I hit my brother, I went on the mooch from school, I lied to my mother.
Yes,my child, and what else?
Ia" Ia" I did dirty things, Father.
Ah,my child,was that with yourself or with another or with some cla.s.s of beast?
Some cla.s.s of beast. I never heard of a sin like that before.This priest must be from the country and if he is heas opening up new worlds to me.
The night before Iam to go to Killaloe Laman Griffin comes home drunk and eats a great bag of fish and chips at the table. He tells Mam boil water for tea and when she says she has no coal or turf he yells at her and calls her a great lump living free under his roof with her pack of brats. He throws money at me to go to the shop for a few sods of turf and wood for kindling. I donat want to go. I want to hit him for the way he treats my mother but if I say anything he wonat let me have the bicycle tomorrow after Iave waited three weeks.
When Mam gets the fire going and boils the water I remind him of his promise to loan me the bike.
Did you empty the chamber pot today?
Oh, I forgot. Iall do it this minute.
He shouts,You didnat empty my d.a.m.n chamber pot. I promise you the bike. I give you tuppence a week to run messages for me and empty the chamber pot and you stand there with your thick gob hanging out and tell me you didnat do it.
Iam sorry. I forgot. Iall do it now.
You will, will you? And how do you think youall get up to the loft?
Are you going to pull the table out from under my fish and chips?
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Mam says, Sure, he was at school all day and he had to go to the doctor for his eyes.
Well, you can b.l.o.o.d.y well forget about the bicycle.You didnat live up to the bargain.
But he couldnat do it, says Mam.
He tells her shut up and mind her own business and she goes quiet by the fire. He goes back to his fish and chips but I tell him again,You promised me. I emptied that chamber pot and did your messages for three weeks.
Shut up and go to bed.
You canat tell me go to bed.Youare not my father, and you promised me.
Iam telling you, as sure as G.o.d made little apples, that if I get up from this table youall be calling for your patron saint.
You promised me.
He pushes the chair back from the table. He stumbles toward me and sticks his finger between my eyes. Iam telling you shut your gob, scabby eyes.
I wonat.You promised me.
He punches my shoulders and when I wonat stop moves to my head. My mother jumps up, crying, and tries to pull him away. He punches and kicks me into the bedroom but I keep saying, You promised me. He knocks me to my motheras bed and punches till I cover my face and head with my arms.
Iall kill you, you little s.h.i.t.
Mam is screaming and pulling at him till he falls backward into the kitchen. She says, Come on, oh, come on. Eat your fish and chips. Heas only a child. Heall get over it.
I hear him go back to his chair and pull it to the table. I hear him snuffle and slurp when he eats and drinks. Hand me the matches, he says. By Jesus, I need a f.a.g after that.Thereas a put-put sound when he puffs on the cigarette and a whimper from my mother.
He says, Iam going to bed, and with the drink in him it takes him a while to climb the chair to the table, pull up the chair, climb to the loft.
The bed squeaks under him and he grunts when he pulls off his boots and drops them to the floor.
I can hear Mam crying when she blows into the globe of the paraf- fin oil lamp and everything goes dark.After what happened sheall surely 294.
want to get into her own bed and Iam ready to go to the small one against the wall. Instead, thereas the sound of her climbing the chair, the table, the chair, crying up into the loft and telling Laman Griffin, Heas only a boy, tormented with his eyes, and when Laman says, Heas a little s.h.i.t and I want him out of the house, she cries and begs till thereas whispering and grunting and moaning and nothing.
In awhile theyare snoring in the loft and my brothers are asleep around me. I canat stay in this house for if Laman Griffin comes at me again Iall take a knife to his neck. I donat know what to do or where to go.
I leave the house and follow the streets from the Sarsfield Barracks to the Monument Caf. I dream of how Iall get back at Laman some day. Iall go to America and see Joe Louis. Iall tell him my troubles and heall understand because he comes from a poor family. Heall show me how to build up my muscles, how to hold my hands and use my feet.
Heall show me how to dig my chin into my shoulder the way he does and how to let go with a right uppercut that will send Laman flying. Iall drag Laman to the graveyard at Mungret where his family and Mamas family are buried and Iall cover him with earth all the way to his chin so that he wonat be able to move and heall beg for his life and Iall say, End of the road, Laman, youare going to meet your Maker, and heall beg and beg while I trickle dirt on his face till itas covered completely and heas gasping and asking G.o.d for forgiveness for not giving me the bike and punching me all over the house and doing the excitement with my mother and Iall be laughing away because heas not in a state of grace after the excitement and heas going to h.e.l.l as sure as G.o.d made little apples as he used to say himself.
