. . .
At the end of the week Mrs. OConnell hands me the first wages of my
life, a pound, my first pound. I run down the stairs and up to OCon-
nell Street, the main street, where the lights are on and people are going
home from work, people like me with wages in their pockets. I want
them to know Im like them, Im a man, I have a pound. I walk up one
side of OConnell Street and down the other and hope theyll notice
me.They dont. I want to wave my pound note at the world so theyll
say,There he goes, Frankie McCourt the workingman, with a pound in
his pocket.
Its Friday night and I can do anything I like. I can have fish and
chips and go to the Lyric Cinema. No, no more Lyric. I dont have to
sit up in the gods anymore with people all around me cheering on the
Indians killing General Custer and the Africans chasing Tarzan all over
the jungle. I can go to the Savoy Cinema now, pay sixpence for a seat
down front where theres a better class of people eating boxes of choco-
lates and covering their mouths when they laugh. After the film I can
have tea and buns in the restaurant upstairs.
Michael is across the street calling me. Hes hungry and wonders if
theres any chance he could go to The Abbots for a bit of bread and
stay there for the night instead of going all the way to Laman Griffins.
I tell him he doesnt have to worry about a bit of bread.Well go to the
Coliseum Café and have fish and chips, all he wants, lemonade galore,
and then well go to see Yankee Doodle Dandy with James Cagney and
eat two big bars of chocolate.After the film we have tea and buns and
we sing and dance like Cagney all the way to The Abbots. Michael says
it must be great to be in America where people have nothing else to
do but sing and dance. Hes half asleep but he says hes going there
some day to sing and dance and would I help him go and when hes
asleep I start thinking about America and how I have to save money
for my fare instead of squandering it on fish and chips and tea and
buns. Ill have to save a few shillings from my pound because if I dont
Ill be in Limerick forever. Im fourteen now and if I save something
every week surely I should be able to go to America by the time Im
twenty.
There are telegrams for offices, shops, factories where theres no
hope of a tip. Clerks take the telegrams without a look at you or a thank
you. There are telegrams for the respectable people with maids along
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