shilling and she says I can go to the Lyric, I deserve it.Take tuppence and leave the rest of the shilling on the mantelpiece downstairs so that she can send out for a loaf of bread for the tea.The coat suddenly drops from the window and the room is bright. Mam looks at me, G.o.d above, look at your eyes.
Go downstairs and Iall be down in a minute to wash them.
She heats water in the kettle and dabs at my eyes with boric acid powder and tells me I canat go to the Lyric Cinema today or any day till my eyes clear up though G.o.d knows when that will be. She says,You canat be delivering coal with the state of your eyes.The dust will surely destroy them.
I want the job. I want to bring home the shilling. I want to be a man.
You can be a man without bringing home a shilling. Go upstairs and lie down and rest your two eyes or itas a blind man youall be.
I want that job. I wash my eyes three times a day with the boric acid powder. I remember Seamus in the hospital and how his uncleas eyes were cured with the blink exercise and I make sure to sit and blink for an hour every day.You canat beat the blink for the strong eye, he said.
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And now I blink and blink till Malachy runs to my mother, talking out in the lane with Mrs. Hannon,Mam,something is up with Frankie, heas upstairs blinking and blinking.
She comes running up.Whatas wrong with you?
Iam making my eyes strong with the exercise.
What exercise?
The blinking.
Blinking is not exercise.
Seamus in the hospital says you canat beat the blink for the strong eye. His uncle had powerful eyes from the blinking.
She says Iam getting odd and goes back to the lane and her chat with Mrs. Hannon and I blink and bathe my eyes with the boric acid powder in warm water. I can hear Mrs. Hannon through the window, Your little Frankie is a G.o.dsend to John for atis the climbing up and down on that float that was ruining his legs entirely.
Mam doesnat say anything and that means she feels so sorry for Mr.
Hannon sheall let me help him again on his heavy delivery day,Thursday.
I wash my eyes three times a day and I blink till I get a pain in my eyebrows. I blink in school when the master isnat looking and all the boys in my cla.s.s are calling me Blinky and adding that to the list of names.
Blinky McCourt beggar womanas son scabby-eyed blubber gob dancing j.a.p.
I donat care what they call me anymore as long as my eyes are clearing up and I have a regular job lifting hundredweights of coal on a float.
I wish they could see me on Thursday after school when Iam on the float and Mr.Hannon hands me the reins so that he can smoke his pipe in comfort. Here you are, Frankie, nice and gentle for this is a good horse and he doesnat need to be pulled at.
He hands me the whip too but you never need the whip with this horse. Itas all for show and I just flick it at the air like Mr. Hannon or I might knock a fly off the horseas great golden rump swinging between the shafts.
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Surely the world is looking at me and admiring the way I rock with the float, the cool way I have with the reins and the whip. I wish I had a pipe like Mr. Hannon and a tweed cap. I wish I could be a real coal man with black skin like Mr. Hannon and Uncle Pa Keating so that people would say, There goes Frankie McCourt that delivers all the coal in Limerick and drinks his pint in Southas pub. Iad never wash my face. Iad be black every day of the year even Christmas when youare supposed to give yourself a good wash for the coming of the Infant Jesus.
I know He wouldnat mind because I saw the Three Wise Men in the Christmas crib at the Redemptorist church and one of them was blacker than Uncle Pa Keating, the blackest man in Limerick, and if a Wise Man is black it means that everywhere you go in the world someone is delivering coal.
The horse lifts his tail and great lumps of steaming yellow s.h.i.t drop from his behind. I start to pull on the reins so that he can stop and have a bit of comfort for himself but Mr.Hannon says,No, Frankie, let him trot.They always s.h.i.t on the trot.Thatas one of the blessings horses have, they s.h.i.t on the trot, and theyare not dirty and stinking like the human race, not at all, Frankie.The worst thing in the world is to go into a lavatory after a man that had a feed of pigas feet and a night of pints. The stink from that could twist the nostrils of a strong man.
Horses are different.All they have is oats and hay and what they drop is clean and natural.
I work with Mr. Hannon after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the half day on Sat.u.r.day morning and that means three shillings for my mother though she worries all the time over my eyes.The minute I get home she washes them and makes me rest them for half an hour.
Mr.Hannon says heall wait near Leamyas School for me on Thursdays after his deliveries on Barrington Street.Now the boys will see me.
Now theyall know Iam a workingman and more than a scabby-eyed blubber gob dancing j.a.p. Mr.Hannon says, Up you get, and I climb up on the float like any workingman. I look at the boys gawking at me.
Gawking. I tell Mr. Hannon if he wants to smoke his pipe in comfort Iall take the reins and when he hands them over Iam sure I hear the boys gasping. I tell the horse, Gaup ower that, like Mr.Hannon.We trot away and I know dozens of Leamyas boys are committing the deadly sin of envy. I tell the horse again, Gaup ower that, to make sure everyone heard, to make sure they know Iam driving that float and no one else, to make sure theyall never forget it was me they saw on that float with 263.
the reins and the whip. Itas the best day of my life, better than my First Communion day, which Grandma ruined, better than my Confirmation day when I had the typhoid.
They donat call me names anymore.They donat laugh at my scabby eyes.They want to know how I got such a good job at eleven years of age and what Iam paid and if Iall have that job forever.They want to know if there are any other good jobs going in the coal yards and would I put in a good word for them.
Then there are big boys of thirteen who stick their faces in mine and say they should have that job because theyare bigger and Iam nothing but a scrawny little runt with no shoulders.They can talk as much as they like.
I have the job and Mr.Hannon tells me Iam powerful.
