Bill Bailey The K

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."One afternoon I and a chum named Tommy and another named Connell were told to practice some more.We dressed up in the altar boy's attire and set about our assignment.Everything had to be the same as if the actual mass were being held--except, of course, there was no live organ, no choir, priest or flock.The chalice had been filled with wine, just as Father McIntyre would have wanted it, right up to the brim.Since we were on our own, with no one watching us, we started to play around.Soon I was imitating Father McIntyre and his staggering walk across the altar.Then Tommy tasted the wine and handed me the chalice.I drank some, then some more, and Tommy and I finished the whole pint in no time.I remember the tomb-like atmosphere of the smaller church, located in the basement of the main church, with candles serving as lights.Our heads started to spin and we became noisier and rowdier as we chased each other around and across the altar, now and again hiding in the confessional box, and having lots of fun.We should have known that since Connell did not take part in the drinking of the wine or the running around the altar, he would not see the humor of the episode.Suddenly, doors were banging and lights came on all over the place.What had been a vast darkness only seconds before was now lit up with hundreds of little lights.I stood up, reeling to and fro, and faced at least three priests, several nuns-including Mother Superior, and Connell."Why, the little devils are drunk!" Mother Superior shouted after she came face to face with us and smelled our breaths.I was defrocked right then and there, under a torrent of words I did not understand.I felt several slaps to the ear, and a kick in the fanny from one of the priests.By the time I reached home, I was terribly sick, vomiting all the way down the street.That was the end of my ecclesiastical career.Somehow I always looked at that episode as blowing my chance for an easy way to heaven, or even sainthood.Word got around that I had been found drunk on the altar.Some people passed me by in the neighborhood as if I were some sort of monster about to take a bite out of them.Someone said, "He's Irish.What can you expect?" A few weeks later, when our class got promoted and moved onto a higher grade, Tommy and I were not among the lucky ones.We were held back as punishment.Shortly thereafter, I was awakened on a Saturday morning by a sprinkling of cold water on my face.I looked up from my bed on the floor to stare into the face of Father McIntyre, who was walking through all the rooms, throwing holy water around and making with the words in Latin to chase away demons and devils.I pulled an old coat over my head and continued sleeping, feeling that I was well-protected against all evil.It was St.Patrick's Day.The money my mother had been saving for a ham was spent instead on a flagstaff that extended some ten feet from the window sill.The biggest flag I ever saw dropped from the pole.You could see it several blocks away.It was as green as the new grass in the meadow.A harp and an angel with outspread wings, surrounded by a mass of shamrocks, filled the flag.Beneath it all were the words "Erin Go Bragh."It was my mother's way of shouting her defiance of the New World, which had promised so much but delivered so little.She flew the flag of Ireland's new freedom.I suppose it was also her way of paying her respects to her brother Patrick, who was killed by the Black and Tans during the Easter uprising.She hated the British with a vengeance.In one of her melancholy moments, when she had sipped a beer or two, she would allow the tears to roll down her face and tell of the letter from her sister Bridget which related how the Black and Tans forced their way into their mother's house, dragging out the younger brother Patrick and accusing him of being a member of the Irish Republican Army.With their dear mother imploring the British officers to let her son be, they stood him up against the door on the outside of the house and shot him dead.The bullet went through Patrick and then through the door.Chapter IV: The War and Uncle HarryMy sister Isabell, whom we called Bella, was the oldest.Her health was not the best.She had served as the shock absorber in my father's attempt to break from what he considered a hopeless cause.Bella always took my mother's side and protected her.This, of course, increased my father's wrath against Bella.Some doctors said she was tubercular and should have lots of rest, good food, and emotional stability; by no means should she be allowed to toil in overcrowded, dusty factories.Bella worked in most of the factories in the area.At one of them which produced batteries, she had to breathe the harsh fumes for ten hours a day.As a result of three months' toil in that place, she was hospitalized on and off for four months.Another of her jobs was a six-week stint in the slaughterhouse, isolated in a steam room.Her job was to direct a live steam hose onto a big slab of meat that came into her area on hooks moving on rollers.The constant wet steam sent her back to the hospital, with an even longer stay away from work.My mother tried to find her other kinds of work, but jobs were not plentiful for young women outside of factories, sweatshops, slaughterhouses and hospitals.Perhaps, for my sister, World War I came in time, for in it she saw an opportunity to break away.She joined the Nurses Corps and was sent to an outlying hospital for training.Two days before she was to depart for France, she came home.She looked good, healthy and well-fed.She said goodbye to us as she donned her black nurse's cape; then she kissed us.Her ship was three days away from France when the captain received word that the Germans had surrendered and the war was over.The ship immediately turned around and headed back to the United States.Bella left home shortly after being released from service in the Nurses Corps.She married and gave birth to two wonderful boys.But she was racked with back pains, colds, and weak lungs.She died of cancer at age 65 and was buried in a town near the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in California.Our dwelling was about six blocks from the ferry terminal that adjoined the train depot.Trains took off from here for all points in Jersey.It was at this depot where thousands of soldiers boarded trains for Camp Dix, the Army training grounds.It was to this same depot that the soldiers returned from Fort Dix to board ships for France in World War I.The war seemed to move on a fast track; I remembered the soldiers leaving, and suddenly they seemed to be home again.A series of parades with marching music celebrated their homecoming.No one was able to explain why most of the people in our area, as well as in other areas, suddenly started to scratch.We were told that the soldiers had brought back some itch from the war.Every three days for the next two weeks, I walked to the County Hospital and, along with many hundreds of kids and grownups, stood in a line two blocks long.Slowly we moved ahead, clutching our buckets, pails or tin cans, waiting for that happy moment when a hospital staff member would thrust his arm into a 50-gallon can and come up with a quart-size scoop of salve.On the way home, we started smearing the salve all over us to ease the discomfort of the "soldier's itch." That, too, passed in time [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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