Let The Great World Spin: A Novel - By Colum McCann Page 0,107

worse’n chalk.

He held his hands up and said: “Hey, man, I’m just giving them coffee.” And Angie’s daddy stepped forward. He said: “Yeah well, I’m just giving you the cream.”

—

Corrie got the daylight kicked out of him seven ways to Sunday, I don’t know how many times. That shit hurt. It hurt bad. Even Angie was hanging off her daddy’s back, trying to scratch his eyes out, but we couldn’t stop him. Still Corrie came back, day after day. Got to where the daddies actually respected him for it. Corrie never once called the cops, or the Guards, that’s what he called them, that was his Irish word for the police. He said: “I’m not calling the Guards.” Still the daddies knocked the shit out of him every now and then, just to keep him in line.

We found out later he was a priest. Not really a priest, but one of those guys who lived somewhere because he thought that he should, like he had a duty thing, morals, some sort of shit like that, a monk, with vows and shit, and that chastity stuff.

—

They say boys always want to be the first with girls, and girls always want to be the last with boys. But with Corrie all of us wanted to be the first. Jazz said, “I had Corrie last night, he was super-delicious, he was glad I was his first.” And then Angie’d go: “Bullshit, I had that motherfucker for lunch, I ate him whole.” And then Suchie’d go: “Shit, y’all, I spread him on my pancakes and sucked him down with coffee.”

—

Anyone could hear us laughing, miles away.

—

He had a birthday once, I think he was thirty-one, he was just a kid, and I bought him a cake and all of us ate it together out under the Deegan. It was covered in cherries, musta been a million and six cherries on it, and Corrie didn’t even get the joke, we were popping cherries in his mouth left and center and he’s going, Girls, girls please, I’ll have to call the Guards.

We almost wet ourselves laughing.

He cut up the cake and gave a piece out to everyone. He took the last piece for himself. I held a cherry over his mouth and got him to try to bite on it. I kept moving it away while he kept trying to snag it. He was stepping down the street after me. I had my swimsuit on. We musta looked a pair, Corrie and me, cherry juice all over his face.

Don’t let no one tell you that it’s all shit and grime and honkypox on the stroll. It’s that, all right, sometimes, sure, but it’s funny sometimes too. Sometimes you just hang a cherry out in front of a man. Sometimes you got to do it, sometimes, for putting a smile on your face.

When Corrie laughed he had a face that creased up deep.

—

“Say fuhgeddboudit, Corrie.” “Fergetaboutit.”

“No no no, say fuhgeddboudit.” “Fergedboutit.” “Oh, man, fuhgeddboudit!” “Okay, Tillie,” he said, “I’ll fuh-get-bout-it.”

—

The only whitey I ever woulda slept with—genuine—was Corrigan. No bullshit. He used to tell me I was too good for him. He said I’d chuckle at his best and whistle for more. Said I was way too pretty for a guy like him. Corrigan was a stone-cold stud. I woulda married him. I woulda had him talk to me in his accent all the time. I woulda taken him upstate and cooked him a big meal with corn beef and cabbage and made him feel like he was the only whitey on earth. I woulda kissed his ear if he gave me a chance. I woulda spilled my love right down into him. Him and the Sherry-Netherlands guy. They were fine.

We filled his trash can seven, eight, nine times a day. That was nasty. Even Angie thought it was nasty and she was the nastiest of all of us—she left her tampons in there. I mean, nasty. I can’t believe Corrie used to see that stuff and he never once gave us shit about it, just dumped it out and went on his way. A priest! A monk! The tinkling shop!

And those sandals! Man! We’d hear the slap of him coming.

—

He said to me once that most of the time people use the word love as just another way to show off they’re hungry. The way he said it went something like: Glorify their appetites.

He said it just like that, but in his delicious accent. I could’ve