The streets are dark and I have to keep an eye out in case I might be lucky like Malachy long ago and find fish and chips dropped by drunken soldiers.Thereas nothing on the ground. If I find my uncle, Ab Sheehan, he might give me some of his Friday night fish and chips, but they tell me in the caf he came and went already. Iam thirteen now so I donat call him Uncle Pat anymore. I call him Ab or The Abbot like everybody else. Surely if I go to Grandmaas house heall give me a piece of bread or something and maybe heall let me stay the night. I can tell him Iall be working in a few weeks delivering telegrams and getting big tips at the post office and ready to pay my own way.
Heas sitting up in bed finishing his fish and chips, dropping to the 295.
floor the Limerick Leader they were wrapped in, wiping his mouth and hands with the blanket. He looks at me,That face is all swole.Did you fall on that face?
I tell him I did because thereas no use telling him anything else.He wouldnat understand. He says,You can stay in me motheras bed tonight.
You canat walk the streets with that face and them two red eyes in your head.
He says thereas no food in the house, not a sc.r.a.p of bread, and when he falls asleep I take the greasy newspaper from the floor. I lick the front page, which is all advertis.e.m.e.nts for films and dances in the city. I lick the headlines. I lick the great attacks of Patton and Montgomery in France and Germany. I lick the war in the Pacific. I lick the obituaries and the sad memorial poems, the sports pages, the market prices of eggs b.u.t.ter and bacon. I suck the paper till there isnat a smidgen of grease.
I wonder what Iall do tomorrow.
XIV.
In the morning The Abbot gives me the money to go to Kathleen OaConnellas for bread,margarine,tea,milk.He boils water on the gas ring and tells me I can have a mug of tea and, Go aisy with the sugar, Iam not a millionaire.You can have a cut oa bread but donat make it too thick.
Itas July and school is over forever. In a few weeks Iall be delivering telegrams at the post office,working like a man. In the weeks Iam idle I can do anything I like, get up in the morning, stay in bed, take long walks out the country like my father,wander around Limerick. If I had the money Iad go over to the Lyric Cinema, eat sweets, see Errol Flynn conquering everyone in sight. I can read the English and Irish papers The Abbot brings home or I can use the library cards of Laman Grif- fin and my mother till Iam found out.
Mam sends Michael with a milk bottle of warm tea, a few cuts of bread smeared with dripping, a note to say Laman Griffin isnat angry anymore and I can come back. Michael says,Are you coming home, Frankie?
No.
Ah, do, Frankie. Come on.
I live here now. Iam never going back.
But Malachy is gone to the army and youare here and I have no big brother.All the boys have big brothers and I only have Alphie. Heas not even four and canat talk right.
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I canat go back. Iam never going back.You can come here any time you like.
His eyes glint with tears and that gives me such a pain in my heart I want to say,All right, Iall come with you. Iam only saying that. I know Iall never be able to face Laman Griffin again and I donat know if I can look at my mother. I watch Michael go up the lane with the sole of his shoe broken and clacking along the pavement.When I start that job at the post office Iall buy him shoes so I will. Iall give him an egg and take him to the Lyric Cinema for the film and the sweets and then weall go to Naughtonas and eat fish and chips till our bellies are sticking out a mile. Iall get money some day for a house or a flat with electric light and a lavatory and beds with sheets blankets pillows like the rest of the world.Weall have breakfast in a bright kitchen with flowers dancing in a garden beyond, delicate cups and saucers, eggcups, eggs soft in the yolk and ready to melt the rich creamery b.u.t.ter, a teapot with a cozy on it, toast with b.u.t.ter and marmalade galore.Weall take our time and listen to music from the BBC or the American Armed Forces Network. Iall buy proper clothes for the whole family so our a.r.s.es wonat be hanging out of our pants and we wonat have the shame. The thought of the shame brings a pain in my heart and starts me sniffling.The Abbot says, Whatas up with you? Didnat you have your bread? Didnat you have your tay? What more do you want? aTis an egg youall be lookina for next.
Thereas no use talking to someone who was dropped on his head and sells papers for a living.
He complains he canat be feeding me forever and Iall have to get my own bread and tea. He doesnat want to come home and find me reading in the kitchen with the electric lightbulb blazing away.He can read numbers so he can and when he goes out to sell papers he reads the electric meter so heall know how much I used and if I donat stop turning on that light heall take the fuse out and carry it in his pocket and if I put another fuse in heall have the electricity pulled out altogether and go back to gas, which was good enough for his poor dead mother and will surely suit him for all he does is sit up in the bed to eat his fish and chips and count his money before he goes to sleep.
