Ireland and married Cuchulain and that’s why to this day she is called Great Bladdered Emer. Mikey  and  Malachy  laugh  over  this  story  though  I  don’t  think Malachy understands it. He’s young and far from his First Communion and he’s only laughing over the piss word. Then Mikey tells me I’ve committed a sin by listening to a story that has that word in it and when I go to my First Confession I’ll have to tell the priest. Malachy says, That’s right. Piss is a bad word and you have to tell the priest because ’tis a sin word. I don’t know what to do. How can I go to the priest and tell him this terrible thing in my First Confession? All the boys know what sins they’re going to tell so that they’ll get the First Communion and make The Collection and go to see James Cagney and eat sweets and cakes at the Lyric Cinema.The master helped us with our sins and everyone has the same sins. I hit my brother. I told a lie. I stole a penny from my mother’s purse. I disobeyed my parents, I ate a sausage on Friday. But now I have a sin no one else has and the priest is going to be shocked and drag me out of the confession box into the aisle and out into the street where everyone will know I listened to a story about Cuchulain’s wife being the champion woman pisser in all Ireland. I’ll never be able to make my First Communion and mothers will hold their small children up and point at me and say, Look at him. He’s like Mikey Molloy, never made his First Communion, wandering around in a state of sin, never made The Collection, never saw James Cagney. I’m sorry I ever heard of First Communion and The Collection.I’m sick and I don’t want any tea or bread or anything. Mam tells Dad it’s a strange thing when a child won’t have his bread and tea and Dad says, Och, he’s just nervous over the First Communion. I want to go over to him and sit on his lap and tell him what Mikey Molloy did to me but I’m too big to be sitting on laps and if I did Malachy would go out in the lane and tell everyone I was a big baby. I’d like to tell my troubles to the Angel on the Seventh Step but he’s busy bringing babies to moth- ers all over the world. Still, I’ll ask Dad. Dad, does the Angel on the Seventh Step have other jobs besides bringing babies? He does. Would the Angel on the Seventh Step tell you what to do if you didn’t know what to do? 124