Hunger - Five Years Old

Excerpts from Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. At this point in the autobiography Frank is about five years old and living in New York City.

Chapter 1

My mother tells me all the time, Never, never leave that playground except to come home. But what am I to do with the twins bawling with the hunger in the pram? I tell Malachy I’ll be back in a minute. I make sure no one is looking, grab a bunch of bananas outside the Italian grocery shop and run down Myrtle Avenue, away from the playground, around the block and back to the other end where there’s a hole in the fence. We push the pram to a dark corner and peel the bananas for the twins. There are five bananas in the bunch and we feast on them in the dark corner. The twins slobber and chew and spread banana over their faces, their hair, their clothes. I realize then that questions will be asked. Mam will want to know why the twins are smothered in bananas, where did you get them? I can’t tell her about the Italian shop on the corner. I will have to say. A man.

That’s what I’ll say. A man.

Then the strange thing happens. There’s a man at the gate of the playground. He’s calling me. Oh, God, it’s the Italian. Hey, sonny, come ‘ere. Hey, talkin’ to ya. Come ‘ere.

I go to him.

You the kid wid the little bruddas, right? Twins?

Yes, sir.

Heah. Gotta bag o’ fruit. I don’ give it to you I trow id out. Right? So, heah, take the bag. Ya got apples, oranges, bananas. Ya like bananas, right? I think ya like bananas, eh? Ha, ha. I know ya like the bananas. Heah, take the bag. Ya gotta nice mother there. Ya father? Well, ya know, he’s got the problem, the Irish thing. Give them twins a banana. Shud ‘em up. I hear ’em all the way cross the street.

Thank you, sir.

Jeez. Polite kid, eh? Where ja loin dat?

My father told me to say thanks, sir.

Your father? Oh, well.

McCourt, Frank. 1996. Angela’s Ashes. Scribner. New York, NY.