—I don’t know.
I didn’t believe her.
The real good part of the story started when Father Damien went to the leper colony. Molokai was the name of it. It was where all the lepers were put so they couldn’t give it to anyone else. Father Damien knew what he was doing; he knew that he was going there forever. A strange expression burned on Father Damien’s face when he told the bishop he wanted to go there. The bishop was pleased and edified by the bravery of his young missionary. The little church on Molokai was run-down and neglected but Father Damien fixed it up. He broke a branch from a tree and used it as a 48 broom and began to sweep the floor of the tiny chapel. He put flowers in it. The lepers that were hanging around watching him just kept watching him for ages. He was a big healthy man and they were only lepers. After the first day the lepers still hadn’t started to help him. When he went to bed he could hear the lepers moaning in the dark and the surf booming on the barren shore. Belgium had never seemed so far away. After a while the lepers started helping him. He became friends with them. They called him Kamiano.
—Are there any lepers in Ireland?
—No.
—Any?
—No.
Father Damien built a better church and houses and did loads of other things - he showed them all how to grow vegetables—and he knew all the time that he was going to catch the leprosy as well, but he didn’t mind. His greatest happiness was to see his children, the boys and girls whom he had taken under his care. Each day he spent several hours with them.
Bits of the lepers fell off. That was what happened them. Did you hear about the leper cowboy? He threw his leg over his horse. Did you hear about the leper gambler? He threw in his hand.
One evening in December 1884 Father Damien put his aching feet into some water to ease the pain. He got red blisters all over his feet; the water was boiling but his feet were numb. He knew he had leprosy.—I can’t bear to tell you but it’s true, said the doctor sadly. But Father Damien didn’t mind.—I have leprosy, he said.—Blessed be the Good God!
—Blessed be the Good God, I said.
My da started laughing.
—Where did you get that from? he said.
—I read it, I told him.—Father Damien said it.
—Which one’s he?
—Father Damien and the lepers.
—Oh, that’s right. He was a good man.
—Were there ever any lepers in Ireland?
—I don’t think so.
—Why not?
—It only happens in hot places. I think.
—It’s hot here sometimes, I said.
—Not that hot.
—Yes it is.
—Not hot enough, said my da.—It has to be very very hot.
—How much hotter than here?
—Fifteen degrees, said my da.
There was no cure for leprosy. He didn’t tell his mother when he was writing to her. But the news got out. People sent money to Father Damien and he built another church with it. It was made of stone. The church is still standing and may be seen by travellers to Molokai today. Father Damien told his children that he was dying and that the nuns would take care of them from then on. They clung to his feet and said,—No, no, Kamiano! We want to stay as long as you are here. The nuns had to go back empty-handed.
—Do it again.
Sinbad grabbed my legs.
—No, no, Kam—Kam -
—Kamiano!
—I can’t remember it.
—Kamiano.
—Can I not just say Patrick?
—No, I said. Do it again and you’d better get it right.
—I don’t want to.
I gave him half a Chinese torture. He grabbed my legs.
—Lower down.
—How?
—Lower.
—You’ll kick me.
—I won’t. I will if you don’t.
Sinbad grabbed me around the ankles. He held me tight so my feet were stuck.
—No, no, Kamiano! We want to stay as long you are here.
—Okay, my children, I said.—You can stay.
—Thanks very much, Kamiano, said Sinbad.
He wouldn’t let go of my feet.
Father Damien died on Palm Sunday. The people sat on the ground beating their breasts in old Hawaiian fashion, swaying back and forth and wailing sadly. The leprosy had gone off him; there were no scabs or anything. He was a saint. I read it twice.
I needed lepers. Sinbad wasn’t enough. He kept running away. He told our ma that I was making him be a leper and he didn’t want to be one. So I needed lepers. I couldn’t tell Kevin because he’d have ended up being Father Damien and I’d have been a leper. It was my story. I got the McCarthy twins and Willy Hancock. They were four, the three of them. They thought it was great being with a big boy, me. I made them come into our back garden. I told them what lepers were. They wanted to be lepers.
