our kitchen is a lake and we have to go up to Italy but its worse in
the Clohessys when you have to go down four flights to the lavatory
and slip on shit all the way down. Id be better off with four goats in a
ditch.
I drift in and out of sleep but I have to wake up for good when Mrs.
Clohessy goes around pulling at her family to get them up. They all
went to bed with their clothes on so they dont have to get dressed and
theres no fighting.They grumble and run out the door to get down-
stairs to the backyard lavatory. I have to go too and I run down with
Paddy but his sister Peggy is on the bowl and we have to piss against a
wall. She says, Ill tell Ma what ye did, and Paddy says, Shurrup or Ill
push you down into that feckin lavatory. She jumps off the lavatory,
pulls her drawers up and runs up the stairs crying, Ill tell, Ill tell, and
when we get back to the room Mrs. Clohessy gives Paddy a belt on the
head for what he did to his poor little sister. Paddy says nothing because
Mrs. Clohessy is spooning porridge into mugs and jam jars and one
bowl and telling us to eat up and go to school. She sits at the table eat-
ing her porridge. Her hair is gray black and dirty. It dangles in the bowl
and picks up bits of porridge and drops of milk.The children slurp the
porridge and complain they didnt get enough, theyre starving with
the hunger. They have snotty noses and sore eyes and scabby knees.
Mr. Clohessy coughs and squirms on the bed and brings up the great
gobs of blood and I run out of the room and puke on the stairs where
theres a step missing and theres a shower of porridge and bits of apple
to the floor below where people go back and forth to the lavatory in
the yard. Paddy comes down and says, Sure thats all right. Everywan gets
sick an shits on them stairs an the whole feckin place is falling down
anyway.
I dont know what Im supposed to do now. If I go back to school
Ill be killed and why should I go back to school or go home to get
killed when I can go out the road and live on milk and apples the rest
of my life till I go to America. Paddy says, Come on. School is all a cod
anyway an the masters is all madmen.
Theres a knock at the Clohessys door and its Mam holding my lit-
tle brother, Michael, by the hand, and Guard Dennehy, who is in charge
of school attendance. Mam sees me and says,What are you doing with
one shoe on? and Guard Dennehy says,Ah, now, missus, I think a more
important question would be,What are you doing with one shoe off,
ha, ha.
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