It's a bright day and I'm happy till I see Dad sitting in the kitchen with Alphie on his lap and there's an empty feeling in my heart because I know he's out of work again. All along I was sure he had a job, Mam told me he did, and I thought there would be no shortage of food and shoes. He smiles at me and tells Alphie, Och, there's your big brother home from the hospital.
Mam tells him what the doctor said, that I'm to have plenty of nourishing food and rest. The doctor said beef would be the right thing for building me up again. Dad nods. Mam makes beef tea from a cube and Malachy and Mike watch me drink it. They say they'd like some too but Mam says go away, ye didn't have the typhoid. She says the doctor wants me to go to bed early. She tried to get rid of the fleas but they're worse than ever with the warm weather we're having. Besides, she says, they won't get much out of you all bones and little skin.
I lie in bed and think of the hospital where the white sheets were changed every day and there wasn't a sign of a flea. There was a lavatory where you could sit and read your book till someone asked if you were dead. There was a bath where you could sit in hot water as long as you liked and say,
I do believe,
Induced by potent circumstances
That thou art mine enemy,
And saying that helps me fall asleep.
When Malachy and Michael get up for school in the morning Mam tells me I can stay in bed. Malachy is in fifth class now with Mr. O'Dea and he likes to tell everyone he's learning the big red catechism for Confirmation and Mr. O'Dea is telling them all about state of grace and Euclid and how the English tormented the Irish for eight hundred long years.
I don't want to stay in bed anymore. The October days are lovely and I want to sit outside looking up the lane at the way the sun slants along the wall opposite our house. Mikey Moloney brings me P. G. Wodehouse books his father gets from the library and I have great days with Ukridge and Bertie Wooster and all the Mulliners. Dad lets me read his favorite book, John Mitchel's Jail Journal, which is all about a great Irish rebel the English condemned to exile in Van Diemen's land in Australia. The English tell John Mitchel he's free to come and go as he pleases all over Van Diemen's land if he gives his word of honor as a gentleman he won't try to escape. He gives his word till a ship comes to help him escape and he goes to the office of the English magistrate and says, I'm escaping, jumps on his horse and winds up in New York. Dad says he doesn't mind if I read silly English books by P. G. Wodehouse as long as I don't forget the men who did their bit and gave their lives for Ireland.
I can't stay at home forever and Mam takes me back to Leamy's School in November. The new headmaster, Mr. O'Halloran, says he's sorry, I've missed over two months of school and I have to be put back in fifth class. Mam says surely I'm ready for sixth class. After all, she says, he's missed only a few weeks. Mr. O'Halloran says he's sorry, take the boy next door to Mr. O'Dea.
We walk along the hallway and I tell Mam I don't want to be in fifth class. Malachy is in that class and I don't want to be in a class with my brother who is a year younger. I made my Confirmation last year. He didn't. I'm older. I'm not bigger anymore because of the typhoid but I'm older.
Mam says, It won't kill you.
She doesn't care and I'm put into that class with Malachy and I know all his friends are there sneering at me because I was put back. Mr. O'Dea makes me sit in the front and tells me get that sour look off my puss or I'll feel the end of his ash plant.
Then a miracle happens and it's all because of St. Francis of Assisi, my favorite saint, and Our Lord Himself. I find a penny in the street that first day back at school and I want to run to Kathleen O'Connell's for a big square of Cleeves' toffee but I can't run because my legs are still weak from the typhoid and sometimes I have to hold on to a wall. I'm desperate for the Cleeves' toffee but I'm also desperate to get out of fifth class.
I know I have to go to the statue of St. Francis of Assisi. He's the only one who will listen but he's at the other end of Limerick and it takes me an hour to walk there, sitting on steps, holding on to walls. It's a penny to light a candle and I wonder if I should just light the candle and keep the penny. No, St. Francis would know. He loves the bird in the air and the fish in the stream but he's not a fool. I light the candle, I kneel at his statue and beg him to get me out of fifth class where I'm stuck with my brother, who is probably going around the lane now bragging that his big brother was kept back. St. Francis doesn't say a word but I know he's listening and I know he'll get me out of that class. It's the least he could do after all my trouble coming to his statue, sitting on steps, holding on to walls, when I could have gone to St. Joseph's Church and lit a candle to the Little Flower or the Sacred Heart of Jesus Himself. What's the use of being named after him if he's going to desert me in my hour of need?
