Holy Disharmony II

I’m slouching past the Principal’s Office trying not to cry but me eyes are boggy.  Ta stop the water flowing inside in me head I stare at Ailbe’s closed door and imagine him within interrogating Marty Maughan about the playtime fight between Bronx and the Travellers.  He goes for Marty cause Bronx can take a fierce amount a battering; it’ll make him cry awright, but he won’t tell anything.  Bronx knows that telling the truth after you lied makes them ta crazy so they give you a worser battering.

In me head I see a picture of Ailbe the way he does do interrogations: Sitting back in his armchair, shiney-black shoes, and black socks up on the desk; black dress sliding down his legs showing black priest pants underneath it. See his black dress is only for wearing in school to show he's a brother, cause they’re the boss a the school.  When he’s interrogating you, fast firing twisty questions that he can easily say you answered wrong, a wee bit of a fake smile does be on his face. With him hungry ta give a battering; tapping his own hand lightly the tip of his leather; his piggy eyes with hardly no eyelashes let you know what’s coming: Pain.

I’d take that now meself ta stop me from crying in front of all the lads for hardly no reason.

“No, no, no, no, NO, NO!” Bart had roared filling up the Assembly Hall on my third time singing fierce bad that stoopid hymn; “How Great Thou Art.”

With his face shiny pinkish-red, he sudden-sticks a finger inside his priest’s collar and tugs the whiteness making his flabby neck Gobstopper red.

A big drop of sweat runs down my back.

“Young man you’re singing with your throat, I’ve told you that twice already, that is simply not … how we sing to the Lord our God,” he glares out under his bushy ginger eyebrows. “We don’t sing that way because it’s not sustain…, you’ll tire an’ get hoarse an’ sound even wor… terr… very bad.  We’re pra…ying to our Lord through the hymns; you wouldn’t mutter an’ mumble your prayers, now would you?”

Having a priest, that we call by a nickname he doesn’t even know, firing questions at me is the worst part of this audition thing for a choir I’m already in. Questions is usually only for wan or two smart lads in class ta yell out the answer and get praised by the teacher so that everyone else can feel proper stoopid. When a grownup points a finger and asks fires a question at you, there’s trouble coming cause they always ask in a way that no answer is totally right. And in this audition thing, with only me ta answer questions, of course the answers is all wrong. I can’t hardly even think of answers cause, I’m more afraid I’ll say “yes Bart, no Bart” instead of “yes Father O’Malley, no Father O’Malley.”  I’d say using a nickname for a priest would end up with a fierce a battering and a sin that had ta be confessed to another priest for a big heap a penance.

“No … Father O’Malley,” I say, but too low, cause he puts his hand up behind his ear like he can’t hear.

“NO FATHER O’MALLEY,” I say much louder, near roaring myself now, but careful to make sure he knows I’m only answering his question and not getting angry. 

My face blushing so fast and hard it hurts a wee bit.

If you get angry with a teacher or with Da, for sure you’ll get an extra hard walloping with them stomping down your anger. But still, you getting angry must make them feel at least a wee bit afraid, cause after, when they’re not angry no more the way grownup can suddenly go back to regular, but your eyes still say you are, they give a heap of excuses for the walloping that lets you know they know now we’re sworn enemies.

You can’t have a priest as a sworn enemy; that’d be like going up against God and you could go blind or end up in a wheelchair, losing all your friends.

“Good, good,” Bart says, nodding slowly. “So you do have a voice … of sorts, but you’re singing voice is coming from your throat, … it’s not … that’s not singing, you’re forcin’ it out.”

“Ah, the poor crator is still nervous,” Cecilia says with a quick nun-smile from her perch on the piano stool.

Her nun-smile says them words is all she’s willing ta help.

“Ok, well, the world must keep turning, I have to get to the County Home for visiting hours if this inter…minable … if we can get through this, …,” Bart looks down at the important papers in his hand, “there’s still eight more of these … eight more to audition.”

He waves the important papers fast making a small wind that cools my face.

“Ok, ok … last attempt or I’ll have to fail you!”

Failed by Bart with a fast-angry wave of his important papers telling me ta get out of his sight, I’m walking back to Scratchy’s class, trying ta pretend it doesn’t matter.

But my boggy eyes say somewhere in my head thinks it does matter.

Maybe my soul is sad that I can’t sing for God?

