Mam keeps at him. I’m asking you, Are you coming home so that we can have a bit of supper or will it be midnight with no money in your pocket and you singing Kevin Barry and the rest of the sad songs? He puts on his cap, shoves his hands into his trouser pockets, sighs and looks up at the ceiling. I told you before I’ll be home, he says. Later in the day Mam dresses us. She puts the twins into the pram and off we go through the long streets of Brooklyn. Sometimes she lets Malachy sit in the pram when he’s tired of trotting along beside her. She tells me I’m too big for the pram. I could tell her I have pains in my legs from trying to keep up with her but she’s not singing and I know this is not the day to be talking about my pains. We come to a big gate where there’s a man standing in a box with windows all around.Mam talks to the man.She wants to know if she can go inside to where the men are paid and maybe they’d give her some of Dad’s wages so he wouldn’t spend it in the bars.The man shakes his head. I’m sorry, lady, but if we did that we’d have half the wives in Brooklyn storming the place. Lotta men have the drinking problem but there’s nothing we can do long as they show up sober and do their work. We wait across the street. Mam lets me sit on the sidewalk with my back against the wall.She gives the twins their bottles of water and sugar but Malachy and I have to wait till she gets money from Dad and we can go to the Italian for tea and bread and eggs. When the whistle blows at half five men in caps and overalls swarm through the gate, their faces and hands black from the work. Mam tells us watch carefully for Dad because she can hardly see across the street herself, her eyes are that bad.There are dozens of men, then a few, then none. Mam is crying,Why couldn’t ye see him? Are ye blind or what? She goes back to the man in the box.Are you sure there wouldn’t be one man left inside? No, lady, he says.They’re out. I don’t know how he got past you. We go back through the long streets of Brooklyn.The twins hold up their bottles and cry for more water and sugar. Malachy says he’s hungry and Mam tells him wait a little, we’ll get money from Dad and we’ll all have a nice supper.We’ll go to the Italian and get eggs and make toast with the flames on the stove and we’ll have jam on it. Oh, we will, and we’ll all be nice and warm. It’s dark on Atlantic Avenue and all the bars around the Long Island Railroad Station are bright and noisy.We go from bar to bar looking for Dad.Mam leaves us outside with the pram while she goes in or she sends 26