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 Im 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 Im 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.
Thats 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 class 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 Im doomed because the priests are always saying that any-
one 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 excite-
ment again. I wouldnt 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 shed surely get excited and go at herself though I dont know if girls
can go at themselves when they dont have anything to go at.No equip-
ment, 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 hes dead now and
Ill have to face a priest wholl go on about the millstone and the doom.
Doom.Thats the favorite word of every priest in Limerick.
I walk back along OConnell Avenue and Ballinacurra where peo-
ple have their bread and milk delivered early to their doorsteps and
surely theres no harm if I borrow a loaf or a bottle with every inten-
tion of giving it back when I get my job at the post office. Im not steal-
ing, Im borrowing, and thats 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 hell. One sin, eternity.
A dozen sins, eternity.
Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, as my mother would
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