But it can’t be that. Before, when everyone just joined the choir with none of these audition things, I was only pretending ta sing, just opening me mouth along with the hymn but letting everyone else do the singing. God had to know I was faking, He knows everything. But He mustn’t a been too mad, cause He never got me caught.

Sunday morning’s are going ta be fierce boring just going ta regular mass but worse cause the lads who didn’t fail and got into the choir will all be over messing in the south transept where they put the choir.  Now I’ll sitting be meself in the seat where Ma always had us sit, way up front on the right where you can clearly see the choir.  Ma did that cause she liked to watch the choir, so she’d know when to grab a hymn book ta sing along.  Plus, she’d always make a little holy head nod ta Sister Cecilia, who she sorta knows from Leitrim, when just before mass started Cecilia comes out of the sacristy, her little black nun-shoes clop-clop-clopping across the altar tiles and black marble steps.

What’ll I tell the lads?

Ta stop having me eyes still being boggy when I get back to Scratchy’s classroom I duck inta the Boys jax. The jax stinks of piss cause little lads do spill theirs onto the step in front of the yellowish-brownish-white drain.  I run a tap and splash cold water onta me face hoping that’ll disguise the eye-bogginess.

It has to be my soul that’s sad.  I don’t really care about singing, it’s not like football or sumptin that you wish you were better at. But my soul never done hardly nothing before.  Even at First Communion I was only excited for getting money and sweets off everyone. When Ma died I was sad and my soul musta been sad too; but mostly I was embarrassed that everyone was looking sad at us.  You could tell walking down the street. Someone’s ma would start ta smile-nod hello ta you; then they’d remember that your ma died.  Their eyes would turn like they were staring at the Traveller’s dog that got hit by a car up the Market Square; the dirty-white and brown little terrier howling, dragging its back legs along, scraping its way back in behind Dunnes Stores ta get ta the Maughan’s caravan.

 From the boy’s jax I hear the front door of the school rattling closed: Someone just came in or went out.

It’s probly some careful parent in paying for a school trip or a new book.  But it could Ailbe and maybe he’d start interrogating again, thinking he’d get me when I’m not ready.  And with me not far from crying, he’d think I done something wrong and he probly go even harder.  Grownups do always be thinking we feel bad when we done something wrong; like as if we want to let them know we done wrong. Most of the time they’re the ones saying what we done was wrong.  There’s nothing wrong clattering other lads when they do something mean to you or grabbing a roll of Toffos from Hoban’s when Breen and Brian has their backs turned and you don’t have no pocket money left.  Sure, the shop is nearly bursting with school lads crushing up ta the counter; and needing ta be back in your desk at exactly two o’clock, or you get a lateness slap, you’d hardly have time to pay.  I like Toffos cause they stick ta your teeth and you can still taste them even when you’re back in school.

I wait a long time ta let whoever came in or out be gone before I leave the jax. Listening to the silence is hard cause you want to hear sumptin but you don’t want to either – cause that’ll mean more waiting.

Scratchy’s pudginess is plumped down on the heater when I finally get back. I’m afraid he’ll say I took too long cause I stayed in the jax for what seemed like ages making sure I didn’t bump inta Ailbe, but instead all he says is:

“Awright, who’s the next Joe Dolan ta go over ta Father O’Malley?”

Fergie stands up. Cause of me, Fergie’ll have a fierce cranky Bart ta deal with.  With me failed, if he gets inta the choir, then we won’t be able ta have mass messing.

I slouch inta my desk and immediately spin around the little white ceramic inkwell in the top of my desk for good luck. I know it doesn’t work: All I ever get is bad luck. 

Still, the inkwell feels smooth on my fingertip. It’s kinda-sorta like how Ma’s arm useta feel when I’d run my fingertips gently along the underpart of her arm. Only her skin felt nicer than the inkwell, cause it was smooth, soft and warm.

“Now mister …,” Scratchy says, scrunching up his saggy face, staring around the class, “Garavan.”

He’s going asking questions that a few of the good lads can answer, allowing him to then ask the rest of us a bunch of just-how-stoopid-are-you questions.

“Not you, ya leibide!” he snaps when Sid makes a big deal of standing up, knowing full well it’s not him but his cousin that Scratchy asking. 

Scratchy shakes his head, his eyes narrowing into a don’t-waste-my-time-or-the-stick’ll-come-out glare. Sid’ll probly get asked some questions next that he won’t be able to answer, so then he’ll get extra homework on top of the homework he hardly never does anyway.