—Can lepers swim? said Willy Hancock.
—Yeah, I said.
—We can’t swim, said one of the McCarthys.
—Lepers can swim, said Willy Hancock.
—They don’t have to swim, I said.—You don’t have to swim. You only have to pretend you’re lepers. It’s easy. You just have to be a bit sick and wobble a bit.
They wobbled.
—Can they laugh?
—Yeah, I said.—They only have to lie down sometimes so I can mop their brows and say prayers on them.
—I’m a leper!
—I’m a leper! Wobble wobble wobble!
—Wobble wobble leper!
—Wobble wobble leper!
—Our Father who art in heaven hallowed by thy name—
—Wobble wobble wobble!
—Shut up a sec -
—Wobble wobble wobble.
They had to go home for their dinners. I heard them through the hedge on the path to their houses.
—I’m a leper! Wobble wobble wobble!
—I have a vocation, I told my ma, just in case Missis McCarthy came to the door about the twins, or Missis Hancock.
She was still cooking the dinner and stopping Catherine from climbing into the press under the sink with the polish and brushes in it.
—What’s that, Patrick?
—I have a vocation, I said.
She picked up Catherine.
—Has someone been talking to you? she said.
It wasn’t what I’d expected.
—No, I said.—I want to be a missionary.
—Good boy, she said, but not the way I’d wanted. I wanted her to cry. I wanted my da to shake my hand. I told him when he got home from his work.
—I have a vocation, I said.
—No you don’t, he said.—You’re too young.
—I do, I said.—God has spoken to me.
It was all wrong.
He spoke to my ma.
—I told you, he said.
He sounded angry.
—Encouraging this rubbish, he said.
—I didn’t encourage it, she said.
—Yes, you bloody did, he said.
She looked like she was making her mind up.
—You did!
He roared it.
She went out of the kitchen, beginning to run. She tried to undo the knot of her apron. He went after her. He looked different, like he’d been caught doing something. They left me alone. I didn’t know what had happened. I didn’t know what I’d done.
They came back. They didn’t say anything.
Snails and slugs were gastropods; they had stomach feet. I poured salt on a slug. I could see the torture and agony. I picked him up with the trowel and gave him a decent burial. The real name for soccer was association football. Association football was played with a round ball on a rectangular pitch by two sides of eleven people. The object is to score goals, i.e. force the ball into the opponents’ goal, which is formed by two upright posts upon which is mounted a crossbar. I learned this off by heart. I liked it. It didn’t sound like rules; it sounded cheeky. The biggest score ever was Arbroath 36, Bon Accord o. Joe Payne scored the most goals, ten of them, for Luton in 1936. Geronimo was the last of the renegade Apaches.
I held up the ball. We were on Barrytown Grove. It had good high kerbs for hopping the ball. The ball was a burst one.
—The object, I said,—is to score goals, i.e. force the ball into the opponents’ goal which is—is formed by two upright posts upon which is mounted a crossbar.
They were bursting out laughing.
—Say it again.
I did. I put on a posh accent. They laughed again.
—Ger-on-IMO!
He was the last of the renegade Apaches. The last of the renegades.
—You’re a renegade, Mister Clarke.
Hennessey sometimes called us renegades before he hit us.
—What are you?
—A renegade, Sir.
—Correct.
—Renegade!
—Renegade renegade renegade!
I had a picture of Geronimo. He was kneeling on one knee. His left elbow was resting on his left knee. He had a rifle. He had a scarf around his neck and a shirt with spots on it that I didn’t notice for ages until I was sticking the picture on my wall. He had a bracelet that looked like a watch on his right wrist. Maybe he’d robbed it. Maybe he’d cut someone’s arm off to get it. The rifle looked homemade. The best part was his face. He was looking straight into the camera, straight through it. He wasn’t frightened of it; he didn’t think it would take his soul, like some of them did. His hair was black, parted in the middle, straight down to his shoulders; no feathers or messing. He looked very old, his face, but the rest of him was young.
—Da?
