Free Maggie's Breakfast by Gabriel Walsh Page B

behind my back.
    “ Give me your hand! ” His eyes were bulging and his mouth was opening like a big fish about to eat a little fish.
    I kept my hand away from him.
    He grabbed hold of me and started to twist my arm to get at my hands. I still wouldn’t let my hands go in front of me. The more he pulled at my arms to get at my hands the more I kept
turning and turning away from him.
    I screamed at him. “Leave me alone! I’ve no money for books! All the free books were gone! My mother told me to tell you that!” At the same time I kicked him on the
shinbone.
    He let go of my arms, grabbed me by the scruff of my shirt collar, dragged me out of the classroom and deposited me in the corridor where he slapped me on both ears.
    “Don’t hit me! Don’t hit me!” I pleaded. I fell to on the floor, crushed with pain and fear.
    As the Brother walked back to the classroom he called to me. “It’s the reformatory for you, boyo! You’ll be there before you know it. Daingean will suit ya.”
    Daingean, a reformatory school in a town of the same name in County Offaly, was run by the Oblate Fathers, the same order Father Devine came from. Reformatory schools were where the church sent
those who were not adjusting to the programme and discipline of the Christian Brothers. Punishment, torture and abuse were the mainstays of the curriculum in reformatory schools. Originally
Daingean was a prison for convicts. When Daingean was compared with Hell, most people chose Hell. Intimidation and brutality were the commandants of daily life in such institutions.
    Reformatory schools were also a heaven of opportunity and motivation for the young men who volunteered to be priests and who majored in teaching Irish and Irish history. The small white collar
around their necks gave them licence and liberty to practise and indulge in any sexual fantasy their infected minds could conjure.
    Countless boys my age and younger who were considered ‘difficult’ and ‘hard to manage’ were shipped off to reformatory schools every week. Few ever returned home with any
semblance of innocence or optimism. Most couldn’t adjust to anything or anybody they knew prior to their incarceration and were unrecognisable.
    The name and threat of Daingean sent shivers up my spine. I was hoping that the Brother wasn’t serious when he threatened me with incarceration there. I picked myself up from the floor and
walked out of the school. I was afraid to go home and face my mother but I made up my mind that I would never go back to that classroom again. For the next month or so, during every school day, I
stayed away from school and spent most of the day walking around the city or going to the cinema. When I came home every day at four o’clock I told my mother I’d been to school and that
everything was going fine with my schooling. I felt obliged to lie to her because I was terrified of facing the Christian Brother and being sent to Daingean.
    Within a few weeks my mother got a notice of delinquency from the Board of Education. The notice outlined my absence record at school and my behaviour towards the Christian Brother. My parents
and I were summoned to go before a school board to explain my behaviour. A panel of men would decide if I was fit to remain in the Christian Brothers’ School or should be sent away to a
reformatory school such as Daingean.
    * * *
    The day of Fish Mouth’s revenge came. A rainy morning. I washed my hair and my face, and wore the cleanest clothes I had. A week earlier I’d got a pair of free boots
from the Vincent de Paul. They reached up to my ankles and were made of thick leather. They were as black as the soot in the chimney. I had no socks and when I put my feet into them they scratched
the top of my ankles. I took a test walk around the room and my ankles turned red. Every step I took made a sound as if I was passing wind or squashing a bunch of frogs with my toes.
    My trousers had cloth patches on the back that