ACROSS the street, high in the steeple of St. Thérèse, the bells were ringing for
the eight-o’clock Mass. The kids were all lined up waiting to go to their classes
and the sisters had just come into the yard. A second before, all had been
confusion as we milled around, playing games, calling to one another, but now
all was quiet. We formed double rows and marched into the school and up the
winding staircase to our classrooms. We seated ourselves with a rustle of books
from the boys’ side of the room and a rustle of starched middy blouses and
skirts from the girls’ side of the room.
“We will begin our day with a prayer, children,” Sister Anne said. We folded
our hands on the desk and bent our heads.
I took the opportunity to shoot a spitball at Jerry Cowan. It hit him on the
back of the neck and stuck there. It looked so funny I almost began to laugh in
the middle of the prayer, but I stopped myself in time. When the prayer was over
Jerry looked around to see who did it but I pretended to be occupied with my
books.
Sister Anne spoke to me: “Francis.”
I stood up guiltily. For a second I thought she had seen me shoot the spitball
at Jerry, but no, all she wanted me to do was write the day and date on the
blackboard. I went to the front of the room and taking a large piece of chalk
from the box wrote in big letters on the board: “Friday, June 5th, 1925.”
I stood there and looked at the teacher. “That’s all, Francis. You may sit
down,” she said. I returned to my seat.
The morning passed by lazily. The air was warm and sultry and the school
would be out in a few weeks and I wasn’t interested in school anyhow. I was
thirteen and big for my age, and as soon as school was over Jimmy Keough
would let me run his errands and pick up his bets for him from the boogies that
worked in the near-by garages—the half-dollar and quarter bets he didn’t have
the time to bother with himself. And I would make a pile of dough—maybe even
ten bucks a week. And I didn’t give a damn for school.
At lunch time, while the other kids ran home for lunch, I would go over to the
dormitory building in the back of the school, and we orphans would eat in thedining-room there. For lunch we had a glass of milk and a sandwich and a cup
cake. We probably ate better than most of the kids in the neighbourhood who
went home. Then back to school we would go for the afternoon. In the afternoon
I felt like going on the hook. Jeeze, it was hot! I could go swimming off the
docks down at Fifty-fourth Street and the Hudson. But I remembered what had
happened the last time I had gone on the hook.
I think I set the world’s record for hookey playing. I played hookey for six
straight weeks in a row. And if you think that’s something, remember, I lived in
the school and returned there to sleep every night. I used to swipe the letters that
would be sent from the sisters to Brother Bernhard, who was in charge of our
dormitory, complaining about my absence. I would forge replies to them, saying
that I was sick and signing them “Bernhard”. This went on till one of the sisters
came to visit me and they found out. I got in that night after a strenuous day in
the movies. I saw four pictures. Brother Bernhard and Sister Anne were waiting
for me in the hall.
“There he is, the rascal!” Brother Bernhard cried, “I’ll teach him, the sick he
is!” He came towards me. “And what have you been doing wi’ yoursel’? Where
ha’e ye been bummin’?” As he grew excited the Welsh accent in his speech,
which ordinarily made it soft and beautiful, would come out until you could
hardly understand a word he was saying.
“I was workin’,” I said.
“Workin’ ye were,” he said. “’Tis lyin’ ye are.” He hit me in the face. I put
my hand to my cheek.
Sister Anne looked at me. “Francis, Francis, how could you do it?” she said
softly, almost sorrowfully. “You know I had the most hopes of you.”
I didn’t answer her. Brother Bernhard slapped me again. “Answer the
taycher.”
Angrily I faced them and the words tumbled from my mouth.
“I’m sick of it—sick of the school, sick of the orphanage. I’m nothing but a
prisoner here. People in jail have as much freedom as me. And I didn’t do
nothin’ to deserve it—nothin’ to be put in jail for—nothin’ to be locked away at
night for. It says in the Bible the truth shall make you free. You teach to love the
Lord because He has given us so much. You start my day with prayers of thanks
—thanks for being born into a prison without freedom.” I was half crying. My
breath came fast.
There were tears in the corners of Sister Anne’s eyes, and even Brother
Bernhard was silent. Sister Anne came over to me and put her arms around meand drew me close to her. “Poor, poor Francis, can’t you see we’re trying to help
you?” She kept talking quietly. “What you did was wrong—very wrong.” I was
not used to gestures of affection and I stirred in her arms. “You must promise
never to do that again,” she said.
“I promise,” I said automatically.
She turned to Brother Bernhard. “He has been punished enough, Brother. He
will be good from now on. He has promised. I will go now and pray for the good
of his soul.” She turned from Brother Bernhard and walked towards the door.
I turned to Brother Bernhard. For a moment he looked at me. “Come and get
your supper,” he said, and led the way into the dining-room.
I was thirteen and very large for my age and very wise in the way of the
streets. And I wouldn’t play hookey this afternoon, no matter how good the
swimming would be, for I was going to be good and go back to class and plague
my teacher, Sister Anne.
The lines hadn’t formed yet when I reached the schoolyard. Near the gate a
ball game was going on and everyone was hollering. I got interested in the game
and the next thing I knew I was on my back on the sidewalk. Jerry Cowan and
another boy had one-a-catted me. I looked up at Jerry; he was laughing.
“What’s so damn funny?” I almost snarled.
“You, ya dope! That’s for the spitball. Thought I didn’t know.” He laughed.
I got to my feet. “O.K.,” I said. “Even Steven.”
Together we sat at the edge of the kerb and watched the game till school
started, Jerry Cowan and I—the son of the Mayor of New York, and a bastard
from the orphanage of St. Thérèse, who, by the grace of God, attended the same
parochial school and were pretty close friends.I HAD lived at the orphanage ever since I could remember. It wasn’t as bad a life
as most people seem to think it. I was well fed, properly clothed, and carefully
schooled. If I hadn’t received my share of family love and interest I wasn’t
particularly concerned about it. I had been endowed with, among other things, a
certain amount of self-sufficiency and independence that others do not generally
acquire until much older.
I had always worked at one job or another and very often had loaned nickels
and dimes to other children in school who were supposed to be more fortunate
than I. I knew the days the different fellows would get their allowance, and the
devil help them if they didn’t pay me back! About two weeks earlier I had
loaned Peter Sanpero twenty cents. The week after that he had ducked out before
I could catch him and when I did see him later he was broke, but this week I
meant to get my dough.
After school that afternoon I stopped him in the yard. He was walking with a
couple of his pals.
“Hey, Pete,” I said, “how’s about my twenty cents?”
Peter fancied himself a tough guy. He knew the answers. He was a little
shorter than I but much broader and heavier. “What about it?” he asked.
“I want it,” I said. “I loaned you the dough. I didn’t give it to ya.”
“Screw you and your twenty cents too!” he said in a nasal, sing-song voice.
And then he turned to his pals. “That’s the trouble with those bastards from the
orphanage. We pay tuition and donate to the school for their care, and they act as
if they were the owners of the place. You’ll get it when I’m damn good and
ready to give it to yuh.”
I got sore. I didn’t mind being called a bastard. I’d been called it often
enough. It didn’t bother me. I wasn’t like the McCrary kid Brother Bernhard had
told to stick a “Junior” after his name so people would know not to call him
bastard. Besides, I had heard Brother Bernhard often say: “You children are the
luckiest. We’re all God’s children. But you are most like our Lord because you
have only our Lord for parents.” No, being called bastard didn’t bother me, but
no one was going to welsh on me and get away with it.
