Dad says, One, one more pint, just one, eh? and the man says no.
Dad shakes his fist. I did me bit for Ireland, and when the man comes
out and takes Dads arm, Dad tries to push him away.
Uncle Pa says, Come on now, Malachy, stop the blaguarding.You
have to go home to Angela.You have a funeral tomorrow and the lovely
children waiting for you.
But Dad struggles till a few men push him out into the darkness.
Uncle Pa stumbles out with the bag of food. Come on, he says.Well go
back to your room.
Dad wants to go to another place for a pint but Uncle Pa says he
has no more money. Dad says hell tell everyone his sorrows and theyll
give him pints. Uncle Pa says thats a disgraceful thing to do and Dad
cries on his shoulder.Youre a good friend, he tells Uncle Pa. He cries
again till Uncle Pa pats him on the back. Its terrible, terrible, says Uncle
Pa, but youll get over this in time.
Dad straightens up and looks at him. Never, he says. Never.
Next day we rode to the hospital in a carriage with a horse.They put
Oliver in a white box that came with us in the carriage and we took
him to the graveyard.They put the white box into a hole in the ground
and covered it with earth. My mother and Aunt Aggie cried, Grandma
looked angry, Dad, Uncle Pa Keating, and Uncle Pat Sheehan looked
sad but did not cry and I thought that if youre a man you can cry only
when you have the black stuff that is called the pint.
I did not like the jackdaws that perched on trees and gravestones
and I did not want to leave Oliver with them. I threw a rock at a jack-
daw that waddled over toward Olivers grave. Dad said I shouldnt
throw rocks at jackdaws, they might be somebodys soul. I didnt know
what a soul was but I didnt ask him because I didnt care. Oliver was
dead and I hated jackdaws. Id be a man someday and Id come back
with a bag of rocks and Id leave the graveyard littered with dead
jackdaws.
The morning after Olivers burial Dad went to the Labour Exchange to
sign and collect the weeks dole,nineteen shillings and sixpence. He said
hed be home by noon, that hed get coal and make a fire, that wed have
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