There are days his legs are so bad he can hardly walk at all and you can see Mrs. Hannon worries. She gives me a mug of tea and I watch her roll up his trouser legs and peel away the dirty bandages.The sores are red and yellow and clogged with coal dust. She washes them with soapy water and smears them with a yellow ointment. She props the legs up on a chair and thatas where he stays the rest of the night reading the paper or a book from the shelf above his head.
The legs are getting so bad he has to get up an hour earlier in the morning to get the stiffness out, to put on another dressing. Itas still dark one Sat.u.r.day morning when Mrs. Hannon knocks at our door and asks me if Iad go to a neighbor and borrow their handcart to take on the float for Mr. Hannon will never be able to carry the bags today and maybe Iad just roll them on the handcart for him.He wonat be able to carry me on his bicycle so I can meet him at the yard with the handcart.
The neighbor says,Anything for Mr.Hannon, G.o.d bless him.
I wait at the gate of the coal yard and watch him cycle toward me, slower than ever. Heas so stiff he can hardly get off the bike and he says, Youare a great man, Frankie. He lets me get the horse ready though I still have trouble getting on the harness. He lets me handle the float out of the yard and into the frosty streets and I wish I could drive forever and never go home.Mr.Hannon shows me how to pull the bags to the edge of the float and drop them on the ground so that I can pull them on to the handcart and push them to the houses. He tells me how to lift and push the bags without straining myself and we have the sixteen bags delivered by noon.
I wish the boys at Leamyas could see me now, the way I drive the horse and handle the bags, the way I do everything while Mr. Hannon 264.
rests his legs. I wish they could see me pushing the handcart to Southas pub and having my lemonade with Mr.Hannon and Uncle Pa and me all black and Bill Galvin all white. Iad like to show the world the tips Mr.
Hannon lets me keep, four shillings, and the shilling he gives me for the morningas work, five shillings altogether.
Mam is sitting by the fire and when I hand her the money she looks at me, drops it in her lap and cries. Iam puzzled because money is supposed to make you happy. Look at your eyes, she says. Go to that gla.s.s and look at your eyes.
My face is black and the eyes are worse than ever.The whites and the eyelids are red, and the yellow stuff oozes to the corners and out over the lower lids. If the ooze sits a while it forms a crust that has to be picked off or washed away.
Mam says thatas the end of it.No more Mr.Hannon. I try to explain that Mr. Hannon needs me. He can barely walk anymore. I had to do everything this morning, drive the float, wheel the handcart with the bags, sit in the pub, drink lemonade, listen to the men discussing who is the best, Rommel or Montgomery.
She says sheas sorry for Mr.Hannonas troubles but we have troubles of our own and the last thing she needs now is a blind son stumbling through the streets of Limerick. Bad enough you nearly died of typhoid, now you want to go blind on top of it.
And I canat stop crying now because this was my one chance to be a man and bring home the money the telegram boy never brought from my father. I canat stop crying because I donat know what Mr. Hannon is going to do on Monday morning when he has no one to help him pull the bags to the edge of the float, to push the bags into the houses.
I canat stop crying because of the way he is with that horse he calls sweet because heas so gentle himself and what will the horse do if Mr. Hannon isnat there to take him out, if Iam not there to take him out? Will that horse fall down hungry for the want of oats and hay and the odd apple?
Mam says I shouldnat be crying, itas bad for the eyes. She says,Weall see. Thatas all I can tell you now.Weall see.
She washes my eyes and gives me sixpence to take Malachy to the Lyric to see Boris Karloff in The Man They Could Not Hang and have two pieces of Cleevesa toffee. Itas hard to see the screen with the yellow stuff oozing from my eyes and Malachy has to tell me whatas happening.
People around us tell him shut up, theyad like to hear what Boris 265.
Karloff is saying, and when Malachy talks back to them and tells them heas only helping his blind brother they call the man in charge, Frank Goggin, and he says if he hears another word out of Malachy heall throw the two of us out.
I donat mind. I have a way of squeezing the stuff out of one eye and clearing it so that I can see the screen while the other eye fills up and I go back and forth, squeeze, look, squeeze, look, and everything I see is yellow.
Monday morning Mrs. Hannon is knocking on our door again. She asks Mam if Frank would ever go down to the coal yard and tell the man in the office that Mr. Hannon canat come in today, that he has to see a doctor about his legs, that heall surely be in tomorrow and what he canat deliver today he will tomorrow. Mrs. Hannon always calls me Frank now. Anyone that delivers hundredweights of coal is not a Frankie.
The man in the office says,Humph.I think weare very tolerant with Hannon.You, whatas your name?
McCourt, sir.
Tell Hannon weall need a note from the doctor. Do you understand that?
I do, sir.
The doctor tells Mr. Hannon he has to go to the hospital or itas a case of gangrene heall have and the doctor wonat be responsible.The ambulance takes Mr. Hannon away and my big job is gone.Now Iall be white like everyone else in Leamyas, no float, no horse, no shillings to bring home to my mother.
In a few days Bridey Hannon comes to our door. She says her mother would like me to come and see her, have a cup of tea with her.
Mrs. Hannon is sitting by the fire with her hand on the seat of Mr.Hannonas chair. Sit down, Frank, she says, and when I go to sit on one of the ordinary kitchen chairs she says, No, sit here. Sit here on the chair of himself. Do you know how old he is, Frank?
Oh, he must be very old, Mrs. Hannon. He must be thirty-five.
She smiles. She has lovely teeth. Heas forty-nine, Frank, and a man that age shouldnat have legs like that.
He shouldnat, Mrs. Hannon.
Did you know you were a joy to him going around on that float?