“SIT DOWN!” Scratchy roars when Sid isn’t sitting down fast enough.

Sid’s cousin stands up.

“Now,” Scratchy says, burying his fingers in his thick brown hair, scraping his nails along his scalp, “list for me … the class … the major cities in West Germany … an’ their main industries … an’ if they have a river.”

Scratchy sighs, stands up from his perch on the heater, walks over to his desk and picks up his stick. He’s not going walloping anyone over not knowing cities, factories and rivers.  When you don’t know teaching stuff, he just makes stoopid jokes that the class sorta laugh at. But if someone interrupts or starts doing anything that he says is wrong, like Bronx or Marty Maughan blurting out a funny-wrong answer or starting ta carve their name inta the desk with a penknife, they'll get a few wallops.  A course, not having your homework done is automatic five slaps on each hand. The lads who didn’t do homework get put in a line first thing in the morning and the slapping starts.

Slaps from Scratchy’s stick hurt. He uses a sally rod, but a thick one, not like the skinny-bendy sally rods Da cuts down the back of our yard when he’s really mad ta wallop us across the backs of our legs. Da’s slaps are fierce sore altogether causa how the bendy sally rod whips down onta your skin. As bad as that pain is, waiting for him ta come back from the end a the garden with a new slapping stick is nearly worse.

Da’ll be sitting in his armchair beside the fire reading the Irish Press, warning us ta stop messing or fighting by shake-crumpling the big sheets of newspaper and saying “stop, stop, stop” a rake of times.

Somehow, we can’t stop messing, even though we know how it ends. 

He’ll jump up scraping the armchair’s metal legs off the tiles and fold-slap the Irish Press onta the kitchen table.  If he’s not too mad, and he’s in his slippers, wan a them might get whipped off for a quick walloping with the rubbery sole. But if his eyes is blazing mad, then he’ll nearly take the back door off the hinges and run-walk down the backyard. It seems ta take forever for him to come back with a new sally rod snapped from the tree at the end of the garden. Them waiting minutes is bad; the laughy feeling of messing draining down inta jumpy legs; stomach turning sick; the clock ticking. You know the next thing you’re going ta feel across the backs of your legs is awful pain.

After he bursts out the back door, I always think ta run outta the house before he gets back with the sally rod. But running away would only make the terrible waiting go on longer. Like you don’t want a battering to happen, but when you know one is coming, you want it ta be over.

In the kitchen, there’s no place ta run, but still you try going under the table or jumping up on a chair.  But Da grab’ll a hold of your shirt or your arm: then we’re both spinning round in a kinda circle, bumping inta chairs and the table; him swinging the long sally rod; me trying to jump to have the rod hit a different place each time cause if you hits you twice in exactly the same place it kills for days. 

Then it’s over and Da put the sally rod outside next ta the back door and picks up the Irish Press.

“That’ll settle ye now,” he says shaking the paper loud, “an’ let me tell ya, the sally rod is right there if ye need another dose.”

Scratchy brought his thick sally rod in the second day after summer holidays. See, me and Fergie had stolen his old stick the last day of school in fifth class: That was the day Ailbe came in and said Scratchy would teach us again for sixth class. We were all so sad and mad.

Cause it was the last day of school, with no work ta be done, and the sun shining, the whole school had a sports day out in the field. Me and Fergie took an awful chance by pretending we were going to the jax, but instead running inta our classroom looking for Scratchy’s old stick. That stick was a bit of flat wood that he musta bought below in Molloy’s Hardware. We seen it on his desk beside his twenty Silk Cuts, grabbed it, ran outside, and tucked it in under the busted open bottom of our prefab classroom. 

We hid it by reaching in and pushing it up against a not-busted bit a the bottom of our prefab, carefully wiping off our fingerprints.  Cause my arms is longer, I pushed it in with my sleeve pulled down over my finger, getting it far enough behind not-busted-prefab that it couldn’t be seen, but not so far we couldn’t get it back out later on.  This way, if Scratchy realized his stick was gone and searched everyone’s schoolbag he wouldn’t find anything.  If the cleaner, who’s just a mental patient who sweeps and mops, smiling and smoking Woodbine cigarettes all the time, did find it by sticking his head inta the hole under the prefab, where rats do live, then there’d be no fingerprints on the stick.  No one could blame us. If Scratchy didn’t miss his stick, it being the last day and everything, and no one seen it under the prefab, then we could get it in a few days and bury it somewhere where it could never again give slaps.

To be continued…