I have to sit in Mr. O'Dea's class listening to the catechism and all the other stuff he taught last year. I'd like to raise my hand and give the answers but he says, Be quiet, let your brother answer. He gives them tests in arithmetic and makes me sit there and correct them. He dictates to them in Irish and makes me correct what they've written. Then he gives me special compositions to write and makes me read them to the class because of all I learned from him last year. He tells the class, Frank McCourt is going to show you how well he learned to write in this class last year. He's going to write a composition on Our Lord, aren't you, McCourt? He's going to tell us what it would be like if Our Lord had grown up in Limerick which has the Arch Confraternity of the Holy Family and is the holiest city in Ireland. We know that if Our Lord had grown up in Limerick He would never have been crucified because the people of Limerick were always good Catholics and not given to crucifixion. So, McCourt, you are to go home and write that composition and bring it in tomorrow.
Dad says Mr. O'Dea has a great imagination but didn't Our Lord suffer enough on the cross without sticking Him in Limerick on top of it with the damp from the River Shannon. He puts on his cap and goes for a long walk and I have to think about Our Lord by myself and wonder what I'm going to write tomorrow.
The next day Mr. O'Dea says, All right, McCourt, read your composition to the class.
The name of my composition is--
The title, McCourt, the title.
The title of my composition is, "Jesus and the Weather."
What?
"Jesus and the Weather."
All right, read it.
This is my composition. I don't think Jesus Who is Our Lord would have liked the weather in Limerick because it's always raining and the Shannon keeps the whole city damp. My father says the Shannon is a killer river because it killed my two brothers. When you look at pictures of Jesus He's always wandering around ancient Israel in a sheet. It never rains there and you never hear of anyone coughing or getting consumption or anything like that and no one has a job there because all they do is stand around and eat manna and shake their fists and go to crucifixions.
Anytime Jesus got hungry all He had to do was walk up the road to a fig tree or an orange tree and have His fill. If He wanted a pint He could wave His hand over a big glass and there was the pint. Or He could visit Mary Magdalene and her sister, Martha, and they'd give Him His dinner no questions asked and He'd get his feet washed and dried with Mary Magdalene's hair while Martha washed the dishes, which I don't think is fair. Why should she have to wash the dishes while her sister sits out there chatting away with Our Lord? It's a good thing Jesus decided to be born Jewish in that warm place because if he was born in Limerick he'd catch the consumption and be dead in a month and there wouldn't be any Catholic Church and there wouldn't be any Communion or Confirmation and we wouldn't have to learn the catechism and write compositions about Him. The End.
Mr. O'Dea is quiet and gives me a strange look and I'm worried because when he's quiet like that it means someone is going to suffer. He says, McCourt, who wrote that composition?
I did, sir.
Did your father write that composition?
He di
dn't, sir.
Come here, McCourt.
I follow him out the door, along the hall to the headmaster's room. Mr. O'Dea shows him my composition and Mr. O'Halloran gives me the strange look, too. Did you write this composition?
I did, sir.
I'm taken out of the fifth class and put into Mr. O'Halloran's sixth class with all the boys I know, Paddy Clohessy, Fintan Slattery, The Question Quigley, and when school is over that day I have to go back down to the statue of St. Francis of Assisi to thank him even if my legs are still weak from the typhoid and I have to sit on steps and hold on to walls and I wonder was it something good I said in that composition or something bad.
