Her face tightens and shes angry.You are never to let anybody slam
the door in your face again. Do you hear me?
She starts to cry by the fire, Oh, God, I didnt bring ye into the
world to be a family of messenger boys.
I dont know what to do or say, Im so relieved I dont have to stay
in school for five or six more years.
Im free.
Im thirteen going on fourteen and its June, the last month of school
forever. Mam takes me to see the priest, Dr. Cowpar, about getting a job
as telegram boy.The supervisor in the post office, Mrs. OConnell, says,
Do you know how to cycle, and I lie that I do. She says I cant start till
Im fourteen so come back in August.
Mr. OHalloran tells the class its a disgrace that boys like McCourt,
Clarke, Kennedy, have to hew wood and draw water. He is disgusted by
this free and independent Ireland that keeps a class system foisted on us
by the English, that we are throwing our talented children on the
dungheap.
You must get out of this country, boys. Go to America, McCourt.
Do you hear me?
I do, sir.
Priests come to the school to recruit us for the foreign missions,
Redemptorists, Franciscans, Holy Ghost Fathers, all converting the dis-
tant heathen. I ignore them. Im going to America till one priest catches
my attention. He says he comes from the order of the White Fathers,
missionaries to the nomadic Bedouin tribes and chaplains to the French
Foreign Legion.
I ask for the application.
I will need a letter from the parish priest and a physical examination
by my family doctor.The parish priest writes the letter on the spot. He
would have been glad to see me go last year.The doctor says,Whats this?
Thats an application to join the White Fathers, missionaries to the
nomadic tribes of the Sahara and chaplains to the French Foreign
Legion.
Oh, yeh? French Foreign Legion, is it? Do you know the preferred
form of transportation in the Sahara Desert?
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