I get up early like Dad and go on long walks into the country. I walk around the graveyard in the old abbey at Mungret where my motheras relations are buried and I go up the boreen to the Norman castle at Carrigogunnell where Dad brought me twice. I climb to the top and Ireland is spread out before me, the Shannon shining its way to the 298.
Atlantic. Dad told me this castle was built hundreds of years ago and if you wait for the larks to stop their singing over there you can hear the Normans below hammering and talking and getting ready for battle.
Once he brought me here in the dark so that we could hear Norman and Irish voices down through the centuries and I heard them. I did.
Sometimes Iam up there alone on the heights of Carrigogunnell and there are voices of Norman girls from olden times laughing and singing in French and when I see them in my mind Iam tempted and I climb to the very top of the castle where once there was a tower and there in full view of Ireland I interfere with myself and spurt all over Carrigogunnell and fields beyond.
Thatas a sin I could never tell a priest. Climbing to great heights and going at yourself before all of Ireland is surely worse than doing it in a private place with yourself or with another or with some cla.s.s of a beast.
Somewhere down there in the fields or along the banks of the Shannon a boy or a milkmaid might have looked up and seen me in my sin and if they did Iam doomed because the priests are always saying that anyone who exposes a child to sin will have a millstone tied around his neck and be cast into the sea.
Still, the thought of someone watching me brings on the excitement again. I wouldnat want a small boy to be watching me.No,no, that would surely lead to the millstone, but if there was a milkmaid gawking up shead surely get excited and go at herself though I donat know if girls can go at themselves when they donat have anything to go at. No equipment, as Mikey Molloy used to say.
I wish that old deaf Dominican priest would come back so that I could tell him my troubles with the excitement but heas dead now and Iall have to face a priest whoall go on about the millstone and the doom.
Doom.Thatas the favorite word of every priest in Limerick.
I walk back along OaConnell Avenue and Ballinacurra where people have their bread and milk delivered early to their doorsteps and surely thereas no harm if I borrow a loaf or a bottle with every intention of giving it back when I get my job at the post office. Iam not stealing, Iam borrowing, and thatas not a mortal sin. Besides, I stood on top of a castle this morning and committed a sin far worse than stealing bread and milk and if you commit one sin you might as well commit a few more because you get the same sentence in h.e.l.l. One sin, eternity.
A dozen sins, eternity.
Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, as my mother would 299.
say. I drink the odd pint of milk and leave the bottle so that the milkman wonat be blamed for not delivering. I like milkmen because one of them gave me two broken eggs which I swallowed raw with bits of sh.e.l.ls and all. He said Iad grow up powerful if I had nothing else but two eggs in a pint of porter every day.Everything you need is in the egg and everything you want is in the pint.
Some houses get better bread than others. It costs more and thatas what I take. I feel sorry for the rich people who will get up in the morning and go to the door and find their bread missing but I canat let myself starve to death. If I starve Iall never have the strength for my telegram boy job at the post office, which means Iall have no money to put back all that bread and milk and no way of saving to go to America and if I canat go to America I might as well jump into the River Shannon. Itas only a few weeks till I get my first wages in the post office and surely these rich people wonat collapse with the hunger till then.They can always send the maid out for more.Thatas the difference between the poor and the rich.
The poor canat send out for more because thereas no money to send out for more and if there was they wouldnat have a maid to send. Itas the maids I have to worry about. I have to be careful when I borrow the milk and the bread and theyare at the front doors polishing k.n.o.bs, knockers and letter boxes. If they see me theyall be running to the woman of the house, Oh, madam, madam, thereas an urchin beyant thatas makina off with all the milk and bread.
Beyant. Maids talk like that because theyare all from the country, Mullingar heifers, says Paddy Clohessyas uncle, beef to the heels, and they wouldnat give you the steam of their p.i.s.s.
I bring home the bread and even if The Abbot is surprised he doesnat say,Where did you get it? because he was dropped on his head and that knocks the curiosity out of you. He just looks at me with his big eyes that are blue in the middle and yellow all around and slurps his tea from the great cracked mug his mother left behind. He tells me,Thatas me mug and donat be drinkina your tay oush of ish.
Oush of ish.Thatas the Limerick slum talk that always worried Dad.
He said, I donat want my sons growing up in a Limerick lane saying, Oush of ish. Itas common and low-cla.s.s. Say out of it properly.
And Mam said, I hope it keeps fine for you but youare not doing much to get us oush of ish.