Mr. Thomas L. O'Halloran teaches three classes in one room, sixth, seventh, eighth. He has a head like President Roosevelt and he wears gold glasses. He wears suits, navy blue or gray, and there's a gold watch chain that hangs across his belly from pocket to pocket in his waistcoat. We call him Hoppy because he has a short leg and hops when he walks. He knows what we call him and he says, Yes, I'm Hoppy and I'll hop on you. He carries a long stick, a pointer, and if you don't pay attention or give a stupid answer he gives you three slaps on each hand or whacks you across the backs of your legs. He makes you learn everything by heart, everything, and that makes him the hardest master in the school. He loves America and makes us know all the American states in alphabetical order. He makes charts of Irish grammar, Irish history and algebra at home, hangs them on an easel and we have to chant our way through the cases, conjugations and declensions of Irish, famous names and battles, proportions, ratios, equations. We have to know all the important dates in Irish history. He tells us what is important and why. No master ever told us why before. If you asked why you'd be hit on the head. Hoppy doesn't call us idiots and if you ask a question he doesn't go into a rage. He's the only master who stops and says, Do ye understand what I'm talking about? Do ye want to ask a question?
It's a shock to everyone when he says, the Battle of Kinsale in sixteen nought one was the saddest moment in Irish history, a close battle with cruelty and atrocities on both sides.
Cruelty on both sides? The Irish side? How could that be? All the other masters told us the Irish always fought nobly, they always fought the fair fight. He recites and makes us remember,
They went forth to battle, but they always fell,
Their eyes were fixed above the sullen shields.
Nobly they fought and bravely, but not well,
And sank heart-wounded by a subtle spell.
If they lost it was because of traitors and informers. But I want to know about these Irish atrocities.
Sir, did the Irish commit atrocities at the Battle of Kinsale?
They did, indeed. It is recorded that they killed prisoners but they were no better nor worse than the English.
Mr. O'Halloran can't lie. He's the headmaster. All these years we were told the Irish were always noble and they made brave speeches before the English hanged them. Now Hoppy O'Halloran is saying the Irish did bad things. Next thing he'll be saying the English did good things. He says, You have to study and learn so that you can make up your own mind about history and everything else but you can't make up an empty mind. Stock your mind, stock your mind. It is your house of treasure and no one in the world can interfere with it. If you won the Irish Sweepstakes and bought a house that needed furniture would you fill it with bits and pieces of rubbish? Your mind is your house and if you fill it with rubbish from the cinemas it will rot in your head. You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace.
He calls us one by one to the front of the room and looks at our shoes. He wants to know why they're broken or why we have no shoes at all. He tells us this is a disgrace and he's going to have a raffle to raise money so that we can have strong warm boots for the winter. He gives us books of tickets and we swarm all over Limerick for Leamy's School boot fund, first prize five pounds, five prizes of a pound each. Eleven boys with no boots get new boots. Malachy and I don't get any because we have shoes on our feet even if the soles are worn away and we wonder why we ran all over Limerick selling tickets so that other boys could get boots. Fintan Slattery says we gain plenary Indulgences for works of charity and Paddy Clohessy says, Fintan, would you ever go and have a good shit for yourself.
I know when Dad does the bad thing. I know when he drinks the dole money and Mam is desperate and has to beg at the St. Vincent de Paul Society and ask for credit at Kathleen O'Connell's shop but I don't want to back away from him and run to Mam. How can I do that when I'm up with him early every morning with the whole world asleep? He lights the fire and makes the tea and sings to himself or reads the paper to me in a whisper that won't wake up the rest of the family. Mikey Molloy stole Cuchulain, the Angel on the Seventh Step is gone someplace else, but my father in the morning is still mine. He gets the Irish Press early and tells me about the world, Hitler, Mussolini, Franco. He says this war is none of our business because the English are up to their tricks again. He tells me about the great Roosevelt in Washington and the great De Valera in Dublin. In the morning we have the world to ourselves and he never tells me I should die for Ireland. He tells me about the old days in Ireland when the English wouldn't let the Catholics have schools because they wanted to keep the people ignorant, that the Catholic children met in hedge schools in the depths of the country and learned English, Irish, Latin and Greek. The people loved learning. They loved stories and poetry even if none of this was any good for getting a job. Men, women and children would gather in ditches to hear those great masters and everyone wondered at how much a man could carry in his head. The masters risked their lives going from ditch to ditch and hedge to hedge because if the English caught them teaching they might be transported to foreign parts or worse. He tells me school is easy now, you don't have to sit in a ditch learning your sums or the glorious history of Ireland. I should be good in school and some day I'll go back to America and get an inside job where I'll be sitting at a desk with two fountain pens in my pocket, one red and one blue, making decisions. I'll be in out of the rain and I'll have a suit and shoes and a warm place to live and what more could a man want? He says you can do anything in America, it's the land of opportunity. You can be a fisherman in Maine or a farmer in California. America is not like Limerick, a gray place with a river that kills.