—What?
—What age are you?
—Thirty-three.
—Geronimo was fifty-four, I told him.
—What? he said.—Always?
He was fifty-four when the photograph was taken. He might have been older. He looked fierce and sad. His mouth was upside-down, like a cartoon sad face. His eyes were watery and black. His nose was big. I wondered why he was sad. Maybe he knew what was going to happen to him. The part of his leg in the photograph was like a girl’s, no hair or bumps. He was wearing boots. There were bushes around him. I put my fingers on the hair to cover it. His face was like an old woman’s. A sad old woman. I lifted my fingers. He was Geronimo again. It was only a black-and-white photograph. I coloured in his shirt; blue. It took ages.
I saw another picture in a book. Of Geronimo with his warriors. They were in a big field. Geronimo was in the middle, in a jacket and a stripey scarf. He still looked old and young. His shoulders looked old. His legs looked young.
None of the pictures in books were like the Indians in the films. There was one of the Snake and Sioux Indians on the warpath. The main fella in the picture had a pony tail and the rest of his head was bald, and shiny like an apple. He was riding hunched down sideways on his horse so that the others couldn’t fire their arrows at him. The horse’s eye was looking down at him; the horse looked scared. It was a painting. I liked it. There was another great one of an Indian killing a buffalo. The buffalo had its head in under the horse; the Indian would have to kill it quick or the buffalo would turn the horse over. Something about the way the Indian was on the horse, with his back up and his arm stretched, ready, with his spear, made me know that he was going to win. Anyway, the picture was called The Last of the Buffalo. There were other Indians on the edge of the picture chasing after more buffalo. The field was covered in buffalo skulls and there were dead buffalos lying all around. I couldn’t put this one on my wall because it was from a library book. I went to the library in Baldoyle. I went with my da. One room was the grown-ups’ and there was another room for children.
He was always interfering. He’d come into our part of the library after he’d changed his books and he’d start picking books for me. He never put them back properly.
—I read this one when I was your age.
I didn’t want to know that.
I could take two books. He looked at the covers.
—The American Indians.
He took out the tag and slipped it into my library card. He was always doing that as well. He looked at the other one.
—Daniel Boone, Hero. Good man.
I read in the car. I could do it and not get sick if I didn’t look up. Daniel Boone was one of the greatest of American pioneers. But, like many other pioneers, he was not much of a hand at writing. He carved something on a tree after he’d killed a bear.
—D. Boone killa bar on this tree 1773.
His writing was far worse than mine, than Sinbad’s even. I’d never have spelled Bear wrong. And anyway as well, what was a grown-up doing writing stuff on trees?
—DANIEL BOONE WAS A MAN
WAS A BI-IG MAN
BUT THE BEAR WAS BIGGER
AND HE RAN LIKE A NIGGER
UP A TREE—
There was a picture of him and he looked like a spa. He was stopping an Indian from getting his wife and his son with a hatchet. The Indian had spiky hair and he was wearing pink curtains around his middle and nothing else. He was looking up at Daniel Boone like he’d just got a terrible fright. Daniel Boone was holding his wrist and he had his other arm in a lock. The Indian didn’t even come up to Daniel Boone’s shoulders. Daniel Boone was dressed in a green jacket with a white collar and stringy bits hanging off the sleeves. He had a fur hat with a red bobbin. He looked like one of the women in the cake shop in Raheny. His dog was barking. His wife looked like she was annoyed about the noise they were making. Her dress had come off her shoulders and her hair was black and went down to her bum. The dog had a collar on with a name tag on it. In the middle of the wilderness. I didn’t like the Daniel Boone on the television either. He was too nice.
—Fess Parker, said my da.—What sort of a name is that?
I liked the Indians. I liked their weapons. I made an Apache flop-head club. It was a marble, a gullier, in a sock, and I nailed it to a stick. I stuck a feather in the sock. It whirred when I spun it and the feather fell out. I hit the wall with it and a bit chipped off. I should have thrown away the other sock. My ma gave out when she found the one I didn’t use, by itself.