not a proper Catholic and if he had a fit and died who knows where he might wind up in the next life. He’s not a proper Catholic because he could never receive his First Communion for fear of getting anything on his tongue that might cause a fit and choke him.The master tried over and over with bits of the Limerick Leader  but Mikey kept spitting them out till the master got into a state and sent him to the priest, who wrote to the bishop, who said, Don’t bother me, handle it yourself.The master sent a note home saying Mikey was to practice receiving Com- munion with his father or mother but even they couldn’t get him to swallow a piece of the Limerick Leader in the shape of a wafer.They even tried a piece of bread shaped like the wafer with bread and jam and it was no use. The priest tells Mrs. Molloy not to worry. God moves in mysterious ways His wonders to perform and surely He has a special purpose for Mikey, fits and all. She says, Isn’t it remarkable he can swally all kinds of sweets and buns but if he has to swally the body of Our Lord he goes into a fit? Isn’t that remarkable? She worries Mikey might have the fit and die and go to hell if he has any class of a sin on his soul though everyone knows he’s an angel out of heaven. Mikey tells her God is not going to afflict you with the fit and then boot you into hell on top of it.What kind of a God would do a thing like that? Are you sure, Mikey? I am. I read it in a book. He sits under the lamppost at the top of the lane and laughs over his First Communion day, which was all a cod. He couldn’t swallow the wafer but did that stop his mother from parading him around Limerick in his little black suit for The Collection? She said to Mikey,Well, I’m not lying so I’m not. I’m only saying to the neighbors, Here’s Mikey in his First Communion suit.That’s all I’m saying,mind you.Here’s Mikey. If they think you swallied your First Communion who am I to contra- dict  them  and  disappoint  them?  Mikey’s  father  said,  Don’t  worry, Cyclops.You have loads of time. Jesus didn’t become a proper Catholic till he took the bread and wine at the Last Supper and He was thirty- three years of age. Nora Molloy said,Will you stop calling him Cyclops? He has two eyes in his head and he’s not a Greek. But Mikey’s father, champion of all pint drinkers, is like my uncle Pa Keating, he doesn’t give a fiddler’s fart what the world says and that’s the way I’d like to be myself. Mikey tells me the best thing about First Communion is The Col- 116