in the ledger.After the papers are delivered we unload the magazines at
the office and go home to breakfast for fifty minutes.
When I return to the office there are two other boys, Eamon and
Peter, already sorting magazines, counting and stuffing them into news-
agents boxes along the wall. Small orders are delivered by Gerry Halvey
on his messenger bicycle, big orders in the van. Mr. McCaffrey tells me
stay in the office so that I can learn to count magazines and enter
them in the ledger.The minute Mr. McCaffrey leaves Eamon and Peter
pull out a drawer where they hide cigarette butts and light up. They
cant believe I dont smoke. They want to know if theres something
wrong with me, the bad eyes or the consumption maybe. How can
you go out with a girl if you dont smoke? Peter says, Wouldnt you
be a right eejit if you were going out the road with the girl and she
asked you for a fag and you said you didnt smoke, wouldnt you be a
right eejit then? How would you ever get her into a field for a bit of a
feel? Eamon says, Tis what my father says about men who dont drink,
theyre not to be trusted. Peter says if you find a man that wont drink
or smoke thats a man thats not even interested in girls and youd want
to keep your hand over the hole of your arse, thats what youd want to
be doing.
They laugh and that brings on the cough and the more they laugh
the more they cough till theyre holding on to one another banging one
another between the shoulder blades and wiping tears from their
cheeks.When the fit passes we pick out English and American maga-
zines and look at the advertisements for womens underwear, brassieres
and panties and long nylon stockings. Eamon is looking at an American
magazine called See with pictures of Japanese girls who keep the sol-
diers happy so far away from home and Eamon says he has to go to the
lavatory and when he does Peter gives me a wink,You know what hes
up to in there,dont you? and sometimes Mr.McCaffrey gets into a state
when boys linger in the lavatory interfering with themselves and wast-
ing the valuable time for which Easons is paying them and on top of it
putting their immortal souls in danger.Mr.McCaffrey wont come right
out and say, Stop that wanking, because you cant accuse someone of a
mortal sin unless you have proof. Sometimes he goes snooping in the
lavatory when a boy comes out.He comes back himself with the threat-
ening look and tells the boys,Ye are not to be looking at those dirty
magazines from foreign parts.Ye are to count them and put them in the
boxes and thats all.
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