Oh, begod, is that a fact? He’ll be here in a minute and sure there’s no reason why I shouldn’t draw his pint and maybe draw your first pint, is there now? There isn’t, sir. Uncle Pa comes in and tells me sit next to him against the wall.The barman brings the pints, Uncle Pa pays, lifts his glass, tells the men in the pub,This is my nephew, Frankie McCourt, son of Angela Sheehan, the sister of my wife, having his first pint, here’s to your health and long life, Frankie, may you live to enjoy the pint but not too much. The men lift their pints, nod, drink, and there are creamy lines on their lips and mustaches. I take a great gulp of my pint and Uncle Pa tells me, Slow down for the love o’ Jasus, don’t drink it all, there’s more where that came from as long as the Guinness family stays strong and healthy. I tell him I want to stand him a pint with my last wages from the post office but he says, No, take the money home to your mother and you can stand me a pint when you come home from America flushed with success and the heat from a blonde hanging on your arm. The men in the pub are talking about the terrible state of the world and how in God’s name Hermann Goering escaped the hangman an hour  before  the  hanging. The Yanks  are  over  there  in  Nuremberg declaring they don’t know how the Nazi bastard hid that pill.Was it in his ear? Up his nostril? Up his arse? Surely the Yanks looked in every hole and cranny of every Nazi they captured and still Hermann wiped their eye.There you are. It shows you can sail across the Atlantic, land in Normandy, bomb Germany off the face of the earth, but when all’s said and done they can’t find a little pill planted in the far reaches of Goer- ing’s fat arse. Uncle Pa buys me another pint. It’s harder to drink because it fills me and makes my belly bulge.The men are talking about concentra- tion camps and the poor Jews that never harmed a soul, men, women, children  crammed  into  ovens, children, mind  you, what  harm  could they do, little shoes scattered everywhere, crammed in, and the pub is misty  and  the  voices  fading  in  and  out.  Uncle  Pa  says, Are  you  all right? You’re as white as a sheet. He takes me to the lavatory and the two of us have a good long piss against the wall which keeps moving back  and  forth.  I  can’t  go  into  the  pub  again,  cigarette  smoke,  stale Guinness,  Goering’s  fat  arse,  small  shoes  scattered,  can’t  go  in  again, good night, Uncle Pa, thanks, and he tells me go straight home to my 339