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Out beyond Ballinacurra I climb orchard walls for apples. If thereas a dog I move on because I donat have Paddy Clohessyas way of talking to them. Farmers come at me but theyare always slow in their rubber boots and even if they jump on a bicycle to chase me I jump over walls where they canat take a bike.
The Abbot knows where I got the apples. If you grow up in the lanes of Limerick youare bound to rob the odd orchard sooner or later.
Even if you hate apples you have to rob orchards or your pals will say youare a sissy.
I always offer The Abbot an apple but he wonat eat it because of the scarcity of teeth in his head. He has five left and he wonat risk leaving them in an apple. If I cut the apple into slices he still wonat eat it because thatas not the proper way to eat an apple.Thatas what he says and if I say, You slice bread before you eat it, donat you? he says, Apples is apples and bread is bread.
Thatas how you talk when youare dropped on your head.
Michael comes again with warm tea in a milk bottle and two cuts of fried bread. I tell him I donat need it anymore.Tell Mam Iam taking care of myself and I donat need her tea and fried bread, thank you very much. Michael is delighted when I give him an apple and I tell him come every second day and he can have more.That stops him from asking me to go back to Laman Griffinas and Iam glad it stops his tears.
Thereas a market down in Irishtown where the farmers come on Sat.u.r.days with their vegetables, hens, eggs, b.u.t.ter. If Iam there early theyall give me a few pennies for helping unload their carts or motor cars.At the end of the day theyall give me vegetables they canat sell, anything crushed, bruised or rotten in parts. One farmeras wife always gives me cracked eggs and tells me, Fry them eggs tomorrow when you come back from Ma.s.s in a state of grace for if you ate them eggs with a sin on your sowl theyall stick in your gullet, so they will.
Sheas a farmeras wife and thatas how they talk.
Iam not much better than a beggar now myself the way I stand at the doors of fish and chip shops when theyare closing in hopes they might have burnt chips left over or bits of fish floating around in the grease. If theyare in a hurry the shop owners will give me the chips and a sheet of paper for wrapping.
The paper I like is the News of the World. Itas banned in Ireland but people sneak it in from England for the shocking pictures of girls in swimming suits that are almost not there.Then there are stories of peo- 301.
ple committing all kinds of sins you wouldnat find in Limerick, getting divorces, committing adultery.
Adultery. I still have to find out what that word means, look it up in the library. Iam sure itas worse than what the masters taught us, bad thoughts, bad words, bad deeds.
I take my chips home and get into bed like The Abbot. If he has a few pints taken he sits up eating his chips from the Limerick Leader and singing aThe Road to Rasheen.a I eat my chips. I lick the News of the World. I lick the stories about people doing shocking things. I lick the girls in their bathing suits and when thereas nothing left to lick I look at the girls till The Abbot blows out the light and Iam committing a mortal sin under the blanket.
I can go to the library any time with Mamas card or Laman Grif- finas. Iall never be caught because Laman is too lazy to get out of bed on a Sat.u.r.day and Mam will never go near a library with the shame of her clothes.
Miss OaRiordan smiles.The Lives of the Saints are waiting for you, Frank.Volumes and volumes. Butler,OaHanlon, Baring-Gould. Iave told the head librarian all about you and sheas so pleased sheas ready to give you your own grown-up card. Isnat that wonderful?
Thanks, Miss OaRiordan.
Iam reading all about St. Brigid, virgin, February first. She was so beautiful that men from all over Ireland panted to marry her and her father wanted her to marry someone important. She didnat want to marry anyone so she prayed to G.o.d for help and He caused her eye to melt in her head so that it dribbled down her cheek and left such a great welt the men of Ireland lost interest.
Then thereas St. Wilgefortis, virgin martyr, July twentieth. Her mother had nine children, all at the same time, four sets of twins and Wilgefortis the odd one, all winding up martyrs for the faith.Wilgefortis was beautiful and her father wanted to marry her off to the King of Sicily.Wilgefortis was desperate and G.o.d helped her by allowing a beard and a mustache to grow on her face, which made the King of Sicily think twice but sent her father into such a rage he had her crucified beard and all.
St.Wilgefortis is the one you pray to if youare an Englishwoman with a troublesome husband.
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The priests never tell us about virgin martyrs like St. Agatha, February fifth. February is a powerful month for virgin martyrs. Sicilian pagans ordered Agatha to give up her faith in Jesus and like all the virgin martyrs she said,Nay.They tortured her, stretched her on the rack, tore her sides with iron hooks, burned her with blazing torches, and she said, Nay, I will not deny Our Lord.They crushed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and cut them off but when they rolled her over hot coals it was more than she could bear so she expired, giving praise.