When you have your father to yourself by the fire in the morning you don't need Cuchulain or the Angel on the Seventh Step or anything.
At night he helps us with our exercises. Mam says they call it homework in America but here it's exercises, the sums, the English, the Irish, the history. He can't help us with Irish because he's from the North and lacking in the native tongue. Malachy offers to teach him all the Irish words he knows but Dad says it's too late, you can't teach an old dog a new bark. Before bed we sit around the fire and if we say, Dad, tell us a story, he makes up one about someone in the lane and the story will take us all over the world, up in the air, under the sea and back to the lane. Everyone in the story is a different color and everything is upside down and backward. Motor cars and planes go under water and submarines fly through the air. Sharks sit in trees and giant salmon sport with kangaroos on the moon. Polar bears wrestle with elephants in Australia and penguins teach Zulus how to play bagpipes. After the story he takes us upstairs and kneels with us while we say our prayers. We say the Our Father, three Hail Marys, God bless the Pope. God bless Mam, God bless our dead sister and brothers, God bless Ireland, God bless De Valera, and God bless anyone who gives Dad a job. He says, Go to sleep, boys, because holy God is watching you and He always knows if you're not good.
I think my father is like the Holy Trinity with three people in him, the one in the morning with the paper, the one at night with the stories and the prayers, and then the one who does the bad thing and comes home with the smell of whiskey and wants us to die for Ireland.
I feel sad over the bad thing but I can't back away from him because the one in the morning
is my real father and if I were in America I could say, I love you, Dad, the way they do in the films, but you can't say that in Limerick for fear you might be laughed at. You're allowed to say you love God and babies and horses that win but anything else is a softness in the head.
Day and night we're tormented in that kitchen with people emptying their buckets. Mam says it's not the River Shannon that will kill us but the stink from that lavatory outside our door. It's bad enough in the winter when everything flows over and seeps under our door but worse in the warm weather when there are flies and bluebottles and rats.
There is a stable next to the lavatory where they keep the big horse from Gabbett's coal yard. His name is Finn the Horse and we all love him but the stable man from the coal yard doesn't take proper care of the stable and the stink travels to our house. The stink from the lavatory and the stable attracts rats and we have to chase them with our new dog, Lucky. He loves to corner the rats and then we smash them to bits with rocks or sticks or stab them with the hay fork in the stable. The horse himself is frightened by the rats and we have to be careful when he rears up. He knows we're not rats because we bring him apples when we rob an orchard out the country.
Sometimes the rats escape and run into our house and into the coal hole under the stairs where it's pitch dark and you can't see them. Even when we bring in a candle we can't find them because they dig holes everywhere and we don't know where to look. If we have a fire we can boil water and pour it slowly in from the kettle spot and that will drive them out of the hole between our legs and out the door again unless Lucky is there to catch them in his teeth and shake the life out of them. We expect him to eat the rats but he'll leave them in the lane with their guts hanging out and run to my father for a piece of bread dipped in tea. People in the lane say that's a peculiar way for a dog to behave but then what would you expect from a dog of the McCourts.
The minute there's a sign of a rat or a mention of one Mam is out the door and up the lane. She'd rather walk the streets of Limerick forever than stay one minute in a house that has a rat in it and she can never rest because she knows that with the stable and the lavatory there's always a rat nearby with his family waiting for their dinner.
Angela's Ashes Page 23